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IDS Bu//sin, 1987, ol 18 no 3. t nsotute of Des e!opmenm Studies, SussesThe primary contradictions in contemporary Africa arise from the complex of ways in which surplus value is appropriated from producers by the ruling classes and their foreign and local associates. The central and direct involvement of the state in the process of surplus appropriation leads to continuing expansion of the scope of state activity. However, this leads to the 'diminishing reproduction' [Dutkiewicz and Shenton 1986] of the social resources on which the state depends for its own reproduction. and of its capacity to appropriate those resources and direct them to its own purposes. In turn this generates a series of further contradictions, among state institutions, among different groups and classes, and between the centre and localities as each pursues its ends to the detriment of one another. Cooperation is fragile and temporary; antagonism and exclusion are the dominant motifs of such a system. The Intractability of ReformsFormulae abound for dealing with complex problems by addressing one element, without attending to their wider and historically structured context. Thus governments are told to 'get prices right', as if they had instruments to divine and diagnose correct prices, or to 'return to the market' as if 'it already existed as a neutral and impersonal mechanism for allocating States, and their official and academic spokesmen, elaborate such formulae as symbols for the real and complex issues which they cannot grasp. Chasing symbols becomes the self-perpetuating task of bureaucracies. When we fail to solve the problems of the present. we are tempted to try to return to the past. 39 Crises of State PolicyIn most African countries today, there are evident crises of state policy. These are now of some years standing and they extend to numerous aspects of the social, cultural, political and economic lives of the people of the different countries. Their most obvious manifestations are: large foreign debts (to private and to public international banks); more critically, Africa's high level of dependence on imports to maintain local production as well as to meet consumption needs directl Africa's declining capacity to produce commodities for export and to maintain world market shares of exports, combined with poor prices and poor prospects for their products; and poor integration of different sectors of the economy and particularly public investments, so that money spent does not expand production of goods to meet people's needs. There is no one common crisis across Africa. Contrary to World Bank regional diagnoses or media representations of distress and starvation in 'Africa', the major problems in Mali are not the same as those in Nigeria; those of Ethiopia are not the same as those in Tanzania. If there is one thing which the independent countries of Africa do share it is, firstly, the centrality of state activity in attempting to direct and manage their diverse problems. Secondly. it lies in the widespread failure of sta...

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Youth and their experiences, opinions and attitudes in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter BiH) have typically been left unexamined by both academics and policy makers. Nor is there much attention paid to historical analysis of youth who lived in the socialist period, which could shed some light on the mentality of young generations in present-day BiH. This article provides a historical view of socialist youth in Tito's era, with a special focus on BiH in the late 1980s. The second section provides a survey of how young people live in one of the Yugoslav successor states, BiH, examining the continuity and discontinuity of socio-political and ideological conditions in which youth lived in socialist Yugoslavia. The third section looks at the relationship between youth and the international community, the dynamics of which shed light on common features of both pre- and post-war BiH. Specifically, it will examine the internationally funded and organized “Successor Generation Initiative” (SGI) youth program, which aimed to educate youth in democratic values and develop their leadership skills.

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