Social Impact of Binding Price Ceiling, Inflation, Pricing and Quantity RL- CXXIV, MMXI Vol. XI No. VIII

School of Graduate Studies

College of Business & Economics, AAU

Lecture Notes RL- CXXIV, MMXI Vol. XI No. VIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Policy and Institutional Reforms (MPMP 606)

Sustainable Development Management (MPMP 609)

Social Impact of Binding Price Ceiling, Inflation, Pricing and Quantity

Abstract

Ethiopia’s government faces the usual panoply of challenges endemic in developing countries with too few instruments and too few resources, while also grappling with the perennial problem of managing development, namely sequencing of policy reforms, all subject to the political constraints of containing the disruptive impacts of policy reforms to acceptable levels, a particularly important problem for Ethiopia given the very narrow margins for manoeuvre imposed by fiscal and external deficits, subsistence levels of household income for much of the population and a complex regional weave in its social fabric.  Getting the priorities right and managing change are thus particularly vital issues for public policy and management professionals. The Government had announced several price ceilings on various commodities recently. It asserts that imposing price ceilings would protect consumers from conditions that could make basic commodities beyond your reach. Our ability to predict what will happen when governments try to control supply and demand shows the power and usefulness of supply and demand analysis itself. However, a price ceiling can cause problems if imposed for a long period without controlled rationing and can produce damaging results when the correct solution would have been to stimulate and encourage the private sector to increase supply.

Misuse occurs when a government misdiagnoses a price as too high when the real problem is that the supply is too low. In a nation where rural economic statistics are scanty, one wonders how price ceilings can be set above or below the free-market equilibrium price. Because for a price ceiling to be effective, it must differ from the free market price as a non-binding price ceiling, where the ceiling has no practical effect; or a binding price ceiling, where the price ceiling has a quantifiable shock on the market. While it is difficult to kill inflation with only one shot, short-term measures, such as price freeze, are important if inflation becomes a scourge on the economy. Nonetheless, in most cases, lower costs mean lower quality. Price caps are famous for the incentive they provide for illegal activities, specifically the emergence of black markets. In addition, if there is a shortage, sellers may discriminate among customers except during crises, price controls except are damaging to the economy, where the negative impact of price capping would outweigh the positive effects. The Recommendations hence focus on four arenas: measures to manage inflation, increasing supply, corporate discipline, and social responsibility of the trading sector and macro policy and strategic reforms required to secure the demand and supply equilibrium.

See lecture here or  https://www.academia.edu/31502958/Social_Impact_of_a_Binding_Price_Ceiling_Inflation_Pricing_and_Quantity_-lecture_RL-_CXXIV_MMXI_Vol._XI_No._VIII

An ‘alpenglow’ of Electoral Pluralism is Eviscerating Africa from Polymorphic Autocrats RL- CXXIV, MMXVI Vol. XI No. VIII

An ‘alpenglow’ of Electoral Pluralism is Eviscerating Africa from Polymorphic Autocrats - 

Public Lecture - Respublica Literaria CXV, MMXVI RL Volume XI No V

Costantinos BT Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies, College of Business and Economics, AAU

Abstract

The surprise presidential win of a real estate agent and political novice over Gambia’s leader of 22 years has the country, and many on the continent, celebrating. Gambia’s long-time leader, Yahya Jammeh, who once promised to rule for ‘one billion years’, conceded the presidency to Adama Barrow, but later on changed his mind. More than a hundred and ten successful coup d’états and counter coups have taken been recorded in Africa since the independence efforts in the 60s. Regardless of how they came to power, many leaders are regarded as the worst dictators in Africa, their regime marked by horror, terror, chaos and bloodshed. The lecture delves into the political transition process in Africa since independence, military coups that haunted the continent and presents the analytical limitations in current perspectives of the transition to sustainable democracy and development in Africa; with the distinction between concepts and processes of political openness and political participation. It draws conceptual distinction between political openness and democracy and the political agencies and ideologies at play; distinguishing between strategic and processual dimensions of the political change.

Key words: dictators, coup d’état, democratic experiments

See lecture  here  or    https://www.academia.edu/30804538/An_alpenglow_of_Electoral_Pluralism_is_Eviscerating_Africa_from_Polymorphic_Autocrats

Photo credit – Lily Kuo, 2016 - Democracy Digest

Strands in Political Theory: Analytical & Operational Trajectories of Political Transition in Africa RL- CXXIV, MMXVI Vol. XI No. VIII

Strands in Political Theory:

Analytical & Operational Trajectories of

Political Transition in Africa

Public Policy Lecture, RL- CXXIV, MMXVI Vol. XI No. VIII

Lecture and Think Piece – CXI – 1993, Cotonou, Benin & Revised for a

2014 speech at the African Union Headquarters, Addis Ababa

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Summary

          It is asserted that if large rural majorities in Africa are too poor to participate, too dispersed to organize, too remote from information to know alternatives, a multiparty democratic system with universal suffrage does not give them democratic influence. The trajectories of struggles over political rules can be summarized according to the predominance of one organizational sector or another. Governing elite, and in particular the executive, take the lead in bringing about political liberalization. If state-led transitions are characterized by the presence of an executive leader willing and able to undertake some limited reform, society-led transitions progress thanks to the actions of organized opposition groups and despite the unrelenting resistance of governing elite and the executive. Perhaps the majority of transitions constitute a hybrid of these first two types, with a combination of opposition pressures and incumbent initiatives propelling the process.

       On the other hand, current discussions and analyses of transition to plural politics in Africa generally are marked by several limitations. These include a tendency to narrow democratic thought and practice to the terms and categories of immediate, not very well considered, political and social action, a naive realism, as it were. Furthermore, it includes the inattention to problems of articulation or production of democratic systems and process within African politics rather than simply as formal or abstract possibilities. There is also the dimension of ambiguity as to whether civil society is the agent or object of democratic change and concerning the role of the state and a nearly exclusive concern in certain institutional perspectives on political liberalization in Africa with generic attributes and characteristics of political organizations and consequent neglect of analysis in terms of specific strategies and performances of organizations in processes of transition. Finally, it is the inadequate treatment of the role of international agencies and of relations between global and indigenous aspects or dimensions of political liberalization in Africa.

Key words: political transition, Political liberalization, democracy, analytical limitations 

See link to lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/30810634/Strands_in_Political_Theory_Analytical_Operational_Trajectories_of_Political_Transition_in_Africa

Will ‘Trumponomics’ Remodel Lives & the Souls of God's Creatures RL- CXXIV, MMXVI Vol. XI No. VII

Will ‘Trumponomics’ temper

the Souls of Americans & the ‘Rest’ of God’s Creatures?

Public Policy Lecture, RL- CXXIV, MMXVI Vol. XI No. VII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Abstract

          In every corner of the world, governments are failing to recognise the full implications of their policies, and experts are too confused, or inappropriately influenced, to provide clear and credible guidance. The result is a mixture of hubris and cluelessness that is consuming countries’ entire political establishments. America elected Trump, a political novice, self-promoter and gleeful provocateur, on Nov. 8 in one of the most extraordinary and unforeseen developments in American history.  There is more than an air of panic in the media and political circles about it. Today’s leading avatar of truthiness is, of course, Trump who has been rejected as deficient in emotional intelligence. Donald Trump, the man who promised Brexit times ten is now set to control the world's biggest economy. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of others: Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. By persuading his supporters to view themselves as part of a white nationalist movement, a claim about identity is supposed to solve the problem that many people’s interests are neglected. The populist phenomenon, wherever it is found, “rests on a toxic triad: denial of complexity, anti-pluralism, and a crooked version of representation”, and each facet must be addressed. While the rise of protectionism and anti-immigrant sentiment are widely believed to reflect stagnant incomes, widening inequality, structural unemployment and even excessive monetary easing, there are several reasons to question the link between populist politics and recent economic distress.

         Like it or not, Angela Merkel is now the main guardian of the norms, values, and institutions that make up the Atlantic alliance. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s message of congratulations to a newly victorious President-elect Donald Trump was markedly unlike that of her European counterparts. Germany & America are bound by their values; democracy, freedom, the respect for the law and the dignity of human beings, independent of their origin, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political conviction; based on these values, I offer the future president close cooperation. It is economics, not culture that strikes at the heart of legitimacy; in other words, it is when the rewards of economic progress accrue mainly to the already wealthy that the disjunction between minority and majority cultural values becomes seriously destabilising. Trump ruthlessly exploited that disjunction, and, in doing so, obviously made a successful claim to represent people. In the world’s eyes, fear has trumped hope as the currency of American politics. In the world’s eyes, “America will never be the same again.

Key words: Trumponomics, Trade Agreements, Populism, Values, Immigrants

See talk here or https://www.academia.edu/30648152/Will_Trumponomics_temper_the_Souls_of_Americans_and_the_Rest_of_God_s_Creatures_RL-_CXXIV_MMXVI_Vol._XI_No._VII

Crises of ‘Fin-de-siècle’: Electoral Absolutism & Myth of Palingenetic Racist Determinism - CXXIV, MMXVI RL V. XI No IV

Crises of ‘Fin-de-siècle’:

Electoral Absolutism & Myth of Palingenetic Racist Determinism

Public Lecture, CXXIV, MMXVI RL V. XI No IV

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Abstract

            Africa has experienced multiple coups and counter coups for various economic, political and social reasons, with one-party states dominating since independence via elections floated to gain ostensible legitimacy. Indeed, the nineties saw a small number that had already made successful transition from military-affiliated regimes to pluriform institutions and practices. However, the consolidation of democracy involves founding sustainable institutions and political rules that guarantee political participation and competition. So far, only a few have satisfied even the minimal conditions set by the two-turnover test. Hence, the research questions augur on how and by whom are politics framed and the boundaries of palingenetic élite minority vs. the majority disparities set. What effects have such avant-garde ideas and practices on indigenous communities and cultures? Do powerful minorities capture polities in the very act of ‘determining’ palingenetic politics or are they subsumed by their caucuses’ own exclusive nationalistic schemata?

           Palingenetic ethno-nationalism augurs on a noxious negation of freethinking and conserva­tism, its nationalist despotic goals warm up to highly regulated economic structures to transform so­cial rela­tions within a modern, self-determined culture. It portends a fin-de-siècle political aesthetic of quixotic symbolism, social conscription, a positive view of sadism, masculinity and charismatic leadership. In literature, the fin-de-siècle outlook was influenced by Darwin, Wagner, Le Bon and the philosophies of Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky and Bergson. 

           Social Darwinism, which gained widespread ac­ceptance among the fin-de-siècle, conceived humans in an unceasing struggle of the survival of the fittest. Such élitist dogmas undergird the import of Africa’s incessant incumbent victories. Where the influence of the palingenetic élite impends over political processes, it is seldom unblemished whether such victories constitute ex­ten­sion of incumbent’s mandate or voter acquiescence to inevitable dominance, making the weight of consecutive elections unavoidably gloomier than the defining founding electoral competitions of the post-Soviet era.

Key words: pluralism, electoral absolutism, palingenetic nationalism, determinism

See lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/30597287/Crises_of_Fin-de-si%C3%A8cle_Electoral_Absolutism_and_Myth_of_Palingenetic_Racist_Determinism_-CXXIV_MMXVI_RL_V._XI_No_IV

Trajectories for Moulding a Plural & Enterprising Citizenry and a Clarion call for a Resilient Ethiopianess - CXV, MMXVI RL Volume IX No CCXXIII

Trajectories for Moulding a Plural &  

Enterprising Citizenry and a Clarion call for a

Resilient Ethiopianess

Respublica Literaria CXV, MMXVI RL Volume IX No CCXXIII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU

Abstract

     Students of the 1970s demanded land to the tiller and the equality of nations & nationalities, an ideological arsenal that informed the era and that continues to enlighten politics heretofore, undergirded the ubiquity of imperious economic policy, the stress on political organization and the national question. Half a century later, a human rights crisis stemming from the protest against impunity is emergent, triggered by identity issues, mal governance, corruption and impunity of officials. The state must look into local elders (shimagiles) to contain the mayhem. Coupled with this, lodged in a highly turbulent region, new martial and security scenarios threaten the nation. Hence, while ethnic liberation has been accomplished, Ethiopianness must now take the front stage to defend and advance the nation.

      While nations & nationalities have realized their freedom, what is simmering on is exigency for pluralistic governance and the statutory veneration they deserve as Ethiopians. The transformation achieved so far also means citizens are becoming more affluent and civically refined, demanding to be heard. A collective psyche that puts so much trust in the trappings of hegemony must be supplanted by a social awareness that gives due respect to the highest moral and professional benchmarks in social life. State collapse that stems from a society, which is not based on strong institutional pillars and robust meritocracy in its public administration, is bound to fail. Thus, the merit system is consequential as a tried and tested route to success in constitutional self-governance. The mystique of power is closely linked to the lack of execution of constitutional rules and political institutions such as the coordinates of the state and pillars of civil society.

        In advancing the economy, private sector, capital and liberalisation of the big state owned enterprises that would unleash untapped billions for development, are indispensible allies to employment and livelihood security. In its transformational stance, the state must focus on streamlining discretionary rule of officials, eliminate monopolies and the economic distortions that facilitate them and improve accountability. Finally, a requisite for pluralism is a spirit of tolerance and transparency - discords resolved in a spirit of respect for the views of citizens. Visionary leadership, political will and public support are vital to the state’s legitimacy that twigs from meritorious choices to district-cum-zonal officers that are in direct contact with the populace and reform of policy-making and governing institutions. Society’s watchdogs and responsible and independent media are indispensible assets in curbing corruption and pursuing good governance goals consistently and in varying contexts, but do so without resorting to a self-defeating, overly scripted and stage-managed political gambit. The protests and the apologies herald a new era of openness, albeit at a price!

Key words: corruption, mal governance, pluralism, human rights, meritocracy

Public Policy, Diplomacy & Nation Branding in a Digital Epoch: The ‘Delinked Diplomat’ RL- CCXIII, MMVI Vol XI No XXI

Abstract

        Diplomatic missions to Western nations, at least in their traditional form, are facing a crunch of existence. The 21^st century has dramatically changed the way nations interact with each other. The speed at which information is exchanged, economic crises spiral, complex security menaces emerge and the way states communicate in real time all raise the issue whether permanent plenipotentiary & extraordinary attachés are still relevant. Gone are the days when the Treaty of Wuchalle between Ethiopia’s Emperor Menelliqué and Italy that were concluded through diplomats in the 1880s. Today, information transcends plans & frontiers, trillions move unimpeded across a global network of swifts and networks are fast swapping the pecking order. As opposed to closed-door diplomacy, media transparency is the clarion call of the day, crowding out diplomatic pride.

        In this world of instantaneous social media where leaders proclaim positions on international matters without even telling their emissaries, old-style diplomats struggle to sustain their relevance. Hence, while missions still make the bulwark of international affairs, fundamental forces that demand change include revolution in information technology, proliferation of new media, knowledge on globalization of business and finance, public participation in complex issues that transcend national boundaries. Diplomacy must be overhauled to make it more accessible, participatory, technology driven in deliberations and implementation. Ending the culture of secrecy and exclusivity is a requirement for developing a collaborative relationship with the public. Further, it is to adopt a disciplined coordination model for the conduct of diplomacy. Another immediate need is a renaissance of professionalism. The potential solution scenarios discussed in the paper are strategies for new branding of nations, governance and leadership capacity, founding independent private sector think tanks and a renewed role for embassies (Oliver, 2016).

Key words: diplomacy, public policy, information age, globalization

See lecture here or  https://www.academia.edu/28765827/Public_Policy_Diplomacy_and_Nation_Branding_in_a_Digital_Epoch_The_Irrelevant_Diplomat_-_RL-_CCXIII_MMVI_Vol_XI_No_XXI

Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; leaders build them. There is a vast difference between the perspective of an analyst and that of a leader. The analyst can choose which problem to study, whereas the leader’s problems are imposed on him. The analyst can allot time to come to a clear conclusion; the overwhelming challenge to the leader is the pressure of time. The analyst runs no risk. If his conclusions prove wrong, he can write another treatise. The leader is permitted only one guess; his mistakes are irretrievable. The analyst has available to him all the facts; he will be judged on his intellectual power. The statesman must act on assessments that cannot be proved at his time; he will be judged by history on the basis of how wisely he managed the inevitable change and, above all, by how well he preserves the peace ― Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy