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9481. Religion, Social Capital and Development in the Sahel: The Niyass Tijaniyya in Niger

Author:
Shailly Barnes
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Religion is not often pursued as a source of engagement in the international discourse on development. While faith-based organizations have received a greater audience and exerted greater influence in the past few years under the Bush administration, it is still uncommon for international development agencies to incorporate religious loyalties, insights and communities into their regional or national agendas. This pattern of development practice grew, perhaps, from an attempt to pursue a secular agenda that offended none and therefore was acceptable to all. However, in neglecting the religiosity of the poorest of the poor, the development agenda fails to acknowledge and learn from some of the most innovative, influential and sustainable development actors: the religious leadership of the world's poor.
Topic:
Religion

9482. The Africa Union: Pitfalls and Prospects for Uniting Africa

Author:
Wafula Okumu
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
As the African Union (AU) moves toward its tenth anniversary in 2012, it is drawing a great deal of attention to its handling of mounting crises on the continent. Across the continent, the AU is faced w ith crises that test its commitment and capability to fulfill the ambitious agenda it adopted at its formation in July 2002. This agenda includes the promotion of peace, stability, human rights, democracy, good governance and sustainable development. Among the motivating factors for the formation of the Union was to provide Africa with a platform and voice to survive and benefit from the wave of globalization. The AU, as stated in its Constitutive Act, was Africa's response to “the multifaceted challenges that confront our continent and peoples in the light of the social, economic and political changes taking place in the world.” It was concocted as a vehicle for accelerating “political and socio-economic integration of the continent” and for establishing “the necessary conditions which enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy and in international negotiations.”
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Africa

9483. The Glass Fortress: Zimbabwe's Cyber-Guerilla Warfare

Author:
Clapperton Mavhunga
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
The Maxim gun and the Martini-Henry rifle ushered anglophone Africa into 20th century colonialism. The Cold War, in turn, presented a moment for black political elites to acquire weapons (the AK-47 in particular) with which to define and present themselves as African nationalists fighting—with all the material ramifications of this word—to end colonial rule. Could information technology— specifically radio, the Internet and cell phones—be the Martini-Henry, Maxim and AK-47 of the 21st century?
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
Africa

9484. The International Criminal Court's Case Against the President of Sudan: A Critical Look

Author:
Mahmood Mamdani
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
On 14 July 2008, after much advanced publicity and fanfare, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, applied for a warrant of arrest against the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad alBashir, on charges that included conspiracy to commit genocide along w ith other war crimes.
Political Geography:
Sudan

9485. U.S. Foreign Assistance to Africa: Securing America's Investment for Lasting Development

Author:
Katherine J. Almquist
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Since 2001, the United States has dramatically increased its commitment to development in Africa and has transformed the way it is implemented. In the last eight years, U.S. foreign assistance to sub-Saharan Africa managed by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has increased by $5.5 billion, or 340 percent. An additional $3.8 billion has been provided through Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) compacts, ten of which have been signed with sub-Saharan African countries since 2004. The United States is currently on track to meet its 2005 G-8 commitment to double aid to Africa again by 2010. This commitment of financial resources by the United States represents former President George W. Bush's vision of using America's power to help Africans improve their own lives, build their own nations and transform their own future.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and America

9486. An Interview with Patrick Awuah

Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Patrick Awuah is the founder and president of Ashesi University, a private liberal arts college located in Accra, Ghana. He was born in Ghana but left in the mid-1980s to pursue an education in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and a master of business administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. He later earned an honorary doctorate from Swarthmore College. After eight years working as a program manager and engineer for the Microsoft Corporation in Seattle, Awuah returned to his home country to found Ashesi University, currently the sole accredited coeducational liberal arts college in West Africa. Awuah solicited massive financial support from the private sector, particularly American corporate donors, like Microsoft. Beginning with a pilot class of thirty students in 2002, Ashesi University now has 352 students, 87 percent of whom are Ghanaian, and 50 percent of whom receive financial aid. Awuah has earned international acclaim for his commitment to creating a model for quality private education in Africa. He spoke to Emily Gouillart of the Journal of International Affairs about the experience of founding and building Ashesi University, the future of education in Africa and the importance of ethics in curriculum building.
Political Geography:
Africa and United States

9487. CHINA'S ROLE IN AFRICA: A GROWING PHENOMENON

Author:
Elizabeth Sperbee
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Since the mid-1990s, China has rapidly expanded its engagement with African states. Study of Sino-African relations has subsequently begun to burgeon. In China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Influence, Robert Rotberg's multinational slate of authors introduce key issues in this literature from a variety of perspectives. The result is a volume worth reading cover to cover. A sometimes redundant, sometimes contradictory assemblage, China into Africa nevertheless provides a fascinating introduction not only to a variety of issues at stake in Sino-African relations, but also, necessarily, to the issues at stake in the study of those relations.
Political Geography:
Africa and China

9488. Security & Justice Development – What Next?

Author:
Andrew Rathmell
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Security Sector Management
Institution:
Centre for Security Sector Management
Abstract:
The development of local security and justice sectors in developing, fragile and conflict-affected states has for a long time been an important strand in the UK’s approach to delivering its national security and development objectives. The 2009 White Paper on international development committed DFID to placing considerably greater emphasis on promoting security and access to justice in developing states. The Ministry of Defence’s Green Paper is likely to place greater emphasis on soft power, including security cooperation activities. In some countries, the UK has poured bilateral resources into this domain, from the training of Afghan military and police to the reform of the Sierra Leone security sector and the strengthening of various African militaries and police forces.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
United Kingdom

9489. Civil-Military Relations: Is there really a problem?

Author:
David Chuter
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Security Sector Management
Institution:
Centre for Security Sector Management
Abstract:
The author has argued in a previous article that Security Sector Reform (SSR) is essentially a melange of Anglo-Saxon Civil-Military Relations (CMR) theory and the traditional dim view of the military usually held by those in the development sector. This article, treats the first component in more detail, since the main theoretical assumptions of SSR about the security sector, the place of the military, and so forth, are essentially dependent on the validity of certain propositions advanced by CMR theorists in the past. Thus, if these propositions are shown to be false, or even incomplete, then there must be important reservations about the validity of much SSR thinking, not to mention practice. It is, indeed, the element of practice which is especially important here, because, unlike CMR which was essentially descriptive, SSR is overtly prescriptive. A theory which describes reality incorrectly or incompletely is unfortunate, but that a doctrine which prescribes action on the basis of a fallacious theory is positively dangerous.

9490. Application of Principal-Agent Theory to Security Sector Reform

Author:
James Cohen
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Security Sector Management
Institution:
Centre for Security Sector Management
Abstract:
The goal of this paper is to propose principal-agent theory (PAT), a methodology adapted from economics to analyse the relations of a buyer and a seller, as a possible tool for an SSR practitioners' assessment toolbox. The added value of PAT is its capacity to analyse the relationships between actors of the security sector based on observable, measurable and tangible mechanisms that the actors utilise in controlling, resisting, and allying with other actors. This capacity to analyse these relations has been sought out in both academic critiques of SSR and from practitioners themselves. This paper is an initial proposal on the added value of PAT, in addition to demonstrating how it could be used, gaps are also identified on how to potentially take this tool forward to aid the SSR community.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States