Foreign Aid, Democratisation and Civil Society in Africa: A Study of South Africa, Ghana and Uganda

The 1990s have seen increased interest on the part of Western governments in funding civil society in Africa in an attempt to promote the continent's democratisation process. This discussion paper examines how a range of foreign donors has developed civil society initiatives in Ghana, Uganda and South Africa. The paper argues that civil society organisations committed to the promotion of liberal democracy and economic liberalism are the most popular with donors

Men’s Health and Well-Being: The Case Against a Separate Field

This article begins with an examination of the development of the academic and policy field of men’s health and well-being. This includes the form and shape of the field, its ideological positivity, and the different, sometimes contradictory, interests that construct the field. This prompts the question: why study men’s health? Diverse possible answers to this question are outlined, in terms of different personal, policy and theoretical political contexts of men’s relations to feminism, gender and gender equality. These differing contexts are further elaborated through attention to the importance of transnational political contexts. The article concludes with discussion of the special journal issue to which this article relates, with a coda on ageing and the body

Size and liquidity effects in Nigeria: an industrial sector study

This study estimates liquidity premiums using the recently developed Liu (2006) measure within a multifactor capital asset pricing model (CAPM) including size premiums and a time varying parameter model for the West African emerging market of Nigeria. The evidence suggests that liquidity factors are relevant only for financial and basic materials sector stocks while size factor is more generally relevant in explaining the cross section of stock returns in the Nigerian domestic equity market. Costs of equity estimates are high further underlining the limitations of this market as a capital-raising venue in contrast to the dominant banking sector

The impact of board governance on director compensation in West African IPO firms

This paper undertakes a unique study of the determinants of corporate governance in the West African developing region and their impact on director compensation. A new measure of director total remuneration is constructed providing a conservative estimate of expropriation of private benefits of control. Using a hand-collected sample of 51 West African IPO firms from 2000 and 2011 we find evidence that increased presence of true independent nonexecutives that are unconnected to CEO or dominant insider groups within firm and nominally independent board level committees are highly associated with expropriation inferring that firm’s with directors engaging in this behavior are more likely to adopt measures indicative of governance best practic