James C. Scott - Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

Nice to see the World Bank has joined in on the China Development Blog bandwagon. The World Bank's site, started on February 18 2008, can be found here:

http://eapblog.worldbank.org/content/china-development-blog-a-space-for-discussion

Here are some thoughts on James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed.

Scott's assertions over "hegemonic planning" makes for interesting reading regarding state failure in socialist countries between the 60'sand 80's.

During this period the development paradigms set by OECD nations were not followed by socialist countries. Scott offers a rounded picture with his ideas on state "imperialism" which allows us to cross lines of political ideology.

Furthermore, centrally planned hegemony is certainly not a complete process. China's Great Western Development Plan, constructed to develop China's minority western regions, aims to re-dress the imbalance in the pace of development present in the country. This plan not only disregards local knowledge but also offers the Chinese state an opportunity to increase its control in these areas. The failure of previous mass economic mobilisations in China, such as the Great Leap Forward, has not proved a deterrent in repeating this kind of planning. In the light of Scott's ideas, the likelihood of failure on the part of the state to bring economic development in the western regions of China seems to be very high.

Hard Times

In a week the Chinese government would most likely want to forget in terms of its relationship with minority nationalities; this story appeared on www.chinaview.cn: Egyptian official lauds China's experience in balancing economic development, social justice.

The situation in minority areas of China certainly avoids the characterization of economic development balanced with social justice.

Regional analyses show development in China to be unequal and that many Chinese citizens live with little meaningful political participation. The China Human Development Report (HDR) 2005 addresses the issue of unequal development in China. The report details serious imbalances in rates of development between urban and rural, men and women, among varying ethnic minorities and in different regions of the country. Regional inequality is especially pronounced; the UNDP (2005: 98) relates that “[p]er capita GDP is as high as US$ 4,522 a year in developed provinces and as low as US$ 350 a year in underdeveloped ones”. Western China contains many of those underdeveloped provinces as “[t]he western ‘poverty belt’ sweeps across almost two-thirds of China’s landmass-from Yunnan in the south to Xinjiang in the north”. (Moneyhon 2004: 493).

Indicators evidence the slower rate of development in western China. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) (2002: xvii, 101) reports that the GDP “is about two thirds of the national average and only 40% of that in the eastern coastal region”, and that in 1999, of the 34 million people in China who lived in poverty, 48 percent of that number came from China’s western region. Additionally, the China HDR 2005 explains that poverty is also pronounced among China’s 55 ethnic minorities, who comprise 8.4 percent of China’s total population. For example, minorities in rural areas tend to have lower incomes than their neighbours from the dominant Han Chinese ethnicity. (ADB 2002: 272). Since western China includes all five of China’s ethnically-based autonomous regions and large numbers of ethnic minority populations, a poverty analysis of western China must include comparisons not only with other regions of China, but also between dominant and minority ethnicities within the western region.

The significant number of ethnic minorities in western China has made the region a focus for strict government control. The reason for this lack of political liberalisation stems from the central government’s principle of maintaining territorial integrity in the face of calls for ethnic self-determination. Tibetans and Uyghurs among others in the west have had protracted movements for independence or increased autonomy. Governing authorities fear that voices of dissent, regardless of the issue, are motivated by ethnic separatism. In order to protect China’s territorial integrity, central, regional and local government institutions have enforced crackdowns on freedom of public or even private expression among ethnic minorities. Amnesty International (1999: 5) records at least 200 Uyghur prisoners of conscience. In this tense atmosphere, it is not surprising that political liberalisation has not reached the levels experienced in eastern China.

The current situation in the west of China supports the thesis that political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights are not being realised at equitable rates. In February 2000, the Chinese central government initiated a response to the rights inequities occurring in its western regions. The Great Western Development Drive (GWDD) with its focus on poverty alleviation, reform and investment, is its attempt to bring equality to the west and attain the goal of creating a ‘xiaokang’ society in China. (Lai 2002: 441-444). Its denouement is yet to be determined.

References:

ADB (2002), The 2020 project: policy support in the People’s Republic of China. Manila: Asian Development Bank.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL (1999), Gross human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region must stop. Available at: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA170251999?open&of=ENG-2S2

LAI, Hongyi (2002), ‘China’s western development program: it’s rationale implementation, and prospects’, Modern China, 28 (4), 432-466.

MONEYHON, Matthew (2004), ‘China’s great western development project in Xinjiang: economic palliative, or political trojan horse?’, Denver journal of international law and policy, 31 (3), 491-523.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and development policy and discourse

After a short absence, here are some thoughts on the ICESR:

In terms of adding to development policy at the state level the ICESCR in theory could be a tool of securing the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The compliance of states to the ICESCR through benchmarks as proposed by Alston has the potential of being linked to the targets as set out by the MDG.

There seems to be more agreement in the developing world on the need for economic, social and cultural rights than on political and civil rights. While the US argues that the ICESCR are a contributing factor to poverty because of state intervention in the market, China disputes this (to some extent) with its position that political rights are meaningless in the face of economic, social and cultural deprivation. Nevertheless states that have ratified the ICESCR need to move toward an international legal framework to implement their obligations. This kind of policy commitment is still in its infancy as the debate over how to monitor economic, social and cultural rights coupled with the expenses imposed on states remains unresolved.

Development discourse has viewed the ICESCR as tool of poverty reduction especially Articles 11-14. It appears unusual that human rights groups such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have only recently addressed these rights as embodied in the ICESCR and may be a reflection of the focus in western nations on political and civil rights. Future discourse according to Alston and Steiner will revolve around the establishment of an economic, social and cultural rights environment where collective action would force state compliance of the ICESCR. Ellie makes a good point about linguistic rights and the ICESCR and future discourse needs to tackle that issue. The right to self determination is a contentious one with politically influential states such as China and Russia, who both have separatist issues, and it would probably be seen as a political and civil right.