| Topic 1:
Introduction to government: ways of looking at self-government, parliamentary democracy and Somalia’s first experience of it. |
This topic or backgrounder reviews the knowledge, language and attitudes useful to understand how governments work, can work and uses historical and global examples to outline their features and focuses on the features of system used by 125/196 nations. |
| Topic 2:
The development of parliaments: the story of the breakthrough ideas that helped build up the forms and processes of today’s parliaments. |
This topic or backgrounder explores the historical power struggle to achieve truly representative parliaments and charts the breakthrough events that have enabled all citizens worldwide to contribute to better, fairer societies. |
| Topic 3:
Development of democracy and human rights: timelines sketching the ideas and events that translated ideals of equality into actual rights. |
These timelines record the major events and breakthrough thinking that have contributed to ‘self-correcting’ government: democracies and show progress is no straight line, builds on developing ideas and show turning ideals into reality takes struggle and sacrifice. |
| Topic 4:
Development of Somalia: a timeline of events from ancient history focuses on the post-1960 era of promise, collapse and gradual recovery. |
These timelines signpost the events and personalities of Somalia’s independence, democracy, collapse and recovery outline the sequences of political actions involved reveal complications and problems caused by competing ideas and geo-political struggles. |
| Topic 5:
How parliaments work: An outline of how the national debating chamber and law-making institutions work, plus the roles of those there. |
This topic or backgrounder outlines how parliament works as a law-making and scrutinising institution for a nation lists those who have a role to play in parliaments reviews some of the basic rules, standing orders and other aspects of the ‘eternal vigilance’ needed to govern. |
| Topic 6:
Social contracts: how contracts, formal and informal, encourage citizens’ participation and can keep governments accountable. |
This topic or backgrounder outlines how social contracts work, and can change uses information from parliaments and governance in Africa and worldwide to examine what makes contracts valid examines social contracts’ role as a force for stability in Muslim-majority countries according to key texts, scholars. |
| Topic 7:
From tribal democracy to parliamentary democracies: what is gained and lost. Clan consensus compared to party politics. |
This topic or backgrounder examines the roles that political parties play in democracies relates party organisation and policy making to traditional models of decision-making discusses ways in which tribal, federal and national decision-making – and identities – can co-exist |
| Topic 8:
Elections and voter participation: an outline of how elections work, what makes them valid, and what they are designed to test. |
This topic or backgrounder outlines various election systems and their methods reviews key features of election campaigns, voter participation, turnout and the mandate their results deliver discusses methods of election financing , media coverage, conflicts of interest, and use of referenda for single issues. |
| Topic 9:
The role of the news media or ‘fourth estate’ in modern democracies. New media, financial models, and case studies. |
This topic or backgrounder outlines the crucial role an informative and questioning news media plays in an internet era discusses how media can be censored, can self-censor, be discredited and/or reduced to propaganda machines |
| Topic 10:
Rights and responsibilities of those in power and those participating in democracies: ethics, incentives, sanctions and levels of public trust. |
This topic or backgrounder outlines the ethical codes and practices parliaments use to ensure public trust and widespread citizen participation sketches the role of financial rewards, sanctions, and public scrutiny in combatting a culture of corruption |