Month: April 2012

Africa Notes: Now that Timbuktu has been taken, will more of us pay attention?

/ profmikenelson / Leave a comment

The crisis continues to unfold in Mali. And maybe the coup leaders are seeing that EVERYTHING is going against them.On Saturday the pledged a quick power handover.

  • First, the coup leaders are increasingly unpopular in West Africa.
  • Uncertainty is the word Camilla Toulmin used to described the situation.
  • The view from the West
    • The UK tells its citizens to leave.
    • Walter Russell Mead continues in his Afro-pessimist vein in describing the situation. As he says, the Financial Times described Mali as “one of west Africa’s most stable countries”. So, he tells us, “This casts serious doubt on the mainstream press, NGO and foreign policy establishment line on Africa.”
  • Meanwhile, the average Malian is in for some major problems.
    • As Baz Lecocq notes, the hot season is starting in Mali and food is going to be a big issue. What is more, he suggests, the Malian army is not prepared to handle the heat of the hot season in the extreme parts of the country the rebels currently hold.
    • Oxfam has this press release on food shortages (here) (via Sahel Blog)
  • And the Mali army is losing more and more ground to the rebels. I am certain by now they must realize that former President Toure likely did not have any more resources to give them before the coup. Perhaps that was why he already was willing to step down on his own.
    • So they lost the northern town of Kidal.
    • And rebels reportedly entered and then took Gao. (and here)
    • And then on Sunday (today) they apparently surrounded Timbuktu and then planted their flag there.. Which is probably the only city most Americans have heard of. So we might finally start to see greater press attention.

    If you examine this map of Mali (via Wars in the World), you can quickly see how rebel advances place them in control of a large swath of territory. Indeed, draw a line between Gao and Timbuktu, extend it, and you will see about half the country in rebel hands. Of course, it is the less-populated, poorer half. But it is very significant.

ISA 2012: Presentation on Participation in IOs

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Here is the abstract of the paper I am presenting tomorrow:

This paper addresses an understudied, but highly relevant research question: why do states participate in some international organizations more than others?  Playing an active role in all fields of global governance requires resources that only a few countries have.  Most countries have to pick and choose where they will expend their diplomatic energies.  While others have monitored state participation in individual international organizations (for instance, on the WTO: Michalapolous 1998; Blackhurst et al. 1999), such studies have primarily focused on understanding obstacles to participation rather than considering why states may choose to participate in some organizations rather than others. A number of factors could drive those choices, including: a state’s own financial resources, a rational estimation of a countries’ primary interests, trust in coalition partners to represent their interests, external financial support for participation, and institutional inertia provided by past participation. We measure participation at two levels: meeting attendance and meeting “voice” (the number of times states actively speak during meeting, analyzed by coding meeting minutes and reports). This is part of an on-going empirical study of state participation in global governance. For the purposes of this present paper, we focus primarily on three international organizations which overlap with a focus on food safety governance: the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the World Organization for Animal Health and the World Trade Organization. We also primarily focus on patterns of African state participation.

Special thanks to my research assistant, Ivan Stoitzev!