Beyond Dependency

Author(s):  
Joseph Morgan Hodge

This chapter examines the degree of continuity and rupture between the colonial/post-colonial divide in Africa, and argues that the years between 1930 and the 1970s constitute a single, world historical period in which state-directed and managed plans for economic and social advancement were shared widely among colonial, national, and international organizations and states. It examines important shifts and breaks that occurred throughout the period, including barriers to implementing new development projects, massive strike actions, the view of development as a demand for post-colonial entitlements and rights, and how development became a part of the strategy for managing decolonization as a shared goal of both colonial officials and African nationalist leaders. It also discusses how both new national governments and international organizations like the World Bank sought to triumph where the colonizers had failed, including drafting ambitious development plans, launching large-scale mechanization schemes, and subsidizing the widespread use of artificial fertilizers.

2021 ◽  
pp. 223386592110248
Author(s):  
Yooneui Kim ◽  
Youngwan Kim

Are international organizations autonomous actors in global politics? This paper investigates whether and how major powers influence the World Bank’s official development assistance policies. Despite the World Bank’s attempts to maintain independence from its member states, we argue that major powers are still influential. Testing this expectation with the data of official development assistance provisions between 1981 and 2017, we find that the World Bank provides a higher amount of official development assistance to the recipient countries that receive a higher amount of such assistance from the major powers such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan. In addition, the World Bank is prone to provide a higher amount of official development assistance to the recipients that have a similar preference to the major powers. This study sheds light on the relations between major powers and international organizations.


Food Security ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adugna Eneyew Bekele ◽  
Liesbeth Dries ◽  
Wim Heijman ◽  
Dusan Drabik

AbstractIn Ethiopia, large scale land investments have been expanding into pastoral regions. However, little is known about the consequences of these investments on the food security of the pastoral community. Using Living Standard Measurement Survey data of the World Bank, we find that, on average, about 32% of the respondents from the (agro-)pastoral regions are food insecure. After controlling for confounders, proximity to large scale land investments is associated with additional food intake of up to 745 kcal per day per adult compared to the households located farther away from a large scale land investment. Proximity to large scale land investment has no significant effect on the coping strategies based food security. For households located in proximity to a large scale land investment, food intake significantly increases with access to roads and markets. Proximity to a large scale land investment has a positive effect on household food consumption not necessarily because of direct benefits from large scale land investments, but due to land and soil quality near the large scale land investments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torsten Kahlert

AbstractThis article investigates interwar internationalism from the perspective of the highest personnel of the first large-scale international administration, the League of Nations Secretariat. It applies a prosopographical approach in order to map out the development of the composition of the group of the section directors of the Secretariat over time in terms of its social and cultural characteristics and career trajectories. The analysis of gender, age, nationality, as well as educational and professional backgrounds and careers after their service for the League’s Secretariat gives insight on how this group changed over time and what it tells us about interwar internationalism. I have three key findings to offer in this article: First, the Secretariat was far from being a static organization. On the contrary, the Secretariat’s directors developed in three generations each with distinct characteristics. Second, my analysis demonstrates a clear trend towards professionalization and growing maturity of the administration over time. Third, the careers of the directors show a clear pattern of continuity across the Second World War and beyond. Even though the careers continued in different organizational contexts, the majority of the directors remained closely connected to the world of internationalism of the League, the UN world and its surrounding organizations. On a methodological level, the article offers an example of how prosopographical analysis can be used to study international organizations.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Alacevich

AbstractAccording to most reconstructions of development debates, poverty and social issues were not part of the development agenda until the late 1960s. In contrast, this article shows that development practitioners and institutions were already addressing poverty and social issues in the late 1940s and early 1950s. However, economic multilateral organizations soon marginalized those inclusive views and focused exclusively on economic growth. This article discusses those early policy options and why they were marginalized. It argues that this happened for ideological reasons, specifically because of the ideological anti-New Deal post-war backlash and the adhesion of Western countries and multilateral organizations to what Charles Maier defined as the politics of productivity. This ideological backlash explains the rise and early demise of Keynesian ideas in international organizations, and, conversely, their stronger influence in developing countries, where the direct influence of the US and Bretton Woods organizations was somewhat mitigated.


2018 ◽  
Vol 239 ◽  
pp. 04004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Maydanova ◽  
Igor Ilin

The Single Window concept in the international trade and logistics has been explored by international organizations and national governments over the last two decades. International standards and recommendations, government decisions on this approach are widespread today in both developed and developing countries. Similar decisions and legal acts were implemented during the last ten years by the Russian Federation, as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union. This article provides overview of the following coherent stage – the implementation of preliminary customs informing system at sea check points of the RF with concerns of the Single Window introduction.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 820-848
Author(s):  
Pierre-Yves Donzé

Whereas the globalization of medicine since the middle of the 19th century has primarily been approached as the sociopolitical and cultural outcome of imperialism, this article argues that Western big business also played a major role through the worldwide export of standardized medical technologies. It focuses on the expansion of Siemens on the X-ray equipment market in non-Western countries during the first half of the twentieth century. This German multinational enterprise experienced slight growth from the mid-1920s onwards but relied mainly on two markets (Argentina and Brazil). It specialized in providing large-scale equipment to a few urban hospitals and engaged during the 1930s in large-scale hospital development together with local authorities and international organizations in various countries (China, Peru, and Central Africa). However, Siemens had great difficulty in expanding its business to include private doctors and inland outlets, where it faced intense competition from other Western X-ray producers. This paper emphasizes that this shortcoming stemmed from a direct application of the European strategy (high-quality, expensive equipment for hospitals) to non-Western markets, where health systems differed.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-745 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS POGGE

Various human rights are widely recognized in codified and customary international law. These human rights promise all human beings protection against specific severe harms that might be inflicted on them domestically or by foreigners. Yet international law also establishes and maintains institutional structures that greatly contribute to violations of these human rights: fundamental components of international law systematically obstruct the aspirations of poor populations for democratic self-government, civil rights, and minimal economic sufficiency. And central international organizations, such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, are designed so that they systematically contribute to the persistence of severe poverty.


2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Ring ◽  
Roddy McKinnon

Across the European Union, national governments are re-assessing the institutional mechanisms through which pension provision is delivered. This articles sets the debate within the wider context of the ‘pillared’ structural analysis often adopted by international institutions when discussing pensions reform. It then sets out a detailed discussion of developments in the UK, arguing that the UK is moving towards a model of reform akin to that promoted by the World Bank – referred to here as ‘pillared-privatisation’. The themes of this model indicate more means-testing, greater private provision, and a shift of the burden of risk from the government to individuals. An assessment is then made of the implications of UK developments for other EU countries. It is suggested that while there are strong reasons to think that other countries will not travel as far down the road of ‘pillared-privatisation’ as the UK, this should not be taken as a ‘given’.


Libri ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-329
Author(s):  
Péter Kiszl ◽  
Rita Radó ◽  
Miklós Péter Hubay

Abstract Hungarian librarianship and related research are sadly underrepresented in international literature. With this article we intend to fill this gap and inform the experts of library and information science of some of the most recent Hungarian innovations. After showcasing the international professional connections of Hungarian librarianship, we present the structure of the Hungarian public library network and its mode of operation. We also analyse current and future main digital development plans, projects and the most important related professional activities of Hungarian libraries. Emphasis is placed on information systems promoting cooperation between libraries and the issues of the National Library System Project, which is a large-scale modernisation programme carried out between 2016 and 2018, designed to develop the IT system of the National Széchényi Library. After introducing the information systems of academic and specialised libraries and the access models of scientific databases provided by multinational and Hungarian content services, we also discuss the endeavours of public libraries aiming for multifunctionality and community organisation. The paper ends by providing insights into how the outcomes of the recent initiatives have been fed back into Hungarian LIS training courses offered in higher education.


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