Abstract
Written before the 1979 coup led by Jeny Rawlings and the recent return to civilian rule, this article provides essential background to those events. It outlines the crisis that was looming and that eventually created the setting for this latest military intervention. This is set against the background of an analysis of the two earlier military regimes, of 1966 and 1972, which explores their social character and their economic policies. It is argued that such an analysis has to explore the complex relations and mediations between imperialism and the local petty bourgeoisie and between different fractions of the petty bourgeoisie. Beyond, these differences between the various regimes, however, there is a common stance of compromise rather than confrontation with imperialism, and a common fate: recurrent crises which stem from the differing attempts to mediate between foreign and local capital.

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