Political Economy of Development

Review - David N. Gellner (ed.), Varieties of Activist Experience: Civil Society in South Asia (New Delhi, 2010) and Ethnic Activism and Civil Society in South Asia (New Delhi, 2009)

by Uday Chandra

Forthcoming in Social Movement Studies 12 (1), 2013

Poverty-Conflict Nexus: the contentious issue revisited

by Dr. Brian-Vincent Ikejiaku

Published in 'European Journal of Sustainable Development' (2012) - European Centre for Sustainable Development

Most scholars, who have contributed to the Poverty-Conflict debate, took the position that poverty on its own cannot... more Most scholars, who have contributed to the Poverty-Conflict debate, took the position that poverty on its own cannot cause conflict, though a few others think otherwise. Focusing on Africa, this paper in contributing to this debate, briefly looks at the large-works of scholars including their theoretical and empirical positions. It then considers some of the primary variables: economic, political, and ethnicity that can help in the explanation of poverty-conflict issue. Employing the human-needs perspective, the paper argues on politics that is the role of government and how its level of corruption influences the way in which poverty affects conflict that hinders development in Africa.




Key Words: political-economy of conflict, poverty-conflict, economic, ethnicity, political-corruption, democratic-governance, development, politics/international relations theories

Challenging development priorities: The case for earthquake hazard mitigation as a policy imperative in developing countries

by Gah-Kai Leung

Undergraduate paper submitted to the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, May 2012.

I intend to submit this paper to Volume 5, Issue 2, of "Reinvention: A Journal of Undergraduate Research". I also plan to present this paper at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research 2013, to be held at the University of Plymouth.

The substantive mission of this essay is to provide a case for earthquake hazard mitigation as a policy priority for... more The substantive mission of this essay is to provide a case for earthquake hazard mitigation as a policy priority for earthquake-prone developing countries. I explain why seismic hazard should constitute an issue for development by showing how developing countries suffer disproportionately from the effects of severe earthquakes compared to more advanced economies. I go on to offer reasons for why earthquake mitigation measures have been marginalised within the development community. Finally a series of policy solutions are proposed, casting the earthquake resistance project in terms of a coherent network of knowledge-sharing from the international to the local levels.

Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia. Journal of Agrarian Change.

The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of... more The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of landholding, which are entrenched in notions of community consensus and existing occupation. The discrepancy between such orally recognized antecedents and the written word of law have been at the heart of the recent wave of dispossessions that have swept across the country. Contra the standard critique that corruption has set the tone, this paper argues that evictions in Cambodia are often literally underwritten by the articles of law. Whereas ‘possession’ is a well-understood and accepted concept in Cambodia, a cultural basis rooted in what James C. Scott refers to as ‘orality’, coupled with a long history of subsistence agriculture, semi-nomadic lifestyles, barter economies, and–until recently–widespread land availability have all ensured that notions of ‘property’ are vague among the country’s majority rural poor. In drawing a firm distinction between possessions and property, where the former is premised upon actual use and the latter is embedded in exploitation, this article examines how proprietorship is inextricably bound to the violence of law.

'Institutional Diversity and Capitalist Transition: The Political Economy of Agrarian Change in Arunachal Pradesh, India', Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp.512-547. (2009)

by Deepak Kumar Mishra

Coauthored with Barbara Harriss-White and V Upadhyay

This paper contributes a preliminary analysis of the process of agrarian capitalist transition in Arunachal Pradesh,... more This paper contributes a preliminary analysis of the process of agrarian capitalist transition in Arunachal Pradesh, one of the least studied regions of India. Primarily based on information collected through a field survey in eleven villages, the paper seeks to explain the nature and implications of institutional unevenness in the development of capitalism. Institutional diversity is not simply mapped across space, it is also manifested in the simultaneous existence of market and non-market institutions across the means of production within the same village or spatial context. In addition, there is a continuous and complex interaction among these institutions which both shapes and is shaped by this capitalist transition. Primitive accumulation emerges as a continuing characteristic of the on-going agrarian and non-agrarian capitalist transition. Institutional adaptation, continuity and hybridity are as integral to the emergence of the market economy as are the processes of creation of new institutions and demise of others. There is no necessary correspondence between the emerging commercialization of the different productive dimensions of the agrarian economy. These uneven processes are deeply influenced by existing and emerging power relations and by the state. Framed by the Bernstein-Byres debate about the contemporary (ir)relevance of the agrarian question, evidence is presented to justify the conclusion that although the processes at work are far from the classical models of the transition to capitalism, all aspects of the agrarian question remain relevant.

Economies of War: A New Framework for the Congolese Conflict

by John Porten

War economy literature suggests that valuable, portable resources have a tendency to drive conflict in territories of... more War economy literature suggests that valuable, portable resources have a tendency to drive conflict in territories of great state weakness. Yet the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, rich in gold, has become much less violent than the Kivus, the Congolese states just to the south of Ituri, where mining of much less valuable columbite-tantalite ores are suspected to drive intense, brutal conflict.

This paper examines Congolese mining law and discovers that enforcement varies greatly between the Ituri and Kivu regions. As a result, small, artisanal miners dominate "coltan" mining in the Kivus, but multi-nationals operate large-scale gold mines in Ituri. Combining literature on resource conflict, the paper develops a hypothesis that differentiated enforcement of mining law allowed multi-national firms to shift the balance of militant interests away from capitalizing on chaotic economies of war and toward creating a more stable market for protection.

Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism. Critical Discourse Studies.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies... more Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign... more Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign power, this article examines the dialectics of capitalism/primitive accumulation, civilization/savagery, and law/violence, which are argued to exist in a mutually reinforcing 'trilateral of logics'. In deciphering this triadic system, this article offers a radical (re)appraisal of capitalism, its legal process, and its civilizing effects, which together serve to mask the originary and ongoing violences of primitive accumulation and the property system. Such obfuscation suggests that wherever the trilateral of logics is enacted, so too is the state of exception called into being, exposing us all as potential homo sacer (life that does not count). Proceeding as a diagnostic assessment of sovereign power, where although signposted by Cambodia's contemporary experiences of violent land conflict, this article is not intended as a fine-grained empirical analysis. Instead, it forwards a theoretical dialogue where Cambodia's neoliberalizing processes offer a window on how sovereign power configures itself around the three discursive-institutional constellations (i.e., capitalism, civilization, and law) that form the trilateral of logics. Rather than formulating prescriptive solutions, the intention here is critique, where in particular it is argued that the preoccupation with strengthening Cambodia's legal system should not be read as a panacea for contemporary social ills, but as an imposition that serves to legitimize the violences of property.

Articulated neoliberalism: the specificity of patronage, kleptocracy, and violence in Cambodia's neoliberalization

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Articulated neoliberalism: the specificity of patronage, kleptocracy, and violence in Cambodia's neoliberalization. Environment and Planning A. 43 (11) 2554-2570.

Focusing exclusively on external forces risks producing an over-generalized account of a ubiquitous neoliberalism,... more Focusing exclusively on external forces risks producing an over-generalized account of a ubiquitous neoliberalism, which insufficiently accounts for the profusion of local variegations that currently comprise the neoliberal project as a series of articulations with existing political economic circumstances. Although neoliberal economics were initially promoted in the global south through the auspices of structural adjustment programs designed by the International Financial Institutions, powerful global south elites were only too happy to oblige. Neoliberalism frequently reveals opportunities for well-connected government officials to informally control market and material rewards, allowing them to easily line their own pockets. It is in this sense of the local appropriation of neoliberal ideas that scholars must go beyond conceiving of ‘neoliberalism-in-general’ as a singular and fully realized policy regime, ideological form, or regulatory framework, and work towards conceiving a plurality of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’ with particular characteristics arising from mutable geohistorical outcomes that are embedded within national, regional, and local process of market-driven socio-spatial transformation. What constitutes ‘actually existing’ neoliberalism in Cambodia as distinctly Cambodian is the ways in which the patronage system has allowed local elites to co-opt, transform, and (re)articulate neoliberal reforms through a framework that ‘asset strips’ public resources, thereby increasing peoples’ exposure to corruption, coercion, and violence. It is to such an 'articulation agenda' that this article attends, as in seeking to provide a more nuanced reading to recent work on neoliberalism in Cambodia by outlining some of its salient characteristics, I reveal a more empirical basis to theorizations of ‘articulated neoliberalism’.

Clandestine Artisans or Integrated Producers?: Standardization of Rural Livelihood in the Norte Chico, Chile, CULTURE & AGRICULTURE 26(1-2), pp. 38-51 (2004)

by William L. Alexander

The nonillusory effects of neoliberalisation: linking geographies of poverty, inequality, and violence

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2008. The nonillusory effects of neoliberalisation: linking geographies of poverty, inequality, and violence. Geoforum. 39 (4), 1520-1525.

This paper steps into recent debates concerning the (f)utility of neoliberalism as an ‘actually existing’ concept by... more This paper steps into recent debates concerning the (f)utility of neoliberalism as an ‘actually existing’ concept by reminding the reader that without a Marxian political economy approach, one that specifically includes neoliberalisation as part of its theoretical edifice, we run the risk of obfuscating the reality of capitalism’s festering poverty, rising inequality, and ongoing geographies of violence as something unknowable and ‘out there’. By failing to acknowledge such nonillusory effects of neoliberalisation and refusing the explanatory power neoliberalism holds in relating similar constellations of experiences across space as a potential basis for emancipation, we precipitously ensure the prospect of a violent future.

Macroeconomic Policy, Strategic Leadership, and Voter Behaviour: The Disparate Tales of Socialist Reformism in Greece and Spain during the 1980s

by Takis Pappas

West European Politics 33:6 (2010), 1241-1260

This article is a comparative study of the socialist governments in Greece and Spain during the 1980s and is motivated... more This article is a comparative study of the socialist governments in Greece and Spain during the 1980s and is motivated by two interrelated puzzles: First, the sharp policy divergence in these countries despite their previously common political trajectories, comparable socioeconomic conditions, and the similar ideological profiles of their respective parties in office; and, second, the fact that both governments won reelection in the mid-1980s although only the Spanish, but not the Greek socialists, had applied a successful reformist agenda. Using a methodology based on the strategic role of political leaderships, this article challenges the general validity of both the partisan theory of macroeconomic policy and the theory of economic voting (the VP-function). Instead, it is shown that strong and undisputed leaders may choose to promote political polarization and social mobilization thus creating the conditions for ideological, rather than economic, voting. To be sure, each strategy is expected to produce different long-term outcomes for both the governments and the countries involved.

La “caja negra” del impacto de la inversión directa en el desarrollo: propuesta de un marco teórico

by Carlos M. Macías

WP. Co-authored with Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez

Inversión Directa Extranjera y desarrollo: recomendaciones a la cooperación española

by Carlos M. Macías

WP. Co-authored with Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez

Curbing Corruption? The Efficacy of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

by Tor Krever

North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2007)

Corruption of public officials, in particular bribery, has long been recognized as a potentially serious problem in... more Corruption of public officials, in particular bribery, has long been recognized as a potentially serious problem in every polity. Large foreign corporations, based in developed jurisdictions, are identified as common culprits. The first legislation in the world to recognize and seek to curb the contribution of domestically based corporations to foreign corruption was the U.S. 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Act criminalizes the payment of bribes to foreign officials for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. I analyze the efficacy of the Act, and argue that it has had only limited success in curbing foreign bribery. This article contributes to the existing literature by considering what impact recent domestic and international developments will have on the Act’s likely future effectiveness. Specifically, it suggests that the internationalization of anti-corruption efforts and recent increased and expanded domestic enforcement reduce the potential costs to business competitiveness and add new momentum to the Act’s effectiveness. The ultimate impact of these developments will depend on the ongoing commitment of all parties to curb supply-side corruption.

2006. 'Linguistic Categories, Education, and Occupations in Singapore.' Ph.D. thesis in Sociology, New School for Social Research.

by Kiat-Jin Lee

Utilizing an array of statistical, oral life history, ethnographic, and other research, this doctoral dissertation is... more Utilizing an array of statistical, oral life history, ethnographic, and other research, this doctoral dissertation is a historical-comparative analysis of the implications of the expansion of mass education and industrialization on the inequalities among the English-speaking, Chinese-speaking, and Malay-speaking in Singapore. This thesis is part of a larger project. A book manuscript will be the final product of these endeavors. Succinctly, this dissertation corroborates that when and how the antecedents of each linguistic group arrived in Singapore determined its market situations and life chances. Not only did they supply the condition regarding its capacity to maximize the makeover of the political economy when the Straits Settlements, of which Singapore was a component, became a Crown Colony, these also in turn situated the equally crucial circumstance about its categorically differentiated ability to exploit educational expansion and industrialization a century later, where schooling was again pivotal.

The Poverty of Protectionism

by Marcus Schultz-Bergin

Master's Thesis completed at Colorado State University

Much of the modern debate on the global economy takes the form of two ships passing in the dark. The economics... more
Much of the modern debate on the global economy takes the form of two ships passing in the dark. The economics literature on the subject defends liberalized trade on empirical grounds while the philosophical literature defends protectionism on theoretical grounds. I aim to unite the literature, arguing against protectionism and defending liberalized trade both empirically and theoretically in the name of poverty reduction.
In chapter 1 I explore two country-specific case studies to get an idea of how trade liberalization benefitted their development and poverty reduction efforts. I also establish a general background for both the economic theory, between protectionism and trade liberalization, as well as the current state of poverty and protectionism in the world.
Chapter 2 seeks to expand the case study analysis to analyze three general ways protectionism and trade liberalization interact with poverty reduction efforts. I argue that trade liberalization, as opposed to protectionism, promotes short term gains to national
wealth. Additionally, trade liberalization, as opposed to protectionism, promotes sustained growth and poverty reduction. Finally, I argue that trade liberalization contributes to good governance, while protectionism works against it.
In the final chapter I will consider a theory of fairness for the global economic system and its implications on three aspects of the global economic order: worker exploitation,  protectionism in the developed world and the Fair Trade movement.

The Battle for Land: Unaddressed Issues

by Avinash Kumar Mishra

June 18, 2011 vol xlvi no 25; Economic & Political Weekly

The episodes of violence in land acquisition by the government,
as witnessed recently in Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar... more The episodes of violence in land acquisition by the government,
as witnessed recently in Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh and in other states earlier, occur because patterns of violence are
inbuilt into the process. Despite a bill pending in Parliament since
2007, there has been little effort by political parties to evolve a
consensus on acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. The law as at present and also the provisions of the pending bill do not leave any scope for resistance other than on the issue of compensation. The UP government’s new policy on land acquisition is an improvement but more needs to be done.

Politics of Land Acquisition for SEZs: The Experience of Uttar Pradesh

by Avinash Kumar Mishra

co-authored with Sudha Pai in a forthcoming book "Politics of SEZ in India"

Land has always remained a means of livelihood for the disadvantaged and poorer sections. However, with SEZs’ rapid... more Land has always remained a means of livelihood for the disadvantaged and poorer sections. However, with SEZs’ rapid growth in the country and violent protests against this in West Bengal, Orissa and several other states it has assumed centrality in politics today. But the picture is not the same all over the country. In some states there has been little or no resistance to SEZs in general and land acquisition in particular. Here farmers seem to be willing to give up their land and move away from agriculture. Hence, examining the experience of SEZs in particular states is useful. The case study of the national capital region of UP presented here enables us to draw some significant lessons for the ongoing process of land acquisition for industry in the country. It provides an example of an industrially backward state attempting to attract private capital in a period of heightened competition among state governments. Analysis of the process of land acquisition based on field studies in the two selected regions of Greater NOIDA and Ghaziabad, reveal how the type of policies and method of implementation adopted by governments can lead to very different outcomes for both the farmers and the private industries involved.

State-Building, Risk Management and Primitive Accumulation in Solomon Islands

by Shahar Hameiri

New Approaches to Building Markets in Asia, Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore, Working Paper no. 11

In recent years, various forms of international/transnational state-building have become increasingly common as a way... more In recent years, various forms of international/transnational state-building have become increasingly common as a way of managing the perceived risk posed by dysfunctional governance in so-called fragile states to Western security. In Solomon Islands too, the Australian government has led a robust and expansive intervention, designed to build the capacity of Solomon Islands’ government and bureaucracy to provide more effective governance. Dominant approaches to state-building link state failure with a failure of development and typically involve considerable efforts to promote economic development through the establishing of robust institutional structures seen to be supportive of liberal markets. In particular, interveners have attempted to cut ‘red-tape’ for business, eliminate corruption and secure investor rights as a way of facilitating faster and more sustained growth. Though economic activity has improved in Solomon Islands following the 2003 intervention, not least due to the arrival of many well-paid expatriates, much of this activity has occurred in highly unsustainable extractive industries, such as logging and fishing. Ironically, then, to the extent that state-building programs have supported the expansion of liberal markets in Solomon Islands, this has empowered interests hitherto reliant on primitive accumulation for their power. As a result, the expansion of liberal markets is likely in fact to lead to future social and political instability in Solomon Islands, either as a result of resource-depletion or due to bottom-up forms of social conflict around the destruction of local habitats.