In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house[note 1] of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the representatives of the nation." The population base represented by this name is manifestly the nation as a whole, as opposed to a geographically select population, such as that represented by a provincial assembly. The powers of a National Assembly vary according to the type of government. It may possess all the powers of government, generally governing by committee, or it may function solely within the legislative branch of the government.The name also must be distinguished from the concept. Conceptually such an institution may appear under variety of names, especially if "national assembly" is being used to translate foreign names of the same concept into English. Also, the degree to which the National Assembly speaks for the nation is a variable. To achieve a quorum, the ancient Athenian Assembly employed Scythian police to arrest citizens at random from the street. On the other hand, the early Parliaments of Europe were mainly of an aristocratic composition. The word had its origins and inspirations from the National Assembly that was responsible for drafting a constitution during the French Revolution.The exact words, "national assembly," have been used prolifically in the international community of nations since the 18th and 19th centuries, considered the Age of Revolution in western Europe. Nations that formed republics in this age subsequently formed empires. Extensive cross-cultural influences brought much of their language and institutions to the provinces. When these empires collapsed finally, the emancipated countries formed states and other institutions on the model of the former imperial nations. Some examples of international influences are as follows:In Germany, a Nationalversammlung was elected following the revolutions of 1848–1849 and 1918–1919, to be replaced by a permanent parliament (Reichstag) later. The legislature of the Estado Novo regime in Portugal was known as the National Assembly. The national assembly was also defined in the Republic of China constitution. This is different from the Legislative Yuan by the ROC constitution. In 2005, Taiwan revised the constitution and the national assembly was abolished. Examples have multiplied greatly under the policy of self-determination adopted by the western nations. Many more are to be found in the articles listed below.
Emerging climate risks provide undeniable evidence that Africa's fragile resource systems are highly susceptible to climatic variability. Thus, the impact of climate change on natural resource rents is examined with a focus on the big five African economies. Using Pooled Mean Group (PMG) Estimator and Panel Causality Test, the study covers the period 1990-2023. It is empirically confirmed that climate change negatively impacts natural resource rents as findings depict that a rise in the levels of carbon emissions would result in reduced resource rents in the long run. This validates the assumption that the effects of changing climate conditions could be harmful to resource availability and environmental sustainability in cities and communities, suggesting a link with Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities). Regarding heterogeneous estimates obtained, it is shown that South Africa and Egypt reflect better outcomes compared to Algeria, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. It is, therefore, emphasized that differences in the quality of policy frameworks could be responsible for the empirical outcomes. Based on the causality results, a bidirectional association is established between carbon emissions and natural resource rents, indicating that climate change and natural resource rents could influence each other. Hence, it is suggested that building low-carbon infrastructure, maintaining land degradation neutrality and prioritizing sustainable ecosystem management are essential for achieving desired outcomes.
This study examines the extent to which budget transparency and accountability constitute a lived reality or a mere myth within Nigeria’s National Assembly between 2015 and 2023. Anchored on New Public Management (NPM) theory, which emphasises performance measurement, disclosure, and results-based accountability in public institutions while drawing on doctrinal analysis, documentary evidence, and secondary data from the Open Budget Survey, court filings, and civil society reports, the paper analyses two interrelated dimensions: alleged budget padding in the national appropriation process and the persistent opacity surrounding the National Assembly’s own institutional budget. Findings reveal a significant gap between Nigeria’s formal legal architecture, including constitutional provisions on appropriation, the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, and the Freedom of Information Act 2011, and actual institutional practice. High-profile incidents, such as the 2016 budget padding scandal and recurring litigation by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) demanding disclosure of the legislature’s lump-sum allocations, illustrate a pattern of selective disclosure and external judicial compulsion rather than routine transparency. Nigeria’s Open Budget Survey scores further reflect inconsistent performance, with transparency and public participation indicators remaining below global and regional benchmarks despite relatively stronger formal oversight mechanisms. The study concludes that budget transparency and accountability in the National Assembly remain largely mythical in practice, sustained more by statutory existence than consistent observance. It recommends institutional reforms, including proactive itemised disclosure of the legislative budget, strengthened internal oversight, and deeper collaboration with civil society, to bridge the gap between legal frameworks and operational reality.
ABSTRACT The resurgence of U.S. protectionism, the proposal of universal reciprocal tariffs targeting major trading partners, poses systemic risks to global trade that existing bilateral analyses have not fully captured. This paper examines the economic consequences of U.S. reciprocal tariff imposed simultaneously on imports from Korea, Japan and the European Union (EU). Using highly disaggregated HS‐10 bilateral trade data from the USITC (2024), we estimate trade flow responses via a Poisson Pseudo‐Maximum Likelihood (PPML) structural gravity model. Sector‐level export demand shocks are subsequently transmitted into the GTAP 11 general equilibrium framework and decomposed through OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA) linkages to derive GDP, value‐added, and employment effects. Empirical results show that Korean exports to the U.S. decline by around 15%, with domestic value‐added losses equivalent to 0.5%~0.6% of GDP. Japan and the EU experience comparable relative contractions, with aggregate global trade falling by 1.2%~1.5% and world GDP declining by approximately 0.4%. Tariff pass‐through is near‐complete, implying that U.S. consumers bear the predominant share of the cost. Sectoral analysis reveals disproportionate exposure in automobiles, electronics, and batteries for Korea and Japan, and in machinery, pharmaceuticals, and luxury goods for the EU. This study contributes to the literature in ways that it demonstrates that reciprocal tariffs applied simultaneously to multiple major partners constrain trade diversion opportunities, producing systemic losses larger than those estimated in bilateral trade war scenarios; it provides an integrated micro‐to‐macro analytical framework linking HS‐10 product‐level elasticities to global input–output propagation, and it offers the first cross‐country empirical estimates under the 15% reciprocal tariff threshold—a scenario central to current policy debates yet understudied in the academic literature.
