[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Third World left research collaboration, Kampala, 27-30/11

[Patrick Bond]

APISA – CLACSO - CODESRIA



SOUTH-SOUTH COMPARATIVE RESEARCH SEMINARS


THEME: THE FEASIBILITY OF DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENTAL STATES IN THE SOUTH


DATES: 27 – 30 November, 2006


VENUE: Kampala, Uganda.



CALL FOR APPLICATIONS



1. INTRODUCTION: THE NEED FOR A SOUTHERN REFLECTION ON THE DEMOCRATIC 
DEVELOPMENTAL STATE



The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the 
Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for 
the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are 
pleased to announce the Africa/Asia/Latin America scholarly 
collaborative initiative encompassing joint research, training, 
publishing and dissemination activities by researchers drawn from across 
the global South, and to call for applications for participation in the 
South-South comparative research seminars they are organising within the 
framework of the initiative. The theme that has been selected for the 
fourth seminar in the series is: The Feasibility of the Democratic 
Developmental State in the South. The seminar will take place in 
Kampala, Uganda, from 27 – 30 November, 2006. It is designed to generate 
a collective reflection among Southern intellectuals on a theme which is 
enjoying a revival against the backdrop of the crises of neo-liberalism. 
During the 1970s, in the wake especially of the transformations which 
the countries of East Asia were undergoing, a major discussion took 
place on the notion and experience of the developmental state. The 
debates covered a variety of concerns: the nature of the accumulation of 
capital that was going on, the implication of the export-orientation 
strategy that underpinned it, the feasibility of the developmental state 
that was emerging, its basic institutional attributes, the nature of the 
relationship between the state and business, the sustainability of the 
developmental state over the long-run, its social discontents and 
environmental impacts, its democratic deficits, the geo-political and 
strategic security contexts that triggered it in some regions of the 
South, its replicability in other regions of the developing world, the 
failure of developmentalism to take-root in some countries, and the 
local and global policy environments that shaped it.


During the 1980s, however, the developmental state debate went into 
recession as the neo-liberal market ideology gathered steam and 
sustained ideological attacks were launched both against the state as an 
institution and the state-led model of accumulation that predominated in 
the post-1945 period. During the two and half decades that market-led 
economic reforms prevailed and neo-liberalism enjoyed an ideological and 
a policy hegemony, all suggestions about an effective role for the state 
in the development process were deemed passé and illegitimate. Indeed, 
some even went so far as to proclaim the end of history on the basis of 
the alleged triumph of market capitalism over state socialism, and with 
it the death of development. It took a costly realisation that two and 
half decades of structural adjustment had failed signally to deliver the 
results that had been expected for reluctant efforts to begin to be made 
in the second half of the 1990s to recognise that the state had an 
inevitable and unavoidable role in development. Moreover, the type of 
state that was called for and the role which it needed to play could not 
simply be limited to a night watchman function of providing an enabling 
environment – that was nothing more than another way of re-casting the 
ideology of the minimalist state of the 1980s – but, more crucially, a 
state that is developmentalist in its ideological moorings, 
institutional chatacteristics and operational practices. It was in this 
context that the debate on the developmental state was revived, aided 
and popularised by spectacular episodes of market failures in East Asia 
and Latin America that took a huge toll that is comparable to the 
equally huge social costs that structural adjustment exacted across 
Africa, Central America and the Caribbeans, and South Asia.


The renewed debate on the developmental state is, however, taking place 
in a vastly changed political context in which pressures for democracy, 
whether popular or liberal, are in evidence globally and across the 
South. Also, all over the world, citizens are forging new claims of 
entitlement on the state and social policy has come to occupy a central 
place in politics. It is this context that, in part, accounts for the 
push to address the feasibility of bringing the state back more 
centrally into the developmental process as the leading agency in the 
developmental process whilst simultaneously building the socio-political 
foundations on which it is anchored on democratic principles and 
inclusive social policies that are capable of producing a democratic 
developmentalism. Participants in the Kampala session of the South-South 
Comparative Research Seminars are invited to reflect on the feasibility 
of the democratic developmental state in Africa, Asia and Latin America, 
doing so by revisiting the broad contours of the old developmental state 
debate whilst simultaneously addressing on-going efforts aimed at 
tackling the social and democratic deficits in the earlier experiments 
in developmentalism that occurred in East Asia by treating the notion of 
development as going beyond economic growth to include human 
development, social justice and environmental sustainability, as well as 
focusing on issues of regime types, embededness, and representativity. 
Other concerns that would merit being addressed include the possibility 
for the emergence or sustenance of a democratic developmental state in 
the South in the light of the widening national, South-South, and 
North-South inequalities that characterise the contemporary world 
system, the asymmetries that are built into the international 
development architecture such as it is presently structured, the 
constraints posed by the pre-dominantly neo-liberal tone and tenor of 
contemporary globalisation, and the implications of the hegemonic 
position of international finance capital driven by a speculative logic 
over manufacturing capital.


2. OBJECTIVES:

Within the ambit of the APISA-CLACSO-CODESRIA collaboration, a series of 
activities and programmes has been scheduled for implementation over the 
period to the end of 2007, among them three annual comparative research 
seminars. The seminars are designed to serve as a research forum for the 
generation of fresh and original comparative insights on the diverse 
problems and challenges facing the countries of the South. In doing so, 
it is hoped also that the seminars will contribute to the revival and 
consolidation of cross-regional networking among Southern scholars, 
foster a scholarly culture of Southern cross-referencing, and contribute 
to a type of theory-building that is more closely attuned to the shared 
historical contexts and experiences of the countries and peoples of the 
South. The seminars will be rotated among the three continents where the 
lead collaborating institutions are located, namely, Africa, Asia and 
Latin America. This way, participants in the seminars who will also be 
drawn from all three continents will be exposed to the socio-historical 
contexts of other regions of the South as an input that will help to 
broaden their analytical perspectives and improve the overall quality of 
their scientific engagements.

The underlying objective of the comparative research seminars is to 
offer participants an opportunity to transcend the limitations of 
received wisdom emanating from structures and processes of knowledge 
production and dissemination that are characterised by various degrees 
and layers of inequality. In doing so, it is hoped to both motivate and 
equip participants in the seminar with the critical theoretical and 
methodological perspectives that might be appropriate for gaining a full 
understanding of the specific situation of countries and peoples located 
outside the core of the international system such as it is presently 
structured. The main premise for this effort is the glaring inadequacy 
of the theories and methodologies developed in the North, and 
crystallised in the mainstream social sciences, to provide the required 
instruments for the attainment of a sound and holistic understanding of 
the problems confronting – and, in many cases, overwhelming the 
countries of the South. Through the seminars, it is hoped to be able to 
mobilise scholars from across the South to reflect on the alternatives 
that are available for overcoming the present situation. This way, the 
seminars will contribute to the promotion of a better knowledge and 
understanding of the theories and methodological approaches developed in 
different regions of the South as alternatives to the dominant, 
Northern-biased paradigms that have shaped the social sciences. It is 
also expected that participants will become acquainted with the local 
intellectual environment in the regions where different sessions of the 
seminar are hosted, and strengthen their comparative research capacities 
in the process. In sum, the seminars are structured to serve as a unique 
forum for enhancing a deeper understanding among Southern scholars of 
the history, politics, economy and culture of the countries of Africa, 
Asia and Latin America, and offer an opportunity to participants to 
develop long-lasting collaborative relationships with their counterparts 
from other Southern countries.

3. ELIGIBILITY FOR PARTICIPATION:

Scholars resident in countries of the South and who are pursuing active 
academic careers are eligible to apply to participate in the seminars. 
Each applicant should have an advanced university education and an 
established track record of research and publishing in any of the 
disciplines of the social sciences and humanities. Selection for 
participation will be on the basis of a competitive process. All 
together, 12 people will be selected for participation in the institute 
on the basis of four each from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The full 
participation costs of the selected laureates will be covered, including 
their travel costs (economy return air tickets), accommodation and 
subsistence.

4. COORDINATION:

Each seminar will be convened and coordinated by an experienced Southern 
scholar recognised for the versatility of his/her knowledge, 
acknowledged for his/her skills in applying the comparative methodology, 
and known either for the depth of work s/he has done in different 
regions of the South or for his/her capacity to draw on experiences from 
across the South in his/her writings. The convenor/coordinator will be 
responsible for establishing the comparative framework for the seminar 
for which s/he is responsible and will work with each participant to 
determine his or her primary area of focus. S/he will also undertake the 
task of synthesising results produced by the researchers into one major 
publication that will be designed to serve as a major statement on the 
theme of the seminar.

5. THE 2006 SEMINAR SCHEDULED FOR KAMPALA, UGANDA:

For the 2006 session of the South-South comparative research seminar, it 
has been decided by APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA to host it in Kampala, 
Uganda. CODESRIA will assume overall responsibility within the 
tri-continental partnership for the session. The local institutional 
host in Uganda that will be working closely with CODESRIA in managing 
the seminar is the Centre for Basic Research. The seminar will run from 
27 to 30 November, 2006. It is a requirement that prospective laureates 
should have a demonstrable working knowledge of the English language. 
APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA will work together with the local host to 
facilitate the procurement of entry visas to Uganda for the prospective 
participants whose applications are successful. At the end of the 
seminar, each participant will be expected to produce a publishable 
article which will be considered for inclusion in the book of 
proceedings that will be issued.

6. APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS:

Every researcher wishing to be considered for selection as one of the 12 
scholars to be invited to participate in the any of the comparative 
research seminars organised within the framework of the 
APISA-CLACSO-CODESRIA tri-continental partnership is required to submit 
an application that will comprise the following key items of documentation:

a) An outline research proposal, written in English, on the subject on 
which s/he would like to work. The topic selected must be related to the 
theme of the seminar and should have a demonstrable comparative 
potential. Proposals should not exceed 10 pages in length and should 
have a clearly defined problematic which can be followed through further 
research and culminate in a publishable scientific paper;

b) A covering letter, of one-page, which should indicate the motivation 
of the prospective researcher for wanting to participate in the seminar 
and explaining how they envisage that they and their institution will 
benefit from the programme;

c) An updated Curriculum Vitae complete with the names of the 
professional and personal references of the researcher, the scientific 
discipline(s) in which s/he is working, the nationality of the 
applicant, a list of recent publications, and a summary of the on-going 
research activities in which the applicant is involved;

d) A photocopy of the highest university degree obtained by the 
applicant and of the relevant pages of his/her international passport 
containing relevant identity data;

7. APPLICATION PROCEDURES AND DEADLINE

As the comparative research seminar will involve the participation of 
researchers from Africa, Asia and Latin America, it has been decided 
that applicants resident in Africa should submit their applications to 
CODESRIA, those resident in Asia to APISA and those resident in Latin 
America to CLACSO. The full contact details for APISA, CLACSO AND 
CODESRIA are reproduced below for the attention of all prospective 
applicants. The deadline for the receipt of applications is 31 October, 
2006. Applications found to be incomplete or which arrive after the 
deadline will not be taken into consideration.

An independent Selection Committee charged with screening all 
applications received will meet shortly after the deadline for the 
receipt of applications. Successful applicants will be notified 
immediately the Selection Committee completes it work. Notification of 
results will be dome by e-mail, fax and post. The results of the 
selection exercise will also be published on the websites of APISA, 
CLACSO and CODESRIA.

 Latin American and Caribbean applicants should send their applications to:

CLACSO,

(2006 South-South Comparative Research Seminars)

Callao 875, 3º (1023) Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA
Tel: (54 11) 4811-6588 / 4814-2301; Fax: (54 11) 4812-845
E-mail: programa_sur-sur at campus.clacso.edu.ar

Website: www.clacso.org



 Asian applicants should send their applications to:

APISA,

(2006 South-South Comparative Research Seminars)

Strategic Studies and International Relations Program

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, MALAYSIA

Tel: 603- 89213647; Fax: 603-89213332

E-Mail: secretariat at apisanet.org

Website: www.apisainfo.org



 African applicants should send their applications to:

CODESRIA,

(2006 South-South Comparative Research Seminars),

BP 3304, CP 18524, Dakar, SENEGAL

Tel: (221) 825 9822: Fax: (221) 824 1289

E-mail: south.institute at codesria.sn

Website: www.codesria.org