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Economic Transformation (economic + transformation)
Selected AbstractsINDUSTRIAL SHIFT, POLARIZED LABOR MARKETS AND URBAN VIOLENCE: MODELING THE DYNAMICS BETWEEN THE ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION AND DISAGGREGATED HOMICIDE,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2004KAREN F. PARKER Industrial restructuring marks the removal of a manufacturing and production-based economy in urban areas, which had served as a catalyst in concentrating disadvantage and polarizing labor markets since the 1970s. Although scholars have established a relationship between concentrated disadvantage , poverty, joblessness, racial residential segregation , and urban violence in cross-sectional studies, this literature has yet to estimate whether economic restructuring contributed to the change in urban homicide over time. Modeling this relationship requires an analytical strategy that incorporates specific indicators of (race and gender) polarized labor markets, separate from indicators of urban disadvantage, on disaggregated homicides while taking into account the growing dependency of urban cities on formal social control (via police presence and rise in incarceration). In this study I provide a theoretical rationale for linking industrial restructuring to urban homicide. Using a multivariate strategy to capture the shift in labor market forces and disaggregated homicides from 1980 to 1990, I also estimate the impact of this relationship. The results provide evidence of the industrial ship and documents both the decline in Manufacturing jobs for black males and black females and a growth in the service sector opportunities for white males only. I also find that industrial restructuring had a unique impact on disaggregated homicide beyond what has previously been established in cross-sectional studies. [source] Risky Business: Economic Uncertainty, Market Reforms and Female Livelihoods in Northeast GhanaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 5 2000Brenda Chalfin This article examines the implications of economic uncertainty for rural markets and the livelihoods of female traders. It does so through a case study of a community in northern Ghana caught in the throes of a structural adjustment-driven privatization initiative. In order to fully comprehend the nature of the economic uncertainties in which rural economic actors are enmeshed and the manner in which they resist, engage or engender these conditions, two theoretical lenses are interposed. One, focusing on structural dissolution and an overall process of rural, and especially female, disempowerment, is drawn from recent approaches to African political economy. The other, gleaned from the field of economic anthropology, attends to the agency and knowledge of rural entrepreneurs in the face of unstable and imperfect market conditions. By bringing together these different analytic traditions, the critical significance of uncertainty within the complex process of rural economic transformation and reproduction becomes evident. Rather than functioning as a diagnostic of economic crisis and insecurity, uncertainty can be a strategic resource integral to the constitution of markets, livelihoods and economic coalitions. Such a perspective, privileging the institutional potentials of local social practice, makes apparent the forceful role played by female traders in the structuring of rural marketing systems even in the face of externally-induced and sometimes dramatic shifts in material conditions. [source] Rural Europe reshaped: the economic transformation of upland regions, 1850,20001ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 2 2009FERNANDO COLLANTES Agriculture is no longer the main sector in the economy of rural Europe. Based on a comparative analysis of nine upland areas from five different countries (Scotland, Switzerland, France, Italy, and Spain), this article argues that, contrary to the claims of most social science work on ,rural restructuring', the decline of agriculture in the rural economy should be understood from a long-term perspective and in relation to European industrialization, rather than as a recent process linked to postmodern dynamics. In fact, widely diverging paths of rural change during industrialization similarly imply occupational change. [source] Aid to Agriculture, Growth and Poverty ReductionEUROCHOICES, Issue 1 2006Peter Hazell Agriculture and rural growth promotion show a recent ,comeback' in development cooperation, but action on the ground so far is not sufficient. After years of neglect, policy makers have recognized that poverty reduction in many low income countries can only be achieved if development efforts are clearly focused on the sector which employs most of the poor, and the space where most of the poor live. The importance of agricultural growth was amply demonstrated during the economic transformation of Asia. Forty years ago, Asia was a continent of widespread poverty. Today, most Asian countries are experiencing significant growth and poverty reduction. Rapid growth in productivity in the small-farm sector helped drive this process. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, failed to achieve rapid agricultural growth and remains mired in poverty and hunger. If Africa is to halve poverty by 2015 in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), agriculture will need to maintain an annual growth rate of 6 per cent between 2000 and 2015. China's experience from 1978 to 1984 shows such growth is possible. Achieving the desired rapid rates of growth in Africa will require coherent policies by governments and donors, a substantial investment of public resources in rural infrastructure and access to agricultural technology, and significant improvement in national governance. Dans les milieux de la coopération et de l'aide au développement, même si les actions sur le terrain sont encore insuffisantes, on assiste depuis peu au retour en scène de l'agriculture et du monde rural. Après s'en être désintéressés pendant des années, les décideurs politiques finissent par admettre que, dans beaucoup de pays a faible revenu, il ne sera pas possible de réduire la pauvreté sans focaliser les efforts de développement sur les secteurs qui emploient le plus de pauvres et les zones dans lesquelles ils vivent pour la plupart. Les transformations économiques de l'Asie montrent bien l'importance de la croissance agricole. Il y a quarante ans, l'Asie étaient le continent de la pauvreté généralisée. Aujourd'hui, la plupart des pays d'Asie connaissent une croissance très significative et la pauvreté s'y réduit. L'augmentation de la productivité dans le secteur des petites exploitations a contribuéà la mise en ,uvre de ce processus. L'Afrique sub-saharienne, au contraire, n'a pas réussi à développer une croissance agricole rapide, ce qui la fait s'embourber dans la faim et la pauvreté. Si l'Afrique doit réduire de moitié la pauvreté d'ici 2015 comme l'y invitent les objectifs millénaires du développement (MDG), il faudra y maintenir un taux de croissance annuel de 6% pour l'agriculture entre 2000 et 2015. L'expérience de la Chine entre 1978 et 1984 montre que c'est possible. Mais pour obtenir en Afrique le taux de croissance élevé qui est souhaité, il faudra de la cohérence dans les politiques entre les gouvernements et des donneurs, un investissement public substantiel dans les infrastructures rurales et les moyens d'accès aux techniques modernes, enfin, des modes de gestion publique significativement améliorés Die Förderung der Landwirtschaft und des Wachstums im ländlichen Raum erfreut sich seit kurzem erneuter Beliebtheit in der Entwicklungszusammenar beit; die bisher ergriffenen Maßnahmen sind jedoch noch nicht ausreichend. Nachdem dieses Thema jahrelang vernachlässigt wurde, haben die Politikakteure festgestellt, dass die Armutsbekämpfung in zahlreichen Ländern mit geringem Einkommen nur dann erfolgreich durchgeführt werden kann, wenn die Bemühungen zur Entwicklung deutlich auf den Sektor ausgerichtet werden, in welchem die meisten Armen beschäftigt sind, und auf die Räume, in welchen die meisten Armen leben. Bei der wirtschaftlichen Transformation in Asien wurde sehr deutlich, wie wichtig das landwirtschaftliche Wachstum ist. Vor 40 Jahren war Armut in Asien weit verbreitet. Heute zeichnen die meisten asiatischen Länder durch signifikantes Wachstum und durch Armutsverringerung aus. Ein schneller Anstieg der Produktivität bei den kleineren landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben half dabei, diese Entwicklung voran zu treiben. In den afrikanischen Ländern unterhalb der Sahara (Sub-Sahara-Afrika) konnte schnelles landwirtschaftliches Wachstum jedoch nicht erreicht werden, dort dominieren weiterhin Armut und Hunger. Wenn Afrika gemäß der Millenniumsentwicklungsziele (Millennium Development Goals, MDG) die Armut bis zum Jahr 2015 halbieren soll, muss die Landwirtschaft eine jährliche Wachstumsrate von sechs Prozent zwischen den Jahren 2000 und 2015 aufrecht erhalten. Die Erfahrungen aus China aus den Jahren 1978 bis 1984 belegen, dass ein solches Wachstum möglich ist. Damit die gewünschten hohen Wachstumsraten in Afrika erzielt werden können, sind kohärente Politikmaßnahmen seitens der Regierungen und der Geldgeber, erhebliche Investitionen von öffentlichen Ressourcen in die ländliche Infrastruktur und in den Zugang zur Agrartechnologie sowie eine signifikante Verbesserung der nationalen Governance erforderlich. [source] CHINESE PUBLIC FINANCE FRAMEWORK: A CONTEXTUAL ANALYSISFINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY & MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2010ChunLei Yang This paper explores the complexities of government financial management in China and examines the nature of the recent Public Finance Framework (PFF) reform in that country. We argue that this reform is not just the latest instalment in a centrally dominated reform agenda (and a logical and strategic development in the process of social, political and economic transformation), but that it reflects the Central Government's struggle to fine-tune central-local financial relationships and to grapple with the consequences of the previously misplaced delegation of government budgets. In so doing, the paper challenges the prescriptive research which often pervades policy studies in China. Instead, it analyses the historical and contemporary contexts which are shaping government administration in China, and sheds new light on the background, implementation and future prospects of Chinese public sector financial reform. Overall, our contextual analysis provides a starting point for more critical research into the changes in government financial administration at both policy and organisational levels in China. [source] Ethnicity, Economic Polarization and Regional Inequality in Southern SlovakiaGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2000Adrian Smith This paper examines the relationships between ethnicity and regional economic transformation in Slovakia. It takes as its focus the position of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia in the uneven process of regional change. The paper places these issues within the context of struggles over ethnicity and ,nation' in post-independence Slovakia. The paper argues that ethnicity has been a thoroughly contested issue since the collapse of ,communism' in Slovakia and a variety of struggles have been waged over enhancing the rights and position of the Hungarian minority population. The concentration of the Hungarian minority in the southern Slovak border regions with Hungary is examined within the context of the uneven economic impacts of the ,transition to capitalism'. It is argued that, while the economic decline seen in many of these ,Hungarian' regions has impacted negatively on the local populations, the roots of these changes lie within the ways in which such regions were integrated into the state socialist regional division of labor. In particular, the role of peripheral industrialization in such regions prior to 1989, in attempting to reduce economic differences among various ethnic groups, resulted in the establishment of branch plant economies which have had difficulty in surviving since 1989. It is therefore the interweaving of the economics of regional decline and the politics of ethnicity that help us to understand the complex place of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. [source] Introduction: political democratization and economic transformation in South AfricaJOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2001Harry Zarenda No abstract is available for this article. [source] Using technology and innovation for planning social and economic transformation in a region of MexicoPERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2009Gonzalo Rodríguez Villanueva This article shows the possibility of achieving social transformation by applying the triple helix model, which establishes the university's participation and its research centers, the government and its three levels, and the private sector (Etzkowitz, 2002). These three allies have shared the vision and participated during the entire process, where the main focus is to increase development opportunities for the inhabitants of the southern region of Sonora, mainly from five elements: (1) creating an innovative regional system; (2) supporting creation of productive chains; (3) prioritizing investment in technology, information, and transport to improve territorial integration; (4) creating a safe and healthy environment where investments can be made; and (5) developing a government model based on a state policy and administered by projects. The methodology to create a regional plan for Southern Sonora is considered. [source] Work on the Edge: Enterprise and Employment between City and CountrysideANTHROPOLOGY OF WORK REVIEW, Issue 3-4 2002Robyn Eversole An interest in the microenterprise finance movement's proposals to increase income and employment in poor local economies led to this study of a Latin American barrio marginal in miniature. The article explores the main income-generating activities of Upper Barrio Japón residents and their adult children, and their use of the plentiful microenterprise finance services on offer in the city of Sucre, Bolivia. The article concludes that microenterprise, often at very small scale, is an important economic strategy for many local residents, but that casual labour and long-distance migration is often more important for young people. Local microenterprises cross urban, suburban and rural markets, but tend to focus on small scale activity: rustic production and retail commerce. Children study, but are entering a very circumscribed range of occupations, with little representation in the professions or skilled trades. Finally, local people use microenterprise finance services, but only sparingly; the ingredients for economic transformation would appear to be elsewhere. [source] East-Central Europe's changing energy landscapes: a place for geographyAREA, Issue 4 2009Stefan Bouzarovski Energy developments in the post-Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe (ECE) have a major impact on global energy security and sustainability, thanks to this region's key geographical position between the energy-exporting states of the former Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the energy-importing states of Western and Southern Europe, on the other. At the same time, post-socialist reforms of energy industries in this region provide unique insights into the complex relations of power, economic transformation and spatial inequality that govern energy production and consumption. This paper therefore aims to provide an initial look at some of the theoretical and policy issues that underpin the emergent ,geographies' of energy reform in ECE, as well as their embeddedness in relations of power stemming from organisational, infrastructural and economic inequalities in the region. It employs an analysis of local news reports, policy papers and statistical data to examine the intricate institutional networks and spatial formations that have governed the energy transformation process. In broader terms, the paper aims to emphasise the important role that human geography can play in making sense of the territorial differences and frictions that have emerged during the post-socialist reform process, while challenging the idea of a ,neat' neoliberal transition from a centrally planned to a market-based mode of energy regulation. [source] Interrogating the production of urban space in China and Vietnam under market socialismASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 2 2009Terry G. McGee Abstract This paper explores two issues. First, it focuses on the question of what is the most appropriate theoretical framework for the study of the urbanisation process in China and Vietnam over the last 30 years? It is argued that Le Fefebvre's theory of the ,production of urban space' offers the most useful approach because the political economy it adopts helps identify the major driving forces in the urbanisation process in these formerly socialist societies. The second issue involves the investigation of the differences and similarities in the urbanisation process in the two countries that are engaged in similar processes of structural economic transformation. The conclusion suggests that despite historical and cultural differences between Vietnam and China, the urbanisation process in both countries is exhibiting converging features as both countries are adopting a form of ,hybrid urbanisation' that involves a combination of socialist and market economies that does not involve an inevitable move to ,capitalism'. [source] Export-led industrialisation and growth: Korea's economic miracle, 1962,1989AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 3 2003Charles Harvie During 1962,1989, South Korea underwent a remarkable economic transformation from being poverty-ridden to attaining the status of newly industrialised nation. This transformation was achieved through the adoption of an outward-oriented, industry-led strategy. It was based, particularly during the 1970s, upon the development of large-scale industrial conglomerates and the attainment of economies of scale and technology to achieve international competitiveness. By the early 1980s, this strategy had resulted in major structural imbalances, a weakened financial sector, heavy concentration in domestic markets, and a repressed development of small and medium enterprises. By the end of the 1980s, despite attempts at economic reform, the structural and financial problems remained and became the country's undoing during the crisis of 1997,1998. This article reviews the question whether Korea's performance during this period can be described as an economic miracle. The empirical evidence is mixed and inconclusive, although the achievements of the Korean economy should not be underestimated. [source] The Politics of PopulationINTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 4 2006TADEUSZ KUGLER This essay evaluates the implications of international political development on demographic transitions and economic outcomes from 1980 to 2050. Countries with high levels of political capacity experience the sharpest declines in birth and death rates as well as the greatest gains in income. Politics indirectly and directly affects the environment within which individuals make decisions about the size of families; these decisions, in turn, change the future economic dynamics of a country. We find that political capacity ensures that rules are evenly applied, allowing investment for long-term gain. Our projections show that under conditions of high political capacity, anticipated demographic and economic transformations will allow China to supersede the dominance of the United States by the end of this century and will also enable the rise of India into the ranks of the dominant powers. We assess the consequences of these changes in world politics. [source] TOMBS FOR THE DEAD, MONUMENTS TO ETERNITY: THE DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF MEGALITHIC GRAVES BY FIRE IN THE INTERIOR HIGHLANDS OF IBERIA (SORIA PROVINCE, SPAIN)OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 3 2010MANUEL A. ROJO-GUERRA Summary An interpretation of the features surrounding the complex and deliberate closure ritual in several collective Middle Neolithic tombs of the Ambrona Valley (Soria) is offered, where fire and quicklime played a major role in the rituals. The problems involved in the excavation and the understanding of this complex burial evidence are examined. The roles they might have played in the context of the important social and economic transformations of the local Neolithic groups around the end of the fourth millennium cal BC are also analysed. It is argued that the burial rituals tried to reinforce group solidarity at a time when the community was beginning to fragment, as the economic systems began to yield a surplus production whose management would have altered political structures. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||