Africa and The Decline of The Democracy Debate

The debate on the decline of democracy is not new. It can be traced to the period between the First and Second World Wars, and it resurfaced during the 1970s, followed by the most spectacular dem- ocratic resurgence in human history. This lecture focuses on the current debate on the decline of democracy and downward trends in major democracy assessment indices. Africa is among the three least democratic world regions, with 42% of African countries cur- rently designated as not free. Measuring the decline or rise of democracy only by the perfor- mance of institutional politics does not provide a complete picture of the issue. Institutional politics does not account for the resil- ience and thriving new spaces where democratic vibrancy and civic engagement prevail. Examples from African countries demonstrate that democracy indices based on institutional politics alone do not account for alternative democratic spaces and practices. This paper is the edited version of the keynote speech delivered by the author at the 6th Pécs African Studies Conference under the theme “African Realities: Conflict and Cooperation”, September 23-24, 2021 – University of Pécs, Hungary.

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Supported by I-Shou University and Xi’an University of Technology, the 7th International Conference on Water Resource and Environment (WRE2021) was successfully held online via Microsoft Teams Meeting from November 1-4, 2021. About 150 participants from 31 countries and areas, including United Kingdom, Uruguay, Romania, China, Russia, Germany, Thailand, Japan, India, Malaysia, United States, South Africa, Portugal, Canada, Indonesia, Norway, Poland, Vietnam, Philippines, Greece, Slovakia, Uzbekistan, Italy, etc., have joined the conference. The technical program of WRE2021 comprised 4 keynote speeches, 24 invited speeches, 72 oral presentations and 21 poster presentations. Two welcome speeches were delivered separately by the Conference General Chair Prof. Jiwei Zhu from Xi’an University of Technology (lasted for 10 minutes) and the Technical Program Committee Chair Prof. Chih-Huang Weng from I-Shou University (lasted for 10 minutes). Four keynote speeches were delivered by Emeritus Prof. S. A. Abbasi from Pondicherry University (India), Prof. Dominic C. Y. Foo from University of Nottingham Malaysia (Malaysia), Prof. Teik-Thye Lim from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and Assoc. Prof. Rengui Jiang from Xi’an University of Technology (China), each keynote speech was lasted for 45 minutes including questions and answers. List of WRE2021 Scientific Committee Members are available in the pdf.

Preface

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Applications (ICAIBD2021) that were planned to be held in Huanggang, China were successfully held via an online platform during September 24, 2021. The events brought together researchers and scientists from big data and artificial intelligence, researchers from various application areas to discuss problems and solutions in the area, to identify new issues, and to shape future directions for research. The conference was composed of 2 sessions with 4 keynote speeches and 40 oral reports presented in this conference. Each keynote speech and oral report will take 30-40 minutes and 5-10 minutes, respectively. All papers included in the conference proceedings were peer reviewed according to IOP Publishing standards. We would like to deeply acknowledge all the parties involved in making this conference successfully held: the conference session chairs, organizing committee, authors, reviewers and IOP Publishing. Besides, we wish to thank all authors and participants for providing their valuable contributions for this proceeding as well as the reviewers for their constructive recommendations and criticism aiding to improve the presented articles. General Chair Yuntao Wu Wuhan Institute of Technology [email protected] Zhihua Hu Huanggang Normal University [email protected] List of Academy Committee are available in this pdf.

Preface

It is our honor to present the proceedings of the 15th International Engineering and Computing Research Conference (15th EURECA 2021). Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the 15th EURECA 2021 was held virtually on the 30 June 2021 at Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus, Malaysia. 15th EURECA 2021 aims to provide an ideal academic platform for researchers to present the latest research findings and describe emerging technologies and directions, developments and applications in Engineering and Computing, addressing 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering as identified by the National Academy of Engineering, USA. For the first time, we are including the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as part of our challenge, with the hope that our research will help to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. As these goals require the cooperation of people from different background, our theme for the 15th EURECA 2021 is “Innovative and Multidisciplinary Research for Sustainable Future”. During the conference, we were pleased to be joined by three knowledgeable keynote speakers, who are Ir. Muhammad Firdaus Kamaruddin, General Manager, OXO Complex (BASF PETRONAS Chemicals Sdn. Bhd.), Prof. Hamid Dehghani (University of Birmingham) and Dr. Kit Windows-Yule (University of Birmingham). More than 200 participants were benefited through each of the 30 minutes keynote speech. Besides, there were more than 130 technical papers presented during the conference day, which were split into 3 presentation sessions and 1 final year project poster presentation. The parallel sessions were arranged in Zoom Meeting and carefully monitored by the organizing team. Indeed, it is challenging to organize a virtual conference. The 15th EURECA 2021 was planned, executed, and monitored via online platform. We acknowledged the shortcomings when conducting conference virtually. For instance, lack of communication and complication in managing the parallel sessions. Despite the hardship, we managed to pull through with the cooperation and support given by the organizing committee team. We truly believe that the 15th EURECA 2021 is a great platform for researchers, academician, industry players and student to brainstorm and exchange research idea, communicate their new research findings and eventually leading the world to meet the sustainable goals. Dr. Oh Kai Siang Chairperson of the 15th EURECA 2021, School of Computer Science and Engineering, Faculty of Innovation and Technology, Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus Email: [email protected] List of Steering Committee and Organizing Committee are available in this pdf.