‘Sustainable development’ and the environment

The Sociology of Modernization and Development. By David Harrison. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988. Pp.xvi + 196 £30 and £10.95. ISBN 0 04 301220 5 and 301221 3.

Theories of Development: Capitalism, Colonialism and Dependency. By Jorge Larrain. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989. Pp.ix + 252. £29.50 and £8.95. ISBN 07456 0710 1 and 0711 X.

The Globalisation of High Technology Production: Society Space and Semiconductors in the Restructuring of the Modern World. By Jeffrey Henderson. London: Routledge, 1989. Pp.xxiii + 198 £30. ISBN 0 415 03139 7.

Conflict Resolution in Uganda. Edited by Kumar Rupesinghe. Oslo: International Peace Research Institute (Peace Research Monograph No.16), 1989. Pp.307. £25 (hardback), £9.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 85255 334 X and 333 1.

Growing Out of Debt. By Adrian Hewitt and Bowen Wells. Nottingham: Russell Press for the Overseas Development Institute for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Overseas Development. Pp.83. £4.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 85003 1214.

Oil in the World Economy. Edited by R.W. Ferrier and A. Fursenko. London: Routledge, 1989. Pp.xii + 113. £35. ISBN 0 415 00379 2.

Industrial Adjustment in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Edited by Gerald M. Meier and William F. Steel. Oxford: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 1989. Pp. xvi + 293. £22.50. ISBN 0 19 520784 X.

Farm Implements for Small‐scale Farmers in Tanzania. By Bjorn Mothander, Finn Kjaerby and Kjell Havnevik. Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1989. Pp.214. SEK 120. ISBN 91 7106 290 4.

Urban Poverty and the Labour Market: Access to Jobs and Incomes in Asian and Latin American Cities. Edited by Gerry Rodgers. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1989. Pp.xv + 257. Sw. frs. 35. ISBN 92 2 106499 9 and 106500 6.     

Beyond ‘Terrorism’ and ‘State Hegemony’: assessing the Islamist mainstream in Egypt and Malaysia

International networks of Islamic ‘terrorism’ have served as the most popular explanation to describe the phenomenon of political Islam since the 11 September attacks. This paper argues that both the self-proclaimed doctrinal Islam of the militants and Western perceptions of a homogeneous Islamist threat need to be deconstructed in order to discover the often ambiguous manifestations of ‘official’ and ‘opposition’ Islam, of modernity and conservatism. As a comparison of two Islamic countries, Egypt and Malaysia, which both claim a leading role in their respective regions, shows, moderate Islamic groups have had a considerable impact on processes of democratisation and the emergence of civil society during the quarter century since the ‘Islamic resurgence’. Shared experiences like coalition building and active participation within the political system demonstrate the influence and importance of groups such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Youth Movement of Malaysia (abim) or the Islamic Party of Malaysia (pas). These groups have shaped the political landscape to a much larger extent than the current pre-occupation with the ‘terrorist threat’ suggests. The gradual development of a ‘culture of dialogue’ has rather revealed new approaches towards political participation and democracy at the grassroots level.     

The ‘basket case’ and the ‘poster child’: explaining the end of civil conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique

Through a comparison of protracted domestic conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique this paper evaluates several standard explanations regarding the roles of leaders, third parties and domestic social forces in resolving or continuing civil wars in Africa. The paper finds that no single account of how peace is achieved is sufficient to explain the continuance of violence in Liberia and the successful attainment of peace in Mozambique. Rather, an explanation that can accommodate the divergent outcomes of conflict in the two countries must combine insights from elite, structuralist and agency‐based approaches. Furthermore, the paper addresses the ways in which the construction of social organisations, particularly women's groups, during wartime affects the direction of donor funding and the shape of reconstruction efforts after the peace is signed. We illustrate our argument by examining the efforts of leaders, third parties and local actors, particularly women, to perpetuate violence or to bring about peace in Liberia and Mozambique, and the gendered contexts in which donor aid is distributed in the postwar period.     

‘Sexing the city’

Sexing the City: Lesbian and Gay Politics within the Activist State. By Davina Cooper. London, Rivers Oram Press, 1994. Pp.216. £30 hb, £11.95pb.     

Escaping the ‘Field Trap’: exploitation and the global politics of educational fieldwork in ‘conflict zones’

There is a growing global demand for Northern universities to provide fieldwork opportunities in ‘conflict zones’ to students in applied International Relations (peace and conflict studies, post-conflict studies, human rights, development and related fields). This demand is generated in macro-level or structural dynamics emerging from three sources: the hiring criteria of major international organisations, competition between universities for fee-paying students and the social commodification of ‘authentic’ or ‘real’ life experience. At the micro level these dynamics can manifest themselves in exploitative relations, two of which are explored here. First, substantial inequalities (or a ‘benefit gap’) may arise between student researchers and their research subjects. Second, student researchers may find themselves in extractive relations with their research subjects. These dynamics lead to a situation in which some of the world’s most vulnerable people are objectified as learning resources for students enrolled in (predominantly Northern) universities. The article argues that these dynamics are a problem of global politics, not just research ethics or pedagogy. It concludes with recommendations for reducing the potential for exploitation in educational fieldwork.     

Between poverty and prosperity: China’s dependent development and the ‘middle-income trap’

Despite China’s rapid economic growth in the past three decades, Chinese officials and experts are increasingly worried that the country is slowly heading towards the ‘middle-income trap’. The fear is that China might suffer the same stagnation and turbulence as Latin American economies did in the 1980s and 1990s. Will China be able to avoid this trap? Building on the insights of world-systems theory, this paper argues that China’s dependent development, although enabling it to escape the ‘poverty trap’, is likely to bog it down in the ‘middle-income trap’. China’s heavy reliance upon foreign technologies and investment has harmful effects on its economy. Dependent development not only increases China’s economic vulnerability but also truncates domestic industries. To escape the trap, the Chinese state should play a more active role in shifting its growth model away from low-end commodity manufacturing to knowledge-based, high value-added activities.     

From ‘remittance’ to ‘tax’: the shifting meanings and strategies of capture of the Eritrean transnational party-state

Abstract

For decades, mass out migration has remained a defining characteristic of Eritrea. The country's first major refugee crisis occurred in the early 1980s, in the midst of its liberation movement. Upon gaining resettlement in the industrialized world, Eritreans overwhelming continued their support of the liberation war, both financially and politically. Since independence, the ruling government adopted strong measures to ensure the diaspora's continued political and economic engagement. We examine the Eritrean party-state's changing relationship with members of its dispersed population focusing on the evolution of an expatriate tax (2 percent Income Tax on Eritreans Working Abroad) levied on all emigrant Eritreans. Building on work that argues for recognizing the social and political dimensions of money sent ‘home’, this paper makes two contributions. First, we use an historical perspective to show how contextual changes can significantly shift the meanings of remittances, in this case from a voluntary patriotic remittance sent to the liberating government, to a coerced tax. Second, we bring the remittance-tax into the literature on remittances and development, expanding the types of income transfers under consideration. Attention is drawn to the party-state's articulation of the 2 percent Tax policy as a national development imperative and the various transnational governance mechanisms employed to coerce compliance. Citizenship serves as a lens for examining the state's instrumentalization and politicization of the diaspora's engagement with the Eritrean nation.     

Reconstructing and Reforming the Financial System in Conflict and ‘Post-Conflict’ Economies

Reconstructing the financial system in countries affected by violent conflict is crucial to successful and broad-based recovery. Particularly important tasks include: currency reform, rebuilding (or creating) central banks, revitalising the banking sector, and strengthening prudential supervision and regulation. Encouragement of private capital into the banking sector must be balanced by protection of the public interest, a task made more difficult by the nature of war-to-peace transition. Bank crises can destabilise economies in recovery from war, and their fiscal burden takes resources away from development and poverty spending – thereby threatening ‘post-conflict’ reconstruction itself.     

French Caribbean organizations and the ‘Black question’ in France

Abstract

Collective remittances are a particular kind of flow, which is gaining more and more attention. It puts into light the role of diaspora associations in promoting the development of the origin countries. The aim of the article is to analyze how diaspora associations cope with development issues and the impacts of these activities in terms of migrants' new forms of citizenship. It draws attention on the relationship between diaspora and transnationalism stressing that, nowadays, the immaterial dimension of ethnic belonging encompasses also a material dimension made of cross-border connections; thus, allowing migrants to participate on the both shores of migration. Using the concept of the Political Opportunity Structure, the article shows the role played by the host country on the way migrants organize themselves and on how they act as citizens at home by engaging in development actions. The comparative approach puts into evidence that the different characteristics of Ghanaian migrants in Italy and in the UK shape transnational development actions but in a different way than one would expect: the relative lack of integration seems to stimulate migrants to better development actions at home since, in so doing, they can be recognized as actors also in the place where they live.     

Globalization and Utopian dreams: Deconstructing the ‘G’ word

Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, Globalization in Question (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996), 227 pp., ISBN 0–7456–12458

Winfried Ruigrok and Rob Van Tulder, The Logic of International Restructuring (Routledge, London, 1995), 344 pp., ISBN 0–415–12239–2

Robert Boyer and Daniel Drache (eds), States against Markets (Routledge, London, 1996), 448 pp., ISBN 0–415–13726–8

Dick Bryan, The Chase Across The Globe (Westview Press, Oxford, 1995), 204 pp., ISBN 0–8133–2356–8     

Debt Politics and the Free Trade ‘Package’: the case of the Caribbean

While much has been written on how powerful institutions have used debt crises to foist free trade agreements on poorer states, this paper explores how the foisting of free trade agreements on poorer states has resulted in debt crises. Part one critiques the common-sense understanding of ‘free trade’ as a mere technical or policy issue, arguing that it is an intricate political, economic and ideological ‘package’ rooted in complex social, historical and cultural forces. Part two explores the role of debt in the free trade package by examining the impact of free trade agreements on the Caribbean over the past decade, during which time the region has experienced growing public and personal debt crises, further fuelled by an aid packages that included millions of dollars of concessional loans. It is argued that the contradictions of ‘free trade’ are mitigated through a ‘debt for trade’ paradigm, which Caribbean states are beginning to subvert through new preferential South–South partnerships.     

The rise of the ‘China Model’ and ‘Beijing Consensus’: evidence of authoritarian diffusion?

The rise of authoritarian great powers has raised questions about the dominance of the liberal democratic model and has led to a perception that the relative balance between democracy and authoritarianism is shifting. Consequently, there is increasing interest in and concerns about the diffusion of alternative ‘models’ of political and economic development. Given that China's impressive economic development has led to growing military strength and geopolitical prestige, evaluating perceptions of the legitimacy, effectiveness, and applicability of that country's model of ‘illiberal capitalism’ is a good place to start. This paper evaluates whether the ‘China Model’ or ‘Beijing Consensus' is gaining traction internationally through a content analysis of eight years of US and non-US media sources. It finds that concerns about the beginnings of an anti-democratic ‘reverse wave’ are exaggerated and that at the present time there does not appear to be a decisive shift in favour of a model of authoritarian-capitalism.     

Resisting ‘Global Justice’: disrupting the colonial ‘emancipatory’ logic of the West

This paper takes issue with global justice theory, seeing it as a ‘global–local’ in which the perspectives and demands of post-Kantian Western liberalism silence ways of being in the world that move beyond a narrowly circumscribed definition of ‘reasonableness’. Taking its cue from critics of dominant liberal conceptions of the self, such as Spivak, Deleuze and Freire, the paper examines the impact of epistemological diversity and the radical ‘otherness’ of indigenous, peasant and marginal epistemologies on how Western intellectuals might think about global justice. We look at a number of examples of indigenous and marginal resistance to injustice in the global system, including the West Papuan and Zapatista movements, and conclude that the goals of such movements cannot be encapsulated in distributive or juridical terms. An alternative theorisation of global justice might, contra global justice theory, insist on a dialogical, contingent basis for discussing justice, whether local or global.     

Marketing Development: celebrity politics and the ‘new’ development advocacy

Politics and culture, once considered separate, are now fusing in new and interesting ways. Political activism is becoming popular, particularly through the expansion of a new kind of development advocacy made highly visible through celebrity involvement. Theorists of globalisation celebrate the democratisation of civil society made possible by new information and communications technology; critical theorists will note the various ways in which ict ambivalently makes the contradictions in global capitalism more obvious and has become the means by which globalisation is contested. Some metropolitan governments have sought to capitalise on this new knowledge economy by making knowledge for development part of their strategies to produce ‘global citizens’ necessary for the global economy. This paper examines the linkages between celebrity and government-funded development advocacy in Australia, which comprise the introduction of free market principles to form a marketing campaign for neoliberal globalisation.     

The case of the ‘other India’ and Indian ir scholarship

ir scholarship in India has focused on the borders, territory and sovereignty of the Indian state, overlooking the rich complexity of interior border formation between colonial and independent India. The paper argues that the study of the princely states under the British paramountcy (1858–1947), neglected so far, is valuable to ir scholarship on three grounds. First, in mapping colonial India’s engagement with the outside world, the focus has been solely on British India. The princes were equally participative and perceptive of the outside world. Second, the princely states represent yet another challenge to the Westphalian notion of sovereignty, demonstrating the limited capacity of European categories to understand the ‘non-West’. Third, incorporating the paramountcy system in the genealogy of sovereignty of the Indian subcontinent offers a fresh account of border construction inside the state.     

American empire and ‘excluded states’: the millennium challenge account and the shift to pre-emptive development

In March 2002 President George W Bush announced the creation of what many insiders have heralded as a revolutionary development initiative: the Millennium Challenge Account (mca). The latter seeks to provide assistance to 79 of the world's poorest countries—many of which have been often equated with the term ‘failed states’—so that they may reap the benefits of neoliberal-led globalisation. One of the most novel, and coercive, features of this development compact is the ‘pre-emptive’ method in which it will administer aid. Under the mca, only countries that govern justly, invest in their people, and open their economies to foreign enterprise and entrepreneurship will qualify for funding. To this end the Bush administration has devised 16 eligibility criteria—ranging from civil liberties to ‘days to start a business’—that each country must successfully pass before receiving aid. Despite its impact on normalising, and thus legitimating, the tendency towards the privatisation of aid and militarisation of development, there has been very little critical work on the mca. This paper sets out to fill this gap in the literature by attempting to understand historically the mca as a moment of American empire.1 This article builds on the wider arguments developed in my forthcoming book, Contesting Global Governance: Empire, Class, and the New Common Sense in Managing Globalisation, London: Pluto Press. View all notes In doing so, I suggest that, while the form of the mca represents an unabashed articulation of US-led imperialism vis-a`-vis the poorest regions in the South, the content of this allegedly novel strategy reflects the same goals and interests that underlie the neoliberal agenda, namely, that the path to increased growth and prosperity lies in countries' willingness and ability to adopt policies that promote economic freedom and the rule of law.     

Looking for ‘the International’ beyond the West

As international attention focuses on the rebuilding of Afghanistan, this paper looks critically at the evolution and meaning of the core concepts underpinning aims and strategies for recovery: the key role of institutional development and capacity building in establishing good governance based on collaboration between state, civil society and market; the empirical consensus, over many decades, for best practice in development; the acknowledgement that recovery of war-torn societies is a development challenge. It is shown that, despite this understanding, operational practice continues to contradict the principles and lessons learned from proven experience. The financial and administrative culture of the international institutions, lack of political will, donor conditionality and recipients' contrary agendas are seen to contribute to this failure. The paper concludes by examining the implications of this analysis for the recovery of Afghanistan.     

Cultures of the ‘new Europe’

Tariq Modood and Pnina Werbner (eds), The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism, Identity and Community (Zed, London, 1997), xii + 276 pp., ISBN 1–85649–422–5 (pb)

Steven Vertovic and Ceri Peach (eds), Islam in Europe: The Politics of Religion and Community (Macmillan, London, 1997), xxiii + 283 pp., ISBN 0–333–68703–5 (pb)     

‘Finishing the Job’: the UN Special Committee on Decolonization and the politics of self-governance

This article examines the modern day role and purpose of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization. Since its establishment in the 1960s the Committee has helped numerable former colonies achieve independence. Today, with very few ‘colonised’ Non-Self-Governing Territories remaining its work appears almost complete. However, serious flaws have always pervaded its decolonisation strategy; which are now more apparent than ever. The Committee retains narrow and outdated understandings of colonialism and, as a result, fails to recognise how widespread and pervasive global colonial forces remain. This makes its goal of universal decolonisation both unsatisfactory and misguided. The Committee’s problematic approach towards decolonisation stems from its participation within the ‘North–South Theatre’, in which antagonism is perpetuated between the world’s developed and less developed states. The paper argues that the Committee has not prioritised colonised peoples in the way it has always claimed, but instead worked principally in the interests of itself and its members.