Politi(shenzi) and Policy-mockers (Forthcoming)

A few words about Politics, Anniversary Edition… Back in 1990, with the help of a number of university professors at the University of Manitoba in Canada, I began a personal odyssey to understand and communicate the unique postmodern perspective that I have of this world. This work entails three volumes of postmodern musings in a body of work called The Thoughts of a Peasant Philosopher. Volume I: Politics was released as an Internet book on my personal website in 1999. Volume II: Morality, Ethics & Love: A Dialogue was released as a print-on-demand book with Author House in the United States in 2002. And Volume III: Virtual Philosophy was released in 2007 as a limited edition with my publisher, Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing, located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It had always been my intention to centre this body of work outside the modern university philosophy department, due to the analytical paradigm that seems to infuse almost all aspects of philosophy in English-speaking countries. Perhaps ironically, this unique path of investigation and discovery was further encouraged by my friends, Professors Lammers and Turner of the University of Manitoba, who added legitimacy to this chosen path with their personal tutorial direction and input. And with a little luck and hard work, I believe I have managed to convey to my reading audience a postmodern tone, structure and narrative in all three volumes of The Thoughts of a Peasant Philosopher. In 2014, I released a completely reworked version of Volume I: Politics as an anniversary edition with my publisher in Regina, Saskatchewan strictly as an eBook. The purpose of this limited release was to update the work with new postmodern ideas, structures and definitions that had become self-evident in this, the digital age. The work was also created to protect these ground-breaking, postmodern, philosophical political terms with a copyright. And because of this rewrite, Politics has now taken on a more academic tone in terms of narrative construction, structure and content than I am comfortable with. It is my firm opinion that this reworked anniversary edition requires some form of academic review before it is released as a hardcover or paperback edition. So, if you come across the odd spelling mistake, or wonky paragraph or two when reading this eBook - consider yourself fairly warned! It is my hope that those with the appropriate academic training and interest will offer their expert advice and opinion, by way of a detailed critical review or academic critique of Politics, Anniversary Edition, which would afford me the opportunity to correct any errors within the work before it goes to the printers for final binding and publication. If you are interested in providing such a review, or are just interested in commenting on the work in a more general way, please feel free to contact me with a personal message through the academia.edu website. Or you can contact me through my publisher at the following email…Heather (at) ynwp. (ca)

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The Intellectuals on the Road To Class Power was the single most important book for me during my graduate school days, and was decisive for my dissertation and my first book. Within my discipline, Ivan Szelenyi himself has been one of the most, if not the most, important sociologist working on East European social structures and social transformations. For these two reasons, I’m especially delighted to contribute to this discussion on the book’s place twenty five years later, but not only for nostalgia’s sake. By focusing intensively on The Intellectuals on the Road To Class Power (hereafter The Intellectuals) and one of its authors we can learn much about knowledge cultures during and after communism, within and beyond Eastern Europe. While I focus on The Intellectuals, I also attend to subsequent assessments of its significance. I draw especially heavily on a videotaped interview I conducted with Ivan in 1994, which itself provides the best place to start: the conditions enabling the writing, and reception, of The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power. In conclusion, I consider the difference between Hungary in the 1970s and the US after 9/11, offering that may these neoconservative intellectuals in US power are not the lions Ivan imagined in the game preserve. Instead, and with all due apologies to Pareto’s theory of elite circulation, those in power today are foxes. They don’t simply defend power; they know how to get it and to outwit their adversaries. They are so accustomed to, and prepared for, critique that they have made ideas beyond their ken irrelevant and their own relatively unassailable. The occasional irony of the isolated intellectual is not quite enough to produce the confidence about the importance of ideas unattached to power. But the cumulation of irony might be quite important, so long as its conditions of consequence are kept in mind.

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Amartia Sen " s (1999) celebrated argument that no famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy. Plural systems, a free media and an active civil society constitute the best early-warning system a country threatened by famines can have, is no longer open to debate. The importance of this does not derive from some sentimental attachment a Western desire to parachute democracy and good governance, it is a basic human right in the Constitution. The objective of the research is to identify the major causes that make people live in poverty and the basic needs and necessities needed to lead a satisfying life. Using quantitative and qualitative methods and a descriptive research design, the research inquiry is based on the major causes that make people live in poverty, the basic needs and necessities to lead a satisfying life. While the findings point to the fact that Ethiopia has met almost all the MDGs, serious development and human security issues linger that make the gains achieved so far, problematic. Hence, recommendations are made to make radical improvements in the arena measured against three parameters-the basic requirements for development, efficiency enhancers and innovation and sophistication. The legitimacy of the state will depend in important ways on it being perceived as reasonably honest, transparent and accountable in the execution of the state " s responsibility. Public sector corruption and inefficiencies undermine political, economic and social stability by undermining citizen " s faith in the democratic process. Hence, it is advisable that a meritorious and politically neutral civil service, which participates in the political process, making the service an active instrument in carrying out and giving feedback on policies of the state to advance innovation and sophistication. States must be citizen-driven in meeting the needs of citizens rather than those of the bureaucracy, open the political space for peaceful competition and contestation – they must steer rather than row and indubitably synergise development with the two pillars of development – academia and private sector.

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2015

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This issue of KIU Journal of Humanities touches on organizational development, development administration, diplomatic relations, clinical child psychology, philosophy and education, legal studies and literary analysis. In Organizational Development, Oluka analyzes the prepotency of needs and reward valence of employees in the Uganda’s Ministry of Local Governments. He advises the government to set up policies and guidelines to identify and meet the needs of employees; find ways of rewarding employees by enhancing their salaries, allowances and other motivational strategies. Looking at the effect of the Reward Management System (RMS) and Cost of Living (COL) on the Performance of academic staff in the selected private universities in Uganda, Emuron advises management of private universities to always adopt reward policies that are responsive to changes in their workers’ cost of living. Abubakar highlights some of the major challenges of managing newspaper organizations in Nigeria and concludes that Journalism training has to be reoriented to accommodate more training in economics, the arts and the economy in general. In the Second Part which is devoted to Development Administration, Assair and Oketch examine the relationship between youth empowerment and reduction of unemployment in Gardo, Puntland, Somalia. They suggest that the State should join hands with non-governmental organizations to put in place programs that target the youth. Wandiba also examines the level service delivery in the divisions of Kampala District, Uganda and recommends that leaders of divisions of Kampala district should close the gaps between the high to very high scores of service delivery by monitoring the teachers, local council workers, and health workers that provide the services and a two way research tool of those who get the services and those that provide the services to be used for representative responses. Sota, finally, examine the role of local authority leaders in traffic accident prevention in rural areas of Northeastern Thailand and suggests that it is very important to have capacity building for traffic accident prevention in local authority leaders in rural areas for increasing concern and good behavior for traffic accident prevention and create activities in the communities for decreasing number of traffic accident. In part three, Majok and Oketch report their findings on the effect of Security Threats on Diplomatic Relations between South Sudan and Sudan and recommend that sustainable security promotion between South Sudan and Sudan should be a comprehensive and coherent approach against security threats to diplomacy which should be implemented by both countries. Ikegbu also examines China’s development aid assistance to Africa and concludes that although China provides aid to Africa simply because China wants resources, China’s contribution towards the achievement of development in Africa is quite significant and cannot be undermined. In the Section on Clinical Child Psychology, Imbuki establishes that most of the children with Hearing Impairment came from Low social economic status Societies and that an Hearing Impaired child was at a higher risk of HIV infection due to poor communication skills, abuse from the hearing communities and little information about HIV. Based on these findings, he suggests that there is need to use a different language of communication for the children with Hearing Impairment about HIV. Nafiu and Okello also examine how maternal age at first birth, maternal age, previous birth interval, maternal education, maternal occupation, paternal occupation, latrine use and source of drinking water affect under-five mortality prevalence in Abim District, Uganda. They recommend that campaign against early marriage and teenage pregnancy be explicitly done, mothers be encouraged to exclusively breastfeed for at least 2 years, mothers be sensitized about the advantages of family planning, personal hygiene and good sanitation be continuously practiced if under-five mortality in the Abim District is to be controlled. Under Philosophy and Education, Adeleye examines naturalism and its tenets on education. He discusses positions of prominent the exponents of this school of thought in order to bring out its implications for education. Ogunlade and Ariko establish that there is no significant relationship between age difference and management of students’ discipline and that students’ average level of perception are significantly different from teachers’ perception on the use of ICT in relation to the management of students’ discipline. They, therefore, recommend that tutors should combine their knowledge of education and training with their experience as parents in applying rules and regulations towards management of discipline among students. Sapele and Ekereke finally discuss the contributions of education to politics as medium for grass root participation. They conclude that for effective participation in politics especially the grass root, education has to be given its rightful place as proper funding from federal, state and local governments should be made a priority to make the sector produce the desired results which will stimulate political participation. In Legal Studies, Sanni explores the meaning of the right to health and emphasizes its relationship with medical liability which lead to cause of action in negligence or criminal liability. Looking at the issue of court’s jurisdiction as a threshold issue, Ariyoosu recommends transferring cases to the appropriate court rather than striking out for want of jurisdiction for the proper and effective administration of justice. Relying on observation derived from documentary sources such as case laws, charters, treatise, journals, books and field observation, Tarabinah establishes that the Alien Torts Claims Act provides compensatory and punitive awards for damages against violations of international law and that a non U.S. resident can successful assert a claim against a tort feasor under the Alien Torts Claims Act in a U.S. Court. He suggests that foreign government of the home state of transnational corporations should ensure that people whose fundamental human rights are violated by the operations of oil transnational corporations domiciled in their territory should have unhindered access to effective remedy through the legal system. Ariyoosu and Ayinla also discusse the imperative of the relevance of Mini-Trial and other ADR processes that are yet to be explored in Nigeria but which arefunctional, in viewof the yawningtowards ensuring a practical application of ADR in the Nigerian telecommunications industry. Through Literary Analysis, Udi explores how Africans struggled against the colonization in Kenya and how the people of Niger Delta in Nigeria currently respond to economic and political woes of the colonialism imported into the Postcolonial era. Oboli also examines the attempts of African novelists to explicate the effect of the absence of mothers in a family and especially in the lives of children. Finally, Alonge and Akinyede reveal that explicit phonics instructional strategy has an effect on pupil’s literacy skills. They therefore, recommend that effective use of explicit phonics instructional strategy should be adopted in teaching and learning of literacy skills. On the whole, articles in this maiden edition of KIU Journal of Humanities are both strongly theoretical and applied. They provide solutions to some of the problems confronting communities, societies, economies, and the environment. The authors’ teachings and areas of research must certainly influence their perspectives on the diagnoses of the matters they have addressed. The methodologies used in the articles are useful to academics and policy makers.

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