Quantitative methods,economics, and or models

Training in quantitative methods is seen as essential for policy analysts, public administrators, and public managers if they are to make cogent and informed data‐based arguments. If our objective is to help students and future practitioners identify credible evidence, to make sense of that evidence, link it to their substantive knowledge, and thereby develop a defensible case for action, then this paper argues that our current approach to teaching methods is inappropriate. We need to take into consideration the learning styles and needs of our students in designing the delivery and content of our courses. Our current emphasis on teaching techniques needs to be replaced by an emphasis on teaching about the concepts underlying these tools and techniques. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Can Producer Associations Improve Rural Livelihoods? Evidence from Farmer Centres in India

Abstract

Rural producer associations are considered a potential community-driven solution to the problems of smallholder agriculture. This article evaluates the impact of organising female farmers into producer associations in Gujarat, India. The initiative provided training, information, access to inputs, risk mitigation, and market linkages. Over 18 months, the programme weakly increased members’ non-farm income and access to output markets. It had stronger impacts on members’ awareness and utilisation of financial services. Impacts were heterogeneous, varying by pre-existing socioeconomic conditions. These findings suggest that producer associations can lower transaction costs for smallholders, but that poverty alleviation may be a longer-term prospect.     

Gorbachev's Economic Reform: A Soviet Economy Roundtable

The proceedings of a panel of American specialists devoted to the recent economic reform are summarized. The panelists noted that the most substantial changes to date have accompanied efforts to restructure the decisionmaking hierarchy—in particular, a recentralization of authority through the creation of biuros and state committees and legislation on individual economic activity. Changes in the systems of economic planning and incentives, on the other hand, have been minor, suggesting a continuing debate over the extent to which price reform and various economic incentives should be implemented. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 113, 124.     

The Zuma moment: between tender-based capitalists and radical economic transformation

ABSTRACT

The Jacob Zuma Presidency (2009–2017) was dogged by persistent allegations of corruption and the looting of State Owned Enterprises (SOE’s) by those allied to him. It led to allegations of state capture that placed the Gupta family at the centre of this project. These allegations have been highly contested, with Zuma supporters arguing that he has come under attack because of his support for the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), which they hold challenges Western imperial interests. Alongside this are those aligned to the Gupta family, arguing that the real culprits of state capture, both historically and in contemporary South Africa, is White Monopoly Capital (WMC), through its ability to determine macro-economic policy. At the heart of this contest is what has come to be known as tender-based capitalists who sought to use access to SOE’s for the accumulation of capital. This process has been defended on the basis that it has the potential to lead a radical economic transformation (RET) that that can challenge the power of WMC. Others have held that this argument is a mere fig leaf for the looting of state coffers, eroding its capacity for deeper developmental initiatives and fostering a parasitic class. This article that focusses on this debate that entered the heart of the African National Congress (ANC) and threatened to tear it apart takes the form of a conjunctural analysis; conjuncture defined as an amalgam ‘of circumstances, a convergence of events, an intersection of contingencies and necessities, a complex, overdetermined state of affairs-usually producing a crisis, leading to breaking point, driving to historic crossroads’ (Mowitt 2015 Mowitt, John. 2015. “In The Conjuncture.” In Cultural Critique. Vol. 89, 125–127. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar], 125).     

The 2016 Local Government Elections in KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa: Is Jesus on His Way?

Post-1994, the African National Congress (ANC) has increasingly allied itself to traditional authorities in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Part of the reason for this has been to undermine the support base of the Inkatha Freedom Party. In more recent times, the alliance between chiefs and the ANC has seen them linked to mining interests, often running roughshod over local forms of resistance. In addition, the August 2016 local government elections showed a weakening of ANC support in some of these rural hotspots of KZN, thus creating the possibilities for activists to build alliances anew.     

Law and the political stakes of global crises: Lessons from development practice for a coronavirus world

Law has translated the coronavirus crisis into politically salient forms in people's lives, from states of emergency, to border closures, to mask mandates. Yet political theory work on these forms has focused on constraining arbitrary state power. In this paper, I try to broaden this focus. Substantively, I argue that policy and its implementation also matter to how we theorize the role of law in crises, in terms of how we understand the political power of society and its relationship to the state. Methodologically, I argue that thinking about law in this way is more than a complement to or replacement for thinking about constraints on arbitrariness. Rather, different forms of thinking about law and crisis should constantly be used to critique each other in order to pursue the sorts of legal innovations required by geomobile and interconnected crises. Given that the current pandemic and its broader consequences are still unfolding, I turn to development policy and practice to demonstrate the process and consequence of such ongoing critique in action. Studying rule of law reforms—including during the West African Ebola crisis—I show how practitioners continually reimagined law in ways that facilitated ongoing legal innovation that could adapt to the politics of the crisis.     

Quick Response Code In Acrylic Denture: Will it Respond When Needed?

Use of acids and other caustic substances in destroying the human body to avoid personal identification is drawing great deal of attention in recent times. With rapid industrial growth, incidence of industrial disasters has increased. In an event of chemical industry disaster, human identification can become a challenge. Embedding bar codes and other electronic means for identification in denture have proved to be a novel innovation in identification of edentulous patients. However, the validity of this method in events of chemical extremes has not been assessed. Hence, the study was undertaken to know the effect of different acids on dentures embedded with quick response codes. Results of this study indicate that simple bar code can be readable up to 33 h after acid treatment. With minimal armamentarium, bar code can be generated incorporating large data into it, providing it to be a cheap and reliable means of denture identification.     

What wars and ‘war bodies’ know about international relations

What happens when the ‘international’ as a distinct social space is approached from the perspective of war rather than war from the perspective of the ‘international’? Tarak Barkawi's question (Millennium, 39:3, 2011, 701–706) is best answered by attempts to understand war not as part of inter/intra-state relations but as a socio-cultural, trans-historical institution that impacts on the ‘everyday’ lives of men, women and children. In this article I argue that war is not a disruption of the ‘everyday’, an abstraction that has a definite beginning and end, something we enter into and exit. Instead, it can be captured in daily and mundane lived experiences of people and in powerful emotions that constitute ‘self’, community and the ‘other.’ Drawing upon my research on wars in South Asia, I particularly reflect on how war shapes the banal and the fervent and how cultural and political narratives of ‘war bodies’ perform the ‘international’ in a variety of ways. Most significantly I want to draw attention to how international relations as a scholarly discipline is so deeply engaged with war and yet seems to have an estranged relationship with it.