Economics

There is long standing belief that the design of government institutions can influence  democratic performances (Elgie; 2011).  Afghanistan  like other countries has experienced different regimes and types of governments during the course of history; from absolute monarchy to Islamic Emirate, republic and recently democracy.  The country has had a new and young democracy since US intervention in 2001. It has experienced three Presidential elections and three parliamentary elections.  A new constitution was drafted and approved in 2004. A Presidential form of government  was adopted through constitutional grand assembly . Despite achievements still the country lacks democratic infrastructure, institutions and authoritarian mentality exists. The real fact for this statement can be the last three elections which is regarded as invalidated by international observers.
Afghanistan has experienced different regimes and types of governments; the country has been mostly ruled by dictators and autocrats. Afghanistan has had a democratic constitution since 2004. On paper the Afghan government has executive, legislative and judicial branches, with a political model that resembles those of other democratic states; the country has a constitution that provides equality to all (Abawi; 2009), but it in reality and practice there are still challenges for achieving a consolidated democracy. It has experienced three elections which were full of dispute and fraudulent votes (EAT Report; 2014). The recent Presidential election was disputed and lead to political deadlock that almost the regime was in the brink of chaos and collapse. Due to international community effort and candidates agreement; a National Unity Government (NUG) was established to accommodate the disputing parties in to government.
In this paper, I am going to discuss whether the present government structure can function as a semi Presidential system.    Before discussing the theoretical concept of Semi-Presidentialism; I briefly shed light on evolution of Afghanistan’s political system. Then, the theoretical basis for a semi-Presidential system; the present government structure in Afghanistan, the role of President, Chief Executive and conclusion are discussed.

Today many low income countries are heavily dependent on aid to finance their development budgets. Aid flows form a major source of financing health, education and other social infrastructure investments in countries such as Myanmar, Afghanistan, India, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Uganda and so forth (OECD, 2015).    In recognition of these challenges, the donor community has used many pressure instruments such as conditionality to stamp out corruption, avoid misuse of funds, and get the most value for the funds. Therefore many donors such as International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other donors link their aid disbursal to policy and institutional reforms (Waly Wane, 2005). Moreover, large scale corruption can weaken and totally destroy the impact of aid through bribes, for instance by a government official who may demand money to approve a contract (OECD 2012).  In corruption environments especially when government accountability is missing, windfall resources such as foreign aid is vulnerable to theft (Ackerman, R., 2008).
Foreign aid is believed not only to fill fiscal gap, but also to be a key ingredient of governance-centered development reforms in developing societies. The literature supports the assumption that corruption in certain episodes did temporarily deter aid disbursement decisions but donor fatigue is far from being a permanent policy shift in some cases as “the need for foreign aid is often the greatest in corrupt environment” (Bauhr & Nasiritousi, 2011). In the framework of Africa where the plague of corruption looms large the results of academic scholarship show that corruption has not resulted aid fatigue. Similarly, in the case of Uganda despite the suspension of foreign aid in recent years, the corruption-driven aid fatigue hypothesis does not hold true. 
In this paper, I assess whether aid fatigue is driven by corruption in the aid-dependent countries; in doing so I take the case of  Uganda  to review. The paper is structured as follows: In Section 2, I describe the concepts and present a theoretical review on the links between corruption and aid fatigue. In Section 3, I review the relevant literature. Section 4 presents the case of Africa and Uganda. In Section 5, I present the main conclusions.

Research is a crucial tool for leading man towards achieving progress, findings new facts, new concepts and discovering truths which leads to better ways of doing things. In the other words, “research is a diligent search, studious inquiry, investigation, experiment or collection of information, interpretation of facts, revision of existing theories and laws  aimed at discovery of new facts and findings” (Adams al.,2007,P.20).
Research Begins when researchers discover real world problems and try to answer those problems with the required mechanisms, tools and methods. Therefore, research methods have gained acceptance in all branches of science and disciplines which seek to find the answer for research questions in scientific manner (Ibid). It is believed, if a research does not follow any methodology, it may produce false results. There are different types of research for different disciplines and each discipline is associated with the particular scientific tools. Social sciences are one of those branches of sciences that follow its own research methods, methodologies and tools.
Research method in social sciences is a vast topic. This is  due to the fact that  Social sciences include a great number of disciplines namely; Political Science, International Relations, Sociology, Economics, Anthropology, Social Capital, Education, Management, History, Psychology and so forth. Within each discipline researchers apply different methods and methodologies.  The most frequently used methods are  laboratory experiments, comparative politics, inferential analysis, descriptive analysis, exploratory research, Analytical Research and Predictive Research. Despite differences in disciplines and methods used in research, most disciplines in social sciences share same features and use same language for interpretation and reporting of their results (Walliman, 2011).  It also happens that researchers use different methodologies for the similar type of problem of a discipline, it is as a result of limiting factors such as; cost, time, availability of tools, literature, access to publications and a country’s own peculiarities and circumstances (Adams et al.,2007).
Descriptive research is one of the most commonly used type of researches in social sciences. A descriptive research aims to describe a phenomena the ways it is, for example, describing social systems or relationships between events (Adams et al., 2007). This paper attempts to introduce descriptive analysis; its advantages, disadvantages an example of Descriptive Analysis and conclusion.  The next section introduces Descriptive Analysis.

Purely economic assessment, such as economic growth and wealth as measure of Development has been criticized by different economists and scholars. The most important criticism of traditional development economics was regarded to be its ‘concentration on national product, aggregate income and total supply of particular goods rather than on entitlements of people and the capabilities that these entitlements generate’ (Sen; 1997). Development is much more than just the expansion of income and wealth… it is the process of enlarging peoples’ choices (UNDP; 1990, P.10). A country may achieve economic growth, but it might not bring change in peoples’ livelihood and actual development. Amartya Sen (1985) emphasizes the importance of ends such as decent standard of living, health, education… over means (income per capita or growth) for achieving development. His works shifted the Development paradigm from growth to human capabilities.
Afghanistan as a post conflict1 country has had a considerable economic growth since the international community intervention and assistance in 2001. Despite over a decade of investment and assistance by the international community, Afghanistan’s human development indicators place the country within the bottom deciles of countries globally (HRP; 2015). Afghanistan’s HDI value for 2013 is 0.468 which is in the low Human Development category, positioning the country at 169 out of 187 countries and territories (HDI-AFG; 2014). Nevertheless, there have been improvements in Human Development over the past 12 years; the average annual HDI growth rate has increased to 2.46 percent in 2000-2013 from 1.42 in 1990-2000 (HRP; 2015). Between 1980 and 2013, Afghanistan’s HDI value increased from 0.230 to 0.468; an increase of 103.4 percent or an average increase of about 2.18 percent (HDI-AFG; 2014). There might be numerous factors that might have affected Human Development trend in Afghanistan during the period. One of the factors is considered to be the quality of governance that affects Development. There is somehow consensus among scholars and academic literature that there is a strong relationship between quality of governance and developmental outcomes, in particular Human Development.
To find out the relationship and trend between governance and Human development during the last four decades, I am going to do my research thesis on the role of governance to Human Development-in case of Afghanistan. However, I have already done part of Introduction, theoretical philosophy and also literature review. Due to limits, I have not focused on critical views about HDI, its measurement and
1 Afghanistan is not considered as the post-conflict country by some scholars, it is sometimes grouped as a country in conflict and crisis.
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methodology. The present paper which will be developed as part of my thesis is going to focus briefly on the conceptual framework of Human Development, Human Development Index brief introduction, measurement, methodology, HDI data source, Human Development reports series, HDI dimensions and conclusion.

Unlike economists who identify the causes of development on the grounds of resource endowments and technology; a new perspective has emerged that introduces institution and institutional quality as one of grounds for fostering development and welfare (Alonso & Garcimartin; 2009). Today good governance is considered as the main criteria for measuring institutional quality and government performances. Effective states with good governance are important part of promoting development (Weller; 2008). One cannot ignore the role of good governance in social and economic development in most of developed and developing countries. Therefore, Countries are encouraged to adopt policies to reach the required level of governance for sustainable development.
There are different determinants that are believed to contribute in reaching good governance and state effectiveness. Such factors can be public management reforms such as promoting competitiveness, promoting transparency, effective and functioning judiciary, parliament and so forth. There are other important determinants of institutional quality that some scholars have pointed out; for example, a required level of development, income distribution, social cohesion, a sound tax system and revenue generation, education and so forth (Ibid).
Beside above determinants and factors, open economy and trade policy reforms are believed to contribute in promoting good governance. There is extensive theoretical and empirical literature on the potential gains from trade (Busse et al.; 2007). The theories support the notion that countries which adopted liberalized and open trade can get mutual benefits due to gains from exchange and gains from specialization in production of goods by allowing each country to produce what it can best produce (Ibid). The gains stems from differences in preferences, specialization and endowments in countries. Trade is believed to contribute for prosperity not only by rewarding the successful trader, but by expanding the size of the overall economic pie so that, with good governance, there should be adequate slices for every one (Halle; 2008).
In this paper I am going to discuss the question if Trade matters for Good Governance and their inter-relation. It is an under researched topic in governance literature. Future comprehensive studies may help us to explore the relationship between these two concepts. Firstly, I will briefly discuss thoroughly the concept definitions, theoretical background, the inter-relation between trade and Good governance, a brief description on the role of World Trade Organization on fostering and strengthening Good Governance and conclusion.

Scientific honesty and avoidance scientific theft is one of the main ethical values in academics. Scientific writing can be a complex and arduous process. Clarity and conciseness two elements that often clash with each other and also accuracy and integrity are fundamental components of the scientific enterprise (scientific writing). Thus, good scientific writing must be characterized by clear expression, conciseness, accuracy of what is being reported, and perhaps most importantly, honesty (Miguel Roig; 2002).
The objective of research is to extend human knowledge beyond what is already known. But an individual’s knowledge enters the domain of science only after it is presented to others in such a fashion that they can independently judge its validity (NAP; 1995). There is an implicit contract between the reader and writer of the scientific piece; the reader believes that he/she reads an original piece of work of the author; if there is no honesty and the information given is not accurate the validity of work is under question. There are number of behaviors which are considered scientific misconduct; plagiarism is the most common one. Plagiarism is one of the unethical scientific behaviors that can harm scientific writing. Due to digital technology development and internet growth; it is getting easy for students and others committing academic misconduct and plagiarism. People who commit plagiarism do harm for themselves. Cheating during examinations in different types is the other example of academic misconduct, but its severity differs with the level of the course and study that student is enrolled. Some researchers make up the result of an experiment for financial gains or to gain marks and other personal purposes. The scope of academic misconduct is broad and it encompasses almost all prohibited and unfair behavior which is done in scientific field and academic life; for example, carrying unpermitted material during exam, carrying electronic devices during exam, to appear in exam instead of other student, to purchase an assignment from some body, copy from somebody’s else during exam, communicating with colleagues during exam, doing plagiarism while writing an essay or other type of written assignments and other behaviors from this type can come other the topic academic misconduct. Such behaviors are not only prevalent among university students and young researchers, but also well-known personalities like politicians and bureaucrats have committed such unfair and prohibited behavior. There have been scandals from different politicians; two of them are discussed in detail in this paper. The paper also discusses about where do plagiarism start; scope and origin of plagiarism; universities’ concern about plagiarism and measures to tackle plagiarism.

Cartel is an agreement among firms in an industry to control prices, output or prevent entry of other competitors in an industry. Competition and antitrust policies forbid the formation of Cartels in most of the countries; identifying and breaking up the cartels is one of the main functions of a country’s competition authorities. There are different approaches to deal with such anti-competitive behaviors; administrative fines and personal penalties. The United States of America is the leader and main enforcer of the criminalization approach in which it also plays an important role in exporting this approach to the rest of the world and contributes in business regulation. The European Commission’s antitrust jurisdiction only extends to undertakings that put heavy fines on offenders. It has no competence in the area of criminal law on a harmonized level but under Act 3 Regulation 1/2003, states can employ criminal sanctions but only on a national level.

For the past thirty years, Policy makers have been thinking about how to prevent or deter the creation of cartels. The Monopolkommission also shows the high damage level that can result from hardcore cartels such as the disruption of competition, welfare, innovation and efficiency.  A debate has dominated on whether cartel offences are serious enough to deserve criminal sanctions or if in fact the traditional administration fines and penalties are an effective enough deterrent to the abuse of dominance positions by cartels. Some scholars and policy makers regard the criminalization of cartel offenses as the most effective deterrent that attempts to minimize cartel offenses. Others however, have stressed that the criminalization of cartels as well and any criminalization of collective goods, must consider some key principles found in the realm of criminal law. These include human rights, publicity, high standards of proof, Jury ability to prosecute and many more, all of which appear to be problematic in the context of cartels. Scholars also pointed out that the criminalization approach causes fewer incentives to leniency programs as well as to whistle blowing. The criminalization approach has been used in the European Continental Law because Common Law countries are in general much more pragmatic due to their legal system and their reliance on antitrust law when they apply penalties to cartels. Many countries like Germany however have had talks of criminalization since the 1970-80s, but remain to fail to apply them as these criminalization principles have not found their place in the constitution in addition to also not receiving any EU harmonization.
This essay therefore seeks to render on some of the main arguments for and against the criminalization of cartels and further analyze the effectiveness and importance of criminalization. It will also touch on two case studies that is the UK and Germany to closely scrutinize the application of criminalization. In addition, it will also address the question on whether or not criminalization of cartels is necessary or if it even works based on the debate around which theories are appropriate in context with cartel behavior. This essay will also illustrate the types of undertakings and offenses that are criminal sanction worthy such as horizontal price fixing, quantity and territorial cartels. Lastly, this essay will provide the preconditions of which criminalization is more effective and also shows the different disadvantages and advantages to the criminalization of cartels. This essay will however not address the treatment for criminal liability of corporations and its diverse justifications as this is a subject that exceeds the scope of the present work to date.

Executive Summary (Abstract)
This Master thesis investigates the relationship and trend between WGI’s six Good Governance indicators and Human Development (HDI) in the case of Afghanistan during 1996-2014. Specifically, it attempts to explore the relationship between Good Governance dimensions i.e. Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality, Control of Corruption, Government Effectiveness Voice and Accountability and Political Stability with Human Development (HDI) indicators.
Since the 1990s the concept of ‘Good Governance’ has been recognized as one of the important determinants for development. The institutions such as United Nations and most of scholars connect Human Development closely with Good Governance. There are also enough evidences that Good Governance determines the level of (Human) Development. It is considered as intrinsic tool and instrumental for achieving development. In particular in low human development contexts or countries, the realization of development objectives demand holistic governance reforms and promotion of a Good Governance agenda at the local, regional and national level.
Using the Pearson Correlation and Trend analysis on Good Governance Indicators and Human Development Index for the period covering 1996-2014, this study finds that there is a positive relationship and trend between most of Good Governance Indicators and Human Development index. Regulatory Quality, Control of Corruption, Voice and Accountability and Government effectiveness show highly significant positive correlation with HDI. Among others, Regulatory Quality is found to have a highly significant and the strongest positive correlation (0.8) with HDI. The result is opposite for Rule of Law and Political Stability. Both indicators have shown a negative and insignificant Correlation with HDI. Since the result is not significant for both variables; they are not statistically different from zero and could be ignored. We can infer from the findings that in the case of Afghanistan, Other Good Governance indicators play more important role than Political Stability and Rule of Law.
Good Governance is recommended as policy variable in Afghanistan through which we can achieve Human Development. To further explore the causal relationship between Good Governance Indicators and HDI; a time series multiple regression analysis is recommended for further investigation.
Keywords: (Good) Governance, Human Development, Afghanistan, Corruption.
Total Words: 30380 words

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