The Political Construction of Extractive Regimes in Two Newly Created Indian States: A Comparative Analysis of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh

This article presents a multidimensional account of the politics of resource extraction in two subnational regions of India in response to the question: what are the political conditions that facilitate extraction? Emerging from the same moment of state creation in 2000, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are adjacent mineral-rich states with similar demographic profiles and comparable levels of economic development. The authors argue that despite these similarities and India's highly centralized legislative framework for natural resource governance, the two states have developed distinctive ‘extractive regimes’ in the years since statehood, which contrast in important ways across three dimensions: political organization and history, institutional effectiveness, and the nature and management of social resistance. The article offers the first in-depth, comparative account of how subnational territorial reorganization in India acts as a critical juncture enabling the formation of extractive regimes, which have also converged in important ways in recent years.     

Re‐mythologizing the State: Public Security, ‘the Jesus Strategy’ and the Fiji Police

ABSTRACT My primary concern is with tracing how the police force has been transformed from a secular institution into an overtly religious one. Drawing from scholarly work on charismatic leadership and its routinization in institutional forms, much of it inspired by Max Weber's early work on these themes, my overarching aim is to grapple with the significance of Commissioner Teleni's reforms not only for the Fiji police force but more broadly for the shape of the Fijian state. While recognizing the acute importance of international relations in establishing and supporting Fiji's various political regimes, my focus here is firmly on the domain of the nation‐state as I wish to assess how politicians, military leaders, and now the Commissioner of Police attempt to constitute mass public support through their use of Christian rhetoric.     

The Receiving End of Reform: Everyday Responses to Neoliberalisation in Southeastern Mexico

Abstract: This article builds upon the literature on neoliberalism and environment as well as studies on community forestry by examining the creative accommodations that rural producers have made in navigating Mexico's neoliberal turn. In contrast to previous work that emphasizes macro‐level processes (eg privatization of public natural resources) and local resistance, I employ Bourdieu's theory of practice to examine the symbolic and material dimensions of local responses to neoliberal policy reform. Drawing on research from nine communities in the state of Quintana Roo, I argue that local producers have accommodated neoliberal policies and programs by adopting hybrid logics, property regimes, forms of organization, and modes of exchange. Moreover, I contend that these creative responses constitute elements of a longstanding “culture of accommodation” to institutional change that predates Mexico's neoliberal reforms.     

The Dynamics of Environmental Issues in Australia: Concerns,Clusters and Carriers

Recent survey (AES and ISSP) data and public opinion polls show an interesting dynamic at work in public opinion on environmental issues in Australia. Environmental concerns lose urgency, detach themselves from environmental groups, their established issue-carriers, and further bifurcate into distinct 'green' and 'brown' issue clusters. These shifts in patterns of concern accompany changes in forms of public expression and in the diffusion of concerns. However, public concerns about the environment in Australia do not simply wane, but become 'routinised', that is, increasingly differentiated, independent of green groups, and linked with conventional institutional issue carriers.     

Biotechnology and Governance in Australia and Sweden: Path Dependency or Institutional Convergence?

The development of new generic technologies occurs within traditional structures of industry-government interaction, but also unleashes a process of 'creative destruction' generating new institutional patterns. This article, focusing on biotechnology, describes and compares policy processes and institutional arrangements in Australia and Sweden. The Swedish biotechnology sector displays a pattern of fragmentation and relatively weak state steering. Australia, by contrast, has implemented a set of comparatively coordinated regulatory and other measures to foster the growth of biotechnology. This observation contradicts the characterisation of Sweden as a 'strong state' economy, and challenges the depiction of Australia as lacking in state steering capacity. The relative open-endedness of the search in these countries for a mode of regulation of biotechnology suggests that the role of the state in economic restructuring today is fundamentally distinct from that of earlier periods.     

Business Improvement Districts and the Discourse of Contractualism

Business improvement districts (BIDs) are increasingly being advanced in a range of national contexts as a new delivery mechanism for securing improvement, regeneration and enhanced service delivery in specifically delineated districts. This paper considers BIDs as an example of a modern institutional design that is reconfiguring existing economic and legal regimes within town centres. Drawing on the theories of new institutional economics and transaction costs, the paper discusses how the contractual turn in urban governance advances our conceptual understanding of the rationale, scope and significance of partnership working. The discussion brings together emerging literatures around new ways of understanding partnership working in government thinking. It contrasts the advocacy and use of BIDs with the (previously established) practices of town centre management. It asserts that BIDs represent a new form of formalized and contractualized partnership working in sub-municipal governance, which has particular spatio-temporal implications for state–market–civil relations.     

Media Responsiveness to 'Old' and 'New' Politics Issues in Australia

Attempts to transform political agendas are closely associated with the role of the media in shaping perceptions, reflecting programs of political organisations, influencing institutional practices and applying pressure on divergent interests. By examining the role of an influential news magazine in voicing concerns about welfare and environment policies over a 40-year period, this article tests arguments about the salience of 'old' and 'new' politics issues as well as the changing character of debates about these questions in efforts to create a sustainable, competitive and global economy. Apart from examining the capacity of the media to change their storylines (or ways of thinking about an issue), the article considers how they attempt to draw on credible news sources to substantiate their reports.     

The French Campaign for Improved Road Safety: State Power,Public Policy,and Regimes of Justification

In reaction against Bourdieu's state-centered analysis of power, theorists associated with the ‘Groupe de sociologie morale’ argue that non-state actors exercise considerable agency. In so doing, these actors draw upon ‘regimes of justification’ to formulate and defend moral schemes of action. While a necessary corrective to a Bourdieusian view of the world in which habitus and institutional fields of power leave relatively little room for creative agency, this position nonetheless leaves unanswered questions pertaining to the role of the state and its relation to these regimes of justification.

The recent French campaign for road safety provides an opportune instance in which to observe how states can and do draw on regimes of justification to legitimate public policies. Here I argue that the French government used two regimes, namely those based on civic equality and solidarity and on industrial efficiency, to legitimate new measures that cut across longstanding cultural patterns. In this process, the supposedly dirigiste French state actively sought civil society partners to educate French drivers and to convince them to accept, however grudgingly, the new policies. This case example thus suggests a middle path between the Bourdieusian view of the state as the ultimate field of power and the emphasis on individual agency of the approach associated with the ‘Groupe de sociologie morale’.     

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.     

Class,Power, and Patronage: Landowners and Politics in Punjab

In the century following their conquest of the province, the British in Punjab erected an administrative apparatus that, like those of precolonial regimes, relied heavily upon the support of the province's landed class. The relationship between the landed class and the colonial state was one of mutual benefit, with the latter using the former to ensure the maintenance of order and collection of revenue in exchange for state patronage. In this paper, it is argued that this administrative framework gave rise to a path-dependent process of institutional development in Punjab, allowing for the different fractions of the province's landowning class to increasingly entrench themselves within the political order in the postcolonial epoch. This paper outlines the mechanisms underlying this process of institutional development, focusing, in particular, on the strategies adopted by the landowning class to reproduce its power. This paper also considers the potentialities for institutional change in Punjab, allowing for the creation of a more democratic and participatory politics in the province.     

The Regional Embeddedness of Multinational Companies: A Critical Perspective

Multinational companies (MNC) face a constant tension between a regional orientation which entails regional embeddedness and their world-spanning activities. The relationship between MNCs and their regional surroundings is here analysed at two levels, the institutional level of the ‘fit’ between the regional environment and the MNC's activities, and the project-specific level in which direct, innovation-related interaction between the company and regional players takes place. It can be shown that these two levels may show very different characteristics with regard to one and the same company, and that selective and dynamic forms of regional embeddedness occur. Furthermore, regional embeddedness of innovation projects does not necessarily take place even if the region offers ample possibilities for cooperation and regional links of the MNC at the institutional level may be strong. A thorough understanding of an MNC's relationship to its region is hence dependent upon a process-oriented two-level analysis.     

Globalisation,Neoliberalism and the Transformation of the Australian State

A review of the literature is used to construct a model of economic 'globalisation' and its implications for the state. Three theses are derived from this exercise: the 'economic globalisation thesis', the 'loss of state sovereignty thesis' and the 'neoliberal convergence thesis'. These theses are assessed empirically, the latter two against Australian evidence. The paper argues that while the Australian state has lost considerable sovereignty, this effect is more pronounced at the macroeconomic level than at the microeconomic level. And though it can be argued that Australia broadly conforms to the pattern of 'neoliberal policy convergence', the paper argues that 'externalist' explanatory accounts of the type offered by the globalisation thesis overlook important domestic pressures for neoliberal policies.     

Localization in Sardinia and Its Obstacles: A Reply to Hospers' “Localization in Europe's Periphery: Tourism Development in Sardinia”

In this reply to Hospers' “Localization in Europe's Periphery: Tourism Development in Sardinia” by Gert-Jan Hospers (2003), we argue that the author's advocacy of localized economic policies as a viable means to the economic development of Sardinia does not take into account current institutional assets that prevent Sardinia from pursuing localized interests effectively. We first discuss the historical background of these institutional assets, highlighting that a top-down approach to decision-making has characterized relations between Sardinia and the central state for most of the modern era. We then discuss the institutional and economic impediments to Sardinian attempts to pursue localized policies in light of recent institutional conflicts between region and central state. Our conclusion is that the localization of economic strategies necessitates entwined localization of decision-making powers in order to be effective.     

After central planning: The restructuring of state industry in Bulgaria's Bourgas region

Industrial regions in eastern Europe developed under central planning are now confronting the pressures associated with political and economic transition to market‐focused systems. Using the case of the Bourgas region, on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, the article examines how state industries are faring in these new conditions, analyzing developments in production, employment, ownership, management, market‐orientation and other factors. Massive financial and human resources were poured into the region's industrial development during more than four decades of state socialism, building a modem industrial infrastructure, but one heavily characterized by the particular features and constraints of central planning which emphasized quantity over quality and large‐scale, integrated plants. As central control collapses, the region's state‐owned firms are in crisis. Production is down, unemployment has risen, and except for a handful of plants restituted to former owners, privatization is moving slowly. The region's industries have been battered by highly unfavorable outside forces, yet have been mostly unable to marshal the necessary management, financial, or technical resources to implement coherently any indigenous strategic initiatives to address the changed institutional environment and new supply and demand conditions.     

Scaling the City: The Political Economy of 'Glocal' Development - Brussels' Conundrum

In this contribution, the new position of the city in the urban political economy will be considered in the context of the shifting realities that characterize an increasingly hybridizing and cosmopolitan global (dis)order. We shall argue that globalization is paralleled by a restructuring of the city and with an increasing importance of the urban in a context of intensifying inter-urban competition. The success of cities is dependent on their local 'embeddedness' in institutional and other networks of power. Attention will be paid to the role of local elites and to the need to forge 'growth coalitions'. We shall conclude that the formation of an inclusive and cohesive growth coalition is a key condition for the future development of Brussels in a context of intense inter-urban competition. However, this poses a host of political problems. Not in the least, the fact the new 'glocal' elites often refuse to partake in local institutional or political networks. The commitment to place that invariably comes with a greater 'local' institutional embedding which may militate against their global strategies and aspirations. The key question for 'local' politics then becomes one of how to forge networks and linkages that force 'glocal' elites to become inserted actively in the regional armatures of governance.     

How Capitalism Was Built. The Transformation of Central and Eastern Europe,Russia, and Central Asia. Anders Åslund

An American political geographer and noted specialist in the electoral geography of the post-Soviet states explores the extent to which underlying social, political, and economic conditions in North African countries experiencing regime change prompted by mass political unrest (Egypt, Tunisia) resemble those prevailing in the five Central Asian states. The author compares the countries' rankings on a number of relevant indicators (e.g., Human Development Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, Freedom House indices of political rights and civil liberties) before undertaking a more qualitative assessment of human rights, institutional control, and external support for current Central Asian regimes. Although Uzbekistan, the most populous state with the most repressive regime in the region, is a focus of attention, the same abuses and challenges are evident, albeit in varying degrees, in other vulnerable post-Soviet countries of Central Asia.     

Evaluating Comanagement for Social‐Ecological Fit: Indigenous Priorities and Agency Mandates for Pacific Walrus

Governance arrangements such as comanagement are regarded by many as promising arenas for effective natural resource management. However, measuring comanagement's success at achieving conservation goals has been equivocal. Our research evaluates the lack of conclusive outcomes through a critical consideration of how different goals and values inherent in comanagement affect the institutional (or policy) diagnostic of “fit.” More narrowly, sustaining natural resources requires that management policies foster fit between the scales of sociopolitical processes governing resource use and the scales of ecological processes regulating a resource. Without a process that encourages such harmonization, theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that comanagement regimes are unlikely to accomplish long‐term conservation goals. We use a case study of walrus comanagement under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act to demonstrate that when the formal institutions preconditioning comanagement do not develop out of a deliberative process among comanagement partners, two major problems can arise: (i) Policy institutions mismatch ecological and social processes relevant to resources and communities; and (ii) data to assess the fit of institutions and support learning is more difficult to acquire. In our case study, both these factors constrain the ability of comanagement to foster walrus conservation or support the capacity of Native Alaskans to adapt to contemporary social and environmental conditions. Our research concludes that to achieve marine mammal conservation, previous institutional arrangements framing comanagement that are predicated on static conceptions of people and ecosystems must be redesigned to provide better policy fit across local to international priorities. To do so requires opening up deliberative spaces, where Western science and priorities are confronted with indigenous perspectives. However, the benefit of enhancing deliberation carries risks and costs related to trade‐offs between the values of democratic process, and protections for both wildlife species and indigenous groups.     

The Effect of Persuasive Messages on Policy Problem Recognition

Prior theories of individual behavior in recognizing public problems have centered on the role of policy entrepreneurs; institutional effects; information; and cultural, political, and social pressures. Our extension of these theories suggests that policy problem recognition is an attitudinal evaluation process. If the information is considered valid and the new attitude is negative in valence, then a policy problem is recognized. To test this theory, we use an embedded experiment in a national survey to measure the effect of persuasive messages on the concern for global warming. We find that the negativity of the message and the credibility of the source of the message both affect the level of increase in concern for global warming. Further, the impact of the message from the source is conditional based upon the recipient's ideology. This suggests that policy problem recognition is attitudinal and thus incorporates both analytical and affective components.     

Asia‐Pacific security regimes: Conditions and constraints

Security regimes constitute an important test of the ‘liberal’ school of thought in contemporary international relations. In the Asia‐Pacific, interest is growing over how they may contribute to that region's future order and stability. It is argued here, however, that Asia‐Pacific security regimes cannot succeed unless ‘realist’ power‐balancing strategies are first applied, affording time for patterns of structural leadership to shape enduring security norms and institutions. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is arguably the region's first potential post‐cold war security regime. Its fate, or that of its successor security regimes in the Asia‐Pacific, depends upon satisfying four critical conditions for regime building and upon winning the acceptance of China and the United States, the region's two key ‘structural leaders’. While the ARF does not at present seem close to satisfying these criteria, it may help to provide the breathing space necessary for a successful transition from a competitive cold war environment to a more cooperative climate in the Asia‐Pacific.