Le théologien et le somnambule: un épisode récent de l'histoire almoravide en Mauritanie

In 2012, images of a mystical mermaid known locally as Mami Wata circulated on the Internet and via people's mobile phones, sparking rumours that Chinese labourers had captured her as they were installing underwater fibreoptic cables. Appearing as a grotesque sea-creature with a gnarled, shrivelled body, this new image of Mami Wata challenges older, popular depictions of her as a beautiful maiden. Further, in her deformed body, Mami Wata reveals new tensions arising from promises of wealth and modernisation promoted by both Chinese and Congolese governments. Accounts of rumours/urban legends and metaphors of contagion animate larger contemporary discussions concerning development projects, “otherness” and the influence of the Internet and mobile phone technology on production of popular African culture. The female siren, Mami Wata, is a recurring motif in Kinshasa's collective urban imaginary. Historically she has been an expression of modernity and hybridity through visual representation in popular painting, sculpture and television serials. Now Mami Wata appears in the digital world. In this article, in addition to analysing the ways in which contemporary technology mediates this archetypal figure, I draw on notions of otherness, recent historical, political and economic changes in the Democratic Republic of Congo to analyse the ways they inform the particular shape and meaning that Mami Wata takes when transformed into the digital domain.     

The use of local direct democracy in the Czech Republic: how NIMBY disputes drive protest behaviour

Over the past 15 years there has been an increase in the use of local direct democracy in the Czech Republic. The analysis shows that the primary cause has been the regulation of development projects. Using transaction costs economics (TCE) approach it is shown how the regulation related to the siting of development projects leads to a not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) response resulting in political activism that uses institutions of local direct democracy. Drawing from the TCE perspective, in this article it is argued that the key sources of this political mobilisation have been the existence of contractual hazards related to development projects and an inability to form credible commitments between developers and communities. The article highlights a previously neglected explanation for the increased use of direct democracy because sources outside the political system often go unnoticed and contributes to the research on NIMBY disputes and on the expansion of direct democracy.     

DECISION MAKING REVISITED

Decision Making is a case study of the decision to raise the Bank Rate by 2 per cent (to 7 per cent) on 19 September 1957. Following the decision there were rumours that there had been improper disclosure of information before the official announcement. There was newspaper speculation and Questions were asked in the House of Commons. Later, a Tribunal of Inquiry was set up which found that there had been no improper disclosure but which revealed much not previously known about the way the Treasury and the Bank of England worked, both separately and together. This article reconsiders selected aspects of the original study in the light of files recently released in the Public Record Office and of other publications since the book was published. It includes comments about the availability of files, open government, and the study of public administration in the United Kingdom.     

GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: CHANGES AND CHALLENGES

This paper examines the issue of governance in the process of economic development. The paper first provides a literature review on the various arguments regarding the role of government in promoting economic development and the major issues emphasized in recent government reform projects. The paper then focuses on three major policy changes and reforms that are related to the area of governance and economic development: (1) regulatory reform, (2) privatization policy, and (3) decentralization policy. The paper concludes with discussions about the continuing arguments about the role of government, the increasing importance of local governments, and the contribution of nongovernmental or nonprofit organizations in economic development.     

Power,Resistance and Development in the Global South: Notes Towards a Critical Research Agenda

This article engages with radical critiques of the Eurocentric grammar of development discourses. I start from a position of considerable sympathy with their appreciation of the discursive dimensions of power that attach to the idiom of development and their solidarity with the oppositional projects of subaltern groups. However, this sympathy combines with a considerable degree of disagreement in terms of how the discursive power of development is understood and how the dynamics of popular resistance are theorised. As an alternative to the relatively crude postulation of development as a discursive regime that enables the West to exercise power over the Rest, I develop an argument that emphasises the multivalent character of the idiom of development and trace this multivalence to situated contestations that take place between opposing political projects that strive to shape the form and direction of social change in specific ways. Furthermore, I will argue that this contentious dynamic becomes particularly evident in those world-historical conjunctures when subaltern groups mobilize around social movement projects that destabilise hegemonic power relations in the capitalist world-system. To illustrate this point, I will provide a broad-brushed outline of three distinct ‘development regimes’ that have shaped North–South relations from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century and discuss the ways in which these regimes have been destabilised by the articulation of oppositional meanings of development articulated from below by progressive social movement projects. Finally, I draw on my own fieldwork experiences to reflect on how critical scholars can engage with movement projects that challenge the dominant directions and meanings of development in ways that can contribute to democratic deliberations within social movements.     

Environmental resettlement and development,on the steppes of Inner Mongolia,PRC

Abstract

The World Bank, other development institutions and a few countries, like China, have elaborated resettlement policies which envisage Resettlement with Development (RwD). However, the understanding of Development embodied in the discourse of RwD is confused. After distinguishing between the concepts of development as outcome and development as process, we investigate two projects of environmental resettlement in Inner Mongolia, PRC. The planning and implementation of these projects reveal the state's interpretation of RwD. There has been some Development (outcome) in some places, notably improvements in material well-being. However, the processes of development have been more extensive, involving increased participation in markets for produce and labour. The state, we conclude, identifies involvement with markets as the principal means of achieving material Development outcomes.     

The environmental sciences and economic development

This article deals with one aspect of the relationship between the environmental sciences and economic development, namely, the relationship between studies of natural resources and the appraisal of agricultural development projects. It reviews some such projects in which no real attention was paid to surveys of natural resources and passes on to consider the land systems approach to the appraisal of land capability and, briefly, the applicability of” benefit/cost analysis to agricultural development projects. Its principal concern, however, is with the lamentable tendency for land resource surveys to be conducted independently of economic enquiry. It enumerates some of the reasons for this state of affairs, and suggests certain possible remedies.     

Conservation and Development: Justice,Inequality, and Attitudes around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

ABSTRACT

Do national parks promote development in their immediate surroundings? And is local development instrumental in the success of conservation goals? We investigated allocation of opportunities and burdens around a national park in Uganda. Our findings suggest that direct benefits from conservation and development projects may promote distributional justice by compensating for park-related damages, but are too limited in their coverage to impact development. Indirect benefits related to transportation, health, education, and security affect a far greater segment of the population. Furthermore, the benefits of conservation tend to increase local economic inequality. Contrasting tendencies in terms of distributional justice and economic equality can partly be explained by the human geography of national parks and this geography must be taken into account if broad development goals are to be achieved. Improved local attitudes towards the park seem to have resulted from a complex of effects rather than any single development initiative.     

Motivations behind citizen aid: Norwegian initiatives in The Gambia

Abstract

Little is known about citizen aid initiatives originating in Norway, and they are not recognised as part of the official Norwegian development aid. Citizen aid initiatives are personal and small, and by themselves they do not raise large sums of money, nor do they individually have a large-scale development impact. But collectively, their influence on sponsors in Norway and on aid beneficiaries in the Global South might be substantial. Through qualitative interviews, this study explores the motivations of Norwegian founders of citizen aid initiatives, who run small development projects in The Gambia. The study finds that they are motivated by the very characteristics of these citizen aid initiatives which set them apart from formal development organisations. These include the initiatives’ small size, which allows for a personal closeness to and control over the projects. These features are often interconnected with motivations stemming from the founders’ personal experiences. The study finds that, inasmuch as the founders see the need for beneficiaries to be supported, they also experience a need to help themselves. The founders’ identities, as helpers and givers, are both formed and continually reinforced by their personal involvement in this specific type of aid work.     

Enhancing sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa: concepts,recommendations and illustrations

In recent years, the concept of sustainable development has received renewed attention. As global resources shrink and needs continue to grow, the staying power of development impact is becoming central concern of both governments and donors. Recent studies have shown that only a small percentage of projects throughout the world have achieved sustainability, and the need for improving the long-term vitality of development investments is growing. No area in the world has shown more need of this than Africa. This paper outlines a conceptual approach for analyzing sustainability and synthesizes the lessons learned from the application of this model in recent field work. The model is based on the theory that two preconditions must exist before sustainability can occur: 1 ) commitment to long term sustainable development; and 2) beneficiary and stakeholder involvement via incentives which support achieving sustainability . Fieldwork-based recommendations to enhance sustainability include: 1) understand the long-term incentive structure that drives the project; 2) identify performance targets and communicate results early-on; 3) identify long-term recurrent costs and funding options; 4) build in flexibility to the project plan; 5) build-in ways for participants to support and “take ownership” of the project; 6) use local resources, both human and physical, and keep technologies simple; and 7) use marketing strategies to reinforce perceived, satisfactory benefits of the project. Case examples of successful African projects from West Africa, Burkina Faso and Kenya illustrate the application of the sustainability concepts. In the context of these illustrations, the sustainability framework appears useful for understanding and analyzing sustainability and provides a necessary addition to thinking about development projects and programs.     

Exploring Millennial Generation in Task Values and Sector Choice: A Case of Employment in Planning

This study investigates task values and motivations of “millennial” generation of planners and identifies important factors affecting their public sector choices. Multinomial logistic regression comparing the task values and specializations in private and nonprofit sectors with public sector was performed. Millennial generations in public sector value communication and implementation tasks where at young workers in private and nonprofit sector place importance on tasks related to administration and plan and policy development. The finding indicates private companies give favorable opportunities to the young workers to take leadership role in projects and appreciate their management skills to operate the programs and plans.     

State formation,development, and the politics of self-help in Kenya

Issues of rural development, state formation, and political effectiveness are of paramount importance in Africa today. Analysis of Kenya's Harambee self-help approach to development contributes to our understanding of these issues by clarifying not only the ways in which political and economic concerns are linked in one African nation in a hierarchy based on a patrimonial model of political behavior but also some facets of elite behavior and peasant-state relationships. This paper argues that self-help is central to Kenyan politics and hence to the operation of this model of political behavior, serving the interests and needs of both Kenyan elites and rural communities. Through their self-help projects rural Kenyans neither reject the state retreating into the economy of affection nor permit elites exclusive access to the benefits of both public and private resources. Rather, using elite networks to gain support for self-help projects, residents of rural communities improve their access to highly valued collective goods. These processes are currently being modified in some important ways by the Moi government.     

Ripple effects: the groundnut scheme failure and railway planning for colonial development in Tanganyika, 1947–1952

While the reasons for the failure of the groundnut scheme are well understood, its effects on colonial development in Tanganyika are not. Drawing from the voluminous paper trail that development planning leaves in its wake, this paper traces the effects of the groundnut scheme demise on a contemporaneous plan to build a railway across Tanganyika to the Northern Rhodesian copperbelt. Tensions arose among the railway planners – civil servants, politicians, and consultants from Britain, Africa, and the United States – when, midway through the planning process, the scale of the groundnut scheme collapse became public. I demonstrate how this revealing crisis prompted planners to eschew the project's production-oriented impetus and embrace a welfare-oriented conclusion. By demonstrating the interlinked nature of development projects, this paper proposes a new angle for studying the history of development in an era characterised by the rapid proliferation of projects.     

Development: The devil we know?

Post-development theories have been accused of not having a future programme, and a number of authors has concluded that we are better off pursuing development as we know it. But the lack of instrumentality is not in itself a weighty argument against the analysis. At its best, 'post-development' offers an explanation of why so many development projects seem to fail. Two contributions are emphasised here: that transformation through development is linked to the agencies of elites, and that technical constraints imposed on developers shape the way in which they construct the problem. There is a need for extending the analysis, however. Including how development interventions are transformed in encounters with target populations gives a less rigid picture of the power of development, and can expose some of the problematic premises on which development interventions are based. In this way, post-development can offer a contribution to the practitioners of development.     

Interactive Policy Development: Undermining or Sustaining Democracy?

The question can be raised whether the principal effect of interactive policy development is to shore up a (creaking) democratic system or to destabilize its very foundations. In this article, a framework is presented for assessing the democratic credentials of interactive policy development. It is based on four views on how a democracy should work: instrumental or substantial democracy and direct or indirect democracy. Critics and advocates differ in their confidence that the intended aims can ever be realized. Based on extensive case study material of interactive local policy development projects collected between 1997 and 2001, the validity of the various arguments for or against interactive policy-making is analysed. The analysis indicates that whether interactive policy development undermines or sustains democracy depends principally on the extent to which divergences in the expectations of the various groups are made explicit and unrealistic or mistaken expectations are dispelled.     

Thinking race,thinking development

This paper challenges the dominant 'colour-blind' stance of development, arguing that the silence on race is a determining silence, which both masks and marks its centrality to the development project. The aim of the paper is to set out a basic framework for exploring this further. Noting many continuities with colonial formations, it identifies three critical dimensions of development which need to be interrogated: its material outcomes; its techniques of transformation; and its modes of knowing. Its analysis of race emphasises the diversity of understandings and the fluidity between them which underlie both their potential for transformation and their resilience. Following Omi and Winant's work on the USA, development is suggested to comprise a process of racial formation, made up of a vast range of diverse and contradictory racial projects which link the meaning of ethnic, racial and national identities to material entitlements.     

Development assistance: Ruined hopes and great expectations in Africa

This paper highlights the difficulties and complexities of development assistance projects through an analysis of 2 Urban Functions in Rural Development projects conducted by the US Agency for International Development (AID) in Upper Volta and northern Cameroon in 1977-82. The general objectives of the Upper Volta project were to carry out urban function studies, develop a plan for strengthening the contributions of urban centers to rural development, develop a list of investment priorities for facilities and services, and increase the capacities of the Ministry in planning processes and methods. The 2-year project was hindered by a 1-year delay in initiating assistance due to difficulties in locating a contractor. In addition, the contractor and other team members felt there was little justification for studies of spatial organization in a country with so much evident need; rather, they focused on a small rural works program and establishment of effective local government, producing an inconsistency between team activities and the original project agreement. A request by the team to extend the project 1 year beyond its official completion date to compensate for early delays was rejected by USAID. Nonetheless, there was agreement that the project had a small positive impact in Upper Volta. Key lessons from Upper Volta were transferred to the Cameroon project. Although this project was judged to have achieved its objective of preparing a regional plan and of identifying programs for facilities, services, and small-scale enterprises, it was beset by problems of inexperience and technical underqualification of team members, poor communication, inconsistency of USAID guidelines, and methodological confusion. It is suggested that a central challenge for such programs is to create a body of qualified Americans who can work with their local counterparts in meeting the challenges of development. A measure of the success or failure of these projects should be the degree to which learning contributes to improved performance.     

Of texts and practices: Empowerment and organisational cultures in world bank-funded rural development programmes

The World Bank's recent concern for ‘empowerment’ grows out of longer standing discussions of participation, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society. While commitments to empowerment enter World Bank texts with relative ease, their practice within Bank-funded projects is far more contingent, and the meanings they assume become much more diverse. This paper considers the relationship between such texts and the development practices which emerge, using an analysis of the ‘organisational cultures’ of the Bank and the many organisations on which it depends in the implementation of its rural development programmes. The paper presents a framework for analysing these organisational cultures in terms of (a) the broader contexts in which organisations and their staff are embedded; (b) the everyday practices within organisations; (c) the power relations within and among organisations; and (d) the meanings that come to dominate organisational practice. A case study of a development programme in Bangladesh is used to illustrate the ways in which cultural interactions between a variety of organisations – the World Bank, government agencies, NGOs, organisations of the poor, social enterprises – mediate the ways in which textual commitments to empowerment are translated into a range of diverse practices.     

Restoring Tsunami Damaged Coastal Lands in Sri Lanka: Evidence of the Anticommons?

After the 2004 Tsunami, non-governmental organisations and international groups sought permission from government agencies to implement ecosystem restoration projects. Following the logic of the anticommons problem, the likelihood of project implementation is hypothesised to be inversely related to the number of government agencies which have the right to permit use. Our findings are consistent with the anticommons problem: a marginal increase in the number of government agencies, each exercising the right to grant permission to the applicant, reduces the likelihood that a proposed project would ultimately receive permission.     

The Health Action Zone Initiative: Lessons from Plymouth

The article considers the impact of the Health Action Zone (HAZ) in Plymouth through a theory-based evaluation that combines theories of change and realistic evaluation. The study assesses the impact of 37 projects sponsored by this HAZ. The extent to which these projects used a realistic evaluation/theories of change framework and achieved their objectives are evaluated. The impact of these projects on the three main objectives of Plymouth HAZ – developing partnership working; modernising the care system; and tackling health inequalities – is assessed and explanations for the success or failure of specific projects are identified.