Politics in Southern Africa: State and Society in Transition by Gretchen Bauer; Scott D.TaylorReview by: I. William ZartmanAfrica Today, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Autumn, 2006), pp. 132-134Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4187759 .

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Book Reviews

Bauer, Gretchen, and Scott D. Taylor. 2005 POLITICS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA: STATE AND SOCIETY IN TRANSITION. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 403 pp. $65.00 (cloth); $26.50 (paper).

Gretchen Bauer and Scott D. Taylor, rising young political analysts of Africa at the University of Delaware and Georgetown University, respectively, have written a much-needed and comprehensive text and analysis of the sociopolitical economy of the eight major states of southern Africa. Their approach is based on individual country chapters, their stance is a counter to Afro-pessimism, their tone is academically critical, their angle is only mildly left (neoliberal economic programs are regarded with skepticism), and their focus is on progress, on democratization. Country chapters are organized under six subheads: historical origins, society and development, state organization, representation and participation, political economy, and challenges for the twenty-first century. The introduction has a brief discus- sion on agent vs. structure as an approach that happily ends up eclectic, making the discussion unnecessary.

The book opens with a good argument (pp. 3-8) for considering south- ern Africa-ten of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) members-to be a region despite the diversity of its components. As settler colonies for the most part, the countries met the last wave of decoloniza- tion, and therefore many achieved majority rule through violence; they were involved in Africa's battle-line, either as front-line states or as the target. While sharply divided into former Italian and British colonies, they are intimately interconnected by trade, transportation, migrant-labor flows, and the liberation struggle, and they have been free of military coups, unlike much of the rest of the continent; instead, they subscribe to electoral democracy.

The subsequent chapters bring out additional political features, which could be developed further in a regional analysis. As they move from the national-liberation-movement stage to pluralist democracy, the states have stopped at the dominant-party stage of evolution, even in the rare cases of alternance, and with it, the increasing concentration of power in the hands of an executive presidency. The two trends reinforce each other: the dominant party supports a powerful presidency, and the president controls a dominant party.

In contrast, a frequent feature of the region has been a strong develop- ment of civil society and a vigorous role that grassroots organizations have played in interest expression and aggregation-functions normally assigned

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to political parties. Rising to fill the need, civil society can be put back in its place by strong-party-government measures, possibly to rise again when needed. The book emphasizes these conditions; it would be interesting to see a further analysis of their direction and consequences on political development.

The ends are pulled together effectively on other topics initially treated within the country chapters. One topic is the AIDS pandemic, reviewed in a section in each chapter and then treated to an excellent and extensive summary chapter on the dimensions of the crises. The book assays in detail not only the medical impact of AIDS, but its social, economic, security, and political effects. On this good background, a fuller treatment of the two concluding subsections, on the prospects and methods of treatment and prevention, would have been welcome. The chapter ends (p. 298) with an accurate identification of political leadership as the "supervariable" in the AIDS equation.

Another topic of special attention is women and politics, analyzed with a thorough and comprehensive evaluation of women's role in the lib- eration struggle and the democratization effort thereafter. It contrasts the legal and political advances of women with the disadvantages that women's (often unchanged) social position confers.

Finally, a multitopic chapter covers aspects of regional relations. A useful, succinct review of the regional organizations brings out the disin- clination of South Africa to play a motor role in the region through SADC, preferring rather to aim for a role on the broader stage of globalization. The same theme dominates the discussion of South Africa in the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). While the rebuttal remains to be made-that it is indeed better to be a little fish in a big pond, rather than the converse-the critical evaluation of South Africa's neoliberal development, security and stability program is often not so clearly expressed and is welcome here.

The other theme treated in the regional chapter is the Zimbabwean challenge, which has paralyzed the region (p. 349). The theme dominates and gives direction to the Zimbabwe chapter, and provides one of the best country treatments in the book. The chapter balances well the need for a comprehensive presentation, filling the six categories and the use of a theme to orient the presentation without letting the theme destroy the facets or the converse. It brings out, with meticulous analysis, the hole into which Robert Mugabe has dug himself by paying off supporters and undermining potential opposition sectors. As a result, a successful challenge to his rule is less likely to come from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) than from his own dissatisfied supporters, including the military; an alternative lifeline could be an entangling alliance with the MDC, rather than alternance; and even alternance can well yield an old regime in new clothes, as it is did with Chiluba in Zambia. The book is skillful in showing events in one country affect that country's neighbors, reinforcing the regional interdependence of the area.

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Angola, Namibia, and South Africa are particularly well covered. (It would have been nice to complete the region, with a small or double chapter on Swaziland and Lesotho). The theme in general is the difficulty and disap- pointment of democratization, generally pale in comparison with the hopes and initial steps after independence and doubtful in promise for the future. The near future seems to be the reversal of an initial trend toward pluralized competition and choice to one of single, central control, with nonruling par- ties and civil society hanging around for decoration. This phase can easily constitute a short-term, stable resting point for a while before moving on to something else. The question is whether something else is a return to the party-state without decoration, or a renewed pluralization, which yields real democratic choice. The current stage is clear. Where will it go? and what are the forces, not just for its maintenance, but for its eventual evolution? The study gives material to chew on in regard to these questions.

The book has an annoying and unnecessary characteristic that the authors should avoid in their next venture: it is crammed with references to sources for facts and judgments for which documentation is unnecessary. Some pages have half a dozen according to's (e.g., p. 38) or internal references (e.g., p. 209, in this case from ten pages of the same source). There is really no need to attribute to someone else the sound and clear observation that civil war and bad policies left the Angolan economy in shambles (e.g., p. 113), or that "the infusion of politically aware" South Africans spurred the founding of Botswana's first nationalist party (e.g., p. 86). It is nice to refer to general sources for further reading on a topic, but the authors have enough authority on their own, and show it in their past works and in this book, to be able to make and claim their own judgments.

I. William Zartman School of Advanced International Studies

The Johns Hopkins University

Gebissa, Ezekiel. 2004. LEAF OF ALLAH: KHAT AND AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION IN HARERGE ETHIOPIA, 18 75-199 1. Oxford: James Currey. 210 pp. $44.95 (cloth); $24.95 (paper).

Thriving in climates well-suited to coffee cultivation, qat' is a psychoactive shrub, grown and consumed primarily throughout eastern and northeastern Africa and southern Arabia. Users typically ingest it by chewing the soft, slightly bitter leaves, though sometimes they brew them like tea, or dry and crush them and mix the powder with cold water. Qat's two main alkaloids, cathinone and cathine, lessen hunger and produce enhanced wakefulness, greater physical energy, and focused concentration. As a major component of numerous cultures and economies in Africa and Yemen, the leaf has been studied by agricultural experts, anthropologists, botanists, chemists, economists, historians, medical doctors, psychologists, and others. Recently, qat surpassed coffee as Ethiopia's top export earner, yet public and private

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