scholarly journals MALTHUS, STATISTICS, AND THE STATE OF INDIAN AGRICULTURE

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-185
Author(s):  
SHAILAJA FENNELL

ABSTRACTReferences to Malthus are increasingly evident in narratives of agricultural trends in development discourse at the end of the twentieth century. This article addresses the long roots of Malthusian thinking in formulating public policy, that can be traced across from Malthus's own ideas and to subsequent construction of neo-Malthusianisms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It deploys the distinction between two approaches to statistical data collection that emerge in Malthus's own time: an ‘open’ system that collects data to identify trends, and a ‘closed’ system that uses data to prove an existing model. The article uses these distinctions in order to demonstrate opposing tendencies in policy-making in both England and India, with particular reference to Indian agriculture. It shows how radical thinking about data collection as an inductive line of enquiry lost out to a deductive approach that regarded data on Indian agriculture as doomed, because of its ‘unimproved’ condition, and highlights three moments where opposing tendencies were important. The article concludes that this turn in thinking about food, land, and people continues to persist in agricultural policy-making in international development circles into the present.

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 558-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalyan Bhandari

This paper examines the role of development discourse in Nepal’s tourism policy. In Nepal, tourism is an important part of development activity that is driven by international development partners. Since the ideology that drives the international agencies has undergone a huge transformation in the last 25 years, it would be useful to see how such changes are reflected in the tourism public policy of Nepal. Data include analysis of two tourism policies, other documentary sources and interviews with eminent tourism experts to compare the two tourism policies when international development ‘thinking’ was different. The findings show that seemingly ‘tourism’ policies are the outcome of domestic political contexts that they are not outwith the scope of international development ideology advanced by development partners. The paper makes a useful contribution to understanding the role of international development ideology in the tourism policy-making of a developing country.


This book provides a study of both the physical and intangible frameworks that enabled maritime resources to flow and infrastructures to operate. The aim is to demonstrate the complexity and diversity of the legal, social, cultural, and institutional forces at work within maritime economics. Port development, planning, and policy-making constitute the physical frameworks, while agency structures and consular networks make up the non-physical factors under discussion. Both land and sea commodities are examined, including capital mobilised from other sectors, and a particularly pertinent maritime commodity, fish. Through case studies, theory-driven analysis, evidence from statistical data, and regional and national comparisons, it successfully illustrates the structure of resource flow and the shape of maritime economic activity on an international scale spanning the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Nations examined include Scotland, England, New Zealand, Italy, Denmark, plus several Nordic and Mediterranean states. The book consists of three sections: the first exploring intangible infrastructures and their components; the second, resource flow and economic development; and, finally, the physical infrastructures of the ports themselves.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Emily Berg ◽  
Johgho Im ◽  
Zhengyuan Zhu ◽  
Colin Lewis-Beck ◽  
Jie Li

Statistical and administrative agencies often collect information on related parameters. Discrepancies between estimates from distinct data sources can arise due to differences in definitions, reference periods, and data collection protocols. Integrating statistical data with administrative data is appealing for saving data collection costs, reducing respondent burden, and improving the coherence of estimates produced by statistical and administrative agencies. Model based techniques, such as small area estimation and measurement error models, for combining multiple data sources have benefits of transparency, reproducibility, and the ability to provide an estimated uncertainty. Issues associated with integrating statistical data with administrative data are discussed in the context of data from Namibia. The national statistical agency in Namibia produces estimates of crop area using data from probability samples. Simultaneously, the Namibia Ministry of Agriculture, Water, and Forestry obtains crop area estimates through extension programs. We illustrate the use of a structural measurement error model for the purpose of synthesizing the administrative and survey data to form a unified estimate of crop area. Limitations on the available data preclude us from conducting a genuine, thorough application. Nonetheless, our illustration of methodology holds potential use for a general practitioner.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocío B. Hubert ◽  
Elsa Estevez ◽  
Ana Maguitman ◽  
Tomasz Janowski

1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 664-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Collins

This paper provides an analytical framework within which to understand the contrasting way farmers' interests are aggregated and articulated in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The analysis draws on the dominant European literature on state-farmer relations which emphasizes the role of policy networks and explores whether the concepts of pluralism or corporatism best characterize policy making in the two states.


1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vaison

Normally in political studies the term public policy is construed to encompass the societally binding directives issued by a society's legitimate government. We usually consider government, and only government, as being able to “authoritatively allocate values.” This common conception pervades the literature on government policy-making, so much so that it is hardly questioned by students and practitioners of political science. As this note attempts to demonstrate, some re-thinking seems to be in order. For purposes of analysis in the social sciences, this conceptualization of public policy tends to obscure important realities of modern corporate society and to restrict unnecessarily the study of policy-making. Public policy is held to be public simply and solely because it originates from a duly legitimated government, which in turn is held to have the authority (within specified limits) of formulating and implementing such policy. Public policy is public then, our usual thinking goes, because it is made by a body defined somewhat arbitrarily as “public”: a government or some branch of government. All other policy-making is seen as private; it is not public (and hence to lie essentially beyond the scope of the disciplines of poliitcal science and public administration) because it is duly arrived at by non-governmental bodies. Thus policy analysts lead us to believe that public policy is made only when a government body acts to consider some subject of concern, and that other organizations are not relevant to the study of public policy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (14) ◽  
pp. 2643-2653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Cullerton ◽  
Timothy Donnet ◽  
Amanda Lee ◽  
Danielle Gallegos

AbstractObjectiveTo progress nutrition policy change and develop more effective advocates, it is useful to consider real-world factors and practical experiences of past advocacy efforts to determine the key barriers to and enablers of nutrition policy change. The present review aimed to identify and synthesize the enablers of and barriers to public policy change within the field of nutrition.DesignElectronic databases were searched systematically for studies examining policy making in public health nutrition. An interpretive synthesis was undertaken.SettingInternational, national, state and local government jurisdictions within high-income, democratic countries.ResultsSixty-three studies were selected for inclusion. Numerous themes were identified explaining the barriers to and enablers of policy change, all of which fell under the overarching category of ‘political will’, underpinned by a second major category, ‘public will’. Sub-themes, including pressure from industry, neoliberal ideology, use of emotions and values, and being visible, were prevalent in describing links between public will, political will and policy change.ConclusionsThe frustration around lack of public policy change in nutrition frequently stems from a belief that policy making is a rational process in which evidence is used to assess the relative costs and benefits of options. The findings from the present review confirm that evidence is only one component of influencing policy change. For policy change to occur there needs to be the political will, and often the public will, for the proposed policy problem and solution. The review presents a suite of enablers which can assist health professionals to influence political and public will in future advocacy efforts.


Author(s):  
Kate Crowley ◽  
Jenny Stewart ◽  
Adrian Kay ◽  
Brian W. Head

State-centred and society-centred explanations in comparative public policy analysis disagree markedly on the extent to which the state has autonomy or is essentially a clearing-house for outside forces. In this chapter, we reconsider the position of the state in policy studies by investigating the interactions and inter-dependency between the state and society rather than making a binary choice between state-centred and society-centred perspectives on governance. The core argument is that policy studies can improve its ability to apprehend the position of the state in dilemmas of contemporary policy-making by acknowledging that the state is, at once, both critical to collective action and reliant on crucial elements of societal support for its policy effectiveness. In such terms, governance is a useful label for the variety of ways in which society is not simply acted upon by the state, but actively shapes the actions of and outcomes of state activity.


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