Change in state power,international conditions and peasant producers: The case of Kenya

Arguments for food self‐sufficiency at the level of small‐scale farms invariably refer to the need for national self‐sufficiency. This article shows that state‐inspired attempts to impose self‐sufficiency upon specialised middle peasant producers in Kenya have had the effect of reducing the supply of marketed food and increasing food imports. A change in the character of presidential power has also inhibited food production by large‐scale farms and this, together with imported price shocks, has reduced the supply of food for commercialised peasants who produce for international markets. Only very specific political conditions make it possible for international and internal circuits of capital and exchange to be harmonised through the power of a nation state.     

Political transition and civil society: The cases of Kenya and Zambia

Studies of regime change that focus on the “high politics” of transition tend to overlook the importance of civil society in democratization and liberalization. This article explores the role that organizations and institutions in society play as agents of political change. Elements of civil society influence both the processes and outcomes of political transitions. Case studies of Kenya and Zambia indicate that associational arenas representing civil society made important contributions in liberalizing and democratizing authoritarian regimes. Beyond this, contrasting the two cases highlights the factors that influenced their efficacy as agents of political transition. Differences are found in the character of the civil societies in the two countries. These differences help to account for the extent of Zambia’s transition when compared to Kenya. Peter VonDoepp is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida. From 1992 to 1995 he held a Foreign Language/Area Studies Fellowship at Florida’s African Studies Center. He is currently conducting research in Malawi on the role of religious institutions in political change. Until 1997     

Democracy,confusion, or chaos: Political conditionality in Kenya

We argue that the policy of conditioning all economic development aid on a process of democratization is a mistake. Good economic policy should be rewarded for its own sake. The process of democratization is costly to participants, and forcing it prematurely can lead to institutional collapse rather than development. Unclear definition of political conditionality has made donor policies inconsistent and capricious. We make these arguments conceptually and then review the experience of one of the most explicit cases of conditionality-induced “democratization”—Kenya. An aid cutoff stimulated the government to hold multiparty elections for the first time in many years. Despite the apparent success, the human and economic costs have been high, and the political changes less than donors hoped.     

Oil,war, and semiperipheral mobility: The case of Iraq

Semiperipheral states have been characterized as politically tumultuous and economically dynamic. Iraq, in particular, manifests these tendencies. I explore the crucial events, shifts, and discontinuities that add up to Iraq’s changing position within the world-system over the past half century. These elements cannot be studied independent of transformations in the historic “weak state/strong bourgeoisie configuration,” which are integral components of its change. Nor can they be examined apart from world conditions. The outcome of Iraq’s attempts at semiperipheral mobility is also determined by the global petroleum hunger and geopolitical situation. Especially in the last instance, whether the world context is favorable to a particular kind of move virtually determines the outcome.     

The impact of governmental structure and expenditures on the quality of life in urban areas

Despite the obvious complementarity in their objectives, public policy and quality of life or social indicators research have been done in mutual isolation. The integration of these streams of research offers policy analysts an alternate method for measuring impacts. Using this approach, the current study focuses on two questions: 1) Are variations in municipal structure related to policy outputs, i.e., municipal expenditures? 2) Are variations in municipal structures and overall targeted municipal expenditures related to the general quality of life in municipalities and the quality of specific services?

The sample for this study includes the central cities of the sixty-five most populated SMSAs in the United States. Pearson Product Moment correlational and crosstabulational techniques were used to examine these relationships. The results indicate that council manager systems tend to spend less than mayor council systems, yet, in some ways, offer a better quality of life. Differences in size and regional location were investigated by factor analysis as possible influences in this regard.     

Migration,rank-size distribution,and economic development: The case of Mexico

This is an examination of whether city size is truly an independent variable when the relationships between city size and certain economic and social phenomena are considered. A new hypothesis is presented that postulates that relative or systemic city size is an independent variable that affects urban growth patterns through varying, non-optimum migration flows. The hypothesis is tested using official Mexican data for the period 1960 to 1970.     

The adequacy of income: A social dimension in economic development

The adequacy of income of a household may be defined as the ratio of its income to the income level required to achieve the conventional standard of living in the socio‐economic group to which the household belongs. This concept has greater relevance than that of income for the study of consumer behaviour (e.g. propensity to save) and other social behaviour and pathologies. Income and need for income in a country do not necessarily rise proportionately over time, thus resulting in periods of declining, as well as periods of rising, income adequacy. Furthermore, in spite of the international demonstration effect, the need for income in developing countries is significantly lower than in developed countries resulting in a much smaller gap between income adequacies than between incomes.     

Organizational loyalty and personal ethics: The moral priorities of Chinese cadres

The ethical norms of senior cadres in the Peoples Republic of China are examined with respect to personal ethics, organizational loyalty and social responsibility. The extent to which one of these sets of norms may take priority over the other is investigated using survey research. The personal ethical values of the 46-50 age group are found to be unusually acute for a group of middle-aged administrators, much closer to those of the younger cadres. Also, they demonstrate exceptional homogeneity in their responses as compared to other age groups. However, they appear to have little independence of conscience when confronted with concrete decision making situations. Loyalty to the organization is found to be particularly dominant over personal ethics and responsibility to the larger society among these 46-50 year-old cadres. Lacking a moral anchor in any foundational philosophy or ideology, these cadres are highly vulnerable to control by the bureaucracies in which they are employed. Further research is suggested to explore the possibility that the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 may have impacted this particular generation of cadres in ways that severed their ties to Marxism and traditional Chinese values rooted in Confucianism.     

Public policy and quality of community life in american cities: a search for linkage

The purpose of this research is to identify and examine linkages that exist between public policy and quality of life in American cities. A review and analysis of public policy research and social indicators research over the past twenty years is included. Social indicators are further defined into both objective and subjective indicators. The developing confluence of the two areas of research constitutes the basis for the remainder of the paper.

The data for this study are derived from a nationwide survey conducted by Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., in late December, 1977 and early January, 1978, for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Interviews were conducted for a sample of 7,074 adults, asking them about their perceptions on the quality of community life, government services, social problems, and future possibilities. The findings are analyzed through use of a frequency distribution of the quality of life measures and the quality of public service variables.

The pattern of statistical relationships indicates that the nine public service variables are sharply divided into two groups. One, seven variables (police, garbage, street lighting, fire, public schools, parks and playgrounds, and road and street maintenance) are all highly inter-correlated. The correlation coefficients among them range from a high of .411 (police and fire) to a low of .218 (garbage and public schools). The other, public transportation and public health service are also closely inter-correlated, but their relationships with the other seven are all uniformly weak.

These two groups of public services have distinct political and policy implications. The first group of services tends to represent those traditionally well-established public services that are considered “vitally important” for the well-being of the general public. The second group, in contrast, tends to represent those public services that are relatively new and serving primarily the needs of low income or minority groups in the community whose political influence is most likely to be marginal.

A few generalizations may be drawn from the statistical relationships. First, the general indicators of community life quality such as feelings about the overall community and neighborhood are more strongly correlated with the quality ratings of public services than the quality indicators of specific life domains. Second, some of the strongest relationships are found between specific public services and specific domains of life quality that might be expected logically to have close association such as police and safety (r=.317) and public schools and child raising (r=.427). Third, those public services that are considered part of mainstream local services and important for the daily life of the general public (such as police, fire, public schools, parks and playgrounds, etc.) tend to be very strongly correlated with the measures of community life quality. Fourth, in contrast, those services that are primarily affecting underprivileged groups in the community and not considered part of the mainstream of local services are poorly or insignificantly correlated with the measures of community life quality.     

Uncertainty,risk, and wealth and income distribution in peasant agriculture

An ethical justification of the market system is that while generating inequality of income distribution it nevertheless provides an equal opportunity for people to improve their material well‐being (1, p. 169). It is argued that the market system creates a society of unequals, but that it is a fluid society in which, though all may not improve absolutely and relatively, the opportunity to do so is randomly distributed through the population. In terms of economic development, this implies that within a free market framework, the distribution of the gains from growth need not be biased towards any economic class. To use a cliche, one of the justifications of a competitive market system is that there is nothing inherent in its operation which makes ‘the rich get richer and the poor get poorer’. The main barriers to economic and social mobility are thus treated as imperfections in the market—racial and ethnic discrimination, differential access to capital markets, traditional constraints on job choice, and so on.

Recently Michael Lipton has suggested an analytical framework for explaining the optimizing behaviour of peasant cultivators which challenges this sanguine view (2). His ‘survival algorithm’ implies that inherent in the market organization of economic society is a tendency for the benefits from economic development to be distributed systematically in favour of the wealthier groups in the society.

In the following section I shall summarize Lipton's hypothesis and demonstrate its implications for the distribution of wealth and income over time in the agricultural sector of developing countries. In Section III policy conclusions of the analysis are presented.