This collection of essays investigates how structural adjustment and economic liberalisation have impacted upon labour regimes - e.g., trade unions; and upon state and civil society relations, and processes of democratisation. The studies resulted from a conference hosted by the Institute of Development Studies, University of Zimbabwe, in co-operation with the Department of Political Science, University of Stockholm. Cases and responses of the seven African countries in attendance - Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe - are documented. Examples include: liberalisation and the case of Senegalese industrial relations; trade unions and capacity building in the Nigerian textile industry; the labour exodus in a liberalising South Africa; and authoritarianism and trade unions in Egypt.