Volume 18 Number 3 July 1987 Edited by: Gordon White
We are currently witnessing a global process of economic restructuring in both North and South, East and West. Though country contexts may differ, there is one strikingly common element: the criticism of statist modes of development and provision and the move towards greater use of market mechanisms in the delivery of goods and services.
Volume 18 Number 4 October 1987 Edited by: Hugh Roberts
the articles which make up this issue of the IDS Bulletin. They come from different sources and express variety of viewpoints. Four of them (Fontaine,Booth, Harriss and Manor) were presented as papers to a workshop on 'The Developmental State in Retreat' held at IDS on 30 June-! July, 1987. Mick Moore's article is a critical rejoinder to the debate on the state in Africa which was published in the January 1986 issue of this journal. Gordon White's article could be grouped with the first four since, while it was not presented at the workshop, it too deals with the 'retreat of the state', albeit in the highly specific Chinese context. Roberts's article, in contrast, represents a somewhat isolated, if not eccentric, approach to understanding the peculiar experience of economic policy reorientation in contemporary Algeria.
Volume 19 Number 1 January 1988 Edited by: Chris Coclough and Reg Green
In one sense the perceived needs to stabilise virtually all African economies, and to secure their structural adjustment to new external realities, are no longer judged controversial both within and outside the African continent. It is now widely accepted that stabilisation defined as removing untenable macroeconomic imbalances - has become essential. But, at another level, the disagreements have intensified.
Volume 19 Number 2 May 1988 Edited by: Simon Maxwell
The papers in this issue of the IDS Bulletin were originally presented at a workshop on cash crops, held at the IDS in January 1987.1 They deal with an issue which is extremely controversial and one which has become a litmus test of development ideology: to caricature only a little, it sometimes seems we have the World Bank on one side, in favour of cash crops; and on the other side, everyone else, led by the voluntary agencies, against
Volume 19 Number 3 July 1988 Edited by: Gordon White and Kate Young
Five years ago a conference met at this Institute to consider the immediate post-revolutionary experience of Nicaraguan development. At that time we came to several conclusions: first, that the development strategies adopted by the Sandinista government had several features which distinguished them from orthodox forms of socialist development, notably the commitment to a degree of economic and political pluralism.
Second, although there had been significant progress in achieving more equal distribution and meeting basic social needs, Nicaragua's development performance was problematic in certain basic areas [for a more detailed discussion see White and Young 1985]. Third, an already worrying economic situation was being exacerbated by the escalation of the Contra war and the hostility of the Reagan administration.
In November last year a workshop was convened to review the situation four years on. It placed particular emphasis on the way the war has impinged on Nicaragua's ability to deal with its pressing economic problems and implement its distinctive development model. Most of the papers in this Bulletin were presented at that workshop.'