Book Reviews

Arran Gare: NIHILISM, INC.: Environmental Destruction and the Metaphysics of Sustainability. Como, New South Wales, Australia: Eco‐Logical Press, 1996.

David Harvey: Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

David Macauley, editor: Minding Nature: The Philosophers of Ecology. New York: The Guilford Press, 1996.

Daniel M. Herman and John T. O'Connor: Who Owns the Sun? People, Politics, and the Struggle for a Solar Economy. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 1996.

Harold Crooks: Giants of Garbage: The Rise of the Global Waste Industry and the Politics of Pollution Control. Toronto: Lorimer, 1993

Sudhir Chella Rajan: The Enigma of Automobility: Democratic Politics and Pollution Control. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.

Garrett Hardin: Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.     

Globalisation and the state revisited: A view from provincial Vietnam

The article considers the changing nature of the state in an era of globalisation, exploring the impact on the state of changes in cross-border flows and the rise of private and transnational actors. Presenting data from two Vietnamese border provinces, the article paints a picture of a relatively powerful state, which appears to be extending its reach in some areas. Asking how we reconcile this with increased cross-border flows and the rise of private and transnational actors, the article suggests that where sub-national governments are less integrated in global financial architecture, and where domestic private capital has close relations with the state, the impact in terms of precipitating a diminution of state power is likely to be less. Equally, the article argues that there is a tendency in some of the literature to overstate the influence of foreign private capital and transnational institutions on the state in ways which seem inappropriate away from the capital city.     

Conceptualising technical change in the third world in the 1980s: An interpretive survey

Abstract

The third wave of democratisation has been accompanied by the spread of new institutions that allow citizens to directly participate in shaping policy outcomes. Leading international organisations, such as the World Bank and UN Habitat, have disseminated ‘best practice’ programmes identified with ‘good government’ policy reform efforts. One of the best known programmes, participatory budgeting (PB), was first adopted by an entrepreneurial government in 1989 as a means to promote social justice, accountability, and transparency. Yet, when these programmes are copied by policy advocates and pro forma adopters, the political pay-offs for government officials are smaller, which leads them to provide weaker support for the adopted policy. This article demonstrates that policy entrepreneurs are more likely to provide greater resources and support to innovative policies than their policy advocates and pro forma adopter counterparts due to the types of political payoffs available to them. The article concludes by considering when it might be most appropriate for international funding agencies and nongovernmental organisations to promote best practice policies.     

Market meets nationalism: making entrepreneurial state subjects in post-Soviet Russia

This paper argues that nationalism and neoliberalism should not be considered as conflicting ideologies, but can enter into a productive association. This association creates an entrepreneurial nationalism that people can actively embrace as self-governing subjects in pursuit of a good life and successful career, rather than as subjects governed through state-mandated projects from above. The paper illustrates this argument with material from nine months of fieldwork at a Russian elite university. While students at that university strive to develop their potential and increase their market value to be successful in the competition for the best jobs, they also emphasize that developing themselves is not antithetical to serving Russia and being true to one's country. On the contrary, advancing Russia and advancing one's own career are articulated as two sides of the same coin. At the same time, the Russian nationalist project is reframed in entrepreneurial terms: making the Russian nation strong is about developing its potential and raising its competitiveness in the global marketplace.     

Engaging the issues

From the editors: In 2005 Monthly Review Press (New York) published a book entitled China and Socialism: Market Reforms and Class Struggle, written by Martin Hart-Landsberg (a coeditor of Critical Asian Studies) and Paul Burkett. (The content of the book had appeared earlier, in the July-August 2004 issue of Monthly Review [vol. 56, no. 3].) We invited the editors of Critical Asian Studies to participate in a roundtable discussion of the issues that Hart-Landsberg and Burkett have raised. Responses from CAS editors Victor Lippit, Gene Cooper, Alvin So, Mobo C.F. Gao, and Tai-lok Lui appear in the September 2005 issue of the journal (vol. 37, no. 3). A rejoinder by Hart-Landsberg and Burkett is presented here.     

Too Many People and Too Few Livestock in West Africa? An Evaluation of Sandford's Thesis

We examine whether Stephen Sandford's (2006 Sandford, S. 2006b. “Too many people, too few livestock: the crisis affecting pastoralists in the Greater Horn of Africa”. Accessed at: http://www.future-agricultures.org/pdf%20files/Sandford_thesis.pdf [Google Scholar]b) ‘too many people, too few livestock’ thesis for the Greater Horn of Africa applies to West Africa. In a comparative study of seven pastoral systems across West Africa we found that pastoralists have generally successfully adapted to pressures on grazing resources. We describe three adaptive strategies: 1) integration and intensification in the Sudanian zone; 2) movement to the Sub-Humid zone; and 3) extensification in the Sahelian zone. We end by proposing four interrelated factors that account for the differences in pastoral systems between West Africa and the Greater Horn of Africa.