The state of democracy - the case of Asia

NG

Os

bi

en

ia

em

ha

i oc

As

ov

it

al

in

m

international develop ment Turke y ad minist offic rat ial c ont peo radic ple tion ’s b s na ene ti o fit na ele e l ctio i c s pa m on rt om po ic li ti ip ic ca at or l re or ga gi y ni za de ti o te ns nt io

process state

MAY 2019 VOL . 21 – NO.1

te

ts

pe

rea ten ing pro ces s otes ts als

t

en

tm

s ve

in

sm

i itic

cr

n

ia leg

al

a

Indi

The state of democracy – the case of Asia

ule

crisis

rict

ower

occu

rev

pub

cas

allies

judici

n

tio s

al governor

munities

society

ideol ogy

stru

ss state

g

tin

ec

ot

pr

ggl e

s

ou

ht

l

t

ta

en m

en

g tin

rig

ds

n ro

os i

an

vi

m ge

en

og en

ve

m

en

ga

r de

lea

ns

co ce

stan

resi

tic ocra

s

ry

ipato

religiou

partic

m

iati

de

dem

op p

ihoo

init

control stra

ho

al

livel

en

ons i t a str rity o n mi nt e n m g i e re olv fo ism r ro er vo te rs

e pl

o

d

s

l po

From the Editorial Board The state of democracy – the case of Asia It was an unusual move for DevISSues to use a series of consecutive editions to explore the same theme – ‘the state of democracy (in various regions of the world)’. But it seems to have been the right move to make. It feels like we barely ‘blinked an eye’ and much of the world has made a move to (what many call) the populist, authoritarian right!

But where has this all come from? The processes and institutions which many of us thought of as the mainstream are now not so thoroughly democratic and inclusive. Is it that democracy is the aberration to the ‘norm’? Each of the pieces in this edition of DevISSues either informs, discusses or analyses these developments for cases drawn from Asia and Europe/the Middle East.

The case of India (as noted by Shah) did not involve a non-elected regime change such as (initially) in Brazil, yet a quite stark nationalist and sectionalist rhetoric is also challenging the foundations of pluralism in another of our largest democracies. On the other hand, disputed visions of representational legitimacy are well displayed by Ozkesen’s discussion of the clash of local concerns over a national growth rhetoric for the case of the Green Road Project in the case of Turkey.

From another perspective, the ‘when disaster meets conflict’ project highlights the varied difficulties in governance (governability and governmentality) in situations where disasters and conflict coincide. Such a project is very rich in that it lets us get inside situations of both moderate and high level conflict but also explore sectional aspects of these situations, such as from a gendered, citizenship or migratory angle.

Colophon DevISSues is published twice a year by the International Institute of Social Studies, PO Box 29776, 2502 LT The Hague, the Netherlands Tel +31 (0)70 4260 443 or +31 (0)70 4260 419 Fax + 31 (0)70 4260 799

The overall discussion by our newly appointed Professor of Political Economy of Sustainable Development (Murat Arsel) on this theme of a ‘global authoritarian turn’ is quite succinct and enlightening. Regime change is neither binary nor linear. We must, and in practice actually do, look beyond the two extremes of totalitarian and liberal capitalist democracy for our future as a caring, social society. But for this, three elements may be crucial – social movements must be fierce, sustained and imaginative in their visions.

www.iss.nl DevISSues@iss.nl Editor Jane Pocock

And be open, non-violent and democratic in themselves (we might add!).

In addition to regular items of DevISSues, we hope you enjoy this edition!

Editorial Board Lee Pegler, Sunil Tankha, Sandra Nijhof Design Ontwerpwerk, The Hague Production De Bondt Grafimedia Circulation 6,500 The text material from DevISSues may be reproduced or adapted without permission, provided it is not distributed for profit and is attributed to the original author or authors, DevISSues and the International Institute of Social Studies.

ISSN 1566-4821. DevISSues is printed on FSC certified paper

Dr Lee Pegler, chair, DevISSues Editorial Board

3

Rector’s Blog Another spring, a new beginning, or….My father’s house This morning I woke up with the first sentence of a famous Dutch poem by Herman Gorter in my mind. ‘Een nieuwe lente, een nieuw geluid’. In this poem Gorter writes about the start of ‘a new spring’ and a new beginning.

And it certainly feels like a new beginning for me. In April, the Executive Board of Erasmus University Rotterdam formally announced that my rectorship will be extended for another four years from this August onwards. I am happy with the recognition and the trust this offers, and very much look forward to continuing the work that I started almost four years ago. And to continue to head our fantastic, global institute.

The implementation of our strategic plan, 2018-22, will of course be central to my further endeavors.

Also, personally, if feels like a new beginning. Yesterday, my brother, sister and I, handed over our vacated parental home, the home we all three grew up in, to its new owners. The house is located in a small village in Drenthe, in the northern part of the Netherlands, and is called Oosterhesselen. It is where I grew up and lived until I was 18 years old and left secondary school (by the way, attending school meant cycling 17 kilometers every day to the nearby town of Emmen!)

The house is, as I realized, a symbol for the developments in my parents’ life, especially my father’s. And also a symbol for the developments in Dutch society as a whole. My father was the son of poor peat-diggers from Drenthe who migrated from the north of the country in the 1920s to the west, to Beverwijk. The migration took place to escape poverty and to build a new and better life. My grandmother was only 18, and already mother to one son (my father’s eldest brother). She

Inge Hutter Rector ISS

had enjoyed just three years of primary education when she had to leave school to take care of her siblings while her parents worked in the peat.

For years after moving to Beverwijk, my grandparents continued to live in poverty. During that time, they had two more sons, one of them my father. Another son was born later, during the Second World War, which completed the family.

My father was the first one in the family who was ‘allowed’ to study. He studied at the teacher training college (‘kweekschool’) in Haarlem where he met my mother, and became a teacher. Later, my parents decided to move back to Drenthe, where my father became a teacher in an agricultural school. He went ‘home’ to the region where his parents had lived their childhoods and where, with my mother, he built his own family.

When I was seven, my father decided to build us a house of our own, which he did with an architect and a contractor.

The most important thing for him in this house was that his three children should have their own room in which to sleep and study. This was important to him, because as a child he had had to sleep in one bed with two of his brothers: there had simply been no more space to sleep, let alone space to study.

And indeed, we all three studied and now work in the educational field.

All this came to my mind as we handed over our house to the new owners: a young couple who will make a new home of the house that, for 50 years, was home to my family. They have great plans to rebuild, to re-decorate …… a new family life starts …… it is, for sure, a new spring, a new beginning.

Contents

4 The global

authoritarian turn

6 The growing

contradictions of India’s democracy

14 ISS news

19

Focus on ISS

9 Where are they now?

17 Staff-student dialogue

10 Whose people? Whose democracy?

22 ISS publications

13 New books

23 Student life

4

Themed article

The global authoritarian turn Murat Arsel – Professor of Political Economy of Sustainable Development at ISS

The contemporary moment is defined by an ‘authoritarian turn’. While the countries that have so far succumbed to it could not be more different – the US, Turkey, India, Bolivia, Philippines, Hungary to name just a few from a depressingly long list – it is clear that we are witnessing a global phenomenon.

T

his is not to argue that authoritarianism has emerged, continues to unfold, and will eventually be overcome in exactly the same manner in all of these countries.

Various meaningful contextual differences can be observed in the rise of authoritarianism, developing versus developed, left-wing versus right-wing, and length and depth of experience with electoral politics being only a few examples. Nevertheless, there are some strong commonalities that cut across most of them: the emergence of a (putatively) charismatic strongman (they are indeed all men!), the rise (again!) of nationalist rhetoric that vilifies women and minorities and portrays supposed outsiders as enemies, aggressive incorporation of majority religious symbols and practices into state policies, deliberate attempts to undermine basic facts and scientific precepts, and deepening deployment of neoliberal economic policies that feign to help the poor and the marginalized while creating new opportunities for the elite to accumulate more wealth and do so with even less scrutiny.

As with most dramatic political dynamics, social scientists have largely been caught off guard by these developments and work has only recently begun to make sense of what gave rise to the authoritarian turn and how we can hope

to defeat it. Two fundamental observations need to frame any discussion of this seemingly surprising development. First, we cannot speak of history marching inexorably forward toward a more progressive and democratic (let alone more affluent) world. To the extent that such a trend might evince itself, one that intensified since post-World War II, it is necessary to ask exactly what type of structural forces enabled the creation of the (neo)liberal electoral democratic model that continued to spread across the globe over several waves of democratization. The second

"A Teddy Bear Advocates for Democracy". Credit: Jrwooley6

observation, then, is that the halcyon days of the 1990s that unfolded in the aftermath of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which prompted Francis Fukuyama to declare the end of history, cannot be taken as the norm. In other words, the emergence and maintenance of (neo) liberal democracies do not follow a transhistorical law – they are products of a very specific constellation of political, economic and, let us not forget any longer, ecological dynamics. Seen with the benefit of these two observations, then, we can no longer see the ‘authoritarian turn’ as especially surprising nor can we view the erosion of civic, political and economic rights around the world as a momentary aberration, one from which we will easily and almost mechanically snap back from in the next round of elections.

What can and should be done to move away from authoritarianism? To answer this, it is necessary to ask how the previous model was constructed. Again, two observations: first, the alternative has not been between (neo)liberal capitalist democracies and totalitarian states purporting to be socialist. Between those and throughout space and time, human communities have developed various forms of (local) governance and accountability systems. Therefore, moving away from authoritarianism need not, and indeed should not, take those

Themed article

5

them have been weakening during the past few decades.

Taksim Square, Istanbul, in the first week of the protests (June 2013). Credit: dschenck two 20th century models as the only options, and activists need to cast their nets wider and deeper. Second, to the extent that (neo)liberal democracies have become universalized, this is not because of their conformity to human nature.

The rational, utility-maximizing individual whose political subjectivity can only be understood during two transactions – at the ballot box and the cash register – makes for a dystopian view of humanity and the power of its political imagination.

This fictitious view of humanity has been forcefully imposed across the world, through military or economic warfare, so aggressively that it has come to suffocate meaningful existing or incipient alternatives. Therefore, just as the range of possible political economic systems cannot be reduced to a binary choice, the political nature of the coming societal shape should not only be imagined through the eyes of autonomous individuals.

To the extent that the previous configuration of political dynamics bent towards a (limited) form of democracy, this was because there were strong and well-organized political forces countervailing against the power of capital. It is a truism that without coordinated political struggle, many of the now defining features of this system, such as universal suffrage, would not have been instituted. It follows then that authoritarianism – and its handmaidens corruption, socio-economic inequality, lack of transparency to name a few – are able to rise because the collective societal forces that pushed back against

The erosion of the power and effectiveness of progressive social forces is not accidental. Sober introspection would surely reveal that they have not always been genuinely progressive or inclusive, either in the scope of their struggle or their composition. Feminist and ecological concerns, for example, have been ‘admitted’ into the vocabulary of many movements only after long and difficult internal battles. Yet even more important than the very real shortcomings of progressive movements has been the constant and co-ordinated attack on their legitimacy and capability, especially since neoliberalism began to exercise significant power since the 1980s.

What is necessary, then, is for progressive movements to redouble their efforts to push back against the prevailing ideology and do so in a way that celebrates differences while amalgamating the power of diverse communities into a sum greater than its constituent parts. As the accompanying articles suggest, there are seeds of such movements in diverse contexts, be it environmental activism in Turkey or agrarian resistance in India. As their experience so far also shows, the struggle against authoritarianism will need to be fierce, sustained and animated by radical imagination.

…progressive movements [must] redouble their efforts to push back against the prevailing ideology…

Reject Keystone XL NOW Protest Seattle. Credit: damienconway30

6

Themed article

The growing contradictions of India’s democracy With elections for the next Central government taking place, India’s twicea-decade ‘festival of democracy’ is currently in full swing. Over the months of April and May 2019, almost 900 million people will be able to vote for representatives to the lower house of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha.

I Amod Shah – PhD researcher at ISS

n many ways, India’s democratic credentials are impressive. With the exception of a 21-month period between 1975 and 1977, the country has seen regular elections and peaceful transitions of political power since 1952.

Polls are overseen by an independent Election Commission and are regarded as being free and fair. For a country where voting is not compulsory, turnout is reasonably high – 66% of eligible voters participated in the last Union government election.1 And surveys suggest widespread support among Indians for democracy even though, somewhat confusingly, more than half of the population is also not averse to military rule or a ‘strong leader’ without parliamentary or judicial checks.2 However, this success of India’s democratic institutions at a procedural level masks the significant challenges the country faces in achieving a more substantive social and cultural democracy.

Even after more than 70 years of independence, poverty and deeply entrenched social inequalities persist.

Caste, ethnicity and religion remain important markers of political allegiance and support. Politicians are widely regarded as corrupt and beholden to

Themed article

the rich and powerful. But perhaps most crucially, strongly entrenched ideals of secularism and social equity which had come to characterize India’s postindependence politics are being threatened by the steady rise of majoritarian Hindu nationalism. In that sense, there are strong reasons to see the current elections as a referendum on key ideals underlying India’s democracy.

How did we end up here? While a nuanced understanding requires a much deeper examination of Indian politics, a brief recap of the period since the previous Central government election in 2014 is instructive. That election resulted

in a comprehensive win for the rightwing, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies. While this was not the first time that a BJP-led coalition had come to power, the scale of its 2014 mandate was unprecedented and relied significantly on the personal popularity of its Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi.3 In his previous position as Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat, Modi had

7

consciously styled himself as a decisive and efficient administrator who could deliver ‘development’ to the people.

Many voters saw him as an alternative to the Congress party-led Central government which, in its last years, was mired in policy paralysis and corruption scandals. However, the BJP’s victory also reflected the political ascendancy of its Hindu nationalist ideology. Modi and

…the current elections [are] a referendum on key ideals underlying India’s democracy.

Supporters of the Indian National Congress party at a rally in Maharashtra state. Credit: Al Jazeera English

8

Themed article

…ideals of secularism and social equity … are being threatened by the steady rise of majoritarian Hindu nationalism. other BJP leaders frequently invoked Hindu identity and majoritarian rhetoric in their election campaign, portraying India’s ‘Hindu culture’ as being threatened by religious minorities – in particular Muslims – and their appeasement by other political parties. As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi himself oversaw one of India’s worst instances of communal violence against the minority Muslim community in 2002.

Yet hopes for a move to a more politically centrist position as the BJP and its allies went about the actual business of governing were quickly dashed. Violence by vigilante groups against religious minorities, lower-caste Dalits and other marginalized communities, often with the active support of politicians, has sharply increased over the past few years.4 Unsurprisingly, most of these incidents have been poorly investigated and the record of prosecuting those involved is woeful. At the same time, there has been a strong crackdown on popular protest, and on journalists, activists, and public intellectuals opposing the government and its policies.5 During this period, the government and its supporters have been very successful in pushing forward a hyper-nationalist discourse which equates dissenting and non-majoritarian opinions to an ‘anti-national’ or ‘antiHindu’ position, and justifies the use of repression and violence against those who express them. Such efforts have been aided by a weak political opposition which has failed to hold the government accountable and, in fact, has increasingly attempted to co-opt elements of Hindu nationalism into its own political strategy.6 Crucially, the government’s mobilization of right-wing nationalism has also helped to blunt opposition to its economic policies. A decision to demonetize

high-value currency notes in order to tackle ‘black money’ severely hurt India’s large informal sector, causing large job losses and a significant economic slowdown.7 This was followed by the poorly implemented introduction of a unified Goods and Services Tax which also disproportionately impacted the informal economy. The government has also been largely unsuccessful in tackling a deep and sustained agrarian crisis.

In fact, it has steadily rolled back redistributive social justice programmes arguing that these are inefficient and prone to corruption. The focus has been on financial inclusion, entrepreneurship and technology-driven solutions to generate jobs and tackle poverty.

While the above discussion presents a gloomy picture of the current state of Indian democracy, it is important to acknowledge the crucial role that social movements have played in holding the government accountable for its actions.

Dalit, Muslims and other marginalized communities, as well as citizen groups, have mobilized in large numbers to call for strong action against rising vigilante violence and majoritarianism. Similarly, strong protests by farmers’ groups have brought attention to a deep and ongoing agrarian crisis in rural India. The prospect of losing a huge support base pushed the government to repeal changes to laws around land acquisition in favour of industrial projects in its early years, and more recently, to introduce a basic income support for farmers. Democratic institutions like the judiciary have also stepped in to overrule attempts to increase surveillance and reduce privacy protections.

Nevertheless, the last five years have proved to be a sobering experience for India’s seemingly robust democracy.

They have seen increasingly successful attempts by the government to undermine key democratic ideals and institutions. And while economic growth and social justice have been casualties of this process,8 the extent to which voters in the coming election are willing to reject the BJP’s nationalist agenda and hold it accountable for its actions remains unclear. The signs so far are not very encouraging. It is increasingly evident that the BJP and its allies are attempting to come back to power through majoritarian nationalist rhetoric and claims that the country needs a strong leader like Narendra Modi to tackle the internal and external threats it faces. This was highlighted in the aftermath of a recent attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir, which the government successfully used to its political advantage by highlighting its nationalist credentials and strong response to terrorism.9 In essence, the outcome of the upcoming elections thus hinges on the extent to which the political opposition and progressive social movements can shift the national political conversation back to substantive issues of socially inclusive development and the growing contradictions of India’s democracy.

Acknowledgements: I thank Birendra Singh and Sunil Tankha for their helpful comments and suggestions for the article.

1 http://www.indiavotes.com/pc/info?eid=16&state=0 2 https://scroll.in/article/858090/indians-are-largelyhappy-with-democracy-but-wont-mind-beingruled-by-experts-or-the-military 3 https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/ It-is-Modi-not-BJP-that-won-this-election/ article11640727.ece 4 https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/ country-chapters/india 5 https://newint.org/features/2018/11/01/ ViewFromIndia 6 https://thewire.in/politics/congress-rahul-gandhisoft-hindutva 7 https://scroll.in/article/909545/the-modi-years-whatdid-demonetisation-achieve 8 https://scroll.in/article/917424/narendra-modiseconomic-record-is-abysmal-no-statistical-jugglerycan-hide-that 9 http://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2019/ mar/09/politics-and-the-pulwama-terrorattack-1948703.html

ISS Alumni

Where are they now?

Pratheep Purushothaman

Rita Gallardo

Country India Organization Apollo Tele Health Services Limited Position Deputy General Manager - Projects Study at ISS MA – Development Studies – Major: Governance Policy and Political Economy – Specialization – Public Policy and Management Year of graduation 2014 How did the study contribute to your career?

At ISS, I was with a group of 170 people from 65+ nationalities. Most of the discussions in the classroom revolved around policies and social aspects in these countries. People talked about practical cases and examples. This gave a wider perspective to public sector challenges. Now, at work, I look at the problem in hand through the multiple lenses gained during my study at ISS, in order to arrive at an optimal solution.

Would you recommend ISS to others interested in studying Development Studies? Of course I would. In this past 5 years, I have never passed up an opportunity to talk about ISS to prospective students interested in pursuing social sciences. I work closely with NESO India in conducting education fairs, career talks and so on, in order to promote study in Holland in general and ISS in particular.

What was your overall experience at ISS? In a word, my time at ISS was ‘marvelous’. In addition to learning, my stay at ISS opened up avenues to travel across Europe.

Country Philippines Organization Office of Senator Francis Pangilinan, Senate of the Philippines Position Consultant and Adjunct-Professor Study at ISS MA – Development Studies – Major: Universalizing Socio-economic Security for the Poor Year of graduation 2006 How did the study contribute to your career?

Universalizing Socio-economic Security for the Poor (USS) focused on the study and consciousness of poverty as well as on how to alleviate poverty.

These are very crucial in technical policy writing in the agriculture and fisheries sectors in the Philippines since, according to the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA), amongst all basic sectors, these consistently registered the highest incidence of poverty. My primary role in Senator Francis Pangilinan’s office is technical policy writing in agriculture and other related areas.

My programme at ISS also helped me be more critical of policies related to social enterprise and self-employment since during my time as a USS student we were taken to India to study the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).

Would you recommend ISS to others interested in studying Development Studies? Yes! What was your overall experience at ISS? Pleasant!

The course in general was very comprehensive given the limited time and for that I am always grateful to ISS. Also my sincerest thanks to the full scholarship that the Dutch Trade Union organization FNV granted to me. The organization made it possible for me to learn both theory and practice relating to poverty. Lastly, the Filipino student community in ISS was very tight and welcoming, so even in winter months there was warmth and sense of community.

9

10

Themed article

«Who is the state?

State becomes the state thanks to us!

I am the people!»

Whose people?

Whose democracy?

Insights from the Green Road Project in Turkey Rabiye Bekar, known as Mother Havva in the Yukarı Kavrun – Samistal Highlands, asked this question to the policemen who tried to take her away from the construction area of the Green Road Project in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey.

R

ural resistance movements against the project to stop the construction had been taking place for a long time before 11 locals were detained by the gendarme and 24 locals were prosecuted on charges of violating the freedom of work. The project is now about to be finalized, despite social demonstrations and legal struggles by civil society organizations.

Giresun, Gümüşhane, Ordu, Rize, Samsun and Trabzon provinces in the Northern part of Turkey. The Eastern Black Sea Region Development Administration (DOKAP) supervises the project. The DOKAP Presidency is responsible for transferring the appropriations allocated to the project to the Special Provincial Administrations and Governorships.

The Green Road Project, launched in 2013, is a 2,645 km road project that will connect the highlands of Artvin, Bayburt,

In DOKAP’s Action Plan, the aim of the project is declared to be ‘the completion of not only the Green Road Project to

Melek Mutioglu Ozkesen – visiting PhD researcher at ISS, from Ankara University, Turkey

Themed article

‘The state exists because we exist, because this folk exists.’

provide a significant brand value to the region in the tourism sector and link the highlands to each other. The acceleration of social progress will be ensured through the resulting economic development.’1 The Green Road Project includes tourism centres, restaurants, and ski facilities via the creation of nine tourism development zones, seven thematic touristic corridors, 10 tourism cities, and five ecotourism regions. The President of DOKAP explains the motivation for the project by saying: ‘The Black Sea is a new touristic attraction beyond just sun, sand and sea. What does it have? Green nature! But if you do not have access to it, it becomes idle.’2 A notable position by state authorities is to make the region accessible to incoming tourists, who would arguably improve the economic conditions of the people living in the area. The Mayor of Çamlıhemsin, one of the districts in Rize province, justified the project by saying ‘the place where the road will pass is already state property. The state allocated it to the villagers in the past in order to meet livestock demands. Now, if the tourists from the Middle East want to come and visit our highlands and the country will earn an income from that, this project should be run. We will use our cars now to go where we used to go with mules, so no one should be sorry!’3 However, the Green Road, introduced by state officials as a regional development project, led to protests by highland residents. The project means the loss of livelihoods, an increase in construction and rent, and environmental damage for local people. Residents claim that the project did not target their development, rather it will result in a rent increase in the region. Various organizations such as TEMA Foundation, Fırtına Initiative,

Brotherhood of the Rivers, Brotherhood of the Highlands, Black Sea in Revolt have monitored the project very closely and have protested against it.

Let them see if there is anything green in this road. Those highlands are ruined for whom? Highlands should be for our children, for our animals. We have no place to go.

We kept our hometown alive by protecting our highlands and forests.

The state exists because we exist, because this folk exists.

This habitation wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for us. Neither would these police, these gendarmes, this judge, this government, this district governor or anything, for that matter.

They exist as long as we exist. We are people with our land, our green, our highland!4 (Mother Havva) There is concern that the highlands will be opened to rent. This is a shock to people living in the highlands. Large tourism companies now bring tourists to the highlands.

Accent mimicry, photo shoots, weird questions... mass tourism has overwhelmed the people. Around ten thousand vehicles may pass along the road. Who will that benefit?

Are there hostels in the highlands?

Are there craft products like carpets, clothes etc. to enable locals to earn money? How do locals earn money?5 (Bülent) Another common criticism is about the lack of participation by locals in decisionmaking and planning. Involved nongovernmental organizations state that at no point was there consultation with local people during the policy-making process.

11

There is no public involvement in this project! Going further, through dispossession, people have been cut off from the lands that they have inhabited for thousands of years and from the culture they have created. We know that international companies, together with the governments with which they cooperate, try to neutralize the movements that struggle for the right to life for the people by misguiding NGOs.6 Clearly, Mother Havva and the government do not refer to the same group as the ‘people’. This contested use of ‘people’ makes us question which people this project serves and which people will lose by it. Mother Havva, in justifying her resistance to the project, protests that the state acts against their – people’s – rule and will. Seeing ‘the people’ as the founding component of the state, she also asks who the state is.

Locals like Mother Havva identify themselves with and for their environment and lands, and identify the project as a threat to their livelihoods.

Conversely, officials like the Mayor of Çamlıhemşin refer to some other beneficiaries who gain from tourism, defining them also as ‘the people’. How can this problem be resolved? Or is there a technical or economic solution to it?

Definitely not. Because Mother Havva and those who will benefit from tourism represent different forms of engagement with the land and nature in the region;

…. populism is not compatible with participatory democracy.

12

Themed article

they also look for different conditions of survival within contemporary market societies.

This contested use of ‘people’ by locals and officials enables us also to recognize the different democracy projects endorsed by the two sides. The locals promote and indeed practice participatory democracy in their struggle against the Green Road Project. They struggle to express their representation and commitment in the ongoing projections on their living space and reject leaving control of the project to political authorities. Conversely, the Turkish government identifies its uncontested executive actions as democracy. Since its rise to power in 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been trying to legitimize itself as the representative of the ‘will of the people’. A project like the Green Road is justified using a discourse of serving the people, and providing local and national development through infrastructural modernization, which could result in a tourism boom and attract foreign investment. Following Scoones et al., who state that populism ‘justifies interventions in the name of taking back control in favour of people’7, this can be clearly defined as a populist strategy.

As this controversy over the Green Road Project shows, however, populism is not compatible with participatory democracy. The ‘people’ populism demands is a non-challenging and consenting one, taking an active stand only during elections.

The populist definition of the ‘people’ also refers to a collectivity, homogenous in their will and expectations of support from the government. Such a construction of the people is obviously in sharp contrast with the mobilized, resisting, demanding, and criticizing local masses represented by Mother Havva.

As Margaret Canovan reminds us, the relationship between representative democracy and populism becomes problematic during such moments of inclusive politics in policy making,8 as it is not clear which people should be included in the process. Participatory action is off the agenda and excludes opposing locals from the policy-making process. As we see in the Green Road Project, when the locals mobilized against it, they were usually marginalized by being identifying as ‘pasture occupiers’ who settled in the area without legal permission and were ‘against local

development’, and criminalized via threat of detention and prosecution. The Green Road Project clearly illustrates the necessity of participatory democracy in environmental politics in Turkey in order to avoid the threatening of rural people’s livelihoods.

1 DOKAP (2014). Doğu Karadeniz Projesi (DOKAP) Eylem Planı 2014-2018. T.C. Kalkınma Bakanlığı.

2 Hürriyet. (2018). Yeşil Yol’un yüzde 60’ı tamamlandı.

3 Helsinki Citizens Assembly (2014). Bölgesel İdare ve Yerel Demokrasi Projesi Rize İstişare Toplantısı Notları: Turizm Odaklı Kalkınma ve Yeşil Yol Projesi. Rize.

4 BirGün. (2015) Havva ananın isyanı: Kimdir devlet?

Devlet bizim sayemizde devlettir.

5 Ocak, S. (2013) Yeşil Yol yeni bir imar dalgası mı?, Radikal Newspaper 6 DEKAP. (2015) Doğanın ve Yaşam Alanlarının Yağmalanmasına Dur Diyoruz! World Environment Day News Release 7 Scoones, I. et al. (2018) Emancipatory rural politics: confronting authoritarian populism, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 45:1, 1-20 8 Canovan, M. (2002). Taking Politics to the People: Populism as the Ideology of Democracy. Y. Meny, & Y. Surel (ed.), Democracies and the Populist Challenge.

New York: Palgrave.

…Mother Havva and the government do not refer to the same group as the ‘people’.

ISS publications

New books The Pedagogy of Economic, Political and Social Crises Edited by Dr Karim Knio and Professor Bob Jessop, this volume draws on a variety of literature to offer important insights into the pedagogy of crisis.

Poverty as Ideology: Rescuing Social Justice from Global Development Agendas' In this book, Dr Andrew Fischer examines conceptions and measures of poverty. He shows how dominant approaches to poverty studies reinforce the prevailing neoliberal ideology while neglecting wider interests of social justice.

Disadvantaged Childhoods and Humanitarian Intervention Co-authored by Dr Kristen Cheney and Dr Aviva Sinervo, this book explores how humanitarian interventions for children in difficult circumstances engage in affective commodification of disadvantaged childhoods.

Early Childhood Care and Education at the Margins: African Perspectives on Birth to Three The book is co-edited by ISS Assistant Professor Auma Okwany, Hasina Banu Ebrahim, and Oumar Barry. The authors engage the dominant framing of early childhood care policy and practice, and discuss the need to engage the margins to promote responsive thought and action.

Deglobalization 2.0: Trade Openness during the Great Depression and the Great Recession In this book, Professor Peter Bergeijk argues that Trump and Brexit are the symptoms of globalization and deglobalization, and investigates possible future word orders and solutions.

13

14

ISS news

ISS news alumni awards EUR events PhD projects research staff students

ISS alumna heads Sri Lankan People’s Bank alumni

Sujatha Cooray was recently appointed Chairperson of the Sri Lankan People's Bank.

She graduated from ISS in 1985 with an MA in Development Studies, specializing in Economic Policy and Planning.

ISS alumnus wins global anti-corruption award alumni Roger Oppong Koranteng won the 'Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani International Anti-Corruption Excellence Award' (innovation) for his work on tackling corruption in both Commonwealth and nonCommonwealth countries.

Roger graduated from ISS in 1996 with an MA in Development Studies, specializing in Public Policy and Administration.

ISS alumna Vice President of Gambia alumni

Inge Hutter reappointed Rector of ISS staff

In a recent Cabinet reshuffle in Gambia, Dr Isatou Touray was appointed as Vice President.

Dr Toursay, a Gambian politician, activist, and social reformer, was at ISS in 1992/1993 in the MA Women & Development specialization.

The Executive Board of Erasmus University Rotterdam has reappointed Professor Inge Hutter as Rector of ISS. During her second term, Inge plans to consolidate ISS’ research, education and societal relevance in collaboration with other institutes.

ISS news

Jun Borras awarded grant to study land politics research

ISS MA Research Paper award for Shradha Parashari awards

Professor Jun Borras has been awarded a prestigious Advanced Grant by the European Research Council to build on his work on land politics and how it reshapes food, climate change, labour, citizenship, and geopolitics in three separate countries.

Shradha won the annual award for her paper on discrimination in grading and expectations that teachers have of children who are from different castes and classes. The Research Paper has been published as an ISS Working Paper (no. 640).

15

Confronting apartheid: A critical discussion event On 11 April, ISS hosted a discussion about the law and legal history of apartheid, the impact of apartheid on society, and civic and government responses to this. The event discussed apartheid in South Africa, Namibia and Palestine.

Natascha Wagner and Roy Huijsmans selected for Young Erasmus Academy staff The Young Erasmus Academy aims to build a network of young researchers at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and strengthen the interdisciplinary partnerships and contacts among excellent young researchers.

Kristen Cheney in roundtable on orphanage tourism research On 27 March, Kristen Cheney, participated in a Dutch Parliamentary roundtable on orphanage tourism entitled 'A good intention is not always a good idea: A proposal to combat orphanage tourism' The roundtable included speakers from various international NGOs and academic experts.

ISS MA Research Paper award for Angélica Aparicio awards Angélica’s research paper relates the multiple visions of reconciliation of three key actors in the negotiations of the Peace Agreement in Colombia. The Research Paper has been published as an ISS Working Paper (no. 639).

5,000 visitors to BlISS research Since its launch 1.5 years ago, ISS blog BlISS has published over 100 posts, all of them related to development topics and written by authors from around the world. This year alone BlISS has already had 5,000 visitors to its page and over 15,000 views.

16

ISS news

In Memoriam Guillermo Lathrop We were very sad to learn that former lecturer, Guillermo Lathrop passed away earlier this year.

Guillermo taught at ISS from 1976 until 2005. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Maria de los Angeles Moreno Former ISS student, Maria de los Angeles Moreno, graduated from ISS in 1973 with a Diploma in Socio-Economic Planning.

She was the first president of the Mexican political party CEN PRI. Our thoughts are with her family and friends.

PhD defences PhD

Teun van Dijk (8 May 2019) Pathways in Local Economic Development in Tanzania.

Institutionalisation of Collective Action: The Case of Mbulu and Karatu Districts

Christina Schiavoni (cum laude) (29 April 2019) Constructing and Contesting Food Sovereignty: Food lines, fault lines and seeds of transformation in Venezuela

Raffael Beier (cum laude) (5 April 2019) From the City to the Desert: Analysing shantytown resettlement in Casablanca, Morocco, from residents’ perspectives

Amrita Datta (3 April 2019) Continuity and Change: Migration and development in India. The case of Bihar

Ă…sa Ekvall (14 March 2019) Gender Inequality, Homophobia and Violence: The three pillars of patriarchal norms and attitudes and their relations

Clara Mi Young Park (4 March 2019) Gender, Generation and Agrarian Change: Cases from Myanmar and Cambodia

Fasil Taye (19 February 2019) Changing Childhoods, Places and Work: The everyday politics of learningby-doing in the urban weaving economy in Ethiopia

Yunan Xu (20 December 2018) The Political Economy Of Industrial Tree Plantations in the Era of Global Land Rush: The case of Guangxi, China

Stefania Donzelli (13 December 2018) Feminisms and Migration into Italy: The intersectionality of gender and race

Juan David Parra Heredia (7 December 2018) Critical Realism and the Persistence of Poor School Performance in Northern Colombia: The difference it makes

Ome Chattranond (6 December 2018) Battery of Asia?

The rise of regulatory regionalism and transboundary hydropower development in Laos

Eunjung Koo (27 November 2018) Where is the value of housework? Reconceptualizing housework as family care activity

Staff-student dialogue

17

Striking for a transformative university – a conversation between Senior Lecturer Karin Astrid Siegmann and PhD researcher Amod Shah on the protests against education cuts1 Karin (K) – So many people came to the demonstration in The Hague2 — many more than I had expected! Some say up to 2,000 people. What motivated you to join?

Amod (A) – I was very impressed at the size of the demonstration. An element of solidarity motivated me to join. And there are very real impacts of these proposed cuts on us as PhD researchers. We are already in a situation where there is limited capacity for PhD supervision and training because academic and

administrative staff are stretched, and because of the need to balance research and teaching responsibilities. The budget cuts aggravate that. There’s also a broader discussion: these cuts are huge and structural. What does that mean for the university?

K – I see people without permanent contracts and tenure often don’t dare to speak up, criticize, or do anything that would distract their attention from getting those publication points necessary to get tenure. Overall, I see a

18

Staff-student dialogue

move towards the neoliberalization of universities: universities are managed more and more like ‘knowledge factories’, with more attention to quantifiable outputs than to the contents of your research, the meaning of what you teach, and of your research for society. A public university should be a space where people can think creatively for a better, more just society.

Polanyi looked at European societies from the perspective of efforts to commodify everything in society. I see similar dynamics in the neoliberalization of universities. Yet they are a space that should not be commodified. The effort will backfire, I think. But Polanyi also perceived simultaneous countermovements by ordinary people, by social movements. I see the protests as such a form of resistance.

A – Very real conflicts of interest are created when, instead of government funding, you rely on a private organization, foundation, or company to provide funds for research.

K – That’s putting it very politely. I see an increasing influence of corporate interests that want to uphold the status quo. For instance, I see many more calls for research on climate change adaptation rather than what can be done to prevent climate change. That prevents questioning a westernized consumerist way of life, a dogma of economic growth.

For the ‘knowledge factory’, a similar model is being implemented, not only in universities but also in other sectors, such as healthcare or government offices. This model works through individualization and competition. It provides disincentives for people to collaborate, but also encourages them to recycle their own work in order to make a career. Such an individualistic model also makes it easier within institutions to divide and rule, and silence critical voices. Michael Burawoy has written a really interesting class analysis of how a university manages to silence

...it’s important not to let go of the ethos of a university that contributes to social change’

protest against new public management restructuring by dividing academic staff from admin staff, through the provision of some privileges to academic staff.

A – This is a very good point! As a former MA student and now a PhD researcher, I see that playing out at ISS, too. By creating such differences — that as a PhD student you are neither a student nor a staff member — you intentionally or unintentionally harm the ability of people to collaborate.

Of course there are funding pressures, but it’s important not to let go of the ethos of a university that contributes to social change. There should be space for collaboration, to think more broadly, not to be oriented solely towards the next publication, or finishing your PhD, or getting a job. There are universities and spaces where people are trying to get away from this orientation. The University of Gent, for example, de-emphasizes quantitative metrics in their new system for faculty evaluation and focuses on what faculty members are proud of.3 K – Another example is the planned cooperative university in Manchester.

Because of the increasing privatization in universities, students don’t have the funds to study, and universities become more and more exclusive spaces.

Manchester’s cooperative university aims to develop an alternative model with students and staff as the main stakeholders.

A – For me, what’s happening in the Netherlands is symptomatic of a more global phenomenon, of the state withdrawing from higher education.

What do you think?

K – I heard Buroway speak about a class

analysis of neoliberalized universities in Pakistan, at a private university. I found it interesting that somebody from a public university in the US presented an analysis that spoke both to the situation of students at a private, elite university in Pakistan, and to somebody like me teaching at a public university in the Netherlands. Very different contexts, but his observations rang true for much of the audience.

A – I would add the idea of the university as an egalitarian space, where people from very different backgrounds can come and study together. I think that’s a hallmark of public education across the world. This egalitarian space is one of the first casualties of the privatization and neoliberalization of higher education.

I see that a lot in India now, with the mushrooming of expensive private universities.

K – Even in the public universities in countries claiming to be egalitarian, like the Netherlands, you see the reproduction of class, race, and gender hierarchies: right now public universities are not egalitarian spaces. But in private universities, it is clear that the customerpays principle rules. In public universities you can contest that, and there’s space to demand more inclusiveness.

A – I agree. I think that’s what these protests are about — maintaining a space for contestation in the public higher education system.

K – So, we will take to the streets again on 15 March for the second demonstration?

A – Yes!

1 First published on ISS blog Bliss 13 March 2019.

2 Demonstration on 14 December 2018 to protest the ‘erosion’ of higher education and research.

3 Thanks to Zuleika Sheik for sharing this information.

Focus on ISS

19

Myanmar (Alamy)

When disaster meets conflict • How do state, non-state and humanitarian actors respond to disasters in conflict-affected situations?

• How do the different types of conflict impact communities and the aid offered?

T

hese are just a couple of the questions that this five-year research project is considering.

The core of the research consists of case studies in conflict countries where disasters occur. We also seek to understand how the politicization of disaster response affects the legitimacy, power and relations between governance actors.

Led by Professor Dorothea Hilhorst,

Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction, the research team is composed of Isabelle Desportes, Rod Mena Fluhmann and Samanth Melis (PhD researchers), and Roanne van Voorst (Post-doc) conducting research on the impact of disaster on conflict.

The research is funded by the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

Conflict aggravates disaster and disaster intensifies conflict Responses to disasters triggered by natural hazards have changed considerably in recent decades: away from reactive responses to disasters and towards more proactive attention to risk reduction, as well as away from statecentred top-down approaches towards more deliberately involving non-state actors and communities in the formal

20

Focus on ISS

governance of disaster response.

However, in research and policy, little attention has been paid to scenarios where disasters happen in conflict situations, even though a significant proportion of disasters occur in such contexts. There is evidence that conflict aggravates disaster and that disaster can intensify conflict – but not much is known about the precise relationship and how it may impact upon aid responses.

How we work Our research is divided into two broad strands: the core research with an expert panel and case-studies in countries where disaster meets conflict, and intersectional research on areas where humanitarian governance overlaps with other domains, such as peace-keeping.

In the course of our research, our interests have expanded to other areas where humanitarian response intersects with other domains of intervention, including: • gender and security • community resilience • development • peace-building • areas where disaster response meets refugee care

Some examples of our work The case studies are divided into areas of high-intensity conflict (Afghanistan and South Sudan), low-intensity conflict (Ethiopia and Myanmar), and postconflict situations (Sierra Leone, Nepal and Colombia). Below are just three examples of our studies and the types of issues we investigate.

Drought response in South Sudan, 2016 – South Sudan is the youngest country in the world. The 2011 referendum resulted in the country’s independence and self-governance; however, conflict between factions of the government and an acute economic crisis led, in 2013, to an internal crisis and civil war. In 2016 South Sudan was affected by an especially intensive drought and recurring floods.

The main challenges that disaster responders faced were physical access, funding and insecurity. Given these

constraints, a main concern was how to prioritize between drought-impacted areas and people. This case study thus zoomed in on the issue of ‘triage’, finding that the factors of feasibility, funding and needs very much come into play.

Cyclone Komen response in Myanmar, 2015 – Cyclone Komen made landfall at a time of heightened Myanmar identity politics—a few months after four discriminatory ‘Race and Religion’ laws were passed and a few months before the tense November 2015 elections.

The research explores how civil society organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, international organizations, and donor agencies tried to provide relief to marginalized minorities in the ethnic states of Chin and Rakhine. The findings detail how, particularly in the context of rising identity politics, humanitarian governance more than ever encompasses the governance of perceptions.

1.

2.

Mudslide in Sierra Leone 2017 – In 2017, a mountain in the heart of Sierra Leone’s capital city broke, causing an avalanche, mudslide and flash flood, leaving over 1,000 dead and thousands homeless in its wake. Our research here investigates how disaster response evolved in this country struggling to develop under post-colonial, postconflict, and post-ebola conditions.

The research focuses on two levels of governance: the national level, where the disaster formed another moment to renegotiate intra-governmental powers; and the local level where the disaster fed ongoing tensions between local state chiefs and national state institutions.

Intersectionalities in the governance of aid In our research on intersectionalities in the governance of aid, we cover topics such as: • Gender, sexuality and violence in humanitarian crises. Our research focuses mainly on the Democratic Republic of Congo concerning originally the responses to sexual violence; more recently shifting

attention to transactional sex in crisis situations.

• Refugee care in a champion country for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR): Rohingya in Bangladesh. Our ongoing fieldwork looks into how its DRR track record helped Bangladesh organize care for the influx of Rohingya.

Focus on ISS

21

1. Research team 2. C ollapsed house following an earthquake in Chisapani, Nepal.

Credit: Samantha Melis 3. Aftermath of the mudslide in Sierra Leone. Credit: Samantha Melis 4. South Sudanese refugee camp in Uganda. Credit: Rod Mena Fluhmann 5. Refugee camp in Bangladesh. Credit: Rod Mena Fluhmann

4.

3.

abuse scandal in the humanitarian aid sector which came to light in 2018?

• Resilience and citizenship. We investigate the relationship between vulnerability and resilience, discussing the role of ‘citizenship’ in disaster- and conflict-affected settings.

• Humanitarian access in high-intensity conflict settings. We engage in this topic through developing a project with the Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution on humanitarian access and peace interventions in Syria.

Uptake and societal engagement

5.

• C uraçao and forced displacement from Venezuela. We consider the impact of the crisis in Venezuela on Curaçao, and investigate the role of the Netherlands.

• Forced migration from Europe’s borderlands. Our work investigates how humanitarian agencies deal with

the challenges of refugee care in Europe, focusing particularly on Lesbos (Greece), Calais (France), and Libya.

• Accountability and humanitarian aid. How has accountability towards affected populations changed, particularly in the light of the sexual

We always aim to carry out research that is not only scientifically robust, but that is also socially relevant and engaged: research that really makes a difference.

We participate in international consultancies and collaborations, events and conferences, regularly write opinion and blog posts for a wider public, and have produced research briefs for all of our case studies.

We recently also updated our website – www.iss.nl/whendisastermeetsconflict where all our publications and other outputs are freely available for download.

22

ISS publications

Development and Change

Working Papers

Development and Change is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the critical analysis and discussion of current issues of development. It was established by the ISS in 1969, in response to the perceived need for a multidisciplinary journal dealing with all aspects of development studies.

The ISS Working Paper series provides a forum for work in progress which seeks to elicit comments and generate discussion. The series includes academic research by staff, PhD participants and visiting fellows, and award-winning research papers by graduate students.

Volume 50, Number 2, March 2019 – Forum issue Tim Glawion, Lotje de Vries and Andreas Mehler Handle with Care! A Qualitative Comparison of the Fragile States Index’s Bottom Three Countries: Central African Republic, Somalia and South Sudan Erin Lentz, Rachel Bezner Kerr, Raj Patel, Laifolo Dakishoni and Esther Lupafya The Invisible Hand that Rocks the Cradle: On the Limits of Time Use Surveys James Galbraith Sparse, Inconsistent and Unreliable: Tax Records and the World Inequality Report 2018 Rory Horner and David Hulme From International to Global Development: New Geographies of 21st Century Development Jayati Ghosh A Brave New World, or the Same Old Story with New Characters?

Yusuf Bangura Convergence Is Not Equality Andy Sumner Global Poverty and Inequality: Change and Continuity in Late Development Andrew M. Fischer Bringing Development Back into Development Studies Özlem Onaran Equality-led Development and the Demand- and Supply-side Effects Aram Ziai Towards a More Critical Theory of ‘Development’ in the 21st Century Cecilia Alemany, Claire Slatter, Corina Rodríguez Enríquez Gender Blindness and the Annulment of the Development Contract Bram Büscher From ‘Global’ to ‘Revolutionary’ Development Rory Horner and David Hulme Global Development, Converging Divergence and Development Studies: A Rejoinder Kate Meagher Reflections of an Engaged Economist: An Interview with Thandika Mkandawire Andrew Fischer On the Origins and Legacies of Really Existing Capitalism: In Conversation with Kari Polanyi Levitt Maha Abdelrahman A Conversation with Ha-Joon Chang Alexandra Kaasch, Paul Stubbs and Fiona Williams Combining Social Policy and Development Studies: The Legacy of Bob Deacon Steven J. Klees, Nelly P. Stromquist, Joel Samoff and Salim Vally The 2018 World Development Report on Education: A Critical Analysis

The potential impact of oil sanctions on military spending and democracy in the Middle East Dizaji, S.F. Working Paper Series no. 644 Community participation and the quality of rural infrastructure in Ethiopia res Shigute, Z. Working Paper Series no. 643 Shedding light on the shadows of informality: A meta-analysis of formalization interventions targeted at informal firms Floridi, A., Demena, B.A. and Wagner, N. ISS Working Paper Series no. 642 Researching legal mobilisation and lawfare Handmaker, J.D. ISS Working Paper Series no. 641 Teacher discrimination in occupational expectations and grading Parashari, S. ISS Working Paper Series no. 640 Meanings and uses of the term “reconciliation” in the Colombian Peace Dialogues: unveiling political actions through discourse analysis Aparicio, A. ISS Working Paper Series no. 639 Financial services in the EU: Is there a problem of financial exclusion? Meskoub, M. ISS Working Paper Series no. 638

Student life

23

STUDENT LIFE

The ISS Indonesia Student Association enjoying a self-prepared meal together.

Credit: Yolanda Ryan Armindya

ISS students enjoy King’s Day in Amsterdam.

Credit: Martin Dackles

Enjoy the beautiful beach at Scheveningen

Sports day for students at the Blinkerd every Sunday.

Credit: Meenal Thakur

Students enjoying lunch in a nearby Indian restaurant with Darren Baradhan (next to window left). Credit: Sandra Nijhof

Visit ISS!

Are you in or close to the Netherlands?

Then why not pay us a visit! You can: • Meet a current student from the major you are interested in or from your home country • Participate in a class • Talk to faculty about the MA programme • Talk to ISS staff about studying at ISS • Get acquainted with ISS and The Hague

Interested? Get in touch with Darren Baradhan! Email him at darren.baradhan@eur.nl to arrange a date and time.