scholarly journals Democracy and Challenges of Participation and Exclusion in Nigeria

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ogoh Alubo
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Gender Inclusion ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Way

Democracy is cherished because of the opportunities it offers people to contribute to issues affecting their lives. This reasoning accounts for the celebration when this form of government was restored in Nigeria in 1999 after protracted military dictatorships. In 2019 there were further jubilations over 20 unbroken years of democracy, the first since independence in 1960; issues of inclusion and exclusion were not mentioned. Yet, there are widespread exclusion of ethnic minorities and women through which their participation in running for office is circumscribed by circumstances of birth. Experiences in Plateau and Benue States are used as illustrations. It is here contended that until more deliberate efforts are made to include everyone, Nigeria’s brand of democracy will continue to exclude ethnic minorities and women. The dominant mantra of ‘majority carries the vote’ only aggravates the problem, a deliberate policy to resolve exclusion is necessary. Rwanda has led the way in gender inclusion, just as the USA had also shown that through policy reforms such as universal suffrage and affirmative action, African Americans and other minorities can become part of the mainstream, even producing a President and recently, 2021, the Vice President.

Affirmative action

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Boxill
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Important Implication ◽  
Racial Minorities ◽  
Reverse Discrimination ◽  
Preferential Treatment ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Forward Looking

The term ‘affirmative action’ originated in the USA under President Kennedy. Originally it was designed to ensure that employees and applicants for jobs with government contractors did not suffer discrimination. Within a year, however, ‘affirmative action’ was used to refer to policies aimed at compensating African-Americans for unjust racial discrimination, and at improving their opportunities to gain employment. An important implication of this shift was that affirmative action came to mean preferential treatment. Preferential treatment was later extended to include women as well as other disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups. The arguments in favour of preferential treatment can be usefully classified as backward-looking and forward-looking. Backward-looking arguments rely on the claim that preferential treatment of women and disadvantaged racial minorities compensates these groups or the members for the discrimination and injustices they have suffered. Forward-looking arguments rely on their claim that preferential treatment of women and disadvantaged racial minorities will help to bring about a better society. There has been much criticism of both types of argument. The most common accusation is that preferential treatment is reverse discrimination. Other criticisms are based around who exactly should be compensated, by what means and to what extent, and at whose cost. Finally, there is the fear of the unknown consequences of such action. Arguments have been forwarded to try and solve such difficulties, but the future of preferential treatment seems to lie in a combination of the two arguments.

Procedural Fairness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Scanlon
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Procedural Fairness ◽  
Equality Of Opportunity ◽  
Moral Basis ◽  
Equal Concern ◽  
The Way

Equality of opportunity requires that individuals should be selected for positions of advantage on the basis of relevant qualifications and that the ability to acquire these qualifications should not depend on the economic status of a person’s family. This chapter offers an institutional account of the moral basis of the first of these requirements. This account presupposes that positions of advantage are justified by the benefits they produce when they are held by individuals with the relevant abilities. The notion of ability relevant to considerations of procedural fairness therefore depends on the aims that justify the institution in question and on the way it is organized to promote these aims. The chapter relates this idea of fairness to the ideas of equal concern and non-discrimination and discusses the implications of procedural fairness for affirmative action.

Struther Arnott. 25 September 1934 — 20 April 2013

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Sir Dai Rees
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Molecular Model ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Dna And Rna ◽  
Vice Chancellor ◽  
Refinement Method ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Diffraction Patterns ◽  
Difference Fourier

Struther Arnott worked tirelessly as a researcher, teacher, leader and maker and implementer of policy in universities in Britain and the USA, always carrying his colleagues along with him through his infectious energy and breadth of academic enthusiasms and values. His outlook was shaped by the stimulus of a broad Scottish education that launched wide interests inside and outside science, including the history and literature of classical civilizations. His early research, with John Monteath Robertson FRS, was into structure determination by X-ray diffraction methods for single crystals, at a time when the full power of computers was just becoming realized for solution of the phase problem. With tenacity and originality, he then extended these approaches to materials that were to a greater or lesser extent disordered and even more difficult to solve because their diffraction patterns were poorer in information content. He brought many problems to definitive and detailed conclusion in a field that had been notable for solutions that were partial or vague, especially with oriented fibres of DNA and RNA but also various polysaccharides and synthetic polymers. His first approach was to use molecular model building in combination with difference Fourier analysis. This was followed later, and to even greater effect, by a computer refinement method that he developed himself and called linkedatom least-squares refinement. This has now been adopted as the standard approach by most serious centres of fibre diffraction analysis throughout the world. After the 10 years in which he consolidated his initial reputation at the Medical Research Council Biophysics Unit at King's College, London, in association with Maurice Wilkins FRS, he moved to Purdue University in the USA, first as Professor of Biology then becoming successively Head of the Department of Biological Sciences and Vice-President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School. As well as continuing his research, he contributed to the transformation of biological sciences at that university and to the development of the university's general management. He finally returned to his roots in Scotland as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews, to draw on his now formidable experience of international scholarship and institutional management, to reshape the patterns of academic life and mission to sit more happily and successfully within an environment that had become beset with conflict and change. He achieved this without disturbance to the harmony and wisdom embodied in the venerable traditions of that ancient Scottish yet cosmopolitan university.

scholarly journals Incidence, Characteristics and Outcomes of Large Vessel Stroke in COVID-19 Cohort: An International Multicenter Study

Neurosurgery ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priyank Khandelwal ◽  
Fawaz Al-Mufti ◽  
Ambooj Tiwari ◽  
Amit Singla ◽  
Adam A Dmytriw ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Multicenter Study ◽  
Large Vessel ◽  
Vessel Occlusion ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Rehabilitation Facilities ◽  
International Multicenter Study

Abstract BACKGROUND While there are reports of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, the overall incidence of AIS and clinical characteristics of large vessel occlusion (LVO) remain unclear. OBJECTIVE To attempt to establish incidence of AIS in COVID-19 patients in an international cohort. METHODS A cross-sectional retrospective, multicenter study of consecutive patients admitted with AIS and COVID-19 was undertaken from March 1 to May 1, 2020 at 12 stroke centers from 4 countries. Out of those 12 centers, 9 centers admitted all types of strokes and data from those were used to calculate the incidence rate of AIS. Three centers exclusively transferred LVO stroke (LVOs) patients and were excluded only for the purposes of calculating the incidence of AIS. Detailed data were collected on consecutive LVOs in hospitalized patients who underwent mechanical thrombectomy (MT) across all 12 centers. RESULTS Out of 6698 COVID-19 patients admitted to 9 stroke centers, the incidence of stroke was found to be 1.3% (interquartile range [IQR] 0.75%-1.7%). The median age of LVOs patients was 51 yr (IQR 50-75 yr), and in the US centers, African Americans comprised 28% of patients. Out of 66 LVOs, 10 patients (16%) were less than 50 yr of age. Among the LVOs eligible for MT, the average time from symptom onset to presentation was 558 min (IQR 82-695 min). A total of 21 (50%) patients were either discharged to home or discharged to acute rehabilitation facilities. CONCLUSION LVO was predominant in patients with AIS and COVID-19 across 2 continents, occurring at a significantly younger age and affecting African Americans disproportionately in the USA.

Building Up Belonging: Diasporic “Homecomers”, the Ghanaian Government and Traditional Rulers: A Case of Return

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaia Delpino
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Dynamic Relation ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade ◽  
Southern Ghana ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis essay analyzes the political dynamics involved in the construction of belonging in the case of African Americans’ “return” from the diaspora generated by the Atlantic slave trade to a town in Southern Ghana. Given the articulated belief of common ancestral origins, such arrival was initially welcomed by all the three groups of actors involved: thereturnees, the local authorities, divided by a chieftaincy dispute, and the Ghanaian government that was supporting homecoming policies. The concepts of origins and kinship and the way to validate them, though, were differently conceived by the various political actors; furthermore each of them held dissimilar reasons and had different expectations behind this return. All these differences created a mutual, mutable and dynamic relation between the actors who were involved in the arrival and aimed to assert their authority.

The Place of Interests in Hobbes’s Civil Science

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-128
Author(s):  
Elliott Karstadt
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Civil Science ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

Many scholars argue that Hobbes’s political ideas do not significantly develop between The Elements of Law (1640) and Leviathan (1651). This article seeks to challenge that assumption by studying the way in which Hobbes’s deployment of the vocabulary of ‘interest’ develops over the course of the 1640s. The article begins by showing that the vocabulary is newly important in Leviathan, before attempting a ‘Hobbesian definition’ of what is meant by the term. We end by looking at the impact that the vocabulary has on two key areas of Hobbes’s philosophy: his theory of counsel and his arguments in favour of monarchy as the best form of government. In both areas, Hobbes’s conception of ‘interests’ is shown to be of crucial importance in lending a new understanding of the political issue under consideration.

scholarly journals Rationing, racism and justice: advancing the debate around ‘colourblind’ COVID-19 ventilator allocation

2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2020-106856
Author(s):  
Harald Schmidt ◽  
Dorothy E Roberts ◽  
Nwamaka D Eneanya
Keyword(s):  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
State Level ◽  
Standard Of Care ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Life Saving ◽  
Black Patients ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Alternative Measures ◽  
The Way

Withholding or withdrawing life-saving ventilators can become necessary when resources are insufficient. In the USA, such rationing has unique social justice dimensions. Structural elements of dominant allocation frameworks simultaneously advantage white communities, and disadvantage Black communities—who already experience a disproportionate burden of COVID-19-related job losses, hospitalisations and mortality. Using the example of New Jersey’s Crisis Standard of Care policy, we describe how dominant rationing guidance compounds for many Black patients prior unfair structural disadvantage, chiefly due to the way creatinine and life expectancy are typically considered.We outline six possible policy options towards a more just approach: improving diversity in decision processes, adjusting creatinine scores, replacing creatinine, dropping creatinine, finding alternative measures, adding equity weights and rejecting the dominant model altogether. We also contrast these options with making no changes, which is not a neutral default, but in separate need of justification, despite a prominent claim that it is simply based on ‘objective medical knowledge’. In the regrettable absence of fair federal guidance, hospital and state-level policymakers should reflect on which of these, or further options, seem feasible and justifiable.Irrespective of which approach is taken, all guidance should be supplemented with a monitoring and reporting requirement on possible disparate impacts. The hope that we will be able to continue to avoid rationing ventilators must not stand in the way of revising guidance in a way that better promotes health equity and racial justice, both to be prepared, and given the significant expressive value of ventilator guidance.

Biblical Interpretation among African-American New Testament Scholars

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-82
Author(s):  
Larry L. Enis
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Scholarly Journals ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Epistle Of James

Given the small, but growing, number of ethnic minorities in the field of biblical studies, the issue of African-American biblical hermeneutics has received only marginal attention in scholarly journals. In an effort to discern major themes and objectives among these interpreters, this article surveys published works by African Americans who have attained either a PhD or ThD in the New Testament. In this study, six areas of particular interest emerged: hermeneutics, the black presence in the New Testament, Paul, the Gospels, the epistle of James, and Revelation. Moreover, this investigation will demonstrate that the phenomenon of African-American New Testament hermeneutics is a methodologically diverse one.

scholarly journals Improving the health of African Americans in the USA: an overdue opportunity for social justice

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan S. Noonan ◽  
Hector Eduardo Velasco-Mondragon ◽  
Fernando A. Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
African Americans ◽  
The Usa
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document