Paper short abstract:

The preoccupation is to examine the adverse effects of government liberalisation policies on the average Nigerian. The antidotes for these consequences are enumerated and veritable panacea proffered before reaching conclusion.

Paper long abstract:

The collapse of socialism and communism in eastern Europe, the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, the pulling down of the Berlin walls and the emergence of United States as the sole superpower have made capitalism and liberalism the veritable panacea for growth and development such that the developing countries turn in the direction of Washington and its western allies, as well as western institutions such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation, for solution to their financial and socio-economic problems. Based on this development, this paper, using observation and the content analyses of speeches, policies, news reports, career background and interviews granted by the dramatis personae in the governance of Nigeria, therefore examines the pro- Western prescriptions for reform as it affects the average Nigerian. It argues that the western mode has aggravated the standard of living of many a Nigerian resulting in poverty, high crime rates, high exchange rates, high inflation rates, high unemployment rates, low per capita income and corruption in high places, among others. This paper thus catalogues the possible antidotes, suggesting that some aspects of the socialist mode of development should be considered as an alternative to the Western remedies before reaching the conclusion that for reform to wear human face it must take into consideration the cultural or traditional, socio-economic and environmental factors of the people. This, in the view of this paper, is the proper signification of real and meaningful development.

Key words: superpower, poverty, development, liberalism, governance, socialism.

Paper short abstract:

Taking the recent shift of extractive business towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ‘good governance’ in Arica as a given, I propose to study the desirability and actual effects (or non-effects) of ‘positive’ corporate engagement from the perspectives of local Africans.

Paper long abstract:

The manifold negative (side-)effects natural resource extraction has on local environmental, societal, economic and political dynamics in areas of weak or limited statehood are well-documented. Despite the recent shift of scholarly attention towards the study of corporate actors as 'norm entrepreneurs' or 'co-producers of governance', much less is known about the impacts of 'positive' corporate engagement, i.e. of activities which are inspired by corporate social responsibility (CSR) and 'good' governance agendas. Their effects are rarely analyzed in a systematic manner, nor is the desirability of the promoted values and policies critically evaluated from the perspectives of their declared beneficiaries: 'ordinary' people who live off, on, or in proximity of the land utilized by corporate core business operations in the African periphery (local Africans). In an effort to contribute to the closure of this research gap, I suggest to study the effects of corporate engagement from the perspectives of local Africans. Following this is a conceptualization of corporate impact as locally experienced change over time regarding a) (household) development and b) (inter-group) conflict dynamics. My conceptualization is based on the available literature on impact assessment in development studies and justice-related conflicts about natural resource exploitation. I illustrate the analytical usefulness of my approach to the study of corporate impacts by drawing from first results of (ethnographic) field research, which I have undertaken at three selected mining sites across Kenya in 2012.

Paper short abstract:

There is no doubt that conflicts have disturbed the progress of the African Union in ensuring the successful achievement of its objectives. The recent uprising in the North of Africa has made situation worse for the organization thereby making the organization vulnerable within the comity of nations.

Paper long abstract:

The sustainability of the economic objective of the African Union has been challenged by the spate of conflict ravaging the continent in the past two and half decades, with the Somalia and Sudan crises being the most daunting and protracted crises ever confronted by the organization. It is obvious that the declining capacity of the organization in ensuring compliance by the member-state is one of the factors responsible for this overwhelming challenge. However, the recent uprising in the North of Africa is an indication of the extent of identity crisis confronting the organization. This recent uprising tagged "Arab Spring" is an expression of the lost of identity of the countries involved in the crisis as regards the jurisdiction of the African Union. This explains the incapacitation of the Africa Union in engaging these countries and show its relevance in terms of conflict resolution. However, the overshadowing of the African Union by external bodies such as NATO in the case of the "Arab Spring"; the bifurcation of the country of Sudan and the unending conflict in Somalia since 1991 have clearly shown that African Union has lost its relevance and existence thus making a case for a new Organization of Africa Unity or African Union. Therefore, it is important to ask the question how did AU find itself in this mess? How can this situation be remedied? What should be the structure of the new (O)AU? These and many more questions are what this paper intends to find answers to.

Paper short abstract:

This paper takes an indepth look at the nascent democracy in Nigeria vis-a-vis good governance. The paper argues that without good governance consolidated democracy will be a mirage after all.

Paper long abstract:

With Nigeria's tortuous democratic transition to the fourth republic on May 29, 1999 hopes were high once again about the possibility of the sustenance of democratic values in the country. However, so far, the snag is, the presence of civilian government but complete absence of good governance in all its ramifications. What a contradiction sort of? In the extant literature on democracy generally, without elements of good governance, the polity can not claim to be democratic. Exploring the nexus between good governance and democratic virtues, the UNDP in its 1997 reports came up with a catalogue of what it takes to sustain democracy. Of the lots, good governance features prominently. However, beyond mere theoretical postulations, this paper shall conceptualise good governance as 'governmental efficiency' in all its ramifications. To achieve this, the paper has been divided into a number of sections. With an introductory overview, the paper conceptualises democratic consolidation and good governance forming the theoretical anchor for the paper in part two. The third section takes a critical view of the daunting challenges facing Nigeria which perhaps rob it of the status of a state to be classified as one with good governance. The final part of the paper contains a number of policy options for the nascent democracy.

Keywords: Democracy, Good-governance, State, Economy, Governmental efficiency.

Paper short abstract:

What are the Lessons learnt from Wartime Governance structures and practices and how they can inform Peacetime state-building? A case -study of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in South Sudan.

Paper long abstract:

This contribution would focus on highlighting alternatives to 'external' models of state-building and governance in a post conflict situation using the SPLM's attempts in South Sudan to prepare itself as a government. As a revolutionary liberation movement the SPLM created complex governing structures in its liberated areas, it drafted laws, created development schemes, and separated institutions in order to fulfill its aim to reform the political and socio-economic order of Sudan. While the field of guerilla governance is growing, the link between what lessons can transpire from structures born during wartime and the political vision and institutional experience of rebel-movements turned government can represent for improving systems of governance in Africa is still missing. The objective here is to shed light on the possibility that guerilla movements and their 'parallel states' may be important vehicles for reform, where local and sub-national social modes can serve as a basis for reconstruction. Identifying the areas where institutions were created and functional, and governance achieved during wartime can potentially assist in designing new ideas on post-conflict nation and state-building. The interesting and perhaps contradictory element here is that the institutions that came out of the CPA peace agreement in 2005 (that were internationally molded) actually came to disrupt this internal and embryonic process of state- building. An opportunity was missed in South Sudan to begin rethinking entirely new approaches to governance post-conflict.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I use the data of Afrobarometer to gauge how Benin citizens assess the performance of their local government. I find that how influence of traditional leaders in governance impacts positively on acceptance of their holding seats in their local government councils.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I use the data of Afrobarometer (2008) to gauge how Benin citizens assess the performance of their local government. I find that large majorities of the country's citizens disapprove local government council management. For instance, for 78% of Beninese, local councils are doing a bad job in maintaining local roads.

While local councils in Benin are rated negatively, traditional leaders are rated higher along a range of performance criteria. For example, 38% of citizens think that traditional leaders are better listeners than elected local government councilors (26%).

In this piece, I argue that Beninese citizens' acceptance of traditional leaders' involvement in their local government councils depends mainly on their view of traditional leaders' influence on the governance of their local community.

Based on a logit model, I find that how influence of traditional leaders in governance impacts positively on acceptance of their holding seats in their local government councils. Finally, by using propensity score matching method, results suggest citizens should agree to the fact that traditional leaders should have seats on their local council, as long as they appreciate their influence in governance in their local community.

Paper short abstract:

This paper endeavors to shade light on the current perceptions of Rwandans as regards the issue of obedience to authority and its space in the 1994 genocide.

Paper long abstract:

Obedience to authority is said to have been the cause and the means of massive human rights abuses in the world history. In this regard, Stanley Milgram writes: "… ordinary citizens are ordered to destroy other people, and they do so because they consider it their duty to obey orders".

When trying to account for mass participation in the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda, various explanations have come out including among others, the issue of obedience to authority, which has been very controversial among researchers. In fact, while some of them contend that ordinary citizens have massively responded to the order of killing because they are used to obey to orders from authorities, others argue that the obedience thesis in explaining the massive participation in genocide hardly holds given that in their history, Rwandans in some occasions, have proved to be disobedient or resistant to orders from an authority in spite of the dangers they faced in doing so.

However, the conclusions that obedience is/not one of the major factors explaining mass participation in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda have ostensibly left aside Rwandans own point of view as much as obedience to orders is concerned in their society.

Our belief is that the views of Rwandans and their own perceptions of obedience to authority shade more light on its real position in the Rwandan society, thus contributing to the 1994 genocide explanation.

Paper short abstract:

Short Abstract This work is an attempt to reconsider the theoretical models guiding African democracy with a view to constructing an out-of-Africa democratic principle that can stand the test of contemporary democratic governance and help solve the socio-political problems besetting the continent.

Paper long abstract:

Long Abstract

Over the years, scholars have made claims for the adoption of African democratic values in order to solve the continent's inherent problems. However, such claims have been jettisoned with much apathy by most African politicians, political scholars and contemporary African states on the grounds that African thoughts have been largely patterned after Western-style theoretical models and practices of democracy. While such ridiculous thinking may be well observed, this paper queries whether the crisis of African democracy can be attributed to African political mores or not. It harps on the missing link in contemporary scholarly discourse which has been identified as the conceptual failure of exploring what African democratic theory entails. The paper argues the near absence of a definite democratic theory in African political scholarship in relation to underlying principles, canons and criteria of democracy in an African setting while pointing out inherent conceptual flaws in the popular notion of democracy as a form of government. The "out-of-Africa" theory examines democracy in Africa as a socio-political principle rather than a form of government. As a consequence, our democratic values and practices must be out of Africa even though we imbibe certain democratic ideals from other cultural traditions. In turn, Africa would be better equipped to provide a resounding democratic theory that can stand the test of times. It postulates that such a theoretical conception will help in solving the contemporary socio-political problems facing African democracy.

Keywords: Out-of-Africa, Africa, African, democracy, theory.

Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a new approach for analysing bottom-up institution building processes (examples from fisheries in Zambia and forestry in Mali) that are important in the context of decentralisation policies in Africa and links governance resource issues with local institution building.

Paper long abstract:

There is a gap in the literature on institution building regarding local perceptions of common pool resource management in the context of decentralised governance (Ostrom pers. com 2011). Ostrom's work highlights the way successful institutions work and which aspects are important for their success (Ostrom 1990, 2005). In addition, others scholars such as Jean Ensminger have highlighted the role that the bargaining power of actors and ideology play in the institution-building process and resource governance (Ensminger 1992, 1998; Haller ed 2010). However, there is very little research on how local actors themselves view (i.e. emically) an institution-building process in retrospective. Based on two case studies (fisheries in Zambia and forestry management in Mali) we propose a new analytical approach that stems from real cases of recent self-driven institution building, in which emic views become apparent. We label such self-driven processes as constitutionality, which is defined as a conscious process of formal institution building from below, which does not suffer from the drawbacks of top-down imposed processes of democratisation, decentralisation and participation, which are often subject to processes of elite capture. Contesting the view that subjects internalise governmentally imposed frames of viewing the world by 'participating' in institutions, as in Agrawal's (2005) model of environmentality for resource governance, based on a Foucauldian notion of governmentality, our perspective (based on practice theory and New Institutionalism) emphasises instead how local actors construct a sense of ownership in the institution-building process by strategically pursuing local interests through that process for decentralised resource governance.

Paper short abstract:

The African peer review mechanism is an innovative governance template that not only offers alternative methodologies to understanding African lived governance realities; the tool also has the potential of offering alternative models of governance.

Paper long abstract:

Abstract:

Propelled by the technological novelties, knowledge has become more divested, accessible and therefore ready for use. This means that African knowledge production hubs should be at the front of cutting edge new ways of analyzing the world and its context at best. Sadly, this has not been the case. The unique potentialities offered by especially the fast changing realities and comparative environments have not yet been fully tapped into, rendering African research institutions yet again impotent at producing ground breaking alternatives. Faced with this lacuna, the paper proposes to discuss how knowledge is produced within the governance thematic. A case study of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) - an African governance template for analyzing political, socio-economic, and cooperate governance performances and discrepancies will be presented. The aim is to show case, through certain country case-study analysis, the different kinds of methodologies that the APRM utilizes for contextual understanding and eventual offering new perspectives on the governance trajectories that countries could take. The country case studies of Kenya (Eastern Africa), Mozambique (Southern Africa) and Ghana (Western Africa) will be presented as illustrations. The aim of the paper is to query whether the alternative methodologies that the APRM utilizes to understand governance issues in Africa could actually offer alternative models of governance that could make Africa to conveniently cope with the dynamics of both continental and multi-polar global politics.

Key words:

African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM , governance template, alternative methodologies for African governance environments, governance, African lived realities, comparison, contextual understanding