Development Studies

In Sikkim, India’s model development state, the government
implements wide-ranging control over its territory through laws,
regulations, and coercion. As a border town neighboring West
Bengal, Jorethang is a zone of transgression that blurs urban and
rural space, migrant and citizen subjects, and licit and illicit
activities. In this paper, we use a walking ethnography of
Jorethang town and border crossings to make three arguments.
First, as Jorethang has grown the Government of Sikkim has
effectively abdicated enforcing the spatial order it enforces
elsewhere in Sikkim, enabling Jorethang to be ruled—in effect—
by commercial interests. Second, Jorethang’s growth has been
fueled by migrants drawn to work on infrastructure projects, in
private construction, and in illicit cross-border trade. This is an
alternative story of urban growth in a rapidly urbanizing border
state and is in contrast to the highly planned urban development
evident in other parts of Sikkim. Third, Jorethang offers a glimpse
of the bifurcated urban future of the eastern Himalayas. While
model modernity is manifest in showpiece urban areas such as
Namchi and Gangtok, border towns like Jorethang have become
zones to supply, service, and profit from model modernity without
being bound by its rules. Through these arguments we identify
the internal border between Sikkim and West Bengal as a crucial
division between different spatial orders, between the model
development state of Sikkim and the imploding tracts of adjacent
West Bengal. In Jorethang these orders merge bridging the
orderly and disorderly and providing opportunities for
development through delinquency.

Islamist violent extremist (IVE) groups are frequently involved in civil conflicts. Indeed, some groups owe their origins to conflict, and tens of thousands of Islamists have chosen to participate in conflicts taking place in foreign countries in the past 35 years. Increasingly, IVE groups appear to have the capacity to influence the conflicts they are involved in, and are influenced in turn by their experiences. As a result, for those working on conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction, the involvement of IVE groups raises questions of whether traditional responses remain adequate. Drawing on three country case studies – Nigeria, Kenya and Iraq/Syria, this article examines the similarities and differences between IVE groups and other conflict actors, and what this means for development, state-building and peacebuilding responses.

To cope with climate change, less developed country like Madagascar have been invited by the
United Nations to submit a National Adaptation Programs of Action (NAPA) that identifies
priority projects on climate adaptation. Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is
among these priority projects. This one is also due to an update of the Governmental policy
on sustainable development of coastal and marine areas which have led to the development
of a national strategy for sustainable development of coastal and marine areas in Madagascar.
The analysis of PANA and ICZM however shows that they evolve in parallel and with few
complementarities. From a political sociology perspective and based on documentary research
and interviews conducted in Madagascar in 2013, this article will look first on how main
stakeholder have “problematized” adaptation to climate change in Madagascar. Then, this
will help us to better understand perceptions and tensions in defining problems and solutions
associated with this theme, pointing out incompatibility of perceptions and actions in order to
clarify the problems of implementation.

This issue of KIU Journal of Social Sciences touches on governance, development, organizational management, social psychology and creative writing.
In Governance and Development, Tarabinah discusses the impact of activities of Transnational Oil Corporations, especially Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) on human rights in Bayelsa state, Nigeria. He advises the Federal Government of Nigeria to establish an effective system of oversight in the oil industry which will factor the externality of oil on social and human rights. Sapele also argues that since NEPAD has not created the desirable changes on the individuals, participating countries should implement the policies and programmes of NEPAD, coordinate and complete poverty projects identified in the poverty reduction strategy paper (now vision 2030). Haruna, finally, examines the socio-economic justification for privatization and suggests alternative strategies to the policy.
Under Organizational Management, Okiswa and Oketch report their findings on the impact of motivation on job satisfaction among employees of Kampala University, in Masaka, Luwero and Jinja Study Centers and recommend that adequate monetary and non monetary rewards should be given to the employees, in form of salaries, wages among others for better job satisfaction. Yahaya, Kinyata and Maicibi establish a correlation between pay-for-knowledge and employee commitment among employees of commercial banks in Kano, Nigeria and recommend increase rewards on employee flexibility, independence and increase acquisition of knowledge in order to increase and sustain employee commitment. Twaha and Oketch further argue that well developed and implemented appraisals need to be upheld by all organizations so as to have an inventory of their human resource strengths and weaknesses in their day to day operations. Adamu also identifies human resource policies and other factors such as job satisfaction, organizational commitments and leadership practice that affect employee‘s satisfaction in an organization.
In the Section on Social Psychology, Imbuki and Twinomujuni establish that there is a significant negative relationship between caregiver‘s burden and psychological wellbeing of those living with HIV/AIDS. Gambo and Imbuki also examine the role played by counseling in encouraging and developing self efficacy, self motivation, and self awareness of vocational trained graduates of Kano state tertiary institutions. They recommend that adequate and professional school counselors and facilities should be provided to every school, resource mobilization to assist the vocational graduates, and also group counseling should be adopted by school counselors to raise the self efficacy, self motivation, and self awareness of their students which are personality attributes that could help in making them become self employed, instead of waiting for white collar jobs which is not readily available for them.
Through Creative Writing, Kekeghe demonstrates that the play-songs, in African Oral Literature, are blends of the dramatic and the poetic nuances as it is the case with western literary delineation. Also, drawing relevant examples from Chinua Achebe‘s Things Fall Apart and Sol Plaatje‘s Mhudi, Omoko argues that the thematic goal of the earliest African writers is the reassertion of the African cultural identity that has been made parlous by colonialism in a manner that history is put in its proper perspective.
On the whole, this edition of KIU Journal of Social Sciences features many thought provoking articles. Some of these articles are empirical in nature while others have theoretical base. Each of them focuses on one specific social and management problem or the other; trying to proffer solutions to them. Readers are therefore advised to make proper use of the ideas presented by the various authors.