Stephen Jones

Market Reform and Private Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa

Abstract This article reviews the experience of market reform in Eastern and Southern Africa and highlights some key lessons learned. A distinction is drawn between countries whose policy regime before reform was favourable to food production and those whose policies were unfavourable, and alternative reform paths are described. The two key issues emerging are the role of the public sector after reform, for which there is still no clearly appropriate model, and how the strong short-term response of the private sector to trading opportunities can be transformed into investment. Post-reform markets have been competitive, but operate under tight constraints with little evidence of significant capital accumulation. Critical research issues to inform policy making are identified.

Agricultural marketing and pricing reform: A review of experience

Abstract South Africa, like many other countries, has in the past pursued a highly interventionist policy in agricultural marketing and pricing, but has recently embarked on a process of at least partial liberalization. The paper reviews the reasons for, nature of, and impact of marketing reform in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. It concludes that the results of reform have in general been positive, although implementation has been more difficult and time- consuming than originally expected, in part because of interest-group politics and in part because of its inherent complexity. The paper highlights some issues of particular relevance to South Africas current political and economic transition.

The Rose Revolution: A Revolution without Revolutionaries?

In this investigation of the sources of the Rose Revolution in Georgia in November 2003 and presentation of the challenges the new leadership faces, the author argues that there are four contexts to the Georgian revolutionary events of 2003: first, a popular and romantic yearning among Georgians for union with Europe; second, the dismal failings of the Shevardnadze regime; third, the combined impact of global economic models and Westernisation in Georgia; and, fourth, the Soviet legacy. The role of civil society organisations, though important, was not vital to the success of the Rose Revolution. The manner in which the new leadership has tackled state-building challenges suggests the pro-Western revolution is still in a radical phase, with the imperative of state consolidation often overriding Western models of due process and democratic governance. The direction of the revolution – toward greater liberalism or radical populism – will have a major impact on regional politics and on the policies of both the US and the EU in the region.

The role of cultural paradigms in Georgian foreign policy

Among the range of factors in the ‘global paradigms’ that underpin the cultural context for foreign policy with a brief theoretical discussion of the analytic utility of political culture and concludes that, despite its imprecision, the concept of political culture – central to some of the global paradigms that underpin the cultural context for foreign policy making – cannot be ignored in any analysis of Georgian foreign policy. Four such ‘global paradigms’ in Georgian political culture appear to affect or to have affected Georgian foreign policy making. They are religion, attitudes towards the ‘West’, pan-Caucasianism and anti-Russianism, as revealed by evidence from three recently written Georgian national security documents. Although the importance of culture in Georgian foreign policy decision making should not be overrated, it has an important place among Georgian political elites in defining their regional and international environment.

Food market reform: the changing role of the state

Abstract The liberalization and privatization of food markets has been an important feature of economic reform programmes in many developing countries, and donor conditionality has been applied to this end. However, the agenda needs to move beyond this to the establishment of efficient and equitable marketing systems. A major constraint on this has been the weak base of theoretical and empirical knowledge about the characteristics of food markets on which reform programmes have been built. Three principal areas are identified where further research, policy experimentation and sharing of experience are required: the role of the state in relation to collective action by market participants, the problem of food price instability, and the delivery of support to the small-scale private sector that has taken over many marketing functions.

Reflections on the Rose Revolution

This article focuses on the paradoxes inherent in the Rose Revolution in Georgia. The Rose Revolution and its colored companions precipitated two disappointing reactions in the former Soviet space: first, disillusion with popular democracy movements, and second, what Vitali Silitsky calls ‘preemptive authoritarianism’, or the ability of post-Soviet regimes to anticipate popular challenge. I connect the ideology and style of the Rose Revolution with the constitutional crisis of November 2007 in Georgia, and with the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008.

Esomeprazole and aspirin in Barrett's oesophagus (AspECT): a randomised factorial trial

Summary Background Oesophageal adenocarcinoma is the sixth most common cause of cancer death worldwide and Barretts oesophagus is the biggest risk factor. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of high-dose esomeprazole proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) and aspirin for improving outcomes in patients with Barretts oesophagus. Methods The Aspirin and Esomeprazole Chemoprevention in Barretts metaplasia Trial had a 2 × 2 factorial design and was done at 84 centres in the UK and one in Canada. Patients with Barretts oesophagus of 1 cm or more were randomised 1:1:1:1 using a computer-generated schedule held in a central trials unit to receive high-dose (40 mg twice-daily) or low-dose (20 mg once-daily) PPI, with or without aspirin (300 mg per day in the UK, 325 mg per day in Canada) for at least 8 years, in an unblinded manner. Reporting pathologists were masked to treatment allocation. The primary composite endpoint was time to all-cause mortality, oesophageal adenocarcinoma, or high-grade dysplasia, which was analysed with accelerated failure time modelling adjusted for minimisation factors (age, Barretts oesophagus length, intestinal metaplasia) in all patients in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is registered with EudraCT, number 2004-003836-77. Findings Between March 10, 2005, and March 1, 2009, 2557 patients were recruited. 705 patients were assigned to low-dose PPI and no aspirin, 704 to high-dose PPI and no aspirin, 571 to low-dose PPI and aspirin, and 577 to high-dose PPI and aspirin. Median follow-up and treatment duration was 8·9 years (IQR 8·2–9·8), and we collected 20 095 follow-up years and 99·9% of planned data. 313 primary events occurred. High-dose PPI (139 events in 1270 patients) was superior to low-dose PPI (174 events in 1265 patients; time ratio [TR] 1·27, 95% CI 1·01–1·58, p=0·038). Aspirin (127 events in 1138 patients) was not significantly better than no aspirin (154 events in 1142 patients; TR 1·24, 0·98–1·57, p=0·068). If patients using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were censored at the time of first use, aspirin was significantly better than no aspirin (TR 1·29, 1·01–1·66, p=0·043; n=2236). Combining high-dose PPI with aspirin had the strongest effect compared with low-dose PPI without aspirin (TR 1·59, 1·14–2·23, p=0·0068). The numbers needed to treat were 34 for PPI and 43 for aspirin. Only 28 (1%) participants reported study-treatment-related serious adverse events. Interpretation High-dose PPI and aspirin chemoprevention therapy, especially in combination, significantly and safely improved outcomes in patients with Barretts oesophagus. Funding Cancer Research UK, AstraZeneca, Wellcome Trust, and Health Technology Assessment.

The Non-Russian Nationalities

This chapter must begin with some qualifications. It does not represent original research and only makes limited use of Soviet sources. It attempts to assess some past and current thinking on the ‘nationalities question’ in 1917 among Western scholars. It is interpretative, and aims to raise questions about assumptions and approaches rather than provide answers. The chapter’s first section will address some theoretical problems associated with ethnicity and national identity, and the second half, in the light of this discussion, will look at the non-Russian national movements in 1917.

Introduction: Georgia's domestic front

Read most English language reports of the five-day war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 and you will find out what the consequences of the war were internationally, what role the ‘Great Powers’ played, how important the oil and gas pipelines were in the conflict, and what this war means for US–Russian rivalry in the region. For most Western commentators (including Russian journalists), this was a renewed Great Game, with Georgia playing ‘piggy in the middle’. Geopolitics is back in the Caucasus and the war in August 2008 was interpreted as a global fight, not a local one. This collection of articles from a group of international scholars is designed to dispel that myth – to introduce some balance to the current fixation on great power categories, ethnic clashes and parallels with the past. The August war is treated by the authors in this collection not as the beginning of a conflict, but as its culmination. We would never dream of explaining the origins of World War I with the shot in Sarajevo; neither can we explain the August war by the launch of Georgian Katyusha rockets on Tskhinvali on 7 August. The emphasis of this collection is on the domestic context of the war. Together, the articles represent a multidimensional approach that incorporates critical domestic elements into a more complete analysis. They include an examination of Georgia’s own systemic weaknesses, in particular the inadequate policies toward Georgia’s national minorities, the consequences of over hasty state building, and the impact of a brash young leadership barely accountable to the electorate. The impact of corruption, the Soviet colonial legacy, the absence of civic participation, public attitudes toward the government and its foreign policy, the role of economic reform on military budgets and investments, and the perceptions of the Georgian centre from the Abkhazian periphery – all are addressed by the authors who consider these domestic features vital to understanding the causes of the war. The Russian viewpoint is not directly represented in the collection, but this does not prevent a number of the authors from exploring the Russian– Georgian relationship over the last century, and its impact on the current conflict. This group of articles fills an important gap in our understanding of why this tragedy, which led to over 600 deaths and 120,000 people losing their homes, exploded in the Caucasus region in 2008. Collectively, the articles reveal the inadequacies of focusing on geography, and on the clashes of regional powers and ancient conflicts. There is a need, as Lawrence Broers puts it, ‘to dig beneath geopolitics’. These conflicts, he reminds us – and it is a sentiment that unites all the authors – ‘remain firmly rooted in local and regional circumstances and in the aspirations, reflexes and fears of the communities involved’ (Broers p. 100). That includes the Abkhazians and South Ossetians who, as Paula Garb notes ‘could not be heard above the din generated around the geopolitical implications of the larger Russian-Georgian clash’ (Garb, abstract). This is important to recognize, not only for Western policy makers and politicians tempted by the recourse to Cold War paradigms, but for Georgians themselves. Georgians have lessons to

Creating Markets: Food Policy and Agricultural Reform in the Transition

low-income and agrarian economies. Three areas in particular have been highlighted as critical to the success of liberalizing reforms: the institutional framework required for market systems to operate efficiently, encompassing social norms as well as formal legal regulations; the role of risk and transactions costs; and the political economy that shapes agricultural pricing policy and its local level implementation (Jones, forthcoming). While theoretical understanding of these issues has deepened beyond the simplistic interpretations of rural market behavior that underlay some of the advocacy of the liberalization and privatization of agricultural marketing in the past, the operational policy implications (especially for the most effective use of aid resources) often remain uncertain. Experience does not provide support for many traditional forms of state intervention in agricultural markets such as price controls, support pricing, and state monopoly procurement and distribution. Instead, it draws attention to the importance of an institutional and policy environment that reduces transactions costs and increases competition. Achieving this may involve difficult and unclear trade-offs. For example, reducing obstacles to collective action by market participants may assist the development of more efficient risk-sharing arrangements, but it may also strengthen the influence of national lobby groups seeking subsidies or the power of local elites over their clients.