Economic Adjustment Policies Research Articles

Are economic adjustment programmes implemented and are they resilient? An answer with the ‘ENAP’: a data base on EcoNomic Adjustment Policies in five Eurozone countries (2007–2020)

Between 2010 and 2019, five Eurozone governments in economic difficulty received assistance from international lenders on condition that certain policies specified in the Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) were implemented. To what extent were those conditions implemented? After conditionality, to what extent have governments rolled back changes pursued under external constraint? Do we find variation across governments regarding implementation and reversals, and if so, why?. This paper presents a database allowing the answers to those questions, the Data Base on EcoNomic Adjustment Policies (ENAP) database. We codified all policies and reforms included in the MoU’s, and whether those were subsequently fully or partially implemented. We also codified all decisions taken by bailed out countries since the beginning of the financial crisis and verified whether those had been kept or fully or partially reversed until December 2019. For each condition or policy, a series of explanatory variables were coded: policy sector, type of reform, timing and type of reversal, origin of reversal and number of veto players. The ENAP shows that in all countries, MoU’s were largely implemented and are resilient.

Challenges and economic adjustment policies in the EU

Challenges and economic adjustment policies in the EU

Publishing in Africa from Independence to the Present Day

Indigenous publishing is integral to national identity and development: cultural, social, and economic. Such publishing reflects a people’s history and experience, belief systems, and their concomitant expressions through language, writing, and art. In turn, a people’s interaction with other cultures is informed by their published work. Publishing preserves, enhances, and develops a society’s culture and its interaction with others. In Africa, indigenous publishers continue to seek autonomy to pursue these aims: free from the constraints of the colonial past, the strictures of economic structural adjustment policies, the continuing dominance of multinational publishers (particularly in textbooks), regressive language policies, and lack of recognition by African governments of the economic and cultural importance of publishing. African publishers seek to work collectively, to harness the digital age, and to take their place in the international marketplace on equal terms, Africa’s own voice.

Imagens que valem mil palavras… A experiência do arquivo de memórias do Museu de São Brás

In the countries of southern Europe, the economic adjustment policies being applied are causing a progressive weakening of the museological action in its various forms. Questioned within the transformation process involving a profound change of the management models and of the prevailing values, museums seek a Sustainable Museology. In this context, new museological formulas emerge associating sustainability to social creativity and to valorization of diversity. This is the case of the Costume Museum in São Brás de Alportel (MuT), in the Algarve, and its "Museology on layers". A model based on shared management, taking as its starting point a deep knowledge of the territory, the collective construction of senses and local cultural meanings, and the reframing of ancestral knowledge, with the objective of contributing to an equitable development. In this paper we present the structure, the method and the results of one of the reference projects: Photography, memory and identity (FMId). In this case, a contrastive analysis between the collaborative research and the cartography of meanings associated with pictures of each family is performed. This exercise of memorial archaeology leads to decoding diverse segments of local culture. Its resonances reach every one of the museological functions and processes of MuT, but also each of the families involved in the project, have now a current account of memory in their hometown Museum. Key-words: Museology on layers; photography; cartography; participation

El impacto de la crisis, estabilización y ajuste estructural sobre las mujeres en Lima, Perú

Las políticas de ajuste y estabilización económica han sido implementadas en varios países latinoamericanos azotados por crisis de deuda e inflación alta. La literatura reciente sobre el desarrollo ha sugerido que los efectos negativos de esas políticas afectan desproporcionalmente a los pobres de esos países. Sin embargo, no hay estudios empíricos y el enlace entre las crisis y el sexo femenino no siempre es obvio. El presente estudio intenta contribuir a la literatura al respecto, al analizar la situación de las mujeres de Lima. Las conclusiones indican que indudablemente la crisis económica es severa para todos, pero golpea con particular fuerza a las mujeres de Lima, Perú

ECONOMIC ADJUSTMENT POLICIES & STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT IN AGRICLTURAL POVERTY IN ECONOMIES OF DEVELOPING STATES

The importance of the paper defines that economic adjustment policies and structural change have a deep impact on economic development and agricultural poverty in the future of development economies .Studies and papers have tackled various reflections of these policies upon economic of agricultural developing states .Therefore ,the problem comes to confirm that these reflections might be translated at the end into the fact that the impact in levels of agricultural poverty .The paper aims at studying this relation by answering the following question :Can the programs of economic adjustment and agricultural change be fulfilled without making great problems for the poor ?How can these programs be able to improve the life of the poor for a long- term by depending on the hypothesis which says that economic policies have not created these effects in the rate of agricultural product and in the form which create significant effects in the direction of elevating rates of agricultural poverty through eliminating the variance in distributing agricultural lands .The study has limited a selected sample from developing states of the year 2004 .Throughout the study ,results of standard and statistical analysis were significant and the relation between the rate of agricultural growth and Gini indicator inside the agricultural sector as being dependent variant .This means that the advantages of growth means that the advantages of growth are not distributed equally for there was no clear relation between growth and poverty ,considering that low levels of variance should have been of different effects in growth in comparison with high levels of variance .For this reason ,each state must face a certain level of variance and degrees of variance differ across various states by depending upon structural factors .Therefore ,achieving sustainable growth to be distributed equally is considered as a basic factor in decreasing poverty levels .

A reforma do estado e da educação na década de 1990: reflexões e repercussões na saúde do professor de ensino fundamental

This work discusses the health of elementary school teachers of the public education system of Maringá in the context of the educational reform of the1990s.The reform is articulated with the economic adjustment policies and has proposed new demands on the teachers, who in face of such disadvantageous circumstances, have tried to meet the new educational goals compromising their own health. Based on this discussion, the purpose of this work is to analyze how the new methods of the educational politics have reflected in the health of elementary school teachers. The theoretical methodological referential of this study is based in the history materialistic concept, where the health of teachers is perceived with basis on the existing contradictions in the capitalistic production. From the studies on the subject, it was concluded that the new educational goals brought demands that are harmful to the teacher’s health. Regarding elementary school teachers of the public education system, the study showed that health is not a respected issue considering it exclusively of the individual’s concern and responsibility. It was concluded that life quality and a healthy environment at work should be present in the set of initiatives of educational policies, thus recognizing the relevance attributed to the teaching staff.

A centralidade em educação e em saúde básicas: a estratégia político-ideológica da globalização

No contexto da globalização, a concepção de crescimento/desenvolvimento está orientada na direção do mercado e da competitividade internacional, sustentada por políticas de ajuste econômico que têm produzido um quadro considerável de exclusão social. Diante desse cenário, que representa uma ameaça à estabilidade do sistema, os organismos internacionais, o FMI, o Banco Internacional para a Reconstrução e Desenvolvimento (BIRD)/Banco Mundial e o Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento (BID), têm alertado os governos sobre a gravidade do problema e enfatizado a necessidade de intervenção, por parte do Estado, em serviços sociais como a educação e a saúde básicas. Neste artigo, sustentamos que a ênfase na educação e na saúde básicas é parte integrante das estratégias político-ideológicas da globalização e, portanto, constituem-se em variáveis fundamentais no processo de implementação das políticas de ajuste econômico para manter a pobreza em níveis suportáveis, contribuindo, assim, para a estabilidade política e social.

Party Politics and the Reemergence of Social Pacts in Western Europe

Conventional accounts of the reemergence of social pacts in Western Europe argue they are a governmental response to economic pressures, in particular the requirements for joining the European Monetary Union (EMU). The authors analyze three case studies—the Netherlands, Ireland, and Austria— to illustrate the usefulness of an alternative explanation centering on electoral calculations by political parties in choosing pacts. Parties forge social pacts not only to deal with economic problems but also when they perceive them to be helpful in reducing the potential electoral costs of economic adjustment and wage policies. Alternatively, parties may forgo negotiations with social partners for electoral gain. The authors extend the analysis to seven additional countries to apply the analysis more broadly. By combining the separate literatures on political economy and party politics, they are able to shed new light on the dynamics of social pacts in Western Europe.

Defensive Mobilization: Popular Movements against Economic Adjustment Policies in Latin America

In the current wave of defensive collective action across Latin America in response to neoliberal globalization, working-class groups appear most frequently in the documented protest events. The new wave of popular movement activity emerged in the region in the late 1990s and early twenty-first century and is driven by the erosion of the economic and social benefits previously available to the popular classes during the period of state-led development.

The Construction of the Myth of Survival

ABSTRACTA myth has come into being that the poor household/family is able to survive in spite of a lack of resources and the presence of macroeconomic policies that foster unemployment and poverty. It has an accompanying fable that tells of how the poor manage to implement survival strategies that are based on their endless capacity to work, to consume less and to be part of mutual help networks. This myth has become a useful tool for policy makers as they design more aggressive neoliberal economic adjustment policies. This contribution examines anthropological and sociological insights regarding the life of the poor and the organization of their households, in which women's paid and unpaid work is an integral part. Through the lens of a researcher in the field of urban poverty and household organization, the article re‐examines the fable of the good survivor. Evidence debunks the myth, showing that the optimistic message of this fable does not match with the realities of the impact of economic change on women's lives. But the myth is sustained, as this more negative story is not one that supra‐national policy actors want to hear.

NORTH KOREAN ECONOMIC ADJUSTMENT POLICY: A COMPARISON WITH CHINESE ECONOMIC REFORM POLICY

In July 2002, North Korea announced a series of economic adjustment policies. This paper compares the adjustment policy of North Korea with the reform policy of China. North Korea, unlike China, had no real change in the political regimes and, therefore, it was inevitable that the reform would not be very comprehensive. In any reform, a proper of reforms is important. North Korea ignored the proper sequence of reform. For instance, in North Korea price reform was implemented first without securing an adequate supply of food and consumer production despite an acute shortage of supply in these goods. The results of the adjustment policy were hyper-inflation and a wider gap in income distribution.

Civil society in Mexico: popular protest amid economic and political liberalization

Civil society has emerged as a contested concept in development. Some observers claim that economic restructuring has eroded the political hegemony of authoritarian regimes and created a new space for autonomous associations. In Mexico, chronic economic crisis and economic adjustment policies generated widespread popular discontent in the 1980s. The authoritarian regime tried to channel popular dissatisfaction into the institutionalized political arena through a series of electoral reforms. Thus, economic liberalization in Mexico was paralleled by a slow and gradual process of liberalization of the Mexican political system. In the context of these economic and political changes, scholars have observed an awakened civil society in Mexico. They have chronicled the emergence of independent organizations of workers, peasants, and the urban poor. They have also documented new types of civic associations such as environmental groups, election‐watch groups, human rights organizations, debtors’ groups, and women’s movements. Numerous studies of social movements beginning in the 1980s appear to suggest the rise of civil society in the era of economic and political liberalization.

Coffee: Is it Still a Viable Cash Crop for Smallholders in Africa?

Smallholder coffee production in Africa has declined over the last 10 years due to a combination of unfavourable producer prices, inefficient marketing and the high cost of inputs resulting from economic structural adjustment policies and lack of credit facilities. Although there is currently a surplus of coffee on the world market and prices may remain low for some time as a result, the ‘fair trade’ sector is expanding, offering a marketing opportunity for smallholders. This article examines some of the problems currently facing the smallholder sector in Africa and suggests that adapting the principles of integrated crop management (ICM) to the needs of coffee smallholders can contribute to the profitability and sustainability of the sector.

Roadblocks in Argentina: Against the Violence of Stability

ROADBLOCKS ORGANISED BY the unemployed, public sector workers and the local community have spread through several provinces of Argentina. Demonstrators have demanded employment programmes, job creation and capital investments as well as their participation in the decision making process with regards to those matters. This is a continuation of a nearly uninterrupted process of protests against the neo-liberal reforms of the Menem administration during the 1990s. During 1993 and 1994 spontaneous demonstrations organised by public sector workers against overdue wages, suspensions, wage reductions and redundancies, as well as cuts in welfare expenditure and corruption erupted in the north and south of the country. During 1996-1997 the roadblocks reached massive proportions. Some, like Cutral-có and Plaza Huincul, were considered ‘popular upheavals' developing direct democracy among demonstrators and encouraging community solidarity. The roadblocks led to the emergence of new organisations with negotiating capacity regarding the distribution and management of employment programmes, and community concerns such as public works, the provision of essential services and credit for small and medium-scale business. Although in October 1999, the centre-left Alianza won the general elections, the illusion of the end of monetarism associated with the defeat of Menem soon vanished. The government soon fell, trapped between persistent protests against stabilisation policies, and international pressure to improve competitiveness. At the beginning of 2000, the de la Rúa administration and the IMF agreed to a tighter stability plan. As a result, a new wave of roadblocks reached massive proportions, this time accompanied by two national general strikes organised by the trade unions. As the crisis continues into 2001 the struggle to maintain stability is provoking the deepest political crisis of the last decade. This paper argues that the roadblock emerged as a new form of protest against the economic adjustment and stabilisation policies in Argentina. By blocking the roads, labour has set a physical and visible barrier to the violence of neo-liberal stability. The roadblocks have become a reminder of the centrality of labour in capitalist societies.

The context of health care reforms

In Latin America, health sector reforms have gone hand in hand with social and economic trends during the latter half of the twentieth century and have reflected the particular concept of "development" that has been in vogue at different times. Economic stagnation and increased social spending, both hallmarks of the 1960s, led to the decline of the "import substitution" development model, which had prevailed since the beginning of the century, and slowly gave way in the 1980s to the "globalization" model. From the earlier model, a transition took place toward a restructuring of production and a series of economic adjustment policies that led, ironically, to an increase in poverty in Latin America. Implementation of the new model has occurred in two phases. The first, known as the "social reform" or "first generation" phase, sprang from the notion that poverty is the sum of a number of material shortages that can be corrected through an equitable redistribution of a fixed volume of goods belonging to society. This conceptual framework, which was completely devoid of all historical linkages and separated from economic policy, led to social policies whose entire purpose was to mitigate poverty through subsidies targeting the poorest persons in the society. In the second phase of the globalization model, which arose in the 1990s and became known as the "second generation" or "postadjustment" phase, new economic rules came into play that were based primarily on international competition, efficiency in production, and openness and fairness in the capital markets. And if during the initial stage the conceptual strategy behind all social policy was to fight poverty, in the second stage the strategy became one of achieving equity, which was no longer interpreted as the even distribution of a fixed volume of capital goods, but as the sustained provision of greater and better opportunities for all. Having grown accustomed to the protectionism inherent in the earlier development model, Latin American societies today feel threatened by a new model that offers them no social safety net. The feasibility of economic and social reform policies during the second phase, which reflect the demands of a "globalized" world, thus depends on the ability to overcome people's lack of trust and to garner the support of a political, social, and institutional majority.

The Politics of Neoliberalism in Postwar El Salvador

In El Salvador a substantial neoliberal economic reform program was implemented by the first government of the Alianza Democratica Nacionalista, known as ARENA. This right-wing party had come to power by the ballot box, though under the militarized conditions imposed by the war, providing limited possibilities for the opposition to participate. The first ARENA president, Alfredo Cristiani, not only adopted far-reaching economic adjustment policies but also signed a peace accord with the guerrilla movement FMLN (Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional) in 1992. This accord not only aimed to put an end to the civil war; it was also intended to support a sustainable peace and emphasized the deep social, political, and economic roots of the civil war in Salvadoran history. Hence in the postsettlement period, demilitarization and political democratization should have been combined with policies of national reconciliation and the alleviation of poverty.1 However, the peace treaties did not discuss the future economic policies and in practice, neoliberal policies were dominant during the postwar reconstruction period. The fact that economic policies were not discussed gave rise to widespread criticism from the Salvadoran left. Leftists wondered whether a sustainable peace could be achieved in the context of neoliberal economic policies, since these were associated with, among other things, a limited role for the state and limited redistribution. Others reasoned that economic policies would be at issue in the 1994 elections; it was for this reason and because they were the first elections after the peace accords that these were called the elections of the century. However, the Right won the presidential elections of 1994 and again, those of 1999. Neoliberal policies continued in postwar El Salvador. The neoliberal economic reforms, democratic reforms, and the pacification of Salvadoran society in part occurred simultaneously as they still do and influ-

Does Economic Adjustment Affect the Legitimacy of Democracies?: Comparing seven West-European cases

Many studies show that governments have reacted differently to the structural crisis of Keynesian models of development. Some have opted for a neo-liberal orthodox adjustment policy (OAP); others have adopted either a social-democrat heterodox adjustment policy (HAP) or a Keynesian adjustment policy (KAP). According to many studies, only HAPs preserve or improve the legitimacy of democracies given that they permit, in conformity with the theory of political development, to resume economic growth while safeguarding redistributive policies. This article largely confirms the validity of this hypothesis through a comparative analysis of various economic adjustment policies implemented by the United Kingdom (OAP), Denmark, Spain, Portugal (HAP) France, Italy and Greece (KAP) and by an assessment of their respective impacts upon governments' socioeconomic performances, citizens economic perceptions and satisfaction toward the functioning of democracy

Does Economic Adjustment Affect the Legitimacy of Democracies

Many studies show that governments have reacted differently to the structural crisis of Keynesian models of development. Some have opted for a neo-liberal orthodox adjustment policy (OAP); others have adopted either a social-democrat heterodox adjustment policy (HAP) or a Keynesian adjustment policy (KAP). According to many studies, only HAPs preserve or improve the legitimacy of democracies given that they permit, in conformity with the theory of political development, to resume economic growth while safeguarding redistributive policies. This article largely confirms the validity of this hypothesis through a comparative analysis of various economic adjustment policies implemented by the United Kingdom (OAP), Denmark, Spain, Portugal (HAP) France, Italy and Greece (KAP) and by an assessment of their respective impacts upon governments' socioeconomic performances, citizens economic perceptions and satisfaction toward the functioning of democracy.

Integrating Western and Eastern European Markets

Although general trade theories are useful for specifying which groups support or oppose trade, these frameworks see preferences as static and do not explain how they change over time. Instead, this article proposes a dynamic perspective that considers how economic adjustment and liberal trade policies alter trade preferences. The article examines why the traditionally protectionist German textile and apparel sectors accept the recent trade agreements with Eastern Europe. Producers can exploit technological and product changes by gaining access to export markets. Furthermore, to take advantage of low labor costs abroad, producers shift production to these countries for later reimportation. Lower trade barriers are therefore attractive to producers. This strategy is also supported by increasingly liberal trade policy orientations in Germany, the European Union (EU), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). German producers have therefore modified their protectionist focus to a qualified support for more free trade, and German workers have reluctantly followed suit.