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Virtually all of the literature concerning the politics of South Africa analyzes the dynamics of that system within the frameworks of racism, authoritarianism, and repression. Yet, strangely, the political institution which is necessarily the bulwark of such a system—the military—has attracted scant attention except in terms of strategy and armaments.

Background: Research remains mixed on whether racial-ethnic self-designation impacts psychological health and well-being among Americans of African descent. Existing studies mainly use non-representative samples to address this question. Some scholars argue that Black people who express an African-centered identity should experience improved mental health because it enhances one's sense of self. However, what role self-designation may have on depression, one of the most common forms of disability, is largely unknown among African Americans. There is also limited evidence on whether one's self-concept can help us understand the relationship between self-designation and mental health among African Americans. Methods: Using data from a national probability sample of African American adults ( n = 3,329), I examined whether self-designation as African American, Afro-American, Negro, Black American, or some other label versus Black was associated with self-esteem, mastery, and major depressive episodes. Results: Using OLS models, I found that respondents who preferred the terms African American or Afro-American exhibited higher mastery levels compared to individuals who preferred the label Black, the most common term used among respondents. African American identifying respondents also exhibited significantly higher levels of self-esteem compared to Black identifying individuals. Using logistic regression models, I found that only African American identifying respondents were significantly less likely than Black identifying respondents to meet the criteria for major depressive episodes in the past-year. Higher levels of mastery and self-esteem helped to explain such differences. Conclusion: In sum, among Americans of African descent, identification as African American rather than Black may help fight depressive episodes because such self-designation may enhance one's self-concept. Further research is necessary to explore other possible psychological implications of self-designation among the African American/Black population.

In a political context where interstate wars are nearly obsolete, most African militaries have turned their attention inward to address more pressing internal security issues. The internal focus of African militaries gives a heightened importance to the relationship between the military and the civilian population, but little research has been done to understand the factors that influence this relationship. Given the importance of ethnicity in guiding political and social interactions, this research project brings together dominant themes from the study of ethnicity and civil-military relations in order to understand the connection between the ethnic composition of African militaries and the variations in trust in the military among a country's ethnic groups. I hypothesized that in countries that perpetuate the practice of ethnic favoritism within the military, co-ethnics of the favored group will show higher levels of trust in the military than non-co-ethnics of the favored group. Conversely, in countries where there is no overt ethnic favoritism within the military, different ethnic groups will exhibit more uniform levels of trust in the military. Using Afrobarometer public opinion surveys and an expanded data set from Harkness identifying countries with ethnically-favored militaries, I conducted a cross-national comparative quantitative study to determine if ethnic favoritism in the military could explain the variation in trust patterns. Although the results are statistically insignificant by conventional standards, the p-value produced given the limited sample size is highly suggestive that ethnic favoritism in African militaries has some measure of influence over the level of trust in the institution among different ethnic groups. It is clear there are other important factors beyond ethnic identity that guide public sentiments towards the military and additional research is necessary to fully flesh out the factors that explain variations in trust in the military, especially among different ethnic groups within the same country.

Municipalities are mandated to follow the principles of democracy, accountability, and good governance. This is evident in the delivery of basic services. Municipalities are directly responsible for ensuring that communities have water, sanitation, and so on, and that community members have a voice that affects their existence. This is, however, not the case in most South African communities, where squalor and sordid conditions prevail. In 2021, it was reported that 64 municipalities were dysfunctional and that the dysfunction was attributed to "poor governance, weak institutional capacity, poor financial management, corruption, and political instability". A Code of Conduct is available in the South African public sector, governing the behavior and work ethic of public officials, councillors, and the like. Yet corruption and maladministration at the local government level prevail. Therefore, the Local Government Ethical Leadership Initiative was launched in 2020 with the view of devising another code focused on ethical governance in South African local government by October 2023. The research question that this article addresses is centered on whether a new code of conduct is needed and whether the problem with the existing code does not lie with its enforcement or the ethnicity of the public officials in leadership positions and their view on how to conduct business. The article employed a qualitative research approach where secondary sources of information, constituting document analysis, premised around disruption and ethnic leadership as well as the legislative framework in relation to the Code of Conduct governing South African local government in particular and anti-corrupt behavior in general, were explored. Four provinces were purposefully selected to partake in the study. Extracts from the AG's report formed the locus of the study. It was found that one cannot explicitly say that ethnicity plays a role in how municipalities are governed. However, governance in selected provinces was marred by poor governance practices and inadequate leadership. The Code of Conduct for Public Servants is generally not adhered to. Further research around ethnic leadership in the South African public sector is called for.

Though African party systems are said to be ethnic, there is little evidence for this claim. The few empirical studies rarely rely on individual data and are biased in favour of Anglophone Africa. This paper looks at four Francophone countries, drawing on representative survey polls. Results reveal that ethnicity matters, but that its impact is generally rather weak and differs with regard to party systems and individual parties. 'Ethnic parties' in the strict sense are virtually absent. In particular, the voters' location seems more important than ethnic affiliation. Other determinants such as regional ties, elite strategies, cross-cutting cleavages, and rational preferences deserve more attention in the future study of voting behaviour in Africa.

This book's ambition is to offer the most recent scholarship on North African cultures at a time when the very notion of culture is being re-evaluated in the shifting tides that both associate and divorce the forces of nationalism, globalism and neo-liberalism. Another ambition is to be a readable document about the past and the potential of North African civilizations. Those which have been crystallized into a polysemic voice from centuries of occupations, exchanges and what is now commonly