In an opinion piece for New Jersey state newspaper, the Star Ledger, columnist Bob Braun shares his disappointment after 44 New Jersey residents were arrested on corruption charges yesterday. In a state where mafia-style corruption has been both romanticized to the outside world (think: The Sopranos) and accepted within the state, Braun’s analysis epitomizes the…
Global Integrity is growing and looking for some new, smart colleagues to join our team. Think you’ve got what it takes? Details below. Dear readers: your assistance in posting this notice to relevant social networks, email lists and blogs is a quick but high impact way to support our work. Thank you, as always, for…
US President Barack Obama’s assertion that “Africa’s future is up to Africans” seemed to be last week’s quote of the week. This statement (from Obama’s July 11th address to the Ghanaian Parliament) bounced through news cycles around the world. Obama’s speech on the role of international aid in Africa has been sliced and dissected to…
Caijing magazine is one of the few Chinese publications to have earned a high journalist reputation both nationally and internationally, while also remaining relatively untouched by Chinese media censors. But how? Evan Osnos unpacks the reasons in his piece in this week’s New Yorker (July 20) profiling Hu Shuli, Caijing’s founding editor. Throughout this piece…
Why are so many nations rich with highly concentrated resources so frequently undemocratic? The long-debated “resource curse” gets new evidence from Dr. Gilbert Maoundonodji, a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow. He argues that in Chad resources actively hinder a nation’s ability to foster democratic development. In this post, we’ll take a look at Dr. Maoundonodji’s arguement, then…
There’s a new media group in Liberia, and we’re happy to welcome the Liberia Media Initiative for Peace Democracy and Development to the community. Civil society in Liberia one aspect of the governance framework that is doing pretty well, picking up a lot of the slack that formal government institutions might otherwise do. The media…