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56681. Oxfam Publishing: Girls' Education in South Asia

Author:
Nicola Swainson
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Because of deep-rooted gender inequalities, and because of the large population of South Asia, the region has the highest number of out-of-school girls in the world. This paper outlines some of the issues confronting practitioners, policy makers, and researchers in girls' education in South Asia, and explores what they can do to move towards high-quality and gender-equitable education for all.
Topic:
Development, Education, and Gender Issues
Political Geography:
South Asia

56682. Oxfam Publishing: Meeting Real Needs: A major change for donors to the Democratic Republic of the Congo 2006

Author:
Eva Smets
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is at a critical point in its history. While the forthcoming elections offer the country new opportunities, it is also facing rising tensions, and at least 42 million people still endure appalling poverty and suffering.
Topic:
Debt and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Africa and Democratic Republic of the Congo

56683. Oxfam Publishing: Starting on the road to recovery: saving lives and rebuilding livelihoods after the Pakistan earthquake

Author:
Jo Walker
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
On 8 October 2005, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale ripped through northern Pakistan, leaving 80,000 people dead and affecting 3 million more. The crisis is far from over: survivors of the earthquake still face dangers and difficulties as the worst of Pakistan's winter weather has now settled in. Many people are huddled in tents and shelters that give inadequate protection against the freezing temperatures, with only sporadic and insufficient supplies of food.
Topic:
Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Pakistan and Asia

56684. Oxfam Publishing: The call for tough arms controls: (Voices from Haiti)

Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Armed violence continues to ravage the lives of many people in Portau-Prince, the capital of Haiti, despite the presence of the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). Armed groups in the poor areas—some loyal to former President Aristide, some loyal to rival political factions, and some criminal gangs—have battled against the Haitian National Police (HNP) and UN military, and against each other.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
Caribbean and Haiti

56685. Economic Growth and India's Future?

Author:
Joydeep Mukherji
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
Recent optimism about India is based on the view that the country may finally be on a higher growth trajectory after more than a decade of halting economic reform. Spurred by a balance of payments crisis a decade ago that pushed the government of India to nearly defaulting on its foreign debt, a series of coalition governments have slowly deregulated the once most-regulated economy outside the communist world. Over the years, the government has enlarged the role of market forces, given more freedom to the private sector, and cut barriers to domestic and foreign competition. At the same time, India's state governments have gained considerable autonomy from the central government, making India into the federal state envisaged in its constitution.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
India, East Asia, and Asia

56686. India's New Entrepreneurial Classes: The High Growth Economy and Why it is Sustainable?

Author:
Sunil Bharti Mittal
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
I am Francine Frankel, director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, and it is my great pleasure this evening to introduce our speaker for CASI's Annual Lecture, Sunil Bharti Mittal, the founder, chairman, and group managing director, Bharti Enterprises. I hardly need tell this audience that Bharti Tele-Ventures is India's leading telecom conglomerate and its largest mobile service operator.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
India, East Asia, and Asia

56687. Le débat russe sur l'informel

Author:
Myriam Désert
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
What are the roots of the informal sector and what effects does it have? Is it a blessing or a curse? Changes in post-Soviet Russia contribute new food for thought to a debate that had previously been nourished primarily by considerations on the situation in developing countries. In Russia can be observed processes of formalization – and “deformalization” – of the rules governing not only the practices of economic actors, but also in the rarified distribution of public services publics. The analysis of actual informal practices feeds thinking about the relations between economic and political changes: what impact do they have in setting up a market economy and the rule of law, and in the reconfiguration of both the economic and social arena? An investigation into the way Russian academic circles and social actors view the informal sector sheds light on the various behavioral determinant: reaction to the economic context, cultural roots, social beliefs, and so on. The case of Russia illustrates how the informal sector is not only a mode of action that circumvents legal guidelines, but also a mode of sociability that rejects anonymous social relations. It helps examine ways to reinject the social aspect into economics.
Topic:
Government, Political Economy, and Privatization
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

56688. Les sciences sociales et le « moment colonial »: de la problématique de la domination coloniale à celle de l'hégémonie impériale

Author:
Romain Bertand
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
The idea that the colonial past keeps surfacing in contemporary political situations has been turned by some post (-) colonial theoreticians and militant writers into an irrefutable statement of fact. Yet this analytical stance is supported by little empirically grounded research. A host of creative new literature about modern age “colonial situations” indeed help us reach a better, more nuanced understanding of what colonial domination was all about. But they often fail to capture the vernacular, non-European historicity of the “colonial encounter”. In the case of Southeast Asia, local political societies were engaged in state-formation processes long before the arrival of the Europeans: In Insulindia and in Indochina, there actually existed local imperial societies, into which the European colonial order of things became embedded. Viewed from this perspective, the “colonial situation” was a moment in long-term Euro-Asiatic imperial histories that mixed together numerous and sometimes contradictory understandings of imperial power and prowess. Talking about imperial hegemonies hence might help us escape modernist analytical dead-end.
Topic:
Imperialism and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe, Israel, and East Asia

56689. Viewing the "New" South Africa. Representations of South Africa in Television Commercials: an Experiment in Non-directive Methods

Author:
Ebrahim-Vally Rehana
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
Apartheid was based on particular perceptions and hierarchical classifications of the human body. It aimed at separating people with different physical appearances in order to preserve the purity of the “white race” and its domination in South Africa. To understand the changes that have taken place in South Africa since 1990, to go beyond the surface of observable events and reach the social representations of these transformations that have developed among South Africans, the body, or more precisely images of the body, provide a good point of departure. The present study presents an experimental small scale survey aiming at uncovering social representations of the “new” South Africa shared by young South Africans at the dawn of the 21st Century. It argues that studies of social representations require, at least in their initial stage, the use of non-directive collective interviews; it shows that images of the body as displayed in TV commercials can be used as efficient prompts to start discussions about the present state of South African society. The survey used four commercials taped on South African TV in 2003; these clips were used as prompts in three non-directive collective interviews with young South Africans, to which was added a test group consisting of French students. TV commercials were analysed using methods in spired by the semiology of cinema; the transcripts of the interviews were analysed using methods borrowed from the French school of political sociology. The results of this experimental survey show that, if the transition from apartheid to a democratic nonracial society is considered positive, it is perceived with ambivalences and sometimes contradictory feelings: the future of South Africa may at the same time be envisioned with great optimism and heavy anxieties; relations between South Africans can be described as harmonious and be lived amidst acute tensions. Ambivalences and tensions, which remain very often untold, are precisely the dimensions of the representations of the “new” South Africa among young South Africans that non-directive collective interviews help to apprehend more clearly.
Topic:
Apartheid, Human Rights, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

56690. The European Union, the United States and 'Liberal Imperialism'

Author:
Michael Brenner
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Transatlantic Relations
Abstract:
The Iraq crisis has been a stress test for the transatlantic partners.1 It is the latest in a series that at once has been revealing and redefining their relationship since the Cold War's end. The first Gulf War, Bosnia, and Kosovo: each measured the ability of Americans and Europeans to continue working effectively together. Each highlighted distinctive habits of national mind and action obscured by the exigencies of the Cold War. Each raised pointed questions about the pattern of interaction between the United States and its major allies. Each provided insights into the capabilities, limitations, and internal strains of multilateral organizations: NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations. Each altered attitudes and images in ways that affected how the next crisis was handled.
Topic:
International Relations and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Europe, Bosnia, Middle East, Kosovo, and United Nations