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Book Review: The Merger Puzzle
No full textIn tax law we generally do not question the utility and function of rules. As a matter of convenience and, perhaps, as a matter of conviction, we usually assume that law determines outcomes in a more or less linear fashion. This assumption of tax law's determinacy allows us to get on with the business of tax and with the theory of tax. If the rules are determinate, it is appropriate to consider how the rules apply to a given case and to consider whether the rules should be changed to bring about some improvement in legal outcomes. In an earlier article, I broadly defended tax law's determinacy while suggesting that we should have greater acceptance in our rule making for the inevitable role of judgment in the application of law to facts.' In that article I took particular note of two aspects of tax thought that can contribute to indeterminacy: the rule maker's search for "symmetry and wholeness in the law," and the planner's search for "certainty and narrow truth.
Horizontal and Vertical Equity: The Musgrave/Kaplow Exchange
No full textOver the past several years, Professors Richard Musgrave and Louis Kaplow have engaged in an exchange over the question whether the concept of horizontal equity has any independent significance apart from vertical equity. Kaplow answers that question in the negative, Musgrave in the affirmative. The purposes of this comment are (1) to sort out the issues raised in the Musgrave-Kaplow exchange, and (2) to set forth a somewhat different perspective from which to view those issues
When the Sky Fell: Hurricane Maria and the United States in Puerto Rico: By Michael Deibert
No full textDeibert, Michael. When the Sky Fell: Hurricane Maria and the United States in Puerto Rico. New York: Apollo, 2019
Inside the Battle of Algiers: Memoir of a Woman Freedom Fighter: By Zohra Drif
No full textDrif, Zohra. Inside the Battle of Algiers: Memoir of a Woman Freedom Fighter. Translated by Andrew Farrand. Charlottesville, VA: Just World Books, 2017
Women's Empowerment Matters: Evidence from the Health and Education Sectors in Developing Worlds
No full textThis study examines the effect of female empowerment on child development in developing countries. Using comprehensive panel data from seventy-eight developing countries between 2000 and 2018, this research assesses the impact of political and economic empowerment of females on the health and education of children. The major findings include (1) that GDP per capita, health expenditure, and the official development assistance are not significantly reducing immunization, child mortality, and primary school enrollment; (2) that women’s empowerment in political and economic fields is not significantly affecting the above-mentioned dependent variables; and (3) that when those two kinds of explanatory variables interact, women’s empowerment is positively associated with immunization rate and primary school enrollment rate in countries with an income level lower than 1,500–2,000 USD, mainly located in East Africa. Such findings suggest that in certain economic levels, female empowerment and child development policies are complementary and should go hand in hand
Transition to Democracy in Deeply Divided Ethiopia: Mission Impossible?
No full textThe article explains the state of political transition in Ethiopia since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018 based on the concept of political settlement in the context of divided societies. It is qualitative research based on in-depth interviews with fifteen key political party leaders and key experts. Relevant literature on democratization in Ethiopia has been reviewed and has rarely explored the issue of democratization in the context of divided societies. Ethiopia is a deeply divided society that hosts countless politically mobilized ethnonational liberation movements seeking more political autonomy and a fair share in central decision-making institutions. While Ethiopians and the international community hoped for Ethiopia’s transition to democracy under Abiy, the findings show that the transition is stalled, and the process is hijacked by centralizing and increasingly authoritarian elite that has marginalized key political actors. Centralization and marginalization are currently two major challenges. Both are inimical to deeply divided Ethiopia that hosts a variety of territorially based cleavages. Cycles of marginalization have entrenched fragility in Ethiopia, as the fight continues between those who are in power and those who are excluded. Transition to democracy implies an inclusive political system, popular and elite support for democracy and democratic rules are accepted as norms, anti-system parties are weak or nonexistent, and, most importantly, authoritarianism is rejected wholeheartedly. This is a fundamental question for Ethiopia and is called the genetic question of democracy because it determines the gateway and the answer to the question: How does democracy come into being in the first place? One cannot have democracy when a country has a significant number of armed rebel groups in or outside the country who still think that power comes through the barrel of a gun. Nor is the transition to democracy possible when the elite in power adopts violence and the use of force as a means to stay in power. Transition to democracy can succeed only through an inclusive dialogue that produces political settlement addressing the deep cleavages
Playing Politics with Epidemic: Bubonic Plague, Slum Clearance, and Party Politics in Colonial Lagos, 1924–1960
No full textThe management of the bubonic plague in colonial Lagos, Nigeria, unavoidably put the indigenous population at the receiving end of massive social disruptions. The impact of the control measures on the social and political temperament of the area with the reactions it elicited among the indigenous people is absent from the historiography of the bubonic plague in Lagos. This study draws upon primary sources (first-hand accounts and interviews) to provide insight into how residents in colonial Lagos grappled with the plague and the colonial state’s attempts to control the epidemic and govern the city. The central argument of this paper is that at a time of growing nationalism among an increasingly politically conscious African educated class, public health measures adopted to control the bubonic plague only served to breed political unrest and intra-party antagonism that threatened the social thread of the city. Lagos political space provides us with the opportunity to study how medical issues became entangled with nationalist agitation. Evidence for the study was drawn from archival materials sourced from the National Archives of Nigeria, Ibadan; the British National Archive, London; and oral interviews conducted in Lagos
National Character and the Narrative of Self-Image in Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom and Obasanjo’s My Watch
No full textBuilding on the view of biographical writing as a cultural practice and expression, this article adopts identity and narrative theories to discuss the interconnection between national character and identity construction in political autobiographies. It employed Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom [LWF] (1994) and Olusegun Obasanjo’s My Watch (2014) as primary texts. It identifies prejudice against black South Africans as the national character in LWF and postcolonial political disillusionment in Nigeria as that of My Watch. It further demonstrates how the personalities of Mandela and Obasanjo are rooted in role-based identity and the respective saliences that activate this identity type. Additionally, it discusses the modes of narration in the two texts. The article concludes that national character is a sociocultural and psychological indicator that influences identity construction in political autobiographies
