7717 research outputs found
Sort by
Understanding Project Mentality as a Threat to the Sustainability of Donor-Supported Interventions: Insights from a Zambian Reading Intervention
Full text linkThis article provides valuable insights into project mentality (PM) as a threat to the sustainability of donor-supported interventions. The article examines factors triggering PM through a case study of a donor-supported reading intervention in Zambia and proposes ways to minimise the impact of PM. The study adopted a qualitative-interpretivist-case study approach, including interviews with 35 key stakeholders (eight head teachers, fifteen teachers, six representatives from donor agencies, and six Ministry of Education officials) and data collection through document analysis and classroom observations. Different attitudes and behaviour, such as stereotyping, alienation, and lack of confidence, ownership, commitment, and interest in donor-driven interventions, contributed to the intervention\u27s poor sustainability. The recommendation arising from this study is to employ appropriate strategies, such as fostering a culture of genuine ownership, confidence, commitment, and interest among aid beneficiaries. PM is a multifaceted phenomenon that requires further research. Overall, the article contributes to understanding the dynamics of the PM within donor-supported interventions, and advocates for the development of strategies to mitigate its effects. __________________________________________________________________________________________
Assessing Awareness and Trade Facilitation Under the AfCFTA: A Focus on Small-Scale Cross-Border Traders in the Southern African Development Community
Full text linkThe African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Trade present significant opportunities for trade facilitation reforms, particularly for small-scale crossborder traders (SSCBTs). However, the success of these initiatives hinges on the awareness and participation of these key stakeholders. This study investigates the awareness levels of SSCBTs regarding the AfCFTA, and analyses their understanding of trade facilitation reforms and their perceptions of the benefits and challenges of these reforms. Drawing on border reviews across 12 SADC commercial border posts and on interviews with traders and customs officials, the study identities significant gaps in awareness, with 56.4% of respondents unaware of the AfCFTA. The findings underscore the need for targeted educational campaigns, capacity-building initiatives, and stakeholder consultations to bridge knowledge gaps and increase the inclusion of SSCBTs in regional trade integration efforts
Constitutionalizing Traveling Feminisms in Kenya
Full text linkThis Article uses selected provisions of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 to argue that although elaborate legal and institutional frameworks for promoting women’s empowerment have been adopted in Kenya’s legal framework, implementation of these provisions remains a challenge. Why is the law in the books so different from the law in action? This is the question this Article seeks to address. By mapping out how feminist ideas travel through collective action, colonial encounters, local, regional and world conferences, legislation, and other means, the Article demonstrates that the reason why implementation remains a challenge is that these ideas are often in tension with the local contexts. The Article examines challenges and opportunities presented in the Kenyan Constitution and uses specific examples to map out recurring tensions between “traditionalist” and “modernist” claims as well as between “international” and “local” perspectives
Skirmishing Toward a General Theory of Evidence and Proof
Full text linkTraditional probability fundamentally assumes bivalence and additivity: there is only truth and falsity, whose odds add to one. The consequence is many problems and paradoxes for factfinding, all attributable to the assumptions’ exclusive focus on random uncertainty. By contrast, multivalent belief theory abjures those two assumptions, thereby allowing consideration of epistemic uncertainty. This theory divides the factfinder’s state of mind into three, not two, gradated concepts: belief, uncommitted belief representing epistemic unknowns, and disbelief. This theory utilises a more general but perfectly valid logic that accounts for all relevant kinds of uncertainty and so explains the law’s wise practices. In practice, legal factfinding rightly rejects probabilism. It favours instead the multivalent theory of evidential proof based on inner convictions or beliefs. Other theories compete with multivalent belief theory in trying to overhaul probabilism to fit practice, but they prove clumsy in achieving that goal
Contested Class Hegemonies and the Limits of Ethnic Politics in Zambia: The Case of the 2021 Elections
Full text linkEthnic politics in Zambia is a function of the extent to which the petty bourgeoisie, who thrive largely on the ideology of tribalism, exercise strong hegemony over the other social classes in their respective ethnic groups. However, when other social classes challenge that hegemony, evidence from the Zambian experience shows that the pertinence of ethnicity as a political force is significantly reduced. The members of the petty bourgeoisie in Zambia have exercised hegemony over other social classes in the country’s post-colonial period after they successfully led the struggle for political independence. The petty bourgeoisie are, however, factionalised along ethnic lines, and the strength of each of the factions in the intra-petty bourgeois struggles depends on how much support the faction has within its ethnic group. This support has not always been assured, and the case of the 2021 elections is one such time. The United Party for National Development received votes in Patriotic Front strongholds because of the challenge to the hegemony of the petty bourgeoisie by the rich peasantry and the urban social classes, particularly the members of the déclassé, within the Bemba and Nyanja ethnic groups. This is not the only case: There are several other historical moments when such challenges have taken place producing results that did not relect the dominance of ethnic factors. Among these are the support for Sata in the Lusaka District in the 2006, 2008 and 2011 elections
Strikes and the Struggle for Democracy
Full text linkThe right to strike is fundamental to the development and maintenance of democratic forms of government. In struggles to construct and defend democratic regimes, strikes, including general strikes, are often an important weapon. In established democracies, the right to strike can aid the spread of democratic decision-making in workplaces and the wider economy, serving indirectly to strengthen participation and confidence in political processes and institutions. And it can underpin systems of collective bargaining that function to narrow income and wealth inequalities, in a manner that is conducive, if not necessary, to the maintenance of democratic government. Wherever the right to strike is restricted, undermined and made more difficult to exercise, so too is the capacity of ordinary citizens decreased to defend, maintain and extend democratic values, practices and institutions
The 1935 Nazi Nuremberg Laws in Historical and Legal Context
No full textThe core ideology of Hitler Germany — of the Third Reich — was the hardcore, unremittent antisemitism that in short order permeated German society and the German legal system before creating the necessary conditions for the genocide of all Jews under Nazi control.
Two preliminary observations. First, should we view the 1935 Nuremberg laws and other German anti-Jewish laws and measures of the 1930s as the first stages of a process designed culminate in the annihilation of Jews, or were they drafted and enacted by individuals who, at that point in time, were not envisioning a “Final Solution of the Jewish question”?
It is true, of course, that no genocide or crime against humanity begins with the actual killings — it is preceded by words and, in most cases, ideologies – specifically, words of discrimination and hatred and ideologies of discrimination and hatred. But I submit to you that such words and such ideologies are not necessarily in and of themselves evidence of an intent to commit genocide.
Still, while not all forms of racism and other bigotries, including antisemitism and Islamophobia, inexorably result in genocide, we are duty bound not to ignore the fact that they can do so.
Second, we must not lose sight of the fundamental reality that the antisemitism of Nazi Germany did not come to the fore in a vacuum or out of nowhere. In a very real sense, it was a malignant byproduct of a state of mind, a predisposition as it were, of attitudes that were prevalent in many parts of the world long before Hitler came to power in 1933, including here in the United States