2002: Volume 33
Volume 33 Number 1 January 2002
Edited by: Melissa Leach, James Fairhead and Kojo Amanor
The changing relationship between science, policy and society in a context of increasing internationalisation and public challenges to formal expertise, is a subject for hot debate. At another level, there are live issues around rural landscape and livelihoods in low-income countries.
This Bulletin connects the two by focusing on tropical forests, particularly in West Africa and the Caribbean, so strongly implicated as they are both in local livelihoods and struggles for resource control, and in scientific and policy debates locally, and in the global arena.
The articles review important advances in the science of forest dynamics, which in turn, suggest ways that forest policies could become more ‘pro-poor’. The Bulletin was developed from a series of workshop presentations at IDS in March 2001.
2001: Volume 32
Volume 32 Number 4 October 2001
Edited by: Lyla Mehta, Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones
If a single motif could capture realities in today’s world, uncertainty - and the complexity that underlies it - would be a likely candidate. Ecological, social, political and economic systems are undergoing rapid change. Economic globalisation, shifting patterns of political governance and new expressions of community and identity are all part of this growing complexity. Interactions within and between processes and systems constantly generate surprising outcomes; the result is a world inherently less predictable. In this context, conventional models that have guided the study of environment and development interventions, based on notions of equilibrium and predictability, fail to hold up.
This Bulletin focuses on local natural resource issues as one key area of environmental governance, asking how rural people sustain their livelihoods in an uncertain world and what institutional arrangements mediate their access to resources. The articles were commissioned for a workshop on ‘Institutions and Uncertainty’ held at IDS in November 2000.
Volume 32 Number 3 July 2001
Edited by: Gary Gereffi and Raphael Kaplinsky
Globalisation has become a catchword for the international economy at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The increasing importance of export-oriented industrialisation has made integration into the global economy virtually synonymous with development for a number of nations. However, there is an acute awareness that the gains from globalisation are very unevenly distributed within as well as between societies. A growing body of work analyses globalisation processes from the perspective of ‘value chains’; that is that international trade in goods and services should not be seen solely, or even mainly, as a multitude of arm’s-length market-based transactions but rather as systems of governance - involving multinational enterprises - that link firms together in a variety of sourcing and contracting arrangements. Understanding how these value chains operate is very important for developing country firms and policymakers because the way chains are structured has implications for newcomers trying to participate in the chain and to gain access to necessary skills, competences and supporting services. Most of the papers in this Bulletin build on the results of a workshop in Bellagio, Italy in September 2000, where all these issues were discussed.
Volume 32 Number 2 May 2001
Edited by: Susan Willett
The exclusion of a large section of the global population from the benefits of globalisation has been recognised as one of the major challenges of the new century. This failure to deliver a more equitable distribution of the benefits of globalisation is likely to have dire consequences for the stability of world order.
This special Alumni edition of the IDS Bulletin explores the relationship between globalisation, security and development.
It addresses growing concerns about the way in which poverty undermines human security and contributes to conflict in the developing world and the emerging markets of the former Communist world. It then makes steps towards unravelling the relationship in order to clarify policy options for international and local actors and to redefine relevant conflict prevention and resolution strategies, and strategies for post-conflict reconstruction.
Volume 32 Number 1 January 2001
Edited by: Richard C. Crook and Peter P. Houtzager
After a hiatus, law has re-emerged onto the international development agenda. A number of reasons are suggested: first, the ‘good governance’ policies advocated by the international donor community see reform of the state and its relations with society as key elements in promoting market-led growth.
Second, more legitimate and effective legal institutions are needed to protect citizen’s rights, limit the actions of corrupt state officials and protect the livelihoods of poor people. Then, there is an emerging concern with the legally defined concept of citizenship. Finally, questions of policing, access to justice and judicial reform are near the top of many national agendas, after levels of crime, civil disorder and violence have risen in the cities of the developing world.
The articles in this Bulletin are the product of an international workshop that considered these issues, held at IDS in June 2000.
