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Hegemonic Party System and Federalism: The Case of the Ethiopian Federal System under the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Party (EPRDF)
Get PDFThe paper inquiries into the fixture of the hegemonic Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Party (EPRDF) in the operation of the Ethiopian federal constitutional order. It finds out the federal malfunction of EPRDF. The hegemonic political program of the front, which took the shape of a non-competitive dominant party was not in line with the constitutional diversity of the federal system, as it delinked the constitutional right to self-determination and federal autonomy from the options of multiparty politics. On the structure of EPRDF, equal representation was favorable to the federal politics of diversity accommodation and minority protection. However, the exclusiveness of its structure from the “affiliate” parties had the effects of a narrow-based federal shared-rule, as EPRDF which was the only channel to influence the center. Party-state inseparability was the other gap to the check of power and in establishing the neutrality of the state to deal with ethnic-driven conflict, as a major pathology to the stability of ethnic federal systems. Finally, the power nucleus in the EPRDF created the dominance of TPLF at the perils of diminishing the representative legitimacy and the subordinate position of the “affiliate parties” to EPRDF
Land Question in Post-Apartheid South Africa: An Appraisal of Social Justice Theory
Get PDFFollowing the end of apartheid regime in 1994, it became clear to the government that a new constitution was urgently needed in order to redistribute and restitute land. After two years of intense deliberations and consultations, a new constitution was finally adopted in 1996. The new constitution clearly spelt out the fundamental principles of land reform policy. As a result, three-legged land reform strategy was adopted. These are (i) land tenure; (ii) land restitution; and (iii) land redistribution. However, existing scholarship has shown that these land reform programmes have not really addressed the social injustices of the past. Although there has been interesting scholarship on land question in post-apartheid South Africa, most of the previous studies focus on ‘economic compensation’ rather than ‘social justice’. In attempt to fill this gap in scholarship, this paper examines land question within the theoretical prism of social justice theory. The paper analyses the concept of social justice; then, proceeded to the discussions, applications and critiques of Kurt Lewin’s three-model of social change, John Rawls’ theory of social justice and Nancy Frazer’s model of parity of participation to land question in post-apartheid South Africa
A Life Committed: A Memoir
Get PDFMemoirs are usually one of the best avenues to understand people’s lives. They provide a first-hand account of one’s life from different perspectives. One of the problems with them is that they are expectedly full of biases. It is difficult for a memoirist to criticize herself and reveal everything. Perhaps at first glance, this is what one might expect from a memoir of a person like Essop Pahad (1939-2023). However, it is a marvelous work that offers a reader with great historical accounts of events and life well lived. Pahad served as the Minister in the Presidency from 1999 until 2008 under former President Thabo Mbeki who wrote a foreword to this book, “I am happy to commend this educative tour through many decades of exciting struggles for our liberation and a better world, as contained in this autobiography” (p17). To have served Thabo Mbeki for such a long time and remained his close ally for years is a significant sign that Pahad was a distinguished politician and intellectual in his own right
Posthuman Communication Design in South Africa
Get PDFThis article investigates the evolving landscape of visual communication design within a Posthumanist framework, in the context of South African design. It addresses the dearth in research regarding the interconnectedness of Posthumanism and communication design practice, specifically aiming to bridge the gap between human-centric design solutions and the traditional commercial facets of visual communication. This article builds upon a review of existing literature to engage in a dialogue where the shared attributes discernible in both Posthumanism and design practice are explored. Framed by the research question —"What elements contribute to Posthumanism inSouth African communication design, and how do these elements intersect?"— this study aims to uncover commonalities between Posthumanist principles and elements evident in contemporary visual communication design practice.Furthermore, the concept of Ubuntu is scrutinised, leveraging it as a contextual lens through which to understand the integration of Posthumanism within visual communication in an African context. This study goes beyond the theoretical foundations of Posthumanism by suggesting six practical dimensions that were identified through the analysis of significant keywords appearing in the literature. These dimensions aim to enable practitioners to incorporate Posthumanism into design practice in South Africa, thereby bridging the gap between philosophical concepts and the practical aspects of the field
Developing Artificial Intelligence-Powered Monetary Policy Communication Indicators for Macroeconomic Inquiries in Ghana
Get PDFCentral bank communication is a valuable source of information designed to shape the expectations of economic agents within and outside an economy. In particular, the content of Monetary Policy Committees’ press releases and statements reflect the central banks’ view of current and future macroeconomic developments, making them useful for creating high-frequency indicators as alternatives to traditional but slower-to-publish macroeconomic indicators. In this study, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered text-mining techniques were employed to create monetary policy communication-based indicators, namely the Monetary Policy Readability Index (MPRI), the Monetary Policy Sentiment Index (MPSI), and the Monetary Policy Uncertainty Index (MPUI), using press releases from the Bank of Ghana\u27s monetary policy committee spanning January 2003 to December 2022. The findings suggest that while readability and sentiments generally declined over the sample period, uncertainty increased, indicating persistent macroeconomic imbalances and vulnerabilities in the domestic economy. The newly developed time series-based indicators demonstrate Granger causal relationships with key macroeconomic variables, affirming their relevance to the central bank, the Ministry of Finance, researchers, investors, and development partners. Notably, the indicators can serve as an early warning system for monitoring and predicting the country\u27s macroeconomic risks, forecasting lagging indicators, assessing the effectiveness of the Bank’s monetary policy communication, and addressing monetary policy inquiries
Clinical Sociology and Community Interventions: The Community Ideas Factory Life Skills Project
Get PDFAt least 235,000 people experience homelessness in Canada each year, with over 35,000 experiencing homelessness on any given night (Gaetz et al. 2013a). For many, maintaining housing is challenging due to the absence of essential life skills. This paper departs from a community-identified problem with conventional life skills programming and uses sociological tools to address it. Community partners have expressed a need for a life skills curriculum that is inclusive, representing the intersecting needs and experiences of a diversity of clients, and that will address budgetary constraints of not-for-profit (NFP) organizations in the region.
The Community-Ideas Factory: The Life Skills Project consists of an interdisciplinary research team and 16 NFPs collaborating to build a comprehensive, inclusive, relevant, and effective online life skills intervention. Adopting a clinical sociological and community-engaged research approach, our findings emphasize the importance of recognizing that essential life skills are diverse and shaped by the larger social, political, and economic context, such as social inequities. Notably, social justice is identified as a crucial life skill, uncovering the intersectionalities that shape individuals\u27 lives and that must be integrated into life skills programming. This ground-breaking finding is facilitated by our methodology, deviating from the positivist research approaches prevalent in life skills studies. Significantly, the entire life skills curriculum is Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)-informed. The intervention addresses immediate financial strains for partner organizations. We anticipate that the intervention will interrupt current cycles of homelessness while holding promise as a preventative measure.
The Global Covid-19 Pandemic: The Politics of Science or the Science of Politics?
Get PDFThe politics of science, or better still, the political science of global politics is what the world is battling, concerning the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, today. Whereas scientific disciplines such as virology and epidemiology would usually take centre stage when an outbreak such as Covid-19 strikes, and now owing to the vacuum that has been created by conflicting and contradictory information from health experts on Covid-19, global health is opened up to, or left up to, political giants. Health matters of virology and epidemiology surrounding Covid-19 have, thus, been reduced to issues of politicking. The World Health Organisation\u27s voice (WHO), despite its sustained campaign and provision of information on Covid-19, is drowned and almost silenced by the number of health authorities and experts that have come out to refute mainstream information and strategies on combating and managing Covid-19. As such, the politicization of Covid-19 and the coloniality of knowledge and information surrounding Covid-19 may very well be the main issue of contention than the Covid-19 itself. This paper, therefore, seeks to unmask the political dimensions that are camouflaged by the Covid-19 pandemic and expose the real issues that Covid-19 has allowed to thrive and are, as a result, sustained by the Covid-19 crisis. Using the qualitative research methodology, I set out to discuss and analyse the debates on Covid-19 as have been proffered in the public domain. Thus, the method of research is a desktop analysis of academic articles, newspaper articles, social media pieces and mainstream television pieces, among others. I offer a decolonial account on Covid-19
The Digital Party: Political Organization and Online Democracy
Get PDFOver two centuries political parties have stood as one of influential organizations in humankind. Besides playing several functions such as capturing and exercising state power, political socialization and interest aggregation, these organizations have not been free from controversies. At the centre of these controversies is the mass-elite divide which Robert Michels referred to as Iron Law of Oligarchy. Michel’s revelation was a revelation that elite interests were not necessarily compatible with those of the mass. This observation notwithstanding, political parties have remained the very influential actors in politics irrespective of some speculations that globalization is likely to lead to the withering away of political parties and the nation-state.
The New Apartheid
Get PDFThe fundamental distinction between a Civil Rights movement such as the African National Congress and a liberation movement like Poqo lies in the status of white settlers and Apartheid. The mythologisation of Apartheid by promoting it to the main problem in liberation politics and history in conqueror South Africa is the persistent intellectual obsession of the Congress Tradition. A trenchant contestation and rejection of Apartheid as the fundamental antagonism in the history of the struggle for national liberation is the defining trait of a liberation movement and liberation intellectual production.Having written a book entitled Democracy & Delusion: 10 Myths (2019), in which he debunks what he considers to be myths about the so-called post-Apartheid South Africa, Sizwe is back again only this time he is reinventing two myths.In the book under review, entitled The New Apartheid (2021), Sizwe promotes the delusion and first myth of Apartheid as the problem and the second myth of the ANC as a liberation movement. This review is about these two myths
Asia and its various growing dimensions of globalisation for economic integration
Get PDFThe paper would try to look at the India-China relations of cooperation within BRICS framework. A comparison of this stance with India and China in power struggle Asia would form another part of the paper. India has opened up new platforms on either side of the subcontinent such as Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical Cooperation, Chabahar port project as well as joined Shanghai Cooperation Organization as its means of outreach. This has all been a part of India’s changing role in Asia. However, it must be also kept in mind that there is a China-Pakistan angle to it. A battle for power and influence has been there in the region of South Asia even before the pandemic. Now post covid19 scenario as the western world shrinks and the power fulcrum shifting towards Asia with USA pivot to Asia program as well as the geo-political tensions between USA and China coming up there is a new role for South Asia right now. The paper would like to understand these scenarios with an eye on India-China relations in a cooperative competition relationship scenario. On one side of the paper the joint role of India-China in BRICS framework would be looked at against the Indo-Pacific Asian power struggle