PREFACE
This report is the first part of a research project on industrialization strategies and industrial cooperation in southern Africa. This part is devoted to studying the theories and policies of international cooperation.
The research project is part of the WIDER special programmes financed out of the Finnish Government Special Programme Fund. The researcher is preparing his doctoral thesis on the same topic at the University of Paris VII (Laboratoire des Tiers-Mondes), under the guidance of Dr. Monique Chemillier-Gendreau.
Besides Mme. Chemillier-Gendreau, some of the students and colleagues at the IDS, University of Helsinki, have given valuable comments on different parts and versions of this text. The author wants to thank all of them, and the WIDER for the publication of this report
المشروع البحثي هو جزء من برامج خاصة اقتصاديات بتمويل من صندوق البرنامج الخاص الحكومة الفنلندية. الباحث تستعد اطروحة دكتوراه حول نفس الموضوع في جامعة باريس السابعة (مختبر قصر تيير-Mondes)، تحت إشراف الدكتور مونيك كيميلير- جاندرو.
إلى جانب السيدة. كيميلير- جاندرو، وبعض من الطلاب والزملاء في IDS،، أعطت جامعة هلسنكي تعليقات قيمة على أجزاء والإصدارات من هذا النص مختلفة. الكاتب يريد أن أشكر كل منهم، وعلى نطاق أوسع لنشر هذا التقرير
Das Forschungsprojekt ist Teil der WIDER Sonderprogramme finanziert aus der finnischen Regierung Sonderprogramm Fonds. Der Forscher bereitet seine Dissertation zum gleichen Thema an der Universität Paris VII (Laboratoire des Tiers-Mondes), unter der Leitung von Dr. Monique Chemillier-Gendreau.
Neben Mme. Chemillier-Gendreau, einige der Studenten und Kollegen auf der IDS, Universität Helsinki, haben wertvolle Hinweise zu den verschiedenen Teilen und Versionen dieses Textes gegeben. Der Autor möchte, dass alle von ihnen, und die WIDER für die Veröffentlichung dieses Berichts danken
INTRODUCTION
A story tells that in the Middle Ages, the books in the libraries were sometimes arranged according to the country of their origin, or the place where their authors were born, or the place where they should have been born.
Thus, the books that the creators of the library considered books of falsehood, or inherent with the official truth, were labelled with a warning: Africa, hic sunt leones. /1 Now, in our days, this seems to be the case with the role of the studies of politics in economic development.
Indeed, there seems to be a particular tendency in development studies to ignore the "political", or, at least, to treat the political aspects of economic development as a kind of "black box"; i.e. something beyond and unattainable by means of ordinary social science. Since the warning is continuously repeated, it is no wonder that anthropologists, economists and sociologists are frightened off and discouraged from claiming an understanding of the political aspects of social development in the Third World. The problematic of international development cooperation is a case in point. /3 Already the use of the term "cooperation" is illuminating ("Everybody is for cooperation!"). The common way to see cooperation unanimously as an 'apolitical' solution to social problems
المقدمة
قصة تحكي أنه في العصور الوسطى، والكتب في المكتبات رتبت في بعض الأحيان وفقا لبلد المنشأ، أو المكان الذي ولدت فيه مؤلفيها، أو المكان الذي يجب أن يكون قد ولد.
وهكذا، فإن الكتب التي المبدعين من المكتبة تعتبر الكتب من الباطل، أو ملازمة مع الحقيقة الرسمية، وصفت مع تحذير: أفريقيا، ليون أنت هنا. / 1 الآن، في أيامنا هذه، ويبدو أن هذا هو الحال مع دور دراسات السياسة في التنمية الاقتصادية.
في الواقع، يبدو أن هناك اتجاها خاصا في الدراسات التنموية لتجاهل "سياسية"، أو، على الأقل، لمعالجة الجوانب السياسية للتنمية الاقتصادية كنوع من "الصندوق الاسود". أي شيء أبعد وغير قابلة للتحقيق عن طريق العلوم الاجتماعية العادية. منذ يتكرر التحذير بشكل مستمر، فليس من المستغرب أن علماء الأنثروبولوجيا والاقتصاديين وعلماء الاجتماع خائفون من وتثبيط من يدعي فهم الجوانب السياسية للتنمية الاجتماعية في العالم الثالث. إشكالية التعاون الإنمائي الدولي هي خير مثال على ذلك. / 3 إذا كنت استخدام مصطلح "التعاون" هو إلقاء الضوء ( "الجميع للتعاون!"). الطريقة الشائعة لمعرفة التعاون بالإجماع بوصفه حلا "سياسي" للمشاكل الاجتماعية
Introduction
Development cooperation is a new mode of international relations. In the modern sense of the word, development cooperation has been carried out only after the Second World War. But in a short period of time, it has become an institutionalized mode of international relations. Today, almost every country is engaged in development cooperation in one way or in another. Research of development cooperation is, thus, a challenging task for the study of international relations.
Problems of development cooperation have been studied first and foremost as an issue of development studies. However, the development problematic can not alone explain the dynamics of development cooperation.
Whatever forms the internal development in a "developing country" may take, no cooperation can rise out without the desire of partners to cooperate.
It is, thus, no wonder that development cooperation is inevitably laden with political and moral aspects. In an international system with increasingly widening gaps between national welfare levels, any coherent vision of a peaceful global change cannot miss the problematic of cooperation between rich and poor nations.
Introduction
Are you sure that you know what “development” really means with respect to different countries? And can you determine which countries are more developed and which are less?
It is somewhat easier to say which countries are richer and which are poorer. But indicators of wealth, which reflect the quantity of resources available to a society, provide no information about the allocation of those resources—for instance, about more or less equitable distribution of income among social groups, about the shares of resources used to provide free health and education services, and about the effects of production and consumption on people’s environment.
Thus it is no wonder that countries with similar average incomes can differ substantially when it comes to people’s quality of life: access to education and health care, employment opportunities, availability of clean air and safe drinking water, the threat of crime, and so on. With that in mind, how do we determine which countries are more developed and which are less developed?
Goals and Means of Development Different countries have different priorities in their development policies. But to compare their development levels, you would first have to make up your mind about what development really means to you, what it is supposed to achieve.
Indicators measuring this achievement could then be used to judge countries’ relative progress in development.
Is the goal merely to increase national wealth, or is it something more subtle?
Improving the well-being of the majority of the population? Ensuring people’s freedom? Increasing their economic security?1 Recent United Nations documents emphasize “human development,” measured by life expectancy, adult literacy, access to all three levels of education, as well as people’s average income, which is a necessary condition of their freedom of choice. In a broader sense the notion of human development incorporates all aspects of individuals’ well-being, from their health status to their economic and What Is Development?
If you think that the “simple” answer to this question is something like “maximizing people’s happiness,” think of the different factors that usually make people feel happy or unhappy. Note that a number of special surveys in different countries appear to show that the average level of happiness in a country does not grow along with the increase in average income, at least after a certain rather modest income level is achieved. At the same time, in each country richer people usually reported slightly higher levels of happiness than poorer people, and people in countries with more equal distribution of wealth appeared to be generally happier.
According to the Human Development Report 1996, published by the United Nations Development Program, “human development is the end—economic growth a means.”
It is true that economic growth, by increasing a nation’s total wealth, also enhances its potential for reducing poverty and solving other social problems. But history offers a number of examples where economic growth was not followed by similar progress in human development. Instead growth was achieved at the cost of greater inequality, higher unemployment, weakened democracy, loss of cultural identity, or overconsumption of natural resources needed by future generations. As the links between economic growth and social and environmental issues are better understood, experts including economists tend to agree that this kind of growth is inevitably unsustainable—that is, it cannot continue along the same lines for long. First, if environmental and social/human losses resulting from economic growth turn out to be higher than economic benefits (additional incomes earned by the majority of the population), the overall result for people’s wellbeing becomes negative. Thus such economic growth becomes difficult to sustain politically. Second, economic growth itself inevitably depends on its natural and social/human conditions. To be sustainable, it must rely on a certain amount of natural resources and services provided by nature, such as pollution absorption and resource regeneration.
Moreover, economic growth must be constantly nourished by the fruits of human development, such as higher qualified workers capable of technological and managerial innovations along with opportunities for their efficient use: more and better jobs, better conditions for new businesses to grow, and greater democracy at all levels of decision making Conversely, slow human development can put an end to fast economic growth.
According to the Human Development Report 1996, “during 1960–1992 not a single country succeeded in moving from lopsided development with slow human development and rapid growth to a virtuous circle in which human development and growth can become mutually reinforcing.” Since slower human development has invariably been followed by slower economic growth, this growth pattern was labeled a “dead end.”
Sustainable Development Sustainable development is a term widely used by politicians all over the world, even though the notion is still rather new and lacks a uniform interpretation.
Goals of and Reasons for this Course
During the last decade, the world has witnessed an extraordinary series of events. From Brasilia to Warsaw, democratic forces have challenged authoritarian regimes on the left and right of the political spectrum. In some cases this trend has opened the door to the establishment of democratic governments. In other cases the weakening of authoritarian regimes has promoted the growth and political fortunes of a host of ultra-nationalist or religious -fundamentalist movements seeking to impose their own brand of authoritarianism.
How do we account for such changes? Under what conditions is it more or less likely that authoritarian regimes will be challenged and displaced by democratic movements? Why do economic development, urbanization, and education promote political stability and a common sense of identity in some cases, while in other instances such force engender sectarianism, religious bigotry and even civil war? In short, how can we make sense of the world we live in?
This course explores some of these daunting questions, particularly as they relate to the challenges of "political development" and "modernization" in the Third World.
We shall see that social scientists have been wrestling with these issues for more than 4 decades. In their efforts to make sense of the confusing maze of data regarding Third World development, and in their attempts to "order" this data in a way that will make it accessible to explanation, they have developed analytical frameworks, theories or "paradigms." These frameworks have served as crucial intellectual guides for entire generations of social scientists.
Our task is twofold: First, we shall critically assess the most important analytical schools of thought that have guided the study of Third World development. These paradigms have sometimes illuminated significant social and political trends, while on other occasions they have obscured such trends. Identifying the contributions and limitations of each analytical framework is a key challenge of this class. Second, we will consider how and why these paradigms emerge, persist and eventually give way to new approaches. This process by is not solely a matter of new discoveries and advances. Theoretical approaches are influenced as much by social and political considerations, as they are by scientific factors. The second central challenge of this course is to sharpen our understanding of the diverse theoretical, philosophical and political premises that shape paradigms, and in so doing, do -- or do not -- endow them with explanatory power.
Overview of the Course
Introductory Exercise: To open the course, in the Introduction we will read "blind" (ie without the aid of any particular analytical framework) a classic essay about political change in a Turkish village, written nearly fifty years ago. Today this essay may sound naive and unduly optimistic; but even those with little introduction to the study of Third World politics will sense that the conclusions derived by the author are driven by a certain set of assumptions about what “modernization” is, and what its consequences are.
Part One explores the "Liberal-Optimist" school of "modernization." This school set the research and even foreign policy agenda in the United States for more than a decade.
Part Two looks at the "Institution-Building" school of "political development." By the early seventies, proponents of this school had practically superseded their "liberal" counterparts. (In doing so, they promoted a trend in American policy towards support for authoritarian, non-communist military regimes).
Part Three considers the Marxist or "dependency" response to the above intellectual and political trend. Students of dependency did not totally reject many of the observations made by their conservative counter-parts–rather, they attributed the phenomenon of endemic political instability in the Third World to the constraints of the international capitalist order rather than to indigenous factors such as culture or political tradition.
We shall see in Part Four that several leading proponents of dependency theory changed their theoretical and even political tune by the early to mid-eighties. In fact, the "dependencies" were the first to predict the "transition from authoritarianism." Later these leftist scholars were joined by a more traditional group of liberal scholars. Together these seemingly strange ideological bed fellows -- aided by the collapse of the Cold War and a new pragmatism in some quarters of American academia -- helped forge the present day study of democratic change.
Part Five tackles some of the problems associated with the study of democratic change and the question of ethnicity and sectarian fundamentalism -- not only in the Third World, but also in Eastern Europe.
Parts Six and Seven are in many ways a continuation of this same subject. Here, however, we will look at the question of democratic change, ethnicity and religious fundamentalism from the vantage point of the study of "historical legacies" and the "new institutionalism." These approaches emphasizes the different roles that ethnic identities sand institutional legacies play in promoting or undermining democracy.
Required Readings: (The following are available at the book store: All other readings are onelectronic reserve).
Christopher Clapham, Third World Politics: An Introduction (London: Croom Helm, 1985) pp. 39-60.
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) pp. 1-39.
Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism (Berkeley: University of Calif. Press, 1979).
Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Philippe Schmitter, (eds.), Transitions From Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives and Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). (2 Volumes)
The Theory of Political Development
By Gianfranco Pasquino
University of Bologna and Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University
Now almost entirely forgotten, perhaps because replaced or superseded by the theme of democratization, the wealth of studies on political development contained quite a number of significant and useful theoretical threads. This paper will, first of all, try to disentangle what was theoretical from what was simply, though, often, in an important way, analytical. Second, it will then identify and analyze the most important processes of political development and their changes through time. Third, it will focus on the lasting, positive as well as negative, contributions made and left by the scholars who participated in the collective enterprise devoted to the study of political development. Therefore, it will also provide a reliable guide to the most interesting contributions to the literature.
The leading concepts of political development, most of them still significantly alive and considerably useful, are: nation-building, state-building, political culture. Though problematically, they all contain both theoretical threads and empirical challenges. The paper will argue that there is a lot to be learned from the way these concepts were formulated and how the historical experiences were analyzed in order both to understand the processes of democratization and democratic consolidation and to evaluate the sociopolitical dynamics of failed states. Moreover, most scholars who contributed to the studies on political development have relied, more or less successfully, on a historical-comparative method (see the chapters by Goldstone and Mahoney in Mahoney and Ruesche meyer 2003) that has shown to be highly appropriate for the understanding of contemporary political transformations. Therefore, in those studies one can also find some methodological lessons. In the end, the paper will very briefly focus on relatively new problems concerning the states.
The not so minor problem of definition. In the atmosphere of great excitement that accompanied the processes of decolonization of the late fifties and early sixties, quite a number of political and social scientists were drawn to the study of what was called “political development”. Both for political and analytical purposes, the fact that many countries were acquiring their independence and hence the possibility to start constructing their own regime, as they desired, represented a major opportunity to revitalize the field of political science. As Almond and Powell (1966) wrote, it became possible to break the walls of parochialism, descriptivism, formalism and fruitfully to increase the number and the variety of cases to be analyzed in a comparative way.
Five decades after the publication of the first studies that were consciously and explicitly devoted to political development, it has become possible, avoiding all ideological traps, to assess their contributions.
My goal is twofold. First, I want to focus on few rather different theories of political development and, second, I will suggest how to identify the connections between those theories with the (subsequent) analyses of democratization.
I will start quoting what Lucian Pye (1966, 50) wrote with reference to the need for a theory: “The lack of doctrine has paralyzed constructive criticism and permitted the political dialogue in the new countries to become mired down in cant”. Somewhat counter-intuitively, when most political scientists were beginning their research and their analysis trying to avoid being influenced by their national cultural ethos, Pye pointed to the negative impact of a certain kind of belief in cultural relativism that “could be cruelly degrading precisely to whom it was intended to give respectability” (Ibid., 52). A similar belief remains at work today when discussing democracy. Quite a number of scholars are fond of declaring that, of course, democracy “Western style” is definitely not what non-democratic countries should be offered or should be looking for. While the discussion concerning the many faces of democracy, from the perspective of the institutions and the party systems, deserves much more space, what is at the core of the best analyses of the processes of democratization concerns the possibility of combining free and fair political competition with the promotion and protection of human rights? When and whether cultural relativism rejects this combination, it will deny the very possibility of constructing democratic regimes. Though often they were indeed “cultural relativists”, many scholars who were engaged in analyzing political development shared the optimistic view that positive changes were possible and that they could come together. But, as we will see, optimism was not the best guide to the analysis and the interpretation of those processes in the sixties and seventies (as convincingly argued by Packenham 1973).
Returning to the need for a theory, it is useful to refer to what Almond and Powell had in mind when committing themselves to the theoretical enterprise. “We believe that the ultimate test of the strength of a scientific theory is its ability to generalize and predict. Indeed, unless a theory designates relationships between variables in such a way that predictions can be made about the consequences of their interaction, it is hard to establish whether a theory is valid or invalid, whether it should eventually be discarded, revised, or accepted. The advancement of knowledge comes through the testing and reformulation of theories” (p. 300). What we are aiming at in political science cannot be but probabilistic theories which state that “if conditions a, b, and c make their appearance and hold, then consequences x, y, and z are highly likely to materialize”. Therefore, the first task of a theoretical approach consists in identifying (some of) the most important conditions leading to those consequences that are associated with political development.
The starting problem that scholars interested in political development had to face was twofold. On the one hand, they had to define with some precision what they meant when referring to political development On the other hand, they had to identify the political components of political development. On the whole, in Giovanni Sartor i’s words, their paramount task should have been defined as the attempt to “explain politics with politics”. This is not to deny that the processes of socio-economic modernization are important, but they must be studied with reference to their specific components and variables.
The complexity and the contradictions of the various definitions of political development were almost immediately brought to light by Lucian Pye (1966, 33-45). Not surprisingly, though significantly, he found no agreement and much confusion. Reviewing the existing literature, already quite abundant in terms of number of research and published studies, he counted ten meanings of political development: 1) Political Development as the Political Prerequisite of Economic Development; 2) Political Development as the Politics Typical of Industrial Societies; 3) Political Development as Political Modernization; 4) Political Development as the Operation of a Nation-State; 5) Political Development as Administrative and Legal Development; 6) Political Development as Mass Mobilization and Participation; 7) Political Development as the Building of Democracy; 8) Political Development as Stability and Orderly Change; 9) Political Development as Mobilization and Power; 10) Political Development as One Aspect of a Multi-Dimensional Process of Social Change. With the benefit of hindsight and taking into account exclusively the political aspects of political development, today it has become possible clearly to identify three overarching processes. For some scholars, political development fundamentally meant the process leading to the construction of a viable autonomous state. This process would combine points 4 and 5, and possibly 9, of Pye’s list of meanings. For others, it was the creation of political order, Pye’s points 5 and 8. Finally, a third group of scholars thought of political development as the process leading to democracy, Pye’s points 7 and 8, possibly 9 as well.
Inevitably, of course, almost all scholars shared the belief that western states (and the Soviet Union) had to be considered politically developed. Interestingly enough, more or less in the same period, the theory of convergence of industrial states, that is, the conviction that economic and industrial imperatives would lead advanced political systems toward very similar political arrangements, made its appearance (Aron 1962, and Brzezinski and Huntington 1964). No wonder, therefore, that some political scientists felt justified in thinking that most developing countries would have to go through a path not dissimilar from that followed by Western political systems (in a way, this view was also entertained by Barrington Moore 1966). Even though the achievement of Western-style democracy was generally considered an appropriate goal to be indicated to the developing countries and, in some cases, a standard by which to evaluate the process of political development, most scholars suggested that it would be, at least in the short run, a rather unrealistic outcome. On the whole, nevertheless, the mood of very many political scientists was somewhat enthusiastic and the overall climate was marked by optimism. The precondition of political development, which is self-determination acquired through the process of decolonization, having been satisfied, all Third World countries could initiate their political development. In a similar way, though much later, the demise of some authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe and the collapse of Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe appeared to open the way to the democratization of all those political systems (Huntington 1991). Not incidentally, some of the problems to be faced, though by no means all, shared several important and interesting similarities. Having studied some instances of political development, Dankwart Rustow (1967) found himself at the intersection of a variety of processes of democratization, hence in theoptimal position to write a seminal article (Rustow 1970) whose importance, however, was recognized only ten years of so later.
Unfortunately, though, perhaps, inevitably, when political development became a fashionable topic for research and for Ph. D. dissertations, conspicuously funded by US Foundations, the consequences consisted essentially in an outpouring of a-theoretical case-studies (Pasquino 1974a reviewed any systematized the relevant literature). Also, there was often a disturbing combination of socio-economic explanations mixed with political factors that never amounted to a serious attempt at theorizing. However, two books played a highly significant role in the theoretical analysis of political development. I will focus the rest of the paper on them and on their impact.
Two theoretical contributions
Almond and Powell (1966) tried to avoid all ethnocentric traps when formulating their theory of political development. Their probabilistic theory is based on three major variables: role differentiation, subsystem autonomy, and cultural secularization. The first one refers to the appearance of a variety of roles performing different important activities. Subsystem autonomy stresses the existence of several structures endowed with some autonomy in their own specific fields. Probably, it is better defined a contrario, that is, indicating those situations where no single system emerges as dominant over all the others. Finally, cultural secularization suggests that “as the political system becomes differentiated from other social systems, the rulers begin to develop secular goals, and a rational sense of the relationship between means and ends and of one set of ends as over against other ends” (p. 305). If and when there is a process leading to a growth of differentiation, autonomy and secularization, the political system becomes more developed because it increases its regulative, extractive, distributive, responsive, and symbolic capabilities. “In capability terms, those with high subsystem autonomy have relatively versatile and continuous capability, … while those characterized by limited subsystem autonomy tend to have a fluctuating pattern of capability” (p. 311). At this point I venture to state that the structure of the theory deriving from Almond and Powell’s statements can be constructed as follows. “If there is a growth in the differentiation of roles, in the number of subsystems that are autonomous, and in the decision-making processes characterized by a sober evaluation of means and end, then the political system will become more developed, that is, it will acquire greater capabilities”.
In order to test the theory, on one hand, Almond encouraged and supervised a series of country-studies.
Leaving aside whether they were valuable in themselves (most certainly were, illuminating the politics of aspecific country), none of them provided a convincing test of the theory. On the other hand, several books were devoted to specific issues affecting political development. Though, again, their application and testing of the theory of development were certainly not satisfactory. Finally, Almond redefined his overall approach and invited some scholars to identify and deal with important episodes in the process of political development (Almond, Flanagan, and Mundt 1973). His conclusion was not especially enthusiastic: “This book shows all the marks of unfinished business, of work in progress. The reader in search of hard theory, of hypotheses deduced from axioms and subjected to rigorous tests of proofs, will find little in this analytical framework and our collection of case studies” (Almond and Mundt, 1973, 619). Written when the study of political development had entered its last phase (as documented in the dense essay by Huntington and Dominguez 1975), these words seem an admission of a “theoretical” defeat. In all likelihood, they were also the consequence of Almond’s eclecticism and his dissatisfaction with his own previous theoretical experimentation.
Usually, Almond and Powell’s theory of political development has been criticised because it appeared unable to make room for the process of political decline. In my opinion this criticism is somewhat misplaced. The theory can easily accommodate a reduction in role differentiation, for instance, when some roles become performed by the same actor. It can account for a shrinking of subsystem autonomy, for instance, when one subsystem takes over another one, or more (for example, a party coming to dominate over the State, its bureaucracy, the military organization). The theory is also capable of providing for phenomena of cultural de- secularization when the integrity of the sphere of politics is violated and invaded by economic, military, religious actors. It is true that all these processes are neither mentioned nor analyzed in Almond and Powell’s theory. Nevertheless, they can all easily found a place within it. As to the capabilities, they too can be made more specific and more precise. They could even be measured. What remains rather unclear and not convincing is the type of changing relationships between role differentiation, subsystem autonomy and cultural secularization and the capabilities of the political system.
To be more precise, the authors never explain how far role differentiation, subsystem autonomy, and cultural secularization can go. Nor do they give convincing examples of the three processes successfully producing political development. The web of interactions appears very complex and quite difficult to disentangle. In one sentence, the theory is neither parsimonious nor elegant. At the most, one would get a wide research griddle.
Of course, one could attempt to link some of the above-quoted capabilities with the three processes in order to assess which process would affect the capabilities deemed necessary to produce political development.1 This is a task that Almond and Powell have shunned and, as I have anticipated, Almond’s subsequent research interests led him into another, though not more satisfactory, direction. In the light of these drawbacks or unsolved puzzles, no wonder that few scholars have followed in Almond and Powell’s footsteps (even though, as already said, an entire series of country studies have been published according to guidelines provided in Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach). Nevertheless, at least one research area was clearly suggested by Almond and Powell focused on four factors, later labelled “crises”, that affect the differentiation, the secularization and the subsystem autonomy of all political systems, respectively: state-building, nation-building, participation, and distribution. “By state-building we refer to the problem of integration and control; by nation-building, the problem of group identity and loyalty; by participation, the involvement of members of the society in the decision-making processes of the system; and by distribution, the problem of allocation of goods, services, and other values by the political system” (Almond and Powell, 314).
These factors have made the object of a major book meant to provide a comprehensive and definite overview of political development: Crises and sequences in political development (Binder et al. 1971). Can one find a probabilistic theory of political development in the eight chapters of this book that in a way represent the culmination of more than a decade of studies? To the extent that there is a theory, that is, a tight explanation organized around a chain of causation running from conditions to consequences, one ought to speak of a multilevel theory. The key variable of the theory is represented by capability. Political development occurs when the processes of state and nation-building are accompanied by or led to the increase in the capabilities of the power-holders (or of the political and institutional structures). The theory of the crises and sequences of political development is formulated as follows. If the processes of state and nation-building are accomplished successfully, then the structural outcome of both processes will be in a position to accommodate the crises of participation, penetration and distribution. The overall end product will be represented by a polity that can be defined politically developed. However, a major note of caution is in order. “If the crisis model is to become a theory of development, it seems likely that the propositions in it or the hypotheses generated by it will have to do with the sequence by which crises arise: the consequences, for instance, of one crisis emerging before the other, of the simultaneity of crises, and the like” (Verba 1971, 283).
Sidney Verba was certainly right in pointing at the importance of the sequence through which the crises appeared and had to be faced and solved. However, none of the contributors to that book felt fully
1 Certainly the product of some dissatisfaction with the vagueness of some concepts and processes, two papers deserve to be mentioned: Eckstein (1971) and Sigelman (1971 because they neatly provide some precision.
2 I am perfectly aware that there is a major analytical and theoretical problem in the necessary distinction between “power-holders” and “political and institutional structures”. In Easton’s words (1965) the distinction runs between the authorities and the regime.
Denmark
How’s Life?
Denmark performs very well in many measures of well-being, as shown by the fact that it ranks among the top countries in a large number of topics in the Better Life Index.
Money, while it cannot buy happiness, is an important means to achieving higher living standards. In Denmark, the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is 25 172 USD a year, more than the OECD average of 23 938 USD a year. But there is a considerable gap between the richest and poorest – the top 20% of the population earn close to four times as much as the bottom 20%.
In terms of employment, over 73% of people aged 15 to 64 in Denmark have a paid job, above the OECD employment average of 65%. Some 75% of men are in paid work, compared with 70% of women. People in Denmark work 1 546 hours a year, less than the OECD average of 1 765 hours. Some 2% of employees work very long hours, much lower than the OECD average of 9%, with 3% of men working very long hours compared with just 1% for women.
Having a good education is an important requisite for finding a job. In Denmark, 77% of adults aged 25-64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, slightly higher than the OECD average of 75%. This is slightly truer of men than women, as 77% of men have successfully completed high-school compared with 76% of women. In terms of education quality, the average student scored 498 in reading literacy, maths and science in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This score is slightly higher than the OECD average of 497. On average in Denmark, girls outperformed boys by 2 points, less than the OECD average of 8 points.
In terms of health, life expectancy at birth in Denmark is 80 years, in line with the OECD average. Life expectancy for women is 82 years, compared with 78 for men. The level of atmospheric PM10 – tiny air pollutant particles small enough to enter and cause damage to the lungs – is 15 micrograms per cubic meter, considerably lower than the OECD average of 20.1 micrograms per cubic meter. Denmark also does well in terms of water quality, as 95% of people say they are satisfied with the quality of their water, more than the OECD average of 84%.
Concerning the public sphere, there is a strong sense of community and high levels of civic participation in Denmark, where 96% of people believe that they know someone they could rely on in time of need, higher than the OECD average of 89%. Voter turnout, a measure of public trust in government and of citizens’ participation in the political process, was 88% during recent elections; considerably higher than the OECD average of 72%. Voter turnout for the top 20% of the population is an estimated 90% and for the bottom 20% it is an estimated 86%, a much smaller gap than the OECD average gap of 11 percentage points.
In Denmark, 84% of people say they have more positive experiences in an average day (feelings of rest, pride in accomplishment, enjoyment, etc.) than negative ones (pain, worry, sadness, boredom, etc.). This figure is higher than the OECD average of 76%.
Housing
Key Findings
Living in satisfactory housing conditions is one of the most important aspects of people’s lives. Housing is essential to meet basic needs, such as shelter, but it is not just a question of four walls and a roof. Housing should offer a place to sleep and rest where people feel safe and have privacy and personal space; somewhere they can raise a family. All of these elements help make a house a home. And of course there is the question whether people can afford adequate housing.
Housing costs take up a large share of the household budget and represent the largest single expenditure for many individuals and families, by the time you add up elements such as rent, gas, electricity, water, furniture or repairs. In Denmark, households on average spend 24% of their gross adjusted disposable income on keeping a roof over their heads, more than the OECD average of 21%.
In addition to housing costs it is also important to examine living conditions, such as the average number of rooms shared per person and whether households have access to basic facilities. In Denmark, 91% of people say they are satisfied with their current housing situation, more than the OECD average of 87%. This high level of subjective satisfaction reflects Denmark’s good performance in objective housing indicators.
The number of rooms in a dwelling, divided by the number of persons living there, indicates whether residents are living in crowded conditions. Overcrowded housing may have a negative impact on physical and mental health, relations with others and children’s development. In addition, dense living conditions are often a sign of inadequate water and sewage supply. In Denmark, the average home contains 2.0 rooms per person, more than the OECD average of 1.6 rooms per person. In terms of basic facilities, 99.6% of people in Denmark live in dwellings with private access to an indoor flushing toilet, more than the OECD average of 97.9%.
Income
Key Findings
While money may not buy happiness, it is an important means to achieving higher living standards and thus greater well-being. Higher economic wealth may also improve access to quality education, health care and housing.
Household net-adjusted disposable income is the amount of money that a household earns each year after taxes and transfers. It represents the money available to a household for spending on goods or services. In Denmark, the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is 25 172 USD a year, slightly higher than the OECD average of 23 938 USD.
Household financial wealth is the total value of a household’s financial worth. In Denmark, the average household net financial wealth per capita is estimated at 39 951 USD, lower than the OECD average of 42 903 USD. While the ideal measure of household wealth should include non-financial assets (e.g. land and dwellings), such information is currently available for only a small number of OECD countries.
Despite a general increase in living standards across OECD countries over the past fifteen years, not all people have benefited from this to the same extent. In Denmark, the average net adjusted disposable income of the top 20% of the population is an estimated 43 644 a year, whereas the bottom 20% live on an estimated 12 183 USD a year.
Community
Key Findings
Humans are social creatures. The frequency of our contact with others and the quality of our personal relationships are thus crucial determinants of our well-being. Helping others can also make you happier. People who volunteer tend to be more satisfied with their lives than those who do not. Time spent volunteering also contributes to a healthy civil society. On average, people in Denmark spend 3 minutes per day in volunteering activities, less than the OECD average of 4 minutes per day. Around 55% reported having helped a stranger in the last month, more than the OECD average of 49%.
A strong social network, or community, can provide emotional support during both good and bad times as well as provide access to jobs, services and other material opportunities. In Denmark, 96% of people believe that they know someone they could rely on in a time of need, the highest rate in the OECD where the average is around 89%. There is a 3 percentage point difference between men and women, as 94% of men believe they have this kind of social support, compared with 97% of women. There is also a difference in the availability of social support depending on people’s education level. In Denmark, 90% of people who have completed primary education report having someone to count on for help in times of need, compared to 97% for people who attained tertiary education.
A weak social network can result in limited economic opportunities, a lack of contact with others, and eventually, feelings of isolation. Socially isolated individuals face difficulties integrating into society as a contributing member and fulfilling personal aspirations.
Education
Key Findings
A well-educated and well-trained population is essential for a country’s social and economic well-being. Education plays a key role in providing individuals with the knowledge, skills and competences needed to participate effectively in society and in the economy. Having a good education greatly improves the likelihood of finding a job and earning enough money. Across OECD countries, 83% of people with university-level degrees have a job, compared with 55% for those with only a secondary school diploma. Lifetime earnings also increase with each level of education.
Following a decline in manual labour over previous decades, employers now favour a more educated labour force. High-school graduation rates therefore provide a good indication of whether a country is preparing its students to meet the minimum requirements of the job market. In Denmark, 77% of adults aged 25-64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, slightly higher than the OECD average of 75%. This is slightly truer of men than women, as 77% of men have successfully completed high-school compared with 76% of women. This 1 percentage point difference is in line with the OECD average. Among younger people – a better indicator of Denmark’s future – 80% of 25-34 year-olds have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, lower than the OECD average of 82%.
Danes can expect to go through 19.2 years of education between the ages of 5 and 39, more than the OECD average of 17.7 years.
But graduation rates, while important, speak little to the quality of education received. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reviews the extent to which students have acquired some of the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies. In 2012, PISA focused on examining students’ reading ability, skills in maths and level in sciences, as research shows that these skills are more reliable predictors of economic and social well-being than the number of years spent in school.
The average student in Denmark scored 498 in reading literacy, maths and sciences, above the OECD average of 497. On average, girls out performed boys by 2 points, less than the average OECD gap of 8 points.
The best-performing school systems manage to provide high-quality education to all students. In Denmark, the average difference in results, between the students with the highest socio-economic background and the students with the lowest socio-economic background, is of 94 points, lower than the OECD average of 96 points. This suggests the school system in Denmark provides relatively equal access to high-quality education.
Environment expand
Civic Engagement
Key Findings
Trust in government is essential for social cohesion and well-being. In Denmark, 39% of people say they trust their national government, in line with the OECD average. High voter turnout is another measure of public trust in government and of citizens’ participation in the political process. In the most recent elections for which data is available, voter turnout in Denmark was 88% of those registered? This figure is much higher than the OECD average of 72%.
Even if the right to vote is universal in all OECD countries, not everyone exercises this right. There is little difference in the voting rates of men and women in most OECD countries. This is the case in Denmark, where the voter turnout of men and women is nearly the same. While on average there are few differences between men and women concerning participation in elections, income can have a strong influence on voter turnout. In Denmark, voter turnout for the top 20% of the population is an estimated 90%, whereas the participation rate of the bottom 20% is an estimated 86%. This 4 percentage point difference is much lower than the OECD average difference of 11 percentage points, and suggests there is broad social inclusion in Denmark’s democratic institutions.
Ensuring that government decision making is not compromised by conflicts of interest is key to maintaining trust in government. Transparency is therefore essential to hold government to account and to maintain confidence in public institutions.
Freedom of information laws (FOI) allow the possibility for individuals to access undisclosed information. For such policies to be successful, the public should have a clear understanding of their rights under the law, should be able to file requests with ease and should be protected against any possible retaliation. People in Denmark can file a request for information either in writing, in person or by telephone – thus greatly facilitating the FOI process. However, there are no provisions for anonymity or protection from retaliation.
Health
Key Findings
Most OECD countries have enjoyed large gains in life expectancy over the past decades, thanks to improvements in living conditions, public health interventions and progress in medical care. Life expectancy at birth in Denmark stands at almost 80 years, in line with the OECD average. Life expectancy for women is 82 years, compared with 78 for men, close to the OECD average gender gap of six years, with a life expectancy of 83 years for women and 77 years for men.
Higher life expectancy is generally associated with higher healthcare spending per person, although many other factors have an impact on life expectancy (such as living standards, lifestyles, education and environmental factors). Total health spending accounts for 10.9% of GDP in Denmark, above the average in OECD countries of 9.4%. Denmark also ranks above the OECD average in terms of total health spending per person, at 4 448 USD in 2011, compared with an OECD average of 3 322 USD. Between 2000 and 2010, total health spending in Denmark increased in real terms by 2.7% per year on average, a slower growth rate than the OECD average of 4.0%, and it decreased by 1.9% in 2010.
Throughout the OECD, tobacco consumption and excessive weight gain remain two important risk factors for many chronic diseases. In Denmark, the percentage of adults who report to smoke everyday has been cut down by more than half from 47% in 1984 to 20.0% today, slightly below the 20.9% OECD average. In many OECD countries, large proportions of the population are overweight or obese. In Denmark, the obesity rate among adults – based on self-reported height and weight – is 13.4%. This is lower than the OECD average of 17.2%. Obesity’s growing prevalence foreshadows increases in the occurrence of health problems (such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and asthma), and higher health care costs in the future.
When asked, “How is your health in general?”71% of people in Denmark reported to be in good health, slightly more than the OECD average of 69%. Despite the subjective nature of this question, answers have been found to be a good predictor of people’s future health care use. Gender, age and social status may affect answers to this question. On average in OECD countries, men are more likely to report good health than women, with an average of 72% for men and 67% for women. In Denmark, the average is 73% for men and 69% for women. Not surprisingly, older people report poorer health, as do those who are unemployed, or who have less education or income. About 81% of adults with a disposable income in the top 20% in Denmark rate their health as ‘good’ or ‘very good’, compared to about 68% for those with a disposable income in the bottom 20%.
Life Satisfaction
Key Findings
Happiness or subjective well-being can be measured in terms of life satisfaction, the presence of positive experiences and feelings, and the absence of negative experiences and feelings. Such measures, while subjective, are a useful complement to objective data to compare the quality of life across countries.
Life satisfaction measures how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings. It captures a reflective assessment of which life circumstances and conditions are important for subjective well-being. When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, Danes gave it a 7.6 grade, one of the highest scores in the OECD, where average life satisfaction is 6.6.
There is little difference in life satisfaction levels between men and women across OECD countries. This is true in Denmark, where both men and women gave their life a 7.6 grade. Education levels influence subjective well-being. People who have only completed primary education in Denmark have a life satisfaction level of 7.8, and people with tertiary education a level of 7.6. This is the only country where people with a primary education report a higher life satisfaction level than people with a tertiary education.
Happiness, or subjective well-being, is also measured by the presence of positive experiences and feelings, and/or the absence of negative experiences and feelings. In Denmark, 84% of people reported having more positive experiences in an average day (feelings of rest, pride in accomplishment, enjoyment, etc.) than negative ones (pain, worry, sadness, boredom, etc.). This figure is the higher than the OECD average of 76%.
Water, Politics and Development: Framing a Political Sociology of Water Resources Management
Peter P. Mollinga
Department of Political and Cultural Change, ZEF (Center for Development Research), Bonn University, Germany; pmollinga@hotmail.com
EDITORIAL PREAMBLE: The first issue of Water Alternatives presents a set of papers that investigates the inherently political nature of water resources management. A Water, Politics and Development initiative was started at ZEF (Center for Development Research, Bonn, Germany) in 2004/2005 in the context of a national‐level discussion on the role of social science in global (environmental) change research. In April 2005 a roundtable workshop with this title was held at ZEF, sponsored by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/German Research Foundation) and supported by the NKGCF (Nationales Komitee für Global Change Forschung/German National Committee on Global Change Research), aiming to design a research programme in the German context. In 2006 it was decided to design a publication project on a broader, European and international basis. The Irrigation and Water Engineering Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands joined as a co‐organiser and co‐sponsor. The collection of papers published in this issue of Water Alternatives is one of the products of the publication project. As part of the initiative a session on Water, Politics and Development was organised at the Stockholm World Water Week in August 2007, where most of the papers in this collection were presented and discussed. Through this publication, the Water, Politics and Development initiative links up with other initiatives simultaneously ongoing, for instance the 'Water governance – challenging the consensus' project of the Bradford Centre for International Development at Bradford University, UK. At this point in time, the initiative has formulated its thrust as 'framing a political sociology of water resources management'. This, no doubt, is an ambitious project, methodologically, theoretically as well as practically. Through the compilation of this collection we have started to explore whether and how such an endeavour might make sense. The participants in the initiative think it does, are quite excited about it, and are committed to pursue it further. To succeed the project has to be a collective project, of a much larger community than the present contributors. All readers are invited to comment on sense, purpose and content of this endeavour to profile and strengthen critical and public sociologies of water resources management.
KEYWORDS: Water control, politics, development, political sociology, public sociology, social power, governance
INTRODUCTION
The 'politics of water' is an expanding area of scholarship and research, an expansion related obviously to the increasing concern about a pending 'global water crisis'. This concern is now a major component of global and national development agendas (see f.i. HDR, 2006; Molden, 2007). Freshwater resources management1 by definition is a context‐specific phenomenon, given that it concretely happens through managing river basins, aquifers, landscapes and ecosystems. However, the 'problemsheds' and 'issue networks' of water resources management may stretch well beyond the physical boundaries of these units, and span the globe and history.2 The study of the politics of water is therefore a rather dispersed field of research, organised in strongly regionally and sector‐wise defined clusters, apart from being disciplinarily divided. The expanding amount of work on the political dimensions of water resources management, however, allows a degree of systematising and abstraction. We discern and delineate an emerging field of research that we have labelled the 'political sociology of water resources management'. This paper discusses these two ideas: that of political inherence, and that of a political sociology of water resources management.
INHERENTLY POLITICAL WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
In a dictionary definition, politics is "the art and science of directing and administering states and other political units" (The New Collins Concise English Dictionary 1982). State governance is the substance of politics in this perspective. Politics is, however, a much broader term. In the same lemma in the dictionary quoted, politics is also defined as "the complex or aggregate of relationships of men [sic!] in society, especially those relationships involving authority or power", "any activity concerned with the acquisition of power" and "manoeuvres or factors leading up to or influencing (something)". Politics is a dimension or quality of many social processes, i.e. all social processes in which interests of individuals or groups are mediated. This is, of course, conceptually well established in the social science literature, but needs to be incorporated into the analysis of water resources management issues more systematically than it has been so far.3
This broad understanding of 'politics' informs the main proposition of this paper: water resources management is inherently political. However, taking mainstream water policy discourse as a point of reference, it is clear that the idea that water resources management is an inherently political process, is not a commonly held perspective but has to be established. Ten years ago politics and the political were anathema in most water policy circles.4 The social engineering paradigm reigned largely unquestioned (Mollinga et al., 2007).5 The rise of the theme of (good) governance brought politics into the mainstream water resources development discourse through the backdoor. When talking governance, good or bad, and associated ideas like accountability, transparency and legitimacy, it is difficult not to acknowledge that such processes and relations have political dimensions and continue to defend the position that 'politics' should be removed from water resources management. The latter has been, and perhaps still is, the dominant inclination of water professionals.
In the global water discourse, 2000‐2002 seems to have been the period of 'closure' that established governance as a core theme. Three major events took place in that period at which the global water resources community debated the nature of the 'water crisis'. These were the 2nd World Water Forum in The Hague in 2000, the Bonn Freshwater Conference in 2001 and the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. The Executive Summary of the World Water Vision report prepared for the 2nd World Water Forum uses the word 'governance' only twice. It concludes by stating that "there is a water crisis, but it is a crisis of management. We have threatened our water resources with bad institutions, bad governance, bad incentives, and bad allocations of resources" (Cosgrove and Rijsberman, 2000).6 In subsequent discussion this formulation got revised and shortened to a single sentence. Much quoted is the phrase "The world water crisis is a crisis of governance – not one of scarcity" from the No Water No Future speech at the Johannesburg Summit by the Prince of Orange of The Netherlands. Since then 'governance' features prominently on the global water resources agenda.
Jenkins (2001) argues that 'governance' as used in the mainstream international development discourse of the international development funding agencies tends to become a 'technical' issue. It, as it were, depoliticizes the understanding of politics. Contributions like those of Ferguson (1994) and Harriss (2001) have argued that there may be compelling reasons for governments and other actors to depoliticise debates on development, reasons located in the way instrumental reason, which actively claims to exclude 'politics', assists in reproducing state power and legitimacy, as well as the reproduction of development assistance programmes (also see Scott, 1997).
While agreeing with much of Jenkins' criticism of the global (good) governance agenda, and with the observation that depoliticisation may be an attractive governance strategy, the addition of 'governance' to the water resources policy vocabulary may be considered a step forward. It follows the acceptance of 'management' as a central concept in the 1970s, which was a significant improvement upon the concept of 'operation' (of water infrastructure) that preceded it. Increased use of the term governance signifies a less exclusively sector focused understanding of water resources management, that is, recognition of its embeddedness in broader socio‐political structures, in parallel to the increased recognition of water resources management’s ecological dimensions following environmental critiques. The report of the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (Molden, 2007) attempts to incorporate, at the global level, the socio‐political and ecological embeddedness perspectives into the understanding of water management in the largest freshwater using sub‐sector – agriculture. Water governance in this context refers, among other things, to the allocation of rights (rights to water and technology, decision‐making rights) and resources (water itself, but also maintenance and investment funds for instance), and thus creates more space for considering issues like 'interest groups' and 'social power' than the notion of management tended to do.7
From a situation of denial and exclusion of 'politics' from the mainstream water resources discourse, the discussion seems to be moving towards consideration of the kind of politics that is found in, or desirable for, water resources management. What remains to be seen is whether or not explicit discussion of the social relations of power in water resources management will be a recurrent theme in such discussions. It is not unlikely that instrumental and apparently non‐political understandings of governance will continue to dominate the mainstream global water resources discourse, while critical investigations of the political dimension will find less resonance. However, the Human Development Report 2006 on water, which pays explicit attention to social power and politics, shows that this discursive terrain is now actively contested (HDR, 2006; for a review see Mollinga, 2007).
Arguing the case
The proposition that water resources management is an inherently political process is based on the idea that water control is at the heart of water resources management and should be conceived as a process of politically contested resource use. In this formulation water control is the subject matter of water resources management. It is something that humans have done since time immemorial (see f.i. Scarborough, 2003). Any human intervention in the hydrological cycle that intentionally affects the time and/or spatial characteristics of water availability and/or its qualities, is a form of water control.8
Water control has three dimensions: a technical/physical, an organisational/managerial, and a socio‐economic and regulatory. These generic categories refer to, respectively, the manipulation of the physical flow and quality of water, the guiding of the human behaviour that is part of water use, and the socio‐economic, legal, administrative and other structures in which water management is embedded and that constitute conditions and constraints for management and regulation (cf. Bolding et al., 1995 and Mollinga, 2003 for detailed discussion of the water control concept).9
Contestation is also a generic category. It is used here to refer to a range of interaction patterns in water management, including negotiation and struggle, and also less explicit and longer term disputations and controversies. The idea is to convey that there tends to be something at stake in water resources management, and that the different individuals or groups involved have different interests. This is not meant as a theoretical statement, but as an empirical one. The approach aims to analyse those situations where water resources management is an issue. The justification of this focus lies in the fact that societal issues around water management are proliferating (Joy et al., 2008). Therefore an approach focussing on contestation seems warranted. The addition of the adjective political to contestation is meant to highlight that there is a political aspect to contestation and thus to water control.10 As soon as the political would be regarded as a self‐evident property of water control, it would become unnecessary to give it special emphasis.
TOWARDS A POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY OF WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
'Political sociology of water resources management' is, to my knowledge, not yet a term that is claimed by, or institutionalised for, a research field, study programme, journal title, or other academic pursuit.11 However, it captures well and concisely an emerging type of scholarship on water resources. Water resources management, understood as politically contested water control, is the subject matter of this field of study. 'Sociology' is understood in this formulation in the broadest sense of the study of social behaviour and interaction and of social structure, without wishing to demarcate is as a specific social science discipline from other disciplines. It thus basically refers to the social embeddedness of water resources management, and to water resources management as a practice in which structure and agency 'meet' to reproduce and transform society,12 including the way human beings deal with water resources. Different forms of embeddedness can be specified, but two major ones are that of context (water resources management in relation to other structures and practices) and of history (water resources management comes from somewhere along a certain trajectory).13 The 'political' in the formulation refers to the contested nature of water resources management. This perspective states that in a comprehensive analysis of water resources management the social relations of power that are part of it need to be explicitly addressed. The use of 'resource' in the depiction of the object, water resources management, conveys the sense that the management of water and the related creation of water infrastructure may be a significant factor or force in societal development, in relation to state formation, colonisation, economic growth, or other aspects of development (cf. Wittfogel, 1957; Stone, 1984; Worster, 1985; Bray, 1986; Reisner, 1993; Scarborough, 2003; Blackbourn, 2006). As a natural resource it is also a resource in societal processes, actively deployed and regulated, shaping people’s lives and livelihoods, and the development of cultures and political economies. A political sociology of water resources management would thus be closely associated with the field of development sociology (Barnett, 1988; Kiely, 1995; Goetze, 2002; Long, 2001; McMichael, 2004).
The notion of a 'political sociology of water resources management' can bring under one roof a vast kaleidoscope of context specific analyses. In this section the colours of that kaleidoscope are first briefly sketched by mapping out four domains of water politics investigation (everyday politics, politics of state policy, hydropolitics and global water politics), and their interlinkages as a fifth domain – a topology of water politics. The second part of the sketch is a description of the standpoint and method of the field. I discuss a number of features that the standpoint and method might have by characterising the political sociology of water resources management as having to be a critical sociology, a practical sociology, a comparative sociology and an interdisciplinary sociology.
A topology of water politics
In Mollinga and Bhat (forthcoming) and Mollinga (2008) the politics of water as a field of research is mapped by discerning four domains14 and their linkages as a fifth domain. The four domains are the everyday politics of water, the politics of water policy in the context of sovereign states, inter‐state hydropolitics, and the global politics of water. These domains can be distinguished because they have different space and time scales, are populated by different configurations of main actors, have different types of issues as their subject matter, involve different modes of contestation and take place within different sets of institutional arrangements. The linkages between domains refer to travelling of policy ideas and water contestations across domains.
The everyday politics of water resources management
Everyday politics is a phrase coined by Kerkvliet (1990). Regarding water it refers to contestation of day‐to‐day water use and management. In many cases everyday politics is a relatively small scale phenomenon, including, for instance, how access to local groundwater markets is negotiated between community members, how maintenance obligations connected to water rights are enforced in a farmer‐managed irrigation system, and many other examples. However, the management of a big reservoir distributing stored water to canals and areas hundreds of kilometers away from the dam is also 'local' in the sense of being a concrete, situated water use and management practice, with an everyday politics associated with it. This can, for instance, be focused on the negotiation of gate settings and discharge monitoring, determining how much is released to whom at what time.
The politics of water policy in the context of sovereign states
Politics of policy is a phrase coined by Grindle (1977, and subsequent work). It refers to the contested nature of policy processes. In the water resources domain I use it to refer to policy processes at the level of sovereign states, or states within a federation. The concept is a critique of linear views of policy formulation and implementation (Hill, 1997), and aims to "demythologise planned intervention" (Long and van der Ploeg, 1989). The idea is that water policies, like other policies, are negotiated and re‐negotiated in all phases or stages and at all levels, and are often transformed on their way from formulation to implementation, if not made only in the implementation process (Rap, 2007). The political contestation of water policies takes place within state apparatuses, but also in the interaction of state institutions with the groups directly and indirectly affected by the policies, and in the context of development assistance strongly or weakly by international development agencies.
Inter‐state hydropolitics
Hydropolitics is a phrase that has been coined in the literature on international water conflicts, notably those in the Middle East (cf. Waterbury, 1979; Ohlsson, 1995). It refers primarily to conflicts and negotiation processes between sovereign states on water allocation and distribution, particularly in relation to transboundary rivers or aquifers. Turton and Henwood (2002) propose to broaden the term to encompass all water politics, but I prefer to use it in its original meaning, including inter‐state water conflicts in federal political setups. Hydropolitics is the part of water politics that has been well researched and documented, perhaps because it is a very public phenomenon, with sometimes high stakes and geopolitical relevance, and because it is an interesting case for international relations studies (Zeitoun and Warner, 2006).
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The global politics of water
Rather than being a phrase coined for long‐existing practices, the global politics of water refers to a relatively new phenomenon: the recently, in the 1990s, invigorated international level of water discourse, policy and tentative regulation. The global politics of water contains several processes. These include the institutions and organisations set up in the wake of the 1992 Dublin and Rio international conferences on water, environment and development, notably the World Water Forums, the World Water Council (WWC) and the Global Water Partnership (GWP). The GWP has become the international social carrier of the IWRM (Integrated Water Resources Management) concept. The WWC has played an important role in the recent advocacy for more investment in water infrastructure. Another component of the global water politics is the World Commission on Dams process, triggered by large political controversies around the social and environmental effects of large dam building. A third component is the process related to the World Trade Organisation negotiations regarding water, notably around the issue of the privatisation of water and water service provision. A fourth relates to global advocacy for access to water as a human right.
Linkages
Some of the most interesting and important questions in water resources management involve the interlinkages between or across domains. The 'linkages' domain looks at how policy issues and water contestations travel across the different domains, to analyze under what circumstances these are generated, and how they are translated in the journey across the domains. Documenting the journeying of policy ideas through these domains can nicely illustrate the relationships between these levels and how it is that policy ideas are generated, transformed, and possibly re‐generated throughout that journey in the face of economic, social, and political realities.
For instance, the support provided by multilateral development funding agencies for local restructuring of water and power sectors has had mixed outcomes. 'Global politics' domain ideas like water privatization and water and energy sector restructuring through donor support, have been very differentially translated in the policies of developing and transitional countries (Hall and Lobina, 2003; Hall et al., 2004, Hall et al., 2005). Such journeying can also take place in a 'bottom‐up' manner, as illustrated by the World Commission on Dams process. High levels of contestation among water user communities at the 'everyday' domain to state policies supporting dam construction led to the eventual development of a 'global' process to question policy assumptions. The World Commission on Dams was an outcome of this process, and the report it developed in response has sought out and iteratively aggregated the input of user communities for future policy development, which are now being used at different national and local levels.
Standpoint and method
The five domains presented above map out the broad and diverse terrain of concrete water politics. What approaches and methods are suited to research these? Obviously, there are many, and no grand synthesis is attempted here. The standpoint and method aimed at is characterised by four prefixes to sociology: critical & public, interdisciplinary, practical, and comparative.
A critical and public sociology
The diversity of approaches to water resources management analysis can be usefully mapped using Michael Burawoy’s general classification of the division of labour in sociology. Burawoy sets up a classification of four sociologies along two axes. The first axis is whether the approach aims at instrumental or reflexive knowledge; the second axis what its audience is: academic or extra‐academic. This produces the four‐box matrix of table 1.
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Table 1. The division of sociological labour Academic audience
Extra‐academic audience
Instrumental
knowledge
Knowledge
Truth
Legitimacy
Accountability
Pathology
Politics
Professional sociology
Theoretical/empirical
Correspondence
Scientific norms
Peers
Self‐referentiality
Professional self‐interest
Policy sociology
Concrete
Pragmatic
Effectiveness
Clients/Patrons
Servility
Policy intervention
Reflexive
knowledge
Knowledge
Truth
Legitimacy
Accountability
Pathology
Politics
Critical Sociology
Foundational
Normative
Moral vision
Critical intellectuals
Dogmatism
Internal debate
Public Sociology
Communicative
Consensus
Relevance
Designated publics
Faddishness
Public dialogue
1 The papers in this issue focus on freshwater management, and do not address issues related to the management of the oceans for instance. 'Management' in this formulation is used in the broadest sense possible – as a generic term including water use, allocation, distribution, governance, regulation, policy, etc. However, at other points it is also used in a narrower sense, distinguishing it from governance for instance. This double use is unfortunate but difficult to avoid. For use as a generic term to encompass all activities and arrangements directly and indirectly related to the human use of water, 'management' remains the best candidate, because it is the most widely and diversely used category.
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2 On problemsheds and issue networks, see Mollinga et al. (2007).
3 A much quoted treatment of social power is Lukes (2005). On 'politics' see Lasswell (1936), Leftwich (1984), and many others. Several of the papers in this issue address conceptual issues related to the notions of power and politics explicitly. I have taken a dictionary definition to avoid associating with a particular school of thought in political science. More provocatively, when a 1982 dictionary definition gives a broad and complex understanding of the concept of politics, it is surprising how persistently, in science, the concept used to be primarily associated with formal, official state politics (cf. Kerkvliet, 1990 on this).
4 This statement derives from participation in policy related discussions on water management since the early 1990s. However, in past years the politics word seems to have acquired some acceptability. On 25 February 2004 a double session on 'Driving the Political Economy of Reform' took place as part of the World Bank Water Week, the yearly gathering of World Bank staff and partners in Washington, DC. On 26 and 27 February 2004 the World Water Council (WWC) launched a 'Water and Politics' initiative, though apparently not with much follow up. In the corporate sector, the RWE Thames Water company emphasizes the importance of water politics on its website. The Stockholm World Water Week has given increasing attention to water politics in recent years. Cf. Merrey et al. (2007) for further discussion.
5 "The term social engineering is used here in a narrow sense to refer to linear models for changing societies or organizations, where blueprints are used to replicate a structure in a new context, that may have worked elsewhere. Application of this model to achieve social change – if x then y follows – is based on a misunderstanding of the complex, nondeterministic, and stochastic nature of social organizations. Social engineering as used here does not imply pessimism about the possibility of facilitating and guiding social change, but cautions against oversimple prescriptions" (Merrey et al., 2007).
6 In the five chapters that form the main text of the report, 'governance' appears only thrice. Once in the context of transboundary water management (p.53), once while referring to corporate governance (p.62), and once in the context of attracting investment, which requires "good water governance – strong regulations, sound policies, and up‐to‐date laws". In the Ministerial Declaration of The Hague on Water Security in the 21st Century, the political outcome of the 2nd World Water Forum, the word governance appears once where the challenges for achieving water security are listed. One of these is "Governing water wisely: to ensure good governance, so that the involvement of the public and the interests of all stakeholders are included in the management of water resources". In the challenge 'Meeting basic needs' it is stated that that is important also "to empower people, especially women, through a participatory process of water management". In outlining how the challenges are to be met the concept of IWRM (Integrated Water Resources Management) appears prominently. "[IWRM] depends on collaboration and partnerships at all levels, from individual citizens to international organisations, based on a political commitment to, and wider societal awareness of, the need for water security and the sustainable management of water resources. To achieve [IWRM], there is a need for coherent national and, where appropriate, regional and international policies to overcome fragmentation, and for transparent and accountable institutions at all levels".
7 There are other discursive trajectories leading to acknowledgement of the social relations of power. The most notable one is the participation discourse, which often started from populist and instrumentalist perspectives but has produced the notion of 'empowerment' as a much more political term than 'involvement of stakeholders' (cf. Scoones and Thompson, 1994). 'Participation' has been a central theme in water policy discussions since the 1970s.
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8 Use of the term 'control' in this manner has been found problematic by some. In critical perspectives 'control' tends to be a 'bad thing', associated with the excessive and arrogant desire of mastery over nature by humankind, or is associated with despotic or otherwise undesirable control of human beings (cf. Blackbourn’s (2006) brilliant analysis of the role of water and landscape in the making of modern Germany, titled 'The conquest of nature'). As an actual description of what humans do with water, terms like water guidance, direction or regulation would be better, as intervention in the hydrological cycle is basically that (cf. Benton, 1989). However, all three terms are awkward and confusing as general categories, and I therefore stick to water control till a better term becomes available.
9 From the perspective of critical realism water control is a 'concrete concept' (Sayer, 1984), combining several abstractions in a single concept to capture the multidimensionality of the object. In the social study of science and technology such concepts have been named 'boundary concepts'. These are concepts that are intelligible in different domains or disciplines and thus facilitate interdisciplinary analysis (see Star and Griesemer, 1989; Löwy, 1992; Mollinga, forthcoming).
10 This does not intend to suggest that water control can be reduced to its political nature, that is, that water control is only political or that its political aspect determines all other aspects. How and how strongly the mediation of actors' interests and the social relations of power shape the different properties and dimensions of water control processes is an empirical question, though the starting assumption is that it is always present and often important.
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11 'Political sociology' is, of course, a well established discipline, mainly occupied with national level polities and politics, that is, with the state‐society interface (see f.i. Orum, 2001).
12 The broader social theory reference here is to work like that of Bourdieu (1977), Giddens (1984), Bhaskar (1989), and Archer (1995). For addition of a 'material' element to sociology, see discussion further below.
13 The context in which water resources management practices are embedded can be subdivided in three generically described components (Mollinga, 2003): the ecology and physical environment, the ensemble of economic relations, and the institutional arrangements of state and civil society. An 'embedded' study of contested water resources management would thus simultaneously have to be a political ecology, a political economy and a political sociology. Some would feel excluded even with these three terms as political geography, political anthropology, political science, etc. have also contributed to the study of contested water resources management. No non‐awkward term is available to encompass all these. 'Hydropolitics' would be a good candidate, but is already in use as referring to a specific domain of the politics of water (see below); inter/transdisciplinary water resources studies another, but it misses the reference to contestation, and is rather non‐distinct. While the contributors to the Water, Politics and Development initiative mainly focus on embeddedness of water control practices in the institutional arrangements of state and civil society, and given the emphasis on contestation and on practice, process and structure/agency questions that is proposed, the 'political sociology' label is appropriate. Integrating the proposed approach with political economy and political ecology perspectives is a next step to be taken – including some creativeness in labelling.
Mollinga: A political sociology of water resources management Page | 11 Water Alternatives ‐ 2008 Volume 1 | Issue 1
14 The first formulation of these domains can be found in Mollinga (2001). The units identified can be named as (territorial/jurisdictional) levels, (action) arenas, semi‐autonomous fields, domains of interaction etc. depending on one’s purpose and focus of analysis. I settled for the general term 'domain of interaction'.
Title: Why most developing countries did not turn into a developmentally advanced countries?
Issue: 44
Publisher: Arab Planning Institute - Kuwait
The author (s): Ahmed Nawaz
Date: Dec, 2011
Contents:
The economic disparity between developed and developing countries, the gap between the two subjects that were, and still represent interesting specialists, and followers of the causes and determinants of economic growth, and economic development. However, the most important issue is why developing countries did not turn to advance after World War II, and until now, except for a few very turned into a so-called newly industrialized countries. Note that progress refers to the vehicle which factors, among many considerations, access to sectorally diversified economy, at the local level, and an export, on the outer level. And also increase the contribution of technological development in economic growth, in addition to a reduction of poverty, and the evolution of social systems to take care of the unemployed, and the industrial sector provides the most sophisticated transformative final goods and intermediate needs. I've tried a economic historians from Harvard University, David Landes, in his book "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some of this wealth, and others in this poverty?" And issued in 1998, tried to reason attributed to three sets of factors: First, the geographical and environmental factors, and the second: the technological competence, and the third: social and political factors. Note that the meeting of the Arab world, "Ibn Khaldun" had cited the importance of geographical and environmental factors in 1377, and in the famous preface. In addition to the economic contributions of "Landes", has applied theoretical studies saw many reasons to explain the phenomenon of turning to advanced developing countries. First, there is the economic level, the reason the view that it is up to the failed economic policies applied, and that the progress and success or failure is linked to failed policies. This interpretation is associated with the methodology adopted by the neo-classical economic theory, which adopts most of the ideas of international financial institutions. On the other hand there are those who believe that the problem is not a problem policies, while important, but the problem, or problems, linked to structural constraints, markets sectoral output, and labor markets, the external sector, foundations, and others. And embodied the second reasons set in the rule of a strong state or development in developed countries, and the sovereignty of the state weak or soft in developing countries also pointed out that the world economy Swedish "Gunnar Myrdal," the Nobel laureate economy in 1974, the famous his book, published in the seventies of the last century, Under the title "The Challenge of World Poverty: Summary of a global program against poverty", where absent recipe law enforcement, intervention through planning tools wise to address market failures, and the fight against corruption, and to ensure the distribution of socially acceptable income, and provide appropriate institutions and economic, social and political management, and others. It is noteworthy, thirdly, among the reasons for not switching to the weak economic management, which is by nature an integral part of the overall management of the state portion. This weakness is reflected best embodied in the errors in determining the stages and pursue economic reform steps. It is not recommended, it is not preferred, the adoption of economic management and stages of reform, saying the starting phase of liberalization, locally and abroad, ensures a competitive economy later. Economic history is not an example of the State of advanced Currently, developing previously relied on trade liberalization (and the associated abolition of tariffs related to the protection of local industry and agriculture) before it allows the creation of an agricultural sector, and industrial transformative within the period of good protection (ie aimed at creating competitive goods, and not to create an economy yield). The institution-building phase must be preceded or at least equal to, any steps to liberalize the economy. The errors of economic management is the bias of manufacturing on the agricultural sector account within the wrong application of the policy of import substitution followed by most, if not all developed and developing countries alike. In addition to the many other mistakes in economic management. Fourth, also referred as one of the obstacles to the completion of the transition, weak institutions and corruption. Applies to say here on the formal institutions, of the customs and traditions and customs belligerent behavior in the development of economic management. Frequently called on institutions to "rules of the game", which in turn control the role of "players" in the economic life of such organizations and ministries and agencies and others, which operate under a system of laws embody the spirit of the Constitution. The more these institutions consistent with the developmental requirements, the less the cost of completion of the transactions, and vice versa. Fifth, as the nature of the political systems fall behind as acceleration or deceleration transition to advanced countries reasons. Valqnaap prevailing democratic systems of governance that will help in the process of transformation, while dictatorships impede this process. However, the historical experience is consistent in this area. It is rare and there is economic experience has transformed from a particular country, "Nami" to "Advanced" based on the same system of government throughout the transition period. Most of the developed countries, and developing countries alike have seen systems vary in the degree of democracy. However, the constant is that democratic governance is necessary and urgent to ensure individual freedom and political freedom. Is not recommended here in dragging view of the many other factors, which are usually cited as reasons to prevent the transformation of developing countries at an advanced stage, but what should be emphasized is that the nature of these reasons are not necessarily economic reasons only, but is a combination of social causes, and cultural, and political, as well as economic. And that the area is better to address these causes is through a multi-disciplinary approach, and the way that leads to a multi-dimensional treatment. With the aim to ensure the development and welfare of developing countries, including Arab countries.
Economic development in developing countries and means of financing
Mohammed Nabil Shimi
Civilized dialogue-number: 2538 - 2009/1/26 - 01:16
Theme: Administration and Economics
Introduction
To the issue of economic development dimension of a community on the developed world or developing a level where a target all countries seeking to do by working to keep appropriate levels of development to happen to the community in the long term full employment without inflation or deflation, while the developing countries, the objective of development is to increase the incidence of growth in real national income ... any reduction of unemployment and improve citizen and to achieve their hopes of a decent life in accordance with health, education and social standards and all that makes him a good man contributing to the progress of their homeland.
That development is a noble goals to build a better world spends on the human suffering and thus must be a cultural change addresses build it the community all the extent that address the causes of poverty, and guarantees the right of the needy in the resources available in the community and provide social guarantees for them ... and the delivery of health care if their illness ...... etc.
Thus, these quick urgency include vision about the concept of economic development and its objectives and policies required to achieve them.
The highlight what is involved in the development process is a radical change in society by serving the causes of underdevelopment and that the events of this change in the structure of society on all economic and social levels is a common denominator among all the economic development experiences.
Financing for Development
Development of the provision that it aims to improve the welfare and community development for a human resources, institutions and all material and cultural level that is, they develop for all the structures of society, and this means that they are concentrated in the human is its means and purpose.
Economists differ in defining the concept agreed on economic development and for some directions for the use of several terms given Mvhomalltnumeih such as economic growth - change the long-term, while others argue that there is a difference between the meaning of economic development and other terms and that the focus in this regard is about the two terms are growth Economic and economic development.
Economic growth:
Is the rate of growth in gross national product during a certain period of time, usually years as he is a mere rise in per capita real income during a limited period, without any concomitant changes Benianyh.
While economic development is the process through which increases the real income of the economic system over a relatively long period of time and follows this growth
An increase in the national income and per capita and in doing so improve the conditions of citizens and increase the capacity of the national economy concomitant changes Benianyh is to increase capital accumulation and rise with the proportion of technical competence levels of economic efficiency, but to the community as a whole .. Economic development in a sustainable process.
Jolt and indicates that the concept of development contains three main values (major components), namely:
1. provide the necessities of life and include the provision of basic human needs (learning / plasmon / treatment / analgesic and all human out of the circle of poverty and underdevelopment.
2. respect for human rights for itself by relying on itself to meet the demands of life.
3. Freedom In this regard, you can not understand the issue of development unless there is justice and equality provided by the state to the citizens so that they have a sense of the ability to express themselves and their views with their right to choose.
In fact, the work on the development of economic development programs or accelerated matter rich and poor countries both rich countries want to keep rates high development so that it can avoid recession long-term and the rate of development was not high, these countries may suffer from increased production from the limits required compared to total demand (domestic and external markets) and then face the problem of recession and unemployment in the long term, while economic development is an urgent requirement for poor countries as necessary to counter extremism and reduce devote dependency solutions and see among the United Nations that the social factors of the biggest reasons to ignite conflicts and Then on development strategies must seek to achieve an equitable distribution of entry economic returns and wealth in order to prevent the outbreak of conflict, this is the destination of economic development.
Economic development goals:
Is to increase national income and improve the human standard of living and reduce the internal gap with modifying the structure of the composition of the national economy for the benefit of industry and trade sector and those goals are, in fact, as a cure for the problems resulting from the basic characteristics (), which is represented in the economies of poor countries is that they: -
- Producers of raw materials and some of them met exhaustible.
- Facing the pressure of population and high birth rates.
- Owns natural resources have not been developed due to the weakness of private infrastructure investment
- The deficit in the capital as a result of the weakness of capital accumulation due to lack of savings.
- Mi terms of trade is in their favor, which makes these countries vulnerable to economic volatility and vulnerability to global economic cycles.
- Micro flaw to members of the community in terms of the low level of access and poor distribution of workers in the productive sectors of the economy and the weakness and the spread of corruption and lack of transparency and the disruption of market mechanisms in the absence of inhibiting laws
Monopoly.
Then authoritarian tyranny and despotism Moreover, there is a rich state resources and unique site of cultural and civilizational heritage, but it is poor due to corruption and tyranny and Alliance Capital is the product with money launderers and smugglers and evaders.
There are policies and procedures that States should be pursued as a basis for achieving development goals, where economists believe that the presence of an atmosphere and an environment conducive to any economic activity is the product of a set of policies that have been limited to the most important are as follows:
- Rationalization of fiscal and monetary policies and external debt management and service is a major and essential elements of economic growth real constant (known as real growth as the rate of growth in GDP after excluding the impact of inflation), and policies should be referred to increase savings and direct investment is aimed at projects to increase rates Economic growth to be accompanied by the development of a package of legislation that run on broadcast a sense of confidence among foreign investors and thereby preventing the phenomenon of money smuggling.
- Export Development and prepared by economists as an engine of growth.
- Develop the necessary legislation to curb monopolies and achieve the principle of free market on sound economic fundamentals (not handle negatives through the intervention of states) provides products specifications required at appropriate prices without Ajtra the citizen's right to appropriate product testing and be appropriate price
- The provision of infrastructure, transport and communications, roads and granting tax and customs exemptions to the extent that does not adversely affect the existing national industries.
Financing for Development:
There is no doubt that the development finance community issue and had the largest share in carrying frontloaded falls to the states. If the individuals and institutions roles they play and duties adhere to the states, including ownership of the authorities can through legislative frameworks and tools binding them to coordinate between the roles and quadruplets between levels.
Question about what are the responsibilities of citizens in the case of development might arise?
- Theoretically on the individual under the community justice to work honestly and efficiently to the extent that increases the production and it increases and goes out in the form of benefit to the national economy is an increase in savings, which find their way into investment channels ... and this concept is the same concept which can define the responsibilities produced by institutions that take into account the rights of workers and commitment
Production matching items specifications and useable including increases revenues and profits, which finally pour in the form of producers and wage workers and organizers take profits as we mentioned a way of saving and investment.
The state's role in development is significant with its delegation of the community in the development of legislation and enactment of laws and the safety of their application and to protect members of the community rights, whether producers or consumers, and everything related to the mobilization of local resources and how to mobilize savings and channel investments and the creation of appropriate social environment of the launch, which puts upon it the burden the largest in the cause of development.
Bottom line is that the financing of development should not be a collective responsibility to look at economic development as a luxury or they accept the policy of delay, but it is an urgent necessity In economic terms, the financing of development depends on several sources:
-madkharc National.
Foreign -alasttmarat (direct / indirect)
-hsaúl Exports.
-alaguetrad (External / internal debt debt).
-almnh International donations.
First, national savings:
Most economists agree that the real capital aggregation (resulting from savings) is one of the most important financing economic development sources requires an increase in national savings with the existence of a fiduciary financial system enables the investor to get the resources and then begin investing and no real savings, the cash increase may lead inflation is estimated desired national saving rate by more than 25% of the total entry (reaching savings rates in Korea 34.5% - Thailand 34% - Chile 28.6%) and in terms of that part of the savings to find a way to invest it is important that governments behave fair ways to increase savings by raising taxes fairly, impartially and only in the savings increase leads to the elimination of encouraging drivers of economic activities can also be grouped savings through the issuance of government bonds.
Economists believe that there is a correlation between savings and development in terms of development the size of savings available for investment, and any of the degree of investment on development impact of affected is determined according to the availability of productive policies and employment appropriate as the key element specific private savings in low-income countries development and remain Savings economic policy, the focus of development to ensure adequate funding is required and appropriate investments to reach full employment, as well as to avoid the so-called gap of local resources, which talked about the investment exceeded savings and lead to inflationary pressures, as already mentioned ...
Economists and raises so-called bad economic cycles that stands chamber block to increase savings in poor countries, where usually have a low level of real income which is definitely the reason for the decline in demand, which in turn leads to lack of investment and then a deficit in available capital to start a production cycle level.
Economists believe that it is important to strengthen the mobilization of domestic savings, which is a condition of initial conditions to achieve an appropriate rate of investment and thus economic development can be identified by these methods are as follows:
need to increase the per capita national income through the equitable distribution of access that the primary determinant of energy savings and this will only come through the reduction of poverty and unemployment.
development and liberalization of the insurance sector as one of the most important social mobilization of savings mechanisms.
Work on reducing the cost of opening savings accounts, but must be free of charge in order to attract small savers in addition to the savings that improve the performance of the funds will lead to direct its reserves to invest in the capital market which animates investments and then operating and start a new economic cycles.
constantly open up new areas to invest and employ them well major employers. This will make individuals more example of the savings (investment funds are a good example, or as a tool of modern investment tools as a bowl to collect the financial savings and investment in securities by
Specialized experts as well as the risks that might be exposed to the investor in the fund is lower than in the case of direct investment.
Direct investments:
Our focus will be on foreign investment, a divided public investment and be of governments and private investments and be one of the sectors and private companies and institutions in countries of any of the private sector in the countries exporting capital to the private sector in importing countries of capital.
Investment means the acquisition of a particular origin in order to achieve a return of it at a later stage and investment is the national level in all aspects of spending aimed at increasing the production capacity of the community or improve the people's living standards, and this concept is to invest two goals:
Economist: The material return in achieving targets from the community and this is by increasing spending in order to raise the production capacity of the state.
Social: The well-being of the citizens and be done through spending on health, education and culture.
The investment level or at the level of individual installations, it means spending on various assets.
And the importance of investing the States pay is of great importance and decide his roles in economic policy and in the development plans and is evident from the keenness on raising investment rates.
The identifier that investment usually depends on saving the national (the savings of individuals, companies and government agencies) and the resort states to foreign savings in case of insufficient domestic savings to achieve the required investment rates, and in any case, the investor or the party who will invest puts in front of him represented in achieving rate target acceptable return on the use of funds and to ensure that recovered without risk or minimal ones which require that the investment climate favorable climate or encouraging the investor and the more stable internal conditions were more attractive to private investment and foreign investment.
The foreign investment is an important bond developing countries where compensate for the deficit in the national savings available for investment as it works to reduce the burden of external debt problems and debt service as they contribute to the solution to the deficit in the public budgets of the countries of the problem and other related problems mansions government funding for investment spending and rising prices, which leads to lower profits and thus weaken the incentive to invest to associate with a steady increase in expenses and an inability to compete in the market of goods and services ... and enumerates economists target of foreign investments are as follows: -
• take advantage of available resources (human - material)
• meet the local needs rather than relying on imports.
• Improve resource exploitation and utilization of optimizing.
• Provides direct foreign investment of financial resources in addition to advanced technology that helps increase production quality and reduce production cost and thus support the competitiveness of local products in foreign markets.
• contributes to the flow of foreign direct investment in opening new markets by linking local production need foreign markets.
• the advent of technical and management skills working to raise economic performance.
• improve the balance of payments and the reduction of foreign debt and the impact of its benefits.
• increase the export potential of the recipient countries of investments and enhance their competitiveness in foreign markets.
• Support for the economic relations between the investing and other recipient countries.
Foreign direct and indirect investments:
1. Direct Investment Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): -
It means the projects that the foreign investor created in the country and imbued with or through participation with the importer and national (Joint Venture) or in control of the management of the project and related to a foreign investor for the project ownership through his export money Manufacturing Manufacturing Contract contracts for capital projects built under the right manufacturing (Licensing) and turnkey projects (Turn Key Projects), as well as project delivery with production contracts (Manufacturing)).
2. Foreign investment indirect Indirect Foreign Investment (I FI): -
This type of investment by the investor dealing in various types of securities, whether shares (ownership) rights or bonds (debt rights).
The investor has his own investment process, and this deal through brokerage houses or through specialized financial institutions such as investment funds by purchasing documents issued by that.
Direct investment, the investor can from which to choose the field of investment areas offered by the government and which achieves the investor deal of project steering the investor indirect authorities can invest in line directing the public interest of the possibility of channeling funds from government bonds capital to import essential commodities, and different profit opportunities direct investment from non-direct investment in the profit potential of direct investment where it is the largest in the long term because it usually err on the branches of production or services that make a profit while the profit potential for indirect investments in the short term.
Direct investment and the balance of payments: -
Direct investments and benefits and profits role in the structure of the balance of payments, when the investments are coming from abroad, they restrict the creditor side in the balance (revenue side) while the benefits and profits generated by the transferred abroad as payments are credited in the part of the debtor.
The national investments abroad are credited in part payments
(Debtor) while the benefits and profits to the mobile home they are recorded in the revenue side (credit).
... In fact, the direct investment flows to a country in spite of its importance to the economies of recipient countries and their role affecting the development, however, achieving the desired effects of these investments depends on what play and orientations and activities in which they operate, which we refer to in some detail under the possible effects of investments title FDI on development in developing countries.
It is fair to mention that investment flows both direct and indirect ruled in fact multiple considerations may be the foremost of the political positions of the recipient countries of investments and the extent of satisfaction of Petroleum Exporting Countries investments by the extent of stability and according to the vision of the exporting countries, far into something in mind the position of the United States and its impact on decision International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to withdraw offer finance the construction of the High Dam, prompting the commander immortal leader (Gamal Abdel Nasser) to the nationalization of the Suez Canal ...
Thus witnessing days and the current circumstances the actions of some major countries in linking grants, loans and investment flows relations with knives or less extent by the other space and economic dependency ... and the extent to walk in those contrasts, hopes and dignity of peoples.
But there are other obstacles to represent restrictions on attracting investment in developing countries is: -
Institutional constraints: -
The deficiencies in supervising enterprises to invest and multiplicity and rigidity laws and regulations related to investment and guarantees of non-nationalization, confiscation and the right to recover the capital and turn a profit.
Obstacles in the productive structure: -
The shortages and the failure of infrastructure or social capital base and retardation services sectors (transport and communications) which leads to lower expected return in addition to the lack of availability of trained manpower for administrative work and the lack of a base of skilled workers ... and besides retardation capital markets and limitations, as well as a base of exchange, reflecting investor scare disorders.
Climate intellectual and ideological mainstream: -
And is in the perspective of the receiving State of the basics of dealing with money inflows and their right to confiscated or nationalized or routed according to plan its development, as well as the position of the state of freedom of trade and foreign exchange and price movement ... the existence of extremist currents affect the political stability ... also bad security situation and rampant corruption ... etc.
The potential effects of foreign direct investment on development in developing countries: -
There are divergent views in views between supporters and opponents of the free economy of the Socialists supported by the representatives of the dependency school, we find that the capitalists are content that the economic freedom the most appropriate way to achieve
Bibliography:
The Theory of Political Development, By Gianfranco Pasquino, University of Bologna and Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University
Water, Politics and Development: Framing a Political Sociology of Water Resources Management, Peter P. Mollinga, Department of Political and Cultural Change, ZEF (Center for Development Research), Bonn University, Germany; pmollinga@hotmail.com
Title: Why most developing countries did not turn into a developmentally advanced countries? Issue: 44, Publisher: Arab Planning Institute – Kuwait, The author (s): Ahmed Nawaz, Date: Dec, 2011
Economic development in developing countries and means of financing, Mohammed Nabil Shimi, Civilized dialogue-number: 2538 - 2009/1/26 - 01:16, Theme: Administration and Economics
This report is the first part of a research project on industrialization strategies and industrial cooperation in southern Africa. This part is devoted to studying the theories and policies of international cooperation.
The research project is part of the WIDER special programmes financed out of the Finnish Government Special Programme Fund. The researcher is preparing his doctoral thesis on the same topic at the University of Paris VII (Laboratoire des Tiers-Mondes), under the guidance of Dr. Monique Chemillier-Gendreau.
Besides Mme. Chemillier-Gendreau, some of the students and colleagues at the IDS, University of Helsinki, have given valuable comments on different parts and versions of this text. The author wants to thank all of them, and the WIDER for the publication of this report
المشروع البحثي هو جزء من برامج خاصة اقتصاديات بتمويل من صندوق البرنامج الخاص الحكومة الفنلندية. الباحث تستعد اطروحة دكتوراه حول نفس الموضوع في جامعة باريس السابعة (مختبر قصر تيير-Mondes)، تحت إشراف الدكتور مونيك كيميلير- جاندرو.
إلى جانب السيدة. كيميلير- جاندرو، وبعض من الطلاب والزملاء في IDS،، أعطت جامعة هلسنكي تعليقات قيمة على أجزاء والإصدارات من هذا النص مختلفة. الكاتب يريد أن أشكر كل منهم، وعلى نطاق أوسع لنشر هذا التقرير
Das Forschungsprojekt ist Teil der WIDER Sonderprogramme finanziert aus der finnischen Regierung Sonderprogramm Fonds. Der Forscher bereitet seine Dissertation zum gleichen Thema an der Universität Paris VII (Laboratoire des Tiers-Mondes), unter der Leitung von Dr. Monique Chemillier-Gendreau.
Neben Mme. Chemillier-Gendreau, einige der Studenten und Kollegen auf der IDS, Universität Helsinki, haben wertvolle Hinweise zu den verschiedenen Teilen und Versionen dieses Textes gegeben. Der Autor möchte, dass alle von ihnen, und die WIDER für die Veröffentlichung dieses Berichts danken
INTRODUCTION
A story tells that in the Middle Ages, the books in the libraries were sometimes arranged according to the country of their origin, or the place where their authors were born, or the place where they should have been born.
Thus, the books that the creators of the library considered books of falsehood, or inherent with the official truth, were labelled with a warning: Africa, hic sunt leones. /1 Now, in our days, this seems to be the case with the role of the studies of politics in economic development.
Indeed, there seems to be a particular tendency in development studies to ignore the "political", or, at least, to treat the political aspects of economic development as a kind of "black box"; i.e. something beyond and unattainable by means of ordinary social science. Since the warning is continuously repeated, it is no wonder that anthropologists, economists and sociologists are frightened off and discouraged from claiming an understanding of the political aspects of social development in the Third World. The problematic of international development cooperation is a case in point. /3 Already the use of the term "cooperation" is illuminating ("Everybody is for cooperation!"). The common way to see cooperation unanimously as an 'apolitical' solution to social problems
المقدمة
قصة تحكي أنه في العصور الوسطى، والكتب في المكتبات رتبت في بعض الأحيان وفقا لبلد المنشأ، أو المكان الذي ولدت فيه مؤلفيها، أو المكان الذي يجب أن يكون قد ولد.
وهكذا، فإن الكتب التي المبدعين من المكتبة تعتبر الكتب من الباطل، أو ملازمة مع الحقيقة الرسمية، وصفت مع تحذير: أفريقيا، ليون أنت هنا. / 1 الآن، في أيامنا هذه، ويبدو أن هذا هو الحال مع دور دراسات السياسة في التنمية الاقتصادية.
في الواقع، يبدو أن هناك اتجاها خاصا في الدراسات التنموية لتجاهل "سياسية"، أو، على الأقل، لمعالجة الجوانب السياسية للتنمية الاقتصادية كنوع من "الصندوق الاسود". أي شيء أبعد وغير قابلة للتحقيق عن طريق العلوم الاجتماعية العادية. منذ يتكرر التحذير بشكل مستمر، فليس من المستغرب أن علماء الأنثروبولوجيا والاقتصاديين وعلماء الاجتماع خائفون من وتثبيط من يدعي فهم الجوانب السياسية للتنمية الاجتماعية في العالم الثالث. إشكالية التعاون الإنمائي الدولي هي خير مثال على ذلك. / 3 إذا كنت استخدام مصطلح "التعاون" هو إلقاء الضوء ( "الجميع للتعاون!"). الطريقة الشائعة لمعرفة التعاون بالإجماع بوصفه حلا "سياسي" للمشاكل الاجتماعية
Introduction
Development cooperation is a new mode of international relations. In the modern sense of the word, development cooperation has been carried out only after the Second World War. But in a short period of time, it has become an institutionalized mode of international relations. Today, almost every country is engaged in development cooperation in one way or in another. Research of development cooperation is, thus, a challenging task for the study of international relations.
Problems of development cooperation have been studied first and foremost as an issue of development studies. However, the development problematic can not alone explain the dynamics of development cooperation.
Whatever forms the internal development in a "developing country" may take, no cooperation can rise out without the desire of partners to cooperate.
It is, thus, no wonder that development cooperation is inevitably laden with political and moral aspects. In an international system with increasingly widening gaps between national welfare levels, any coherent vision of a peaceful global change cannot miss the problematic of cooperation between rich and poor nations.
Introduction
Are you sure that you know what “development” really means with respect to different countries? And can you determine which countries are more developed and which are less?
It is somewhat easier to say which countries are richer and which are poorer. But indicators of wealth, which reflect the quantity of resources available to a society, provide no information about the allocation of those resources—for instance, about more or less equitable distribution of income among social groups, about the shares of resources used to provide free health and education services, and about the effects of production and consumption on people’s environment.
Thus it is no wonder that countries with similar average incomes can differ substantially when it comes to people’s quality of life: access to education and health care, employment opportunities, availability of clean air and safe drinking water, the threat of crime, and so on. With that in mind, how do we determine which countries are more developed and which are less developed?
Goals and Means of Development Different countries have different priorities in their development policies. But to compare their development levels, you would first have to make up your mind about what development really means to you, what it is supposed to achieve.
Indicators measuring this achievement could then be used to judge countries’ relative progress in development.
Is the goal merely to increase national wealth, or is it something more subtle?
Improving the well-being of the majority of the population? Ensuring people’s freedom? Increasing their economic security?1 Recent United Nations documents emphasize “human development,” measured by life expectancy, adult literacy, access to all three levels of education, as well as people’s average income, which is a necessary condition of their freedom of choice. In a broader sense the notion of human development incorporates all aspects of individuals’ well-being, from their health status to their economic and What Is Development?
If you think that the “simple” answer to this question is something like “maximizing people’s happiness,” think of the different factors that usually make people feel happy or unhappy. Note that a number of special surveys in different countries appear to show that the average level of happiness in a country does not grow along with the increase in average income, at least after a certain rather modest income level is achieved. At the same time, in each country richer people usually reported slightly higher levels of happiness than poorer people, and people in countries with more equal distribution of wealth appeared to be generally happier.
According to the Human Development Report 1996, published by the United Nations Development Program, “human development is the end—economic growth a means.”
It is true that economic growth, by increasing a nation’s total wealth, also enhances its potential for reducing poverty and solving other social problems. But history offers a number of examples where economic growth was not followed by similar progress in human development. Instead growth was achieved at the cost of greater inequality, higher unemployment, weakened democracy, loss of cultural identity, or overconsumption of natural resources needed by future generations. As the links between economic growth and social and environmental issues are better understood, experts including economists tend to agree that this kind of growth is inevitably unsustainable—that is, it cannot continue along the same lines for long. First, if environmental and social/human losses resulting from economic growth turn out to be higher than economic benefits (additional incomes earned by the majority of the population), the overall result for people’s wellbeing becomes negative. Thus such economic growth becomes difficult to sustain politically. Second, economic growth itself inevitably depends on its natural and social/human conditions. To be sustainable, it must rely on a certain amount of natural resources and services provided by nature, such as pollution absorption and resource regeneration.
Moreover, economic growth must be constantly nourished by the fruits of human development, such as higher qualified workers capable of technological and managerial innovations along with opportunities for their efficient use: more and better jobs, better conditions for new businesses to grow, and greater democracy at all levels of decision making Conversely, slow human development can put an end to fast economic growth.
According to the Human Development Report 1996, “during 1960–1992 not a single country succeeded in moving from lopsided development with slow human development and rapid growth to a virtuous circle in which human development and growth can become mutually reinforcing.” Since slower human development has invariably been followed by slower economic growth, this growth pattern was labeled a “dead end.”
Sustainable Development Sustainable development is a term widely used by politicians all over the world, even though the notion is still rather new and lacks a uniform interpretation.
Goals of and Reasons for this Course
During the last decade, the world has witnessed an extraordinary series of events. From Brasilia to Warsaw, democratic forces have challenged authoritarian regimes on the left and right of the political spectrum. In some cases this trend has opened the door to the establishment of democratic governments. In other cases the weakening of authoritarian regimes has promoted the growth and political fortunes of a host of ultra-nationalist or religious -fundamentalist movements seeking to impose their own brand of authoritarianism.
How do we account for such changes? Under what conditions is it more or less likely that authoritarian regimes will be challenged and displaced by democratic movements? Why do economic development, urbanization, and education promote political stability and a common sense of identity in some cases, while in other instances such force engender sectarianism, religious bigotry and even civil war? In short, how can we make sense of the world we live in?
This course explores some of these daunting questions, particularly as they relate to the challenges of "political development" and "modernization" in the Third World.
We shall see that social scientists have been wrestling with these issues for more than 4 decades. In their efforts to make sense of the confusing maze of data regarding Third World development, and in their attempts to "order" this data in a way that will make it accessible to explanation, they have developed analytical frameworks, theories or "paradigms." These frameworks have served as crucial intellectual guides for entire generations of social scientists.
Our task is twofold: First, we shall critically assess the most important analytical schools of thought that have guided the study of Third World development. These paradigms have sometimes illuminated significant social and political trends, while on other occasions they have obscured such trends. Identifying the contributions and limitations of each analytical framework is a key challenge of this class. Second, we will consider how and why these paradigms emerge, persist and eventually give way to new approaches. This process by is not solely a matter of new discoveries and advances. Theoretical approaches are influenced as much by social and political considerations, as they are by scientific factors. The second central challenge of this course is to sharpen our understanding of the diverse theoretical, philosophical and political premises that shape paradigms, and in so doing, do -- or do not -- endow them with explanatory power.
Overview of the Course
Introductory Exercise: To open the course, in the Introduction we will read "blind" (ie without the aid of any particular analytical framework) a classic essay about political change in a Turkish village, written nearly fifty years ago. Today this essay may sound naive and unduly optimistic; but even those with little introduction to the study of Third World politics will sense that the conclusions derived by the author are driven by a certain set of assumptions about what “modernization” is, and what its consequences are.
Part One explores the "Liberal-Optimist" school of "modernization." This school set the research and even foreign policy agenda in the United States for more than a decade.
Part Two looks at the "Institution-Building" school of "political development." By the early seventies, proponents of this school had practically superseded their "liberal" counterparts. (In doing so, they promoted a trend in American policy towards support for authoritarian, non-communist military regimes).
Part Three considers the Marxist or "dependency" response to the above intellectual and political trend. Students of dependency did not totally reject many of the observations made by their conservative counter-parts–rather, they attributed the phenomenon of endemic political instability in the Third World to the constraints of the international capitalist order rather than to indigenous factors such as culture or political tradition.
We shall see in Part Four that several leading proponents of dependency theory changed their theoretical and even political tune by the early to mid-eighties. In fact, the "dependencies" were the first to predict the "transition from authoritarianism." Later these leftist scholars were joined by a more traditional group of liberal scholars. Together these seemingly strange ideological bed fellows -- aided by the collapse of the Cold War and a new pragmatism in some quarters of American academia -- helped forge the present day study of democratic change.
Part Five tackles some of the problems associated with the study of democratic change and the question of ethnicity and sectarian fundamentalism -- not only in the Third World, but also in Eastern Europe.
Parts Six and Seven are in many ways a continuation of this same subject. Here, however, we will look at the question of democratic change, ethnicity and religious fundamentalism from the vantage point of the study of "historical legacies" and the "new institutionalism." These approaches emphasizes the different roles that ethnic identities sand institutional legacies play in promoting or undermining democracy.
Required Readings: (The following are available at the book store: All other readings are onelectronic reserve).
Christopher Clapham, Third World Politics: An Introduction (London: Croom Helm, 1985) pp. 39-60.
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) pp. 1-39.
Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism (Berkeley: University of Calif. Press, 1979).
Guillermo A. O'Donnell, Philippe Schmitter, (eds.), Transitions From Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives and Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). (2 Volumes)
The Theory of Political Development
By Gianfranco Pasquino
University of Bologna and Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University
Now almost entirely forgotten, perhaps because replaced or superseded by the theme of democratization, the wealth of studies on political development contained quite a number of significant and useful theoretical threads. This paper will, first of all, try to disentangle what was theoretical from what was simply, though, often, in an important way, analytical. Second, it will then identify and analyze the most important processes of political development and their changes through time. Third, it will focus on the lasting, positive as well as negative, contributions made and left by the scholars who participated in the collective enterprise devoted to the study of political development. Therefore, it will also provide a reliable guide to the most interesting contributions to the literature.
The leading concepts of political development, most of them still significantly alive and considerably useful, are: nation-building, state-building, political culture. Though problematically, they all contain both theoretical threads and empirical challenges. The paper will argue that there is a lot to be learned from the way these concepts were formulated and how the historical experiences were analyzed in order both to understand the processes of democratization and democratic consolidation and to evaluate the sociopolitical dynamics of failed states. Moreover, most scholars who contributed to the studies on political development have relied, more or less successfully, on a historical-comparative method (see the chapters by Goldstone and Mahoney in Mahoney and Ruesche meyer 2003) that has shown to be highly appropriate for the understanding of contemporary political transformations. Therefore, in those studies one can also find some methodological lessons. In the end, the paper will very briefly focus on relatively new problems concerning the states.
The not so minor problem of definition. In the atmosphere of great excitement that accompanied the processes of decolonization of the late fifties and early sixties, quite a number of political and social scientists were drawn to the study of what was called “political development”. Both for political and analytical purposes, the fact that many countries were acquiring their independence and hence the possibility to start constructing their own regime, as they desired, represented a major opportunity to revitalize the field of political science. As Almond and Powell (1966) wrote, it became possible to break the walls of parochialism, descriptivism, formalism and fruitfully to increase the number and the variety of cases to be analyzed in a comparative way.
Five decades after the publication of the first studies that were consciously and explicitly devoted to political development, it has become possible, avoiding all ideological traps, to assess their contributions.
My goal is twofold. First, I want to focus on few rather different theories of political development and, second, I will suggest how to identify the connections between those theories with the (subsequent) analyses of democratization.
I will start quoting what Lucian Pye (1966, 50) wrote with reference to the need for a theory: “The lack of doctrine has paralyzed constructive criticism and permitted the political dialogue in the new countries to become mired down in cant”. Somewhat counter-intuitively, when most political scientists were beginning their research and their analysis trying to avoid being influenced by their national cultural ethos, Pye pointed to the negative impact of a certain kind of belief in cultural relativism that “could be cruelly degrading precisely to whom it was intended to give respectability” (Ibid., 52). A similar belief remains at work today when discussing democracy. Quite a number of scholars are fond of declaring that, of course, democracy “Western style” is definitely not what non-democratic countries should be offered or should be looking for. While the discussion concerning the many faces of democracy, from the perspective of the institutions and the party systems, deserves much more space, what is at the core of the best analyses of the processes of democratization concerns the possibility of combining free and fair political competition with the promotion and protection of human rights? When and whether cultural relativism rejects this combination, it will deny the very possibility of constructing democratic regimes. Though often they were indeed “cultural relativists”, many scholars who were engaged in analyzing political development shared the optimistic view that positive changes were possible and that they could come together. But, as we will see, optimism was not the best guide to the analysis and the interpretation of those processes in the sixties and seventies (as convincingly argued by Packenham 1973).
Returning to the need for a theory, it is useful to refer to what Almond and Powell had in mind when committing themselves to the theoretical enterprise. “We believe that the ultimate test of the strength of a scientific theory is its ability to generalize and predict. Indeed, unless a theory designates relationships between variables in such a way that predictions can be made about the consequences of their interaction, it is hard to establish whether a theory is valid or invalid, whether it should eventually be discarded, revised, or accepted. The advancement of knowledge comes through the testing and reformulation of theories” (p. 300). What we are aiming at in political science cannot be but probabilistic theories which state that “if conditions a, b, and c make their appearance and hold, then consequences x, y, and z are highly likely to materialize”. Therefore, the first task of a theoretical approach consists in identifying (some of) the most important conditions leading to those consequences that are associated with political development.
The starting problem that scholars interested in political development had to face was twofold. On the one hand, they had to define with some precision what they meant when referring to political development On the other hand, they had to identify the political components of political development. On the whole, in Giovanni Sartor i’s words, their paramount task should have been defined as the attempt to “explain politics with politics”. This is not to deny that the processes of socio-economic modernization are important, but they must be studied with reference to their specific components and variables.
The complexity and the contradictions of the various definitions of political development were almost immediately brought to light by Lucian Pye (1966, 33-45). Not surprisingly, though significantly, he found no agreement and much confusion. Reviewing the existing literature, already quite abundant in terms of number of research and published studies, he counted ten meanings of political development: 1) Political Development as the Political Prerequisite of Economic Development; 2) Political Development as the Politics Typical of Industrial Societies; 3) Political Development as Political Modernization; 4) Political Development as the Operation of a Nation-State; 5) Political Development as Administrative and Legal Development; 6) Political Development as Mass Mobilization and Participation; 7) Political Development as the Building of Democracy; 8) Political Development as Stability and Orderly Change; 9) Political Development as Mobilization and Power; 10) Political Development as One Aspect of a Multi-Dimensional Process of Social Change. With the benefit of hindsight and taking into account exclusively the political aspects of political development, today it has become possible clearly to identify three overarching processes. For some scholars, political development fundamentally meant the process leading to the construction of a viable autonomous state. This process would combine points 4 and 5, and possibly 9, of Pye’s list of meanings. For others, it was the creation of political order, Pye’s points 5 and 8. Finally, a third group of scholars thought of political development as the process leading to democracy, Pye’s points 7 and 8, possibly 9 as well.
Inevitably, of course, almost all scholars shared the belief that western states (and the Soviet Union) had to be considered politically developed. Interestingly enough, more or less in the same period, the theory of convergence of industrial states, that is, the conviction that economic and industrial imperatives would lead advanced political systems toward very similar political arrangements, made its appearance (Aron 1962, and Brzezinski and Huntington 1964). No wonder, therefore, that some political scientists felt justified in thinking that most developing countries would have to go through a path not dissimilar from that followed by Western political systems (in a way, this view was also entertained by Barrington Moore 1966). Even though the achievement of Western-style democracy was generally considered an appropriate goal to be indicated to the developing countries and, in some cases, a standard by which to evaluate the process of political development, most scholars suggested that it would be, at least in the short run, a rather unrealistic outcome. On the whole, nevertheless, the mood of very many political scientists was somewhat enthusiastic and the overall climate was marked by optimism. The precondition of political development, which is self-determination acquired through the process of decolonization, having been satisfied, all Third World countries could initiate their political development. In a similar way, though much later, the demise of some authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe and the collapse of Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe appeared to open the way to the democratization of all those political systems (Huntington 1991). Not incidentally, some of the problems to be faced, though by no means all, shared several important and interesting similarities. Having studied some instances of political development, Dankwart Rustow (1967) found himself at the intersection of a variety of processes of democratization, hence in theoptimal position to write a seminal article (Rustow 1970) whose importance, however, was recognized only ten years of so later.
Unfortunately, though, perhaps, inevitably, when political development became a fashionable topic for research and for Ph. D. dissertations, conspicuously funded by US Foundations, the consequences consisted essentially in an outpouring of a-theoretical case-studies (Pasquino 1974a reviewed any systematized the relevant literature). Also, there was often a disturbing combination of socio-economic explanations mixed with political factors that never amounted to a serious attempt at theorizing. However, two books played a highly significant role in the theoretical analysis of political development. I will focus the rest of the paper on them and on their impact.
Two theoretical contributions
Almond and Powell (1966) tried to avoid all ethnocentric traps when formulating their theory of political development. Their probabilistic theory is based on three major variables: role differentiation, subsystem autonomy, and cultural secularization. The first one refers to the appearance of a variety of roles performing different important activities. Subsystem autonomy stresses the existence of several structures endowed with some autonomy in their own specific fields. Probably, it is better defined a contrario, that is, indicating those situations where no single system emerges as dominant over all the others. Finally, cultural secularization suggests that “as the political system becomes differentiated from other social systems, the rulers begin to develop secular goals, and a rational sense of the relationship between means and ends and of one set of ends as over against other ends” (p. 305). If and when there is a process leading to a growth of differentiation, autonomy and secularization, the political system becomes more developed because it increases its regulative, extractive, distributive, responsive, and symbolic capabilities. “In capability terms, those with high subsystem autonomy have relatively versatile and continuous capability, … while those characterized by limited subsystem autonomy tend to have a fluctuating pattern of capability” (p. 311). At this point I venture to state that the structure of the theory deriving from Almond and Powell’s statements can be constructed as follows. “If there is a growth in the differentiation of roles, in the number of subsystems that are autonomous, and in the decision-making processes characterized by a sober evaluation of means and end, then the political system will become more developed, that is, it will acquire greater capabilities”.
In order to test the theory, on one hand, Almond encouraged and supervised a series of country-studies.
Leaving aside whether they were valuable in themselves (most certainly were, illuminating the politics of aspecific country), none of them provided a convincing test of the theory. On the other hand, several books were devoted to specific issues affecting political development. Though, again, their application and testing of the theory of development were certainly not satisfactory. Finally, Almond redefined his overall approach and invited some scholars to identify and deal with important episodes in the process of political development (Almond, Flanagan, and Mundt 1973). His conclusion was not especially enthusiastic: “This book shows all the marks of unfinished business, of work in progress. The reader in search of hard theory, of hypotheses deduced from axioms and subjected to rigorous tests of proofs, will find little in this analytical framework and our collection of case studies” (Almond and Mundt, 1973, 619). Written when the study of political development had entered its last phase (as documented in the dense essay by Huntington and Dominguez 1975), these words seem an admission of a “theoretical” defeat. In all likelihood, they were also the consequence of Almond’s eclecticism and his dissatisfaction with his own previous theoretical experimentation.
Usually, Almond and Powell’s theory of political development has been criticised because it appeared unable to make room for the process of political decline. In my opinion this criticism is somewhat misplaced. The theory can easily accommodate a reduction in role differentiation, for instance, when some roles become performed by the same actor. It can account for a shrinking of subsystem autonomy, for instance, when one subsystem takes over another one, or more (for example, a party coming to dominate over the State, its bureaucracy, the military organization). The theory is also capable of providing for phenomena of cultural de- secularization when the integrity of the sphere of politics is violated and invaded by economic, military, religious actors. It is true that all these processes are neither mentioned nor analyzed in Almond and Powell’s theory. Nevertheless, they can all easily found a place within it. As to the capabilities, they too can be made more specific and more precise. They could even be measured. What remains rather unclear and not convincing is the type of changing relationships between role differentiation, subsystem autonomy and cultural secularization and the capabilities of the political system.
To be more precise, the authors never explain how far role differentiation, subsystem autonomy, and cultural secularization can go. Nor do they give convincing examples of the three processes successfully producing political development. The web of interactions appears very complex and quite difficult to disentangle. In one sentence, the theory is neither parsimonious nor elegant. At the most, one would get a wide research griddle.
Of course, one could attempt to link some of the above-quoted capabilities with the three processes in order to assess which process would affect the capabilities deemed necessary to produce political development.1 This is a task that Almond and Powell have shunned and, as I have anticipated, Almond’s subsequent research interests led him into another, though not more satisfactory, direction. In the light of these drawbacks or unsolved puzzles, no wonder that few scholars have followed in Almond and Powell’s footsteps (even though, as already said, an entire series of country studies have been published according to guidelines provided in Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach). Nevertheless, at least one research area was clearly suggested by Almond and Powell focused on four factors, later labelled “crises”, that affect the differentiation, the secularization and the subsystem autonomy of all political systems, respectively: state-building, nation-building, participation, and distribution. “By state-building we refer to the problem of integration and control; by nation-building, the problem of group identity and loyalty; by participation, the involvement of members of the society in the decision-making processes of the system; and by distribution, the problem of allocation of goods, services, and other values by the political system” (Almond and Powell, 314).
These factors have made the object of a major book meant to provide a comprehensive and definite overview of political development: Crises and sequences in political development (Binder et al. 1971). Can one find a probabilistic theory of political development in the eight chapters of this book that in a way represent the culmination of more than a decade of studies? To the extent that there is a theory, that is, a tight explanation organized around a chain of causation running from conditions to consequences, one ought to speak of a multilevel theory. The key variable of the theory is represented by capability. Political development occurs when the processes of state and nation-building are accompanied by or led to the increase in the capabilities of the power-holders (or of the political and institutional structures). The theory of the crises and sequences of political development is formulated as follows. If the processes of state and nation-building are accomplished successfully, then the structural outcome of both processes will be in a position to accommodate the crises of participation, penetration and distribution. The overall end product will be represented by a polity that can be defined politically developed. However, a major note of caution is in order. “If the crisis model is to become a theory of development, it seems likely that the propositions in it or the hypotheses generated by it will have to do with the sequence by which crises arise: the consequences, for instance, of one crisis emerging before the other, of the simultaneity of crises, and the like” (Verba 1971, 283).
Sidney Verba was certainly right in pointing at the importance of the sequence through which the crises appeared and had to be faced and solved. However, none of the contributors to that book felt fully
1 Certainly the product of some dissatisfaction with the vagueness of some concepts and processes, two papers deserve to be mentioned: Eckstein (1971) and Sigelman (1971 because they neatly provide some precision.
2 I am perfectly aware that there is a major analytical and theoretical problem in the necessary distinction between “power-holders” and “political and institutional structures”. In Easton’s words (1965) the distinction runs between the authorities and the regime.
Denmark
How’s Life?
Denmark performs very well in many measures of well-being, as shown by the fact that it ranks among the top countries in a large number of topics in the Better Life Index.
Money, while it cannot buy happiness, is an important means to achieving higher living standards. In Denmark, the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is 25 172 USD a year, more than the OECD average of 23 938 USD a year. But there is a considerable gap between the richest and poorest – the top 20% of the population earn close to four times as much as the bottom 20%.
In terms of employment, over 73% of people aged 15 to 64 in Denmark have a paid job, above the OECD employment average of 65%. Some 75% of men are in paid work, compared with 70% of women. People in Denmark work 1 546 hours a year, less than the OECD average of 1 765 hours. Some 2% of employees work very long hours, much lower than the OECD average of 9%, with 3% of men working very long hours compared with just 1% for women.
Having a good education is an important requisite for finding a job. In Denmark, 77% of adults aged 25-64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, slightly higher than the OECD average of 75%. This is slightly truer of men than women, as 77% of men have successfully completed high-school compared with 76% of women. In terms of education quality, the average student scored 498 in reading literacy, maths and science in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This score is slightly higher than the OECD average of 497. On average in Denmark, girls outperformed boys by 2 points, less than the OECD average of 8 points.
In terms of health, life expectancy at birth in Denmark is 80 years, in line with the OECD average. Life expectancy for women is 82 years, compared with 78 for men. The level of atmospheric PM10 – tiny air pollutant particles small enough to enter and cause damage to the lungs – is 15 micrograms per cubic meter, considerably lower than the OECD average of 20.1 micrograms per cubic meter. Denmark also does well in terms of water quality, as 95% of people say they are satisfied with the quality of their water, more than the OECD average of 84%.
Concerning the public sphere, there is a strong sense of community and high levels of civic participation in Denmark, where 96% of people believe that they know someone they could rely on in time of need, higher than the OECD average of 89%. Voter turnout, a measure of public trust in government and of citizens’ participation in the political process, was 88% during recent elections; considerably higher than the OECD average of 72%. Voter turnout for the top 20% of the population is an estimated 90% and for the bottom 20% it is an estimated 86%, a much smaller gap than the OECD average gap of 11 percentage points.
In Denmark, 84% of people say they have more positive experiences in an average day (feelings of rest, pride in accomplishment, enjoyment, etc.) than negative ones (pain, worry, sadness, boredom, etc.). This figure is higher than the OECD average of 76%.
Housing
Key Findings
Living in satisfactory housing conditions is one of the most important aspects of people’s lives. Housing is essential to meet basic needs, such as shelter, but it is not just a question of four walls and a roof. Housing should offer a place to sleep and rest where people feel safe and have privacy and personal space; somewhere they can raise a family. All of these elements help make a house a home. And of course there is the question whether people can afford adequate housing.
Housing costs take up a large share of the household budget and represent the largest single expenditure for many individuals and families, by the time you add up elements such as rent, gas, electricity, water, furniture or repairs. In Denmark, households on average spend 24% of their gross adjusted disposable income on keeping a roof over their heads, more than the OECD average of 21%.
In addition to housing costs it is also important to examine living conditions, such as the average number of rooms shared per person and whether households have access to basic facilities. In Denmark, 91% of people say they are satisfied with their current housing situation, more than the OECD average of 87%. This high level of subjective satisfaction reflects Denmark’s good performance in objective housing indicators.
The number of rooms in a dwelling, divided by the number of persons living there, indicates whether residents are living in crowded conditions. Overcrowded housing may have a negative impact on physical and mental health, relations with others and children’s development. In addition, dense living conditions are often a sign of inadequate water and sewage supply. In Denmark, the average home contains 2.0 rooms per person, more than the OECD average of 1.6 rooms per person. In terms of basic facilities, 99.6% of people in Denmark live in dwellings with private access to an indoor flushing toilet, more than the OECD average of 97.9%.
Income
Key Findings
While money may not buy happiness, it is an important means to achieving higher living standards and thus greater well-being. Higher economic wealth may also improve access to quality education, health care and housing.
Household net-adjusted disposable income is the amount of money that a household earns each year after taxes and transfers. It represents the money available to a household for spending on goods or services. In Denmark, the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is 25 172 USD a year, slightly higher than the OECD average of 23 938 USD.
Household financial wealth is the total value of a household’s financial worth. In Denmark, the average household net financial wealth per capita is estimated at 39 951 USD, lower than the OECD average of 42 903 USD. While the ideal measure of household wealth should include non-financial assets (e.g. land and dwellings), such information is currently available for only a small number of OECD countries.
Despite a general increase in living standards across OECD countries over the past fifteen years, not all people have benefited from this to the same extent. In Denmark, the average net adjusted disposable income of the top 20% of the population is an estimated 43 644 a year, whereas the bottom 20% live on an estimated 12 183 USD a year.
Community
Key Findings
Humans are social creatures. The frequency of our contact with others and the quality of our personal relationships are thus crucial determinants of our well-being. Helping others can also make you happier. People who volunteer tend to be more satisfied with their lives than those who do not. Time spent volunteering also contributes to a healthy civil society. On average, people in Denmark spend 3 minutes per day in volunteering activities, less than the OECD average of 4 minutes per day. Around 55% reported having helped a stranger in the last month, more than the OECD average of 49%.
A strong social network, or community, can provide emotional support during both good and bad times as well as provide access to jobs, services and other material opportunities. In Denmark, 96% of people believe that they know someone they could rely on in a time of need, the highest rate in the OECD where the average is around 89%. There is a 3 percentage point difference between men and women, as 94% of men believe they have this kind of social support, compared with 97% of women. There is also a difference in the availability of social support depending on people’s education level. In Denmark, 90% of people who have completed primary education report having someone to count on for help in times of need, compared to 97% for people who attained tertiary education.
A weak social network can result in limited economic opportunities, a lack of contact with others, and eventually, feelings of isolation. Socially isolated individuals face difficulties integrating into society as a contributing member and fulfilling personal aspirations.
Education
Key Findings
A well-educated and well-trained population is essential for a country’s social and economic well-being. Education plays a key role in providing individuals with the knowledge, skills and competences needed to participate effectively in society and in the economy. Having a good education greatly improves the likelihood of finding a job and earning enough money. Across OECD countries, 83% of people with university-level degrees have a job, compared with 55% for those with only a secondary school diploma. Lifetime earnings also increase with each level of education.
Following a decline in manual labour over previous decades, employers now favour a more educated labour force. High-school graduation rates therefore provide a good indication of whether a country is preparing its students to meet the minimum requirements of the job market. In Denmark, 77% of adults aged 25-64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, slightly higher than the OECD average of 75%. This is slightly truer of men than women, as 77% of men have successfully completed high-school compared with 76% of women. This 1 percentage point difference is in line with the OECD average. Among younger people – a better indicator of Denmark’s future – 80% of 25-34 year-olds have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, lower than the OECD average of 82%.
Danes can expect to go through 19.2 years of education between the ages of 5 and 39, more than the OECD average of 17.7 years.
But graduation rates, while important, speak little to the quality of education received. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reviews the extent to which students have acquired some of the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies. In 2012, PISA focused on examining students’ reading ability, skills in maths and level in sciences, as research shows that these skills are more reliable predictors of economic and social well-being than the number of years spent in school.
The average student in Denmark scored 498 in reading literacy, maths and sciences, above the OECD average of 497. On average, girls out performed boys by 2 points, less than the average OECD gap of 8 points.
The best-performing school systems manage to provide high-quality education to all students. In Denmark, the average difference in results, between the students with the highest socio-economic background and the students with the lowest socio-economic background, is of 94 points, lower than the OECD average of 96 points. This suggests the school system in Denmark provides relatively equal access to high-quality education.
Environment expand
Civic Engagement
Key Findings
Trust in government is essential for social cohesion and well-being. In Denmark, 39% of people say they trust their national government, in line with the OECD average. High voter turnout is another measure of public trust in government and of citizens’ participation in the political process. In the most recent elections for which data is available, voter turnout in Denmark was 88% of those registered? This figure is much higher than the OECD average of 72%.
Even if the right to vote is universal in all OECD countries, not everyone exercises this right. There is little difference in the voting rates of men and women in most OECD countries. This is the case in Denmark, where the voter turnout of men and women is nearly the same. While on average there are few differences between men and women concerning participation in elections, income can have a strong influence on voter turnout. In Denmark, voter turnout for the top 20% of the population is an estimated 90%, whereas the participation rate of the bottom 20% is an estimated 86%. This 4 percentage point difference is much lower than the OECD average difference of 11 percentage points, and suggests there is broad social inclusion in Denmark’s democratic institutions.
Ensuring that government decision making is not compromised by conflicts of interest is key to maintaining trust in government. Transparency is therefore essential to hold government to account and to maintain confidence in public institutions.
Freedom of information laws (FOI) allow the possibility for individuals to access undisclosed information. For such policies to be successful, the public should have a clear understanding of their rights under the law, should be able to file requests with ease and should be protected against any possible retaliation. People in Denmark can file a request for information either in writing, in person or by telephone – thus greatly facilitating the FOI process. However, there are no provisions for anonymity or protection from retaliation.
Health
Key Findings
Most OECD countries have enjoyed large gains in life expectancy over the past decades, thanks to improvements in living conditions, public health interventions and progress in medical care. Life expectancy at birth in Denmark stands at almost 80 years, in line with the OECD average. Life expectancy for women is 82 years, compared with 78 for men, close to the OECD average gender gap of six years, with a life expectancy of 83 years for women and 77 years for men.
Higher life expectancy is generally associated with higher healthcare spending per person, although many other factors have an impact on life expectancy (such as living standards, lifestyles, education and environmental factors). Total health spending accounts for 10.9% of GDP in Denmark, above the average in OECD countries of 9.4%. Denmark also ranks above the OECD average in terms of total health spending per person, at 4 448 USD in 2011, compared with an OECD average of 3 322 USD. Between 2000 and 2010, total health spending in Denmark increased in real terms by 2.7% per year on average, a slower growth rate than the OECD average of 4.0%, and it decreased by 1.9% in 2010.
Throughout the OECD, tobacco consumption and excessive weight gain remain two important risk factors for many chronic diseases. In Denmark, the percentage of adults who report to smoke everyday has been cut down by more than half from 47% in 1984 to 20.0% today, slightly below the 20.9% OECD average. In many OECD countries, large proportions of the population are overweight or obese. In Denmark, the obesity rate among adults – based on self-reported height and weight – is 13.4%. This is lower than the OECD average of 17.2%. Obesity’s growing prevalence foreshadows increases in the occurrence of health problems (such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and asthma), and higher health care costs in the future.
When asked, “How is your health in general?”71% of people in Denmark reported to be in good health, slightly more than the OECD average of 69%. Despite the subjective nature of this question, answers have been found to be a good predictor of people’s future health care use. Gender, age and social status may affect answers to this question. On average in OECD countries, men are more likely to report good health than women, with an average of 72% for men and 67% for women. In Denmark, the average is 73% for men and 69% for women. Not surprisingly, older people report poorer health, as do those who are unemployed, or who have less education or income. About 81% of adults with a disposable income in the top 20% in Denmark rate their health as ‘good’ or ‘very good’, compared to about 68% for those with a disposable income in the bottom 20%.
Life Satisfaction
Key Findings
Happiness or subjective well-being can be measured in terms of life satisfaction, the presence of positive experiences and feelings, and the absence of negative experiences and feelings. Such measures, while subjective, are a useful complement to objective data to compare the quality of life across countries.
Life satisfaction measures how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings. It captures a reflective assessment of which life circumstances and conditions are important for subjective well-being. When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, Danes gave it a 7.6 grade, one of the highest scores in the OECD, where average life satisfaction is 6.6.
There is little difference in life satisfaction levels between men and women across OECD countries. This is true in Denmark, where both men and women gave their life a 7.6 grade. Education levels influence subjective well-being. People who have only completed primary education in Denmark have a life satisfaction level of 7.8, and people with tertiary education a level of 7.6. This is the only country where people with a primary education report a higher life satisfaction level than people with a tertiary education.
Happiness, or subjective well-being, is also measured by the presence of positive experiences and feelings, and/or the absence of negative experiences and feelings. In Denmark, 84% of people reported having more positive experiences in an average day (feelings of rest, pride in accomplishment, enjoyment, etc.) than negative ones (pain, worry, sadness, boredom, etc.). This figure is the higher than the OECD average of 76%.
Water, Politics and Development: Framing a Political Sociology of Water Resources Management
Peter P. Mollinga
Department of Political and Cultural Change, ZEF (Center for Development Research), Bonn University, Germany; pmollinga@hotmail.com
EDITORIAL PREAMBLE: The first issue of Water Alternatives presents a set of papers that investigates the inherently political nature of water resources management. A Water, Politics and Development initiative was started at ZEF (Center for Development Research, Bonn, Germany) in 2004/2005 in the context of a national‐level discussion on the role of social science in global (environmental) change research. In April 2005 a roundtable workshop with this title was held at ZEF, sponsored by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/German Research Foundation) and supported by the NKGCF (Nationales Komitee für Global Change Forschung/German National Committee on Global Change Research), aiming to design a research programme in the German context. In 2006 it was decided to design a publication project on a broader, European and international basis. The Irrigation and Water Engineering Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands joined as a co‐organiser and co‐sponsor. The collection of papers published in this issue of Water Alternatives is one of the products of the publication project. As part of the initiative a session on Water, Politics and Development was organised at the Stockholm World Water Week in August 2007, where most of the papers in this collection were presented and discussed. Through this publication, the Water, Politics and Development initiative links up with other initiatives simultaneously ongoing, for instance the 'Water governance – challenging the consensus' project of the Bradford Centre for International Development at Bradford University, UK. At this point in time, the initiative has formulated its thrust as 'framing a political sociology of water resources management'. This, no doubt, is an ambitious project, methodologically, theoretically as well as practically. Through the compilation of this collection we have started to explore whether and how such an endeavour might make sense. The participants in the initiative think it does, are quite excited about it, and are committed to pursue it further. To succeed the project has to be a collective project, of a much larger community than the present contributors. All readers are invited to comment on sense, purpose and content of this endeavour to profile and strengthen critical and public sociologies of water resources management.
KEYWORDS: Water control, politics, development, political sociology, public sociology, social power, governance
INTRODUCTION
The 'politics of water' is an expanding area of scholarship and research, an expansion related obviously to the increasing concern about a pending 'global water crisis'. This concern is now a major component of global and national development agendas (see f.i. HDR, 2006; Molden, 2007). Freshwater resources management1 by definition is a context‐specific phenomenon, given that it concretely happens through managing river basins, aquifers, landscapes and ecosystems. However, the 'problemsheds' and 'issue networks' of water resources management may stretch well beyond the physical boundaries of these units, and span the globe and history.2 The study of the politics of water is therefore a rather dispersed field of research, organised in strongly regionally and sector‐wise defined clusters, apart from being disciplinarily divided. The expanding amount of work on the political dimensions of water resources management, however, allows a degree of systematising and abstraction. We discern and delineate an emerging field of research that we have labelled the 'political sociology of water resources management'. This paper discusses these two ideas: that of political inherence, and that of a political sociology of water resources management.
INHERENTLY POLITICAL WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
In a dictionary definition, politics is "the art and science of directing and administering states and other political units" (The New Collins Concise English Dictionary 1982). State governance is the substance of politics in this perspective. Politics is, however, a much broader term. In the same lemma in the dictionary quoted, politics is also defined as "the complex or aggregate of relationships of men [sic!] in society, especially those relationships involving authority or power", "any activity concerned with the acquisition of power" and "manoeuvres or factors leading up to or influencing (something)". Politics is a dimension or quality of many social processes, i.e. all social processes in which interests of individuals or groups are mediated. This is, of course, conceptually well established in the social science literature, but needs to be incorporated into the analysis of water resources management issues more systematically than it has been so far.3
This broad understanding of 'politics' informs the main proposition of this paper: water resources management is inherently political. However, taking mainstream water policy discourse as a point of reference, it is clear that the idea that water resources management is an inherently political process, is not a commonly held perspective but has to be established. Ten years ago politics and the political were anathema in most water policy circles.4 The social engineering paradigm reigned largely unquestioned (Mollinga et al., 2007).5 The rise of the theme of (good) governance brought politics into the mainstream water resources development discourse through the backdoor. When talking governance, good or bad, and associated ideas like accountability, transparency and legitimacy, it is difficult not to acknowledge that such processes and relations have political dimensions and continue to defend the position that 'politics' should be removed from water resources management. The latter has been, and perhaps still is, the dominant inclination of water professionals.
In the global water discourse, 2000‐2002 seems to have been the period of 'closure' that established governance as a core theme. Three major events took place in that period at which the global water resources community debated the nature of the 'water crisis'. These were the 2nd World Water Forum in The Hague in 2000, the Bonn Freshwater Conference in 2001 and the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. The Executive Summary of the World Water Vision report prepared for the 2nd World Water Forum uses the word 'governance' only twice. It concludes by stating that "there is a water crisis, but it is a crisis of management. We have threatened our water resources with bad institutions, bad governance, bad incentives, and bad allocations of resources" (Cosgrove and Rijsberman, 2000).6 In subsequent discussion this formulation got revised and shortened to a single sentence. Much quoted is the phrase "The world water crisis is a crisis of governance – not one of scarcity" from the No Water No Future speech at the Johannesburg Summit by the Prince of Orange of The Netherlands. Since then 'governance' features prominently on the global water resources agenda.
Jenkins (2001) argues that 'governance' as used in the mainstream international development discourse of the international development funding agencies tends to become a 'technical' issue. It, as it were, depoliticizes the understanding of politics. Contributions like those of Ferguson (1994) and Harriss (2001) have argued that there may be compelling reasons for governments and other actors to depoliticise debates on development, reasons located in the way instrumental reason, which actively claims to exclude 'politics', assists in reproducing state power and legitimacy, as well as the reproduction of development assistance programmes (also see Scott, 1997).
While agreeing with much of Jenkins' criticism of the global (good) governance agenda, and with the observation that depoliticisation may be an attractive governance strategy, the addition of 'governance' to the water resources policy vocabulary may be considered a step forward. It follows the acceptance of 'management' as a central concept in the 1970s, which was a significant improvement upon the concept of 'operation' (of water infrastructure) that preceded it. Increased use of the term governance signifies a less exclusively sector focused understanding of water resources management, that is, recognition of its embeddedness in broader socio‐political structures, in parallel to the increased recognition of water resources management’s ecological dimensions following environmental critiques. The report of the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (Molden, 2007) attempts to incorporate, at the global level, the socio‐political and ecological embeddedness perspectives into the understanding of water management in the largest freshwater using sub‐sector – agriculture. Water governance in this context refers, among other things, to the allocation of rights (rights to water and technology, decision‐making rights) and resources (water itself, but also maintenance and investment funds for instance), and thus creates more space for considering issues like 'interest groups' and 'social power' than the notion of management tended to do.7
From a situation of denial and exclusion of 'politics' from the mainstream water resources discourse, the discussion seems to be moving towards consideration of the kind of politics that is found in, or desirable for, water resources management. What remains to be seen is whether or not explicit discussion of the social relations of power in water resources management will be a recurrent theme in such discussions. It is not unlikely that instrumental and apparently non‐political understandings of governance will continue to dominate the mainstream global water resources discourse, while critical investigations of the political dimension will find less resonance. However, the Human Development Report 2006 on water, which pays explicit attention to social power and politics, shows that this discursive terrain is now actively contested (HDR, 2006; for a review see Mollinga, 2007).
Arguing the case
The proposition that water resources management is an inherently political process is based on the idea that water control is at the heart of water resources management and should be conceived as a process of politically contested resource use. In this formulation water control is the subject matter of water resources management. It is something that humans have done since time immemorial (see f.i. Scarborough, 2003). Any human intervention in the hydrological cycle that intentionally affects the time and/or spatial characteristics of water availability and/or its qualities, is a form of water control.8
Water control has three dimensions: a technical/physical, an organisational/managerial, and a socio‐economic and regulatory. These generic categories refer to, respectively, the manipulation of the physical flow and quality of water, the guiding of the human behaviour that is part of water use, and the socio‐economic, legal, administrative and other structures in which water management is embedded and that constitute conditions and constraints for management and regulation (cf. Bolding et al., 1995 and Mollinga, 2003 for detailed discussion of the water control concept).9
Contestation is also a generic category. It is used here to refer to a range of interaction patterns in water management, including negotiation and struggle, and also less explicit and longer term disputations and controversies. The idea is to convey that there tends to be something at stake in water resources management, and that the different individuals or groups involved have different interests. This is not meant as a theoretical statement, but as an empirical one. The approach aims to analyse those situations where water resources management is an issue. The justification of this focus lies in the fact that societal issues around water management are proliferating (Joy et al., 2008). Therefore an approach focussing on contestation seems warranted. The addition of the adjective political to contestation is meant to highlight that there is a political aspect to contestation and thus to water control.10 As soon as the political would be regarded as a self‐evident property of water control, it would become unnecessary to give it special emphasis.
TOWARDS A POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY OF WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
'Political sociology of water resources management' is, to my knowledge, not yet a term that is claimed by, or institutionalised for, a research field, study programme, journal title, or other academic pursuit.11 However, it captures well and concisely an emerging type of scholarship on water resources. Water resources management, understood as politically contested water control, is the subject matter of this field of study. 'Sociology' is understood in this formulation in the broadest sense of the study of social behaviour and interaction and of social structure, without wishing to demarcate is as a specific social science discipline from other disciplines. It thus basically refers to the social embeddedness of water resources management, and to water resources management as a practice in which structure and agency 'meet' to reproduce and transform society,12 including the way human beings deal with water resources. Different forms of embeddedness can be specified, but two major ones are that of context (water resources management in relation to other structures and practices) and of history (water resources management comes from somewhere along a certain trajectory).13 The 'political' in the formulation refers to the contested nature of water resources management. This perspective states that in a comprehensive analysis of water resources management the social relations of power that are part of it need to be explicitly addressed. The use of 'resource' in the depiction of the object, water resources management, conveys the sense that the management of water and the related creation of water infrastructure may be a significant factor or force in societal development, in relation to state formation, colonisation, economic growth, or other aspects of development (cf. Wittfogel, 1957; Stone, 1984; Worster, 1985; Bray, 1986; Reisner, 1993; Scarborough, 2003; Blackbourn, 2006). As a natural resource it is also a resource in societal processes, actively deployed and regulated, shaping people’s lives and livelihoods, and the development of cultures and political economies. A political sociology of water resources management would thus be closely associated with the field of development sociology (Barnett, 1988; Kiely, 1995; Goetze, 2002; Long, 2001; McMichael, 2004).
The notion of a 'political sociology of water resources management' can bring under one roof a vast kaleidoscope of context specific analyses. In this section the colours of that kaleidoscope are first briefly sketched by mapping out four domains of water politics investigation (everyday politics, politics of state policy, hydropolitics and global water politics), and their interlinkages as a fifth domain – a topology of water politics. The second part of the sketch is a description of the standpoint and method of the field. I discuss a number of features that the standpoint and method might have by characterising the political sociology of water resources management as having to be a critical sociology, a practical sociology, a comparative sociology and an interdisciplinary sociology.
A topology of water politics
In Mollinga and Bhat (forthcoming) and Mollinga (2008) the politics of water as a field of research is mapped by discerning four domains14 and their linkages as a fifth domain. The four domains are the everyday politics of water, the politics of water policy in the context of sovereign states, inter‐state hydropolitics, and the global politics of water. These domains can be distinguished because they have different space and time scales, are populated by different configurations of main actors, have different types of issues as their subject matter, involve different modes of contestation and take place within different sets of institutional arrangements. The linkages between domains refer to travelling of policy ideas and water contestations across domains.
The everyday politics of water resources management
Everyday politics is a phrase coined by Kerkvliet (1990). Regarding water it refers to contestation of day‐to‐day water use and management. In many cases everyday politics is a relatively small scale phenomenon, including, for instance, how access to local groundwater markets is negotiated between community members, how maintenance obligations connected to water rights are enforced in a farmer‐managed irrigation system, and many other examples. However, the management of a big reservoir distributing stored water to canals and areas hundreds of kilometers away from the dam is also 'local' in the sense of being a concrete, situated water use and management practice, with an everyday politics associated with it. This can, for instance, be focused on the negotiation of gate settings and discharge monitoring, determining how much is released to whom at what time.
The politics of water policy in the context of sovereign states
Politics of policy is a phrase coined by Grindle (1977, and subsequent work). It refers to the contested nature of policy processes. In the water resources domain I use it to refer to policy processes at the level of sovereign states, or states within a federation. The concept is a critique of linear views of policy formulation and implementation (Hill, 1997), and aims to "demythologise planned intervention" (Long and van der Ploeg, 1989). The idea is that water policies, like other policies, are negotiated and re‐negotiated in all phases or stages and at all levels, and are often transformed on their way from formulation to implementation, if not made only in the implementation process (Rap, 2007). The political contestation of water policies takes place within state apparatuses, but also in the interaction of state institutions with the groups directly and indirectly affected by the policies, and in the context of development assistance strongly or weakly by international development agencies.
Inter‐state hydropolitics
Hydropolitics is a phrase that has been coined in the literature on international water conflicts, notably those in the Middle East (cf. Waterbury, 1979; Ohlsson, 1995). It refers primarily to conflicts and negotiation processes between sovereign states on water allocation and distribution, particularly in relation to transboundary rivers or aquifers. Turton and Henwood (2002) propose to broaden the term to encompass all water politics, but I prefer to use it in its original meaning, including inter‐state water conflicts in federal political setups. Hydropolitics is the part of water politics that has been well researched and documented, perhaps because it is a very public phenomenon, with sometimes high stakes and geopolitical relevance, and because it is an interesting case for international relations studies (Zeitoun and Warner, 2006).
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The global politics of water
Rather than being a phrase coined for long‐existing practices, the global politics of water refers to a relatively new phenomenon: the recently, in the 1990s, invigorated international level of water discourse, policy and tentative regulation. The global politics of water contains several processes. These include the institutions and organisations set up in the wake of the 1992 Dublin and Rio international conferences on water, environment and development, notably the World Water Forums, the World Water Council (WWC) and the Global Water Partnership (GWP). The GWP has become the international social carrier of the IWRM (Integrated Water Resources Management) concept. The WWC has played an important role in the recent advocacy for more investment in water infrastructure. Another component of the global water politics is the World Commission on Dams process, triggered by large political controversies around the social and environmental effects of large dam building. A third component is the process related to the World Trade Organisation negotiations regarding water, notably around the issue of the privatisation of water and water service provision. A fourth relates to global advocacy for access to water as a human right.
Linkages
Some of the most interesting and important questions in water resources management involve the interlinkages between or across domains. The 'linkages' domain looks at how policy issues and water contestations travel across the different domains, to analyze under what circumstances these are generated, and how they are translated in the journey across the domains. Documenting the journeying of policy ideas through these domains can nicely illustrate the relationships between these levels and how it is that policy ideas are generated, transformed, and possibly re‐generated throughout that journey in the face of economic, social, and political realities.
For instance, the support provided by multilateral development funding agencies for local restructuring of water and power sectors has had mixed outcomes. 'Global politics' domain ideas like water privatization and water and energy sector restructuring through donor support, have been very differentially translated in the policies of developing and transitional countries (Hall and Lobina, 2003; Hall et al., 2004, Hall et al., 2005). Such journeying can also take place in a 'bottom‐up' manner, as illustrated by the World Commission on Dams process. High levels of contestation among water user communities at the 'everyday' domain to state policies supporting dam construction led to the eventual development of a 'global' process to question policy assumptions. The World Commission on Dams was an outcome of this process, and the report it developed in response has sought out and iteratively aggregated the input of user communities for future policy development, which are now being used at different national and local levels.
Standpoint and method
The five domains presented above map out the broad and diverse terrain of concrete water politics. What approaches and methods are suited to research these? Obviously, there are many, and no grand synthesis is attempted here. The standpoint and method aimed at is characterised by four prefixes to sociology: critical & public, interdisciplinary, practical, and comparative.
A critical and public sociology
The diversity of approaches to water resources management analysis can be usefully mapped using Michael Burawoy’s general classification of the division of labour in sociology. Burawoy sets up a classification of four sociologies along two axes. The first axis is whether the approach aims at instrumental or reflexive knowledge; the second axis what its audience is: academic or extra‐academic. This produces the four‐box matrix of table 1.
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Table 1. The division of sociological labour Academic audience
Extra‐academic audience
Instrumental
knowledge
Knowledge
Truth
Legitimacy
Accountability
Pathology
Politics
Professional sociology
Theoretical/empirical
Correspondence
Scientific norms
Peers
Self‐referentiality
Professional self‐interest
Policy sociology
Concrete
Pragmatic
Effectiveness
Clients/Patrons
Servility
Policy intervention
Reflexive
knowledge
Knowledge
Truth
Legitimacy
Accountability
Pathology
Politics
Critical Sociology
Foundational
Normative
Moral vision
Critical intellectuals
Dogmatism
Internal debate
Public Sociology
Communicative
Consensus
Relevance
Designated publics
Faddishness
Public dialogue
1 The papers in this issue focus on freshwater management, and do not address issues related to the management of the oceans for instance. 'Management' in this formulation is used in the broadest sense possible – as a generic term including water use, allocation, distribution, governance, regulation, policy, etc. However, at other points it is also used in a narrower sense, distinguishing it from governance for instance. This double use is unfortunate but difficult to avoid. For use as a generic term to encompass all activities and arrangements directly and indirectly related to the human use of water, 'management' remains the best candidate, because it is the most widely and diversely used category.
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2 On problemsheds and issue networks, see Mollinga et al. (2007).
3 A much quoted treatment of social power is Lukes (2005). On 'politics' see Lasswell (1936), Leftwich (1984), and many others. Several of the papers in this issue address conceptual issues related to the notions of power and politics explicitly. I have taken a dictionary definition to avoid associating with a particular school of thought in political science. More provocatively, when a 1982 dictionary definition gives a broad and complex understanding of the concept of politics, it is surprising how persistently, in science, the concept used to be primarily associated with formal, official state politics (cf. Kerkvliet, 1990 on this).
4 This statement derives from participation in policy related discussions on water management since the early 1990s. However, in past years the politics word seems to have acquired some acceptability. On 25 February 2004 a double session on 'Driving the Political Economy of Reform' took place as part of the World Bank Water Week, the yearly gathering of World Bank staff and partners in Washington, DC. On 26 and 27 February 2004 the World Water Council (WWC) launched a 'Water and Politics' initiative, though apparently not with much follow up. In the corporate sector, the RWE Thames Water company emphasizes the importance of water politics on its website. The Stockholm World Water Week has given increasing attention to water politics in recent years. Cf. Merrey et al. (2007) for further discussion.
5 "The term social engineering is used here in a narrow sense to refer to linear models for changing societies or organizations, where blueprints are used to replicate a structure in a new context, that may have worked elsewhere. Application of this model to achieve social change – if x then y follows – is based on a misunderstanding of the complex, nondeterministic, and stochastic nature of social organizations. Social engineering as used here does not imply pessimism about the possibility of facilitating and guiding social change, but cautions against oversimple prescriptions" (Merrey et al., 2007).
6 In the five chapters that form the main text of the report, 'governance' appears only thrice. Once in the context of transboundary water management (p.53), once while referring to corporate governance (p.62), and once in the context of attracting investment, which requires "good water governance – strong regulations, sound policies, and up‐to‐date laws". In the Ministerial Declaration of The Hague on Water Security in the 21st Century, the political outcome of the 2nd World Water Forum, the word governance appears once where the challenges for achieving water security are listed. One of these is "Governing water wisely: to ensure good governance, so that the involvement of the public and the interests of all stakeholders are included in the management of water resources". In the challenge 'Meeting basic needs' it is stated that that is important also "to empower people, especially women, through a participatory process of water management". In outlining how the challenges are to be met the concept of IWRM (Integrated Water Resources Management) appears prominently. "[IWRM] depends on collaboration and partnerships at all levels, from individual citizens to international organisations, based on a political commitment to, and wider societal awareness of, the need for water security and the sustainable management of water resources. To achieve [IWRM], there is a need for coherent national and, where appropriate, regional and international policies to overcome fragmentation, and for transparent and accountable institutions at all levels".
7 There are other discursive trajectories leading to acknowledgement of the social relations of power. The most notable one is the participation discourse, which often started from populist and instrumentalist perspectives but has produced the notion of 'empowerment' as a much more political term than 'involvement of stakeholders' (cf. Scoones and Thompson, 1994). 'Participation' has been a central theme in water policy discussions since the 1970s.
Mollinga: A political sociology of water resources management Page | 9 Water Alternatives ‐ 2008 Volume 1 | Issue 1
8 Use of the term 'control' in this manner has been found problematic by some. In critical perspectives 'control' tends to be a 'bad thing', associated with the excessive and arrogant desire of mastery over nature by humankind, or is associated with despotic or otherwise undesirable control of human beings (cf. Blackbourn’s (2006) brilliant analysis of the role of water and landscape in the making of modern Germany, titled 'The conquest of nature'). As an actual description of what humans do with water, terms like water guidance, direction or regulation would be better, as intervention in the hydrological cycle is basically that (cf. Benton, 1989). However, all three terms are awkward and confusing as general categories, and I therefore stick to water control till a better term becomes available.
9 From the perspective of critical realism water control is a 'concrete concept' (Sayer, 1984), combining several abstractions in a single concept to capture the multidimensionality of the object. In the social study of science and technology such concepts have been named 'boundary concepts'. These are concepts that are intelligible in different domains or disciplines and thus facilitate interdisciplinary analysis (see Star and Griesemer, 1989; Löwy, 1992; Mollinga, forthcoming).
10 This does not intend to suggest that water control can be reduced to its political nature, that is, that water control is only political or that its political aspect determines all other aspects. How and how strongly the mediation of actors' interests and the social relations of power shape the different properties and dimensions of water control processes is an empirical question, though the starting assumption is that it is always present and often important.
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11 'Political sociology' is, of course, a well established discipline, mainly occupied with national level polities and politics, that is, with the state‐society interface (see f.i. Orum, 2001).
12 The broader social theory reference here is to work like that of Bourdieu (1977), Giddens (1984), Bhaskar (1989), and Archer (1995). For addition of a 'material' element to sociology, see discussion further below.
13 The context in which water resources management practices are embedded can be subdivided in three generically described components (Mollinga, 2003): the ecology and physical environment, the ensemble of economic relations, and the institutional arrangements of state and civil society. An 'embedded' study of contested water resources management would thus simultaneously have to be a political ecology, a political economy and a political sociology. Some would feel excluded even with these three terms as political geography, political anthropology, political science, etc. have also contributed to the study of contested water resources management. No non‐awkward term is available to encompass all these. 'Hydropolitics' would be a good candidate, but is already in use as referring to a specific domain of the politics of water (see below); inter/transdisciplinary water resources studies another, but it misses the reference to contestation, and is rather non‐distinct. While the contributors to the Water, Politics and Development initiative mainly focus on embeddedness of water control practices in the institutional arrangements of state and civil society, and given the emphasis on contestation and on practice, process and structure/agency questions that is proposed, the 'political sociology' label is appropriate. Integrating the proposed approach with political economy and political ecology perspectives is a next step to be taken – including some creativeness in labelling.
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14 The first formulation of these domains can be found in Mollinga (2001). The units identified can be named as (territorial/jurisdictional) levels, (action) arenas, semi‐autonomous fields, domains of interaction etc. depending on one’s purpose and focus of analysis. I settled for the general term 'domain of interaction'.
Title: Why most developing countries did not turn into a developmentally advanced countries?
Issue: 44
Publisher: Arab Planning Institute - Kuwait
The author (s): Ahmed Nawaz
Date: Dec, 2011
Contents:
The economic disparity between developed and developing countries, the gap between the two subjects that were, and still represent interesting specialists, and followers of the causes and determinants of economic growth, and economic development. However, the most important issue is why developing countries did not turn to advance after World War II, and until now, except for a few very turned into a so-called newly industrialized countries. Note that progress refers to the vehicle which factors, among many considerations, access to sectorally diversified economy, at the local level, and an export, on the outer level. And also increase the contribution of technological development in economic growth, in addition to a reduction of poverty, and the evolution of social systems to take care of the unemployed, and the industrial sector provides the most sophisticated transformative final goods and intermediate needs. I've tried a economic historians from Harvard University, David Landes, in his book "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some of this wealth, and others in this poverty?" And issued in 1998, tried to reason attributed to three sets of factors: First, the geographical and environmental factors, and the second: the technological competence, and the third: social and political factors. Note that the meeting of the Arab world, "Ibn Khaldun" had cited the importance of geographical and environmental factors in 1377, and in the famous preface. In addition to the economic contributions of "Landes", has applied theoretical studies saw many reasons to explain the phenomenon of turning to advanced developing countries. First, there is the economic level, the reason the view that it is up to the failed economic policies applied, and that the progress and success or failure is linked to failed policies. This interpretation is associated with the methodology adopted by the neo-classical economic theory, which adopts most of the ideas of international financial institutions. On the other hand there are those who believe that the problem is not a problem policies, while important, but the problem, or problems, linked to structural constraints, markets sectoral output, and labor markets, the external sector, foundations, and others. And embodied the second reasons set in the rule of a strong state or development in developed countries, and the sovereignty of the state weak or soft in developing countries also pointed out that the world economy Swedish "Gunnar Myrdal," the Nobel laureate economy in 1974, the famous his book, published in the seventies of the last century, Under the title "The Challenge of World Poverty: Summary of a global program against poverty", where absent recipe law enforcement, intervention through planning tools wise to address market failures, and the fight against corruption, and to ensure the distribution of socially acceptable income, and provide appropriate institutions and economic, social and political management, and others. It is noteworthy, thirdly, among the reasons for not switching to the weak economic management, which is by nature an integral part of the overall management of the state portion. This weakness is reflected best embodied in the errors in determining the stages and pursue economic reform steps. It is not recommended, it is not preferred, the adoption of economic management and stages of reform, saying the starting phase of liberalization, locally and abroad, ensures a competitive economy later. Economic history is not an example of the State of advanced Currently, developing previously relied on trade liberalization (and the associated abolition of tariffs related to the protection of local industry and agriculture) before it allows the creation of an agricultural sector, and industrial transformative within the period of good protection (ie aimed at creating competitive goods, and not to create an economy yield). The institution-building phase must be preceded or at least equal to, any steps to liberalize the economy. The errors of economic management is the bias of manufacturing on the agricultural sector account within the wrong application of the policy of import substitution followed by most, if not all developed and developing countries alike. In addition to the many other mistakes in economic management. Fourth, also referred as one of the obstacles to the completion of the transition, weak institutions and corruption. Applies to say here on the formal institutions, of the customs and traditions and customs belligerent behavior in the development of economic management. Frequently called on institutions to "rules of the game", which in turn control the role of "players" in the economic life of such organizations and ministries and agencies and others, which operate under a system of laws embody the spirit of the Constitution. The more these institutions consistent with the developmental requirements, the less the cost of completion of the transactions, and vice versa. Fifth, as the nature of the political systems fall behind as acceleration or deceleration transition to advanced countries reasons. Valqnaap prevailing democratic systems of governance that will help in the process of transformation, while dictatorships impede this process. However, the historical experience is consistent in this area. It is rare and there is economic experience has transformed from a particular country, "Nami" to "Advanced" based on the same system of government throughout the transition period. Most of the developed countries, and developing countries alike have seen systems vary in the degree of democracy. However, the constant is that democratic governance is necessary and urgent to ensure individual freedom and political freedom. Is not recommended here in dragging view of the many other factors, which are usually cited as reasons to prevent the transformation of developing countries at an advanced stage, but what should be emphasized is that the nature of these reasons are not necessarily economic reasons only, but is a combination of social causes, and cultural, and political, as well as economic. And that the area is better to address these causes is through a multi-disciplinary approach, and the way that leads to a multi-dimensional treatment. With the aim to ensure the development and welfare of developing countries, including Arab countries.
Economic development in developing countries and means of financing
Mohammed Nabil Shimi
Civilized dialogue-number: 2538 - 2009/1/26 - 01:16
Theme: Administration and Economics
Introduction
To the issue of economic development dimension of a community on the developed world or developing a level where a target all countries seeking to do by working to keep appropriate levels of development to happen to the community in the long term full employment without inflation or deflation, while the developing countries, the objective of development is to increase the incidence of growth in real national income ... any reduction of unemployment and improve citizen and to achieve their hopes of a decent life in accordance with health, education and social standards and all that makes him a good man contributing to the progress of their homeland.
That development is a noble goals to build a better world spends on the human suffering and thus must be a cultural change addresses build it the community all the extent that address the causes of poverty, and guarantees the right of the needy in the resources available in the community and provide social guarantees for them ... and the delivery of health care if their illness ...... etc.
Thus, these quick urgency include vision about the concept of economic development and its objectives and policies required to achieve them.
The highlight what is involved in the development process is a radical change in society by serving the causes of underdevelopment and that the events of this change in the structure of society on all economic and social levels is a common denominator among all the economic development experiences.
Financing for Development
Development of the provision that it aims to improve the welfare and community development for a human resources, institutions and all material and cultural level that is, they develop for all the structures of society, and this means that they are concentrated in the human is its means and purpose.
Economists differ in defining the concept agreed on economic development and for some directions for the use of several terms given Mvhomalltnumeih such as economic growth - change the long-term, while others argue that there is a difference between the meaning of economic development and other terms and that the focus in this regard is about the two terms are growth Economic and economic development.
Economic growth:
Is the rate of growth in gross national product during a certain period of time, usually years as he is a mere rise in per capita real income during a limited period, without any concomitant changes Benianyh.
While economic development is the process through which increases the real income of the economic system over a relatively long period of time and follows this growth
An increase in the national income and per capita and in doing so improve the conditions of citizens and increase the capacity of the national economy concomitant changes Benianyh is to increase capital accumulation and rise with the proportion of technical competence levels of economic efficiency, but to the community as a whole .. Economic development in a sustainable process.
Jolt and indicates that the concept of development contains three main values (major components), namely:
1. provide the necessities of life and include the provision of basic human needs (learning / plasmon / treatment / analgesic and all human out of the circle of poverty and underdevelopment.
2. respect for human rights for itself by relying on itself to meet the demands of life.
3. Freedom In this regard, you can not understand the issue of development unless there is justice and equality provided by the state to the citizens so that they have a sense of the ability to express themselves and their views with their right to choose.
In fact, the work on the development of economic development programs or accelerated matter rich and poor countries both rich countries want to keep rates high development so that it can avoid recession long-term and the rate of development was not high, these countries may suffer from increased production from the limits required compared to total demand (domestic and external markets) and then face the problem of recession and unemployment in the long term, while economic development is an urgent requirement for poor countries as necessary to counter extremism and reduce devote dependency solutions and see among the United Nations that the social factors of the biggest reasons to ignite conflicts and Then on development strategies must seek to achieve an equitable distribution of entry economic returns and wealth in order to prevent the outbreak of conflict, this is the destination of economic development.
Economic development goals:
Is to increase national income and improve the human standard of living and reduce the internal gap with modifying the structure of the composition of the national economy for the benefit of industry and trade sector and those goals are, in fact, as a cure for the problems resulting from the basic characteristics (), which is represented in the economies of poor countries is that they: -
- Producers of raw materials and some of them met exhaustible.
- Facing the pressure of population and high birth rates.
- Owns natural resources have not been developed due to the weakness of private infrastructure investment
- The deficit in the capital as a result of the weakness of capital accumulation due to lack of savings.
- Mi terms of trade is in their favor, which makes these countries vulnerable to economic volatility and vulnerability to global economic cycles.
- Micro flaw to members of the community in terms of the low level of access and poor distribution of workers in the productive sectors of the economy and the weakness and the spread of corruption and lack of transparency and the disruption of market mechanisms in the absence of inhibiting laws
Monopoly.
Then authoritarian tyranny and despotism Moreover, there is a rich state resources and unique site of cultural and civilizational heritage, but it is poor due to corruption and tyranny and Alliance Capital is the product with money launderers and smugglers and evaders.
There are policies and procedures that States should be pursued as a basis for achieving development goals, where economists believe that the presence of an atmosphere and an environment conducive to any economic activity is the product of a set of policies that have been limited to the most important are as follows:
- Rationalization of fiscal and monetary policies and external debt management and service is a major and essential elements of economic growth real constant (known as real growth as the rate of growth in GDP after excluding the impact of inflation), and policies should be referred to increase savings and direct investment is aimed at projects to increase rates Economic growth to be accompanied by the development of a package of legislation that run on broadcast a sense of confidence among foreign investors and thereby preventing the phenomenon of money smuggling.
- Export Development and prepared by economists as an engine of growth.
- Develop the necessary legislation to curb monopolies and achieve the principle of free market on sound economic fundamentals (not handle negatives through the intervention of states) provides products specifications required at appropriate prices without Ajtra the citizen's right to appropriate product testing and be appropriate price
- The provision of infrastructure, transport and communications, roads and granting tax and customs exemptions to the extent that does not adversely affect the existing national industries.
Financing for Development:
There is no doubt that the development finance community issue and had the largest share in carrying frontloaded falls to the states. If the individuals and institutions roles they play and duties adhere to the states, including ownership of the authorities can through legislative frameworks and tools binding them to coordinate between the roles and quadruplets between levels.
Question about what are the responsibilities of citizens in the case of development might arise?
- Theoretically on the individual under the community justice to work honestly and efficiently to the extent that increases the production and it increases and goes out in the form of benefit to the national economy is an increase in savings, which find their way into investment channels ... and this concept is the same concept which can define the responsibilities produced by institutions that take into account the rights of workers and commitment
Production matching items specifications and useable including increases revenues and profits, which finally pour in the form of producers and wage workers and organizers take profits as we mentioned a way of saving and investment.
The state's role in development is significant with its delegation of the community in the development of legislation and enactment of laws and the safety of their application and to protect members of the community rights, whether producers or consumers, and everything related to the mobilization of local resources and how to mobilize savings and channel investments and the creation of appropriate social environment of the launch, which puts upon it the burden the largest in the cause of development.
Bottom line is that the financing of development should not be a collective responsibility to look at economic development as a luxury or they accept the policy of delay, but it is an urgent necessity In economic terms, the financing of development depends on several sources:
-madkharc National.
Foreign -alasttmarat (direct / indirect)
-hsaúl Exports.
-alaguetrad (External / internal debt debt).
-almnh International donations.
First, national savings:
Most economists agree that the real capital aggregation (resulting from savings) is one of the most important financing economic development sources requires an increase in national savings with the existence of a fiduciary financial system enables the investor to get the resources and then begin investing and no real savings, the cash increase may lead inflation is estimated desired national saving rate by more than 25% of the total entry (reaching savings rates in Korea 34.5% - Thailand 34% - Chile 28.6%) and in terms of that part of the savings to find a way to invest it is important that governments behave fair ways to increase savings by raising taxes fairly, impartially and only in the savings increase leads to the elimination of encouraging drivers of economic activities can also be grouped savings through the issuance of government bonds.
Economists believe that there is a correlation between savings and development in terms of development the size of savings available for investment, and any of the degree of investment on development impact of affected is determined according to the availability of productive policies and employment appropriate as the key element specific private savings in low-income countries development and remain Savings economic policy, the focus of development to ensure adequate funding is required and appropriate investments to reach full employment, as well as to avoid the so-called gap of local resources, which talked about the investment exceeded savings and lead to inflationary pressures, as already mentioned ...
Economists and raises so-called bad economic cycles that stands chamber block to increase savings in poor countries, where usually have a low level of real income which is definitely the reason for the decline in demand, which in turn leads to lack of investment and then a deficit in available capital to start a production cycle level.
Economists believe that it is important to strengthen the mobilization of domestic savings, which is a condition of initial conditions to achieve an appropriate rate of investment and thus economic development can be identified by these methods are as follows:
need to increase the per capita national income through the equitable distribution of access that the primary determinant of energy savings and this will only come through the reduction of poverty and unemployment.
development and liberalization of the insurance sector as one of the most important social mobilization of savings mechanisms.
Work on reducing the cost of opening savings accounts, but must be free of charge in order to attract small savers in addition to the savings that improve the performance of the funds will lead to direct its reserves to invest in the capital market which animates investments and then operating and start a new economic cycles.
constantly open up new areas to invest and employ them well major employers. This will make individuals more example of the savings (investment funds are a good example, or as a tool of modern investment tools as a bowl to collect the financial savings and investment in securities by
Specialized experts as well as the risks that might be exposed to the investor in the fund is lower than in the case of direct investment.
Direct investments:
Our focus will be on foreign investment, a divided public investment and be of governments and private investments and be one of the sectors and private companies and institutions in countries of any of the private sector in the countries exporting capital to the private sector in importing countries of capital.
Investment means the acquisition of a particular origin in order to achieve a return of it at a later stage and investment is the national level in all aspects of spending aimed at increasing the production capacity of the community or improve the people's living standards, and this concept is to invest two goals:
Economist: The material return in achieving targets from the community and this is by increasing spending in order to raise the production capacity of the state.
Social: The well-being of the citizens and be done through spending on health, education and culture.
The investment level or at the level of individual installations, it means spending on various assets.
And the importance of investing the States pay is of great importance and decide his roles in economic policy and in the development plans and is evident from the keenness on raising investment rates.
The identifier that investment usually depends on saving the national (the savings of individuals, companies and government agencies) and the resort states to foreign savings in case of insufficient domestic savings to achieve the required investment rates, and in any case, the investor or the party who will invest puts in front of him represented in achieving rate target acceptable return on the use of funds and to ensure that recovered without risk or minimal ones which require that the investment climate favorable climate or encouraging the investor and the more stable internal conditions were more attractive to private investment and foreign investment.
The foreign investment is an important bond developing countries where compensate for the deficit in the national savings available for investment as it works to reduce the burden of external debt problems and debt service as they contribute to the solution to the deficit in the public budgets of the countries of the problem and other related problems mansions government funding for investment spending and rising prices, which leads to lower profits and thus weaken the incentive to invest to associate with a steady increase in expenses and an inability to compete in the market of goods and services ... and enumerates economists target of foreign investments are as follows: -
• take advantage of available resources (human - material)
• meet the local needs rather than relying on imports.
• Improve resource exploitation and utilization of optimizing.
• Provides direct foreign investment of financial resources in addition to advanced technology that helps increase production quality and reduce production cost and thus support the competitiveness of local products in foreign markets.
• contributes to the flow of foreign direct investment in opening new markets by linking local production need foreign markets.
• the advent of technical and management skills working to raise economic performance.
• improve the balance of payments and the reduction of foreign debt and the impact of its benefits.
• increase the export potential of the recipient countries of investments and enhance their competitiveness in foreign markets.
• Support for the economic relations between the investing and other recipient countries.
Foreign direct and indirect investments:
1. Direct Investment Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): -
It means the projects that the foreign investor created in the country and imbued with or through participation with the importer and national (Joint Venture) or in control of the management of the project and related to a foreign investor for the project ownership through his export money Manufacturing Manufacturing Contract contracts for capital projects built under the right manufacturing (Licensing) and turnkey projects (Turn Key Projects), as well as project delivery with production contracts (Manufacturing)).
2. Foreign investment indirect Indirect Foreign Investment (I FI): -
This type of investment by the investor dealing in various types of securities, whether shares (ownership) rights or bonds (debt rights).
The investor has his own investment process, and this deal through brokerage houses or through specialized financial institutions such as investment funds by purchasing documents issued by that.
Direct investment, the investor can from which to choose the field of investment areas offered by the government and which achieves the investor deal of project steering the investor indirect authorities can invest in line directing the public interest of the possibility of channeling funds from government bonds capital to import essential commodities, and different profit opportunities direct investment from non-direct investment in the profit potential of direct investment where it is the largest in the long term because it usually err on the branches of production or services that make a profit while the profit potential for indirect investments in the short term.
Direct investment and the balance of payments: -
Direct investments and benefits and profits role in the structure of the balance of payments, when the investments are coming from abroad, they restrict the creditor side in the balance (revenue side) while the benefits and profits generated by the transferred abroad as payments are credited in the part of the debtor.
The national investments abroad are credited in part payments
(Debtor) while the benefits and profits to the mobile home they are recorded in the revenue side (credit).
... In fact, the direct investment flows to a country in spite of its importance to the economies of recipient countries and their role affecting the development, however, achieving the desired effects of these investments depends on what play and orientations and activities in which they operate, which we refer to in some detail under the possible effects of investments title FDI on development in developing countries.
It is fair to mention that investment flows both direct and indirect ruled in fact multiple considerations may be the foremost of the political positions of the recipient countries of investments and the extent of satisfaction of Petroleum Exporting Countries investments by the extent of stability and according to the vision of the exporting countries, far into something in mind the position of the United States and its impact on decision International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to withdraw offer finance the construction of the High Dam, prompting the commander immortal leader (Gamal Abdel Nasser) to the nationalization of the Suez Canal ...
Thus witnessing days and the current circumstances the actions of some major countries in linking grants, loans and investment flows relations with knives or less extent by the other space and economic dependency ... and the extent to walk in those contrasts, hopes and dignity of peoples.
But there are other obstacles to represent restrictions on attracting investment in developing countries is: -
Institutional constraints: -
The deficiencies in supervising enterprises to invest and multiplicity and rigidity laws and regulations related to investment and guarantees of non-nationalization, confiscation and the right to recover the capital and turn a profit.
Obstacles in the productive structure: -
The shortages and the failure of infrastructure or social capital base and retardation services sectors (transport and communications) which leads to lower expected return in addition to the lack of availability of trained manpower for administrative work and the lack of a base of skilled workers ... and besides retardation capital markets and limitations, as well as a base of exchange, reflecting investor scare disorders.
Climate intellectual and ideological mainstream: -
And is in the perspective of the receiving State of the basics of dealing with money inflows and their right to confiscated or nationalized or routed according to plan its development, as well as the position of the state of freedom of trade and foreign exchange and price movement ... the existence of extremist currents affect the political stability ... also bad security situation and rampant corruption ... etc.
The potential effects of foreign direct investment on development in developing countries: -
There are divergent views in views between supporters and opponents of the free economy of the Socialists supported by the representatives of the dependency school, we find that the capitalists are content that the economic freedom the most appropriate way to achieve
Bibliography:
The Theory of Political Development, By Gianfranco Pasquino, University of Bologna and Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University
Water, Politics and Development: Framing a Political Sociology of Water Resources Management, Peter P. Mollinga, Department of Political and Cultural Change, ZEF (Center for Development Research), Bonn University, Germany; pmollinga@hotmail.com
Title: Why most developing countries did not turn into a developmentally advanced countries? Issue: 44, Publisher: Arab Planning Institute – Kuwait, The author (s): Ahmed Nawaz, Date: Dec, 2011
Economic development in developing countries and means of financing, Mohammed Nabil Shimi, Civilized dialogue-number: 2538 - 2009/1/26 - 01:16, Theme: Administration and Economics