Opalo's weblog

• No ICC hearings in Kenya

  Posted: June 29, 2011, 10:50 pm by kenopp

  The ICC Pre-Trial Chamber Judge Ekaterina Trendafilova on Wednesday decided that the trial of suspects of the 2007-08 election violence in Kenya will not be held in the country. Great move. I am of the view that holding the hearings in Kenya would have created an unnecessary distraction from the important task of implementing Kenya’s [...]

• Is Peer Review in Decline?

  Posted: June 29, 2011, 8:47 am by kenopp

  One more reason for academics to keep blogging…. Glenn Ellison in this paper notes the general decline in the need for academics from top institutions to publish in top journals because they can get citations [hopefully confirming that they were right] by other means – through sites like SSRN [and perhaps even by sharing their [...]

• Inequality, Terrorism and Governance in Nigeria

  Posted: June 29, 2011, 4:35 am by kenopp

  On June 17th Nigeria experienced its first ever suicide bomb attack. Boko Haram, a militant Islamic group that seeks the imposition of Sharia Law in all of northern Nigeria, claimed responsibility for the attack. Although the group’s principal aim – at least according to its press releases – is the imposition of Sharia Law, its [...]

• army recruitment ad done very badly

  Posted: June 27, 2011, 9:05 am by kenopp

  This has got to be one of the worst recruitment ads I have ever seen. HT @laurenist Filed under: africa Tagged: Army recruitment ads, Ukrainian army recruitment ad

• Accountable leadership 1 Abdoulaye Wade 0

  Posted: June 24, 2011, 6:11 am by kenopp

  Abdoulaye Wade is a study in delegative democracy gone crazy (In the words of Paul Collier, democrazy). Delegative democracy  is the phenomenon of elected leaders going rogue and essentially performing auto-coups (mostly through constitutional gymnastics) in order to entrench themselves in power (see O’Donnell). Leading lights in this regard include Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the [...]

• Graphical Illustration of China’s global reach

  Posted: June 23, 2011, 9:40 am by kenopp

  NPR has this cool graphic on China’s global investments [click on image to enlarge]. Notice that Nigeria is among the top destinations of Chinese investments. In my alternate universe Abuja (the undisputed regional hegemon) is stable and uses this, and the fact that it is also among the most important sources of US-bound crude oil, [...]

• The new constitution and patronage politics in Kenya

  Posted: June 22, 2011, 12:08 pm by kenopp

  Former president Moi infamously liked warning voters that siasa mbaya maisha mbaya (bad politics leads to a bad life). This was code for vote for the opposition and no roads, no schools and no hospitals for you. The framers of the new Kenyan constitution must have particularly disliked the power of the presidency in doling [...]

• When not worrying about jobs, terrorists and reelection, Obama calms babies

  Posted: June 22, 2011, 3:20 am by kenopp

  This is on the fluffy side of things… Remember when Obama could do just about anything [including touching MC Hammer]? Well, he still has some of that magic touch – at least when it comes to babies. HT Huffington Post Filed under: africa Tagged: Barack Obama, Crying babies, Huffington Post, MC Hammer, Michelle Obama

• Quick hits

  Posted: June 21, 2011, 9:54 pm by kenopp

  1. If you don’t have a summer reading list already, Blattman has one for you. The list is obviously not exhaustive, but two pressing titles I might add are Avner Greif’s Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy and Gerschenkron’s Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. 2. In yet another not so nice chapter in [...]

• Failed states index out, the usual suspects top the list

  Posted: June 21, 2011, 2:39 am by kenopp

  FP has the annual list of failed states. The Continent has a heavy presence on the list, with the usual suspects like Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Niger and Central African Republic, among the top failures. Also on the list are otherwise stable places like Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, among others. The list is, in some sense, [...]

• chiluba dies

  Posted: June 18, 2011, 11:16 am by kenopp

  The firebrand Zambian trade unionist-cum president, Frederick Chiluba, has died. The Daily Nation reports that the former president of Zambia died in the early hours of Saturday. Mr. Chiluba came into power in 1991 following the defeat of Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia’s first multiparty elections. Although tainted by allegations of corruption – he has been [...]

• conflict minerals in the congo

  Posted: June 17, 2011, 12:00 am by kenopp

  As is now common knowledge, the mineral glut in the DRC has been more a source of pain rather than gain. Minerals have financed both corrupt governments and their cronies in Kinshasa and marauding rebel groups in the ungoverned corners of the vast country. To over-simply the issue, reforms will have to tackle both angles [...]

• The private sector is betting that Kenya will survive 2012

  Posted: June 17, 2011, 6:25 am by kenopp

  As I occasionally care to point out, Kenya is making meaningful progress towards institutionalization of government. According to Joel D. Barkan, the Kenyan parliament is the strongest in Africa. Its judiciary has just undergone radical reforms which saw outsiders from civil society appointed to the country’s newly created Supreme Court. The country’s provincial administration (with [...]

• Kenyan supreme court takes shape

  Posted: June 16, 2011, 2:38 am by kenopp

  Judicial reform in Kenya made another big leap with the appointment of five individuals to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land. Njoki Ndungu, Jackton Ojuang, Smokin Wanjala, Mohammed Ibrahim and Phillip Tunoi will join the Chief Justice, William Mutunga, and his assistant Nancy Baraza on the court. Mutunga and Baraza will champion [...]

• Ignoring the log in one’s own eye (forgive the hackneyed biblical metaphor)

  Posted: June 11, 2011, 9:48 pm by kenopp

  Hilary Clinton is on a tour of three African states. She is visiting Zambia, Tanzania and Ethiopia. This is what she had to say in Lusaka: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday warned Africa of a creeping “new colonialism” from foreign investors and governments interested only in extracting the continent’s natural resources [...]

• Mastermind of 1998 bombings in Nairobi and Dar killed in Mogadishu

  Posted: June 11, 2011, 8:41 pm by kenopp

  The man behind the US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam has been killed by Somali government forces at a roadblock in Mogadishu. The Saturday Nation reports: The mastermind of the 1998 twin bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam Fazul Abdullah has been killed by Somalia government forces in Mogadishu. Mr Abdullah, [...]

• PhD comics movie

  Posted: June 11, 2011, 4:37 am by kenopp

  Isn’t it time we had a real show about graduate student life? (The big bang theory does not count, although it gets close. And I love it). Here is the PhD Movie trailer: I hope this will get hollywood writers and producers going (or not). If you haven’t yet, check out PhD Comics. Filed under: [...]

• More on economic development

  Posted: June 9, 2011, 10:18 pm by kenopp

  Brookings has two pieces worth reading on the state of Africa’s economies. The main takeaways are that: 1) there are many Africa’s; some states are doing well while others continue to run around in circles 2) Governance, Governance, Governance. You cannot have a thriving business sector amidst high levels of unpredictability and 3) Trade, both [...]

• selective unconditional convergence and growth

  Posted: June 9, 2011, 8:30 pm by kenopp

  Rodrik has a finding that reinforces the importance of politics and other macro conditions for economic development. He points out the existence of the paradox of unconditional convergence at the industry level but not at the national level. Rodrik stresses the importance of structural change that channels labor into the right industries. To this we [...]

• Quick hits

  Posted: June 8, 2011, 10:47 pm by kenopp

  Texas in Africa’s review of Fighting for Darfur. Blattman on economic growth and development. The long arms of the Rwandan state? The Zambian elections will be close. Last time round the opposition leader lost by a mere 3% (I will be there for the campaigns this summer). And lastly, Kenya’s trillion-shilling proposed budget. High on [...]

• Africa’s budding narco-states?

  Posted: June 7, 2011, 7:10 am by kenopp

  I have written before about the growing problem of drug-trafficking that is creating new problems for already fragile African states. Of note is the fact that the problem is not just limited to the usual suspects – weak or failing states – but also extends to countries that most would consider to have it together, [...]

• Call for papers

  Posted: June 4, 2011, 1:29 am by kenopp

  The Black Atlantic: Colonial and Contemporary Exchanges 2011 Annual Meeting of the Stanford Forum for African Studies Stanford University, California October 28-29, 2011 The Stanford Forum for African Studies (SFAS) invites proposals for papers by graduate students, scholars, and faculty on the topics of slavery, migration and the African Diaspora, and how each of these [...]

• All politics is local, and more

  Posted: June 3, 2011, 9:45 am by kenopp

  Many have seen the BBC map below of the outcome of the just-concluded Nigerian presidential elections. The south voted for incumbent Jonathan while the north went for Buhari. The state elections were a different kettle of fish. In these elections the president’s party – the PDP – held its own in the north. Available results [...]

• Can the fight against aids be won?

  Posted: June 3, 2011, 8:14 am by kenopp

  There is hope that the fight against AIDS can be won. Over the last 30 years the disease has killed millions and created millions of orphans. It’s lasting impact persists in lost human capital and reduced labor productivity (see paper on this here). But if the optimism of the Economist (and they are not known [...]

• Cleaning up the filth in FIFA

  Posted: June 1, 2011, 10:21 pm by kenopp

  You know things are bad when even American academics who are not into football get all worked up about the sport and its governing body FIFA. Here’s FP’s Drezner (have you read his zombie book yet?): A few thoughts.  First, what kind of election process is it when the scandal-beseiged incumbent is the only friggin’ [...]

• Happy Madaraka Day!

  Posted: June 1, 2011, 10:48 am by kenopp

  Happy Madaraka Day to all fellow Kenyans back home and around the world. Hongera! Najivunia kuwa mkenya. Filed under: africa Tagged: Independence, Kaggia, Karumba, Kenya, Kenyatta, Kubai, Madaraka, Muliro, Nairobi, Ngei, odinga, Oneko, Self-Rule

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Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes