The Political Economy of Sino-African Relations: Reconciling Chinese-Style Development with the Western Aid Paradigm

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Tomer Zaidman
Keyword(s):  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Global South ◽  
Reasonable Doubt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Coherence ◽  
Financial Systems ◽  
Chinese Investment ◽  
The Many

Western analysts perceive aggressive Chinese foreign investment as a grave threat to sustainable development in the Global South. China’s more centralized and uncompromising strategies have the potential to lock recipient countries into a cycle of increasing unserviceable sovereign debt. On the other hand, they have often seen successes where the Washington Consensus had not. This paper seeks to explain why China’s monetary and financial systems are uniquely placed to offer the Global South – and Africa in particular – an alternative model for development. It also places reasonable doubt on Chinese investment as a monolithic expansionist project, emphasizing China’s constant need for new markets and Africa’s long-term ties to Asia and its export-oriented model. By examining the empirical realities of Chinese investment against dominant Western schools of thought, this article concludes that the two aid paradigms may be reconcilable, and that policy coherence between China and the West is possible and desirable. Also, as noted by the many scholars now reevaluating the issue with a focus on African agency, African governments will have to develop the bargaining power and policy ownership to guide the conversation in a regionally specific and Africa-centric direction.

Modernization of the Russian State Library: A Long-Term Programme under the Auspices of UNESCO

1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-130
Author(s):  
Tatiana V. Ershova
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Staff Training ◽  
Training And Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Financial Systems ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Set Up ◽  
State Library

Rapid and dramatic changes in the political situation have made a modernization programme imperative for the Russian State Library, the world's second largest library. With the active support of UNESCO, a consultant prepared a report on the library, and an International Commission of Experts was then set up to advise on a comprehensive modernization programme covering all aspects of the library, from buildings to the organizational structure, from collections to financial systems. Much importance is attached to staff training and development. With funding and other support from organizations in several countries as well as international bodies, and with the help of some individuals, progress has already been made, but much remains to be done.

Negative Media Effects and Islamic Remedies (Penyelesaian Kepada Kesan Negatif Media Menurut Perspektif Islam)

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Mohd. Shuhaimi Ishak
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Social Influences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Essential Form ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Effects Of Media ◽  
Political Economic

 Abstract Generally speaking, media is extensively used as the means to disseminate news and information pertaining to business, social, political and religious concerns. A portion of the time and space of media has now become an important device to generate economic and social activities that include advertising, marketing, recreation and entertainment. The Government regards them as an essential form of relaying news and information to its citizens and at the same time utilizes them as a powerful public relations’ mechanism. The effects of media are many and diverse, which can either be short or long term depending on the news and information. The effects of media can be found on various fronts, ranging from the political, economic and social, to even religious spheres. Some of the negative effects arising from the media are cultural and social influences, crimes and violence, sexual obscenities and pornography as well as liberalistic and extreme ideologies. This paper sheds light on these issues and draws principles from Islam to overcome them. Islam as revealed to humanity contains the necessary guidelines to nurture and mould the personality of individuals and shape them into good servants. Key Words: Media, Negative Effects, Means, Islam and Principles. Abstrak Secara umum, media secara meluas digunakan sebagai sarana untuk menyebarkan berita dan maklumat yang berkaitan dengan perniagaan, kemasyarakatan, pertimbangan politik dan agama. Sebahagian dari ruang dan masa media kini telah menjadi peranti penting untuk menghasilkan kegiatan ekonomi dan sosial yang meliputi pengiklanan, pemasaran, rekreasi dan hiburan. Kerajaan menganggap sarana-sarana ini sebagai wadah penting untuk menyampaikan berita dan maklumat kepada warganya dan pada masa yang sama juga menggunakannya sebagai mekanisme perhubungan awam yang berpengaruh. Pengaruh media sangat banyak dan pelbagai, samada berbentuk jangka pendek atau panjang bergantung kepada berita dan maklumat yang brekenaan. Kesan dari media boleh didapati mempengaruhi pelbagai aspek, bermula dari bidang politik, ekonomi, sosial bahkan juga agama. Beberapa kesan negatif yang timbul dari media ialah pengaruhnya terhadap budaya dan sosial, jenayah dan keganasan, kelucahan seksual dan pornografi serta ideologi yang liberal dan ekstrim. Kertas ini menyoroti isu-isu ini dan cuba mengambil prinsip-prinsip dari ajaran Islam untuk mengatasinya. Tujuan Islam itu sendiri diturunkan kepada umat manusia ialah untuk menjadi pedoman yang diperlukan untuk membina dan membentuk keperibadian individu dan menjadikan manusia hamba yang taat kepada Tuhannya. Kata Kunci: Media, Kesan Negatif, Cara-cara, Islam dan Prinsip-prinsip.

Charlemagne’s Health in ‘Old Age’: Did It Affect Carolingian Military Strategy?

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-53
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Bachrach
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
The West ◽  
Long Time

During the first thirty-three years of his reign as king of the Franks, i.e., prior to his coronation as emperor on Christmas day 800, Charlemagne, scholars generally agree, pursued a successful long-term offensive and expansionist strategy. This strategy was aimed at conquering large swaths of erstwhile imperial territory in the west and bringing under Carolingian rule a wide variety of peoples, who either themselves or their regional predecessors previously had not been subject to Frankish regnum.1 For a very long time, scholars took the position that Charlemagne continued to pursue this expansionist strategy throughout the imperial years, i.e., from his coronation on Christmas Day 800 until his final illness in later January 814. For example, Louis Halphen observed: “comme empereur, Charles poursuit, sans plus, l’oeuvre entamée avant l’an 800.”2 F. L. Ganshof, who also wrote several studies treating Charlemagne’s army, was in lock step with Halphen and observed: “As emperor, Charlemagne pursued the political and military course he had been following before 25 December 800.”3

The Many Faces of Leftism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Balázs Trencsényi ◽  
Michal Kopeček ◽  
Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič ◽  
Maria Falina ◽  
Mónika Baár ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Right Wing Authoritarianism ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Many

The success of the Bolshevik Revolution confirmed that economic backwardness was not necessarily an obstacle for socialism, as it triggered the radicalization of leftist movements in the region. Yet this also led to polarization of the left on questions of Soviet-Russian developments and possible cooperation with non-socialist parties, as well as agrarian and national questions. While in many countries social democracy entered the political mainstream in the 1920s, its position was undermined by the rise of right-wing authoritarianism. In turn, the Great Depression made the communist position more plausible, but the Stalinization of communist parties and the imposition of socialist realism alienated most intellectual supporters. Eventually, some radical leftists turned against the communist movement attacking its dogmatism and the Stalinist show trials. At the same time, the rise of Nazism forced leftist groups to seek a common ground, first in the form of “Popular Front” ideology, and, during the war, in the form of armed partisan movements.

The Many Faces of Socioeconomic Change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Toye
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
First Century ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Face ◽  
Scientific Expertise ◽  
The Many ◽  
Century Development

This book provides a survey of different ways in which economic sociocultural and political aspects of human progress have been studied since the time of Adam Smith. Inevitably, over such a long time span, it has been necessary to concentrate on highlighting the most significant contributions, rather than attempting an exhaustive treatment. The aim has been to bring into focus an outline of the main long-term changes in the way that socioeconomic development has been envisaged. The argument presented is that the idea of socioeconomic development emerged with the creation of grand evolutionary sequences of social progress that were the products of Enlightenment and mid-Victorian thinkers. By the middle of the twentieth century, when interest in the accelerating development gave the topic a new impetus, its scope narrowed to a set of economically based strategies. After 1960, however, faith in such strategies began to wane, in the face of indifferent results and general faltering of confidence in economists’ boasts of scientific expertise. In the twenty-first century, development research is being pursued using a research method that generates disconnected results. As a result, it seems unlikely that any grand narrative will be created in the future and that neo-liberalism will be the last of this particular kind of socioeconomic theory.

Social Cohesion, Breaks, and Transformations in Italy, 535–600

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Pohl
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Ancient Society ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Classical Culture

When the Gothic War began in Italy in 535, the country still conserved many features of classical culture and late antique administration. Much of that was lost in the political upheavals of the following decades. Building on Chris Wickham’s work, this contribution sketches an integrated perspective of these changes, attempting to relate the contingency of events to the logic of long-term change, discussing political options in relation to military and economic means, and asking in what ways the erosion of consensus may be understood in a cultural and religious context. What was the role of military entrepreneurs of more or less barbarian or Roman extraction in the distribution or destruction of resources? How did Christianity contribute to the transformation of ancient society? The old model of barbarian invasions can contribute little to understanding this complex process. It is remarkable that for two generations, all political strategies in Italy ultimately failed.

Taken For A Ride

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
The Political ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Informal Economies

The growth of cities and informal economies are two central manifestations of globalization in the developing world. Taken for a Ride addresses both, drawing on long-term fieldwork in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and charting its public transport system’s journey from public to private provision. The book investigates this shift alongside the increasing deregulation of the sector and the resulting chaotic modality of public transport. It reviews state attempts to regain control over public transport, the political motivations behind these, and their inability to address its problems. The analysis documents how informal wage relations prevailed in the sector, and how their salience explains many of the inefficiencies of public transport. The changing political attitude of workers towards employers and the state is investigated: from an initial incapacity to respond to exploitation, to political organization and unionization, which won workers concessions on labour rights. A longitudinal study of workers throws light on patterns of occupational mobility in the sector. The book ends with an analysis of the political and economic interests that shaped the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam and local resistance to it. Taken for a Ride is an interdisciplinary political economy of public transport, exposing the limitations of market fundamentalist and postcolonial scholarship on economic informality and the urban experience in developing countries, and its failure to locate the agency of the urban poor within their economic and political structures. It is both a contribution to and a call for the contextualized study of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’.

East Germany

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta
Keyword(s):  
Structural Transformation ◽  
East Germany ◽  
External Factors ◽  
The Political ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
State Security ◽  
Security Service ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Church

The case of East Germany raises the question of why religion and church, which had fallen to an unprecedentedly low level after four decades of suppression, have not recovered since 1989. The repressive church politics of the SED were undoubtedly the decisive factor in the unique process of minoritizing churches in the GDR. However, other external factors such as increasing prosperity, socio-structural transformation, and the expansion of the leisure and entertainment sector played an important role, too. In addition, church activity itself probably also helped to weaken the social position of churches. The absence of a church renaissance after 1990 can be explained by several factors, such as the long-term effects of the break with tradition caused by the GDR system, the political and moral discrediting of the church by the state security service, and people’s dwindling confidence in the church, which was suddenly seen as a non-representative Western institution.

scholarly journals Decolonizing regional planning from the Global South: Active geographies and social struggles in Northeastern Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 026377582110246
Author(s):  
Federico Ferretti
Keyword(s):  
Regional Planning ◽  
Global South ◽  
Northeastern Brazil ◽  
Planning Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Literature ◽  
The South ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Colonial Histories ◽  
Resisting Oppression

This paper addresses the engagement of critical geographers from Northeastern Brazil with regional planning, aiming at transforming society by acting on their region’s spaces. Extending and putting in relation literature on planning theory in the Global South and geographical scholarship on decoloniality, I explore new archives showing how the planning work that these geographers performed from 1957 to 1964 was an example of the ‘South’ re-elaborating and putting into practice notions arising from ‘international’ literature, such as that of ‘active geography’, and pioneering critical uses of instruments, such as mappings and statistics, that have often been associated with technocracy and political conservatism. Connected with peasants’ struggles and with a theoretical framework that is cognisant of the colonial histories and insurgent Black and indigenous traditions in the Northeast, these geographers’ works show that there is no ‘Southern Theory’ without a concrete engagement of scholars with social and political problems, one which is not limited to ‘participation’, but aims at challenging the political powers in place. Although not devoid of contradictions that are analysed here, the experiences of these Southern geographers acting in and for the South can provide precious insights into current (Northern or Southern) scholarly programmes aimed at resisting oppression.

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