Suchergebnisse

Given the fact that quantitative measures of democracy in Africa are increasingly used in scholarly research, it is appropriate to ask the question: "Are such measures accurately reflecting empirical observations?" To answer this question, data sets compiled by Zahra Arat, Tatu Vanhanen, Mark Gasiorowski, Keith Jaggers & Ted Robert Gurr, & Freedom House/Raymond Gastil are compared with qualitative observations of events affecting liberal democracy in Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, & Uganda. Two types of problems are found. First, there are many discrepancies between empirical observations & what is known by the data sets. Second, there are inconsistencies in the quantitative measurement of democracy across countries; for example, the same phenomenon does not seem to be measured by the Jaggers & Gurr & the Freedom House/Gastil indices in South Africa & Tanzania. The discrepancies in the quantitative measures suggest that the observations of area specialists of events related to liberal democracy are important not simply to help interpret quantitative measures but to reconstruct them. 6 Figures. Adapted from the source document.

The Constituent Assembly, which approved the constitution for Nigeria's Second Republic (1979-1983), decided that no new states should be created at that time, & adopted procedures making state creation in the future virtually impossible. The Assembly's action implied that elite consensus had been achieved on the existing territorial configuration of the federation. Events during the Second Republic seemed to belie such an interpretation. To resolve the contradiction, a content analysis of the Constituent Assembly debates was undertaken, which revealed widespread dissatisfaction with the existing nineteen-state structure. It is concluded that the Constituent Assembly's decisions on state creation did not reflect an elite consensus. Instead, the period of relative stability in federal territorial configuration, which elsewhere seemed to follow early years of instability, had not yet been reached in Nigeria. 5 Tables. HA

AbstractEfforts to employ public corporations in African countries to promote development have had limited success. A major controversy has developed over who is responsible for such failure. On the one hand are those who accuse management; on the other hand are those who accuse government. This study seeks to assess the merits of the contending arguments through an analysis of Nigeria'S Cross River State Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC). There is a strong prima‐facie case against management. It failed to sustain the enterprise; it failed to produce any profits; it failed to give employees satisfaction in their work; it failed to give strong direction to the corporation; it failed significantly to advance the technology of the ADC; and it made little contribution to the community. But, on close examination, it is apparent that management'S failure was a consequence of structural and financial constraints imposed on it by government. Thus, real responsibility for the failure of the ADC belongs with the government. The reasons for government 'killing' its own public corporation are partly constraints imposed on it and partly the opposition of its supporters to public enterprise.

There is general agreement that sports are used for political purposes. The controversy over whether this should or should not be the case is really a struggle about how they should be used. Those who argue for the separation of sports and politics tend to be satisfied with the existing use, while those against the separation tend to be dissatisfied with the present situation. The positions are rational: each group seeks to use this arena to achieve its own political objectives. Although some involvement of politics in sports appears universal, the degree varies considerably from country to country.

The frustrated aspirations of most Africans for a significantly better life following independence have evoked considerable attention. A growing number of scholars are accounting for the situation in terms of a set of loosely connected propositions contained in the 'underdevelopment theory',, at the core of which is the idea that colonialist/neocolonialist countries have created the conditions of underdevelopment by:(i) encouraging the entry of foreign investment which extracted/extracts a significant proportion of the surplus produced;(ii) fostering a commercial bourgeoisie which failed/fails to use its profits for productive investment purposes; and(iii) promoting an indigenous class which acted/acts in the interest of the imperial power to perpetuate the condition of underdevelopment.

The Mexican ejido, the Soviet kolkhoz, the Chinese commune and the Tanzanian Ujamaa village have all been encouraged by governments as a means of reorganizing the countryside on a communal basis. Few policies have had so profound an effect on people's lives as have those associated with the collectivization of agriculture. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the degree of similarity in the collectivization experiences.