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A MAJOR DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA IN THE PAST DECADE HAS BEEN THE RISE OF THE STATE TO A POSITION OF CENTRAL IMPORTANCE. IN THE DOMESTIC REALM, THE STATE HAS INCREASINGLY BECOME THE FOCUS OF ACTIONS AND INTERESTS. IN THE INTERNATIONAL REALM, OLDER NOTIONS OF STATECRAFT HAVE GAINED A NEW ASCENDANCY. WITH THE EMERGENCE OF AN AFRICAN STATE SYSTEM CONFLICT HAS INCREASED.

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo by Michela Wrong is reviewed.

Contends that a major dilemma for the global economy well into the 21st century will be an international underclass of weak states and economies that may be unable to reap the benefits of economic reform and democratization.

Anfang der 80er Jahre waren die meisten afrikanischen Länder in eine Schulden- und Wirtschaftskrise hineingeschliddert. Jetzt zeichnet sich eine Wende ab: viele Regierungen haben sich auf unausweichliche marktwirtschaftliche Reformen eingelassen, und eine Reihe von Gläubigerländer sind bereit zum partiellen Schuldenerlaß. Gleichzeitig versucht die Weltbank, soziale Härten durch die Finanzierung von Sozialprogrammen abzufedern. (DÜI-Spe)

Since the middle of the 1970s Sub-Saharan African states have focused increasingly on their severe economic and fiscal crises. These involve wrestling with the burdens of debt service and the rigors of rescheduling, conducting difficult negotiations with bilateral and private creditors, bargaining over conditionality packages with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank or fending them off, distributing the painful costs of adjustment, coping with import strangulation and devising new development policies and strategies. Already highly dependent on the outside world, the intensity, stakes and levels of conditionality of these relations with external actors have increased substantially.

Over the last decade the foreign economic relations of sub-Saharan African states have focused increasingly on their severe debt and economic crises. These relations have involved wrestling with debt service burdens and the rigors of rescheduling with the Paris and London Clubs; conducting difficult negotiations with bilateral and private creditors; bargaining over conditionality packages with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank or fending them off; distributing the painful costs of adjustment; coping with import strangulation; and devising new development policies and strategies. The sub-Saharan states were already highly dependent on the outside world; the intensity, stakes, and levels of conditionality of these states' foreign economic relations have increased substantially since the middle of the 1970s. They are certainly political, as they impinge on very central issues—sovereignty, political order, development, and mass welfare. In this sense, they are foreign economic relations with very powerful domestic roots and consequences. African states and external actors are going to have to work together to ameliorate Africa's crises.