Analysis Folgen

Owen Bennett Jones looks at the Shia movement Hezbollah which has a big following in Lebanon but is regarded by some in the West as a terrorist organisation. It has a militia with more weapons than many European armies and wants Islamic rule but is in government with Christian allies. The British government draws a distinction between Hezbollah's military and political wings whereas the Americans do not. The French government would like to see Hezbollah disarm but do not regard them as terrorists. How the West sees the organisation and how it sees itself is central to stability in the Middle East but what exactly is Hezbollah and is it heading for another war with Israel?

Despite a general policy of austerity and cut backs, the budget for development aid has been ring fenced by the coalition government. Frances Cairncross asks whether a more relaxed immigration policy might be a better way for the UK to help the developing world. The official aid budget is dwarfed by a private form of help for the developing world: remittances sent home by immigrants working in richer countries. So should governments keen to help the developing world encourage migration and remittances as a replacement for state-funded aid? "They have the key advantage that the people who send them know the people who are supposed to be receiving them... There's less opportunity for corruption and for waste... and they might have lower overhead costs," argues Owen Barder of the Center for Global Development. Frances Cairncross, rector of Exeter College, Oxford and former managing editor of The Economist, explores the limits of this free market alternative to state-funded development aid.Contributors include: Steve Baker Conservative MP for WycombeDilip Ratha Migration and remittances expert from the World Bank and the University of SussexOwen Barder Senior fellow of Washington DC think-tank, the Center for Global DevelopmentHetty Kovach Senior policy adviser to OxfamDevesh Kapur Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of India at the University of PennsylvaniaOnyekachi Wambu From the African Foundation for Development, or AFFORDAlex Oprunenco Head of international programmes with Moldovan think-tank, Expert GrupProfessor Paul Collier Author of The Bottom Billion and director at the Oxford University Centre for the study of African EconomiesProducers: Helen Grady and Daniel Tetlow.

Under Colonel Gaddafi, Libya was subject to the dictator's so-called Third Universal Theory. Hugh Miles asks what sort of ideology is likely to dominate in post-Gaddafi Libya.Western media have been keeping a close eye on Libya's governing National Transitional Council, and there have been warnings about splits between Islamists and secularists, and about Libya's tribal society. But, as Hugh Miles discovers, amongst Libya's new ruling class there is broad consensus about support for one ideology: capitalism. Gaddafi's idiosyncratic economic and political philosophy fused elements of socialism and Islam. The suppression of free markets was at times taken to bizarre extremes with, at one point, the banning of the entire retail sector. Support for capitalism is perhaps a reaction to the years in which entrepreneurship was suppressed.Hugh Miles looks at the background of the new rulers and asks how Libyan Islamic capitalism might work.