How China escaped shock therapy: the market reform debate from Isabella Weber: book rewiev

This piece is a review of the book How China escaped shock therapy: the market reform debate (Weber2021). I endorse this study as the best one to understand the different actual outcomes beteween China and the (disipated) URSS.

Congo’s electoral reform process will pose challenges

Significance After three successive electoral cycles (2006, 2011 and 2018) of decreasing legitimacy, one of the most sensitive issues on the new government’s agenda is electoral reform. Impacts The electoral reform debate may also strain the government’s relations with civil society actors whose support it needs in other domains. International partners will likely encourage electoral reforms but urge respect of the 2023 deadline for the next elections. Having senators and governors elected by popular vote could reduce corruption risks without greatly complicating the electoral format.

Die Zukunft der Schuldenbremse nach der Pandemie

The German constitutional fiscal rule (the „debt brake“) is increasingly subject to a reform debate that has intensified with the fiscal fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. This article presents survey evidence from the German state parliaments on views and preferences for the future of Germany’s fiscal rule. The survey among all 16 state parliaments was conducted between May and July 2020 with a participation of almost 30 per cent of all state parliamentarians. The results indicate that the debt brake still enjoys a large general support from more than two thirds of the parliamentarians. However, a reform in the direction of an investment clause is increasingly popular, much more than a clause that would support debt-financed climate policy measures.

The Civil Justice Reform Debate

Civil justice comprises the entire system of the administration of justice in civil matters. One significant discourse concerning the civil justice system in the last three decades is reform. This is due to various controversies around the subject resulting in crises. African approaches to civil justice jurisprudence encompass a variety of theoretical and normative elements that shape the way Africans conceive justice delivery. Over the years of the reform debate, not enough light has been shed on this to explain the existence of such perspective. It is argued that the African position to civil justice in the current reforms debate must not be pinned to just the doctrinal option imbedded in statutes but also be based on methods and procedures nurtured on the soil of Africa that align with the practical needs of the people encompassing social, political, cultural, and religious values. The chapter concludes that the African system of justice delivery is largely mirrored in the Ghanaian experience to justice system in civil jurisprudence.