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Posted by Sina  on  Mon, 28/01/2008

Is public opinion a force for good government or not? If recent events in Burma, Pakistan and Georgia show anything at all it is that public opinion is ultimately  the basis of power and legitimacy. Which is something several political philosophers have told us for over 200 years, but it is fascinating to watch these struggles unfold.

And it explains why authoritarian regimes are always keen to control public opinion by:

Posted by Shanthi  on  Tue, 15/01/2008

For seven years now, Chinese academic Guo Liang has been tracking and analyzing patterns in Internet use in the People's Republic of China, presenting one of the most comprehensive overall pictures of the political and social effects of the technology. At a December event at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Guo presented his latest findings from a survey of Internet usage and impact in seven Chinese cities.

Among his more interesting findings:

Posted by Sina  on  Tue, 15/01/2008

Photo Credit: Arne HoelOr you can also say: Taking human beings seriously. To Immanuel Kant we owe the great insight that ‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity nothing straight was ever made’. Rigor is important, so are research, getting the right numbers and doing good analytical work. But those things are but a start. For when you are dealing with human beings- either alone or in groups or as vast multitudes- numbers will only take you so far. Technical analysis will only take you so far. And this is for the simple reasons that human beings are not numbers. They are not machines. And to the extent that efforts to improve governance systems around the world have to do with human beings then technical work alone won’t do the job.

Posted by Sina  on  Mon, 14/01/2008

In development practice today, when you ask ‘How do you improve governance systems in developing countries in order to improve the lives of the poor?’ the so-called hard skills dominate the discourse.  But what are these so-called hard skills? At their most mind-numbing these are number-crunching skills derived from a variety of quantitative social science disciplines. Beyond that these are skills in technical analysis and solution-finding. So, if you want to curb corruption in Country XYZ you find the technical experts on building world class procurement and other systems send in accountants and the like and so on. You design systems, set up an Anti-Corruption Commission. You deploy your notion of ‘best practice’ in the relevant technical field. All this is well and good but will that blow a corrupt public political culture away and with it the broader tolerance of corruption by the population at large?

Posted by Henriette  on  Mon, 14/01/2008

The ethnic clashes that broke out after the announcement of Kenya’s Presidential election results have reportedly resulted in over 500 deaths and caused some 250.000 people to leave their homes and seek refuge in tribal homelands; some 3000 Kenyans crossed into neighboring Uganda looking for safety. Violence around contested elections is not new to Kenya; clashes along ethnic lines led to some 1500 dead in 1992, and 200 died around the polling in 1997; and though generally considered more peaceful, also the 2002 elections were marred by incidences of violence.

Posted by Shanthi  on  Thu, 10/01/2008

As post-election rioting spreads in Kenya, the Kenyan government has taken the step of suspending all live television and news reports. A media executive quoted by CNN opines that the decision to suspend broadcasts has set back the democratic process by 15 years.
 
The decision to censor media during times of violence in order to avoid inciting further violence is a controversial one, with both backers and detractors in development and post-conflict circles. Some argue that such censorship saves lives and is therefore a necessity that outweighs any negative ramifications for free speech; others argue that such decisions often prove short-sighted and may lead to additional rollbacks in civil rights and further democratic deterioration.
What do you think?