Ethnicity, sex, trait anger, and nocturnal blood pressure decline

10.1111/j.1469-8986.2005.00294.xPsychophysiology423290-297PSPH

Manufacturing disorder: liberalization, informal enterprise and economic ‘ungovernance’ in African small firm clusters

Small enterprise clusters are viewed as an important means of promoting competitive small-firm development even in contexts of unstable markets and weak states. Yet the emergence of successful enterprise clusters in developing regions of Southern Europe, Asia and Latin America contrasts with their conspicuous absence in Africa. This article challenges ahistorical and culturalist explanations regarding the lack of successful enterprise clusters in Africa through a comparative analysis of three dynamic and increasingly globalized informal manufacturing clusters in two different regions of Nigeria. Focusing on a Muslim Yoruba weaving cluster in the town of Ilorin in south-western Nigeria, and two Christian Igbo shoe and garment clusters in the town of Aba in south-eastern Nigeria, this article explores the role of culture, religion and the state in shaping informal economic governance in an African context. An account of the varied and complex history of these Nigerian enterprise networks reveals both their capacity for institutional innovation and economic linkages across ethnic, religious and gender boundaries, as well as their vulnerability to fragmentation and involution in the context of liberalization, state neglect and political opportunism. Far from demonstrating the inadequacies of African cultural institutions, the slide of African entrepreneurial networks into social disorder and economic 'ungovernance' is traced to the destructive impact of neoliberal reforms in a context of poverty and formal institutional exclusion

Getting urbanization to work in Africa: the role of the urban land-infrastructure-finance nexus

The serious social and environmental problems and risks associated with large-scale urbanization in Africa are widely recognized. However, the potential for urbanization to strengthen economic growth and development across the continent has only recently been grasped. The stakes are high for efforts to ensure that urbanization reinforces rather than retards prosperity, yet urban policies are frequently ambivalent and piecemeal. The development trajectory of cities hinges on the quality of their physical foundations, which underpin functional efficiency and will endure for many decades. Realizing the opportunities of urbanization therefore requires more concerted efforts to plan and manage the form of urban growth. This means reformed arrangements governing the allocation and taxation of land, major investment in urban infrastructure and stronger local institutions to coordinate land and property development.