- Email: [email protected]
In the Name of the Poor: Contesting Political Space for Poverty Reduction
Futures 36 (2004) 1133–1138 www.elsevier.com/locate/futures
Book reviews
In the Name of the Poor: Contesting Political Space for Poverty Reduction Edited by Neil Webster and Lars Engberg-Pedersen, London: Zed Books, 2002, 279 pages (paperback), US$ 25.00 paperback, US$ 69.95 hardcover Typically, the images of the future that emerge from Western popular and corporate culture often promote the ideology of consumerism rather than changing the distribution of wealth. However, it is sobering to note that there are currently 1.3 billion people populating the earth that subsist on incomes of less than one US dollar a day, that is, nearly 1/4 of the world’s population. Although some countries have reduced their proportion of the poor, population growth has ensured an absolute increase in their numbers. While visions of space travel, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering dance in our heads, we sometimes forget two of the biggest problems facing the world are the lack of sufficient water purification and sanitation methods. This book is something of a relief to many of the technocratic and business-dominated futures containing images of highly advanced technology and esoteric issues found so readily in the popular press. In the Name of the Poor is the story of the local politics of poverty and how groups of the poor have pursued their own strategies for poverty reduction. Neil Webster, senior research fellow at the Centre for Development Research and coordinator for the program Local Organisations and Rural Poverty Alleviation, and Lars Engberg-Pedersen, head of the International Department in the Danish Association of International Cooperation, have produced a collection of case studies of local politics from across three continents (Africa, Asia, and South America) discussing the implications and effects of political space, an analytical tool with which to explore the role of the poor in poverty reduction. Political space can be understood as the types and range of possibilities present for pursuing poverty reduction by the poor or on behalf of the poor by local organizations. Through the concept of political space the authors explore how various groups attempt to bring about social change using the following three strategies: (1) institutional channels through which policy formulation and implementation can be accessed, controlled or contested by the poor; (2) political discourses in which poverty and poverty reduction are significant issues; and (3) social and political practices of the poor which may be a basis for influencing decision-making, agendas, policy and program implementation.
1134
Book reviews / Futures 36 (2004) 1133–1138
In the Name of the Poor is divided into 11 chapters. With the exception of a handful of tables, the book consists of a standard narrative text layout. The first chapter, by Engberg-Pedersen and Webster, provides an introduction to the concept of political space. This is followed by nine local case studies by different authors. The final chapter, again by Engberg-Pedersen and Webster, seeks to draw some general lessons on the basis of the nine case studies. Although the case studies differ in their methodologies and theoretical stance, when approaching the political, at times, they have a post-modern flavor. In general, the authors aim at arousing aspirations, raising consciousness, and opening up opportunities for the marginal. The authors pay careful attention to language and discourse and while interested in the state appear more concerned with the neighborhood, local, regional, and community levels of political action. Author, Amanda J. Hammar, in her chapter titled ‘‘Speaking with Space: Displacements and Claims in the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe’’, illustrates the emphasis on discursive practices in both shaping and reflecting the political space for claims and land authority. Hammar describes how the state embraced conservationist discourse such as ‘buffer zones’ and the necessity of ‘protecting the integrity of national parks’ as justification to evict people from national park land, restrict them from control or use of land based resources within national park land, while allowing full access to wildlife resources to the safari operators. Hammar also shows how Rural District Councils used the term ‘squatters’ in order to legitimize the dispossession of local people’s land-based entitlements and rights in areas now defined as the ‘buffer zone’. When thinking about the future of poverty reduction, the authors work with trends rather than emerging issues. A major trend driving poverty reduction is the emergence and spread of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as important development actors. Author D. Rajasekhar in his chapter titled ‘‘Where Local Organizations do Not Work: Problems of Poverty Reduction in Tamil Nadu, India’’, discusses the widespread belief and acceptance in India, that being small in scale, flexible, innovative, participatory and relatively independent, NGOs are more successful in reaching the poor and in poverty reduction. This has contributed to the increasing popularity of NGOs with the government and external agencies, and their rapid growth. Rajasekhar estimates there are over 20,000 NGOs in rural development India today. By the conclusion of the chapter Rajasekhar notes numerous problems and concerns about the effectiveness of NGOs in reducing poverty including their inadequacy in assisting the poor to influence the political processes. Consequently, poverty reduction remains an outstanding problem. When answering the question what causes society to change and what prevents change, the authors illustrate the forces for stability and change are often the same, political. On the one hand, they agree that social change, poverty reduction in specific, is essentially a matter of political struggle, the mobilization, organization, representation, and empowerment of the poor or on behalf of the poor by local organizations. On the other hand, they agree that social stability, the unwillingness to accept social or political reform of the system in specific, is essentially a matter of political power and control by the elite or on behalf of the elite by state organizations. Author and editor, Lars Engberg-Pedersen, in his chapter ‘‘Limitations of
Book reviews / Futures 36 (2004) 1133–1138
1135
Political Space in Burkina Faso’’, reminds us that politics is a power struggle and that it is dangerous. This leads to many puzzling situations in which the poor are acting in ways that appear to diminish their practical well-being instead of enhancing it. To speak out in opposition to the ruling elite could cost access to the few economic opportunities available to the poor and result in additional harassment. This is one reason why both local leaders, and the population at large tend to support the ruling elite and consequently there is little outspoken opposition to the elite and little work towards the preferred futures of the poor. Thus the poor have great challenges directing the pace and direction of social change because they cannot base their behavior on long-term abstract calculations. However, the authors argue that the poor can bring about gradual, incremental, and linear social changes by intentional action with existing and new local groups. Finally, on the subject of social change, the authors do a good job in covering how the history of each area has shaped the strategies for political change, examples include Astrid Blom’s chapter, ‘‘Ambiguous Political Space: Chiefs, Land and the Poor in Rural Mozambique’’, illustrating how the poor have been able to secure land in contests by using the customary decision-making institutions of chiefs, or local leaders, in arbitrating land conflicts. From the perspective of a futures researcher, the book has several weaknesses. First, when the authors do speak about the future they are vague about their time horizons. While the book informs us that poverty reduction is about the long-term elimination of the poor’s dependence on social relations and of vulnerability with respect to changes in the environment, as opposed to poverty alleviation, which is the short-term improvement of the capital endowment of the poor, the chapters provide us with little help with each author’s temporal assumptions. The reader is left with little other than the future is not the past or the present. Second, the authors do not forecast a wide variety of alternative futures. Despite the book’s argument for the importance of understanding the poor’s own actions in poverty reduction, ultimately, these actions take place within existing social structures, and due to their limited opportunities and resources, the poor are not capable of bringing about transformational social changes. Thus, the book focuses on continuation images of the future stressing economic growth, greater voice and representation of the poor within existing state institutions and in policy formulation, and greater access and more effective participation of the poor in global markets. Additionally, some futures researchers may be disappointed in the lack of attention paid to technology throughout many of the chapters. Regardless of these shortcomings, In the Name of the Poor heightens the futures researcher’s sensitivity to the discursive practices used by competing groups when strategizing about the future. Furthermore, the book invites us to consider the importance of the local perspective on the future, often overlooked because it does not fit the general picture or because it makes the basis for action and policy making too complicated. The authors remind us political struggles over the futures of poverty reduction take place both inside and outside formal political institutions. Despite the recognition of the limited, if not all together absent, institutional channels through which policies and decision making can be influenced and contested
1136
Book reviews / Futures 36 (2004) 1133–1138
by the poor, the authors encourage us to face the futures of the poverty reduction with a sense of hope. The chapters enable us to understand how marginalized people in shaping their political environment shape their own future. Those interested in poststructural-critical futures studies of poverty reduction in particular and public policy in general will benefit most from the book. David J. Brier Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2550 McCarthy Mall, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA E-mail address: [email protected]
doi:10.1016/j.futures.2004.03.008
The Solar Economy: Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Future Hermann Scheer, Earthscan, London, 2002, 347 pages, £17.99 The Solar Economy is a nothing less than a masterplan for replacing the fossil fuel economy with a renewable based one. Highly ambitious perhaps, but Scheer, a German SPD MP involved in energy legislation and projects, and president of various renewable energy associations, makes a pretty convincing case. Where this book stands out is in comprehensively debunking myths surrounding renewable energy—that fossil fuels are cheaper, that renewables can only make only a small impact on energy demands, and particularly that idea that a renewable energy based economy would be a backward step. On the contrary, he shows it is the fossil economy that may be backward, anti-progress. The Solar Economy points out for example the huge sums that have been sunk into the black hole that is nuclear fusion and fission (at least as energy sources, rather than pure research), yet governments and the energy companies baulk at spending small amounts on solar research—often at the cutting edge of solid-state physics. Hermann Scheer highlights the true costs of fossil fuels (and berating, not entirely convincingly, big business and cartels for the current state of affairs. Scheer seems to underestimate the power of consumerism and market forces, particularly in forcing down the price of agricultural produce, or fuel prices). For example the direct and indirect subsidies that fossil energy gets. Unlike renewables today, the costs of fossil fuel power generation infrastructure building and grid maintenance are largely not reflected in the cost of electricity bills—but are of course in general taxation. And that is not taking into account the unmeasured economic, environmental and social costs either, such as pollution.
Book reviews
In the Name of the Poor: Contesting Political Space for Poverty Reduction Edited by Neil Webster and Lars Engberg-Pedersen, London: Zed Books, 2002, 279 pages (paperback), US$ 25.00 paperback, US$ 69.95 hardcover Typically, the images of the future that emerge from Western popular and corporate culture often promote the ideology of consumerism rather than changing the distribution of wealth. However, it is sobering to note that there are currently 1.3 billion people populating the earth that subsist on incomes of less than one US dollar a day, that is, nearly 1/4 of the world’s population. Although some countries have reduced their proportion of the poor, population growth has ensured an absolute increase in their numbers. While visions of space travel, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering dance in our heads, we sometimes forget two of the biggest problems facing the world are the lack of sufficient water purification and sanitation methods. This book is something of a relief to many of the technocratic and business-dominated futures containing images of highly advanced technology and esoteric issues found so readily in the popular press. In the Name of the Poor is the story of the local politics of poverty and how groups of the poor have pursued their own strategies for poverty reduction. Neil Webster, senior research fellow at the Centre for Development Research and coordinator for the program Local Organisations and Rural Poverty Alleviation, and Lars Engberg-Pedersen, head of the International Department in the Danish Association of International Cooperation, have produced a collection of case studies of local politics from across three continents (Africa, Asia, and South America) discussing the implications and effects of political space, an analytical tool with which to explore the role of the poor in poverty reduction. Political space can be understood as the types and range of possibilities present for pursuing poverty reduction by the poor or on behalf of the poor by local organizations. Through the concept of political space the authors explore how various groups attempt to bring about social change using the following three strategies: (1) institutional channels through which policy formulation and implementation can be accessed, controlled or contested by the poor; (2) political discourses in which poverty and poverty reduction are significant issues; and (3) social and political practices of the poor which may be a basis for influencing decision-making, agendas, policy and program implementation.
1134
Book reviews / Futures 36 (2004) 1133–1138
In the Name of the Poor is divided into 11 chapters. With the exception of a handful of tables, the book consists of a standard narrative text layout. The first chapter, by Engberg-Pedersen and Webster, provides an introduction to the concept of political space. This is followed by nine local case studies by different authors. The final chapter, again by Engberg-Pedersen and Webster, seeks to draw some general lessons on the basis of the nine case studies. Although the case studies differ in their methodologies and theoretical stance, when approaching the political, at times, they have a post-modern flavor. In general, the authors aim at arousing aspirations, raising consciousness, and opening up opportunities for the marginal. The authors pay careful attention to language and discourse and while interested in the state appear more concerned with the neighborhood, local, regional, and community levels of political action. Author, Amanda J. Hammar, in her chapter titled ‘‘Speaking with Space: Displacements and Claims in the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe’’, illustrates the emphasis on discursive practices in both shaping and reflecting the political space for claims and land authority. Hammar describes how the state embraced conservationist discourse such as ‘buffer zones’ and the necessity of ‘protecting the integrity of national parks’ as justification to evict people from national park land, restrict them from control or use of land based resources within national park land, while allowing full access to wildlife resources to the safari operators. Hammar also shows how Rural District Councils used the term ‘squatters’ in order to legitimize the dispossession of local people’s land-based entitlements and rights in areas now defined as the ‘buffer zone’. When thinking about the future of poverty reduction, the authors work with trends rather than emerging issues. A major trend driving poverty reduction is the emergence and spread of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as important development actors. Author D. Rajasekhar in his chapter titled ‘‘Where Local Organizations do Not Work: Problems of Poverty Reduction in Tamil Nadu, India’’, discusses the widespread belief and acceptance in India, that being small in scale, flexible, innovative, participatory and relatively independent, NGOs are more successful in reaching the poor and in poverty reduction. This has contributed to the increasing popularity of NGOs with the government and external agencies, and their rapid growth. Rajasekhar estimates there are over 20,000 NGOs in rural development India today. By the conclusion of the chapter Rajasekhar notes numerous problems and concerns about the effectiveness of NGOs in reducing poverty including their inadequacy in assisting the poor to influence the political processes. Consequently, poverty reduction remains an outstanding problem. When answering the question what causes society to change and what prevents change, the authors illustrate the forces for stability and change are often the same, political. On the one hand, they agree that social change, poverty reduction in specific, is essentially a matter of political struggle, the mobilization, organization, representation, and empowerment of the poor or on behalf of the poor by local organizations. On the other hand, they agree that social stability, the unwillingness to accept social or political reform of the system in specific, is essentially a matter of political power and control by the elite or on behalf of the elite by state organizations. Author and editor, Lars Engberg-Pedersen, in his chapter ‘‘Limitations of
Book reviews / Futures 36 (2004) 1133–1138
1135
Political Space in Burkina Faso’’, reminds us that politics is a power struggle and that it is dangerous. This leads to many puzzling situations in which the poor are acting in ways that appear to diminish their practical well-being instead of enhancing it. To speak out in opposition to the ruling elite could cost access to the few economic opportunities available to the poor and result in additional harassment. This is one reason why both local leaders, and the population at large tend to support the ruling elite and consequently there is little outspoken opposition to the elite and little work towards the preferred futures of the poor. Thus the poor have great challenges directing the pace and direction of social change because they cannot base their behavior on long-term abstract calculations. However, the authors argue that the poor can bring about gradual, incremental, and linear social changes by intentional action with existing and new local groups. Finally, on the subject of social change, the authors do a good job in covering how the history of each area has shaped the strategies for political change, examples include Astrid Blom’s chapter, ‘‘Ambiguous Political Space: Chiefs, Land and the Poor in Rural Mozambique’’, illustrating how the poor have been able to secure land in contests by using the customary decision-making institutions of chiefs, or local leaders, in arbitrating land conflicts. From the perspective of a futures researcher, the book has several weaknesses. First, when the authors do speak about the future they are vague about their time horizons. While the book informs us that poverty reduction is about the long-term elimination of the poor’s dependence on social relations and of vulnerability with respect to changes in the environment, as opposed to poverty alleviation, which is the short-term improvement of the capital endowment of the poor, the chapters provide us with little help with each author’s temporal assumptions. The reader is left with little other than the future is not the past or the present. Second, the authors do not forecast a wide variety of alternative futures. Despite the book’s argument for the importance of understanding the poor’s own actions in poverty reduction, ultimately, these actions take place within existing social structures, and due to their limited opportunities and resources, the poor are not capable of bringing about transformational social changes. Thus, the book focuses on continuation images of the future stressing economic growth, greater voice and representation of the poor within existing state institutions and in policy formulation, and greater access and more effective participation of the poor in global markets. Additionally, some futures researchers may be disappointed in the lack of attention paid to technology throughout many of the chapters. Regardless of these shortcomings, In the Name of the Poor heightens the futures researcher’s sensitivity to the discursive practices used by competing groups when strategizing about the future. Furthermore, the book invites us to consider the importance of the local perspective on the future, often overlooked because it does not fit the general picture or because it makes the basis for action and policy making too complicated. The authors remind us political struggles over the futures of poverty reduction take place both inside and outside formal political institutions. Despite the recognition of the limited, if not all together absent, institutional channels through which policies and decision making can be influenced and contested
1136
Book reviews / Futures 36 (2004) 1133–1138
by the poor, the authors encourage us to face the futures of the poverty reduction with a sense of hope. The chapters enable us to understand how marginalized people in shaping their political environment shape their own future. Those interested in poststructural-critical futures studies of poverty reduction in particular and public policy in general will benefit most from the book. David J. Brier Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2550 McCarthy Mall, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA E-mail address: [email protected]
doi:10.1016/j.futures.2004.03.008
The Solar Economy: Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Future Hermann Scheer, Earthscan, London, 2002, 347 pages, £17.99 The Solar Economy is a nothing less than a masterplan for replacing the fossil fuel economy with a renewable based one. Highly ambitious perhaps, but Scheer, a German SPD MP involved in energy legislation and projects, and president of various renewable energy associations, makes a pretty convincing case. Where this book stands out is in comprehensively debunking myths surrounding renewable energy—that fossil fuels are cheaper, that renewables can only make only a small impact on energy demands, and particularly that idea that a renewable energy based economy would be a backward step. On the contrary, he shows it is the fossil economy that may be backward, anti-progress. The Solar Economy points out for example the huge sums that have been sunk into the black hole that is nuclear fusion and fission (at least as energy sources, rather than pure research), yet governments and the energy companies baulk at spending small amounts on solar research—often at the cutting edge of solid-state physics. Hermann Scheer highlights the true costs of fossil fuels (and berating, not entirely convincingly, big business and cartels for the current state of affairs. Scheer seems to underestimate the power of consumerism and market forces, particularly in forcing down the price of agricultural produce, or fuel prices). For example the direct and indirect subsidies that fossil energy gets. Unlike renewables today, the costs of fossil fuel power generation infrastructure building and grid maintenance are largely not reflected in the cost of electricity bills—but are of course in general taxation. And that is not taking into account the unmeasured economic, environmental and social costs either, such as pollution.