SSEE 2005 Working Papers in Development
Working Paper 05/05
'Vulnerability to climate variability and change in East Timor' - Jon Barnett, Suraje Dessai, Roger N Jones
Abstract
This paper presents the results of a preliminary study of climate vulnerability in East Timor. It shows the results of projections of climate change in East Timor. The country's climate may become hotter, drier, and increasing variable. Sea-levels are likely to rise. The paper then considers the implications of these changes on three natural resources – water, soils, and the coastal zone – and finds all to be sensitive to changes in climate and sea-level. Changes in the abundance and distribution of these resources is likely to cause a reduction in agricultural production and food security, and sea-level rise is likely to damage coastal areas, including Dili, the capital city. Published version: forthcoming, Ambio.
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Working Paper 04/05
'Environmental Governance - What's in a name? A proposition for building theory' - Qing-Jie Wang
Abstract
'Environmental Governance (EG)' is a common administrative or academic term. However, scholarly research in this domain appears to be disjointed and fluid in theoretical perspective. This study attempts to conceptualise the terminology based on the contemporary conception of governance, adopting an inter-disciplinary approach. By making sense of governance in an environmental context through examining the major thoughts in the existing literature, the research report proposes a theory building on environmental governance in the national sphere, comprising seven key elements in combination with country-specific context studies. The key seven EG elements are accommodation, predictability, accountability, participation, communication, transparency, and specialisation (scientific expertise).
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Working Paper 03/05
'Primitive accumulation, transition and unemployment in China' - Michael Webber and Zhu Ying
Abstract
Unemployment has emerged as a problem in China, not only in the sense that the magnitude of unemployment has increased, but also that the category of unemployment has become relevant. Unemployment exists where there is a market for labour – that is, in which the work of many people is organised through a market for commodity labour. This is a process elsewhere known as primitive accumulation. The paper traces the emergence of markets for commodity labour in China, by identifying changes within rural areas, urban state-owned enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises. The result has been a rapid rise in unemployment within China, especially when informal rural-urban migrants and laid-off workers are counted, and therefore a sharply increasing level of inequality. The paper concludes by illustrating the threat that unemployment poses for China's nascent social security system.
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Working Paper 02/05
'Prognosis for Sustainable Consumption and Production in Asia and the Pacific' - Dr Peter N King
Abstract
Achieving a global move towards sustainable development will depend on the ability of Asia and the Pacific to achieve 'first world' standards of living without the environmental degradation accompanying such economic growth. Already, through sheer weight of numbers, China and India have more middle class consumers than the USA and Europe combined, and with growth rates greater than 7-8% per annum the number of consumers wanting their 'turn' at western consumption and lifestyles. It would be churlish to deny them the ability to use their disposable income in any manner other than the direction indicated by their own desires. Therefore, this paper examines the prospects for sustainable consumption in the Asia and Pacific region.
The paper also looks to traditional 'Asian' values as a possible avenue to divert Asian consumers from the western model of consumption and finds little to suggest that a major campaign to re-invigorate such traditional values would help very much, although there may be some exceptions (such as Bhutan). One possibility is that changes in attitude towards sustainable consumption and production will accelerate as the global environment continues to decline and that the human-induced nature of that decline becomes less disputable. If that acceleration happens, then consumer values in developing countries of Asia and the Pacific may leapfrog over the materialist phase into post-materialism. However, if environmental change continues a slow but steady decline, and governments remain in denial, then the ‘boiling frog' principle is more likely than the 'leaping frog.'
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Working Paper 01/05
'Local Culture, Local Power: Microfinance in Rural Nepal' - Anthony Marcus, Yogendra Prasad Acharya
Abstract
There are few areas where the slogan 'think globally, act locally' has more clearly underwritten program development than microfinance, where modern banking norms, economic competition, and other 'global thinking' is typically built on small, culturally sensitive local action. Drawing on data from interviews and participant-observation research in successful, unsuccessful, and average microfinance projects promoted by the Small Farmer Cooperative Limited (SFCL) in the Chitwan district of Nepal, it will be argued that regardless of outcomes, this model has the tendency to reproduce, sustain, and give new life to entrenched local power relations, inequalities, and patterns that may prevent, rather than encourage the intended development goals.
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