Interlinked contracts and social power: Patronage and exploitation in India's waste recovery market

Interlinked contracts have been examined almost exclusively in the context of the rural sphere. This article describes the nature of exchange regimes between two sets of primary collectors of recyclable waste, that is, waste pickers and itinerant buyers, and their dealers, in the city of Delhi. Far from the casualised labour transaction commonly described for the unorganised urban sector, the findings portray a picture of personalised and surprisingly long-term exchange between the parties. While a new institutional economics approach might explain the underlying motivation and consequent general form of the implicit contracts, it cannot explain the differential nature of each. It is suggested that in order to do that a political economy approach must be taken. This would understand interlinked transactions as being embedded within and consequently influenced by the particular social context, in this case of an inequitable and impermeable caste hierarchy amongst those that engage in waste work.     

Public policy and quality of community life in american cities: a search for linkage

The purpose of this research is to identify and examine linkages that exist between public policy and quality of life in American cities. A review and analysis of public policy research and social indicators research over the past twenty years is included. Social indicators are further defined into both objective and subjective indicators. The developing confluence of the two areas of research constitutes the basis for the remainder of the paper.

The data for this study are derived from a nationwide survey conducted by Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., in late December, 1977 and early January, 1978, for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Interviews were conducted for a sample of 7,074 adults, asking them about their perceptions on the quality of community life, government services, social problems, and future possibilities. The findings are analyzed through use of a frequency distribution of the quality of life measures and the quality of public service variables.

The pattern of statistical relationships indicates that the nine public service variables are sharply divided into two groups. One, seven variables (police, garbage, street lighting, fire, public schools, parks and playgrounds, and road and street maintenance) are all highly inter-correlated. The correlation coefficients among them range from a high of .411 (police and fire) to a low of .218 (garbage and public schools). The other, public transportation and public health service are also closely inter-correlated, but their relationships with the other seven are all uniformly weak.

These two groups of public services have distinct political and policy implications. The first group of services tends to represent those traditionally well-established public services that are considered “vitally important” for the well-being of the general public. The second group, in contrast, tends to represent those public services that are relatively new and serving primarily the needs of low income or minority groups in the community whose political influence is most likely to be marginal.

A few generalizations may be drawn from the statistical relationships. First, the general indicators of community life quality such as feelings about the overall community and neighborhood are more strongly correlated with the quality ratings of public services than the quality indicators of specific life domains. Second, some of the strongest relationships are found between specific public services and specific domains of life quality that might be expected logically to have close association such as police and safety (r=.317) and public schools and child raising (r=.427). Third, those public services that are considered part of mainstream local services and important for the daily life of the general public (such as police, fire, public schools, parks and playgrounds, etc.) tend to be very strongly correlated with the measures of community life quality. Fourth, in contrast, those services that are primarily affecting underprivileged groups in the community and not considered part of the mainstream of local services are poorly or insignificantly correlated with the measures of community life quality.     

Disaffection and Revolts in Nigeria During the First World War, 1914–1918

In 2012, roughly 23 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Religious responses to the disease have ranged from condemnation of people with HIV to the development of innovative AIDS-related services. This article utilises insights from the social movement literature about collective identity, framing, resources, and opportunity structures to interrogate religious mobilisation against HIV/AIDS. It demonstrates that mobilisation cannot be divorced from factors such as state–civil society relations, Africa's dependence on foreign aid, or the continent's poverty. Religious HIV/AIDS activities must be analysed in a conceptual space between a civil society/politics approach and a service-provider/anti-politics framework. That is, religious mobilisation may at times seek to engage the public realm to shape policies, while at other times it may shun politics in its provision of services. Case studies that illustrate these themes and demonstrate the multi-faceted interactions between religion and HIV/AIDS are included.     

Microfinance and Poverty in Bolivia

Both in its institutional range and in its penetration of financial markets, the microfinance sector in Bolivia rivals any in the world, and has played a major part in extracting the macro-economy from meltdown since the mid-1980s. We seek specifically to assess its impact on poverty, and do this through small-sample surveys on four microfinance institutions, two urban and two rural, using a range of poverty concepts: income (generated both through the borrower's enterprise and through the labour market), asset holdings and diversity, and various measures of vulnerability. All the institutions studied had, on balance, positive impacts on income and asset levels, with income impacts correlating negatively with income on account of poor households choosing to invest in low-risk, low-return assets. Microfinance may, however, augment vulnerability: average debt-service ratios of microfinance clients are disturbingly high, and if the coping mechanisms used by borrowers fail, borrowers may be forced out of the microfinance system, possibly resulting in decapitalisation and impoverishment. Poorer households are more restricted in their choice of coping strategy, and many as a consequence 'choose' coping strategies more likely to jeopardise their long-term income prospects, in particular asset sales and cuts in children's schooling. The more successful low-income borrowers are those who have voluntary savings deposits and do not rush into fixed capital purchases too early: collapse back into poverty is associated with multiple crises and the failure of one or more 'safety nets', in particular of one or more 'safety nets', in particular support from a member's solidarity group. The following actions appear to be promising for the further reduction of poverty in Bolivia: stronger efforts to mobilise rural savings, removal of lower limits on loan size, and the introduction of appropriate insurance mechanisms. In comparison with other anti-poverty measures, microfinance appears to be successful and relative cheap at reducing the poverty of those close to the poverty line, but ineffective, by comparison with labour-market and infrastructural measures, in reducing extreme poverty.     

How social capital shapes citizen willingness to co-invest in public service: The case of flood control

Why are citizens in some communities more willing to co-invest in public services than citizens in other communities? Citizen co-investment has become an important policy tool for governments to finance public services, yet little research has theorized and empirically examined the impacts of community contexts on citizens' willingness to invest their personal resources in public services. As social capital is often viewed as an important determinant of citizen behaviours, we propose two competing hypotheses explaining the relationship between social capital and citizen co-investment: the facilitation effect hypothesis and the inhibition effect hypothesis. Based on three data sources, our statistical analyses consistently show that citizens living in counties with more social capital are less willing to co-invest in local flood control. This finding provides empirical evidence to support the inhibition effect hypothesis. Key implications of our research and suggestions for future research are discussed in the conclusion.     

Public administrators and policy implementation--a social work perspective

Professional social workers in both macro and micro settings are vitally concerned with public policy, particularly that of social welfare policy, and its implementation. They are keenly aware of the quality and quantity of services and other end products of policy implementation. Social workers serve as public administrators and staff many public and private agencies that form the delivery system network. They are also concerned with social problem-solving as is the public administrator, and see themselves as behavior change agents. Their generalized value perspective addresses the political conflicts arising from the nature and causes of poverty and inequality, the role of government in society, and the nature and methodology of the decision-making process. Organization and administration become means to ends, not ends in themselves.

The conclusions arise that public administrators will have to assume more governmental responsibility, rather than less. This is seen as a natural evolutionary outgrowth of the need to regulate increased conflict fueled by growing interdependence and rapid societal change. While public agencies are continuing results of governmental intervention, they are condemned to operate in the midst of paradox.     

Transnational mobility,social capital,and cosmopolitan women traders in Ghana

Abstract

The dynamic economic power of Ghanaian women as traders in cloth and foodstuffs is well documented in the humanities and social sciences. This paper focuses on an emergent category of Ghanaian traders, women who are educated abroad and travel the globe to purchase consumer items, art, and cloth to sell on the Ghanaian market. The narratives of these women highlight numerous sociohistorical moments relevant to the global economy. As first- and second-generation immigrants in North America, these young traders are the children of the first-wave highly skilled African immigrants who sought educational opportunities in North America and Europe in the 1960s–1970s. The offspring of these educational elite now often speak of and act on a different set of desires and experience, to earn degrees in North America and Europe but return to Ghana in order to start entrepreneurial endeavors in art, fashion, and music. This new Ghanaian market woman earns a lucrative income using their cultural capital garnered through highly prized Western diplomas, the social history of women as formidable traders in Ghana, and the economic start-up funds garnered from transnational job opportunities and global family networks. In this paper, I examine the ways in which young women take advantage of global capital in order to achieve economic success in ways that question as well as challenge public policy and development programs in Ghana. Using a qualitative analysis based on ethnographic research conducted during 2009–2011 during which I interviewed 16 women ages 23–36, this paper examines how elite women progressively participate in and benefit from globalization in the ballooning informal economy of Ghana.     

Aid and Gendered Subjectivity in Rural Guatemala

Development discourse has focused on gendered dimensions of poverty, demonstrating how parastatal poverty alleviation programmes target women as aid recipients while devaluing their productive and reproductive work. However, seldom analysed is how privatisation of social services and proliferation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have impacted women. We explore this in a Guatemalan community where we find that although NGOs discursively commit to ‘alternative’ development approaches, on the ground they reproduce elements of a neoliberal subjectivity akin to parastatal programmes. NGOs additionally configure aid disbursement as gift giving, requiring beneficiaries to assume affective postures of gratitude, and facilitating intrusion into women’s lives.     

Friends or Foes? Nonstate Public Goods Providers and Local State Authorities in Nondemocratic and Transitional Systems

Ordinary citizens often welcome nonstate provision of public goods and social welfare, but government officials, particularly in nondemocratic and transitional systems, may view nonstate actors as political competitors. Drawing on a combination of qualitative and quantitative data from rural China, this paper finds that some kinds of nonstate participation in public goods and social welfare provision can actually make local officials more optimistic about their ability to implement state policies and elicit citizen compliance. Local officials often believe that coproduction of public goods and services with community groups in particular, often with community actors taking the lead, can build trust and social capital that can spill over into increased citizen compliance with state demands, a central element of state capacity. Simply increasing levels of public goods provision, however, is not associated positively with optimistic perceptions of local state authority and capacity. Moreover, other forms of nonstate participation such as coproduction between private businesses and local officials or substitutive provision by nonstate actors have less potential for building trust between officials and citizens and are not seen by officials as beneficial for increasing citizen compliance.     

Service-Seeking Behavior,Perceptions of Armed Actors,and Preferences Regarding Governance: Evidence from the Palestinian Territories

Armed non-state actors, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, are visibly engaged in providing social welfare in addition to participating in violence. A number of scholars have suggested that there is a relationship between service provision by terrorist organizations and support from service recipients, and have indicated that terrorist organizations use service provision strategically for this purpose. However, few studies have examined the experiences and opinions of service recipients themselves to understand if services do indeed influence populations' political loyalties and opinions regarding violent activities. Using data from more than 1,000 low to moderate income individuals in Palestine, this study seeks to understand if and how receiving services from a specific organization engenders loyalty to the organization, passive acceptance and/or favorable approval of the organizations' violent activities, and the likelihood of participation in the organization's violent activities. This paper explores if and how provision of aid and “governance” services by armed non-state actors is correlated with various aspects of individuals' experiences of conflict, such as their opinions about the use of violence and various strategies for attaining peace, their fellow community members' likelihood to join armed groups and engage in fighting, and their preferences regarding state structure and legal system.     

Public Attitudes to Local Government in Turkey: Research on Knowledge,Satisfaction and Complaints

This study examines prevailing characteristics of public attitudes to local government in Turkey based on the findings of a questionnaire based research project. The level of public knowledge of local government, people's satisfaction with local service provision, public views and complaints about local services are analysed. The findings show that the level of public knowledge of local government is low and people do not complain about local government services although the level of satisfaction is low. The belief that complaints would have no effect is the main reason for not complaining. The impact of sex, age, education, income, length of residence in the locality, housing tenure, and political opinion on public attitudes to local government is also assessed. Of these variables, age, education and income levels are found to be significant.     

Institutions and Poverty

This study utilises eight alternative measures of institutions and the instrumental variable method to examine the impacts of institutions on poverty. The estimates show that an economy with a robust system to control corruption, an effective government, and a stable political system will create the conditions to promote economic growth, minimise income distribution conflicts, and reduce poverty. Corruption, ineffective governments, and political instability will not only hurt income levels through market inefficiencies, but also escalate poverty incidence via increased income inequality. The results also imply that the quality of the regulatory system, rule of law, voice and accountability, and expropriation risk are inversely related to poverty but their effect on poverty is via average income rather than income distribution.     

DOES PERFORMANCE INFORMATION ABOUT PUBLIC SERVICES AFFECT CITIZENS' PERCEPTIONS,SATISFACTION, AND VOICE BEHAVIOUR? FIELD EXPERIMENTS WITH ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

We evaluate a theory of the effects of publishing performance information on citizens' collective voice to local providers about public service performance and the perceptions and attitudes that influence their voice. Field experiments show that information about low absolute and relative performance of local government household waste recycling services lowers citizens' perceptions of performance, and information about high absolute and relative performance raises perceived performance. Relative information makes citizens judge local providers as being more responsible for outcomes in the case of high performance, suggesting that systems for comparative performance reporting increase local accountability for outcomes. Negativity bias is evident, with information about low absolute performance reducing citizens' satisfaction but information about high performance not raising satisfaction. Information about low performance did not trigger collective voice protest behaviour as hypothesized, suggesting that providers who need citizens' collective voice the most do not get it.     

Incumbents and Innovations under Decentralization: An Empirical Exploration of Selected Local Governments in the Philippines

Abstract

Like in other developing countries, many local governments in the Philippines have become innovative under decentralization. We investigate here the drivers of local innovations, with focus on quality of incumbent leaders, their political incentives and fiscal resources. We applied Poisson regressions on a survey data comprising 209 innovations introduced in 48 cities and municipalities during the period June 2004–June 2008. The statistically significant factors are the mayor's competence (age, educational attainment), re-election status and term in office. Innovations appear to increase with local fiscal resources but at decreasing rate. Access to information appears not to matter much. However, these factors, including poverty rates, vary in relative importance in explaining innovations in expenditure services, and in revenue and public administration services. Some policy inputs are suggested.     

Does Ownership Matter for Employee Motivation When Occupation Is Controlled for?

The public service motivation literature argues that public employees are more motivated than private employees to deliver public service for the benefit of society. But the reason for this may be that the classical welfare services are predominant in the public sector. This article therefore investigates if ownership matters to employee motivation when occupation is controlled for. The findings show that the employees in both sectors have pro-social motivation, but that public sector employees are more motivated to work for the public interest, whereas private sector employees are more motivated to help individual users of services. The survey data are based on 3,304 Danish employees working in private as well as public organizations.     

Poverty and productivity in female-headed households in Zimbabwe

A household survey conducted in rural Zimbabwe in 2001 is used to compare the position of de facto and de jure female-headed households to those with a male head. These households are characterised by different forms of poverty that impinge on their ability to improve agricultural productivity. However, once inputs are accounted for, it is only for growing cotton that female-headed households' productivity is lower than that found for male-headed households. General poverty alleviation policies will benefit the female-headed household but specific interventions via extension services and access to marketing consortia are also indicated.     

Book Reviews

This article argues that a major factor in terrorist acts is an appeal to the actor's own community at an emotional and symbolic level, through acts of sacrifice, particularly self-sacrifice. Although other aims also exist, a prime concern is to recall the actor's home audience to the struggle, because the actor regards himself as acting on their behalf. This utilizes the imagery and symbolism of traditional religion, implying a strong communal and non-material impetus to terrorist acts, rather than rational material calculation, that modern Western man finds difficult to comprehend. It also recalls much classical social theory, which emphasized the central role of religion in community. Self-sacrifice tells an emotional story to the actor's community that is comprehensible to them and will have an emotional appeal to maintaining the community. For the Northern Ireland hunger strikes (possibly analogous to suicide bombers) this is reflected in their appeal solely to a Catholic/nationalist community that equates strongly with ideas of a pre-modern society under threat from a modernizing society. All the hunger strikers were very normal for their community, but left non-Catholics completely unmoved. Consequently there is a need to understand the communal dynamics behind terrorism if one is to effectively counter the threat and that different societies may have different values regarding the individual, community, and life itself. Individual motivations do not provide an adequate explanation for much terrorism and it is a failure to grasp this that severely hinders much counterterrorism.     

The determinants of teenage schooling in Jamaica: Rich vs. poor,females vs. males

The belief that schooling is an important way to reduce poverty and increase social mobility has lead to large government‐sponsored investment in education in developing countries. Jamaica has an impressive literacy and primary enrolment rate, yet the ability of its secondary school system to enhance social mobility and reduce inequality is limited. Regression results from a nationally representative household survey show that family background variables (parental education and income) are important determinants of secondary school enrolment, and income is the single most important determinant of enrolment in an ‘elite’ high school, with the impact being twice as large for females. Part of the income effect is shown to represent unobserved community heterogeneity. One conclusion is that the recent ‘cost‐sharing’ education policy of the Jamaican government, if applied selectively to the elite academic high schools, will fall disproportionately upon rich households.     

Organizing Civil Society in Russia and China: A Comparative Approach

Despite their authoritarian tendencies, the current regimes in Russia and China have both actively promoted stronger civil societies. This article explores this apparent paradox for insights both into the meaning of civil society and into the nature of governance in these two regimes. It argues that the social organizations that make up civil society both inhabit and construct a public sphere where individuals assist in their own governance. Recognizing that administered societies cannot compete in a globalizing economy, these regimes look to social organizations to perform functions previously left to the state, but at the same time use similar repertoires of regulation, revenue control, and repression to ensure such organizations do not transgress acceptable boundaries. Still, different notions of state–society relations in the two countries have led to different patterns of social organizations in the two countries. In Russia, a sharp distinction between state and society has contributed to a government strategy that seeks to dominate the public sphere leaving little room for autonomous civic action. In China, by contrast, deeply embedded institutionalized accounts see state and society as overlapping spheres of activity, creating pyramid-like structures encompassing both state-based and more autonomous organizations, and allowing more room for negotiation between the two.     

Privatizing Urban Services Through Homeowners Associations: The Potential and Practice in Phoenix

Homeowners associations (HOAs) are private nonprofit corporations that regulate, “tax,” and provide urban services to growing numbers of U.S. residents. As such, HOAs may affect cities' public service delivery. Interviews with department heads in Phoenix, Arizona reveal how enclaves of private services influence the city's planning and provision of public services. The findings suggest that HOAs do not substitute private for public services in Phoenix. Instead, qualitative differences in the services themselves (particularly concerning their purpose and scale) and in the legal powers of their providers create a more nuanced pattern of public-private service delivery.