Indigenous Forces Research Articles

Rebuilding Afghanistan's Security Forces

Now several years into the campaign in Afghanistan, the rebuilding of indigenous security forces is offered as the essential element of any exit strategy along with support to governance and the ru...

Police in Peace and Stability Operations: Evolving US Policy and Practice

The United States has consistently failed to deal with the breakdown in public order that invariably confronts peace and stability operations in internal conflicts. Analysis of experience in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans and Iraq demonstrates that indigenous police forces are typically incapable of providing law and order in the immediate aftermath of conflict, and so international forces must fill the gap – a task the US military has been unwilling and unprepared to assume. After 20 years of lessons learned (and not learned), this article argues that the United States must develop a civilian ‘stability force’ of constabulary and police personnel deployable at the outset of on operation to restore public order and lay the foundations for the rule of law.

Advising Indigenous Forces: American Advisors in Korea, Vietnam, and El Salvador (review)

Reviewed by: Advising Indigenous Forces: American Advisors in Korea, Vietnam, and El Salvador Donald Stoker Advising Indigenous Forces: American Advisors in Korea, Vietnam, and El Salvador. By Robert B. Ramsey, III . Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006. ISBN 0-16-076722-9. Notes. Appendixes. Bibliography. Pp. ix, 176. $15.00. Compared to most sub-genres of military history, the historiography of military advising is fairly scant. In fact, it is a field lacking an accepted standard work. There are many articles, and a number of books addressing various advisory missions, but there is little that attempts any comparative analysis or offers much in the way of synthesis. Works on non-American military advisory efforts are even thinner. All of this is in spite of the fact that with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military advising, as well as its study, has emerged as a growth industry. Robert Ramsey's book does not provide the needed sweeping survey of the art of military advising, but he does give us some solid and succinct case studies of three of the more important American military advisory efforts, useful synthesis, and some lessons learned. As the title foretells, Advising Indigenous Forces addresses the American advisory efforts in South Korea, South Vietnam, and El Salvador. The trio juxtapose nicely: South Korea – advising in the midst of a conventional war; South Vietnam – advising to build an army to do counterinsurgency and conventional warfare; El Salvador – a small U.S. team trying to build a force capable of counterinsurgency while also reforming it. The Korea case provides the most interesting study, but this is undoubtedly because of the utter duress under which the American advisors and their South Korean counterparts functioned, particularly in 1950 and 1951. The studies of Vietnam and El Salvador are also solid overviews, though the organization of the Vietnam case study does not provide the linear continuity I would wish. But in Ramsey's defense, this was an advisory effort that stretched over three decades while following many paths, and Ramsey is more interested in deriving lessons. The book also includes some interesting appendixes, including Lawrence of Arabia's wonderful 'Twenty-Seven Articles,' as well as some others concerning past guidance given to military advisors. Though somewhat repetitive in spots, and sometimes not as briskly written as one would like, it is a useful book. Ramsey is particularly strong in relaying the importance of cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity, and familiarity with various characteristics and aspects of the nation being advised. The book does not make use of some of the most recent scholarship on advising, but it is not meant as a synthesis of everything available. Its purpose is providing an overview of how American personnel were prepared for some of the most important U.S. advisory efforts, and what advice and lessons they could offer for military personnel who now find themselves cast in this role. This it does well. Donald Stoker US Naval War College, Monterey Program Monterey, California Copyright © 2007 Society for Military History

Operation FLYSWATTER: A war within a war

Despite extensive experience with mosquito-borne diseases affect-ing combat capability of the Armed Forces during World War II andKorea, in 1965 the United States military was unprepared to dealwith the Anopheles mosquito in the highlands of South Vietnam andthe subsequent malarial casualties. Regardless of the weekly use ofprophylactic measures, up to 50 percent of American soldiers ini-tially involved in combat operations in the heavily forested regions ofSouth Vietnam developed malaria. Not until nearly two years afterthe introduction of American ground troops into the Southeast Asianconflict did the Department of Defense authorize the extensive in-secticide aerial spraying necessary to protect both Allied and indig-enous forces. Even then, military leadership failed to take advan-tage of much of the knowledge and experience of an existing statesideunit specifically tasked in aerial spraying and mosquito control.This commentary reviews the events and supporting historical infor-mation related to the fixed-wing aerial spraying of insecticides fromOctober 1966 to December 1971 during the Vietnam War. The his-torical information was divided into two categories; the need for criti-cal information assessing the spread and impact of malaria amongmilitary and civilian personnel, and the operational information es-sential for combating the mosquitoes that were the carriers of ma-laria. Using modified UC-123 transport planes to spray malathioninsecticide, Operation FLYSWATTER was the eventual fixed-wing,large-area answer to the biting insect. Unlike the short time-on-tar-get of the defoliation missions, the insecticide spray aircraft's treetoplevel flights lasted for as much as two very hazardous hours of fly-ing. So successful were these missions in controlling mosquitoesthat preventative medicine requests ultimately resulted in 14 majorallied military bases and their adjoining Vietnamese cities beingsprayed routinely every 9 days, weather permitting. The 'mosquitowar' required over 1,300 individual missions and dispensed approxi-mately 1.76 million liters of malathion concentrate. OperationFLYSWATTER was a significant part of the overall United States'preventative medicine program to reduce the number of man-dayslost to ground forces due to malaria. Ironically, although the programwas widely publicized through both military and civilian in-countrychannels, the memories of many veterans of the Vietnam War wouldlater confuse exposure to the insecticide spray missions with thespraying of the Agent Orange defoliant in Vietnam.

Neo-Classical Counterinsurgency?

This article was first published in Summer 2007 issue of Parameters. The newly issued Army/Marine counterinsurgency (COIN) manual has been met with well deserved acclaim. It is a product of our collective understanding of insurgency and ongoing experiences in Iraq. It is also product of various schools of thought about modern insurgencies, including what can be called classical school, based on concepts of Mao and revolutionary warfare. (1) In this article I will attempt to capture impact and implications of classical school on new doctrine, as well as evaluate final product. The classicists focus, perhaps myopically, on glorious heyday of revolutionary warfare in 1950s and 1960s. They embrace teachings of British expert Robert Thompson and French officer David Galula. (2) Numerous pundits have christened Galula as modern Clausewitz of COIN. (3) Not surprisingly, Thompson and Galula's concepts pervade recent Army/ Marine COIN manual, FM 3-24. Galula was a serious student of modern warfare, and following World War II spent remainder of his career exploring revolutionary wars, from China to Vietnam. (4) But one senses that he would be startled by complexity of Afghanistan and Iraq and distinctly broader global insurgency of Long War. The classicists ignore uniqueness of Maoist or colonial wars of national liberation, and over-generalize principles that have been drawn from them. Today's insurgent is not Maoist of yesterday. (5) In point of fact, there is not as much common ground among masters as classicists would have you believe. (6) The so-called classical principles are really a commonly accepted set of key principles and practices that have emerged over time. Some of classical principles are just blatant flashes of obvious, such as Robert Thompson's somber advice the government must have an overall plan. (Given our experience in Iraq, perhaps this principle is not so obvious after all). Other classical principles are not reflected in writings and teachings of masters, but have been absorbed over time. For example, emphasis on which pervades classicist's mantra. The new field manual wisely notes that legitimacy is best defined by host population. (7) The new COIN manual embraced these principles, along with an eclectic amalgamation of imperatives, paradoxes, and best practices. (8) A total of eight principles, five contemporary imperatives, ten paradoxes, and another dozen best practices are presented. (9) These various components were given great scrutiny during drafting process and reflect both classical and contemporary influences. Overall, new Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual is a substantial step forward. In particular, introductory and campaign design chapters represent fresh thinking. The chapters devoted to intelligence and training of indigenous forces are also quite useful. But manual is not without its shortcomings. The classicist's influence was a backdrop in development of manual. Early drafts were strongly criticized for emphasis placed on Mao and revolutionary warfare. A writer's conference in February of 2006, hosted by then Lieutenant General David Petraeus at Fort Leavenworth provided an opportunity for wider community to comment on initial draft. The writing team, headed by Dr. Conrad Crane, Director of Army's Military History Institute, assessed inputs from a wide-range of experts, Iraq veterans, and international participants. The new doctrine's principal theme, a thread that cutting across modern insurgency is appropriate requirement to learn and adapt.'' (10) This theme is ironic given reaction that manual received from outside experts. The manual's Foreword observes, You cannot fight former Saddamists and Islamic extremists same way you would have fought Viet Cong, Moros, or Tupamaros. …

The Achilles heel of Canadian international citizenship: Indigenous diplomacies and state responses

At the core of Canada's identity as a diplomatic actor is the image of good international citizenship, but Indigenous issues highlight the gap between this self‐image and flaws in its record. Unlike the situational aspects of targeting specific governments for their human rights records, the Indigenous question is an embedded structural predicament, juxtaposing the mainstream identity of Canada as a country with a colonial past and the identity among the Aboriginal peoples of Canada as territorial occupants. The full extent of this predicament – the “Achilles heel” of Canada's international image – needs to be more fully appreciated in the workings of Canadian foreign policy. Aboriginal representatives, borrowing some of the most Canadian habits of diplomacy, have adopted blame and shame tactics designed to exploit Canadian discomfort. The seriousness with which Canadian diplomats have dealt with these challenges is striking. Using historical and contemporary case studies, this article unpacks and analyses evolving strategies to assert and constrain Indigenous rights and forces on the international stage.

Conquered Conquistadors: The Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, a Nahua Vision of the Conquest of GuatemalaBajo el signo de la compulsión: El trabajo forzoso indígena en el sistema colonial yucateco, 1540 – 1730

Conquered Conquistadors: The Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, a Nahua Vision of the Conquest of GuatemalaBajo el signo de la compulsión: El trabajo forzoso indígena en el sistema colonial yucateco, 1540 – 1730

War Crimes, Democracy, and the Rule of Law in Belgrade, the Former Yugoslavia, and Beyond

The creation and operation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is an advance in the rule of law and arguably part of a larger process of the globalization of democratic norms. Yet support for the ICTY is increasingly influenced by local processes in which these norms are contested by indigenous parties and forces. We explore this issue with regard to support of Serbs living in and outside of Serbia for the ICTY in comparison to local courts. Serbs in Belgrade are distinctive in insisting that war criminals be tried in their places of origin, while Serbs in Sarajevo and Vukovar agree with other groups in these settings that war criminals should be tried in the locations where their crimes occurred. This is compelling evidence of the localized influence of cultural norms on ethnic and national group members in post-war crime settings.

The Long SmallWar: Indigenous Forces for Counterinsurgency

[11] September attacks can be understood as the first battle in this new [epochal] war. If, as some historians argue, the twentieth century began in August 1914, it may be that the twenty-first century will be said to have begun in September 2001.... The alliance of which the United States is a part faces a and bitter struggle. (1) The United States and its partners are prosecuting a protracted against insurgents and terrorists who are animated by an ideology stemming from a radical fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. As of early 2006, the American national security bureaucracy began to use the appellation the long war in place of the Global War on Terrorism. At least one document describes this as the defining struggle of our generation, one that shifts emphasis from large-scale conventional military operations to small-scale counterinsurgency operations. The may last for decades. In distilled form, the corpus of current national strategic and military documents calls for American forces to leverage allies to help defeat insurgent and terrorist enemies in this perennial effort. For instance, the National Security Council's November 2005 National Strategy for Victory in Iraq calls for the development of Iraqi security forces while simultaneously carrying out a counterinsurgency campaign to defeat insurgents in Iraq. It identifies Iraq as a principal arena in the against terror, stating that success there is an essential element in the war. As another example, the February 2006 National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism, the American military-strategic framework for prosecuting the war, tasks the American military both to enable partner nations to counter and to help counter international ideological support for terrorism. Most recently, the March 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States of America states that the United States must strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism and stresses the need to work with allies and to build indigenous security forces to defeat terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere. The US Army's interim field manual on counterinsurgency also underscored the requirement for leveraging indigenous security forces. The 2004 Field Manual Interim 3-07.22, Counterinsurgency Operations, highlighted the imperative to expand and employ capable native forces, which must be visibly involved in prosecuting the counterinsurgency to the fullest measure possible. This manual also explained how the use of indigenous forces can affect all three levels of war. Tactically, indigenous forces eliminate insurgent leadership, cadre, and combatants, through death and capture by co-opting individual members, or by forcing insurgents to leave the area. Operationally such forces help restore government control and legitimacy. And strategically they serve as the shield for carrying out reform. Most saliently, this doctrine prescribed that indigenous security forces operate in concert with American forces wherever practical and that they assume the major burden in military, paramilitary, and police functions, when capable of doing so. In sum, the exigencies of the political and strategic context in the foreseeable future, as codified in the corpus of cascading US national and military security doctrines, point to the imperative to create a credible capacity among our partners and indigenous allies to effectively counter insurgents and terrorists wherever they operate. (2) The use of indigenous forces to prosecute counterinsurgency can provide a significant increase in the quantity of troops on the ground and yield an exponential improvement in actionable intelligence about the insurgency and its infrastructure. The US military has had some successful experiences in counterinsurgency. For the scope and purpose of this article, certain aspects of the Philippine and Vietnam wars provide some useful examples of how to employ indigenous forces--both regular and irregular--to effectively counter insurgents. …

A Study on Structure of the Economy of Udalguri Sub-Division, Assam (India)

The structure of an economy comprises the characteristic features of and the interrelationships among its constituent parts and subsystems. These characteristic features and interrelationships typify the economy and give to it a style, an appearance and individuality of its own. The structure of an economy evolves over time; it determines economic development as well as it is modified by the level of development the economy attains. Economic development is partly determined by the indigenous conditions and forces, and partly by the exogenous influences including the inflow of resources such as labour, capital, skill, technology, knowledge and information, contingent upon the openness of the economy to such external influences. Douglass North holds that the structure of an economy is determined by the resource base, infrastructure, technology and institutions. This study empirically presents the structural changes in the economy of a less developed region of Assam, India.

Globalization: some reflections from Latin America

This article focuses on globalization as a high-tech phenomenon, and from this perspective analyses its consequences for Latin America. On the one hand, key factors needed for ‘keeping on the right side’ of globalization are very weak in the region. On the other, there is some recognition that the importance of globalization might legitimize as levers for development those indigenous forces that have so far enjoyed scant recognition.

Collapsed Countries, Casualty Dread, and the New American Way of War

The combination of failed states, elite casualty phobia, and unfolding aerial precision strike and associated technologies is profoundly altering the locus and style of future US military interventions overseas. The United States is beginning to practice a new way of warfare in parts of the world peripheral to traditional American security interests. The Gulf War was a turning point. It was both an end and a beginning. It was perhaps the last large American full-spectrum conventional war waged against another well-armed state and the first in which airpower did the bulk of the heavy lifting against not only strategic targets but also enemy fielded forces. The Gulf War was also the first war in which casualty minimization became from the start an independent operational objective; both the formulation of war aims and the conduct of military operations were governed by dread among the political and especially military leadership that too many American lives lost would implode public and congressional support for the war. Since the Gulf War, the United States has launched military interventions in Somalia (1992-94), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999), and, most recently, in Afghanistan (2001). Unlike the Gulf War, which was waged in a place of undisputed strategic vitality to the West, these post-Gulf War interventions have been undertaken in locales beyond the traditional US strategic foci of Western Europe, East Asia, and the Persian Gulf. Also unlike the Gulf War, these interventions were all launched in or against failed states incapable of offering effective resistance to US conventional military power. In all cases, US airpower had virtually free run of the enemy's air space. Even more important, in two of the last three--Bosnia and Kosovo--US ground forces were deliberately withheld from participation; and in the last--Afghanistan--US ground forces that were committed initially were small and functioned primarily as scouts for American airpower and searchers for the enemy's leadership. In Bosnia and Afghanistan, large indigenous friendly ground forces served as surrogates, thus holding down US casualties and their perceived potential domestic political consequences. The war in Afghanistan exemplifies a growing American propensity for intervention in failed states (there are no qualified conventional military adversaries left, and China's future emergence as a competitive strategic rival is far from a done deal) and for risk-averse reliance on ever-more-effective airpower. These propensities are a function of three factors: (1) profound structural change in the international political system--specifically, the emergence of weak and failed states as the primary threat to US security; (2) a casualty-phobic political and military leadership; and (3) the availability of new military technologies that seem to permit effective military intervention, primarily from the air, at little cost in friendly military and even enemy civilian casualties. The war in Afghanistan also shows that modem airpower, under the right conditions, can achieve decisive strategic effects even against the kind of irregular, pre-industrial enemy once thought unbreakable by air attack. (1) How did we get to this point? Failed States as the Primary Threat The most devastating foreign attack in American history was planned and carried out at the direction of an international terrorist network headquartered in a failed state. Indeed, the relationship between the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda was symbiotic; the Taliban provided safe-haven for bin Laden and his high command, and bin Laden, in return, provided financial and professional assistance to the Taliban. Indeed, there has been a mutually supporting relationship between international terrorists and failed states worldwide, and the number of failing and failed states is growing, especially in the Islamic world and sub-Saharan Africa. …

Islamism: Emancipation, Protest and Identity

Just as there are `Islams’ in practice there are also Islamic revivalisms in operation. The various revivalist models differ from each other in terms of their organizational structures, political and economic objectives and strategical directions. Islam and Islamism are therefore multifarious and to treat them as monolithic is to sacrifice reality at the altar of simplicity. Basically, all the Islamist movements that are current today can be grouped into two broad categories, those operating in countries where the Muslims are a ruling community and those in countries where the Muslims are a minority and therefore a subject community. In the former, Islamism is both a Wertheimian emancipatory as well as a Tourainian protest movement, which has its political, economic and cultural rami® cations3; while in the latter, it is mostly a quietist and cultural force striving to protect and promote the religious identity of the Muslim community. As an emancipatory movement Islamism represents the collective struggle on the part of groups, which will be identified later, for a new society based on the norms and values ingrained in the shariah. It is also a protest movement in Tourainian terms because it has an identity, i.e. Islam; an adversary, i.e. the present world order - an order of jahiliyya (an Arabic term for the pre-Islamic world of ignorance); and a societal goal, i.e. the re-establishment of proto-Islam of the Prophetic era. In addition, Islamism, both in its majority and minority contexts, has a pure religious reformist aspect whereby it aims to revitalize the religion by cleansing it of all bid’ a or acquired novelties. In short, Islamism aims to eliminate all forms of political oppression, socio-economic inequities and cultural pollution. It is, as Voll defines, `a distinctive mode of response to major social and cultural change introduced either by exogenous or indigenous forces and perceived as threatening to dilute or dissolve the clear lines of Islamic identity, or to overwhelm that identity in a synthesis of many different elements’.

The Impact of Rome on the Egyptian Pottery Industry

This paper looks at pottery as one key to understanding the effects on Egypt of incorporation into the Empire. We look at the impact pottery had on Egyptians and measure aspects of that impact to consider degrees and forms of acculturation, and its limits. Only in recent years has research, fostered particularly by the French Institute and its publication, the Cahiers de la ceramique egyptienne, begun to give adequate attention to pottery of the period in Egypt. One result, strikingly underscoring the complexity of the interactions between indigenous and new social forces, has been to demonstrate that production and distribution of Roman pottery in Egypt long outlasted rule. We can now see that this

EDUCATION IN THE GULF MONARCHIES: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

For the last several decades there has been tremendous expansion in the educational facilities in all the six Gulf monarchies (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). The quality of education, however, does not correspond to the needs of Gulf societies. This study examines three of the apparent deficiencies in the educational system in the region: the mismatch between traditional and modern learning, the imbalance between indigenous and expatriate labor forces, and the gap between men and women. The paper concludes that a fundamental change in the quality of education needs to be made in order to overcome these imbalances.

Greece Prepares for the Twenty-first Century (review)

Reviewed by: Greece Prepares for the Twenty-first Century Vangelis Calotychos, Dimitris Keridis, and Theodore Pelagidis Dimitri Constas and Theofanis G. Stavrou, editors, Greece Prepares for the Twenty-first Century. Washington, D.C.: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1995. Pp. xi + 319. $17.50 paperback, $55 cloth. “There is a duty in this land. And this duty is for us to study ourselves.” So said Pericles Yannopoulos at the beginning of the twentieth century. And this is what eleven scholars do a century later in this volume of analytical and critical essays, [End Page 145] presented originally at a symposium held at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., in May 1992. Topics range from politics and economics to social and cultural perspectives. Diverse as they are, they have the common theme of the interaction between indigenous and exogenous (mainly European Union) forces, and the interplay between tradition and modernity. Some of the authors are optimists; others are not. Some view Greece as the Balkan exception, a historical success story in an underdeveloped region; others think of her as the West European exception that has failed to develop a strong civil society and a competitive market economy. Nicos Mouzelis opens the debate with a critique of Greek political culture. A first-rate model builder, Mouzelis identifies three major stages in the development of political institutional structures in Greece: oligarchic clientelism, 1863–1909; centralized clientelism, 1909–1967; and clientelism-populism, 1967–1992. This development has resulted in a large but inefficient state apparatus, a weak civil society, and a political culture dominated by particularistic, partocratic orientations, with formalistic or personalistic discourses concealing substantive issues of social reform or rendering them peripheral. Greece today has to embrace modernization and reform if the country’s resources are to be put to more effective use, while preserving its cultural identity and political autonomy within the EU. Interestingly, Mouzelis finds reforms across the political spectrum in an ideological convergence that points to the dwindling significance of class-based politics. Although right in principle, Mouzelis downplays the fact that specific political forces and parties protect the interests of those who benefit from the existing status quo. His essay does not sufficiently stress the losses that would be involved for a significant part of the population if reform succeeded. And he puts too much store in social democracy as a sensible compromise between the market and the state at a time when its validity is questioned even in Sweden. All said, however, Mouzelis’s paper is obligatory reading for anyone seriously interested in contemporary Greece. Theofanis G. Stavrou considers an institution that, despite its importance for Greece’s political culture, has been studied neither adequately nor rigorously—the Orthodox Church. Quoting from Papadiamantis to Tritsis, he presents the widely held consensus that Orthodoxy constitutes an essential element of Hellenism. In agreement with Yannaras’s aphorism of the Church’s aphasia ever since it became a state agency, Stavrou explores the development of the church-state relationship since the 1821 revolution, and in particular since the 1833 decision of a Westernizing government to establish the Autocephalous Church of Greece. Stavrou shows how the Church was subjugated by a state that used it to acquire legitimacy at the expense of the Church’s development as a vibrant and autonomous institution of civil society. So statism brings stagnation not just to economies but even to institutions as long-lived as the Church in Greece. Stavrou’s work provides a solid historical account. However, the complexity of Church-state relations warrants multiple perspectives—political, sociological, theological, etc. In this respect, Stavrou fails to pick up the debate where Mouzelis left off. According to Monteagle Stearns, United States Ambassador to Greece [End Page 146] from 1981 to 1985, the end of the Cold War has affected no state outside the confines of the Warsaw Pact more profoundly than it has Greece. Although Turkey, and certainly Germany, could claim to have been similarly affected, Stearns is right to emphasize the radically new environment in which Greece finds herself. Its adversarial relationship with Turkey remains Greece’s primary concern. In one of Stearns...

Divergence and Peripheral Fordism in the European Union

This paper attempts to show that convergence or divergence in the European Union (EU) will be influenced by developments in the periphery of Europe to a considerable extent, although the core situation cannot be ignored. In essence, therefore, it is the relationship between core and periphery that will determine the future of the EU. The main thesis of this study is that the EU economic position is such that divergence is more likely to occur than convergence. The focus of the analysis is what has come to be known as “Peripheral Fordism”, which enables us to suggest that periphery prospects for economic development are predicated upon substantial expansion of their industrial sectors based on indigenous forces. It is therefore the existing institutional structure within the EU that poses obstacles to convergence.

The Pre-Industrial City in Roman Britain

By detailed examination of the location of different types of building within a range of urban sites, the functions of Roman towns are considered. This paper rejects the suggestion that the form of the Roman town can be explained solely as the imposition of an alien culture. Indigenous social forces must be considered primarily responsible for the maintenance and adaptation of an institution which suroived for over three hundred years within the province. Various theoretical models of the pre-industrial city are considered. With these in mind possible explanations are sought for the variations in the form of RomanrrBritish urban topography. The differences in size and amenities offered between early civitas capitals and small towns are considered the product of radically different social conditions in each. This is quite contrary to the still frequently expressed opinion that small towns simply represent a later version of urbanism which had discarded as unnecessary the trappings of classical civilisation. The possibility that general principles exist which may extend throughout all Periods is suggested by parallels in the medieval period.

Gender, aging and power in sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and puzzles

By 2020, the absolute numbers of elderly in Africa will increase dramatically. A majority of these will be women. While we know much about the powers and authority of male elders within formal kin- and age-based structures, we know little about the lived experience of aging in Africa today, and even less about the formal and informal roles of elderly women. These ethnographic descriptions of gendered aging experiences in seven African societies examine the following little explored topics: indigenous conceptions of gender and aging; the ambiguities in women's social positions; changing family, household and marital relationships, which affect experiences of old age; older persons' access to and control over material, human and suprahuman resources; and the interplay of indigenous and modern forces. They point to future research challenges that will include understanding indigenous notions of gender and aging, and power and personhood, as they relate to personal experiences and to the ability of older women and men to assure their security in contexts of rapid social change.

RESTRUCTURING DEVELOPMENT THROUGH TECHNOLOGICAL PLURALISM

An attempt to understand and analyse the relationship between technology and development must focus attention on human actions within the framework of societal priorities and social values. World history as well as present-day international development show the necessity of finding a viable praxis for what the author calls `Appropriate Technologies'. Ten precautions should be seriously observed: (1) to develop low-energy life-styles, one should take care to (2) avoid radical alternatives between developments old and new. There (3) is a need for a philosophy of life capable of decentralising development projects. This should (4) discard the false dichotomy between the urban and the rural, which only supported (5) the cults of affluence and destructive consumerism. Precaution (6) should sharpen the awareness of false conceptions of modernisation in favour of (7) indigenous forces, (8) native and (9) religious traditions. Thus development regains (10) its inner fortitude to partake in universal processes of humanisation.