Morality,Corruption and the State: Insights from Jharkhand,Eastern India

Corruption is analysed by addressing the interrelations between the moral and political economy regulating state-based welfare provision in Jharkhand, India. On the one hand, the article focuses on the rural elite to show that ‘corrupt’ practices are not just guided by financial utility but also by non-material interests, underpinned by a multivarious moral economy. On the other hand, the article shows that the poorest in the rural areas (adivasis or Scheduled Tribes) keep away from the state, seeing it as beyond the moral pale, and instead resurrect an alternative sovereign structure. The adivasi perspectives are influenced by a political economy of historical experiences of the state and interrelations with the elites. The paper concludes that a particular political economy is intimately connected with a moral economy, and that transformations in political economy affect the moral economy.     

Development policy and the evaluation of community self-help: The harambee school movement in Kenya

This attempt to objectively assess the costs and benefits of involvement in the harambee education movement for individuals and families is directed at policymakers and is an exercise in policy analysis. Evaluative studies of this nature are essential to the improvement of the of the overall quality of policymaking. Despite general agreement that harambee education projects involving secondary schools differ in many ways from types of self-help projects, few attempts have been made to assess the long-term social impact of the harambee education movement. For nearly 2 decades Kenya's harambee movement has flourished and has been largely viewed as a positive contribution to national development. Between 1969-79, the total value of contributions to self-help projects rose from around $6 million to almost $27 million, demostrating the substantial inputs of local communities to the economic growth of the country as a whole. Policymakers, after initial reservations about independent self-help, in recent years have come to rely on such activities as complementary to the government's efforts. Self-help activities aimed at expanding educational opportunity are the most significant in terms of both monetary resources expended and the scope of human involvement. Benefits are difficult to extimate. The growing number of students in harambee schools does not necessarly indicate that the majority of these students are acquiring marketable skills or that their consequent levels of academic training will prepare them to complete successfully in the job market with the average student educated in government-sponsored schools. The evidence, in fact, clearly points in the opposite direction. Yet, politicians, policymakers, and citizens continue to regard harambee activities for expanding educational opportunities atall levels as necessary contributions to Kenya's development program and to individual achievement. The direct cost to government for harambee education can be compared with the direct private expenditure on this type of ecucation. The 1976 annual private investment in harambee education was $45 million. The most direct benefits from harambee efforts are reaped by wealthier regions and communities in Kenya. The greaes social benefits derived from the government's policy toward the harambee school movement are political benefits. By symbolically drawing linkages between its national development strategy and independent self-help activities, the government can elicit the tacit support of rural communities. Direct social costs of such a policy are minimal. The indirect, long-term costs may result in disastrous, unintended consequences as the pool of educated and unemployed youths expands and as resulting ethnic and class inequalities sharpen and crystallize.     

Varieties of capitalism in Eastern Europe (with special emphasis on Estonia and Slovenia)

The authors proceed from the assumption that the institutional and economic efficiency of a particular country (or society) depends on its historic legacy or ‘path-dependence’, strategic interactions of the elite and the impact of the international environment. Estonia and Slovenia are both – not only economically, but also institutionally – perceived as relatively successful and prominent post-communist countries and new members of the EU. Yet they have developed completely different – in some aspects even diametrically opposite – regulative settings and socio-political arrangements. The main emphasis is on the connection between the dynamics and ideological preferences of political actors and the pace of reforms as well as institutional regulations. One can argue that the political elite in Estonia encouraged the shaping of the state in a direction close to the liberal-market model, whereas Slovenia is closer to the corporatist social welfare-state model. In both cases, some dysfunctional effects are evident that represent a new challenge to the elites and, at the same time, a test of their credibility and competence.     

Transformation of political elite as regime changes in Pakistan

Burton and Higely [(2001). ‘The study of political elite transformations’, International review of sociology/Revue internationale de sociologie, 11(2): 181–199] argue that when elites of a society are not united this will lead to an unstable political regime. Consensual elite cohesion is only created through distinctive elite transformation. This essay attempts to elaborate their argument in Pakistan, by developing a link among a continuous regime shift from authoritarian to democratic governments and the political elites who keep transforming their structure accordingly. The technique followed for it is analysing the epochal events over time from pre-partition till date which became reason for regime transformations. The discussion focuses on the collusions and contestations of multiple power elites within given social context which are embedded under the international context. It concludes that political elites in Pakistan were always embraced by multiple other power elites who accordingly hold dual elite identity to control the command post in the political arena. Such complex elite structure makes it paradoxical to distinguish political elite of Pakistan from other power elites of Pakistan.     

Who has led Russia? Russian regional political elites, 1954 – 2006

Quantitative measures are used to compare the age, tenure, gender and change of political elites in 18 Russian regions from 1954 to 2006. The study finds more similarities than differences between regional elites from the Soviet era and from the post-Soviet Russian era. The Russian regional political elite since 1992 is actually older than the Soviet elite and resembles it quite closely in terms of years in office and turnover, comparing both the total time spans of the elites of each era and at 10-year intervals from 1956 through to 2006. Even in relation to differences by region and gender since 1992, there has been a re-emergence of a regional political establishment in a similar pattern to that of the Soviet era.     

Partisan Activism and Access to Welfare in Lebanon

How do welfare regimes function when state institutions are weak and ethnic or sectarian groups control access to basic services? This paper explores how people gain access to basic services in Lebanon, where sectarian political parties from all major religious communities are key providers of social assistance and services. Based on analyses of an original national survey (n?=?1,911) as well as in-depth interviews with providers and other elites (n?=?175) and beneficiaries of social programs (n?=?135), I make two main empirical claims in the paper. First, political activism and a demonstrated commitment to a party are associated with access to social assistance; and second, higher levels of political activism may facilitate access to higher levels or quantities of aid, including food baskets and financial assistance for medical and educational costs. These arguments highlight how politics can mediate access to social assistance in direct ways and add new dimensions to scholarly debates about clientelism by focusing on contexts with politicized religious identities and by problematizing the actual goods and services exchanged.     

Karamojan politics: extension of state power and formation of a subordinate political elite in northeastern Uganda

State-making processes that occur in peripheral areas and the role that local political elites play in such processes have not been adequately explored by scholars. This article investigates these important phenomena through the lens of the Ugandan state’s presence in Karamoja, in the country’s northeast, which until the early years of the twenty-first century was very limited. Rapid extension of the power of the Ugandan state in the region, upon which the country’s rulers have embarked in the last decade, has radically altered existing governance arrangements in Karamoja and led to the formation of a subordinate Karamojan political elite. This elite has been instrumental in government efforts to establish control over the region’s population and shaped this state-making process in important ways.     

Studies of political elites in Russia: issues and alternatives

Studies of political elites have emerged rapidly in post-Communist Russia. This state-of-the-art article reflects on various developments in the field, analyzes research projects and frameworks, and focuses on two major issues of elite research: stratification studies and transition studies. The formation of an academic community in this field is close to completion. Russian scholars commonly accept different theoretical and methodological approaches from those employed by Western social scientists, but the lack of value-free work and comparative studies makes Russian studies of political elites somewhat isolated from the mainstream of social research.     

Village politics: Heterogeneity,leadership and collective action

When comparing stratified Fulani village societies, little direct relationship between the degree of heterogeneity and the success in collective action was found, except when heterogeneity among leadership and elite groups was compared. Small size and homogeneous groups do not seem to be general preconditions for stronger ability to perform collectively. First, it was found that homogeneity among elite groups enhanced capacity for collective action. Second, it was when heterogeneity in economic interests between elite groups intensified and coincided with other dimensions of heterogeneity that collective action became difficult to achieve, such as heterogeneity in economic wealth, access to land and common‐pool resources, and agreement over authority of the leadership. Third, collective action was enhanced by political elites and leaders being a bit better endowed and a bit wealthier than the average community members, but not when their assets were mobilised against the economic interests and sense of fairness of other social groups. Fourth, the coordination power of the leadership related to the management of common‐pool resources was undermined when leadership had extensive recourse to state officials external to the village community, underscoring the importance of autonomy.     

Against the Grain of Urban Bias: Elite Conflict and the Logic of Coalition Formation in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa

The theory of urban bias was a major contribution to the evolution of contemporary theories of political economy that remains highly relevant today. Yet theorists of urban bias have still not produced a general explanation that accounts for anomalous cases of what we call “rural incorporation,” or coalition strategies based on modest rural producers. These anomalous cases suggest that the collective action underpinnings of urban bias theory underdetermine outcomes. This paper advances a new explanation of the anomalous African cases of Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and Zimbabwe. After detailing the costs of rural incorporation, we theorize the conditions that would motivate state elites to overcome their pro-urban biases and offer substantial material benefits to non-elite agrarian producers. Rural incorporation is an optimal strategy only when state elites are locked in unusually intense conflict with their rivals. Most nationalist movements in Africa did not meet this condition and their leaders followed pro-urban policies. The three outliers are all cases of settler colonialism: bitter rivalry between European settlers and native planters created the conditions for rural incorporation. We show how native planters and their political allies selected rural incorporation as a political-economic instrument of commercial competition and political supremacy. Case studies of Ghana and Nigeria demonstrate that in the absence of political and economic rivalry with settlers, African leaders selected the “default” strategy of urban bias.     

Weep for the One Who Descends? African Democracies,Politics of Stomach Infrastructure,and Homology of Corruption

This article discusses contemporary African democratic practices vis-à-vis politics of stomach infrastructure that debilitates sustainable infrastructural development in the region. In this article, clarifications are articulated within four interlinked phenomena: the enthusiasm for democracy, its collapse, and the resurgence of hybrid-democratic order that metamorphosed into politics of stomach infrastructure that facilitates corruption in African postcolonial state. It unravels the existing democratic prototype against ideal democratic order. The article considered the prevailing democratic inclination moseyed through citizens and political elite’s armistice that presage democratic peril. The article argued that unscrupulous political collaboration and democratic debauchery that exist between the political elites and the electorates craft an opportunity for institutionalized corruption in the region. Finally, the article found homogenous paradigms of corruption in the selected African states, including South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria.     

A Pact with the Devil? Elite Alliances as Bases of Violent Religious Conflicts

This article aims at explaining religious conflicts on the basis of an elite-centered theoretical model. Violent movements can only pertain on the long run if political elites organize and coordinate them centrally. The same holds true for the religious dimension of many conflicts. Religious elites have to persuade the believers of the religious nature of their struggle. Hence, in many cases religious conflicts can be traced back to alliances of religious and political elites. The first try to protect their religious communities and hope to expand their religious influence. The latter try to use religion as a resource for mobilization.     

Commitment issues: security and belonging in a white Kenyan household

Once the archetype of romantic colonialism, white Kenyans with personal or familial ties to colonialism face a multitude of challenges with respect to their history and political status. In this article, I examine how discourses related to whites “belonging” in Kenya have constellated around the issue of security, especially in Nairobi, where crime (and recently, terrorism) makes security a potent and political topic. Of particular importance is the staff that white Kenyans employ in their homes. In contexts where African neighbours are predominantly impoverished, I emphasise employer–employee relationships as a key performance of commitment to the Kenyan community. As amendments to the Kenyan constitution have brought forth new issues related to citizenship and “commitment” by white Kenyan citizens, I also proffer that domestic projects of securitisation help to establish their investment or commitment to Kenya, constituting both a grounded and discursive defence against crime or political antagonism.     

The Politics of Dominant Party Formation: United Russia and Russia's Governors

This article analyses the emergence of United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya) as a dominant party by examining the behaviour of Russia's governors. Using original data on when governors joined United Russia, the article demonstrates that those governors with access to autonomous political resources were more reluctant to join the dominant party. By showing that Russian elite members made their affiliation decisions on the basis of calculations about their own political resources rather than simply being coerced by the Kremlin, this article provides evidence for a theory of dominant party formation that casts the problem as a two-sided commitment problem between leaders and elites.     

The Toxic Politics of Bangladesh: A Bipolar Competitive Neopatrimonial State?

In order to understand the structural dimensions of the problems concerning democratic governance in Bangladesh, this article seeks to explicate whether or not Bangladesh is a neopatrimonial state. This article examines contemporary Bangladesh politics with a particular focus on the notion of neopatrimonialism and with special reference to the personalization of state power. The concept of neopatrimonialism has great utility in explaining leadership behaviour in a dysfunctional democracy such as Bangladesh, where personalized exchanges, exploitation of bureaucratic and state mechanisms and political scandals are common. I argue that Bangladesh is a special variant of the neopatrimonial state, which I suggest to be bipolar neopatrimonialism. I contend that since independence, successive governments and political leaders always attempt to monopolize state power in various ways. The patron-client society of Bangladesh helps political leaders to personalize the state power they possess. To monopolize state power, the political elites of Bangladesh create networks and alliances, relying on exchanges to meet their objectives. In this regard, state elites use elements of the state and political system to mediate these exchanges.     

Promoting neoliberal ideology in Finnish rural community development: the creation of new moral actors

ABSTRACT

Today’s political ambitions are based on the neoliberal aspiration to diminish the state’s role and responsibilities, and to transfer those responsibilities to local communities and individuals in ways that idealise those communities, promising to ‘give power to the people’. Instead of highlighting individualism, neoliberalism now celebrates communities and participation. This article deals with the effects of this ideology with regard to Finnish rural policy objectives. Drawing on Finnish village action programmes as data, we argue that these ideological views aim to transform individuals and create new moral actors. Our research indicates that Finland’s rural policy objectives invoke actors that are responsible for their communities, have an ‘enterprising spirit’, and are change-friendly and innovative. However, the ideology disregards the economic and social preconditions and resources necessary for building affluent communities and villages, which are difficult to attain when there is less government involvement. Thus, rural communities face increasing demands and less government involvement.     

Violence and Urban Order in Nairobi, Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria

This article examines the interaction between politics and informal institutions of order in two of Africa’s most violent and crime-ridden cities, Nairobi, Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria. In both cities, governments have failed to provide basic public services and security to citizens, especially to those who reside in informal settlements or slums. A variety of informal institutions, including ethnic militia and block-level vigilante groups, fulfill security and enforcement roles in these relatively ungoverned urban spaces. This article examines the differences in the character and organization of these “specialists in violence,” and it argues that these differences are often integrally linked to the political strategies and aims of elites. The article makes two primary contributions to existing understandings of informal order in violent cities in the developing world. First, I find that organizations seemingly organically linked to local communities, such as ethnic militia, are strongly influenced by national-level political struggles. Violent organizations can gain a foothold and degree of legitimacy by appealing to traditional loyalties, including ethnicity, but organizations with these advantages are also attractive targets for cooptation by political actors. Secondly, both direct state repression and electoral use of militia lead to more predatory forms of interaction between these groups and local communities.     

On the nature of power: an examination of the governing elite and institutional power in Spain, 1939–92

This article summarizes a study of the political, bureaucratic and economic elites in Spain, from the Franco regime through the democratic transition to the socialist governments of the 1990s. Data on the people holding posts in one or more of these elite groups were used to test and extend the theory of elite circulation first formulated by Vilfredo Pareto. The data confirms that Spanish elites became more open to others in the democratic period. Up to the present time, they continue to be integrated through multi-positionality – many bureaucrats also hold political or economic posts – though to a lesser extent than in the past. Our empirical findings enable finer distinctions to be made about the different modes of elite circulation. These results show the changing nature of the networks that form when posts in different sectors become associated through multiple post-holding. These networks are an important component of the social fabric in Spain and elsewhere and deserve further investigation.     

Do Local Elites Capture Natural Disaster Reconstruction Funds?

Using original survey data with rich, direct measures of local elites in rural Fiji, this article examines potential elite capture in the allocation of natural disaster reconstruction funds. Allocations of housing construction materials – both receipt and amount received – across villages, clans, and households are strongly targeted on cyclone damage, and local elites do not receive larger benefits over time. As the supply of reconstruction funds is limited during early periods, more severely affected victims do not receive benefits early, while clan leaders and elite clans do receive benefits early within villages.     

The foundations of the state: emerging urban–rural clevages in transitions countries

Using secondary data from 21 post-communist countries, a map of urban–rural cleavages is produced. The findings are that while persistent cleavages exist with respect to attitudes toward the state, the market and traditional institutions, these cleavages have yet to be institutionalized within the political system. Deviations from the generalized pattern can typically be explained by the intrusion of the state-building process into the urban–rural cleavage structure. Furthermore, it is argued that the lack of institutionalization has led to a situation in which state and political elites have gained increased autonomy.