http://repub.eur.nl/res/org/9739/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/40110/ 2013-05-17T00:00:00Z This study investigates critical learning episodes as landmarks in the evolution of business start-ups. A framework that combines individual learning processes with the Penrosian resource-based theory of the firm, and the concepts of search and routines from evolutionary economics provides the theoretical ground on which this study is developed. Multilevel factors, ranging from entrepreneurial agency to the institutional setting of business development services, represent different levels of analysis. These levels are connected through critical learning episodes, which are triggered by endogenous or exogenous factors and culminate in the creation of new or in the change of current organizational routines. These episodes were narrated by 43 entrepreneurs-founders through semi-structured interviews. Their business start-ups were operating for an average of 4 years (s.d.=1,9) and were linked to business incubation programmes in the two most resource-rich regions in Brazil. These start-ups were in three sectors: a) manufacturing, b) information and communication, and c) professional, scientific and technical activities. The analysis of these narratives combined qualitative (i.e., grounded theory principles) and quantitative (i.e., social networks analysis) techniques. This paper focusses on the most common type of critical learning episode: entry and survival in the market (n=36 start-ups). Results show how micro-processes of learning influence access and creation of resources at the firm level. A temporal analysis of networks configurations shows how processes of embeddedness in market relations influence intra- and inter-organizational dynamics. It is argued that critical learning episodes, for combining multiple factors and levels of analysis, are a useful theoretical and analytical tool to better understand the evolution of these businesses. In addition to this, issues of path-breaking and innovation are discussed in light of institutionalized practices of business development services. Corradi, A.A. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39829/ 2013-04-24T00:00:00Z Communal Councils (CCs) in Venezuela are deemed as part of a greater project of social transformation under a radical approach to participatory democracy. The Hugo Chavez’s administration endorsed the creation of thousands of allegedly self-governing CCs in every neighbourhood of every city or town in the country. The initial goal was to address people’s most urgent needs while including them in the decision-making process in their communities. The passing of President Chavez, a charismatic leader who was the driving force behind Chavismo and the Bolivarian Revolution, represents a challenge to the participatory process where CCs have been framed. Within this overall context, a radical approach to participation should lay the foundations of a State-led process of social transformation of the left. Based on this, the objectives of this paper are: on the one hand, to propose a set of indicators to study spaces of participation at the community level framed in a State-led process of social transformation; on the other, to show the viability of these indicators in the analysis of Communal Councils in the context of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. These indicators refer to the recognition of ‘the other’; autonomy from state institutions; mobilization of the community; and design and internal dynamics. In order to advance these objectives, this paper explores how participation in the CCs has been operationalized under the Bolivarian Revolution. Therefore, this research has empirically implemented the proposed indicators in six CCs of Caracas through semi-structure interviews with community leaders. The results suggest that the type of participation offered is one strongly conditioned by an ideological system which promises transformation but impedes this transformation in practice. I have called this situation a ‘conditioned participation’. Triviño Salazar, J.C. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39528/ 2013-04-09T00:00:00Z This paper seeks to problematize the role of local food systems within the food sovereignty movement and as a counter to the logic of the global industrial food system. It answers the question of how food sovereignty, via its tenet of local food systems, addresses the geographical and sectoral distances in the global food system. In doing this, it utilizes an approach loosely based on Chayanovian thinking and analytical tools provided through food regime analysis, the theory of uneven geographical development and the metabolic rift. The paper explores six forms of distance in the industrial food system – production from consumption, distant markets, peasants from their land, producers from consumers, the rural-urban divide and agriculture from nature. Then the paper situates local food systems within food sovereignty and food sovereignty within the wider transnational agrarian movements from which it emerged. Next the paper differentiates local food systems by scale, method and character. Finally, it illustrates how and to what extent food sovereignty counters these distances by evaluating the abilities and gaps of food sovereignty in relation to the various forms of distance. Robbins, M.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39504/ 2013-04-08T00:00:00Z In contrast to the concrete problems women face worldwide, of discrimination in family and society, of violence and disrespect, of poverty and lack of rights, the policy of international development organisations to defeat these impediments has been abstract. Wrapped in the mystifying language of ‘gender mainstreaming’, development agencies pursue a strategy which itself has consumed all attention at the cost of tangible action to solve real problems. By going back to the time that the policy became solidly rooted, the mid 1990s, I document and compare evaluation studies and reviews of bilateral and multilateral donors, in particular those conducted since the turn of the century. Not one study reports positively about the gender mainstreaming policy. The essentials of the discourse of gender and development are not reflected in practice, the policy has not moved beyond the stage of a theory. Evaluation studies have been pre-occupied with the strategy of mainstreaming itself, failing to address the results thereof for women and gender equality. This paper aims to support the discretely emerging voices to move away from the illusion of gender mainstreaming and to develop a policy that is oriented towards concrete issues and contains direct efforts to make gender equality happen. Brouwers, R. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39494/ 2013-03-30T00:00:00Z This paper assesses insurance uptake in three community based health insurance (CBHI) schemes located in rural parts of two of India’s poorest states and offered through women’s self-help groups (SHGs). We examine what drives uptake, the degree of inclusive practices of the schemes, and the influence of health status on enrollment. The most important finding is that a household’s socio-economic status does not appear to substantially inhibit uptake. In some cases Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) households are more likely to enroll. Second, households with greater financial liabilities find insurance more attractive. Third, access to the hospital insurance scheme (RSBY) does not dampen CBHI uptake, suggesting that the potential for greater development of insurance markets and products beyond existing ones would respond to a need. Fourth, recent episodes of illness and selfassessed health status do not influence uptake. Fifth, insurance coverage is prioritized within households, with the household head, the spouse of the household head and both male and female children of the household head, more likely to be insured as compared to other relatives. Sixth, offering insurance through women’s SHGs appears to mitigate concerns about the inclusiveness and sustainability of CBHI schemes. Given the pan-Indian spread of SHGs, offering insurance through such groups offers the potential to scale-up CBHI. Panda, P. Chakraborty, A. Dror, D.M. Bedi, A.S. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39446/ 2013-03-29T00:00:00Z We systematize recent macroeconomic empirical literature on the direct and indirect impact of natural disasters providing a meta-analysis of 20 studies published during 2002-2013. We show that the disagreement between these studies is caused by the empirical design, the estimation technique and the resilience factors included in the analyses. The meta-regression suggests that studies that analyse indirect costs have a 88% higher probability to find a positive significant disaster impact than studies of direct costs. If the impact of the disaster is modelled through a disaster indicator, the likelihood of finding a negative and significant disaster impact increases by 64%. Lazzaroni, S. Bergeijk, P.A.G. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39199/ 2013-03-18T00:00:00Z This is an analysis of two moments in the Colombian history within a century of difference, where isolation, accumulation and violence interact in a region brought into the worlds’ imaginary by the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez in One Hundred years of Solitude. A valley between four natural borderlines: the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, the Perijá hills, the Central and East ‘Cordilleras’ -mountain range- and the Magdalena River in the departments of Cesar and Magdalena (Colombia) part of what was called the department of ‘Magdalena Grande’ was blessed – or perhaps coursed – with wealth in natural resources; plenty of water streams, a unique biodiversity, cultural affluence and immense reserves of one of the purest steam coals. This paper attempts to draw a picture of the superimposed and persistent power structures that apparently facilitate the accumulative processes and imbalances within one century of difference, making use of violence as means to maintain equilibrium. Environment is changed trough politicized violent inflictions over society and nature. The resultant scars are the ones inflicted on a collective memory, as this valley is and will always be recalled by the poetic truth of the narrative of Gabriel García Marquez who recreated this mythic environment as ‘Macondo’. He remembers his own story of early childhood that here serves as an excuse to analyze a region that is again being bled by accumulation. Bedoya Arias, M.E. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39277/ 2013-03-11T00:00:00Z This paper focuses on the ‘governance turn’ in the development policies of the European Union, represented in particular by the adoption of the ‘European Consensus on Development’ in 2005. The main assumption inherent in the EU approach to development is that the quality of governance in developing countries is a crucial (co-) determinant of development outcomes. The paper sets up an analysis of the allocation of funds (over €50 billion during the 2007-13 period) through the EU’s main policy instruments: the European Development Fund, the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument, and the Development Cooperation Instrument. The paper attempts to establish whether any dominant explanation, or combination of explanations, given in the literature on development assistance, is able to account for the allocation of those parts of the funds that are meant to be spent on governance reform. Three sets of hypotheses are tested, each derived from one of the dominant explanatory models of development assistance: donor interest, recipient need and constructivist models. The findings of the empirical analyses emphasise the role of donor-interest variables, but show that recipient needs play a (seemingly subordinate) role in decisions on EU aid allocation. Hout, W. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39089/ 2013-02-28T00:00:00Z In recent time Delhi has revealed its ambitions as a global city. The consequent need for cheap, casual, migrant labour for maintaining its world-scale ambitions has been highlighted in a lot of literature, particularly in the post Commonwealth Games (CWG) period. The migrant labourers in the informal economy of Delhi are seen as oppressed, particularly if they belong to a subordinated social group, like the Muslim male migrants. However, there is need to examine the homogenization implied by ‘Muslim male migrants’. This research aims to challenge the one-dimensional depiction of Muslim male migrants as ‘victims’. Analysing the narratives of two groups of Muslim migrant men in a South Delhi neighbourhood, this research tries to critically look at stable markers of identity such as ethnicity, gender and class. The research reveals identities as fluid, multiple and relational. The men emerge as complex subjects—not just passive ‘victims’ but capable of asserting agency, often through the strategic mobilisation of their multiple identities. Chakraborty, M. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38648/ 2013-02-04T00:00:00Z Between 2000 and 2011, Ethiopia rapidly expanded its health-care infrastructure recording an 18-fold increase in the number of health posts and a 7-fold increase in the number of health centers. However, annual per capita outpatient utilization has increased only marginally. The extent to which individuals forego necessary health care, especially why and who foregoes care are issues that have received little attention in the context of low-income countries. This paper uses five clinical vignettes covering a range of context-specific child and adult-related diseases to explore the health-seeking behavior of rural Ethiopian households. We find almost universal preference for modern care. There is a systematic relationship between socioeconomic status and choice of providers mainly for adult-related conditions with households in higher consumption quintiles more likely to seek care in health centers, private/NGO clinics as opposed to health posts. Similarly, delays in care-seeking behavior are apparent mainly for adult-related conditions. The differences in care seeking behavior between adult and child related conditions may be attributed to the recent spread of health posts which have focused on raising awareness of maternal and child health. Overall, the analysis suggests that the lack of health-care utilization is not driven by the inability to recognize health problems or due to a low perceived need for modern care but due to other factors. Mebratie, A.D. Van de Poel, E. Debebe, Z.Y. Abebaw, D. Alemu, G. Bedi, A.S. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39184/ 2013-02-01T00:00:00Z Aid, Emerging Economies and Global Policies brengt de verschuiving van traditionele ontwikkelingshulp naar zogeheten ‘global public policies’ in kaart en probeert deze te duiden. De bijdragen in het derde deel in een serie over internationaal ontwikkelingsbeleid behandelen de opkomst van nieuwe wereldwijde beleidsvraagstukken en het belang van nieuwe donoren van ontwikkelingshulp. Met deze benadering is de bundel onderdeel van een gestaag groeiende stroom publicaties die de veranderingen in de wereld van het ontwikkelingsbeleid trachten te interpreteren. Hout, W. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38843/ 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Hintjens, H.M. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38283/ 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z The standard empowerment model underlying gender policies by international organisations emphasises women's access to resources. This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the relative importance of access to resources as compared with women's agency, recognising that this agency may be limited by gendered institutional constraints. It presents a cross-country analysis with a variety of formal and informal gendered institutions, access to resources and well-being achievements. The regression analysis suggests that women's empowerment depends both on access to resources (positively) and on gendered institutions (negatively), with different institutions affecting different dimensions of empowerment. Staveren, I.P. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39064/ 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Despite its widely recognized importance, electricity is not yet available everywhere, and there are many areas of the globe which still depend on alternative sources of energy such as wood, charcoal and kerosene. In contrast, the USA was the first country to be fully electrified. This article explores the current challenges faced by developing countries, presents the historical evidence from the USA and compares these experiences discussing the policy relevance of the comparison. Far from being a smooth process, the electrification process in the USA was a long and complex transition. The article analyses the challenges and policy responses that characterized the US electrification process. One of the outstanding features of these policies is that they are quite comprehensive and include subsidies and credit schemes, house ownership policies, mass media campaigns, the provision of adequate repair service and the direct involvement of women. Tasciotti, L. Pellegrini, L. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39172/ 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z The rational choice approach has put forward two competing hypotheses that explain civil war in developing countries: greed and grievance; see Murshed (2010, ch. 3) for a survey where it is suggested that although these may be necessary conditions for the outbreak of large- scale violence, they are not, however, suffi cient. There must be other factors at work, related to the institutional failure to resolve confl ict peacefully. Addison and Murshed (2006) label these mechanisms as the ‘social contract’. Thus, even when capturable resource rents constitute a sizeable prize (greed), violent confl ict is unlikely to take hold in states with a framework of widely agreed rules, formal and informal, that govern resource allocation and the peaceful settlement of grievances. Such a viable social contract can be suffi cient to restrain confl ict, and following its collapse on the road to war, reconstructing a new social contract is key to long- term confl ict resolution. Murshed, S.M. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39213/ 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Nelson, I.L. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39259/ 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Arts, C.J.M. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39397/ 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Terugblikkend kan het eind van de jaren tachtig, het begin jaren negentig gezien worden als een omslagpunt voor de financiële mondialisering. De val van de Berlijnse muur bracht mensen als Francis Fukuyama ertoe “het einde van de geschiedenis” uit te roepen: het democratische vrijemarktdenken zou de ideologische slag voor altijd gewonnen hebben. Hoeven, R.E. van der http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/40029/ 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Hout, W. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38054/ 2012-12-11T00:00:00Z ‘Living Sexualities’ is a study of erotic desires, practices and identities, lived within the heteronormative and marriage-normative socio-sexual structures of the urban middle class in contemporary Bangladesh. The study is based on two years fieldwork during which data was generated through 35 life histories and narratives, in-depth interviews, case studies, academic and popular literature and participant observation. Taking sexuality, gender, class and space as central concepts the lived experiences of sexualities of three non-normative groups are analysed: gay men, women in/interested in same sex relations, and single heterosexual women. Space – as a physical, social and symbolic category – weaves through the understanding of sexuality, showing that within hetero- patriarchal social structures of family and household, and the public and virtual worlds, there still exist spaces for ambiguity, plural identities and non-heteronormative performances of gender and sexualities. Karim, S.