Regulation of Competition in the Telecommunications Sector: A Comparative Study of the Korean and Nigerian Legal Regimes

The liberalisation of telecommunications sectors in many countries has brought with it the need to regulate and develop regulatory models for competition. South Korea and Nigeria followed the liberalisation trend of the telecommunications markets in late 1980s and 1990s. Both countries have also established competition laws and adopt various regulatory models. This paper, through a comparative analysis, examines how both countries regulate competition in their telecommunications markets. It argues that their regulatory models have merits and demerits which may affect efficient regulation of competition in the industry. It concludes that notwithstanding the pros and cons of their regulatory models, the regulatory choices are tailored to meet the peculiarities of their markets and reflect the environment in which they are used. Also, the Nigerian model reflects its slow level of telecommunication development and the more sophisticated the industry becomes, it becomes imperative for its regulatory regime to become sector-specific.

Four propositions on integrated sustainability: toward a theoretical framework to understand the environment, peace, and sustainability nexus

The sustainability agenda has evolved around a set of interconnected dilemmas regarding economic, social, and environmental goals. Progress has been made in establishing thresholds and targets that must be achieved to enable life to continue to thrive on the planet. However, much work remains to be done in articulating coherent theoretical frameworks that adequately describe the mechanisms through which sustainability outcomes are achieved. This paper reviews core concepts in the sustainability agenda to develop four propositions on integrated sustainability that collectively describe the underlying mechanisms of sustainable development. We then advance a framework for integrated sustainability and assess its viability through linear regression and principal components analysis of key selected indicators. The results provide preliminary evidence that countries with institutions that enable cooperation and regulate competition perform better in attaining integrated sustainability indicators. Our findings suggest that institutional design is important to sustainability outcomes and that further research into process-oriented mechanisms and institutional characteristics can yield substantial dividends in enabling effective sustainability policy.

Partisans’ and Civil Elites’ Role in Supporting Military Coups: The Case of the Egyptian Elites

The study reported in the article below tried to examine partisans’ and civil elites’ role in military interventions and coups. The 2013 Egyptian coup d'état that took place on 3 July 2013 was used as a model of analysis. Concisely, this study sought to identify the defining characteristics of the partisans and civil elites who supported that military coup in Egypt, including their social origins, their level of education, their views of democracy and constitutional legitimacy as well as the nature of their allegied tie-up with the armed forces. In order to do just this, the study used Samuel Huntington's hypothesis as a theoretical framework of analysis. Accordingly, elites’ support for military coups underlies weakness (and therefore ineffectiveness) of the country’s civil institutions as well as absence of institutional political channels that regulate competition and conflict between parties with differing interests and resources. An immediate outcome of such a state of affairs was that partisans and civil elites had demonstrated their superiority over the army as they possessed the means of power that enabled them to impose their control. The findings of the study showed that those partisans and civil elites, formed by mechanisms based on mutual interests and wealth, are only theoretically oriented in the sense that they only accept the principles of democracy and constitutional legitimacy in the event that they lead to their arrival to power. However, if that legitimacy comes from other political currents, (e.g. The Muslim Brotherhood), they soon turn against it.

Coercion and Trusteeship

The governance problem arises when society lacks an ‘ultimate’ authority able to regulate competition and limit conflict between social actors. A variant of the cycling problem in social choice theory, the governance problem can be potentially solved by one of several modes. This chapter focuses on two related modes, coercion and trusteeship, in which a dominant group within society or an external power, respectively, imposes a policy and set of institutions on society. The first section examines the governance problem in areas of limited statehood. The second section outlines the role for the state in solving the governance problem, and how states emerged as successful actors in the now consolidated states of Europe. The third section explores coercion and trusteeship as solutions to the governance problem. It concludes with the somewhat pessimistic argument that trusteeship, though perhaps preferred on normative grounds, is unlikely to succeed in building strong, consolidated states.

Antitrust and the Internet Standardization Problem

This article evaluates the economics of the Internet and Internet-relatedsoftware markets, which are heavily driven towards standardization. Itsuggests that a traditional section 2 antitrust analysis will fail toeffectively regulate competition in such a market, particularly if it isdirected at structural relief. Instead, the article recommends that section2 play a limited role in regulating conduct in a standards competition. Thearticle also suggests that private standard-setting may play aprocompetitive role in the Internet context, and that section 1 should berelaxed in order to permit such joint activity (within certain limits).

Global assessment of the status of coral reef herbivorous fishes: evidence for fishing effects

On coral reefs, herbivorous fishes consume benthic primary producers and regulate competition between fleshy algae and reef-building corals. Many of these species are also important fishery targets, yet little is known about their global status. Using a large-scale synthesis of peer-reviewed and unpublished data, we examine variability in abundance and biomass of herbivorous reef fishes and explore evidence for fishing impacts globally and within regions. We show that biomass is more than twice as high in locations not accessible to fisheries relative to fisheries-accessible locations. Although there are large biogeographic differences in total biomass, the effects of fishing are consistent in nearly all regions. We also show that exposure to fishing alters the structure of the herbivore community by disproportionately reducing biomass of large-bodied functional groups (scraper/excavators, browsers, grazer/detritivores), while increasing biomass and abundance of territorial algal-farming damselfishes (Pomacentridae). The browser functional group that consumes macroalgae and can help to prevent coral–macroalgal phase shifts appears to be most susceptible to fishing. This fishing down the herbivore guild probably alters the effectiveness of these fishes in regulating algal abundance on reefs. Finally, data from remote and unfished locations provide important baselines for setting management and conservation targets for this important group of fishes.

Conferences in British Nineteenth-Century Coastal Shipping

This chapter examines a substantial number of British shipping conferences in the nineteenth century in order to determine their ability to regulate competition across the shipping trade. It identifies and analyses the common features of shipping conferences; the presence of conferences outside of Britain - particularly in China; the early shipping conferences, including the Glasgow-Liverpool conference; and the evidence of large-spread conferences across the United Kingdom. It discovers that coastal shipping was as involved in shipping conferences as the rest of the shipping industry, and that collaboration between firms existed even within the heightened competitive atmosphere.