Reflections on helping I: sustainable development,capacity building and participation

This selection focuses on the useful sense of what “help” means in development context. “Sustainable development is the goal, in sum; this requires the building of both individual and group capabilities; and broad participation is the major vehicle underlying the formation of solid capabilities.

“If you have come to help me you can go home again. But if you see my struggle as part of your own survival then perhaps we can work together.”

-Australian Aborigine Woman⁽¹⁾ (Manila 1991, p. 217)

What does it mean to “help” a person like this Aborigine woman in Australia, -- or a community, or line agency in Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, or here in Calgary? One response to this question might be in terms of the intended outcomes of my “helping”. A second response could be to consider the means I use to help the other move in the direction of their intended outcomes. A third view is to include the concerns for outcomes and process with an interest in the mutual influence of the helper and the helpee on each other during the life of the dialogue.

What are some important influences that shape my view of “helping” at this point, that is, in November 1992? Four forces immediately come to mind: 1) my training in the planned change of human systems, 2) my recently completed involvement for five years with colleagues associated with the Health Development Project in Nepal as we struggled to strengthen the capacity of the government's health-related institutions and rural communities to improve the quality of life of the rural poor; 3) conversations with colleagues at the International Centre like Sheila Robinson and Tim Pyrch who are passionate (and articulate) in their views about development and participation, and 4) my relationship with my wife, Tana, which provides an experiential context for struggling with the issues embedded in the Aborigine woman's comment which introduces these reflections. These forces -- and others which will go unmentioned but are known to those who wrestle with the mysterious undercurrents of life -- have led me to increasingly think of “helping” in terms of three ideas: sustainable development as the ultimate goal of development; capacity building as the appropriate vehicle for pursuing sustainable development; and participation of all appropriate stakeholder groups as partners in the pursuit of sustainable development.

This reflection will clarify several features of my emerging theory of development by getting the jumbled and often incoherent whispers of suggested ideas in my head down on paper.     

Man Does Not Live by Reason Alone

Leszek Kolakowski, who died in 2009, was professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and a fellow of All Souls College at Oxford University. His critical, magisterial study of the history of Marxism and his perpetual doubt and self-questioning, which led to a preoccupation with "the revenge of the sacred" in secular life, earned him a reputation as modern Europe's Erasmus.
Just after he published Modernity on Endless Trial in 1991, Kolakowski sat down with me in his study at All Souls College. The following conversation was also published in Kolakowski's last book, My Correct Views on Everything.     

Globalisation and climate change in Asia: the urban health impact

Asia's economic development successes will create new policy areas to address, as the advances made through globalisation create greater climate change challenges, particularly the impact on urban health. Poverty eradication and higher standards of living both increase demand on resources. Globalisation increases inequalities and those who are currently the losers will carry the greatest burden of the costs in the form of the negative effects of climate change and the humanitarian crises that will ensue. Of four major climate change challenges affecting the environment and health, two—urban air pollution and waste management—can be mitigated by policy change and technological innovation if sufficient resources are allocated. Because of the urban bias in the development process, these challenges will probably register on policy makers' agenda. The second two major challenges—floods and drought—are less amenable to policy and technological solutions: many humanitarian emergency challenges lie ahead. This article describes the widely varying impact of both globalisation and climate change across Asia. The greatest losers are those who flee one marginal location, the arid inland areas, only to settle in another marginal location in the flood prone coastal slums. Effective preparation is required, and an effective response when subsequent humanitarian crises occur.     

Teaching about terrorism: Notes on methods and materials

Abstract

That terrorism presents scholars and policymakers alike with new challenges is well documented. But the fact that transnational terrorism and societal responses to it have also placed new demands on those who teach international affairs in the undergraduate classroom is less widely discussed. This article identifies a basic set of educational objectives for teaching about terrorism as well as materials and methods for achieving those objectives with a reasonable degree of success. Through a discussion of the uses of library research exercises, films, role playing and simulation, and values clarification approaches, the article provides a scheme for educating a nucleus of future citizens who will better understand the policy and value choices confronting them in a world beset by terrorism.     

Bilateral Graduation: The Impact of EPAs on LDC Trade Space

Abstract

As trade is prominently mainstreamed into development policies, the ongoing Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations between the EU and the African, Carribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries are a turning point in Least Developed Countries (LDC) engagement with the international trading system. The process covers most UN-designated LDCs and is the first time they feature in the first row of international trade talks. We explore how the space LDCs occupy in the trade regime will be affected by EPAs. The analysis suggests that they move LDCs towards effective graduation from special and differential treatment, while innovating on policy tools to address underdevelopment.     

Introduction

The seemingly disparate aspects of long-term care (LTC) exist in a broader context of concern for the ability of disabled and chronically ill individuals of all ages to function in everyday life. A focus in LTC, therefore, is on the types of services and products needed for an individual to perform basic activities of daily living.

A primary emphasis in LTC is on the individual who is in need of assistance. Related questions include: What impact will the receipt of LTC have on the autonomy of the individual? How will the care, which may extend over a period of years or decades, be funded? How will the various payment mechanisms affect an individual's access to care? What are potential solutions to the problems encountered as the individual and his or her family deal with the fragmentation and other problems of the LTC system? Such questions are addressed in the articles in this symposium, “Issues in Long-Term Care.” This paper provides a context for the symposium.     

Financing the decentralization of urban services in developing countries: Administrative requirements for fiscal improvements

Rapid urbanization in developing countries is placing increasing strains on the financial capacity of governments to provide the urban services and infrastructure that will be needed to promote sustainable economic growth. The growing complexity of urban systems in developing countries and the financial constraints on central government agencies are pressuring governments to decentralize a wider range of responsibilities for financing and providing public services in urban areas. Experiments with five approaches to local finance in many developing countries have focused more on revenue generation than on strengthening the administrative capacity of local governments to manage new responsibilities. The success of decentralization and of local revenue generation in the future, however, will depend on strengthening the ability of local governments to manage revenues and expenditures more efficiently and to maintain urban services more effectively. Dennis A. Rondinelli is senior policy analyst and principal scientist in the Office for International Programs at the Research Triangle Institute, PO Box 12194, Research Triangle Park NC 27709. Dr. Rondinelli has served as an advisor to governments in developing countries and international assistance organizations on public administration, municipal management and urban development policy, subjects on which he has published ten books and more than one-hundred articles. His most recent books includePlanning Education Reforms in Developing Countries (Duke University Press),Urban Services in Developing Countries, (Macmillan), andDevelopment Administration and U.S. Foreign Aid Policy (Lynn Rienner).     

The Salvadoran elections of 1982–1991

Criticisms of the elections of the Salvadoran transition of 1979–1992 assume an external staging capacity notoriously absent from processes of regime change. An analysis of possible causal determinants of voting turnout in the elections of 1982–1991 suggests a much more complex picture, characteristic of social processes shaped by multiple conjuctural causation. It is not the machinations of the Reagan administration and of the Salvadoran Right, but a complex interaction of legal requirements, contextual nuances, and factors related to party competition, that emerge as more relevant determinants of the nature and outcomes of those elections. Whatever “demonstrative effects” may be attributed to them, one cannot ignore their impact on a domestic audience of ordinary citizens and political leaders who eventually came to understand their, limitations as well as their ultimate efficacy. In 1971 ENRIQUE A. BALOYRA, received his Ph.D. at The University of Florida and joined the Department of Political Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became full professor and director of the Institute of Latin American Studies. In 1985 he joined the Graduate School of International Studies of the University of Miami, serving as associate dean until 1991. His early work was on electoral participation and public opinion in Venezuela. In 1982 he publishedEl Salvador in Transition (The University of North Carolina Press) and followed this with a dozen articles and chapters on the dynamics of the Salvadoran civil war and regime transition. This fall, The University of New Mexico Press is publishingContradictions and Change in Cuba, an anthology which he co-edited and to which he contributed three chapters. His current project is a Boolean analysis of regime transitions.     

Local Party System Nationalisation: Does Municipal Size Matter?

Local party systems are not necessarily copies of their country's national party system. Some national parties do not field candidates in all municipalities, while in other municipalities there are non-partisan lists/local parties. In this article it is hypothesised that the larger the municipality (in number of inhabitants), the more the local party system will resemble the national party system (and vice versa). The hypothesis is tested using data from the 2001 local elections in Denmark. For this purpose, an index of local party system nationalisation is developed. The index is formulated in general terms so as to make it applicable in other settings and in comparisons between countries and over time.     

The East Asian Way—With Air Conditioning

Though the founding father of a tiny country on the tip of the Malay peninsula, Lee Kuan Yew is one of the giants of the arriving Asian century. Fifty years from now monuments will commemorate the legendary feats of this British-trained barrister who only learned Chinese when he became prime minister in 1959. Not only did he miraculously transform the impoverished colonial entrepot of Singapore, rife with drugs and prostitution, into a gleaming model city state of the 21st century; his practical vision of soft-authoritarian capitalism also became the template for Deng Xiaoping's "opening up and reform" in China, laying the basis for the stunning rise of a prosperous East Asia.
We met twice, in 1992 and 1995, in steamy Singapore, sitting in the icily air-conditioned salon at Istana, the former British governor's residence, looking out over the manicured lawns, as we delved deep into the conflicts and complementarities of Confucian communitarianism and Western individualism. We met one last time in a snowbound chalet in Davos, Switzerland, in 1999 after his formal retirement as "senior minister" and graduation to "minister mentor," the sage behind the throne.     

CLUMSY SOLUTIONS FOR A COMPLEX WORLD: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Successful solutions to pressing social ills tend to consist of innovative combinations of a limited set of alternative ways of perceiving and resolving the issues. These contending policy perspectives justify, represent and stem from four different ways of organizing social relations: hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism. Each of these perspectives: (1) distils certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others; (2) provides a clear expression of the way in which a significant portion of the populace feels we should live with one another and with nature; and (3) needs all of the others in order to be sustainable. ‘Clumsy solutions’– policies that creatively combine all opposing perspectives on what the problems are and how they should be resolved – are therefore called for. We illustrate these claims for the issue of global warming.     

Growth with pollution: unsustainable development in Taiwan and its consequences

During the 1980s, economic development in Taiwan received much attention in development studies. The “Taiwan miracle” has made Taiwan rich and famous. This article examines an often ignored aspect of development—environmental quality—and argues that Taiwan has achieved “growth with pollution” that will not increase but decrease the welfare of the people in the long run. The root cause of Taiwan's environmental degradation rests on the obsession with fast economic growth at any cost by the powerful coalition between the ruling Kuomington and the capitalists. The article argues that the case of Taiwan is far from being a “model” for developing countries. Taiwan's experience of “growth with pollution,” on the contrary, should stand as a warning to other developing countries pursuing similar development paths. Chun-Chieh Chi received his B.A. in sociology from Tunghai University in Taiwan, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from State University of New York at Buffalo. He is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104. His research interests include sustainable development in Taiwan and Kenya, indigenous people and the environment, and women and the environment in developing countries.     

Service Management Perspective into Welfare Services: A Study of Two Swedish Cases

The article investigates organizational solutions in welfare services, from a service management perspective. The aim is to highlight important factors in solutions leading to improved efficiency. The empirical material consists of case studies that deal with work on children who have multiple problems and mental illness. Factors behind the increased efficiency include staff coordinating their efforts into a cohesive service process based on both the day-to-day life and the life situation of the child and his/her family. They act in such a way that the child and family receive support enabling them to utilize their own capacity during value creation.     

The new paradigm: from development administration to sustainable development administration

In light of changing national and international conditions, the field of public administration is going through an exercise of refounding and reinventing. Globalization, technological advancements, and ecological concerns have diluted the importance of development administration. This study traces the demise of development administration and presents a new paradigm in the form of sustainable development administration. The author argues that the paradigm of sustainable development administration (SDA) is markedly different from the traditional paradigm of development administration (DA) in its emphasis, scope, treatment of politics, view of indigenous cultures, goals, operating mode, decision-making system, use of foreign aid, and performance accountability. The study concludes by declaring that SDA has the potential to emerge as a new field of study in public administration.

The discipline of public administration is at a crossroads: the advent of the “global village” philosophy is challenging its parochial tendencies⁽¹⁾;the “refounding of public administration” is nullifying its separation from politics⁽²⁾; and the “reinvention of government” is questioning the very basic reasons for its existence.⁽³⁾ Faced with new and continuing intellectual challenges, the discipline is in search of a new paradigm.⁽⁴⁾ What will this new paradigm be? What will its emphases and priorities be? The answers are less than clear at this point, however, the questions themselves are receiving attention from scholars. This article attempts to examine one of many alleged elements of the emerging paradigm, and that is the shift from development to sustainable development. The arguments presented here trace the demise of “development” focus in public administration and explore the possibility of sustainable development becoming the new thrust.     

Developing human resource in research and development: international experiences and implications for Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Human resource is the key driving force of research and development of a nation. Japan and Korea are two examples of how appropriate strategies in developing human resources have been transferred into remarkable achievements in R&D. In recent years, Vietnam has observed significant shift in investment for R&D. Thus, the lessons of Japan and Korea could provide Vietnam with valuable strategies for further development in human resources in R&D, particularly in vision of R&D development, policy flexibility, increased investment on R&D development and human resources, key R&D organization formation and increased international cooperation in S&T.     

Trade and development policies in Colombia: Export promotion and outward orientation, 1967–1992

As developing democracies implement programs of economic adjustment and trade liberalization, we need to examine the relationship between the state and society in the making of foreign economic policies. This article examines trade and development policies in Colombia, one of Latin America's more institutionalized democracies. Colombia was one of the first countries in Latin America to begin a major reorientation away from full dependence on ISI as a strategy of development. The research shows that domestic political institutions and actors have had a decisive impact on the character and direction of foreign economic policies. The study also illustrates how state capacity for economic management is enhanced by bureaucratic insulation and institutional reform. Carlos E. Juárez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on the politics of trade liberalization in Latin America, government-business relations in developing democracies, and comparative political economy. He was a visiting researcher and lecturer at theUniversidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia from 1991–1992. For 1993–1994 he will be a visiting research fellow with the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego.     

Putin's first year in office: the new regime's uniqueness in Russian history

The author analyzes Putin's first year in office by comparing it to the last fifteen regimes in Russian history. Putin shares many common features with the leaders of the past. He belongs to the group of leaders who were not so concerned about the progress of society as in removing the threat to the existing political order. He is also among those who moved toward authoritarianism in their first year. As all new regimes in the 20th centuries, Putin used democratic ideology for the legitimization of his rule, though he almost immediately began to curtail the fledgling democracy in Russia. While Putin's regime was similar to the previous regimes in some respects, it was very different in others. First of all, no ruler rose to power from such a politically obscure position. Putin came to power with far less experience than his fourteen predecessors. The circumstances under which Putin came to power have no precedent in recent history. Another uniqueness of Putin's first year in office was the extent to which various elements of the old regime were preserved. The author dwells on Putin's first year with special attention. As a predictor of the future, it suggests that Russian society under Putin will remain essentially the same as it was shaped by 1995.     

Crisis management shoring up america's economy and government

Credit crunches, loss of competitiveness, and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, in both business and government, are the most serious crisis problems now confronting a growing number of modern nations and this irrespetive of political persuasion. Further, the ultimate practical way these traumatic experiences can be alleviated and in future avoided is by an increase of governing capacity.

More people in top positions need the qualities of the old-fashioned businessman, more legislators and policy makers need the long view; a perspective which includes survival knowledge as well as how to find balance in social change.

Administrators who devote their whole lives to seeking the public good need more freedom and opportunity to experiment and innovate. The worst aspects of bureaucracy are found in all systems, and the nations that are courageous and resourceful enough to face them head-on and overcome them are the ones most likely to survive.

Survival today appears in many guises. Can the nation-state survive? How, short of a restored internal citizen control, can you make democracy have real content? How can you possibly avoid stalemate and social disorder until responsibility for results is nailed down to the extent of assuring structural cooperation when survival of life or a way of life is at stake? It is even possible that the role of citizenship is more important than the role of the market system as now practiced.

For all these survival problems of business and government there are known, viable, managerial solutions. The sooner a nation analyzes its range of solutions and eventually forms a consensus, the more secure everyone will be and the sooner social upheaval and violence will be dealt with effectively. Crises are but the inevitable spinoffs of public lethargy, muddled goals and thinking.

What America in particular needs at this juncture, is nothing short of compelling, workable, goals. Goals that will unify and inspire as they overcome the reckless expenditure of money and resources over a relatively short period in the past.

The impersonal business cycle does not control nations’ destinies. Only improved governance, combining policy and results, can do that job.

We Americans need a New Federalism for Third Century goals.     

The Implications for Officers of New Political Management Arrangements

This article explores the impact on officers of new political management arrangements introduced to English local government during 2001-2002. By analysing the literature that exists on this subject it concludes that the literature is, as yet, unable to provide a categorical answer to the question of whether the unitary officer structure will be sustainable over time. On this issue, the literature tends to suggest that the jury is still out. While some authorities have accepted the fact that that some degree of split is inevitable, for many more deciding how to deal with 'twin-hattedness' is very much a live issue.