Search

Begin New Search Publication Year within 5 Years

15681. Fast-track land reform, politics and social capital: The case of Rouxdale farm in Zimbabwe

Author:
Senzeni Ncube
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Africa Governance Papers (TAGP)
Institution:
Good Governance Africa (GGA)
Abstract:
This article investigates the effect of the politicisation of land on the social capital and agricultural livelihoods of beneficiaries of the A1 villagised model of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). The model allocates individual arable and residential plots to beneficiaries, while they share grazing land, social infrastructure and services. Beneficiaries rely on social capital to access resources for agricultural production. Proponents of the FTLRP have portrayed the model as successful because it creates livelihoods. Missing in these studies is the politicisation of land through reallocation of land within the model to advance individual political interests, and its effect on livelihoods. The resultant strain on social capital negatively affects agricultural production, which depends on it heavily. The article argues that Zimbabwe’s top-down land governance system leaves it open to manipulation by politically connected individuals in the service of their own personal and political interests. It further argues that this weakness in the governance system is due to the fact that the state owns the land, which means that beneficiaries of the programme do not have the power to challenge the decisions of politicians and bureaucrats.
Topic:
Politics, Governance, Social Capital, Elites, Land Reform, and Livelihoods
Political Geography:
Africa and Zimbabwe

15682. An ethics perspective to South Africa’s civilian intelligence governance regime

Author:
Lincoln Cave and Richard Jurgens
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Africa Governance Papers (TAGP)
Institution:
Good Governance Africa (GGA)
Abstract:
The role of national security entities in public administration, with specific reference to civilian intelligence structures, is a public policy issue of concern and interest across the globe, particularly with regard to questions of governance and public accountability. Governments need intelligence services to serve national and/or political interests, but these must, by nature, operate in conditions of secrecy. The gap between these two elements can be a source of misgovernance and/or abuse of power. We argue that the credibility of South African intelligence structures has been negatively impacted by failures and omissions of accountable governance since the emergence of a democratic dispensation in 1994. In particular, the article focuses on the effects of politicisation on effective governance of the country’s intelligence function. We propose an ethical governance model, framed by a transformative approach and grounded in ethical stewardship, as a way to give effect to constitutionally defined expectations regarding the purpose and management of the country’s intelligence function.
Topic:
Intelligence, National Security, Governance, Reform, Ethics, Constitution, Legitimacy, Values, Independence, Oversight, Decision-Making, Illegal Behavior, Politicization, and Utilitarianism
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

15683. The Great Debt Divergence and its Implications for the Covid-19 Crisis: Mapping Corporate Leverage as Power

Author:
Joseph Baines and Sandy Brian Hager
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified longstanding concerns about mounting levels of corporate debt in the United States. This article places the current conjuncture in its historical context, analysing corporate indebtedness against the backdrop of increasing corporate concentration. Theorising leverage as a form of power, we find that the leverage of large non-financial firms increased in recent decades, while their debt servicing burdens decreased. At the same time, smaller firms experienced sharp deleveraging alongside increasing debt servicing costs. Crucially, smaller corporations also registered severe losses over this period, while large corporations remained profitable, and in fact doubled their net profit margins from the early-1990s to the present. Taken together, the results from our mapping exercise uncover a series of dramatic changes in the financial fortunes of large versus smaller firms in recent decades, a phenomenon we refer to as the great debt divergence. We explain this divergence with reference to the dynamics of power in the era of µshareholder capitalism, and we argue that the US political economy in the post-COVID 19 world is likely to resemble the pre-COVID 19 one, only with more market turmoil, more concentration, more inequality, and even less investment.
Topic:
Debt, COVID-19, Corporations, Power, Leverage, and Shareholder Value
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

15684. Fiscal Policy as Credit Policy: Reassessing the Fiscal Spending vs. Private Debt Trade-Off

Author:
Etienne Lepers
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
This paper revisits the dominant narrative that explains the substantial household credit boom as a substitute to fiscal redistribution, i.e. the “substitution” hypothesis, according to which fiscally-constrained governments substituted public safety nets by private credit. I argue instead that the credit and welfare state constituencies may not necessarily be the same and that far from fiscally constrained, governments have been actively using “fiscal policy as credit policy”. I provide two sets of empirical evidence for such account: First, I find a positive within-country relationship between household debt and fiscal spending. Second, compiling a unique dataset of 550 fiscal subsidies adjustments in 50 countries since 1980, I show that fiscal and tax subsidies have been instrumental in driving household credit. These dynamics have distributional and financial stability implications as such tax subsidies typically favour higher income households and household debt booms have proven more dangerous than corporate ones.
Topic:
Debt, Financial Crisis, Welfare, Financialisation, Subsidies, Household, and Public Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15685. Individual Accountability in International Economic Policymaking after the Global Financial Crisis

Author:
Stefano Pagliari and Iosif Kovras
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the design of accountability mechanisms has taken on renewed importance in academic and policy debates. Calls for holding individuals whose actions and omissions contributed to the meltdown accountable have gained traction in a number of countries after the crisis. Yet, individual accountability norms are seemingly absent from the international economic agenda in response to crisis. In this paper we address this puzzle by exploring the evolution of two major international organisations, the IMF and the FSB, in bringing accountability following financial crises. Our analysis reveals how these institutions have increasingly incorporated in their toolkit policy recommendations related to the unethical or illegal conduct by government officials of individuals in the financial industry, but these tools were geared almost exclusively towards forward-looking policies designed to deter the reoccurrence of illegal or unethical behavior rather than punishing or scrutinizing past wrongdoing. We argue that the extent to which individual accountability norms permeate the international economic agenda is mediated by the institutional characteristics of the organizations that comprise the international financial regime.
Topic:
Financial Crisis, Governance, Culture, Accountability, and Bureaucracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15686. Sand Extractivism and Its Inequalities: Elite Scripts in the Singaporean Demand for Sand

Author:
Madhumitha Ardhanari
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
Extractive industries must be rapidly scaled down to achieve the decarbonisation targets and climate justice demanded by the imminent climate emergency. However, existing academic literature presenting alternatives to growth lack practical, implementable pathways to degrow extractive industries. One critical extractive industry is often overlooked: sand. This is despite it being a key extractive industry that various critical supply chains in the urban economy rely on. Unlike other non-renewables such as coal and oil, sand has no mainstream commercial alternative. Sand extraction and dredging result in critical ecosystem and livelihood losses that reproduce and entrench existing inequalities. This paper focusses on Singapore – currently the world’s largest importer of sand. I will present my findings from interviewing critical proponents and opponents to Singapore’s use of sand in the country’s quest to reclaim land. These different scripts people hold on sand validate and legitimise sand extraction for land reclamation and how they might reproduce inequalities. Scripts developing around extractives are critical in pathways to scaling down extractives. In this essay, I argue that three scripts related to sand – scripts of growth, mutual benefit and silence – present critical barriers to scaling down Singapore’s sand demand. Resistors of these scripts are beginning to question specific elements within these scripts to question their dominance and hegemony. I also offer what scripts of hope in the case of sand in Southeast Asia can look like in achieving environmental and social justice, and explore the implications of these findings to alternatives-to-growth literature.
Topic:
Climate Change, Inequality, Elites, and Extractive Industries
Political Geography:
Singapore and Southeast Asia

15687. Financialisation Reinforced: The Enduring Legacy of the Covid Pandemic

Author:
Photis Lysandrou and Taimaz Ranjbaran
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
This paper examines the impact of the covid pandemic on the financialisation process, here viewed as the growing domination of the world’s financial securities markets over the world’s material output base. Two major arguments are advanced. The first is that the pandemic has reinforced the functionality of financial market scale, which is that its continuing growth signifies nothing other than that governments and corporations on the one hand and pension funds and other asset managers on the other are colonising the future to cope with the rising financial pressures of the present. The second argument is that the pandemic has also accentuated one of the more notable dysfunctional aspects of the continuing growth of financial market scale, which is the reinforcement of a core-periphery divide between the advanced and emerging market economies that occupy the global financial system. The paper concludes with some policy implications of the analysis that includes the call for a global wealth tax.
Topic:
Economics, COVID-19, Securities, and Financialisation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15688. Culture, Gender, and Women in the Military: Implications for International Humanitarian Law Compliance

Author:
Robert U. Nagel, Kinsey Spears, and Julia Maenza
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS)
Abstract:
The increased number of women in the Armed Forces presents a timely opportunity to examine how the changing gender makeup of the US military affects operations and culture, what potential barriers exist, and what women’s participation means for compliance with international conventions such as the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and International Humanitarian Law (IHL). We conducted semi-structured interviews with former enlisted personnel, active and retired commissioned officers. The interviews, along with a comprehensive review of government and military policies, independent review reports, and academic literature, allow us to illustrate how the combination of an entrenched masculinized military culture and overreliance on Special Operations Forces (SOF) present an obstacle to women’s full integration, impeding the implementation of the WPS agenda and IHL compliance. We recommend that the US Department of Defense address three central gender-related issues—the equal and meaningful inclusion of women, restrictive physical standards, and sexual assault—to achieve the goals of the 2020 Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan (SFIP).
Topic:
Security, Culture, Armed Forces, Women, Discrimination, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and Gender
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

15689. Gendered Impacts on Operational Effectiveness of UN Peace Operations

Author:
Robert U. Nagel, Kate Fin, and Julia Maenza
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS)
Abstract:
Currently, women are underrepresented in peacekeeping. As of January 2021, women make up fewer than 5% of all military personnel, 11% of personnel in formed police units, and 28% of individual police officers on peacekeeping missions. And yet, the authors find that across various missions, women’s participation improves community engagement and changes the narrative of women’s roles in society. The report offers recommendations on how gender mainstreaming and the integration of local perspectives can improve operational effectiveness, along with recommendations for better data collection policies and practices. This study is based on 78 interviews of mission personnel from three ongoing UN PKOs in Cyprus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Lebanon, along with civil society actors, and a comprehensive review of personnel data, strategy, policy, and standard operating procedure documents related to operational effectiveness.
Topic:
United Nations, Peacekeeping, Participation, and Gender
Political Geography:
Lebanon, Cyprus, Global Focus, and Congo

15690. Reframing International Relations and Development (Syllabus Resource)

Author:
Peace and Security (GIWPS) Georgetown Institute for Women
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS)
Abstract:
The following is material to consider for your syllabus. Specifically, there is: Scholarly writing on reframing international relations, development, and related fields, written by diverse scholars and experts Scholarly writing providing geographic variety and geographically varied perspectives Studies and analyses examining diversity, equity and inclusion-related dimensions of reframing international relations, development, and related fields.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Development
Political Geography:
Global Focus