Gadaffhi Junior's PhD celebrates "soft power," democracy

Saif Gadaffhi, son of Muammar, deliverer of speeches in which he pledges to hold dictatorial power until he has expended his last bullet, did his PhD at the London School of Economics on "THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE DEMOCRATISATION OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE INSTITUTIONS: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making?"

This dissertation analyses the problem of how to create more just and democratic global governing institutions, exploring the approach of a more formal system of collective decision-making by the three main actors in global society: governments, civil society and the business sector. The thesis seeks to make a contribution by presenting for discussion an addition to the system of international governance that is morally justified and potentially practicable, referred to as 'Collective Management'. The thesis focuses on the role of civil society, analysing arguments for and against a role for civil society that goes beyond 'soft power' to inclusion as voting members in inter-governmental decision-making structures in the United Nations (UN) system, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and other institutions.

The thesis defends the argument that inclusion of elected representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in tripartite decision-making structures could potentially create a more democratic global governing system. This conclusion is supported by a specially-commissioned survey of leading figures in NGOs and IGO decision-making structures.

"THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE DEMOCRATISATION OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE INSTITUTIONS: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making? (PDF)

Is this Irony or Absurdity?: Saif al-Islam Al Qadhafi's Disseration Saif al-Islam Gaddafi: LSE-educated man the west can no longer deal with

• [Anonymous]

  Read it here –>
  http://saifalislam.ly/files/2010/06/19ca14e7ea6328a42e0eb13d585e4c22.pdf

• [Anonymous]

  Yo, Saif!

  May I credit you for the use of your Disclaimer, which I want to use in my original work on plagiarism, coming out soon? Get back to me or my secretary soon, could you please?
  (By the way, your brother isn’t having further problems from beating his domestics in that Geneva, Switzerland hotel a couple years ago?? Cool)

  QUOTE
  I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it).
  The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author.
  I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party.
  endQUOTE
  (Citation in article (above))
  …
  (Satire Mode OFF)

• [egoVirus]

  He probably paid someone to write it… LSE is a pretty sweet alma mater though.

• [Anonymous]

  Chilling to hear him speak, last year at the LSE; search on this page for ‘Libya’ and download the MP3…

  http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/podcasts/publicLecturesAndEvents.htm

  “In theory, Libya is the most democratic state in the world.” – 00:16:24

  Q&A at the end is interesting too, particularly nuts at 01:02:05.

• [Anonymous]

  People, get the Al-Jazeera Livestreaming app for iPhone. Free and on the ground reporting. More reliable the some of the filtered stuff coming through to US Media. Plus, there are no breaking reports about biebers new hairdo

• [Anonymous]

  I suggest starting up a Wiki for this dissertation as was quite successfully done for the German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenbergs.

  http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki

  Why not discredit this man instead of just insulting him?

  • [wheezer]

    Great idea!

    http://saifalislamgaddafithesis.wikia.com/wiki/Saif%20Al-Islam%20Gaddafi%20Thesis%20Wiki?wiki-welcome=1

    • [firesine]

      I’ve made a start: the very first page I looked at (thesis P52) contained a plagiarised sentence and a whole plagiarised paragraph – I’ve updated the wiki.

      I don’t think this is going to be difficult…

    • [Ernst Gruengast]

      Cripes, that was quick – less than two hours.

      Gurtenplag has a good catagorisation of the plagiarism cases which lets you be more accurate and specific (all in German of course):

      http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/PlagiatsKategorien

      Not sure what the standard catagories for an English academic dissertation would be – something alonfg the following lines perhaps:

      http://www.buzzle.com/articles/different-types-of-plagiarism.html
      http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_types_of_plagiarism.html

      Might be worth looking at how that works in the Wiki structure of Gutenplag, so that Gadaffhi plagiarism cases can be immediately categorised. There is also a kind of template for submissions to aid database analysis of results.

      But excellent work! Now the political academic community needs to be made aware of the wiki’s existence.

• [NewAlexandria]

  “Irony”? “Absurdity”? What’s so hard to understand here?

  The son of one of the world’s worst living dictators – what’s he probably know about: tyranny and dictatorship. What’s his opposition / enemy: Grassroots global democracy.

  What does a strong warrior do? Know thy enemy.

  There’s probably nothing to discredit here. If the best-written thesis, in the world, was written by one of the world’s fiercest dictators then where do you think that leaves him? -in control-

• [Anonymous]

  hmm His authority on the subject puts him in a good position to decide whats best for his country..

• [TEKNA2007]

  Sometimes I’m amazed at the way the U.S. manages to handle presidential elections and change of officeholder without a lot of shooting. It really goes against human nature to have that much power and then give it up. It may help that we have a tradition of treating our ex-presidents fairly well (even Bush). And that being titularly in charge without actually having the powers of a dictator can be a lot of work.

• [Anonymous]

  There appears to be some *at least* minor plagiarism in this thesis. If you look at the bottom of p45 there is a passage that goes:

  ‘The expansions of the IMF’s membership, together with the changes in the world economy, have required the IMF to adapt in a variety of ways to continue serving its purposes effectively’.

  If you plug this sentence into google you get a link to the IMF Wikipedia page.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund

  I caught this within 60 seconds of opening the thesis. Do people want to keep going through? I found one more case pretty quickly.

  • [Anonymous]

    That’s a tell-tale of the standards of the so-called elite schools of the West, and not on the one who wrote it!

• [abulafia]

  The irony, it burns!!
  This is the same Saif (Silence,I kill you!) Gaddafi?

• [Anonymous]

  If he bought the thesis, as he most likely did, you might not find too many instances of plagiarism. When I have found bought papers from students it is because they are riddled with plagiarism because the cheap paper stores use amateurs to write up some crap. If a student were to have more money and had advisers who could point them in the right direction, there is no reason they couldn’t get a qualified graduate student, or even professor, to write an original piece of research. What’s a million dollars to Gaddafi? Pocket money. What’s a million dollars to the average academic in one of the social sciences? About 20 years salary if they’re lucky. His dissertation advisers could have picked up on the scam but if he’s not a complete dope that would require a lot more time and effort than academics are compensated for.

• [Keir]

  #2 – because every one of us has an iPhone, right?

• [Anonymous]

  If you have minimally followed the “awesome” deeds of little Gadaffi, you would be very careful not to attribute him the capacity to even plagiarize a dissertation. Think better about a well paid ghostwriter, they are really masters at plagiarizing, so it fits.

• [Anonymous]

  “a more democratic global governing system.” You mean, ONE WORLD ORDER!

• [McLuhanesque]

  Apropos, this article on the current home page of openDemocracy, concerning buying PhD dissertations in the UK.

• [noen]

  “Is this Irony or Absurdity?” — What people say and what they often do are two different things. That is a truism so common as to be bland…. unless you’re the one getting shot at.