The coup in Mali: the result of a long-term crisis or spill over from the Libyan civil war?

The coup in Mali: the result of a long-term crisis or spill over from the Libyan civil war?

Roland Marchal The current crisis in Mali was not unexpected, although most national and international players were eager to maintain an unrealistic view of political developments in this Sahelian country. This crisis reflects the decay of state institutions and practices: the Malian army collapsed and patronage does not mean democracy. The crisis is built on four dynamics that have their own effects: the debatable implementation of previous peace settlements with the Tuareg insurgency; the growing economic importance of AQIM activities in the Sahelian region; the collapse of the Qaddafi regime in Libya; and the inability or unwillingness of Algeria to play the role of regional hegemon now that its rival (Libya) has stopped doing so. While the Tuareg rebellion has been able to gain from the collapse of the Malian army in the north, it should be noted that the many armed groups have different agendas, and position themselves differently towards the local population and the Malian state. What is unclear is whether they will be able to co-exist on the same territory while trafficking and a protection economy are the only sustainable resources. The jihadi aspect of some components of the insurgency has to be understood in context and …Read the Rest

Sudan Conflict: A View from the Brink

Sudan Conflict: A View from the Brink

Posted: April 30, 2012 in Social Commentary The last few weeks has seen a dramatic upsurge in tension between Sudan and South Sudan. The most recent iteration ‘began’ with the occupation, by forces loyal to the South Sudanese government, of the town of Heglig, officially controlled by Sudan and central to the control of north-flowing oil supplies. This was quickly followed by a)war-like rhetoric by Sudan’s President Omar-al-Bashir, b)condemnation of the occupation by the United Nations and [portions of] the International Community, and c) a military offensive by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF). South Sudanese forces left Heglig- whether by choice (as claimed by South Sudan) or forced out by the SAF (as claimed by Sudan) being unclear due to the limited access by foreign observers. The withdrawl from Heglig appears to have calmed the situation somewhat- commentary at the time suggested that an escalation to ‘full-blown war’ (whatever that is) was imminent. Sudan’s Air Force has carried out a number of bombing raids against southern targets (aerial bombardments are denied by Khartoum as a matter of course but well documented by witness accounts and the Satellite Sentinel Project). Bashir has turned his rhetoric narrative from that of the offended avenger to that of the vanquishing hero. Meanwhile, …Read the Rest

Why Some Countries Go Bust

Why Some Countries Go Bust

By ADAM DAVIDSON Published: March 13, 2012   By his own admission, Daron Acemoglu is a slightly pudgy and fairly nerdy guy with an unpronounceable last name. But when I mentioned that I was interviewing him to two econ buffs, they each gasped and said, “I love Daron Acemoglu,” as if I were talking about Keith Richards. The Turkish M.I.T. professor — who, right now, is about as hot as economists get — acquired his renown for serious advances in answering the single most important question in his profession, the same one that compelled Adam Smith to write “The Wealth of Nations”: why are some countries rich while others are poor? Over the centuries, proposed answers have varied greatly. Smith declared that the difference between wealth and poverty resulted from the relative freedom of the markets; Thomas Malthus said poverty comes from overpopulation; and John Maynard Keynes claimed it was a byproduct of a lack of technocrats. (Of course, everyone knows that politicians love listening to wonky bureaucrats!) Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s most famous economists, asserts that poor soil, lack of navigable rivers and tropical diseases are, in part, to blame. Others point to culture, geography, climate, colonization …Read the Rest

A new smart sanction which deserves to be tried

A new smart sanction which deserves to be tried

http://youtu.be/LQG43Vl6gHk

Published March 12, 2012 I first became aware of the problem of ‘odious debt’ when I was seconded from the UK Treasury to work for the government of Nelson Mandela. The apartheid regime in South Africa had borrowed from private banks through the 1980s, most of which went to finance the military and security services and to sustain the repression of the majority of its citizens.  As a result, the new democratic government in South Africa inherited about $40 billion of international debt (in today’s prices).  The question for my colleagues in the South African Treasury was whether to pay this debt, or to renounce it as odious.  In the end they decided to pay, to protect their credit rating and ensure that they would be able to access global financial markets in future.  Ministers even opposed a lawsuit seeking reparations from banks that had helped finance the apartheid regime, because “we are talking to those very same companies named in the lawsuits about investing in post-apartheid South Africa.”  All this is bad for two reasons. First, it means that illegitimate governments can be sustained in power by rogue creditors, undermining the effectiveness of sanctions. Second, it means that when a new, legitimate government …Read the Rest

Khartoum Opposition to President Bashir

Khartoum Opposition to President Bashir

JOHN CAMPBELL Africa in Transition Campbell tracks political and security developments across sub-Saharan Africa. March 15, 2012 Even as Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir escalates his rhetoric against the United States and mobilizes paramilitary forces against insurgencies within Sudan, opposition parties in Khartoum are calling for him to step down. While the opposition seems too weak and fragmented to pose a serious threat to al-Bashir for now, its statements are a reminder that al-Bashir must watch his back. On March 3, al-Bashir urged the Sudanese to mobilize for war and to deploy the paramilitary Popular Defence Forces against multiple insurgencies. In a ceremony, the PDF pledged its undying loyalty to al-Bashir and ascribed the insurgencies to American imperialism, international Zionism, and resurgent colonialism. In response, on March 5, the opposition Umma Party, the Communist Party, and the Popular Congress Party (PCP) said that al-Bashir’s mobilization call was issued not in the interest of the Sudanese people but rather for the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The three parties called for the Sudanese people not to respond to al-Bashir and for the president to step down from office. The political secretary for the PCP called for a transitional government. He called on the Sudanese people …Read the Rest

Horizontal Versus Vertical Social Cohesion: Why the Differences Matter

Horizontal Versus Vertical Social Cohesion: Why the Differences Matter

 Seth Kaplan March 12, 2012 Social cohesion is an underappreciated but crucial element in development, state building, and poverty reduction. It is an especially important factor in determining whether a state is fragile or not. As I argued in Fixing Fragile States: Two factors above all others decide how a country’s political, economic, and societal life evolves: a population’s capacity to cooperate (which depends, for the most part, on the level of social cohesion) and its ability to take advantage of a set of shared, productive institutions (especially informal institutions at the crucial early stages of development when formal institutions are usually feeble and ineffectual). . . . These two ingredients shape how a government interacts with its citizens; how officials, politicians, and businesspeople behave; and how effective foreign efforts to upgrade governance will be. Together with the set of policies adopted by the government, they make up the three major determinants of a country’s capacity to advance. Fragile states are deficient in both these areas. And the combination of political identity fragmentation and weak national institutions works in a vicious cycle that severely undermines the legitimacy of the state, leading to political orders that are highly unstable and hard to reform. …Read the Rest

What agricultural policies worked in today’s successful economies? Important new book from Ha-Joon Chang

What agricultural policies worked in today’s successful economies? Important new book from Ha-Joon Chang

    by Duncan Green, Head of Research for Oxfam GB         OK, time for a series of posts on agricultural policy. Regular readers will know that I am a huge fan (as well as friend) of Ha-Joon Chang. Routledge recently published a book edited by Ha-Joon that I think is very important indeed. Unfortunately, it’s only come out in very expensive hardback (a snip at £85), and the FAO, which funded it, is not known for its publicity machine, so here’s some background and excerpts. ‘Public Policy and Agricultural Development’ aims to do on agricultural policy what Ha-Joon’s 2002 book ‘Kicking Away the Ladder’ did on industrial policy, namely reclaim the lessons of history to refute the ideas of the Washington Consensus and instead suggest a much more activist role for the state (although its conclusions on ag are less statist than Ha-Joon’s work on industrial policy in books likeKicking Away the Ladder). The book builds on detailed case studies of 11 developed countries in their earlier stages of development and the experiences of 10 developing and transition economies in the last half century. It presents six detailed case studies of agricultural policy in the last half century …Read the Rest

Page 1 of 5912345Volgende »...Last »