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French President Charles de Gaulle (1958-1969) has consistently
fascinated contemporaries and historians. His vision conceived out
of national interest of uniting Europe under French leadership and
overcoming the Cold War still remains relevant and appealing. De
Gaulle's towering personality and his challenge to US hegemony in
the Cold War have inspired a vast number of political biographies
and analyses of the foreign policies of the Fifth Republic mostly
from French or US angle. In contrast, this book serves to
rediscover de Gaulle's global policies how they changed the Cold
War. Offering truly global perspectives on France's approach to the
world during de Gaulle's presidency, the 13 well-matched essays by
leading experts in the field tap into newly available sources drawn
from US, European, Asian, African and Latin American archives.
Together, the contributions integrate previously neglected regions,
actors and topics with more familiar and newly approached phenomena
into a global picture of the General's international policy-making.
The volume at hand is an example of how cutting-edge research
benefits from multipolar and multi-archival approaches and from
attention to big, middle and smaller powers as well as
institutions.
The current growth path in sub-Saharan Africa is not following the
Lewis model where labour moves from low-productivity agriculture to
higher productivity manufacturing. Instead, it is moving directly
to inappropriate (import and labour-saving) methods. This book
seeks to show how this distorted growth process leaves out the
major resource of these countries - labour - and ends up creating
unstable employment and underemployment, leading to inequality and
poverty. In this way it demonstrates how the entire growth process
may be rendered unstable and unsustainable. Sustainable Growth in
the African Economy considers whether the relatively rapid growth
of recent years can be maintained or improved upon, with a focus on
the process of industrialisation. Basing itself on a well-known
dual-economy model, the proposed book focuses on several major
problems of industrialisation, which has long been seen as the
means of structural change in an economy which begins from a low
income level. The book considers how the future trajectory of
sub-Saharan Africa compares to recent success stories on other
continents, and explains how factors such as rapid population
growth and capital and import-intensive technology in manufacturing
could foreshadow future social and political problems. This book
will be essential reading to students and policymakers who are
concerned with the existing pattern of African growth.
An extensive literature has demonstrated that technologies in
sub-Saharan Africa are largely inappropriate: that is, that they
are typically capital- and import-intensive rather than labour- and
local input-intensive. These technologies have created a pattern of
development that is highly unequal, with widespread unemployment
and under-employment. In this literature, however, relatively
little attention has been paid to the institutions that govern the
generation, adoption and use of technology. This book draws on
historical analysis and case studies to evaluate how institutions
in different countries, including those in Africa itself, generate
technologies that vary in their characteristics and suitability for
the region. Through these case studies, insight is gained into the
characteristics of 'appropriate' institutions that might underlie a
more balanced pattern of technology and development than currently
exists. The findings of the book clearly confirm a major tenet of
institutionalist theory: namely, that institutions developed in one
set of circumstances are unlikely to be appropriate to conditions
in a markedly different set. This book will be of interest to
economists, social historians and anyone with an interest in modern
African development.
First published in 1989, The Technological Behaviour of Public
Enterprises in Developing Countries presents essays based on
original research work conducted for the International Labour
Office, to employ a wide variety of approaches and methodologies to
analyse the technological choices made by public enterprises in
Tanzania, India, Argentina, and Brazil. These empirical studies
provide rich and detailed case-study material on key issues such as
the choice of technology and the acquisition of advanced
technological capabilities. The significance of the research
findings in these areas and their policy implications are described
in an introductory chapter, and the volume as a whole is accessible
and relevant to policy makers and academics who are concerned with
industrial development in the developing world.
French President Charles de Gaulle (1958-1969) has consistently
fascinated contemporaries and historians. His vision-conceived out
of national interest-of uniting Europe under French leadership and
overcoming the Cold War still remains relevant and appealing. De
Gaulle's towering personality and his challenge to US hegemony in
the Cold War have inspired a vast number of political biographies
and analyses of the foreign policies of the Fifth Republic mostly
from French or US angle. In contrast, this book serves to
rediscover de Gaulle's global policies how they changed the Cold
War. Offering truly global perspectives on France's approach to the
world during de Gaulle's presidency, the 13 well-matched essays by
leading experts in the field tap into newly available sources drawn
from US, European, Asian, African and Latin American archives.
Together, the contributions integrate previously neglected regions,
actors and topics with more familiar and newly approached phenomena
into a global picture of the General's international policy-making.
The volume at hand is an example of how cutting-edge research
benefits from multipolar and multi-archival approaches and from
attention to big, middle and smaller powers as well as
institutions.
An extensive literature has demonstrated that technologies in
sub-Saharan Africa are largely inappropriate: that is, that they
are typically capital- and import-intensive rather than labour- and
local input-intensive. These technologies have created a pattern of
development that is highly unequal, with widespread unemployment
and under-employment. In this literature, however, relatively
little attention has been paid to the institutions that govern the
generation, adoption and use of technology. This book draws on
historical analysis and case studies to evaluate how institutions
in different countries, including those in Africa itself, generate
technologies that vary in their characteristics and suitability for
the region. Through these case studies, insight is gained into the
characteristics of 'appropriate' institutions that might underlie a
more balanced pattern of technology and development than currently
exists. The findings of the book clearly confirm a major tenet of
institutionalist theory: namely, that institutions developed in one
set of circumstances are unlikely to be appropriate to conditions
in a markedly different set. This book will be of interest to
economists, social historians and anyone with an interest in modern
African development.
According to many observers, the global digital divide - the extent
to which information technology is benefiting developed as opposed
to developing countries - has already established itself as the
single most pervasive theme of the twenty-first century. The
purpose of this book is to explore some of the ways in which this
divide can be overcome both within and between nations. Employing a
rigorous analytical framework, the author bases his analysis on the
concept of international technological dualism. He argues that one
possible solution to the problem is the availability of affordable
technologies, such as low-cost computers, which are specifically
designed for the income levels and socio-economic conditions of
developing countries. He also emphasises that the most important
aim of any policy measure should be to provide universal access to
information technologies, rather than individual ownership.
Depending on whether or not this divide can be bridged will, to a
large degree, determine whether developing countries are able to
attain higher levels of productivity, prosperity and global
integration. Development economists, international policymakers and
NGOs will all welcome the book's emphasis on various low cost
technologies and their application in communal settings in the
developing world. The non-technical nature of this volume will also
make it accessible to a broader audience who wish to understand
ways of alleviating this critical problem which has the potential
to become even more acute as new and ever more complex technologies
emerge.
This book is the outcome of a Development Studies Association
Workshop on Technology that we convened in Queen Elizabeth House in
March 1980. In the 1960s and 1970s most research on technology in
poor countries was directed at the question of the labour or
capital intensity of production technique (sometimes described as
the 'neo-classical' question). The collection of essays raises
questions as much as it provides answers: but in so doing it
provides a comprehensive introduction to the major new topics which
are of substantial concern to those working on issues of technology
and development.
Attempts to bring the benefits of information technology in the
form of the internet to developing countries have, to date,
foundered on the belief that this requires the beneficiaries to
access the technology directly. As a result, the perceived
staggering benefits of such an enterprise have often failed to
materialize.
This original contribution to the debate on developing countries
and IT suggests that the benefits of the internet can be passed on
via an intermediary. That is, what matters is not the internet
itself, rather its ability to provide information that can be made
relevant and useful locally. Intermediaries are arguably more
likely to provide such information and hence more likely to promote
what Armartya Sen called individual "functionings," for example the
ability to be free of illness.
Jeffrey James is an impressive servant to the discipline of
development studies, here he brings together twenty previously
fragmented literatures to break new ground in internet
intermediation. Information Technology and Development will
interest development economists and practitioners in equal amounts.
This book investigates at both the micro- and macroeconomic levels
the impact of mobile phones on poverty and inequality in developing
countries. To gauge the effects of mobile phones on these aspects,
the author refers to the standard concept of technology adoption
and also analyses the actual utilization of mobile phones as a
means of communication and the degree to which they have supplanted
fixed-line phones. Readers will learn why the substitution effect
is stronger among poor than rich users and why the benefits of some
mobile phone projects are confined to the local or village level,
while in other projects the gains can be felt throughout the
economy as a whole.
Jeffrey James is one of the relatively few academics to have
systematically taken on the topic of IT and development. In this
timely book he undertakes a methodological critique of prominent
topics in the debate. Challenging the existing literature by
international and governmental institutions, the book looks not
only at the digital divide but also at issues such as digital
preparedness, leapfrogging and low-cost computers. James also
raises important issues which have been largely neglected in the
literature, such as the implications for poverty in developing
countries and the macroeconomics of mobile phones. The book argues
that benefits from IT are captured in a different form in
developing as opposed to developed countries. In the latter, gains
come from technology ownership and use, whereas in the former,
benefits cannot be captured as much in this way because ownership
is more limited. Interestingly, the author shows that developing
countries have responded to this distinction with a series of local
innovations which are often low-cost and pro-poor. This finding
contradicts the widely held view that poor countries are unable to
generate major innovations within their own borders. Accessible and
clearly written, this book will be of great interest to scholars of
development economics and development studies, and is relevant to
both policy-makers and academics.
This significant book presents an original examination of the
theoretical and empirical interactions between globalization,
technology and poverty. Jeffrey James studies the effect of
information technology on patterns of globalization and explores
how such patterns can be altered to reduce the growing global
divide between rich and poor nations.The author first illustrates
how the impact of information technology on globalization can be
conceptualized in terms of transactions costs, product
proliferation and mechanisms of cumulative causation. He finds that
globalization tends to benefit a relatively small group of rich
individuals, firms and countries. Consequently he suggests policy
measures through which information technology can be used to
lessen, rather than exacerbate, the digital divide. He goes on to
argue that even if the proposed measures are reasonably successful,
considerable attention will still need to be paid to conventional
technologies and, in particular, to the promotion of technologies
that will benefit the poorest groups in the developing nations.
Finally, the author looks in detail at technology policy in
sub-Saharan Africa, a region which has profited least from the
benefits provided by new technologies such as email and the
internet. Technology, Globalization and Poverty will be essential
reading for academics interested in technological change, economic
development, and the relationship between the two. Policymakers in
both developed and developing countries will also draw great value
from this work.
Attempts to bring the benefits of information technology in the
form of the internet to developing countries have, to date,
foundered on the belief that this requires the beneficiaries to
access the technology directly. As a result, the perceived huge
benefits of such an enterprise have often failed to
materialise.
This original contribution to the debate on developing countries
and IT suggests that the benefits of the internet can be passed on
via an intermediary. That is, what matters is not the internet
itself, rather its ability to provide information that can be made
relevant and useful locally. Intermediaries are arguably more
likely to provide such information and hence more likely to promote
what Amartya Sen called individual 'functionings', for example the
ability to be free of illness.
Jeffrey James is an impressive servant to the discipline of
development studies, here he brings together previously fragmented
literatures to break new ground in internet intermediation.
InformationTechnology and Development will interest development
economists and practitioners in equal amounts.
This book explores the notion of a technological system and more
specifically the distinction between modern and traditional
technological systems. Using highly disaggregated data for a range
of sectors and developing countries we have applied this
distinction to micro - as well as macro-economic policy issues. By
identifying distinct systems of technology in a multisectoral model
of the economy we have been able to quantify certain aspects of
those systems within a rigorous conceptual framework. The
relationship between income distribution, the choice of technology
and its subsequent impact is examined in detail.
This book analyzes the use of the mobile Internet against the
background of gender bias and Covid-19, currently two of the most
important and pressing problems of the Global South. The book
argues that the degree of benefits from this new technology depends
heavily on the way it is actually used and that most new
technologies are developed for the conditions prevailing in rich
countries, where they tend to be quite easily adopted and used. In
the Global South, by contrast, a paucity of digital skills and
other factors make the potentially valuable benefits from the
Internet much more difficult to derive. Using empirical data
recently provided by the Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA),
the book examines the existence and extent of the digital divide
between males and females in mobile Internet use, which constitutes
a new form of divide. It sheds light on the acute difficulty for
first-time mobile Internet users in the Global South, and
especially Sub-Saharan Africa, to learn the digital skills that are
needed to use the said technology effectively, with a special focus
on how these users acquire the required knowledge, without having
undergone the process of learning by doing. The book further
discusses the determinants of digital skills in the Global South,
as well as major factors underlying the extent to which different
users actually benefit from the mobile Internet, such as gender,
location, age, and education. Finally, it investigates how womens'
use of the Internet has been altered by the pandemic in the Global
South. This book will appeal to students, researchers, and scholars
of development economics and development studies, as well as
policy-makers interested in a better understanding of the impact of
gender bias and Covid-19 on mobile internet use in the Global
South.
Jeffrey James is one of the relatively few academics to have
systematically taken on the topic of IT and development. In this
timely book he undertakes a methodological critique of prominent
topics in the debate. Challenging the existing literature by
international and governmental institutions, the book looks not
only at the digital divide but also at issues such as digital
preparedness, leapfrogging and low-cost computers. James also
raises important issues which have been largely neglected in the
literature, such as the implications for poverty in developing
countries and the macroeconomics of mobile phones. The book argues
that benefits from IT are captured in a different form in
developing as opposed to developed countries. In the latter, gains
come from technology ownership and use, whereas in the former,
benefits cannot be captured as much in this way because ownership
is more limited. Interestingly, the author shows that developing
countries have responded to this distinction with a series of local
innovations which are often low-cost and pro-poor. This finding
contradicts the widely held view that poor countries are unable to
generate major innovations within their own borders. Accessible and
clearly written, this book will be of great interest to scholars of
development economics and development studies, and is relevant to
both policy-makers and academics.
The current growth path in sub-Saharan Africa is not following the
Lewis model where labour moves from low-productivity agriculture to
higher productivity manufacturing. Instead, it is moving directly
to inappropriate (import and labour-saving) methods. This book
seeks to show how this distorted growth process leaves out the
major resource of these countries - labour - and ends up creating
unstable employment and underemployment, leading to inequality and
poverty. In this way it demonstrates how the entire growth process
may be rendered unstable and unsustainable. Sustainable Growth in
the African Economy considers whether the relatively rapid growth
of recent years can be maintained or improved upon, with a focus on
the process of industrialisation. Basing itself on a well-known
dual-economy model, the proposed book focuses on several major
problems of industrialisation, which has long been seen as the
means of structural change in an economy which begins from a low
income level. The book considers how the future trajectory of
sub-Saharan Africa compares to recent success stories on other
continents, and explains how factors such as rapid population
growth and capital and import-intensive technology in manufacturing
could foreshadow future social and political problems. This book
will be essential reading to students and policymakers who are
concerned with the existing pattern of African growth.
This book presents new perspectives on current development policy
against the background of the Covid-19 pandemic. The author applies
new methodological, disciplinary, and analytical approaches to
examine specific major contemporary policy issues. The topics
covered include the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in developing
countries, an anomaly in the digital divide, Internet connectivity
differences in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the domination of India in
the spread of new, low-cost smart feature phones. This book is a
must-read for a general audience interested in the current
development policy in the light of the current Covid-19 pandemic,
as well as for students and researchers of development economics
and development studies who are interested in issues involving the
digital divide and state policy towards the internet in the
Global-South.
In May 1999 the Scottish Parliament opened with high expectations.
The decade since has seen a transformation in Scottish politics. As
the Parliament's 10th anniversary approaches, now is the perfect
time to reflect on its role in the Scottish and wider UK political
process. What have been the challenges and its achievements? Have
expectations been met? The Scottish Parliament's four Founding
Principles - access and participation, equal opportunities,
accountability and power sharing - aimed to establish a body
answerable to the people of Scotland. This project, run by the
Hansard Society, will bring together a group of varied and
distinguished commentators to discuss some of the key issues in the
development of the Scottish Parliament over the past decade. They
will explore whether initial expectations have been met and analyse
how the Parliament has evolved at the core of a new Scottish
political process.
This novel book, motivated by the recent introduction of a major
innovation in information technology, explores the possibility of
the Internet being made available to millions of poor people in
developing countries, who are not yet connected. The new
technology, known as a smart feature phone, is based on open-source
software and otherwise designed for a low-income population. The
purpose of this book is to examine the origins, spread and impact
of this innovation. Much attention is paid to literacy and digital
skills, which determine the benefits that are actually derived.
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