Is There a Civil Society in Africa?

There certainly exists an African civil society which is actively seeking to raise the living standards of citizens as well as to promote and protect their rights and interests.The lack of such crucial resources as finance and an environment conducive to civic activity are, however, as the author suggests, major inhibitions to the development of Africa's civil society. In combating these problems, Africa will need external donor support in various forms for quite some time to come.     

Questioning Theory: Is There a Gender of Theory in Archaeology?

This paper raises questions about the practice of theory in anthropological archaeology. Particular attention is given to questions surrounding the gender of theory: what genders are more heralded in the theoretical spotlights and how the subject position of doing theory is gendered. An analysis of the contents of four Readers of Archaeological Theory shows the problematic selection and thus representation of women’s theoretical contributions, including their effective ghettoization in gender and feminist archaeology. Insights from how feminists have been grappling with theory are considered, and archaeologists are urged to confront the ways in which “doing theory” is/is not valued and how it is differentially valued, and to discuss the place and uses of theory more explicitly and critically.     

Coalition-building in Portuguese Spatial Planning: Is There a Southern European Context?

This paper aims to discuss institutional capacity building in spatial planning focussing on two experiences of public policy in Portugal involving institutional cooperation. These experiences reveal the importance of factors associated with the roles of the central state and local political leadership in the way integrated tools of urban and territorial policy are implemented. They also show that the capacity to mobilize local agents is mitigated by the deep-rooted presence of highly personalized institutional ties, reflecting a relational model that is particularly characteristic of Portuguese society. We will conclude that territorial policies may be jeopardized when these policies are centred mainly upon the mobilization of local agents. In fact, these two case-studies, as well as similar experiences in Italy, suggest that, in southern Europe, two other aspects are central for the definition of territorial policies on the inter-municipal and local scales: the influence of the state, and the role of political leadership at local level.     

Sustainable Development Frontiers: Is ‘Sustainable’ Cocoa Delivering Development and Reducing Deforestation?

Forest frontiers are important areas for sustainable development as they combine the need to halt deforestation with the challenges of rural poverty. In the region of San Martín, Peru, the ‘Production, Protection and Inclusion’ model combines narratives of conservation, economic development and social inclusion in what can be defined as a ‘sustainable development frontier’. This article asks how such sustainable development frontiers change social, economic and ecological outcomes in the localities where they are found. The authors examine the reality of sustainable cocoa production linked to conservation and development goals, as promoted by government bodies, international agencies, cooperatives and chocolate brands in Peru, and show how, paradoxically, sustainability goals intensify production and attract smallholders into forest frontier areas. In doing so, the boom in demand for sustainable commodities has inadvertently created conditions encouraging further colonization of forested areas leading to a continuing rise in deforestation, ecological degradation and economic instability. Narratives of sustainable development can thus reinforce commodity intensification, as they obscure alternative approaches and reproduce traditional frontier dynamics.     

The Clean Energy Dilemma in Asia: Is There a Way Out?

A prominent American geographer and specialist on energy and environmental policies in developing countries assesses the challenge to sustainable development posed by Asia's rapid economic growth and the concurrent need to reduce the environmental impacts of energy production and use. A particular focus is on China and India, as rapidly growing energy consumers and greenhouse gas emitters, and on Russia as a potentially important supplier of natural gas and liquid alternatives to coal use. The author suggests some elements of a strategy to resolve the dilemma of reducing global environmental impacts without penalizing Asia's economic development, although a significant energy transition over the next several decades appears quite difficult.     

Is There a National Policy For Children and Youth With Serious Emotional Disturbance?

This article examines the status of a national mental health policy for children in need of mental health services. The need for systems planning and services integration involving multiple agencies is presented. The different programs of the major governmental agencies involved in the delivery of services to children are reviewed, as are the range of services provided. This article demonstrates the fragmentation and duplication that is endemic in all aspects of mental health, and that consequently makes policy implementation exceedingly difficult.     

Human Rights and Multinationals: Is there a Problem?

In recent years interested individuals and pressure groups have expressed considerable concern over the alleged complicity of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in violations of human rights. While such allegations are not historically unprecedented, the context in which they arise has changed. In particular, the increased integration of the global economy has created a perception that MNEs should take more responsibility for the social dimension of their actions, a perception that enterprises themselves have in part accepted through inter alia the issuing codes of corporate conduct. Furthermore, the rise of identity and lifestyle politics has made MNEs, as purveyors of products and services that help to define consumer lifestyles, a target of concern. These changes have significant implications for the evolution of human rights theory. In particular, they require a shift in the traditional view that corporations can only be victims of violations of human rights committed by states, towards one that extends responsibility for the commission, prevention and avoidance of such violations to MNEs themselves. On the other hand, there exist strong arguments against such an extension of human rights responsibilities. In particular, it is said that MNEs should only be responsible for the conduct of their business and should not be forced to involve themselves in such wider social issues. They are also private law entities and so should not possess the same responsibilities as states. This articles posits that such arguments in favour of extension, though strong and likely to remain influential, cannot answer the need for an extension of responsibility for human rights violations to MNEs where appropriate, on the basis that any attack on human dignity, whatever that legal nature and functions of its originator, must be liable to legal sanction. The technical legal means by which this might be done are considered. None the less, the article ends with a caution that any extension of human rights responsibilities to MNEs must not be allowed to deflect attention from the primary responsibility of states, as the most likely perpetrators of human rights violations, to avoid human rights violations on their own part and to establish a legal order in which the risk of such violations committed by private entities can be minimized, whether through effective national regulatory laws or international agreements on standards of corporate conduct.     

Is There a Conflict Between Growth and Welfarism? The Significance of the Sri Lanka Debate

This article seeks to derive some general lessons regarding the relationship between growth and welfarism by undertaking a reassessment of Sri Lanka's long experience with interventions in social spheres. While Sri Lanka has been hailed by many for pursuing the welfarist strategy with apparently spectacular results, several critics have recently suggested that she would have been better off by diverting resources away from welfare interventions towards investment for growth. They have argued that the interventions were not terribly effective anyway, and further that welfarism involved a conflict with growth which eventually undermined the very sustainability of welfarist strategy. This article contests these criticisms, and argues in its turn that the Sri Lankan experience offers a lesson not in the conflict but in the complementarity between growth and welfarism.     

Women's Work in Urban Bangladesh: Is there an Economic Rationale?

The general phenomenon that women in Bangladesh engage less frequently in market work than men is commonly explained as the lack of response of female labour to economic imperatives due to the overarching influence of purdah. However, this emphasis on a cultural rationale for gender-differentiated work behaviour diverts attention away from the deep-rooted economic inequalities at the societal level. This article examines women's work in urban Bangladesh from a female labour supply and demand perspective that is rooted in the socio-economic institutional context. The study finds that, despite the strong gender segregation of economic roles, women's roles are more flexible and lend themselves to changing household strategies more easily compared to men's. The evidence indicates that female labour market participation is largely the outcome of the supply effect shaped by the pattern of gender roles and gender-specific access to human capital. Consequently, women are relegated to low-skill market activities and have lower earnings than men, even without any overt discrimination in labour demand. The covert discrimination that leads women to pursue a different pattern of labour use than men is the fundamental gender bias of socio-economic institutions that govern household allocational decisions and dictate gender-specific behaviour.     

Partisanship and political attitudes: Is there a marriage gap?

While research analysts have devoted considerable attention to the gender gap in party identification and political behaviour, the question of a marriage gap in relation to political attitudes has received little empirical investigation. In an effort to remedy this situation, this paper focuses on marital differences in political values among Australian adults. The findings suggest that married and unmarried persons do differ in their political orientations. The unmarried are relatively less likely to identify with the Liberal‐National coalition than their married colleagues, and hold a more liberal view in relation to economic issues, social spending and moral attitudes.     

Why is There a Biodiversity Convention? The International Interest in Centralized Development Planning

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is an unusual international environment agreement in that it does not concern an international or global resource. Most of the resources whose regulation is implicit in the CBD are in fact domestic terrestrial species, everything from elephants to medicinal plants. The rationale for international intervention in the sphere of national land use planning lies in the recurring themes of underprovided diversity: underfunded, underappreciated, undermanaged species. In many different areas of international affairs–ranging from the trade in endangered species to the management of agricultural gene banks–these same problems arise. How is it possible to induce countries hosting diverse biological resources to expend theresources necessary to maintain them? The CBD represents the confluenceof all these various movements, and it constitutes the recognition of the importance of a global perspective regarding national land use decision-making.     

The Dynamics of African Agricultural History: Is it Time for a New Development Paradigm?

Much of our present day perception of African agriculture is still indirectly based on the coloured accounts of the early explorers and administrators. It involves an often very static conception of ‘traditional’ African agriculture. Not only does this fail to dojustice to the rich and dynamic history of African agriculture, it has also led to an inappropriate research and development paradigm which treats African agriculture as a disrupted equilibrial system that needs readjustment to return to an equilibrial and productivestate. A diachronic study of African agricultural history reveals that many of our preconceptions of African society and agriculture are invalid: agriculturists are not inert, but respond in innovative and dynamic ways to the perturbations of their natural and socialenvironment. It appears that their survival is not so much dependent on the establishmentof a fine-tuned equilibrium, but rather on the dynamic responses to these external disturbances. It is very likely that the agro-ecosystems in large parts of Africa function mainly as non-equilibrial (unstable), but nevertheless persistent systems. This has importantimplications for development interventions and agricultural research. It requires a shiftfrom a synchronic approach to a diachronic approach that is firmly based on an understaning of the past.