Collection: African Journal of Political Science - Michigan Digital Library Portal

Description:: The paper examines how market reforms are reconstituting the notion of social welfare services in Africa within the context of the rural-urban divide. Market reforms in the social welfare sector seek to reverse this divide and negotiate a new consensus in the rural-urban equation. Priority and funding re-adjustment by the state, decentralisation, deregulation, and commercialisation are new elements in the provision of social welfare services in Africa. The objectives, among others, are to facilitate equity and access to those services, especially by the rural population. But the extent to which those objectives have been realised remain questionable.
Date Issued:: 2000-06-01T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:: Michigan State University. Libraries
Collection:: African Journal of Political Science

Description:: In the recent political transitions in Africa competitive elections have become the most critical events in the allocation of power. However, little attention has been given to the design of electoral systems, that is, the rules used to determine the allocation of parliamentary seats and of the presidential office. With few exceptions, plurality and majority systems are assumed to be the simplest, natural, and most democratic systems of converting votes into seats. This paper explores alternative electoral systems for apportioning seats in parliament and for securing the presidency. Specifically, it simulates outcomes in the 1992 Kenyan general elections using a proportional representation system in the parliamentary elections and a preferential ballot system in the presidential contest. The overriding normative goal is "fair representation," especially given ethnically-driven electoral behavior. The simulations reported here offer possible outcomes that could have emerged had different electoral rules been used in the 1992 elections. Given both the data used and the conditions prevailing in the 1992 elections, the specific outcome of each simulation is valid only as a demonstration and a discussion tool.
Date Issued:: 1997-06-01T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:: Michigan State University. Libraries
Collection:: African Journal of Political Science

Description:: The paper examines two models in conflict management and prevention: multinational regional forces represented by the ECOMOG, and private security firms represented by the Executive Outcomes. It argues, on the one hand, that the ECOMOG experience proves that greater political acceptance, knowledge of the conflict, etc., are not automatic advantages for a regional multinational force. On the other hand, the Executive Outcomes' professionalism and quick successes contrast sharply with ECOMOG's prolongation of the Liberian conflict: EO could provide stability in Angola and Sierra Leone by swiftly repulsing two threatening insurgencies. The paper concludes that the proliferation of private security firms is a reflection of the endemic instability on the African continent; an indication that they provide a service which most African national armies and multinational forces are unable to provide: and that this trend might continue until Africa gains the resources and the political will to cope with its internal conflicts.
Date Issued:: 1998-06-01T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:: Michigan State University. Libraries
Collection:: African Journal of Political Science

Description:: Three times has post colonial Nigeria tried to operate a democratic constitution; three times have these attempts generated centrifugal conflict. Defective constitutions, inherently corrupt politicians and class struggle as explanations have limited causal logic. The recurrence of conflict only under particular conditions has tended to indicate the validity of the structural explanation, and the phased succession a cyclical interpretation. How valid is the discernment of cycles in Nigeria's political history? If the claim that "historical events are unique" is not demonstrated to follow from the nature of events, that "history repeats itself" becomes an equally possible hypothesis. All history, therefore, is reasoned history. Yet, the phases of the Nigerian conflict cycle: Northern hegemony - Southern challenge (Crisis) - military rule, indicate a struggle to appropriate the state and reveal the existence of conflict units, the needs of which are usually sought and met in the same manner. Could these conflict cycles be said, therefore, to have immanent causes?
Date Issued:: 1998-12-01T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:: Michigan State University. Libraries
Collection:: African Journal of Political Science