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Smallness and islandness
WorldDevelopment, Vol. 8, pp. 945-951, 0 Pergamon Press Ltd. 1980. Printed in Great Britain
0305-750X/80/1201-0945
$02.00/O
SmalIness and Islandness PERCY SELWYN
Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex Summary. - This paper examines the question whether small islands, as distinct from small countries, are a useful category in analytical, predictive or policy terms. A comparison of Mauritius and Swaziland is used to illustrate possible elements of insularity. It is concluded that islands are not a useful category in the context of social analysis and policy, and that the attemut to use them in this way is an illegitimate extension of biological to social categories of thinking.
In this paper I explore the question whether it is possible to say anything useful or interesting about social issues in islands as such, which one could not say about small countries in general that is, whether ‘islands’ are a useful social category. In so doing, I shall ignore large island countries such as Indonesia or Sri Lanka. I assume that there is little useful that can be said about islands which would cover such countries. The central issue discussed here is, then, one of useful classification: but how should we understand utility? There are three possible meanings : (a) ‘Small countries’ or ‘islands’ as categories should help us in understanding particular country problems - that is, they should be useful analytically. (b) The categories should be useful in making forecasts of the likely social or economic trends in particular countries that is, they should be useful predictively. (c) They should throw light on possible or appropriate policies for particular countries that is, they should be useful normatively. There is no reason to suppose that any particular classification will necessarily be helpful in all three contexts, but it seems plausible to assume that categories which are useful analytically will be useful predictively and normatively. In this paper I shall be concerned with all three possible types of utility. Concern with islands as a specia! social or economic category largely stems from the political concerns of many island governments which were aware of the special privileges claimed for other categories of country (such as ‘least-developed’ or land-locked countries)
in international fora. Thus ‘island countries’ as a social category reflects political considerations. The question to be faced is how far it is a legitimate category in other senses. The notion that islands are somehow different stems from the concerns of naturalists. The observations by Darwin and others that the existence of islands permitted the development of significant variations in plant and animal life formed an important part of the intellectual underpinning of theories of evolution. Thus Wallace, in his study of island life (1880), points out that ‘some of the most remarkable and interesting facts in the distribution and affinities of organic forms are presented by islands in relation to each other and to the surrounding continents’. He refers to ‘the unexpected relations or singular anomalies which are so often found to characterize the fauna and flora of islands’. More recently, there has been a growing interest in the total ecological balance of islands (already hinted at in Wallace’s work). The UNESCO/UNFPA programme 0” Man and the Biosphere has included a major island component - and in particular, studies of the Eastern Islands of Fiji. This work has covered a wider area than the purely ecological issues implied in the project title; it has involved a wide-ranging analysis of the social and economic situations of the peripheral islands. But it is far from apparent that the economic and social conclusions of the study are greatly affected by the status of these territories as islands - that is, whether similar conclusions might not have been drawn from studies of remote areas of mainland countries. It is not their ‘islandness’ which it is at issue; it is their remoteness, their peripherality, the decline in their self-reliance - all characteristics which
945
946
WORLDDEVELOPMENT
might be matched in many mainland regions or countries. I have pointed out elsewhere that many of the characteristics of small islands are characteristics of small countries generally. These I summarize as follows: (a) Small countries tend to be more dependent on foreign trade than large countries, and have less influence on the terms on which that trade is carried on. (b) A country which is small in area may have a narrow range of resources and hence a specialized economy. (c) A small country may be heavily dependent on one large foreign company. (d) A small country may depend on external institutions. (e) A small country may have a narrow range of local skills, and a specific difficulty in matching skills with jobs. (f) There may be diseconomies of small scale in the provision of infrastructure services, and it may be impossible to provide some services at all. (g) Import substition industries may face special difficulties in a country with a small GNP (Selwyn, 1978, p.7). Thus, although ‘small countries’ are a heterogenous group - rich and poor, with greater or lesser growth rates or dependence on the regional or world economy (compare, for instance Singapore with Lesotho, Luxembourg with Upper Volta) - yet they are a useful category in all three of the senses we have defined. Is it equally possible to identify ways in which small islands are a useful category, apart from the characteristic of smallness which they share with non-island countries? A central difficulty in pursuing this line of thought is one of method. Islands, like small countries, differ widely; generalizations about both islands and small countries are therefore likely to be in very broad terms, and subject to many qualifications. One approach to this problem is through the use of matching pairs the selection of pairs consisting of one island and one mainland country, so chosen as to correspond in respect of some major characteristic. A study of a collection of such matching pairs could yield broader comparisons between island and mainland countries in general. This method has been followed by Dommen (this issue), who has used Gross Domestic Product per head as his criterion for matching pairs. Such comparisons may however be misleading. Countries with similar per capita
GDP’s may differ for many reasons. The national accounts may not be calculated on a comparable basis. A particular average may conceal a wide range of variations - spatially, socially or communally. Matching pairs on the basis of per capita GDP may be very different in terms of size, social structure or location. Thus Dommen’s (this issue) matching pairs include Bahamas and Italy, Comoros and Uganda, Cook Islands and Turkey, Cyprus and Saudi Arabia. The differences between the members of such pairs may have nothing to do with islandness. Moreover, such cross-sectional analyses are ahistorical. They present a more or less snapshot comparison of two countries at a particular point of time. But a truer comparison would take account of their past and their future - the internal and external forces which have made and will make for change. What would be more interesting would be comparisons of processes and trends. But these by their nature are more difficult and controversial. Such comparisons are normally in terms of countries (for which statistics are available) rather than of islands. Many island countries consist of a collection of islands which may differ widely in terms of integration into the world economy, urbanization, population density, or social and ethnic structures. Thus the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, both forming part of the State of Mauritius, are totally different in terms of the extent of the cash economy, ethnic composition and degree of urbanization. It is clear from the MAB programme in Fiji that the Eastern Islands of Fiji similarly have social and economic structures which differ substantially from those of Viti Levu. We have here centre-periphery relations in miniature which make any total generalizations about Fiji as a country of limited validity. Cross-sectional analysis on the basis of national statistics will conceal such inter-island differences - even if so-called ‘national’ statistics do not in practice exclude peripheral islands. In spite of these difficulties, the general principle of comparing matching pairs may be helpful in identifying possible common characteristics of islands as such. The difficulty is in choosing pairs of countries which have sufficient in common for us to be able to identify elements of insularity. In this paper, I will attempt such a comparison of Mauritius and Swaziland. Although, as we shall see, these two countries differ in certain major respects, they are sufficiently alike to make the comparison worth the attempt.
947
SMALLNESS AND ISLANDNESS
Table 2. Mauritius and Swaziland: trade and GDP
Table 1. Mauritius and Swaziland: area and population (1976) Mauritius Area (1000 acres) Area under cultivation (1000 acres) Population (1000s) Population per acre Population per cultivated acre
461 231 908 2 3.9
Mauritius (1976) (%I
Swaziland
Swaziland (1975/1976) (%I
4290 419” 508 0.12 1.2
* Not including 2,825,OOO acres of ‘grazing land’. over 90% of which is natural veldt.
Physically, although the area of Swaziland is nine times that of Mauritius, they have a good deal in common. Their range of climates is not dissimilar. Both are semi-tropical, with cooler, wetter uplands contrasting with hotter, drier lowlands (although the lowlands of Swaziland are drier than those of Mauritius). Both Mauritius and Swaziland are dependent on external transport modes over which they have little control in terms of the level of provision or its cost. Table 1 shows the most obvious differences between the two countries. Although Swaziland is a considerably larger country than Mauritius, its population is far smaller. The population density in Swaziland is about 6% that of Mauritius. But, whereas about 50% of the area of Mauritius is .under cultivation, less than 10% of the area of Swaziland is cultivated. The difference between population densities per acre of cultivated land is therefore (at some 3:l) far less than the difference between overall population densities. The rate of population growth in Swaziland has, however, recently been over 3% per annum (as compared with between 1.5 and 2% in Mauritius), and it seems reasonable to assume that the area under cultivation will increase in Swaziland over the coming years (as it has in Mauritius with a growing population). The greater physical size of Swaziland has certain implications which are quite irrespective of her land-locked situation. First, Swaziland has a wider range of natural resources (both mineral and agricultural) than Mauritius, and hence a less specialized economy. Whereas one product - sugar - accounted in Mauritius for over 90% of all land under cultivation and (with molasses) for 78% of domestic exports in 1976, the most widely planted crop in Swaziland - maize - occupied only 53% of the cultivated area, while the largest single
Exports as proportion of GDP Imports as proportion of GDP
51
70
69
68
Sources: Mauritius Bi-Annual Digest of Statistics (December 1976); Swaziland Annual Statistical Bulletin (1978).
export (sugar) averaged 38% of all exports in the period 1973-1977. Secondly, internal communications present a greater problem in Swaziland than in Mauritius; but even in Swaziland, as a result of substantial improvements over the past decades, two-thirds of the country is within 8 km of an all-weather road (Maasdorp et al., 1971). Both economies are highly open. Table 2 shows exports and imports as a proportion of GDP. Can we then identify differences between Swaziland and Mauritius which are specifically related to insuIarity? Some such differences are obvious: Mauritius has a fishing industry and a boat-building industry, neither of which exist in Swaziland. But this is merely the result of Swaziland’s lack of direct access to the sea or any other large body of water. Again, Mauritius experiences occasional cyclones - but so do many coastal tropical and semi-tropical areas bordering on the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Again, Mauritius has (theoretically) the possibility of exercising some measure of control over the economic assets in some 400,000 miles’ of the Indian Ocean. Here islands - especially scattered islands such as the State of Mauritius - have a clear advantage over mainland small countries (although many of them lack the resources needed to enforce such control). But none of these differences is fundamental; they throw little light on the more general utility of the concept of islandness. They are clearly not what we are seeking. There are, however, important differences between the two. Thus, while the proportion of GDP generated by agriculture is much the same in the two countries, subsistence farming is far more important in Swaziland than in Mauritius (where it is virtually non-existent outside Rodrigues). But here it is necessary to take a historical view. Mauritius has been part of the world economy since the 18th century,
WORLD DEVELOPMENT
948
when it was colonized by the French. The resulting plantation system, although undergoing many vicissitudes (especially in the years after the abolition of slavery), has persisted for two centuries, and has produced a crop which has been so successful that even those farmers who were not part of the plantation economy have grown it. Moreover, the plantation system was established in a country without any native population, and where it rapidly became dominant. In Swaziland the (largely fraudulent) acquisition of large areas of land by white farmers took place only within the last century, and there remained an important Swazi peasantry. In statistical terms, the situations do not differ substantially. In Mauritius in 1976, 57% of the land cultivated to cane was in the hands of ‘miller-planters’ (that is, enterprises very substantially owned and controlled by a small group of France-Mauritian capitalists), while the remaining 43% was cultivated by some 33,000 owner and tenant planters (Mauritius Chamber of Agriculture, Annual Report 1976). The Second Swaziland National Development Plan pointed out that only 55% of the country’s total area was held by the Swazi Nation or the Swaziland Government; the remainder was held under freehold title mainly by non-Swazi landowners, many of them non-resident. We have a difference here; the large owners in Mauritius are principally Mauritian (although from a very small community in the total population); the corresponding group in Swaziland are mainly South African. But this is a difference of degree rather than of substance. The Mauritian plantocracy has many of the characteristics of an expatriate group. It has close family ties with France, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Its language is French rather than Creole - the common language of Mauritius. The principal difference between Mauritius and Swaziland which may be relevant to islandness is Swaziland’s integration into the Southern African regional system. Such integration takes place at various levels. Institutionally, Swaziland is part of the South African Customs Union. Although it has recently established a separate monetary authority which issues its own currency, it is still closely involved with the Rand currency area. But apart from these institutional links, Swaziland’s location on the periphery of the South African industrial centre involves Swaziland in dependence on South Africa. This dependence takes various forms: (a) The
polarization
of Southern
African
industry in a few centres such, as the. Witwatersrand, .Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth adds to the problems of industrialization in Swaziland. [It also acts as a barrier to industrial decentralization policies inside South Africa itself. See BelI (1973).1 (b) Over 90% of Swaziland’s imports come from South Africa (although the ultimate origin of some of these may be elsewhere). Swaziland’s exports are, however, more diversified. In 1977 only some 20% of, Swaziland’s exports went to South Africa.’ (c) Although Swaziland is not so dependent on South Africa for jobs as Lesotho, there is still a sizeable flow of workers to the Republic. The total proportion of the population in paid employment is much the same in Swaziland (17%) as in Mauritius (18%). But of the 17% of the population of Swaziland in paid employment, only 13% are in employment inside Swaziland - the remaining 4% are employed in South Africa (Colclough and Digby, 1978). There is indeed emigration from Mauritius but it is dispersed among several countries and there is no equivalent dependence on one external job market. Thus Swaziland is more closely integrated than Mauritius into a regional centre/periphery system. This raises two questions. First, how far is Swaziland’s integration into the Southern African region inevitable, and how far does it reflect a particular history or mix of policies? Secondly, is the fact of regional dependence significant, and does it differ fundamentally from other kinds of dependence? Some part at least of Swaziland’s integration into the South African system reflects its past colonial history. Until the 195Os, it was accepted British policy that in the long run Swaziland would form part of South Africa. The British administration in Swaziland was subordinate to the British representative in South Africa a situation which persisted for some time even after South Africa left the Commonwealth. Until the early 1960s Swaziland (together with Basutoland and Bechuanaland) was administered by the Dominions Office, and later by the Commonwealth Relations Office, rather than by the Colonial Office; these territories were regarded as South African .appendages rather than as places in their own right. A comparison with Mozambique throws some light on the situation. Such a comparison is not entirely fair, because Mozambique is far larger than Swaziland, has a population 16 times
SMALLNESS AND ISLANDNESS Table 3. Mozambique: direction of trade, 1973
Portugal Other Europe South Africa All other countries Total
Imports (%I
Exports (W
19.2 39.3 20.3 21.2
35.6 21.6 9.4 33.4
100.0
100.0
Source: Mozambique: Economic Survey (Special Edition for Independence).
greater, and has direct access to the sea. But the economic structure of Mozambique before independence did not differ substantially from that of Swaziland. Four groups of primary products (cashew nuts, oil seeds and vegetable oils, sugar and cotton) accounted for nearly two-thirds of all exports. There was equally a high degree of concentration of land ownership; in 1970, 489 enterprises (out of a total of 1,652,OOO - or 0.03% of the total) owned 38% of the land. Manufacturing industry was heavily concentrated on food and textiles (which accounted for 57% of industrial investment and 48% of industrial output in 1970) although some diversification was taking place. But Mozambique’s integration into the Southern African economic system was far weaker than that of Swaziland. Thus Mozambique was substantially less dependent than Swaziland on imports from South Africa, while her exports to South Africa were of minor importance. There was a roughly similar pattern in that Mozambique’s imports from the Republic was relatively more important than her exports to the Republic, but the actual proportions involved were substantially less than those for Swaziland. Similarly, monetary and financial links were primarily with Portugal; the large external landowners were predominantly Portuguese. Thus the pattern of Mozambique’s external economic relations resembled those of Mauritius. There was the same close but declining dependence on an overseas colonial power. The trend in both cases was towards a greater diversification of foreign links. Swaziland’s regional status reflects its common border with South Africa, and is therefore clearly distinct from that of Mauritius which lacks any common land borders. But Swaziland’s regional relations owe as much to history as they do to geography. Mauritius’ islandness is only a partial explanation of the comparatively loose nature of her regional
949
links. All we can say is that it is probable that a small mainland country will have closer links with its region than will island countries. But land borders can be barriers as substantial as sea borders. Mainland countries may be cut off from each other by mountains or deserts, by political, religious or ethnic barriers, or by just plain dislike. DISCUSSION In considering the utility of the category of we can return to the types of islandness, utility described above. First, in analytical terms, is Mauritius’ insularity a greater or lesser help in understanding her problems than is her smallness? Secondly, does her islandness help us to make better predictions? Lastly, are there particular policy opportunities available, or policy options closed, as a result of her insularity? We take these seriatim. It is difficult to identify particular elements of insularity which help us to a better understanding of the Mauritian situation. Those which we have identified - such as its weaker regional integration as compared with Swaziland - reflect history as much as insularity. Present circumstances are the result both of past internal developments and of historical relations with the rest of the world. In a small island country which has long been integrated into the world system, internal structures will reflect the nature of that integration and the conditions under which it has taken place. It could be argued that this merely pushes the argument one stage back - that is, that the history of small island countries is necessarily, and by virtue of their insularity, different from that of small developing countries as a whole. But this view would be difficult to sustain. The past history of Caribbean plantation economies has more in common with that of mainland countries such as Guyana than with that of: say, Tonga or the Falkland Islands. Again, the history of St. Helena, whose main interest for the colonial powers was its location on shipping routes, would have more in common with that of Aden or Gibraltar than with that of, say, the Gilberts, whose main interest for the colonial powers was as a source of raw materials. Thus insularity is not likely to help us much in our analysis of Mauritius. It is possibly more relevant to an understanding of Rodrigues, but here it is necessary to, distinguish between insularity and remoteness or peripherality. Rodrigues’ mainly subsistence economy, cul-
9.50
WORLD DEVELOPMENT
tural separateness and regional dependence do not differ greatly from that of, say,Zambia’s Eastern Province. Similarly, as I have already suggested, the Eastern Islands of Fiji analysed in the MAB study may most appropriately be seen, in analytical terms, as peripheral regions, which have experienced the costs without receiving the benefits of a partial integration into a wider system. As far as prediction is concerned, there is little in Mauritius’ status as an island (or group of islands) which enables us to make better predictions than we could on the basis of her status as a small, mono-crop, export- and import-dependent economy. We can reasonably assume that the Mauritian social and economic system will continue to respond to developments both in the industrial west and in Asia and Africa. There is here a difference from possible predictions about Swaziland. Whereas Swaziland’s future will probably continue to be strongly influenced by developments in other parts of Southern Africa, and especially by those in the Republic of South Africa (i.e. by regional factors), the external influences on Mauritius will probably continue to be more diffuse. But these are particular rather than general issues. Internally, we can assume that Mauritius (like Swaziland) will continue to experience tensions reflecting, first, the disparity between what the system is able to supply and the expectations and demands on it (e.g. for improved status, jobs, real incomes), and second, the continuing inequalities in control over and access to resources (land, other forms of wealth, desired types of employment). But this is by no means peculiar to island countries - or indeed to small countries. As far as policy is concerned, insularity provides some opportunities (for example, in access to marine resources) and some constraints (in terms of possible transport modes). But marine resources do not offer opportunities which are significantly different from those
provided by other resources. Each resource raises its own specific problems; marine resources raise the special issue of possible access by non-nationals, just as internal mineral resources involve issues of relations with foreign firms who might wish to exploit them. Limitations on external modes of transport are not peculiar to islands; Mauritius is probably in a stronger bargaining position - at least as far as the transport of her sugar exports is concerned - than is Lesotho in relation to the use of South African transport modes. Past development plans in Mauritius have placed little emphasis on the country’s status as a group of islands. This reflects a realistic assessment of the relative importance of this status in policy terms. Thus, at least as far as Mauritius is concerned, none of the three possible uses of an island classification appears to be more than marginally helpful. But how far can we extend this conclusion to small islands in general? Here I can write only from my own limited knowledge. But I find it significant that, when I carried out a study of islands for UNCTAD, the issues which forced themselves to my attention were those of small size, of remoteof diversification, of ness; of dependence, bargaining capacity with foreign investors or transport operators - all questions which could be parallelled in small, remote mainland countries, or indeed in peripheral regions of many larger countries. The extension of ‘islands’ as a useful category from the concerns of naturalists and ecologists to those of social scientists thus seems to me illegitimate. No doubt interesting things can be said about islands, but neither social structures nor social trends can usefully be discussed in this context. The social sciences abound with examples of the illegitimate extension of biological categories to social relationships. The biological peculiarities of islands are an insufficient foundation for any plausible social or economic theory.
NOTES 1. This is a not uncommon trade pattern for peripheral countries. Since the economies ot peripheries tend to be less diversified than those of central areas, the central area is able to meet more of the import requirements of the periphery than the periphery can meet of the central area. The pattern of trade is thus typically as shown in Figure 1.
RegIonal periphery
Reglonol
centre
‘Rest
ofthe
/
Figure 1. Regional centres and peripheries:
pattern of
SMALLNESS AND ISLANDNESS
951
REFERENCES Bell, Trevor, Industrial Decentralisation in South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973). Colclouah. Christopher. and Peter Wit-afield Diaby. Ed&a&on
and Manpower Perspectives%
(Swaziland: Ministry Planning, 1978). Maasdorp, G. G. et al., (University of Natal, 1971). Mauritius Chamber of 1976.
of Finance
Swazil&_i[
and Economic
Selwyn, Percy, Small, Poor and Remote: Islands at a Geographical Disadvantage (Institute of Development Studies, Discussion Paper 123, 1978). Swaziland, Government of, Second National Development Plan 1973-1977. Project on Population and the Environment in the Eastern Islands of FQi, Island
UNESCO/UNFPA, Transportation
Department Agriculture,
in Swaziland
of Economics, Annual
Report
Reports 1977178 (Australian National University, Development Studies Centre). (London: Wallace, Alfred Russell, Island Life Macmillan, 1880).
0305-750X/80/1201-0945
$02.00/O
SmalIness and Islandness PERCY SELWYN
Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex Summary. - This paper examines the question whether small islands, as distinct from small countries, are a useful category in analytical, predictive or policy terms. A comparison of Mauritius and Swaziland is used to illustrate possible elements of insularity. It is concluded that islands are not a useful category in the context of social analysis and policy, and that the attemut to use them in this way is an illegitimate extension of biological to social categories of thinking.
In this paper I explore the question whether it is possible to say anything useful or interesting about social issues in islands as such, which one could not say about small countries in general that is, whether ‘islands’ are a useful social category. In so doing, I shall ignore large island countries such as Indonesia or Sri Lanka. I assume that there is little useful that can be said about islands which would cover such countries. The central issue discussed here is, then, one of useful classification: but how should we understand utility? There are three possible meanings : (a) ‘Small countries’ or ‘islands’ as categories should help us in understanding particular country problems - that is, they should be useful analytically. (b) The categories should be useful in making forecasts of the likely social or economic trends in particular countries that is, they should be useful predictively. (c) They should throw light on possible or appropriate policies for particular countries that is, they should be useful normatively. There is no reason to suppose that any particular classification will necessarily be helpful in all three contexts, but it seems plausible to assume that categories which are useful analytically will be useful predictively and normatively. In this paper I shall be concerned with all three possible types of utility. Concern with islands as a specia! social or economic category largely stems from the political concerns of many island governments which were aware of the special privileges claimed for other categories of country (such as ‘least-developed’ or land-locked countries)
in international fora. Thus ‘island countries’ as a social category reflects political considerations. The question to be faced is how far it is a legitimate category in other senses. The notion that islands are somehow different stems from the concerns of naturalists. The observations by Darwin and others that the existence of islands permitted the development of significant variations in plant and animal life formed an important part of the intellectual underpinning of theories of evolution. Thus Wallace, in his study of island life (1880), points out that ‘some of the most remarkable and interesting facts in the distribution and affinities of organic forms are presented by islands in relation to each other and to the surrounding continents’. He refers to ‘the unexpected relations or singular anomalies which are so often found to characterize the fauna and flora of islands’. More recently, there has been a growing interest in the total ecological balance of islands (already hinted at in Wallace’s work). The UNESCO/UNFPA programme 0” Man and the Biosphere has included a major island component - and in particular, studies of the Eastern Islands of Fiji. This work has covered a wider area than the purely ecological issues implied in the project title; it has involved a wide-ranging analysis of the social and economic situations of the peripheral islands. But it is far from apparent that the economic and social conclusions of the study are greatly affected by the status of these territories as islands - that is, whether similar conclusions might not have been drawn from studies of remote areas of mainland countries. It is not their ‘islandness’ which it is at issue; it is their remoteness, their peripherality, the decline in their self-reliance - all characteristics which
945
946
WORLDDEVELOPMENT
might be matched in many mainland regions or countries. I have pointed out elsewhere that many of the characteristics of small islands are characteristics of small countries generally. These I summarize as follows: (a) Small countries tend to be more dependent on foreign trade than large countries, and have less influence on the terms on which that trade is carried on. (b) A country which is small in area may have a narrow range of resources and hence a specialized economy. (c) A small country may be heavily dependent on one large foreign company. (d) A small country may depend on external institutions. (e) A small country may have a narrow range of local skills, and a specific difficulty in matching skills with jobs. (f) There may be diseconomies of small scale in the provision of infrastructure services, and it may be impossible to provide some services at all. (g) Import substition industries may face special difficulties in a country with a small GNP (Selwyn, 1978, p.7). Thus, although ‘small countries’ are a heterogenous group - rich and poor, with greater or lesser growth rates or dependence on the regional or world economy (compare, for instance Singapore with Lesotho, Luxembourg with Upper Volta) - yet they are a useful category in all three of the senses we have defined. Is it equally possible to identify ways in which small islands are a useful category, apart from the characteristic of smallness which they share with non-island countries? A central difficulty in pursuing this line of thought is one of method. Islands, like small countries, differ widely; generalizations about both islands and small countries are therefore likely to be in very broad terms, and subject to many qualifications. One approach to this problem is through the use of matching pairs the selection of pairs consisting of one island and one mainland country, so chosen as to correspond in respect of some major characteristic. A study of a collection of such matching pairs could yield broader comparisons between island and mainland countries in general. This method has been followed by Dommen (this issue), who has used Gross Domestic Product per head as his criterion for matching pairs. Such comparisons may however be misleading. Countries with similar per capita
GDP’s may differ for many reasons. The national accounts may not be calculated on a comparable basis. A particular average may conceal a wide range of variations - spatially, socially or communally. Matching pairs on the basis of per capita GDP may be very different in terms of size, social structure or location. Thus Dommen’s (this issue) matching pairs include Bahamas and Italy, Comoros and Uganda, Cook Islands and Turkey, Cyprus and Saudi Arabia. The differences between the members of such pairs may have nothing to do with islandness. Moreover, such cross-sectional analyses are ahistorical. They present a more or less snapshot comparison of two countries at a particular point of time. But a truer comparison would take account of their past and their future - the internal and external forces which have made and will make for change. What would be more interesting would be comparisons of processes and trends. But these by their nature are more difficult and controversial. Such comparisons are normally in terms of countries (for which statistics are available) rather than of islands. Many island countries consist of a collection of islands which may differ widely in terms of integration into the world economy, urbanization, population density, or social and ethnic structures. Thus the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, both forming part of the State of Mauritius, are totally different in terms of the extent of the cash economy, ethnic composition and degree of urbanization. It is clear from the MAB programme in Fiji that the Eastern Islands of Fiji similarly have social and economic structures which differ substantially from those of Viti Levu. We have here centre-periphery relations in miniature which make any total generalizations about Fiji as a country of limited validity. Cross-sectional analysis on the basis of national statistics will conceal such inter-island differences - even if so-called ‘national’ statistics do not in practice exclude peripheral islands. In spite of these difficulties, the general principle of comparing matching pairs may be helpful in identifying possible common characteristics of islands as such. The difficulty is in choosing pairs of countries which have sufficient in common for us to be able to identify elements of insularity. In this paper, I will attempt such a comparison of Mauritius and Swaziland. Although, as we shall see, these two countries differ in certain major respects, they are sufficiently alike to make the comparison worth the attempt.
947
SMALLNESS AND ISLANDNESS
Table 2. Mauritius and Swaziland: trade and GDP
Table 1. Mauritius and Swaziland: area and population (1976) Mauritius Area (1000 acres) Area under cultivation (1000 acres) Population (1000s) Population per acre Population per cultivated acre
461 231 908 2 3.9
Mauritius (1976) (%I
Swaziland
Swaziland (1975/1976) (%I
4290 419” 508 0.12 1.2
* Not including 2,825,OOO acres of ‘grazing land’. over 90% of which is natural veldt.
Physically, although the area of Swaziland is nine times that of Mauritius, they have a good deal in common. Their range of climates is not dissimilar. Both are semi-tropical, with cooler, wetter uplands contrasting with hotter, drier lowlands (although the lowlands of Swaziland are drier than those of Mauritius). Both Mauritius and Swaziland are dependent on external transport modes over which they have little control in terms of the level of provision or its cost. Table 1 shows the most obvious differences between the two countries. Although Swaziland is a considerably larger country than Mauritius, its population is far smaller. The population density in Swaziland is about 6% that of Mauritius. But, whereas about 50% of the area of Mauritius is .under cultivation, less than 10% of the area of Swaziland is cultivated. The difference between population densities per acre of cultivated land is therefore (at some 3:l) far less than the difference between overall population densities. The rate of population growth in Swaziland has, however, recently been over 3% per annum (as compared with between 1.5 and 2% in Mauritius), and it seems reasonable to assume that the area under cultivation will increase in Swaziland over the coming years (as it has in Mauritius with a growing population). The greater physical size of Swaziland has certain implications which are quite irrespective of her land-locked situation. First, Swaziland has a wider range of natural resources (both mineral and agricultural) than Mauritius, and hence a less specialized economy. Whereas one product - sugar - accounted in Mauritius for over 90% of all land under cultivation and (with molasses) for 78% of domestic exports in 1976, the most widely planted crop in Swaziland - maize - occupied only 53% of the cultivated area, while the largest single
Exports as proportion of GDP Imports as proportion of GDP
51
70
69
68
Sources: Mauritius Bi-Annual Digest of Statistics (December 1976); Swaziland Annual Statistical Bulletin (1978).
export (sugar) averaged 38% of all exports in the period 1973-1977. Secondly, internal communications present a greater problem in Swaziland than in Mauritius; but even in Swaziland, as a result of substantial improvements over the past decades, two-thirds of the country is within 8 km of an all-weather road (Maasdorp et al., 1971). Both economies are highly open. Table 2 shows exports and imports as a proportion of GDP. Can we then identify differences between Swaziland and Mauritius which are specifically related to insuIarity? Some such differences are obvious: Mauritius has a fishing industry and a boat-building industry, neither of which exist in Swaziland. But this is merely the result of Swaziland’s lack of direct access to the sea or any other large body of water. Again, Mauritius experiences occasional cyclones - but so do many coastal tropical and semi-tropical areas bordering on the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Again, Mauritius has (theoretically) the possibility of exercising some measure of control over the economic assets in some 400,000 miles’ of the Indian Ocean. Here islands - especially scattered islands such as the State of Mauritius - have a clear advantage over mainland small countries (although many of them lack the resources needed to enforce such control). But none of these differences is fundamental; they throw little light on the more general utility of the concept of islandness. They are clearly not what we are seeking. There are, however, important differences between the two. Thus, while the proportion of GDP generated by agriculture is much the same in the two countries, subsistence farming is far more important in Swaziland than in Mauritius (where it is virtually non-existent outside Rodrigues). But here it is necessary to take a historical view. Mauritius has been part of the world economy since the 18th century,
WORLD DEVELOPMENT
948
when it was colonized by the French. The resulting plantation system, although undergoing many vicissitudes (especially in the years after the abolition of slavery), has persisted for two centuries, and has produced a crop which has been so successful that even those farmers who were not part of the plantation economy have grown it. Moreover, the plantation system was established in a country without any native population, and where it rapidly became dominant. In Swaziland the (largely fraudulent) acquisition of large areas of land by white farmers took place only within the last century, and there remained an important Swazi peasantry. In statistical terms, the situations do not differ substantially. In Mauritius in 1976, 57% of the land cultivated to cane was in the hands of ‘miller-planters’ (that is, enterprises very substantially owned and controlled by a small group of France-Mauritian capitalists), while the remaining 43% was cultivated by some 33,000 owner and tenant planters (Mauritius Chamber of Agriculture, Annual Report 1976). The Second Swaziland National Development Plan pointed out that only 55% of the country’s total area was held by the Swazi Nation or the Swaziland Government; the remainder was held under freehold title mainly by non-Swazi landowners, many of them non-resident. We have a difference here; the large owners in Mauritius are principally Mauritian (although from a very small community in the total population); the corresponding group in Swaziland are mainly South African. But this is a difference of degree rather than of substance. The Mauritian plantocracy has many of the characteristics of an expatriate group. It has close family ties with France, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Its language is French rather than Creole - the common language of Mauritius. The principal difference between Mauritius and Swaziland which may be relevant to islandness is Swaziland’s integration into the Southern African regional system. Such integration takes place at various levels. Institutionally, Swaziland is part of the South African Customs Union. Although it has recently established a separate monetary authority which issues its own currency, it is still closely involved with the Rand currency area. But apart from these institutional links, Swaziland’s location on the periphery of the South African industrial centre involves Swaziland in dependence on South Africa. This dependence takes various forms: (a) The
polarization
of Southern
African
industry in a few centres such, as the. Witwatersrand, .Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth adds to the problems of industrialization in Swaziland. [It also acts as a barrier to industrial decentralization policies inside South Africa itself. See BelI (1973).1 (b) Over 90% of Swaziland’s imports come from South Africa (although the ultimate origin of some of these may be elsewhere). Swaziland’s exports are, however, more diversified. In 1977 only some 20% of, Swaziland’s exports went to South Africa.’ (c) Although Swaziland is not so dependent on South Africa for jobs as Lesotho, there is still a sizeable flow of workers to the Republic. The total proportion of the population in paid employment is much the same in Swaziland (17%) as in Mauritius (18%). But of the 17% of the population of Swaziland in paid employment, only 13% are in employment inside Swaziland - the remaining 4% are employed in South Africa (Colclough and Digby, 1978). There is indeed emigration from Mauritius but it is dispersed among several countries and there is no equivalent dependence on one external job market. Thus Swaziland is more closely integrated than Mauritius into a regional centre/periphery system. This raises two questions. First, how far is Swaziland’s integration into the Southern African region inevitable, and how far does it reflect a particular history or mix of policies? Secondly, is the fact of regional dependence significant, and does it differ fundamentally from other kinds of dependence? Some part at least of Swaziland’s integration into the South African system reflects its past colonial history. Until the 195Os, it was accepted British policy that in the long run Swaziland would form part of South Africa. The British administration in Swaziland was subordinate to the British representative in South Africa a situation which persisted for some time even after South Africa left the Commonwealth. Until the early 1960s Swaziland (together with Basutoland and Bechuanaland) was administered by the Dominions Office, and later by the Commonwealth Relations Office, rather than by the Colonial Office; these territories were regarded as South African .appendages rather than as places in their own right. A comparison with Mozambique throws some light on the situation. Such a comparison is not entirely fair, because Mozambique is far larger than Swaziland, has a population 16 times
SMALLNESS AND ISLANDNESS Table 3. Mozambique: direction of trade, 1973
Portugal Other Europe South Africa All other countries Total
Imports (%I
Exports (W
19.2 39.3 20.3 21.2
35.6 21.6 9.4 33.4
100.0
100.0
Source: Mozambique: Economic Survey (Special Edition for Independence).
greater, and has direct access to the sea. But the economic structure of Mozambique before independence did not differ substantially from that of Swaziland. Four groups of primary products (cashew nuts, oil seeds and vegetable oils, sugar and cotton) accounted for nearly two-thirds of all exports. There was equally a high degree of concentration of land ownership; in 1970, 489 enterprises (out of a total of 1,652,OOO - or 0.03% of the total) owned 38% of the land. Manufacturing industry was heavily concentrated on food and textiles (which accounted for 57% of industrial investment and 48% of industrial output in 1970) although some diversification was taking place. But Mozambique’s integration into the Southern African economic system was far weaker than that of Swaziland. Thus Mozambique was substantially less dependent than Swaziland on imports from South Africa, while her exports to South Africa were of minor importance. There was a roughly similar pattern in that Mozambique’s imports from the Republic was relatively more important than her exports to the Republic, but the actual proportions involved were substantially less than those for Swaziland. Similarly, monetary and financial links were primarily with Portugal; the large external landowners were predominantly Portuguese. Thus the pattern of Mozambique’s external economic relations resembled those of Mauritius. There was the same close but declining dependence on an overseas colonial power. The trend in both cases was towards a greater diversification of foreign links. Swaziland’s regional status reflects its common border with South Africa, and is therefore clearly distinct from that of Mauritius which lacks any common land borders. But Swaziland’s regional relations owe as much to history as they do to geography. Mauritius’ islandness is only a partial explanation of the comparatively loose nature of her regional
949
links. All we can say is that it is probable that a small mainland country will have closer links with its region than will island countries. But land borders can be barriers as substantial as sea borders. Mainland countries may be cut off from each other by mountains or deserts, by political, religious or ethnic barriers, or by just plain dislike. DISCUSSION In considering the utility of the category of we can return to the types of islandness, utility described above. First, in analytical terms, is Mauritius’ insularity a greater or lesser help in understanding her problems than is her smallness? Secondly, does her islandness help us to make better predictions? Lastly, are there particular policy opportunities available, or policy options closed, as a result of her insularity? We take these seriatim. It is difficult to identify particular elements of insularity which help us to a better understanding of the Mauritian situation. Those which we have identified - such as its weaker regional integration as compared with Swaziland - reflect history as much as insularity. Present circumstances are the result both of past internal developments and of historical relations with the rest of the world. In a small island country which has long been integrated into the world system, internal structures will reflect the nature of that integration and the conditions under which it has taken place. It could be argued that this merely pushes the argument one stage back - that is, that the history of small island countries is necessarily, and by virtue of their insularity, different from that of small developing countries as a whole. But this view would be difficult to sustain. The past history of Caribbean plantation economies has more in common with that of mainland countries such as Guyana than with that of: say, Tonga or the Falkland Islands. Again, the history of St. Helena, whose main interest for the colonial powers was its location on shipping routes, would have more in common with that of Aden or Gibraltar than with that of, say, the Gilberts, whose main interest for the colonial powers was as a source of raw materials. Thus insularity is not likely to help us much in our analysis of Mauritius. It is possibly more relevant to an understanding of Rodrigues, but here it is necessary to, distinguish between insularity and remoteness or peripherality. Rodrigues’ mainly subsistence economy, cul-
9.50
WORLD DEVELOPMENT
tural separateness and regional dependence do not differ greatly from that of, say,Zambia’s Eastern Province. Similarly, as I have already suggested, the Eastern Islands of Fiji analysed in the MAB study may most appropriately be seen, in analytical terms, as peripheral regions, which have experienced the costs without receiving the benefits of a partial integration into a wider system. As far as prediction is concerned, there is little in Mauritius’ status as an island (or group of islands) which enables us to make better predictions than we could on the basis of her status as a small, mono-crop, export- and import-dependent economy. We can reasonably assume that the Mauritian social and economic system will continue to respond to developments both in the industrial west and in Asia and Africa. There is here a difference from possible predictions about Swaziland. Whereas Swaziland’s future will probably continue to be strongly influenced by developments in other parts of Southern Africa, and especially by those in the Republic of South Africa (i.e. by regional factors), the external influences on Mauritius will probably continue to be more diffuse. But these are particular rather than general issues. Internally, we can assume that Mauritius (like Swaziland) will continue to experience tensions reflecting, first, the disparity between what the system is able to supply and the expectations and demands on it (e.g. for improved status, jobs, real incomes), and second, the continuing inequalities in control over and access to resources (land, other forms of wealth, desired types of employment). But this is by no means peculiar to island countries - or indeed to small countries. As far as policy is concerned, insularity provides some opportunities (for example, in access to marine resources) and some constraints (in terms of possible transport modes). But marine resources do not offer opportunities which are significantly different from those
provided by other resources. Each resource raises its own specific problems; marine resources raise the special issue of possible access by non-nationals, just as internal mineral resources involve issues of relations with foreign firms who might wish to exploit them. Limitations on external modes of transport are not peculiar to islands; Mauritius is probably in a stronger bargaining position - at least as far as the transport of her sugar exports is concerned - than is Lesotho in relation to the use of South African transport modes. Past development plans in Mauritius have placed little emphasis on the country’s status as a group of islands. This reflects a realistic assessment of the relative importance of this status in policy terms. Thus, at least as far as Mauritius is concerned, none of the three possible uses of an island classification appears to be more than marginally helpful. But how far can we extend this conclusion to small islands in general? Here I can write only from my own limited knowledge. But I find it significant that, when I carried out a study of islands for UNCTAD, the issues which forced themselves to my attention were those of small size, of remoteof diversification, of ness; of dependence, bargaining capacity with foreign investors or transport operators - all questions which could be parallelled in small, remote mainland countries, or indeed in peripheral regions of many larger countries. The extension of ‘islands’ as a useful category from the concerns of naturalists and ecologists to those of social scientists thus seems to me illegitimate. No doubt interesting things can be said about islands, but neither social structures nor social trends can usefully be discussed in this context. The social sciences abound with examples of the illegitimate extension of biological categories to social relationships. The biological peculiarities of islands are an insufficient foundation for any plausible social or economic theory.
NOTES 1. This is a not uncommon trade pattern for peripheral countries. Since the economies ot peripheries tend to be less diversified than those of central areas, the central area is able to meet more of the import requirements of the periphery than the periphery can meet of the central area. The pattern of trade is thus typically as shown in Figure 1.
RegIonal periphery
Reglonol
centre
‘Rest
ofthe
/
Figure 1. Regional centres and peripheries:
pattern of
SMALLNESS AND ISLANDNESS
951
REFERENCES Bell, Trevor, Industrial Decentralisation in South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973). Colclouah. Christopher. and Peter Wit-afield Diaby. Ed&a&on
and Manpower Perspectives%
(Swaziland: Ministry Planning, 1978). Maasdorp, G. G. et al., (University of Natal, 1971). Mauritius Chamber of 1976.
of Finance
Swazil&_i[
and Economic
Selwyn, Percy, Small, Poor and Remote: Islands at a Geographical Disadvantage (Institute of Development Studies, Discussion Paper 123, 1978). Swaziland, Government of, Second National Development Plan 1973-1977. Project on Population and the Environment in the Eastern Islands of FQi, Island
UNESCO/UNFPA, Transportation
Department Agriculture,
in Swaziland
of Economics, Annual
Report
Reports 1977178 (Australian National University, Development Studies Centre). (London: Wallace, Alfred Russell, Island Life Macmillan, 1880).