Taken For A Ride

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
The Political ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Informal Economies

The growth of cities and informal economies are two central manifestations of globalization in the developing world. Taken for a Ride addresses both, drawing on long-term fieldwork in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and charting its public transport system’s journey from public to private provision. The book investigates this shift alongside the increasing deregulation of the sector and the resulting chaotic modality of public transport. It reviews state attempts to regain control over public transport, the political motivations behind these, and their inability to address its problems. The analysis documents how informal wage relations prevailed in the sector, and how their salience explains many of the inefficiencies of public transport. The changing political attitude of workers towards employers and the state is investigated: from an initial incapacity to respond to exploitation, to political organization and unionization, which won workers concessions on labour rights. A longitudinal study of workers throws light on patterns of occupational mobility in the sector. The book ends with an analysis of the political and economic interests that shaped the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam and local resistance to it. Taken for a Ride is an interdisciplinary political economy of public transport, exposing the limitations of market fundamentalist and postcolonial scholarship on economic informality and the urban experience in developing countries, and its failure to locate the agency of the urban poor within their economic and political structures. It is both a contribution to and a call for the contextualized study of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’.

Taken for a Ride

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Urban Informality ◽  
African Cities ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Contextual Understanding ◽  
Informal Economies ◽  
Political Economy Analysis ◽  
Analytical Power

The chapter starts by describing public transport in Dar es Salaam as ‘functional chaos’. It then critically reviews two thematic literatures, on African cities and on their informal economies, to reveal that references to chaos, dystopia, and their opposites, order and functionalism, are common. The key argument is that a highly contextual understanding of urban informality and of how African cities work is required to avoid overly deterministic structural accounts and romantic celebration of African agency without due attention to structural constraints. The chapter presents the book’s approach: namely a political-economy analysis, centred on class analysis and wary of automatically reading off the political interests of actors from their class position. It argues that neoliberalism and post-socialism are key to understanding Tanzania and public transport in Dar es Salaam, and calls for grounding ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ in a particular context while retaining the analytical power of the concept of neoliberalism.

Activity Participation and Perceptions on Informal Public Transport and Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam

2020 ◽  
Vol 2674 (11) ◽  
pp. 573-583
Author(s):  
Lucy Joseph ◽  
An Neven ◽  
Karel Martens ◽  
Opportuna Kweka ◽  
Geert Wets ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Geographical Information Systems ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
Transport Systems ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
Activity Participation ◽  
Rapid Transit ◽  
Relative Contribution

This paper seeks to understand participation in out-of-home activities by inhabitants in Dar es Salaam, and their perceptions toward informal public transport (IPT) and bus rapid transit (BRT) in supporting these activities. Without fixed schedules, IPT (e.g., minibuses, motorcycles, and tricycles) is used as a means of transport for different trips. However, IPT is burdened by poor roads, traffic congestion, and high transport demand. Many developing cities are seeking to replace IPT with formal BRT lines. However, little is known in relation to the ability of IPT and BRT to support out-of-home activity participation of the inhabitants. This paper reports on a study in Dar es Salaam exploring the relative contribution of each type of service. The study took place before the opening of BRT, and encompasses focus group discussions, participatory geographical information systems, and questionnaires carried out in two study zones: one close to a BRT corridor and the other in a peri-urban location. The findings show that IPT was used to support participation in daily activities like work, education, shopping, and social matters; and was perceived to be flexible in providing access to both high and low density unplanned settlements. The BRT was viewed to benefit specific groups of people, especially individuals working in permanent offices in and around the city center, particularly professional workers. This paper sheds light on how the two systems were perceived by the local people and can inform policy makers about possible improvements in public transport systems to support activity participation of their inhabitants.

scholarly journals Fuel for Conspiracy: Suspected Imperialist Plots and the Chaco War

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Luis Roniger ◽  
Leonardo Senkman
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
The Political ◽  
South American ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
National Pride ◽  
The World ◽  
Chaco Region ◽  
Political Decision Making

Conspiracy discourse interprets the world as the object of sinister machinations, rife with opaque plots and covert actors. With this frame, the war between Bolivia and Paraguay over the Northern Chaco region (1932–1935) emerges as a paradigmatic conflict that many in the Americas interpreted as resulting from the conspiracy manoeuvres of foreign oil interests to grab land supposedly rich in oil. At the heart of such interpretation, projected by those critical of the fratricidal war, were partial and extrapolated facts, which sidelined the weight of long-term disputes between these South American countries traumatised by previous international wars resulting in humiliating defeats and territorial losses, and thus prone to welcome warfare to bolster national pride and overcome the memory of past debacles. The article reconstructs the transnational diffusion of the conspiracy narrative that tilted political and intellectual imagination towards attributing the war to imperialist economic interests, downplaying the political agency of those involved. Analysis suggests that such transnational reception highlights a broader trend in the twentieth-century Latin American conspiracy discourse, stemming from the theorization of geopolitical marginality and the belief that political decision-making was shaped by the plots of hegemonic powers.

scholarly journals Shock Humor: Zaniness and the Freedom of Permanent Improvisation in Urban Tanzania

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Degani
Keyword(s):  
Urban Poor ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Power Utility ◽  
Electrical Shock ◽  
Urban Africa

This essay explores scenes of zany comedy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, across three sites: a television sketch about repeated electrical shock; the careers of freelance electricians known as vishoka; and encounters between residents and power utility inspectors. Drawing on the work of Sianne Ngai, as well as long-term ethnographic research, the essay argues that zaniness manifests the structural paradoxes of entrepreneurial populations that have alternately been described as the lumpen, the informal, or simply the urban poor. Specifically, it argues that such populations are often consigned to permanent improvisation and that this engenders a social freedom that, in some respects, remains indistinguishable from constraint. The zany can thus critically nuance portraits of livelihood and citizenship practices in urban Africa by bringing their freedoms and constraints into the same frame.

The New Face of Neoliberalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
Rapid Transit ◽  
Foreign Investors ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government

This chapter focuses on DART, a Bus Rapid Transit project (BRT): the new face of public transport in Dar es Salaam since operations started in 2016. A PPP funded by the World Bank, DART aimed to transform public transport through large-scale infrastructural work and the introduction of new buses, phasing out daladala from the city’s main public transport routes. The chapter challenges the presentation of BRT as the ‘win–win’ solution to tackling the crisis of public transport in developing countries. A contextualized political economy of DART highlights why the project proceeded so slowly (implementation began in 2002), documenting the capacity of some Tanzanian actors to resist. Tensions over the displacement of existing paratransit operators by foreign investors, the inclusion of the existing public transport workforce, employment destruction, affordability of the new service, and their management by the government are a window into ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ and post-socialism in Tanzania.

The geopolitical dimensions of the TurkStream pipeline

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 101-121
Author(s):  
Kinga Smoleń
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The One ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Eu

The empirical goal of this paper is to conduct an analysis of the geopolitical dimensions of the TurkStream pipeline, with special consideration given to its determinants as well as a diagnosis of the geopolitical implicationsof its geographical extent. To explore this problem, the following hypotheses are offered. First, the inauguration of the second branch of the TurkStream pipeline in the beginning of 2020 will strengthen the monopolistic positionof Russia as a supplier of natural gas to the countries of the European Union.This will increase the dependency of the EU on Russia and severely hamper itsability to formulate a unified, cohesive energy policy. Second, two factors that underlie the geopolitical importance of the TurkStream pipeline are Turkey’s and Southern Europe’s natural gas needs on the one hand and the political and economic interests of Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine on the other. Third, theTurkStream project should be seen as an instrument that serves to build a tactical partnership between Turkey and Russia – a partnership underpinned by the strategic interests of both countries in the Middle East. Fourth and finally, Russia’s gradual withdrawal from directing its natural gas through Ukraine will generate serious economic problems and potential energy shortages in that country. In the long term, this pressure is geared toward forcing Ukraine to re-evaluate the pro-Western trajectory of its foreign policy.

scholarly journals Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-22
Author(s):  
Steffen Bay Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ecological Constraints ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Model Based

The process of European integration has evolved through crises of governance towards ever greater integration of the societies of the participating member states, giving rise to new questions about the political organization of the European continent. At the same time, European societies have become ever more diverse, giving rise to new and complex problematiques of coexistence. Europe must now also deal with the consequences of an economic model based on the consumption of finite resources. Beyond specific crises and events, Europe is therefore faced with a multifaceted challenge of ecological, democratic and societal sustainability. To approach the challenges from the point of view of sustainability means to see the ecological, democratic and societal long-term viability of Europe as made possible by the continuous reconstruction of European societies through innovative cultural, social, economic and political practices under the ecological constraints posed by the limits of our planet.

scholarly journals The Human, Economic, Social, and Political Costs of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Matteo Bonotti ◽  
Steven T. Zech
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Romantic Partners ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Political Effects

AbstractThis chapter provides an overview of the human, economic, social, and political costs of COVID-19. The pandemic has had immediate negative health effects and is likely to also cause long-term health problems. In addition to economic repercussions across numerous sectors, COVID-19 has also had significant social and political effects. The chapter focuses on the strains that the pandemic has imposed on relationships between family members, friends, and romantic partners. It shows how COVID-19 has changed social practices in various everyday environments (e.g. restaurants, cafes, public transport), as the public has been forced to reimagine spaces and how to interact within them in ways that comply with new social distancing norms. The chapter also illustrates many of the political implications of COVID-19, including the way it has exacerbated ongoing political conflicts within and between states, compounded pre-existing international problems related to the movement of people, and affected levels of trust and political participation.

Our universities away from partisan Altsarat

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
أ.د.عبد الجبار احمد عبد الله
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Moral Duty ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Office ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The University

In order to codify the political and partisan activity in Iraq, after a difficult labor, the Political Parties Law No. (36) for the year 2015 started and this is positive because it is not normal for the political parties and forces in Iraq to continue without a legal framework. Article (24) / paragraph (5) of the law requires that the party and its members commit themselves to the following: (To preserve the neutrality of the public office and public institutions and not to exploit it for the gains of a party or political organization). This is considered because it is illegal to exploit State institutions for partisan purposes . It is a moral duty before the politician not to exploit the political parties or some of its members or those who try to speak on their behalf directly or indirectly to achieve partisan gains. Or personality against other personalities and parties at the expense of the university entity.

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