State intervention and agrarian class formation: Dimensions of the access problem in the Kosi Development Region of NE Bihar,India

The theme of this paper is that access has to be discussed along a number of dimensions simultaneously, and that the language of discussion must discard the ‘David and Goliath’ metaphor of the individual versus the large organization. Access is a relationship which occurs systematically, not by chance. Its structural forms are determined by the formation and dissolution of social classes. Although access is more about power than rationality, to be examined more by reference to class struggle than culture, certain groups and classes are structurally unable through both processes to connect with alien criteria of resource allocation. At the same time the development of the bourgeois state and the transformation of rich peasants into rural capitalists cannot be completed without the incorporation of petty owners, tenants and labourers for the appropriation of their surplus value. This is maintained through the ideology of inclusion (populism) which presents access as an opportunity rather than a problem, and operates through the language of community, target groups, special programmes, extension and decentralization. The discussion in this paper is pursued in the context of material collected during fieldwork in the north-east of Bihar State, India where land reform, irrigation and intensive agricultural programmes have been undertaken since the early sixties.     

Policy monitoring and policy analysis

In this article we introduce a policy analytic technique that we call “policy monitoring.” Using data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Hazardous Waste Division, we demonstrate how the technique can be employed in actual practice. The case study demonstrates that EPA enforcements were responsive to stimuli emanating from outside the agency. In particular, relevant congressional committees were able to influence and effect change in the EPA's policy. In addition to demonstrating how policy monitoring can be employed, we also discuss how it can be used in other policy analytic situations.     

Reviews

Kaunda's Zambia, 1964 ‐ 1991. A Select and Annotated Bibliography compiled by Naomi Musiker.

South African Institute of International Affairs, Bibliographical Series No. 26, Johannesburg. 1993. viii plus 426pp.

Environment, Employment and Development edited by A.S. Bhalla. International Labour Office, Geneva, 1992. x plus 177pp. including bibliography.

Poverty in Developing Countries: A Bibliography of Publications by the International Labour Office World Employment Programme, 1975–91. International Labour Office Bibliography No 12. International Labour Office, Geneva, 1992. viii plus 152pp.

The South African Tripod: Studies in Economics, Politics and Conflict by B. Oden, T. Ohlson, A. Davidson, P. Strand, M. Lundahl, and L. Moritz. Scandinavian Institute of International Studies, Uppsala, 1994. 281pp. including tables and graphs.

Tears of the Dead, the Social Biography of an African Family by Richard Werbner. Baobab Books: Harare and Edinburgh University Press, 1991. xi plus 211pp. including genealogies and illustrations.

The Politics of the National Arts Festival by Kenneth Grundy. Occasional Paper, No. 34, Institute of Social and Economic Research. Rhodes University, Grahamstown. 66 pp. including notes.

The Agrarian Question in Southern Africa and Accumulation from Below: Economics and Politics in the Struggle for Democracy by Michael Neocosmos. Research Report No. 93, The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1993. 79 pp. including notes and bibliography.

The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass by Robert J. Gordon. Boulder, Westview Press, Colorado and Oxford, 1992. xiv plus 304 pp. including maps, tables, notes, references and index.

A Bed Called Home: Life in the Migrant Labour Hostels of Cape Town by Mamphela Ramphele. David Philip: Cape Town, 1993. vii plus 152pp. including illustrations, appendix, bibliography and index.

The Small and the New in Southern Africa: The Foreign Relations of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland since their Independence. A Select and Annotated Bibliography compiled by L.E. Andor. South African Institute of International Affairs, Bibliographical Series No. 25, Johannesburg, 1993. x plus 526pp.     

The council for national academic awards and legal studies

This is part one of a two-part paper. The papers outline the research for designing an m-learning (mobile phone) financial education game to counter financial exclusion. The paper will explain what led the researchers to use an m-learning game and what is unique about the design of the game compared to other serious games. The researchers will present the results of their 18-month project called “Innovation in Inclusion”, which teaches financial education to secondary school children aged between 13 and 15 years old, but which can be extrapolated into any type of interactive or m-learning method of teaching at any age. This game tested the hypothesis that if you increase financial education you can decrease the chances of being financially excluded in the future, by ensuring the people undertaking the learning aims can make effective financial decisions.     

Four-Field Anthropology: A Perfect Union or a Failed State?

Four-field anthropology departments are no longer in a ‘steady state’. Their integrity is threatened by a combination of internal and external developments. It remains to be seen whether they, in combination, are powerful enough to break the historic bonds that have united them for nearly a century.