Forging Ahead without an Affirmative Action Policy: Female Politicians in Sierra Leone's Post?War Electoral Process

In contemporary post?conflict Sierra Leone, women have managed to secure 13.5 per cent of seats in parliament – without affirmative action in place, thanks to women's groups' and coalitions' mobilisation and activism. While the political resistance to Sierra Leone having a quota was high, the women's movement has succeeded in forcing the political parties and the government to recognise that it is no longer politically viable to sidestep women's rights, should they wish to capitalise on women's voting power. As women's organisations, in particular the 50/50 group, continue the struggle to introduce a quota, the challenge for Sierra Leonean women is how to ensure that the quota project is not hijacked by the male?dominated political establishment. To this aim, this article examines the ongoing efforts to politically consciencise women parliamentarians, society and political parties

Government Transfers and Political Support

We estimate the impact of a large anti-poverty program - the Uruguayan PANES - on political support for the government that implemented it. The program mainly consisted of a monthly cash transfer for a period of roughly two and half years. Using the discontinuity in program assignment based on a pre-treatment score, we find that beneficiary households are 21 to 28 percentage points more likely to favor the current government (relative to the previous government). Impacts on political support are larger among poorer households and for those near the center of the political spectrum, consistent with the probabilistic voting model in political economy. Effects persist after the cash transfer program ends. We estimate that the annual cost of increasing government political support by 1 percentage point is roughly 0.9% of annual government social expenditures.Conditional cash transfers, redistributive politics, voting, regression discontinuity

Government Support for Unconventional Works of Art

My aim in this discussion is to argue, not only that government should provide funding for the arts, but a fortiori that it should provide funding for unconventional, disruptive works of art

Government support on industrial cluster development: some lessons

In the global market, competition among countries is likely between industrial cluster rather than individual firms. Developed and less developed countries strive to create global competitive and sustainable cluster which can attract investment and develop regional economy. Understanding best practices from the successful cluster development is valuable. This paper presents some lessons from an exploratory study investigating the industrial cluser development in Australia. The Australian government programs on cluster development is presented, and some lessons covering the cluster approach policy, cluster manager appointment, cluster sustainability, networking events, and use of ICT are discussed

Government support for monotowns in the Republic of Kazakhstan

The objectives of the study are to identify the role of single-industry towns (also known as “monotowns”) in the economic development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, to determine the specific features of monotowns and to assess the effectiveness of government program documents aimed at supporting these entities. A number of research methods were used, including logical, systematic, structural-functional, comparative analysis, statistical and index methods, economic forecasting and sociological surveys. Using these methods in combination allowed the researcher to consider the phenomena and processes, the dynamics and development, thus providing evidence as to the reliability of the conclusions obtained. As a result of this study, distinctive features of the socio-economic development of monotowns in the Republic of Kazakhstan were revealed. In addition, an evaluation was made of the main program documents aimed at supporting the development of monotowns; and the factors affecting their further development were identified. Proposals have been made in this study with regard to best ways in which to improve the monotown management systems both in terms of improving the program documents and in developing new evaluation tools. The principal novel feature of this study is the identification of the main trends in the development of monotowns in the Republic of Kazakhstan. These trends reveal that, although monotowns do play an important role in the economy of the country, they also tend to develop in extremely uneven and inconsistent ways and are characterized by having weak economic diversification and a strong dependence on the town-forming enterprises, with these enterprises mainly being mining companies. The recommendations in this study are based on the need to improve both the administrative and economic methods used for the state regulation of monotowns. During this study, the feasibility of making adjustments in the current development programs aimed at supporting monotowns and the consistency of development programs were considered.The empirical basis of the analysis was the results of studies conducted in the framework of the R&D work “Development of theoretical and methodological fundamentals of corporate governance of regional technical higher school in the conditions of industrialinnovative development of Kazakhstan”, performed under grant funding of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan (grant number: 1274/GF4)

Catalan government popularity. An example of economic effects on sub-national government support

The aim of this essay is to deal with economic voting in contexts of multilevel governance and to be a contribution to the debate on attribution of responsibilities in popularity functions literature. We use aggregate and individual data from Catalonia in order to analyse the relation between the state of the economy and the support for a sub-state government. The empirical analysis shows that the responsibility hypothesis works in regional governments without explicit macroeconomic competencies. We have also considered the evaluations of government performance on certain specific policies in order to clarify and determine the factors that drive Catalan government support. The article considers the implications of the findings for future attempts to model party support in a context of the European Union.Economic vote, popularity functions, attribution of responsabilities, grievance asymmetry

Effectiveness of Government Export Support Programmes in Nigeria:An Exploratory Inquiry

Current statistics indicate a considerably untapped potential in overseas markets -particularly for Nigerian Exporters. The role of government is apparently relevant. Hence, this discourse assesses the effectiveness of the government support programmes to Nigerian exporters. In pursuit of this objective, data were generated from practitioners and policy makers as well as inspiration from the experience of other countries which embarked on export marketing development to crystallize the findings. The findings indicate that the government export incentives in Nigeria have not been effective. Based on this discovery, a number of recommendations have been mad