Political economy,poverty, and polycentrism in the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) for Climate Change Adaptation

Climate change adaptation refers to altering infrastructure, institutions or ecosystems to respond to the impacts of climate change. Least developed countries often lack the requisite capacity to implement adaptation projects. The Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) is a scheme where industrialised countries have disbursed $934.5 million in voluntary contributions to support 213 adaptation projects across 51 least developed countries. But how effective are its efforts—and what sort of challenges have arisen as it implements projects? To provide some answers, this article documents the presence of four “political economy” attributes of adaptation projects—processes we have termed enclosure, exclusion, encroachment and entrenchment—cutting across economic, political, ecological and social dimensions. Based on extensive field research, we find the four processes at work simultaneously in our case studies of five LDCF projects being implemented in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, the Maldives and Vanuatu. The article concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of the political economy of adaptation for analysts, program managers and climate researchers at large. In sum, the politics of adaptation must be taken into account so that projects can maximise their efficacy and avoid marginalising those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.     

Staying the course in Mexico: the role of the US in the drug war, 2006–present

With drug-related violence reaching record levels in Mexico, there has been growing debate over its causes. US and Mexican officials blame many factors, including problems with their strategy in the drug war, fighting among cartels, corruption in police forces, an ineffective legal justice system and US drug demand. In this paper, I argue that the Mérida Initiative, a multi-billion dollar programme of US assistance, is an important additional factor. Drug-related violence increased in the years after the implementation of the Mérida Initiative, declined when Mexican officials paused new programmes in 2012 and increased again as US and Mexican officials implemented new Mérida programmes in the following years. Over the same time period, drug-related homicides and complementary counternarcotics assistance from the US Department of Defense are positively correlated. Using US records, I show that US officials have been willing to overlook the growing violence because they have been more focused on achieving their economic and strategic objectives. I conclude that their actions have played a significant role in increasing drug-related violence while starting an ominous new phase of US imperialism in Mexico.     

Where is the ‘Plus’ in ‘Credit-Plus’? The Case of Chiapas,Mexico

Abstract

It has become common to try and increase the effectiveness of microfinance programmes by adding supplementary services to the financial product. However, the added value accruing from this ‘credit-plus’ approach has been little analysed. We hypothesise that the extent of added value from credit-plus depends on the ability of the credit supplier to cultivate trust, or social capital, amongst clients. Applying difference-in-difference estimation, we exploit a natural experiment of two ‘credit-plus’ programmes in Mexico. The findings suggest that credit-plus is not universally effective, but that it is at its most effective, especially with low-income groups, where ‘bonding’ (within-group) social capital exists.     

Political Economy of the Environment,Gender, and Resistance under Colonialism: Murang'a District,Kenya, 1910–1950

This article draws on interviews with women resettlement farmers in Wedza District, Zimbabwe, to trace changes in livelihood strategies and gender relations from 2000 to 2006. The research indicates a shrinking number of viable options for livelihoods, and the severe erosion of formerly critical activities. Thewomen interviewed see increases inmarital discord and collapse, with implications for family formation, social order, and survival. The article explores the linkages between changing livelihoods and gender relations, focusing especially on marriage in relation to agriculture and land issues, gendered incomes, sexuality, AIDS orphans and other effects of HIV/AIDS. Within this overall difficult context, the enduring ethic of caring and the buffering effects of people’s access to arable land and other natural resources are apparent. Throughout, the article discusses the theoretical implications of the research, participating in debates about regional conditions and theoretical understandings of labour, economy, livelihoods and gender in southern Africa.     

Migration diplomacy in the Global South: cooperation,coercion and issue linkage in Gaddafi’s Libya

Despite a recent resurgence in research on the politics of migration, foreign policy analysts have yet to approach cross-border population mobility as a distinct field of inquiry. Particularly within the Global South, scant work has theorised the interplay between migration and interstate bargaining. This article proposes the framework of migration diplomacy to examine how mobility features in states’ issue-linkage strategies, in both cooperative and coercive contexts. Drawing on Arabic, French and English primary sources, it empirically demonstrates the salience of its framework through an analysis of Libya’s migration diplomacy towards its Arab, African and European neighbours under Muammar Gaddafi.     

Russian Policy Concerning the Black Sea Fleet and its Being Based in Ukraine, 2008–2010: Three Interpretations

This article analyses Russian policy concerning the Black Sea Fleet and the question of its being based in Ukraine in the period between Dmitrii Medvedev's inauguration as Russian President in May 2008 and the Russo–Ukrainian agreement in April 2010 to prolong the base in Ukraine until 2042. The article explores three different interpretations of Russian policy which see the fleet in turn as a preserver of the peace, as a projector of Russian power and as protector of the Russian nation.     

‘High Value’ Migration and Complicity in Underdevelopment and Corruption in the Global South: receiving from the attic

Through a focus on the UK's ‘High Value Migrants’ programme, this article directs attention to how commercial migration laws and policies of developed countries could negatively affect the global South. Drawing mainly on insights from criminology and development studies, it investigates how the commercial migration laws and policies, specifically the aspects that deal with encouraging or attracting ‘high-value’ foreign entrepreneurs and investors, make the state potentially complicit in corruption and underdevelopment in the global South. There is an important need to address the implicated migration laws and policies as a critical and integral part of international efforts to combat corruption and promote peace and development in the global South. Reform of such laws and policies is in the long-term interest of all stakeholders.     

Ballots and bullets: Election riots in the periphery, 1874–1985

Modernisation theory argues that the liberal institutions of the industrialised or Core nations have taken root in underdeveloped or Periphery ones and produced the pacific flowers of political development. Critics of the theory, however, are less sanguine, suggesting that Core institutions represent foreign imports into the Periphery and are viable only when closely managed by Core authorities. The study tracks election riots in the Periphery between 1874 and 1985. An upward trend in rioting is observable. Further, riots occur more frequently during periods of loose control by the Core. The implications for global liberalism are then discussed.     

Resistance and Creativity in Social Interaction: For and Against Memory in Poland, Israel–Palestine, and the United States

In this paper, I present an analysis of Adam Michnik’s notion of “Amnesty without Amnesia”. His was a wise political judgment presented at a critical moment in the struggle to constitute a democratic polity in Poland. Mine is an appreciation of his political position, along with a sociological analysis that highlights the empirical difficulties of its realization in practical action. I will show how at critical moments of social change creative political action works to erase memories of the relevant past, which act as a repressive force, while “re-remembering” (to use Toni Morrison’s formulation). Three cases will be compared, Michnik’s, after the fall of the communist regime in east central Europe, and cases drawn from the Palestinian–Israeli conflict and the American presidential campaign. A paper prepared for presentation at Cerisy, France, Summer, 2008.     

Bandits and blanket thieves,communists and terrorists: the politics of naming Sandinistas in Nicaragua, 1927 – 36 and 1979 – 90

This article examines the politics of naming Sandinistas in Nicaragua during two periods of intense political and military struggle: the era of the Sandinista Revolution and Contra War (1979?–?90) and the era of the Sandino rebellion against the US Marines and Nicaraguan National Guard (1927?–?36). Focusing principally on the rhetorical and narrative strategies used by the USA and its Nicaraguan allies, the article explores the delegitimising master narratives concocted by these dominant groups and the efforts of two generations of Sandinistas and their allies to challenge these narratives. It argues that the politics of naming was embedded within a larger politics of storytelling, and that effective challenges to dominant groups' epithets must be grounded in historically informed challenges to the larger narratives from which they spring.     

Perceptions,identities and interests in South–South cooperation: the cases of Chile,Venezuela and Brazil

The relevance acquired in recent years by South–South cooperation seems to be connected with deeper structural transformations occurring in the international system. However, the variety of cooperation models promoted by new providers in the South requires the identification of complementary factors to help explain current patterns. A set of socio-cognitive elements, related to each country’s perceptions, identities and interests, can yield greater understanding of the variety of South–South cooperation models. Such an approach is here applied to the cases of Chile, Venezuela and Brazil – three important providers from the South – in order to explore their different cooperation models.     

The goals and reality of the water–food–energy security nexus: the case of China and its southern neighbours

The so-called ‘nexus’ approach has recently been promoted as addressing externalities across the water, food and energy sectors, thus helping to achieve ‘water/energy/food security for all’, ‘equitable and sustainable growth’ and a ‘resilient and productive environment’. While these are noble goals, this article argues that the reality on the ground appears to be taking a different direction, at least when it comes to China and its neighbours in South and Southeast Asia. There, a new era of large-scale water infrastructure development is creating several security-related problems, which represent serious challenges to the nexus goals. These challenges include food–energy tensions, human security threats and ecological risks. These challenges can also be linked to rising friction surrounding the management of water, food and energy resources in the region. The article argues that, in order for the nexus goals to be achieved in China and the countries on its southern periphery, there must first be increased awareness of this nexus among policy-making elites.     

Sara Baartman and Andries Stoffels: Violence,Law and the Politics of Spectacle in London and the Eastern Cape, 1809–1836

This article contrasts the well-known display of Sara Baartman, exhibited in London and Paris under the rubric the “Hottentot Venus,” with the 1835–36 visit to Britain for political ends of Andries Stoffels, a Khoekhoe Christian convert who testified before the House of Commons Select Committee on Aborigines (British Settlements). It places both visits in the context of legal reform and violence in the Cape Colony in the early nineteenth century. Both visits can be fruitfully re-read as reflecting South African struggles over control of the Khoekhoe body, the rule of colonial law, and emerging ideas of human rights. Baartman was displayed as an iconic body in a legal context in which (mostly white) masters coerced Khoekhoe labourers and claimed the right to control their bodies. Stoffels displayed himself as a Christian convert to eager evangelical audiences, in a context in which legal reform depended on the putative erasure of difference, even as racial tension persisted in significant ways. The article suggests that the history of human rights is closely tied to the history of colonialism. It also, however, argues that members of Baartman's community responded to, and fought, the conditions that led to her display and that Baartman should not be understood in isolation from that community.     

Global South solidarity? China,regional organisations and intervention in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars

Why was China responsive to regional organisations’ call for intervention in the case of the Libya crisis, where it supported sanctions and an International Criminal Court referral, and acquiesced to a no-fly zone, but unresponsive to pressure from regional organisations for intervention in the Syria crisis, issuing repeated vetoes instead? Using interviews and other primary data, this article explains the variation by highlighting that China is most responsive to regional organisations when these groups remain cohesive, congregate around the same policy position and when they publicly criticise or isolate China.     

Hegemony,Politics and Ideology: the Role of Legislation in NGO–Government Relations in Asia

In the wake of debate on the ‘New Policy Agenda’ of good governance and the increasing prominence of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in public service delivery, serious questions are being asked about the role of NGOs in development, their accountability, their relationships with donors, with the state and with their beneficiaries. As southern NGOs receive increasing amounts of funding from donors and northern NGOs, their profile is being raised, prompting government response. The nature of legislative responses of governments to increasingly high profile NGO communities range from open hostility and suspicion, to indifference. National legislative frameworks are neglected in the literature, yet they may profoundly influence the accountability, legitimacy, organisation and vision of local NGOs as well as the way northern NGOs can operate in a country. The article illustrates the potential for conflict over legislation on NGOs but also important opportunities and benefits, maintaining that legislation is necessary, because it can act as a catalyst to spark and focus debate on the role of NGOs, the extent to which they legitimately represent civil society, to whom they are accountable and how they can be protected. Open, balanced negotiation between stakeholders is necessary to avoid conflict and focus discourse on NGO and government roles and accountability. Governments, donors and NGOs each have a role to play in shaping NGO legitimacy, ensuring their upwards and downwards accountability.