Here is my IPA assignment for Wednesday - that is tomorrow. We are going to have a very nice little play!
Actually, all of our other group assignments were done with one email from the genius in our group: "hi group, here is the answer. Please check the English". This one is the first real group work that we did and it was SO interesting! We all turned up with food and drinks, sat back in a large sofa in an even larger air conditioned room in a luxury residence and we re-did world politics for a few hours. There were representatives from Europe, North American and Asian continents as well as someone who spent the past few years working in Africa. Something unique...

Group 4:
Imagine that you are the military ruler of a hypothetical West African state—we’ll call it “Petrolia”—and have just come to power in a widely popular coup d’etat that has deposed the corrupt and violent former “emperor.” As the state’s name implies, the country has tremendous oil wealth, but it has largely disappeared in Swiss bank accounts and has been wasted on useless infrastructure projects and the purchasing of advanced military hardware. As a result, the country is in fiscal disarray and you must launch a major economic reform program. You are also committed to democratic elections—although you have not yet decided when they should occur. As a symbol of their confidence in you, several of your fellow citizens have returned to Petrolia from their self-imposed exile abroad, where they worked as economists for the leading international organizations and universities. This group of technocrats has now splintered into two warring factions, and they are giving you conflicting pieces of advice. The first faction is arguing that you must democratize immediately, before putting into place your economic reform program. The second faction is arguing the opposite: that you must impose your economic reforms immediately, and call democratic elections only once the economy has stabilized. In this exercise, your group will present to the class the arguments made by each faction, before telling us which approach the new president will ultimately adopt.