This study assesses the readiness of African governments to adopt blockchain technology, which has gained global recognition since the emergence of bitcoin in 2008. The paper examines whether African governments, given their political, economic, and social challenges, are prepared to embrace the blockchain revolution. The research focuses on a feasibility study of several African countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, and the Central African Republic, using a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods. The author draws on Jennifer Bridges' four interdependent elements of a feasibility study, which include political feasibility, economic feasibility, technical capacities, and legal and regulatory compliance.
 The study examines how blockchain technology can provide transparent and reliable systems to combat corruption and mismanagement in government structures, which contribute to poor service delivery in the region. Furthermore, the research evaluates the potential positive and negative outcomes of blockchain implementation on African development, such as an increase in foreign direct investment and productivity, and a reduction in wasteful expenditure.

The current studies of the event and the phenomenon of the war (and of the peace) reflect the ontological and –ensuing- temporal problems of the IR theorising, stemming from the IR field’s purely intersubjective nature, from its lack of the anchor of self-standing objectivity in contrast to the positive and social sciences. As such, the theory-based studies in the field become genetic processes, altering the immediate, pre-theoretical, intersubjective givenness of the IR phenomena and events within their narratives, in accordance to their preceding constructs. Yet, the phenomenology, with the intervention of the phenomenological ontology where it relapses itself into theorising, offers notions and tools for a pre-theoretical access to and description of the intersubjective immediacy of them. In order to outline such a study, this paper examines the event of the Ukrainian War and through it, the phenomena of the war and the peace. It attempts to describe its pre-theoretical, intersubjective immediacy in its synthetic unity in ontological and temporal terms. This attempt brings forth a descriptive and temporally progressive ground of givenness composed of the referentiality to the interstate intersubjectivity, to the “given” interactional forms of the involved actors, which form the synthetic unity of the event (the Ukrainian War and preceding/ upcoming state of Peace) and of the related phenomena (war and peace).

This paper takes a first look at new data on the content of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). The data contain detailed information on the eighteen policy areas most frequently covered in PTAs, focusing on the stated objectives, substantive commitments, and other aspects such as transparency, procedures and enforcement. A number of new stylized facts emerge: (i) PTAs have reduced trade-weighted average tariff rates to less than 5 percent for more than two-thirds of countries; (ii) the number of commitments in PTAs has increased over time, particularly since the 2000s and in areas aiming at facilitating flows of services, goods and capital; (iii) deepening commitments have been accompanied by an increase in regulatory requirements, namely on enforcement; (iv) developing countries tend to have fewer commitments in PTAs, with larger gaps in areas such as labor and environment; (v) PTAs are more similar within blocs, but similarity can be significant even across blocs. The paper also discusses the challenges of quantification of PTA “depth” and its effects and proposes a research agenda for future work on trade agreements.

Global value chains (GVCs) have been a major feature of the phase of economic globalisation that began after the 1980s. After the global financial crisis of 2007-08, however, this phase has come to an end, being replaced by one characterized by a significant slowdown in the degree of international economic openness, due to not only economic but also geopolitical reasons.. GVCs have also shown a slowing growth trend after then.
 The future scenarios for GVCs, however, suggest the possibility that they may be more resilient than expected.
 A first theoretical explanation provided in the literature argues that the reshoring of foreign intermediate production would be prevented by the high sunk costs that would have to be incurred.
 However, an additional possible reason for GVCs resilience - this is the main theoretical contribution of this article - is due to the option of friendshoring or nearshoring, rather than reshoring. Moving the production to more suitable foreign destinations, characterized by a political or geographical proximity with the domestic one, would avoid the newly perceived strategic and geopolitical costs, while retaining the economic benefits of offshoring, thereby making GVCs resilient.

Desde a gênese do pensamento europeu açoriano, passando pela conquista da autonomia político-administrativa e com a entrada de Portugal na Comunidade Europeia, a Região Autónoma dos Açores tem empreendido um significativo percurso de integração europeia, onde também sobe inspirar outras ilhas e arquipélagos nos seus processos de emancipação política. Pretendemos explorar esse percurso na articulação de três conceitos: a autonomia; a ultraperiferia, em que a luta política das regiões e ilhas da Europa, destacando o papel dos Açores, conduziu à consagração do estatuto de ultraperiferia e a subsidiariedade entre o centro e as periferias, reforçada no Tratado de Lisboa. A metodologia seguida é a revisão bibliográfica dos contributos pertinentes à temática, equacionando as potencialidades e desafios que os Açores hoje enfrentam, para concluir que a fértil articulação da autonomia com a subsidiariedade, no atual quadro jurídico-político europeu, possibilita, para além do desenvolvimento interno, uma nova centralidade da Região na política internacional.

This article analyzes an interorganizational cooperation initiative among local actors to improve local policy coordination. Based on the network approach to local governance, the study provides insight into why local actors cooperate and how cooperation works. The analysis is based on interviews with local authorities, public managers and local politicians.

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Development studies is a beneficiary of knowledge resources from several disciplines including political theory’s analytic and prescriptive input. The dominant background of political theory and other disciplinary contributions to development studies is the liberal thought. Liberal theses on development seem to presume that development only makes meaning from such perspective. However, tensions arise in knowledge claims between the neoclassical liberals and alternative liberal scholars especially the neo-Keynesian on the one hand and more radical neo-Marxist thoughts on the other hand. The tension is centrally concerned with contention between the market sovereignty of the neoclassicals and state interventionism of the Keynesian and neo Marxist radical thoughts. These contentions draw in the role of the state in development and hence, create an opening for political theory’s intervention. This paper establishes the nexus of political theory and development studies by focusing its subject matter, methodology and social commitments. The main claim of the work is that the dominant liberal ideas on development fail to capture the realities of all societies, yet the alternative frameworks, despite their promise, have yet to elaborate their tenets to capture the nuances of developing societies in Africa. Accordingly, the decisive intervention in defining the roles of both citizens and state for a development based on constructivist understanding of society is a necessary role of political theory in development studies.

To what extent, if any, does social capital contribute to the democratic formation of citizens´attitudes? It is a major influence among several others or just a minor one when it comes to forming political attitudes? This paper provides an empirical answer to these questions, drawing from the 2010 European Social Survey questionnaire. Its first section includes a discussion about the quality of democarcy in the culturalist approach of Political Science. The following section addresses the operationalization of the concept of quality of democracy and its main dimensions, with particular attention to social accountability. It then seeks to relate the concepts of social accountability as a pivotal dimension of the quality of democracy and social capital as formulated By Robert Putman. We used a multivariate regression analysis to test our hypotheses, which focus on whether the components that make up social capital have a differentiated impact on the formation of political attitudes, i.e. on the degree of satisfaction with democracy and trust in political institutions in old and new democracies.Key-Words: Quality of Democracy, Social Accountability, Social Capital, Satisfaction with Democracy, Trust in Political Institutions.

The impacts that globalisation has had on the nation-state has been one of the most important concerns of our time in terms of not only academic discussions but also public debates. Accordinlgy, there are bourgeoning body of literature in social sciences emphasising on various aspects of the correlation between globalisation and the nation-state, employing different theoretical and methodological approaches. Some scholars put forth the argument that under the pressure of the forces of globalisation the sovereignty of the nation-state has declined while the others maintain that the nation-state has not affected by the globalisation. This paper examines the impact that globalisation has had on the nation-state, reviewing the ways the nation-state tackle both direct and indirect challenges posed by globalisation. It concludes that the nation-state as a rational actor in the international system has been very flexible to minimize the negative impacts of globalisation and reap its benefits, noting that the nation-state has not declined in the face of globalisation.