Susan Engel | University of Wollongong (original) (raw)
Books by Susan Engel
This book explores the history, structure and current operations of the World Bank, which despite... more This book explores the history, structure and current operations of the World Bank, which despite being the largest development organisation and the largest development research body in the world with tremendous direct and indirect influence on developing economies, has rarely received the critical attention its importance merits. The book’s unique contribution is twofold: it provides an original analysis of the interaction between economic theory, political practice and the Bank’s development praxis as well as two detailed, grounded studies of the Bank’s lending practices.
The book starts with a detailed examination of the development theory and practice of the World Bank from its Keynesian origins to the current shift through the Washington Consensus to the so-called post-Washington Consensus. The second part is a detailed analysis of the Bank’s lending practices in two countries, Vietnam and Indonesia. The case studies extensively utilise World Bank sources —analysing the Project Appraisal Documents for some 113 loans. They also draw on the secondary literature and on interviews with World Bank staff, government officials, academics and NGOs in both countries. The case studies enable the development of empirically-based conclusions regarding the impact of Bank policies on the economic and social development of two important Southeast Asian nations making possible an assessment of the extent to which the rhetoric of the post-Washington Consensus has been incorporated into the Bank’s lending practices.
This book will be of interest to both advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as specialist audiences in the fields of international political economy, development, international organizations and Southeast Asian Studies.
Refereed Journal Articles by Susan Engel
Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 2019
This article demonstrates how South–South Cooperation (SSC), as it is now constituted in Southeas... more This article demonstrates how South–South Cooperation (SSC), as it is now constituted in Southeast Asia, is little more than a liberal norm retaining only echoes of its origins in the 1955 Bandung Conference that first created SSC based on solidarity, common interests, and sovereignty. Southeast Asia is a useful case study of SSC’s evolution, as its states have been major players over the decades – with Indonesia proposing the Bandung Conference, Malaysia playing a key role in the 1980s, and Indonesia again at the forefront of the region from the first years of the new century onwards. Thailand and Singapore also have notable SSC programmes. However, the practices of SSC in the region show that it has become a liberal norm based on one key instrument – technical cooperation programmes. The process of SSC norm internalisation has occurred through a complex webbing of the interests and ideas of Southeast Asia’s states, regional dynamics, and Northern donor interests.
Economic and social inequality is a major problem, implicated in poverty, ill health and exploita... more Economic and social inequality is a major problem, implicated in poverty, ill health and exploitation. Inequality has increased in many countries since the 1980s and it is also widely seen as unfair, yet action against it has been sporadic and often ineffective. To better understand why inequality has persisted, it is useful to look at tactics that reduce public outrage over it. These include covering up the existence and impacts of inequality, denigrating those who are less well off, explaining the existence of inequality as natural, necessary or beneficial, using official channels to justify inequality, threatening those who challenge it and rewarding those who defend it. Each of these tactics can be countered, resulting in a set of options for those pursuing a fairer world.
Emotions and Society, 2019
In an excellent anthropological study of microfinance in Bangladesh, Karim (2008: xviii) argues t... more In an excellent anthropological study of microfinance in Bangladesh, Karim (2008: xviii) argues that it operates as ‘an economy of shame’. That is to say, microfinance is not the benign tool for financial inclusion and empowerment that mainstream development organisations proclaim. Rather, it unintentionally (perhaps) but nevertheless actively deploys shaming techniques in order to maximise loan repayment rates. Karim, however, does not employ an explicit analysis of shame; instead she emphasises its disciplining power for rural women in Bangladesh. Our article builds on this insight but applies a specific psychosocial approach to shame that critically examines a number of the emotion’s harmful practices and outcomes, especially when deployed within microfinance practice. It highlights that microfinance personalises and socialises people’s debt relations, making them a matter for group concern, but that at the same time money-debt’s impersonalising nature results in coercive and disciplinary actions that would otherwise be seen as intolerable. We demonstrate how the active shaming of microfinance participants all too often degenerates into human rights abuses, including violence. The shame of debt and the active shaming that facilitates microfinance’s high repayment rates harms the psychosocial wellbeing of those being shamed as well as their families, and can be linked to a range of concerning outcomes including self-harm and suicide. To conclude, we explore whether the coercion by shame and shaming of microfinance may be linked to its growing use in other areas of development programming.
This article reports on a pilot undergraduate subject that incorporated a range of technology-enh... more This article reports on a pilot undergraduate subject that incorporated a range of technology-enhanced learning approaches including online lectures, an online site for in and out of class communications, and strong encouragement for students to blog and use Twitter. This paper evaluates student engagement through the social networking sites (SNS), focusing on the online communication and content platform. We examine whether changing from an educationally oriented SNS platform to Facebook impacted on student engagement and feedback. To achieve this, both empirical data and qualitative student feedback were used.
Development Policy Review, 2018
The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) program aims to end open defecation through facilitatin... more The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) program aims to end open defecation through facilitating activities that evoke a sense of shame, shock and disgust. The program's initial success and low cost design has seen it become hegemonic in donor-supported rural sanitation. However, the theoretical basis of the use of shame has not been critically evaluated. Supporters claim that shame helps form and maintain social relationships, yet contemporary psycho-social literature highlights that it is a volatile and often harmful emotion, particularly in conditions of poverty. Using a case study of Cambodia, which rejected the coercive elements of shame in CLTS, we explore the problems of shame and limits of local ownership of development.
Journal of International Development
Development studies have been slow to explore and embrace the burgeoning field of emotions resear... more Development studies have been slow to explore and embrace the burgeoning field of emotions research, yet increasingly development interventions are adopting emotions-based strategies, including the deliberate use of shaming. This article reviews the implications of a new three volume collection on poverty and shame for development studies, arguing that it offers a fruitful avenue for research that focuses on understanding the lived experiences, perceptions and feelings of the poor, as opposed to conventional uncompassionate qualitative analysis.
the late 2000s studying the way aid donors manage their relations with development civil society ... more the late 2000s studying the way aid donors manage their relations with development civil society organisations (CSOs). More than studying these relations, they have made some very detailed suggestions about how CSOs should be organised and how donor governments should fund and otherwise relate to them. This came out of the debate about aid effectiveness, which was formally aimed at improving both donor and recipient processes. Donors have quietly dropped many of the aspects related to improving their own performance and yet a number have created new interventionist governance frameworks for CSOs. This is the case in Germany, which has a large, vibrant development CSO sector that has traditionally been quite autonomous, even where it has received state funding thanks to Germany’s commitment to ‘subsidiarity’. Germany is otherwise a middle of the road donor and in many ways, these ‘reforms’ are moving its relations with civil society more towards a somewhat more managerialist approach, one that is, in fact, the norm amongst OECD donors.
Journal of Political Science Education, 2017
This paper demonstrates that the purposeful subject design incorporating a Model United Nations (... more This paper demonstrates that the purposeful subject design incorporating a Model United Nations (MUN) facilitated deep learning and professional skills attainment in the field of International Relations. Deep learning was promoted in subject design by linking learning objectives to Anderson and Krathwohl's (2001) four levels of knowledge or cognition: factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive. Students demonstrated improvement in all four areas, however, this article focuses on outcomes in the conceptual and metacognitive realms as these were where students showed the most growth. In the conceptual realm, the subject aimed to increase students' capacity to apply international relations theories. Student tended to utilize the traditional theories of realism and liberalism, however, their explanations and applications of these theories showed deep learning. In the metacognitive realm, students were able to analyse their own negotiation styles and explain how it influenced their approach to the Model UN, thus demonstrating strong professional skills development and metacognitive growth. Learning was enhanced by the use of open access online subject materials and online communications. The subject was designed and run in a context where simulations in teaching politics and international relations are not common.
For decades, politics and international relations (PaIR) programs across Australia have taken a s... more For decades, politics and international relations (PaIR) programs across Australia have taken a smorgasbord or student consumption approach to curriculum development. This article examines whether, with the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF), there has been a systematisation and transformation of curriculum. It surveys 21 programs and majors in the field offered at 10 universities. It analyses directions in program structure, content and to a lesser extent delivery in order to discover whether there is a shared picture of graduate outcomes. The model of curriculum as a product students’ select elements of to consume has largely continued and there has been no disciplinary debate about direction. This may well result in marginalisation if PaIR cannot successfully attract enough new students or influence regulatory debates, which will likely expand given the ongoing massification of higher education in Australia.
‘Massification’ describes the significant increase in the proportion of the global population see... more ‘Massification’ describes the significant increase in the proportion of the global population seeking tertiary qualifications. It is a defining feature of the global international education sphere and is often seen as linked to negative outcomes such as declining academic standards and increasing managerialism in universities.
Massification, however, is not wholly or even mostly a negative for the generations of new students who now have access to tertiary education. Education can still be a transformative experience for students exposed to a rich learning environment. The question this symposium raises is how the disciplines of politics and international relations can ensure they maintain quality teaching and learning for students from subject design to program design. The collection aims to initiate a disciplinary debate in Australia, which has hitherto been missing.
Australian Journal of Political Science, 2011
Adequate sanitation is vital to human health, yet progress on the Millennium Development Goal for... more Adequate sanitation is vital to human health, yet progress on the Millennium Development Goal for sanitation has been slow and the target is likely to be missed by one billion people. Indonesia has the third highest number of people of any country in the world without access to sanitation and, like most developing countries, it is devoting insufficient resources to the issue. In rural areas, rather than providing additional funding, the government with support of the World Bank has promoted the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach, which uses social mobilization to encourage people to construct their own latrines. In Indonesia as elsewhere, CLTS involves more than just education and encouragement; it uses social shaming and punishments. The authors argue that this is not only an inadequate approach but one which echoes coercive, race-based colonial public health practices. This article thus integrates extant historiography on Indonesian colonial medicine with contemporary scholarly literature and field research on CLTS using case studies of a 1920s hookworm eradication programme funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the current World Bank Water and Sanitation Programme, both in Java.
There are only a small number of attempts to classify and understand the latest round of the ‘Gre... more There are only a small number of attempts to classify and understand the latest round of the ‘Great Foreign Aid Debate’. This paper builds on heuristic classifications of the debate but not to simply classify the aid debate, rather to explore how the debate is perhaps not as ‘great’ as claimed and, in fact, is contributing to a narrowing of thinking about development possibilities. The paper explores the Aid Debate through the books released in the ten years from 2001 that and made both an academic and media impact. It analyses what gets discussed and why and, equally importantly, what does not get discussed. In terms of what is missing, the paper posits that ‘left’ has disappeared and the progressive critique and support for aid has been left to scholars like Jeffrey Sachs and Jonathon Glennie.
Australian Journal of Political Science, Jan 1, 2011
Other Articles by Susan Engel
This is a short paper outlining debates about UN reform written specifically for students doing m... more This is a short paper outlining debates about UN reform written specifically for students doing my subject INTS200 Model United Nations but it may be of wider interest.
The newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank remain fo... more The newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank remain focused on debt-based financing and an understanding of development similar to their North-led equivalents but they are led by emerging countries. It remains to be seen whether they will reshape the landscape of global governance.
This book explores the history, structure and current operations of the World Bank, which despite... more This book explores the history, structure and current operations of the World Bank, which despite being the largest development organisation and the largest development research body in the world with tremendous direct and indirect influence on developing economies, has rarely received the critical attention its importance merits. The book’s unique contribution is twofold: it provides an original analysis of the interaction between economic theory, political practice and the Bank’s development praxis as well as two detailed, grounded studies of the Bank’s lending practices.
The book starts with a detailed examination of the development theory and practice of the World Bank from its Keynesian origins to the current shift through the Washington Consensus to the so-called post-Washington Consensus. The second part is a detailed analysis of the Bank’s lending practices in two countries, Vietnam and Indonesia. The case studies extensively utilise World Bank sources —analysing the Project Appraisal Documents for some 113 loans. They also draw on the secondary literature and on interviews with World Bank staff, government officials, academics and NGOs in both countries. The case studies enable the development of empirically-based conclusions regarding the impact of Bank policies on the economic and social development of two important Southeast Asian nations making possible an assessment of the extent to which the rhetoric of the post-Washington Consensus has been incorporated into the Bank’s lending practices.
This book will be of interest to both advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as specialist audiences in the fields of international political economy, development, international organizations and Southeast Asian Studies.
Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 2019
This article demonstrates how South–South Cooperation (SSC), as it is now constituted in Southeas... more This article demonstrates how South–South Cooperation (SSC), as it is now constituted in Southeast Asia, is little more than a liberal norm retaining only echoes of its origins in the 1955 Bandung Conference that first created SSC based on solidarity, common interests, and sovereignty. Southeast Asia is a useful case study of SSC’s evolution, as its states have been major players over the decades – with Indonesia proposing the Bandung Conference, Malaysia playing a key role in the 1980s, and Indonesia again at the forefront of the region from the first years of the new century onwards. Thailand and Singapore also have notable SSC programmes. However, the practices of SSC in the region show that it has become a liberal norm based on one key instrument – technical cooperation programmes. The process of SSC norm internalisation has occurred through a complex webbing of the interests and ideas of Southeast Asia’s states, regional dynamics, and Northern donor interests.
Economic and social inequality is a major problem, implicated in poverty, ill health and exploita... more Economic and social inequality is a major problem, implicated in poverty, ill health and exploitation. Inequality has increased in many countries since the 1980s and it is also widely seen as unfair, yet action against it has been sporadic and often ineffective. To better understand why inequality has persisted, it is useful to look at tactics that reduce public outrage over it. These include covering up the existence and impacts of inequality, denigrating those who are less well off, explaining the existence of inequality as natural, necessary or beneficial, using official channels to justify inequality, threatening those who challenge it and rewarding those who defend it. Each of these tactics can be countered, resulting in a set of options for those pursuing a fairer world.
Emotions and Society, 2019
In an excellent anthropological study of microfinance in Bangladesh, Karim (2008: xviii) argues t... more In an excellent anthropological study of microfinance in Bangladesh, Karim (2008: xviii) argues that it operates as ‘an economy of shame’. That is to say, microfinance is not the benign tool for financial inclusion and empowerment that mainstream development organisations proclaim. Rather, it unintentionally (perhaps) but nevertheless actively deploys shaming techniques in order to maximise loan repayment rates. Karim, however, does not employ an explicit analysis of shame; instead she emphasises its disciplining power for rural women in Bangladesh. Our article builds on this insight but applies a specific psychosocial approach to shame that critically examines a number of the emotion’s harmful practices and outcomes, especially when deployed within microfinance practice. It highlights that microfinance personalises and socialises people’s debt relations, making them a matter for group concern, but that at the same time money-debt’s impersonalising nature results in coercive and disciplinary actions that would otherwise be seen as intolerable. We demonstrate how the active shaming of microfinance participants all too often degenerates into human rights abuses, including violence. The shame of debt and the active shaming that facilitates microfinance’s high repayment rates harms the psychosocial wellbeing of those being shamed as well as their families, and can be linked to a range of concerning outcomes including self-harm and suicide. To conclude, we explore whether the coercion by shame and shaming of microfinance may be linked to its growing use in other areas of development programming.
This article reports on a pilot undergraduate subject that incorporated a range of technology-enh... more This article reports on a pilot undergraduate subject that incorporated a range of technology-enhanced learning approaches including online lectures, an online site for in and out of class communications, and strong encouragement for students to blog and use Twitter. This paper evaluates student engagement through the social networking sites (SNS), focusing on the online communication and content platform. We examine whether changing from an educationally oriented SNS platform to Facebook impacted on student engagement and feedback. To achieve this, both empirical data and qualitative student feedback were used.
Development Policy Review, 2018
The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) program aims to end open defecation through facilitatin... more The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) program aims to end open defecation through facilitating activities that evoke a sense of shame, shock and disgust. The program's initial success and low cost design has seen it become hegemonic in donor-supported rural sanitation. However, the theoretical basis of the use of shame has not been critically evaluated. Supporters claim that shame helps form and maintain social relationships, yet contemporary psycho-social literature highlights that it is a volatile and often harmful emotion, particularly in conditions of poverty. Using a case study of Cambodia, which rejected the coercive elements of shame in CLTS, we explore the problems of shame and limits of local ownership of development.
Journal of International Development
Development studies have been slow to explore and embrace the burgeoning field of emotions resear... more Development studies have been slow to explore and embrace the burgeoning field of emotions research, yet increasingly development interventions are adopting emotions-based strategies, including the deliberate use of shaming. This article reviews the implications of a new three volume collection on poverty and shame for development studies, arguing that it offers a fruitful avenue for research that focuses on understanding the lived experiences, perceptions and feelings of the poor, as opposed to conventional uncompassionate qualitative analysis.
the late 2000s studying the way aid donors manage their relations with development civil society ... more the late 2000s studying the way aid donors manage their relations with development civil society organisations (CSOs). More than studying these relations, they have made some very detailed suggestions about how CSOs should be organised and how donor governments should fund and otherwise relate to them. This came out of the debate about aid effectiveness, which was formally aimed at improving both donor and recipient processes. Donors have quietly dropped many of the aspects related to improving their own performance and yet a number have created new interventionist governance frameworks for CSOs. This is the case in Germany, which has a large, vibrant development CSO sector that has traditionally been quite autonomous, even where it has received state funding thanks to Germany’s commitment to ‘subsidiarity’. Germany is otherwise a middle of the road donor and in many ways, these ‘reforms’ are moving its relations with civil society more towards a somewhat more managerialist approach, one that is, in fact, the norm amongst OECD donors.
Journal of Political Science Education, 2017
This paper demonstrates that the purposeful subject design incorporating a Model United Nations (... more This paper demonstrates that the purposeful subject design incorporating a Model United Nations (MUN) facilitated deep learning and professional skills attainment in the field of International Relations. Deep learning was promoted in subject design by linking learning objectives to Anderson and Krathwohl's (2001) four levels of knowledge or cognition: factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive. Students demonstrated improvement in all four areas, however, this article focuses on outcomes in the conceptual and metacognitive realms as these were where students showed the most growth. In the conceptual realm, the subject aimed to increase students' capacity to apply international relations theories. Student tended to utilize the traditional theories of realism and liberalism, however, their explanations and applications of these theories showed deep learning. In the metacognitive realm, students were able to analyse their own negotiation styles and explain how it influenced their approach to the Model UN, thus demonstrating strong professional skills development and metacognitive growth. Learning was enhanced by the use of open access online subject materials and online communications. The subject was designed and run in a context where simulations in teaching politics and international relations are not common.
For decades, politics and international relations (PaIR) programs across Australia have taken a s... more For decades, politics and international relations (PaIR) programs across Australia have taken a smorgasbord or student consumption approach to curriculum development. This article examines whether, with the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF), there has been a systematisation and transformation of curriculum. It surveys 21 programs and majors in the field offered at 10 universities. It analyses directions in program structure, content and to a lesser extent delivery in order to discover whether there is a shared picture of graduate outcomes. The model of curriculum as a product students’ select elements of to consume has largely continued and there has been no disciplinary debate about direction. This may well result in marginalisation if PaIR cannot successfully attract enough new students or influence regulatory debates, which will likely expand given the ongoing massification of higher education in Australia.
‘Massification’ describes the significant increase in the proportion of the global population see... more ‘Massification’ describes the significant increase in the proportion of the global population seeking tertiary qualifications. It is a defining feature of the global international education sphere and is often seen as linked to negative outcomes such as declining academic standards and increasing managerialism in universities.
Massification, however, is not wholly or even mostly a negative for the generations of new students who now have access to tertiary education. Education can still be a transformative experience for students exposed to a rich learning environment. The question this symposium raises is how the disciplines of politics and international relations can ensure they maintain quality teaching and learning for students from subject design to program design. The collection aims to initiate a disciplinary debate in Australia, which has hitherto been missing.
Australian Journal of Political Science, 2011
Adequate sanitation is vital to human health, yet progress on the Millennium Development Goal for... more Adequate sanitation is vital to human health, yet progress on the Millennium Development Goal for sanitation has been slow and the target is likely to be missed by one billion people. Indonesia has the third highest number of people of any country in the world without access to sanitation and, like most developing countries, it is devoting insufficient resources to the issue. In rural areas, rather than providing additional funding, the government with support of the World Bank has promoted the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach, which uses social mobilization to encourage people to construct their own latrines. In Indonesia as elsewhere, CLTS involves more than just education and encouragement; it uses social shaming and punishments. The authors argue that this is not only an inadequate approach but one which echoes coercive, race-based colonial public health practices. This article thus integrates extant historiography on Indonesian colonial medicine with contemporary scholarly literature and field research on CLTS using case studies of a 1920s hookworm eradication programme funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the current World Bank Water and Sanitation Programme, both in Java.
There are only a small number of attempts to classify and understand the latest round of the ‘Gre... more There are only a small number of attempts to classify and understand the latest round of the ‘Great Foreign Aid Debate’. This paper builds on heuristic classifications of the debate but not to simply classify the aid debate, rather to explore how the debate is perhaps not as ‘great’ as claimed and, in fact, is contributing to a narrowing of thinking about development possibilities. The paper explores the Aid Debate through the books released in the ten years from 2001 that and made both an academic and media impact. It analyses what gets discussed and why and, equally importantly, what does not get discussed. In terms of what is missing, the paper posits that ‘left’ has disappeared and the progressive critique and support for aid has been left to scholars like Jeffrey Sachs and Jonathon Glennie.
Australian Journal of Political Science, Jan 1, 2011
This is a short paper outlining debates about UN reform written specifically for students doing m... more This is a short paper outlining debates about UN reform written specifically for students doing my subject INTS200 Model United Nations but it may be of wider interest.
The newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank remain fo... more The newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank remain focused on debt-based financing and an understanding of development similar to their North-led equivalents but they are led by emerging countries. It remains to be seen whether they will reshape the landscape of global governance.
The United Nations System Today: Linking with International Relations Theory, 2015
This paper is a brief introduction to international relations theory. It is targeted towards intr... more This paper is a brief introduction to international relations theory. It is targeted towards introductory undergraduate students. The paper covers realist, liberal institutionalist, social constructivist, neo-Marxist/neo-Gramscian, postcolonial and feminist international relations theory. The paper was created for our teaching in INTS201: Model United Nations at the University of Wollongong. It is published open access on the course website.
Suggested citation:
Engel, S. & Pallas, J. ‘International relations theory and the UN: A short primer’, (2015) The United Nations System Today: Linking with International Relations Theory, http://wikieducator.org/images/8/89/Engel_Pallas_International_Relations_Theories_2015.pdf
Submission to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee on the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Support for Infrastructure Financing) Bill 2019., 2019
This is my submission to an Australian Government Senate inquiry. It focuses on the negative impa... more This is my submission to an Australian Government Senate inquiry. It focuses on the negative impacts of export credit agencies and bilateral development banks.
In No Poverty: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, 2020
This chapter explores the problematic definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA) or aid.... more This chapter explores the problematic definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA) or aid. It outlines how major donors provide aid and whether it works for the poor. The key challenge is that ODA is mostly not provided to address poverty and certainly not inequality and too many supposedly pro-poor interventions are bad policy.
Message me if you'd like a copy.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies 2nd ed, 2019
The definition of development has changed over the years since the inception of development econo... more The definition of development has changed over the years since the inception of development economics as a sub-discipline of economics in the 1950s. Initially, development economics was understood as a study of how the economies of nation-states have grown and expanded, placing the discipline in line with the classical and neoclassical traditions of economics. Later, however, some scholars focused on how to improve the welfare of the population and the planet informing the critical tradition. The post-war economic development models were fundamentally classical, but they did allow for some state intervention to achieve development, demonstrating the influence of economist John Maynard Keynes. Postwar leftist development economics coalesced around structuralism and dependency theory, or world systems theory, the latter two having their roots in Marxist political economy. This influenced state-led development approaches most associated with the Asian Tigers. In the 1980s, neoliberal ideas came to dominate development economics, however the high social costs of this approach led to a greater focus on poverty, while more progressive scholars emphasized capabilities and redistribution with growth. Since the Global Financial Crisis, questioning of neoclassical economics has grown and, while it is still far from dead, more heterodox approaches are flourishing.
African-Asian Encounters: New Cooperations and New Dependencies Edited by Arndt Graf and Azirah Hashim, 2017
This chapter explores the historical evolution of Indonesia’s South-South Cooperation (SSC) effor... more This chapter explores the historical evolution of Indonesia’s South-South Cooperation (SSC) efforts in order to examine why it has re-emerged as a relatively prominent theme in Indonesian foreign policy and, in particular, whether this re-emergence has been driven by external forces, as it was in the Suharto years, or internal politics or some combination of these. Second, it considers what Indonesia’’s independent and active foreign policy means in the light of SSC activities. In recent years, Indonesian foreign policy has mostly been interrogated in terms of Indonesia’s leadership ambitions; this chapter combines foreign policy and global development analysis to examine domestic, regional, and international drivers in politics and policy formation.
Third, the chapter reflects upon whether, and to what extent, Indonesia’s current efforts are challenging development orthodoxies and Northern domination of aid systems and practices. Specifically, the paper chapter looks at whether the drivers, policies, and practices of Indonesia’s SSC programme are overall more of a support, or challenge to, the contemporary North-South aid architecture. This is particularly interesting in the Indonesian case, as it was an early and prominent supporter of anti-colonialism and non-alignment. Back in 1955, then President Sukarno sought, if not to shake up the global order of his time at least, as he said at Bandung, to ‘‘inject the voice of reason in world affairs’ ’ (cited in Gde Agung 1973: : 226; Palat 2008: : 271). More recently, Indonesia was placed as part of the second generation of emerging powers called CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa), the first generation of course being the BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Nils-Sjard Schulz (2010: : 5) has argued the second generation of emerging powers offers 'a welcome middle way between the traditional DAC donors and the BRIC push for global power stakes’, whereas Emma Mawdsley (2012) sees them as more of a challenge to the existing donor system. However, Ravi Palat (2008: : 721) argued, that even the first generation emerging powers have been timid in their challenges to ‘the Euro-North American domination of world affairs.’ This chapter adds to this debate by a detailed study of Indonesia’s emerging approach to SSC.
Australian Journal of Political Science, 2021
ABSTRACT Universal basic income is an old idea that has experienced a surge in global attention. ... more ABSTRACT Universal basic income is an old idea that has experienced a surge in global attention. In many countries, it is creeping up the policy agenda as an alternative to traditional welfare. Yet, in Australia, the idea is mostly ignored by the two main political parties. Communication scholars have long contended that the media play a role in influencing opinion and setting the policy agenda. Using a framing approach, this study analyses how basic income was framed in 2018 by seven Australian newspapers and compares the results with those in countries where basic income has solidified a position in public discourse. We found that the mainstream media outlets in Australia are overtly hostile to the idea, which presents a significant obstacle to a universal basic income gaining legitimacy as a social policy.
Review of International Political Economy, Jul 5, 2023
Routledge eBooks, Mar 11, 2021
Routledge eBooks, Mar 11, 2021
Routledge eBooks, Mar 11, 2021
This edited book provides a contemporary, critical and thought-provoking analysis of the internal... more This edited book provides a contemporary, critical and thought-provoking analysis of the internal and external threats to Western multilateral development finance in the twenty-first century. It draws on the expertise of scholars with a range of backgrounds providing a critical exploration of the neoliberal multilateral development aid. The contributions focus on how Western institutions have historically dominated development aid, and juxtapose this hegemony with the recent challenges from right-wing populist and the Beijing Consensus ideologies and practices. This book argues that the rise of right-wing populism has brought internal challenges to traditional powers within the multilateral development system. External challenges arise from the influence of China and regional development banks by providing alternatives to established Western dominated aid sources and architecture. From this vantagepoint, Rethinking Multilateralism in Foreign Aid puts forward new ideas for addressing the current global social, political and economic challenges concerning multilateral development aid. This book will be of interest to researchers, academics and students in the field of International Development and Global Governance, decision-makers at government level as well as to those working in international aid institutions, regional and bilateral aid agencies, and non-governmental organisations
Routledge eBooks, Mar 11, 2021
In recent decades, ties between Africa and Asia have greatly increased. And while most of the sch... more In recent decades, ties between Africa and Asia have greatly increased. And while most of the scholarly attention to the phenomenon has focused on China, often with an emphasis on asymmetric power relations in both politics and economics, this book takes a much broader view, looking at various small and medium-sized actors in Asia and Africa in a wide range of fields. It will be essential for scholars working on Asian-African studies and will also offer insights for policymakers working in this fast-changing field.
Speculation last week that Paul Keating and Peter Costello could nominate for the top job at the ... more Speculation last week that Paul Keating and Peter Costello could nominate for the top job at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was a mere distraction, but the hoopla did manage to highlight a crucial issue: the need for reform at the top of the world’s economic institutions. Since Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s dramatic exit from his post as IMF managing director earlier this month, much of the debate around his replacement has focused the need for a non-European to take the reins. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has emerged as the frontrunner, despite a significant – and warranted – push from the developing economies to see one of their own win the job. IMF has made it clear that the nomination process will be open and democratic, but if Lagarde’s fast ascent is anything to go by, it seems that some long-standing conventions are proving difficult to break
The Routledge Handbook of Global Development, 2022
Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 2018
If Scott Morrison was looking for a way to prove Australia is a good neighbour to Pacific nations... more If Scott Morrison was looking for a way to prove Australia is a good neighbour to Pacific nations, he could hardly have chosen a worse option. Looking for a policy to combat both China and his domestic Opposition, the Australian prime minister last week announced a plan involving billions of dollars for Pacific nations. Billions of dollars in loans, that is
The Global Architecture of Multilateral Development Banks, 2021
The Global Architecture of Multilateral Development Banks, 2021
The Global Architecture of Multilateral Development Banks, 2021
