Challenging environments: Danger, resilience and the aid industry

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 475-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Duffield
Keyword(s):  
Therapeutic Response ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
International Aid ◽  
The Political ◽  
Aid Workers ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Profound Change ◽  
Political Environments ◽  
Security Training ◽  
Political Patronage

Despite the widespread perception of danger, the aid industry continues to expand within challenging political environments. As a way of reducing risk, this expansion has been accompanied by the ‘bunkerization’ of international aid workers. While this development is largely viewed by the industry as an unfortunate response to a decline in external security, a more holistic approach is used here to explain the consequent paradox of liberal interventionism: an expansion that is simultaneously a remoteness of international aid workers from the societies in which they operate. The demise of modernist legal, moral and political constraints, together with a decline in the political patronage that aid agencies enjoy, has been important in shaping the new risk terrain. At the same time, these changes embody a profound change in the way contingency is approached. Earlier modernist forms of protection have been replaced by postmodernist calls for resilience and the acceptance of risk as an opportunity for enterprise and reinvention. Within the aid industry, however, field-security training represents a countervailing attempt to govern aid workers through anxiety. Resilience, in the form of ‘care of the self’ techniques, becomes a therapeutic response to the fears induced in this way. Viewed from this perspective, apart from reducing risk, the bunker has important therapeutic functions in a world that aid workers no longer understand or feel safe in.

Narrating Democracy in Myanmar

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamas Wells
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
International Aid ◽  
Aid Workers ◽  
National League ◽  
Contested Meanings

This book analyses what Myanmar's struggle for democracy has signified to Burmese activists and democratic leaders, and to their international allies. In doing so, it explores how understanding contested meanings of democracy helps make sense of the country's tortuous path since Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won historic elections in 2015. Using Burmese and English language sources, Narrating Democracy in Myanmar reveals how the country's ongoing struggles for democracy exist not only in opposition to Burmese military elites, but also within networks of local activists and democratic leaders, and international aid workers.

scholarly journals From "De Facto King" to Peasants' Communes

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-120
Author(s):  
Piotr Kuligowski
Keyword(s):  
Central Place ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Political Environments ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

This article presents a conceptual history of representation in the political debates of the Polish émigré community in the period 1832–1846/48. As I argue, while the concept was present in the output of all political environments of the Polish Great Emigration, there were more discrepancies than similarities about how to understand it. As a result of debates about what the Polish diaspora in exile actually was and who had the right to represent it, the concept became a part and parcel of political frays. In this way, the right to use it—and consequently to represent the whole Polish community and Polish nation as well—occupied a central place in the evolution of the concept of representation.

scholarly journals President Trump’s Declarations on Official Development Assistance: A Change of Policy?

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Michał Zaremba
Keyword(s):  
Development Assistance ◽  
International Aid ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Official Development Assistance ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Donald Trump

For years official development assistance (ODA) has been one of the most important forms of financial assistance provided to developing countries by highly developed countries. Despite the controversy over the effectiveness of assistance, it has become a permanent element of the international aid system. With the election of Donald Trump and one of the key slogans of his campaign – America first – the political climate around official development assistance is changing. The aim of the article is to analyze the role of official development assistance in political declarations of the current president of the United States.

Exposing the political use of narratives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamas Wells
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Aid Workers ◽  
Relations Of Power

This chapter turns to the task of exposing the ways that meanings of democracy are wielded politically by networks of aid workers, activists and democratic leaders in Myanmar. Rather than narratives being neutral or objective, it describes how understandings and communication about democracy are embedded within unequal relations of power. Activists and aid workers use narratives of democracy to position themselves in relation to rivals and to establish themselves and their allies as experts who can define what ‘genuine’ democracy is and is not. Narratives are a tool through which activists, opposition leaders and aid workers can exercise power in a discursive form.

A liberal narrative

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamas Wells
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Capacity Building ◽  
Future Orientation ◽  
International Aid ◽  
Aid Workers ◽  
Transitional Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
Formal Procedure ◽  
International Aid Agencies

This chapter unpacks a liberal narrative of democracy. It grounds and locates the ways that many aid workers in Myanmar understood and communicated about democracy. The chapter outlines three elements of this narrative. First, most international aid workers involved in the research pointed toward the challenge of ethnic and religious divisions in the country. These aid workers described how divisions in Myanmar were perpetuated by a personalised political culture where formal institutions of democracy were insufficiently embedded. Second, aid agency representatives often expressed a vision of a formal procedure-based democracy supported by liberal values of human rights, pluralism and the protection of minorities. This vision also had a future orientation, where proponents of this narrative saw Myanmar’s democratisation as being set within the context of other transitional countries around the world – moving away from traditional systems toward a democratic future. Third, many aid workers emphasised a strategy of government and civil society capacity building led by international aid agencies.

Making Economic Policies Work

2018 ◽  
pp. 154-164
Author(s):  
Ling Chen
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Local State ◽  
Economic Environment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Private Firms ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Political Environments

This chapter summarizes the findings of the book. It draws attention to how global production fragmented or integrated state agencies and businesses, shaped the ways they perceived their interests, and ultimately affected the local political environments for domestic private firms. Compared with other approaches, the theory advanced in this book takes the incentives of local state agencies seriously. It shows that in an authoritarian country where businesses do not have a direct role in policy making, the local bureaucrats, by pursuing their own political and economic interests, can influence the political and economic environment of production. The chapter then broadens out to map major Asian economies in Northeast and Southeast Asia in a comparative picture.

The Tax Farming System in the Early Bangkok Period

1983 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-399
Author(s):  
Hong Lysa
Keyword(s):  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
The Political ◽  
Administrative System ◽  
The Third ◽  
Revenue Collection ◽  
Tax Farming ◽  
Political Patronage ◽  
The Government

When King Chulalongkorn surveyed his realm on his second coronation in 1873 to mark the termination of the five-year regency at his coming of age, he saw much that was in need of reform. The king's assessment was that the monarch was but a figurehead; the existing framework of government was actually run by the leading nobility, foremost of whom were the regent and his family who wielded power based on their long dominance over the key administrative posts and the economic benefits that accrued from their official positions. From Chulalongkorn's viewpoint, the regent's family, which reached the pinnacle of its power during the regency of Chuang Bunnag (1868–73), dominated the bureaucracy, in effect controlled the administration of the country, and enriched itself with great facility at the expense of the king and the country. Through the political patronage that they extended to the tax farmers, the officials had assumed control of the tax farming system, the most pervasive method of revenue collection that was employed in the kingdom since the Third Reign. The germ of King Chulalongkorn's historic reform of the administrative system, restructured along rational, functional lines, thus lay in his desire to regain control over the government and economy, which had been gradually slipping out of the Crown's grip since the reign of his father, King Mongkut. The king was determined not to allow the situation to persist where substantial revenue from the tax farms was being channelled into the coffers of the leading noble families and the tax farmers themselves, to the detriment of the state.

scholarly journals Never let a Crisis go to Waste: Politics, Personality and Judicial Self-Government in Ireland

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 1871-1900
Author(s):  
Patrick O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Court System ◽  
The Public ◽  
Judicial Appointments ◽  
Independent Mechanism ◽  
Political Patronage ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Government

AbstractAlthough Ireland is often cited as part of the vanguard of countries adopting forms of judicial self-governance in the 1990s, this appearance can be misleading: the Irish judiciary are self-governing only in limited respects. The judge-led Court Service is in charge of court estate, non-judicial personnel and provision of information on the court system to the public. Many key matters – discipline, promotions and deployment – remain largely out of the control of the corporate judiciary. Judicial appointments are significantly at the discretion of the government. In the last decade, there have been significant moves towards a more corporate judiciary and these are reflected in the creation of a judges’ representative body, the Association of Judges of Ireland, and a shadow Judges Council. There are currently proposals to create a new independent mechanism for appointing judges and to create a Judicial Council with a significant role in disciplining the judiciary.The Irish experience highlights the importance of political and cultural factors in establishing and maintaining judicial independence and self-governance. Despite the significant role for the government in judicial appointments, and the presence of a culture of political patronage in these appointments, there is nonetheless a robust culture ofindividualjudicial independence once judges have been appointed. The creation of the Courts Service in 1999 was a significant transfer of administrative power to the judiciary but it was approved without demur by the political branches, who welcomed the depoliticization of controversial decisions about court estate. Conversely, reforms to judicial appointments have been weak because politicians saw value in maintaining a relatively harmless form of political patronage, and proposals for a Judicial Council that have agreed in outline for two decades have yet to be enacted, apparently because they lack sufficient political salience. The defence of judicial independence, and the creation of robust institutional mechanisms for defending it, ultimately requires the goodwill of politicians.

scholarly journals Merit-Making Activities and the Latent Ideal of the Buddhist Wat in Southwestern Cambodia

2014 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-57
Author(s):  
Matthew O'Lemmon
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Political Patronage ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
Temple Community ◽  
Community Relationships

The divergent experiences surrounding merit-making acts represent the distinct backgrounds of individuals and communities that have emerged in postwar Cambodia. This article examines merit-making activities in two Buddhist temples in southwestern Cambodia and the influence of political patronage on temple–community relationships. This influence elicits images of a latent ideal of the Buddhist monastery that are used by local communities to form a social critique both of such political involvement within temples and of the destabilising effect it has on local people's merit-making activities. This ideal also reflected the political economies and social networks created within the temples that comprised two different models of patronage and means of accessing resources.

The Politics of International Aid to the Gaza Strip

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamer Qarmout ◽  
Daniel Béland
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Gaza Strip ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
International Aid ◽  
The Political ◽  
Palestinian Authority ◽  
Legislative Council ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The Gaza Strip

International aid to the Palestinian Authority is conditioned in part on democratization and good governance. However, since Hamas's victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections and its takeover of the Gaza Strip, aid agencies have supported the international boycott of the Hamas government. This article argues that aid agencies, by operating in Gaza while boycotting its government, subvert their mandates and serve the political interests of donors and the PA rather than the humanitarian and development needs of Gazans. As a consequence, assistance has, inadvertently and unintentionally, increased Gazans' dependence on humanitarian aid, impeded economic development, and enabled Israel to maintain its occupation and the blockade of Gaza.

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