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1.
Since the 1990s, international water sector reforms have centred heavily on economic and market approaches. In regard to water resources management, tradable water rights have been promoted, often supported by the neoliberal model adopted in Chile. Chile's 1981 Water Code was reformed to comprise a system of water rights that could be freely traded with few restrictions. International financial institutions have embraced the Chilean model, claiming that it results in more efficient water use, and potentially fosters social and environmental benefits. However, in Chile the Water Code is deeply contested. It has been criticised for being too permissive and has produced a number of problems in practice. Moreover, attempts to modify it have become the focus of a lengthy polemic debate. This paper employs a political ecology perspective to explore the socio‐environmental outcomes of water management in Chile, drawing on a case study of agriculture in the semi‐arid Norte Chico. The case illustrates how large‐scale farmers exert greater control over water, while peasant farmers have increasingly less access. I argue that these outcomes are facilitated by the mode of water management implemented within the framework of the Water Code. Through this preliminary examination of social equity and the environmental aspects of water resources management in Chile, I suggest that the omission of these issues from the international debates on water rights markets is a cause for concern.  相似文献   

2.
The paper examines the relations between seed cotton buyers in Zimbabwe's deregulated cotton sector. It draws upon interviews with officials from cotton companies to expose the disagreements and lack of cooperation among them over side marketing of contracted seed cotton and in maintaining common industry standards. In this context, the paper discusses cotton sector reforms spearheaded by some industry stakeholders aimed to address problems in the cotton sector. Despite the companies’ official agreement to the draft reforms of 2004, there were simmering tensions and disputes that strained relations among them. The government's unwillingness to intervene and provide coordination exacerbated problems in the cotton sector. Further, the paper highlights the contradictions in neo‐liberal reforms that seek to promote competitive agricultural markets, and argue against state intervention and strong regulation of markets. It argues that there is a need to reconceptualize the role of the state in some predatory and developing countries that liberalized agricultural markets because of the multiple and uneven effects of the lack of regulation and absence of institutions in the private sector.  相似文献   

3.
This paper explores how the state and others involved in the ‘development enterprise’ in Timor‐Leste are (mis)recognizing the potential of the existing environmental governance and exchange capacities of local customary institutions and practices in relation to water supply and management. Examining the problematic of water supply in a particular place‐based instance – more specifically, the intermesh of the customary, state and market sectors – it ponders how customary institutions might be better supported to extend their range of political and economic credibility and contribute to a reconfiguration of dominant community managed water supply models. Drawing out the workings of a ‘diverse economy’ where a customary economy is enmeshed with, and to some extent undermining, a weak capitalist sector, the paper argues that a failure to address issues of resource ownership and control and to engage the strengths and import of local customary institutions will have serious ramifications for the successful implementation of national development objectives in post‐conflict Baucau city and elsewhere in Timor‐Leste. Instead, it argues for an enlivened development approach wherein locally socialized landscapes are recognized as credible political sites with which ‘development’ can engage and power relations can shift.  相似文献   

4.
This paper examines the ability of society to develop and allocate water resources during a time of major drought and industrial growth. Water shortage in the upper Hunter became apparent between 1979 and 1983. Even the well watered Newcastle metropolitan area experienced domestic and commercial restrictions. Strategies to deal with the immediate problems in inland areas included temporary water restrictions, cessation of issue of new irrigation licences, institution of volumetric water allocation to agriculture and appeals for public cooperation. Government was placed under pressure to provide sufficient industrial water, maintain supplies to agriculture and distribute water resource information to private and public sector decision makers. Major regional water planning initiatives were almost as slow to eventuate as those for social infrastructure provision. Such crises are likely to recur. Questions remain as to the desirability and sufficiency of current allocative mechanisms to cope with the future diversity of water needs.  相似文献   

5.
The implementation of structural adjustment programmes has not paid sufficient attention to the environmental effects of prescribed reforms. Agriculture is often the largest sector contributing significantly to the generation of export revenue and the gross domestic product in many adjusting countries, including Ghana. Structural adjustments in this sector aim at removing constraints to productivity. In Ghana, these reforms include producer price increases, market liberalisation and exchange rate reforms. This paper examines the environmental effects of raised farmgate prices for cocoa and cotton cultivation. It argues that these policies have encouraged agricultural extensification, particularly given the main type of farming (slash and burn agriculture) practised in Ghana. Environmental degradation is occurring in many areas. Furthermore, cuts in public expenditure and the institution of cost-recovery schemes for previously subsidised services such as rural water supply may reduce farmers’ disposable incomes and their ability to pay for these services. Consumption of unsafe water exposes farmers to preventable water and hygiene related diseases which, given the high cost of medical services, may worsen poverty and further encourage agricultural extensification.  相似文献   

6.
ABSTRACT. After the Mexican Revolution of 1910 the Mexican federal government created a communal resource‐holding institution, the ejido, to redress long‐standing land‐tenure inequality. Between the 1930s and the late 1970s, the period of active redistribution of federalized and previously private resources, half of Mexico's entire area was transferred to the ejido sector. Local ejidos became the driving political and economic force at the municipio level for agrarian reform, redistributing local power and affirming the national stamp of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, the dominant national party of the twentieth century. Although the 1992–1993 reforms to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution prohibited any future expansion of communal lands and allowed privatization of communal resources, few widespread privatization schemes have taken hold in the vast majority of ejidos. In this article I provide examples of this new communal framework and its implications, with illustrations based on fieldwork in the states of Guanajuato and Sonora.  相似文献   

7.
Abstract:  The task of designing appropriate institutional arrangements for metropolitan government and planning has recently proved highly contestable politically. We interrogate how the role of the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) was zealously contested and hollowed-out during the 1990s. More recently, the impacts of the neo-liberal reforms in Auckland have been mediated by a further round of local government reforms inspired by a Third Way ideology and by the imperative to respond to the planning crisis resulting from infrastructure underinvestment. New regionally based governance arrangements and planning processes have been created. We argue that this new commitment to regionalism can realistically expect to be tested by deep-seated political cleavages within Auckland and by Auckland's relationship with central government.  相似文献   

8.
ABSTRACT. China's agricultural sector requires reforms to assure farmers and consumers of fair prices while protecting the environment and permitting sustainable growth in the coming years. The affluent eastern province of Jiangsu is an appropriate site in which to explore the effects of agricultural reforms on rural households and, in turn, the effects of these households on the environment. We compare two surveys (1987 and 1996), of 100 households each, of farmers in Huaiyin and Huai'an Counties, Jiangsu Province. Indicated are chronically low economic returns on grain, moderate returns for livestock, and the highest returns for vegetables. Unfortunately, the production of livestock and vegetables requires more farm chemicals, inorganic fertilizers, and placement of field plastic‐all of which are associated with greater environmental problems.  相似文献   

9.
It has been posited that small‐scale industry – businesses with less than 30 workers – provides a large share of employment and income in Ghana. This paper examines the proposition that while such enterprises in the informal sector are said to act as a sponge to soak up surplus labour in marginal activities, they are unprofitable. Using data from a survey in 1998 of 175 micro and small‐scale enterprises in the Central Region of Ghana, the paper also confirms problematic aspects of employment in this sector including the lack of formal contracts, irregular pay, low remuneration, non‐existent social protection and only marginal employment growth. The implication is that the small‐scale industry sector is not economically sustainable in its present form in Ghana.  相似文献   

10.
Using a general statistical model, this study attempts to characterise the trend of deforestation in the northeast region (Isan) of Thailand between 1975 and 1991, a period when the kingdom had sustained high rates of economic growth and steady increases in population. Using data obtained directly from government bodies on the 17 provinces comprising this heavily deforested region, the study examines the correlations between forest area and a set of six variables: population density, agricultural area, real per capita income, accumulated irrigated area, agricultural credit levels, and distance from Bangkok, the national political and economic centre. It also considers the effect of the two logging bans instituted in 1979 and since 1989. The study found a negative correlation between forest area and population density in particular, followed in ranking by agricultural credit, per capita income, the logging bans and distance from Bangkok. Viewed together with more recent data showing that rates of deforestation in the kingdom as a whole have slowed and appear to be stabilising, these results also suggest the beginnings in the 1990s of a forest transition – from an industrial to a post‐industrial stage in forest utilisation – in Thailand.  相似文献   

11.
The processes of globalization and debt crisis led to dramatic changes in African countries. In the context of a new economic crisis – now on a global scale – it is useful to revisit debates regarding the impact of earlier policies in response to economic crisis on the poor, with a focus on very low‐income informal women workers. In this paper, we adopt a gender analysis framework to examine contending perspectives about the differential impacts of globalization, liberalization and structural adjustment programs on African women and men. We comment on two predominant schools of thought that appear to underlie and define the majority of case studies situated in African countries. While one asserts that globalization and liberalization offer entrepreneurial opportunities for women, an opposing view contends that the neoliberal political and economic reforms connected with structural adjustment policies have been devastating for poor women workers. A review of available empirical research on the responses of informal economy women workers to challenges of increased workload, reduced income and curtailed access to social services, cautions against dogmatic adherence to conceptual perspectives that either assume workers in the informal economy to be dynamic entrepreneurs when they cannot be, or condemn only contemporary policies for conditions that are the product of complex historical processes.  相似文献   

12.
Why would the citizens of an oil-producing state continually resist reform-induced petrol price increases, even when subsidy payments are proved to be a serious threat to the capacity of the state to deliver its core constitutional mandates? In this paper, we tackle this question by contending that the difficulty in petrol subsidy implementation in a country like Nigeria has more to do with the clear lack of state legitimacy and public trust, and the recorded cases of political instability entrenched by forced attempts at reforms. By contextualizing the reform efforts in Nigeria within the framework of the relationship between state legitimacy and reforms, we are able to provide valid insights to a broader understanding of the “whys” of public resistance to the authority of the state to enforce reform. The Nigerian case, as revealed in this article, provides evidence of a shift in paradigm from the conventional and dominant Weberian emphasis of state legitimacy around the nature and sources of state authorities to a more functional context of citizens’ perception of the governance process as a source of legitimacy.  相似文献   

13.
This paper analyses the recent developments in public space policy in the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. It has three aims. The first is to look at a potentially progressive urban policy in contrast to most work on ‘policies in motion’ that has primarily been concerned with neoliberal policies. The second is to put the process of public space policymaking in Hanoi in historical and cultural perspective. We therefore describe public space in Hanoi as historically constituted by different layers of meaning and physical urban patterns. The paper's third aim is to analyse the translocal connections involved in a policy that is still in the making, and therefore characterized by a series of ‘loose threads’. We show how different types of connections – policy mobility, topological relations and inter‐referencing – relate Hanoi to multiple locales elsewhere. The conclusion reflects on the ‘politics of reception’ showing how analysing a policy in the making develops a critical analysis of policies in motion.  相似文献   

14.
This article critically engages with the recent diffusion of the orthodox development model in Oceania and highlights some evolving dilemmas. In particular, it explores the social, economic and ecological tensions arising from economic reforms that are exacerbating the fragility of already vulnerable nation-states and communities. In order to illustrate its arguments, a case study of the impacts of agro-export growth in Tonga is presented. Attention is drawn to the socially inequitable and ecologically unsustainable outcomes of rapid growth in this sector. In analyzing the political economy of the squash pumpkin sector, the authors point to the important role that culture plays in mediating and conditioning development outcomes. Reflecting on the Tongan case, it is argued that to better understand the implications of orthodox developmental reform in the region, research must seek to more explicitly incorporate distributional and ethical analysis.  相似文献   

15.
Governments in Latin American cities are pursuing regulatory reforms to address the negative externalities of informal public transportation service providers. This is achieved by regulatory actions that work to consolidate many small operators competing “in the market” into fewer larger companies competing “for the market.” This reform addresses problems in the previous phase of the regulatory cycle, but requires a larger role for public authorities. The cities of Bogotá, Santiago and Mexico City took different approaches and have achieved different levels of formalization. Under these cities’ new regulatory regimes, bus companies have consolidated and public authorities now rely on renegotiation of contracts instead of open rebidding. However, industry formalization increases costs, requiring public subsidy or higher fares, and puts financial pressure on the public sector. These results imply a continued instability in the regulatory cycle; without increased public sector capacity, it is possible that large, entrenched operators and increasing costs will create a new market opening for informal service.  相似文献   

16.
Vehicle‐related hyperthermia is an unfortunate tragedy that leads to the accidental deaths of children each year. This research utilizes the most extensive dataset of child vehicle‐related hyperthermia deaths in the United States, including 414 deaths between 1998 and 2008. Deaths follow a seasonal pattern, with a peak in July and no deaths in December or January. Also, deaths occurred over a wide range of temperature and radiation levels and across virtually all regions, although most of them took place across the southern United States. In particular, the Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and Las Vegas metropolitan areas had the greatest number of deaths. We utilize our vehicle hyperthermia index (vhi ) to compare expected deaths versus actual deaths in a metropolitan area, based on the number of children in the area who are under the age of five and on the frequency of hot days in the area. The vhi indicates that the Memphis, West Palm Beach‐Boca Raton, and Las Vegas metropolitan areas are the most dangerous places for vehicle‐related hyperthermia. We conclude by discussing several recommendations with public health policy implications.  相似文献   

17.
孙平军  宋伟  修春亮 《地理研究》2014,33(10):1837-1847
基于产业空间聚集分布情况探寻城市结构特征,是当前大都市区实证研究中的聚焦点所在,但由于方法论的限制而无法真正揭示产业地理集聚之间的内在关联性。基于已有研究基础,试图通过完善潜力模型、设置距离参数、结合主成分分析法实现对产业地理集聚测度方法论的完善与发展,并选取极具代表性大都市区核心城市——沈阳市为样本单元,以2008年的经济普查部门企业数据开展实证检验。结果表明:沈阳市部门企业之间除了交通运输、仓储和邮政中心产业属于地方化经济外,其余的均为企业关联;水利、环境和公共设施管理业产业依附于制造业呈临街抑或隔街集聚,而与公共管理和组织产业之间同街道集聚;支配主角之间,存在中心CBD主宰制造业的布局,而制造业又在很大程度上影响着交通运输、仓储和邮政中心的布局;企业地理集聚形成的城市结构依然是一个明显的“单中心圈层”结构,没有表现出“去中心化”抑或多极化或分散化演变趋势。研究成果与现实情况基本吻合,侧面说明该模式对揭示城市产业地理集聚模式以及由此形成的城市结构特征具有一定的解释力。  相似文献   

18.
ABSTRACT. Until recently, Muslim Americans have often been overlooked in studies on immigration, ethnicity, and race. Their loyalty to America and their integration into the larger culture have frequently been questioned by the media, and academia's interest has mostly been limited to establishing links between Muslims, fundamentalism, and terrorism. Muslim American experiences‐their social, political, and cultural institutions and spaces in the United States‐have drawn little attention from geographers. But stereotypes play an important role in intergroup relations and public‐policy making. Thus, it is important to understand Muslim ethnic‐group experiences of immigration and their place‐making activities in the United States. Based on research in the greater New York metropolitan area, this study explores one facet of the Muslim experience in the United States by investigating Turkish American identity‐construction spaces and their role in the preservation and reformation of Turkish American identity; that is, how these spaces emphasize and shape particular identities and discourage others.  相似文献   

19.
China's coal industry has been plagued by fragmentation among thousands of producers, low productivity, environmental damage, and high accident rates. Coal-industry reforms have sought a “strategic westward movement” through which to achieve resource consolidation under larger firms and upgraded production in northern and western China. This article examines Ordos Municipality and Yulin Municipality to assess the role of differently scaled political and economic processes that have driven a regional coal boom. It finds that the regional coal boom in north-central China discloses persistent difficulties in controlling producers and modernizing the sector.  相似文献   

20.
The Australian water industry has now entered what has been called a ‘mature’ phase of its evolution. This is characterised by a greater emphasis on water conservation, recycling, realistic pricing and demand management, rather than on the construction of large‐scale, capital‐intensive, supply projects, as in the past. A review is presented of some recent Australian and overseas writings on this changed policy direction and specific attention is paid to the way in which the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works has, in recent years, responded to the uncertain economic and political environment of the 1980s. The concepts of ‘linear’ and ‘circular’ water systems are introduced and it is argued that the planning trend towards the latter is inevitable.  相似文献   

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