CIAO DATE: 11/2010
Volume: 24, Issue: 1
Summer 2009
Vernaculars Cross-Dressed as Universals: Globalization as North Atlantic Hegemony (PDF)
James C. Scott
Most conceptions of “globalization” take the term to mean simply the various ways in which all corners of the globe are increasingly connected by trade, finance, communication, travel, cultural exchange, etc., and the degree to which the interconnections are of much greater volume and much greater speed than before. With the 2008 financial crisis in immediate view, one can appreciate the speed with which not only, say, jazz and pop music circulate the globe, but also the speed with which financial panics have been communicated and amplified.
The Co-Evolution of the Washington Consensus and the Economic Development Discourse (PDF)
Ravi Kanbur
The 1980s were a hell of a decade. They began with the reverberations of the second OPEC oil shock and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. In between, we had the Reagan-Thatcher-Kohl economic policy era in North America and Europe, the Volcker interest rate shock, the Latin American debt crisis, economic collapse in Africa, the start of rapid growth in China and India, and on and on. Oh, and by the way, in 1989 John Williamson coined the term “Washington Consensus.”1
Oil, Development, and the Politics of the Bottom Billion (PDF)
Michael Watts
The Economist of 4 August 2007 called it a “slip of a book” and “set to become a classic.” Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion argues that most of the bottom billion, the world’s chronically poor, live in 58 countries (almost three quarters of which are African) distinguished by their lack of economic growth and the prevalence of civil conflict. Most are caught in a quartet of “traps,” two of which (in Collier’s account they are deeply related) concern me here: the civil war trap (the average cost of a typical civil war is about $64 billion) in which 73% of the poor have been caught at one time or another; and a natural-resource trap (resource wealth or dependency turned sour), which accounts for another 30%.2 Collier’s argument is not simply that civil conflict is expensive in human and developmental terms nor that wars are associated with economic stagnation and poverty (“low income means poverty, and low growth means hopelessness. Young men, who are recruits for rebel armies, come pretty cheap…Life itself is cheap”3). Rather, he sees this nexus of forces as arising from resource dependency (“Dependence upon primary commodity exports…substantially increases the risk of civil war”4). That is to say, there is a robust relationship between resource wealth and, paradoxically, poor economic performance, poor governance (resource predation), and the likelihood of falling into (debilitating and enduring) civil conflicts. Collier’s book speaks to a wider interest taken by economists and political scientists in what seems like a challenge to economic orthodoxy, namely, that resource wealth (as a source of comparative advantage) turns out 79 Macalester International Vol. 24 80 to be a “curse.”5 The “resource-curse” literature—whether emphasizing poor economic performance, state failure (oil breeds corruption or “resource rents make democracy malfunction”6), or the onset of civil violence (blood diamonds, oil secession)—has generated a vast amount of research of which Collier and his colleagues have been central contributors.
Response to Kanbur (PDF)
Colin Hottman
Within the economic development discourse, few ideas have been as contested as the “Washington Consensus.” It is widely considered to be both synonymous with neo-liberalism and hegemonic within the discourse. By placing the Washington Consensus within a historical context, Professor Kanbur shows that it emerged as a response to the statist development consensus of the 1950s–1970s. Several important lessons can be drawn from this circumstance. First, each distinct period of development policy, both the early state-directed policies and later the Washington Consensus, were promoted by economists and international financial institutions at the time. Second, the economic development discourse is event driven. Third, the new economic development consensus differs fundamentally from previous prescriptions since it is not “one size fits all.” Each of these lessons will be covered in Section II of this essay.
Response to Kanbur - 2 (PDF)
Amy Damon
Economic development theory and practice have been both highly contentious and vigorously debated over the past several decades. The debate ignites passion from civil society, academics, development professionals, communities in the Global South, and owners of global capital, all of whom, at times, disagree as to how to reduce global poverty, decrease inequality, and promote the equitable distribution of resources. For many years, development professionals have been looking for a “magic bullet” to achieve poverty reduction. Some serious candidates include international trade, foreign aid, and economic growth, or a combination of the three. However, after more than a half a century of effort, almost half the world still lives on less than $2.50 per day, and stark inequality and poverty persist.
Response to Watts (PDF)
Christine Chung
First, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Professor Michael Watts for, to put it simply, a great presentation. After first reading a sample of Dr. Watts’ work in my Geography Senior Seminar, coincidentally with Professor Moseley, I did not expect I would find myself sitting next to him for the purpose—of all things—to critique his work at the 15th Macalester International Roundtable. Perhaps I should have paid more attention in class! Not only was I intimidated by this feat because of the great length of his essay (which I might add is rivaled only by his cv), but also because at that moment I knew very little about the subject at hand: Oil, Development, and the Politics of the Bottom Billion. And I will confess to you now, I still know very little. My purpose in this article is not to tell Professor Watts where he went wrong or where he was out of line because I believe that after studying this subject for about thirty years, he probably knows what he is talking about. What I hope to bring to the table are my own questions that arose from the essay and my own perspective, as a Macalester student, as a budding Geography major, and as someone born and raised in the Global South, the developing world.
Response to Watts - 2 (PDF)
William G. Moseley
Let me start by noting what a pleasure and inspiring opportunity it is to be commenting on the scholarship of Michael Watts. When I embarked on my field research for my master’s thesis in the West African nation of Mali in 1991, I carried three texts with me into the field. These books were Paul Richards’ Indigenous Agricultural Revolution (1985), Piers Blaikie’s Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries (1985), and Michael Watts’ Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria (1983). While the books by Richards and Blaikie were fairly compact, Michael Watts’ tome added considerable heft to my baggage (so I showed real commitment in lugging it along). At the time I was not familiar with geography as a field of study, but rather was a student of natural resources management. It was Richards, Blaikie, and Watts who brought me to geography, and in particular to an interdisciplinary subfield known as political ecology. Only later would I learn in my Ph.D. studies what a pivotal figure Michael Watts had been in my chosen discipline and subfield.