State reconstruction in Africa: the relevance of Claude Ake's political thought

Studies on post‐conflict reconstruction in Africa have glossed over the need for state transformation as a prerequisite for sustainable peacebuilding in post‐conflict societies. This article fills this gap and discusses the relevance of Claude Ake's political thought for state reconstruction in post‐conflict Africa. It underscores the need for the autochthonous transformation of the state as a central component of peacebuilding and post‐conflict transition in the continent as Ake had suggested. Drawing on Sierra Leone, it theorizes Ake's works on the state in Africa against the backdrop of externally driven state reconstruction projects hinged on hegemonic discourses of ‘nation‐building’ in post‐conflict situations. It presents Ake's corpus as a basis for critiquing ongoing state rehabilitation attempts and urges a return to endogenous initiatives of rebuilding the state from below as a condition for achieving a sustainable democratic reconstruction of the state in post‐conflict Africa.     

The changing system of European cities and regions

This paper analyses the current structure of the system of European cities and regions, relations within the system and how it is changing. Cluster analysis distinguished eight regional types: metropolitan, semi‐peripheral and peripheral service regions; central, semi‐peripheral, peripheral and collapsed industrial regions; and agricultural regions. The core of European industrial societies proves to be almost identical with the city belt that dominated economic development in pre‐industrial Europe. Two possible paths of change are discussed: delocalization of simpler, labour cost‐intensive activities towards the periphery (delocalization hypothesis), or structural changes in industrial core regions and persisting marginal status in the periphery (restructuring hypothesis). Neither hypothesis could be confirmed or rejected unequivocally: there were indicators for the continuing importance of urban service centres but no peripheral industrialization for the continuing dominance of industrial core regions while undergoing structural changes. It is concluded that there are hardly any signs of convergence between core and peripheral regions.     

The “Blind” State: Government Quest for Formalization and Conflict with Small‐Scale Miners in the Peruvian Amazon

The Peruvian government is attempting to implement a formalization plan to deal with the chaotic expansion of small‐scale mining activities in the Amazon. However, this plan has been contested, delayed and halted by local miners. Why exactly has it been so hard for the government to enforce a formalization plan in Madre de Dios? This article aims to answer this question by analysing both government efforts to establish control over the region and the challenges it faces in enforcing its formalization plan. It is argued that current resistance to and conflict over the formalization process in Madre de Dios reveals a state governance problem due to the region having been historically governed as a zone for exploitation rather than for social and economic development. Similarly, the analysis highlights the absence of major corporations through which the state can establish a basis for governance, as in other parts of the country.     

From Compounded to Fragmented Labour: Mineworkers and the Demise of Compounds in South Africa

Abstract: At the core of colonial and apartheid social engineering was a spatial strategy based on institutions and infrastructure linking together rural homesteads and villages, and mining centers and towns. In the case of the mining industry, single‐sex compounds were set up as the foundation of the infrastructure of control over black labor. In this paper we examine how various forms of control operated. We locate our contribution within the labor geography literature. We argue that it was not only state institutions and major corporations that shaped landscapes of control. In this regard we highlight the centrality of workers’ agency, specifically the way in which the National Union of Mineworkers captured the compounds and subverted the logic of employer control. However, the union's successes as well as the advent of democracy have resulted in profound changes, thus presenting the union with new challenges.     

Mining (Dis)amenity: The Political Ecology of Mining Opposition in the Kaz (Ida) Mountain Region of Western Turkey

Opposition to mining activities is an increasingly global phenomenon. A key feature of political ecology literature examining this opposition is its focus on the power of multinational corporations to gain access to resources on lands principally claimed by indigenous peoples and peasants in ‘Third World’ countries. These struggles often play out within the context of tensions between neoliberal natural resource policies and interventions by non‐governmental and civil society actors. Meanwhile, political ecology scholars of natural resource conflicts in ‘First World’ countries are documenting conflicts over environmental management that emerge from complex commodification processes and competing forms of capital investment, such as those associated with amenity migration, that privilege different characteristics of landscapes. These perspectives are rarely combined into a single framework, despite the recognition that common dimensions may intermingle in regional contexts around the world. Using the case of conflict over gold mining in the Kaz (Ida) Mountains of western Turkey, this article explores the intersection of state neoliberalism with competing forms of rural capital, which produce a regional mining conflict. Our case highlights the value of ‘locating the First and Third Worlds within’ when it comes to studies of social processes that shape environmental conflicts.     

Whose Minerals,Whose Development? Rhetoric and Reality in Post‐Conflict Sierra Leone

Despite boosts in mineral exports, popular post‐conflict minerals‐for‐development reforms in Sierra Leone have failed to significantly reduce poverty. This article uses power as an analytical lens to explore the reasons for this failure, with empirical material from the diamond sector's mining cooperatives scheme (2005), the Diamond Areas Community Development Fund (DACDF), and Kono District. The study shows that there was no significant improvement along four dimensions: material deprivation, education and health, vulnerability, and powerlessness. The authors argue that understanding the impact of these reforms requires a nuanced multi‐scalar examination of power relations, actors, and the social, political, economic and historical context within which mining is embedded. Their findings point to: 1) limits to mineral‐led poverty reduction and the need for realistic expectations and diversification of livelihood opportunities; and 2) the need for interventions that balance power asymmetries and the way that power is exercised among diverse actors, wherein decentralization offers early hope.     

Building Peace with Conflict Diamonds? Merging Security and Development in Sierra Leone

This article examines the merging of security and development agendas in primary commodity sectors, focusing on the case of peace‐building reforms in Sierra Leone's diamond sector. Reformers frequently assume that reforming the diamond sector through industrializing alluvial diamond mining will reduce threats to security and development, thereby contributing to peace building. Our findings, however, suggest that the industrialization of alluvial diamond mining that has taken place in Sierra Leone has not reduced threats to security and development, as it has entailed human rights abuses and impoverishment of local communities without consolidating state fiscal revenues and trust in local authorities. This suggests alternative strategies for resource‐related peace‐building initiatives, which we consider at the end of the article: the decriminalization of informal economic activities; the prioritization of local livelihoods and development needs over central government fiscal priorities and foreign direct investment; and better integration between local economies and industrial resource exploitation.     

The Dynamic Brain Drain of Entrepreneurs in Peripheral Regions

Using a theoretical model, this paper analyses the evolution of gaps in entrepreneurial activity between the core regions of a country and the periphery. Using data from Israel, the results of the model indicate that endogenous decisions made by entrepreneurs increase the gap in entrepreneurship between the regions, creating a dynamic in which the gap grows continuously. When the model allows for movement between the regions, we find that the most talented entrepreneurs migrate from the periphery to the core region, leading to a brain drain of entrepreneurs from the periphery. Implications of the findings and recommendations based on them are also discussed. The paper contributes to the existing literature by analysing entrepreneurs as individuals, not as one unified group. Doing so facilitates a better understanding of the dynamic process that contributes to the growing gaps between core regions and the periphery.     

The state and internal conflict

Research into the causes of contemporary international conflict faces a number of conceptual limitations, which in turn limits the effectiveness of international conflict resolution efforts. Typically, today's internal conflicts are conceived of as irrational outbursts of 'ethnic' hatred, or the breakdown of normally peaceful political systems. In this paper, I argue that the causes of internal conflicts are, in fact, located in the structures of weak states and the actions of weak state elites, who may deliberately engender conflict as a rational response to the internal and external demands brought on by the intrusive processes of globalisation. In this sense, internal conflict is a 'normal' aspect of weak state politics. The weak state framework not only provides a more satisfying explanation of internal conflict, but it has profound implications for conflict resolution. It suggests that conflict resolution must be focused on state reconstruction activities, rather than on saving failing states. It also suggests that there are likely to be many more internal conflicts which demand international action in the future.     

Cosmopolitan peacekeeping and peacebuilding in Sierra Leone: what can Africa contribute?

The article is organized into two main parts. First, it presents the termination of the conflict in Sierra Leone as a case‐study to examine the degree to which cosmopolitan values connecting peacekeeping and peacebuilding are (or are not) evident. The case‐study looks at the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) as a model of successful peacekeeping in the sense that everyday security was provided for the people of Sierra Leone through the deployment of a robust peacekeeping mission. This assessment needs to be qualified in relation to serious deficits still to be addressed in post‐conflict peacebuilding, yet the success of this mission does provide encouragement for those who see the construction of a cosmopolitan security architecture for Africa as both desirable and achievable. Second, it explores the degree to which an appropriate model of cosmopolitan peacekeeping might emerge at regional and continental levels in Africa through the development of the African Standby Force (ASF). What the case‐study presented here and the survey of the African Union (AU)/ASF in the second part of the article have in common is that taken together, they provide some evidence to suggest that, however fragile, the AU is beginning to define an agenda that represents a continent wide and, in that sense at least, a cosmopolitan response to African security issues.     

Conservation,extraction and social contracts at a violent frontier: Evidence from eastern DRC’s Itombwe Nature Reserve

Conservation efforts must develop strategies to perform at violent frontiers where environmental values, mineral extraction and conflict intersect. Using war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Itombwe Nature Reserve as an illustrative example, this article explores how community conservation is implemented and received at a violent frontier. Taking inspiration from an emerging body of literature which portrays conservation as a form of ‘social contract’ in regions where the nation state is weak or absent, it explores some of the expectations and obligations that surround community conservation initiatives. It draws the conclusion that conservation social contracts are likely to produce unintended consequences when left unfulfilled or broken. Conservation actors perceived to be breaking the terms of (implicit) social contracts can inadvertently encourage local communities to embrace alternative contracts with other actors seeking to extract value from the resources located in frontiers, such as industrial mining companies.     

Wage Effects of Unemployment Duration and Frequency

This paper analyzes the wage effects of unemployment duration and frequency for different regional labor market situations in The Netherlands using a simultaneous equations approach. The main finding is that unemployment duration has a significant negative effect and the frequency of unemployment a significant positive effect on wages in the core regions with relatively low unemployment rates. In the periphery with relatively high unemployment rates no significant effects of unemployment duration and frequency are found. It is argued that in the core regions unemployment duration is primarily viewed as a personal indicator of low productivity whereas in the periphery it is attributed to the situation in the regional labor market.     

War as Feminized Labour in the Global Political Economy of Neoimperialism

ABSTRACT

This article examines the structures of international relations that facilitate political violence in postcolonial states. It explores the intersections of patriarchy and imperialism in the contemporary political economy to understand how armed conflict and political violence in postcolonial states form an integral element of the global economy of accumulation in deeply gendered ways. By focusing on the structural level of analysis, this article argues that the siting of armed conflict in postcolonial contexts serves to maintain neo-colonial relations of exploitation between the West and non-West, and is made both possible and effective through the gendering of political identities and types of work performed in the global economy. I argue here that armed conflict is a form of feminized labour in the global economy. Despite the fact that performing violence is a physically masculine form of labour, the outsourcing of armed conflict as labour in the political economy is ‘feminized’ in that it represents the flexibilization of labour and informalization of market participation. So while at the same time that this work is fulfilling hegemonic ideals of militarized masculinity within the domestic context, at the international level it actually demonstrates the ‘weakness’ or ‘otherness’ of the ‘failed’/feminized state in which this violence occurs, and legitimizes and hence re-entrenches the hegemonic relations between the core and periphery on the basis of problematizing the ‘weak’ state’s masculinity. It is through the discursive construction of the non-Western world as the site of contemporary political violence that mainstream international relations reproduces an orientalist approach to both understanding and addressing the ‘war puzzle’.     

LOCATIONAL SIGNALING AND AGGLOMERATION

Agglomeration can be caused by asymmetric information and a locational signaling effect: The location choice of workers signals their productivity to potential employers. The cost of a signal is the cost of housing at that location. When workers' marginal willingness to pay for housing is negatively correlated with their productivity, only the core‐periphery (partially stratified) equilibria are stable. When workers' marginal willingness to pay for housing and their productivity are positively correlated, there is no core‐periphery equilibrium. The urban wage premium is explained when there is a core‐periphery equilibrium. Furthermore, location can at best be an approximate rather than a precise sieve for high‐skill workers.     

Classification Analysis of World Economic Regions

Economic classifications of countries are of continuing utility for comparative and analytic purposes. However, traditional methods of arriving at classifications are often ad hoc, subjective, and imprecise, not permitting the assignments to be used for closer analysis. Discriminant analysis is used in this paper to isolate a time‐specific set of economic factors delimiting economic state categories that correspond to core‐periphery states. The core‐periphery framework is shown to be a special case of a hierarchical market scheme. The purposes of this work are (1) to create a theoretically grounded, empirically derived classification over several time periods to permit dynamic comparisons to be made and provide an explanation of change in the global economy, and (2) to provide feedback information from the classification to supply the necessary rigor and quantitative insight to the world‐systems theoretical framework. Results of the analysis suggest that different economic variables provide varying levels of explanation at different times. In particular, variables representing factor endowment provide a greater measure of explanation early in the sequence (for example, 1960) while trade and investment measures are of greater importance in the latter part of the study sequence (for example, 1990). OPEC countries significantly bifurcate the world‐economy classification in 1970 and exhibit separate class characteristics. Even within the short time period, a number of countries are shown to transit among the classes. The model is also able to capture the dependence structure implicit in the world‐systems framework.     

Mining Formalization at the Margins of the State: Small‐scale Miners and State Governance in the Peruvian Amazon

This article analyses the Peruvian government's quest to formalize small‐scale mining in the Amazon as a political process which shows how state governance problems are reproduced in the margins of the state. It asks why the central state is unable to govern mining activities in the Madre de Dios region, and examines how small‐scale miners have reacted to state attempts to formalize their activities. The author argues that, through political agency and the reproduction of ‘hybrid’ formal and informal institutions, small‐scale miners have learned to contest, reinterpret and build alternatives to central state governance. The article contributes to the literature on development policies by showing how difficulties in implementing regulatory policies may be analysed as governance problems, particularly in regions like the Amazon, where the state apparatus is not well established.     

Functional specialization across space: a case study of the Canadian Electricity Industry, 1971–2001

This article examines the location of functions within the electricity sector in Canada from 1971 to 2001, using a centre‐periphery model. Power generation, distribution and retailing are generally carried out by multiestablishment crown corporations. Location patterns of different functions—management, scientific, production, etc.—are analyzed via the use of occupational groups. The spatial distribution of functions is found to be generally consistent with centre‐periphery relationships, with evidence of a growing functional specialization between large metropolitan and nonmetropolitan locations. However, differences emerge depending on power generation sources: fossil fuels, hydro, nuclear, solar or biomass. The choice of a power generation source has consequences for local economies.     

Public Authority and Conservation in Areas of Armed Conflict: Virunga National Park as a ‘State within a State’ in Eastern Congo

Much research on nature conservation in war‐torn regions focuses on the destructive impact of violent conflict on protected areas, and argues that transnational actors should step up their support for those areas to mitigate the risks that conflict poses to conservation efforts there. Overlooked are the effects transnational efforts have on wider conflict dynamics and structures of public authority in these regions. This article describes how transnational actors increasingly gained influence over the management of Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and how these actors contributed to the militarization of conservation in Virunga. Most scholarly literature suggests that ‘green militarization’ contributes to the extension of state authority over territory and population, yet this is not the case in Virunga. Instead, the militarization of Virunga translates into practices of extra‐state territorialization, with the result that many in the local population perceive the park's management as a project of personalized governance and/or a ‘state within a state’. This article thus argues that it is important to depart from an a priori notion of the ‘state’ when considering the nexus of conservation practices and territorialization, and to analyse this intersection through the lens of public authority instead.     

ANTIAGGLOMERATION SUBSIDIES WITH HETEROGENEOUS FIRMS*

ABSTRACT This paper studies antiagglomeration subsidies in a core–periphery setting when firms are heterogeneous in labor productivity, focusing on the effects of a relocation subsidy on firm location in various tax‐financing schemes (local vs. global). I discuss how a subsidy can enhance welfare and average productivity in the periphery. As a result, I find that a subsidy proportional to profits can induce the relocation of high‐productivity firms and thus increase welfare and average productivity in the periphery. Concerning tax‐financing schemes, a local tax‐financing scheme has an optimal level of subsidy.     

EXEMPLIFYING ACCUMULATION BY DISPOSSESSION: MINING AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE PHILIPPINES

Using a case study from the Philippines, this article applies David Harvey's theory of accumulation by dispossession to show how neoliberal policies enable mining corporations to locate, lay claim to, and develop mineral resources in formerly inaccessible areas, which for centuries have provided safe haven for indigenous peoples and their cultures. It explains why these factors are leading to an increase in armed conflict between military forces and guerrilla groups, which recruit their members from displaced indigenous people. The article concludes that the theory of accumulation by dispossession offers an appropriate analytical tool for understanding these processes.