The Democracy Illusion in Mauritius

The Democracy Illusion in Mauritius
Author: Moshumee T. Dewoo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-06-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9789956554256

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The Democracy Illusion in Mauritius

The Democracy Illusion in Mauritius
Author: Moshumee T. Dewoo
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2024-09-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9956554391

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Once a beacon of democracy in Africa, Mauritius is today making headlines as a democracy in steep decline instead. This book dissects this decline through three lenses: local leadership mimicking inept foreign leadership (Chapter 1: Ineptocracy), colonial foundations naturally resistant to anything but coloniality (Chapter 2: Bad Bedrock), and a misplaced emphasis on Western-style order, rigidity and finality or solidity clashing with Mauritius' liquid identity, where this would thrive from flexibility and interconnectedness in incompleteness (Chapter 3: Misplaced Solidity). From here, the book argues that the challenges of Mauritius lie not just in democratic decline, but in a deeper incompatibility with democracy itself and any attempt to establish a successful form thereof is not only futile but also detrimental as it would hinder the flexibility and interconnectedness that are crucial for Mauritius' unique society. It urges scholars, policymakers, NGOs, IFIs, countries on a similar political development path, and the West in particular, accustomed to promoting and expecting democracy beyond itself, toward an inclusive global conversation in consideration of the right of different cultures to embrace political systems that truly serve the needs of their people. "DR DEWOO'S BOOK PROVIDES A FRESH, IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF THE ABUSE OF POLITICAL POWER IN MAURITIUS, CHALLENGING THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM OF THE COUNTRY'S DEMOCRATIC NARRATIVE. IT UNDERSCORES THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS IN SHAPING ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE AND SERVES AS A WAKE-UP CALL FOR POLICYMAKERS REGARDING THE CONSEQUENCES OF WEAKENED INSTITUTIONS AND ERODED DEMOCRATIC NORMS. THE INSIGHTS INTO REAL-LIFE CASES OF INDIVIDUALS CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE MAKE IT A VALUABLE RESOURCE FOR THOSE WORKING ON GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES." MUFOR ATANGA, Executive Head, African Peer Review Mechanism at inception, 2003-2005

Democratic Illusion

Democratic Illusion
Author: Genevieve Fuji Johnson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2015-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442611243

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The theory of deliberative democracy promotes the creation of systems of governance in which citizens actively exchange ideas, engage in debate, and create laws that are responsive to their interests and aspirations. While deliberative processes are being adopted in an increasing number of cases, decision-making power remains mostly in the hands of traditional elites. In Democratic Illusion, Genevieve Fuji Johnson examines four representative examples: participatory budgeting in the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, Deliberative Polling by Nova Scotia Power Incorporated, a national consultation process by the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization, and public consultations embedded in the development of official languages policies in Nunavut. In each case, measures that appeared to empower the public failed to challenge the status quo approach to either formulating or implementing policy. Illuminating a critical gap between deliberative democratic theory and its applications, this timely and important study shows what needs to be done to ensure deliberative processes offer more than the illusion of democracy.

Empireworld

Empireworld
Author: Sathnam Sanghera
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2024-05-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1541705076

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Bestselling author and journalist Sathnam Sanghera explores the global legacy of the British Empire, and the ways it continues to influence economics, politics, and culture around the world. 2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries to the shaping international law. Even today, 1 in 3 people drive on the left hand side of the road, an artifact of the British empire. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of it are two very different things. ­­Following in the footsteps of his bestselling book Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain, Empireworld explores the ways in which British Empire has come to shape the modern world Sanghera visits Barbados, where he uncovers how Caribbean nations are still struggling to emerge from the disadvantages sown by transatlantic slavery. He examines how large charities--like Save the Children and the World Bank--still see the world through the imperial eyes of their colonial founders, and how the political instability of nations, such as Nigeria, for instance, can be traced back to tensions seeded in their colonial foundations. And from the British Empire's role in the transportation of 12.5 million Africans during the Atlantic slave trade, to the 35 million Indians who died due to famine caused by British policy, the British Empire, as Sanghera reveals, was responsible for some of the largest demographic changes in human history. Economic, legal and political systems across the world continue to function along the lines originally drawn by the British Empire, and cultural, sexual, psychological, linguistic, demographic, and educational norms originally established by imperial Britons continue to shape our lives. British Empire may have peaked a century ago, and it may have been mostly dismantled by 1997, but in this major new work, Sathnam Sanghera ultimately shows how the largest empire in world history still exerts influence over planet Earth in all sorts of silent and unsilent ways.

The Mauritian Novel

The Mauritian Novel
Author: Julia Waters
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2019-01-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1786949490

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This book analyses how the idea – or the problem - of belonging is articulated in a range of contemporary francophone Mauritian novels. Waters explores how forms of affective belonging intersect with the exclusionary ‘politics of belonging’ in novels by Nathacha Appanah, Ananda Devi, Shenaz Patel, Bertrand de Robillard, Amal Sewtohul and Carl de Souza.

The Illusion of the Post-Colonial State

The Illusion of the Post-Colonial State
Author: W. Alade Fawole
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2018-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1498564615

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This book challenges the long-held conventional wisdom that Africa is a post-colonial society of sovereign nation-states despite the outward attributes of statehood: demarcated territories, permanent populations, governments, national currencies, police, and armed forces. While it is true that African nation-states have been gifted flag independence by their respective colonial masters, few have reached fully developed status as a secure nation-state. Most African nation-states have, since independence, been grappling with the crisis of state-building, nation-building, governance, and myriad security challenges which have been chronically exacerbated by the dynamics of the post-Cold War era. To focus merely on the agency of the African political elite and their inability to sustain functional modern nation-states misses the point. The central argument of the book is that an understanding of Africa’s contemporary governance and security challenges requires us to historicize the discourse surrounding nation-building and state-building throughout Africa.

From Crisis to Renewal

From Crisis to Renewal
Author: Kempe Ronald Hope
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2021-10-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004491686

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This volume deals with crisis and renewal in African development policy and management. It digs deep into, takes stock of, and thoroughly analyzes the nature, impact, and future of development policy and management on the continent. It demonstrates the failure of post-independence policy and management in most of Africa, traces the emergence and results of reform measures, and advocates the lessons of success for the rest of Africa derived from Botswana’s approach to sustainable development and its achievement of economic prosperity and the maintenance of political stability and good governance. It concludes, rather optimistically, that the prospects for sustainable development are much better now than they have ever been before with the 21st century likely to be hailed as ‘The African Century’ – bringing with it a durable peace and sustainable growth.

The Illusion of Free Markets

The Illusion of Free Markets
Author: Bernard E. Harcourt
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2011-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674059360

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It is widely believed today that the free market is the best mechanism ever invented to efficiently allocate resources in society. Just as fundamental as faith in the free market is the belief that government has a legitimate and competent role in policing and the punishment arena. This curious incendiary combination of free market efficiency and the Big Brother state has become seemingly obvious, but it hinges on the illusion of a supposedly natural order in the economic realm. The Illusion of Free Markets argues that our faith in “free markets” has severely distorted American politics and punishment practices. Bernard Harcourt traces the birth of the idea of natural order to eighteenth-century economic thought and reveals its gradual evolution through the Chicago School of economics and ultimately into today’s myth of the free market. The modern category of “liberty” emerged in reaction to an earlier, integrated vision of punishment and public economy, known in the eighteenth century as “police.” This development shaped the dominant belief today that competitive markets are inherently efficient and should be sharply demarcated from a government-run penal sphere. This modern vision rests on a simple but devastating illusion. Superimposing the political categories of “freedom” or “discipline” on forms of market organization has the unfortunate effect of obscuring rather than enlightening. It obscures by making both the free market and the prison system seem natural and necessary. In the process, it facilitated the birth of the penitentiary system in the nineteenth century and its ultimate culmination into mass incarceration today.

Mauritius

Mauritius
Author: A. R. Mannick
Publisher:
Total Pages: 196
Release: 1989
Genre: Mauritius
ISBN:

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The Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics

The Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics
Author: Célestin Monga
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 865
Release: 2015-07-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191510750

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For a long time, economic research on Africa was not seen as a profitable venture intellectually or professionally-few researchers in top-ranked institutions around the world chose to become experts in the field. This was understandable: the reputation of Africa-centered economic research was not enhanced by the well-known limitations of economic data across the continent. Moreover, development economics itself was not always fashionable, and the broader discipline of economics has had its ups and downs, and has been undergoing a major identity crisis because it failed to predict the Great Recession. Times have changed: many leading researchers-including a few Nobel laureates-have taken the subject of Africa and economics seriously enough to devote their expertise and creativity to it. They have been amply rewarded: the richness, complexities, and subtleties of African societies, civilizations, rationalities, and ways of living, have helped renew the humanities and the social sciences-and economics in particular-to the point that the continent has become the next major intellectual frontier to researchers from around the world. In collecting some of the most authoritative statements about the science of economics and its concepts in the African context, this lhandbook (the first of two volumes) opens up the diverse acuity of commentary on exciting topics, and in the process challenges and stimulates the quest for knowledge. Wide-ranging in its scope, themes, language, and approaches, this volume explores, examines, and assesses economic thinking on Africa, and Africa's contribution to the discipline. The editors bring a set of powerful resources to this endeavor, most notably a team of internationally-renowned economists whose diverse viewpoints are complemented by the perspectives of philosophers, political scientists, and anthropologists.