Volume 27, number 1 (2006)
Articles
International Obstacles to Rural Development: How Neo-Liberal Policies Constrain Competitive Markets and Sustainable Agriculture
This paper analyses key changes to international agriculture during the neo-liberal period (roughly from the 1980s until today), including structural adjustment, agricultural trade policies, corporate control, and intellectual property rights (IPRs), from two different theoretical perspectives: market-driven economic growth (similar to neoclassical economics) and sustainable agriculture. It first examines what market-driven economic growth and sustainable agriculture say about the ideal structure of the agricultural economy. Next, the paper explores whether the identified changes to international agriculture are consistent with these theories. It finds that there is surprising consistency between the two theories’ critiques of the key changes associated with the neo-liberal period.
Investigation on Sources of Growth for Turkey
This paper evaluates the correlations between growth and selected macroeconomic indicators in Turkey under the dynamic macroeconomic adjustments as a globalizing developing economy during 1968–1998. In this context, a sensitivity analysis for basic growth variables, including fiscal, trade, and monetary indicators, is carried out by using a variant of the extreme bounds analysis (EBA). By controlling the various fiscal, trade, and monetary variables, I reveal that, with the exception of human capital, none of the variables, which are always included in the growth regressions, are robust. Thus, the paper confirms the crucial role of human capital in the growth literature.
From Adversary to Partner: The Evolving Role of Caohai Nature Reserve in the Lives of Reserve Residents
Caohai Nature Reserve in Guizhou, China has been the scene of sweeping landscape transformations and equally radical changes in philosophies on natural resource management. Initially, the establishment of the reserve, which criminalized much local fishing, hunting, and land clearing, led to violent conflicts between reserve managers and local people. Following the introduction of NGO-sponsored community development programs, the reserve has become the most conspicuous purveyor of social services that state-sponsored poverty alleviation programs have failed to provide. Many Caohai farmers now see the reserve, instead of the local government, as their main partner for the promotion of economic development.
Who Gets Credit? The Gendered Division of Microfinance Programs in Egypt
Microcredit is a poverty alleviation strategy strongly associated with gender inequality and the feminization of poverty. In Egypt, microcredit operates within two major models. The economic survival model targets a female clientele with very small loan sizes and mainly group lending mechanisms. The business enhancement model primarily targets a not-so-poor clientele. A gap emerges where there are hardly any lending mechanisms addressing poorer men. I argue in this paper that the lopsided focus on providing microfinance services within the economic survival model to poor women and the exclusion of poor men constitutes a myopic poverty alleviation strategy that can actually oppress women rather than empower them. It is also a strategy that excludes a significant proportion of the poor, namely poor men who primarily work within the rubrics of the informal economy. The paper is based on fieldwork in rural Upper Egypt and in two urban squatter areas in Cairo.
Social Capital Interventions: A Case Study from Cali, Colombia
There are few evaluations of social capital interventions in developing countries. By drawing on qualitative research this paper presents the strengths and weaknesses of an intervention in Cali, Colombia in light of the development of social capital as a tool for public policy. Key strengths of the intervention are that it aimed to benefit the wider community by reducing violence and that it aimed to build bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. Even in a context of high violence, an external agency can help develop social capital by promoting realistic, context-sensitive interventions that work with existing community structures and engage with the state.
Lessons from the Struggle for a New International Technology Order
This paper locates the work of Surendra Patel within the context of the efforts of the Global South to secure development-friendly reforms in the arrangements for international technology transfer. Negotiations for an International Code of Conduct on Technology Transfer during the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) were superseded by the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement in the WTO, but the relevance of Patel’s analysis is shown by the current concerns of developing countries regarding the operation of TRIPS. The contribution of Patel’s work to Caribbean research on technology is identified. The second part of the paper discusses another stream of development thinking to which Patel’s generation gave rise, which focused on the internal dimension. It takes as an example the development of Caribbean economic thought in the early post-colonial period, and argues that there is continuing relevance to the “dependency critique” of writers in the 1970s in the context of the shortfalls of contemporary globalization. Patel’s critical perspective on technology and development has provided a valuable legacy for succeeding generations.
Reviews
Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects, Arun Agrawal
Globalization, Neo-Conservative Policies and Democratic Alternatives: Essays in Honour of John Loxley, A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Robert Chernomas, and Ardershir Sepheri (eds.)
Ploughing Up the Farm: Neo-Liberalism, Modern Technology and the State of the World’s Farmers, Jerry Buckland
México frente a la munidialización neoliberal [Mexico Facing Neo-Liberal Globalization], Héctor Guillén Romo, A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Robert Chernomas, and Ardershir Sepheri (eds.)
Why Globalization Works, Martin Wolf