http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/21473/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39078/ 2012-11-16T00:00:00Z The difficulties with sustaining significant degrees of publically-funded redistribution from the developed to the developing countries in the current aid architecture is examined through an historical lens regarding overseas development assistance (ODA) as a financial flow within the broader context of global financial imbalances in the post-war period. The paper first explains the basic premise that aid effectiveness needs to be understood (and was understood by early aid advocates) as a function of allowing countries to finance development by running trade deficits and, by consequence, net capital inflows (discussed in Fischer 2009, ‘Putting Aid in its Place,’ J. of International Development). For structural reasons, late industrialization and other aspects of development in the post-war era have usually resulted in trade deficits. ODA could prevent such deficits from choking off intensive developmental endeavours. Conversely, this potential of aid is lost if countries run trade surpluses (or if deficits are not the result of developmental productivity-enhancing investments). This proposition is with reference to the balance of payments accounting identity and then with historical data from South Korea, together with some comparisons to other world regions. In the final section of the paper, aid is discussed in the context of two paradigmatic phases of the post-war period. In the first phase, up to the mid-1970s, the US was mostly in current account surplus and exporting net goods, services and finance abroad, thereby supplying and financing the trade deficits of Europe and then developing countries. In this context, aid was one among other forms of net capital outflow from the US supporting industrialization abroad, as best represented by the case of South Korea. In the second phase, which started in late 1970s, the US moved into a position of persistently large and growing current account deficits, therefore absorbing finance from the rest of the world and supported by waves of financial liberalisation in the US and globally. Capital account surpluses were underlain by significant net outflows of US FDI abroad, perpetuating similar FDI outflows in the first phase despite the overall absorption of finance from abroad. The prospects for aid effectiveness in this latter phase have been far from evident given that the dominant trend in global financial flows has been essentially regressive. The paper concludes that the key to creating a truly effective aid system must be found in genuinely redistributive financing mechanisms that enhance rather than undermine national development. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32995/ 2012-07-25T00:00:00Z In China, central government subsidies to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) – the archetypal case usually referred to as ‘Tibet’ – have surged to record-high levels, particularly following the widespread protests that occurred across all Tibetan areas in 2008. By 2010, direct budgetary subsidies surpassed one hundred percent of the TAR GDP for the first time ever, exceeding even the levels reached during the peaks of subsidization during the Maoist period and amounting to four times the average per capital rural household income in the TAR. Similarly, investment in fixed assets – most of it also probably subsidised – reached 91 percent of the TAR GDP in 2010. From this perspective and despite almost twenty years of intensive development efforts, the TAR remains locked into the institutional norms guiding the subsidisation of this politically sensitive autonomous region since the Maoist period. As a result, recent development strategies have not altered in any significant way the long-term trend of very intense and very inefficient subsidisation, with economic growth largely reflecting the intensification of subsidies. In particular, the recent phase of intensive subsidisation has completed two principal tasks first envisaged during the Maoist era. One is the state-led engineering of a deep integration of the region into China through externalized patterns of ownership and extreme economic dependence. The second is the consolidation of the very visible hand of the state in the structuring of most aspects of the economy, including the rural economies, albeit through a different mode of governmentality attuned to the current era of ‘market socialism’ rather than Maoist collectivisation. As a result, the economy of the TAR can be aptly described in structural terms as having become a peripheral subsidiary of the central government and related interests. Local development dynamics (and people) are increasingly captive to the discretion of these central interests, particularly in the context of their rapid transition away from their traditional bases of subsistence in the rural economy. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32290/ 2012-05-14T00:00:00Z In anticipation of the forthcoming release of the 2010 national population census of China, this paper compares the limited population data that have been released so far with annual data on natural population increase since the 2000 census in order to construct a rough but robust measure of net migration for each province in China between these two censuses. The results emphasize the extent of net out-migration from much of interior and western China as well as the degree to which rapid population growth in five coastal growth poles has been due to net in-migration. In total, 15 out of 31 provinces experienced net population outflows between the two censuses according to this measure, versus only six that experienced negative population growth, leaving nine provinces that registered positive population growth at the same time as net out-migration. Three exceptions to the western pattern of net outflows were the Tibet Autonomous Region, Xinjiang and Ningxia, which had the highest average natural population increase rates in China and also continued to experience moderate net in-migration. Overall, the sheer extent and speed of these flows, which have been mostly contained within national borders, sheds light on the enormity of the developmental challenges facing the government in this context, as well as the demographic pressures placed on the coastal growth poles absorbing most of the net flows. Moreover, there appears to be little association between rates of net migration and provincial rates of economic growth or even provincial levels of per capita GDP during this period, except in the broadest interregional sense that the three coastal province-level entities exhibiting the strongest rates of net in-migration – Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin – were by far the most affluent in China. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38502/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39077/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z It is clear that the recent wave of self-immolations and protests taking place in southern Amdo and northern Kham in eastern Tibet is a reflection of an extreme form of defiance in response to an increasingly repressive atmosphere. The atmosphere is epitomized by the intensification of patriotic education campaigns in monasteries and is framed within a broader political context of discriminatory rule by authorities who generally see only variants of assimilation as the solution to the so-called ‘Tibet Question.’ However, it is less clear why this particular form of protest – self-immolation – is happening in this particular part of Tibet. The explanation is probably not found in differences of governance styles across this eastern Tibetan region, which has been fragmented, absorbed and ruled by the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and the Tibet Autonomous Region. Additionally, there are large Tibetan areas in these provinces, under similar conditions of rule, where self-immolations have not taken place. Rather, local histories in these Tibetan areas need to be carefully considered, especially with respect to the evolving fusion between religious faith, political dissidence, and rapid dislocating social change. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32081/ 2011-10-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/33025/ 2011-09-19T00:00:00Z Without denying the potential for publically-funded redistribution, as is done by market-advocates, we must acknowledge that the existing international aid architecture has largely failed in its purpose of inducing any significant degree of wealth redistribution between North and South, except in certain geopolitical special cases. Moreover, the fundamental reasons for this failure will most likely extend to current considerations of Finance for Climate Change. This failure is examined here through the lens of understanding Official Development Assistance as a financial flow within the context of global financial imbalances in the post-war period, as a means to reflect more broadly on recent debates regarding aid effectiveness in developing economies. The central focus of this conceptual examination is on what might be called the dilemma of monetary transformation in the transfer of foreign to domestic resources. This dilemma is poignantly illustrated by the dominant (albeit usually misconstrued) emphasis in the contemporary aid literature on the need and potential of aid to finance social expenditures in the Global South, such as on health and education spending or cash transfers. From the perspective of the monetary dilemma posed here, such emphasis ironically results in increased impulses among donors to meddle by way of conditionalities in the sovereign space of domestic political deliberations in recipient countries regarding the uses of government expenditure. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31113/ 2011-09-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31085/ 2011-08-01T00:00:00Z The articles in this special issue represent a selective output from the 2010 annual conference of the Development Studies Association on the theme of 'Development Paths: Values, Ethics and Morality'. Following a brief introduction to the articles, we pose several future research challenges in the field of Development Studies with respect to this theme. One involves moving beyond orientalism and reverse-orientalism in the question of values. The second relates to how values and ethics are institutionalised within rapid developmental transformations. The third addresses how the conditions of poverty and inequality are structurally produced through systems and ideologies of valuation. Finally, the current context of high levels of inequalities within and between societies begs for introspection in the field of Development Studies about how values and ethics are related to these inequalities. Ultimately, if we are to maintain our legitimacy as a field of studies that emerged in the era of decolonisation, we need to address the persistence of old and the emergence of new forms of severe exploitation and subordination in a world of so much affluence and at a time when human rights have come to be accepted as near-universal principles of governance. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/33024/ 2011-05-20T00:00:00Z Rapid growth since the mid-1990s in the Tibetan and Uyghur areas in Western China has been associated with the rapid transition of the local (mostly Tibetan and Uyghur) labour forces out of the primary sector (mostly farming and herding) and into the tertiary sector (services). The TAR, for instance, went from being one of the most agrarian populations in China in the late 1990s, with 76 percent of its labour force employed in farming and herding in 1999 (almost entirely Tibetan), to 56 percent by 2008. These changes reflect the rapid disembedding of these minority populations from their traditional socio-economic foundations, the speed of which, for better or worse, often astounds even regular researchers in these areas, even those accustomed to equivalent changes elsewhere in China. These changes are analysed through a longitudinal and comparative trend analysis of aggregate employment, wage and national accounting data, comparing the TAR and Xinjiang to several other provincial cases in Western China and the national average. The comparison sheds light on the exceptional speed and characteristics of the transitions that have been induced in these areas within a very short period of time - especially in the Tibetan areas - even after taking into account their very different starting points, as a means to reflect on the profound changes that are occurring to people’s lives and livelihoods in very real and rapid ways, which are in many respects irreversible and are quickly transforming the landscape faced by the next generation. The fact that these changes have been happening within a state of political disempowerment for these minorities, which impedes their ability to mediate the speed and course of these transitions, in addition to the disadvantages these minorities face within these transitions vis a vis the Han Chinese (and largely migrant) dominant culture, offers particular insight into the recent outbursts of discontent in these regions. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/33023/ 2011-05-02T00:00:00Z This paper frames the discussion of agrarian transformations and 'surplus populations' in the Global South within a political economy and macro-structural consideration of the developmental challenges faced in the context of contemporary rapid population growth. The case is made that the prospect of an additional two billion people by mid-century needs to be urgently pre-empted by a radical trajectory shift towards (or back towards) strong redistributive institutional mechanisms, within which universal social policy needs to play a central role alongside other developmentalist initiatives aimed at retaining wealth in countries of the Global South and circulating wealth among increasingly tertiarised labour forces. Short of such radical shifts, the predominant supply-side emphasis in contemporary mainstream development policy – as represented, for instance, by much of the World Bank sponsored work on the ‘demographic dividend’ – arguably exacerbates the dilemmas of ‘surplus populations’, as laid out by Li (2009), that is, the increasing informalisation, casualisation and effective underemployment of labour transitioning to urban tertiary sectors in the Global South. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/33022/ 2011-04-13T00:00:00Z This paper frames the discussion of social protection, social policy and vulnerability within a political economy and macro structural consideration of the developmental challenges faced in the context of contemporary rapid population growth. The case is made that the prospects of an additional two billion people by mid-century need to be urgently pre-empted by implementing employment and equity-focused development strategies now, within which the scaling up of social protection needs to play a pivotal role. This case is made in three steps. First, many of the common discourses and debates about the impoverishing consequences of rapid population growth are critically reviewed in order to lay out a political economy understanding of vulnerability in the context of population growth and to offer a more subtle distinction between processes of human development on one hand, and processes of capitalist economic development. Second, the relationship between population transitions and labour force transitions is sketched out, noting that the latter are primarily driven by the former even in contexts where off-farm and/or urban (formal and/or decent) employment generation remains austere. Third, given the very common contemporary reality of employment-austere growth in the Global South, there is a crucial need for strong redistributive mechanisms and institutions within contemporary development policy, within which the scaling up of social protection systems towards more universalistic forms of social policy can play a key role. This case corroborates with past experiences of successful late industrialisation, albeit these past lessons arguably hold with even greater precedence today, particularly considering the complementary role that well functioning social policy systems also play in reducing population growth through non-coercive and right-respecting means. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32986/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z The papers in this special issue have been selected from past issues of the Journal, dating from 2000 to 2010, on the subject of resilience. We chose to highlight the theme of resilience as one of the sub-themes of the EADI-DSA conference in September 2011 on „Rethinking Development in an Age of Scarcity and Uncertainty: New Values, Voices and Alliances for Increased Resilience‟. In particular, this subtheme carries a close connection with the dominant conference themes of scarcity and uncertainty. Moreover, all three themes need to be conceived as relative concepts within the context of contemporary capitalism – that is, they are relative to the constant systemic creation and reproduction of scarcity and uncertainty within capitalist systems, in the face of which understandings and forms of resilience need to be similarly contextualised. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32989/ 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z Debates on the current financial crisis have been intense and ongoing, particularly among economists intent on squirming out from under the burden of responsibility with the convenient refrain that no one saw it coming (besides those whose work was being ignored by the mainstream). However, within this debate and despite its loosely substantiated evocations of Keynes, a broadly neoclassical consensus has reasserted itself, showing little or no variance from the mainstream views that brought us into crisis in the first place. As if a refrain from past crises, the narrative is focused on blaming the peripheries for crisis in the centre. The target is China, the most obvious surplus country within global economic imbalances (besides Germany, which somehow escapes similar castigation). http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/27486/ 2010-11-11T00:00:00Z To identify cytogenetic risk factors predicting outcome in children with advanced myelodysplastic syndrome, overall survival of 192 children prospectively enrolled in European Working Group of Myelodysplastic Syndrome in Childhood studies was evaluated with regard to karyotypic complexity. Structurally complex constitutes a new definition of complex karyotype characterized by more than or equal to 3 chromosomal aberrations, including at least one structural aberration. Five-year overall survival in patients with more than or equal to 3 clonal aberrations, which were not structurally complex, did not differ from that observed in patients with normal karyotype. Cox regression analysis revealed the presence of a monosomal and structurally complex karyotype to be strongly associated with poor prognosis (hazard ratio = 4.6, P < .01). Notably, a structurally complex karyotype without a monosomy was associated with a very short 2-year overall survival probability of only 14% (hazard ratio = 14.5; P < .01). The presence of a structurally complex karyotype was the strongest independent prognostic marker predicting poor outcome in children with advanced myelodysplastic syndrome. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32987/ 2010-10-01T00:00:00Z With global population predicted to rise to over nine billion this century, can we find a solution to the problem of ever-increasing strains on resources without resorting to alarmism and xenophobia? http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21100/ 2010-08-01T00:00:00Z China's apparent escape from the external constraints of peripheral late industrialisation in the build up to the global economic crisis of 2007-2009 has been recent and remains tenuous. Before its spectacular trade surpluses of the 2000s, China's external accounts reflected many of these constraints. Even in the midst of the surplus surge, external vulnerabilities of a peripheral nature have persisted. Besides the issue of export dependence, which is the conventional focus of most crisis-related studies on China, vulnerabilities have been more profoundly related to the dominance of foreign ownership in China's export sector and to the relatively subordinate position of this export sector within the massive rerouting of international production networks via China that followed the East Asian crisis, in large part led by Northern transnational corporations. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19431/ 2010-02-01T00:00:00Z This paper investigates whether China has escaped the vulnerabilities of peripheral and dependent late industrialisation in the build up to the current global economic crisis, with reference to structuralist critiques of Latin American industrialisation in the 1960s and examined through China’s balance of payments data. While it would seem that China’s huge surpluses amid sustained growth eliminate any comparative relevance to Latin America, the paper argues that analogous vulnerabilities exist. These were more evident before China’s spectacular surplus surge in the 2000s, although even in the midst of the surge, volatility on the capital account and in the errors of omissions was ominous. Changes on the trade account also reflect China’s relatively subordinate position within the massive rerouting of international production networks via China that followed the East Asian crisis, for the most part led by Northern transnational corporations. In sum, overly optimistic appraisals of China’s strength underestimate many of its persisting structural vulnerabilities as a contemporary developing country and distract attention away from important lessons for other developing countries. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18492/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Abstract It is very difficult to know the impact of the MDGs on poverty reduction. On the one hand, poverty measurements are ambiguous, arbitrary and contested, even in the best of cases such as China and India. On the other hand, the mechanisms by which MDGs might have effected poverty reduction are not at all clear, particularly in light of the major global structural processes that condition the impact of aid flows and development more generally. Moreover, the emphasis in the MDGs on absolute measures and the implicit bias towards targeting quite possibly undermine poverty reduction in many contexts. Hence, this article argues that the MDGs should be replaced by a re-politicisation of the mainstream development agenda, together with a genuine revival of emphasis on universalistic modes of social policy as viable means of dealing simultaneously with poverty and inequality. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22326/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Abstract: China’s apparent escape from the external constraints of peripheral late industrialisation in the build up to the global economic crisis of 2007–2009 has been recent and remains tenuous. Before its spectacular trade surpluses of the 2000s, China’s external accounts reflected many of these constraints. Even in the midst of the surplus surge, external vulnerabilities of a peripheral nature have persisted. Besides the issue of export dependence, which is the conventional focus of most crisis-related studies on China, vulnerabilities have been more profoundly related to the dominance of foreign ownership in China’s export sector and to the relatively subordinate position of this export sector within the massive rerouting of international production networks via China that followed the East Asian crisis, in large part led by Northern transnational corporations. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22348/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Abstract: China's apparent escape from the external constraints of peripheral late industrialization in the build up to the global economic crisis of 2007-2009 has been recent and remains tenuous. Before its spectacular trade surpluses of the 2000s, China's external accounts reflected many of these constraints. Even in the midst of the surplus surge, external vulnerabilities of a peripheral nature have persisted. Besides the issue of export dependence,which is the conventional focus of most crisis-related studies on China, vulnerabilities have been more profoundly related to the dominance of foreign ownership in China's export sector and to the relatively subordinate position of this export sector within the massive rerouting of international production networks via China that followed the East Asian crisis, in large part led by Northern transnational corporations. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32985/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Everyone is talking about China’s currency, it seems. Amidst months of building tension, there is an apparent consensus among most economists, the financial press, and leading economic policy makers in the West that the renminbi is hugely undervalued, making China’s exports unfairly competitive. The global imbalances created by such ‘mercantilist’ and ‘protectionist’ exchange rate strategies, it is argued, have been a central cause of global financial instability. China must therefore revalue, for the good of both itself and the world. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32988/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z In 2009, a line up of leading international experts on the subject of population and development were brought to The Hague for a series of six lectures, held at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS)2 of Erasmus University Rotterdam. The lectures were co-organised by the Dutch chapter of the Society for International Development (SID),3 the World Population Foundation (WPF),4 and the ISS. The principle speakers invited from abroad were also joined by leading experts from the Netherlands, who provided comments and discussion. Each session privileged questions and debate from the audience, in all cases attended by a wide range of participants from Dutch academic and policy making circles and averaging around 100 people per lecture. Those attending included students and academic staff from various universities and research institutes,5 policy makers and civil servants, various Dutch media, and representatives from embassies in The Hague, international organisations, NGOs, and the business community.6 Two lectures in particular were reported in the NRC Handelsblad, the leading Dutch newspaper, one of which set off a debate between Tim Dyson, the first speaker, and a Dutch demographer.7 The success of this event bore evidence of the public interest in the important subject of population and development. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31406/ 2009-11-12T00:00:00Z This paper addresses how Keynesian narratives are being used to reconstitute an orthodox policy paradigm in the face of the current economic crisis. Such ideological revisionism also occurred alongside the 1982 debt crisis and was crucial for the neoliberal ideological triumph that ensued. Similar revisionism can be observed now through narratives that locate the sources of the US financial bubble in Chinese external surpluses. This narrative has captured the imagination of many on both the political left and right, hence the potential for ideological reconstitution that cuts across traditional political positions in the North. These processes of paradigm maintenance need to be urgently addressed if the current crisis is to be leveraged for a return to a more progressive, inclusive and developmental policy paradigm in both North and South. Failing this, current orthodoxies risk being reconstituted or even reinforced, with the risk of finding ourselves soon entering a new round of development debacles similar to those of early 1980s. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17921/ 2009-08-01T00:00:00Z Recent debates on aid and development are waged on narrow terms in comparison to earlier debates in the 1950s and 1960s. The principal concern of the ‘structuralist’ pioneers of development economics, and the key absence in the current debates, was an understanding of the structural impediments faced by countries going through late industrialisation and rapid urban growth. These result in chronic trade deficits, shortages of foreign exchange and persistent balance of payments disequilibria. The positive potential of aid was understood to lie in its ability to mediate these imbalances in the context of national industrialisation strategies. By the same logic, this potential is lost if countries run trade surpluses. Current debates on aid mostly overlook this dual logic, despite the fact that both positive and negative experiences of post-war development largely vindicate these structuralist insights, particularly in light of current global financial imbalances. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17843/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17871/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z This paper examines the conflictive repercussions of exclusionary processes in the Tibetan areas of western China, with a focus on Qinghai Province and the Tibet Autonomous Region. In both provinces, the implementation of competitive labour market reforms within a context of severe educational inequalities is argued to have accentuated exclusionary dynamics along linguistic, cultural and political modes of bias despite rapid urban-centred economic growth and increasing school enrolments since the mid-1990s. These modes of bias operate not only at lower strata of the labour hierarchy but also at upper strata. The resultant ethnically exclusionary dynamics, particularly in upper strata, offer important insights into conflictive tensions in the region. At a more theoretical level, these insights suggest that exclusion needs to be differentiated from poverty (even relative poverty) given that exclusionary processes can occur vertically throughout social hierarchies and can even intensify with movements out of poverty. Indeed, the most politically contentious exclusions are often those that occur among relatively elite and/or upwardly aspiring sections of a population. Therefore, the methodological challenge that faces studies of exclusion (as with the horizontal inequality approach) is to find ways of measuring structural asymmetries and disjunctures and institutional modes of integration that move beyond either absolute measures, as per mainstream human development approaches, or relative measures, given that both are only capable of identifying potential exclusions occurring at the bottom of a social hierarchy. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17873/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z It is very difficult to know the impact of the MDG paradigm on poverty reduction. On one hand, poverty measurements are ambiguous, arbitrary and contested, even in the best of cases such as China and India. On the other hand, the mechanisms by which MDGs might have effected poverty reduction are not at all clear, particularly in light of the major global structural processes that condition the impact of aid flows. Moreover, the emphasis in the MDGs on absolute measures and the implicit bias towards targeting quite possibly undermine poverty reduction in many contexts. Hence, this paper argues that the MDGs should be replaced by a re-politicisation of the mainstream development agenda, together with a genuine revival of emphasis on universalistic modes of social policy as viable means of dealing simultaneously with poverty and inequality. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17876/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z Cet article explique comment la contestation de la domination chinoise au Tibet est exacerbée par la croissance rapide que les régions tibétaines de Chine occidentale connaissent depuis le milieu des années 1990. Dans un contexte général où les populations tibétaines continuent à ne pas avoir accès au pouvoir politique, les stratégies de développement récentes ont abouti à faire affluer une quantité massive de subventions et d’investissements subventionnés par le canal du gouvernement lui-même ou celui d’entreprises chinoises dont le siège se trouve hors des régions tibétaines. Ces stratégies accentuent une tendance déjà très fortement marquée à une externalisation de l’économie locale. L’analyse de ces processus offre un éclairage essentiel sur les récentes explosions de tension dans les régions occupées. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17920/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z This article examines how rapid growth in the Tibetan areas of West China since the mid-1990s has been a key factor exacerbating the unresolved contestations of Chinese rule in these areas. Amidst the continued political disempowerment of Tibetan locals, Beijing has used recent development strategies to channel massive amounts of subsidies through the government itself or through Chinese corporations based outside the Tibetan areas, thereby accentuating the already highly-externalised orientation of the local economy. These processes offer important insight into the recent explosion of tensions. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17923/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17924/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18268/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17842/ 2008-12-17T00:00:00Z This article examines the confluence of local population transitions (demographic transition and urbanization) with non-local in-migration in the Tibetan areas of western China. The objective is to assess the validity of Tibetan perceptions of "population invasion" by Han Chinese and Chinese Muslims. The article argues that migration to Tibet from other regions in China has been concentrated in urban areas and has been counterbalanced by more rapid rates of natural increase in the Tibetan rural areas—among the highest rates in China. Overall, it is not clear whether there is any risk of population invasion in the Tibetan areas. However, given that non-Tibetan migration to Tibet has been concentrated in urban areas, Tibetans have probably become a minority in many of their strategic cities and towns, and non-Tibetan migrants definitely dominate urban employment. Therefore, while the Tibetan notion of population invasion may be a misperception, it reflects a legitimate concern that in-migration may be exacerbating the economic exclusion of Tibetan locals in the context of rapid urban-centered development. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17971/ 2008-04-10T00:00:00Z Well-intentioned protests in the west, most recently during the Olympic torch relay, could prompt a hardline crackdown in China that would do the Tibetan cause no good http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17869/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z This article reflects on the pivotal role of subsistence in the livelihood strategies of rural Tibetan households within the context of rapid economic and social transition. It argues that subsistence is valued by these households because it provides the material foundations upon which they can choose to act in a variety of strategic ways in response to dislocating change. First, the apparent paradox between income poverty and asset wealth is examined and the concept of “subsistence capacity” is suggested as a lens to understand aspects of wealth that are difficult to capture through conventional income or human development measures. Second, this paradox is related to the resistance of many rural Tibetans to relying on low wage manual jobs as a main source of income, despite the fact that such jobs would seem to be the most appropriate for their transition out of agriculture given their apparent income poverty and their low levels of education. The argument commonly cited in the Chinese literature that this employment behavior derives from “backwardness” is contended. The article concludes with a reflection on the consequences of recent government resettlement strategies in pastoral areas. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17922/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z This paper addresses several ambiguities in the social exclusion literature that fuel the common criticism that the concept is redundant with respect to already existing poverty approaches, particularly more multidimensional and processual approaches such as relative or capability deprivation. It is argued that these ambiguities arise from the fact that social exclusion is generally not differentiated from poverty, even though it is widely acknowledged that social exclusion can occur in the absence of poverty. In order to resolve these ambiguities, I propose a re-conceptualisation of social exclusion in a way that is not grounded with reference to norms and thus is not dependent on poverty for definition. Social exclusion is defined as structural, institutional or agentive processes of repulsion or obstruction. This definition is meant to give attention to processes of disadvantage (i.e. exclusionary processes), which can occur across a social hierarchy from any social position, rather than states of deprivation (i.e. the excluded) occurring at the bottom of a social hierarchy. I argue that this resolves most of the contention surrounding the concept. However, it also requires making a decisive shift of analytical dimension and abandoning much of the conceptual baggage that surrounds the term. In other words, if the social exclusion approach is to provide analytical value-added over and above the relative and capability deprivation approaches, it must be differentiated from poverty, thereby drawing attention to vertically-occurring processes that are not captured by the horizontal conceptualisation of poverty. This understanding is important because it corrects the common implicit tendency in much of the literature to blame inequality-induced conflict on the poor, even though we know that conflict usually involves considerable elite participation. An understanding of exclusion that is not anchored in poverty is therefore an important step in theorising why the non-poor may also come to be aggrieved by rising inequality. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17925/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17974/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21677/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z This paper addresses several ambiguities in the social exclusion literature that fuel the common criticism that the concept is redundant with respect to already existing poverty approaches, particularly more multidimensional and processual approaches such as relative or capability deprivation. It is argued that these ambiguities arise from the fact that social exclusion is generally not differentiated from poverty, even though it is widely acknowledged that social exclusion can occur in the absence of poverty. In order to resolve these ambiguities, I propose a re-conceptualisation of social exclusion in a way that is not grounded with reference to norms and thus is not dependent on poverty for definition. Social exclusion is defined as structural, institutional or agentive processes of repulsion or obstruction. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23716/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23717/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23718/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31407/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Abstract This paper addresses several ambiguities in the social exclusion literature that fuel the common criticism that the concept is redundant with respect to already existing poverty approaches, particularly more multidimensional and processual approaches such as relative or capability deprivation. It is argued that these ambiguities arise from the fact that social exclusion is generally not differentiated from poverty, even though it is widely acknowledged that social exclusion can occur in the absence of poverty. In order to resolve these ambiguities, I propose a re-conceptualisation of social exclusion in a way that is not grounded with reference to norms and thus is not dependent on poverty for definition. Social exclusion is defined as structural, institutional or agentive processes of repulsion or obstruction. This definition is meant to give attention to processes of disadvantage (i.e. exclusionary processes), which can occur across a social hierarchy from any social position, rather than states of deprivation (i.e. the excluded) occurring at the bottom of a social hierarchy. I argue that this resolves most of the contention surrounding the concept. However, it also requires making a decisive shift of analytical dimension and abandoning much of the conceptual baggage that surrounds the term. In other words, if the social exclusion approach is to provide analytical value-added over and above the relative and capability deprivation approaches, it must be differentiated from poverty, thereby drawing attention to vertically-occurring processes that are not captured by the horizontal conceptualisation of poverty. This understanding is important because it corrects the common implicit tendency in much of the literature to blame inequality-induced conflict on the poor, even though we know that conflict usually involves considerable elite participation. An understanding of exclusion that is not anchored in poverty is therefore an important step in theorising why the non-poor may also come to be aggrieved by rising inequality. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21659/ 2007-08-01T00:00:00Z The official Chinese press recently came out with a series of articles reporting the latest statistics on the phenomenally rapid economic growth that has been taking place in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) since the mid-1990s through sheer force of Central Government subsidies. Given that we are now a year before the opening of the Olympics in Beijing, it is a good time to take stock of what has been happening to the TAR and its people. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17926/ 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z This first in a series of independent analyses by Andrew Martin Fischer, commissioned by Tibet Watch, a research-based organisation established in London in 2006, examines the rapid growth that has been generated in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) through the extremely heavy government spending and investment strategies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). His analysis, based on official government statistics and supplemented with observations from the ground, reveals that the majority of Tibetans are increasingly marginalised from rapid growth. This is due to extreme and inefficient dependence on government sources of finance from outside the province (mostly from Beijing), together with the fact that such finance continues to be targeted at urban areas and sectors where Tibetans have the hardest time competing with Chinese migrants. Instead, the opportunities created largely advantage workers and entrepreneurs with Chinesefluency, Chinese work cultures, and connections to government or business networks in China. This combination in turn exacerbates inequality and the exclusionary dynamics of growth, given that the majority of Tibetans have more and more difficulty accessing the state or private networks that control the dominant sources of wealth in the economy. Therefore, the most urgent problem within these developments is what the author calls ‘ethnically exclusionary growth’. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21682/ 2006-08-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17928/ 2005-09-27T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21673/ 2005-09-01T00:00:00Z Drawing from the case of Tibetan-Muslim relations from seventh century contact to present Tibetan boycott campaigns against Muslims in Northeast Tibet (Amdo), this paper questions the relevance of the mainstream theoretical disputes on ethnic conflict, i.e. primordialism, instrumentalism, constructivism and so forth, all of which primarily seek to identify the primary causes or origins of conflict. Most ethnic conflicts, together with other forms of ethnic co-existence including cooperation, contain elements of all these theoretical perspectives, which is evident in the case of Tibetan-Muslim relations presented here. Therefore, a focus on issues of primary causes or origins is not particularly insightful, nor does it help to explain why a particular conflictive trajectory supersedes a more cooperative trajectory. As an alternative, this paper suggests a focus on processual factors, such as exclusion, inclusion and the impulse for social protection, which shape or guide the evolution of conflictive relationships, whether these be deemed of a primordial or other nature. Accordingly, the commonalities that tie together the trends of modern ethnic conflict are not found in the origins or primary causes of conflict, but rather, in the underlying forces of dislocation and relocation that are fundamental to modern transformations and capitalism, and which shape the patterns of exclusion and the possible channels for inclusion and social protection. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17975/ 2005-02-10T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17927/ 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z Drawing from the case of Tibetan-Muslim relations from seventh century contact to present Tibetan boycott campaigns against Muslims in Northeast Tibet (Amdo), this paper questions the relevance of the mainstream theoretical disputes on ethnic conflict, i.e. primordialism, instrumentalism, constructivism and so forth, all of which primarily seek to identify the primary causes or origins of conflict. Most ethnic conflicts, together with other forms of ethnic co-existence including cooperation, contain elements of all these theoretical perspectives, which is evident in the case of Tibetan-Muslim relations presented here. Therefore, a focus on issues of primary causes or origins is not particularly insightful, nor does it help to explain why a particular conflictive trajectory supersedes a more cooperative trajectory. As an alternative, this paper suggests a focus on processual factors, such as exclusion, inclusion and the impulse for social protection, which shape or guide the evolution of conflictive relationships, whether these be deemed of a primordial or other nature. Accordingly, the commonalities that tie together the trends of modern ethnic conflict are not found in the origins or primary causes of conflict, but rather, in the underlying forces of dislocation and relocation that are fundamental to modern transformations and capitalism, and which shape the patterns of exclusion and the possible channels for inclusion and social protection. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21652/ 2004-06-01T00:00:00Z This paper argues that contemporary experiences of social exclusion and interethnic conflict in the Tibetan areas of Western China are interrelated and revolve around three processes – population, growth and employment – all of which centre on the urban areas. In this setting, the critical factors generating exclusion and fuelling conflict are the differentials between groups, such as urbanisation rates and education levels, rather than base line characteristics, such as population shares or poverty levels. The paper starts with a brief overview of ethnic conflict in the Tibetan areas, followed by an analysis of population issues and the economic fundamentals of exclusionary growth. It closes with some reflections on the role that ethnic conflict plays within these processes. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31408/ 2004-06-01T00:00:00Z This paper argues that contemporary experiences of social exclusion and interethnic conflict in the Tibetan areas of Western China are interrelated and revolve around three processes – population, growth and employment – all of which centre on the urban areas. In this setting, the critical factors generating ex clusion and fuelling conflict are the differentials between groups, such as urbanisation rates and education levels, rather than base line characteristics, such as population shares or poverty levels. The paper starts with a brief overview of ethnic conflict in the Tibetan areas, followed by an analysis of population issues and the economic fundamentals of exclusionary growth. It closes with some reflections on the role that ethnic conflict plays within these processes. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21857/ 2002-08-01T00:00:00Z The issue of Tibet is an intensely debated topic with much of the polemic revolving around political autonomy and the abuse of civil, political, and cultural rights. Despite evident violations in these areas, the Chinese government counters that on the economic level it has been playing an important developmental and welfare role in Tibet. It argues that it has been facilitating the long-term transition of a backward region into the modern global economy and empowering Tibetans to participate on an equal footing with other Chinese citizens. The Chinese government thereby expects the international community to tolerate human rights abuses as an expedient element of their beneficial economic strategies. This assumes, however, that the economic role of the Chinese state in Tibet has been positive for Tibetans. Poverty by Design: The Economics of Discrimination in Tibet illustrates that, despite China's commitment to the United Nation's “Declaration on the Right to Development”, government statistics reveal a clear trend towards the marginalization of ethnic Tibetans within both the national economy and within the local economy of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).