The Millennium Development Goals and Ambitious Developmental Engineering

Donor governments have been accused of not doing enough to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (mdgs), while the mdgs have been accused from other quarters of not doing enough for development. The former position takes the mdgs as an unquestionable good, while the latter posits them as a Western ruse for the sedimentation of core–periphery relations. This paper transcends this debate, identifying in the goals a logic of ambitious social, cultural and spatial engineering. Inspired by Foucauldian development anthropology, the paper highlights three themes implicit in mdg texts, requiring biopolitical interventions on bodies, societies and spaces, namely risk, sex, gender and family; Homo Economicus; and the city. The paper concludes with a reflection on the likelihood of resistance to such interventions.     

The New Sociological Imagination: Facing the Challenges of a New Millennium

This article introduces the reader to the problems and the topics treated by the contributors to this special issue of the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society. It offers a reflection on the concept of sociological imagination conceived as a key element for the task of facing the intellectual challenges of the present times. What is sociological imagination? How has it been used by the main cultivators of sociology throughout history? And particularly, how is sociological imagination being renewed nowadays by some of the most successful exponents of sociological research? These are some questions considered in this introduction. The new sociological imagination uses theory, history, empirical facts, logical formalization, systematic analysis, creativity, local knowledge, moral judgment and inspiration. What distinctively constitutes its elements is not just the search for correlations between abstract variables, but the search for pertinent relationships among facts, moral problems, structural conditions, historical concerns, personal worries and ethical values of contemporary societies. The new sociological imagination is a search for satisfactory ways of understanding the contemporary world in a rational, communicable, telling and coherent way, while also contributing to the development of the public sphere and a collective understanding of social issues.     

The Politics of Debt and Development in the New Millennium: an introduction

This article serves as an introduction to this special issue of twq on ‘Debt and Development in the New Millennium’. It highlights the gaps in our knowledge about debt that the following contributions seek to fill and why this is important, both analytically and politically. In doing so, it discusses two core objectives of the special issue: first, to examine the role(s) that debt plays in mediating the underlying tensions of neoliberal-led development and its emphasis on market-led growth and poverty reduction schemes; and, second, to interrupt, contest and deconstruct the dominant economic representations and meanings of debt. Although the contributions draw on different theoretical frames to explore different features of debt across a variety of social spaces, a core hypothesis running through each article is that that there are additional complex and paradoxical dimensions to debt beyond what is represented by its common-sense economic meaning as an amount of money borrowed, voluntarily, by one party from another. This introductory article concludes by providing the reader with an overview of each contribution comprising the special issue.     

The Chinese Revolution and the Communist International*

Abstract

This article is an intervention in some controversies concerning the role of the Communist International in and outside China. It seeks to tackle the inappropriate denial of its guidance and aid to the Chinese Revolution. In doing so, this paper makes several arguments. First, it argues that the Communist International provided the Chinese Revolution with valuable guidance, support and assistance. These contributed tremendously to the Communist Party of China’s birth, development, consolidation and maturation and advanced its theoretical self-consciousness. Second, while the Communist International gave its guidance in the sincere hope that the Chinese Revolution would benefit from correct theories and advanced experiences, it absolutised the theoretical conceptions of the classical Marxists and the Russian experience. This led to mistakes or misjudgments that deserve an accurate evaluation. Third, the Communist International was itself conducting theoretical exploration, and was generally able to adjust its own theories and change its strategies. Fourth, for all the Communist International’s guidance, the universal tenets of Marxism had to be integrated with the concrete practice of the Chinese Revolution, and it was the ability of Chinese communists to Sinicise Marxism–Leninism in what amounted to a theoretical revolution under Mao Zedong’s leadership that accounts for the revolution’s ultimate victory.     

Measuring Socio-economic Status in the Millennium Villages: The Role of Asset Index Choice

How are poverty analyses and poverty traps assessments affected by the choice among conventional methods of asset index construction? To address this question, this article uses panel data from four sites in the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) in Malawi, Tanzania, Mali and Ghana to study the relationship between eight asset indices and the sensitivity of findings related to poverty rates, poverty transitions and poverty traps to the index used. We find that although estimations of poverty rates and transitions are largely consistent across indices, evidence of poverty traps can be conditional on which asset index is used. The asset indices studied include structural income, principal components, factor analysis and a reduced set of assets reflecting the portfolio assessed in the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) data.     

十月革命与巴黎公社

俄国十月革命没有可以直接效法的样板,可以借鉴的只有几个先例。其中,布尔什维克掌权后准备实施的措施大部分来自巴黎公社的经验。十月革命后,这些措施有的付诸实施,有的却并未落实,其中缘由值得研究。     

The Applicability of Best Value in the Nigerian Public Sector

We examine the applicability of Best Value practices in the Nigerian public sector and present a Best Value Model for Nigeria. We find the literature does not extend to the Nigerian context. We make contributions towards understanding stakeholder perceptions of public service delivery best practice. We show Best Value as a significant initiative for improving public service delivery. The mixed methods survey reveals Nigerian Best Value initiatives do not exist significantly, but are applicable. Outcomes are exploration of a new area for Best Value application, incorporation of implementation issues into the model and the seven-stage process for its implementation.     

Food security politics and the Millennium Development Goals

This article reviews proposals regarding the recent food crisis in the context of a broader, threshold debate on the future of agriculture and food security. While the MDGs have focused on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, the food crisis pushed the hungry over the one billion mark. There is thus a renewed focus on agricultural development, which pivots on the salience of industrial agriculture (as a supply source) in addressing food security. The World Bank's new 'agriculture for development' initiative seeks to improve small-farmer productivity with new inputs, and their incorporation into global markets via value-chains originating in industrial agriculture. An alternative claim, originating in 'food sovereignty' politics, demanding small-farmer rights to develop bio-regionally specific agro-ecological methods and provision for local, rather than global, markets, resonates in the IAASTD report, which implies agribusiness as usual 'is no longer an option'. The basic divide is over whether agriculture is a servant of economic growth, or should be developed as a foundational source of social and ecological sustainability. We review and compare these different paradigmatic approaches to food security, and their political and ecological implications.     

The Wheel of Development: the Millennium Development Goals as a communication and development tool

Despite the shortcomings of the Millennium Development Goals as a development tool, they have proven to be an important communication tool that is worth preserving after 2015. Inclusion of important themes of the Millennium Declaration and elements of the capability theory is essential in a post-2015 system, as well as putting human rights and gender principles at its core. Process orientation rather than end goals could lead to ‘Millennium Development Actions’ with ‘Progress Signs’, which, represented in a circular symbol, form a ‘wheel of development’, complemented by a Wheel of Governance.     

The Effects of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative on the Millennium Development Goals for Health

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) on the attainment of the health millennium development goals (MDGs) in Africa and identify other correlates of health MDGs. This way, the paper uses data from the World Bank and employs the difference in difference (DID) approach to estimate the impact of HIPC on health MDGs and to identify other determinants of health MDG attainment. The results show that the impact of HIPC on health MDGs is positive. Specifically, due to HIPC, the level of the following health MDG indicators decreased: mortality rate (infant); mortality rate (neonatal); incidence of tuberculosis; prevalence of HIV/AIDS, and mortality rate under five. However, the incidence of tuberculosis (all forms) registered an increase in Africa, even in treated groups. Our findings also indicate that MDGs for health will not be attained simultaneously because some variables that reduce mortality such as GDP per capita, natural resources and education cause HIV/AIDS.     

The Tunisian Revolt: Learning from the Mistakes of the Iranian Revolution

The Great Arab Revolt of 2011 has moved swiftly from the peaceful overthrow of autocrats in the nation‐states of Tunisia and Egypt to brutal repression in the tribal societies of Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. Meanwhile, the wired youth bulge of the Middle East that brought change is dissipating into an impotent diaspora while the organized interests of the old regimes and the once‐suppressed Islamists charge ahead to power. This section examines the revolt, the reaction and the power struggles in its aftermath.     

The Islamic Revolution: From the Shah to the Spice Girls

For most of human history, the other half of the species, women, were on the sidelines. Now they are central actors in all our societies as we negotiate the fraught transition from male‐dominated tradition to modernity and beyond. In this section we hear the voices of powerful women who in their own lives are making this historic shift.     

The Arab Revolution is Beyond America's Control

The Great Arab Revolt of 2011 has moved swiftly from the peaceful overthrow of autocrats in the nation‐states of Tunisia and Egypt to brutal repression in the tribal societies of Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. Meanwhile, the wired youth bulge of the Middle East that brought change is dissipating into an impotent diaspora while the organized interests of the old regimes and the once‐suppressed Islamists charge ahead to power. This section examines the revolt, the reaction and the power struggles in its aftermath.     

The Saudi Counter‐Revolution II

Just as the Arab Spring blossomed, the al‐Qaeda‐led era of terrorism came to an end with the killing of Osama Bin Laden in his Pakistani lair by American special forces. We asked two of the most contentious experts on all things Islamic—Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan—to assess the meaning of these historic moments on the future. Amr Moussa, the leading candidate for Egypt's presidency, and Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, also offer their views. Two top former intelligence agents from MI6 and the CIA look at the next turn of events—the Saudi counter‐revolution.     

The Saudi Counter‐Revolution I

Just as the Arab Spring blossomed, the al‐Qaeda‐led era of terrorism came to an end with the killing of Osama Bin Laden in his Pakistani lair by American special forces. We asked two of the most contentious experts on all things Islamic—Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan—to assess the meaning of these historic moments on the future. Amr Moussa, the leading candidate for Egypt's presidency, and Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, also offer their views. Two top former intelligence agents from MI6 and the CIA look at the next turn of events—the Saudi counter‐revolution.