Teaching Comparative Government

Is this a sign that the economic elite in Mexico no longer control government expenditures? Mexico's incoming president says he'll cancel partially built $13-billion airport Buoyed by the results of a controversial nationwide referendum, Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday that his administration will cancel construction of a partially completed, $13-billion international airport and instead move forward with plans for a less expensive alternative. Texcoco airport project “The decision is to abide by the mandate of citizens,” the president-elect, who assumes office on Dec. 1, said at a news conference. “This is democracy.” The revised plan, he said, would save Mexican taxpayers the equivalent of more than $5 billion. But abandoning the new airport in the Texcoco area northeast of Mexico City also means the loss of some $5 billion that already has been spent on the project. The airport in Texcoco, which would have been the third largest commercial air...

Given the business ventures of the PLA and the civil projects taken on by military units, what integration is the government aiming for? Chinese vice premier urges deeper military-civilian integration Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng on Monday attended a national symposium where plans were made to advance military-civilian integration. Han, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and deputy head of the Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development, addressed the symposium… He said the building of major strategic projects should be used to advance the coordinated technological innovation between the military and civilian sectors, coordinate resource allocation to boost efficiency, and achieve the best performance. Han said Party committees and governments at all levels should view implementing the military-civilian integration as a major political responsibility, work hard to make new progress, enh...

This headline from the South China Morning Post almost begged to included in this blog. Two Chinese cities and legions of police disguised as ‘dancing aunties’ and students on alert for presidential visit Amid the morning quiet, there were clear signs that someone important was about to arrive. In Futian, the city’s central business district, roads around the Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning Exhibition were blocked and residents wondered aloud about why they had to suddenly shut their windows. All businesses within two blocks of the museum – hosting an exhibition of the province’s role in country’s reform and opening up 40 years ago – were closed and the museum itself had been shut for a month in preparation for Xi’s visit. Pedestrians trying to go in for a closer look were shooed away by people who at first glance looked like students, grandpas and square dancing aunties but were all carrying the same kind of water bottles and mumbling, hooked up to earpieces. The presence of...

Somebody wrote (said) something they shouldn't have written (said). Nigeria denies plans to limit child births The Nigerian government on Wednesday has denied it has plans of placing a two-children per family limit on its citizens. Nigeria’s finance minister, Zainab Ahmed, at the 2018 Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, noted that the Federal government was planning a birth control policy to check the prevalent poverty and unemployment in the country. She said the government was consulting religious and traditional leaders nationwide on the issue after which a policy would be formulated. Barely twenty-four hours after the statement was made, the finance minister said she was misinterpreted. “The federal government has been engaging critical stakeholders like traditional and religious leaders to advise their members on child spacing,” Ahmed, Nigeria’s finance minister tweeted. “We never said we are placing a cap on childbirth.” … The minister insisted that she only said the governme...

While Nigeria is considering a national birth control policy, China seems about to abandon its birth control policy China to scrap population targets, health official says China will not set a population target in the future and will give people more freedom around childbirth, a health official said, in the next step of a gradual loosening of decades of tight population-control policies… Wei Yunpeng, deputy director of the Population Monitoring and Family Development Division of the National Health Commission, was speaking at a conference hosted by his administration and the United Nations Population Fund. Wei’s comments are the latest sign that the government is moving to end decades of restrictive birth-control policies, fuelling speculation that China might announce removing birth limits at an upcoming meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee. Parliament removed “family planning” policies from the latest draft of a revised civil code scheduled for adoption in 2020, another...

Complications abound, but population growth is a real problem. FG to limit number of children per mother The Federal Government on Tuesday declared that it was working hard to come out with a policy that would limit the number of children that a mother could have in Nigeria. It stated that traditional rulers and other leaders across the country were being engaged as regards this, adding that the move was aimed at addressing one of the “great challenges” in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan of the Federal Government. The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, who disclosed this while responding to questions during a session at the 24th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, noted that the country’s population had been identified as one of the great challenges confronting the successful implementation of the ERGP. Ahmed said, “We have been engaging traditional rulers and other leaders. Specifically, we have found out that to be able to address one of the great challenges that we identified ...

The Communist Party of China has published a "mind map" guide to President Xi's ideology for those who need a cheat sheet to stay out of political trouble. A simple guide to Xi Jinping Thought? Here’s how China’s official media tried to explain it When Xi Jinping outlined his political blueprint for the next 30 years at the Communist Party congress last year, it took him three and a half hours to articulate his vision for the country. Now, to mark the first anniversary of his speech, the party’s official mouthpiece has made a no less ambitious attempt to visualise the Chinese president’s doctrines. The result, published on the WeChat account of People’s Daily on Thursday, is a complex colour-coded “mind map” consisting of 30 separate elements, each broken down into multiple subsections that resemble the branches of a tree. Officially called “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, the doctrine is now enshrined in both state and party...