December 2014

Reinventing developmental state in Nigerian Southwest: Agenda and caution for the agents of change

Either due to good leadership or autocracy, one thing stands out, ‘developmental state’ was a success in most of Asian countries, while its discredit is loud in Africa. As a case of all-round failure, virtually all strata of the society have had their blames in the historical trivialization of political participation, governance and development in Nigeria. While some politico-economic paradigms, contingent...

Author(s): E.B.A. Agbaje

December 2014

Rule of law in Africa and Asia: Solving the principal-agent problem

One may look upon the now unfolding events in Burkina Faso from the point of view of rule of law, interpreted with the so-called principal-agent model in the social sciences. Why, then, do many countries in Africa and Asia score low on rule of law, not resolving the principal-agent problem successfully? Is this a legacy from Western colonialism or oriental despotism and tribal forms of power? The principal-agent problem...

Author(s): Jan-Erik Lane