<p>Pension reform has been on the social policy agenda in many countries across the world since the 1980s. The main debate has been whether to maintain the postwar PayAs-Y ou-Go (PA YG) pension programs or replace them with private pensions known as individual accounts. lnstitutionalists claim that (PA YG) pension programs are impossible to transform because they are not only fraught with interest group conflicts that have adverse implications for the electoral chances of reform-minded politicians, but also because they are popular among voters, and supported by beneficiaries and trade unions. On the other hand, those international political economists studying welfare reforms argue that the structural transformation of PA YG pension systems is possible and driven by a coalition of global policy actors led by the World Bank. Most of the data that informed these theoretical postulations came from OECD and middle-income countries in Latin America and Eastern Europe. The story of pension reforms in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries had until now not been factored adequately into the debate.</p><p>This thesis argues that an understanding of pension reforms in SSA countries requires an analysis of both the domestic and international political processes. But this understanding is only possible if the relative role played by domestic and international factors are taken into account and analyzed. Using pension reforms in Ghana since the 1980s as an illustrative case which can inform us about other English-speaking SSA countries, this thesis therefore takes the international level into account, but focuses on the domestic level and argues that domestic politics mattered much more than is assumed by some international political economists in the literature. The thesis affirms aspects of institutionalist arguments, but presents an alternative explanation of pension reforms in SSA that (a) for the first time analyzes the domestic politics of pension reform and (b) casts serious doubts on arguments about the dominant role of transnational actors, while suggests significant improvements to theoretical understandings of pension reform policy processes.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Political Science." Includes bibliographical references (p. 451-456).

Please read the abstract in the section 08summary of this document. Please note that page 1 of chapter 1 was missing in both available copies of this dissertation. / Dissertation (MA (Political Sciences))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

No abstract available / Philosophy / D. Litt. et Phil. (Philosophy)

The communitarian conception of person is the dominant view of personhood in African philosophy. This view centrally holds that personhood is something that is attained in direct proportion to one's moral worth and one's relations with her surrounding community. This view understands personhood as something that is acquired as one's moral responsibility grows. Essentially personhood is constituted by the community and expressed in relations that one has with her community. Thus the individual and the community are both tied in the same fate. The individual is seen as constituted by the community and as one with the community. Whatever happens to her happens to the whole community. Some leaders of newly independent Africa used this communitarian VIew of personhood to argue for a socialist order. Such an order would have been faithful to the traditional communitarian conception of person and the soc,i al as well as the economic order that proceeds from that conception. In order to develop an authentically African socialist programme these leaders strived to show that the communitarian conception of personhood naturally leads to African socialism. They took African socialism to be a panacea to economic and social ills that had been brought on by colonialism. This thesis seeks to interrogate both the communitarian conception of personhood and the resultant political ideology of African socialism. It is argued that the major driving factor behind the development of the communitarian view and African socialism is an inordinate desire to find and present the African difference. The problem started with Placide Tempels' futile search for an African ontology and has been perpetuated by all communitarians and African socialists. Thus this project is conceived as a philosophical critique of African communitarianism and the resultant socialism. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermariztburg, 2008.

No abstract available / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Philosophy)

L'Etat en Afrique tire ses origines de l'extérieur. Il a longtemps tourné ses préoccupations vers la défense des intérets étrangers et sous la colonisation, les communautés ethniques locales sur lesquelles il exerçait son autorité n'ont jamais été véritablement représentées dans ses structures fondées sur la contrainte. Cet Etat apparait comme artificiel à cause de sa source de légitimité et de son modèle d'autorité.<p>Mais, le processus d'indépendance a enclenché une ère où il est observé un consentement à son existence et une nouvelle légitimité est accordée à ses structures.<p>L'étude analyse l'un de ces instruments par lesquels cet Etat, incarné et conservé par le "sommet" sans lien direct avec la base (notamment les communautés ethniques), parvient à nouer des relations avec celle-ci de manière à s'octroyer une nouvelle légitimité.<p>Cette étude porte donc sur les facteurs utilisés dans le système politique, le régime, le mode ou la procédure d'exercice du pouvoir afin d'améliorer la relation de l'Etat avec sa société. Elle s'intéresse au role de l'ethnicité dans la participation politique qu'animent les partis pour comprendre la légitimité de l'Etat issu de la colonisation auprès des citoyens (autochtones) qui le rejetaient autrefois./<p>The state in Africa draws its origins from outside. It turned a long time its concerns towards the foreign interests defenses and under colonization, the local ethnic communities on which it exerted its authority never were truly represented in its structures founded on the constraint. This State appears artificial because of its source of legitimacy and its model of authority.<p>But, the independence process engaged one era where it is observed an assent with its existence and a new legitimacy is granted to its structures.<p>The study analyzes one of these instruments by which this State, incarnated and preserved by the "top" without direct link with the base (in particular ethnic communities), manages to tie relations with this one so as to grant a new legitimacy.<p>This study ralates to the factors used in the political system, the mode or the procedure of power exercise in order to improve the relation of the State with its society. It is interested in the ethnicity role in the political participation which the parties animate in order to understand the (African)State legitimacy near the citizens (autochtones) who rejected it formely (colonization period). / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished