The Crisis of the 1980s in Sub-Saharan Africa,Latin America and the Caribbean: Economic Impact,Social Change and Political Implications

The purpose of this paper, prepared as a background document for the UNRISD/University of the West Indies conference on Economic Crisis and Third World Countries, is to provide a framework for consideration of societal changes accompanying economic recession and restructuring in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean over the past decade. It is the central argument of the paper that adaptation to crisis should not be considered a temporary phenomenon, interrupting a single, lineal process of modernization which can be expected to resume its course once current difficulties are overcome. On the contrary, both crisis and adjustment have profoundly modified the structure of incentives within which individuals and households must attempt to ensure their livelihood, encouraging new patterns of behaviour with long-term implications for the nature of the economy, society and political practice. After a brief review of the macroeconomic background of crisis in each region, this central hypothesis is explored through a very preliminary analysis of the changing life chances of various kinds of upper, middle and lower income groups — emphasizing not only the costs but also the opportunities which have been associated with economic restructuring. Some individual and collective reactions to change are then considered, before raising a series of questions concerning the implications of crisis and adjustment for the state and civil society.     

Explaining compliance with international law: Broadening the agenda for enquiry

Current theoretical understanding of compliance with international law is based on an assumption that international law consists of a finite set of objective, compulsory rules. This image does not match reality but the two can be reconciled through theorising international law as ideology. Such an approach subsumes questions as to why states do or do not obey law and what influence international law has on foreign policy decision making. By placing the relationship of state behaviour to international law in a broader perspective it can account for previously identified determinants of compliance and provide a basis on which to assess their relative significance. At the same time, the research agenda regarding compliance is broadened by the introduction of fresh questions.     

Indigenous agriculture in the Americas

Significant advances in our understanding of ancient agricultural practices in the Americas have been made in recent years. This review of the literature focuses on studies published between 1987 and early 1994. Issues pertaining to the transition from foraging to farming include the habitability of the American tropics prior to the development of agriculture, theories on plant domestication and the origins of agriculture, regional syntheses of agricultural development, and the origin, evolution, and dissemination of domesticates in the Americas. Other topics reviewed include new techniques that have recently been applied to the study of prehistoric agriculture in the Americas, various approaches to the study of agricultural change, and ways in which research on ancient agricultural practices is being applied in modern experimental agriculture and rural development projects.