The new face of developing country debt

Developing country debt has been a major preoccupation for development policy makers and practitioners since the debt crisis of 1982. It is a major obstacle to economic and social progress in developing countries. After the resolution of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the debt relief initiatives for low-income countries of 1997–2006 concerns about developing country debt seem to have receded. However, there are a growing number of problems that warrant concern, including the accumulation of domestic debt, short-term debt and private non-guaranteed debt, and increasing recourse by low-income countries to international capital markets. At the same time developing countries have strengthened their capacity to oversee and analyse their debt portfolios. Nonetheless, significant weaknesses remain in debt management capacity at the national level. Moreover, the activities of ‘vulture funds’ and the lack of a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism reveal major shortcomings in the international institutional architecture that need to be addressed urgently.     

坚信中巴友谊畅谈第三世界的全球化应对——专访巴基斯坦友好人士胡马云

编者按:胡马云·果哈尔(Humayun Gauhar),美国剑桥大学社会和政治科学硕士,巴基斯坦领导人侧近人士.2001年任阿尔塔夫·果哈尔基金会主席.     

Eight supreme court cases that have changed the face of public administration

This article examines eight recent Supreme Court decisions that have important implications for public administrators. The areas examined include public personnel policy, solid waste management, budgeting and finance, taxation, privacy, and public school education.     

Centre-right politics in Turkey after the November 2002 general election: neo-liberalism with a Muslim face

This article analyses the implications for centre-right politics and democracy in Turkey of the rise to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, AKP) in the November 2002 general election. It is argued that the AKP has both similarities with and differences from the centre-right political parties that have dominated Turkish politics in the aftermath of the 1980 coup d’état. It is possible to find continuity in the conciliatory and synthesizing stance of the AKP, as well as in its rather conservative stance. The AKP’s disposition vis-à-vis state-centred politics is considered, as is its standpoint with regard to pluralism and democracy.     

When the doctor gets infected. Medical workers who harbor the AIDS virus may face new rules

Growing public anxiety has prompted federal officials to consider a controversial shift in policy: asking medical workers to take tests for HIV infection.     

The ugly face of the state: Nigerian security forces,human rights and the search for Boko Haram

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the aggressive and gratuitously violent insurgency in northeastern Nigeria – Boko Haram – is the entirely understandable consequence of more than a half-century of misrule by what I call the parasitic and predatory Nigerian political class. Evidence of widespread human rights abuses including extortion, rape and theft comes from investigations by various international human rights organizations, international non-governmental organizations, church groups, press reports and interviews. I focus primarily on incidents and practices in the northeast but examples are adduced from other parts of the country as well. I discuss the policy of coercion and brutality embedded in the very nature of the colonial and post-colonial state using Crawford Young’s concept of bula matari (the state as rock crusher).     

Managing resource transposition in the face of extreme events: Fieldwork at two public networks in Germany and the US

As administrations increasingly rely on interorganizational networks to organize public service provision, this article inspects the role resourcing plays in the way managers working in networks cope in the face of extreme events. Using comparative analyses of fieldwork in the context of two emergency service networks in two major cities in Germany and the US, we introduce the concept of resource transposition. This concept holds the potential to explain why and how networks might perform well in situations that drain its central participants' resources. We highlight the relevance of four practices: resource (re)production; resource administration through integration; resource administration through centralization; resource support. We derive a set of propositions underlining the usefulness of the concept of resource transposition.     

Les éleveurs de la rive nigérienne du lac Tchad face à Boko Haram: entre mobilités forcées et revendications identitaires

RÉSUMÉ

La crise sécuritaire qui sévit actuellement dans la région de Diffa (Niger) et singulièrement dans le bassin du lac Tchad, du fait de l’insécurité causée par les islamistes de Boko Haram, a bouleversé les activités pastorales et perturbé les mobilités des éleveurs au sein de cette partie du Niger. À partir des données in situ collectées auprès des éleveurs sur la base d’une méthodologie d’enquêtes terrain dans une zone où l’accès est physiquement difficile, cet article met en lien des trajectoires historiques sur la longue durée et les vécus quotidiens des pasteurs et agro-pasteurs de la rive nigérienne du lac Tchad dans cette situation d’insécurité inédite liée à Boko Haram. Nous verrons notamment comment cette insécurité a engendré des dysfonctionnements sur certains systèmes pastoraux, a exacerbé les tensions intercommunautaires sur fond d’anciens clivages ethniques et a ravivé les revendications territoriales entre groupes pour le contrôle des zones pastorales et l’affirmation identitaire.