Introduction: the accountability function of the courts in new democracies

Much of the literature on ‘democratic consolidation’ has adopted a forward‐looking, future‐oriented perspective. Rather than studying past regimes, it tries to assess the life expectancies of contemporary ’third wave’ democracies. The article contends that authors have usually been unaware of the methodological complexities this choice of time perspective involves. If we want to reach reasonable judgements about the chances of democratic survival in a given country we have to be conscious of the probabilistic nature of such a prospective exercise. And we have to make (and justify) some basic analytical decisions. We have to explain the time horizons we are adopting as well as the future conditions we are assuming. We have to make clear how we construct the binary opposition between ‘consolidated’ and ‘non‐consolidated’ democracies. We have to decide whose expectations of democratic stability we take into account. And we have to cope with conflicting and unstable perceptions. Unless we ‘consolidologists’ heed these methodological ground rules, it is unlikely that we will ever reach shared judgements, or else, intelligible disagreements, about empirical states of democratic consolidation.     

The uncertain relationship between transparency and accountability

The concepts of transparency and accountability are closely linked: transparency is supposed to generate accountability. This article questions this widely held assumption. Transparency mobilises the power of shame, yet the shameless may not be vulnerable to public exposure. Truth often fails to lead to justice. After exploring different definitions and dimensions of the two ideas, the more relevant question turns out to be: what kinds of transparency lead to what kinds of accountability, and under what conditions? The article concludes by proposing that the concept can be unpacked in terms of two distinct variants. Transparency can be either ‘clear’ or ‘opaque’, while accountability can be either ‘soft’ or ‘hard’.     

赞比亚私有化对经济现代化的作用

自1992年起,赞比亚陆续在全国诸多领域开始实行了私有化。然而十多年的私有化导致赞比亚物质资本匮乏、人力资本不足、经济结构单一、货币大幅度贬值、民生倒退、社会腐败严重等问题依然存在,并有加剧之势,经济的低水平发展和单一性没有发生根本改变。在本世纪初,赞比亚政府应放慢私有化步伐,在国家减免债务和扶持农业发展等方面多做努力,为经济现代化创造条件。     

Privacy,the news media,and the courts

Abstract

This article is concerned with the conflict between the news media's position that the public has a ‘'right to know'’ under the free press provision of the First Amendment and the right to privacy under the tort law. The constitutional issue is raised whenever the media print or broadcast accurate, but often embarrassing, facts about a person, or whenever personal information is publicized which an individual prefers not to share with the general public.

In unwanted publicity and public disclosure cases, the courts have accorded greater weight to the defendant defenses of consent, news‐worthiness, and media privilege than to the plaintiff's invasion of privacy claim. To remedy this inequity, a two‐tier judicial model is proposed that would have courts balance the two competing interests in such a manner as to enhance individual privacy without diminishing the informational function of the news media.     

The Scott report: Inquiries,parliamentary accountability and government control in Britain

The Scott inquiry (1996) into arms sales to Iraq sets the scene for important issues of how government and ministers are held to account in the United Kingdom. The article examines in detail the work of the inquiry, the procedures used, the findings of the inquiry and the aftermath. Important constitutional considerations are explained in terms of the role of public interest immunity and in the procedures for fairness at inquiries. Improvements in ministerial responsibility are considered and the value of Parliamentary accountability assessed. The role and functioning of the British civil service is also assessed. The Scott inquiry provides many lessons for democracies in the world. The report provides an important insight into the internal workings of the British government and how administrative responsibility is exercised.     

Perceptions and practices of farmer empowerment in Tanzania

The purpose of this article is to review the implementation of various empowerment interventions in Tanzania. Data for the review are based on field visits to programmes/projects/organisations involved in implementing empowerment interventions in various regions of the country. These visits involved key-informant interviews, sample surveys, and focus-group discussions with farmers. The review highlights the perceptions of empowerment at the levels of project staff and practitioners/beneficiaries, as well as the approaches used by various organisations and projects in implementing empowerment activities. In addition the article discusses the factors perceived to lead to empowerment, as well as its consequences.     

鲍罗达列考对坦桑尼亚伊斯兰教与基督教关系的研究评介

坦桑尼亚(以下简称“坦桑”)是以班图黑人为主的多部族国家,坦噶尼喀(大陆)35%的居民信奉天主教和基督教,45%信奉伊斯兰教,其余信奉原始拜物教;桑给巴尔岛99%的居民信奉伊斯兰教。尽管坦桑部族众多,宗教信仰多元化,但在全面建设自己的国家、探索符合自己国情的发展道路方面不断取得进展,其中可资借鉴的经验是:大力发展教育和维系基督教与伊斯兰教间的良好关系。坦桑当前良好的族际关系、教际冲突鲜见的现象也引起了一些国际问题学者的注意。2003年4~5月,俄罗斯历史学博士鲍罗达列考先生在坦桑进行实地科学考察,写出了专题论文———《现代坦…     

Social accountability and community forest management: the failure of collaborative governance in the Wombat Forest

This article presents a critical analysis of what caused the failure of Australia's first Community Forest Management (CFM) trial. We explore how ‘community’ was conceptualised and represented through the dynamic CFM process, leading to contradictions and conflicts that could not be resolved. We examine the governance structures and institutions that were created to try to enable community participation in forest management. Ambiguity and uncertainty in the power and purpose of the CFM organisation, as well as power relationships within the organisation, all contributed to conflicts that eventually tore the CFM process apart.     

Horizontal accountability and the challenges for democratic consolidation in Africa: evidence from Liberia

Why are most African emerging democracies failing to consolidate and reach the two-turnover test? Most scholars attribute this to the poor quality of elections and limited institutionalization of vertical accountability, overlooking some important variables. This article challenges this conception both theoretically and empirically by focusing on the quality of horizontal accountability illustrated by observations of comparative interest in Liberia's emerging democracy. Since the end of Liberia's bloody civil war in 2003, two successive and successful democratic elections (2005 and 2011) have been organized, putting Liberia on the path towards democratic consolidation. When analysing the electoral mechanism of vertical2016 accountability, many scholars have been enthusiastic about the prospects of democratic consolidation in Liberia, most of them neglecting the horizontal accountability processes that are also crucial for the quality and durability of democracy. This article analyses the processes and challenges of democratic consolidation in Liberia by focusing on key institutions of horizontal accountability. It argues that although the country has made some progress towards democratization since 2005, the domination and centralization of executive power, weak and dependent institutions of horizontal accountability (legislature, judiciary, national elections commission, general auditing commission, and anti-corruption commission) are major challenges to the consolidation of democracy. These findings have important implications for our understanding of horizontal accountability and democratic consolidation in African emerging democracies.     

赞比亚、南非部分中资企业经营状况调查——中国社会科学院西亚非洲研究所赴非洲考察调研报告节录

在美国公谊委员会的资助下,2008年1月10～23日,中国社会科学院西亚非洲研究所赴非洲考察团一行七人①,赴赞比亚和南非进行实地调研.考察团主要对上述两国的一些中资企业进行走访和调查,同时就中资企业在当地的经营状况与当地一些工会组织、非政府机构等举行座谈.     

Fair-trade coffee in Nicaragua and Tanzania: a comparison

Fair-trade activities in the South have tended to be studied in relation to the internal aims of the fair-trade organisations themselves. This article argues that it is also critical to consider the wider fair-trade ‘arena’ or set of interactions. The authors focus on Tanzania and Nicaragua and study the role of four key actors—small-scale producers, co-operatives, development partners, and public authorities. Using comparative data from field studies conducted in 2002–2003, the article identifies key national and international issues affecting local producers. Illustrating how fair trade evolves differently according to context, the article examines how the co-operative movement in Nicaragua has been strengthened by fair-trade production, in contrast to the situation in Tanzania. It concludes by discussing some of the challenges faced by fair trade, including how to reconcile the demands of the market with building solidarity.     

A Comparative Analysis of Political Parties in Kenya,Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo

This article compares the characteristics and development of the main political parties of Kenya, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, starting from their independence in the 1960s up to the late 1990s. It offers an exploratory analysis of the differences and similarities that might have led to the, more or less, successful establishment of political parties and democratic regimes in these countries. The parties are compared along four dimensions: colonial heritage, the saliency of ethnicity, political communication between the party elite and the periphery, and their link to civil society. The study shows that the development of national parties at the time of independence was severely hindered by the colonizers. The inherited political structures encouraged the exploitation of both ethnic and regional links and further strengthened patronage networks. But also in more recent years, political leaders have used ethnicity as a strategic tool to strengthen their position in power. The comparative analysis shows that in those countries in which ethnicity was most salient, political parties were less democratic and less favourable for democratization. The analysis also highlights that the country with the least active political communication had the most difficult path towards a multiparty system. Finally, the article suggests that a civil society that is truly independent from the government, and incorporates powerful players in urban areas, is most likely to contribute to the development of a competitive party system.     

Corporate accountability to the poor? Assessing the effectiveness of community-based strategies

This paper investigates how, why, and when community-based strategies are effective in promoting corporate accountability (CA) to the poor. It argues that mainstream approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) underestimate the importance of power in the relationship between corporations and the communities in which they invest, which limits their applicability to many developing-country contexts in particular. In addressing this neglect, the article draws on literature on power, accountability, and citizen participation in order to analyse cases where communities have attempted to hold corporations to account for their social and environmental responsibilities. The paper argues that more attention should be paid to a number of state-, corporation-, and community-related factors, which are found to be key to the effectiveness of strategies aimed at enhancing CA to the poor.     

Economic reform and judicial governance in Brazil: balancing independence with accountability

Conventional wisdom on judicial governance posits that an independent judiciary is the single most important prerequisite of the rule of law. However the case of Brazil demonstrates that this is not necessarily the case, as there exist tensions and trade-offs between independence and accountability. The democratic constitution of 1988 clearly succeeded in isolating the judiciary from political interference, thus enabling it to perform its role as an institution of horizontal accountability in particular through the judicial review of executive decrees. However, Brazil's unrestricted independence has progressively become a hindrance to effective economic governance, a policy area in which the judiciary has especially asserted itself The central question is whether the judiciary is too autonomous, lacking effective mechanisms of democratic accountability and external control. The paradox is that excessive independence makes it particularly difficult to reform the judiciary. This study assesses the governance of the judiciary in Brazil and its impact on economic reform. It argues that the challenge of judicial reform resides in strengthening the countervailing mechanisms of accountability to enhance the judiciary's social responsiveness and political responsibility. Finding the right balance between independence and accountability is the defining challenge of judicial governance in Brazil.