Search

This paper documents the deleterious effects of petroleum extractive activities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, with a special focus on HIV infection. It argues against the hegemonizing claims of the "resource curse" thesis and deploys the framework of "accumulation by dispossession" to explain the crisis of development associated with the country's petroleum economy. The paper couches the challenges of economic survival in the petroleum resource-rich region on a predatory alliance between the extractive transnational corporations (TNCs) and the domestic compradors. It highlights the implications of extractive activities in the region for HIV infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questioning the prevailing discourse of multiple benefits surrounding tourism development, this paper examines the Itanos Gaia investment on Cavo Sidero peninsula, north-eastern Crete as a hegemonic project of dispossession. Drawing on David Harvey's theorisation of accumulation by dispossession and Gramsci's original work on hegemony, we describe and analyse the specificities and antinomies of the Itanos Gaia project, first to chart the modalities of dispossession in four interrelated strands operative in this case: nature, land, financial speculation and the institutionalisation of dispossession, and second, to analyse the interplay between hegemony and the imposition of dispossession, including its internalisation in the realm of (local) civil society as 'common sense', underpinned by the local and broader dynamics of a particular power bloc. Empirically, this inquiry is informed by a survey conducted among local residents to identify local perceptions/views about the investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an analysis of the financialisation of the British welfare state. In a continuation of neo-liberal privatisation and labour market activation, the financialised welfare state pursues a policy of welfare retrenchment, while engaging in forms of social engineering aimed at producing self-responsibilised individuals and communities who are financially literate, ‘investment-ready’ and economically productive. New financial instruments such as social impact bonds are deployed to these ends, both to ‘solve social problems’ and enable cost saving. Through the use of such financial instruments, the implementation of regulatory infrastructures and tax incentives, the financialised welfare state becomes a vehicle for the transfer of wealth from the public to private investors, while subjecting the domain of social policy to the vicissitudes of global financial markets. This paper offers a critique of these developments, situating the case of Britain within the broader global context and with regard to the implications for understanding the current political economy of the welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a review of recent writings in political ecology and agrarian studies, this paper appraises the potential for emerging forms of ‘green economy’ initiatives to catalyze new forms of internal displacement in West Africa, with specific emphasis on the postwar contexts of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Following the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, the primary drivers of forced migration are conventionally thought to include some combination of civil war, ostensibly ‘ethnic’ strife or cleansing, development-induced migration, or allegedly ‘natural’ disasters. However, land acquisitions for both conservation and commercial agriculture seem poised to constitute an important additional driver of internal displacement, threatening to map onto the unresolved legacies of these previous instances of forced migration in both Liberia and Sierra Leone. Drawing lessons from the role of agrarian grievances in each country’s history of civil conflict, in particular, I explore the ways in which such forms of displacement may pose clear and present dangers to the very peacebuilding efforts that proponents of a green economy transition in the Mano River region claim to support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public--private partnerships (P3s) with the for-profit private sector are increasingly used in Canada to deliver public infrastructure and support services within the health care sector (e.g., hospitals, clinics, community health centres). This paper examines the emergence and legacy of P3s in the Canadian health care sector, classifying them as a form of neoliberal accumulation by dispossession and discussing their inability to live up to proponents' promises. Economic and social costs are examined, and examples are drawn from operational P3 hospitals in Canada. The article also briefly examines how P3s have been affected by the recent global financial crisis, arguing that despite serious problems with the private finance component of these projects, ultimately the policy is poised to weather the storm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]