Regional Relationships and Development Infrastructure

Blogging Question: Assuming you are a development strategist in a developing country. Characterize the country and its situation. On that basis, how might you design a network-based development policy?

Govt 541: Research Methods

Another class I really love is my Research Methods class. It is, more or less, a class on how to apply the scientific method to political research.  I’ve ready plenty of such research, but I’ve never actually attempted to present my own work in such a manner, so it’s actually an enlightening, and challenging, class.  Our assignment is to design a research proposal that could be submitted as a grant proposal, should we find such an opportunity.  Luckily, it is just the proposal, and we are not actually responsible for doing the required research or data analysis, because that would probably take up far more time than I will have while in grad school (or at least w out the income of a grant).  My proposal is to study government intervention into 4 sectors of the Ugandan economy, as outlined below:

Research Question:
What explains the variation in success of four products/sectors of the Ugandan economy?

Hypotheses:
Infrastructure and government investments favored one industry over the other.

Alternative Hypotheses:
•    Collapse or growth of world markets
•    Environmental conditions in Uganda
•    Political or conflict situations in Uganda and/or surrounding countries
•    Economy and infrastucture of neighbors

Dependent Variable:
Economic success within industry (possible measures include sustained growth, profitability, share of market, share of employment)

Explanatory Variables:
•    Transportation systems
•    Communications systems
•    Government or donor subsidies, tariffs and other protectionist measures
•    Relationships with neighbors (diplomatic or trade)

Cases: oil, coffee, cut flowers, tourism industries in Uganda

Research Method: Analysis of sectors, variation between and over time

Potential Problems:
•    Data availability – some sectors are only just now being rebuilt or built up
•    Identifying and controlling for alternative variables or hypotheses (culture, geography, history) – some control comes from limiting study to one country
•    Impact of regional development, infrastructure

This one pager and the accompanying presentation 2 weeks ago went very well and I got a lot of good suggestions and generally very positive feedback.  I’m considering actually doing some of the research for this (but only on one sector) as the paper for my African Development class, but I’m not sure yet.  I’ll continue to post the work I do here as it develops.

R2P or Not(2P); That Shouldn’t Be the Question

NB: This post for CCT754 is admittedly very incomplete.  I’m working on an idea for a final paper for the class, and this post serves, not even as an introduction to that idea, but as an intro to the universe of ideas from which it comes.  I ultimately don’t think I will write about R2P, but I’ve needed to say some of these things for nearly 2 years now, and finally did.  As the topic evolves, I’ll be sure to post.

CCTP 754

One of my favorite classes this semester is CCTP 754, Networks of International Development.  It’s not the only class I have that’s outside the government department (so is my African Development class), but it is the class furthest outside my area of expertise.  All of the other students are Comm, Culture and Tech (CCT) students so most of the time, we don’t even have the same vocabulary or frames of reference.  I think this serves to make the learning much more obvious and immediate (they might know about network theory, but I’ve actually already read two of the books on the syllabus).

The prof requires that we write a weekly blog post on a topic she’s chosen.  These topics are inspired by the reading or class discussion, but I enjoy them because she gives us sufficient freedom to explore subjects outside the class material (and topics I would likely never think to write of here).  Of the 3 posts I’ve written so far, 2 have been on IR topics (East African Custom Market and R2P) but one was about human evolution.

I’m still settling into my new schedule as a student so blogging more than once a week is probably still beyond my abilities at the moment, altho I hope that changes.  In the meantime, the CCTP blog is hidden behind Blackboard, so I promised a few people I would post my entries.  Here is the first one, with the rest to follow.

And Headlines (Quicklinks) Are Back!

School weapons crackdown in ZA

Kenya human rights activists head to the Hague to demand justice

Mouseveni continues to deal w fallout from the Buganda conflict violence

KwaZulu-Natal govt to pay for funerals of two girls trampled to death during a stampede at a traditional dance

A minister has dirt on former Zambian Defense Minister George Mpombo

National Press Club Presents ‘Africa’s Daughters’

“Africa’s Daughters” and “Equilibrium City,” movies that take viewers far away and close to home, will be shown at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 3, as part of the NPC summer film series.

“Africa’s Daughters,” a film by broadcast journalist Natalie Halpern, captures the journey of two Ugandan girls with one big dream: to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. To do that they must challenge cultural traditions and graduate high school, something nearly impossible for most African girls. The half-hour film begins at 7 p.m., followed with a filmmaker question-and-answer session until 8 p.m.

“Equilibrium City” tells the story of Baltimore developer Jim Rouse and his vision to bring racial equality to America during the height of the civil rights era by building “a new kind of city,” which became Columbia, Md.

Told through the eyes of early residents like Michael Chabon (Pulitzer Prize-winning author and “Spiderman 2″ screenwriter), the film explores how despite death threats, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and extreme racial unrest in the 1960s, Rouse built a city open to all Americans regardless of race, color, or creed. Columbia resident Josef Sawyer completed the film as his graduate thesis project while attending the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. The film starts at 8 p.m., with the Q&A ending at 9 p.m.

Free for all who attend. Reservations at 202-662-7501 or reservations@press.org .

Questions about the series may be directed to Press Club Events Committee members Matt Spangler at mbspangler@cox.net or Alan Bjerga at albjerga@hotmail.com .

‘Franz Freaking Fanon?!’*

Found this draft from last year.  Not sure why I never published it.

Yes, I can now say that I’ve finally actually read him. So far I’ve only read Toward the African Revolution, but intend to read A Dying Colonialism or Black Skin, White Masks eventually, although I’m looking forward to it much less than I was.

It’s not that Fanon is a bad writer; he’s often compelling, in no small part because his writing has the rhythm of poetry. Many of his essays include such sections. One of my favorites is “Letter to a Frenchman,” the entirety of which consists of drumbeat lines such as these:

Remember Setif! Do you want another Setif?
They will, but we won’t.
All this you told me, laughing.
But your wife wasn’t laughing.
And behind your laugh I saw.
I saw your essential ignorance of this country and its ways.
I’ll tell you what I mean.

…….

And you mingling with those:

Who have never shaken hands with an Arab.
Never drunk coffee.
Never exchanged commonplaces about the weather with an Arab.
By your side the Arabs.
Pushed aside the Arabs.
Confined the Arabs.
Native town crushed.
Town of sleeping natives.
Nothing ever happens among the Arabs.
All this leprosy on your body.

No matter your feelings on his politics, at some level his prose grabs hold.