Governance Design Research Articles

People's Science in Action: The Politics of Protest and Knowledge Brokering in India

ABSTRACT After extended political protest against the Indian government's design for the Uchangi dam, nongovernmental engineers and social activists aided project-affected villagers in producing an alternative dam design that provided the same quantity of water storage without the need for village submergence. This alternative plan, which compelled the irrigation agency to redesign the dam, resulted from data gathered through a participatory resource mapping effort. Through detailed ethnographic analysis, this article explores the factors that are necessary to spur government bureaucracies into including locally generated data in technical planning. In particular, the article argues that nongovernmental engineers play an important role in hybridizing local knowledge and bureaucratic expertise.

PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE IN A CHANGING WORLD: Sydney's Progression From Imported Architecture To Local Identity

From the mid-19th century to the late 20th century, Sydney's public architecture has gradually progressed from a condition where Classical designs were imposed on the new colony by the Home Office in London, to gradually incorporate references to the emerging local culture. This paper considers the contributions to this process of several Colonial (and later Government) Architects, who designed and/or modified some of Sydney's first significant public buildings. In particular, it discusses the approach of the last Colonial Architect, fames Barnet (served 1862-90), with three buildings dial remain topical today: NSW Government House, the General Post Office and the Kirkbride Mental Asylum at Rozelle.1

Muslim Women Traders of Northern Nigeria: Perspectives from the City of Yola

Since Polly Hill's pioneering work (1969) on the economics of households in a northern Nigerian town, devoted largely to the analysis of what she termed the among Hausa women, there has been a proliferation of related studies (e.g., Barkow 1972; Simmons 1975; Hill 1977; Longhurst 1982; Schildkrout 1983; Callaway 1987).(1) These and many other works show that a vast majority of married Hausa women from such cities as Kano, Katsina, and Zaria, and their rural environs, often earn a sizeable income from petty or large-scale trade, while participating in the Islamic institution of purdah, in which they must remain secluded in the house. As a result of this work, the hidden trade has been viewed as a Hausa, a Nigerian, or perhaps a West African women's institution (Schildkrout 1983:125) that serves the dual function of enhancing both their prestige and modesty and of providing them with some remuneration for their household labor. Inasmuch as the studies demonstrate the prevalence of the hidden trade among Hausa women, several questions about it warrant further attention. First, although there is general agreement among observers that the practice provides Muslim women with a measure of autonomy within the household, there is less said about whether it mainly serves ends, augmenting the Islamic obligatory contribution of husbands, or has sociocultural purposes, being reinvested primarily in the Islamic system of marriage. Second, while the prevalence and nature of the trade in Hausaland has become quite clear, comparatively little attention has been accorded to the region's groups or individuals who do not trade, in terms of the variables that may affect the broad patterns and individual choices. Finally, very little compatible information is available for non-Hausa women in northern Nigeria, who constitute a sizeable percentage of the region's women,(2) even in the cities that were studied. Indeed, there appears to be a general assumption in the literature that all Muslim northern Nigerian women, given the right incentives (e.g., economic) and conditions, would choose to become active traders. In short, further research and analysis is necessary on the hidden trade, beyond the available case studies of Hausa women, that would broaden the perspectives on the practice, or more comprehensively cover ethnically heterogeneous communities dominated either by Hausa or other Muslim ethnic groups. Moreover, in view of Nigeria's current crisis and the government's designation of women-in-development activities as one way of alleviating its peoples' hardships, it is timely to determine exactly how widespread the institution actually is, and whether this is an economic venture which can be enhanced by future development activities. With these questions in mind, the following is a comparative study of Muslim women's trade in northern Nigeria, based on a review of the available relevant literature and on my own research(3) in an ethnically heterogeneous northern Nigerian city, Yola, in which Hausa are numerically and economically significant, yet are outnumbered by the Fulbe and members of other ethnic groups. The analysis will first comparatively summarize the data on Hausaland, discussing the factors that condition the women's roles and their decision to trade and the variations that obtain within Hausaland. The intensive, comparative study of Yola women will show that due to relatively uniform regional historical trends, political and factors, and cultural tendencies, the hidden trade is indeed prevalent outside Hausaland. The Muslim women of Yola, having shared in the common northern Nigerian experience, now participate in and rely on the practice, although the custom has been adapted to conform to local conditions and traditions and therefore varies in many respects from that of Hausaland. We shall also attempt to explain why the dominant ethnic group of Yola, the Fulbe, have thus far been resisting full incorporation into this tradition, largely on what they term as cultural grounds, and we will assess the impact of these attitudes on Yola's informal trade and food industries and on its non-Fulbe societies in general. …

Is the Price Right?

In PAR 3, Vol. 40 (May/June 1980), we published an article entitled, "Is the Price Right?: State and Local Government Architect and Engineer Selection." Recent correspondence from Ms. Belle Davis, chief of the Grants Policy and Procedures Branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, pointed out our misinterpretation in that article of the EPA regulations on local government grantee contracting for architectural or engineering services. Consequently, the last sentence of the text accompanying note 19 should be, "Grantees are not prohibited from selecting an architect or an engineer solely on the basis of price, although the EPA does not encourage this practice." We thank Ms. Davis for her assistance.

Is the Price Right? State and Local Government Architect and Engineer Selection

8. For a detailed discussion of arguments for and against full funding, see Bleakney, op. cit., pp. 1 10-1 17. 9. See Rubin G. Cohn, Employee Retirement PlansThe Nature of Employees' 'Rights', Law Forum (Spring 1962). 10. This argument is discussed in Wellington, Harry H., and Ralph K. Winter, Jr., The Unions and the Cities (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1971), pp. 19-20. 11. See Woolf, op. cit. 12. The possible relationship between pension funding policy, wages, and employment is discussed by Mumy, op. cit. 13. See Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, op. cit., for some discussion on the relationship between pensions and debt. Three general factors limit the degree to which pension and general fund borrowing can be considered fiscal substitutes. First, as ruled in a Washington State Supreme Court decision, pension obligations are not formally debt but rather contingent liabilities and so are not subject to constitutional debt limitations. Next, there are political limitations on the degree of trade-offs a priori between allocating revenue to debt and pensions because of the role of the pension fund administrator, as reinforced by the legal and derived accounting treatment of trust funds in the budgetary process. See Harry D. Kerrigan, Fund Accounting (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1969). Finally, in terms of the economic theory of public finance, pension and debt apply to different factors of production, labor and capital respectively. Conceptual implications of the difference, in terms of the labor intensity of the public sector, relative factor costs, and factor substitution are fundamental in theoretical analyses of the issue but, while posing interesting questions about the relationship between public sector labor productivity, financial capacity, and fiscal crisis, are outside the scope of this paper. 14. On these points, see Roger F. Murray, Economic Aspects of Pensions: A Summary Report (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1968); and Municipal Finance Officers Association, Accounting and Operating Handbook for Public Employee Retirement Systems (Chicago: Municipal Finance Officers Association, 1966).