Suchergebnisse

Alla fine del sec. XV, gli Europei scopritori dell'Africa occidentale trovarono che il cavallo era impiegato nel Benin e nei vicini paesi yoruba. Poiché non si conosce l'esistenza di antenati selvatici dell'Equus caballus in questa o in alcuna altra zona dell'Africa, si trattava di equini importati. Sulla base di argomenti zoologici, archeologici, storici ed etnologici, il presente articolo intende chiarire tempi e modi di tale introduzione.Il cavallo e anche qui essenzialmente animale da guerra e simbolo di prestigio sociale: il suo arrivo, dall'Africa settentrionale per via del Sahara, è connesso con l'impiego del carro da guerra. L'A. discute brevemente le questioni della iniziale domesticazione equina, dell'uso e della diffusione dei carri ippotrainati, delle singolari raffigurazioni di questi nello stile del «galoppo volante» tipico dell'arte minoico-micenea e presente tra l'altro nelle figurazioni rupestri sahariane; e delle presumibili relazioni commerciali che dovettero indirettamente collegare quest'ultima area, e quella del Mediterraneo occidentale nell'eta del bronzo, con le zone oltre il Sahara. Di qui, secondo l'A., giunse il cavallo nel bacino del Niger, mentre piu deboli sono considerate le possibilita di connessione degli stati dell'Africa occidentale con Kush e Meroe. Se però l'evidenza archeologica suggerisce per tali contatti epoche non posteriori al II millennio a.C., queste appaiono di molto anteriori ai tempi in cui si presume siano sorti in Africa occidentale stati in grado di sfruttare corpi di caval- leria: il piu antico stato locale di cui si abbia notizia, il Ghana, non risale a prima del IV sec. d.C. Fra le ipotesi relative al destino del cavallo in queste zone durante il lungo e oscuro intervallo, l'A. tende a scartare quella di un rinselvatichimento della specie come si sa essere avvenuto in America; egli pensa piuttosto a un uso del cavallo come animale da sacrificio, o a un suo persistente impiego per il traino di carri; meno probabile il suo uso come cavalcatura, prevalso poi in epoca moderna. La piu antica varieta di Equus presente in Africa occidentale sarebbe infatti, secondo l'A., una razza di ponies di piccole dimensioni, poco atta a essere cavalcata; piu tardo sarebbe l'arrivo della piu robusta varieta berbera, di quella araba, di quella dongolana. Comunque impiegato agli inizi, il cavallo contribuì a trasformare in senso militare le ancor piccole comunita dell'area sudanese-guineana viventi di coltivazione e allevamento di tipo «neolitico»; e i contatti trans-sahariani che accompagnarono l'introduzione del nuovo nobile animale dovettero incoraggiare la fondazione dei primi stati della zona.

Israel und Südafrika - von ihren feindlichen Nachbarstaaten weitgehend isolierte Länder - waren stets an eigener Atomwaffenproduktion besonders interessiert. Über das Ausmaß ihrer tatsächlichen Bewaffnung gibt es jedoch widersprüchliche Angaben. Politisch setzten beide Länder die Waffen weniger zur Einschüchterung der Nachbarstaaten ein als dazu, den Westen zu wirtschaftlichen und politischen Zugeständnissen zu bewegen, indem man mit der Weiterverbreitung der Nukleartechnologie droht. (DÜI-Hlr)

This study is conducted to observe the impact of public education expenditure on economic growth in five West African countries namely: The Gambia, Ghana, Niger, Mali, and Senegal. In addition, we generated a study called ECOWAS representing West Africa. In order to advance into the study, we used econometric tools such as Augmented Dickey Fuller test (ADF), Johansson Cointegration Test, Error Correction Model (ECM) and Granger Causality Test Analysis. The target sample consist of panel data collected based on its availability for each selected West African country covering different ranges from 1968 to 2015. The result of the ADF test revealed that some of the variables are individually non-stationary at level but stationary at first difference. The Johansson cointegration test indicated a cointegration relationship between the variables for some countries and ECM coefficients revealed for all the countries indicated an evidence of convergence after short run deviation from equilibrium. The Granger Causality test result suggest a unidirectional causality that run from Government Education Expenditure (Edu) to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for ECOWAS and the reverse is true for Ghana and Mali. There is no causal direction revealed between the variables for The Gambia, Niger and Senegal. However, the study concluded that Education Expenditure has significant long run and short run impact on economic growth in West Africa.

The democratic reforms introduced in many sub-Saharan African countries during the 1990s involved the restoration of multipartism. The re-emergence of party politics spurred a number of analyses of the continent's new parties & party systems, largely based on theories & concepts derived from the study of advanced democracies. The article reviews & critically examines recent works on Africa's parties & party systems by presenting the dominant themes & issues & by investigating the utility of Western-derived models for the analysis of new multiparty regimes. In spite of a quantitative increase & a qualitative improvement in the study of Africa's parties & party systems, the latter still suffers a scarcity of empirical & theoretical investigations. At the same time, the use of political science tools for the study of party politics south of the Sahara is part of a broader positive trend towards a better integration of the analysis of African politics with that of politics in other world areas. Tables, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

Research on economic growth and development in developing countries has often highlighted the role of liberalisation policies (economic and political) in improving economic performance in the developing world. In sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, efforts at fostering economic growth and development have not only resulted in the adoption of these policies, but have also led to the proliferation of regional economic integration (include monetary unification). Nonetheless, the impact of these policies on economic performance continues to be a subject of debate among policy makers, development partners, academic researchers, and the international community at large. This debate has become increasingly important in light of the challenges facing the aforementioned agents in helping to improve the economic performance of these countries. This thesis focuses on this topic providing empirical evidence for sub-Saharan African countries. The first chapter uses post-liberalisation data on Ghana and focuses on the extent to which trade openness and foreign aid inflows impact on economic growth. Ghana, being one of the forerunners to adopt liberalisation policies in sub-Saharan Africa, has received commendations from the international community for its post-liberalisation economic growth performance. This has increased government commitment in recent years to open the economy to international competition. Moreover, foreign aid inflows over the period have been relatively large. The study, which employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration, provides empirical findings, which clearly indicate that the impact of both trade openness and foreign aid on Ghana's post-liberalisation economic growth is positive and statistically significant in both the short-run and the long run, although this is somewhat reduced by their interaction. In addition, the study reveals long run economic growth benefits of Ghana's political system whilst government spending and labour force performance retarded economic growth over the study period. The empirical findings and policy recommendations are relevant for Ghana's long-term economic growth policy reforms. The second chapter, taken cognisance of the fact that sub-Saharan Africa has been characterised by low-income levels for decades, analyses the impact of economic globalisation and democracy on income levels in the area using panel cointegration techniques. The study considers a composite indicator for economic globalisation and several indicators of democracy and highlights the essence of the simultaneous adoption of economic globalisation and democracy for sub-Saharan African countries. The empirical results, based on a sample of 31 countries over the period 1980-2005, clearly indicate that, whilst the total long run impact of economic globalisation on income levels has been beneficial, the total long run impact of democracy has been the bane of the level of income in sub-Saharan Africa. The study concludes that policy reforms should be aimed at improving democratic institutions in sub-Saharan Africa for its potential benefits to be realised The third chapter focuses on the implications of trade openness, foreign aid and democracy for the fulfilment of Wagner's law in West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) countries. Although the impact of trade openness, foreign aid and democracy on government expenditure in developing countries has been emphasised in the literature in recent decades most recent studies of Wagner's law have often neglected the increasing role played by these policy variables. The study provides an empirical analysis of the long run implications of trade openness, foreign aid and democracy for the fulfilment of Wagner's law in WAMZ countries using panel data techniques for the period 1980-2008. The study finds the existence of Wagner's law in WAMZ countries, but only when the role of these policy variables has been catered for. The analysis concludes that, if these countries are to meet the fiscal convergence criteria and ensure the sustainability of a single currency area, explicit sets of restraint on the national authorities and innovative and efficient ways of domestic revenue generation necessary to ensure that government revenue keep pace with its expenditure become crucial, because the monetary union by itself may not necessarily ensure fiscal discipline. The fourth chapter focuses on the relationship between democracy, government spending, and economic growth. Although, economic theory predicts that various core functions of governments are growth enhancing, its spending in non democratic countries often goes beyond these core functions, namely into rent-seeking and non-productive activities. The study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration to investigate the extent to which democracy and government spending have had an impact on economic growth in Ghana over the period 1960-2008. The empirical results obtained are encouraging, revealing support for the high efficiency of government spending in democracies hypothesis. The study demonstrates that democracy and government spending go hand in hand in providing a complementary role to impact positive on economic growth in Ghana in both the long-and short-run. The fifth chapter investigates the impact of trade openness on economic growth and development for a sample of 85 middle-income countries over the period 1970-2009. The study employs non-stationary heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques that take into consideration the impact of cross-section dependence. The analysis reveals four important findings. Firstly, that trade openness has been one of the main drivers of the level of development, but not of economic growth in middle-income countries. Secondly, that trade openness is both a cause and a consequence of the level of development in middle-income countries. Thirdly, that neglecting the impact of cross-section dependence overestimates the coefficient linked to the long-run relationship between trade openness and development. Lastly, and most importantly, that these results are consistent for all the 20 middle-income sub-Saharan African countries included in the sample.

The article deals in detail with the transition from indigenous slavery to free paid work in French West Africa during the early decades of the 20th century. More specifically, it focuses on the modalities of exit from slavery following the enforcement of abolition measures in 1905, taking into consideration issues such as freed slaves returning home, freed slaves staying at their master's, freed slaves seeking for inclusion within the colonial apparatus, and finally freed slaves choosing migration and moving beyond both their ex-master's and the colonial control. These are the major tracks in a difficult transition towards a full-fledged development of free paid work, which is still a thorny and yet unresolved issue in contemporary Africa. Adapted from the source document.

[ita]A Roma come nel resto dell'Impero, le case dell'élite, sedi delle relazioni affettive e politiche dei proprietari, costituivano un potente strumento di auto-rappresentazione. Per questo, spazi pubblici come atria, tablina, triclinia, generici "ambienti di rappresentanza", portici, percorsi quotidianamente non solo da abitanti ma anche da clientes e amici, dovevano essere particolarmente "eloquenti". Una lussuosa decorazione comunicava il prestigio sociale, economico e culturale del signore a tutti coloro che entravano nella sua domus o villa, luoghi di un sereno otium. Consideriamo in particolare i pavimenti decorati: al pari di un affresco, un mosaico figurato era chiamato a comunicare sensazioni e significati agli abitanti della dimora e ai suoi ospiti. In particolare, la dimensione intellettuale poteva essere affidata a immagini-simbolo quali Muse, poeti, filosofi, attori teatrali oppure a immagini mitologiche, sia sotto forma di ritratti sia di rappresentazioni di vicende con più personaggi coinvolti. Tra queste storie alcune si distinguono per la loro relazione con una o più opere letterarie di carattere epico o teatrale. Nella parte occidentale dell'Impero romano, Africa Proconsularis e Hispania si distinguono per la quantità e la qualità dei tessellati di questo tipo, datati su base stratigrafica o stilistica fra il I sec. a. C. e il V sec. d. C. Nella maggior parte dei casi vi sono rappresentati episodi mitici anticamente molto noti che coinvolgono alcuni personaggi del ciclo troiano: il giudizio di Paride e il rapimento di Elena, lo svelamento di Achille a Sciro, il sacrificio di Ifigenia, la supplica di Crise ad Agamennone, la lite fra Achille e Agamennone (?), l'addio di Achille a Briseide, il confronto tra Glauco e Diomede, l'incontro tra Filottete e l'ambasceria greca, l'offerta della coppa di vino di Ulisse a Polifemo, l'incontro fra Ulisse e le Sirene. Ritroviamo inoltre storie raccontate in opere teatrali come la follia di Ercole, il tormento di Medea, la storia di Fedra e Ippolito. Si tratta di miti di origine greca facenti parte del patrimonio culturale romano fin dall'epoca arcaica della storia di Roma e caratterizzati da una lunga continuità di vita. I principali canali di conoscenza di queste storie erano la scuola e il teatro, importanti strumenti di romanizzazione attraverso cui la cultura greco-romana veniva diffusa nei territori conquistati. Nelle case delle élites provinciali, che guardavano a Roma come a un modello prestigioso, i tessellati con contenuto letterario erano chiamati a comunicare la cultura del proprietario. Immaginiamo che questi, sulla base delle proprie conoscenze più o meno profonde, scegliesse consapevolmente il tema per il mosaico, e poi stabilisse, d'accordo con gli artigiani, i criteri per un'elaborazione originale del soggetto a partire da un modello già esistente, generalmente di origine ellenistico. A partire dal confronto fra le immagini e i testi letterari di riferimento conservati in cui si racconta l'episodio rappresentato nel mosaico abbiamo provato a raccogliere possibili informazioni sulla cultura letteraria dei committenti. La corrispondenza basica fra alcuni "elementi chiave" (personaggi ed eventi peculiari), presenti nella versione scritta della storia e nei tessellati, garantiva la comprensione della vicenda da parte di un pubblico colto. Al di là di questa necessaria coerenza, nella maggior parte dei casi, rispetto ai testi di riferimento gli episodi sono rappresentati in forma semplificata e a volte anche compendiaria (con più sequenze riunite). La volontà di comunicare con successo dei significati, e dunque di ottenere, seguendo la teoria di R. Jakobson, un corretto feedback da parte del pubblico, poteva determinare un distacco dal modello e dal testo. Inoltre, l'epigrafia, soprattutto in Hispania, interveniva nei casi in cui l'immagine poteva essere ambigua, dando sempre una sicura veste colta all'immagine. Lo studio dei mosaici africani e ispanici con contenuto letterario permette dunque di esprimere alcune considerazioni sulla cultura dell'élite presente nei territori, purtroppo anonima e molto probabilmente ancora pagana, in epoca tardoantica. ; [eng]As places for the political relationships of the owners, the houses of the élite, in Rome, like in the rest of the Empire, were a powerful tool for self-representation. For this reason, public spaces like atria, tablina, triclinia or porches, which were crossed daily not only by its inhabitants but also by clientes and amici, had to be particularly significant. A luxurious decoration communicated the social, economic and cultural prestige of the owner to all those who entered his domus or villa. We consider in particular the decorated floors: like a fresco, images in mosaics had to communicate feelings and meanings to the inhabitants of the house and to his guests. Particularly, the intellectual dimension could be entrusted to symbolic images such as Muses, poets, philosophers, actors, or mythological themes — both portraits and representations of episodes with some characters involved. Among these stories, some pictures are distinguished by their relationship to a specific literary work, epic or theatrical. Due to the number and the quality of this kind of mosaics, in the western part of the Roman Empire Africa Proconsularis and Hispania represent two interesting cases that are worth studying. In African and Hispanic mosaics especially (dated from the 1st century B. C. to the 5th A. D.), we can recognize stories that involve Homeric characters: the judgment of Paris, the kidnapping of Helen, the unveiling of Achilles in Skyros, the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Crises' plea to Agamemnon, the farewell of Achilles and Briseis, the encounter between Glaucus and Diomedes, the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon (?), the encounter between Philoctetes and the Greek embassy, the offer of the wine cup of Odysseus to Polyphemus, the encounter between Ulysses and the Sirens. We also find other stories, such as those represented in Greek and Latin plays: the madness of Hercules, the torment of Medea, the story of Phaedra and Hippolytus. The knowledge of these legends and myths, very popular in the Greco-Roman culture at all times, depended on the school and the theatre. Considering the choice of the themes and the way they're treated in each mosaic, this study is aimed to search for some information about the literary culture of the mosaics' owners who, unfortunately, remain anonymous but were most probably members of the provincial élites.

Summary in English.