查看更多>>摘要：This paper explores the conditions under which the changes leading to the Great Transformation of food systems called upon by a growing number of international experts and development agencies, will (or not) happen. After discussing the meanings of 'transformation' in the specific context of food systems, we draw on different elements of political economy to show how various self-reinforcing dynamics are contributing to lock food systems in their current unsustainable trajectories. Those include the con-centration of economic and market power in the hands of the Big Food transnational corporations but also other actors' ideology, policy incoherence, national interests or culturally-embedded aspirations, which together create irreconcilable trade-offs and tensions between divergent individual and societal objectives and prevent the system from aligning toward a more sustainable trajectory. In this context, while innovation is often presented as a 'game-changer', we show how the current profit-driven nature of its evolutionary selection creates a random, adirectional, process incapable of steering food systems towards sustainability. We argue that unless those different issues are tackled all together in a resolutely normative, global, and prescriptive manner in which science would have a new role to play, there are serious risks that the Great Transformation will not happen. Based on these analyses, we identify path-ways to move the systems past its current locks-in and steer it toward its long-awaited sustainable trans-formation. In doing so we demonstrate that what is needed is not just a transformation of the food systems themselves, but a transformation of the governance of those food systems as well. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
查看更多>>摘要：How can states expand their fiscal capacity in the 21st century? I examine this question by looking at one of the most powerful contemporary fiscal tools at hand - the Value-Added Tax (VAT). Using a novel data set on VAT rates worldwide since 2000, I argue that fiscal problem pressure can lead to an expanded usage of the VAT. However, this effect depends on the type of political regime. Whereas democracies tend to raise VAT in dire fiscal times, VAT rates in autocracies are more immune to fiscal pressure. Furthermore, I demonstrate that a worse cost-benefit ratio of VAT increases in autocracies can account for this variation. These findings call for a closer investigation of political regime dynamics and fiscal policy-making worldwide.(c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
查看更多>>摘要：India has come a long way in achieving milk security since it attained independence in 1947. During the 1950s India had to import about 55,000 tons of milk powder. By the year 2018-19 it had become one of the largest producers of milk in the world. The credit for this goes to the successful promotion of dairy cooperatives (DCs) in India. However, milk productivity in the country has continued to lag behind global averages. To increase milk productivity in India, the National Dairy Plan (NDP) was launched in 2011-12. Limited research appears to have been conducted on the effect of NDP on DC performance. Therefore, this article analyzes the effect of NDP on DC performance by conceptualizing DCs as hybrid organizations. However, there is limited research on how the hybrid character of cooperatives affects their performance. Regression analysis using 2-stage doubly robust, augmented inverse probability weighted (AIPW) estimator based on the potential outcomes framework on DC data collected via surveys and secondary reveals that NDP is imbibing characteristics of hybrid organizations in Indian DCs. Hybridity is statistically significant after controlling for village-level and DC-level variables. Financial hybridity is significant for four dependent variables: unit profit, quality of milk, human capability-building and community support. Autonomy, the other measure of hybridity, is significant for two dependent variables: growth of sales and unit profit. In other words, Indian DCs with hybrid characteristics actually pursue three different kinds of objectives: a) maximization of market-based logics (pursuit of self-interest, economic efficiency and profit maximization); b) maximization of community-oriented logics (pursuit of values such democracy, solidarity and autonomy); and, c) maximization of public benefit (public-sector led local economic development). The above discussion shows that Indian DCs are characterized by synergetic outcomes and not by trade-offs which contrasts with theoretical literature.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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