bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Daughters, Decisions and Domination: An Empirical and Conceptual Critique of Household Strategies
Authors: Wolf Diane L. 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThis article focuses upon the decision‐making process in the household with regard to young women and factory employment in Java and Taiwan, and critically examines to what extent these processes reflect household strategies. While Javanese daughters may seek factory employment against parents' wishes, Taiwanese daughters may be obliged to submit to parental decisions and work for years in order to contribute income. The concept of ‘household strategies’, however, inadequately describes both situations, masking relations of power, resistance and inequality within the household. The assumptions underlying the concept of household strategies and their broader analytical implications are explored, leading to the conclusion that a more differentiated view of the household is needed, taking power relations and struggles between genders and generations into account.
Non‐governmental Organizations in Africa: Can They Influence Public Policy?
Authors: Bratton Michael 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTAs non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) accumulate experience at implementing development projects, they sometimes attempt to increase their influence by engaging in policy advocacy. This article analyses the organizational conditions under which national NGOs in Africa have been able to influence the formulation of agricultural and rural development policies. Case studies are presented of three African NGOs that have sought, with varying degrees of success, to represent the ‘voice’ of the rural poor to policy‐makers. Comparative analysis of these cases leads to the conclusion that policy advocacy is most likely to be effective in organizations that have several key characteristics: an homogeneous membership, a federated structure, a focused programme, informal ties with political leaders, and a domestic funding base.
Limits to Radical Intervention: Agricultural Taxation in West Bengal
Authors: Mallick Ross 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTAgricultural taxation policy formulation under the Left Front government in West Bengal indicates landed interests are now powerful enough to resist enhanced taxation. As the most radical government in India abandoned proposed agricultural tax increases in the face of landowner opposition, and felt obliged to lower land taxes instead, India is not likely to increase land revenue for economic development. This effective landowner veto power over taxation policy indicates significant agrarian reform is not forthcoming in India, and the trend is towards greater subsidies for surplus‐producing farmers. The research was conducted through interviews with the policy formulators in West Bengal.
The Interface of Agricultural and Industrial Growth in the Development Process: Some Facets of the Indian Experience
Authors: Mathur Ashok 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper uses national, regional and sub‐regional time series and cross‐sectional data to show that the direct statistical relationship between agricultural and industrial growth is weaker than would be expected. To explain the gap between theoretical expectations and empirical results, the roles of lagged responses, the terms of trade effect, wage‐price movements, initial agricultural productivity, income distribution and some non‐agricultural factors as determinants of industrial growth are assessed. Adequate agricultural growth is important for price stabilization policy and has direct welfare implications for poorer segments of the population. Further, an appropriate policy towards non‐agricultural determinants of industrial growth is needed in order to maximize the impact of agricultural growth on industrial development.
Mercantile Transformations: Understanding the State, Global Debt and Philippine Agriculture
Authors: Koppel Bruce 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper examines an important continuity in the political economy of the Philippines: the interplay between domestic merchant capitalists and the state over the role of the state in the Philippine economy. During the Marcos regime, this interplay increasingly took the form of competition between state mercantile interests and ‘private’ merchant interests. This competition is still being played out. To better understand the nature of the competition, consideration is focused on two essential contemporary facts: the Philippines has a major external debt crisis and the Philippines, still predominantly an agrarian country, suffers from stagnant productivity growth and enduring rural poverty. While the Philippine external debt problem can be attributed in significant part to various international hegemonic interests, the analysis concludes that the characteristics of the crisis primarily reflect changing state/class/economy configurations within the Philippines. These same configurations, in turn, significantly influence the implications of the external debt crisis on Philippine agriculture.
The ‘Political’ Economies of Central America: Foreign Aid and Labour Remittances
Authors: Kaimowitz David 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper reviews recent literature to show how foreign aid and labour remittances have transformed Central America's macroeconomy, state apparatus and class structure over the last ten years. They have lifted real exchange rates, changed the composition of investment, lowered food prices, and directly supported large numbers of people. Control over these resources is now a major focus of political activity and donors play a greater role in economic policy. Project administration has become a major function of the state. Planning and public sector personnel management have become more difficult. Foreign funds have favoured decentralization and increased participation, but they have also weakened the core capacity of the state to execute policies. Transfers have fomented new social groups including sectors supported by remittances, foreign‐financed soldiers, public employees, non‐traditional export producers, financial intermediaries who channel remittances and refugees.
Cash Crop Production and the Process of Transformation
Authors: Morvaridi Behrooz 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThe state aided commercialization of the small farm is the focus of this paper. In theory, subsidies and price support policies are intended to give small farms access to capital inputs to encourage cash crop production. However, only larger holdings can afford to take advantage of state interventionist policies and profit thereby. State subsidies have now become an integral part of the production process. The unit of analysis is the household, viewed in the context of the village and the wider economy. The focus is on family labour relations and the process by which agricultural commercialization transforms the internal relations of the household. Commercialization accompanied by mechanization tends to intensify the work undertaken by women. Since the process of commoditization ties once subsistence farms to market forces, production relations cannot avoid being influenced by the wider economy. Only with a combination of macro and micro data, with focus on both internal and external household relations, can the position of women in rural areas realistically be conceptualized.
Recent Technology Imports into India: Results of a Survey
Authors: Desai Ashok V. 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the results of a survey of twenty‐four recent cases of technology imports into India. Over the last thirty years, large firms in Indian industry have come under increasing competitive pressure from small firms which pay lower wages and which are also favoured by government policy. Most small firms obtain technology through informal channels within the country. But some import technology; and larger firms import it in their defence against competition from small firms. Larger firms, with a history and a reputation, have better access to technology from abroad; smaller firms often go through an extensive search before they find a willing technology supplier. Irrespective of size, firms that import technology within their own specialization are observed to put more effort into technology choice, absorption and adaptation. Indian policies of across‐the‐board import substitution, by promoting diversification into new products developed abroad, tend to discourage specialization and hence to encourage technology imports and to work against technology absorption and innovation.
Reflections on the Latin American Contribution to Development Theory
Authors: Kay Cristóbal 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTDuring the last decade a series of essays by prominent development theorists were published in which it was argued that development theory was in crisis. In my view the First World bias of development theory has contributed to its shortcomings. This bias is evidenced by the failure of development theory seriously to examine and incorporate into its mainstream the theories emanating from the Third World. In this paper I deal with the Latin American contribution to development theory. While development theorists have given some attention to dependency studies and structuralism, far too little appreciation has been given to the writings on marginality and internal colonialism. However, the significance of the structuralist school for development thinking and practice has yet to be fully acknowledged. Furthermore, dependency theory has been much distorted and key dependency writers have been completely ignored, especially in the Anglo‐Saxon world. The following themes of the multi‐stranded Latin American development school are examined: the debate on reform or revolution, the structuralist or centre‐periphery paradigm, the analyses on internal colonialism and marginality, and the dependency studies. Wherever relevant the key differing positions within the Latin American school are presented. I then proceed to examine the shortcomings as well as the contemporary relevance of these Latin American theories of development and underdevelopment.
New Perspectives for Modernization in Central America
Authors: Irvin George 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTOstensibly, the Central American Left has been defeated both politically, in the Nicaraguan elections, and economically, with the triumph of orthodox economic adjustment policy. In reality, the end of the Cold War promises to alter the economic and political climate in a way that will encourage the region's long‐delayed modernization. Although the political arena remains turbulent, moderate forces are emerging which Washington will find easier to support. Equally promising is the region's favourable record of economic adjustment in the second half of the 1980s. A more favourable world climate for world trade in the 1990s would ease the region's foreign exchange constraint and enable a further round of industrialization to take place, while further eroding the economic basis of ‘oligarchic despotism’.
Elites, the Rural Masses and Land in Paraguay: The Subordination of the Rural Masses to the Ruling Class
Authors: Kleinpenning J.M.G. , Zoomers E.B. 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTDespite the fact that rural ownership and tenure relationships were very unfavourable to the majority when President Stroessner came to power, there was little or no peasant rebellion during his regime, and the rural masses were unable to force the government to improve their situation. This paper explains the lack of resistance by the rural poor in terms of the effectiveness of the repressive regime, which kept the poor quiet and either eliminated or discouraged capable young leaders who might have organized a defence of the rights of the rural population. Agricultural colonization has also served as a safety valve, reducing the tensions among the rural poor which might otherwise have led to more radical reforms that would have been against the interests of the landowning elite. A further explanation of the weak resistance is to be found in the lack of unity among the rural poor. Opposed interests have thwarted their adequate organization and the appearance of large and successful rural social movements. The paper begins by providing some historical background.
Gifts and Rights: Cautionary Notes on Community Self‐help in Thailand
Authors: Vandergeest Peter 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTA pervasive assumption in the critical literature and practice of development has been that capitalism and state‐building has undermined relatively autonomous village communities in which there were equalizing institutions of mutual help or gift‐giving. These assumptions tend to retain the dualisms of modernization theories by reversing them. The author argues that we should instead challenge these dualisms, and look for complexity and contradictions within both the past and the present. He then draws on a study in Thailand to show how the ‘village’ was a product of state‐building, and how in the past the idiom of ‘helping’ constituted relations of domination and extraction as well as more egalitarian relations of mutual help. The use of the language of the gift confers power on the giver; since the 1930s, state officials have appropriated and transformed the language of ‘helping’ to coerce villagers into working on ‘development’ projects. Until the 1970s, villagers described ‘development’ as coerced serf labour, but since then, they have struggled with mixed results to redefine development as their right to participate in the national and global product. The author finishes by arguing that, in the context of the current global crisis of accumulation, we should reclaim rural development as a democratic right, opposing neoliberal attempts to redefine it as a gift which government and development agencies can discontinue at their will.
Illicit Drug Production and Supply‐side Drugs Policy in Asia and South America
Authors: Whynes David 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the feasibility of current policies of supply limitation as an instrument for the control of dangerous drugs (principally South American cocaine and Asian heroin). The structure of production and distribution is examined, and revenue estimates are made. A range of supply‐side policy options are evaluated by means of a simple game‐theory approach. In all cases, it is concluded that supply‐side policies are likely to prove ineffectual as a means of drug control.
Communal Forest Management: The Honduran Resin Tappers
Authors: Stanley Denise L. 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTNatural resource tenure and economic feasibility of resource‐based activities are two of the most important issues in the current debate around environmental degradation and rural poverty. While many analyses have blamed the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and government mismanagement for environmental destruction, this paper provides a case study of resin tapping in Honduras which formulates the hypotheses that common property regimes can be successful and that economic liberalization policies may be detrimental to community‐level resource schemes. Over half of the 6000 farmer‐resin tappers in Honduras are organized into forty‐six co‐operatives that market the tree sap, wood and other forest products. These activities combine the twin goals of community‐based forest preservation and income generation. Established legally in 1974, the tapping groups have expanded to include a variety of organizational and technical arrangements. The two co‐operatives of Villa Santa and San Juan de Ojojona demonstrate contrasting histories, ecological endowments and economic outcomes. Currently the Honduran resin tappers are facing problems over their access to forest resources, the fluctuating profitability of extractive activities and the stability of the co‐operative organization. These three issues are relevant to a variety of community‐based environmental activities, and the lessons of the Honduran experience can be applied to analyse the processes of environmental degradation and community response elsewhere in the Third World.
The Indonesian Family Planning Programme: A Success Story for Women?
Authors: Smyth Ines 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThe Family Planning Programme of Indonesia is constantly being hailed as a success story for its performance in reducing fertility rates in many parts of the country. This paper examines what this apparent success has meant for women, taking women's rights to the control of their fertility as the necessary aim for all family planning programmes, and the safeguarding of their reproductive health as an obligation. In the paper, the aims and methods of the Family Planning Programme are examined separately, in order to assess on the one hand the extent and the manner in which women's interests are acknowledged in its objectives, and, on the other, whether in its implementation the programme takes into account the needs of women, both as recipients and as family planning workers. The main conclusion of the paper is that the priorities, style of implementation and service delivery of the programme do not provide women with the means of regulating their fertility autonomously through access to freely chosen contraceptives and related services. In addition, the paper concludes that the safeguard and improvement of women's reproductive health is not among the concerns of the programme, in principle or in practice.
Indian Lands, Environmental Policy and Military Geopolitics in the Development of the Brazilian Amazon: The Case of the Yanomami
Authors: Albert Bruce 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThis article examines the realignments of the developmentalist discourse and strategy of the Brazilian military for the Amazon during the civilian government of the ‘New Republic’ (1985–90). It focuses on a case study, i.e. the official expropriation of the lands of the Yanomami Indians in the states of Roraima and Amazonas along the Brazil/Venezueta border. The analysis brings to light how, during this period, the military aimed at neutralizing both the pressure of environmental NGOs on Brazil's international creditors and the emergent democratization of decisions on land use in Amazônia. It shows how such attempts involved manipulating environmental legislation and ecological rhetoric in order to perpetuate military hegemony over the development of Amazônia to the benefit of mining interests. Finally, the paper traces the roots of these manœuvres to a geopolitical and economical model for Amazonian integration still inspired by the national security doctrine drawn up in the 1950s and 1960s by the Escola Superior de Guerra.
The Informal Financial Sector in Bangladesh: An Appraisal of its Role in Development
Authors: Rahman Atiq 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTInformal financial markets in developing countries, and their role in the development process itself, form a relatively neglected area when it comes to research and policy planning. It seems, however, that this may be due to inaccurate perceptions of the value and effectiveness of this sector, and of its relationship to formal sector financial institutions. This paper uses data from an extensive research project on informal financial markets in Bangladesh to examine the size of the informal market, its relationship to the formal financial sector and the part it plays in the process of development. The paper concludes that, in all these aspects, the informal financial markets are more important, more efficient and more equitable than is generally supposed.
Reforming Peasant Production in Africa: Power and Technological Change in Two Nigerian Villages
Authors: Eyoh Dickson L. 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTDifferential access to state‐allocated incentives, based on socio‐economic inequalities in rural society, is commonly assumed to be a key determinant of change in rural Africa. This article argues that, given the spatial diversity of Africa's rural political economies, analysis of the politics of rural change needs to be premised on an appreciation of the multiplicity of social relations through which rural power structures are configured. Data from a field study of a World Bank assisted agricultural development project in Lafia, Nigeria, are used to illustrate the manner in which spatial and inter‐community variations in responses to commercialization, cultural divisions and the reorganization of political relations during the colonial era combine to sustain regional power structures which are defined by such differences. A comparative analysis of two village communities at opposite ends of the regional spectrum of commercialization is employed to demonstrate how such power structures provide a framework within which the political conditions of access operate to the advantage of both dominant socio‐economic strata and members of particular cultural communities.
From Idealism to Realism: Women, Feminism and Empowerment in Nicaraguan Tailoring Co‐operatives
Authors: Mayoux Linda 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTCo‐operatives have been widely promoted as the ideal type of project for women. Because of the focus on income earning, they have been seen as less threatening than more explicit attempts to organize feminist consciousness‐raising groups. Based on field research conducted in 1988, this article discusses the experience of women in the Nicaraguan tailoring co‐operatives. After the 1979 Revolution, these were set up on a large scale as part of a wider economic policy and grassroots political mobilization. After an initial period of expansion in which many women benefited both in improved income and access to training and management experience, the co‐operatives found themselves in serious difficulty by 1988. It is argued that even without the wider economic crisis in Nicaragua, they would have faced serious problems without extensive and probably unsustainable state support. Although co‐operative employment has considerable potential, the Nicaraguan case highlights the need for new thinking on ways to resolve basic tensions between economic efficiency and worker participation. It also casts doubt on their viability as a development alternative for women, without specific attention to basic gender inequalities.
Of Coconuts and Kings: The Political Economy of an Export Crop
Authors: Boyce James K. 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThe Philippines is the world's leading coconut exporter. The benefits of this trade for Filipino producers have been circumscribed by declining terms of trade in the world market and by highly unequal distribution of coconut‐sector income at home. A case study of the Philippine coconut trade illustrates the crucial importance of linkages between wealth and power in determining the size and distribution of income in export agriculture.‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,‘To talk of many things:of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —Of cabbages — and — kings —And why the sea is boiling hot —And whether pigs have wings.’Carroll (1922: 186)
The Political Ecology of Extraction and Extractive Reserves in East Kalimantan, Indonesia
Authors: Peluso Nancy Lee 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTExtractive reserves established in the Amazon have given development professionals hope for solving two critical problems in conservation and development: the empowerment of indigenous people and the conservation of tropical forests. The extraction of non‐timber forest products has provided an important part of the livelihood strategies of rainforest dwelling people and of the regional economy of East Kalimantan for some two millennia. The specific political‐economic and environmental circumstances of Indonesia and interior Kalimantan, however, preclude applying the Amazonian model for extractive reserves. Using a political ecology framework, this article analyses sociological and environmental factors emerging over the past two and a half decades and influencing contemporary rattan production and trade. Based on this analysis, the author concludes that the politics of forest management, at both the national and local levels, are more conducive to village level extractive reserves than to regional, labour‐based organizations.