Developing a conceptual model of marine farming in New Zealand

Survey and Geographic Information System (GIS) data analysis describes the relative influence of biophysical and human variables on site choices made by marine farmers in New Zealand. Community conflicts have grown in importance in determining farm location and different government planning strategies leave distinct signature patterns. Recent legislation empowers local governments to choose among three strategies for future regional aquaculture development. This paper suggests each strategy could result in different spatial outcomes. Simulation modelling of the type described here can provide a better understanding of farmer responses to management approaches and the range of futures that could result from planning choices made today

Towards a Political Analysis of Markets

Article originally published July 1993, Volume 24 Issue 3; original IDS editing is retained here. This Bulletin stems from a dissatisfaction with the way in which the idea of ‘the market’ or ‘the free market’ is currently used in conventional discourse on development issues. One notion is particularly dominant, implicitly or explicitly: ‘the market’ seen as a flexible, atomistic realm of impersonal exchange and dispersed competition, characterized by voluntary transactions on an equal basis between autonomous, usually private, entities with material motivations. This etiolated model of the market derives from the universe of neo-classical economists and, in the world of development policy, serves to provide intellectual support for their prescriptions. This ‘ideal-type’ market has been elevated to the level of an ideological principle and ethical ideal, providing a policy panacea which promises both efficiency, prosperity and freedom. The main theme of this Bulletin reflects my own concern as a political scientist that, by and large, conventional economic theory, in most of its manifold incarnations, has either ignored or downplayed the role of power in economic processes generally and in markets in particular

The Changing Pattern of Poverty in China: Issues for Research and Policy

Under the Maoist regime, China was held up by many as a successful model of development, providing basic needs including primary health care and education to a large population at very low levels of income. Since reform, the country has again become a 'model' of poverty reduction through economic growth. Despite manifest achievements, however, the numbers remaining in poverty – 65 million according to the most conservative estimate – make poverty reduction in China a pressing development issue. Through a review of the evidence on the changing pattern of poverty in post-Mao China, this paper points towards 'new' forms of poverty which are emerging as a consequence of reform, but which are inadequately dealt with through current region-focused anti-poverty programmes. The core of extreme poverty is found in remote, often mountainous, interior regions which have been largely by-passed by recent economic growth. However, market reforms, despite raising many people out of poverty, also create new sources of risk and vulnerability, potentially creating poverty among new groups of people located outside the designated 'poor regions'. This trend is likely to be exacerbated by current enterprise reforms which may have a significant impact on rates of urban poverty. A new approach to poverty reduction policy is required which concentrates not only on poor regions, but also considers the more complex and dynamic nature of poverty which inevitably accompanies the diversification and marketisation of the economy