Insight on the evolution and distinction of inclusive growth

This article develops a new pragmatic approach in delineating inclusive growth, covering two issues. First, it records the chronological evolution of inclusive growth; second, it details the distinction between broad-based growth and pro-poor growth, and inclusive growth. The article aims to highlight the objectivity of inclusiveness, which is distinctly different than broad-based growth and pro-poor growth. The research concentrates on salient issues like growth, poverty, and inequality, identifies a distinct variation between broad-based growth/pro-poor growth and inclusive growth, and establishes the exclusivity of inclusive growth.     

Knowledge creation in Bangladesh: institutional challenges and personal opportunities within civil society

This article offers an institutional and sociological analysis of knowledge generation and dissemination for policy in Bangladesh. Because institutions participating in knowledge generation remain largely understudied, the article focuses on analysing the means and challenges to knowledge creation, and the complex agency and power relations among and within think tanks and universities. The article concludes that the scarcity of domestic financial resources and the political co-option of think tanks and universities weaken academic freedom, fragment the knowledge creation process, and contribute to depoliticising research. Research-to-policy linkages are engineered through the personalised networks of a few strategic individuals.     

The paradoxes of empowerment: gendering NREGA in the rural landscape of India

The growing importance of public works programmes (PWPs) as a social protection tool has attracted significant scholarly attention. However, despite the fact that the empowerment of marginalised communities is one of the key objectives of most PWPs, scant attention has been dedicated to this crucial issue. We contextualise these concerns in relation to India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). In particular, we propose two areas which are relatively unexplored. First, the methodologies currently used to research NREGA and PWP, more generally, need to be broadened. Second, the processes that lead to empowerment need to be researched empirically.     

The terminologies associated with development and marginalisation for Orang Asli in Malaysia

Previously, any failure of Orang Asli development activity in Malaysia, was characterised by using a single term in all situations ? “marginalisation”. This generalisation was unfair to everyone involved in the Orang Asli development process, made it difficult to resolve problems, and resulted in tendencies to blame certain people. Based on ethnographic research in Kuala Gandah, Pahang, Malaysia, this article allocates three terms in the Orang Asli development marginalisation discourse: “secluded”, “isolated”, and “marginalised”. “Secluded” refers to development activity that accidentally marginalises. “Isolated” refers to development activity that directly and deliberately marginalises. “Marginalised” refers to the Che Wong that were eliminating or avoiding development. These terms were exposed by weaknesses in the implementation of development, namely the role of a single dominant approach in development activities – the top-down approach – and a tendency to generalise the marginalisation of the Orang Asli. This article recommends that more care be taken to apply a development approach that deals with situations on a case-by-case basis and that utilises the partnership approach to development, involving all parties in all phases.     

Conflicts of decision-making processes between Clean Development Mechanism and project financing

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects are believed to be financially unviable without additional revenues from CDM in the form of saleable certified emission credits; this is an important premise to be verified in the CDM approval process. However, in financing a CDM project, it is crucial for financiers and investors to ensure that the project is viable without CDM revenues. Thus, there are clear conflicts in the processes and priorities between the CDM approval in theory, and financing and investment decisions in practice. Considering the post-CDM frameworks, this article uses a case study of Bhutan’s Dagachhu hydropower project, the world’s first cross-border CDM project, to suggest practical lessons learnt.     

Securing disenfranchisement through violence and isolation: the case of Georgians/Mingrelians in the district of Gali

This article explores the functions of the high levels of violence, insecurity and isolation that have characterised the Gali district of Abkhazia since the end of the 1992–1993 Abkhaz War. It traces their trajectories in a 20-year timeframe, explaining the demographic and economic peculiarities of the case. It argues that violence and isolation were used to deepen the economic, social and political disenfranchisement of the Georgian/Mingrelian population within Abkhazia, which in turn served wider economic and political goals.     

The non-traditional security concept and the EU-ASEAN relationship against the backdrop of China's rise

The rise of China raises questions about international order and whether traditional power structures will be transformed peacefully or confrontationally. Actively engaged in trade and investment activities with its Southeast Asian neighbourhood, China has been exerting political influence on many Southeast Asian states, cleaving regional cohesion and raising levels of tensity in the region. This article presupposes that within so-called non-traditional security (NTS) areas, there is room for China and Southeast Asian countries to circumvent the political tensions, to some extent. It presumes that NTS issues facilitate greater interaction with/on China for Southeast Asian states, including enhanced European Union (EU)-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) engagement on China. Recognising the increasing and rather underexplored importance of the NTS perspective on the official and scholarly levels, this article delves into the rhetoric of NTS from a European perspective with particular view towards the South China Sea issue to demonstrate the use and utility of the NTS concept in the EU-ASEAN context against the backdrop of China's rise.     

The forming and fracturing of families on a South Carolina rice plantation, 1812–1865

This case study traces family formation among enslaved people on a South Carolina rice plantation owned by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in the first half of the nineteenth century. It uses a rare set of documents to show how enslaved people were brought together mainly via inheritance (rather than purchase) to form a new community, and how they responded to frequent mobility within the holdings of a single planter. It also highlights the peculiar challenges to stable family formation that were unique to the South Carolina lowcountry, including individuals being separated from the main body of the community for periods of time while working on other holdings; the presence of a higher percentage of African-born individuals than was usual for the antebellum South; and the devastating impact of the highest mortality experienced by a mainland slave population.     

Does the longer tenure of local government heads affect the performance of local governments? The Korean case

The relationship between the length of tenure of elected heads of local governments (HOLG) and performance of local governments remains ambiguous, with few empirical studies on it. Korea presents a compelling case in that it has limited HOLG to serve only three consecutive terms based on the untested belief that longer tenures have a negative effect on local governments. To address these gaps, this study applies the fixed effect panel model, using the Korean government data from 2008 to 2014. Our findings reveal a negative relationship between tenure length and efficiency, particularly among local governments demonstrating a low level of efficiency. The relationship between the length of tenure and integrity is also negative, especially among local governments with low levels of integrity. However, given that these relationships disappear when factors specific to local governments are controlled, our findings should be interpreted cautiously.     

Political imperatives and military preparations: New insights into why South Africa’s 1998 intervention in Lesotho went awry

In September 1998 South African troops crossed into Lesotho to restore stability to the small mountain kingdom that had been roiled by protests for months. Operation Boleas encountered heavy resistance – in the ensuing chaos dozens died and the towns of Maseru, Mohale’s Hoek and Mafeteng were damaged. Media and scholarly commentary on the intervention was scathing, but in the rush to judge there has been insufficient effort to chronicle and clarify. This article uses declassified archival records and interviews with policy makers to provide a more exhaustive explanation of how the Mandela Administration decided on the deployment of troops into Lesotho. It focuses on the difficulty South African officials had in aligning their political objectives with the military exigencies of the rapidly changing crisis. This re-examination of the Lesotho intervention rectifies historical inaccuracies while also identifying potential problems that policy makers should be conscious of when considering future peace missions.