“To the average person, politics during times of civil war is more about economics than anything else.” Discuss.
Although ideology might at first appear to be of major importance to average people involved in civil wars, it was often regarded as a means to an end: a method of securing basic necessities in times of political and economic flux. Economics, if it is taken to mean ‘how scarce resources are or should be allocated’, can be seen at the root of issues such as ideology and nationalism, or as a major contributing factor in their shift to prominence.
Does Karl Marx’s Theory of Alienation Explain Contemporary Social Disaffection and Disappointment?
Lebow’s assertion that human beings can reach spiritual satisfaction through ever increasing levels of material consumption is not supported by empirical evidence. Recent psychological research sharply contradicts his hypothesis. According to James, a twenty-five year old American is between three and ten times more likely to be suffering from depression today than in 1950.
French Foreign Policy under Sarkozy
The presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy has certainly brought a change in the style of French foreign policy, but has it altered the substance? The answer, I will argue, is a qualified yes, not least because it is characteristic of the new French president to blend style and substance until the two become indistinguishable.
Why has the ANC Government in South Africa Gone Slowly on Land Reform, and Why did Mugabe in Zimbabwe Abandon Gradualism?
Beginning in 1997 Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF ushered in a radical land reform which rapidly accelerating after 2000. Despite ongoing racialised economic inequality in South Africa, the ANC has retained its measured approach along the market-based terms of willing-buyer/willing-seller with a focus on restitution. This essay explores the factors behind their different trajectories.
The ‘Developmental State’ and Economic Development
The term ‘developmental state’ has been incorrectly used to describe any state presiding over a period of economic development and improvement in living standards. This essay describes the attributes of the ‘developmental state’ and explains how they led to highly successful economic development in the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs).
NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting to Define its Future
Almost sixty years after it was first formed, NATO has changed a great deal from the organisation which once prepared to fight the Red Army in Germany’s Fulda Gap. This essay will argue that the alliance is now fighting fto define its future, in Afghanistan.
To What Extent can Quantitative Analysis Help to Understand the Extent of Democratic Consolidation in Various African States?
Quantitative forms of analysis have long been lacking in studies of African affairs. Bratton et al.’s, assertion that Africa as a whole is a vastly understudied continent, and that data is “scarce, spotty or entirely non-existent” was, until comparatively recently, fairly difficult to contend. This essay will hold up the recent achievements of quantitative analysis to the critiques presented by qualitative scholars.
Describe the Major Proposals to Revise the International Financial Architecture to Limit the Frequency and Severity of Financial Crises in Developing Countries in the Future
The devastating financial crises that have hit developing nations in Latin America and Asia over the past several decades have given rise to numerous rallying calls to reform the “international financial architecture.” Liberalizing the financial system to foreign capital flows have contributed to immense domestic political and economic turmoil, and in some nations even to violence.
Achievements and Limitations of Nation-building in Africa: The Case of Zimbabwe
Recent months have seen inter-ethnic conflict in Kenya, exclusivist attacks aimed at immigrant populations in South Africa and continuing controversy surrounding the future of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Cases such as these expose serious societal tensions within some contemporary African states, including those traditionally considered the continent’s ‘success stories’. In light of this, it’s pertinent to ask about the achievements and limitations of nation-building in Africa.
Burma and the responsibility to protect: first, do more good than harm
Paranoid and mistrustful of the outside world, Burma’s generals were criminally tardy in permitting emergency humanitarian supplies and personnel to come into the country after a devastating cyclone in early May. Yet attempts to invoke R2P were ill advised.
