Anticipating Future Capital: Regional Caste Contestations,Speculation and Silent Dispossession in Andhra Pradesh

ABSTRACT

In 2014, the state of Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated by the Indian government, leaving the truncated state without a capital city. A period of political uncertainty before bifurcation and the announcement of the new capital city created possibilities for land speculation and for the acceleration of the commodification of real estate in different parts of the state. Concentrating on Guntur-Vijayawada in the Coastal Andhra region and Donakonda town close to the Rayalaseema region, this article explores how speculative investments based on political calculations by members of regional elite castes translated into the emergence of competing regional investment zones as possible future choices of the capital city. Through an extended and largely ethnographic study, this article shows how caste politics and regional processes of land speculation led to land transfers without violent struggles between different groups. Rather, the cultural politics of regional differentiation and the economy of anticipation allowed a pragmatic convergence of interests to emerge, where acquisition of agricultural land was followed by silent dispossession.     

Political transitions: Opportunities to renegotiate the public service bargain

Adopting a public service perspective of transitions in Westminster systems and connecting literature on transitions with public service bargains (PSBs), this research note proposes that transitions not only increase existing tensions between politicians and the public service, but also provide opportunities to forge new PSBs to defuse these tensions. It argues that public service institutions should move beyond individually negotiated transition responses towards corporately driven PSB negotiations across the political–public service interface on a rolling basis in order to promote the cause of democratic governance. It also invites others to take up this perspective and develop research to probe these ideas further.     

Energy Security and the Division of Competences between the European Community and its Member States

Abstract: Securing energy supply for Europe has been for decades at the forefront of the energy policies of individual European Community member countries. However, dealing with energy issues in general and securing energy supply in particular is a new phenomenon within the EU's regulatory framework. One important issue which has not yet been discussed by legal scholars and which has been questioned repeatedly by energy experts, is the question who is actually responsible to guarantee security of energy supply in Europe? Is it the European Community alone? Is it the Member States alone? Or is it both? This question cannot be answered without a detailed legal analysis of the EU law in general, and EU law on division of competences between the Community and the Member States in particular. This article seeks to highlight the complications of this area of law within the EU and expand it to cover the energy sector in order to determine who and under what circumstances is responsible for guaranteeing security of energy supply for the consumers within the EU borders.