Resolution on Narmada and the World Bank on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the World Bank

Abstract

1. From 1985 to 1993 the World Bank funded the Sardar Sarovar (Narmada Dam) Project in western India despite overwhelming evidence of the social, environmental, and economic unsoundness of the project, as well as the massive opposition of local farmers and tribal people who are being forcibly displaced from their homes and villages.     

Ravaging India's Bihar Plateau

Abstract

In the name of “tribal development” another huge project has been launched by the World Bank in the Indian state of Bihar. The Bihar Plateau Development Project (BPDP) calls for radical transformation of agricultural practices, construction of roads, and massive new irrigation and drinking-water schemes. Eighty percent of the funds provided by the World Bank for the project are targeted for the development of infrastructure and maintenance of services.     

Risk,Social Protection and the World Market

Abstract

This paper sees market building in Asia as part of the larger project of constructing a global market economy – a project which can be traced back to Adam Smith and, more recently, to the founding of a set of global liberal institutions in the post-World War II period. In the last two decades the global liberal impulse behind the creation of these institutions has gained momentum, in step with the emergence of a “world market” of genuinely global scale. The issue of risk is central to the project of building a world market. Following an introduction to the global liberal project, the first section of this paper addresses the question of risk through a critical analysis of the difference between negative risks (both external and internal) that pose a threat to the global liberal project, and the positive risks that the project seeks to embed and incentivise. The second section outlines the treatment of risk in the literature on the “political economy of reform,” and the third provides a detailed analysis of Social Risk Management at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank over the last decade. The final section reflects on the implications for “building markets in Asia.”     

Facsimile edition of CCAS newsletter,no. 1 (May 1968)

Abstract

We have heard a great deal about the greening of the World Bank. The Bank now has an Environmental Department, its projects go through an environmental impact assessment, and it even finances “green” projects through the Global Environment Facility. However, the financing of nature's destruction and people's destitution and disempowerment continues unabated. It is not enough to look at projects directly funded by the World Bank to see the social and ecological disruption that it has caused over the past half a century and still continues to create. The impact of the World Bank is increasingly being felt through structural and sector adjustment loans that influence the macropolicies of entire countries. These loans have much wider influence because they make the World Bank's destructive policies more diffused and more invisible than its projects. The third and deeper level of the World Bank's responsibility in rupturing the social and environmental fabric of survival emerges from the paradigms it diffuses throughout the world through its research, publications, and advice. The social and ecological impact of the World Bank therefore needs to be assessed on the basis of its interventions at all three levels—projects, policies, and paradigms.     

Taming Risks in Asia: The World Bank Group and New Mining Regimes

Abstract

Despite the admonishments of the 2003 Extractive Industry Review, the World Bank Group (WBG) has continued to promote the expansion of mining activities in resource-rich client-countries. While maintaining its mantra on the economic benefits of the sector in cash-strapped countries, in recent years poverty reduction and environmental sustainability have become the new buzzwords to justify the need for the WBG to remain actively involved in the sector. Building on the cases of the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Lao PDR, this paper analyses this new socio-environmental narrative in conjunction with the highly political nature of the role played by the WBG in the mining sector of its country-clients. The cases demonstrate that the World Bank has played a key role in influencing a wave of new mining regimes in the region. Further, these new regimes, which comprise multilateral social and environmental safeguards, circumscribe the risks faced by industry, rather than by local populations. While successful in stimulating foreign investments in the sector, these regimes might prove ineffective in taming local and national resentment against mining activities. Crucially, the engineering of mining regimes and norm-settings in multilateral arenas raises concerns about the legitimacy of the transformations of roles and responsibilities assigned to local mining stakeholders and the possible subsequent contraction of local political spaces.     

Singapore's cultural policy and its consequences

Abstract

This article explores the effects of Singapore's Global City for the Arts project on the local theater industry. It begins by describing the character of the Singapore state and its ability to meet the challenges of globalization. It then shows that while historically global in orientation, the city-state's early cultural policies were resolutely local and insular prior to the economic recession in 1985. From that year on, local arts and culture was driven by an economic rationale — eventually culminating in the birth of a globally oriented national cultural policy: the Global City for the Arts project. The author contends that the Global City for the Arts project has pressured the Singapore state into shedding some of its authoritarian practices in order to conform to international norms. However, the author also illustrates how certain theater companies with the requisite cultural capital for the Global City for the Arts project have benefited from the country's cultural policies while others that do not possess such cultural capital are marginalized. The article concludes by arguing that the Singapore state, in going global, exacerbates the economic disparity by accentuating preexisting inequalities and divisions in the local.     

Hiroshima poems by Toge Sankichi

Abstract

Extract

Gail Omvedt's piece, ostensibly on the World Bank, is actually an argument for liberalization as opposed to statist regimes. The following lines responding to her piece concern this larger issue. While sharing her critique of the dependency theory as well as some of her negative views on statist regimes, I have basic differences with her on a number of points in her discourse.     

The Biographical Dictionary of the Spanish Parliamentarians: sources and methodological approach

SUMMARY

This article presents the project of the Biographical Dictionary of the Spanish Parliamentarians. It begins with a reflection on the different models of biographical dictionary in European historiography, and especially the biographical dictionaries of parliamentarians, followed by the specific context of the project. It then explains the methodology that is being employed to develop the project by the Research Network created to carry it out, the sources in use for the individual biographies, the creation of databases, the detailed work plan of the project and its expected results.     

State-building or state-capture? Institutional exports,local reception and hybridity of reforms in post-war Kosovo

ABSTRACT

Post-war Kosovo has been the subject of a highly intrusive international state-building project, including an unprecedented influx of international administrators, assistance and funds. However, it increasingly bears the hallmark of a weak and captured state. This special issue contributes theoretical and empirical insights that shed light on possible explanations, difficulties and prospects of the state-building project in Kosovo. Theoretically, we investigate how international and local explanations play out, interact and gain dominance over each other; highlight the local factors that shape the experience of state-building; and focus on the hybridity of institution- and state-building on the ground. Empirically, we take stock of two decades of international state-building activities and one decade of independent statehood by providing long-term and in-depth analysis of specific areas of reform – municipal governance, state bureaucracy, normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, education, creation of armed forces, security sector reforms and reception of Salafi ideologies. Such time-sensitive, case-nuanced and empirically heavy analysis enables the authors to go back and forth between the role of international activities, domestic strategies of resistance and evidence of hybrid reforms in order to test the role of competing explanations.     

Soviet boarding schools as a forge of national professionals and intellectuals in Soviet Tajikistan in the 1950s and 1960s

ABSTRACT

The study focuses on the institution of boarding schools (Russian: internat) in Soviet Tajikistan in the 1950s and 1960s and its role in the education and training of the new national generations of skilled professionals in the fields of industry, science, culture, art and healthcare, which in turn contributed to the development of their country. Along with the de-Stalinization of education and subsequent polytechnization, as well as flexibility in the use of Soviet institutions, the internats were transformed from a purely Soviet project into a more inclusive Soviet-Tajik project at the national level for the training of new young national-Sovietized professionals. These professionals combined the qualities of Sovietized and local (national), with their distinctive norms, traditions and values, into a totally new form. The boarding school system turned into a factory for bringing up national-Sovietized specialists and cadres.     

Bridging the gender gap

Abstract

While the World Bank has publicly proclaimed that women's participation in development is “essential” not only for achieving social justice but also for reducing poverty, a confidential report by its own staff paints a grim picture of the Bank's history of failing to integrate gender concerns into its lending programs.     

Unity Statement

Abstract

This year the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, also known as the Bretton Woods institutions, are celebrating their fiftieth founding anniversary. As both institutions trumpet their accomplishments in the last fifty years, we, the Filipino people, find no reason to celebrate.     

Are We Concerned Yet? Environmental Crisis and Economic Development in China; China on the Edge: The Crisis of Ecology and Development,by He Baochuan; China's Environmental Crisis: An Inquiry into the Limits of National Development,by Vaclav Smil

Abstract

The storyline of China's late imperial and modern history typically revolves around questions of economic development: Was China's economy in the late imperial period developing on its own? If so, what is the evidence? If not, why not? What impact did imperialism have? What have been the developmental strategies of the People's Republic of China (PRC), and how successful have they been? Regardless of whether or not the scholar pursuing these questions is a Marxist (of whatever flavor) or neo-Smithian economist working for the World Bank, development remains at the core of the inquiry and is its central problematic.     

INTRODUCTION

Abstract

In the last issue of 1994 the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (BCAS) presented a special “Notes from the Field” section on the Bretton Woods institutions. The ten contributions to that section provided case studies of specific projects in Asia and overviews of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank policies. In sum, they mounted a comprehensive critique of the historical and contemporary policies of these global financial institutions.     

Does local ownership enhance legitimacy and democratic governance in peacebuilding? The case of diasporas

ABSTRACT

In contemporary peacebuilding debates, it is argued that local ownership renders peacebuilding more sustainable, democratic and legitimate. However, these claims have not been seriously interrogated as to their empirical validity. Such evaluations must begin by answering the question, ‘Who is local?’ Different local actors have varying resources, capacities and levels of authority and autonomy. Taking the relatively unexplored case of diasporas, this paper illustrates the absence of a straightforward relationship between ownership and its normative benefits. By assessing the significance of resources like local/ethnic bonds, financial and social remittances, this paper argues that diasporas can undermine the legitimacy of peacebuilding. Furthermore, although diasporas can enhance the prospects for democratic governance, the causal mechanisms can be corrupted.     

Turkey’s Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP): a qualitative review of the literature

ABSTRACT

The Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydo?u Anadolu Projesi, GAP) is one of the largest regional development projects ever implemented in the Middle East. Launched officially in the 1970s to develop the water and land resources of southeastern Turkey, GAP has over time evolved from a predominantly technical, largely state-led and mainly infrastructural and economic development-oriented project into a primarily social, largely market-friendly and chiefly sustainable and human development-oriented project. Parallel to this evolution, GAP has grown more visible in political and public discourses. The implications of the project, for instance, on the ecology and cultural heritages, on the Kurdish Question, and on water issue among Turkey, Syria and Iraq have become clearer. However, despite growing academic and policy interest on GAP, there has been no attempt to provide a literature review on the project. Even more than 40 years after GAP was begun, a bird’s eye view of researched and under-researched topics in the literature has not been introduced yet. This article seeks to present a qualitative review of GAP-related literature. In this way, it seeks to constitute an initial step to establish a base for more expansive reviews and to provide guidance to interested and involved researchers, practitioners and policymakers.     

Family history,identity, and public history: writing a history of The Benevolent Society in its 200th year

Abstract

Since 2011, the authors have worked together on outputs associated with the bicentenary of The Benevolent Society of New South Wales, Australia's oldest charity, established in 1813. This article focuses on one of those outputs—a project making use of family histories of clients of The Benevolent Society's Asylum, in the second half of the nineteenth century, to reveal the histories of these families in colonial New South Wales. The project also involves an exploration of the many different ways in which contemporary Australians are active agents in the creation of historical knowledge when practicing family history.     

Oil pollution and water conflicts in the riverine communities in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region: challenges for and elements of problem-solving strategies

ABSTRACT

In Nigeria’s Niger Delta, oil pollution has significantly harmed the natural environment on which the local people in the Niger Delta depend for their livelihood and sustenance. The direct consequence of oil pollution is that it has led to multidimensional and protracted conflicts in oil-bearing communities. Drawing on fieldwork data, this article examines the ways in which oil pollution harms water resources and fuels conflicts in the local communities. It explores the socio-economic dynamics of the conflicts and insecurity, and how they are aggravated by the ineffectiveness of the measures adopted by the state to manage the conflicts. It argues that the role of local actors in the ecological dislocation have been downplayed and not factored into the measures devised to tackle the intractable conflicts. This article demonstrates how the network of interactions among localised, national and globalised actors aggravate environmental pollution and the complex conflicts in local communities.     

Alternative narratives and collective memories: Israel's New Historians and the use of historical context

Abstract

The article presents a new overview on economic transition in Egypt, emphasizing the role of culture in shaping its recent economic history. Since partial independence, and culminating in the heyday of the Nasserite regime, ‘economic nationalism’ became a predominant national identity mark and a concept central to a local sense of authenticity. The article discusses the meaning of economic nationalism and why it turned such a powerful symbol of Egyptianness. The prevalence of this idea slowed down a transformation to an alternative economic regime when the development effort associated with economic nationalism partially failed. Instead, a huge and unregulated (‘hidden’) economy emerged, together with a corollary local consumer society. Fiercely resisted in a public discourse captivated by an older economic imagination, both have still shaped the Egyptian economy ever since.     

Renting a flat in Hangzhou

Abstract

Shortly after my arrival at Zhejiang Agricultural University as a visiting scholar, I faced the question of where to live. There were of course the guesthouses on campus, but these ranged in price from 3,000 to 4,800 yuan per month (about US$400 to $600). By contrast, apartment rentals in nearby Hangzhou ran from about 500 yuan per month for a two-room unfurnished flat to a monthly rent of about 1,500 yuan for a furnished, three-room flat equipped with air conditioner, telephone, and assorted fixtures. Even though the latter rates are somewhat expensive by local standards, they still represent a considerable savings over guest-house accommodations on campus, as well as affording a degree of privacy that I deemed important to the conduct of life during my research project.