Political Economy of Development Research Papers (original) (raw)

Chile has maintained a limited industrial policy for nearly three decades. Policy resilience during the 2000s and 2010s is especially puzzling given the political and economic context: three Socialist-led administrations; the retreat of the Washington Consensus; resource abundance from the commodity boom; and the decline of the so-called economic ‘miracle’. We present the first comprehensive analysis of industrial policy in post authoritarian Chile (1990–present) and show the significant political influence of business actors with a preference for limited state intervention in the economy as a mechanism of policy reproduction.

- by Tomas Bril Mascarenhas and +1
- •
- Latin American Studies, Economics, Development Economics, Comparative Politics

The article discusses the efforts to undertake economic reconstruction in Bosnia following the end of the war. It argues that, despite certain successes such as the rehabilitation of
infrastructure and the privatization of the banking sector, overall progress has been below expectations. The study, accordingly, attempts to analyse the reasons behind the reconstruction
failure by grouping Bosnia’s problems into four different challenges for analytical purposes: the post-Dayton institutional deficiency; overcoming political fragmentation; creating appropriate conditions for economic revival; and graduating from dependency on foreign economic aid. In this respect, it is concluded that the intersection between the economic and political dimensions of post-conflict reconstruction has generated a paradox: while huge amounts of economic assistance have intended to facilitate political reconciliation, the nature of the administrative (political) structure that was established in the post-war period has in turn hindered economic
recovery and the creation of a unified economic space. Moreover, political fragmentation and slow progress in economic reconstruction have been in a mutually constitutive relationship in which the existence of the one has contributed to the sustenance of the other.

- by Nikolaos Tzifakis
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- Geography, International Relations, Multiculturalism, Development Studies
- by Thomas Tanner
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- Political Economy of Development, REDD+

The development literature lacks consensus about the link between aid effectiveness and governance improvement. A basic rational actor model is introduced to clarify how donors can influence recipient behaviors and more broadly how foreign aid can support or impede governance quality improvement. Adopting the underutilized perspective of donor behavior, this study identifies mechanisms through which aid hinders governance improvement and offers substantive recommendations about how donors can enhance aid effectiveness, including strategies for donors to raise the level of effort recipients devote to project success.

During the 1780s, the Spanish crown endeavored to facilitate and expedite commercial exchange within its vast Atlantic territories, a goal which it hoped to accomplish by creating new consulados (merchant chambers and courts) in many port cities of the empire. The need to create new consulados became an especially important issue after the implementation of the new system of comercio libre in 1778, which significantly stimulated economic activity across the Atlantic. Paying attention to Spain's efforts to create a modern commercial empire, this article asks why new metropolitan consulados were created in the mid-1780s, while, in the colonies, they came to fruition in the 1790s, after the infamous minister of the Indies, José de Gálvez, died in 1787? The article argues that, unlike Gálvez, who was committed to an extractive system of imperial governance, the ministers who came to power after 1787 were inspired by a distinct kind of soft colonialism, espousing that, if the empire were to survive, it had to govern its colonies with gentleness. This, in turn, entailed stimulating economic improvement in the colonies while promoting bonds of reciprocity among subjects from both sides of the Atlantic. By reconstructing the events that led to the creation of new consulados in the colonies, this article uncovers how a new regime of colonial economic improvement was put into place in order to bind the empire during a moment of impending crisis.

- by Fidel J Tavárez
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- Economic History, Political Economy, Atlantic World, Enlightenment

Eastern Sociological Society 2014 Annual Meeting Development Sociology Mini-Conference The Cost of Development: Work, Gender, Ethnicity and Environment Organized by F. Sonia Arellano-López (Binghamton-State University of New York)... more

Eastern Sociological Society 2014 Annual Meeting Development Sociology Mini-Conference
The Cost of Development:
Work, Gender, Ethnicity and Environment
Organized by
F. Sonia Arellano-López (Binghamton-State University of New York)
Dimitri della Faille (Université du Québec en Outaouais)

- by Dimitri della Faille and +1
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- Gender Studies, Development Studies, Political Ecology, Labour Studies

A number of people have claimed that the ongoing financial crisis has revealed the problems with neoliberal thought and neoliberal policies in the 'Atlantic Heartland'. However, if we look at the history of the 'Heartland' economies then it becomes evident that they were never neoliberal in the first place - that is, the economic policies and discourses in these countries did not follow neoliberal prescriptions. /We Have Never Been Neoliberal/ explores this divergence between neoliberal theory and 'neoliberal' practice by focusing on the underlying contradictions in monetarism, private monopolies, and financialization. The book finishes by proposing a 'manifesto for a doomed youth' in which it argues that younger generations should refuse to pay interest on anything in order to avoid the trap of debt-driven living.

- by Kean Birch
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- Business, Business Ethics, Finance, Sociology

Problems of elite capture continue to present challenges for sustainable and equitable forest governance around the world. Our understanding of elite capture, however, remains limited by conceptual approaches that pay insufficient attention to power in its various dimensions. Drawing on critical insti-tutionalism and political ecology, I analyze how the power veiled in political-economic structures or 'power fields', embedded with local institutions and relations of conflict and negotiation, helps (re)pro-duce elite power and persistence. I pay particular attention to the role of foresters as crucial yet under-studied elite actors in community forestry. I employ an overtime comparative case study of processes of elite capture in four regional inter-community forestry associations (FAs) in the state of Durango, Mexico. I argue that foresters' persistent capture of FAs is related to multi-layered power inequalities and persistent democratic deficits reproduced by techno-bureaucratic forestry and authoritarian corporatist logics. At the same time, I posit that this capture is not definite but is continually transformed by social struggles and grassroots institutional innovations.

- by Gustavo Garcia-Lopez
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- Development Studies, Forestry, Commons, Political Ecology
- by Michael Levien
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- History, International Relations, Political Economy, Development Studies

International peace- and state-building interventions have become ubiquitous in international politics since the 1990s, aiming to tackle the security problems stemming from the instability afflicting many developing states. Their frequent failures have prompted a shift towards analysing how the interaction between interveners and recipients shapes outcomes. This book critically assesses the rapidly growing literature in international relations and development studies on international intervention and local politics. It advances an innovative approach, placing the politics of scale at the core of the conflicts and compromises shaping the outcomes of international intervention. Different scales - local, national, international - privilege different interests, unevenly allocating power, resources and political opportunity structures. Interveners and recipients thus pursue scalar strategies and socio-political alliances that reinforce their power and marginalise rivals. This approach is harnessed towards examining three prominent case studies of international intervention - Aceh, Cambodia and Solomon Islands - with a focus on public administration reform.

- by Shahar Hameiri and +1
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- Political Economy, Development Studies, Humanitarian Intervention, Political Economy of Development

In Nepal, the adult entertainment sector (AES) is perceived as a high-risk
environment for children where sexual exploitation is known to occur. The AES is made up of a diverse range of venues that includes restaurants, folk dance bars, erotic dance bars, massage parlours, guest houses, and hotels.
This Working Paper seeks to understand the reasons why the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) exists in the AES, focusing on how social and cultural norms reinforce and reproduce the material and structural realities of the sector. It also explores how these norms affect the employment trajectories of minors and looks at the role of labour intermediaries – both formal and informal – in intentionally or unintentionally supporting the employment of minors in the AES.

- by P. Oosterhoff
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- Criminal Law, Anthropology, Development Studies, Human Rights

This chapter will examine the development of Taiwan’s vibrant industrial districts through case studies of arguably the four most successful industrial districts over time: bicycles, machine tools, information and communication technologies (ICT) hardware products, and integrated circuits (ICs). While the Taiwanese state played an active and often critical role in developing these industrial sectors and clusters as it did more broadly in Taiwanese economic development (Chu 2017; Wade 2004), these industrial clusters also varied in terms of the state’s role, the nature of their transnational links, and the concomitant density of their domestic clusters, and whether or not rural industrialization was an antecedent to
each cluster’s development.

Resumen: Este artículo muestra costos y beneficios del Estado ecuato-riano en su decisión de rechazar la Ayuda Oficial al Desarrollo estadou-nidense y mantener la alemana. La política exterior autónoma, teoría sustantiva que deriva del realismo periférico, junto con las motivaciones de estados emisores y receptores para el flujo de AOD que observa la economía política internacional explican cuáles fueron las consideracio-nes políticas y financieras de esta decisión. Los hallazgos muestran que Ecuador rechazó la ayuda estadouniden-se y alemana (2007-2014) porque no percibió riesgo de perjuicio material al hacerlo. Su retórica nacionalista, antihegemónica y anticolonial se fortaleció en un contexto macroeconómico favorable. Ponderó sus consideraciones políticas sobre este instrumento. Por un lado, Estados Unidos retiró su agencia de ayuda, USAID, el grupo militar y su oficina antinarcóticos y Ecuador obtuvo un beneficio simbólico de su posición antihegemónica. Por el otro, Alemania suspendió su ayuda momentá-neamente, pero en 2015, Ecuador percibió riesgo de perjuicio material al no reactivarla entonces presentó flexibilidad en su agenda, relacionó sus intereses, y la aceptó nuevamente. El valor simbólico anticolonial de la ruptura con Alemania fue menor frente a la pérdida material que significaba su apoyo a las políticas ambientales y de planificación guber-namental de Ecuador. Palabras Clave: cooperación internacional, ayuda oficial al desarrollo, ayuda al exterior, autonomía. * Magíster en Relaciones Internacionales con mención en Negociación y Cooperación Internacional por la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Flacso, Ecuador. El presente trabajo se basó en la investigación inédita: Costos y Beneficios de rechazar la Ayuda Oficial al Desarrollo: el caso de Ecuador

Focusing exclusively on external forces risks producing an over-generalized account of a ubiquitous neoliberalism, which insufficiently accounts for the profusion of local variegations that currently comprise the neoliberal project as a series of articulations with existing political economic circumstances. Although neoliberal economics were initially promoted in the global south through the auspices of structural adjustment programs designed by the International Financial Institutions, powerful global south elites were only too happy to oblige. Neoliberalism frequently reveals opportunities for well-connected government officials to informally control market and material rewards, allowing them to easily line their own pockets. It is in this sense of the local appropriation of neoliberal ideas that scholars must go beyond conceiving of ‘neoliberalism-in-general’ as a singular and fully realized policy regime, ideological form, or regulatory framework, and work towards conceiving a plurality of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’ with particular characteristics arising from mutable geohistorical outcomes that are embedded within national, regional, and local process of market-driven socio-spatial transformation. What constitutes ‘actually existing’ neoliberalism in Cambodia as distinctly Cambodian is the ways in which the patronage system has allowed local elites to co-opt, transform, and (re)articulate neoliberal reforms through a framework that ‘asset strips’ public resources, thereby increasing peoples’ exposure to corruption, coercion, and violence. It is to such an 'articulation agenda' that this article attends, as in seeking to provide a more nuanced reading to recent work on neoliberalism in Cambodia by outlining some of its salient characteristics, I reveal a more empirical basis to theorizations of ‘articulated neoliberalism’.

- by Simon Springer
- •
- Sociology, Economic Sociology, Political Sociology, Geography

This paper focuses on the urban graffiti painted with a political message by different
movements of the Italian political radicalism in the cities of Rome, Florence, Massa,
Carrara, Verona and Udine. For the purpose of this article, during the period from June
2011 to June 2012, a total of 165 graffiti have been photographed, of which 83 painted by
neo-fascist groups, 72 by extreme left groups and 10 by anarchist groups. These three
macro communities, made of different subgroups, emerged as the most active in expressing
their antagonism towards the parliamentary parties with their graffiti that combine semantic
(words) and semiotic (images) elements. An analysis of the collected graffiti’s language
form, meaning and context allows for the identification of the variety of styles of
communication adopted by the different political antagonisms and the different contents of
their communication through graffiti as well as the key elements of their political identities.
Key words: political radicalism, graffiti, linguistics

- by Nicola Guerra
- •
- Creative Writing, Critical Theory, Discourse Analysis, Semiotics

Essays by Don Green and Alan Gerber and Edward Kaplan, Susan Stokes, Angus Deaton, Andrew Gelman, Ian Shapiro, Koskue Imai and Gary King and Elizabeth Stuart, Christopher Barrett and Michael Carter, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo.

- by Dawn Teele
- •
- Development Economics, Political Economy of Development, RCTs, Field Experiments

This paper reviews the evidence on authoritarianism and development from the perspective of a policy-maker providing advice to an ostensibly developmental authoritarian regime. It finds that the cross-national statistical evidence on regime-type and development is inconclusive, and argues that varying experiences of development under authoritarianism are better-captured by structured-focused comparisons using ‘developmental states’ and ‘political settlements’ frameworks. Although these frameworks provide a good starting point for thinking about development in particular authoritarian regimes, they do have their blind spots. In particular, they have little to say about whether transitions from less to more developmental forms of authoritarianism are possible or how they take place, or how transitions from authoritarianism to democracy can be managed without derailing development. Ultimately, more research on these issues is needed.

Bringing together classic defense of liberty and democracy, the political economy of hierarchy, endogenous growth theory, and the new institutional economics on growth, we propose a new institutional theory that identifies democracy’s unique advantage in prompting economic growth. We contend that the channel of liberty-to-innovation is the most critical channel in which democracy holds a unique advantage over autocracy in promoting growth, especially during the stage of growth via innovation. Because all human societies are hierarchical and hierarchy facilitates growth by bringing stability and order yet harms innovation and growth by demanding obedience to authority, an economy must strike a balance between maintaining stability and facilitating innovation. Democracy achieves this balance by protecting liberty whereas autocracy sacrifices innovation for stability. Democracy thus does hold a unique advantage in promoting growth over autocracy, but this advantage is indirect, channel-specific, and conditional. Evidences from three historical cases demonstrate that although key scientific breakthroughs can indeed pop up under autocracies, democracy is a necessary, though insufficient, condition for protecting major scientific breakthroughs that may challenge orthodoxies.

- by Pietro P. Masina
- •
- Economic History, Economic Sociology, Geography, Development Economics

This article examines two cases of social accountability implementation in Cambodia. The findings show that responsiveness in public service delivery is possible but limited without formal systems of accountability. The level of responsiveness depends on a unique combination of political and administrative conditions. It is expected that insights from the case studies can be useful for future implementation of social accountability initiatives in developing countries.

This article examines power dynamics in political groupings during
the 2014 Afghanistan presidential election and assesses the impact on
political stability and order. The focus is the power dynamics of local
political-economic and identity networks that have come to underpin
and constitute the state in post-2001 international state-building.
The article first seeks to understand how the complex relationships
between the two leading presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and
Abdullah Abdullah, and key powerbrokers were negotiated and
subsequently influenced electoral outcomes. Second, focusing on
negotiations over the appointment of the Cabinet ministers, advisers
and staff, and governors, the study maps the restructuring of political
networks within the Afghan state. The analysis reveals the impact of
the election on the redistribution of power and resources, and the
consequences for political order and state stability in the post-2014
period.

This article argues that rural development in Africa is a victim of western epistemologies. Whatever tag allotted to it, these epistemologies are clustered around ideology and hegemony. With the rhetoric on the need to be truly sustainable, experts have modeled development in Africa with little attempt at valorizing local or indigenous knowledge. This journey has compelled rural communities to " lighten their darkness " both physically and metaphorically for the gratification of externally induced expert knowledge. The article argues that the destinies of rural communities in Africa can be rebranded through a systematic inclusive development process where both local and expert knowledge is integrated within development intervention frameworks. If Africa as a continent is to co-participate in the production of knowledge for their own development, it is appropriate that it does so with the interests and concerns of Africans themselves

Capitalism, understood as a world-ecology that joins accumulation, power, and nature in dialectical unity, has been adept at evading so-called Malthusian dynamics through an astonishing historical capacity to produce, locate, and occupy cheap natures external to the system. In recent decades, the last frontiers have closed, and this astonishing historical capacity has withered. This “withering” is perhaps most evident in capitalism’s failure to offer a new, actually productive, agricultural model – as agro-biotechnology failed to deliver on its promissory notes. Moving from bad to worse, a second set of contradictions is now mediated through climate change. Climate change, one amongst many ongoing biospheric shifts, is interwoven with the totality of neoliberal agriculture’s contradictions to produce new contradictions: negative-value. This signals the emergence of forms of nature that are increasingly hostile to capital accumulation, and which can be temporarily fixed (if at all) only through increasingly costly, toxic, and dangerous strategies. The rise of negative-value – whose accumulation has been latent for much of capitalist history – therefore suggests a significant and rapid erosion of opportunities for the appropriation of new streams of unpaid work/energy. As such, these new limits are qualitatively different from the nutrient- and resource-depletion of earlier, developmental crises of the longue durée Cheap Food model. These contradictions, within capital, arising from negative-value, are today encouraging an unprecedented shift towards a radical onto-logical politics, within capitalism as a whole, that destabilizes crucial points of agreement in the modern world-system: What is Food? What is Nature? What is Valuable?

- by Jason W. Moore
- •
- Economic History, Political Economy, Historical Sociology, Globalization

¿Afronta actualmente el capitalismo el “fin de la naturaleza barata”? Si así es, ¿qué podría significar esto y cuáles con las implicaciones para el futuro? Estamos, de hecho, siendo testigos del fin de la naturaleza barata en un sentido específico histórico. En vez de contemplar el fin de la naturaleza barata como la reafirmación de “límites de crecimiento” externos, sostengo que, a día de hoy, el capitalismo ha agotado la relación histórica que la produce. El fin de la naturaleza barata se comprende mejor como el agotamiento de las relaciones de valor que han restaurado periódicamente los “Four Cheaps”: trabajo, alimentos, energía y materias primas. Fundamentalmente, estas relaciones de valor son coproducidas por, y a través de, humanos con el resto de la naturaleza. La cuestión decisiva, por lo tanto, enciende las relaciones que envuelven y despliegan las sucesivas configuraciones de la naturaleza humana y extra-humana, simbólicamente capacitadas y materialmente realizadas, a través de la larga duración del sistema-mundo moderno. Significativamente, la apropiación de trabajo no remunerado —incluyendo los “regalos gratuitos” de la naturaleza— y la explotación del trabajo asalariado, forman una unidad dialéctica. Los límites del crecimiento enfrentados actualmente por el capital son suficientemente reales, y son “límites” coproducidos a través del capitalismo como ecología-mundo, uniendo la acumulación de capital, la búsqueda de poder y la coproducción de naturaleza como un todo orgánico. El límite de la ecología-mundo del capital es el capital en sí mismo.

- by Jason W. Moore
- •
- Economic History, Environmental Sociology, Political Economy, Historical Sociology

A conceptually rich, historically informed, and interdisciplinary study of the contentious politics emerging out of decades of authoritarian neoliberal economic reform, The Roots of Revolt examines the contested political economy of Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak, just prior to the Arab Uprisings of 2010–11. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted across rural and urban Egypt, Angela Joya employs an 'on the ground' approach to critical political economy that challenges the interpretations of Egyptian politics put forward by scholars of both democratization and authoritarianism. By critically reassessing the relationship between democracy and capitalist development, Joya demonstrates how renewed authoritarian politics were required to institutionalize neoliberal reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund, presenting the real-world impact of economic policy on the lives of ordinary Egyptians before the Arab Uprisings.

- by Angela Joya
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- Political Economy, Middle East Studies, Middle East & North Africa, Democratization

This paper aims to address in a didactic way the issue of development and evolution of this concept, considering the main theoretical trends, including traditional theories of modernization, structuralism, neo-Marxist, dependency, neoclassical, as well as an introduction to alternative theories of development, as the Theory of Human Development, Gender and Development, Multidimensional development, Endogenous Development, Eco-development and Post-development. The study concludes with comments on the application of this concept in the framework of international cooperation activities.

In this article we analyse Fair Trade as a form of non-state regulation, building on the literature on the internal politics and governance of Fair Trade International (FTI) certification. We focus on recent developments in the FTI certification system, including the split of Fair Trade USA from FTI and the emergence of the Small Producer’s Symbol (SPP) as an alternative to FTI certification. We highlight the role of the three regional Producer Networks, in particular the Latin American Producer Network, the CLAC, in the politics and governance of the FTI system. In order to analyse these issues we employ an alternative reading of Karl Polanyi’s work in relation to Fair Trade. We problematise the claim made by some in the literature that FTI certification is an example of Polanyi’s concept of re-embedding. Instead, we draw on Polanyi’s concept of oversight to analyse Fair Trade certification. We argue that the emergence of the SPP out of the CLAC shows promise for being a mechanism of oversight more reflective of Polanyian re-embedding than FTI certification. We also emphasise how the growth of the SPP and the pressure from the Producer Networks have prompted governance reform within the FTI system.

- by Ian Hussey
- •
- Business Ethics, Sociology, Social Movements, Latin American Studies

De Martinez Roca, S.A., Barcelona, editors:
Mao Tse-tung: un cadaver para la burguesía. Los meses dramáticos de la historia moderna de China. Un reportaje sensacional.
El autor de este libro, el periodista chileno Róbinson Rojas, vivió en la República Popular China desde agosto de 1974 hasta abril de 1977, cuando fue expulsado por considerársele un pregonero de “la banda de los cuatro”.
Estos casi tres años de su estancia en China coincidieron con los meses más dramáticos de la historia moderna de este país: la muerte física de sus principales líderes -Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, Chu Te -, la muerte y resurrección política de uno de los más hábiles dirigentes del partido comunista, Teng Siao-ping; un devastador terremoto que aniquiló la vida de 600.000 habitantes en las cercanías de Pekín y dejó heridos a otros 400.000; y, por ultimo, el colapso final de lo que, desde 1949 hasta hasta 1976, se llamó revolución socialista en la República Popular China.
¿Qué ha ocurrido en China? ¿Qué ha ocurrido en una sociedad cuyo pueblo libró una sangrienta Guerra civil para liberarse, consiguió salir de la miseria y convirtió en realidad, por momentos, la creación de una sociedad justa, realizando hazañas en last areas de la producción y del bienestar colectivo? Rojas, con un estilo fuertemente polémico, avasallador, ha escrito un libro de combate que se lee de un tirón. La obra es de un interés inmenso por la actualidad de los hechos descritos y analizados.
Barcelona - 1978

- by Nicholas Mtetesha
- •
- Entrepreneurship, Economics, Public Administration, Political Economy

The paper offers a political economy analysis of the structural, technical and socio-political (STP) factors associated with industrial policy implementation in a resource-based economy. Trinidad and Tobago, a less well-known case in the steel sector, illustrates in contrast to mainstream assumptions, that formal market-supporting institutions, such as property rights and the rule of law do not explain its industrial performance. It suggests the interplay of interrelated forces at the domestic and international levels, namely relevant technologies, natural gas supplies, and an international commodity boom coupled with collective organizational skills and mobilizations of social actors that propelled state-led industrialization. Employing historical data, the paper explains the rise and decline of steel manufacturing from the period of state-led industrialization underpinned by a specific STP configuration that generated increasingly complex skills, products and new employment. The fall of global demand and protectionism in the United States prompted its privatization and undermined indigenous capability. JEL codes: O380, Q430, L520, F630, N560, B520, F50

- by Emilianus Yakob Sese Tolo and +2
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- Political Economy of Development