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The parish church held a central place in local communities in the 18th century, both physically and symbolically; however, the institutions and practices governing the churches differed significantly between the Scandinavian countries. This article traces the development of local church government in Norway from its position under 18th-century absolutism to its inclusion into the new system of local self-government, established in 1837. It is compared to the very different institutions of self-government in Sweden in the same period. Although there were many lines of continuity within local government across the political dividing line marked by the Norwegian constitution of 1814, both local church offices and the parish community underwent conceptual changes related to the new constitutional system. Local church government therefore provides an example of how the notion of the population in general changed from absolutism to constitutional rule; from commoners in contradistinction to the state to communities constituting the very foundation of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Xinhai Revolution, which opened the road to the modernization process of China, overthrew the alien Manchurian dynasty that ruled the country from 1644 and offered a new model of political structure and governance on the basis of a Constitution and within the framework of a parliamentary republic. It radically differed from a traditional model of governance. The activity of the revolutionary Nanking Government (1912-1913), especially in the period of the interim presidential rule of Sun Yat-sen, laid down the "channel" along which the movement to modernization in the political sphere began. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption and its related red tape remains a major cog in the wheels of progress in Nigeria and, by extension, Africa. Since independence in 1960, the country has suffered from an appreciable lack of leaders genuinely interested in public welfare and the development of the national economy. Like an army of leeches, Nigerian leaders have sucked the country anaemic. Between 1960 and 1999 alone, Nigerian leaders looted over $440 billion. This is six times the Marshal Plan, the sum total needed to rebuild devastated Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War. Indeed, no society can achieve anything near its full potential if it allows corruption to become the full-blown cancer it has become in Nigeria. Informed by the public choice theory, this paper submits that corruption in Nigeria is a direct consequence of poorly developed institutional arrangements and distorted incentive structures. The latter allowed the elites who captured the state at independence to turn governance structures into instruments for their self-enrichment. The paper further argues that without effective systems that can provide checks and balances to the presumptuous power of governments, a state can become vulnerable not only to corruption and the abuse of public office and resources but also to the reversal of democratic principles and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]