H/T The Guardian.

Top of the list are the likes of Pierre Nkurunziza (Burundi) and Francois Bozize (CAF). Even the unapologetic, unreconstructed autocrats  Paul Biya (Cameroon) and Blaise Compraore (Burkina Faso) poll above 70%.

The whole report is here.

The least popular African leader is Eduardo dos Santos of Angola who polled at a dismal 16%. Angola is Sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer and China’s largest trade partner on the continent – China imports upwards of 43% of Angola’s oil. The likely denouement of the dos Santos succession is still unclear but one cannot rule out the possibility of turmoil when Angola gets to cross that bridge, especially in light of the fact that Angola’s appear to blame both dos Santos and the country’s leadership.

For more here’s Blattman, commenting on Industrial policy:

“You can’t pick winners” is the knee-jerk retort to the mention of anything that even rhymes with industrial policy. I would call it the triumph of ideology over evidence, except that even “ideology” feels like a generous term. Lazy thinking might be a more accurate description. Some have given the question a great deal of thought, but most have not.

I’m not suggesting that the paper above has the right answer (odds are, like most papers, it does not). I’m also not suggesting that governments can pick winners (probably they can’t). Nor am I forgetting that industrial policy is easily politicized and distorted (as surely it is). So what am I talking about?

More on this here.

The class has a fascinating reading list that includes works like Debt (by the anarchist David Graeber) and Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation, among other works in economic anthropology and general anthropological ethnography.

Over the past week we read Karen Ho’s Liquidated, a captivating ethnography of Wall Street, outlining how the recruitment, orientation and work experience of Wall Streeters give them both a false sense of being one in the market and a misguided belief that the real economy is just as liquid as Wall Street.

Reading the book gives one a better understanding of why Wall Street has no qualms with downsizing. Turns out they downsize a lot on the street, to the extent that it is only natural to them that the real economy ought to operate that way as well. It was one of  the most interesting ethnographies I have ever read (out of the five I have read thus far; most of them from some remote part of the world).

Watch this space for more takes on the class reading list as the quarter progresses….

According to the Star:

“When President Kibaki walks out of State House after the next elections, he will go home with a hefty gratuity—Sh50 million. The gratuity, the highest to be paid in the history of the country, has already been factored into the 2012/2013 budget by newly appointed Finance minister Njeru Githae.

Apart from the one-off payment of the gratuity, Githae also proposes to increase the annual allocation for retired presidents from the current Sh17.7 million to Sh30.2 million. The increase is meant to cater for the monthly pension which is due to Kibaki plus what taxpayers have been paying Moi since he left office in early 2003. The two will continue to draw the pension for the rest of their lives.”

“……Kibaki will also be entitled to get a monthly pension equal to eighty per cent of his current monthly salary. Kibaki is currently paid a basic monthly salary of Sh2 million (about $26,000) and earns an average of Sh24million ($200,000) a year under the current exchange rate.”

The figures are actually a bit off. Under current exchange ranges 2 million Shillings a month amounts to about US$300,000 annually. Not a bad deal at all.

These figures, however, raise questions about compensation packages for politicians in Kenya. Recently the treasury bribed MPs to pass the new budget and to be nice to the banks with a “gratuity” amounting to almost US$50,000. This on top of their already obscene annual salaries which stand at US$ 161,000, excluding other shady allowances that are never included under official pay. The last time I checked, all things considered, these MPigs (as they are derisively called locally) make upwards of US$174,000.

Per capita income in Kenya (in current dollars) stands at around US$800, with about 40% living below the poverty line.

I have argued before that paying MPs a decent salary may make them less amenable to executive manipulation (For supporting evidence see Barkan and Co. on legislative strength in Africa). But this just takes it too far.

H/T Erin.

Michael Woolcock, a World Bank staffer, suggests that two rather different models of development have been pitted against one another in the contest for president. On the one hand is what he calls Big Development, whose aim is the transformation of entire countries through investments in national education, justice and public health. Governments are essential to Big Development because they are responsible for the overall policy. And the World Bank is pre-eminently a Big Development institution.

On the other hand is Small Development. “Inspired less by transformational visions of entire countries,” Mr Woolcock argues, “and more by the immediate plight of particular demographic groups (AIDS orphans, child soldiers, ‘the poor’) living in particular geographic places (disaster zones, refugee camps, urban slums), Small Development advocates focus not on building systems in the medium run but on compensating for the failure of systems in the short run. ‘Development’ thus becomes an exercise in advocacy, in accurate targeting, in identifying particular ‘tools’ that ‘work’”.

In this scheme of things Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, the former finance minister, represented Big Development; Dr Kim, a public-health advocate, Small. Dr Kim was almost certainly picked because of his passport. But if his background is any guide, his tenure as chief is likely to shift the bank more towards Small Development. Whether that is a good thing on balance remains to be seen.

I take the side of Big Development (if such a dichotomy actually exists) because of my beef with “pro-poor development” as it is currently practiced  (more on this here).

Development is a giant coordination game with a million moving parts. This makes it much harder to coordinate on “scalable” “tools that work” at the micro-level. Indeed, no one has any idea what these tools really do. In addition, focus on “tools” casts the problem of underdevelopment as a technical one that can be fixed by “experts.”

This approach misses the point by miles.

This and this (highly recommended, a cogent critique of Big Development) and this are some of the reasons wby.

Whenever a new fad  takes over pop culture, social scientists take note. They host conferences, teach courses, and write popular pieces trying to tie the newest thing to their favorite area of research. Consider this post a humble attempt to take that trend to its epic, nerdtastic next level. [Read the whole thing here].

I am yet to read the books or watch the movie, and wasn’t planning on doing either. But after reading this I think I might join the crowd.

The late Pres. Vieira. Source: Wikipedia

UPDATE: The coup leaders have set up a transitional government and dissolved all state institutions.

The BBC reports:

Soldiers have taken control of much of the capital of the Guinea-Bissau in what appears to be a coup attempt.

Heavy gunfire was been heard in the city of Bissau and the residence of outgoing President Carlos Gomes was reportedly attacked.

Troops have also taken control of the national radio station and the ruling party’s headquarters.

I have a strong feeling that this latest coup attempt (just like the murder of President Vieira and Gen. Waie and last December’s coup attempt) is related to the drug trade. Since mid last year the country has witnessed multiple coup attempts, despite a brief flirtation with democratic rule under the late President Sanha.

Guinea-Bissau is among West Africa’s budding narco states which have, in the last decade or so, become a major transit point of drugs from Latin America destined for European markets.

H/T Brad DeLong