The Kerala model of development a debate (Part 2)

Abstract

Every year hundreds are killed and millions made homeless by floods in the Ganges and Brahmaputra Basins. Every year millions go hungry because of the low productivity of agriculture in the region and the unequal distribution of its benefits. Some thirty percent of the world's poorest 800 million people live in the Basins of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. Their future prosperity depends both on changed agrarian relations and on the development of the resources of the two rivers. While coordinated development of the rivers could increase agricultural productivity and provide enormous quantities of hydroelectricity for the three main countries of the region—India, Nepal and Bangladesh—for the last thirty years such development has been precluded by intergovernmental dispute over the sharing of the Ganges. The conduct of the dispute is frequently determined by the immediate political needs of the factions in power in India and Bangladesh. As long as that remains the case, proposals for the regulation and development of the Ganges and Brahmaputra are likely to stagnate.     

New light on the origins of the Vietnam-Kampuchea conflict

Abstract

“Don't make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor.”

—Security regulation no. 8 for inmates at the Pol Pot regime's Tuol Sleng prison, Phnom Penh, 1977–8.     

Vietnam and the governments and people of Kampuchea

Abstract

In December 1978, the Far Eastern Economic Review discussed the prospects of the newly-fanned United Front for National Salvation (UFNS) in Kampuchea led by Heng Samrin. It quoted Western intelligence sources as saying that in villages where it was established, one of the first moves the UFNS made was to demolish the communal dining halls built by the Pol Pot forces. The sources commented: “surprisingly, the Front seems to be getting popular support.”     

Appendix B: Koreans in Japan and the DPRK

Abstract

It is not often that an entire group of people change their minds on a foreign policy issue, at least within a short space of time. On Kampuchea, this did occur around 1978, when most of those who had previously sympathized with the Khmer Rouge declared their disillusionment. It meant admitting that there was much truth to the militant anti-communists' well-publicized case against the Khmer Rouge, who were indeed one of history's most brutal regimes. In the same period, however, as Michael Vickery has shown in “Democratic Kampuchea—CIA to the Rescue,” many of the same anti-communists suddenly dropped their opposition to the Khmer Rouge, whom they now saw as a useful opponent of Vietnamese communism.     

Trotsky,Gerschenkron and the political economy of late capitalist development

Abstract

The study of late capitalist development is often characterized as a battle between protagonists of market-led versus state-led development. For the latter position, Alexander Gerschenkron looms large, as one of the most significant theorists of state-led development under conditions of relative backwardness. There are striking similarities between Gerschenkron's explication of the advantages of backwardness and Leon Trotsky's concept of uneven and combined development and the privilege of backwardness. (These similarities have been commented upon often but rarely subject to closer comparison.) Indeed, both men share a common problematic – the comprehension of how economically backward countries could skip stages of development in order to join the ranks of economically advanced countries. This article compares their conception of this problematic and illustrates how in a number of areas the two are complementary. These are: their rejection of unilinear patterns of capitalist development, their appreciation of the role of states and institutions in facilitating late development and their understanding of development as a disruptive social process. However, in crucial areas the two diverge. These are: their comprehension of international economic and political relations, the role and position of labour in late development and, ultimately, the potential for late capitalist development to unleash social upheavals and further, non-capitalist transformations. Overall, I suggest how Trotsky's and Gerschenkron's approaches can complement each other, but that ultimately they represent fundamentally opposed approaches to human development.     

Religious Participation and Economic Conservatism

Why do some individuals engage in more religious activity than others? And how does this religious activity influence their economic attitudes? We present a formal model in which individuals derive utility from both secular and religious sources. Our model, which incorporates both demand‐side and supply‐side explanations of religion, is unusual in that it endogenizes both an individual's religious participation and her preferences over economic policy. Using data on over 70 countries from the pooled World Values Survey, we find that religious participation declines with societal development, an individual's ability to produce secular goods, and state regulations on religion, but that it increases with inequality. We also find that religious participation increases economic conservatism among the poor but decreases it among the rich. Our analysis has important insights for the debate about secularization theory and challenges conventional wisdom regarding the relationship between religious participation and economic conservatism.     

影响公民对污名对象态度的诸因素分析

污名化使个体或群体拥有或被相信拥有某些被贬抑的属性和特质,这不仅使被污名者产生自我贬损心理,亦导致了社会对其岐视和不公正的待遇。影响公民对于污名行为的态度的因素很多,就业状况、同外来人口的交往意愿以及个人收入与污名行为接纳程度呈正相关,年龄、文化程度与污名行为接纳程度具有负相关关系;户口、个人政治面貌、媒体因素也对污名行为的接纳程度有显著影响。污名化理论会成为认识当代社会日常生活的工具,尤其对于人们摆脱特定的针对某些弱势群体的社会偏见是非常有利的。