This book explores the history and dynamics between the press, politics and public policy in Uganda. It illuminates and documents the various tensions and struggles for press freedom in the country since the establishment of the first newspaper in 1900. Journalists, over the years, have had to deploy various methods and approaches in dealing with the various state apparatuses.
As the oldest (and arguably best-known) university in Uganda and the wider eastern and central Africa region, Makerere University looms large in the history of higher education on the continent. Alma mater to presidents, public intellectuals and pundits of all disciplines, Makerere has attracted considerable scholarly and popular attention, both in respect of its prominence and achievements, and well as with regard to its failures and foibles. The proposed book focuses on a particularly understudied aspect of the place of higher education in the African context, i.e. the relationship between a public university of unique historical importance and the contestations over democratization that have taken place both within campus and outside of it. It is built around the late-1980s struggle by the Makerere University Academic Staff Association (MUASA) for improved living conditions against the backdrop of the early programs of structural adjustment and economic reform that the National Resistance Army/Movement (NRA/M) government adopted soon after taking power in 1986. Although seemingly introverted in focus, in many respects the MUASA action represented the earliest forms of political struggle against a regime of governance that promised a great deal, but disappointingly delivered considerably less. The focus on MUASA provides a critical entry-point to a wider debate about the place of organized democratic action by academics in a post-conflict context where the traditional institutions of political and civil society, i.e. political parties and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have either been severely compromised or discredited, or where they are too weak and inorganic to provide any form of significant counter-juxtaposition to the government in power. By organizing the first strike by academic staff in the sixty-seven (67) year history of the university, for a time MUASA became the focal-point for democratic organizing against a regime that was yet to fully expose its nefarious and anti-democratic colours. The book examines the broader issues concerning the relationship between organized academic action and democratization; the place of the Media in reviewing these struggles; the position of students as a critical component of academe; "big P" and "small p" politics affecting female academics, and finally, the paradoxical role of the School of Law in both aiding and inhibiting the struggle against dictatorship in a country which has enjoyed (or
Manski argues that public policy is based on untrustworthy analysis. Failing to account for uncertainty in an uncertain world, policy analysis routinely misleads policy makers with expressions of certitude. Manski critiques the status quo and offers an innovation to improve both how policy research is conducted and how it is used by policy makers.
Governance discourse centers on an "ideal type" of modern statehood that exhibits full internal and external sovereignty and a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. Yet modern statehood is an anomaly, both historically and within the contemporary international system, while the condition of "limited statehood," wherein countries lack the capacity to implement central decisions and monopolize force, is the norm. Limited statehood, argue the authors in this provocative collection, is in fact a fundamental form of governance, immune to the forces of economic and political modernization. Challenging common assumptions about sovereign states and the evolution of modern statehood, particularly the dominant paradigms supported by international relations theorists, development agencies, and international organizations, this volume explores strategies for effective and legitimate governance within a framework of weak and ineffective state institutions. Approaching the problem from the perspectives of political science, history, and law, contributors explore the factors that contribute to successful governance under conditions of limited statehood. These include the involvement of nonstate actors and nonhierarchical modes of political influence. Empirical chapters analyze security governance by nonstate actors, the contribution of public-private partnerships to promote the United Nations Millennium Goals, the role of business in environmental governance, and the problems of Western state-building efforts, among other issues. Recognizing these forms of governance as legitimate, the contributors clarify the complexities of a system the developed world must negotiate in the coming century.
This symposium, which was held on March 10-11, 2003, at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, brought together policy experts and managers from the government and academic sectors in both developed and developing countries to (1) describe the role, value, and limits that the public domain and open access to digital data and information have in the context of international research; (2) identify and analyze the various legal, economic, and technological pressures on the public domain in digital data and information, and their potential effects on international research; and (3) review the existing and proposed approaches for preserving and promoting the public domain and open access to scientific and technical data and information on a global basis, with particular attention to the needs of developing countries.
Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.
The revival of economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is all the more welcome for having followed one of the worst economic disasters—a quarter century of economic malaise for most of the region—since the industrial revolution. Six of the world's fastest-growing economies in the first decade of this century were African. Yet only in Ethiopia and Rwanda was growth not based on resources and the rising price of oil. Deindustrialization has yet to be reversed, and progress toward creating a modern economy remains limited. This book explores the vital role that active government policies can play in transforming African economies. Such policies pertain not just to industry. They traverse all economic sectors, including finance, information technology, and agriculture. These packages of learning, industrial, and technology (LIT) policies aim to bring vigorous and lasting growth to the region. This collection features case studies of LIT policies in action in many parts of the world, examining their risks and rewards and what they mean for Sub-Saharan Africa.
