Democracy,civil society and the media in Africa in the Nineties. a discussion of the emergence and relevance of some analytical concepts for the understanding of the situation in Africa

The article argues that the relationship between state and civil society in an African context constitute a dialiectic between a weak state and a weak civil society. The question of the seperation between state and civil society in Africa cannot be understood apart from recent changes in Eastern Europe, with the demise of communism on the one hand, and the rise of neo‐liberalism on the other. Also, the state/society problematic in Africa is linked to the inheritance from the European experience of the nineteenth century, and to the economic restructuring programmes of the 1980s and the 1990s. Civil society in Africa is seen as constituted by a variety of social movements which through their forms of communication tap in on and recreate existing and new collective identities. The article gives special attention to the case in Zimbabwe and the role of the media and civil society there.