Over the last 35 years, Western democracies have seen a rapid rise in political instability, characterized by frequent shifts in governing parties and their programs and philosophies, driven at least partly by economic transformation and hardship. The question now is how to improve economic performance at a time when political instability is impeding effective policymaking. In a recent article, one of us (David Brady) shows the correlation between rising political instability and declining economic performance, pointing out that countries with below-average economic performance have experienced the most electoral volatility. More specifically, such instability corresponds with a decline in the share…

I recently joined a tour in Bucharest of the Palace of Parliament, the gigantic folly built in the 1980s on the orders of the late Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, who was executed before he could see it finished. The statistics rehearsed by our guide were staggering: the third biggest edifice in the world, 220,000 square feet of carpet, one million cubic meters of marble, 3,500 tons of crystal. The enormous marble stairways had to be rebuilt several times to match exactly the steps of the dictator, who was a small man. To construct this neoclassical monstrosity, an entire swath of…

I'm sure I'm as appalled and irritated as a good number of you out there, seeing the unintelligent concoction of nonsense as justification for nonsense, in the face of a glaring act of criminality by members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State in printing election result sheets on behalf of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for an election that the APC is also contesting. I mean, what could be more damning and damaging of the values of a political party and the society governed by it, to find it excusing acts of criminality and trivialising high…

It saddens that education has lost its glories. A peep into the system of education in Nigeria reflects that a more efficient curriculum needs to be in place. However, every time new effect is added to Nigeria’s education policy, our people begin to politicize priorities, resulting in divided opinions that point to the fact that some are not even after the success of the country. To counter a policy, it is important one weighs the glories available from it, with the bad that may at the end emanate, giving a clean mind the opportunity to have a stand. This is…