Distributional effects of dollarisation: the Latin American case

Over the past two years Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala have adopted the US dollar as a legal currency in their countries. Several other Latin American countries, including Argentina, are currently discussing dollarisation. In this policy paper we look at the existing evidence for answers to two basic questions. First, under what general circumstances might dollarisation make sense? Second, are there clearly differentiated winners and losers from dollarisation and, if so, can we identify them, so that policy can take these political economy factors into consideration? Our review of the evidence demonstrates that there are consistent patterns of distributional effects, both positive and negative, from the choice of exchange rate regime. These effects are presently not considered in exchange rate policy decision making, but should be. While the effects are not as pronounced as those from major trade liberalisation agreements, they are significant. Ways to cushion the effects of exchange rate regime choice should be considered in the future by policy makers. Moreover, we find that dollarisation is embedded in the politics of the region. Dollarisation is often sold as a substitute for the deeper institutional reforms needed to improve economic performance and distribution in Latin America.     

At work in the temple of science: theory-building in the university

This paper develops a metaphor that shows academia as a temple of science where acolytes and priests devote themselves to building and developing an arcane lore that supports their faith. Though a somewhat strained metaphor, its heuristic value will become clearer when illustrated by lessons drawn from the sociology of knowledge. Through these lessons, I will attempt to demonstrate that the university setting has inexorably influenced the theories that have developed there, particularly in contributing to the perception of a gap between theory and practice that an applied, problem-solving field such as public administration can ill afford.     

Saving more than the children: the role of child-focused NGOs in the creation of southern security norms

The past decade has seen the emergence of ‘new critical discourses’ on security that argue for a widening of the term. This article hopes to add to such discussions by specifically examining the position of children and of the ngos that champion their rights in relation to the evolving security discourse in Southern societies. With this in mind, the first section of the article outlines the role of ngos in the contemporary practice of security. This will serve as an introduction to section two, where the activity of ngos vis-à-vis children will be considered. Such activity raises a number of questions with regard to the usefulness of incorporating children into the security discourse specifically, and to the social construction of ‘children’ generally. These will be outlined in section three. Section four argues for children to be considered as inherent to the creation of Southern security norms, while the final section concludes.     

The rural proletariat and the problem of rural proletarian consciousness

‘The rural proletariat’ has been employed as a sociological category to describe Caribbean populations for nearly 25 years, but confusion about such populations persists. Proletarianisation, the definition of rural proletariats, and the Marxist conception of consciousness, as applicable to such groups, are discussed in the following paper. The Cuban case is described to exemplify the European bias of some analysts, and the difficulties created by an uncritical transfer of western conceptions of class and of class consciousness to a colonial agrarian situation. A special effort is made to conceptualise the rural proletariat in terms of its relationships to the peasantry, and of the ‘concealment’ of landless workers in peasant communities.     

服务型政府建设的浙江经验

与市场化进程和社会治理体系发育互动演进的政府改革是"浙江模式"的重要组成部分。浙江服务型政府建设包含三个层面的内容:转变施政理念,实现从"发展型政府"向"服务型政府"转变;推进制度建设,实现从政府职能"重新定位"向"全面履行"转变;创新政策工具,实现从公共服务的"单一供给模式"向"复合供给模式"转变。但浙江服务型政府建设仍然面临着深入推进的现实困境。当前我国的权力配置结构未发生重大调整,地方政府行为逻辑未发生实质性转变,是服务型政府建设推进艰难的重要原因。在法治的框架下,以调整政府层级间关系为突破口,建立"混合型行政管理体制",增强地方政府自主性,加强社会问责,确保政府职能全面履行,是服务型政府建设的重要路径。