Manhunt Presidency: Obama,race, and the Third World

Abstract

President Obama’s commitment to a creedal narrative of American exceptionalism and his understanding of the Third World as a space of ontological deficit together made for a presidency that could neither mitigate the structural racism of the United States nor deflect a racist foreign policy premised on an unending war against terror. By examining the murders of two American teenagers – Trayvon Martin and Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki – this essay argues that the very self-fashioning narratives that propelled Obama to the presidency of the United States rendered him incapable of effecting any substantive changes in the racism than animates its domestic and foreign policies.     

A note on the nyāya fallacy sādhyasama and petitio principii

Journal of Indian Philosophy -     

Tenancy contracts during transition: A study based on fieldwork in Uttar Pradesh (India)

This article attempts to situate the nature of and changes in tenancy contracts in the context of agrarian transition in developing countries such as India. Inter‐ and intra‐village variations in tenancy contracts are examined in detail for three contrasted villages in Uttar Pradesh (India), with the aim of bringing out the systematic basis of such variations. It is argued that Marxist analysis, based on the nature of class relations, offers a more credible explanation of the nature and unevenness of change, than neo‐classical analysis. Moreover, such analysis also offers a satisfactory explanation of the impact of tenancy on several commonly studied variables.     

A view on commercialisation in Indian agriculture and the development of capitalism

This is an attempt to investigate the reasons for the muted formation and development of capitalist relations in Indian agriculture, even while commercialisation in output markets has advanced considerably. Analysing the qualitatively differing character of exchange involvement, resting on the class basis of a differentiated peasantry, we have noted the differential dynamics that commercialisation entails for different classes and its overall, macroeconomic consequences. We argue that the desperate dependence on land as the basis for survival, with no alternative permanent means of livelihood, perpetuates the perverse exchange relations and retards productive accumulation. Most employment‐generating schemes sponsored by the state turn out to be ameliorative, providing only an intermittent supplementary source of income. This, along with the weak pull of a tardy industrial growth, only stabilises the petty‐holders. It is the preponderance or otherwise of petty‐holders, who are in no position to undertake productive accumulation themselves but could provide the ground for diversion of surplus into unproductive uses, that shapes the accumulation process.     

Aid curse with Chinese characteristics? Chinese development flows and economic reforms

Public Choice - The emergence of China as a major development partner requires a reassessment of traditional donor–recipient dynamics. In addition to adopting new rhetoric like...