Xavier Rambla Sociologia

In 2008 the price of food increased dramatically throughout the world, aggravating the deprivation of the needy particularly in low and middle income countries. This year students of the course in Social Change and Globalisation have written on the global transformations affecting agriculture. This post summarises the discussion with a brief state of the art.

Generally speaking, agriculture has undergone important social changes at the global, national and local scales of decision-making. This is not an obvious point because agriculture is clearly a local activity due to its necessary location in places with specific environmental conditions. However, some agricultural products became the commodities of international trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that trend was intensified by the late nineteenth century. The last decades have shown a further implication of the economic globalisation of agriculture to the extent that it has been “financialised” by transforming some products (e.g. soya) into commodities that are traded in stock markets. Apparently, the volume of capital invested in these assets has not only to do with the increasing demand in Eastern Asia but also with speculation about future prices as well as with the need to substitute derivatives and other financial products downgraded by the crisis.

Agriculture has also gone global because it has been organised along global value chains. Experts have coined the term “agri-food” to define this phenomenon. Although operations are inevitably local, the whole process entails inbound logistics, makerting and sales and services which are produced in many other places. These operations are often coordinated from somewhere else so that food is sent to markets in many geographical locations. Global value chains are “governed” in varied ways including quality standards, inter-firm consultancy and variable components of inter-firm cooperation and competition. These chains shape a political field where firms have to deploy a strategy to get to the most strategic positions. But such a political dimension entails a further implication to the extent that transnational advocacy networks can also influence in global value chains. Actually, some of them have already launched campaigns to do so concerning the environmental effects of industrial agriculture, the quality of industrial food and social and human rights of peasants.

At the same time as these two transformations unveil the importance of global decision-making, some national and local phenomena are also impinging on this economic activity. At the national level debates on free trade are crucial since agriculture was included in the agreements promoted by the World Trade Organisation as well as bilateral Free Trade Agreements. The local face of agriculture is quite visible in the dramatic (sometimes perverse) environmental and social consequences of agricultural production for the global market in Southern America and India.

Remarkably, it is wrong to assume that the causal mechanisms impinging on these processes proceed through an unilinear connection from global causes to local effects. On the contrary, local environmental problems are also conditioning global prices, and local social problems trigger movements and campaigns at the national level. Similarly, global value chains link local and regional economies in varied ways.

Since the 1990s the emergence of a global civil society has posited new questions about the potential synergies between advocacy and social research. While  a long tradition of “critical social research” has reflect on its own premises and methods, the many spurs of collaborative work with civil society organisations (CSOs) that have taken place along history have not been systematised in the same way. A few labels such as participatory research and action-research make reference to this strand of researches. However, some participants in the global civil society are interested in creating a new corpus of studies that respond to their concerns. It is not only about challenging epistemological assumptions but about using research as a tool for advocacy.

The Global Campaign for Education has tried to do so for more than a decade. Its focus on monitoring the Education for All goals, certainly, has to do with research on statistical indicators and the topics associated to the goals. Even more, a number of fund designed to promote civil society in education (Commonwealth Education Fund, Real Strategies, Civil Society Education Fund) also encourage CSOs to undertake research that eventually strengthens their action. So far, these studies have focused on budget tracking, girls’ education, educational disadvantage, the individual cost of a quality education, and public-private partnerships (PPPs).

In the Philippines, E-Net has carried out a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of the implications of PPPs for the education system. Actually, in that country the government has been implementing this policy for some decades in order to “decongest” public schools. Although the World Bank and other official studies have already noticed the shortcomings of some current programmes from the point of view of public management, E-Net has also stressed the significant consequences of PPPs for social equity. Thus, debates on PPPs in the Philippines try to contrast both political ideologies and different approaches to the issue drawing on different strands of social research.

Since 2010 the Euro  is suffering a deep crisis. Current analyses of this situation draw on a couple of key ideas from sociological theory.

First, sociologists have argued that globalisation not only takes place above but also within the state. The increasing influence of the executive branch, with a faster temporality which is easily coupled with the time frame of the global financial capital, has been highlighted by Saskia Sassen (e.g. here). Certainly, the turn towards the ‘creative austerity’ agenda, the continuous interplay between governments and central banks, between the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the member states, as well as the growing Constitutional debate on the bail-out funds in Germany illustrate this ‘de-nationalisation’ very clearly.

Secondly, a wave of conflicts is spreading throughout Europe. Besides strikes and rallies in the deficit countries that are undertaking the hardest cuts, elections are also triggering bitter debates in Finland, France, the Netherlands and (increasingly) in Germany. These are not only intra-national conflicts between elites and masses but also cross-national conflicts between the elites of deficit member states and their Northern creditors, as well as between the masses of these countries. The German Sociologist Georg Voruba analyses this “complex conflict constellation” here.

Since the Nineteenth century a number of social movements have campaigned for political and social rights, the abolition of slavery, peace building, independence of colonial powers  and other issues that have promoted a world civil society. After the trauma of world wars, the main powers agreed to create a government of nations which promoted international commitment to these principles, albeit at variable degrees. In this vein, all the members of the United Nations are currently committed to a growing number of universal statements and external recommendations on human rights in several policy areas. In education,  the International Conference on Education produced a comprehensive approach linking inequalities and inclusive education in 2008. Only one year later the Durban Declaration on Racism assigned “the primary responsibility of combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance to States”.

In the eighties a research programme based at the University of Stanford found out that the human rights approach is embedded in a bundle of international social norms.  In their view, many UN agencies apply this approach to development, education, food and agriculture, health, labour, trade and so on, with a specific concern with social categories such as children, women and minorities exposed to discrimination. Their inquiries about the factors that lead governments to comply cast doubt on the influence of socio-economic development and modernisation, because their findings show that both more and less developed and modernised countries are senstive to the UN philosphy. They propose an alternative account according to which a world model of political citizenship has eventually prevailed so that all countries are accountable for the same criteria. Any government has to accept these norms in order to be respected as a legitimate power.

The Stanford analysis is convincing as far as the global reach of UN regulation is concerned. A growing number of sophisticate research drawing on historical sociology and statistical multivariate analysis of diachronic data actually provides evidence on the universality of these norms regardless of the more commonly observed societal differences. For instance, universal schooling started as a reaction to military defeat, but it is a general concern nowadays. Similarly, the extension of the franchise to women and the creation of administrative bodies in charge of human rights were initial victories of social movements that have become widely diffused later on. Interest on human rights in the curriculum of civic education also illustrates the same pattern of almost universal policy trasfer.

However, questions about effective implementation remain. Although governments feel a sort of obligation to reform their rhetorics, it is far from clear that they change their real policies. Besides formal adoption, further research seems necessary in order to know about the influence of these international recommendations on the social practices that are not a mere translation of formal legislation. Are human rights really implemented by governments who claim to do so? This is a growing concern in many fields such as the monitoring of the right to education. Are schools really teaching the democracy and social justice introduced in their formal curricula? Is gender equality an immediate outcome of formal statements? Are some governments paying lip service to these common international guidelines? These are  some remarkable and significant questions for further research.

The assignments written by students for Social Change and Globalisation (2011-12) highlight the influence of political projects on education, economic conditions and health. These are the three main dimensions of human development as defined by the United Nations Development Project.
Apparently, political consensus makes a difference. Remember to what extent the complex interplay between political and religious actors seems to shape gender inequalities in Brazil, India and Turkey. Furthermore, the observation that some sorts of political consensus may reduce mortality even in poor countries certainly constitutes a second, very relevant illustration. Actually, Preston’s curve finding that the income- health correlation weakens at high levels of income is also significant.
The literature on welfare regimes has also widely shown that social-democratic political dominance reduces poverty and inequality, and fosters social mobility, in Scandinavian countries compared to Central European and Anglo-Saxon countries. For the last decade, the publication of OECD PISA reports has added a further piece of evidence, since the levels and gaps in academic performance vary according to the geographic distribution of two key political decisions. One of them affects the comprehensive or stratified pattern of secondary education, depending on the latter or earlier division of students in academic and vocational schools. The other decision impinges on the regulation of school admission, which may either foster or counteract the segregation of school intakes depending on the socio-economic status of students’ families. School systems with many comprehensive and socially heterogeneous schools not only guarantee higher equity but also higher effectiveness.
How do the main theoretical approaches account for these variations? Modernisation theories think that structural mis/matches are the main cause of human development (Inglehart). However, despite the general correlation between economic (firstly), political (secondly) and cultural (thirdly) changes, case studies show that political modernisation advances economic modernisation in a significant number of circumstances.
In the view of some neoinstitutionalists, the key mechanisms of change are enacted in open access societies (North). Tocqueville’s social mobility, Pareto’s circulation of elites or Schumpeter’s creative destruction would be some of these mechanisms. All of them assume that individual rational choosers eventually create improved societal aggregates if they are allowed to act with minimal restrictions. In Sztompka’s terms, this theory relies on an agential coefficient of social change. However, most raational-choice neoinstitutionalists cannot explain why these aggregations of “homo economicus” strategies do not always lead men to maintain sexism, the rich to hoard opportunities in poor countries, Scandinavian middle-classes to fly away from public social services, and some professional parents to prevent their gifted offspring from socialising with low-achieving mates as soon as possible.
The political economy approach seems to provide a third answer. Basically, it argues that political projects prevail depending on the power resources of their supporters. Since some of them are friendlier to the needy than other ones, they are likely to reduce inequalities if they become hegemonic. Thus, there is no general rule because there are many possibilities of political equilibrium, and each of them is a transitory state that may be challenged and transformed. In Sztompka’s terms, this theory highlights both an agential (i.e. people are salient actors) and a historical (i.e. collective projects may make a difference) coefficient of social change.
You can sophisticate your arguments by reading “Diverse Paths to Progress” (UNDP HDR 2010, chapter 3). It provides an overview of the available evidence, and confirms that this data contradicts the expectations associated with modernisation. Although the HDR analysis draws on institutionalist theories, it also adds some qualifications inspired in the ‘political economy dilemma’. So, read it!

L’angoixa per la crisi financera que afecta els països rics amaga altres crisis que recauen amb més duresa sobre els països més pobres del món. De fet, el darrer Informe de Seguiment de l’Educació per Tothom assenyala la cara educativa d’aquestes crisis de desenvolupament. Aquest informe revisa l’estat dels indicadors de l’escolarització als cicles infantil i primari, la finalització dels estudis primaris, l’equilibri entre nens i nens en totes aquestes dades, els rendiments educatius, l’alfabetització, i el finançament de l’educació. Si entre 202 i 2010 anunciava alguns avenços en l’ensenyament primari, malgrat moltes altres insuficiències, la darrera edició de 2011 malauradament dóna força raons per al pessimisme.

La primera manifestació d’aquesta crisi del desenvolupament educatiu s’observa en la dificultat de reduir el nombre d’infants exclosos de l’escola primària. Encara que entre 1999 i 2004 aquesta quantitat va disminuir a un ritme lent però constant que inspirava algunes esperances, el ritme es va desaccelerar significativament al llarg del quinquenni següent, fins al punt que si la tendència es manté el nombre absolut de criatures privades d’una plaça escolar podria haver augmentat el 2015, quan s’han d’avaluar els assoliments definitius d’aquests indicadors.

La segona manifestació està molt més lligada a les turbulències de la borsa i del deute sobirà, donat que les contribucions dels principals donants per al desenvolupament educatiu han minvat molt des del començament de la crisi. A hores d’ara, la migradesa d’aquestes aportacions respecte a l’ideal del 0,7% no és el principal maldecap, sinó que les contínues restriccions de les quantitats aportades pel Nord a favor del Sud acaparen l’atenció dels observadors. Encara pitjor,  la despesa educativa tan sols es manté als països més pobres del món a costa d’un creixent dèficit dels seus pressupostos, cosa que molt probablement dugui a més rebaixes a molt curt termini.

Broadly speaking, social sciences distinguish agency and the historical coefficient of social change (see Piotr Sztompka, 1993, The Sociology of Social Change; Spanish translation at UAB library). On the one hand, agency-based accounts highlight the role of agents in triggering and promoting change, whereas structure-based accounts rely on the causal power of societal orders that determine the actions of individuals. On the other hand, some analyses hypothesize that political projects impinge on the outcomes of change, whereas others assume that societal dynamics follow a sort of internal logics that political projects can only realise, or fail to realise. This is an important topic in the current course on Social Change and Globalisation at UAB.

Although novels are not discussing this abstract issue, they can provide insights into the importance of agents and political projects in social transformations. Of course, novels are also interesting for their literary qualities, and many writers really excel in narrating changes. Let me very simply recommend three fantastic novels written by Catalan authors. They are vibrant, and also very helpful to understand our topic. You can look for their translation to different languages, sometimes English, at the Institut Ramon Llull website (by simply coping the Catalan title).

First, Jaume Cabré’s “Les Veus del Pamano” tells a story contextualised in Franco’s Spain. There, you will see how ‘good families’ and local authorities collaborated to maintain the social order they had created after the Civil War. Agency and political projects are certainly at stake, but the narration includes a further point that enriches the story and signals one of the big debates in contemporary Spain: that of historical memory. Did you know about the connection between lovers, heroes, military casualties and Roman Catholic saints?

Second, Carme Riera’s “Dins el Darrer Blau” looks at the persecution of Jews in the Habsburg Monarchy territories in the seventeenth century. At that time, Inquisition tried to punish heresy and false Catholics who faked their faith while remaining Jews after the official expulsion of that religion in 1492. Two hundred years later, a group was slaughtered in Majorca in a complex political, religious and legal process. Agency is nicely portrayed in this novel by focusing on a key sociological concept, the unintended effects of social action. I am sure you will figure out which was the prevailing political project.

Third, Joan Francesc Mira’s “Borja Papa” is based on a rigorous research on the life and political work of this Roman Pope, complemented by some creative episodes about his thoughts and feelings. Do not expect the same kind of violence and sex as in the TV show Borgias; Mira’s novel constructs a very complete and complex character. Doubtless, agency is a substantial part of the story, not only because of conspiracy but also because of some crucial biographical episodes. The book also contains a relevant analysis of such an influential political project as the modern state was at the time (think of Max Weber).

The term “Europeanisation” is gaining momentum as a label for the many activities that eventually “make” Europe in all the social domains. Education plays an increasing role in these activities, not only because the Lisbon Agenda and the 2020 Strategy aim at meeting educational goals, but also because in many countries there are political and academic debates on lifelong learning, early school leaving and competencies. Significantly, in another world region such as Latin America a similar concern is even older than it is in Europe, and the contribution of education to regionalism have been highlighted recently by the statement of the Ibero American Educational Goals.

Actually, both processes are similar in a number of aspects:

– Both of them rely on open coordination between governments who are to meet targets and benchmarks each one in its own way.

– Their action is underpinned by a sort of  ‘programme theory’ on the beneficial effects of multidimensional educational policies, and moreover, their contribution to economic growth.

– Their very statement is an explicit instrument of regional building, either complementing the EU with more social cohesion or creating a community of Ibero American nations.

– The continuous monitoring of their advances and setbacks constitutes a regional space of debate.

– They qualify their official deadlines with complex arguments. Thus, the EU responded to the failure of the 2001-2010 Lisbon Agenda by blaming the current economic crisis and extending the period for the following decade. In a similar vein, the Ibero American Educational Goals widen the room of manoeuvre for some important governments. If they did not meet some of the global Education for All goals in 2015, they are allowed to reply that their country is immediately committed to other goals five years later.

But an important difference is really significant. While the EU is stretching its area of influence within an stable institutional regime, whatever their contradictions and shortcomings in many fields, these educational plans are much more competitive in Latin America. Actually, the Ibero American Educational Goals have been mostly launched by Spain and Portugal, with key support from Brazil and other governments. But they are somehow competing with the US-backed Program for the Educational Revitalization of the Americas, and the ALBA initiative led by Venezuela.

La globalització consisteix en un canvi molt significatiu de les escales geogràfiques de l’acció social. En comptes d’actuar només a l’escala de l’estat burocràtic que monopolitza la coerció en un territori determinat, ara com ara les empreses, institucions financeres, organismes internacionals, partits polítics, moviments socials, lobbies, think tanks, sindicats, esglésies, mitjans de comunicació i etcètera trien estratègicament de quina manera fan servir les escales local, estatal i global.

La campanya de les eleccions presidencials franceses de 2012 ha posat sobre la taula el debat sobre l’enorme influència de les finances i del lliure comerç a l’escala global de les accions socials. En particular, algunes candidatures volen discutir les maneres de retornar un cert poder econòmic als estats per tal que aflorin els costos socials i ecològics de l’activitat econòmica. Vegeu l’entrada a la Wikipédia.

En l’àmbit acadèmic, l’economista Jacques Sapir interpeta que la crisi financera ha engegat un procés de desglobalització, entre altres raons, perquè al capdavall els governs han esdevingut les darreres garanties de les institucions financeres. També l’economista nord-americà Dani Rodrik remarca la possibilitat que un proteccionisme comercial de caire social i ecològic recuperi aspectes de la sobirania dels estats i dels seus governs.

Des de Filipines, a partir de la seva col·laboració amb els moviments socials representats al Fòrum Social Mundial, Walden Bello eixampla el ventall de la proposta. A parer seu, no es tracta tan sols de finances i de comerç sinó també de la producció agrària,  la indústria i les polítiques socials; a més, tampoc no és qüestió de confiar tan sols en les decisions dels governs estatals sinó també d’obrir espais de participació a l’escala de les localitats o a l’escala de les regions mundials definides per afinitats culturals. Encara que no aborda directament el tema de l’educació i les polítiques socials, en fa una referència molt rellevant en suggerir que la redistribució de l’ingrés, de la propietat rural i del sòl urbà podria desfermar un “vibrant internal market that would serve as the anchor of the economy and produce local financial resources for investment”.

Per tant, l’anàlisi social de les escales geògrafiques que a hores d’ara duen a terme diverses ciències socials enllaça d’una banda amb els debats especialitzats sobre el canvi social, el poder, les desigualtats, l’acció col·lectiva o el territori, però d’una altra, proporciona conclusions que  també s’hauran de tenir en compte a l’hora de fer propostes com les anteriors.

Although it has a much longer history than the current global transformations, mining provides a very salient illustration of the complex rescaling this very globalisation entails. Notably, it relies on a local site, endows national states with a large fiscal basis, and underpins a new global industry, but mostly, the new globalised social field of the mining industry is featured by local and global developments.

Thus, mining is not only local insofar as minerals are located in a particular site, but also because its environmental impact is basically experienced at a local scale. For instance, specialisation in the sector, economic crisis, water pollution, environmental conflicts and the path of social changes in the US state of Montana provide a good example (see Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”).

Further, mining often entails a resource curse for many countries where the monetary and the political consequences of sudden mineral wealth have been mid-term stagnation, sharp inequality and impoverishment. However, the institutional articulation of mining and social policy has also contributed to strengthen the previously strong Norwegian state; it has been decisive to supply funds for social expenditure in democratic Chile too. Then, the outcome of conflicts at this national scale plays a critical role.

Mining corporations have gone global in order to manage their huge financial costs, to compensate for their important risks, and to avail of growing emergent economies. Compared to oil and gas, these corporations are quite negligent at cleaning their waste and improving their methods in order to counter environmental damage. Actually, many end in bankruptcy because they cannot surmount the consequent insurance costs.

But the same comparison between oil, gas and mining highlights a hypothetical explanation. Whereas the distribution chain of oil and gas is short and very visible, the distribution chain of minerals is much longer and more difficult to perceive. For this reason, mining corporations seem to be immune to transnational advocacy (see Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”, chapter 15).

Therefore, the political economy of mining is simultaneously a local, national and global phenomenon whose social relations are currently being rescaled in two ways. On the one hand,  companies are increasingly operating at the global scale in order to respond to huge financial needs and to avail of emergent demand. On the other hand, political action is not effective at this very global scale because the articulation of this sector with public policies remains a national phenomenon, and because transnational advocacy cannot easily show the link between consumption and the environmental effects of mining.