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	<title>Democracy and Society</title>
	<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog</link>
	<description>Thoughts on democracy and civil society</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:37:48 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Wear the Flag: Bear the Expectations</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Last week my 5-person U.S. Army Reserve team arrived at the site of a devastating landslide in Bududa, Uganda.  At the request of the Ugandan Government, we were diverted from our normal mission in the northern Karamoja region (where we have worked for 6 months) to respond to the disaster.  While the U.S. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/03/10/wear-the-flag-bear-the-expectations/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=wear-the-flag-bear-the-expectations</link>
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		<title>Somalia is not a failed state</title>
		<description><![CDATA[According to Sharif Ahmed.  He makes some good points, but I&#8221;m not sure it is correct to say that the rest of the world thinks that Somalia is of no consequence: the piracy, terrorism and generally bad situation there means that lots of people are paying attention.
To make his case, Ahmed cites the underfunding of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/03/08/somalia-is-not-a-failed-state/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=somalia-is-not-a-failed-state</link>
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		<title>Yeah, what he said</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I am not posting much these days because USAID&#8217;s expectations of what I am supposed to achieve in three weeks in Tanzania are completely unrealistic. So instead of witty insight from me today, you can read this.
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		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/03/08/yeah-what-he-said/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=yeah-what-he-said</link>
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		<title>Investing in politics</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The role of business people in politics is a big issue here in Tanzania as it is in many countries. Many people view the issue cynically: business people go into politics solely to use the political process to increase their profits. While this is part of the reason, I also believe there exists a more [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/03/06/investing-in-politics/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=investing-in-politics</link>
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		<title>International Law and Sovereignty</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It is well noted in the literature of international law that the primary challenge facing the discipline of international law is the problem of how order is created and observed among sovereign states.  This necessarily leads to different paradigms in exploring contemporary explanations of sovereignty and the powers and limits of sovereignty.  Most [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/03/04/international-law-and-sovereignty/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=international-law-and-sovereignty</link>
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		<title>I wish Tanzania had press freedom</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Tanzania does not have extensive press freedom. Transparency in media ownership is a problem as well. This is making for a rather frustrating experience in attempting to map politics in Tanzania. While business people with close connections to the ruling party own lots of newspapers, self-censorship and opaque ownership structures make interpreting the news a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/03/02/i-wish-tanzania-had-a-free-press/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=i-wish-tanzania-had-a-free-press</link>
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		<title>Norms and external sanctions</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Elster posits that &#8220;norms do not need external sanctions to be effective,&#8221; because when &#8220;norms are internalized, they are followed even when violation would be unobserved and not exposed to sanctions.&#8221;  Further, he cites that &#8220;shame&#8221; or &#8220;anticipation of it&#8221; are sufficient internal sanctions.  The way in which social scientists understand norms has [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/03/01/norms-and-external-sanctions/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=norms-and-external-sanctions</link>
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		<title>Rule of Law in China</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Oxford Analytica reports that since 2004 the &#8220;protection of constitutional rights have subsided in China.&#8221;  More specifically, since 2008, a new political doctrine &#8220;requires all judges to uphold &#8216;the Party&#8217;s cause, the people&#8217;s interests, and the constitution and the law&#8217; as &#8217;supreme.&#8217; By contrast, an independent rule of law would require supremacy of the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/02/28/rule-of-law-in-china/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=rule-of-law-in-china</link>
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		<title>Aid corrupts: a case study</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In my early twenties, I spent two years traveling around Latin America and the Middle East. I lived on a shoestring budget, slept in horrible hotels, and worked the most menial jobs. I thought it was great.
In my late twenties, I worked on foreign aid for the US Department of the Treasury. I went to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/02/28/aid-corrupts-a-case-study/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=aid-corrupts-a-case-study</link>
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		<title>A hypothesis for why aid doesn&#8217;t work</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Because foreigners sitting in the fanciest hotels in the recipient country make the policies without spending much time outside said hotels. How do I know? It&#8217;s what I am doing in Tanzania right now.
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		<link>http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/2010/02/28/a-hypothesis-for-why-aid-doesnt-work/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=a-hypothesis-for-why-aid-doesnt-work</link>
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