Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
73
result(s) for
"Calland, Richard"
Sort by:
Access to Information in Africa
As a new praxis emerges, in Access to Information in Africa for the first time African scholars and practitioners reflect on recent advances on the continent, as well as the obstacles that must still be overcome if greater public access to information is to make a distinctive contribution to Africa's democratic and socio-economic future.
eBook
Access to Information and Constitutional Accountability
Recent corruption scandals pivoting around South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma have knocked much of the gloss off of the country’s rosy constitutional face. But it’s democracy is proving to be resilient in the face of severe challenges to public accountability and transparency. Enshrined in its much-admired Constitution, the right of access to information (ATI) is proving to be a valuable tool that equips key users of the enabling legislation, the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2000 (PAIA), such as investigative journalists or opposition political parties to challenge those in power. While there is a good deal of literature on ATI in South Africa, there is a dearth of scholarly writing on the specific relationship between ATI/PAIA and political accountability. This paper aims to help fill this gap and to do so by use of empirical research that draws on the direct experience of members of four categories of ‘PAIA protagonists’. The evidence of some of the most prominent sets of users of access to information law in South Africa suggests that while this may present itself as the task of Sisyphus, the results can be politically as well as legally significant, thereby justifying the investment in time and resources. The research and analysis shows that the use of ATI law in South Africa is certainly ruffling feathers and helping to inject additional much-needed sharpness and vigour into the democratic process and to entrenching a new culture of constitutional accountability.
Journal Article
Exploring the Liberal Genealogy and the Changing Praxis of the Right of Access to Information
Part of the popular attraction of transparent governance and freedom of information is that it has the potential to reconfigure venerable information asymmetries between state and citizen. Is this an expression of the liberal genealogy of the idea? Based on four foundational considerations, this article argues that the 'new' practice of the right of access to information (ATI) suggests that the idea can escape its liberal heritage to serve egalitarian socio-economic outcomes. The first explores the genealogy of ATI as a right, examining its 'liberal' roots. The second considers the idea that liberal rights are, per se, non-progressive or anti-egalitarian. Accordingly, the third examines the nature of the right. The fourth considers the praxis and the emerging empirical picture to see if it supports ATI's embryonic 'theory of change', which casts ATI as a 'power right', which in practice, and subject to certain conditions, enables ATI to adopt an egalitarian disposition.
Journal Article
Institutional Renaissance or Populist Fandango? The Impact of the Economic Freedom Fighters on South Africa's Parliament
Twenty one years into its democratic life, modern South Africa faces a number of 'growing pains'. While the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has decisively won five national elections in a row since 1994, never falling below 62% of the national vote, fears that dominant party syndrome will diminsh the independence, and undermine the constitutional mandate, of key institutions such as parliament are balanced by the increasingly combative tone and character of opposition parties, especially the new kid on the block, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) that are led by 'firebrand' former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema. The sudden emergence of a more competitive form of multi-party politics following the May 2014 national election has injected new life into the National Assembly. By examining four episodes of political and procedural contestation that have animated the 2014-19 parliament, this paper seeks to respond to two questions: One, has the newfound parliamentary vigour that has accompanied the belligerent character of the EFF's strategy and tactics enabled parliament to better perform its constitutional mandate in terms of holding the executive to the account? And, second, does the EFF's impact on parliament represent an institutional renaissance after a decade or more of increasing lethargy and mounting irrelevance to the public discourse, or simply and merely a populist fandango? In turn, there are potentially profound implications for the future of South Africa's representative and participatory democratic modality.
Journal Article
A Corruption Risk Assessment for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Nigeria
This study asked if the concerns about corruption in climate change in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and, therefore, fiduciary standards, is justified or not. The study employed an explorative approach using the Nigeria REDD+ process as a case study. Using semistructured questionnaire and in-depth interviews with key informants, data were collected from 201 households from REDD+ project sites and twenty-one forestry officials from local forestry commission on the perceived extent of transparency in REDD+ implementation in the study area; how REDD+ local officials perceive the fiduciary standards and other governance standards by international climate funds; and effectiveness of anticorruption measures within the REDD+ projects. The confidence reposed in the project’s local implementing agency was generally poor. Allocation of carbon rights was the most critically perceived to be fraught with poor transparency in REDD+ processes. Only five out of eight governance measures that could help improve transparency in REDD+ processes were available locally two of which were rated as just fairly functional. This study agreed that the multilateral climate funds are justified in respect of the set fiduciary standards for climate finance flows.
Journal Article
A 3 flavour joint near and far detector neutrino oscillation analysis at t2k
The Tokai-to-Kamioka (T2K) experiment is a second generation long-baseline neutrino experiment and the first to use an off-axis neutrino beam to produce narrow neutrino energy spectrum. T2K was designed to measure with precision the atmospheric mixing parameters, and also look for evidence of non-zero θ13. T2K's near detector (ND280) provides constraints on the beam flux and neutrino cross-section uncertainties, as well as making valuable cross-section measurements. This thesis describes an oscillation analysis that uses samples from both near and far detectors. Importantly, vμ and Ve samples at the far detector are combined to produce a joint oscillation analysis. A Markov chain Monte Carlo is used to construct the Bayesian posterior distribution by sampling a likelihood function. From the Bayesian posterior distribution, the oscillation parameters of interest and their errors are estimated.
Dissertation