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Water and development: the troubled economic history of the arid tropics
No full textFrom the early twentieth century, a big part of the world—the arid and semi-arid tropics—began extracting, storing, and recycling vast quantities of water to sustain population growth and economic development. The idea was not a new one in this geography. It was an intrinsic part of ancient culture, statecraft, and technology. Most ancient projects, however, were local and small in scale. The capability of water extraction on a scale large enough to transform whole regions and create new cities improved in the early twentieth century, giving rise to a sharp break in the long-term population and economic growth pattern from the mid-twentieth century. Ironically, the geography of the arid tropics made transforming landscapes in this way expensive, damaging for the environment, and disputatious. The book describes this troubled history of economic emergence, building on a definition of tropicality
In harm's way? Infrastructure investments and the persistence of coastal cities
No full textCoasts contain a disproportionate share of the world's population, reflecting historical advantages, but environmental change threatens a reversal of coastal fortune in the coming decades as natural disasters intensify and sea levels rise. This paper considers whether large infrastructure investments should continue to favor coastal areas. I estimate a dynamic spatial equilibrium framework using detailed geo-referenced data on road investments in Vietnam from 2000 to 2010 and find evidence that coastal favoritism has significant costs. The results highlight the importance of accounting for the dynamic effects of environmental change in deciding where to allocate infrastructure today
The challenge of scaling-up social work innovations: a case study of Shared Lives schemes in England
No full textInnovation is routinely presented as a response to pressure on public services. This article considers the development of Shared Lives (SL) schemes in English adult social care (ASC), a model of care that has been consistently promoted as innovative. SL seeks to replicate ‘ordinary family life’ for adults who need support. Evidence of positive outcomes for people supported, and of cost-effectiveness compared to other models, has attracted the attention of national policymakers and local authority (LA) ASC leaders. Most LAs now operate or commission a SL scheme. Despite this wide ‘spread’, SL remains a very small model that has not yet been ‘scaled-up’ to the extent that many have hoped. Drawing on interviews with fifty people involved in SL, including from four contrasting local schemes in 2021–2023, we highlight four interconnected sets of ‘organisational capabilities’ and resources needed for schemes to grow: (1) collaborative working with social workers; (2) leadership at different levels; (3) mechanisms to harness knowledge and evidence; and (4) investment in the workforce of scheme staff and carers. We propose these factors help schemes become locally embedded in communities. However, our study also highlights the fragility of the model to socio-economic changes and social work practice imperatives
The future as a democratic resource
No full textBeliefs about the future shape attitudes, experiences, and priorities in the present. This article explores the relationship between democracy and the expected world to come. As it argues, visions of the future are an important resource for democratic politics, putting the present in critical perspective, aiding in the formation of a collective agent, and consolidating commitment in adversity. Indirectly, they contribute also to the legitimacy of democratic institutions, shaping the exercise of citizenship and the capacity to contend with the flaws of representation. The democratic significance of the imagined future becomes even more visible in today’s age of skepticism toward future-regarding politics, in which speculative modes of thinking run up against the desire for certainty and precision
Response to critics of Open and inclusive: fair processes for financing universal health coverage
No full textIn response to our critics, we clarify and defend key ideas in the report Open and Inclusive: Fair Processes for Financing Universal Health Coverage. First, we argue that procedural fairness has greater value than Dan Hausman allows. Second, we argue that the Report aligns with John Kinuthia's view that a knowledgeable public and a capable civil society, alongside good facilitation, are important for effective public deliberation. Moreover, we agree with Kinuthia that the Report's framework for procedural fairness applies not merely within the health sector, but also to the wider budget process. Third, we argue that while Dheepa Rajan and Benjamin Rouffy-Ly are right that robust processes for equal participation are often central to a fair process, sometimes improvements in other aspects of procedural fairness, such as transparency, can take priority over strengthening participation. Fourth, while we welcome Sara Bennett and Maria Merritt's fascinating use of the Report's principles of procedural fairness to assess the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, we argue that their application of the Report's principle of equality to development partners' decision-making requires further justification
Challenging inequality: rights of the waste workers of Delhi
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic did not create any new problems for the working class in India but amplified those that have been prevalent for ages due to an economic system that prioritises profit. Particularly, the collecting and disposing of garbage in the Indian subcontinent has always been associated with a particular caste group, ranked low in the caste hierarchy of the Hindu social order. Though this system can be traced back to Hindu religious texts, it has long percolated into practice in other faiths, with people who converted from these communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the waste collectors living in informal settlements on the peripheries of New Delhi faced a peculiar exclusion from basic infrastructural amenities and the right to work. The parlance of social distancing provided an environment adverse to the manual door-to-door waste collection in which the workers were engaged. As a substitute, the state machinery employed private companies whose modus operandi is not very different from independent waste workers. However, when things were restored to normalcy, the workers continued to find themselves out of work. The Solid Waste Management Act 2016 recognises the rights of waste workers, but they are yet to be enforced. In this paper, we look at the exclusion of the waste workers from accessing the city who, by their profession, are seen as polluting the very city which they keep clean
A snapshot of Central Bank (two-year) forecasting: a mixed picture
No full textBetween 2001 and 2023, Central Bank forecasts were patently inaccurate. In this paper, we argue that many of such forecast failings were already present during the earlier years of inflation targetry. Central Banks normally adjust monetary policy so that inflation hits the Inflation Target (IT) within two years. Since a central bank must believe its policy stance is appropriate to achieve this goal, its inflation forecast at the two-year horizon should generally be close to target. We examine whether this has held for three main Central Banks, Bank of England, ECB, and Fed. Although over the IT period prior to 2020, both forecasts and outcomes were commendably close to target, we found that this was due to a sizeable forecast underestimate of the effects of policy and inherent resilience to revive inflation after the GFC crisis hit, largely offset by an overestimate of the effect of monetary policy to restore inflation to target during the more normal times. We attribute such latter overestimation to an unwarranted belief in forward-looking, “well anchored”, expectations amongst households and firms, and to a failure to recognize the underlying disinflationary trends, especially in 2010–2019. We outline a novel means for assessing whether these latter trends were primarily demand driven, e.g. secular stagnation, or supply shocks, a labor supply surge. Finally, we examine how forecasts for the uncertainty of outcomes and relative risk (skew) to the central forecast have developed by examining the Bank of England's fan chart, again at the two-year horizon
Abortion and well-being: a narrative literature review
No full text“Well-being” is utilised in multiple ways – an everyday word, a component of health, a policy objective, reflecting a diverse set of shifting meanings, conceptualisations, definitions, measurements, and theorising. Influenced by structural and social conditions, well-being can be enhanced or diminished and is experienced at a range of scales (individual, community, society). Globally, abortion is a common practice with implications for well-being. However, the intersections and linkages between abortion and well-being have not yet been explicitly synthesised. To extend understandings, theorising, and measurements, we conducted a systematically searched narrative literature review of evidence pertaining to abortion and well-being. We used a grounded theory-driven approach to theoretically sample items until concept (abortion and well-being) saturation was reached, meaning our study was guided by the literature, rather than imposing an external set of theories. Our database searches (January 01, 2005–June 19, 2023) identified 7665 unique records yielding 753 records for the review, from which n = 167 items were selected for extraction. Our analysis of extracted items yielded four main themes. First, only a minority (13/167) of studies explicitly engaged with well-being. Second, the majority of studies incorporated well-being-allied concepts, without explicitly framing their research as about well-being. We developed insights from these studies using four sub-themes: social connectedness, individual agency, mental health, and physical health. Third, there is limited use of theory and/or frameworks in the empirical evidence. Last, we interrogated the empirical research on abortion and well-being over the life course. Well-being and allied concepts can be useful and productive analytic framings with relevance for research on abortion. We invite readers to consider how these concepts might be used to develop and iterate innovation – methodologically, empirically, and theoretically – to clarify, extend and deepen links between abortion and well-being
Ontological security crisis and role conception change: the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the European Union’s role conceptions
No full textThe Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has put significant pressure on the European Union’s (EU) role conceptions, challenging its self-perception as a normative and civilian power. This article explores the impact of the invasion on EU role conceptions through the lens of ontological security theory. We differentiate between ontological insecurity and crisis, elucidating the EU’s responses to acute shocks that disrupt the connection between its self-image and social roles. Drawing on role theory, we examine how the invasion has prompted the EU to reconsider its roles. We identify adjustment, adaptation, innovation, and abandonment as key types of role change, exploring how these responses vary across individual roles within the EU’s role set. By combining qualitative and quantitative content analysis of EU documents, we empirically investigate changes in EU role conceptions pre- and post-invasion. Our analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of role theory’s application to international organizations (IOs), bridging gaps between foreign policy analysis and IO research. In addition, we advance methodological approaches to studying role changes, offering insights into the complex interplay between external events, institutional identity formation, and ontological security in the context of geopolitical crises
Religiosity, attitudes toward science, and public health: evidence from Finland
No full textWe explore how religiosity influences perceptions and the adoption of protective health behaviours, as reflected in COVID-19 infection and vaccination rates. In the first part of our analysis, we use Finnish data from four nationally representative surveys, we find that individuals with higher self-reported religiosity and those from more conservative religious groups tend to hold less favourable attitudes towards science, technology and medicine, compared to non-religious individuals. In the second part, we observe that municipalities with higher shares of conservative religious groups experienced greater COVID-19 spread and lower vaccination rates, with these trends persisting throughout the pandemic. Our findings underscore the importance of accounting for religiosity when crafting public health policies, as it may contribute to the existence of non-compliance hotspots