Between Global Citizenship and Empire: Toward a Political Conception of International Order

"Since the Cold War, debate in the West over the future of the international order has fixated upon the discourse of moral liberalism. Moral liberals envision a liberal democratic world order, focus on the individual, and invoke the need to secure universal human rights—derived variously from naturalistic, consensus, and functional theories, and construed generally to mean claims to human security (i.e., freedom from fear and want)—as justification for interventionist responses, and to claim moral high ground (i.e., “just war”) in the international arena. During the 1990s and 2000s, two positions within this discourse—the cosmopolitan and the hegemonic—bifurcated the vast majority of Western statesmen, policymakers, and informed citizens participating in public political discussion. While both cosmopolitan and hegemonic moral liberals intend to advance the type of humanitarian internationalism described above, they differ in the means they propose and the concretized institutional ends they seek. The schism staged a “choice” for denizens of the West to resolve."--from page 5

Crossed Hands

Portrait of Saul Sieff playing the pianohttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/14055/thumbnail.jp

Decentralised energy governance in the global south: the case of Kenya since the implementation of devolution

Drawing on nine months’ field research in Kenya and using a predominantly qualitative methodology, this thesis investigates the role of decentralised governance in addressing Global South energy access issues. The study explores the concepts of decentralisation, governance, and energy access, engaging with overlooked debates concerning how these concepts interrelate and under what circumstances decentralised energy governance might help address Global South energy access issues. Concepts of scale and power are also explored, enabling new insights into the understudied area of how cross-scalar power relations play out in decentralised energy governance, while extending debates over whether the state should be viewed relationally. Critically, a spatial lens is applied to the aforementioned concepts and debates, developing new knowledge on how and the extent to which decentralised energy governance is spatially contingent.Framed within debates on multilevel governance, the thesis shows cross-scalar power imbalances have led to a more hierarchical form of energy governance emerging in Kenya relative to that intended by legislation – this has led to excessive emphasis on grid electricity which has been detrimental to addressing energy access inequities. The emergent decentralised energy governance is also found to have marked geographical variations, underpinned by a range of spatially contingent historical, socio-economic, and political factors. The overarching conclusion is that Kenyan decentralised energy governance needs to develop robust networks of local actors to provide effective checks and balances to ‘top-down’ governance: without which, energy access inequities are likely to persist.These findings have broader conceptual and theoretical implications for decentralised energy governance in the Global South. Decentralisation is shown to have distinct relevance to energy as grid electricity remains one of the few remaining de facto state monopolies in the Global South: the implication being central governments will see this control as too lucrative and politically important to cede to decentralisation reforms. The findings also highlight marked geographical variations, revealing that decentralised energy governance needs to be understood not only relationally, as typically seen in political economy analyses, but also spatially. This understanding has important methodological implications as it signals that geographical empirical approaches are required if on the ground practices of decentralised energy governance are to be better understood and more effectively developed.</div

The relationship between personality type and leadership focus.

Optimising focus is a key success driver for many organisation leaders. The relationship between personality type and leadership focus is examined. Personality type is assessed with Form M of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator instrument, and leadership focus is explored through the development and application of a Leadership Focus Questionnaire. South African executives form the target population for this study. Both functionalist and interpretive approaches are applied. Three primary theoretical hypotheses about leadership focus, concerning (1) optimising the balance of focus between external and internal priorities, (2) the fit between the leadership personality type and the organisation type, and (3) the capacity to manage a multiple focus, are considered. Results show that Extraverted personality types are more comfortable with the challenges of focus in the leadership role than are Introverted types, and Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking and Judging types experience a greater degree of fit with their organisations than do Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Perceiving types

How evolution can help us understand child development and behaviour

The traditional disease model, still dominant in psychiatry, is less than ideal for making sense of psychological issues such as the effects of early childhood experiences on development. We argue that a model based on evolutionary thinking can deepen understanding and aid clinical practice by showing how behaviours, bodily responses and psychological beliefs tend to develop for ‘adaptive’ reasons, even when these ways of being might on first appearance seem pathological. Such understanding has implications for treatment. It also challenges the genetic determinist model, by showing that developmental pathways have evolved to be responsive to the physical and social environment in which the individual matures. Thought can now be given to how biological or psychological treatments – and changing a child’s environment – can foster well-being. Evolutionary thinking has major implications for how we think about psychopathology and for targeting the optimum sites, levels and timings for intervention

Malawi District Energy Officer Blueprint : Recommendations Paper

This recommendations paper outlines the proposed role of District Energy Officers (DEOs) in Malawi as a conduit for the Government of Malawi to facilitate the decentralisation of a sustainable energy policy to district level. If developed sensitively and effectively and resourced appropriately, the implementation of DEOs in Malawi could help to strengthen levels of community ownership and empowerment; achieved through energy initiatives, improved communication and networking around energy issues at district level, electricity access development at district level and enhanced electricity literacy through roles in sensitisation and dissemination of knowledge of decentralised energy technologies and processes This paper confirms the Government of Malawi’s proposal that the introduction of an effective DEO programme will assist the Government in decentralisation of its national renewable energy strategy while aligning renewable electricity development with key national energy use targets ; 20% of national energy generation from renewable energy sources and a reduction of 22% in biomass usage by 2025. A decentralised DEO role, working within a centralised management and financial structure is supported by this recommendations paper as an effective methodology for energy decentralisation in Malawi. The support structure and accountability structure outlined in this recommendations paper can be used by the Government of Malawi to empower rural communities in Malawi in taking ownership of their energy sources and their energy use, primarily through design and support of community based development. DEOs act to improve community livelihoods through an increase in local earning potential and co-constructively act to improve national energy security and poverty alleviation across all districts of Malawi

Decentralization : the key to accelerating access to distributed energy services in sub-Saharan Africa?

The decentralization of governance is increasingly considered crucial for delivering development and is being widely adopted in sub-Saharan countries. At the same time, distributed (decentralized) energy systems are increasingly recognized for their role in achieving universal access to energy and are being promoted in sub-Saharan countries. However, little attention has been paid by governments and energy practitioners to the dynamic interrelationships between national and local government and the role of governance decentralization in transitioning to distributed energy systems. This paper traces the complex relationships between accelerated delivery of distributed energy and decentralized local governance systems. The argument is grounded in an exploration of two different approaches to decentralized energy systems governance in Kenya and Malawi. For Kenya, analysis focuses on the energy sector since the adoption of the new decentralized constitution in 2010. In Malawi, it focuses on the involvement of the authors in piloting Local Authority Energy Officers in districts under the decentralization of Malawian energy policy. Our analysis shows that accelerating the speed and scale of implementation for distributed energy systems and enhancing their sustainability and socio-economic impacts is directly linked to the quality of local and national governance structures and their interrelationships. The paper extends existing work in energy and evidence literacy for policy actors by developing an analytical framework, to enable more effective local governance within energy access initiatives in the Global South