CIAO DATE: 03/2014
Volume: 8, Issue: 3
March 2014
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK: THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF CORRUPTION AND CLEANUPS IN NIGERIA
Daniel Agbiboa
In light of its pervasiveness, tackling corruption has become a priority on the Nigerian political agenda at local and national levels. This article critically examines the evolution of corruption in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and oil-rich country. Specifically, the article examines how the corrupt practices of Nigeria’s ruling cabal have stunted the growth of a country with huge potential. The article contributes to the existing body of literature on corruption by explaining when, how and why corruption became entrenched in the Nigerian polity. In conclusion the article makes some prospective recommendations that may advance the anti-corruption campaign in Nigeria.
LEARNING TO TALK THE TALK: RE-APPRAISING THE EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVE IN THE EU'S FOREIGN POLICY
Niels Smeets, Johan Adriaensen, Yf Rykers
How can the European Union (EU) remain a relevant and effective power in a multipolar world? Past studies have sought to address such questions through a focus on the internal constraints the EU faces in its foreign policy. Instead we propose leaving the beaten path by stressing the need for a stronger inclusion of the external perspective in the EU’s foreign policy. This need, we argue, becomes increasingly important in a multipolar world as peripheral countries find themselves in a position to side by whichever power presents the most interesting proposition. In a case study on the EU’s relations with Kazakhstan we will demonstrate in more detail how the presence of (re-)emerging powers brings new challenges to the front for the EU. Challenges which can best be dealt with by having a good knowledge about what attracts or detracts.
THE DRIVERS OF POLICE REFORM: THE CASES OF GEORGIA AND ARMENIA
Olgo Shoulderer
This article analyzes cases of police reform aimed at eliminating corruption. It focuses on two cases sharing similar problems of corruption in the past but with different outcomes after undertaking police reform: Georgia and Armenia. It seeks to understand why police reform is more successful in Georgia than in Armenia and uses legal documents, external reports, and secondary literature in this cause. It concludes that the primary factor influencing the outcome is a change in the political elite. Other factors contributing to the outcome of the police reforms were the involvement of foreign actors, the content of the reform, and the magnitude of the corruption.
INVOLVED BY DEFAULT: EXTERNAL ACTORS AND FOREIGN POLICY OF THE WESTERN BALKAN STATES
Esref Kenan Rasidagic
The foreign policy of the Western Balkan states is formulated on the basis of several factors, many of which do not reflect their strategic national interests. An important contributing factor is that all Western Balkan countries could be defined as small states, despite the fact that within the region some of them are considered as being comparatively large and strong. The potential for formulation and implementation of foreign policy in all of these states is very low, due to a number of reasons. These include small territories and population, weak economies, unfinished democracy- building processes, and a generally unsettled situation, typical of transitional societies. All these aspects make states in the region to a large extent dependant on the interests of bigger powers, as well as susceptible to policies of the international organizations active in the region. Western Balkan states, therefore, to varying extents, identify their foreign policies with the policies of different external actors.
VIctoria Makulilo
The persistence of economic destitution particularly in the developing countries has raised an endless debate on its causes and the way forward. Different theories have been formulated and other theories perished. The present scholarship explains how regimes shape prosperity, welfare and peace. Using various theories Pippa Norris argues that democratic governance is capable of bridging the economic gap and spurring economic growth. Democratic governance assumes that development is most effective where regimes combine the qualities of democratic responsiveness and state effectiveness. Various premises have been put into consideration. First, institutions of liberal democracy encourage elected officials to pay attention to human security. However, in practice, liberal democracy often proves to be imperfect in each of these procedures. This is particularly so where party competition is limited. As a result electoral systems are manipulated or channels of participation are more skewed towards money than people. Second, democratic institutions are by themselves insufficient to achieve development goals. It is quite known that institutions of democracy can limit the abuse of state power but do not ensure the necessary capacity of leaders to implement effective public policies addressing social needs. Therefore, a merging of democracy and governance, particularly state capacity leads to achieving developmental goals.
Sandipani Dash, Sudan's Oil Diplomacy, 1991-2003 (New Delhi: Manak Publications Pvt. Ltd, 2012)
Dinoj K. Upadhyay
As world is moving fast on swirling waves of globalization and, as the new economies of Asia have witnessed unprecedented economic growth, global competition for natural resources has entered into new phase of international politics. Although ‘scramble for natural resources’ has always been a defining theme of international economic structures, the rise of Asian economies and multinational companies has metamorphosed natural resources politics in the current discourse on world affairs. The African continent which has huge reserves of natural resources such as oil, gas and minerals, has acquired a renewed significance in world politics. Analysts fear that quest for natural resources can lead to potential new conflicts among nations. Today, new discoveries of coal, oil and gas across Africa generate great academic interest to predict how these resources will transform the course of global energy markets and development in those countries. In this context, Sandipani Dash, in his book Sudan’s Oil Diplomacy, 1991-2003, has attempted to analyze oil diplomacy of an erstwhile undivided Sudan in the larger context of natural resource politics in Africa. The book aims to examine the importance of Sudan’s oil reserve in the world oil regime, its oil production linkage with the Western and Asian countries, and its diversified approach to transnational oil production with Asian orientation.
Nicolae Biea
Economists generally believe that societies face a trade-off between efficiency and equality. Arthur Okun famously expressed this view when he compared redistribution from the rich to the poor to carrying money in a “leaky bucket” 1 . The leak, according to Okun and likeminded economists, is caused by the distortionary effects of taxation and the high administrative costs of redistribution. Samuel Bowles’ latest book, The New Economics of Inequality and Redistribution, is chiefly an attack on this widespread view. Bowles argues that it is wrong to view efficiency and equality as competing goals and, moreover, that some redistributive policies will actually improve economic efficiency rather than damage it.
Patrick Hein
In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army invaded the enclave of Srebrenica, a UN safe
area guarded by Dutch blue helmets, and murdered about 8,000 Muslim Bosniak
civilians under the eyes of the international community. Reports say that even as of
today as many as 2,306 victims from the massacre are still missing. The massacre of
Srebrenica - the secret codeword of the operation was "Krivaja95" - became known
as the largest genocidal massacre of a civilian population in Europe since World
War II. It represents the deliberate killing of innocent people in the wake of a
ferocious civil war in the former socialist republic of ex-Yugoslavia in the first place,
Scott Nicolas Romaniuk
From the great rift that has emerged between the United States (US) and much of the international community in a post-9/11 social and political landscape, a disquieting thread of schisms concerning America’s political ideologies, democratic deliberation, communication and societal discourse, have seen the academy and public intellectuals seed the conditions for the adoption of the general view that the US is in decline. Establishing an edifying prism through which to engage with these and other problematic issues such as the reformulation of America’s global role in the 21st century, Tobias Endler addresses the deep core of the matter by connecting with leading political thinkers and America’s luminary intellectuals to consider America in the midst of an intellectual renaissance, and whether this might appropriately be taken as postmortem or rebirth.