GRD Discussion Papers

These pre-publication papers are presented as an opportunity for scholarly discussion and collaboration between researchers at the University of Arizona and other academic research centers. If you are interested in submitting a paper, send a document in word format to Sandy Dall'erba at dallerba@email.arizona.edu.

September 2007

GRD 07-07 Neoliberal Development through Technical Assistance: Constructing Communities of Entrepreneurial Subjects in Oaxaca, Mexico
Margath Walker, Susan Roberts, John Paul Jones III, and Oliver Fröhling

Abstract: Technical Assistance (TA) has a long and varied history as a development practice. It initially emerged as a set of ‘hard’ programs, tools, and technologies delivered to developing countries by imported First World experts, typically in the agricultural and resource sectors. Later, in response to critical- and anti-development theories, TA morphed into its ‘soft’ version, attempting to empower marginalized people in the Global South by delivering the know-how—often collaboratively generated—sufficient to produce forms of development ‘from below’. In spite of this shift in the politics and practices of TA, it remains susceptible to neoliberal styles of development that have proceeded apace with withdrawal of state institutions in the funding and operation of social and economic development programs, and with the concomitant rise of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In this paper, we follow the operation of one TA program operated by an intermediary NGO in Oaxaca, Mexico. We find that the program intersects with neoliberalization in two prominent ways, relying on a form of governmentality that codifies and prescribes: (a) the social spaces of action and need, and (b) learning subjects deficient in entrepreneurial initiative and know-how. We conclude by commenting on the political economic conditions that continue to underwrite TA as a development practice in spite of a decade or more of criticism directed at it and we consider the possibilities for its subversion. [Download PDF]

May 2007

GRD 06-07 Impact of Structural Funds on Regional Growth: How to Reconsider a 7 Year-Old Black-Box
Sandy Dall'erba, Rachel Guillain, Julie Le Gallo

Abstract: Econometric estimations of the impact of structural funds on the growth process of the European regions started 7 years ago. However, it is striking to realize that all previous estimations in this field are based on some form of the neoclassical growth model (Solow's model). This model is still widely used despite the numerous critics it has raised (Quah, 1996) and its lack of consideration for increasing returns to scale, which are at the heart of agglomeration and growth processes according to endogenous growth theories and new economic geography models. In addition, few estimations have paid attention to the nature of the cohesion objectives under study. For example, the expected impact of objective 1 funds, devoted to public infrastructures, is indeed theoretically and empirically very different from the one of objective 3 funds devoted to long-term unemployed. As a result, the aim of this paper is to propose a careful assessment of the impact of structural funds on the manufacturing sector of 145 European regions in the context of a Verdoorn's law for the period 1989-2004. First, the results are presented with total structural funds and funds differentiated by objective. Second, interregional linkages are included by means of spatial econometric techniques. Third, potential endogeneity of the explanatory variables is taken into account. [Download PDF]

April 2007

GRD 05-07 The Dilemma of Water Management "Regionalization" in Mexico under Centralized Resource Allocation
Christopher A. Scott, Jeff M. Banister

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January 2007

GRD 04/07 Space for Social Inequality Researchers: A View From Geography
Vincent J. Del Casino, Jr., John Paul Jones, III

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GRD 03/07 When Participation meets Empowerment: The WWF and the Politics of Invitation in the Chimalapas, Mexico
David Walker, John Paul Jones III, Susan Roberts, and Oliver Fröhling

Abstract: Emerging out of radical theories about the uneven nature of power and underwriting practices that assist marginalized peoples in constructing their own development strategies, "participation" has recently come under fire for being co-opted and mainstreamed by governmental and non-governmental agencies, part of a new development "tyranny" that betrays the concept's populist roots. The issues surrounding participation are nowhere more hotly debated than in the area of conservation, where the requirements of ecological sustainability often collide with the demands of indigenous people seeking to control their own natural resources. As we show in this article, the issues become even more complex when the ideals and practices of participation circulating within a non-governmental organization (NGO) are met by indigenous forms of empowerment, based not only on the resources of a remote and biologically diverse forest, but also a pool of knowledge about development discourses themselves, including those of participation. Our case study examines interactions between an affiliate of the World Wildlife Fund operating out of Oaxaca, a state capital in southern Mexico, and a group of indigenous Zoque-speakers living in that state's Chimalapas forest. We interpret the collision between the NGO's "participation" and the Zoques' "empowerment" by employing "progressive contextualization," an approach that leads us to identify and analyze the wider sets of conditions underpinning the encounter. We argue that the Zoques invert a generic and aspatial politics of participation by insisting on a territorially-based, and thus intensely spatial, "politics of invitation" as they negotiate the complexities of participation within contemporary development. [Download PDF]

GRD 02/07 Spatial Ontologies of Globalization
Sallie A. Marston, Keith Woodward, and John Paul Jones III

Abstract: In this paper we offer some criticisms regarding the spatial ontologies that have underwritten theories of globalization. We evaluate different approaches to understanding their working, each of which must grapple with the problem of connecting the local and the global, and contrast these to that of our recent work aimed at elaborating a 'flat ontology.' The central feature of this alternative ontology is the site: a material localization characterized by differential relations through which one site is connected to other sites, out of which emerges a social space that can be understood to extend, however unevenly and temporarily, across distant places. Yet, in light of its focus on practices - on situated sayings and doings - our ontology must refuse the spatial imaginaies that underpins nearly all discussions of globalization. To illustrate our position we examine the practices of popular filmmaking within Lagos, Nigeria (Nollywood). This site is an entry point for comprehending and enlarging upon the political implications of our ontology - one that is meant not only to rethink globalization but to unsettle the abstractions that enable its expanding hegemony. [Download PDF]

GRD 01/07 Regional Convergence and the Impact of European Structural Funds over 1989-1999: A Spatial Econometric Analysis
Sandy Dall'erba and Julie Le Gallo

Abstract: This paper raises two important issues that have been neglected in previous econometric estimations of the impact of structural funds on regional growth. First, we use some spatial econometric methods to assess the extent of spillover effects across regions. Second, we control for the problem of endogeneity of the funds which is due to them being allocated according to a region's past income levels. Still very few papers treat endogeneiy in a spatial econometric context. Our results indicate that the funds have no impact on regional growth and that those allocated to peripheral regions never spill over their neighbors. This calls for a reconsideration of current regional policies. [Download PDF]