Download or read book Elusive Development written by Marshall Wolfe and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 1996 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This deeply thoughtful book explores some of the very difficult questions thrown up by the development process, Marshall Wolfe reviews what has been said and done in the name of development over four decades. He sees development as 'a Sisyphean task of trying to impose value-oriented rationality on realities that remain permanently recalcitrant to such reality' precisely because its key actors - be they the state, social groups, development agencies, individual 'experts', or the market - cannot be assumed to be either benevolent or consistently rational.
Download or read book The Elusive Quest for Growth written by William R. Easterly and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2002-08-02 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why economists' attempts to help poorer countries improve their economic well-being have failed. Since the end of World War II, economists have tried to figure out how poor countries in the tropics could attain standards of living approaching those of countries in Europe and North America. Attempted remedies have included providing foreign aid, investing in machines, fostering education, controlling population growth, and making aid loans as well as forgiving those loans on condition of reforms. None of these solutions has delivered as promised. The problem is not the failure of economics, William Easterly argues, but the failure to apply economic principles to practical policy work. In this book Easterly shows how these solutions all violate the basic principle of economics, that people—private individuals and businesses, government officials, even aid donors—respond to incentives. Easterly first discusses the importance of growth. He then analyzes the development solutions that have failed. Finally, he suggests alternative approaches to the problem. Written in an accessible, at times irreverent, style, Easterly's book combines modern growth theory with anecdotes from his fieldwork for the World Bank.
Download or read book Elusive Development written by Marshall Wolfe and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This deeply thoughtful book explores some of the very difficult questions thrown up by the development process, Marshall Wolfe reviews what has been said and done in the name of development over four decades. He sees development as 'a Sisyphean task of trying to impose value-oriented rationality on realities that remain permanently recalcitrant to such reality' precisely because its key actors - be they the state, social groups, development agencies, individual 'experts', or the market - cannot be assumed to be either benevolent or consistently rational. He examines competing views of what development can mean; the quest for a unified approach; the crisis of the state and the roles of other actors in the development process; the practical difficulties in prioritizing poverty; the impact of more recent agendas like environmental concerns; and the likelihood in future of development witnessing frequent and traumatic changes as contradictory stimuli from the world's centres and peripheries interact. For students in need of an overview, activists wanting a context for their practical work and specialists wishing to reflect on their own roles, this book is invaluable.
Download or read book Under Rewarded Efforts written by Santiago Levy Algazi and published by Inter-American Development Bank. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has an economy that has done so many things right failed to grow fast? Under-Rewarded Efforts traces Mexico’s disappointing growth to flawed microeconomic policies that have suppressed productivity growth and nullified the expected benefits of the country’s reform efforts. Fast growth will not occur doing more of the same or focusing on issues that may be key bottlenecks to productivity growth elsewhere, but not in Mexico. It will only result from inclusive institutions that effectively protect workers against risks, redistribute towards those in need, and simultaneously align entrepreneurs’ and workers’ incentives to raise productivity.
Download or read book The Elusive Promise of Indigenous Development written by Karen Engle and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-17 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around the world, indigenous peoples use international law to make claims for heritage, territory, and economic development. Karen Engle traces the history of these claims, considering the prevalence of particular legal frameworks and their costs and benefits for indigenous groups. Her vivid account highlights the dilemmas that accompany each legal strategy, as well as the persistent elusiveness of economic development for indigenous peoples. Focusing primarily on the Americas, Engle describes how cultural rights emerged over self-determination as the dominant framework for indigenous advocacy in the late twentieth century, bringing unfortunate, if unintended, consequences. Conceiving indigenous rights as cultural rights, Engle argues, has largely displaced or deferred many of the economic and political issues that initially motivated much indigenous advocacy. She contends that by asserting static, essentialized notions of indigenous culture, indigenous rights advocates have often made concessions that threaten to exclude many claimants, force others into norms of cultural cohesion, and limit indigenous economic, political, and territorial autonomy. Engle explores one use of the right to culture outside the context of indigenous rights, through a discussion of a 1993 Colombian law granting collective land title to certain Afro-descendant communities. Following the aspirations for and disappointments in this law, Engle cautions advocates for marginalized communities against learning the wrong lessons from the recent struggles of indigenous peoples at the international level.
Download or read book Elusive Development written by Yusif A. Sayigh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-03-11 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The oil boom prompted a massive inflow of capital into the Arab region. But whilst the investment this facilitated clearly had benefits for the region, the developmental achievements of the boom decade are demonstrably unable to match the magnitude of the resources directed to development and the reasonable expectations invested in it. Professor Yusif Sayigh draws a powerful and painful lesson from this experience applicable to other areas: you cannot buy development; it must be soundly oriented and sought with resolve by society's leaderships and a people enjoying a large measure of freedom and political participation.
Download or read book The Elusive Ideal written by Adam R. Nelson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-05-10 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, federal mandates in education have become the subject of increasing debate. Adam R. Nelson's The Elusive Ideal—a postwar history of federal involvement in the Boston public schools—provides lessons from the past that shed light on the continuing struggles of urban public schools today. This far-reaching analysis examines the persistent failure of educational policy at local, state, and federal levels to equalize educational opportunity for all. Exploring deep-seated tensions between the educational ideals of integration, inclusion, and academic achievement over time, Nelson considers the development and implementation of policies targeted at diverse groups of urban students, including policies related to racial desegregation, bilingual education, special education, school funding, and standardized testing. An ambitious study that spans more than thirty years and covers all facets of educational policy, from legal battles to tax strategies, The Elusive Ideal provides a model from which future inquiries will proceed. A probing and provocative work of urban history with deep relevance for urban public schools today, Nelson's book reveals why equal educational opportunity remains such an elusive ideal.
Download or read book The Elusive Agenda written by Rounaq Jahan and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reviewing the progress achieved in making gender a central concern in the development progress, this book evaluates selected leading bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, including the World Bank, which have played a critical role in shaping the development agenda.
Download or read book Elusive Childhood written by Susan Honeyman and published by Ohio State University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Elusive Childhood examines how discourse touched by the identity politics of youth might be revised for fairness. Susan Honeyman demonstrates this potential by reading representations of children from throughout the Modern episteme in works of such writers as Henry James, Edith Wharton, and James Baldwin. Identity politics have changed the way we classify literature by opening up the canon, but they have also changed the way we approach literature. We've learned to recognize that biology is not destiny - sex doesn't necessarily determine gender or orientation, nor do fictitious absolutes like blood ratios measure ethnocultural identity, and so in an effort to avoid false generalizing about "others" we endorse individual self-representation, all the while recognizing how society constructs us." "But when it comes to representing the position we call childhood, there is little opportunity in legitimated discourse for children's self-representation and inadequate attention to social constructedness. Recognizing political inequity in literary representations of children, Honeyman proposes a method of reading child figuration in relief to impose as little adult prejudice as possible. This might be impossible for adults, yet it is necessary to attempt."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Elusive Development 1 written by and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Elusive Promises written by Simone Abram and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Planning in contemporary democratic states is often understood as a range of activities, from housing to urban design, regional development to economic planning. This volume sees planning differently—as the negotiation of possibilities that time offers space. It explores what kind of promise planning offers, how such a promise is made, and what happens to it through time. The authors, all leading anthropologists, examine the time and space, creativity and agency, authority and responsibility, and conflicting desires that plans attempt to control. They show how the many people involved with planning deal with the discrepancies between what is promised and what is done. The comparative essays offer insight into the expected and unexpected outcomes of planning (from visionary utopias to bureaucratic dystopia or something in-between), how the future is envisioned at the outset, and what actual work is done and how it affects people’s lives.
Download or read book Elusive Development written by Yusif A. Sayigh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-03-11 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The oil boom prompted a massive inflow of capital into the Arab region. But whilst the investment this facilitated clearly had benefits for the region, the developmental achievements of the boom decade are demonstrably unable to match the magnitude of the resources directed to development and the reasonable expectations invested in it. Professor Yusif Sayigh draws a powerful and painful lesson from this experience applicable to other areas: you cannot buy development; it must be soundly oriented and sought with resolve by society's leaderships and a people enjoying a large measure of freedom and political participation.
Download or read book The Coffee Paradox written by Benoit Daviron and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can developing countries trade their way out of poverty? International trade has grown dramatically in the last two decades in the global economy, and trade is an important source of revenue in developing countries. Yet, many low-income countries have been producing and exporting tropical commodities for a long time. They are still poor. This book is a major analytical contribution to understanding commodity production and trade, as well as putting forward policy-relevant suggestions for ‘solving’ the commodity problem. Through the study of the global value chain for coffee, the authors recast the ‘development problem’ for countries relying on commodity exports in entirely new ways. They do so by analysing the so-called coffee paradox – the coexistence of a ‘coffee boom’ in consuming countries and of a ‘coffee crisis’ in producing countries. New consumption patterns have emerged with the growing importance of specialty, fair trade and other ‘sustainable’ coffees. In consuming countries, coffee has become a fashionable drink and coffee bar chains have expanded rapidly. At the same time, international coffee prices have fallen dramatically and producers receive the lowest prices in decades. This book shows that the coffee paradox exists because what farmers sell and what consumers buy are becoming increasingly ‘different’ coffees. It is not material quality that contemporary coffee consumers pay for, but mostly symbolic quality and in-person services. As long as coffee farmers and their organizations do not control at least parts of this ‘immaterial’ production, they will keep receiving low prices. The Coffee Paradox seeks ways out from this situation by addressing some key questions: What kinds of quality attributes are combined in a coffee cup or coffee package? Who is producing these attributes? How can part of these attributes be produced by developing country farmers? To what extent are specialty and sustainable coffees achieving these objectives?
Download or read book Edgeless Cities written by Robert E. Lang and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2003-02-25 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edgeless cities are a sprawling form of development that accounts for the bulk of office space found outside of downtowns. Every major metropolitan area has them: vast swaths of isolated buildings that are neither pedestrian friendly, nor easily accessible by public transit, and do not lend themselves to mixed use. While critics of urban sprawl tend to focus on the social impact of "edge cities"—developments that combine large-scale office parks with major retail and housing—edgeless cities, despite their ubiquity, are difficult to define or even locate. While they stay under the radar of critics, they represent a significant departure in the way American cities are built and are very likely the harbingers of a suburban future almost no one has anticipated. Edgeless Cities explores America's new metropolitan form by examining the growth and spatial structure of suburban office space across the nation. Inspired by Myron Orfield's groundbreaking Metropolitics (Brookings, 1997), Robert Lang uses data, illustrations, maps, and photos to delineate between two types of suburban office development—bounded and edgeless. The book covers the evolving geography of rental office space in thirteen of the country's largest markets, which together contain more than 2.6 billion square feet of office space and 26,000 buildings: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington. Lang discusses how edgeless cities differ from traditional office areas. He also provides an overview of national, regional, and metropolitan office markets, covers ways to map and measure them, and discusses the challenges urban policymakers and practitioners will face as this new suburban form continues to spread. Until now, edgeless cities have been the unstudied phenomena of the new metropolis. Lang's conceptual approach reframes the current thinking on suburban sprawl and provides a valuable resource for
Download or read book An Elusive Common written by Karen E. Rignall and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Elusive Common details the fraught dynamics of rural life in the arid periphery of southeastern Morocco. Karen Rignall considers whether agrarian livelihoods can survive in the context of globalized capitalism and proposes a new way of thinking about agrarian practice, politics, and land in North Africa and the Middle East. Her book questions many of the assumptions underlying movements for land and food sovereignty, theories of the commons, and environmental governance. Global market forces, government disinvestment, political marginalization, and climate change are putting unprecedented pressures on contemporary rural life. At the same time, rural peoples are defying their exclusion by forging new economic and political possibilities. In southern Morocco, the vibrancy of rural life was sustained by creative and often contested efforts to sustain communal governance, especially of land, as a basis for agrarian livelihoods and a changing wage labor economy. An Elusive Common follows these diverse strategies ethnographically to show how land became a site for conflicts over community, political authority, and social hierarchy. Rignall makes the provocative argument that land enclosures can be an essential part of communal governance and the fight for autonomy against intrusive state power and historical inequalities.
Download or read book Poverty and Elusive Development written by Dan Banik and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book questions the current status of the development agenda and examines why development has eluded large groups of people living in poverty. It argues that there is a general unwillingness to understand, and focus adequate attention on, the factors that explain the continued production of poverty and inequality. Development has also become increasingly buzzword-driven, although little effort is made to operationalise such terms for actual implementation on the ground. The book further highlights how development interventions have become largely synonymous with "crises" and why there is a need to refocus our attention on the less sensational, and often invisible, processes that perpetuate poverty. Based on a critical analysis of local, national and global efforts to promote social, economic and political development, the book focuses on a selected set of interrelated issues that form an integral part of the current development discourse: corruption, democracy, human rights, climate change and foreign aid. These are discussed on the basis of empirical evidence from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Download or read book The Tyranny of Experts written by William Easterly and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this "bracingly iconoclastic” book (New York Times Book Review), a renowned economics scholar breaks down the fight to end global poverty and the rights that poor individuals have had taken away for generations. In The Tyranny of Experts, renowned economist William Easterly examines our failing efforts to fight global poverty, and argues that the "expert approved" top-down approach to development has not only made little lasting progress, but has proven a convenient rationale for decades of human rights violations perpetrated by colonialists, postcolonial dictators, and US and UK foreign policymakers seeking autocratic allies. Demonstrating how our traditional antipoverty tactics have both trampled the freedom of the world's poor and suppressed a vital debate about alternative approaches to solving poverty, Easterly presents a devastating critique of the blighted record of authoritarian development. In this masterful work, Easterly reveals the fundamental errors inherent in our traditional approach and offers new principles for Western agencies and developing countries alike: principles that, because they are predicated on respect for the rights of poor people, have the power to end global poverty once and for all.
