{"title":"Law in Practice in a Nairobi Slum: Legalization and Camouflage","authors":"Maja Jeppesen","doi":"10.1111/dech.12873","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12873","url":null,"abstract":"<p>State and non-state water service providers in Nairobi strive to produce legitimate claims to water. This article examines the state's attempt to regulate water provision in Kibera, a slum of Nairobi, Kenya, where the state-owned water service provider has installed a water system, the so-called ‘chambers’, to combat the unauthorized diversion of water from the grid and extend the reach of their services. While the chamber system has failed the intended regulation of water provision in Kibera, it plays a central role in structuring the water provision system in the settlement. The article shows that the interactions the chambers facilitate between state and non-state service providers produce a localized legality which draws on the language of the state and the appearance of the rule of law. At the same time, this localized legality is operationalized by illegal activities and the direct transgression of statutory law. Therefore, the legitimacy and legality of service providers is co-produced by state and non-state actors and between the ideal of law and practical norms constituting a ‘practical water law’.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 1","pages":"56-77"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.12873","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Defending the Land: Filipina Activists amidst Authoritarian Rule in the Philippines","authors":"Miriam Zimmermann, Wolfram Dressler, Ana Bibal","doi":"10.1111/dech.12872","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12872","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In Southeast Asia, environmental and human rights activists resisting authoritarian rule and extractive development face harassment, intimidation and lethal danger in dramatically different ways. In the Philippines, this atmosphere of violence intensified under former President Rodrigo Duterte, a political ‘strongman’ whose militarized masculinity deepened the repression of left-wing women activists and other political opposition across the country. Despite macro-level studies examining the trends and patterns behind the surge in activist harassment, the micro-politics of Duterte's misogynistic and revanchist violence towards women activists has received insufficient attention. Drawing on feminist political ecology, this article explores how and why women activists on Palawan Island and elsewhere in the Philippines continued their advocacy work as they navigated intersectional spaces of violent misogyny and government repression. It shows how women activists in Palawan drew upon hope to persevere in their work amidst the violent atmospheres stoked by authoritarian masculinity. The article describes how the temporalities of intersectional gendered violence variously impacted the lives of women activists as they defended the environment and human rights on the island, while the country's highest office legitimated toxic chauvinism as a mode of governance.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 1","pages":"137-171"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.12872","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dante Cardoso, Laura Carvalho, Gilberto Tadeu Lima, Luiza Nassif-Pires, Fernando Rugitsky, Marina Sanches
{"title":"The Multiplier Effects of Government Expenditures on Social Protection: A Multi-country Study","authors":"Dante Cardoso, Laura Carvalho, Gilberto Tadeu Lima, Luiza Nassif-Pires, Fernando Rugitsky, Marina Sanches","doi":"10.1111/dech.12869","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12869","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article uses a novel dataset comprising 42 countries for the years 1985–2020 to explore the relationship between public spending on social protection and GDP. The article contributes to the empirical literature on social protection spending by conducting a large multi-country study using the structural vector autoregression approach. The results of the study highlight the positive effects of social protection expenditures on GDP that surpass those of total government expenditures. These results vary considerably across countries, with impact multipliers ranging from 5 in Mexico to -0.71 in Paraguay. The authors find that the cumulative multiplier exceeds 1 for most of the 42 sample countries, suggesting that the positive impact of social protection spending on GDP accumulates over time. The article finds statistically significant and strong correlations between the cumulative and impact multipliers and inequality measures such as the Gini coefficient and the income shares of the poorest and the richest. Indeed, the positive impact of public spending on social protection on GDP is especially pronounced in countries characterized by higher inequality. Taken together, the results have significant policy implications and suggest that the growth-enhancing potential of social protection policies is complementary to the ability of such policies to reduce inequality.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 1","pages":"172-224"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.12869","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bert Suykens, Atique Rahman, Shameem Reza Khan, Sabbir Ahmed Dhali
{"title":"Governing Artisanal and Small-scale Sand Mining in Bangladesh","authors":"Bert Suykens, Atique Rahman, Shameem Reza Khan, Sabbir Ahmed Dhali","doi":"10.1111/dech.12870","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12870","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This article uses an in-country comparative approach to investigate the governance of artisanal and small-scale river sand mining in Bangladesh, focusing particularly on sector heterogeneity, tax farming and power imbalances. It analyses sand governance in two diverse sand-mining sites in Bangladesh — one mechanized and large, and the other manual and small-scale. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, the study reveals that the more mechanized site faced greater regulatory challenges due to its complex web of political and economic relations, contrasting with the simpler governance dynamics of the smaller site. The findings demonstrate that power distribution among stakeholders, including local administrations, leaseholders and miners, significantly shapes governance outcomes. Tax farming, whereby leaseholders but also administrations prioritize short-term profits over sustainable practices, emerges as a critical issue. This research contributes to ongoing discussions about sand governance, advocating for a nuanced understanding of how the specific characteristics of mining contexts influence regulatory effectiveness. Ultimately, the study calls for a reform of leasing practices and governance models to improve sustainability and inclusivity in sand mining in Bangladesh and beyond. This work not only adds to the literature on artisanal and small-scale mining but also emphasizes the importance of contextualized governance frameworks in sand resource management.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 1","pages":"111-136"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International Development Financing in the Second Cold War: The Miserly Convergence of Western Donors and China","authors":"Shahar Hameiri, Lee Jones","doi":"10.1111/dech.12871","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12871","url":null,"abstract":"<p>China's rise as a major development financing provider is widely seen as challenging traditional donor states’ influence over the norms and institutions of global development and over aid recipients. Amid intensifying geopolitical rivalry, now often called a new or second Cold War, some argue that traditional donors are adopting Chinese-style practices to compete with China for developing countries’ allegiance. This article supports the convergence thesis but argues further that Chinese practices are also converging with those of traditional donors. Moreover, this convergence is on a less generous middle ground that will likely be worse for developing countries than the logic of geopolitical competition suggests. Rather than mobilizing additional resources, both sides are retrenching. This is because geopolitical competition is mediated through domestic political economy models entailing limits to providers’ generosity: China's commercial model confronts recipients’ declining repayment capacity, while traditional donors, unwilling to devote fiscal resources for aid, rely on mobilizing reluctant private finance.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 1","pages":"3-30"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.12871","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Financializing Maternal and Newborn Care: Temporal Tensions within a Development Impact Bond in India","authors":"Sandra Bärnreuther","doi":"10.1111/dech.12867","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12867","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Since the 1980s, multilateral agencies and governments in many parts of the world have curtailed public spending for the health sector. The same period also witnessed the emergence of ‘innovative’ health financing approaches which combine social service provision with financial return. This article discusses one such mechanism, the first health-focused development impact bond (DIB) implemented in India in 2018–21. Drawing on interviews with key actors and analyses of documents and reports, the article examines the transformation of maternal and newborn care into an investment opportunity. It argues that DIBs introduce the prospect of financial return in the provision of social services while at the same time imbuing financial investments with the promise of moral value. After situating the impact bond within broader global trends in health financing and India's specific history, the article illustrates the processes of valuation involved in converting maternal and newborn care into a financial asset. In doing so, it highlights the tensions that emerge when healthcare is made amenable to the logic and time horizon of finance capital. The article concludes with a discussion of the possible long-term consequences of financialization in the health sector, emphasizing the new vulnerabilities and inequalities that DIBs generate, particularly outside financial centres in the Global North.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 1","pages":"31-55"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rice Margins Under Climate Change: Labour and Knowledge in Mangrove Rice Networks in Guinea-Bissau","authors":"Joana Sousa, Ansumane Braima Dabó, Ana Luísa Luz","doi":"10.1111/dech.12868","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12868","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The effects of climate change add to the challenges facing those with rice-based livelihoods in West Africa. This article presents a long-term ethnographic case study in southern Guinea-Bissau where, in contrast to other reported cases in the region, uncertainty regarding the future of mangrove rice production overlaps with efforts to rehabilitate abandoned mangrove rice paddies. Agricultural knowledge is produced, renewed and transmitted along with the construction of site-specific, techno-ecological hybrids needed for water management in rice fields. This article analyses the role of communal, reciprocal and contract labour in the circulation of knowledge between villages with historically stable rice production (rice refugia) and villages where production has been discontinuous (rice margins). Knowledge circulation and experimentation are key to local adaptation to climate change and climate resilience programmes can play a role if they are able to adapt to current needs, for instance, by considering decentralized funding strategies. By promoting the exchange of services and goods, decentralization of funding can facilitate the redistribution of knowledge and labour, particularly if rice refugia, as regional knowledge repositories, participate in the recovery of rice production in rice margins. These connections revitalize and strengthen regional rice knowledge networks and their ability to confront climate change.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 1","pages":"78-110"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.12868","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143835832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Howard Stein, Rie Odgaard, Kelly Askew, Faustin Maganga
{"title":"The World Bank and Rural Land Titling in Africa: The Case of Tanzania","authors":"Howard Stein, Rie Odgaard, Kelly Askew, Faustin Maganga","doi":"10.1111/dech.12866","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12866","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In 2021, the World Bank, in association with the Tanzanian Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development, added yet another chapter to the long and contentious history of land tenure reform in Tanzania. It approved US$ 150 million for the second phase of a village-wide individual titling pilot programme that employs new technologies for surveying under the rubric of a private sector competitiveness project. This article assesses the nature, evolution and impact of the World Bank project in Tanzania within the context of its broader titling agenda in Africa. It provides an overview of the formation of the World Bank's land policy agenda in Africa, followed by an evaluation of the titling project in Tanzania. The final part of the article critically examines the arrival of new actors and players in Tanzania and assesses the new World Bank project.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"55 6","pages":"1150-1181"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.12866","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142862186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discourses of Land Conflicts in Indonesia","authors":"Ward Berenschot, Nisrina Saraswati","doi":"10.1111/dech.12865","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12865","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article analyses how rural Indonesians involved in land conflicts articulate their claims vis-à-vis palm oil companies and government. Addressing a long-standing debate about the relative importance of laws and rights in the contentious politics of marginalized citizens in the Global South, the authors examine statements of community spokespersons as published in regional newspapers from four Indonesian provinces. They find that this discourse is characterized by an emphasis on social norms and customary traditions, while laws, regulations and conceptions of justice are rarely invoked. The authors argue that this modest and comparatively ‘rightless’ discourse is a consequence of the character of the marginalization facing rural Indonesians. The combination of relative powerlessness and an unreliable legal system forces rural Indonesians to avoid an assertive claiming of rights and, instead, to adopt a more muted and polite tone to cultivate the goodwill of companies and local authorities.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"55 6","pages":"1182-1205"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.12865","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142861916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Negotiating Urban Development in Africa: Transnational Communities of Embedded Support in Dar es Salaam","authors":"Sylvia Croese, Wilbard Kombe","doi":"10.1111/dech.12862","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12862","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article brings together recent debates in urban and development studies to illuminate the understudied politics and compromise involved in the rollout of globally funded urban development in Africa. The argument presented builds on a detailed analysis of the World Bank's urban development portfolio in Tanzania, with a specific focus on the Dar es Salaam Metro-politan Development Project, to draw attention to the disjuncture between rising urban investments and persistently low levels of city-level autonomy in urban Africa. Challenging views of cities as either active agents or mere subjects of urban development, the article focuses on the negotiation strategies that have been employed by donors and recipients alike to enable the continued disbursement of urban development funding. The pragmatic and non-confrontational nature of these negotiation strategies is illustrated by highlighting the role of a transnational community of urban development professionals who contribute to embedding local support for policy reform from within. It is argued that while this community has been key to enabling the massive growth of the World Bank's urban lending portfolio in Tanzania, it has also contributed to undermining effective local government reform, thereby reshaping conventionally assumed pathways and understandings of urban agency and development.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"55 6","pages":"1125-1149"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.12862","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142861060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}