This article critically examines the policy environment in place for artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) – low-tech, labour-intensive mineral extraction and processing – in sub-Saharan Africa, ...with a view to determining whether there is adequate ‘space’ for the sector's operators to flourish as entrepreneurs. In recent years, there has been growing attention paid to ASM in the region, particularly as a vehicle for stimulating local economic development. The work being planned under the Africa Mining Vision (AMV), a comprehensive policy agenda adopted by African heads of state in February 2009, could have an enormous impact on this front. One of its core objectives is to pressure host governments into Boosting Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining by following a series of streamlined recommendations. It is concluded, however, that there is a disconnect between how entrepreneurship in ASM has been interpreted and projected by proponents of the AMV on the one hand, and the form it has mostly taken in practice on the other hand. This gulf must be rapidly bridged if ASM is to have a transformative impact, economically, in the region.
•Examines entrepreneurship at artisanal and small-scale mines in sub-Saharan Africa•A gulf exists between how it is viewed by host governments and its predominant form in practice.•Explains why most artisanal and small-scale mines in sub-Saharan Africa are unlicensed•Donors must study the context and backgrounds of operators before implementing policies.
This article aims to maximize the reliability of presidential power scores for a larger number of countries and time periods than currently exists for any single measure, and in a way that is ...replicable and easy to update. It begins by identifying all of the studies that have estimated the effect of a presidential power variable, clarifying what scholars have attempted to capture when they have operationalized the concept of presidential power. It then identifies all the measures of presidential power that have been proposed over the years, noting the problems associated with each. To generate the new set of presidential power scores, the study draws upon the comparative and local knowledge embedded in existing measures of presidential power. Employing principal component analysis, together with the expectation maximization algorithm and maximum likelihood estimation, a set of presidential power scores is generated for a larger set of countries and country time periods than currently exists, reporting 95 per cent confidence intervals and standard errors for the scores. Finally, the implications of the new set of scores for future studies of presidential power is discussed.
The Sound Portrait of a Dictator Gómez-García, Salvador; Martín-Quevedo, Juan; Quevedo-Redondo, Raquel
Media history,
05/2022, Letnik:
28, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article explores the process carried out by Spain’s state radio station -Radio Nacional de España- to devise the figure of Francisco Franco, first as a war hero, supreme chief of the rebel side ...of Spanish Civil War and, after the conflict ended, as a statesman and rebuilder of the Spanish nation, in his roles as head of state and Caudillo de España (leader of Spain). Through the examination of materials from newspapers, magazines, sound archives, censored scripts and administrative documentation, this research focuses on the capacity of state radio to adapt its discourse to convey the figure of a ‘charismatic’ ruler that satisfies the needs of the Francoist regime to survive and legitimize itself. The article shows how state radio constructs a discourse around Franco arranged to the different speeds of the national and international political context that shook Spain, Europe and the occidental world from 1937 to 1961.
Rebel Diplomacy in Civil War Huang, Reyko
International security,
04/2016, Letnik:
40, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In the midst of civil war, rebel groups often expend significant resources opening offices in foreign capitals, meeting with heads of state, expanding their overseas networks, appealing to ...international organizations, and contacting foreign media. Existing scholarship has generally neglected international diplomacy as an aspect of violent rebellion, focusing instead on rebel efforts at domestic organization. A systematic documentation of rebel diplomacy in post-1950 civil wars using new quantitative and qualitative data shows that rebel diplomacy is commonplace and that many groups demonstrate as much concern for overseas political campaigns as they do for domestic and local mobilization. Diplomacy, furthermore, is not a weapon of the militarily weak, but a tactical choice for rebel groups seeking political capital within an international system that places formidable barriers to entry on nonstate entities. An original analysis of the diplomacy of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola in the Angolan civil war using archival sources further demonstrates why rebels may become active diplomats in one phase of a conflict but eschew diplomacy in another. More broadly, the international relations of rebel groups promise to be an important new research agenda in understanding violent politics.
Negotiating a successful pandemic treaty should address a four‐fold purpose: to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from pandemics effectively (Phelan and Carlson, 2022, Science, 377, 475). ...Since the proposal for an international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness was endorsed by 26 heads of state and the WHO Director‐General in March 2021, WHO member states assigned an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) with the responsibility of coordinating negotiations in anticipation of adopting an agreement by May 2024. To date, four INB meetings have been held. In this analysis, the interventions of 43 member states at the INB sessions in July 2022 were evaluated against components considered integral to an effective pandemic treaty. These were mapped against elements previously identified for a transformative treaty (Phelan and Carlson, 2022). This analysis outlines gaps in the current pandemic treaty working draft and the INB negotiations, which may identify opportunities to enhance the value of the remaining negotiations and guide refinement in developing further iterations of the working draft.
Shakespeare’s early Henry VI trilogy and late The Tempest both feature reclusive, bookish rulers who are deposed because their rivals perceive an opportunity in the rulers’ trustingness and lack of ...interest in political affairs. Furthermore, the deposed rulers also share an interest in Platonic philosophies of the Renaissance; they differ, however, in their respective preferences for particular Platonist authors and writings. Henry VI is devoted to Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy. While Prospero, the protagonist of The Tempest, may have focused on Boethius and similar authors when he was in Milan, by the time we meet him on his island, he prefers Neoplatonic magic, bequeathed to the Renaissance by Ficino. While the two stories are not often read together, I argue that doing so yields a fascinating contrast in the modes of existence dictated by different streams of Renaissance philosophical thought. While Henry VI’s credulity and Boethianism lead him to express a preference for a contemplative life and to adopt an attitude of extreme passivity and surrender, Prospero’s suspicion and powerful use of magic associate him with the active life. The ultimate expressions of Henry’s preference for the contemplative life and of Prospero’s association with the active life both involve nature poetry. Henry expresses yearning for the peaceful lifestyle of a shepherd in a pastoral lyric he delivers in 3 Henry VI, while Prospero celebrates human labor and achievement in a georgic masque which he produces.
Recent research and theorizing suggest that narcissism may predict both positive and negative leadership behaviors. We tested this hypothesis with data on the 42 U.S. presidents up to and including ...George W. Bush, using (a) expert-derived narcissism estimates, (b) independent historical surveys of presidential performance, and (c) largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential performance. Grandiose, but not vulnerable, narcissism was associated with superior overall greatness in an aggregate poll; it was also positively associated with public persuasiveness, crisis management, agenda setting, and allied behaviors, and with several objective indicators of performance, such as winning the popular vote and initiating legislation. Nevertheless, grandiose narcissism was also associated with several negative outcomes, including congressional impeachment resolutions and unethical behaviors. We found that presidents exhibit elevated levels of grandiose narcissism compared with the general population, and that presidents' grandiose narcissism has been rising over time. Our findings suggest that grandiose narcissism may be a double-edged sword in the leadership domain.
We develop a simple spatial model suggesting that Members of Parliament strive for the inclusion of the head of state’s party in coalitions formed in mixed democratic polities, and that parliamentary ...parties try to assemble coalitions that minimize the ideological distance to the head of state. We identify the German local level of government as functionally equivalent to a parliamentary setting, such that the directly elected mayor has competencies similar to a president in a mixed national polity. Our findings show that the party affiliation of the head of state is a key factor considered by party members in the legislature when forming coalitions: coalitions in the legislature are more likely to form if they include the party of the head of the executive branch. Furthermore, the policy preferences of the head of the executive branch matter for the legislators’ behavior in the coalition formation process: the smaller the ideological distance between the position of a coalition and the position of the head of state, the more likely a coalition is to be formed.
The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of alternating heads of state on structural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Indeed, the alternation of a head of state is an ...institutional tool likely to promote the reallocation of labor, innovation and human capital and thus improve structural change and intra-industry productivity, which are the two components of structural transformation. The primary data collected on the alternation of heads of state, the Africa sector database (ASD) and the World Development Indicators (WDI) allow us to illustrate our remarks using the two steps least squares (2SLS) method on a panel of 17 SSA countries. The results obtained show that the number of alternations of heads of state positively and significantly affects intra-industry productivity and structural change in SSA.
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