Pub Date : 2021-01-17DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2021.1872698
V. Arkorful, B. Lugu, Anastasia Hammond, Ibrahim Basiru
Abstract The wind of change that swept across the African continent and other developing countries ensuingly engendered the need to institute measures that would bring government to the people’s doorstep. This led to the prioritization and touting of decentralization. Against the backdrop of the proximate reason to accelerate public access to government, the express expectation was that a germane space would be created to enhance participation. However, the validity of this postulation is yet to be realized. The study, therefore, set out to examine the relationship between decentralization and people’s participation, with the mediating role of trust and transparency. Results of data analysis (561 respondents), using the structural equation modelling technique, established not only the appropriateness of the proposed study model, but also, the imperativeness of the trust and transparency to decentralization and participation. The implications of the study are delineated for effective policy and practice.
{"title":"Decentralization and Citizens’ Participation in Local Governance: Does Trust and Transparency Matter? – An Empirical Study","authors":"V. Arkorful, B. Lugu, Anastasia Hammond, Ibrahim Basiru","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2021.1872698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2021.1872698","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The wind of change that swept across the African continent and other developing countries ensuingly engendered the need to institute measures that would bring government to the people’s doorstep. This led to the prioritization and touting of decentralization. Against the backdrop of the proximate reason to accelerate public access to government, the express expectation was that a germane space would be created to enhance participation. However, the validity of this postulation is yet to be realized. The study, therefore, set out to examine the relationship between decentralization and people’s participation, with the mediating role of trust and transparency. Results of data analysis (561 respondents), using the structural equation modelling technique, established not only the appropriateness of the proposed study model, but also, the imperativeness of the trust and transparency to decentralization and participation. The implications of the study are delineated for effective policy and practice.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2021.1872698","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42622354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-14DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1867889
T. Eskelinen
Abstract The article analyses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the perspective of their self-understanding of political sense expressed in key SDG documents, including both UN documents and reports produced by individual countries. Utopia and governance are presented as ideal-typical approaches and analytical tools for qualitative content analysis. This approach is argued to be particularly illuminating in the case of politics of international development, as international development is simultaneously highly utopian and deeply embedded in rationalities of governance. As this analytical framework is applied to the SDGs, it is shown that their utopian pronouncements are related to the idea of humanity as a single subject, as well as inclusive prosperity. On the other hand, the SDGs are curtailed by adherence to the ideas of contemporary governance, the international order and given ideas of development economics. The findings and the methodology are then further discussed in the broader context of international development.
摘要本文从可持续发展目标(Sustainable Development Goals, SDG)关键文件(包括联合国文件和各国报告)中所表达的政治意义的自我理解角度来分析SDG。乌托邦和治理被呈现为理想的典型方法和定性内容分析的分析工具。这种方法被认为在国际发展政治的情况下特别具有启发性，因为国际发展同时是高度乌托邦的，并深深植根于治理的理性。当这一分析框架应用于可持续发展目标时，我们发现，它们的乌托邦宣言与人类作为单一主体的理念以及包容性繁荣有关。另一方面，可持续发展目标受制于当代治理理念、国际秩序和既定的发展经济学理念。然后在更广泛的国际发展背景下进一步讨论调查结果和方法。
{"title":"Interpreting the Sustainable Development Goals through the Perspectives of Utopia and Governance","authors":"T. Eskelinen","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1867889","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1867889","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article analyses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the perspective of their self-understanding of political sense expressed in key SDG documents, including both UN documents and reports produced by individual countries. Utopia and governance are presented as ideal-typical approaches and analytical tools for qualitative content analysis. This approach is argued to be particularly illuminating in the case of politics of international development, as international development is simultaneously highly utopian and deeply embedded in rationalities of governance. As this analytical framework is applied to the SDGs, it is shown that their utopian pronouncements are related to the idea of humanity as a single subject, as well as inclusive prosperity. On the other hand, the SDGs are curtailed by adherence to the ideas of contemporary governance, the international order and given ideas of development economics. The findings and the methodology are then further discussed in the broader context of international development.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1867889","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43691218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1832569
Celina Myrann Sørbøe
Abstract This article uses an urban upgrading programme (PAC Favela) as a lens for examining the contextual dynamics and forms of neoliberal urban development in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro. Critical scholarship has contended that Rio’s entrepreneurial governance and mega-event induced state of exception pushed forward a neoliberal urban agenda. While not rejecting this overarching narrative, the present article argues that this tendency was shaped by contextual politics at different scales, producing variegated forms of urban development. At the federal level, urban policy and practice under lulismo – the political ideology characterizing the 2002–2016 Workers’ Party governments – was marked by an ambition to achieve both social and economic transformation. The PAC Growth Acceleration Programme’s investments in favela upgrading were emblematic of this ambition. Through a multi-scalar case study of the social and economic interests and actors at the community, state and federal levels that engaged with PAC in the Rocinha favela in Rio, the article shows that PAC’s interventions were the outcome of contentions and confluences between citizen- and market-centred urban agendas. While the balance gradually shifted in favour of the market-centred, neoliberal agenda, outcomes should still be seen as inherently hybrid. On the one hand, the case of PAC in Rocinha presents a perspective ‘from below’ and important insights into the contested and contradictory nature of urban transformation in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, it illustrates the necessity for contextual analyses of perceived de-politicized neoliberal entrepreneurial urban governance and development.
{"title":"Politics of Urban Transformation in Pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro: Contentions and Confluences Between Citizen- and Market-centred Agendas","authors":"Celina Myrann Sørbøe","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1832569","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1832569","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article uses an urban upgrading programme (PAC Favela) as a lens for examining the contextual dynamics and forms of neoliberal urban development in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro. Critical scholarship has contended that Rio’s entrepreneurial governance and mega-event induced state of exception pushed forward a neoliberal urban agenda. While not rejecting this overarching narrative, the present article argues that this tendency was shaped by contextual politics at different scales, producing variegated forms of urban development. At the federal level, urban policy and practice under lulismo – the political ideology characterizing the 2002–2016 Workers’ Party governments – was marked by an ambition to achieve both social and economic transformation. The PAC Growth Acceleration Programme’s investments in favela upgrading were emblematic of this ambition. Through a multi-scalar case study of the social and economic interests and actors at the community, state and federal levels that engaged with PAC in the Rocinha favela in Rio, the article shows that PAC’s interventions were the outcome of contentions and confluences between citizen- and market-centred urban agendas. While the balance gradually shifted in favour of the market-centred, neoliberal agenda, outcomes should still be seen as inherently hybrid. On the one hand, the case of PAC in Rocinha presents a perspective ‘from below’ and important insights into the contested and contradictory nature of urban transformation in pre-Olympic Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, it illustrates the necessity for contextual analyses of perceived de-politicized neoliberal entrepreneurial urban governance and development.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1832569","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46180205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1858954
Jill Tove Buseth
Abstract This paper discusses how persisting, powerful narratives inform and shape the green economy in the Global South. Green economy strategies often evolve around market-based and technological solutions to the planetary crises, particularly in industrialized countries. In developing countries with rich resource bases, however, green transitions often imply various forms of modernization of the ways in which natural resources are managed, utilized and controlled. This, I argue, is a result of the process in which the green economy agenda is shaped by elites through narratives that feed into and inform green economy discourses and policies in resource-rich countries in the Global South. While much literature discusses variegated green economy schemes in the Global South and their outcomes, this paper discusses how these practices and policies are driven by powerful narratives that essentially shape green economy agendas. I argue that a persisting neo-Malthusian narrative of resource scarcity, degradation and overpopulation co-exists with a resource abundance narrative, holding that pristine natural resources are vast, but under threat, and that capital, ‘know-how’ and technology can protect and develop these resources while at the same time accumulate economic growth. As a result, the green economy in the Global South is often narrated and implemented under a discourse of modernization of natural resource management.
{"title":"Narrating Green Economies in the Global South","authors":"Jill Tove Buseth","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1858954","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1858954","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper discusses how persisting, powerful narratives inform and shape the green economy in the Global South. Green economy strategies often evolve around market-based and technological solutions to the planetary crises, particularly in industrialized countries. In developing countries with rich resource bases, however, green transitions often imply various forms of modernization of the ways in which natural resources are managed, utilized and controlled. This, I argue, is a result of the process in which the green economy agenda is shaped by elites through narratives that feed into and inform green economy discourses and policies in resource-rich countries in the Global South. While much literature discusses variegated green economy schemes in the Global South and their outcomes, this paper discusses how these practices and policies are driven by powerful narratives that essentially shape green economy agendas. I argue that a persisting neo-Malthusian narrative of resource scarcity, degradation and overpopulation co-exists with a resource abundance narrative, holding that pristine natural resources are vast, but under threat, and that capital, ‘know-how’ and technology can protect and develop these resources while at the same time accumulate economic growth. As a result, the green economy in the Global South is often narrated and implemented under a discourse of modernization of natural resource management.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1858954","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42669928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2021.1885182
M. Bøås
{"title":"Uganda – the Dynamics of Neoliberal Transformation","authors":"M. Bøås","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2021.1885182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2021.1885182","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2021.1885182","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47539124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-15DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1858953
Kwame Adovor Tsikudo
Abstract This study examines the issues of linkage development pertaining to the Bui Hydropower Dam. 1 Completed in 2013, the 400-megawatt hydropower facility was touted by the government to catalyse Ghana’s socio-economic transformation. However, while the Chinese contractor delivered the physical edifice to the Ghanaian government, the dam’s material benefits have yet to materialize. The inability to instigate economic linkages from the project has sparked debate in research and policy circles in Ghana. While some scholars reference local factors, others cite external elements, including the demands of Chinese actors and financiers as the cause of the limited economic linkages the dam created in the Ghanaian economy. This paper explores these counterpropositions. Drawing from exploratory mixed-method research, the paper asserts that although linkage creation is mediated by internal and external factors, the former is more salient when it comes to engagement with China.
{"title":"Ghana’s Bui Hydropower Dam and Linkage Creation Challenges","authors":"Kwame Adovor Tsikudo","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1858953","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1858953","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study examines the issues of linkage development pertaining to the Bui Hydropower Dam. 1 Completed in 2013, the 400-megawatt hydropower facility was touted by the government to catalyse Ghana’s socio-economic transformation. However, while the Chinese contractor delivered the physical edifice to the Ghanaian government, the dam’s material benefits have yet to materialize. The inability to instigate economic linkages from the project has sparked debate in research and policy circles in Ghana. While some scholars reference local factors, others cite external elements, including the demands of Chinese actors and financiers as the cause of the limited economic linkages the dam created in the Ghanaian economy. This paper explores these counterpropositions. Drawing from exploratory mixed-method research, the paper asserts that although linkage creation is mediated by internal and external factors, the former is more salient when it comes to engagement with China.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1858953","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59579007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-12DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1851753
Simon Pahle
Abstract During the last decade, the liberal paradigm, hegemonic in development assistance from the 1980 and well into the 2000s, has seen a fracturing. Rather than an impasse or outright conflict between ‘aid with Chinese characteristics’ and that of traditional donors, we might now be witnessing an evolving convergence. Through a concise review of China’s aid –its modalities, motives, substance, underlying conceptions of development, and morals – I extrapolate the following key features across the Chinese approach: Collateralization of development finance; neo-mercantilism; a preference for aid to tangibles; a deep-seated ‘growthmentality’; and a non-moralizing politics. I then take these features as referents for charting possible convergence in a case study of recent shifts in the development assistance of Norway – a hitherto ardent advocate for liberalist thinking and practices in aidland. In ways of thinking and acting, there seem to be some clear commonalities emerging. Convergence around said referents may owe much to the fact that these are not so novel – they exhume much of that which is associated with the modernization paradigm, which traditional donors now seem to re-discover as both feasible and desirable templates for aid.
{"title":"Back to the Future? Charting Features of the Not-So-New Convergence in Aidland","authors":"Simon Pahle","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1851753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1851753","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000 During the last decade, the liberal paradigm, hegemonic in development assistance from the 1980 and well into the 2000s, has seen a fracturing. Rather than an impasse or outright conflict between ‘aid with Chinese characteristics’ and that of traditional donors, we might now be witnessing an evolving convergence. Through a concise review of China’s aid –its modalities, motives, substance, underlying conceptions of development, and morals – I extrapolate the following key features across the Chinese approach: Collateralization of development finance; neo-mercantilism; a preference for aid to tangibles; a deep-seated ‘growthmentality’; and a non-moralizing politics. I then take these features as referents for charting possible convergence in a case study of recent shifts in the development assistance of Norway – a hitherto ardent advocate for liberalist thinking and practices in aidland. In ways of thinking and acting, there seem to be some clear commonalities emerging. Convergence around said referents may owe much to the fact that these are not so novel – they exhume much of that which is associated with the modernization paradigm, which traditional donors now seem to re-discover as both feasible and desirable templates for aid.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1851753","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41991122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-11-25DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1851754
Elín Broddadóttir, G. Gunnlaugsson, J. Einarsdóttir
Abstract Public support in high-income countries for development cooperation and humanitarian assistance influences the provision of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to fight global poverty and improve conditions in low-income countries. This research examined public attitudes in Iceland toward ODA, with the aid provided by the Icelandic government in September 2014 to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as a case in point. Specifically, it examines which characteristics relate to having negative attitudes towards the assistance, and what reasons the public believe influenced the decision to provide aid. A questionnaire about attitudes towards the Ebola epidemic was administered to a random sample of 1.500 adults from an internet panel established by the Social Science Research Institute of the University of Iceland, and 920 people answered (61 per cent response rate). A quarter of the respondents expressed negative attitudes towards the humanitarian assistance provided in response to the Ebola epidemic, and development cooperation in general. Those who held negative attitudes were more likely to lean to the right in political orientation and be less educated. The majority of the public believed ethical reasons influenced the decision to provide humanitarian assistance. Respondents with negative attitudes towards the aid were more likely to believe that self-interest influenced the decision to provide aid; yet, a survey with an experimental design is needed to elucidate this issue further. Governments should ensure that development cooperation and humanitarian assistance are based on ethical considerations, in addition to educating the public about development processes, to increase positive attitudes towards foreign aid.
{"title":"Public Opinion in Iceland on Aid During the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa","authors":"Elín Broddadóttir, G. Gunnlaugsson, J. Einarsdóttir","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1851754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1851754","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Public support in high-income countries for development cooperation and humanitarian assistance influences the provision of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to fight global poverty and improve conditions in low-income countries. This research examined public attitudes in Iceland toward ODA, with the aid provided by the Icelandic government in September 2014 to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as a case in point. Specifically, it examines which characteristics relate to having negative attitudes towards the assistance, and what reasons the public believe influenced the decision to provide aid. A questionnaire about attitudes towards the Ebola epidemic was administered to a random sample of 1.500 adults from an internet panel established by the Social Science Research Institute of the University of Iceland, and 920 people answered (61 per cent response rate). A quarter of the respondents expressed negative attitudes towards the humanitarian assistance provided in response to the Ebola epidemic, and development cooperation in general. Those who held negative attitudes were more likely to lean to the right in political orientation and be less educated. The majority of the public believed ethical reasons influenced the decision to provide humanitarian assistance. Respondents with negative attitudes towards the aid were more likely to believe that self-interest influenced the decision to provide aid; yet, a survey with an experimental design is needed to elucidate this issue further. Governments should ensure that development cooperation and humanitarian assistance are based on ethical considerations, in addition to educating the public about development processes, to increase positive attitudes towards foreign aid.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1851754","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44668075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-09DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1830849
V. Thebe
Abstract Land self-provisioning has been a strategy not only for land access for the landless, but also to rebuild or improve livelihoods for people recovering from livelihood shocks. An analysis of siziphile land occupation of an abandoned safari ranch by communal area residents in south-western Lupane District, reveals the limitation and livelihood risks of such occupations. It shows how by extending farming activities into a safari ranch (which was home to a variety of wild life), farmers were exposed to a great threat from wild life and to their livelihoods. Yet, these farmers typically lacked the means to protect their crops from wild animals. They had no means to recover from the loss of what they had invested after elephants destroyed their crops. The paper emphasizes the risk taken by households to farm a former safari ranch and how it worked to further impoverish households as opposed to improving their livelihoods situation.
{"title":"Siziphile Land Occupations, Wilderness Farming, Threat of the Wild and Livelihood Vulnerability in Western Lupane District","authors":"V. Thebe","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1830849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1830849","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000 Land self-provisioning has been a strategy not only for land access for the landless, but also to rebuild or improve livelihoods for people recovering from livelihood shocks. An analysis of siziphile land occupation of an abandoned safari ranch by communal area residents in south-western Lupane District, reveals the limitation and livelihood risks of such occupations. It shows how by extending farming activities into a safari ranch (which was home to a variety of wild life), farmers were exposed to a great threat from wild life and to their livelihoods. Yet, these farmers typically lacked the means to protect their crops from wild animals. They had no means to recover from the loss of what they had invested after elephants destroyed their crops. The paper emphasizes the risk taken by households to farm a former safari ranch and how it worked to further impoverish households as opposed to improving their livelihoods situation.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1830849","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45615873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-03DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2020.1829028
Elise Støver Toft, Indra de Soysa
Abstract The effectiveness of aid is heatedly debated in academia and policy circles. Annually, billions of dollars are transferred from industrialized countries to developing countries out of moral and practical concerns. Can aid from Norway, a country apparently with little strategic interests, a great deal of political consensus in support of aid, and much wealth, make a difference towards achieving better political governance in the poorer world? Using data on bilateral – and good governance aid per capita as measures of the value of aid to recipients, and novel data on political corruption, we find that aid from Norway associates negatively with political corruption, whereas total aid from all donors associates positively. The substantive impacts of these effects, however, are minimal. More sophisticated analyses accounting for selection effects and endogeneity suggest that Norwegian aid is perhaps following good governance rather than causing it. This finding, while not supporting aid optimism, might somehow comfort Norwegian taxpayers who might rest assured that their money is not unduly benefiting the corrupt. While there is no support for the extremely pessimistic view of Norway’s generosity towards the poorer world, one might still question its instrumental value if it only follows success rather than causes it.
{"title":"Rich and Naïve? Assessing the Effects of Norwegian Aid on Political Corruption, 1980–2018","authors":"Elise Støver Toft, Indra de Soysa","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2020.1829028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2020.1829028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The effectiveness of aid is heatedly debated in academia and policy circles. Annually, billions of dollars are transferred from industrialized countries to developing countries out of moral and practical concerns. Can aid from Norway, a country apparently with little strategic interests, a great deal of political consensus in support of aid, and much wealth, make a difference towards achieving better political governance in the poorer world? Using data on bilateral – and good governance aid per capita as measures of the value of aid to recipients, and novel data on political corruption, we find that aid from Norway associates negatively with political corruption, whereas total aid from all donors associates positively. The substantive impacts of these effects, however, are minimal. More sophisticated analyses accounting for selection effects and endogeneity suggest that Norwegian aid is perhaps following good governance rather than causing it. This finding, while not supporting aid optimism, might somehow comfort Norwegian taxpayers who might rest assured that their money is not unduly benefiting the corrupt. While there is no support for the extremely pessimistic view of Norway’s generosity towards the poorer world, one might still question its instrumental value if it only follows success rather than causes it.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08039410.2020.1829028","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45262650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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