E-GOVERNMENT IN AFRICA (PROSPECTS, CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES)

E-GOVERNMENT DEFINITION

Ø  • E-government is the use of ICT to:

promote more efficient and effective

government

Ø  facilitate the accessibility of government

services

Ø  allow greater public access to information

Ø  make governments more accountable to

citizens

I. Introduction

The advent of the information age and its acceleration effect on globalization are leading the world to a new economic order driven by information and knowledge based economies. In an increasingly globalized world, where information technology has become one of the key determinants of growth, many African countries are facing new challenges as a result of the emerging information age.

The enabling role that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can play in facilitating and accelerating socio-economic development (ICT4D) is now being recognized by most African governments. A growing number of national and local governments are setting up national ICT policies, putting critical information online, automating administrative processes and interacting with their citizens through online services, yet the great opportunities offered by these new technologies remains largely unexploited.

Simply defined, E-Government is the use of ICT to promote more efficient and

effective government, facilitate the accessibility of government services, allow greater public access to information, and make governments more accountable to citizens.

WHY DO PEOPLE COMMIT CRIMES?

 

 DEFINITION OF CRIME:

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority (via mechanisms such as legal systems) can ultimately prescribe a conviction. Individual human societies may each define crime and crimes differently, in different localities (state, local, international), at different time stages of the so-called "crime" (planning, disclosure, supposedly intended, supposedly prepared, incompleted, completed or futuristically proclaimed after the "crime".

Most crimes are not reported, not recorded, not followed through, or not able to be proved.

While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime; for example: breaches of contract and of other civil law may rank as "offences" or as "infractions". Modern societies generally regard crimes as offences against the public or the state, as distinguished from torts (wrongs against private parties that can give rise to a civil cause of action).

When informal relationships and sanctions prove insufficient to establish and maintain a desired social order, a government or a state may impose more formalized or stricter systems of social control. With institutional and legal machinery at their disposal, agents of the State can compel populations to conform to codes, and can opt to punish or attempt to reform those who do not conform.

Authorities employ various mechanisms to regulate (encouraging or discouraging) certain behaviours in general. Governing or administering agencies may for example codify rules into laws, police citizens and visitors to ensure that they comply with those laws, and implement other policies and practices which legislators or administrators have prescribed with the aim of discouraging or preventing crime. In addition, authorities provide remedies and sanctions, and collectively these constitute a criminal justice system. Legal sanctions vary widely in their severity, they may include (for example) incarceration of temporary character aimed at reforming the convict. Some jurisdictions have penal codes written to inflict permanent harsh punishments: legal mutilation, capital punishment or life without parole.

The sociologist Richard Quinney has written about the relationship between society and crime. When Quinney states "crime is a social phenomenon" he envisages both how individuals conceive crime and how populations perceive it, based on societal norms.

POLITICAL SCIENCE - PAST QUESTIONS

 

 POLITICAL SCIENCE 

FIRST SEMESTER

POS 407: POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY (PAST QUESTIONS 2012/2013)

1. Using concrete examples, examine the relationship between political sociology and (I), Economics (II) Law and Ethics (iii) Mathematics (Iv) History and (v) Psychology 

2. In what remarkable ways does Marxism aid your understanding of political sociology?

3. List and explain ten (10) determinants of Political Participation in Nigeria

4. Compare and contrast the contributions of President Olusegun Obassnjo and Goodluck E. Jonathan towards improving the political fortunes of Nigeria women over the years.

5. For many political scientists in Africa, the Democratic ideal is all said and done, just a mere ideal and no more.  How true is this statement?

6. Write short notes on any three (3) of the following;

A. Elimination of corruption from Nigerian politics 

B. Neutrality as a form of Political participation 

C. Ethnicity and Religion in Nigeria's 2015 General Elections

D. Constant - sum concept of power 

E. Political culture 

F. Pluralism as theory of Political Sociology 

WAR AS POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS

INTRODUCTION:

Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz: July 1, 1780 – November 16, 183) was a Prussian soldier and military theorist who stressed the moral (in modern terms, "psychological") and political aspects of war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege (On War), was unfinished at his death.

Clausewitz espoused a romantic conception of warfare, though he also had at least one foot planted firmly in the more rationalist ideas of the European Enlightenment. His thinking is often described as Hegelian because of his references to dialectical thinking but, although he probably knew Hegel, Clausewitz's dialectic is quite different and there is little reason to consider him a disciple. He stressed the dialectical interaction of diverse factors, noting how unexpected developments unfolding under the "fog of war" (i.e., in the face of incomplete, dubious, and often completely erroneous information and high levels of fear, doubt, and excitement) call for rapid decisions by alert commanders.