Includes bibliographical references (leaves 250-275).

Bibliography: leaves 229-258. / This is a study of the personal and social construction of meaning that political activists who have been involved in the South African liberation movement attribute to their lives. It examines the lives of a group of activists who were situated at the heart of the anti- apartheid movement for more than four decades. Their resistance to the wide-ranging laws and non-legal devices that the state employed to maintain white, Afrikaner Nationalist rule became the benchmark against which they lived their lives. 1960 saw an intensity of state oppression and brutality from which some activists escaped with their lives, while others were killed or jailed for life. The struggle to create a society where humanity and justice would triumph over cruelty and racial division was setback a generation. It took nearly three decades of defiance and unrest before Nelson Mandela was released from prison and South Africans sat down to negotiate the Interim Constitution that would guide the country towards its first democratic elections. ANC members in exile received indemnity so that they could return to the country and participate in the negotiations and four years later a new South Africa based on majority rule was won. Since these 1994 elections, South Africa has continued to undergo fundamental change from the old apartheid order to a new democratic dispensation. Oral stories are essential to this process as they contain memories of recent history that contribute significantly to contemporary political and social life, which in tum shape the future. The stories of the activists who comprise this study illustrate how their commitment to their cause and to themselves has shaped their lives, as well as those around them, and how meaningful engagement with the challenges of daily life can strengthen us as individuals.

Bibliography: pages 189-208. / This thesis is a critical examination of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) since inception, the institutional protocols, and the operational procedures on regional integration. The study argues that ECOWAS is a transplant of the European Union's neo-functionalism model of regional integration and has been a misapplication. Far from relieving the economic, social and political conditions of West Africa, typical of developing countries, it has contributed to the defeat of the goals and objectives of its Founding Fathers. The chief consequence has been the lack of unanimity among the countries, resulting in the non-implementation of policies. Similarly, the treaties adopted by ECOWAS for a development model are increasingly divorced from the policies applied by member states at the national level because the member countries do not factor the interest of the sub-region into their domestic planning. The study reviews the institutional protocols in the light of the actual practice of regional integration in West Africa. The result is that varying conflicts have compounded the policy inconsistencies resulting from the gap between the formal and informal modes of integration. The failure to address these directly is a primary cause of the slow pace of integration. The study suggests that an iterative planning process grounded in the political realities of one of the continent's most fractured and conflictual sub-regions would have allowed ECOWAS to evolve as an effective regional institution. As it is, ECOWAS operations continue to be fatally undermined by the failure of ECOWAS' institutions to understand the nature of African bureaucracies and to craft policies and instruments which are properly shaped to fit the underlying economic, social and political realities of its environment. The study concludes that the political, economic and social measures so far adopted by ECOWAS have not had a major impact in West Africa and cannot be said to have contributed to the formation of a self-reliant economic grouping for regional development. Like many other regional organisations in Africa, the Community has adapted an "alien model" without regard to the prevailing conditions and realities of the West African sub-region. Regional integration is an absolute necessity for West Africa. But it has to be built from the bottom up, with institutions in each national state reflecting the key constraints of its particular polity. It is only on this basis that regional plans can be devised, into which local plans can dovetail.

Includes bibliographical references. / The case of Magema Magwaza Fuze (c. 1840-1922) is about the problem of the introduction of writing in a colonial context and, more specifically, in the context of extensive missionary activity. The relative 'success' of this missionary endeavour appeared not only in the small but growing number of converts to Christianity, but perhaps even more momentously with the emergence of a small but critical mass of individuals who were literate and therefore no longer confirmed to an oral culture only. By the end of the nineteenth century one could talk of an incipient 'class' of educated and literate Africans. As the products of mission education they collectively shared an identity of being both Christian and educated. They were amakholwa (plural noun for 'believers'). Being an ikholwa was a political and social, rather than just a religious identity. Above all, by converting to Christianity and by subscribing to progressive ideals of private property ownership, individual rights and the Protestant work ethic, the amakholwa within the limited political sphere of colonial governance acquired, according to their own understanding, the rights of British subjects.

Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 218-255).

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 148-160). / This thesis assesses the investment decisions and investment behaviour of the Anglo American Corporation in Latin America and Africa. It focuses on the question of ‘why’ Anglo chose to invest in Latin America and how it went about choosing one country over another. It is an historical, ideographic study that explores the role of personalities, institutional, political and corporate culture and wider national and regional political criteria in Anglo’s investment decision process.

The new Constitution of Kenya has devolved a significant portion of public finances, powers and responsibilities to a new sub national level of government. Kenya now has 47 Counties, each with a County assembly, an elected Governor and an administration in charge of managing public resources and providing social services. Kenyan legal frameworks such as the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act and the County Government Act (CGA) as well as specific County government participation legislation obligate County governments to facilitate and promote citizen participation in the development of County plans, budgets and policies. This thesis shall show that despite legislative efforts furthering devolution and citizen participation, the law is not always implemented and does not always function well in some instances. There appears to be little improvement in overcoming challenges faced in citizen participation of previous decentralised funds through the Local Authority Service Delivery Action Plan (LASDAP). Elite capture, resource and capacity constraints, poor bureaucratic coordination, communication as well as a limited understanding by both local officials and citizens regarding the new roles and mechanisms for participation have not resulted in simplistic 'magic bullet’ reforms. This is further compounded by a lack of information, feedback on citizen inputs and poor implementation of public participation meetings and service delivery projects. A serious limitation in terms of access, meaningfulness and inclusiveness has resulted in citizens not making use of or taking up participation opportunities. Citizens are thus opting for alternative and more effective strategies of engaging and influencing local government processes. The thesis will also show that although legislation acknowledges and provides a role for civil society to partner with government in jointly facilitating effective citizen participation in public policy; the partnership between local government and civil society does not automatically translate into effective partnerships because of poor civic capacity, unequal power dynamics, and unclear and insufficient guidelines with regards to representation.

The nineteenth century culminated in a wealth of scientific inventiveness which resulted in a complete and fundamental change in social life within the following fifty years. The more widespread use of telegraphy, the expansion of the telephone service, the increased application of electricity and the invention of the motor car, the sudden appearance and phenomenal development of the cinema, and finally the invention and speedy public utilisation of the aeroplane and the wireless have combined to obliterate (except in trivial instances such as its "naughtiness") appreciation of the atmosphere of the period in which motion pictures first appeared. In South Africa, a remarkable degree of self-reliance was practiced by the populations of comparatively isolated towns during the nineties. Despite the slowness of communication, the laboriousness of travel and the leisurely tempo of life in general, despite every adverse circumstance, people construed out or their immediate surroundings a cultural life far more enterprising than that produced by favourable modern conditions.

The wave of Autonomous Revenue Agencies (ARA) became popular in most Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) states in the early 90s. It has been adopted as a public sector reform instrument to improve the revenue collection capacity of its various host nations. Many countries believe that the adoption of autonomy which is reducing the political control of specialized public institutions will solve corporate and administrative problems and the same time drive efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery to the public. Autonomy of revenue agencies have been at the forefront of this movement since it is the source of revenue for the whole government. Agencification which is the theoretical tool of explaining autonomy can be define as the “transfer of government activities to agency-type organization vertically specialized outside ministerial departments” (Nchukwe & Adejuwon, 2014). Agencification is closely related to the NPM movement and governments across different nationalities and continents have established agencies at arm's length from ministries to handle certain regulatory and administrative functions. The Nigerian state joined the league of nations that reformed the institutional framework of its revenue authority in 2007 by making the Federal Inland Revenue Authority (FIRS) autonomous from the Ministry of Finance. Countries such as Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda etc. are among some of the countries in Africa that have adopted this institutional revenue model, and each has had its own implementation experience. This research intends to study the experience of Nigeria's Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) which is the nation's revenue authority after it went through its reform and to examine the effects of agencification on the operational capacity of FIRS. The idea is to find out if the autonomy of FIRS has led to improved performance and service delivery. The research mainly used qualitative method through carrying out interviews with officials of the FIRS, who were actively part of the reform implementation. Their experiences can be valuable to test the variables of agencification in FIRS. The research will also adopt other publications on the subject area, government briefs, white papers and policy documents etc. The key findings of the research was despite the whole rationale behind agencification which is to reduce the political control of executive agencies in order to function efficiently and effectively is not an area that FIRS have been able to successfully managed despite the provision of the Establishment Act. The agency responsibility to report to the National Assembly especially on areas of its budget approval and oversight function have been a challenge in the meddling of its autonomy by politicians to meet their personal or group interests. Also managing the internal stakeholders especially, the top management team of the agency will require a lot of managerial dexterity when you consider the occasional resistance to reforms that happens. There is the usual tendency for people to want to maintain how things used to be. This resistance to change is a major challenge to driving reform. Quality of leadership is also very important in driving reforms within an agency. Appointment of the Chief Executive and Board members should not be used as a tool of political patronage or settlement but rather selection of persons who are well trained and positioned to drive change within an organization.

Includes bibliographical references. / The Southern African countries colonial struggles and South African apartheid destabilization policies in the mid-1960s to 1980s compelled Southern African states to establish a Security Organ. This was to assist them to formulate the common defence policy. This Organ became known as the Front Line States (FLS). However, as more countries attained independence and joined FLS, the grouping established the Southern African Coordination Conference (SADCC) that was later renamed the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It was SADC, which decided to establish another arm, which deals with Politics Defence and Security known as the Organ on Politics Defence and Security. The OPDS has experienced major problems in achieving its goals since its inception in June 1996. Member states had become suspicious of this body and as a result some members decided to operate outside the confines of this body. The main aim of this dissertation has been to trace the circumstances and the origin of this Security Organ and to evaluate its achievements. However, in august 2001, OPOS was renamed Organ of Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation (OPDSC). This Organ became accountable to the Summit not to the chair country, as was the case before. The protocol of this Organ is analysed in order to evaluate the roles of this Organ in relations to SADC member states. The dissertation also indicated the success and limitations of this Organ; the political trends of the region are also discussed. Finally, the dissertation deals with the unfinished question, which focuses on the future prospects and challenges of the OPDS as a policy implementation institution of SAOC.