| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
141476
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
There is increasing international concern about the growth of organized crime in Africa. Important criminal organizations and professional criminals are present in Africa, but we argue that the term “organized crime” is not a very useful description of their activity, since what we are actually witnessing is a reformulation of politics and crime into networks that transcend the state/non-state boundary in ways that are hardly subsumed in standard concepts of organized crime. Similar processes are taking place in various parts of the world, and thus African countries are not exceptional in this regard. The process, however, does take particular forms in Africa that arise out of the histories of individual countries. The article describes the evolution in countries as diverse as Libya, Guinea-Bissau, and Zimbabwe of a market for protection, as business people – legitimate and otherwise – seek protection for their activities and their personnel. This market for protection is created by making private arrangements, often with state officials working in private capacities. The implications are profound: they could amount to a new mode of governance connecting Africa to international markets and institutions in which the distinctions between licit and illicit economic activity become difficult to detect.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 2 |
ID:
065407
|
|
|
|
|
| Publication |
Sep-Oct 2005.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Past attempts to fix failed states in Africa have gone nowhere for similar reasons: they have tried to restore good governance to places that have never enjoyed it in the first place. A radical rethinking is needed; in the hardest cases, international trusteeships offer the best chance for success.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 3 |
ID:
142165
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
With a few notable exceptions,1 it has become almost conventional wisdom to assume that a nuclear Iran is bad for its immediate neighbors, the wider Middle East region, and even the world.2 Such logic suggests that even an Iran with a nascent nuclear program would be emboldened in its meddling in Middle Eastern geopolitical affairs, present a serious, perhaps existential, threat to Israel and others, and could potentially lead to a nuclear-proliferation cascade among its immediate regional rivals. There is almost certainly some truth to these claims — and few people see an Iran armed with nuclear weapons as a good thing or something that should be welcomed. That said, much of the current debate has ignored or glossed over some of the other important geopolitical dynamics that have been driven by Iranian actions during the past decade: actions that have in fact been broadly positive for regional security and stability. As a result, if a comprehensive deal on the nuclear program cannot be reached by the June 30 deadline, the strategic implications of latent or even a nuclear-armed Iran may not be as catastrophic as some have suggested and more subtle than many fear.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
ID:
078694
|
|
|
|
|
| Publication |
2007.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Religious modes of thinking about the world are widespread in Africa, and have a pervasive influence on politics in the broadest sense. We have published elsewhere a theoretical model as to how the relationship between politics and religion may be understood, with potential benefits for observers not just of Africa, but also of other parts of the world where new combinations of religion and politics are emerging. Application of this theoretical model requires researchers to rethink some familiar categories of social science
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 5 |
ID:
069409
|
|
|
| 6 |
ID:
087713
|
|
|
|
|
| Publication |
2009.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Since the publication in 2007 of a report on West Africa's role in the illegal cocaine trade from Latin America to Europe, considerable media attention has focused on Guinea-Bissau in particular as a country infiltrated by drug interests. However, West Africa has a long history of involvement in the international drug trade, that has been dominated by Nigerian interests especially. Consideration of this history may help stimulate a debate in historical sociology that will illuminate both the nature of involvement in the drug trade itself, and also larger questions about the long-term formation of the state.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|