A crisis affords unique opportunities for reform, but a crisis of governance present an unusual dilemma: How can people trust that crisis-prone agencies will reform themselves? The recent cases of police reform in New Orleans and anti-corruption efforts in Greece illustrate the challenge of internal reform. Dysfunctional police departments and corruption plagued governments will always find it difficult to credibly commit to change. In both cases, political leaders can draw on their external allies to avoid the hazards of internal reform.
The mayor and community groups in New Orleans adopted this strategy when they recruited the federal Justice Department to help overhaul their police department. The overhaul will begin with a comprehensive review that leads to a legally binding agreement for reform — reform that will be overseen by the Justice Department rather than the police force itself or locally elected leaders.
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According to the New York Times, the new mayor of New Orleans, who campaigned on a promise to reform the city’s police department, recently asked the federal Department of Justice to intervene. The city’s police department, he wrote, has been described as one of the worst in the nation.
“This assessment is made based on several indications, including the number of violent crimes, incidents of rape, and malfeasance by members of the police department. It is clear that nothing short of a complete transformation is necessary and essential to ensure the safety for the citizens of New Orleans.”
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The Jamaican government, led by Prime Minister Bruce Golding, recently announced that it would extradite Christopher Dudus Coke to the United States on charges of trafficking drugs and guns. Shortly after the announcement, violent clashes broke out between the Jamaican security forces attempting to apprehend Coke and the armed gangs in his stronghold of Tivoli Gardens in west Kingston. As of May 26, The New York Times reported a death toll of 44 in the clash.
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In the current circumstances, any attempt at creating a new city in Haiti under foreign control would turn a humanitarian military intervention into a humanitarian military occupation. This approach is fraught with risks that the concept of a charter city is designed to avoid.
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A working economy requires good formal and informal rules as well as an effective system of enforcement. The effective enforcement of laws and regulations feeds off of good informal rules, particularly the norm of lawful compliance even when the threat of punishment is not imminent. The absence of effective enforcement can erode this norm of compliance, leading to lawlessness. In this situation, the leaders of the lawless nation may be able to quickly turn things around if they are willing to partner with other governments.
In a recent working paper for the Center for Global Development, Stanford PhD candidate Aila Matanock analyzes several cases of shared governance in Melanesia. In particular, her analysis of the Solomon Islands illustrates the challenges and opportunities for shared governance.
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