Dwayne Woods

The tragedy of the cocoa pod: rent-seeking, land and ethnic conflict in Ivory Coast

Many people have been surprised by the eruption of ethnic conflict and civil war in Ivory Coast. The country had gained a reputation as a relatively stable and economically prosperous agricultural republic in a region known for ethnic conflict, economic decline and civil war. The underlying factors that have led to the ethnic violence, the flight of immigrants from neighbouring countries, and the division of the country into a predominantly Muslim north and largely Christian south have been known for some time. The countrys property rights regime that encouraged easy access to a forest rent - as long as cheap migrant labour and virgin forested land were available - was a recipe for future conflict. As available land declined and labour costs increased, a cycle of sharpening conflicts over these assets contributed to the current situation of ethno-regional division and civil war.

Civil Society in Europe and Africa: Limiting State Power through a Public Sphere

The concept of civil society has gained currency in African studies. It is used in a variety of different ways, but usually refers to the emergence of new patterns of political participation outside of formal state structures and one-party systems (Bratton 1989, 407). In the absence of capable state institutions, the literature on Africa has started to shift attention away from the state and governing elites, and towards social actors who are devising various strategies to survive the nested crises of state action, economic development, and political legitimacy (Doornbos 1990). As an alternative conceptualization of possibilities of economic and social development, civil society is becoming an all encompassing term that refers to social phenomena putatively beyond formal state structures-but not necessarily free of all contact with the state.

Predatory Elites, Rents and Cocoa: A Comparative Analysis of Ghana and Ivory Coast

This article explores the way in which the cocoa sector shaped the rent-seeking behaviour of ruling elites and rural producers in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Analysis of their rent-seeking behaviour is done in two different contexts. The first context is a boom period in which the exploitation of the rent generated from cocoa production leads elites and rural producers to pursue specific investment and allocation strategies. The other context is the bust period in which the rent has declined and, more importantly, the factors of production – land and labour – associated with the successful exploitation of cocoa become more contested and contribute to increased political tension along class, ethnic and regional lines. He does research on African politics and economic development as well as that of Western Europe.

Globalisation, workers and the northern league

This article seeks to explain why the Northern Leagues main basis of support now comes primarily from Northern workers and artisans. To explain the nature of the Leagues support, we hypothesise that a fear of globalisation has led workers in the north to vote for the party that has put the greatest emphasis on the protection of local identities. We analyse survey data to document the affect globalisation has on the voting patterns of Northern workers. From our data, we construct a regression model to identify the issues and socioeconomic factors that predict support for the Northern League. In addition to the regression model, we also present cross‐tabulated data revealing that Northern League supporters tend to be extremely provincial, yet they are convinced that global forces are threatening their quality of life.

Value Orientations From the World Values Survey How Comparable Are They Cross-Nationally?

We examine data from the World Values Survey regarding the existence of two consistent orientations in mass values, traditional versus secular/rational and survival versus self-expression. We also evaluate the empirical validity of Welzel’s revised value orientations: secular and emancipative. Over the years, a large body of work has presumed the stability and comparability of these value orientations across time and space. Our findings uncover little evidence of the existence of traditional–secular/rational or survival–self-expression values. Welzel’s two dimensions of value orientations—secular and emancipative—seem more reflective of latent value orientations in mass publics but are still imperfectly capturing these orientations. More importantly, these value orientations do not seem very comparable except among a small number of advanced post-industrial democracies. We call attention to the use of value measurements to explain important macro-level phenomena.

The centre no longer holds: The rise of regional leagues in Italian politics

The principal argument in this article is that the recent emergence of regional leagues in Italian politics is epiphenomenal to broader socio‐economic changes which have occurred in the country since the 1960s. The emergence of regional leagues are a reflection of the differentiation of Italian civil society from a centralised political authority ‐ mediated through parties ‐ and the development of regional and local units as centres of economic and political legitimacy and representation.

What About Us? The Anglo-Caribbean Democratic Experience

Abstract This article contributes to the sparse literature on democratic regimes in the Caribbean by examining the emergence and persistence of Anglo-Caribbean democracies. British colonialism, not socio-economic modernisation, explains the origins of the democratic institutions of Anglo-Caribbean states. British colonial heritage, however, fails to explain why these democracies have persisted, in contrast to the experience of other former British colonies and many Latin American and non-Anglo Caribbean states. We identify two key variables that we believe account for democratic sustainability. These are size and a political culture of patronage politics that integrates the different socio-economic and ethnic strata of Caribbean society into the political process. Size and patronage politics are conceptualised as interactive variables because the relatively small geographic size and population of Anglo-Caribbean states allow for a high degree of personalisation of politics and reinforces common political cultural dynamics. In this way, we provide a theoretical account of democratic sustainability among Anglo-Caribbean states, despite sharp inequalities, corruption and violence related to the international drug trade.

Pockets of resistance to globalization: the case of the Lega Nord

ABSTRACT From its inception, the Lega Nord has been a populist social and political movement obsessed with the Other. In the world-view of the Lega Nord, the Other is anything that threatens the cultural and regional identity of Italians in the northern part of the country, particularly the Northeast. In the early 1990s the Other was constituted by corrupt politicians in Rome, Italian economic monopolies and southern Italians. By the late 1990s the Other had increasingly become the forces of globalization that, according to the Lega leaderships shrill arguments, threatened the economic and social fabric of what the party now refers to as ‘Padania’. Woods explores the manner in which anti-globalization became the dominant ideological Other in the rhetoric of the Lega Nord.

Latitude or rectitude: geographical or institutional determinants of development

Two different bodies of literature that have sought to understand the ‘deep determinants’ behind the gap between rich and poor nations are examined. One body of literature highlights the significance of geography as a key analytical concept in understanding both the spatial and environmental aspects that effect economic development. The other body of literature underlines the central role of institutions in accounting for the divide between rich and poor nations. In order to gain a multi‐faceted understanding of the main theoretical and methodological themes in these two bodies of literature, this article is structured as follows. First, I lay out the key analytical and definitional aspects of the literature on geography and institutions. Second, I examine how the literature attempts to empirically account for the income gap between nations. Third, I identify some key theoretical and methodological shortcomings in the two bodies of literature. Finally, I tease out some key policy prescriptions that can be inferred from the respective analyses of the geography and institutions arguments.

State Action and Class Interests in the Ivory Coast

The economic development and relative political stability of the Ivory Coast over the last three decades has attracted sharply contrasting views. The interpretations range from enthusiastic endorsements of the Ivory Coast as a model for other developing African countries to sharp criticisms of the liberal economic policies which the state has pursued. In the view of the World Bank, the economic accomplishments of the Ivory Coast illustrate how the correct incentives to rural producers and a liberal investment code can result in sustained economic growth. Between 1960 and 1975 the economy grew at an annual rate of seven percent. Although the Ivory Coast is beginning to regain some momentum after five years of economic recession, its economy has still fared better than many other African economies. Critics, however, contend that the economic crisis is a manifestation of the structural limits of the liberal economic model adopted by the Ivorian political elite. While there is no consensus on whether the liberal approach adopted by the government benefitted the majority of Ivorians or has made the country extremely dependent on France and other Western nations for capital and technology, the Ivorian state is at the center of the various interpretations. The state takes on a different role depending on the form of analysis applied to its activities; nevertheless, the fact that the state played a pivotal role in the country over the last three decades is not a matter of argument. What is contested is whose interest the Ivorian state serves: the Ivorian peasant, a small planter bourgeoisie, or the bureaucratic elite itself? The literature on the Ivory Coast falls into two broad categories, liberal and radical, and within each there is a great deal of variation. For example, Aristide Zolbergs (1964) and Michael Cohens (1975) works both fit a liberal interpretation of the state, but Cohen articulates a class notion that is absent from Zolbergs work. His argument about class, however, has nothing to do with a mode of production analysis. Like Zolberg and other liberal interpretations, the key concepts relate more to the entrepreneurial characteristics of the ruling elite than to any intrinsic relationship between them and a particular economic system. The liberal view has had very little to say about economics, Marxist or otherwise, until recently (Faure and Medard, 1982; Marcussen and Torp, 1982). In the liberal