Unpacking Local Economic Development: A Case Study from Nekemte Town and Its Hinterlands,Oromia, Ethiopia

Most agree that local economic development (LED) is a “bottom-up” development approach seeking to unleash the development potential of a locality. Nonetheless, focusing closely on the dynamics of specific localities, this can be criticized for being too local and overlooking extra-local links. This article explores the drivers of LED from the local economic actors’ perspectives in Nekemte town and its hinterlands, Oromia region, Ethiopia. The results clarify that LED is not only just “local”, but also an approach that links urban and rural areas, and thus, understanding rural–urban linkages is a prerequisite for a better understanding of the local economic development.     

The use of intergovernmental grants to municipalities for electoral purposes by subnational governments

Subnational governments devote a significant share of their financial resources to help municipalities provide local public services to their citizens. Compared to the large number of studies on national governments, little effort has been devoted to the influence of distributive politics on the use of intergovernmental grants by subnational governments. To fill this gap, this study uses a data set covering the period 2001–2011 to verify to what extent the Québec government used conditional grants to municipalities for electoral purposes. The results of this study show that the allocation of grants to municipalities is not exempt from electoral politics as municipalities located in districts held by governing parties or in high electoral competition districts receive more grants than other municipalities. However, the influence of electoral politics decreases substantially when the management of intergovernmental grants is under tight scrutiny by the opposition parties, mass media and the population. These findings suggest that distributive politics can be conceptualised as a political agency problem whose prevalence is seriously constrained by the improvement of the transparency of public policies management.     

Media and subnational democracy: the case of Bahia,Brazil

It is a well-known fact that the transition to and consolidation of democracy in Latin America have been problematic, especially at the subnational level. It is also commonplace to equate an independent media system with a strong democracy. While each of these fields has witnessed important developments in the last decade or so, there have been sparse attempts to draw the theoretical links between them. In this article, I argue that there are important insights to be gained from such an endeavour. Bahia, a state in north-eastern Brazil, is an ideal case study to bring these perspectives together. This study offers fresh insights on state–society relations at the subnational level and on the contemporary interaction between the public and the private spheres in Latin America. Last but not least, it will also provide a better grasp on the challenges democratization faces at the subnational level and the role of the media in them.     

族性视野中多民族国家族际政治问题比较研究——基于尼日利亚与印度尼西亚民族国家建构的经验观察

族性是影响多民族国家安全及其族际政治走向的关键变量。它既能促进族际政治整合、维护国家安全、有助于民族国家建构,也能导致族际政治冲突、危及国家安全、阻碍民族国家建构。以"族性"为分析视角,通过对尼日利亚与印度尼西亚民族国家建构历程的梳理及其族际政治问题的比较,其共性特征包括:族际政治问题的分析单位是多民族国家;族际政治问题虽然发生在现实中的多民族国家,却往往带有深刻的历史根源;政治与文化边界的重叠是族际政治问题产生的逻辑起点;国内不同民族群体无法得到平等公正对待是导致族际政治问题的核心因素;军事专政和腐败会增加族际政治问题的风险和国家安全的不确定性。解决多民族国家族际政治问题、确保国家安全的关键在于如何让一个在历史上和观念中都不曾存在的国家民族能够超越族性分界而被成功建构。结合两国国情提出应对策略:寻找重叠共识,建构文化多元、政治一体的国族共同体;借鉴差异政治和差别公民权利思想,探寻积极回应不同民族群体正当利益诉求、实现各族人民成果共享、利益均沾的政治制度、体制和机制;消除军人在政治生活中的影响,惩治腐败;探索包容促进多语言、多宗教和谐相处的民族政策。     

Class,nation and religion: changing nature of Akali Dal politics in Punjab,India

The Akali Dal is the best organised political party in Punjab and has ruled over Punjab for a longer period than any other political party since the creation of the Punjabi-speaking state in 1966. It articulates aspirations of Punjabi regional nationalism along with trying to protect the interests of the Sikhs as a religious minority in India and abroad. As a part of shaping Punjab's economic future, it deals with the pressures of Indian and global capitalism. This paper is an attempt to track the multi-faceted pressures of class, religion and nationalism in the way Akali Dal negotiates its politics in Indian federalism.     

Labour flexibility in export horticulture: a case study of northeast Brazilian grape production

This article analyses the nature and extent of labour flexibility, defined as lack of permanent and secure employment contracts, within an emerging export horticulture sector in northeast Brazil. Whilst much has been written about flexible employment systems in agriculture, it is important to show exactly why, how, and to what extent these systems are flexible, and conversely, what kinds of strategies and practices are available to workers to ameliorate their conditions within such systems. This article illustrates how a combination of processes – farms' ability to produce two harvests per annum, northern retailers' increasing demands for product quality, employers' requirements for relatively skilled labour, and workers' ability to organise and extract concessions from employers – contribute, within the conditions of the São Francisco valley, to specific labour regimes and forms of labour flexibility.     

Fighting rural poverty,inequality and low productivity through legal empowerment of the poor

The purpose of this essay is to introduce the work of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) to the broader academic community interested in the challenge of eradicating rural poverty and promoting the structural and institutional changes which underpin such a challenge. While rural development research in the past has included work on several components of the legal empowerment of the poor (LEP) agenda such as property and labour rights, much less attention has been given to the other two pillars of the framework – access to justice and rule of law and business rights – which together constitute the four pillars of LEP. However the real difference and value added is the power of the systemic interaction among the pillars and the empowerment approach to change. In this approach, change is initiated bottom up with legal identity, organisations, information, and voice of the poor. In other words an active citizenry, complemented by a democratic and effective state. None of this happens naturally as vested interests and skewed power and asset relationships are bound to get in the way of change to greater equity. Such change is only likely to come through iterative contestations between organisations of the poor, the middle class, and the state. This approach is not presented as a panacea but one which will hopefully complement and accelerate what is already working.     

Pitirim Sorokin’s contribution to rural sociology: Russian,European and American milestones of a scientific career

ABSTRACT

The whole of Pitirim Sorokin’s fascinating and difficult scientific life led to his fundamental works on urban–rural relationships being expressed in the terms ‘rural–urban continuum’ and ‘rurbanism’. However, only a few special studies have been devoted to different aspects of his biography and scientific interests. The legacy of Sorokin as a rural sociologist has not yet become a subject of special studies in Russian social science. This contribution considers the key stages of Sorokin’s scientific career as contributing to the development and institutionalization of rural sociology as a discipline closely connected with urban sociology.     

The role of collective mobilization in the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India (1950–2005)

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India after 1950 was a product of the different capabilities of the Chinese and Indian governments to mobilize the labor force and financial resources of the rural population. By mobilizing unpaid labor and the financial resources of the villagers through mediation by the collectives (before 1984) and local administrations (from 1984 to the abolition of agricultural taxation and compulsory rural labor mobilization in 2006), the Chinese state developed rural infrastructure and the quality of the labor force at a pace and geographical scope that was far beyond its limited fiscal capacity. Efforts by the Indian state to establish rural organizations with similar mobilization capabilities failed due to the effective opposition of well-entrenched political and economic interests in the countryside. Unable to mobilize the labor and financial resources of the villagers, the Indian government relied primarily on its limited fiscal resources, which produced a much slower development of physical infrastructure and labor force quality. These are the primary reasons why China’s rural economy developed much more rapidly than India’s, which contributed significantly to the divergence of their national economies in the post-1950 era.     

Understanding the silent majority in authoritarian populism: what can we learn from popular support for Putin in rural Russia?

ABSTRACT

This study distinguishes and challenges three main assumptions/shortcomings regarding the silent majority – the majority of the ‘ordinary’, ‘simple’, ‘little’ people, who are the main supporters of authoritarian populism. The silent majority is commonly portrayed as (1) consisting of ‘irrational’, ‘politically short-sighted’ people, who vote against their self-interests; (2) it is analysed as a homogeneous group, without attempting to distinguish different motives and interests among its members; (3) existing studies often overlook the political economy and structures of domination that gave rise to authoritarian populism. I address these shortcomings while analysing the political behaviour of rural Russians, who are the major supporters of Vladimir Putin. I reveal that the agrarian property regime and power relations in the countryside largely define the political posture of different rural groups. Less secure socio-economic strata respond more strongly to economic incentives, while better-off villagers tend to support the regime's ideological appeals. Furthermore, Putin's traditionalist authoritarian leadership style appeals to the archetypal base of the rural society – namely, its peasant roots – and, therefore, finds stronger support among the farming population. Finally, this study reveals that collective interests prevail over individual interests in the voting behaviour of rural dwellers, who support the existing regime despite the economic hardship it imposes upon them.