Currently reading
Where next for Political Science in Africa? Debating Patrick Chabal’s ‘Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling’ [link downloads a pdf file].
Tag Archives: Society and Culture
On methodological individualism
Eamonn Butler, director of the Adam Smith Institute is getting worried about methodological individualism: I’m getting worried about methodological individualism. Yes, I know that ‘society’ has no life or will or organizing mind of its own, as Marx seemed to assume, and that it is just the aggregation of individuals’ decisions and actions. I know… Read More »
Long road to recovery
Krugman speaking on Finland: Speaking at a forum on Finland’s economic development organised by the Finnish Innovation Fund, Sitra, Krugman said that technically the global economy began to rebound at the end of the summer. He added, however, that unemployment could worsen for up to a year and a half, despite growth. “Prospects for slow… Read More »
Paradox of Plenty (NYTimes)
While Africa is blessed with much natural wealth — gold, diamonds, ores from tin to uranium, oil and ivory — it has also long been a target for plunder. Listen to Ian Fisher recount how some, mostly outsiders, built great fortunes off of Africa’s material riches — and for centuries its people as well —… Read More »
Resource Cursed
From Foreign Policy: Imagine a tiny country flush with oil money, where the wealth per person is on par with that of Spain or Italy. Now picture a place quite the opposite, where nearly two-thirds of the population lives in extreme poverty and infant and child mortality rates are on par with those of the… Read More »
Fukuyama on Dead Aid
Fukuyama wrote a review of Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid, and the somewhat less popular The Challenge for Africa by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. The following paragraph raises a very important issue about the problem with African countries. The roots of Africa’s political malaise go far deeper than the post-independence foreign-aid regime. Unlike East… Read More »
Loomnie Friday Link Love 11
The bottom billion blog says Africa is open for business. Didn’t know it was ever closed, but…. Paul Krugman: China is in a dollar trap. The IMF is still busy cleaning up its image. Dominique Strauss-Kahn writes about a lending overhaul. On Obama’s Special Olympics gaffe . And, Nigeria records first all-female crew flight.
NigeriansTalk Turenchi
Last week we commissioned Akin to do a review of the coverage of the Nigerian re-branding excercise by bloggers and he delivered a really beautiful post. Please go over to NigeriansTalk.org to have a look at it. Probably the only group of people who have covered the re-branding excercise very well are bloggers. There are… Read More »
The Beginnings of NigeriansTalk
Nneoma of Pyoowata and I have started a blog review – NigeriansTalk. It is going to be a weekly review of blog posts on Nigeria/ blogs from Nigerians. From the introductory post: NigeriansTalk is a weekly review of posts written by bloggers of Nigerian extraction, bloggers living in Nigeria and bloggers who blog about Nigeria.… Read More »
The Importance of Being Laughable
BBc’s Matt Frei on Senator Obama: And although Obama is really quite down to earth and millions of Americans would love to sit down with him for a drink and a chat, they might be too awestruck and hamstrung to think of anything to say, for fear of sounding crass, offensive or stupid. Policies apart,… Read More »