Minimalist State Research Articles

Inside the municipality: locating debates on local government

Inside the municipality:locating debates on local government Mosa Phadi (bio) and Peter Vale (bio) The rise of African liberation parties to power in the 1960s brought to the fore 'questions about the role and position of the African state' (Doornbos 1990:179, also see Mamdani 1996, Amin 1972). Leaders of newly independent African states looked upon the state as the machinery to drive far-reaching social and economic transformation, following the sustained ravages of colonial rule. As the 'institutionalised expression of political power' (Doornbos 1990:180), the state was to be directed towards confronting the ills and contradictions of the colonial past and foster 'development'. Faith that the state would provide a path towards salvation emerged from both liberal and Marxist ideologies, but for antagonistic reasons. While the former viewed the state as a vehicle to advance capitalism, the latter saw it as means to dismantle it and engender a classless society (Doornbos 1990:182-3). But the enormous expectations about what can be achieved through the state since the heady days of the 1960s have undergone profound rethinking. Hopes in the African state proved, by many estimations, to be 'ill-founded' (Doornbos 1990:183). The African state has been the subject of acute concern 'about capacity and performance, about styles and orientations of leadership, and about the measure of representativeness and legitimacy which African governments enjoy within the society at large' (Doornbos 1990:179). The Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980s were in many senses fuelled by cynicism in the capacity of the African state to deliver change. By the time South Africa emerged as a democracy in the 1990s, doyens of international development and global finance insisted that belief in the [End Page 1] state as 'prime mover in all development efforts' was 'misplaced' and 'erroneous' (Doornbos 1990:182), and prevailing wisdom insisted on a minimal role of the state to facilitate the conditions for free-market capitalism. The reform and democratisation of state institutions in South Africa was thus undergirded by contradictory imperatives: to address expectations of dramatically expanded development and share the fruits of economic growth beyond the white minority, while at the same time sustaining a minimalist state. The path charted by the South African state since the end of apartheid has fallen somewhere between social democratic welfarism and hard-edged neoliberal reformism with profoundly ambiguous results. In 2005, Beall, Gelb and Hassim (2005:682) described the character of the South African state as one of 'fragile stability': a stable and sovereign state presided over by a Constitution and robust legal frameworks, yet one facing acute levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty. They described a 'tenuous equilibrium' rendered fragile by the fact that 'appropriate institutions and processes have not yet been established in state and society to resolve–manage and contain–the potentially destabilising impact of social fractures' (2005:683). Ten years later, it was argued that South Africa's 'political order remains standing, but the pressures it faces are significantly more acute' (Robinson, Steinberg and Simon 2016:1). Following the troubled tenure of the administration of Jacob Zuma, marked by growing revelations of 'state capture', renewed focus has been drawn to the nature of the South African state, and the functioning of government institutions has come to attract public interest on what is perhaps an unprecedented scale (see, for instance, Chipkin and Swilling 2018). This Focus Issue of Transformation considers what is often considered the weakest link in the chain of South Africa's intergovernmental system: local government. The post-apartheid regime positioned municipalities as the primary state organs to facilitate community-based decision-making. In a country plagued by the decades-long legacy of discrimination, municipalities were given an enormous developmental mandate to fulfil. As the most direct link between the state and community, this institution is tasked with the responsibility to deliver a range of basic services to communities: electricity, water and sanitation services, and refuse collection (Koelble and Siddle 2014:607, see also van Donk, Swilling, Pieterse and Parnell 2007). Twenty-six years later, South Africa has yet [End Page 2] to address most of these past and present realities of political, social and economic inequalities (see Desai 2017, Alexander...

Governance: The Concept and Its Dimensions

Governance, as the term came to be used since the 1980s and the 1990s under the influence of the neo-liberals, is about a minimalist state. It seeks a state rollback on the ground that state is inherently inefficient when compared with the markets. Apart from this, since then other versions have developed, which led one commentator to say that so numerous are the definitions of governance that it has become analytically an intractable construct. This article presents its subject matter in three sections. The first section focuses on the semantics; it underlines the need to distinguish between the conventional and the neo-liberal usages of the term governance. The second section, which forms the bulk of the present article, discusses the five strands that collectively form the complex whole we call governance. The third and the concluding section contrasts the positivism of the neoclassical economics and new institutional economics, from which the neo-liberal governance paradigm is shaped, with the normative orientation of the classical school of administrative thoughts that dominated the discipline of public administration during the first fifty years (the 1887–1937 period).

Rethink, reframe and reinvent: serving in the twenty-first century

In 2006 I had the honour of giving the Fifth Braibant Lecture for the International Institute of Administrative Sciences. That discussion identified a need to rethink public administration. In reality, this is only a small part of the rethinking needed to prepare government and society for the challenges of the twenty-first century. There is a need to rethink the architecture and functioning of the social, economic and political state; for instance, to critically examine the assumption that innovation, productivity, employment and income growth work synergistically together. A clear-eyed diagnostic of the benefits of global trade and the costs of local dislocation is long overdue if government is to mitigate its impact for the most vulnerable in society and alleviate public fears about the future. There is also a need to articulate in contemporary terms what conditions contribute to the governance of open, pluralistic and democratic societies. Responding to challenging emerging trends will require reconciling in new ways individual interests with ambitious collective aspirations, rediscovering the irreplaceable contribution of the state and articulating a concept of that state adapted to serving in the twenty-first century. This is neither an overbearing nor a minimalist state but one with sufficient confidence in its role to serve the collective interest. This article is an invitation to rethink the modern state, reframe our expectations for a well-performing society and economy, and reinvent in contemporary terms what it means to be part of a modern, liberal, pluralistic and democratic society.

The Minimalist State and Donor Landscapes: Livelihood Security in Mali during and after the 2012–2013 Coup and Rebellion

Abstract:Mali’s 2012 coup d’état and subsequent rebellion created much hardship for those living in the northern and southern parts of the country. This article explores the changes that occurred during the period of uncertainty in the country, the role of the minimalist state, and the implications of these conditions for future development initiatives. The way in which Mali muddled through the 2012–2013 period has left two distinct aid landscapes: a heavily militarized northern region where aid from donors is focused on antiterrorism, and a southern zone of free-market intervention facilitated by donors.

Constructing the social democratic developmental state in Africa: lessons from the “Global South”

Since the dawn of the post-colonial era in the various regions of the “Global South,” including Africa, the appropriate role of the state in the development process has been a frontier issue. The resulting debate has revolved around two major trajectories: the minimalist state and the maximalist state. The former, shaped by the liberal cum neo-liberal Weltanschauung, posits that the state should have a limited role in socio-economic development—basically the creation of propitious conditions for the private accumulation of capital. Essentially, the suzerainty over the development process should rest with the “market” and its associated forces, particularly businesses. On the other hand, the maximalist state perspective asserts that the state should have a prominent role in the development process, including serving as the engine. Importantly, the debate has gone through various cycles, each dominated by the minimalist state paradigm.In spite of the hegemony of the minimalist state perspective, several states in the “Global South” have experimented with various models of statedirigisme— the “developmental state:” authoritarian (e.g. Singapore and South Korea) and democratic (e.g. Botswana and Mauritius). Against this backdrop, using the lessons learned from the experiences of some of the states in the “Global South” that have experimented with variants of the developmental state model, this article concluded that the social democratic developmental state is the best trajectory for promoting human-centered democracy and development in Africa.

Dewey’s liberalisms: Depression-era insights for the Great Recession

This article explores John Dewey’s Depression-era analysis of ‘liberalism’ in an effort to clarify our own neoliberal moment. As Dewey argues, liberalism is a term used in the 1930s to signify diverse and often contradictory meanings. It variously refers to a minimalist state aimed at unbinding markets (laissez-faire liberalism) or an activist state charged with providing social welfare (what Dewey described as ‘humane liberalism’). Finding limitations in these visions of liberalism, Dewey calls for a ‘radical’ liberalism that would socialise the economy, challenge the corrupting power of privileged elites, and embrace experimentalism and mass participation in social planning and decision-making. The article draws on Dewey’s analysis of different liberalisms to make sense of contemporary political and educational debates that have been profoundly shaped by the growing prominence of neoliberalism in recent decades. It sheds light on why particular educational issues have emerged as central sites of contest while others receive little or no attention and hints at possibilities for social reconstruction.

The politics of terror and the neoliberal military minimalist state

The decade anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attack is considered from the standpoint of three trends that synergized what can be called a new form of governmentality. First, the author considers the recrudescence of the military-surveillance state that in a paternalistic and biopolitical fashion must do its utmost to secure the ‘safety’ of its population. Second, and simultaneously, the triumph of the neoliberal ideology that spells the dismantling of the welfare state, and deep cuts in so-called “entitlements”. Third, the author considers how the rise of the neoliberal military minimalist state may be related to the recent demographic trends that mark a pronounced de-urbanization in the Midwest (the “Heartland”), and population growth in the South and Southwest.

State-Civil Society Partnership in Poverty Reduction in Uganda

The growing partnerships between the state and civil society organizations (CSOs) in the development process of aid-dependent states are largely explained by the New Policy Agenda, which put emphasis on a minimalist state and the enhanced role of civil society. The article observes that the partnership has been derailed by conflicting interests, approaches, suspicions and competition for aid and legitimacy. It also points out that the partnership has been affected by the state's goal to co-opt CSOs while CSOs also suffer from dependency, lack of downward accountability and linkages to grassroots organizations, which compromise their autonomy and legitimacy. The article argues that unless a framework is established in which terms of collaboration are spelled out for purposes of coordination and conflict resolution, the partnership in poverty reduction may not achieve significant gains.

From Choice to Reproductive Justice: De-Constitutionalizing Abortion Rights

The Essay argues that the right to abortion constitutionalized in Roe v. Wade is by some measure at odds with a capacious understanding of the demands of reproductive justice. No matter its rationale, the constitutional right to abortion is fundamentally a negative right that rhetorically keeps the state out of the domain of family life. As such, the decision privatizes not only the abortion decision, but also parenting, by rendering the decision to carry a pregnancy to term a choice. It thereby legitimates a minimalist state response to the problems of pregnant women who carry their pregnancies to term and for poor parents who might need greater public support. These marginalized groups need greater community and state assistance with the demands of parenting, and the equation of reproductive justice with a right to terminate a pregnancy is in tension with a political or legal agenda for meeting those needs. The Essay then explores the possibility of creating a right to legal abortion through ordinary political means, rather than through constitutional adjudication, in such a way as not to carry these costs. author. Frederick Haas Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Research and Academic Programs, Georgetown University Law Center. The participants at the Yale Law School Conference, “The Future of Sexual and Reproductive Rights,” the Columbia Law School Faculty Workshop, and the Georgetown University Faculty Workshop all contributed helpful comments and criticisms. Thanks also to Robert Adeiha, Randy Barnett, Neal Devins, Vicki Jackson, Judith Lichtenberg, David Luban, Noya Rimalt, Mike Seidman, Marc Spindelman, and David Vladeck for detailed suggestions at varying stages of this Essay’s development, and to Gabriel Pacyniak and David Young for research assistance. OP 5/27/2009 6:01:48 PM from choice to reproductive justice 1395 feature contents

They Hug Hoodies, Don't They? Responsibility, Irresponsibility and Responsibilisation in Conservative Crime Policy

Abstract: After ten years of Labour government, their penal policies have been extensively examined and reviewed. Recent months have seen the resurgence in popularity of the Conservative Party, but their penal policies have not been the subject of critical analysis. This article aims to provide such a review of Conservative Party policy. It explores the published statements and documents produced on penal policy and identifies that rather than presenting a new approach, the policies mix neo‐conservative or New Right economic policies from the 1980s including the creation of a small State with marketised public services and promoting punitive criminal justice policies that have been staples of the party for more than a decade, with the deployment of neo‐liberal strategies in the social field, particularly responsibilisation. The article argues that whilst there is some mixing and matching of policies and strategies, there is an underlying neo‐conservative ideology. The social consequences of Cameron's policies are discussed, including the expansion of the criminal justice and penal system, the redefinition of the socially excluded as the ‘undeserving poor’ and the creation of a minimalist State.

Making and Breaking Family Life: Adoption, the State, and Human Rights

This article explores the extent to which the state's duties and responsibilities in the context of adoption are framed and reinforced by a rights‐based discourse. It argues that the human rights paradigm plays an invaluable role in the pre‐adoption process by identifying and imposing ever more exacting obligations on the state ‐ obligations which are currently not being fully met by the Adoption and Children Act 2002. The application of a rights‐based discourse to the post‐adoption context proves, however, to be considerably more problematic. Indeed, it is argued that rather than extend and strengthen the state's responsibilities towards the child and the adopted family, liberal rights‐based doctrine tends towards a more traditional model of adoption in which a minimalist state and the privacy, autonomy, and self‐sufficiency of the new adoptive family are further entrenched. It is thus concluded that a human rights analysis provides no secure basis for challenging the Adoption and Children Act's rather limited provisions on post‐adoption support.

Globalization and Housing Rights

This article seeks to explore the relationship between the growing phenomenon of globalization and the field of housing rights. I begin with a general description of globalization, and move on to discuss its effect on homelessness, and on housing systems across the world. I examine the role of global corporations; the globalization of housing finance and real estate investment; the reordering of cities and slums; the idea of the minimalist state; and the effects of privatization. I examine the rise of governance networks and how they have created new patterns of making law; globalization’s effect on housing policy; and its effects on the movement of people. Next I look to the idea of housing rights and some specific instances of their development through the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the European Union. These rights may offer the possibility of mediating the excesses of neo-liberal globalization and promote social equality and inclusion. I conclude with a call to reconsider traditional liberal legal models and housing-as-property regimes, and recommend the legal concept of the “home” may be a more appropriate base model for housing rights in a globalizing world.

Korea's New Techno-Scientific State

The article aims to map the process of transformation in the Korean ‘developmental state’ which is evolving into a new ‘techno-scientific state’. In the past, the Korean ‘developmental state’ directed national economic development by decisively controlling the entire financial system. However, after successfully leading economic change for half a century, the role of the Korean state appears to be drastically diminished. The literature that deals with this issue tends to focus on the demise of the ‘developmental state’ and discusses the ‘post-developmental minimalist state’. However, it clearly ignores the strategic role of the state in creating a distinct ‘techno-scientific’ ethos, which has been critical in enhancing Korea's industrial competitiveness in the face of the established Japanese and the emerging Chinese challenges. The hypothesis is that the linkages between techno-scientific and techno-industrial progress can be firmly established only by state power because (a) market forces can push innovation in the same or similar techno-industrial sector but not in a distinct techno-scientific sphere; (b) high uncertainty and high-risk factors constrain the ability of market actors to invent new techno-scientific frontiers. Theoretically, this article is sceptical about the rationale of the neo-liberal ‘minimalist state’ and argues for an enhanced but transformed role of the state in supporting the techno-scientific regime formation. It provides empirical evidence from the experiences of the transforming Korean state. This article argues that the vast policy experience of the Korean State in engineering the ‘economic miracle on the Han River’ can be utilised to establish a distinct techno-scientific regime that can help create a new techno-industrial sector.

The super-rich in global perspective: a quantitative analysis of the Forbes list of billionaires

Why are there more super-rich people in some countries than in others? Extra-ordinary wealth is often regarded with envy and might raise the suspicion that it can only be accumulated with the help of a minimalist state that does not concern itself with the plight of the many. This raises the issue whether a high number of billionaires can co-exist with a high-taxing, interventionist, social and welfare spending government? These two questions are at the heart of this paper's analysis. To answer them a quantitative analysis of the global Forbes list of billionaires is undertaken.

Democratizing Global Economic Governance: A PERI Symposium

This working paper is the fruit of a symposium on Democratizing Global Economic Governance held at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) on October 20, 2000, an event co-sponsored by the Five-College Peace and World Security Studies program. The speakers were asked not only to critique briefly the principal institutions of global economic governance - the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank - but also to suggest progressive alternatives. In other words, they were asked for their views on not only what progressives should be against, but also what they should be for. A recurrent theme in their remarks is the 'fix it' or 'nix it' debate: whether to seek reform of the existing international economic institutions or their outright abolition. As several speakers suggest, the tension between these two positions can be creative, with both sides playing complementary roles in advancing a process of change. Beyond this strategic issue, however, is the more fundamental question of what would constitute a desirable and feasible institutional architecture for democratic global economic governance. Like states, international institutions will always be imperfect. It would be ironic if those who reject the neoliberal vision of a minimalist state, in which vital decisions are left tocompeting private interests, in turn were to embrace a minimalist vision of global economic governance, in which vital decisions are left to competing nation-states. The struggle to build a democratic framework for such governance is among the great challenges that humankind will face in this century. The discussion presented here is intended as a modest contribution to that historic task.

The hydra of development studies

Development Studies has been mired in allegations of theoretical impasse since the mid-1980's. This article investigates the modalities and vagaries of the dialectic between social science's theoretical image of the Third World, which could be summarized as the oppositional Modernization and Dependency “paradigms” prior to the alleged impasse, and the actual substantive Third World development trajectories that have emerged. Now a new convergence, negative and perhaps enduring, has supplanted the optimism of the original Modernization postulate and may provide a seedbed for a resurrection of the pessimistic Dependency underdevelopment thesis. For the first time there has been a coming together in the study of the Third World on the one hand, manifested as majority theme Development Studies, and on the other hand, actual objective development in the vast majority of countries under study. But this intersection only arises insofar as both appear to be in equivalent difficulty. In the Third World there has been increasing divergence in trajectories of development, with polarization of income both within the South, and in an even more pronounced manner vis-à-vis the First World. If the 1980's have become known as the “Lost Decade' in developmental terms for Africa and Latin America, the 1990's ended with the emergence of a new development blockage among the NIEs and near NIEs of the Asian region. The crisis in Development Studies becomes all the more obvious considering the emergence of the Neo-classical format as part of the 1980's development counterrevolution. Now the neo-classically inspired minimalist state — which was a product of its predecessor, downsized in order to serve the market and contribute to Pareto optimality — a historical reversal of its colonial and earlier post-colonial form — must confront renewed demands to solve the internal problems that accelerated Globalization has generated in the context of a crisis of overproduction.

Globalization and Self-Government: Impacts and Implications for First Nations in Canada

While Canada has moved beyond its colonial relationship with Great Britain, many argue that Aboriginal peoples in Canada continue to be entrenched in colonialism. In recent years, self-government negotiations have been initiated to redress this paradox. Problematic, however, is the fact that these negotiations are taking place in a socioeconomic environment that is being transformed by globalization. In this era of globalization, in which corporations assume a more dominant role in all spheres of life, the Canadian government is involved in a process of significant restructuring driven by a neoliberal agenda. In accordance with this vision of a minimalist state and unfettered market-driven development, self-government is being promoted as a means for political autonomy as well as for economic development in Aboriginal communities--all considered critical elements of decolonization. Through the process of devolution, the state is, arguably, promoting self-governance as a means to enhance the opportunity of A boriginal peoples to enter the market society and liberate them from traditional colonial constraints. But what are the implications for self-government arrangements constructed within this framework? This paper argues that self-government negotiated within the parameters of globalization, under the auspices of corporate dominance, does not represent decolonization but neocolonialism. Focussing on the condition of resource-rich Aboriginal communities within Canada, this paper considers why some First Nations appear to embrace self-government as a means of political autonomy and the partnering of their communities with corporations as a form of economic independence. It concludes by considering some potential consequences of globalization for First Nations. These conclusions envision the possibility of increased social pathologies for Aboriginal peoples if social-service needs are not met; the division of communities internally as they struggle to survive in a capitalist while maintaining their traditi onal values; conflict between First Nations and other Canadians as they struggle to gain access to resources; and the intensification of Aboriginal nationalism generally. This paper is not a critique of self-government, per se, but rather of the way it is being conceptualized and constructed, since it locks Aboriginal peoples in an unequal relationship as they pass from government paternalism to corporate dependency. As government yields to corporate pressures, it similarly subsumes the welfare of Aboriginal peoples to the demands of the market. Thus self-government today further subjects First Nations to corporate rule and solidifies their assimilation. Globalization Defined Critical to understanding the self-government process is the context in which it is occurring. In essence, self-government today is being implemented under the auspices of globalization. Globalization has become a common term in corporate and political circles with a variety of meanings ranging from descriptions of contemporary economic to political or even social phenomena and, for some, it is a dangerous euphemism for the current restructuring of international capitalism (Klak 1998,3). It moves on a parallel track with other such euphemisms: the information society, late capitalism, postmodernity, the end of history, the end of state sovereignty, and the end of democracy. My understanding of the term draws on Robert Cox's observation that the characteristics of the globalization trend include the internationalizing of production, the new international division of labor, new migratory movements from South to North, the new competitive environment that accelerates these processes, and the internationalizing of the state... making states into agencies of the globalizing world (Scholte 1997,21). Hence, the term implies economic change accompanied by political change. While most of the rhetoric associated with globalization privileges its economic component, I agree with Joachim Hirsch that globalization should not be exclusively seen as an adherence to an economic 'logic' or some sort of natural tendency of a market economy. …

Citizens Without States? On the Limits of Participatory Theory

Why is the state disregarded as an instrument for political activism and change in the United States? Clearly, the liberal philosophy that predominates our political culture dictates a minimalist state. But how can we explain a common disregard for the state by two groups who have recently tried to formulate alternatives to liberal political practices? Both communitarians and antiliberal feminists have dismissed the state as a location for political change. Both groups propose participatory politics as the only acceptable political model. Although democratic participation is undoubtedly crucial, participation alone does not answer questions of authority, implementation, final consensus building and administration. In fact, public participation without a radical reconfiguration of the state itself would only serve to legitimate the existing liberal state. Participation must be an integral part of re-envisioning the state, but participation alone cannot achieve a democratization of the modern state.

Building a Developmental State: The Korean Case Reconsidered

The unprecedented economic success of South Korea in the latter half of this century has made it a favorite test case for just about every theory of development. Explanations of its transformation have been especially valued since its galloping growth rates stand in such stark contrast to the prolonged stagnation of so many other developing countries. Among such explanations, the one that held sway for nearly two decades starting from the 1970s was neoclassical in fundamentals: South Korea developed, so the story went, because of its fidelity to free market principles and the wisdom of its state in adhering to a minimalist role in the developmental process. This pairing of economic success with a minimalist state stood in sharp relief against the contrasting pair of economic stagnation and an interventionist state, which seemed to obtain just about everywhere else in the developing world. The symmetry appeared to give the neoclassicals a watertight case: the solution to the developmental conundrum lay in minimizing the direct hand of the government in the economy. Since the late 1980s, however, a series of detailed case studies have served to raise grave doubts about the descriptive adequacy of the neoclassical story, at least as it pertains to Korea. In the work of Alice Amsden, Jung-en Woo, Robert Wade, Stephen Haggard, and others, it has emerged that the Korean state, as well as that in Taiwan, has been anything but minimalist; not only has it been involved

Adam Smith and the liberal tradition in international relations

The name of Adam Smith is most commonly associated with the notion of a natural ‘harmony of interests’ between individuals in the market, whereby the ‘invisible hand’ of competition turns self-regarding behaviour into aggregate social benefits. Joseph Cropsey echoes this view in suggesting that ‘Smith is of interest for his share i n the deflection of political philosophy toward economics and for his famous elaboration of the principles of free enterprise liberal capitalism’. Smith is often seen as standing in a long line of British political philosophers stretching back to Hobbes and Locke and on to Bentham and ultimately John Stuart Mill, his principal contribution to the liberal tradition being his role as the great spokesman oflaissez-faireand the minimalist state.