Members of the University community are hereby invited to an Inter-College Lecture being organised by the College of Humanities as follows:
Topic: Tackling the Monetization of Politics with a Points System
Lecturer: Dr. Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani
Department: Philosophy and Classics
Date: Thursday, November 18, 2021.
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Venue: University of Ghana School of Law Auditorium
Chairman: Professor Daniel Ofori, Provost of the College of Humanities
All are cordially invited
Abstract
The extremely expensive cost of vying for political office has rigged electoral processes in modern democracies in favour of the super rich, imposing plutocracy on mankind in the most forceful way in history. All attempts to regulate the influence of money (termed political money) in politics have so far not been satisfactory. This research groups attempts to regulate political money in two: the direct and indirect measures. The direct refer to restricting campaign contributions and spending. The indirect refer to regulating circumstances in order to regulate the money, such as restricting campaign time, regulating the use of media channels, and any attempts to regulate surrounding circumstances. Apart from being ineffective, these measures infringe (in one way or another) on freedom of speech. This lecture defends a third measure that escapes the freedom-infringement problem. I suggest a points system for evaluating candidates for political office. Using such templates would also render, as wasteful, most manners of political spending, reduce such spending, moderate political desperation, elevate merit, and produce better political leaders.
Keywords: Campaign finance, political financing, political equality, political money, representative democracy, liberty
Profile: Dr. Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani
Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Classics and has taught Critical Thinking and Practical Reasoning for several years at the University of Ghana. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra (Australia Capital Territory). He is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy (published by University of Westminster Press). Dr. Ani has published in many high impact journals including Philosophical Papers, Philosophia, Journal of Political Philosophy, South African Journal of Philosophy, African Studies Quarterly, and the Canadian Philosophical Review. He also contributed to the Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy published in 2018. Dr. Ani was adjudged the winner of the University of Ghana College of Humanities Provost Publication Award (Mid-Career Category) in 2018. Currently, he is in collaboration for improving crowd wisdom and deliberative democracy with Artificial Intelligence, with partners from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the School of Collective Intelligence, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco.
