The political economy of Biafra separatism and post-war Igbo nationalism in Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 119 (477) ◽  
pp. 526-551
Author(s):  
Chikodiri Nwangwu ◽  
Freedom C Onuoha ◽  
Bernard U Nwosu ◽  
Christian Ezeibe
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Ethnic Nationalism ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
The Past ◽  
Petty Bourgeoisie ◽  
Post War ◽  
Material Conditions

Abstract The past two decades that coincide with the return of civil rule in most African countries have witnessed the reinforcement of ethnic nationalism and separatist agitations. While scholarly attention has focused on ethnicity to explain the revival of ethnic nationalism, how ethnic and class discourses conflate in the pursuit of ethnic nationalism remains understudied. Using a qualitative-dominant approach, this article interrogates how the Igbo petty bourgeoisie use ethnicity to mask the underlying differences in their material conditions in relation to the alienated masses. It also examines how these differences shape post-war Igbo nationalism. In the main, this article argues that the intersection of ethnic and class discourses is underpinned by unequal distribution of rights and powers accruing from productive resources. This unequal distribution of rights and powers results in differential material well-being and gives rise to conflicts between the dominant and subordinate classes. This explains the divergent approaches of the different factions of Igbo petty bourgeoisie to Igbo nationalism in Nigeria. The article concludes that understanding the political economy of the intersection of ethnic and class discourses is relevant for resolving the nationality question and the Biafra secessionist agitations in Nigeria and others across Africa.

Why call it a ‘European Community’? Ideological Continuities and Institutional Design of Nascent European Organisations

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTONIN COHEN
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
European Community ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
The Political ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post War ◽  
Economics And Politics

This article challenges the idea that the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 was a break with ideologies of the past. It traces the political economy of the declaration from the interwar to the post-war period. It reconstructs the conceptions of economics and politics that underlay the proposal, tracing them back to the once influential corporatist and communitarian ‘third way’ ideology. It then shows that the original intent of the declaration was nevertheless crushed by a powerful dynamic of institutionalisation of transnational parliamentarianism. Thus, the article demonstrates the effects of long-lasting cleavages on the institutionalisation of European organisations.

The Political Economy of Local Governance in Yemen

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Benoit Challand ◽  
Joshua Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
Self Rule

This paper provides an historical exploration of local governance in Yemen across the past sixty years. It highlights the presence of a strong tradition of local self-rule, self-help, and participation “from below” as well as the presence of a rival, official, political culture upheld by central elites that celebrates centralization and the strong state. Shifts in the predominance of one or the other tendency have coincided with shifts in the political economy of the Yemeni state(s). When it favored the local, central rulers were compelled to give space to local initiatives and Yemen experienced moments of political participation and local development.

Mapping Power

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Electricity Sector ◽  
Operational Performance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
High Quality ◽  
The Past ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
Political Economy Analysis

Electricity is critical to enabling India’s economic growth and providing a better future for its citizens. In spite of several decades of reform, the Indian electricity sector is unable to provide high-quality and affordable electricity for all, and grapples with the challenge of poor financial and operational performance. To understand why, Mapping Power provides the most comprehensive analysis of the political economy of electricity in India’s states. With chapters on fifteen states by scholars of state politics and electricity, this volume maps the political and economic forces that constrain and shape decisions in electricity distribute on. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it concludes that attempts to depoliticize the sector are misplaced and could worsen outcomes. Instead, it suggests that a historically grounded political economy analysis helps understand the past and devise reforms to simultaneously improve sectoral outcomes and generate political rewards. These arguments have implications for the challenges facing India’s electricity future, including providing electricity to all, implementing government reform schemes, and successfully managing the rise of renewable energy.

The Political Economy of Post-Independence India—A Review Article

1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 787-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akhil Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Newly Industrialized Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Third World

Economists and political scientists have become increasingly interested in the political economy of India during the past decade and particularly during the past three or four years. The titles under review will be valuable not only to India specialists but also to comparative scholars because of the intriguing mix of conditions found in India. More like a continent than a country in its diversity, India is in some ways very similar to densely populated, predominantly rural and agricultural China, differing most perhaps in the obstinacy and depth of its poverty. In the predominant role played by the state within an essentially capitalist economy, it is closer to the model of Western social democracies than it is to either prominently ideological capitalist or socialist nation-states; like other countries in the “third world,” the state in India plays a highly interventionist developmental role. Finally, since Independence it has pursued, more successfully than most nation-states in Latin America and Asia, policies of importsubstituting industrialization and relative autarchy. In terms of its political structures, India differs from most newly industrialized countries (NICs) in that it generally continues to function as a parliamentary democracy. The federal political system creates an intriguing balance of forces between central and the regional state governments, which are often ruled by opposition parties with agendas, ideologies, and organizational structures quite different from those of the central government.

Educational policy shifts: A critical review of the emerging trend of mindfulness in education

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110372
Author(s):  
Celeste Duff
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Educational Policy ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
School Based ◽  
Mindfulness In Education ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Policy Shifts

Globally, mindfulness is an emerging and innovative trend in education. Specifically, in school-based education, there has been growing excitement surrounding the implementation of mindfulness. Although policy, political and economic shifts and powers may seem quite far removed from the realities of children and mindfulness, the political economy does indeed saturate and shape children’s lives in multiple ways. The purpose of this review is to chart some of the economic and political contexts and highlight some of the shifts that may speak to the emerging trend of mindfulness in education. This critical review addresses the themes and shifts in economies and educational policy, highlights links between neuroscience-based discourses, mindfulness, social-emotional learning and emotional well-being in education.

The Political Economy of Easy Credit Policies

2016 ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Karim Azizi ◽  
Thibault Darcillon
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Consumer Credit ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
The Political ◽  
Aggregate Consumption ◽  
The Past ◽  
Marginal Effects

During the past thirty years, U.S. economic growth has disproportionately benefited the richest percentiles of the American population, i.e., the top income earners. Although this phenomenon is difficult to explain from a “standard” political economy perspective (i.e., majority voting), recent literature emphasizes the role of consumer credit as a means of circumventing costly public redistribution. According to this theory, most OECD and, notably, American policymakers should have facilitated middleclass and low-income households’ access to consumer credit to cushion the effects of increased income inequality (i.e., an increased share of GDP held by top earners). Our contribution to this literature is to argue that increases in inequality (as measured by expansions in the share of GDP held by top income earners) should be associated with aggregate consumption increases. Indeed, in response to increased inequality, easy credit policies stimulate low-income and middle-class consumption, which contributes to an increased aggregate consumption level. Using a panel dataset of 20 developed OECD economies between 1980 and 2007, we show that such increases in inequality are actually associated with expansions of aggregate consumption. Finally, when computing marginal effects, we conclude that these expansions increase with the size of the financial sector.

The Culture of Contentment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Advantage ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Process Of Change ◽  
The Many

This book examines what it calls the political economy of contentment. It argues that the fortunate and the favored do not contemplate and respond to their own longer-run well-being. Rather, they respond to immediate comfort and contentment. In the so-called capitalist countries, the controlling contentment and resulting belief is now that of the many, not just of the few. It operates under the guise of democracy, albeit a democracy not of all citizens but of those who, in defense of their social and economic advantage, actually go to the polls. This chapter discusses how economic life undergoes a constant process of change, and, in consequence, the same action or event occurring at different times can lead to very different results. It considers some examples throughout history, such as the economic ideas of the Physiocrats in France, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.

scholarly journals Learning Inequality in Francophone Africa: School Quality and the Educational Achievement of Rich and Poor Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-276
Author(s):  
Rob J. Gruijters ◽  
Julia A. Behrman
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
School Quality ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Well Being ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Family Socioeconomic Status

Influential reports about the “learning crisis” in the global South generally pay insufficient attention to social inequalities in learning. In this study, we explore the association between family socioeconomic status and learning outcomes in 10 francophone African countries using data from the Programme for the Analysis of Education Systems, a standardized assessment of pupils’ mathematics and reading competence at the end of primary school. We start by showing that learning outcomes among grade 6 pupils are both poor and highly stratified. We then develop and test a conceptual framework that highlights three mechanisms through which family socioeconomic status might contribute to learning: (1) educational resources at home, (2) health and well-being, and (3) differences in school quality. We find that most of the effect of family background on learning outcomes operates through school quality, which results from a combination of the unequal distribution of resources (such as teachers and textbooks) across schools and high socioeconomic segregation between schools. On the basis of these results, we suggest that most countries in the region could improve equity as well as overall performance by “raising the floor” in school quality.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document