Modernising subordination? A South Asian perspective on the World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development

The World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development argues that the solution to rural poverty in South Asia is through commercial smallholder farming, rural waged labour in farm and non-farm activities, or outmigration. Critically evaluating the Report from a South Asian perspective on the basis of agrarian structure, market-led agrarian transformation, the power of monopoly capital, and the option of off-farm livelihoods, it is argued that the Report has a deeply flawed understanding of the process of capitalist development in rural South Asia. Its path-dependent vision of the future of agriculture is rooted in modernisation theory, and predicated on the continued subordination of the majority of those who live in the South Asian countryside.     

Unjustified optimism: why the World Bank's 2008 ‘agriculture for development’ report misses the point for South Africa

The World Bank Development Report 2008 sees agriculture as a crucial instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction. It emphasises the need for a sharp productivity increase in smallholder farming, as well as more effective support to millions of subsistence farmers. However, while admitting that there are challenges in making this goal a reality, the report fails to fully acknowledge the legacy of colonialism and apartheid on land and agrarian relations in South Africa. Contrary to the World Bank's optimism about smallholder and subsistence agriculture, this legacy of inequality and land dispossession discourages farming by Blacks in countries like South Africa.     

China's economic slowdown: implications for Beijing's institutional power and global governance role

China's spectacular economic growth over the past decades has given rise to a more confident and proactive China in global governance. China is now an institution-builder, with new Chinese-led institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank designed to cement Beijing's central role in global economic governance. What, then, are the potential implications of a slowing economy for China's institutional power and global governance role? This article locates China's economic growth and slowdown in broader discussions about China's global position and questions about responsibility, order and governance. It argues that China's economic slowdown will not result in a drastic impact on Beijing's institutional power as there are key material, historical and ideational drivers at play here. Unless China is confronted with the prospect of an economic collapse, it will continue to pursue an active institutional role, speak the rhetoric of South–South solidarity with emerging economies and seek a leadership role in reforming global economic governance, even with a slowing economy, because this is intrinsically tied to its identity and how China now positions itself in an evolving global order.     

Exchange Rate Regime,Central Bank Independence,and Political Business Cycles in Brazil

This article examines policy consequences of electoral cycles and exchange rate regime choices in Brazil. The literature on opportunistic political business cycles maintains that governments adopt expansionary economic policies before elections to mobilize voters’ support. However, research findings in Latin America based on the theory has been inconclusive. I argue that the lack of conclusive evidence in Latin America stems from measurement errors common in the use of cross-national aggregate data. Using Brazil’s monthly data from 1985 to 2006, this article shows that there are electorally induced fiscal cycles under fixed and crawling peg exchange rate regimes and electorally induced monetary cycles under floating exchange rates only when the nation’s central bank is not independent. Indeed, accounting for Brazil’s unique economic contingencies and longitudinal variations in the de facto central bank independence, its public policy behavior remarkably resembles that of the more affluent, economically stable OECD countries.

World Bank Technical Assistance: The Relational Dynamics of Policy Movement

The World Bank has been widely critiqued as a global governance actor capable of coercing and persuading its developing member countries to accept its policy recommendations. This article contributes to academic discussion by drawing upon the policy transfer and policy mobilities literatures to analyse the World Bank's two main pillars of technical assistance (TA): TA components (advisory services contained within lending operations) and stand‐alone TA projects (loans and credits that solely finance TA). Beginning from the constructivist position that ‘development’ is a social construct, the article argues that relational dynamics between TA provider and recipient affect the perception of the legitimacy of policy norms transferred from the ‘international’ to the ‘domestic’. The value added of the article is thus that policy legitimacy is not simply conferred by whether advice is technically sound but moreover through the social and political interactions—the relationship—between TA provider and recipient. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中国海峡西岸经济区加大开发力度问题探讨

该文通过论证海峡西岸经济区加大开发力度的综合优势,对海峡西岸经济区加大开发力度的区域价值进行定位,分析了海峡西岸经济区加大开发力度的障碍因素,提出了海峡西岸经济区加大开发力度的推进对策。     

新版港币的防伪特征——以渣打银行（香港）有限公司发行的港币为例

渣打银行(香港)有限公司于2003年12月15日开始发行100元和500元新版港币,2004年10月11日发行20元、50元和1000元新版港币。2003年版港币防伪特征主要表现在纸张、油墨、印版和印刷技术等4个方面。     

银保合作：中国保险业发展的必然选择

随着保险业与银行合作在世界范围内的兴起,国内保险业也在与银行的合作方面加快了脚步。我国银保合作良好的基础和优势促进了银保合作实践的迅猛发展,同时也暴露出金融监管体制不完善对国内银保合作的制约。     

Q&A in legislative oversight: A framework for analysis

Parliamentary questions are an essential tool of legislative oversight. However, the extent to which they are effective in controlling the executive remains underspecified both theoretically and methodologically. This article advances a systematic framework for evaluating the effectiveness of parliamentary questions drawing on principal–agent theory, the public administration literature on accountability and communication research. The framework is called the ‘Q&A approach to legislative oversight’ based on the premise that the study of parliamentary questions (Q) needs to be linked to their respective answers (A) and examined together (Q&A) at the micro-level as an exchange of claims between legislative and executive actors. Methodologically, the Q&A approach to legislative oversight offers a step-by-step guide for qualitative content analysis of Q&A that can be applied to different legislative oversight contexts at different levels of governance. It is argued that the effectiveness of Q&A depends on the strength of the questions asked and the responsiveness of answers provided, which are correspondingly operationalised. To illustrate the merits of the approach, the article includes a systematic case study on the relationship between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank in banking supervision (2013–2018), showing the connection between specific institutional settings and the effectiveness of parliamentary questions.     

The Czech transition banking sector instability: the role of operational cost management

In this article we show—using the estimated cost efficiency of banks—that besides the risk (proxied by the share of non-performing loans), the quality of operational cost management was an equally important determinant of bank failure risk during the decade of banking sector transformation in the Czech Republic.