Contrasts in Development in Bihar: A Tale of Two Villages

Abstract

The article investigates the economic and social changes that have occurred over the last 30 years in two villages in Bihar, one of the poorest states in India. The two villages are on different development paths: one based on agricultural diversification and local non-agricultural employment, the other dependent on migration to distant labour markets. They therefore connect with India’s overall growth in different ways. Neither development model delivers clearly superior outcomes in terms of incomes, nor are they exhausted, but the long-term sustainability of a migration-led model remains debatable.     

A Tale of Two Cities: Bureaucratisation in Mayor-Council and Council-Manager Municipalities

This paper presents a theory that predicts under what circumstances self-interested politicians ‘bureaucratise’ their administrations, in the sense that they delegate the powers to hire, fire and promote public employees to autonomous bodies (like civil service commissions). The main testable proposition is that, in polities with a higher concentration of powers, politicians will bureaucratise their administrations to overcome time inconsistency problems in their relationships with public employees. This prediction is tested with data drawn from US municipalities, where two main types of local governments co-exist: mayor-council and council-manager. Results show that municipal governments with a higher concentration of powers (i.e. mayor-council) tend to have more bureaucratised administrations.     

Daughter Elimination in Tamil Nadu,India: A Tale of Two Ratios

A disturbing feature of demographic trends in India is the sharp decline in the proportion of girls to boys. Most existing analyses of the Indian child sex ratio present a country wide picture and focus on trends across states. Such state level analyses may hide intra state variation. This paper uses district and village data on sex ratio at birth and infant mortality to examine the extent, geographical spread and nature (before or after birth) of daughter deficit within the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Our analysis shows that (i) daughter deficit in Tamil Nadu occurs in nearly half the state's districts; (ii) a large proportion of daughter deficit occurs before birth; (iii) daughter deficit rises with birth order and (iv) daughter elimination is not confined to particular socio-economic groups.     

A Tale of Two Egypts: contrasting state-reported macro-trends with micro-voices of the poor

Poverty, inequality, unemployment, torture and corruption were among the main reasons why millions of Egyptians protested to end 30 years of Mubarak's rule in January 2011. The speed with which the regime has fallen and its fragility surprised the world. This is mainly because of the false image of a stable, prosperous and progressive Egypt propagated by the state, ignoring another Egypt, a poor, suffering and repressed one. The failure to see the latter Egypt led to the fall of the former. The aim of this article is to tell a ‘tale of two Egypts’ by contrasting the experiences and voices of poor Egyptians with the misleading figures reported by the state. The analysis shows how the state was able to provide Egyptians with growth without equity, education without inspiration, employment without security, health services without care and voting without any real impact on political processes.     

A Tale of Two Kazakhstans: Sources of Political Cleavage and Conflict in the Post-Soviet Period

Departing from some prominent scholarship on Kazakhstani politics, the author argues that competition between financial–industrial groups over scarce economic and political resources—rather than inter-clan or centre–periphery rivalries—largely determines who gets what, when and how. While clan politics and regional grievances may still influence struggles over the distribution of power and wealth, their importance has diminished in recent years. Instead, observable political conflict has centred around competing financial–industrial groups, which represent the diverse, and at times clashing, interests of Kazakhstan's business and political elites.     

"共产党要接受监督"与党的执政方式的转变

“共产党要接受监督”是党的八大提出和邓小平特别强调的一个重要思想,是对权力监督理论的一项重大发展,同时也是对共产党执政方式转变提出的根本要求。当前最主要的,是要正确处理党的领导与党要接受监督的关系,“党”与“民”的关系,“不搞群众运动”与群众监督的关系,“党的喉舌”与舆论监督的关系等。     

A Tale of Two Countries: Markets and Transboundary Water Governance Between the United States and Mexico

While there is a robust literature about using tradeable permits as a solution to pollution externalities, less work has applied these principles to the area of transboundary water management. This article proposes the use of transboundary water banking as a means for addressing issues of water externalities, conflict over water resources, and incentive compatibility. First, the article provides clarity to this discussion by synthesizing relevant literature over transboundary water governance, focusing on the experience between the United States and Mexico over the Colorado River. Second, the article formalizes the idea of a transboundary water bank and the efficiency of an auctioned versus grandfathered permit program. Third, the article provides a brief formulation of the market design elements of such a scheme, namely four conditions that enable a sort of Nash Equilibrium among agents. The article concludes by alluding to the parallels between energy and water markets. While only a start, this article seeks to catalyze more formal mathematical modeling of solutions to transboundary water governance.     

印共(马)在西孟加拉邦的执政实践

印共(马)在印度东部重镇西孟加拉邦三十多年的执政实践领导该邦走出了一条独具地方特色的发展道路,在农业和农村发展、地方工业化、社会和谐与稳定、民权保护等方面取得了明显成效.其地方执政也面临着诸多现实问题的挑战:工业化进程正遭受阻力,印共(马)坚持改革取向与保持其多元支持基础之间具有相悖性,左翼阵线内部存在分歧,应对反左势力的挑战.     

The global game of football: The 2002 World Cup and regional development in Japan

Analysis of major sports or 'mega'-events, including the Soccer World Cup, enables consideration of several overlapping and intersecting issues. These include: centre-periphery relationships related to governance in world sport; power relations between nation states, supranational sport associations and the sports business; the media-sport-business connection; the cultural production of ideologies needed to cover emergent fissures-- such as over who actually controls 'global games'; and what the costs and benefits of hosting these events actually are. By focusing on the relationship between the 2002 World Cup and the development of the social and football infrastructure in contemporary Japan, this paper offers insight into the relationship between the global and the local, and especially the last of these issues. It concludes that attempts to utilise football and the (co-)hosting of the 2002 World Cup for sports purposes has benefited the development of the sport as a commercial spectacle rather than as an everyday practice. Related goals, such as the relocation of population from the centre to the periphery, economic income generation and a general improvement in the quality of life of the Japanese population as a whole, are still far from being accomplished.     

The State and the Internet: A Call for Collective Responsibility

The other great transformation in the world besides the rising power of the emerging economies has been the ever deeper penetration of the Internet in civil society and the economy. Alone among world leaders, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has sought to address the sticky issue of how to “civilize the Internet” in the G‐8, a key forum of global governance which France chairs this year. As a kind of historical document, in this section we publish Sarkozy's speech to the leading information technologists and entrepreneurs he gathered in Paris in May for the first “e‐G‐8” Summit. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, was among the attendees. We include his report to the 21st Century Council of the Nicolas Berggruen Institute.