THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE ANALYSIS OF CROSS NATIONAL AND CROSS SECTIONAL DATA: OVERVFIEW OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES

Programme “Quantitative Methods in the Social sciences” QMSS, 18-26 August 2005, University of Oxford

Organizers and Participants:

Dr Chris skinner, Prof of Social Statistics, University of Southampton

Prof Jaroslaw Gornialk, Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow

Prof. Sariso , http://easr.sqp.nl

Applied Comparative Research in the Social Sciences: By Martin Kroth

Analysis of Cross national longitudinal data: By Marc Callens (CBGS, Brussels and KULeuven, Leuven)

Models for multiple group and heterogeneous data: By Albert Satorra, Univ Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, www.econ.upff.edu/satorra


Analysis of pooled data with interaction effects
By: Germa Coenders, Dept of Economics, Univ of Girona

Moderated regression analysis MRA a particular specfification of multipkle linear regression analysis by ordinary least squares OLS which includes products of regressors has been widely used when the value of a continuous variable influences the effect of another continuous variable on the dependent one. Within comparative research, this can be understood as comparing the effect of one variable over all infinite possible values of the other variable.

Alternative ways are presented to correct for measurement error bias, which differs in:

- assumptions(sample size, normality…)
- simplicity (expertise required from the user)
- efficiency
- generalizability for complex models (e.g. models with many variables, models with indirect effects)

The issue here is one of bias and efficiency:
- introducing wrong constrains can lead to bias. Introducing correct constrains can reduce standard errors
-thus we advise practitioners to use the very simple non linear constraint if software permits
- constraints which require normality are not advised

This provides a simplified and robust specification and an extension of the usual approaches for modelling interactions using SEM

The main idea underlying the simplified approach stems from the fact that there are still very few SEM users modelling interaction effects. Researchers keep using MRA instead because SEM simply requires too much methodological expertise.

Since Kenny and Judd (1984), available approaches have involved two step methods with unclear theoretical and statistical properties, limited information methods, sophisticated methods out of reach of applied researchers or one step SEM methods with very complicated non linear constraints, some of which required normality which, according to our simulations, is a very unwise assumption. Marsh et al. (2004) proposed some important simplifications and we in some respects simplify their proposal even further (omission of the mean structure) and in some other respects extend it (inclusion of indirect effects and constraint).

The main idea underlying the extension of the approaches used so far is that by restricting SEM to one equation models, researchers were diminishing the potentiality of SEM. SEM should be able to cope with relatively complex models, including indirectly effects. The elimination of the need for complex constraints makes the approach much more workable, independent of the complexity of the model and the fulfilment of normality, while allowing applied researchers to fit these models easily.

Practical recommendations are:
To drop the mean structure
To use non overlapping indicators for the latent interaction
To introduce one constraint

http://www.udg.edu/fcee/professors/gcoenders


Random effects as latent variables: SEM for repeated measures data

By Dr Patrick Sturgis, Univ of Surrey

Repeated Measures and Random Effects
- a problem when analysing panel data is how to account for the correlation between observations on the same subject
- different approaches handle this problem in different ways. E.g.impose different structures on the residual correlations (exchangeable, unstructured, independent)
- assume correlations between repeated observations arise because the regression coefficients vary across subjects
- So, we have average or fixed effects for the population as a whole
And individual variability or random effects around these average coefficients
This is sometimes referred to as a random effects or multi level model

SEM for Repeated Measures

The primary focus has been on how latent variables can be used on cross sectional data
The same framework can be used on repeated measured data to overcome the correlated residuals problem
The mean of a latent variable is used to estimate to the average or fixed effect
The variance of a latent variable represents individual heterogeneity around the fixed coefficient - the random effect
For cross sectional data latent variables are specified as a function of different items at the same time point
For repeated measures data, latent variables are specified as a function of the same item at different time points

www.politics.ox.ac.uk

The Environmentally Displaced

`...throughout the world, there is copious evidence that the carrying capacity of many life-support systems is being overloaded to a breaking point, and where such systems have collapsed, the options for the poor are stark: either to flee, or to stay put and starve.' (Tolba, 1990)

Population displacement due to environmental degradation is not a recent phenomenon. Historically, people have had to move from their land because it had been degraded (through natural disasters, war or over-exploitation) and could not sustain them. What is more recent is the potential for mass movements caused by population growth, resource depletion and the irreversible destruction of the environment. Environmental disasters such as floods, droughts and earthquakes are displacing more and more people every year. People and governments of many nations are altering the physical environment in a way that makes it more vulnerable to disruption. For example, rapid rates of population growth and high levels of consumption in affluent states have resulted in the over utilisation and degradation of the land. As deforestation, desertification, global warming, and other threats appear, a new category of displaced people is being recognised - the environmentally displaced.

Examples of environmental change as a proximate cause of population displacement can be divided into five categories, as follows:
1. Natural disasters - these include floods, volcanoes and earthquakes. They are usually characterised by a rapid onset, and their human impact (destructiveness) is a function of the number of vulnerable people in the region rather than their severity, per se. Poor people in developing countries are the most affected because they are the most vulnerable. It should be noted that the severity of natural disasters - in terms of their human impact - has increased over the past 40 years (28 million affected in 1960s; 64 million in 1980s).
2. Cumulative changes - generally slowly occurring geophysical processes which are accelerated through the interaction with human activities. They include deforestation, land degradation, erosion, salinity, situation, water logging, desertification and climate warming.
3. Accidental disruptions or industrial accidents - inevitable by products of the industrial revolution. Chemical manufacture and transport, and nuclear reactor accidents are among the causes.
4. Development projects - including dams and irrigation projects and forced resettlement programs. In India, 20 million persons have been uprooted by development projects.
5. Conflict and warfare - environmental degradation is both a cause and effect of armed conflict. There is an increasing use of the environment as a `weapon' of war.

In their desperation, these ‘environmental refugees’ …feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt.

There were at least 25 million environmental refugees in the mid-1990s, and that this unrecognised category exceeded the then 22 million refugees as officially defined. The number of environmental refugees might well double by the year 2010, and could rise even more quickly as a result of global warming. As many as 200 million people could eventually be at risk of displacement.

Environmental changes and the natural and man-made disasters associated with them are forcing millions of people to flee their homes. This does not imply that environmental factors always lead directly to displacement. Rather, environmental pressure leads to land competition, impoverishment, encroachment on ecologically fragile areas and impoverishment. These events in turn cause political and ethnic conflicts which may precipitate violence and war – often the immediate cause of flight. The environmental refugees may end up in urban slums, or camps for internally-displaced persons within the country of origin. Millions, however, leave their country. They may seek refuge in neighbouring countries of the South, where they may cause further environmental problems and conflicts. But many, according to Myers will try to obtain asylum in the developed countries of Western Europe and North America. The issue of environmental refugees thus ‘promises to rank as one of the foremost human crises of our times’ (Myers, 1997, 175). The rich countries are closing the door, but it will be impossible ‘to hold back the rising flood’ of refugees. Refugee camps and shantytowns will become ‘breeding grounds for civil disorder, social upheaval and even violence’. There may be ‘substantial outlays to counter pandemic diseases and deficits of food, water and energy’. The result are threats to social cohesion and national identity, leading to ethnic tension and civil disorder (Myers and Kent, 1995, 151-3).

The causes of environmental displacement in such factors are desertification, deforestation, lack of water, salinisation of irrigated lands, and bio-diversity depletion. All of these are linked to rapid growth of population in less-developed countries as well as to global climate change. These macro-level changes lead to pressure on land and other resources. They also exacerbate the effects of extreme weather events, natural disasters and man-made disasters (like Bhopal or Chernobyl) (Myers and Kent, 1995). Based on these observations, Myers provides lists of the millions of people at risk of displacement from desertification, deforestation, rising water levels and so on.

Bangladesh, with its extremely dense population and its exposure to cyclones and flooding, appears as the quintessential example of environmental displacement. Yet, here, there are complex causes for impoverishment and flight, including land ownership patterns, ethnic divisions, economic development projects such as dams, and political conflicts. The action – or more often the inaction – of the Bangladeshi government is also a major factor causing forced migration (Lee, 2001, 73-83).

Lee’s study of the famine in North Korea which has claimed 2-3 million lives comes to further findings: the country was hit by unprecedented flooding and drought in the mid-1990s, but the real blame for starvation lies with the country’s military-first policies and inefficient command economy. Moreover, international food aid has become a political foot-ball: the regime seeks to use it as a bargaining counter in international relations, while diverting food for military purposes; donor countries try to use food aid as a lever to achieve political objectives concerned with stopping the development of nuclear weapons and bringing about talks with the South. In the meantime, North Koreans starve, or seek to flee to China, where they get a frosty reception.

Lee comes to the conclusion that North Korea illustrate Amartya Sen’s principle that the roots of famine lie not in lack of aggregate food supply, but in the failure of individuals’ entitlements to food. The problem is primarily political and social rather than environmental.

A reasonable conclusion is therefore that the notion of the ‘environmental refugee’ is one of the major causes of the complex processes at work in situations of impoverishment, conflict and displacement. This means that environmental factors are part of complex patterns of multiple causality, in which natural and environmental factors are closely linked to economic, social and political ones. This points out to the important role of the state: a strong, efficient state can deal with environmental problems much better than a weak and possibly corrupt state. The key problem then is not only environmental change, but the ability of different communities and countries to cope with it. This in turn is closely linked to problems of underdevelopment and North-South relationships. The issue is above all one of causality. Where Myers and Kent go into detail, they find a wealth of contributory factors: ethnic tensions, ineffective and mistaken government responses, economic problems and so on. The Rwanda disaster is often portrayed as a classical case of population growth putting pressure on scarce land, and thus precipitating ethnic conflict between the Tutsis and Hutu. Yet it could just as well be seen as a political struggle for power in which both ethnicity and natural resources played a major part.

Korean researcher Lee explores the ‘environment-security nexus’ and puts forward a ‘model of the causes of environmental refugees’ (Lee, 2001). She also looks in detail at a number of cases, including Bangladesh, Sudan and North Korea. In fact her model shows the complex interaction between ecological factors, human-induced disasters, governmental factors (such as inaction, incapacity and corruption, as well as harmful policies), and international factors.

Ultimately, policies which are relevant to the growing concern with environmentally-induced population movements must be directed towards alleviating the cause of those movements: the degradation of the natural environment. Environmental degradation is both a cause and effect of population displacement. Addressing environmental degradation also means addressing the `root' and `underlying' causes noted above. Because of the complex nature of environmental change, developing policies to deal effectively with populations displaced by environmental stresses must range from local level initiatives (eg erosion control) to international agreements (eg the Climate Change Convention). Other problems are apparent as well. These include:

a. Many anti-growth advocates promote greater restrictions on immigrant admissions because of the strain they place on the environment/resources of the receiving state.
b. There is an ongoing debate over the use of environmental restrictions on development assistance. Development agencies worry that environmental initiatives may be inconsistent with other development initiatives. This sentiment is echoed by many recipient governments, who claim that `environmental imperialism' is dominating the economic agenda of overseas development assistance.
c. There is also a debate on whether emphasis should be placed on the rights of individuals or on the collective right to sustainable environment, a right which includes future generations.

There is also important talks in terms of the environment as the responsibility of the refugees. Refugees should not be reduced to recipients of free handouts or figures in the supply logistics. The potential of refugees in terms of know-how and labour combined with their responsibility to `replace' the off-take from the natural environment could be the key to solving the worldwide environmental crisis in refugee hosting areas.

References:

Oxfam GB, Migration and Development, 2004

Tolba, M, 1990, cited in D Lazarus `New strangers at the door?', Refugees, 1981

Wijkman A and Timberlake L Natural Disasters: Acts of God or Acts of Man?, Earthscan, London, 1984
Lee, S.-w. (2001). Environment Matters: Conflict, Refugee and International Relations. Seoul and Tokyo: World Human Development Institute Press.
Myers, N. (1997). "Environmental Refugees," Population and Environment 19(2): 167-82.
Myers, N. and J. Kent (1995). Environmental Exodus: An Emergent Crisis in the Global Arean. Washington DC: Climate Institute.

Castles, S., Environmental change and forced migration: making sense of the debate; Refugees Studies Centre, University of Oxford, 2002

International Conference: “MOBILE PEOPLES AND CONSERVATION: CROSSING THE DISCIPLINARY DIVIDE“, Jordan, 2002; Chatelard, G., European University Institute, Florence, Italy; Chatty, D., Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford; Colchester, M., Forest Peoples Programme; Newing Durrell, H., Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent at Canterbury, United Kingdom; Gonzalo Oviedo International Consultant on People and Conservation

UNHCR (2000). Global Report 2000: Achievements and Impact. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

THE POWER OF PLACE

Shakespeare’s ‘blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England’ (Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1) and Rupert Brooke’s ‘corner of a foreign field/That is for ever England’ (The Soldier) are artistic representations of the power of place.

Where does this power of place come from? What makes it, especially in the hands of poets, intellectuals and politicians, such an effective means of arousing collective sentiment and mobilising common action?

There is no better way of introducing this subject matter than by referring to Cecil Rhodes, and to his renowned love of Oxford. It is said that, when he was dying, at the southern tip of Africa in 1902, he asked for Matthew Arnold’s eulogy to Oxford, from the preface of Essays in Criticism, to be read out to him – a passage which begins ‘Beautiful city! So venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene’ (Dougill, 1998).

What about ‘the world we live in’ as it is often called, the industrial world of late modernity where the individual’s lifespan is becoming ‘separated’ from the ‘externalities of place’ (Giddens, 1991); where there consequently exists a ‘generalised sense of homelessness’ (Said, 1979)?

What we need, clearly, is a theory of place that will apply as much to the world of late modernity as to the pre-modern world. The mystique of anthropological fieldwork fits perfectly with the idea that cultures are spatially localised, which in turn fits perfectly with ‘nationalist thinking, in the West where anthropology developed’, about nations as ‘naturally rooted in the native soil of their people.

The divisions of local groups indicates in the sense that their members live in the same or nearby places, interact on a daily basis in social, economic, political and ceremonial affairs and utilise the same range of economic resources.

The construction of a general theory of ‘locality production’ and, in particular the
‘contextual’ nature of locality is defined as a ‘phenomenological quality’, or ‘dimension’ of social life, to be distinguished from ‘neighbourhood’, which is defined as an ‘actually existing’ social form in which locality is ‘realized’. The choice of ‘neighbourhood’ as an alternative to ‘place’, on the grounds that neighbourhood ‘suggests sociality, immediacy and reproducibility’ (Appadurai, 1996).

Looked at in this way, one can ask how the relationship between locality, as sense of place, and neighbourhood, as a ‘substantive social form’ is affected by what is called the ‘dynamism of modernity’. Appadurai is at pains to point out that, in both modern and pre-modern settings,

……locality is an inherently fragile social achievement. Even in the most intimate, spatially confined, geographically isolated situations, locality must be maintained carefully against various kinds of odds.

Despite the fact that most researchers who write about such situations take locality for granted, the ethnographic record is full of evidence that ‘hard and regular work’ is needed to produce and maintain a sense of place. This ‘work’ includes everything from the building of houses and settlements to rituals of all kinds. Rituals of naming and initiation are particularly relevant to place-making because, with their spatial and temporal symbolism, they are designed to produce ‘local subjects, actors who properly belong to a situated community of kin, neighbours, friends and enemies’. The work of locality production is, always and everywhere, a constant struggle to keep at bay ‘an endemic sense of anxiety and instability in social life’.

Neighbourhoods - the ‘substantive social forms’ in which locality is ‘realised’ - imply context in two senses. First, they are contexts: they provide the ‘frame or setting’ for the conduct of meaningful human action and for the production of ‘local subjects’ (Appadurai). Second they require and produce contexts: they have to be carved out from ‘some sort of hostile or recalcitrant environment’ which may include other neighbourhoods. In this sense, ‘The production of a neighbourhood involves the assertion of socially…organized power over places and settings that are viewed as potentially chaotic or rebellious’. Appadurai calls this the ‘context-generative’ quality which is a necessary aspect of all locality production.

In the modern world, the most powerful context-generative social formation that any neighbourhood is likely to encounter is the nation-state, in which ‘neighbourhoods exist…to produce compliant national citizens – and not for the production of local subjects’. The nation-state has produced ‘extreme examples of neighbourhoods which are context-produced rather than context-generative’, including urban slums, ghettos, prisons, concentration camps and refugee camps. These are ‘the starkest examples of the conditions of uncertainty, poverty, displacement and despair under which locality can be produced’ - but produced it nevertheless is.


Extracted from:
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis and London.

Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Polity Press, Cambridge.

Smith, A. D. (1986) The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Turton, D. (2004) Lip-plates and ‘the people who take photographs’: uneasy encounters between Mursi and tourists in southern Ethiopia. Anthropology Today.

Turton, D. (2004), The meaning of place in a world of movement; Queen Elizabeth House International Development Centre, University of Oxford.

Africa: a special case for climate change - Oxfam

Global warming is already affecting Africa [1]. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that, “the effects of climate change are expected to be greatest in developing countries in terms of loss of life and relative effects on investment and economy.” It describes Africa, the world’s poorest region, as “the continent most vulnerable to the impacts of projected change because widespread poverty limits adaptation capabilities” [2].

Small-scale farming provides most of the food produced in Africa, as well as employment for 70 per cent of working people [3]. These simple facts, coupled with farming being overwhelmingly dependent on direct rainfall, mean that Africa is exceptionally vulnerable to the uncertainties and weather extremes of global warming.

But a vulnerable agricultural system is not the only problem. The continent is more exposed to the impacts of climate change than many other regions in the world [4]. Its high sensitivity to climate is exacerbated by other factors such as widespread poverty, recurrent droughts and floods, an immediate daily dependence on natural resources and biodiversity, a heavy disease burden, and the numerous conflicts that have engulfed the continent. There are further complications introduced by an unjust international trade system and the burden of unpayable debt.

All these factors call for a new model of development in which strategies to increase human resilience in the face of climate change and the stability of ecosystems are central. It calls for a new test on every policy and project, in which the key question will be, “Are you increasing or decreasing people’s vulnerability to the climate?”

Above all, the challenge calls for a new flexibility and not a one-size-fits-all, neoliberal-driven approach to development. As this Report observes, just as an investment portfolio spreads risk by including a variety of stocks and shares, so an agricultural system geared to manage the risks of changing climate requires a rich diversity of approaches in terms of what is grown, and how it is grown.

But, even where the links to climate change are under-appreciated, Africa is a continent only too aware of the threat of ‘natural’ disasters and the obstacles they pose to poverty reduction. Mozambique hit world headlines at the beginning of the new Millennium when it was hit by floods on a biblical scale. Now, its Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty 2001–2005 states: “Natural disasters… constitute an obstacle to a definitive break with certain degrees and patterns of poverty. Therefore, measures aimed at managing these risks are of the utmost importance. ”More generally, the environment action plan of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) observes, “Natural disasters… cause considerable human suffering and economic damage in the continent.” And quite recently, governments agreed at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in January 2005 that, “Disasters in Africa pose a major obstacle to the African continent’s efforts to achieve sustainable development” [5].

Unfortunately, even this level of awareness is not the same as having a coherent and adequately funded approach to tackling the problem.

Recently the role of developing new technology has been strongly emphasised. In particular, governments have focused on how to improve weather forecasting in Africa. There is a consensus among development groups, however, that a greater and more urgent challenge is strengthening communities from the bottom-up, and building on their own coping strategies to live with global warming. The need to give much more support to small-scale farming comes up again and again from the field experience of development groups, along with the priority for access to energy from sustainable sources.

We believe it is not necessary to wait years for more research on climate change before investing in disaster risk reduction. Governments have agreed on the need for action, and tools and methods for protecting communities from disasters are well developed. Now they need to be employed immediately in African countries and communities on a much greater scale.

At the moment, spending priorities are perverse. For every $1 spent on preparing for disaster, a further $7 is saved in the cost of recovering from it. Yet, as in the case of Mozambique, requests for resources to prepare for disasters before the great floods went seriously under-funded, leaving a huge disaster-relief bill to be paid after the floods.

This Report finds that concerns about the effects of climate change on rural African societies are more than justified. Climate change is happening, and it is affecting livelihoods that depend on the natural environment, which, in Africa, means nearly everyone. However, even without adequate support, far from being passive victims, people recognise even small changes in climate, and are taking steps to respond to them.

Climate Change is happening and when all the impacts are added up, everyone will lose out sooner or later. Some people will adapt more successfully than others, and climate change may well result in a polarisation of wealth and well-being in ways we have not seen before. Polarisation of wealth can, for example, create an overall drag on human development. In addition to the core recommendations already made by the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, in the light of Africa’s special circumstances, these further proposals are considered a minimum needed to manage the impact of global warming on the continent. Without them, whatever achievements in development may have been won in Africa in the last few decades could be reversed by climate change.

Footnotes

1 Hulme, M, et al (2001): ‘African Climate Change: 1900-2100’, Climate Research, 17:145-168.
2 IPCC (2001) Third Assessment Report, Summary for Policymakers.
3 Maxwell, S (2001) ‘WDR 2001: Is there a “new poverty agenda”?’ Development Policy Review 19
(1): 143–149.
4 McCarthy, J et al, eds, (2001) Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, IPCC
Working Group II, Third Assessment Report. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
5 Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015

Promoting Peace Building

For more than a decade, resolutions from the United Nations and the European Commission have highlighted women’s suffering during wars, and the unfairness of their treatment upon the return to peace. Over the past few years there thus has been an increasing interest in women’s experiences during war and their potential capabilities for peace, but this interest has not led to significant improvements in women’s lives during and after armed struggle. Conflict is a word often used loosely to mean many different things despite its long history in social science. Most types of social, political, and economic change involve conflict of some sort, and one could argue that many of the positive changes in world history have occurred as a result of conflict. Violent conflicts emerging since the end of the Cold War have commonly been called ethnic conflict, social conflict, and civil conflict, along with international social conflict where there is some cross-border activity or other states are involved. Competing identities are often added to the list of root causes, whether conceived in terms of an essentialist ethnicity, or regionalism, or tensions over state formation, or marginality to the global economy (Miall et al. 1999).

More recently, with the extension of conflict resolution into post conflict policies, gender issues have come to be seen as far more central, and as directly affecting the efficacy of peace-building initiatives, even if women still remain marginalised at the point of brokering a settlement. As women’s experiences have become more broadly known, it has become clear that there are many different ways in which women live through and participate in wars: as fighters, community leaders, social organisers, workers, farmers, traders, welfare workers, among other roles. Nonetheless, many conflict narratives highlight a common theme of women seeking to minimise the effects of violence through their different social roles. Stories of women actively seeking to end wars have received increasing international attention.

There has been a surge of interest in women who have negotiated peace between groups of warring men (Berhane-Selassie 1994; El-Bushra 2000), or who have even courageously intervened in battles to force peace (in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan, for instance). These women have sometimes called on and expressed values, behaviour, and codes which are explicitly associated with their gender. Women less concern with ego involvement have played crucial role in consensus building that needs to be done in forging a peace for a people that have been so divided. There are possibilities of introducing new paradigms in conflict resolution, because, women are experienced in conflict resolution and conflict transformation in the domestic sphere, that can be played out into the way public negotiations take place. However, women who are seen to ‘break out’ of the ethnic identity ascribed to them, for instance by having mixed marriages or joining human rights organisations, are often targeted for particular censure, if not actual violence (as in the former Yugoslavia, for example (Korac 1998)). Some women’s organisations have developed the capacity to work openly to protect and extend human rights (especially in Latin America). Others have extended the work they undertook during conflict to ensure that the social fabric did not collapse, including, for example, various forms of community organisation and welfare provision in refugee camps in Northern Ireland, El Salvador, Guatemala, Rwanda, and Burundi.

In practice, women’s organisations often have to deal not only with marginalisation and stigmatisation by powerful government and non-government organisations, but also with direct physical harassment from local men and security forces, especially common in post-conflict situations where gender tensions are already running high.

Supporting women as groups of individuals (rather than in organisations) is also a common strategy in trying to promote peace building (United Nations 1985, 1995, 1998). A common request from peace activists and commentators is that there should be more of a female presence at the sites of peace making, as well as at discussions that may take place as part of peace building (European Commission 1996b; United Nations 1995). Merely being invited to attend talks or peace conferences is insufficient, however. Very few women have the education, training, or confidence to participate fully, even if they are in attendance. There are lessons here from development policies which have attempted to expand the participation of women in the political process by offering them special training and educational opportunities.

Feminist research has shown many large institutions across the world are masculine in culture and practice. State bureaucracies and security services, as well as international bodies, tend to be structured and to function according to norms of masculinity and encourage individualistic competitive behaviour. The effects of such types of masculinity are not only seen directly in the commission of violent acts, but also in the structure and functioning of key institutions which are responsible for organising war, and indeed many of those which are meant to manage the peace.

The logical policy implication is that transformation of the masculine nature of such institutions is of central importance in any peace building strategy. It is certainly difficult to see how positive peace could be achieved without significant changes in the way certain institutions and policy-making bodies operate. In reflecting social norms, such institutions (private, state, and intl) are typically dominated by men, with few women being in decision-making positions. Such a pattern was until recently almost globally universal and it has now come to be seriously questioned and challenged in countries of the North. This is not only because of the desire for greater equity between women and men for employment and power, but also in the hope that this can lead to changes in the way that such institutions operate.

Security institutions are usually those most in need of reform in different post-conflict contexts (United Nations 1995). Without adequate personal security (for women and men), it is very difficult to reduce violence, or even sometimes to prevent a return to war. All too often such organisations are part of the problem, rather than the solution. They typically embody the aggressive values of masculinity, both in the way internal decisions are taken and management issues are resolved, and in the way that services are delivered to the public. Several countries have begun to tackle these problems by focusing on reducing violence and corruption within the police force, and they have incorporated the retraining of officers to deal with rape, which has been identified by international institutions as a priority in peace building (United Nations 1997). Policies which have been taken up on a small scale include: using women as key trainers; increasing the number of women employed, especially in more senior positions; and training and promoting women as investigators of gender crimes (El-Bushra and Piza López 1993). Unless one has a clear analysis of exactly which institutions are responsible for the fragility of peace, it is also not clear how change should be prioritised. A lot of work remains to be done in this area.

Writers within the development field have long argued that in trying to challenge the ways in which gender relations develop, it is necessary to look at the ways in which men are socialised to become part of a male gender. Research focusing on the construction of masculinity has also revealed cross-cultural tendencies, and some of these are highly pertinent to studies of conflict (Lentin 1997; Steans 1998). Egotistical, aggressive, and dominant behaviours are common features of cultural definitions of masculinity, as is men’s dominance over women (Byrne 1996). War of all types creates militarised societies, and in many different cultural contexts militarisation is linked to masculinity – not as a socio-biological attribution but rather as ‘cultural constructions of manliness’ (Turshen 1998).

Several writers have argued that at times of socio-political tension prior to conflict, as well as during conflict itself, some types of masculinity come to be celebrated and promoted more than others (Cockburn 1998, 2001; El-Bushra 2000;). Theoretically, it might be possible for people to reclaim positive cultural traditions of masculinity which have been lost or undermined during conflict, but this would probably require true leadership, or at least tolerance, and there are very few examples where this seems at all likely.

Rape widely recognised as war crime – and, indeed, war itself is assumed to be a
‘cause’ of rape. Turshen (2001) takes the debates on rape somewhat further by considering the case of Rwanda and Mozambique in more detail. She suggests that there has been a neglect of men’s motivation to gain access to property through women, and see women as property. Through rape and other forms of assault on women, men were able to gain rights to women’s land and access to their labour through forced ‘marriage’. They were also able to deny other men access to these goods by disabling and murdering women. She suggests that this motivation might be restricted to societies where gender relations are so unequal that women are not legally autonomous individuals – that is, where colonial and customary legal codes have combined to create the current situation. Perhaps an additional context is one of poverty, where access to very small amounts of property has great significance.

In this respect, the capacity of women to articulate their views should be promoted through initiatives that are neither about personal security nor about economic policy. El-Bushra (2000) argues that rather than seeking ways to achieve a feminist agenda of increased economic autonomy, many women in African countries prioritise ways to restore ‘respect’ through mended social relations between women and men, even where these are evidently unequal and exploitative. The key improvement in all of these approaches would be to have women’s voices heard.

Moreover, where peace education is taken seriously as part of the new curriculum, this frees women from what might be seen as a private responsibility (that of educating their children for peace) and makes it a public activity, in which men can also play a part. Nurturing a human-rights culture through the establishment of and support for human-rights organisations is a common mechanism used in peace building. There is room for a very positive input from donors here, especially in terms of incorporating women’s rights into human rights work (European Council 1995). It is more common for women than men to be unaware that they have human rights which are recognised internationally. Children’s rights have received much publicity in recent years, but they still tend to be marginalised within the work of many human-rights organisations. Where they are taken up, they are much more concerned with boys’ experiences than with girls’. There is therefore considerable room for improvement in this area.


The so-called ‘traditional’ reconciliation and conflict-resolution mechanisms need to be handled with care, even as they are being embraced with increasing amounts of enthusiasm internationally. There are perhaps two gender-based reasons why donors should exercise caution in providing support. First, these mechanisms tend to be much more a reflection of highly gendered local politics and power relations than they are part of some value-free traditional cultural context. Second, women’s needs are normally completely marginalised in their practice and may even be undermined by them. There are notable exceptions, where the re/invention of traditions has incorporated important roles for women, and even given women and young men space to influence outcomes, but it requires sensitivity to distinguish between the two approaches.

Truth Commissions are coming to be seen as a central plank of peace building, but they usually omit specific consideration of violence against women or else handle it very badly. Women’s experiences tend to be marginalised or ignored (United Nations 1998), either because they include specific things which do not happen to men in the same way (sexual violence), or because women find it difficult to bring complaints forward, or because commissioners, the government, or the general public do not want to acknowledge the truth about women’s war experiences. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission recognised some elements of all of these problems once it was well into its investigation, and it did try to address them by holding some hearings where only women were present, an act which many women regarded as successful in addressing the problem (Goldblatt and Meintjes 1998).

In general, the plight of women in war attracts international attention, sometimes to a greater degree than men’s, and it is often used as a symbol of the horrific barbarism mankind is capable of. Women’s roles in working towards peace have become increasingly celebrated (while their other roles are downplayed). As a consequence of this attention, women in ‘post-conflict’ peace building have been thrust into unprecedented prominence in the policy processes of many international organisations. Yet women remain marginal, as a group as well as as individuals, in peace negotiations and in consultations about ‘post-conflict’ strategies. Whether in specific peace-building activities, or in more general macro policies, women’s needs are consistently marginalised in ‘post-conflict’ societies, while they also suffer a ‘backlash’, often with physical and legal ramifications, not only from male citizens but from the state itself. Nonetheless, it is important to register that the persistent reluctance of many analysts and advisers to take on lessons about gendering analysis and policy
processes – from feminist histories of other conflicts and from feminist studies of development – has itself allowed, if not facilitated, the playing out of such intense gender politics.




Extracted from:

Pankhurst, D., The ‘sex war’ and other wars: towards a feminist approach to peace Building, Oxfam GB, www.oxfam.org.uk

Stewart, F. and V. Fitzgerald (eds.) (2000) War and Underdevelopment, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Pankhurst, D. and J. Pearce (1997) ‘Engendering the analysis of conflict: perspectives from the South’, in H. Afshar (ed.) Women and Empowerment, London: Routledge

Miall, H., O. Ramsbotham, and T. Woodhouse (1999) Contemporary Conflict Resolution, Cambridge: Polity Press

El-Bushra, J. (2000) ‘Transforming conflict: some thoughts on a gendered understanding of conflict processes’, in Jacobs et al. (eds.) (2000)

Elson, D. (ed.) (1995) Male Bias in the Development Process, Manchester: Manchester University Press

International Alert Gender Campaign (1999), Women Building Peace: From the Village Council to the Negotiating Table, London: International Alert (www.internationalalert.org)

Garcia, E. (ed.) (1994) Pilgrim Voices: Citizens as Peacemakers, London: International Alert

Turshen, M. (1998) ‘Women’s war stories’, in Turshen and Twagiramariya (eds.) (1998)

United Nations (1997) Report of the Expert Group Meeting on Adolescent Girls and their Rights, Addis Ababa: United Nations, Division for the Advancement of Women

United Nations (1998) Resolution on Women and Armed Conflict, United Nations, Commission for the Status of Women

Processing Peace

In 2002, arms deliveries to Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa constituted 66.7 per cent of the value of all arms deliveries worldwide, with a monetary value of nearly US$17bn; the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council accounted for 90 per cent of those deliveries.

The misuse of arms can further impede development. Irresponsible arms
transfers may: encourage unaccountable and poorly trained military forces to suppress human rights and democratic development; facilitate brutal resource exploitation; contribute to environmental degradation; and to an increase in violence against women. In these cases, the development needs of the country continue to go unmet, and in some situations may increase still further. Poverty may deepen, inequalities may widen, access to basic services be further compromised, and livelihoods be threatened.

in order that arms transfers do not undermine development,
they must have sustainable development and the goal of human
security at their core. The security benefits to be derived from
arms transfers must be carefully weighed alongside the wider
development needs of the importing country and against exporter
profit. Article 26 of the UN Charter makes this clear, setting out the
responsibility of states to promote the establishment and maintenance
of international peace and security with the least diversion for
armaments of the world’s human and economic resources.

Irresponsible arms transfers may encourage unaccountable and
poorly trained military forces to deny human rights and suppress
democratic development. While stronger military and police forces
may provide better security, research has shown that transfers to military regimes are more likely to serve the interests of the regimes than those of human development and security.

For example, the abuse and proliferation of small arms is often
characteristic of suppression of pressure for democratic change.
The threatening use of such arms by security forces, armed groups,
or others in positions of authority against political activists,
journalists, trade unionists, and peaceful demonstrators has been
well-documented for a number of developing countries, as well as
for some developed countries.


The people to people peace process

The world’s longest running civil war has pitted the largely Arab northern half of Sudan against the black African south on and off for over 40 years. More than two million people have been killed and over four million displaced. However conflict in Sudan is older than the independent state. Individual tribes have fought over cattle and grazing land for centuries, settling scores at the point of a spear. Pre modern conflict in southern Sudan was characterised by restraints and obligations. The casualties were almost always men. Fighting for water points, grazing, fishing grounds, food supplies and cattle took place far away from villages. Children, women and the elderly were not targeted. Women were permitted on the field of battle to retrieve the wound and could gather food and water from enemy territory. Enemies raiding food stocks would not take everything. Unarmed opponents were spared.

According to tradition, causing a death created spiritual pollution. A bit of the blood of any man speared to death was thought to be in the slayer and had to be bled out of the upper arm by a spiritual leader. Ghosts were believed to haunt anyone who killed in secret. However, death by bullets carries no such sanction. When one kills with a foreign weapon the ghosts of the dead will not haunt you. Rebel commanders argued to chiefs that a gun death carried no individual responsibility. Once removed from its moral consequences, killing became easier. Traditional cultures and livelihoods in the south have been devastated by modern warfare, conflict induced famine, armed militia groups and proliferation of small arms and light weapons. When the southern rebel movement, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, fragmented in the early 1990s inter factional and inter ethnic conflict erupted over much of southern Sudan. Weapons used against the northern army were turned on fellow southerners. Cattle raids spiralled into a cycle of attack, retaliation and revenge. Arguments formerly settled by fighting with sticks were decided with assault weapons. It is estimated that women now comprise 80% of the victims of conflict.

Since the late 1990s the Nariobi based New Sudan Council of Churches NSCC and the Khartoum based Sudan Council of Churches which operates in government controlled areas, have worked together to promote local peace building. NSCC has a deep religious commitment to justice and peace and believes that there is no conflict, whether latent or violent, which is so small that it can be ignored. The people to people peace initiative is a locally owned process based on traditional methods of reconciliation in an environment where formal institutions are non existent. Since the late 1990s locally convened conferences have resolved a series of ethnic and communal conflicts and brought hope and stability to some of the areas most affected by hostilities. Formerly hostile communities have realised that peaceful coexistence promotes the establishment of sustainable livelihoods that create hope for a better future where the economic, political, social and cultural contribution of every citizen is valued and treasured. The first success came in Nov 1999 after six months of intensive work by NSCC to challenge the Nuer and the Dinka to resolve their internal defaulters. Following a seven day conference in Wunlit, peace was established between them. A peace and governance councils was formed to rebuild the civil administration and police system, empower the traditional court system of chiefs, demobilise all children under 15 and establish water resources, schools, health facilities and food security to enable communities to sustain themselves. To symbolise commitment to peace and unity a white bull I slaughtered at the beginning of each conference. The bull is believed to take a message to the spirit world announcing peace between the tribes. Spiritual leaders dance as they point sharp spears and shout directions to the animal about its mission. Dialogue, ceremonies, prayer, story telling, exchange of riddles, singing, dancing, cooking sessions, feasting and recounting of atrocities and violence continue for several days. All those who h ave been wronged are given time to share their story. Prior to departure, another bull is slaughtered. The peace village is left standing as a symbol of reconciliation. After each conference, local abductions and raids have stopped, stolen goods and abducted people have been returned, trade between ethnic groups has resumed and intertribal courts have been set up to deal with treaty violators. Conferences, and the ongoing work of the peace councils they have spawned, have fundamentally contributed to the renaissance of notions of restorative justice, reconciliation, forgiveness and ethnic co existence in southern Sudan. In African jurisprudence you must restore harmony including the ritual calling on God and our ancestors to restore the relationships. When you fight with strangers you forget and go on. But when you fight with family it is very bitter. People to people peacemaking is a peace and reconciliation process between peoples with oral traditions which incorporates elements of Christianity and modern techniques of diplomacy and problem solving and reconciliation. It differs from arbitration, litigation and the formal court system as it:

- Prioritises restoration of broken relationships and rejects modern methods of coercion, imprisonment and execution.
- Does not permit a small elite group of representatives to articulate problem on behalf of aggrieved parties.
- Gives people affected by the conflict an opportunity to personally articulate their concerns in the presence of a facilitator who guides them to a mutually agreed outcome to restore broken relationships.
- Does not condemn law breakers to jail or death but provides them space for introspection and self analysis .
- Provides a ritual environment which people in conflict can use to interact physically and emotionally and empathise with the world view of the other.
- Commits offenders to providing compensation, paying fines and remaining outside the community until cleansed of wrong doing.
- Provides powerful constraints on future breaches of agreements, individuals fear being expelled and ostracised by councils of elders and spiritual leaders.

There are now many committed individuals and civil groups articulating the significance of social harmony and peaceful coexistence among various and diverse communities southern Sudan. Peace constituencies have played a major role in bringing southern and northern leaders round the peace table in the Kenyan city of Naivasha. The violent intra and inter ethnic conflicts that have decimated the social, economic and cultural foundation of south Sudanese communities have been transformed into spaces for mapping out opportunities for peace.

Oxfam’s story:

Displaced by one of Africa’s most violent civil wars, Hassanat (originally from the Nuba mountains) and Christina (a Nuer woman from Bahr El-Ghazal region) both arrived in the shanty towns of Port Sudan over a decade ago. Like 40,000 other displaced Southerners, the women and their families tried to cobble together simple shacks and shelters out of corrugated tin, mud bricks, and plastic sheeting. Neither had an education, a prospect of a job, or much hope for the future. Growing up as an orphan, Christina had never seen the inside of a school building, while Hassanat was too busy trying to make a little money through odd jobs to stay in classes. Then an early marriage to a (mostly unemployed) soldier kept Christina out of school and busy bringing up nine children – until her husband walked out three years ago and left Christina to fend for herself.

So when she heard that a group of displaced women like her and Hassanat were getting together, with Oxfam's support, to improve their lives, Christina decided to change her fate by joining them. With some initial funding from Oxfam, these women were able to start a credit project that allows each group member to take out a small loan to start a local business.

With an initial loan of 25,000 Dinar (approximately £55), the two women’s businesses were born. Christina set off to buy a jerry-can of oil and some flour to make biscuits and cakes to sell in a tea stall at the market. Hassanat purchased some flour, a few eggs, and a spaghetti-making machine, and began making and selling dried pasta from house-to-house on the streets of Habila.

A mere ten months later, Christina was seeing her profits increase handsomely at the tea stall, and Hassanat had started supplying not only local households, but also small businesses. Both women had paid back their original loan – and Hassanat almost immediately applied for a second one.

“With the money we have earned, we have been able to build ourselves proper homes, made out of concrete. We can pay our children’ school fees and buy medicines when they get sick. Every single one of my nine children is in school,” Christina says proudly, leaning back in her seat to survey the small collection of bright plastic stools lined up in front of her tea stall. Her two oldest boys are now getting ready to graduate from high school, a significant achievement in Christina’s poverty-stricken neighbourhood.

“I am more confident now than I was before, and I have decided to improve my own education,” she adds. “Because my parents died when I was young, I never had the chance to go to school. For the past year, I have been attending free evening classes at one of Oxfam’s night schools, and I am even learning some English.”

Hassanat, who also attends the adult literacy classes, insists that a business like hers can turn a woman’s life around. “The women’s group showed me that I was not alone; that there was a lot I could achieve even with just a little bit of support. Today, I work as a group leader and manage the loans for other women who are trying to open small businesses. I know they look up to those of us who have made it, and I am here to tell them that they can succeed just like I did.”

It may seem like an unlikely career path for two women from one of the poorest pockets of the African continent, but Hassanat and Christina illustrate that with the right motivation and initiative, a little bit of support from Oxfam can go a long way towards building a brighter future.




Extracted from:

Oxfam, Iansa, Amnesty Intl; Guns or Growth, Control Arms Campaign; Assessing the impact of arms sales on sustainable development, June 2004

Bennett, N., Oxfam GB, A little loan goes a long way in Port Sudan, 24 August 2005

Ouko, M., From Warriors to Peace Makers, Oxford University, Refugees Studies Centre, 2005

Intergovernmental Authority on Development, www.igad.org, Member states include: Djibouti Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya

Oxfam: US, Brazil, India and Russia must back UN moves against genocide

With one month to go until the UN summit in New York, the USA, Brazil, India and Russia have been called upon to back a new agreement designed to stop genocides like Rwanda from ever happening again.

International agency Oxfam has named these powerful countries as they are currently lukewarm to - or are actively blocking – new measures designed to stop atrocities like genocide from taking place. The reforms will be discussed at the UN Summit in New York in exactly one month’s time. Other countries seeking to block the measures include Syria, Iran, Cuba, Pakistan, Eqypt and Algeria.

Oxfam is pushing for a strong agreement on the responsibility of states to protect civilians from large-scale atrocities such as genocide and ethnic cleansing. If agreed this would establish a new standard and oblige the international community to act were there to be another Rwanda or a similar mass murder of civilians where the government was unwilling or unable to do anything to stop the bloodshed. The Rwandan government, supported by dozens of others around the world, has led the calls for a strong agreement but those opposing it are refusing to back down.

“It is hard to overstate how important this is. In one months time the biggest meeting of world leaders in history could endorse a new standard which could help stop a future Rwanda from happening. Today we’ve taken the step of exposing the governments blocking the agreement so people around the world can call on them to change their minds. We urge these governments to urgently reconsider their position and agree to protect civilians from mass murder and atrocities. The international community must never again allow genocide or mass murder to go unchecked,” said Nicola Reindorp, Head of Oxfam in New York.

India, Brazil and Russia are currently actively opposing strong language on the responsibility to protect civilians. Oxfam is also concerned that the US government, although supporting the ‘responsibility to protect’ in principle is currently pushing a watered down proposal.

By contrast key governments supporting the call for strong language include Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, and the EU.

The current draft outcome document states that the UN has a ‘shared responsibility to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner,’ to, ‘help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.’ However opposition from the blockers could still dilute the commitment rendering it meaningless.

“This is a moral issue of huge importance and will establish a new standard that could help save millions of lives. Those supporting the responsibility of states to protect civilians must stick to their principles and those opposing it must think again. Brazil, India, Russia and the USA must play their part in helping to stop the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians,” added Reindorp.

ENDS

Editors Notes:

For more information contact:

UK: Brendan Cox on Cell: + 44 7957 120 853
USA: Laura Rusu on + 1 202 496 3620 Cell: + 1 202 459 3739

The current draft wording on the ‘responsibility to protect is below’:

118. We agree that the protection of populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity lies first and foremost with each individual State. We also agree that this responsibility to protect entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement. We accept this responsibility and agree to act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the efforts of the United Nations to establish an early-warning capability. The international community, through the United Nations, also has the obligation to use diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, including under Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we recognize our shared responsibility to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and in co-operation with relevant regional organizations, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities be unwilling or unable to protect their populations. We stress the need to continue consideration of the concept of the responsibility to protect within the sixtieth session of the General Assembly.
119. We invite the permanent members of the Security Council to refrain from using the veto in cases of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
120. We support the implementation of the United Nations Action Plan to Prevent Genocide and the work of the Secretariat to this end.

The State of World: Universe is one way and not reversible

In a series of treaties and declarations promulgated over the past few decades, most of the world’s governments have committed themselves to cooperate to end a host of scourges that seriously threaten human well being. Yet they do not seem to mean it. They have promised to halve global poverty by 2015 - but poverty rates have barely budged, except in China, where the reliability of the statistics is open to question. They have vowed to ensure that all people attain a level of health that permits them to lead socially and economically productive lives. They first promised, in 1977, to meet this goal by the year 2000. Instead the proportion of children being immunized against basic childhood diseases has fallen from more than 70 % to at best 50% (1). The UN was founded to protect the world from the scourge of war, but more than 20 million people, mostly civilians, have died in armed conflict since the end of WWII (2). Despite the success in trade liberalization and protection of the ozone layer, there is a litany of failure. The global economy remains highly unstable and grotesquely inequitable, and the global environment continues to deteriorate rapidly.

For the past decade the new challenges and opportunities faced by states over recurrent themes illustrate the configuration of a likely unipolar structure headed by the United States. The lack of geopolitics as a pattern in the international system of the 1990s was due to the fact that there were no overarching rivalries and that the main power structure faced no obvious and significant strategic threats. This benign geopolitical landscape was the result of the massive military superiority of the United States and of the relatively mild quality of its hegemony. This situation, however, changed after the terrorist attacks of September 11. The agenda of promoting political liberalism is being downplayed in exchange for cooperation in maintaining security. The critical issue is not solely suicide bombers rather the people who direct them - being calculating and political. They are seeking above all to seize control of a number of countries now aligned with the US and Europe.

There is a return to military activism that will stimulate balancing behaviour. This is a time of great uncertainty and a pivotal moment, since the decisions that are being taken now will carry long-term consequences. There is enormous emphasis on the need to stop nuclear proliferation with recent attention focused on Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Some see an inconsistency between opposing vertical proliferation by all means necessary, including the threat and in Iraq’s case, the act of war and yet permitting horizontal proliferation. It is difficult to imagine any circumstances in which the use of a nuclear weapon, with all the environmental damage and international opprobrium would be a favoured option. That said nuclear weapons are the ultimate symbol of nation’s ability to respond with ultimate force. As for Iran, the scenario is uncertainty of possible consequences of an attack that could follow: an increase in terrorism, a Shia rising in Iraq; Hizbullah and Iranian attacks on Israel; attacks on oil facilities along the Gulf and a recession caused by rising oil prices. However as Iraq is proving an electoral liability, the future for US to retain power for the next decade is downplayed while Iran’s oil supplies mostly destined for China - perceived as the US’s main long term rival - exacerbates the relation. Hence, the story is open ended.

The aspirations of both Japan and India have also changed in recent years. Both countries see themselves as key players if the post-Cold War world changes to be multi-polar. Chinese people are upset at the way Japan bribed the Russian government to renege on agreement made by the Yukos oil company to build a gas pipeline to China; and Japanese official documents dropping the idea that North Korea is the most likely adversary in a future war and recognised openly the enemy would probably to be China. Japan’s dependency on trade with China is increasing and China’s dependency on Japan is declining. Last year Chinese growth in trade with Japan at 25% was less than the growth in its trade with the US - up 34%, the European Union increased by 33% and South Korea grew by 42%.

New analysis requires of the way the world is heading as it is committed to high levels of economic growth, recognising that much industrial production is now being carried out in the poor world. The increasing trend in globalization of production, seemingly, has mixed environmental effects. On the positive side, the more efficient technologies made available to poor countries should reduce some degree of waste. But the globalization of production also allows consumers in rich countries to benefit from environmentally harmful production processes without directly paying, the environmental costs are pushed off on poor countries, which often lack the resources to regulate such production or to clean up its consequences. Under the existing international trade agreements governments are not allowed to ban or discriminate against imports of goods made by environmentally “undesirable” processes, even if they have banned such processes in their own territory. Even requiring labels to inform consumers about the way products are made may under WTO rules, constitute a barrier to trade. While poor countries have no way of exercising the rights recognised in the Conventions and Charters signed up to by the member states. Relying on a voluntary approach alone has failed to provide the appropriate minimum standards that adequately protect individuals, their communities, and the environment from recalcitrant corporate behaviour and operations.

Worryingly, the EU is proposing that water delivery becomes part of the services negotiations at the WTO. Markets for water, health care, and education are not the same as those for television sets and cars, and they should not be governed by the same principles - basic services should remain public for developmental and poverty reduction necessities.

Today a rising population confronts shrinking natural resources. We have no more emigration valve, because all human societies are linked by international transport, and we can no more escape into space as previous generation could flee into the ocean. Obviously we do not make the air, water and soil on which our lives depend. Less obviously nature also provides essential and irreplaceable services. It cleans the air and water we pollute, recycles organic matter into usable form, and maintains the infrastructure of ecosystems that nurture all the species on which we depend for food and medicine, and all the natural resources that provide grist for the mills of our industrial civilization. Nature provides flood control, pollination, erosion control, and genetic resources. Nature does not charge for its services. If it did, the bill could easily overwhelm the entire global GDP. Perhaps if we did have to pay, we would take better care of those ecosystems. Because nature provides its goods and services at no monetary cost, there is no price mechanism to enforce their efficient allocation. As a result, no market incentive militates against damaging the ecosystems.

The equations of mechanical physics - theoretically allowed the universe to run equally well forward or backward. Thus, in a purely mechanical world, the tree could become a shoot and a seed again, the butterfly turn back into a caterpillar. But there is more to it - as the second law of thermodynamic specifies “ the process of heat conduction cannot be completely reversed by any means” (Planck, 1879). The vision of increasing disorder means that the universe is one way and not reversible. Hence, the great fact of irreversibility of natural phenomena requires greater understanding of the role that human ought to play in preserving the earth. If we continue to follow our present course, we shall have exhausted the world’s major fisheries, tropical rain forests, fossil fuels, and much of our soil in the next few decades. To claim that production processes have only local environmental consequences is to reveal a profound misunderstandings and ignorance of natural law and the way ecosystems work.


References:

(1) “Shots for all children”, International Herald Tribune, Jan 23, 2002,8.
(2) Cranna, M., The true cost of conflict (London: Earthscan with Saferworld, 1994)
- Making trade work for development in 2005, Oxfam Briefing Paper
- Rhodes, R., The making of the atomic bomb, Simon & Schuster publishing, 1986
- Plesch, D., War with Iran, Guardian, August 15,2005
- Bellamy, C., The decision that dares not speak its name, The World Today, May 2005
- Florini, A., The coming democracy, (2002), Island Press
- Berkes, F., Common Property Resources, ecology and community based sustainable development, 1989, Printer Publishers London
- Melosi, M., Garbage in the cities - refuse, reform, and the environment; 2005, University of Pittsburgh Press
- Dasgupta, P., human well being and the natural environment, 2002, Oxford University Press

Waste Recovery

Today’s concerns about the global environment are a response to the massive scale on which modern technologies are now utilized and the certainty that they will spread to the developing countries in the decades ahead. Generation of a wide range of waste products has placed considerable stress upon the environment mainly in the industrialized economies. Poverty, especially coupled with the rates of population growth, typical of many developing countries, also generates characteristic patterns of pollution. Mainly associated with improperly treated human sewage and the degradation of land, these problems tend to be localized, although they affect large number of people.

Modern technology is responsible for the elevated material standard of living that has been achieved by a significant fraction of the earth’s population. New environment studies reflects progressive approach as how economic prosperity could be achieved in line with preservation of the environment. It is true that two objectives can compete with each other because mostly environmental goals generally requires resources that could otherwise be allocated for growth and vice versa. By making reasonable choices regarding technology and social organisation both objectives can be achieved, moderately.

For households the emphasis is on conservation of energy without sacrifice of convenience. It was assumed that new technologies would be used in lighting, major appliances, space heating and cooling, and building construction. The new equipments were assumed to be competitive (small additional capital cost) and achieved an energy saving of nearly 50 % by 2020 per units of consumption relative to households’ use of energy. The prospect is that future use of purchased energy by the average household in developing countries will increase with urbanisation. The substitution of commercial fuels for biomass, and improvement in the standard of living. While the figures vary among geographic regions, per capita consumption of commercial fuels in households in developing countries is assumed to rise as much as “four times” between 1990 and 2020. Per capita electricity use is projected to increase even more rapidly. The share of nuclear energy is not expected to expand in developed countries and in fact is most likely to fall except Japan.

In developing countries there will be increase in nuclear capacity, especially in Asia. Hydroelectric capacity will also increase. With income growth and urbanization in developing countries, there will be a significant expression in the constructive of buildings, which use more cement, concrete and wood. Aluminium will increasingly be produced in developing regions with cheap hydro electric power and will substitute for many other materials. An important area for material saving is recycling with slower growth in total metal production and use, the size of the stock of available old scrap relative to new demand will increase, and significantly less energy will be required to process crap than virgin metals. The share of paper that is recycled is expected to continue to increase reaching 60% by the year 2020 in the developed regions.

Electronic components have undergone rapid and continuing advances in capability and reductions in cost. The anticipated future importance of this sector in all economies by an increase in its share among investment goods. The future productivity of agriculture especially in developing countries, may have a strong impact on the standard of living, investment priorities and trade. Household keeping measures include checking for small leaks replacing worn belts, damaged insulation and bad bearings and cleaning dirty heating surfaces and lamps in a regular timely fashion. These procedures can be carried out during regular maintenance and require no additional investment. Waste heat recovery is a significant and very cheap source of energy savings, provided that there is a use for the heat and that it can be delivered in adequate quantities. The efficiency of electrical systems can be improved by converting lighting systems to more efficient fluorescent and high intensity discharge lamps, rescheduling operations to reduce peak load, installing automatic controls replacing oversized electric motors, etc.

Simple inexpensive housekeeping measures and minor combustion and steam system improvements are identified and require one time installation or replacement of minor equipment. The World Bank study estimated the payback period for the cost of implementing these measures at one to two years.


References:

The Future of the Environment; Ecological economics and technological change, Faye Duchin, Chenn-Mariee Lange, Oxford University Press (1994)

Inclusion of the Excluded

According to the 1951 Refugee Convention and other regional instruments a refugee is someone fleeing persecution or violence and is therefore entitled to protection in another country. Others fleeing for reasons not specified within the 1951 Convention, such as widespread conflict may be eligible for other forms of humanitarian or temporary protection. Threatened identity is not the greatest worry of the modern states, political refugees are in the first place a financial burden to the state, and consequently, to the taxpayers. Northern countries have developed extensive social security systems, under which many persons are eligible for benefits. The large majority of refugees do make use of these entitlements. Regardless of the actual cost of facilitation, this situation creates an enormous psychological impact. Immigrants are as contenders for state funds. Although, nominally, refugees do not normally represent a major strain on the state budget, they do receive much higher transfers than other groups of society on a per capita basis.

After September 11, however, refugees and immigrants are considered as a threat to the nation’s physical security. There is a widespread opinion that potential terrorists stem from the developing countries, and thus immigrants from these countries pose a danger to the recipient states. It is claimed that a permanent solution to the problem of high migration levels is only possible through eliminating their causes. No doubt, unless energetic measures are taken to stop armed conflicts, tyrannical governance, religious radicalism and lessen the damages from natural disasters on the one hand, and to ensure equitable economic growth, which translates into better living standards for all social groups, including the poorest ones, on the other, the influx of political and economic refugees will not diminish. According to UNHCR the numbers of refugees in the world rose from 2.4 million in 1975 to a peak of 18.2 million at the end of the cold war in 1993. By 2000, the numbers had declined to 12.1 million. Political rhetoric also suggests that there is a significant year on year rise in the number of asylum applications made in Europe.

Developed countries have undertaken further action in the field by promoting human rights and democracy, as well as stabilization and regional security, using financial incentives. In order to further the aims mentioned above, a number of projects have been initiated, such as the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), the MEDA Democracy Programme (implemented in the framework of EIDHR) for 12 countries in North Africa and the Middle East, or the Cotonou Agreement, pertaining to the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. Separate programmes have been put into operation targeting the Balkans (CARDS Assistance Program to the Western Balkans, involving Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia & Montenegro and Macedonia) and the former Soviet republics (TACIS). Of special importance for Europe, for security reasons, is the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (in view of the large number of Muslim states in geographic proximity to Europe).

The harmonization of the immigration and asylum policies in the European
Union should be seen as an element of ever-deepening integration. Even though
the entry into force, as of May 1, 2004, of the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty might seem to bring this task to successful completion – at least with respect to determining the scope of competence and responsibilities – the unification process will go on. The Council of Europe was the only major organization on the continent to have addressed the problem of migration in the 1960s. The first document recommending the harmonization of immigration policies was issued in 1976, and a second one, entitled The Harmonization of National Procedure Related to Asylum, in 1981 (Joly 1996: 47).

In the mid-1980s, the European Economic Community decided to take then first short-term measures towards harmonizing the immigration policies of the member states. These were dictated by the following circumstances. First, as the integration of the EEC countries progressed, it was necessary to introduce common policies in various sectors and legal norms applying to the entire territory of the EEC, which inevitably entailed the transfer of diverse prerogatives of the national governments to the European institutions in Brussels. Given the trans-national and trans-territorial character of migrations, the EEC countries decided to begin harmonizing their immigration policies. An additional stimulus was provided by the prospect of internal borders being abolished, which would entail the freedom of movement within the entire territory of the Community. The abolition of borders was provided for by the Single European Act (1986). The first steps in this direction were taken by France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, which signed the Schengen Agreement (1985). Second, the 1980s saw a reorientation of the immigration policy of Western European countries. As economic growth slowed down, the demand for additional labour shrank. The labour market had become saturated and unemployment was on the increase. Moreover, as a result of changes in communist countries, a significant ideological factor, which guaranteed nearly automatically a refugee status to defectors from the East, began to lose importance. At the same time the globalisation of migration processes boosted the numbers of asylum seekers. The harmonization of immigration policies thus became necessary in order to control and regulate the influx of migrants.

Subsequently, a Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on Asylum
(CIREA) was formed, along with a Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on the Crossing of Frontiers and Immigration (CIREFI). Other structures were created as well, whose terms of reference included some aspects of immigration, including: a joint assistance group and a coordinator group for the freedom of movement of persons.

The most important decisions aiming to give momentum to the harmonization
and unification process were taken in 1990–93, as a result of the Maastricht Agreement (Treaty on European Union). Many suggestions were elaborated by the Ad-Hoc Group on Immigration. Before signing the Maastricht document, a number of declarations and conventions were prepared. In June 1990, the Dublin Convention was signed, which was intended to regulate the matters of responsibility for examining applications for refugee status. By precise designation of the country responsible for this procedure, this instrument was meant to eliminate the phenomenon of ‘refugees in orbit’, transferred from country to country without consideration being given to their application for asylum. Although the Convention did introduce some institutional order, it failed to solve the problem through the lack of specific executory provisions. Likewise drafted were the Convention on Crossing of External Borders and the Schengen Convention on the abolition of internal borders (1990).

Between 1990 and 1997, several resolutions, motions and joint declarations were adopted which called for the harmonization of immigration policies and formulated common guidelines for the member states of the Community on various policy aspects.

In London (1992), the definition was adopted of a ‘manifestly unfounded claim’ and a ‘third host country’, and the concept of a ‘safe country’ was worked out. A resolution on the harmonization of policies on the reunion of families was also passed (June 1993). Besides, a recommendation was formulated on policies towards countries substantially free from persecution and on matters of expulsion (December 1992), as well as one on illegal employment (June 1993). In 1994 and 1995, a procedural framework was created for the expulsion of candidates whose applications had been rejected. In 1993–6, solidarity principles in the event of a large influx of refugees were worked out. In June 1995, the Council of Ministers responsible for immigration adopted a resolution setting out the rights and responsibilities related to asylum procedures, and in March 1996, a common definition of refugees for procedural purposes was agreed upon.

The most important supranational document to govern the unification of immigration policies (including the policies on refugees) seems to be the Amsterdam Treaty. Signed on October 2, 1997, it entered into force on May 1, 1999. Its provisions on migration and asylum has become European law in May 2004.

Currently, matters of immigration policy, including asylum policy, are mainly
handled by the European Commission, whose proposals are consulted with the
Economic and Social Committee. In accordance with the Committee’s recommendations for the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, the common immigration policy will have to take into account the conclusions of the European summit at Tampere (1999), where it was decided that the common immigration policy should be based on the norms of the Geneva Convention and the principle of non-refoulement. (Besides, The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, adopted in December 2000, refers to matters of asylum in two articles: Art. 18 guarantees that the provisions of the Geneva Convention and the Additional Protocol will be respected; Art. 19 offers protection against arbitrary removal, expulsion or extradition.)

The stress is on the assurance of an equitable asylum procedure, based on common standards. Migration policy needs to be joined up with asylum, development, humanitarian, trade and foreign policies in order both to effectively address the root causes of migration, safeguard the legal obligations towards forced migrants and ensure the best and most equitable migration outcome for the individual, host and sending countries. There is a clear link between violent conflict and the flight of people to seek refuge in other countries. Recent research has shown that conflict and/or repression or discrimination of minorities is a common feature in the top ten countries of origin of asylum seekers to EU countries. It is widely assumed that poverty and underdevelopment somehow precipitate conflict and that aid can prevent conflict. Research by Oxfam International and Amnesty International into the global arms trade has drawn the vicious circle between poverty and conflict. As per capita income halves, the risk of civil war roughly doubles and a typical civil war leaves a country 15% poorer, with around 30% more people living in absolute poverty.

Oxfam’s analysis of the funding for the UN Consolidated Appeals for humanitarian emergencies in July 2003, highlighted a clear skewing of aid towards emergences in the political spotlight. Approximately $17 per capita of people in need was committed for DRC, in Chechnya $11 and in Indonesia $7, where as in Iraq it was $74. From 2002 to 2004, the EU has agreed to spend £49 million in Albania on border management, policing and judicial reform, but just £29 million on economic and social development in Albania. This disparity in aid does little to help Albanians make a decent living from their land. Many choose instead to migrate to other countries.

According to Oxfam: policies on development cooperation and humanitarian relief markedly at odds with other areas of policy that influence root causes of economic and forced migration – i.e. trade policy and arms policy respectively. In a linking of the two issues, a recent agreement between Italy and Libya on combating irregular migrants stipulates that Italy provide financial support to assist Libya in combating illegal migration. It has been reported that Italy is also urging EU partners to ease the restriction on the sale of military equipment to Libya so as to provide this country with more sophisticated materials to combat illegal immigration. Since the early 1990’s there have been calls at the EU level for coordinated policies in order to address the causes of forced migration. The cross-pillar High Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration was an initial move towards this, but its ‘action plans’ have been widely criticised for their focus on migration control rather than human rights or refugee protection, a lack of consultation with countries concerned, and a failure to generate follow-up actions.

By Nasrin Azadeh, 14 August 2005


References:

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE INQUIRY ON MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT,
Oxfam Written Submission, Nov 2003
HAILBRONNER, K. (1993) ‘The Concept of ‘Safe Country’ and Expeditious Asylum Procedures: A Western European Perspective’, International Journal of Refugee Law
JOLY, D. (1996) Haven or Hell? Asylum Policies and Refugees in Europe, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick.
JOPPKE, Ch. (1998) ‘Asylum and State Sovereignty: A Comparison of the US, Germany and Britain, in Joppke, Ch. (ed.) Challenge to the Nation-State: Immigration in Western Europe and the United States, Oxford University Press.
LAMBERT, H. (1995) ‘Asylum-seekers, refugees and the European Union: case studies of France and the UK’ in Miles, R. et al. Migration and European Integration: The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion, Pinter Publishers Ltd, London.
LANDGREN, K. (1995) ‘Safety Zones and International Protection’ A Dark Grey Area’, International Journal of Refugee Law
LAYTON-HENRY, Z. (1994) ‘Britain: The Would-be Zero-Immigration Country’ in Cornelius, W. et al. Controlling Immigration A Global Perspective, Stanford University Press.
MARTIN, P.L. (1994) ‘Germany: Reluctant Land of Immigration’ in Cornelius, W. et al. Controlling Immigration A Global Perspective, Stanford University Press.
NIESSEN, J. (1996) The Developing Immigration and Asylum Policies of the European Union: Adopted Conventions, Resolutions, Recommendations, Decisions and Conclusions. Kluwer Law International.
SHACKNOVE, A. (1993) ‘From Asylum to Containment’, International Journal of Refugee Law
SUHRKE, A. (1998a) ‘Burden-sharing during Refugee Emergencies: The Logic of Collective versus National Action’ Journal of Refugee Studies
Cards Assistance Programme to the Western Balkans: Regional Strategy Paper 2002 – 2006

Euro-Med Partnership – Regional Strategy Paper

European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights programming Documents 2002 – 2004
Final Report: Evaluation of the MEDA Democracy Programme 1996-1998

Guide to TACIS small project programmes and other support structures 2000

IND (2003) ‘Asylum Statistics, United Kingdom 2002’, United Kingdom’s Immigration and Nationality Directorate,
Treaty of Amsterdam
Treaty on European Union
UNHCR (1998) Refugees and Others of Concern to UNHCR – 1998 Statistical Overview,

Human, Migration and Culture

Moving away from one place to another is nearly always a major event in human lives. Migration, an extremely cultural event, tends to expose one’s personality, it expresses one’s loyalties and reveals one’s values and attachments often previously hidden. It is a statement of an individual’s world view. Where people are faced with oppression and become stranger for dominant discourse, they choose to escape, to seek life elsewhere. There is a common sense knowledge of migration as a phenomenon which is in most part culturally produced, culturally expressed, and cultural in its effects . Culture, then, as a distinctive system of shared meanings and a symbolic organisation of experience characterizes a particular society or social group. The focus on differences in ways of thinking expressed in language, beliefs, rituals, and myths, and interpreted from a wide range of cultural texts, has been and necessarily remains a central concern. With the departure one is protesting against the cultural pattern of the established system.

In most countries, there is not one culture but many and that this plurality of cultures has a structure of its own, with some cultures dominant and others subordinate. Most obviously, migrants differ in their cultural characteristics and in their class cultural backgrounds and in their political values, in their ethnicities and religious affiliations, and in their gender, generational and identities. The identity however, is nurtured in its relationship with culture, to the place where one belongs. Identities are not attributes that people have or are but resources that people use, things that they do. With this view, with civil right movements the identity became political. However recent critiques of national identity, for instance, have illustrated the ways in which the nation has been marked as feminine - as vulnerable and morally susceptible to corruption - and, therefore, in need of a guardian. Cultures, in any case, do not work on their own to produce migration effects, nor does migration alone affect the cultural character of places. In practice, culture intersects with capital to bring about social and economic change in cities and regions. Migration is customarily conceptualised as a product of the material forces, it has also produced many new structures of inequality and exploitation as well as opportunism. Other perceptions emphasis on migration either as a rational economic purpose for individual advancement by responding to the economic signals of the job and housing markets, or as a virtual prisoner of social class, and thereby subject to powerful structural economic forces set in motion by the logic of capital accumulation. Large number of workers have left their homes and have gone to live in the metropolitan heartlands in an effort to exploit the wage earning opportunities available there. However, changing technologies and the scale of their impacts on human morals and the body have run through large portions of twentieth century representations of law and order. With new technologies future industrial expansion is unlikely to necessitate either the recruitment or the importation of a large new workforce. In consequence we may well have seen the last of the migratory flows.

Migration is, at heart, an attempt to circumvent institutionalized inequality, but in making this attempt migrants face many obstacles, regional and class structures in their countries of origin, and a further set of racial and class divisions in their countries of settlement. If migrants are exposed abroad, they are little better off at home. Such tensions have many dimensions, but the driving force behind racial and ethnic polarization is invariably to be found in competition for scarce resources. Hence tensions between natives and immigrants are invariably most acute during periods of recession; and they are most easily sustained where the newcomers are easily identifiable. It is small wonder that race relations have become such an explosive political issue globally.

Similarly political migration is reactionary to attempts of the nation’s rulers to enforce dominant national trends. Politically charged migrants choose to move away from politically based deprivation and social bias. In the face of introducing more restrictive immigration and asylum laws it is necessary to question the premises that have led to the erection of barriers to keep the influx of refugees out. And there can be no meaningful comprehension of migration to the north that does not take into account the conditions in the south that exacerbate movement. Building higher walls only offer temporary respite from the chaos beyond the borders. In other words, refugees right to remain in safety and dignity should have been protected. According to Goodwin-Gill, the right to remain is conceived as ‘sense of not having to become a refugee, not having to flee, not being displaced by force or want, together with the felt security that comes with being protected’. Protection and security indeed are both future critical issues which need rethinking. Countries throughout the world have attempted to curb immigration, either in an attempt to bolster their political identity or to reassure their increasingly vocal domestic population that they will not be outnumbered by new immigrants who are increasingly tenacious to seize scarce resources.

In this context, the role of population as a variable in the political economy of nations, in economic growth, and in sustainable development has been controversially debated among scholars for centuries. Since population deals with birth and death, sex and marriage, with gender roles, with intergenerational relations and interregional migration, it tends to be a very emotional topic, touching upon the foundations of culture, religion, and national identity. Population size, structure, and spatial distribution matters a great deal at the local and national levels. More over, the increasing globalization of human migration and financial flows as well as of population dependent consumption and emissions, makes it increasingly important to look at the population variable from a global perspective. Overpopulation places a tremendous strain on the environment and further devastation comes when the economic growth and development sought by these populations leads to excessive consumption. An increasing number of people obviously requires providing more energy, home, food, and jobs and creates more trash, pollution, and development. We need only consider the world’s large urban centres like new York, new Delhi, and Mexico City to understand the environmental devastation that follows from human overpopulating. Where the society becomes over crowded, resource-demanding, and technologically complex, there is less need for large families. Environmental problems force us to turn to stewardship in order not to destroy our life supporting house. The efforts of women and women’s groups to improve the quality of urban life are valuable and help raise public consciousness of the need for sanitary improvements and city cleaning projects. The issue of over population has particularly made migrant women not to limit their existence in child bearing and productive role. Social exclusion always comes along with the burden of raising too many children. Poor women in developing countries often bear the disproportionate burdens of low income, poor education, lack of jobs and limited social mobility. In many cases, their inferior roles, low status and restricted access to birth control are manifested in their high fertility. According to this argument, population growth is a natural outcome of women’s lack of economic opportunity. If women’s health, education, and economic well being are improved along with their role and status in both the family and the community, this empowerment of women will inevitably lead to smaller families and lower population growth.

Perhaps one of the greatest hindrances to dealing with the migratory crisis is the forced migration. To arrivals, the violence appear to be simply a natural, albeit alarming, by-product of nation-state formation. Admittedly, much of the migratory crisis, a phenomenon common to many states in formation is due simply to its nation-building efforts during transition periods. While immigration concerns are made more concrete by focusing on physical sites of border crossing, these sites are frequently signifiers for much broader, wide-ranging, and punitive efforts to police national identity. Despite popular claims of improved international mobility and calls for intensified globalization, borders are being reconstructed rather than retired and the global social and economic conditions that facilitate their use as political rallying cry for increased immigration controls continue.

But wherever they may be, everyone is faced by the changing structure of the global economy. International migration is primarily a consequence of global inequalities in the distribution of wealth and power. The spread of markets by globalization outpaces the ability of societies and their political systems to adjust to them. History is the evidence that imbalance between the economic, social and political worlds can never be sustained for very long. The Great Depression was the heavy price for industrialized countries to pay and learn their lesson. Political stability requires social safety nets and other measures for decreasing economic inequalities and to compensate the victims of market failures.

The global economy remains highly unstable and grotesquely inequitable, and the global environment continues to deteriorate rapidly. All the new differentiations such as populism, nationalism, ethnic chauvinism, and terrorism have in common is that they make use of the insecurity and misery of people to push forward their own self interest agenda. The more wretched and insecure people become, the more likely they cede to involve in process of differentiations.

We have to choose between a global market driven by deadly rivalry and calculations of short term profit, and one which has a human face. Between a world which condemns a quarter of the human race to starvation and moral degradation, and one which offers everyone at least a chance of prosperity, in a healthy environment - between a selfish ‘free for all’ in which we ignore the fate of the less fortunate, where most abusive are winners and a future in which the strong and the successful accept their responsibilities to deal fairly.


The words of the wise ones in quietness are more to be heard than the cry of one ruling among stupid people ( Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:17).


References:

Migration and Development, Oxfam Submission, Nov 2003

Human Development and the Environment, edited by Hans van Ginkel, Brendan Barrett, Julius Court, and Jerry Velasquez; United Nation University Press, 2002

Ballard, R. (1983) The context and consequences of migration: Jullundur and Mirpur Compared. In New Community 11:117-36

Castles, S., BOOTH, H., and WALLACE, T. (1984) Here for Good: Western Europe’s New Ethnic Minorities, London: Pluto Press

Florini, A., The coming democracy, New rules for running a new world (2002), Island Press

William T.S. Gould, Geopolitics, Geo-economics and Scale: analytical problems, (1994)

Gray, P.E. 1989. The paradox of technological development.

Kahn, A.E.. 1966. The Tyranny of Small Decisions; Market failures, imperfections and the limit of economics.

Odum, Eugene P. , Ecology, A Bridge Between Science and Society , School of Geography, University of Oxford

Seligson, M.A. 1984. The Gap between Rich and Poor; Contending Perspectives on Political Economy and Development. West view Press