1,720,957 research outputs found
Electoral Politics: Democracy and Electoral Security in Nigeria
Get PDFDemocracy in Nigeria has been fragile and fluctuating since independence as conflict, triggered by political rivalries, violence, ethnicity, religion and insecurity, poses a major threat to her democracy. The late Nigerian political scientist and theorist, Claude Ake in 1993, warned that external and elite support for electoral democratisation was not the same as actual democracy. He argued that the substitution of democracy for elections had resulted in a struggle for power at the polls by the elite groups. To this end, the incidences of electoral violence, political competition and insecurity have since become a constant nightmare and a serious source of concern to all actors participating in the electoral system. The cornerstone of democracy is the electoral process, with a viable Election Management Board (EMB) that conducts free, fair, open and secured elections. Electoral security is one of the focal points for a successful and effective administration of the electoral process. The electoral process must be geared towards building citizens' confidence, especially by ensuring that votes are cast anonymously and without coercion, while also making sure that election results reflect the collective will of the voters. With the aid of secondary sources of data, using content analysis, the paper concludes that defending elections not only involves protecting voting units and ballots, but also protecting the functions, resources and technologies that support election processes and which help manage voters and election results in Nigeria. In order to protect our electoral politics in Nigeria, there is a need for an effective and secure electoral process, laced with a credible and acceptable outcome. This paper emphasises on security as a crucial condition in the context of elections, such that it assists in establishing an enabling environment that is conducive to holding democratic polls
Scourge of Ages: African Union’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) Interventions in Somalia and the Free Reign of Violence in Africa
Get PDFFor the draftsmen and composers of the African Union (AU), the organ of Peace and Security Council (PSC) is not only a clone of the Security Council of the United Nations; it is intended to give aggregate security and early-cautioning course of action against Africa's unlimited clashes and to encourage auspicious and proficient reaction. Also, the Constitutive Act and the Protocol on the PSC accommodate more vigorous engagement and significantly more noteworthy extension in examples of both between and intra-state clashes. Be that as it may, the intercessions of the PSC in some of Africa's auditoriums of contention have brought up central issues on how the organ plays out its triangular parts of contention anticipation, administration, and determination. With a unique spotlight on the Horn of Africa - the most unstable and seemingly a standout amongst the most hazardous districts on the planet, the paper expects to evaluate the difficulties confronting PSC mediation instruments, particularly the parts of the African Standby Force and its activities. The paper contends that the PSC must move past negligible talk of plan setting to more 'powerful or aggressive' engagement by fortifying its tasks. It at last backers’ proactive strategy choices on how its parts could be upgraded in the district. 
Land Boundary Disputes Resolution: A Qualitative Study of Peace and Conflict Resolution between Erinle-Offa Communities in Kwara State, Nigeria
Get PDFThe study focused on land boundary disputes and the resolution challenges in the Erinle-Offa communities of Kwara State, Nigeria. The history of the two communities is laced with hostility and aggression, which has resulted in violent disputes at various times. Quite a number of works have emerged on the causes and consequences of the violent clash. However, the aftermaths of the dispute, especially the tense relationship and peacebuilding process in the area, are yet to be sufficiently interrogated. This study investigated the state of relations between Erinle and Offa as well as land dispute resolution processes in the locality involving complex actors after the last violent clash. It also examined the factors responsible for land boundary disputes between the two communities. The findings showed that negative peace currently exists in the two communities and the land conflict is a perennial one that could arise at any time. The study used both primary and secondary data. The main method of data collection was the unstructured interview, which was conducted with 120 people, made up of traditional rulers, and local, political, religious and youth leaders. Secondary data was sourced from texts, newspapers, magazines, official gazettes, archival materials and the Internet
Community Policing: “Atalakpa” (Edo State Security Network) and the Management of Crime and Internal Security in Edo State, Nigeria
Get PDFThis study assessed the praxis of community policing in managing internal security in Edo State, Nigeria. It also evaluated the nature of community policing (Atalakpa-Edo State Security Network) in Edo State and its effectiveness. In addition, the study identified the relationship between community policing (Atalakpa-Edo State Security Network) and the public security force in Edo state. The study further Identified the challenges confronting Atalakpa-Edo State Security Network in Edo State. The study employed survey research design, using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Also, both primary and secondary data were explored. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics involving frequency counts, percentages, mean scores and charts. The findings showed that the government falls short of effectively providing security for the citizens; hence, the community opted for Atalakpa community policing, which is focused on fostering greater trust and cooperation between the police and the residents geared towards maximising police resources through community participation in public safety initiatives. The study concluded that the emergence of community policing (Atalakpa-Edo State Security Network) was borne out of the need to reduce crimes and social vices, security of lives and properties, and to complement other security agencies in fighting crime and criminality in rural areas. The study recommends restructuring and overhauling of the Atalakpa- Edo State Security Network to meet its establishment's goals and purpose. Also, there should be better collaboration and partnership between community policing and other security agencies in the area of handing-over/transporting of suspects, conducting investigation, sharing of information, fire alert, armed patrol, joint duty posting, training and re-training; workshops and seminars, with a view to fighting crime and criminality, and entrenching peace in rural areas
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Securing world heritage sites: insurgency and the destruction of UNESCO’s world heritage sites in Timbuktu, Mali
Get PDFBecause of the political and religious disagreements in Mali, the protection of the country’s world heritage sites (WHSs) has been a constant agenda of state-parties to the World Heritage Convention (WHC). To avoid irreversible damage and loss of these valuable national heritages, appropriate action is needed at every level for their conservation and preservation. Significant attention has been directed at understanding the relevance and benefits of WHSs to the economic sector specifically, but, there has been relatively little academic and policy research on the destruction and looting of WHSs especially in Timbuktu, Mali. This is the gap this study intends to fill. This calls for serious questions regarding what precipitated and led to the destruction of Timbuktu’s cultural heritage. What is the significance of Timbuktu’s WHSs to the Malians? How should government authorities respond to the destruction of the sites? Finally, against the background of the destruction of the Timbuktu WHSs, how can the WHSs be preserved and protected? This study critically interrogates insurgents’ attacks on the WHSs, with the motive of developing a sustainable template suitable for forestalling potential attacks by Islamic/jihadist insurgents, or any other insurgents for that matter, in other locations in Mali, using the attacks in Timbuktu as a case study.http://link.springer.com/journal/10708hj2022Political Science
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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