Political Economy Factors Research Articles

How farmers matter in shaping agricultural technologies: social and structural characteristics of wheat growers and wheat varieties

Science and technology studies (STS) research challenges the concept of technological determinism by investigating how the end users of a technology influence that technology’s trajectory. STS critiques of determinism are needed in studies of agricultural technology. However, we contend that focusing on the agency of end users may mask the role of political-economic factors which influence technology developments and applications. This paper seeks to mesh STS insights with political-economic perspectives by accounting for relationships between availability of diverse technologies, variations in political-economic structures, and farmer interests and characteristics. We present the results of an analysis on the recent development of three wheat varieties: (a) a wheat variety that was modified genetically to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate, (b) wheat varieties with characteristics selected to serve specific markets, (c) and emerging research and development of perennial wheat varieties. Using data obtained through a survey of wheat growers in Washington State, we analyzed whether farmer interest in these three clusters of wheat varieties was associated with distinct individual characteristics and attitudes and whether those characteristics and attitudes are consistent with political economic structures. Although our analysis did not allow us to assess the degree of direct influence that farmers have on the technological development trajectory for these types of wheat, we were able to document variation in technological alternatives and farmer characteristics related to different political-economic trends.

Inclusive Development through E-Governance: Political Economy of E-Government Projects in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala in India

E-government projects have assumed prominence in the developing countries in the last decade to improve the quality of citizen-government engagement. Can such projects aim at inclusive development focusing on the traditionally marginalized communities and social groups? What are the institutional and political economy factors that determine the nature, scope, and success of such projects? In this paper, I examine these factors in the context of five specific e-government projects in three southern states in India. These projects are: eSEVA and Computer-aided Administration of Registration Department (CARD) in Andhra Pradesh, Sustainable Access in Rural India (SARI) project in Tamil Nadu, and Akshaya and Information Kerala Mission (IKM) in Kerala. Using data from both primary and secondary sources and employing a comparative multiple case study approach, I find that while all the three states tried to implement projects that aim at improving delivery of government services to the common people, Kerala has taken much greater efforts to make these projects more inclusive by decentralizing them to the lowest tier of government and ensuring that the benefits reach each and every household. Thus, the nature and scope of such projects has been quite different in Kerala when compared to the same in the other two states. Why has Kerala focused more on inclusive development and access when compared to the other two states? Drawing insights from political economy of development policies in these states, I argue that while the class character of the state can be seen in almost all the states in India, in Kerala the state has been relatively autonomous of the dominant class coalitions. In Kerala, politics has been marked by mobilization and organization of traditionally marginalized castes and social groups. The focus of Kerala in making the e-government projects more inclusive has been due to the empowerment of these groups that has exerted pressures on the state for distributing the economic and social benefits more widely. I conclude that focusing on inclusive development through e-government projects can really expand the access of marginalized communities to such services and improve their welfare. The findings of this research hold deep implications for success and sustainability of such projects in developing countries.

IMF Surveillance and Financial Markets - A Political Economy Analysis

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in the process of re-inventing itself with bilateral and multilateral surveillance emerging as a key function. The paper analyses how IMF surveillance announcements may be influenced by political power that member countries exert at the IMF. First, we analyze the content of Article IV Public Information Notices (PIN), and second, we use the financial market reaction to the release PINs as tools to identify the role of political economy factors for IMF surveillance. For a set of emerging market economies, the paper finds that financial markets react more favorable to PIN releases for politically influential member countries. Moreover, IMF surveillance appears to be systematically more favorable for countries with larger IMF loans outstanding, consistent with the finding in the literature that the IMF may engage in ‘defensive surveillance’.

An ergonomic approach to reorganize parking inspection agents' work productivity, health and safety in São Paulo, Brazil

The Traffic Engineering Company of the City of São Paulo (Brazil) observed a decrease in productivity, and an increase in sick leave, accidents and psychological distress among their parking inspection agents. To document this situation, qualitative research was undertaken to obtain an in-depth comprehension of work activity. Workers, managers and health and safety professionals contributed to the documentation of the problem and to the proposal of possible solutions. Ergonomic work analysis focusing on real work activity, as well as interviews with individual or groups of stakeholders, were conducted. This research revealed that political-economic factors gradually contributed to: 1) an increasing work load; 2) growing fatigue throughout the day, increasing the workers' vulnerability to incidents and accidents and their tendency to react inappropriately to violence experienced on the street; and 3) excessive individual responsibility to manage dangerous situations. Recommendations to ameliorate the situation are proposed. These suggestions are discussed in terms of feasibility given the impact of macro social factors upon micro work activity, and the associated potential expansion of the ergonomist's role.

Disharmony in international accounting standards setting: The Chinese approach to accounting for business combinations

The paper addresses two distinct aspects of disharmony in international accounting standards setting. The first aspect relates to the political economic context of financial accounting standards. This is illustrated by the Chinese standards setters’ decision to allow the pooling of interests method of accounting for business combinations despite the prohibition of this method by both the FASB and the IASB. This decision by the Chinese standards setters appears to have been based on political economic factors related to the need for industrial reorganization in China rather than a desire to serve the needs of global capital markets. The second aspect of disharmony relates to the role played by differential understandings of the fundamental objectives of financial reporting in an international context.The IASB’s goal of producing one set of global accounting standards to serve the needs of global capital markets has led to a reduction in the number of permissible accounting methods and a move towards the fair value accounting model. In particular, the IASB concluded that the acquisition method of accounting for business combinations should be the only method allowed for business combinations. In contrast, the Chinese standards setters have recognized the existence of both mergers and acquisitions, and in response they created two different methods of accounting for business combinations. Effectively, the Chinese standards setters developed an alternative approach to accounting for business combinations which challenges the IASB’s goal of achieving international accounting convergence through the fair value model.

Capacity development for education service delivery in Pakistan: Top‐down devolution

AbstractThe historical, political, socio‐cultural and institutional context in the public service of Pakistan is not auspicious for the delivery of social services such as education. The then military regime introduced radical devolution reforms in 2001 that promised improvements in service delivery by enhancing accountabilities and capacities for change in local government. However the political economy of this top‐down devolution has proved contentious. It established new power structures and authorities over resources at local levels but without concurrent efforts to enhance service delivery capacities. This article examines capacity issues in two cases of capacity development in education service delivery in Pakistan's largest province. The Punjab Education Sector Reform Programme (PESRP) was managed by a provincial‐level implementation unit; the Strategic Policy Unit (SPU) of City District Government Faisalabad was a local government project supported by technical co‐operation. Both delivered major improvements in education delivery capacity in just 4 years, after decades of delivery stagnation and worsening education indicators. The sustainability of these initiatives is in doubt, as political economy factors remain a major impediment to devolved service delivery in Pakistan. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The political economy of exchange rate regimes in transition economies

We show that political economy factors play an important role in shaping the exchange rate policies of transition economies. We argue that tradables producers prefer a floating rate to allow active exchange rate policy to affect their competitiveness, while internationally exposed sectors prefer a fixed rate to provide currency stability. We find support for that argument using data on de facto and de jure exchange rate behavior for 21 countries during the period from 1992 to 2004. Our empirical results serve as the basis for predictions regarding the adoption of the euro in the EU accession countries and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

L’impact d’une zone de libre-échange entre le Canada et les États-Unis : examen critique de l’étude de Wonnacott

The Wonnacott study concludes that the most realistic and beneficial commercial policy Canada is likely to be able to pursue at the moment would be to negotiate a Canada-U.S. free trade arrangement. This paper consist primarily of assigning different weights to a variety of the considerations Wonnacott raises and analyzing the effects of these different weights on his conclusions regarding the appropriate free trade strategy for Canada. A number of issues are also raised which do not appear to have been examined in Wonnacott's analysis. The thrust of the paper is three-fold. First, there may not be as large a net economic benefits of Canada-United States free trade as the Wonnacott presentation suggests. Second, depending upon the weight one assigns to some of the political-economic factors, the advantages of the former policy may be reduced even more and accordingly we should not be stampeded into a bilateral Canada-United States agreement. And third, if any change in commercial policy is to have a maximum beneficial effect upon Canada, then regardless of what commercial policy is followed, more attention will have to be given to a number of broader issues such as Canadian practices and policies relating to its overall balance of payments (including capital inflows and their effects upon the Canadian dollar), and to protectionnist provincial policies encouraging the fragmentation of industry.

The Political Economy of Efficient Public Good Provision: Evidence from Flemish Libraries Using a Generalised Conditional Efficiency Framework

Provision of most public goods (e.g., health care, library services, education, utilities) can be characterised by a two-stage ‘production’ process. The first stage translates basic inputs (e.g., labour and capital) into service potential (e.g., opening hours), while the second stage describes how these programmatic inputs are transformed into observed outputs (e.g., school outcomes, library circulation). While the latter stage is best analysed in a supply-demand framework, particularly in the former stage one would like to have efficient public production. Hence, unlike previous work on public sector efficiency (which often conflates both ‘production’ stages), this paper analyses how political economy factors shape efficient public good provision in stage one (using local public libraries as our centre of attention). To do so, we use a specially tailored, fully non-parametric efficiency model. The model is rooted in popular Data Envelopment Analysis models, but allows for both outlying observations and heterogeneity (i.e., a conditional efficiency model). Using an exceptionally rich dataset comprising all 290 Flemish public libraries, our findings suggest that the ideological stance of the local government, the wealth and density of the local population and the source of library funding (i.e., local funding versus intergovernmental transfers) are crucial determinants of library efficiency.

The Iranian Economy in the Twentieth Century: A Global Perspective

This paper examines the transformation of the Iranian economy through the twentieth century within a global context. At the start of that century, the Iranian economy had long remained stagnant, poor, and largely agrarian, with a marginal role in the world economy. By the turn of the twenty-first century, Iran had transformed into a complex and relatively large economy with important consequences for the economies of the Middle East and other parts of the world. While the initial conditions and the evolution of domestic institutions and resources played major roles in the pace and nature of that transformation, relations with the rest of the world had crucial influences as well. This paper focuses on the latter forces, while taking account of their interactions with domestic factors in shaping the particular form of economic development in Iran. We study the ways in which the development of the Iranian economy has been affected by international price movements and by the ebbs and flows of trade, investment, and economic growth in the rest of the world. In considering these effects, we also analyze the role of domestic political economy factors and policies in enhancing or hindering the ability of domestic producers to respond to external challenges and opportunities.

Turkey and the IMF: A case study in the political economy of policy implementation

Research into IMF program implementation has usually taken the form of large sample regression analyses. A more detailed explanation is offered in this paper through a case study of program implementation in Turkey between 1999 and 2004. Our research is based on a series of in-depth interviews with policy makers, program negotiators, bureaucrats, interest groups and IMF personnel. Our results reinforce hypotheses that emerge from the theory of implementation and the large sample econometric work, but they also offer new and enhanced explanations. Program implementation depends on a range of factors which interact with one another. These include domestic political economy factors, such as the importance of special interest groups, political cohesiveness and program ownership by the government and the IMF, but also other idiosyncratic factors such as, in the case of Turkey, the existence of a crisis, the desire to join the EU and the role of influential technocrats. Our research has implications for the design of IMF programs.

Productivity effects and determinants of public infrastructure investment

This study aims to investigate three important issues whether or not public infrastructure contributes to production in the private sector, whether or not political economy factors such as political situation affect the allocation of public infrastructure investment, and what the government’s investment behavior is. We estimate simultaneous equations by using a panel data set of 46 prefectures in Japan for five-time periods from 1975 to 1990. We conclude the following: (1) public capital contributes to productivity, (2) the investment behavior of both governments is efficiency-oriented for private productivity and for the capital stock level, (3) a substitute of public capital investment between the national and prefectural governments can be found, (4) there is a clear political factor in the national government’s public investment function, and (5) the availability of national government grants for the construction of infrastructure boosts investment among prefectural governments.

Organizing Hazards, Engineering Disasters? Improving the Recognition of Political-Economic Factors in the Creation of Disasters

Disaster studies have made important progress in recognizing the unequally distributed consequences of disasters, but there has been less progress in analyzing social factors that help create “natural” disasters. Even well-known patterns of hazard-creation tend to be interpreted generically — as representing “economic development” or “capitalism” — rather than through focusing on the more specific dynamics involved. We illustrate this point with two recent and well-known cases of floading — those in the upper Mississippi River Valley and in the Katrina-related devastation of New Orleans. In the former case, damage was caused in part by building the very kinds of higher and stronger floodwalls that were shown to be inadequate in the latter. In the New Orleans case, a more important factor in the death and destruction was the excavation of a transportation canal. In both cases, and many more, the underlying causes of damage to humans as well as to the environment has involved a three-part pattern, supported by the political system — spreading the costs, concentrating the economic benefits and hiding the real risks. In very real senses, these have been floods of folly, created not just by extreme weather events, but by deadly and avoidable patterns of political-economic choices. Comparable patterns appear to deserve greater attention in other contexts, as well.

Critical Geopolitics and the 1950s Bomber Gap

In this paper, I outline three main issues that divide classical and critical geopolitics and offer a critique of the latter. The three issues are (1) criticism, (2) the relative importance of discourses vs. materiality/political economy, and (3) the status of knowledge claims (universal or partial). Through this discussion I present my own view, whose central claim is that versions of critical geopolitics relying to a great extent on discursive analysis should pay more attention to political economic factors. True, most studies in critical geopolitics pay attention to the institutional affiliation of political elites, but very few discuss the workings of the political economic system within which policy is formulated. To illustrate my points empirically, I discuss the bomber gap of the 1950s; the gap refers to the alleged fall of the United States behind the Soviet Union in strategic bombers under Eisenhower, a scare that gave rise to influential discourses describing American military inferiority.

Addressing the theoretical, practical and ethical challenges inherent in prospective health policy analysis

As a function of the inherently political nature of health policy, there have long been calls for, as well as guidance on, analysis of its political dimensions to inform practice. Yet there are few accounts in the literature of systematic attention to real-time documentation and analysis of political-economy factors and feedback to engender reform. The dearth of such prospective policy analysis is perhaps understandable given the many intrinsic difficulties in such an enterprise. This paper provides an outline approach of how researchers might work together with advocacy coalitions (or other political actors) to document and analyse the efforts of such coalitions to use policy analysis to influence the policy processes-agenda setting, policy formulation and policy implementation-in which they engage. In so doing, it identifies challenges based on reviews of the theoretical, methodological and empirical literature as well as the experience of the author. The aim of the paper is to generate debate to assist in resolving the myriad challenges inherent in prospective policy analysis. The paper responds to appeals for political research which addresses the problems confronting political actors so as to guide future action-research for evidence-informed, pro-poor health policy.

The development of community telecommunication infrastructure: An evaluation of rural telecommunications project

This study investigates the development, discourse, design, and social interactions within the Kutztown community network (CN). Drawing on the theory of Social Construction of Technology, the study employs an in-depth case study approach to investigate how the CN was designed and how the Kutztown community participated in the network development. The findings show that there was little societal input into the design process; the design process was influenced by political economy factors, which now threaten the viability of the network. The study highlights the significant role of intermediation in developing CNs and concludes that community participation should not be limited to particular development stages.

The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Regimes in Transition Economies

We show that political economy factors play an important role in shaping the exchange rate policies of transition economies. We argue, among other things, that tradables producers prefer a floating rate to allow active exchange rate policy to affect their competitiveness, while internationally exposed sectors prefer a fixed rate to provide currency stability. We carry out a quantitative analysis of the de facto exchange rate behavior of 21 countries over the period 1992-2004. We find support for our arguments, along with some counter-intuitive results, for example associating democracy with a pegged currency and trade concentration with a floating currency. Our empirical results serve as the basis for predictions regarding the adoption of the euro in the EU accession countries and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

When Does Policy Reform Work?: The Case of Central Bank Independence

Questions of the effectiveness of economic policy reform are inseparable from the political economy factors responsible for distortionary policies in the first place. Distortionary policies are more likely to be adopted where politicians face fewer constraints. Hence reform should have modest effects in societies where the political system already imposes strong constraints, and in societies with weak constraints, because it does not alter the underlying political economy. Reform should be most effective in societies with intermediate constraints. Furthermore, effective reform in one dimension may lead to deterioration in others, as politicians address the underlying demands through other means—a phenomenon we call the seesaw effect. We report evidence that central bank reforms reduced inflation in countries with intermediate constraints but had no or little effect where constraints were strong or weak. We also present evidence consistent with the seesaw effect: in countries where central bank reform reduces inflation, government expenditure tends to increase.

The Paradox of Majority Underrepresentation in Special Education in India

In contrast to the phenomenon of minority overrepresentation in special education in developed countries such as the United States, a paradoxical situation occurs in many developing countries, whereby majority populations are underrepresented in the educational system. The author examines some of the prevailing and traditional societal and political-economic factors specific to India that contribute to this underrepresentation, such as a paucity of resources that affects children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, gender differences in child rearing and educational expectations that affect girls, and negative attitudes toward disability.

KORUPSI DALAM PEMBANGUNAN WILAYAH: SUATU KAJIAN EKONOMI POLITIK DAN BUDAYA

The main objective of the stuajl is to analyze the political economic and cultural factors aflecting corruption in regional economic development during decentralization era in Indonesia. The research uses both qualitative and quantitative methodology to elaborate the process of policy making in budgeting and in formulating regional regulation (Perda). Three districts were chosen as case studies i.e. Kabupaten Solok, Kabupaten Sukoharjo and Kabupaten Kutai Kartanegara. The results of the stuajl indicate that corruption has already emerged since the begining of decision making process in the executive as well as legislative agencies. The findings show that political economic and cultural factors are strongly aflecting the corruption in regional development in the autonomy era.