Parliament without a government?
How does a Parliamentary system function without a government?
Parliament Grabs Control of Brexit From a Wounded Theresa May
Britain’s Parliament grabbed control Monday of the government’s efforts to leave the European Union, challenging the country’s political traditions and inflicting on Prime Minister Theresa May a rebuke not suffered by any recent predecessor.
By stepping into the process known as Brexit and trying to define an alternative path, lawmakers could create a constitutional showdown in Britain, where the government normally controls the agenda in Parliament, especially on its most pressing issues.
Parliament passed an amendment giving itself the power to vote on alternatives to the government’s Brexit plan…
Mrs. May’s grip on power is ebbing, with members of her cabinet openly discussing contradictory Brexit policies, rumors swirling of a plot to replace her and several of her Conservative Party lawmakers calling on her to name a date for her departure from power…
Parliament’s attempt to take control was led by Oliver Letwin, a veteran Conservative lawmaker, and is driven largely by fear of leaving without an agreement, a rupture that could leave ports jammed and cause huge economic dislocation…
Under the amendment… which passed by a vote of 329 to 302, Parliament will hold a series of votes on Wednesday on alternatives to Mrs. May’s plan.
These could include a so-called “soft Brexit” that would keep Britain tied into European economic structures; a second referendum, revoking Brexit completely; or leaving without any deal…
Demonstrably, discipline has almost completely broken down inside the government and there is a feeling among many at Westminster that something has to give soon…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Labels: government, parliament, rule of law, UK
Someone studied comparative government and politics.
Journalists are renowned for using the terms government and regime as synonyms. At least one of the editors at
The Economist studied comparative government and politics long enough to learn the difference.
[Thanks to
Paul Fitzpatrick in Texas for pointing this one out.]
Mexico’s new president sets out to change his country’s course
But did voters want a new regime or just a new government?
[W]hen Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared that he would be the first Mexican president since 1910 to use the [National Palace] as his workplace, he was making a statement that was both political and historical. Mr López Obrador (known as AMLO to Mexicans), who won a landslide victory in a presidential election on July 1st, promises a “fourth transformation”, after those of political independence, Juárez’s assertion of national sovereignty and the revolution in 1910-17. “This is a change of regime, not just of government,” says Lorenzo Meyer, a historian sympathetic to AMLO.
Although he does not take office until December 1st, some of the contours of this change are already clear… Mr López Obrador is steeped in a particular version of Mexican history (about which he has written several books), from which he derives his inspirations and world-view.
His first hero is Juárez, a liberal but one in whom the new president sees a leader who “proposed a new Mexico based on honesty and republican values”… Second is Lázaro Cárdenas, who in the 1930s nationalised the oil industry and carried out a state-controlled agrarian reform. He stands… “for bringing social justice to a society that still has colonial characteristics”, of racism for example…
What all this means is that AMLO will be economically moderate, socially bold and politically centralising— but not necessarily democratic…
He thinks he can fund a big increase in public investment, mainly for transport projects in the poorer south, by eliminating waste. The first law approved by the new congress (in which AMLO has a majority) involves a swingeing cut in the salaries of senior officials. Federal “delegates” will police spending by state governors…
Like Juárez, AMLO is personally austere. His recipe for fighting corruption and crime seems to be to restore the authority of the federal government. That may well be popular. Historically, Mexico has floundered when power is dispersed. But the president’s “delegates” look to some like a device to turn his Morena movement into a party of the state. AMLO mistrusts “civil society”, the pressure groups that call for stronger checks and balances. Even some of his supporters worry that his aim may be to strengthen the state rather than democracy…
[AMLO's] vision of history may not accord with a country which many Mexicans do not think is still “colonial”, but who voted for him out of despair at crime and corruption. It is still unclear whether Mexico wants a change of regime, or just of government.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
Labels: concepts, government, leadership, Mexico, regime
Potemkin village
When I saw Paul Krugman's opinion piece in the New York Times, I was reminded that the metaphor he used was helpful in explaining government and politics in Russia. Here's the introduction to his editorial. Now imagine how this image (a Potemkin village) could help make sense out of elections in contemporary Russia, a constitution that can be modified by the supermajority in the Duma, or Putin as virtually president for life.
Do a web search for Potemkin Village to see how common the idea is.
Trump’s Potemkin Economy
According to legend, Grigory Potemkin, one of Catherine the Great’s ministers (and her lover), created a false impression of prosperity when the empress toured Ukraine. He supposedly did this by setting up fake villages, or possibly just facades, along her route, then dismantling them after she passed, and setting them up again further down the road.
 |
| A movie set as a Potemkin Village |
There probably isn’t much if any truth to the story — among other things, Catherine was too smart and tough-minded to be that easily deceived — but never mind: the legend has become a byword for the general idea of prettifying reality to please a tyrannical ruler…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Labels: government, history, politics, Potemkin village, Russia
Sorting out government, state, rule of law, and politics
Be very glad you're not trying to analyze Saudi Arabia.
In Saudi Arabia, Where Family and State Are One, Arrests May Be Selective
King Salman’s close relatives not only rule Saudi Arabia. They are also in business with it.
A major Saudi investment firm founded by one of the king’s sons, and now chaired by another, owns a significant stake in a conglomerate that does extensive government business… A smaller firm founded by another of his sons says it invests in health care, telecommunications, education and other regulated or state-funded fields.
None of that apparent conflict of interest seems to be against the law.
But now their brother, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is leading a sweeping crackdown against what he has labeled “corruption”… But his immediate family’s complicated and mostly undisclosed business interests are raising questions about what that accusation means in a kingdom where the law has so far included little or no regulation of what other countries have labeled and outlawed as self-dealing.
Saudi laws, issued by royal decree or derived from Islamic law, have so far included little or no regulation of the sprawling royal family and its closest clients. The family has never disclosed the sources of its income, how much its members might take from the country’s oil revenues, how much they earn from state contracts or how they afford their lavish lifestyles…
The kingdom, an absolute monarchy, has also never attempted to create an independent court system to adjudicate claims…
And it was unclear which branch of the court system might hear the cases — the main Shariah court system or the more specialized board of grievance courts that handle administrative complaints.
“The law is not meant to govern the ruling family in any meaningful way, or to govern the relations between the ruling family and the state,” said Nathan J. Brown, a scholar at George Washington University who studies Arab legal systems.
“Ultimately, the king and some high members of the royal family can do what they want and make it legal later,” he said, and the lack of regulation over royal self-dealing “opens the door wide to what would be considered corruption in other systems.”…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Labels: concepts, corruption, government, judiciary, legislation, rule of law, state
Let the Party go on
The Communist Party, that is.
Delegates to CPC national congress arrive in Beijing
Delegates of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) arrive at Capital International Airport in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 15, 2017. The congress will start on Oct. 18.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Labels: China, Communist Party, government
Natural disasters and government
Kevin James who teaches at Albany High School has posted a wonderful little essay on cultural limitations of media and the effects of natural disasters on government.
Go read it.
Labels: concepts, ethnocentrism, government, policy
Briefing on the details of Parliamentary politics
The BBC offers a detailed and valuable outline of how things will work for the current government.
Theresa May and the DUP deal: What you need to know
Theresa May has done a deal with the DUP which means she stays as UK prime minister. Here's a guide to what's going on.
- What has happened?
- What was the result of the election?
- So how come Theresa May is still prime minister?
- So are the Conservatives and the DUP in coalition?
- What is in it for the DUP?
- Why is doing a deal with DUP controversial?
- What about the Good Friday agreement?
- What about Brexit?
- So will Theresa May survive as prime minister?
- What are the key dates for Mrs May?
- Why are Labour in such good spirits?
- Is there likely to be another general election?
- Further reading
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
Labels: Brexit, government, parties, politics, regime, UK
International? Transnational? Independent?
Just about the time it seems like nearly all the actors on the international stage are nation states, something else pops up.
We the networks
IF A satirist were to create a parody of an international conference, amping up the insularity and tedious intricacies for comic effect, he might come up with something rather like the meeting… in Marrakech. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as ICANN, will bring together 1,300 participants for 346 sessions…
Barring any last-minute hiccups, though, something remarkable will happen at the meeting. After two years of negotiations, ICANN is set to agree on a reform that would turn it into a new kind of international organisation. If this goes ahead, a crucial global resource, the internet’s address system, will soon be managed by a body that is largely independent of national governments…
The beauty of the internet is its openness. As long as people stick to its technical standards, anybody can add a new branch or service. For everything to connect, though, the network needs a central address book, which includes domain names… and internet-protocol addresses…
That is why, as the internet grew up, America decided not to hand control to the United Nations or another international body steered by governments. Instead, in 1998 it helped create ICANN, a global organisation that gives a say to everybody with an interest in the smooth running of the network…
Most were happy with the arrangement at first. But American oversight came to seem odd as the internet grew into a vast global resource with much traffic no longer passing over American cables. Then came revelations that the National Security Agency had spied on internet users in America and elsewhere…
The new ICANN will resemble a state, says Thomas Rickert of eco, Germany’s internet association and co-chairman of one of the main negotiation committees.
It will have a government (the organisation’s board), a constitution (its by-laws, which include its mission and “core values”), a judiciary (an “independent review process”, which leads to binding recommendations) and a citizenry of sorts (half-a-dozen “supporting organisations” and “advisory committees”, which represent the different interest groups). These will have the right to kick out the board and block its budget.
Dissenting governments and recalcitrant [American] Republicans notwithstanding, an independent ICANN is not only likely to come to pass but also to become a model for other sorts of internet governance…. Without generally accepted global rules, governments are bound to create their own, even if these cannot be implemented. “Multi-stakeholder” outfits like ICANN, where all opinions are aired, might well be the best hope to come up with rules that work…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
, a list of vital concepts, thumbnail descriptions of the AP6,
and
a description of the AP exam format
. $2.00.
Order HERE.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: government, International Organizations, nation, regime, state
Comparative Smog
Examine the photos below. Do some online research about the extent of smog problems in the cities pictured.
- How do the causes and severity of the smog problems in each city compare?
- How do the states compare in their capacities to deal with the problem?
- How do the governments compare in their abilities to use their capacities to alleviate smog problems?
- Are there international issues involved in either the creation of the problem or the solution?
 |
| London, November 2015 |
 |
| Moscow, November 2014 |
 |
| Beijing, November 2015 |
 |
| Lagos, October 2015 |
 |
| Mexico City, Novermber 2015 |
 |
| Tehran, November 2015 |
Here are some links to get your research started:
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two digital pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories, a list of vital concepts, thumbnail descriptions of the AP6,
and
a description of the AP exam format. E-mailed to you. $2.00.
Order HERE.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: capacity, comparative methodology, concepts, government, state
New Nigerian cabinet
President Buhari has finally assigned portfolios to his new cabinet. Here are some names to remember.
Nigeria gets new cabinet after six-month delay
Choosing a cabinet in Nigeria is a complicated balancing act. One must juggle the need for skilled leaders with the requirement to repay political allies, while navigating the shifting alliances of internal party politics and eliminating accumulated deadwood. Then there’s the need to carefully maintain an ethnic and religious balance, and to make sure each of the country’s 36 states is somehow represented.
 |
| Buhari and (most of) the cabinet |
No wonder it took newly elected president Muhammadu Buhari nearly six months to make his decision.
“Impatience is not a virtue,” said the president to his critics, who thought that the long delay in naming a new government was bad for business. Buhari was unmoved: “Careful and deliberate decisions after consultations get far better results,” he said.
Finally, on Wednesday, Buhari unveiled the results of his lengthy deliberations, swearing in 36 ministers at a ceremony in the capital Abuja…
The most notable decision involves Buhari himself. The president has taken charge of the ministry of petroleum, which for years has been associated with gross mismanagement and corruption on a grand scale…
The influential finance portfolio has been handed to Kemi Adeosun, a former investment bank chief who has a daunting task ahead of her. Collapsing oil prices have slashed the government’s revenue, and stunted economic growth, with analysts predicting more turbulent times ahead…
[S]he will have to work closely with the new minister of trade and investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, head of the private equity company African Capital Alliance…
Buhari, a military man himself, chose a retired brigadier-general as defence minister. The appointment of Dan Ali might rile a few feathers in the military, however.
Another minister to watch is Babatunde Fashola, who heads the new power, works and housing ministry. His job is to maintain and overhaul the country’s creaking infrastructure, an impossible task for most people.
But Fashola has a track record: as governor of Lagos, Africa’s largest city, until May this year, Fashola is credited with huge improvements in public transport, roads, affordable housing and security. Can he do the same on a national level?
Although it remains to be tested, Buhari’s first cabinet is a positive statement from the new leader, and a sign that he is, at the very least, paying lip service to the promises he made in his victorious electoral campaign…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: government, leadership, Nigeria
Women in government
Since Canada's new Prime Minister brought it up, this might be a good time to ask questions about women in government.
Treating the fair sex fairly
“A TOKEN sprinkling of women,” is how Luciana Berger, a member of parliament for the opposition Labour Party, dismissed the recent British cabinet reshuffle, the avowed aim of which was to make the government less male. Similar cries of tokenism followed last year’s appointment of Julie Bishop as Australia’s foreign minister, which made her the sole woman in the country’s cabinet. Almost everywhere women are in a minority in government cabinets… Some fret that they are treated as mere window-dressing, making the government look more representative but given neither meaningful portfolios nor the support needed to be effective.
New research suggests such criticisms may miss the mark. In a forthcoming paper, Maria Escobar-Lemmon and Michelle Taylor-Robinson of Texas A&M University compare the experience and accomplishments of the men and women among 447 cabinet ministers in recent administrations in five countries in the Americas... Experience was measured by relevant academic background, previous cabinet posts and political connections; and success by the number of bills presented, length of tenure and whether a minister’s time in office ended with firing or forced resignation.
If women were given unimportant portfolios or overlooked by the president, the authors reasoned, they would probably produce less legislation and be easier to get rid of than men…
But this was not what the authors found. Although female ministers initiated fewer bills than comparable male ones, overall they were as likely to succeed…
None of this is to say that female politicians are dealt a decent hand… And as the authors point out, their analysis says nothing about whether the women they studied were treated differently in cabinet meetings or by the media…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: cleavages, gender, government, leadership
Nigerian cabinet
I have never paid attention to the naming of a Nigerian cabinet before, so I have no comparisons. It's not surprising that the cabinet ministers come from so many different places (Do you know why? How can you tell?), but why the long delay? The election was 6 months ago. And then there's the matter of what ministry each of these people will run. Aside from the oil ministry that the president will run, what jobs do these ministers have?
Buhari's Ministerial List - Are You Surprised?
[T]he government and its minders say the wait is necessary so as to form a crack team to implement the 'change' promised Nigerians. President Buhari, in his Independence broadcast, said: "Impatience is not a virtue. Order is more vital than speed. "
In his reaction, Publicity Secretary of the Yoruba Socio-political group, Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin said that the President would have submitted the names of ministerial nominees at Eagle Square (on May 29, [inauguration day]) rather than to the Senate.
According to him: "There is no excitement or surprise in the list. They are mostly run of the mill people that do not warrant waiting four months to have. Those names could have been submitted at Eagles square on May 29."
What is your take: Are you surprised at the list of ministerial nominees.
- Babatunde Fashola (Lagos)
- Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti)
- Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers)
- Dr. Chris Ngige (Anambra)
- Abdurrahman Dambazau (rtd) (Kano)
- Ibe Kachikwu (Delta)
- Ogbonaya Onu (Abia)
- Kemi Adeosun (Ogun)
- Abubakar Malami SAN (Kebbi)
- Senator Sirika Hadi (Katsina)
- Barrister Adebayo Shittu (Oyo)
- Sulaiman Adamu (Jigawa)
- Solomon Dalong (Plateau)
- Aisha AlHassan (Taraba)
- Osagie Ehanire (Edo
- Udoma Udo-Udoma (Akwa Ibom)
- Ahmed Isa Ibeto (Niger)
- Ibrahim Jibril
- Audu Ogbeh (Benue)
- Amina Mohammed (Kaduna)
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is available NOW!. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: government, leadership, Nigeria, politics
UK government deficit
After you look at the headline and before you read the article, how will this development affect government in the UK? How will it affect politics? and What facts do you want to know before you try to answer the first two questions?
UK deficit rises steeply after surprise fall in tax receipts
A fall in income tax receipts sent Britain’s deficit spiralling to £12.1bn in August, the widest shortfall in government funding since 2012…
Dampening the euphoria last month about the first surplus for three years, the deficit represented a big jump on last year’s figure…
The combination of higher spending and lower tax receipts meant the cumulative deficit of £38.4bn this financial year is only marginally down on the £42.8bn at the same point last year.
Vicky Redwood, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said the government was still on track to reduce its anual borrowing, but at a much slower pacer than previously forecast…
The Treasury said: “Britain’s hard work is paying off with cumulative borrowing £4.4bn lower than at this point last year. We have more than halved the deficit but there’s more to do with debt remaining higher than 80% of GDP.”…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is available NOW!. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: economy, government, politics, UK
Translation from journalistic language to political scientific language needed
Use the link. Read the article. Explain why a political scientist would say the headline is all wrong.
European officials may be pushing regime change in Greece
There are various narratives for what is happening to Greece as another deadline looms – the April 24 gathering of eurozone finance ministers in Riga, Latvia — and European officials show no sign of compromise. The most common tale is that this is a game of brinkmanship, with the Germans and their allies pushing for “reforms” that the Syriza government in Greece doesn’t want to adopt…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Customers at Amazon gave this book a 5-star rating. But Amazon doesn't have any copies in stock.
Not to worry, you can get a copy by Friday if you order HERE today!
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Available
HERE!
Labels: concepts, government, regime
A primer on UK regime, government, and politics.
Excellen.
A guide to the British election for non-Brits
On 7 May, voters across the four nations of the United Kingdom – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – will go to the polls to elect a new government and new prime minister.
This is the most complex and unpredictable British election in living memory, and with less than a month to go, the pollsters and the politicians themselves remain as flummoxed as the rest of us as to what the next government might look like.
If you’re not from the UK, have never voted for a local MP, or are just a bit confused about how the whole thing works, hopefully this will help…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
The book has a 5-star rating at Amazon.
But Amazon doesn't have any to sell.
We do. Get it here! (Free priority mail shipping!)
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE. (Also with free priority mail shipping.)
Labels: elections, government, politics, regime, UK
What next for Nigeria?
When I began learning about Nigeria in the early '60s, there seemed to be great optimism for the new country. That optimism disappeared in civil war and military government. I sensed a lot of hope in the academic and journalistic arenas with the launch of the second republic. The hopes were dashed as Nigeria spiraled down to the Abacha years.
Even the newest republic and the government's survival of the death of a president hasn't brought back the old optimism. Maybe I just don't want to be disappointed again.
However, the current politics, economics, and civil strife in Nigeria makes me fear for the future. The editors at
The Economist share my trepidations.
A nation divided: Africa’s lodestar nation has weathered Ebola, but an extremist takeover has exposed the flaw at its heart
In recent months the extreme Islamist group has taken over swathes of north-east Nigeria…
The group routinely slaughters unbelievers as well as Muslims, establishing its writ through fear…
On October 17th senior government officials claimed to have agreed a ceasefire with the group, and to have extracted a promise that more than 200 schoolgirls abducted earlier this year in the town of Chibok would be released. But the girls have not been freed…
Boko Haram, which started out by assassinating provincial officials from the backs of motorbikes, has become an able fighting force. It conducts complex military maneuvers…
The Islamists have looted military garrisons across the region, and now have tanks, armoured personnel carriers, anti-tank weapons and artillery. Boko Haram claims to have downed a Nigerian fighter jet…
Recent recruitment has often been by force, though not much coercion is needed. “What else can the kids do with their lives?” asks a mother in Gombe. Youngsters have few options…
The insurgency has driven about a million people from their homes and may have killed 13,000 in the past five years…
Agriculture has collapsed in parts of the north-east… Public schools have been closed for half a year…
That is one side of a strangely bifurcated country. A very different Nigeria exists a day’s drive away. While the north is imploding, the south is booming…
Though oil is the country’s main export earner, natural resources make up only 14% of GDP. Factories are now running at about 53% of capacity, up from 46% last year…
Much is due to government reforms. Investment in the electricity sector is starting to turn on the lights…
And yet, while much of the economy in the south-west is coming to life, politics in the north-east is dying…
The government has racked up some successes. On October 20th Nigeria was declared free of Ebola… Yet state failure is evident when it comes to security. Kidnappings for ransom are rife: celebrities and clergymen are plucked off the street in daylight. Hundreds of people are killed every year in land disputes. Thieves siphon off as much as a fifth of the country’s oil output in the Niger delta. Piracy is common.
Such rampant criminality continues to infect politics. Gangsters aid politicians by intimidating opponents. In return elected officials share out funds plundered from state coffers…
The president belittled the problem in May when he said corruption was not the same thing as stealing… Nigeria’s federal parliament has for years refused to approve an oil-industry bill that would boost investment in oilfields and hence production. But members prefer to keep things as they are: many of them do well from local cartels’ handouts…
Inequality is also starkly regional (see map). If they were independent countries, some of Nigeria’s northern states would rank bottom globally in terms of development…
Extrajudicial killings account for thousands of deaths in the north. Revenge is a common reason for commando raids. Abuse in detention centres is routine…
In the field the army lacks the equipment and morale to give chase…
Hapless at chasing insurgents, the army is nonetheless skilled at extracting bribes…
The soldiers are only following the example of their generals, many of whom retire as millionaires…
Government officials insist that Nigeria does not face an existential crisis but rather struggles to communicate its successes abroad… [See "Making things look better" and "Rebranding Nigeria"]
Nobody can predict when Nigeria might tip over into chaos. But that day seems to be coming closer.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: cleavages, corruption, government, Nigeria
Wishful thinking and some statistics
President Xi announces the end of a mass line campaign. Goals, he said, were achieved and he offered some statistics as proof. The language of the speech sounds like propaganda that the leaders want to believe.
Xi says "mass-line" campaign just the start
Chinese President Xi Jinping said… that the "mass line" campaign had played an important role in the Communist Party of China's (CPC's) drive to tighten Party discipline.
The significance of the campaign would manifest itself in time…
"Mass line" refers to a guideline under which CPC officials and members are required to prioritize the interests of the people and exercise power on their behalf. Based on arrangements made at the 18th National Congress of the CPC in November 2012, the campaign began in June 2013 with an aim of cultivating closer ties with the people.
As promised, there was a thorough cleanup of undesirable work styles, with officials required to reflect on their own work and correct any bad practice.
 |
| President Xi |
Xi said the… campaign enhanced the Party's prestige and image among the populace; Party members and the people become more cohesive. The campaign had realized its desired goals and concluded with great achievements.
Through the campaign, official meetings were reduced by 586,000, almost 25 percent fewer than in the period before the campaign began. Over 160,000 phantom staff were removed from the government payroll and almost 115,000 vehicles taken out of illicit private use and returned to exclusive regular government affairs. Construction of 2,580 unnecessary official buildings was stopped.
Systems to solidify those results are in place to ensure the effects of the campaign last. In the past year, spending on officials' travel, use of government vehicles, and construction of official buildings have been strictly regulated.
"The close of the campaign is not the end of good work styles," Xi told the meeting… He called for the "mass line" to be a continuing aspect the Party's ties with the people.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: China, corruption, government
