Relief and rehabilitation work in Mozambique: Institutional capacity and NGO executional strategies

The nature of the Mozambique ‘emergency?s and its institutional context pose a significant challenge to NGO aid strategies, as these organisations seek to reconcile objectives of short-term effectiveness and accountability with goals of long-term capacity-building and sustainability. The increasing emphasis on the former within the Zambezia Province Emergency Programme may be prejudicing the government's capacity to stimulate economic and social rehabilitation once the Emergency Programme aid declines. Many NGOs working within the Province have shifted from a strategy of executing relief and rehabilitation programmes through existing institutional channels to one which relies heavily on the development of their own parallel structures. The shift has been motivated by the perceived weak executional capacity of the government institutions; however, it is unclear whether the modest gains in aid effectiveness and efficiency offset the lost opportunities for institutional change and learning necessary for programme sustainability and for the longer-term rehabilitation of the economic and social infrastructure in the province.     

Working with children as stakeholders in development: the challenges of organisational change

This article considers the challenges of promoting children's participation in development programming. It argues against the tendency to see the main obstacle to achieving this aim as technical. Instead it explores the institutional dimensions of change that may be required. The experience of a four-year process of training and organisational review within Save the Children Denmark provides the substance for reflection about the kinds of cultural and structural change that are implicated in enabling a development organisation to become capable of engaging young people as stakeholders in a meaningful and sustainable manner.     

Implementing ILO Child Labour Convention 182: lessons from Honduras

This article explores the implementation of Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Honduras. It highlights key lessons learned from a joint Save the Children Fund‐UK and Ministry of Labour project. These lessons are of relevance to similar projects addressing the application of child labour legislation and to projects focusing on institutional strengthening and children's participation. The article examines the centrality of partnership and ownership, and the value of child‐centred approaches. It also explores the capacity of NGOs to engage in national‐ and regional‐level government, and the importance of linking national‐, regional‐, and local‐level initiatives.     

Democratization in Mozambique: Trends and practices

This article explores the nature of party political competition four years after Mozambique's first democratic national elections, with particular attention being accorded to the democratization of local government. It commences with an overview of the nature of contemporary party politics in Mozambique. Secondly, the democratization of local government is reviewed. Thirdly, recent political developments are located within the context of major economic reconstruction and escalating corruption. It is concluded that whilst Mozambique does have a stable multi‐party system in the formal sense at least, the substance of genuine multi‐partyism remains elusive, given the near‐total lack of policy alternatives and the proliferation of corruption at the highest levels of political life.     

India’s fitful quest for seapower

Building on several years of research, and many interviews of Indian naval officers and government officials, both serving and retired, this article aims to provide a deeper understanding of the context and ramifications of India's naval rise. In particular, it seeks to explain a troubling paradox: the relative neglect of the navy vis-à-vis the other services, and the seeming misalignment of New Delhi's military strategy with its maritime geography. Indeed, the country's enviable position at the heart of the Indian Ocean, along with its peninsular formation, large exclusive economic zone, and extensive coastlines, would seem to suggest a natural predisposition towards the exercise of naval power. In reality, however, India's navy since independence has consistently been the most poorly funded of its military services, and has frequently struggled to make do with limited resources. The core question this article endeavors to address is whether this trend will persist, or whether various factors will combine in order to provoke a gradual rebalancing of the nation's military strategy and force structure.     

Russia's Artificial Intelligence Strategy: The Role of State-Owned Firms

In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that whichever country becomes the leader in artificial intelligence (AI) “will become the ruler of the world.” Yet Russia lags competitors like China and the United States substantially in AI capabilities. What is Russia's strategy for boosting development of AI technologies, and what role do groups within the Russian elite play in shaping this strategy? Russia's AI development strategy is unique in that it is led not by the government, nor by the private sector, but by state-owned firms. The government's distrust of Russia's largest tech firm, Yandex, has sidelined the company from national AI planning. Meanwhile, Russia's defense conglomerate Rostec publicly appears to focus less on artificial intelligence than on other high-tech priorities. As a result, Russia's AI development has been left to a state-owned bank, Sberbank, which has taken the lead in devising plans for government-backed investment in AI.     

America,Britain, and Swaraj: Anglo-American Relations and Indian Independence, 1939–1945

In the years before and during the Second World War, the Roosevelt Administration played an important and often overlooked role in encouraging Britain's disengagement from the Indian subcontinent. Roosevelt's motivations in pressing for Indian independence were varied. They included a mix of principled opposition to colonialism, practical concern for the outcome of the war and pragmatic jockeying for influence with post-colonial nations when the war was won. Churchill's government was wary of being pushed by Washington to move more quickly to “quit India” than it thought prudent. U.S. policy and actions clearly influenced the direction of events toward independence, but U.S. caution as the war ground on led to disillusionment among nationalist leaders. This reaction would have consequences once swaraj was won and India came into its own, at a time when the Cold War was becoming the dominant factor in America's view of the world.     

‘Building democracy’ through foreign aid: The limitations of United States political conditionalities, 1992–96

This article examines the record of the United States government in promoting democratic reform through the manipulation of development aid flows between 1992 and 1996. The first section reviews the origins of the policy of political conditionality and the subsequent changes in the US Agency for International Development. The next section evaluates the policy's execution by considering trends in the volume and distribution of US official development assistance, statistical linkages between that aid and recipient democratization, and the relationship with other potential foreign policy goals. The study finds that, contrary to the government's pledges, democratic and democratizing states have not received a greater share of aid. Instead, the distribution has been closely linked with security concerns ‐ a pattern consistent with the cold war record ‐ and US economic self‐interests have also been evident. Finally, three obstacles to the policy of ‘building democracy’ are considered: domestic ambivalence over the US's grand strategy in the post‐cold war era; coexistent foreign policy objectives that conflict with democratization; and the practical difficulties of eliciting reform overseas through the blunt instrument of development assistance.     

Framing Peace Policies: The Competition for Resonant Themes

Political organizations make use of culturally resonant symbols to bring their message to the public. In response to a political organization's use of a culturally resonant symbol, competing political organizations attack the connection between that organization's message and the symbol. Rochon and Wolfsfeld propose a process for the movement of policy justification symbols from interest groups and social movements to governments. This article examines this process in the context of the struggle among the Israeli nationalist movement, the Israeli peace movement, and the Israeli government, identifying a typology of tactical frames applicable to research beyond the Israeli context: denial, incorporation, and end run. Press releases by these political competitors show a specialization of tactical frames by social organization. Nationalists prefer to deny the validity of competing resonant symbols. Peace activists prefer to invent or search for new symbols, in an end run. Governments tend to absorb and redirect symbols initially used by the competing movements to justify government actions. An analysis of the political opportunity structures and organizational conditions that determine a political organization's tactics for attacking resonant frames is conducted.     

Millenarian groups and law enforcement agencies: The lessons of Waco

Why do violent movements participate in elections? To answer this question, we examine Hamas's formation of the Reform and Change Party and its iconic victory in the 2006 elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council. We argue that Hamas's formation of this party was a logical step, following nearly two decades of participation in local and municipal elections. Hamas's need to attract resources from external donors, who make funding decisions based on civilian support for the movement, best explains why Hamas decided to participate in local elections in the early 1990s, taking Hamas on a path that eventually led to its 2006 legislative victory. Hamas's foray into elections was consistent with its dual strategy of directing violence against Israel and building Palestinian support through welfare services. We demonstrate that changes in political opportunities (Fatah's decline and the increase in Hamas's popularity), institutional incentives (lax electoral laws and the holding of municipal elections), and the rise of moderate voices within Hamas explain the timing of its entry into legislative elections. Finally, we discuss Hamas's electoral victory, the need for cooperation between Fatah and Hamas, and the role played by international actors as significant factors influencing prospects for peace and democratization in the region.     

Nourishing men's anger and inflaming the fires of hatred: Bayle on religious violence and the ‘Novus Ordo Saeclorum’

In 1697, the Huguenot writer Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) published his Dictionnaire historique et critique ‐ a one‐man encyclopaedia. The article entitled Macon drew attention to the cruel atrocities perpetrated during the French Wars of Religion. This article explains the context of Bayle's critique, arguing that he uses the example to reflect on the Gallican regime's renewal of persecution against his community, and on the notorious revocation by Louis XIV, in 1685, of the Edict of Nantes. As a long‐term remedy for state violence against a law‐abiding minority, he recommends deliberative freedom within a framework of government impartiality, thereby anticipating a new secular order. A new translation of Bayle's article Macon can be found in the appendix.     

The ethics of immigration controls: Issues for development NGOs

It can be argued that immigration restrictions constitute a form of ‘global apartheid?s, ensuring that poorer sections of world society are prevented, by legal and physical force, from sharing in the world's sum of riches. This article seeks to develop this theme, by arguing that immigration controls are based on dubious ethical and practical foundations, and that development NGOs should be willing, in their educational and advocacy work, to challenge their validity.     

Health and hygiene behaviour change: bottom–up meets top–down in Tibet

The Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund (TPAF) has been working in the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China since 1998 to increase the income and assets of rural Tibetans. From the beginning, TPAF recognised that high morbidity and mortality were a constraint on efforts of rural Tibetans to improve livelihoods. Early interventions to train township doctors and midwives were not sustainable. In 2005, in partnership with local health authorities, TPAF launched a Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) strategy to build villagers' capacity to improve health and hygiene practices and to make informed choices about using government-run primary and preventive health services. Results from counties and townships in three Prefectures are preliminary, but they show significant changes in health knowledge and practice, and growing links between village needs and government services. Next steps include strengthening implementation and institutionalising government support to extend and support the approach.     

‘Does the doormat influence the boot?’: critical thoughts on UK NGOs and international advocacy

Most UK development NGOs engage in advocacy work at the international level in an attempt to reduce the constraints imposed on grassroots development by global economics and the actions of the official aid agencies. Thus far, their record has been disappointing, and this article explores some of the reasons which lie behind the failure of NGOs to fulfil their potential in this field. Four strategic weaknesses are identified: an overall absence of clear strategy, a failure to build strong alliances, a failure to develop alternatives to current orthodoxies, and the dilemma of relations with donors. Each weakness is analysed with reference to practical examples, and appropriate conclusions drawn.     

Addressing the Allied POW Issue in Japan: The Case of POW Research Network Japan

Since the mid-1990s the Japanese government has pursued reconciliation initiatives aimed at fostering understanding between Japan and former POWs. Nevertheless, the POW issue remains relatively unknown in Japan. This article describes the profile and activities of the POW Research Network Japan (POW kenkyūkai), a civil society group consisting of professional and shimin (citizen/non-professional) researchers as well as concerned citizens investigating the subject of Allied POWs in Japan. The article explores how POWRNJ participated in and contributed to the contestation of memory of the Asia-Pacific War (1931–1945) during the last decade. It describes the manner in which the group promoted its views and strived to achieve its goals. On the basis of these findings, the article identifies the kind of roles the group played, and how it mattered in the debates on Japan's wartime past.     

An economic model of guerrilla warfare∗

This paper draws on the guerrilla warfare literature so as to synthesize and to describe the dynamics of the initial stages of a guerrilla war against an established government. It combines two classical economic models, the Solow growth model and the Ricardian model of economic rents, with two classic studies of guerrilla warfare by T. E. Lawrence and by Mao Tse‐tung. The transitional stages of the guerrilla warfare are modeled as conflict over control of the real line. Four different Ricardian distribution functions describe the country: the resources the guerrillas can extract from territory under their control; the porosity of the country, indicating the guerrilla's ability to obtain weapons; the government's ability to tax; and the mobility the guerrillas. Depending on initial conditions, the course of the guerrilla war could take one of several paths. One is a direct movement to a stable equilibrium independent of the initial conditions. Another is a situation in which for the guerrillas to make a successful transition to the second stage via the dynamics of the process they have to reach a certain critical level of capability. Finally, the third path involves cyclical motion, with alternating positions of the guerrillas and the government in the evolution of the war. This model, while simple, appears to be consistent with the historical pattern of guerrilla wars, a key parameter in the model being porosity.     

Security Studies and the Use of History: Neville Chamberlain's Grand Strategy Revisited

In The Gathering Storm, Winston S. Churchill claimed that during the 1930s British leaders were willfully blind to the German threat and failed to meet it by rearming. Accepting the Churchillian narrative, leading IR scholars regard British grand strategy during the 1930s as glaring example of strategic adjustment failure. This article reappraises British grand strategy during the 1930s and rejects both the Churchillian narrative, and the scholarly claims that Britain did not adjust its strategy to the German threat. In the 1930s, Britain did balance against Germany and focused on countering what policy makers perceived as the key threat facing Britain: its vulnerability to German air attack. Britain's grand strategic options were limited by external conditions and by domestic economic constraints. Neville Chamberlain, therefore, was playing a weak hand, and did the best that he could with the cards he was dealt. Britain's 1930s grand strategy is one of the historical cases most frequently used by IR scholars for theory testing. For that reason alone, it is important to get the history right. This is not the only reason, however. The 1930s have provided many of the concepts, images, and metaphors that have dominated the discourse about American foreign policy since World War II. Because scholarship about the events of the 1930s shapes the discourse about real-world policy, getting the history right matters.     

The political origins of South Korea's economic crisis: Is democratization to blame?

Different explanations have been presented regarding the recent economic crisis in South Korea. After critically evaluating these explanations, the article modifies and refines the dominant model, the mea culpa paradigm, to develop a political, interactive and integrative explanation of the crisis. The economic breakdown during the Kim Young Sam regime in Korea (1993–98) was mainly due to the Kim government's failure to carry out its well‐intended economic reforms, particularly chaebol reforms. The reasons for the failure of the economic reforms, in turn, consist of a set of political factors, including President Kim's distinctive leadership style encapsulated by ‘decretistic populism’, the chaebôl's effective cultural strategies of agenda denial and an anti‐reform campaign by conservative social forces. In this respect, the economic crisis in Korea is also a political crisis. The article refutes a popular interpretation within Korea that blames democracy for the economic crisis, demonstrating that there is at best a very tenuous relationship between the democratization in the country since 1987 and the economic crisis. To overcome the crisis, the current Kim Dae Jung government in Korea should avoid decretistic populism, forge and maintain a constructive alliance with civil society groups and develop a solid coalition for economic reform.     

Editorials in national development: Perceptions of Nigerian journalists

This study examines the self‐reported perceptions of the role of editorials in national development for a purposive sample of 348 full‐time, salaried Nigerian journalists on nine national newspapers in two newspaper ownership groups: private and government. Three major findings are indicated.

The first finding is that, on seven‐statement comparisons of the role of editorials in national development, government journalists perceived their editorials as more supportive of the government than did private journalists, a result largely reflective of government newspapers’ persuasive role in behalf of government agencies.

The second finding is that ownership of newspapers is not a particularly strong factor in journalists’ perceptions of the role of editorials in development. Such a finding calls into question the rationale for the continuing case for private ownership of Africa's media institutions as a solution to the limitations of the region's media in exercising independent, effective, and persuasive influence on development.

Finally, because this study indicates that newspaper ownership is occasionally not a factor in the perception of the role of editorials in development, it questions the implications of the simple, traditional distinction between government and private newspapers for national development in sub‐Saharan Africa.     

Towards an integrated information society policy in South Africa: an overview of political rhetoric and policy initiatives 1994–2000

Abstract

South Africa is considered one of the few developing countries that has fully embraced the concept of information society and has formulated and implemented policy inititives in order to change society accordingly. By 1995 the theme of the information society started to surface regularly in political discourse and policy documents. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and access to ICTs started to have prominence both in policy formulation and implementation. Although there was much talk about a Green Paper/White Paper process on the information society during 1996 and the beginning of 1997, such a policy process never materialised. To date, there is no document defining the government's view of the information society, no policy document outlining an integrated strategy to arrive there and no government department officially responsible for the coordination of policy initiatives. This article sets out to analyse the notion of the information society in South Africa and to analyse the broad evolution of South Africa's information society policy between 1994 and 2000.