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Based on a case study from the Philippines, this paper argues that globalization forms a material set of processes, but also a political discourse employed to legitimize certain power relations. I argue, firstly, that scales, and particularly the global scale, can be viewed as social constructions reflecting political interests rather than neutral categories of geographical space. I suggest that...
China's contemporary paradox springs from spectacular economic growth built upon a foundation of environmental degradation. Combined with rapid social stratification, serious challenges to the state's legitimacy result at a time when its ability to meet the needs of the broad majority is constrained by both structural and political limitations. These contradictions will become increasingly apparent...
How much basic infrastructure investment - water and sanitation systems, new electricity lines, roads, stormwater drainage, and other services provided at municipal level - can South African society afford? What levels and types of subsidies for recurrent operating and maintenance costs assure that low-income people can meet their basic infrastructural service needs? These questions continue to bedevil...
The past 14 years in Ghana have been characterized by frantic government efforts to resuscitate the economy through structural reforms recommended and supported by donor agencies, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Non-traditional Export Sector (NTES) has been accorded unparalleled attention in economic development due to persistent deterioration in the terms...
This paper examines the internal structural conditions of the current Korean economic crisis with a special focus on the issue of labor regulation. This paper argues that the Korean economic crisis was structurally conditioned by the internal political processes that resulted in the crisis of labor regulation, which in turn negatively affected the competitiveness and profitability of Korean industries...
What happens when global institutions try to assist community conservation in some of the world's least industrialised areas? Among the `cutting edge' projects grant-aided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF, a World Bank-hosted fund for `global environmental benefits') are `CAMPFIRE' - the Communal Areas Management Programme For Indigenous Resources - in Zimbabwe, and `India Ecodevelopment'....
The paper reflects upon the continuing allure of state-building and modernisation in peripheral, `new' states and regions. The central argument is to suggest that our understanding of the conflicts surrounding `nation-building' can be improved upon by looking at one of the most powerful symbols of the neo-colonial, economic and institutional dependency and territorial artificiality of the `nation-state'-...
This paper explores the rise of rights-based development (RBD) and its endorsement by prominent international institutions (such as the United Nations) and International Development Agencies (IDAs) like the World Bank. It situates RBD in global political context and analyses it in relation to the international politics of development, especially the politics of neo-liberal adjustment policies in Africa...
This paper presents a theoretical framework for analyzing human-environment issues that examines shifting, dialectical relationships between social and power relations, cultural beliefs and practices, and ecological processes to allow an interdisciplinary, complex assessment of social and environmental change in Nepal. The purpose of this analysis is to capture the complexity and non-static nature...
This paper considers the ongoing political transformations in South Africa in the context of debates about good governance and participatory democracy. It first appraises the current transformations of local government in South Africa, focusing specifically on relationships between gender equality and citizenship on the one hand, and local government policy, legislation, and community participation...
The Malaysian government has embarked on an ambitious refashioning of the nation called Vision 2020 in pursuit of its goal of becoming a ‘developed country’. A pivotal component of this ‘vision’ is the planning and provision of information technology (IT) infrastructure in a multi-billion dollar urban mega-project called the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). The purpose of my paper is twofold. First,...
Migration to the United States of America from Guatemala effects many aspects of Guatemalan life. We document, through extensive ethnographic fieldwork, how migrants and their remittances effect gender relations, ethnicity, land use, and land distribution. Our evidence is drawn from research in four communities. San Pedro Pinula and Gualán represent communities of eastern Guatemala. San Cristóbal...
In this paper, I analyze the connections made between women and water in a Rajasthani drinking water supply project as a significant part of drinking water’s commodification. For development policy makers, water progressing from something free to something valued by price is inevitable when moving economies toward modernity and development. My findings indicate that water is not commodified simply...
The idealization of natural landscapes and peoples during colonialism, coupled with the popularity of sustainable development in the postcolonial era, has contributed to the expansion of conservation planning throughout the African continent. Concerns surrounding the promotion of national and international conservation agendas at the expense of local livelihood needs have generated interest in community...
In September 2005, the Pacific Islands Forum issued a finalized Pacific Plan. The overarching goal of the Plan is to “Enhance and stimulate economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security for Pacific countries through regionalism.” In this paper we focus on the salient role of (good) governance in the Plan. Governance has become a keyword, albeit a deeply ambivalent one, in...
As recently as 1990, few people in the global South received their water from US or European water firms. But just 10 years later, more than 400 million people did, with that number predicted to increase to 1.2 billion people by 2015, transforming water in Africa, Asia, and Latin America into capitalized markets as precious, and war-provoking, as oil. This article explains how this new global water...
Private sector partnerships (PSPs) have been increasingly advocated as an instrument of ‘pro-poor’ water supply policies. This article examines the performance of the private sector with respect to network connections for poor households in Jakarta, Indonesia, drawing on three sources: data collected through a household survey of poor households in six Jakarta neighbourhoods in 2005; data provided...
This article presents a case study of the World Bank’s relationship with South Africa to argue that the Bank uses its knowledge brokering role as a device to facilitate the development of a lending relationship with countries that may initially be reluctant to enter into this kind of engagement. This article reviews the World Bank’s 10-year effort to develop a lending relationship with South Africa...
Technical assistance (TA) has a long and varied history as a development practice. It initially emerged as a set of ‘hard’ programs, tools, and technologies delivered to developing countries by imported First World experts, typically in the agricultural and resource sectors. Later, in response to critical and antidevelopment theories, TA morphed into its ‘soft’ version, attempting to empower marginalized...
Disputes about genetically engineered crops are linked to wider debates about the globalization of agro-food systems and its consequences for food security, social equity, and rural life. Biotechnology expert discourse rarely addresses these wider issues. An exception is the assessment of transgenic maize by the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC), which recommended a moratorium on...
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