Remittances and Working Poverty

Abstract

This article shows that the level and the predictability of remittances reduce working poverty in receiving economies through their effects on labour market dynamics. It takes advantage of the new cross-country dataset (ILO, KILM 7th edition) containing information on the share of individuals working for less than US$2 per day. To identify the main impacts, the article proposes a novel approach to deal with the endogeneity of remittances and migration. In addition, the results are robust to the possible error in measuring working poverty, to the potential attrition bias, and to the presence of various control variables.     

Evaluating the Role of Subsidy Reform in Addressing Poverty Levels in Malaysia: A CGE Poverty Framework

Abstract

Malaysia as one of the top subsidised countries around the world has launched to reduce subsidies to capture its development goals. This study, therefore, analyses the effects of the subsidy reform on the macroeconomic, welfare and poverty levels of Malaysia by applying a CGE model. The findings suggest that subsidy removal leads to significant falls in both income and consumption of rural, urban and non-citizen households, and consequently decreases their welfare. However, poverty levels among rural households will most likely increase significantly when compared to urban households due to their relatively low level of income compared to other groups.     

The use of simulation in combatting terrorism

Abstract

Combatting the continuing and growing threats of domestic and international terrorism requires new and bold efforts on the part of the industrial democracies. This article suggests that the simulation technique becomes one central element in these efforts. The article briefly presents the technique and shows how it has been used so far, and how it can be used in four different areas of combatting terrorism: training, research, planning, and education.     

The impact of the gender composition of households on inequality and poverty: a comparison across Russia and Eastern Europe

This study compares poverty and income distribution among gender subgroups in Russia and four East European countries—Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Poland—in 2000. Does the gender poverty gap exist in these countries and if yes, how big is it? How much does the level of gender inequality contribute to explaining the level of aggregate inequality and poverty within each country? To what extent may the differences emerging in cross-country comparisons of poverty and inequality be explained by differences in the gender composition of households, e.g., the prevalence of female-dominated households? These are the questions I seek to answer in this paper.Equivalent expenditure is adopted as a measure of economic welfare of households with different gender ratios. The gender gap is defined as the degree of distance between the economic welfare of households dominated by women and households dominated by men. Headcount poverty and average poverty shortfalls are calculated using relative poverty lines. Inequality is measured by Gini and Theil L coefficients.     

Why are Informal Loans Still a Big Deal? Evidence from North-east Thailand

Abstract

This article examines the use and benefit of informal loans for different income groups of rural households in north-east Thailand. Using a difference-in-differences estimation approach, which is later complemented by propensity score matching, the article shows that different household groups profit from informal loans in different ways. Poor households increase their asset endowment, and in particular farming assets, whereas rich households’ (food) consumption rises, especially if households borrow due to a shock. By showing that informal loans serve different households for different purposes, this article provides an explanation why they still play an important role.     

The Syrian wars of words: international and local instrumentalisations of the war on terror

Abstract

This article presents a study of the ‘wars of words’ among selected parties involved in the Syrian conflict. Based on a combination of content analysis and critical discourse analysis (CDA), it examines actors’ discourses within the United Nations Security Council (2011–2015), the global arena of confrontation and international legitimisation of armed actions. Here, it investigates their instrumentalisation of the word ‘terrorism’ and the war on terror narrative, and it explores the dynamics of discursive (de)legitimisation of the use of violence in Syria. The article shows how parties instrumentalised this narrative to criminalise their enemies while legitimising their own violent actions. By doing this, the paper also offers a broader reflection on the global narrative on terrorism, and its different reception and instrumentalisation by core and peripheral actors.     

Something Funny Happened on the Way to Reform Success: The Case of Budget Reform Implementation in Ghana

Abstract

The current article discusses experience with budgeting and financial management reforms in Ghana and is particularly focused on the development of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) between 1998 and 2002. Evidence shows that this reform began well but faltered after an initial period of progress. A number of factors are referenced in trying to explain why reform implementation was derailed, including reform ownership and political will, organizational integration and organizational incentives, and strategic capacity. All of these factors are commonly presented as influences on reform implementation. The Ghanaian experience provides detail as to how such influences could work.     

Can Producer Associations Improve Rural Livelihoods? Evidence from Farmer Centres in India

Abstract

Rural producer associations are considered a potential community-driven solution to the problems of smallholder agriculture. This article evaluates the impact of organising female farmers into producer associations in Gujarat, India. The initiative provided training, information, access to inputs, risk mitigation, and market linkages. Over 18 months, the programme weakly increased members’ non-farm income and access to output markets. It had stronger impacts on members’ awareness and utilisation of financial services. Impacts were heterogeneous, varying by pre-existing socioeconomic conditions. These findings suggest that producer associations can lower transaction costs for smallholders, but that poverty alleviation may be a longer-term prospect.     

French Caribbean organizations and the ‘Black question’ in France

Abstract

Collective remittances are a particular kind of flow, which is gaining more and more attention. It puts into light the role of diaspora associations in promoting the development of the origin countries. The aim of the article is to analyze how diaspora associations cope with development issues and the impacts of these activities in terms of migrants' new forms of citizenship. It draws attention on the relationship between diaspora and transnationalism stressing that, nowadays, the immaterial dimension of ethnic belonging encompasses also a material dimension made of cross-border connections; thus, allowing migrants to participate on the both shores of migration. Using the concept of the Political Opportunity Structure, the article shows the role played by the host country on the way migrants organize themselves and on how they act as citizens at home by engaging in development actions. The comparative approach puts into evidence that the different characteristics of Ghanaian migrants in Italy and in the UK shape transnational development actions but in a different way than one would expect: the relative lack of integration seems to stimulate migrants to better development actions at home since, in so doing, they can be recognized as actors also in the place where they live.     

Do Changes in the Labour Market Take Families Out of Poverty? Determinants of Exiting Poverty in Brazilian Metropolitan Regions

Abstract

Using survival models, we test whether short-term changes in the labour market affect poverty duration. Data are from the Brazilian Monthly Employment Survey. Such a monthly dataset permits more accurate estimations of events than using annual data, but its panel follows households for a short period. Then methods that control for both right- and left-censoring should be used. The results are as follows: households with zero income are not those with the lowest chances of exiting; changes in aggregate unemployment do not affect poverty duration; and increasing wages in the informal sector has a negative effect on poverty duration.     

Poverty traps and nonlinear income dynamics with measurement error and individual heterogeneity

Theories of poverty traps stand in sharp contrast to the view that anybody can make it through hard work and thrift. However, empirical detection of poverty traps is complicated by the lack of long panels, measurement error and attrition. This paper shows how dynamic pseudo-panel methods can overcome these difficulties, allowing estimation of nonlinear income dynamics and testing of the presence of poverty traps. The paper explicitly allows for heterogeneity in income dynamics, to account for the possibility that particular groups of individuals may face traps, even if the average individual does not. These methods are used to examine the evidence for a poverty trap in labour earnings, income and expenditure in urban Mexico and are compared to panel data estimates from a short rotating panel. The results do find evidence of nonlinearities in household income dynamics, and demonstrate large bias in the panel data estimates. Nevertheless, even after allowing for heterogeneity and accounting for measurement error, we find no evidence for the existence of a poverty trap for any group in our sample.     

What makes political authorities legitimate? Students’ ideas about legitimacy in five European democracies and hybrid regimes

ABSTRACT

Because the legitimacy of political authorities exists only in the eyes of citizens, this study investigates which criteria citizens use to decide that an authority is legitimate. By comparing ideas about what makes political authorities legitimate, this study in five European democracies and hybrid regimes illuminates the ‘demand side of political legitimacy’. Using original student survey data, this article compares expectations of students from the Netherlands, France, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia about how political authorities should acquire the right to rule and how they ought to behave when in office. The analysis shows that the respondents across the five countries use similar criteria for granting legitimacy. Across the five countries, throughput and input were more important criteria for legitimacy than the output produced by authorities. Although several country differences were found, these differences did not align with regime type. The findings challenge the widespread view that what kind of authorities people consider legitimate is determined by their socialization in a particular political regime.     

Being poor,feeling poorer: Combining objective and subjective measures of welfare in Albania

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how combining objective and subjective measures of welfare can enrich traditional poverty profiles by exploring the relationship between these welfare measures, and examining what explains the differences between the two. One important finding of our analysis (using data for Albania) is that reconciling subjective and objective poverty profiles suggests the presence of sizable economies of scale. This result calls for increased attention to the proper estimation of a scale parameter for poverty analysis, as changes in assumptions on economies of size and adult equivalence scales are likely to produce significant changes in the analysis of poverty and its distribution across households and individuals.     

The Effects of International Remittances on Poverty and Inequality in Ethiopia

Abstract

The article studies the effects of international remittances on poverty and inequality in Ethiopia using an urban household survey from 2004. Counterfactual consumption in the hypothetical case of no remittance is estimated in a selection-corrected estimation framework. Inequality and poverty values in the hypothetical and actual cases are then compared. There is a significant reduction in poverty, while inequality does not change. The head count, the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap ratios decreased from 0.41 to 0.38, 0.14 to 0.13, and 0.064 to 0.057 respectively.     

Revitalizing Local Government Performance Management: Further Dissecting the Role of Socioeconomic Status and Social Mobilization Policy

ABSTRACT

This article examines how socio-economic status and social mobilisation are linked to local government performance management in Nepal. As part of local government reform, Nepal adopted a social mobilisation policy in selected local governments to empower communities for their effective participation. Our results show that socio-economic status and social mobilisation have a significant relationship with performance management. Female literacy, for example, is strongly and significantly associated with performance management, while area has a significant positive relationship but population has only a weak positive relationship. In contrast, poverty has a significant negative correlation. More importantly, mobilisation has a significant, though modest, positive association with performance management particularly in participatory planning and budgeting, fiscal discipline, and administrative management. This indicates that improving the socio-economic status of citizens and their mobilisation for empowered collective action can be one important strategy to improve the performance capacity of local government.     

Bombers and Bystanders in Suicide Attacks in Israel, 2000 to 2003

This article analyses the results of interaction between suicide operatives and bystanders in the course of 103 suicide attacks in Israel over a recent 3-year period. It shows that bystanders' intervention tended to reduce the casualties arising by numbers that were both statistically and practically significant. When bystanders intervened, however, this was often at the cost of their own lives. The value of a challenge was particularly large for suicide missions associated with Hamas, but Hamas operations were also less likely to meet a challenge in the first place. These findings, although preliminary, may have implications for counterterrorism. More systematic collection of statistical data relating to suicide incidents would be of benefit.     

Research Note: Former Extremist Interviews Current Extremist: Self-Disclosure and Emotional Engagement in Terrorism Studies

Abstract

In this article I describe how recognizing elements from my own extremist past made me emotional while interviewing a jailed terrorist about his motivations for joining Islamic State. I relate how this mood led me to an uncontrolled self-disclosure and recount how he agreed to elaborate on his motivations for joining IS, despite initial reluctance to talk about them. Then, I present some considerations on whether research in which emotional attachment is involved can produce critical scientific knowledge. The basic aim of the article is to develop methods, concepts and means to contribute to research on the motivations of terrorists.     

The dancing body in peace education

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the potentials of the dancing body in peace education seen from a transrational perspective. The author explores how the multifaceted and creative body as worked with in the conscious dance and movement practice Open Floor can be tapped into and drawn upon to engage the multiple potentials of humans as contact boundaries at work. She reflects in this regard upon her own experiences as an Open Floor teacher. The article first discusses how the experience of dancing in Open Floor unfolds a creative process that is 1) both intrarelational and interrelational, and 2) always in transformation. Further, the article discusses how the dancing body is engaged as holistic, relational and dynamic through the Open Floor teaching tool 4 × 4, and how this dancing body supports a creative engagement with intra-inter dynamics in peace education.     

Digital mediations of everyday humanitarianism: the case of Kiva.org

Abstract

The proliferation of Web 2.0 platforms that aim to facilitate social action, often connected to international development or environmental sustainability, has contributed to the ongoing popularisation of development. In this article, I argue that it has resulted in the digitally-enabled constitution of everyday humanitarians, who are everyday people supportive of poverty alleviation. Kiva.org, a US-based online microlending platform that invites everyday humanitarians to make US$25 loans to Kiva entrepreneurs around the world, is a prime site to study these processes. I show how Kiva cultivates supporters through the mediated production of affective investments, which are financial, social and emotional commitments to distant others. This happens through the design of an affective architecture which in turn generates financial and spatial mediations. While these result in microloans and attendant sentiments of affinity, they also lead to financial clicktivism and connections that obscures the asymmetries and riskscapes resulting from Kiva’s microlending work.     

Legal Empowerment and Horizontal Inequalities after Conflict

Abstract

This article explores whether legal empowerment can address horizontal inequalities in post-conflict settings, and, if so, how. It argues that legal empowerment has modest potential to reduce these inequalities. Nevertheless, there are risks that legal empowerment might contribute to a strengthening of group identities, reduction of social cohesion, and, in the worst case, triggering of conflict. It looks at how two legal empowerment programmes in Liberia navigated the tensions between equity and peace.