Most African economies range from moderately advanced capitalist systems with modern banks and stock markets to peasant and pastoral subsistent systems. Most African countries are also characterized by parallel institutions of governance – one is the state sanctioned (formal) system and the other is the traditional system, which is adhered to, primarily but not exclusively, by the segments of the population in the subsistence peasant and pastoral economic systems.

Traditional Institutions in Contemporary African Governance examines critical issues that are largely neglected in the literature, including why traditional institutions have remained entrenched, what the socioeconomic implications of fragmented institutional systems are, and whether they facilitate or impede democratization. The contributors investigate the organizational structure of traditional leadership, the level of adherence of the traditional systems, how dispute resolution, decision-making, and resource allocation are conducted in the traditional system, gender relations in the traditional system, and how the traditional institutions interact with the formal institutions.

Filling a conspicuous gap in the literature on African governance, this book will be of great interest to policy makers as well as students and scholars of African politics, political economy and democratization.

Table of Contents

1. Institutional Fragmentation in Africa and its implications

2. Leadership Structures and Adherence Levels of Traditional Institutions

3. Traditional Institutions of Governance in a democratic South Africa

4. Traditional Institutions of the Booranaa and the Nuer in Ethiopia

5. Traditional Institutions in Somaliland

6. Traditional Institutions of the Gurage People

7. Traditional Institutions of the Meru, Pokot, and Mijikenda Communities in Kenya

8. Eritrea’s Experience in Reconciling the Formal and Traditional Institutions in Its judicial system

9. The relevance of Lesotho’s chieftainship system to contemporary governance

10. "Civil Chieftaincy" in African Governance

11. Relevance of Traditional Institutions and How they might be Reconciled with the Formal Institutions

12. Conclusion: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications

This book considers the extent to which, and in what circumstances, political parties affect public policy. It explores the regional level in Germany; using case studies in the areas of education, childcare and family, and labour market policy. In particular, the author explores whether party politicians make a difference to policies.

This volume contains the most significant and still timely articles on urban economics, metropolitan and regional planning, real-estate economics and housing written by the noted urban economist Anthony Downs over the past four decades. The book has a new autobiographical introduction outlining Downs's extensive experience as a real estate and urban affairs consultant and policy analyst for hundreds of private firms and government bodies since 1959. The articles in this book set forth fundamental policy analyses concerning all of the major elements of urban policy. Written in Downs's exceptionally clear and compelling style they focus on the space-related dimensions of urban affairs, ranging from traffic congestion to telecommunications, education, and housing, with additional analyses of key aspects of real estate finance. Together, these essays form a veritable handbook of how to conduct urban policy analysis in many fields. The analysis and conclusions are directly relevant to the urban problems which are intensifying throughout the world today. This important book will be an essential companion to scholars and students of housing, urban planning, transport, regional science and real estate, it will also be useful to policymakers and government officials.

The small unpopulated islands in the East China Sea that the Chinese call the Diaoyu and the Japanese call the Senkaku, have long been a source of contention. This volume will undertake an examination of the controversy as it plays out in legacy and new social media in China, Japan, and the West.

Local governments encounter mammouth problems, and although there is not one panacea that works internationally, this book argues that there are mechanisms to improve the local situation and theer is evidence that this can suceed. By considering a number of key case studies from Latin America, Africa and Asia, the authors review best practices in good governance, thereby demonstarting that things can improve at the local level.

This study of 19th-century local government examines the role of local government officials and the social origins of this growing bureaucracy. As the predecessor of the London County Council, the Metropolitan Board of Works was an important body and its officials formed a large and significant professional group, not hitherto studied in such depth.

In the era of globalization, comparative government and politics have come to the forefront due to the transformations of the social welfare state and the subsequent social, economic, political, cultural, technological and administrative changes. Taking a particular look at local government systems can uncover new perspectives on issues related to globalization, localization, governance, new democracy movements, managerial reformation, and privatization. Comparative Studies and Regionally-Focused Cases Examining Local Governments is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the role played by local governments in overall administration, types and models of government at the local level, consequences of managerial reformations, and new develops regarding structure, process, personnel, and policymaking aspects of government. Highlighting relevant perspectives from comparative research and case studies, this book is ideally designed for students, government officials, politicians, civil society representatives, and academicians.

Divisions in the EU are considered, as well as the conflicts that have arisen from enlargement and foreign policy concerns. Leading specialists on European politics and society reflect on the nature of consensus and competition between elites, and whether the EU may be able to provide a sense of common identity and purpose for its citizens.

"God, Government and Orthopedics" is a three part book. Part one describes some of the author's observations and theories about God, attempting to create some hypothetical links between God and science. Part two is an editorial critique of U.S. government offering a few suggestions for future trends. The appendix is a collection of orthopedic poems rewarding popular songs.

This book is unique in addressing rural transport policy issues in a comprehensive and rigorous way. Much has been written in recent years about urban transport and policy, but in both transport research itself and in implemented transport policies we have seen rural transport needs take second place to urban issues.
The book sets out to define the key transport issues involved in a rural context and goes on to explore specific policies to deal with these issues.
Throughout, the book combines original research and specially conducted international surveys with an overview of the available literature, providing a valuable and uniquely thorough resource. Taking as its main focus the specific context of British rural transport issues, the work provides in-depth research which, while local in its starting-point, is international in its perspective and implications.
The aim of the book is not so much to provide answers to the various transport problems but to provide a foundation for the formulation of ideas.

An examination of the political and economic power of a large African American community in a segregated southern city; this study attacks the myth that blacks were passive victims of the southern Jim Crow system and reveals instead that in Jacksonville, Florida, blacks used political and economic pressure to improve their situation and force politicians to make moderate adjustments in the Jim Crow system. Bartley tells the compelling story of how African Americans first gained, then lost, then regained political representation in Jacksonville. Between the end of the Civil War and the consolidation of city and county government in 1967, the political struggle was buffeted by the ongoing effort to build an economically viable African American economy in the virulently racist South. It was the institutional complexity of the African American community that ultimately made the protest efforts viable. Black leaders relied on the institutions created during Reconstruction to buttress their social agitation. Black churches, schools, fraternal organizations, and businesses underpinned the civil rights activities of community leaders by supplying the people and the evidence of abuse that inflamed the passions of ordinary people. The sixty-year struggle to break down the door blocking political power serves as an intriguing backdrop to community development efforts. Jacksonville's African American community never accepted their second-class status. From the beginning of their subjugation, they fought to remedy the situation by continuing to vote and run for offices while they developed their economic and social institutions.

"The Carter Implosion" critically examines the consequences of a U.S. President -- instead of confronting problems outside the narrow context of partisan rhetoric--adopting a self-consciously amateur style of diplomacy and leadership. In particular, Spencer focuses on the enormous gulf between the Carter administration's professed objectives and the tools it was willing to employ to achieve them. The author posits that the problem was not that President Carter proved too liberal or too conservative, but that he and his closest advisors lacked a sophisticated understanding of how nations behave. Because of his naivete, Carter's promise of inaugurating a new age of American greatness disintegrated by 1980.

Frances Gottfried offers a thorough-going critique of municipal civil service systems and the principles of meritocracy that underlie them, focusing especially on the social inequities and entrenchment of power that continue to bedevil the public sector. Beginning with an examination of the principles and history of the merit system, the author challenges the assumption that a real meritocracy does in fact exist. She looks at current practices and procedures in civil service, with particular attention to the decision-making process. She explores the role of the rigid credentialling system in maintaining a powerful elite within civil service and in creating barriers to career opportunities for minorities and women. In the next three chapters, Gottfried considers attempts that have been made to reform the merit system through affirmative action, litigation aimed at eliminating inequities, and public employment programs from the New Deal years through the early 1970s. Concluding that the rigidly structured municipal civil service system is neither efficient nor equitable, she contends that it effectively widens the gulf between municipal employees and the communities it is their responsibility to serve.

Regionalisation has become a central issue in national and international debates since the end of the Cold War. Yet, when local contributions to regionalism are considered, these are generally related to areas related to philosophy, identity and literature, rather than political economy. Addressing this vacuum, the authors of this volume argue that autochthonous ideas matter. Covering macro regional and sub-regional outlooks, as well as presenting particular national perspectives concerning regionalist thinking, the contributors consider issues of regionalism where economics, political science and international relations come together.

In the post-Bretton Woods era, the advent of ever-expanding capital markets beyond national borders led to a series of financial reforms in many industrial economies. In comparing reform cases across different time periods in the United States, Japan, and Germany, Sara Konoe stresses the role of dynamic interactions between institutions and political contexts in determining reform paths. In non-crisis periods, regulatory fragmentation is utilized by financial sectors to pursue their demands for liberalization, though those in self-regulating or monopolized markets resist the agenda of liberalization. A time of crisis empowers reformers to restructure the financial regulatory structure and markets and enables the tightening of regulation. By drawing out key implications for global politics, Konoe sheds light on what types of reform dynamics come into play in the formation of global financial governance while considering the impact of regional-level institutionalization in the EU and EMU.

Available in paperback for the first time, this work of original scholarship is the first to trace in full detail how the UK’s system for defining parliamentary constituencies has evolved since the Great Reform Act of 1832 and how the eight redistrictings since then were undertaken.

Particular attention is paid to the five redistrictings that have been undertaken by the independent Boundary Commissions established in 1944, with a detailed study of all aspects of their work on the most recent review of all constituencies.

The book is both a standard reference work on redistribution in the UK and provides the only detailed insight into how that task is currently undertaken, based on a study of the relevant documents and interviews with over a hundred of those most closely involved. The book will be essential for all those interested in the British constitution, and administrators concerned with making the constitution successful, as well as politicians.

Civil rights rhetoric has been central to the debate over U.S. immigration policy since at least the 1960s. A coalition of interest groups, including churches, ethnic organizations, civil rights groups, and employer associations has played a fundamental role in advancing civil rights norms in the immigration arena. The growing importance of civil rights rhetoric in the debate over U.S. immigration policy, DeLaet asserts, helps to explain the liberalization of U.S. immigration policy in spite of growing evidence that the public opposition to immigration has grown during the same period. In turn, the liberalization of U.S. immigration policy has contributed to rising numbers of both legal and illegal immigrants. Thus, high levels of immigration reflect the basic provisions of current U.S. immigration policy, rather than a loss of governmental control. Many analysts have suggested that the immigration policy reforms passed by Congress in 1996 marked the beginning of a new era of restrictionism. However, as DeLaet illustrates, the new restrictions adopted in 1996 contain many of the same loopholes as previous legislation, indicating the coalition of interest groups supporting immigration still pose a significant obstacle to efforts to restrict immigration.

A collection of original essays by specialists in the field, this book examines the crucial budgetary and financial management problems that face the United States government and makes concrete recommendations on how current processes can be improved. The authors make it clear that although the present federal budgetary and financial management systems are not working, the case is far from hopeless.

Several chapters analyze the flaws in the federal budget-making process that lead to deadlock between the president and Congress and ultimately to higher deficits. To remove the checks and balances system from its present political stalemate, a workable two-stage budgetary process is suggested and bipartisan action at the highest level is strongly urged. Another chapter explains the context in which forecasting is used in federal government budget making and addresses the problem of the failure to predict the yearly budget deficit with reasonable accuracy. Proposals for improving public financial management include centralizing financial management functions, improving debt collection practices, eliminating deficiencies in the application of information technology, and privatizing entities such as the postal service, AMTRAK, and Social Security. Providing clarification of complex issues together with constructive approaches to reform, this book will be of interest to both general readers and scholars, students, and professionals concerned with government, public policy, and financial management.

Alan R. Posner discusses the ways state government agencies can and do promote and facilitate the overseas exports of producers in their respective states. He presents detailed case studies of successful state programs and outlines how business can utilize these programs and what opportunities export trading companies can provide. The contributions made by state labor relations specialists and universities to export promotion are described. The author provides a comprehensive directory and listing of the export promotion services each state offers. Posner focuses attention on specific problems and opportunities in agricultural exports. The long-term consequences of continued U.S. emphasis on the export of services and capital investment versus agricultural products and manufactures are evaluated in depth.

With globalization and the EU, local and regional government in member states have experienced dramatic changes in the way that they operate, the responsibilities that they have and their links with the hierarchy of government organization. France has proved to be no exception to these general trends although it has adapted to them in a specifically French way. John Loughlin presents an overview of the theory and practice of subnational government in France and a detailed examination of the outcomes.

The use of regional organizations to mitigate and respond to disasters has become a global trend. This book examines the role regional organizations play in managing disaster risk through a comparative study of ten regional organizations, demonstrating their current limitations and future potential.

Lance D. Fusarelli examines the relationship between the charter school and voucher issues: To what degree does political support for charter schools--from a coalition of teacher associations, school board groups, superintendents, and voucher advocates--slow or even stop the forces for vouchers? Or, do these coalitions, which successfully pushed charter school legislation through the legislature, actually fuel the fires of privatization? Charter schools legislation has enjoyed bipartisan support precisely because the threat of vouchers is so great. And, contrary to the strategy of voucher opponents, the spread of charter school increases, rather than alleviates, the push for vouchers.

Local Government Tax and Land Use Policies in the United States is an accessible, non-technical evaluation of the most recent economic thinking on the nexus between local land use and tax policies. In Part I, Helen Ladd provides a comprehensive summary of the extensive literature on the interaction of local land use and tax policies. She explores the theoretical controversies and clarifies issues such as the use of land use regulation as a fiscal tool, the effects of taxes on economic activity and the success of tax policies to promote economic development. In Parts II and III, a group of experts presents new research on important issues such as the impact of growth on tax burdens, metropolitan tax base sharing, the incidence of impact fees and the shift to land value taxation in urban areas. This book raises provocative questions concerning the conventional wisdom in fiscal policy. It will be indispensable for economists and students interested in urban issues and local public finance as well as planners and policymakers.