Suchergebnisse

Considers the phenomenon of fraud & corruption in the European Union (EU) where member states seem to have manifested a benign neglect toward it. EU & European Economic Community institutions are overviewed before looking at the EU annual budget & programs. It is contended that the EU's peculiar institutional arrangements contribute to fraud against the budget & shed light on why more & better action has not been taken against it. The Common Agricultural Policy, taker of the EU's largest budget share, is examined to demonstrate some kinds of fraud & the poor means of monitoring for it. With no commonly applied definition of fraud, which is transnational by nature, among EU members, enforcement mechanisms remain weak; national administrative & justice systems inconsistently respond to fraud. Member state reluctance to cede further sovereignty to the EU hampers efforts to provide an institutional solution (eg, an EU office of public prosecutor). Coupled with a desire to protect national economic interests, the member states have effectively created a market for fraud. 14 References. J. Zendejas

Africa's relation to the concept and practice of 'state' and 'states system' has been problematic since its first encounters with those who were armed with the concept. In observing the collapse of authority and governance in a number of African states, some scholars have suggested that Africa presented the states system with alternative political organizations. Others argue that so long as there is a kernel of armed authority in territorially demarcated areas, a state exists. Africa's polities have often responded unconventionally, yet strategically, to interaction with the sovereign state system first elaborated by the Europeans. To comprehend the novelty, or lack of it, in the 'state system' of contemporary Africa, we need to know something about its pre-colonial political structures and organizations and about the imprint of empires (the construct which effectively limited the 'international' system of sovereign states to the West) on Africa. Did colonialism and the Western system of sovereign states rule out alternative structures for the newly independent African states? What might alternative structures have looked like? What impact did colonial rule have on the development of states in Africa? Does contemporary Africa have a 'state system'? This article addresses these questions in the context of the Special Issue's concern with both the structure of the international system and developments among and between the units.

Discusses the rise of the state system in Africa & the difficulty among scholars in defining the concept of the state in the context of Africa. The author reviews the types of political communities present in pre-colonial Africa & discusses the problem of defining the state through an analysis of Islam-based polities, wherein membership was based on allegiance to a belief rather than a territory or clan. The term "state" is insufficient in describing many pre-colonial African societies because they do not meet the basic criteria set for them by the Western sovereign state model. The impacts of (1) the international political economy on emerging African structures & (2) colonial rule on the current African state system while stunting its growth are assessed. In postcolonial times, the Pan-African movement failed to provide an alternative structure for political organization & authority in Africa. The author concludes that based on the current structure of the international system of states, perhaps Africa has to force its politics into the "state" format when it seems unable to do so. Africa may continue to operate within a variety of political forms as it did centuries prior to colonialism. J. Moses

The political scientist who relies upon historiographic sources to propose and test
hypotheses runs the risk of riling up not only her peers in the discipline, but also the
historians upon whose work she must rely to provide the materials for these hypotheses.
It was intellectually satisfying and stimulating to learn that my work has been
read not only by scholars in 'my' discipline, but also by those in the discipline which
made my own analysis possible, and I am grateful for Professor Hopkins' extensive
comments. As Hopkins notes, there are differences in the orientation of the two
disciplines: political science has as one of its central concerns 'the state', while
historians are more interested 'in charting changing relativities in international
relations'. As a political scientist, I am indeed interested in identifying the factors
which lead to such changes.

This article challenges two prevailing views of the failure by African polities to attain sovereign statehood in the late 19th century by providing evidence from two case studies showing that many African polities were not 'quasi-states,' lacking the empirical political and economic capacity to join the international community of sovereign states. Nor were they unable to sustain or promote international commerce. Instead, when heightened international economic competition threatened the profits of European traders, European interests pressed for pro-expansionist policies and for conditions deemed necessary for the success of European commerce.