Democratization and electoral turnovers in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond

This study criticizes approaches equating opposition electoral victories with democratization in competitive authoritarian regimes. Not only are these approaches theoretically problematic, but there are also important empirical reasons to distinguish between electoral turnovers and democratization. The study goes on to explain why some African turnovers have been successful in bringing about democratization while others have not. This study promotes an approach in which opposition victories may be used as an independent variable that, under certain circumstances, could promote democratization. Using evidence from the cases of Senegal, Ghana, and Kenya, it is argued that electoral uncertainty caused by a low level of party institutionalization has been an important obstacle to democratization by alternation in the African context.     

Illumination and Innovation: What Philanthropic Foundations Bring to Global Health Governance

This article argues that because much of the scholarship examining the influence of private foundations in global health governance is either neo-Gramscian or reflexively critical in orientation, undue attention has been paid to foundations' origins, affiliations and perceived biases towards bringing technological solutions to bear on problems with deep socio-political determinants, obscuring their chief functions as global governors while downplaying their agency. Such concerns are by no means new as private philanthropic influence in the governance of global health is not a new phenomenon. Drawing on examples from the Ford, Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations' efforts to strengthen public health across the Global South, we argue that for over a century private foundations have been instrumental in the governance of collective action problems for two important reasons. Firstly, their stark illumination of state and market failures disproportionately affecting the world's marginalised and the potential of science-enabled innovation to address longstanding challenges has repeatedly generated the requisite political will to address, however imperfectly, global disparities. Secondly, foundations have ensured that functional governance mechanisms exist to provide public goods to the poor when changes to the structural fabric of the world order constrain the ability of other institutions mandated to perform this function.     

Sketching and validating the location-based services (LBS) regulatory framework in Australia

Location-based services (LBS) are defined as those applications that combine the location of a mobile device associated with a given entity (individual or object) together with contextual information to offer a value-added service. LBS solutions are being deployed globally, and in some markets like Australia, without appropriate regulatory provisions in place. Recent debates in Australia have addressed the need to bridge the gap between technological developments and legal/regulatory provisions. This requires an assessment of the regulatory environment within a given social context such as Australia. The core components of such an investigation include: (a) composing a conceptual framework for analysing regulation of technologies such as LBS, one that is sensitive to public policy themes and challenges, and (b) applying this conceptual framework to the Australian setting in order to sketch and define the components of the present framework, and identify areas for improvement through a process of validation. This paper addresses these aims, demonstrating how the current regulatory framework in Australia is bound by legislation with respect to privacy, telecommunications, surveillance, and national security (that is, anti-terrorism), in addition to a set of industry guidelines for location-service providers (LSPs). The existing Australian framework, however, is lacking in its coverage and treatment of LBS and location data, and does not adequately address the themes and challenges in the defined conceptual framework.     

Intellectual Property Counterfeiting and Piracy – Response of Small Commonwealth Jurisdictions∗

This article provides an analysis of some recent developments relating to Constitutional law in Jamaica, including the legal issues arising from tied elections and the dual nationality of parliamentarians. It also discusses a case relating to the failure to incorporate the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Convention). In this case, though the Palermo Convention contemplates investigations by agents of one country on the territory of another for certain crimes, one state party found it was unable to carry out such investigations on the territory of another. Although the latter country, a CARICOM member state, was also a party to the Convention, it had not enacted the required implementing legislation     

Taking stock of the practice of the right to freedom of political association in Tanzania: constitutional developments from 1992 to 2005

This article is an analytical examination of how the major changes that took place in Tanzania in 1992 in the constitutional set‐up and political practice and organization affected the freedoms of political association and assembly in the country. It begins by comparing the rights comprising the Tanzanian Bill of Rights with similar provisions in other instruments at the international and regional level, as well as the constitutions of neighbouring countries. Moreover, the provisions of the Eighth Constitutional Amendment Act 1992 (Act No 4 of 1992), which abolished the one‐party political system are considered in detail. It is concluded that broad enjoyment of the freedoms of political association and assembly is a pre‐requisite for the existence in a country of true democratic governance, because these freedoms are the bedrock of all other rights.     

A Routine Activities Analysis of White‐Collar Crime in Carbon Markets

Scholars recently called for increased analysis of opportunity structures that produce white‐collar crimes in legitimate business systems. In the current research, we use mental models, a tool from cognitive psychology, to describe opportunity structures for white‐collar crime in the European Emissions Trading System, the largest carbon market in the world. Specifically, we use routine activities theory to describe the convergence of motivated offenders and suitable targets in the absence of capable guardians in different parts of the system. Implications for utilizing routine activities theory to understand and address crime in carbon markets are discussed.