Inability Of State Research Articles

Lynette A Jackson, Surfacing up: psychiatry and social order in colonial Zimbabwe, 1908–1968, Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 2006, pp. xxi, 230, £31.50, $55.00 (hardback 0-8014-4310-5); £14.50, $24.95 (paperback 0-8014-8940-7).

The institutions and practice of psychiatry in colonial Africa have a justifiably poor reputation. In Surfacing up: psychiatry and social order in colonial Zimbabwe, 1908–1968, Lynette A Jackson does more than trace the history of Ingutsheni, British Central Africa's first and largest mental institution, which was founded on the outskirts of Bulawayo in 1908, arguing that, even though there was no “Great Confinement”, psychiatry served the ideological needs of the settler state. It did so by “domesticating” space and people, and by labelling as insane or mentally deficient men and women who were found to be out of place, either physically or socially. Consciously deploying the language of Frantz Fanon and Michel Foucault, Jackson regards “the colonial project” as broadcasting a “monologue of reason about madness”, one which was intentionally deaf to the inner logic of African concepts of the origins of mental disturbance and to indigenous methods of treatment. Through a combination of overt racism and pecuniary neglect, Ingutsheni became a warehouse for those certified as mentally ill. Inside the hospital, social hierarchies and distances were maintained: African patients had inadequate facilities, were exploited as labour, and were subjected to dehumanizing and dubious methods of treatment including electro-convulsive therapy and leucotomies. White patients had better accommodation and facilities; and, in a painful and yet poignant signifier of how race, class and sanity were perceived in Southern Rhodesia (and elsewhere) at this time, “European” women patients at Ingutsheni were catered for at the hospital's “Fair Lady Salon”. Jackson devotes considerable attention to how the “routes” to the asylum or hospital were influenced by the colonial order. How, she asks, did people who might indeed have been mentally disturbed “surface up” and come to the attention of colonial authorities and be labelled crazy as opposed to criminal? Such surfacings occurred, for instance, when whites transgressed the “civilized” image that the society sought to present, both of itself and to itself. Any “European” who went around barefoot in the centre of town or who had a love relationship with an African person, for instance, could be regarded as insane. African men were brought within the ambit of the colonial economy via migrant labour and could be driven to insanity by dislocation and diseases of employment. Colonial and indigenous concepts of the appropriate “place of women” were influential in identifying “stray” and “undomesticated” women as insane or mentally inadequate and therefore fit for restraint at Ingutsheni. Jackson also draws on Fanon to argue that colonial psychiatry pathologized the “indocile native”. She, on the other hand, reinterprets the actions and words of some “madmen” and “madwomen” as being acts of rebellion or resistance and therefore ultimately of “reason”. In the Epilogue, Jackson describes how after political independence in 1980 Ingutsheni became a target of health reform, and indigenous treatment methods were rehabilitated, contributing to a healed nation. This moment was, however, short-lived and under the constraints of structural adjustment programmes in the 1990s—and, one might add, a morally corrupt and oppressive regime under Robert Mugabe—Zimbabwe's psychiatric services are now once again woefully inadequate. Of course, HIV/AIDS is adding further to the incidence of mental illness in Zimbabwe and to the state's inability to provide decent mental health care. Surfacing up is a damning indictment of the practice of psychiatry in colonial Zimbabwe. It is forcefully written. This contributes to the book's strength, but on occasion Jackson overplays the power of both western psychiatry and of colonialism in Southern Africa. It is certain that the majority of the mentally ill never came to the attention of the colonial authorities and that indigenous African therapies remained the most frequently utilized forms of treatment throughout the colonial era. Colonial “surveillance” and “the medical gaze” were patchy at most. Colonial psychiatry enjoyed little prestige and its practitioners were seldom influential. Moreover, and as Jackson shows, indigenous therapy management groups and techniques were sometimes powerless in the face of violent madness and, on occasion, families initiated the committal procedures. By the mid-twentieth century, then, psychiatric institutions were one option amongst several for the management of insanity both of and by Africans. Yes, psychiatry could be and often was a form of cultural imperialism, but whether it was always and only so remains a matter for debate.

Economic Development and Globalization in South Carolina

As South Carolina entered the twenty-first century, a growing sense of concern about the effectiveness of the state's longstanding economic development policy emerged. From 1950 through 1980, South Carolina enjoyed remarkable success in the area of economic development. Per capita income, an accepted measure of economic growth, not only increased by nearly 400 percent in real terms but also rapidly gained on the national average, moving from just under 60 percent of the national average in 1950 to an impressive nearly 80 percent by 1980. As the state's per capita income steadily converged on the national figure, both quantitative and qualitative measures suggested that South Carolina had finally moved into the prosperous American economic mainstream. The state's population grew by nearly 50 percent during this era, providing the labor power needed to sustain development, and the process of urbanization also gained momentum as the percentage of the state's once heavily rural population living in urban areas increased from just less than 37 percent in 1950 to over 54 percent in 1980. (1) From 1980 through the end of the century, state policy makers, buoyed by this track record of success, vigorously pursued essentially the same development policies that had worked in earlier decades, making minor adjustments and adding industrial recruiting incentives as various corporate prospects demanded and successive gubernatorial administrations thought appropriate. All of this was accomplished with generally bipartisan legislative support. These policies continued to bring impressive levels of outside investment to the state during times of national economic expansion, but by 2001 some South Carolina leaders noted that the once steady convergence of the state's per capita income toward the national average had ground to a halt. Since 1980 South Carolina's per capita income had hovered at or near 80 percent of the national average. Absolute increases in the state's per capita income were impressive during the two decades, and merely keeping pace with a national average that itself grew by more than 3 percent annually between 1980 and 2000 required no small amount of effort on the part of state development leaders. But hitting a plateau at four-fifths of the national average, a position that left South Carolina ranked regularly among the ten poorest states in the nation, hinted at deeper problems with the state's economic development strategies. (2) The relative stagnation of per capita income in South Carolina produced considerable hand-wringing in state development circles. Some experts blamed the traditional development strategy of chasing, with its emphasis on attracting mature, and even declining, industries interested in relocating in lower wage and nonunion areas, for the slowing of income convergence. Others thought smokestack chasing had served the state well enough for a time but that South Carolina needed a strategy designed to a still undereducated state succeed in the emerging knowledge-based economy. Economic development is now struggling to find its way in South Carolina, observed respected College of Charleston economist Frank Hefner early in 2006. More of the same is not going to work because you can only get so many BMWs. Ironically, given the pride the state took in landing a big investment from the German automaker, other analysts linked the state's comparative economic stagnation directly to economic globalization. The rise of competitive, low-wage off-shore economies accompanying globalization have offered formidable challenges to the long-standing development strategies employed by most southern states. These strategies, which differed only marginally from Virginia to Louisiana, traditionally emphasized labor costs and friendly business climates in an effort to attract mature industries looking for lower operating-cost environments. South Carolina's twenty-first century economic development crisis, one report claimed, centered on the flight of low cost manufacturing jobs overseas and the state's subsequent inability to find a new economic identity to help pull the state out of an employment slump. …

Failing to Protect: Food Shortages and Prison Camps in North Korea

This article has three purposes: first, to lay out two of areas of most serious human rights concern regarding North Korea, namely, chronic food shortage crisis afflicting country and prison camp system; second, to characterize main aspects of problem; and third, to present recommendations on what should be done. The information comes directly from three reports of U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (USCHRNK). Key words: North Korea, human rights-East Asia North Korea's Food Shortage Problem The notion of famine conjures up disturbing images of emaciated people and wasting, listless children. Confronted with devastating impact of inadequate caloric intake on human body, one's understandable impulse is to think of famine in terms of physical shortages of food supplies. Yet in contemporary world, sources of food insecurity increasingly can be traced not to natural causes but to human ones. Today there is no reason for anyone to starve as a result of weather conditions, food shortages, or even failures in distribution. Global food supplies are adequate. Information on weather patterns and crop conditions is now readily available, providing an effective early warning system for potential shortfalls and crises. Global markets for basic grains are well developed and highly integrated, and world community has developed a well-institutionalized system of humanitarian assistance. A series of international covenants have made explicit commitment to a world without The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrined right to adequate food. The 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) elaborated this commitment as the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger. At 1996 World Food Summit, official delegations from 185 countries, including representatives from governments of United States and Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the DPRK or North Korea), reaffirmed the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with right to adequate food and fundamental right of everyone to be free of hunger.1 When initially articulated, these rights looked more like pious wishes than achievable objectives. But an effective set of global institutions is now capable of making these political commitments viable by soliciting food contributions and delivering emergency assistance to populations facing distress from natural disasters and economic dislocation. With effective institutions and adequate physical supplies, occurrence of famine increasingly signals not lack of food or capacity, but some fundamental political or governance failure. Natural conditions are no longer our primary adversaries; humans are. The case of North Korea, where a chronic food emergency is well into its second decade, is an egregious example of this phenomenon. Although estimates vary widely, a famine in mid- 1990s killed as many as one million North Koreans, or roughly five percent of population. Millions more were left to contend with broken lives and personal misery. Particularly worrisome are long-term effects-including irreversible ones-on human development of infants and children. When food crisis began, access to food came through a public distribution system (PDS) controlled by regime, and entitlements were a function of political status. As socialist economy crumbled and markets developed in response to state's inability to fulfill its obligations under old social compact, character of crisis changed. Current shortages bear closer resemblance to food emergencies in market and transition economies, where access to food is determined by one's capacity to command resources in marketplace. This type of emergency is no less severe, but poses different challenges to outside donors. The world community responded to this tragedy with considerable generosity, committing more than $2 billion in food aid to country over past decade. …

Transition from the Bottom-Up: Institutional Change in North Korea

During the 1990s, a famine in North Korea killed perhaps 3–5 per cent of the population. In the context of this trauma, the state's inability to fulfill its normal obligations instigated an unmanaged yet rational process of coping and adjustment under duress by enterprises, households, and local institutions. Policy reversals in the fall of 2005 may reflect an attempt by central authorities to reverse this transition process and may intensify distress in the future. This model of transition – driven essentially by state failure – may become increasingly prominent in the future.

Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth‐Century France

This article surveys the legislation concerning the residence of colonial slaves and nonwhites in general in eighteenth‐century France. On the one hand, it shows an increasing concern with race on the part of the elite, heavily influenced by colonial attitudes, leading to laws increasingly reminiscent of apartheid; on the other hand, it reveals the state's inability to enforce its own regulations in the context of privilege, resulting in a legal confusion typical of late ancien‐ŕegime law.

URBAN FORTRESSES

One of the consequences of the state's inability to protect the life and property of all its citizens—especially in developing countries—is the formation of private alternatives to crime prevention and control. Gated communities, or enclosed neighbourhoods, are one such popular alternative. This article compares the phenomenon of gated communities in two developing countries: South Africa and Brazil. Both countries are plagued by violent crime and share key human development indicators. The article also explores key issues that have been raised around gated communities in both countries. Gated communities can contribute to spatial fragmentation in urban areas, and reflect increased polarisation, fragmentation and diminished solidarity within society. By excluding other urban residents and people from surrounding neighbourhoods, gated communities can contribute to social exclusion, inhibiting the construction of social networks that form the basis of social and economic activities.

Democracy and social participation in Latin American cities

Democratisation, structural adjustment, state reform (including decentralisation), and liberalisation of the economy (including privatisation) have brought about dramatic changes in the nations, societies, and cities of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). As central governments devolve greater responsibilities to them, local governments are obliged to perform new roles and strengthen their managerial capacity to cope with increasing urban problems and popular demands. In response to the state's inability to address local problems, there has been a flourishing of civil society organisations (CSOs) engaging in self-help initiatives, building social networks and mutual support groups in order to meet their basic needs. To deepen democracy and promote popular participation in resolving urban issues calls for clear guiding principles and methodologies. These should be based on the wealth of experience that Latin American cities have acquired over the years.

Covering Disasters, Natural or Otherwise: Media, Politics, and the Public Sphere in Post-Earthquake Turkey

On 17 August 2000, the somber first anniversary of the Marmara earthquake, the mainstream Turkish media found a sole reason for celebration. Alongside lengthy reports of vigils in remembrance of the dead and protests of the state's anemic relief efforts, the media celebrated its partnership with civil society and all but declared an end to a state that was at once heavy-handed and ineffectual. Amplifying this theme, an article that compiled a list of the earthquake's “winners” and “losers” placed the media and civil society in the former category and a host of state agencies charged with disaster response in the latter one.Hürriyet, a high-circulation mainstream newspaper, described this praise as well deserved, stating that journalists had effectively “exposed all the naked truths” of the state's inability to provide for its population.

Receiving shadows: governance and liminality in the night-time economy.

This paper focuses upon the emergence of the night-time economy both materially and culturally as a powerful manifestation of post-industrial society. This emergence features two key processes: firstly a shift in economic development from the industrial to the post-industrial; secondly a significant orientation of urban governance involving a move away from the traditional managerial functions of local service provision, towards an entrepreneurial stance primarily focused on the facilitation of economic growth. Central to this new economic era is the identification and promotion of liminality. The State's apparent inability to control these new leisure zones constitutes the creation of an urban frontier that is governed by commercial imperatives.

The State and Schooling in Kenya: Historical Developments and Current Challenges

This paper examines the role of the Kenyan state in regards to the historical development and expansion of the educational system and the current educational challenges facing the country. Like other post-colonial states, the "fragile" Kenyan state has been severely constrained in its efforts to build a modern and meritocratic educational system. In tracing the government's educational activities and policies from independence to the present, it becomes clear that the state's early inability to control demand for education is largely responsible for two contemporary prob-lems: the extremely competitive nature of the educational system and the serious imbalance between education and the labor market. The nature of these problems and their implications for educational equity and school demand in Kenya are explored in detail. Data from a survey of Kenyan households, focus group interviews, and newspaper accounts inform this discussion and illuminate some of the most critical educational challenges facing Kenya today.

From Imperial Gardens to Public Parks

Historians of moder China have recently discovered the expansion of a public sphere in late imperial and early republican Chinese society. The works of Mary Rankin (1986) and William Rowe (1984, 1989), for example, focusing on late imperial Zhejiang and Hankou, respectively, point to community-centered, extra-bureaucratic elite activism as the major force behind China's moder political transformation. The work of David Strand (1989) on early republican Beijing further demonstrates how new organizations, such as the police, political parties, chambers of commerce, and labor unions, developed in parallel with old institutions, such as guilds, volunteer firefighting brigades and militias, charities, labor gangs, and elite mediation. Together, these works suggest that the public sphere expanded rapidly, taking advantage of the state's inability to extend itself aggressively into new areas of social life.' This article joins the debate over the issues of the state-society relationship and the public sphere by examining the transformation of imperial, private, and restricted urban space into areas that were civilian, open, and available for public use in China's capital-Beijing-early in the twentieth century. The article deals with the public sphere in its spatial and physical form (i.e., public spaces). Instead of assuming that the transformation of public space sprang from local elite activism, it investigates the roles of both the state and society in the transforma-

Telecommunications Divestment

This article examines the undemocratic process of telecommunications divestment in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The divestment of the telecommunications sector was largely prompted by each state's inability to service external debt. Despite espousing the importance of public participation in the ownership of state-owned enterprises being divested, the governments each limited or excluded nationals from ownership of the telephony companies. Divestment of the telecommunications sector was principally undertaken through private negotiations with Cable and Wireless which has historically provided service to former British colonies. This continued colonization of the telecommunications sector is at odds with the democratic structure of both states.

Financing higher education in Colombia

All countries and particularly the less developed face serious difficulties in the financing of higher education. This has also been true of Colombia, where private higher education has grown more rapidly than the official sector to the point of accounting for 60% of total enrollment due to the State's inability to increase the number of its institutions and to provide them with growing budgets.

FUNCTIONAL SPECIALISATION AND THE STRUCTURE OF INTERDEPENDENCE IN THE GREATER ATHENS AREA: AN ANALYSIS OF PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION FLOWS

ABSTRACT The definition of the main structural characteristics of tie Greater Athens Area (GAA) based on an analysis of passenger transportation flows by function is the aim of this paper. A taxonomy of the flows is used first, to classify the 83 communities constituting the GAA, and then the structure of the dependencies between the communities is generated for every function. Following this analysis, the basic structural deformations of the GAA are defined. The deformations are found to be mainly attributed to the GAA's lack of strong multifunctional centres other than Athens and Piracus. This derformation is due to the state's inability lo decongest the highly segregated public sector in contrast to the much more flexible private sector and the absence of a coherent policy for the GAA's growth.