Roads of change: political transition and state formation in Nepal’s agrarian districts

This paper explores the political field that has opened up in the wake of the recent civil war in Nepal. We focus on cultural-political developments in agrarian districts, where some of the most intriguing openings, and indeed the most pernicious closures, can be witnessed (as opposed to the national-state restructuring that commands more media and popular attention). Our research asks what spaces open up in the emerging political field at the district scale to entrench or transform dominant cultural codes and sedimented histories of socio-economic inequality. Preliminary research identifies specific sectors of local governance that have emerged as significant sites of struggle over the shape and meaning of ‘democracy’, namely forest management and infrastructure development. The primary contribution of the paper lies in specifying an analytical approach to the study of ‘post-conflict’ governance at the local scale via three conceptual terrains of inquiry – governance and planning, political subjectivity, and cultural politics. The ultimate objective is to develop a framework for assessing the conditions of possibility for a democratic restructuring of economy and society to accompany the official political institutions of liberal democracy.     

First-Year College Student Affect and Alcohol Use: Paradoxical Within- and Between-Person Associations

Based on 10 weekly telephone interviews with first-year college students (N=202; 63% women; M=18.8 years, SD=.4), within- and between-person associations of positive and negative affect with alcohol use were examined. Multi-level models confirmed hypothesized within-person associations between weekly positive affect and alcohol use: Higher positive affect weeks had greater alcohol consumption, more drinking and heavy drinking days in the same week, and less plans to drink the following week. However, between-person, average positive affect did not predict individual differences in alcohol use. The negative affect—alcohol use association was complex: Within-person, higher negative affect was associated with less drinking days but between-person, with more drinking days; lability in negative affect was associated with greater average alcohol use and more drinking and heavy drinking days. Health promotion efforts for late adolescent and emerging adult students are advised to recognize these paradoxical effects (e.g., promoting dry celebratory campus-events, strategies to manage negative mood swings).

Governance gaps in eradicating forced labor: From global to domestic supply chains

A growing body of scholarship analyzes the emergence and resilience of forced labor in developing countries within global value chains. However, little is known about how forced labor arises within domestic supply chains concentrated within national borders, producing products for domestic consumption. We conduct one of the first studies of forced labor in domestic supply chains, through a cross‐industry comparison of the regulatory gaps surrounding forced labor in the United Kingdom. We find that understanding the dynamics of forced labor in domestic supply chains requires us to conceptually modify the global value chain framework to understand similarities and differences across these contexts. We conclude that addressing the governance gaps that surround forced labor will require scholars and policymakers to carefully refine their thinking about how we might design operative governance that effectively engages with local variation.     

Exchange Rate Pass-Through to Consumer Prices in South Africa: Evidence from Micro-Data

Abstract

A sizeable literature examines exchange rate pass-through to disaggregated import prices, but few micro-studies focus on consumer prices. This article explores exchange rate pass-through to consumer prices in South Africa, for 2002–2007, using a unique data set of highly disaggregated data at the product and outlet level. The empirical approach allows pass-through to be calculated over various horizons for different goods and services. The heterogeneity of pass-through for food sub-components is considerable. Switches between import and export parity pricing of maize are found significant for five out of ten food sub-components. Using actual weights from the CPI basket, overall pass-through to the almost 63 per cent of the CPI covered is about 30 per cent after two years, and higher for food.     

Book reviews

Iron Oxen: A Documentary of Revolution in Chinese Farming. By William Hinton. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1970. Pp. x + 225. $6.95 and £2.15.

Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution at Tsinghua University. By William Hinton. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972. Pp. 288. $7.95 and £3.15.

The Development of China's Steel Industry and Soviet Technical Aid. By M. Gardner Clark. Ithaca, NY: New York State School of Industrial and Labour Relations, Cornell University, 1973. Pp. vii + 104, appendices. $7.00.

Urban Unemployment in Developing Countries. By Paul Bairoch. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1973. Pp. v + 99. 12 Swiss F.

Fiscal Federalism. By Wallace E. Oates. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. Pp. xvi + 256, diagrams.

Foreign Resources and Economic Development: A Symposium on the Report of the Pearson Commission. Edited by T. J. Byres. Portland, Oregon and London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971. Pp. xi + 199, index. £2.75.

The Inter‐American Development Bank: A Study in Development Financing. By Sidney Dell. New York, Washington and London: Praeger Publishers, 1972. Pp. xv + 255. £6.25.

Money and Economic Development: The Horowitz Lectures of 1972. By Milton Friedman. New York: Praeger, 1973. Pp. x + 67, diagrams. £3.50.

Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon. By John Dunn. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Pp. 294, index, bibliography. £1 .40 (Paper).

Socialist Economic Development and Reforms. By J. Wilczynski. London: Mac‐Millan, 1972. Pp. xvii + 350. £5.

Reforms in the Soviet and East European Economies. Edited by L. A. D. Dellin and Hermann Gross. Lexington: D. C. Heath and Co, 1972, Pp. viii + 175. £4.

Politics and Society in Post‐War Naples. By P. A. Allum. London: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Pp. xvi + 410, appendices, maps, bibliography and index. £11.00.

Latin America Review of Books. Edited by Colin Harding and Christopher Roper. London and Leeds: Latin America Review of Books Ltd, No. 1 Spring 1973. Pp. 220. £3.00 (cloth), £1.25 (paper).

Rural Guerrillas in Latin America. By Richard Gott. London: Penguin Books, 1973. Pp. 637. £1.00.

Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution. By André Gunder Frank, New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1969. Pp. xviii + 409. £3.90.

Politics and Social Structure in Latin America. By James Petras. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1970. Pp. 382. £4.25.

The Politics of Land Reform in Chile, 1950–1970. By Robert R. Kaufman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. Pp. 321. £6.00.

Political Mobilization of the Venezuelan Peasant. By John Duncan Powell. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. Pp. 229.

Urban Challenge in East Africa. Edited by John Hutton. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1972. Pp. viii + 285, map, tables and photos. Shs. 42 in East Africa.

Employment, Incomes and Equality: A Strategy for Increasing Productive Employment in Kenya. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1972. Pp. xx + 600. 305 wf.

Arms and African Development. Proceedings of the First Pan‐African Citizens Conference. Edited by Frederick S. Arkhurst. New York and London: Praeger, 1972. Pp. xvi + 158. £7.75.

Man, State, and Society in the Contemporary Maghrib. Edited by I. William Zartman. New York: Praeger and London: Pall Mall, 1973. Pp. vii + 531, appendices with tables, maps, bibliographical essay. $13.50 and £5.67.

Histoire Economique du Québec 1851–1896. By Jean Hamelin and Yves Roby. Editions Fides: Montreal, 1971. Pp. 436, index. $10.00.

Indochina in Conflict: A Political Assessment. Edited by Joseph J. Zasloff and Alan E. Goodman. Lexington, Mass., Toronto and London: D. C. Heath and Co, 1972. Pp. xv + 227. £5.00.

The Dynamics of Indian Political Factions. By Mary C. Carras. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972. £6.50.     

Sibling Proactive and Reactive Aggression in Adolescence

We describe sibling proactive and reactive aggression in middle and late adolescence. Participants were 8th (n?=?303, M _age?=?13.74 years, SD?=?.59) and 12th (n?=?300, M _age?=?17.73 years, SD?=?.56) grade adolescents who completed an in-school survey. Findings revealed that these adolescents were significantly more likely to engage in reactive than proactive aggression with their closest-aged sibling. However, 8th grade adolescents reported greater aggression toward their closest-aged sibling than did 12th grade adolescents. In addition, sex composition of the sibling dyad moderated the association between sibling relationship quality (i.e., warmth and rivalry) and both proactive and reactive aggression indicating unique links for brother-brother and older sister-younger brother pairs.     

Problem Drinking, Unemployment, and Intimate Partner Violence among a Sample of Construction Industry Workers and their Partners

The purpose of this study is to determine the contribution of male unemployment and each partner’s problem drinking to risk for male-to-female partner violence (MFPV) and female-to-male partner violence (FMPV) among a sample of construction industry workers and their spouses/partners. Participants in the sample (n = 848 couples) completed cross-sectional health behavior surveys. Multivariate logistic regression models of MFPV and FMPV, with adjustment for demographic and psychosocial variables, were developed. Approximately 20% of couples reported MFPV, and 24% reported FMPV. Results indicated that couples in which the male was a problem drinker, and in which the male worker reported being currently unemployed, were at risk for MFPV. Number of months unemployed by the male worker was significantly associated with FMPV, but problem drinking was not associated with this outcome. Male and female impulsivity were significantly associated with risk for MFPV and FMPV, and the male’s report of adverse childhood events was associated with increased likelihood of MFPV. There was no evidence for the effects of unemployment being moderated (exacerbated) by problem drinking. Workplace-based prevention efforts may be a feasible and important strategy to reduce problem drinking and partner violence among high-risk occupational groups.     

A critical geography of poverty finance

This paper builds a critical geography of poverty finance with recourse to a relational comparison of the microfinance and subprime mortgage markets. It probes paradoxical claims about the nature of poverty, the poor, states and markets that have surfaced in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In doing so it aims to generate new understandings of neoliberal global finance with specific emphasis on 1) the social constitution of risk through racialised and gendered forms of difference; 2) the exercise of dispossession and imperialism by financial means; and 3) articulations of poverty finance with the social relations of debt in specific conjunctures. Each of these terrains of inquiry forms a subsection of the paper, following a preliminary section that poses the animating paradox in more detail. The paper concludes with some reflections on the conditions of possibility for democratising finance.     

Prevalence and Correlates of Intimate Partner Violence Among a Sample of Construction Industry Workers

This study assessed the prevalence and correlates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among a sample of unionized construction industry workers, and tested the reliability of new measures of IPV normative beliefs. Study participants (n=100) voluntarily completed confidential and anonymous self-administered questionnaires that measured occupational factors, hazardous drinking, and normative beliefs. Measurement of past-year IPV was based on the Conflict Tactics Scale, Form R. Measures of IPV normative beliefs showed good reliability (Cronbach’s α 0.94–0.95). Past-year IPV prevalence was 26%. Logistic regression models were developed to assess the contribution of each factor to risk of past-year IPV perpetration. Perceived workplace racial/ethnic discrimination, job strain, interpersonal workplace conflict, normative beliefs, and hazardous drinking were positively associated with elevated IPV risk.Construction industry workers may have higher rates of IPV compared to general population samples that represent various occupations and social classes. Occupational factors appear to be significant correlates of IPV among these workers.