Rhetoric and Praxis: Nigeria’s Africa Diplomacy and the Shaping of the African Union

Although Nigeria has always promoted multilateral diplomacy in the African context, the civilian administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo made it a cardinal objective of its Africa policy. Through his foreign policy speeches, President Obasanjo emphasised the readiness of his administration to play a leading role in African continental organisation – the African Union (AU). Using data collected through the secondary and interview methods, and thematic analysis, this study analyses Obasanjo’s diplomatic outing in the AU. While there were some encumbrances (such as the failure on occasion to make wider consultations within the AU framework and the absence of a well coordinated inter-ministerial approach to project Nigeria’s leadership in the AU), the paper contends that the administration’s diplomacy in the AU was successful. This showed in the role the administration played in shaping the structures that currently define the existence of the organisation. The transmutation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to AU, the recalibration of its peace and security architecture, and the funding of the organisation benefited immensely from Nigeria’s diplomacy under President Obasanjo.     

Racial animosity and political party partisanship in South Africa: the case of the African National Congress and the Black African majority

As it is in many countries, racial rhetoric is a feature of South African national government elections. The use of such rhetoric provokes the question, how much is political party support in the country driven by interracial animosities? Using the nationally representative public opinion dataset, the South African Social Attitudes Survey, this article looks at party closeness to the African National Congress (ANC) amongst the black African population. The ANC is one of the oldest and most powerful political parties on the African continent and currently dominates South Africa’s parliamentary government. Constructing four indexes of racial attitudes and behaviours, the article investigates whether partisanship with the ruling party can be predicted by racial animosity. The period under investigation is 2010–2014. Bivariate and multivariate quantitative techniques are employed to test the relationship between ANC partisanship and racial animosity. The results of this investigation show that racial enmity in the country is troublingly widespread. Public opinion analysis, however, found no correlation between racial acrimony and ANC partisanship. Other factors are driving black African identification with the country’s ruling party. The implications of these results for the study for political party support in South Africa are discussed and future avenues of research presented.     

Explaining variation and change in supervisory confidentiality in the European Union

Abstract

Some European Union member states’ financial regulators choose to make some of the data they routinely collect on individual banks publicly available. Others treat this data as confidential. What explains this difference? This paper considers the possible effects of crises, path-dependent legal institutions, and the design of deposit insurance schemes. At the national level, the paper focuses on contrasting German and Dutch cases. After the recent economic crisis, the Dutch released more data while the German authorities maintained strict confidentiality rules. The design of deposit insurance schemes provides a key reason why the level of secrecy varies, with the Dutch move from an ex post to an ex ante scheme where the government served as the ultimate backstop leading to questions about the accounts of individual banks while the German system favoured continued secrecy. The paper also describes the level of transparency at the EU level. Multilevel legal restrictions and bureaucratic capacity tilt EU banking union practices towards member states that treat financial supervisory data as confidential.     

The role of foreign donors in rebuilding the Ukrainian nation-state

The viewpoint discusses the role of foreign donors in rebuilding the Ukrainian nation-state. It argues that a gardener’s care is needed – not guidance, traditional teaching, or direction, but assistance. Foreign donors’ activities should be oriented principally to the support of internal points of growth, social and economic. The task of empowering actors that show promise to propel socio-economic development from within can and should be prioritised. The policies of empowering local actors (as opposed to financing the government and established businesses) involve first and foremost supporting bottom-up initiatives and start-ups that have demonstrated their relevance and promise.     

Advocating for the cause of the “victims of Communism” in the European political space: memory entrepreneurs in interstitial fields

The European Parliament (EP) adopted, between 2004 and 2009, a series of resolutions calling for recognition of Communist crimes and commemoration of their victims. This article focuses on an overlooked aspect of anti-Communist activism, the awareness-raising activities carried out by some Central European Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to perpetuate the cause through networks that enable them to exchange institutional credibility, scientific legitimacy, and policy-oriented knowledge with Institutes of National Memory, parts of academia, and victims associations. Although they use the techniques of expertise and scandalization that are often effective in European institutions, these memory entrepreneurs have largely failed to further their claims in the European Union (EU) after 2009. In line with the turn toward “practice” in EU studies and the increased attention paid to agency in memory politics, this article contends that the conditions of production of their narrative of indictment of Communism accounts for this relative lack of success. Because their demands produced a strong polarization inside the EP while colliding with established Western patterns of remembrance, these MEPs’ reach remains limited to their Conservative peers from the former Eastern bloc. This weak national and ideological representativeness hinders their capacity to impose their vision of the socialist period in the European political space.     

Resilience in the Face of Adversity: African Immigrants' Mental Health Needs and the American Transition

The aims of this qualitative study were to explore key sources of emotional distress and coping strategies among West African immigrants. Thirty-eight adult West African immigrants participated in six semistructured, open-ended focus group sessions. Focus group data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. While participants reported high levels of psychological distress associated with racial/cultural discrimination, intimate partner violence, parenting, extended-family demands, and problematic immigration status, they demonstrated resilience and the ability to identify a range of coping strategies that draw on their cultural heritage. Only two of the participants reported having used psychological services; both outcomes were negative. The findings of this study are considered in terms of their clinical implications.     

#Democracy: social media use and democratic legitimacy in Central and Eastern Europe

Since 1989, many of the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have made the dramatic change from communist regimes to democratic nations that are integrated in the European sphere. While these sweeping changes have given rise to a successful transition to democracy unlike any the world has ever seen, there remain issues with governance as well as citizen support for the regime. While other studies have shown that mass media can influence a person's attitudes and opinions in the region, none has explored what effect social media can have on orientations toward democracy in the region. In the following paper, I build several hypotheses based on previous studies of media effects and democratic survival. I then employ survey data to empirically test whether social media increases support for democracy. The study finds that not only does using social media increase support for democracy, but also simple usage rather than information seeking provides more consistent effects on a person's support for democracy in CEE.     

Non-racialism and the African National Congress: views from the branch

South Africa's ruling party is well known as an organisation that supports the ideal of non-racialism. However, the extent to which the African National Congress (ANC) has defined and instrumentalised the concept of non-racialism is contested. This article looks at the history of non-racialism in the party and more recent interpretations by ANC leadership, before examining how non-racialism is understood, 19 years into democracy, by members of the party. Based on interviews with over 45 ANC branch members, the article describes how members, broadly speaking, have deep-seated concerns with non-racialism in the ANC and in society more generally. There is recognition from ANC branch members that race relations have significantly improved since the ANC moved into government; however, they feel not enough change has taken place and that racial tensions are impeding social cohesion and concomitant growth and progress in the country. There is division among members in regards to the efficacy and impact of the party's racially based policies such as affirmative action as well as the manner in which race potentially influences leadership opportunities within the party. Furthermore, the article shows that there is lack of definition and direction on the part of the ANC in regards to the instrumentalisation of non-racialism, and this deficiency has negative consequences for racial cohesion in the party. The article concludes by discussing how investigations into party branches through the lens of non-racialism, highlights more deep-seated concerns about local-level party democracy and a party fractured at the grassroots.     

The Africa-China relationship: challenges and opportunities

The dramatic growth in the relationship between Africa and China is one of the great stories of the twenty-first century, part of the profound transformations taking place in the global political economy. It has been greeted with excitement, consternation, and confusion. To its cheerleaders, it represents the enduring partnership between Africa and China, spawned by the historical affinities of struggles against Western imperialism and humanistic aspirations for development. To its critics, it is reminiscent of European colonisation a century earlier, in which Africa serves as a cheap source of raw materials, a lucrative export market for Chinese manufactured goods, and an outlet for its surplus capital. Rather than a development partner, some see China as Africa's biggest development competitor, whose explosive growth and insatiable quest for global markets threatens Africa's industrialisation and competitiveness. This paper examines the factors behind the development of Africa-China relations, especially its economic magnitude, and the challenges and opportunities it offers both regions.     

Mestizaje,Córdoba's patria chica: beyond the myth of black disappearance in Argentina

This article examines the ‘disappearance of the black population’ by moving beyond the more traditional explanation of the blanqueamiento (whitening) movement at the end of the nineteenth century. In shifting the temporal framework to the republican period, 1820–1853, a more colorful explanation arises to address how the black population was first lightened which would lead to it being whitened during the second half of the nineteenth century. Ultimately because of mestizaje (racial mixture), blacks and other castas (a person who was not a Spaniard and often of a mixed racial heritage) became pardos. Pardos at first included those of mixed heritage with an elite status among other castas in the colonial period. As Córdoba joined the nation-building process, pardo encompassed all people of color, especially the growing, free black population. In order to explain this process, I traced African descendants who were originally labeled negro and changed to pardo in the 1813, 1822, and 1832 city censuses