Currie's ‘leading sector’ strategy of growth: an appraisal

Abstract

Development policies in the pastoral areas of Africa assume that pastoralists are poor. Using the Afar pastoralists of Ethiopia as the focus of research this article challenges this depiction of pastoralism by exploring pastoral livelihood goals and traditional strategies for managing risk. Investment in social institutions to minimise the risk of outright destitution, sometimes at the cost of increased poverty, and significant manipulation of local markets enable the Afar to exploit a highly uncertain and marginal environment. Improved development assistance and enhanced targeting of the truly vulnerable within pastoral societies demands an acceptance that pastoral poverty is neither uniform nor universal.     

‘An act of faith’ or a new ‘Brown Empire’? The dismissal of India’s international anti-Racism, 1945–1961

At the inaugural UN session in 1946, an Indian-sponsored resolution was passed with a two-thirds majority against South Africa’s racist treatment of Indians. India continued its activism over racism and apartheid throughout the 1950s, though the issue was increasingly seen as a painful yearly ritual. Still, Indian diplomats persisted in raising the issue every year, despite diminishing results. The British settler-colonies were particularly offended by India’s campaign, as it challenged the discursive justification for their existence. They rejected what they saw as India’s emotional, hypocritical, even imperialist, campaign against racism. By tracing the construction and rejection of anti-racist politics, we examine the dismissal of racism as a ‘legitimate’ international issue.     

Economic growth and government spending in Malaysia: a re-examination of Wagner and Keynesian views

By making use of annual data from Malaysia for the period 1970 to 2006, this paper examines Wagner’s law and the Keynesian hypothesis concerning the link between real government spending and real GDP. Unlike most existing studies, we utilize both a bivariate and a multivariate model. In addition, we consider two cases: one that focuses on the link between aggregate government spending and GDP and the other where the link between government spending on education and GDP is considered. The use of a multivariate model serves to reduce the problem of serious misspecification which appears to have been ignored by most existing studies. The presence of cointegration is investigated by means of Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. This approach also allows one to distinguish between the short and the long-run relationships. Within the context of a bivariate model, our empirical analysis reveals that aggregate government spending Granger causes the real GDP which supports Wagner’s law. However, in a multivariate framework, we found support for the Keynesian hypothesis suggesting that omitted variables bias can significantly alter the validity of Wagner’s law.     

Resolving the cultural right-animal right conflict in India: analyzing Article 29(1) through the paradigm of Jallikattu

Cultural rights-animal rights conflict surfaced in India when the 2014 judgment of the Supreme Court banning Jallikattu was outlawed by legislation enacted by the Tamil Nadu Government, for which the protection of cultural rights under Article 29(1) of the Constitution is being claimed. Essential questions pertaining to the interpretation of Article 29(1) and consequential resolution of the conflict in India have arisen, for which, the author envisages an expansive interpretation of Article 29(1), providing more scope for its jurisprudential development. Such interpretation also permits resolution through systematic synchronization of cultural rights with animal rights through proper regulation and implementation.     

Health Care Reform in Vietnam: Chasing Shadows

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and assess health care reforms in Vietnam since the late 1980s. It will argue that shortcomings of the reforms centre on three related sets of measures: substitution of budgetary allocation with user charges, expansion of social insurance and promotion of decentralisation. Reduction in fiscal support for providers offered them the motive to concentrate on revenue-generating activities while user charges provided them with the means to do so. With both the motive and the means for maximising revenues in place, providers vigorously pursued income-maximisation which had the effect of raising overall expenditures while reducing access. To deal with the problem of declining access due to rising user charges, the government is in the process of vigorously expanding social insurance. However, social insurance does not deal with the root causes of the problem of rising expenditures which lie in paying providers on a fee-for-service (FFS) basis. The paper will further argue that decentralisation has aggravated the adverse effects of FFS by diluting control and accountability.     

Normalizing Sino‐Indian relations

Realism and neoliberalism, two schools of international relations theory, provide contending explanations for state behaviour in the international system. The latter believes that interstate cooperation will create institutions and regimes for the peaceful settlement of conflicts. The former argues that only ‘self help’ — the building of individual state military capabilities — can assure that state interests will be protected. A review of Southeast Asian security policies demonstrates that both paradigms coexist as the region's members enhance their individual military capabilities because of territorial disputes with neighbours, while simultaneously entering into new collaborative arrangements such as the ASEAN Regional Forum. The ARF has begun as a venue for discussions and reassurance among Southeast Asian states and external powers in hopes that the zero‐sum character of pure realism may ultimately be transcended.     

Electronic healthcare data collection and pay-for-performance: translating theory into practice

With insight grounded in his work for a national data collection consortium and as Vice President of Quality and Outcomes at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, the author connects the theory of pay-for-performance to the realities of its implementation. The author expands the Diagnosing the Data conversation by describing the challenges of collecting meaningful data and by addressing the potential legal issues that data use raises. Drawing on his national and local experience, the author concludes with suggestions for adopting data collection programs that are both clinically relevant and scientifically reliable.     

Second Best Governance? Governments and Governance in the Imperfect World of Health Care Delivery in China,India and Thailand in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to assess the usefulness of conceptions of different modes of governance for understanding policy outcomes by studying the experience with hierarchical and non-hierarchical governance modes in the health care sector in China, India, and Thailand. The paper shows their experience with non-hierarchical modes to have been largely disappointing and that all three, but especially Thailand, are in the process of reverting to a more hierarchical mode of service delivery. The conclusion from this study is that non-hierarchical governance is not a substitute for or an improvement upon hierarchical governance in health care due to the many market and government failures that afflict the sector and affect the ability of different governance modes to function effectively. The hierarchical mode of government is also imperfect but less so than the alternatives in delivering health care.     

PRIVATIZATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

This article examines the main social security programs, narrowly defined to include income maintenance for the aged and health care, in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, and reveals the large degree to which the statutory programs depend on private provision, particularly, private financing. It further shows that efforts are underway to reduce, or at least to arrest the expansion of role of the state by a corresponding expansion in the role of private provision and financing. The expansion of social security for the aged in Thailand is an exception in this regard. I conclude that both inefficiency and inequity have been promoted.