Political Evolution and Civil Service Reform

Civil Service Reform in Africa: Mixed Results After 10 Years

Pension Reform and Political Risk

Commentary: civil commitment and its reform.

Internationally, civil commitment laws have gone through substantial reforms in the past 50 years. Discernible shifts from the medically paternalistic to the excessively legalistic may be giving way to a blending of legislative intent under the rubric of therapeutic jurisprudence. In the light of those international movements, Shao and Xie describe how China's new mental health law shows the im...

Securing Civil and Political Rights in Pakistan

Executive Summary Civil and political rights are sometimes referred to as negative rights, requiring a hands-off approach from the state. The present brief challenges this assumption and explains how these rights entail positive measures. The brief also attempts to unravel the relationship of civil and political rights with democracy, development and local cultures. Selected policy issues are d...

Political opportunity structures, democracy, and civil war

Theories of mobilization suggest that groups are more likely to resort to violence in the presence of political opportunity structures that afford greater prospects for extracting concessions from the government or better opportunities to topple ruling governments. However, existing efforts to consider the possible influences of political opportunity structures on incentives for violence and ci...