Moving beyond "Illiberal Democracy" in sub-Saharan Africa: recalling the significance of local governance

African Studies Center Working Paper No. 264INTRODUCTION: FAREED ZAKARIA'S CHALLENGE TO AFRICANISTS In a provocative article entitled "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy," published nearly a decade ago, Fareed Zakaria convincingly argued that, despite holding formal elections, liberal democratic practice in most of the world's newly declared "democracies" remained elusive.1 Zakaria warned that the holding of formal elections would now confer the formal title of "democracy" to a number of states but that many of them should not be thought of as classically liberal or free democracies in the sense of guaranteeing Lockean liberties and permitting the unhindered alteration of power. Citing the Freedom House's 1996–97 survey, Freedom in the World, Zakaria argued: Illiberal democracy is a growth industry. Seven years ago only 22 percent of the democratizing countries could have been so characterized; five years ago that figure had risen to 35 percent. And to date few illiberal democracies have matured into liberal democracies; if anything, they are moving toward heightened illberalism.2 Zakaria was asking us all to think critically of the sudden rise of democratic elections taking place in the post-Cold War context; something that could undoubtedly have profound implications for interpreting political realities in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past decade, however, Africanists have been slow to respond to this new political reality. It is in response to Zakaria's challenge, then, that this article is written but with a new caveat: for liberal democracy to be realized in sub-Saharan Africa, policymakers at all levels must place a renewed emphasis on local governance

Acetylation of GATA-1 is required for chromatin occupancy

All 3 hematopoietic GATA transcription factors, GATA-1, GATA-2, and GATA-3, are acetylated, although the in vivo role of this modification remains unclear. We examined the functions of an acetylation-defective mutant of GATA-1 in maturing erythroid cells. We found that removal of the acetylation sites in GATA-1 does not impair its nuclear localization, steady-state protein levels, or its ability to bind naked GATA elements in vitro. However, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) experiments revealed that mutant GATA-1 was dramatically impaired in binding to all examined cellular target sites in vivo, including genes that are normally activated and repressed by GATA-1. Together, these results suggest that acetylation regulates chromatin occupancy of GATA-1. These findings point to a novel function for transcription factor acetylation, perhaps by facilitating protein interactions required for stable association with chromatin templates in vivo

Open Standards, Open Source, and Open Innovation: Harnessing the Benefits of Openness

Digitization of information and the growth of the Internet have profoundly expanded the capacity for openness, which can be viewed largely as a function of the accessibility and responsiveness (meaning the ability of anyone to make modifications) of a work or process. In this report, the Digital Connections Council of the Committee for Economic Development (CED) studies the impact of three manifestations of openness in order to gauge the importance of openness, and to determine whether public policy should encourage it, restrict it, or be neutral

Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma, Version 2.2015.

This selection from the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Thyroid Carcinoma focuses on anaplastic carcinoma because substantial changes were made to the systemic therapy recommendations for the 2015 update. Dosages and frequency of administration are now provided, docetaxel/doxorubicin regimens were added, and single-agent cisplatin was deleted because it is not recommended for patients with advanced or metastatic anaplastic thyroid cancer