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David Harvey's Research Page

• <>In early 2006, the UK House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committe Inquired into the "Government's Vision for the Common Agricultural Policy" (by HM Treasury and DEFRA).  I submitted a pair of memoranda to this Committee, criticising this vision and offering an alternative. The Committee's report was published on 23 May, 2007, HC 546, 4th Report, 2007/08<>, and subsequently also produced a further report in November, 2007 responding to the Government's reply to this report. 
• In December, 2005, the European Summit finally agreed its budget for 2007 - 2013, in spite of considerable differences between (especially) France and the UK about the CAP and about the UK Budget Rebate (which Mrs Thatcher beat out of the rest of the EU in recompense for the large net contributions which the UK otherwise makes to the EU). One promise made in this agreement is for the European Commission  "to undertake a full, wide ranging review covering all aspects of EU spending, including CAP, and of the resources, including the rebate, to report in 2008/9”.  My response to this promise: Euro-Choices, 5 (1), Spring, 2006.
  
• Policy Dependencies:  a paper to the 2003 Conference of International Agricultural Economists, Durban, SA., on the problems of policy reform, subsequently published in Agricultural Economics, 31, 2004, 265 - 275
  
• Multi-functionality - what might it mean and how do we analyse and manage it? Published in The World Economy, May, 2003, 705 - 725.
• Thoughts on CAP Reform, 2010.
  

Modelling and Analysing Land Use/Environmental interactions (CAREful or what?)

• Continuing cooperation and participation with, inter alia, Newcastle University Research centres and Institutes: the Institute for Research on the Environment and Sustainability (IRES) and the Centre for Rural Economy (CRE). Key interests here are in spatial diversity and associated diversity of human behaviour patterns and the incorporation of such diversity within manageable and tractable simulation systems. Diversity is seen here as a fundamental characteristic of natural and human systems, and an essential prerequisite for evolutionary adaptation. Economic and political systems then provide the criteria against which such adaptations are judged to be fit for purpose. This interest leads to the final (and possibly most important, certainly obsessional) research theme.
• SCoPE:  Sustainable Cultivation of Productive Environments - An ESRC RELU Phase IV project (18 months, from October, 2010) with Steve Rushton (NIReS) and others - to develop an interactive 'storyboard' for the communication and negotiation of scenarios for sustainable development (in the first instance, for English Uplands).
  

These ideas are currently being developed in working papers and associated teaching/learning materials, some of which are located on my teaching site (under the general heading of "The Nature of Enquiry & Explanation in the Social Sciences). Incidentally, if you think I am getting this stuff substantially wrong, please let me know. Presently, the key themes are as follows:

The "world common model" of liberal economies coupled with universal suffrage and democracy suffers a paradox. Economic logic and market behaviours, typically also associated with scientifically-verified truths, lead to certain policies and policy recommendations which are frequently judged unacceptable by the political machinery of democratic control. Examples include farm policy reform, food health and safety regulation, trade restrictions, environmental protection, rural development, climate change amelioration.

Further, more and more disparate professions and disciplines are becoming involved in these debates and analyses. Those responsible for making and deciding policy frequently consider that conventional academic and disciplinary bases for analysis of and recommendation on major policy issues facing the agri-food-environmental complex, both nationally and internationally, are inadequate or incomplete. Our students and social science colleagues are not convinced of the supremacy and natural authority of the scientific method or neoclassical logic. Post-modernism is rife, whatever else it is. At root, the post-modern notion that all reality is a conceptual construct, and thus subject to dispute, is a scientific notion. We may be wrong. If so, what might a more plausible and consistent story look like?


I am still trying to understand these issues, and have only managed limited progress so far. You can find some of my most recent thoughts in:
"How does Economics fit the Social World" - Journal of Agricultural Economics, 55, 2, July, 2004, 313 - 337,
"A Conjecture on the Nature of Social Systems" - 21st Century Society (Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences), 3, 1 (February), 2008, 87 - 108.

The Prosepct/ESRC New Century Essay Challenge.

In 1999, Prospect Magazine, in conjunction with the Economic and Social Science Research Council of the UK, issued a Challenge to Social Scientists to write an essay on one of five themes or questions deemed by the rulers of this challenge to encapsulate "the biggest issues of our times". Prospect Magazine bills itself as the leading British political and intellectual monthly magazine. So it should know, especially with the help of the ESRC, what these issues are. The five questions they set are as follows:

1. Crisis of Authority: "Is there a crisis of authority in advanced industrial democracies? It is evident from the family to high politics that authority is weaker and more defensinve than 30 years ago. Is this the welcome result of the onward march of democracy and the decline of elites and elitism? Or is it an unintended consequence of modernity which will undermine decncy and trust in human relations and reasoned discourse in public affairs?"
2. Trade, Justice and Starvation: "Bill Clinton talks about putting a human face on global capitalism. But is the western dominated global trade system helping people out of their misery or locking them into it? Do human rights have geographic boundaries and is trade bad for the environment? What are the responsibilities of the west and how can they best be met?"
3. The End of Equality: "Does the third way need a theory of justice? Equality of outcome has long since been abandoned as a political goal of the left, but what should take its place? The focus of the Blair government is on improving minimum standards at the bottom of the scale and ÔincludingÕ people through the labour market. Does this mean we should cease to care about the gap between rich and ppor so long as the poor are becoming richer?"
4. The Next War? "After Kosovo and East Timor what should be the rules of engagment for the western led international community? How do we deal with the problem that those countries most willing to intervene to enforce liberal norms are also least able willing to sustain casualties? Will violent inter-state conflict remain relatively small scale and beyond the westÕs borders, or is the return to a large "third world war" conflict still feasible?"
5. Information without Knowledge: "The new knowledge economy confuses information with knowledge and fashion with judgement. Claims that the internet will stimulate democracy, education and wealth creation and help to narrow the social divide have so far prived too optimistic. Can the knowldege economy sceptics be confounded?"

Leadership, Competition and Governance - what Futures?

1. Authority: Who needs it?
2. Knowledge: How do we come by it and what does it mean?
3. Culture Clash and War
4. Is Trustice Possible?
5. Equality: the beginning or the end?

Some useful references:

• Boulding, K.E., 1973, The Economy of Love and Fear: A preface to Grants Economics, Wadsworth, Belmont, California.
• Capra, F., 1996, The Web of Life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter, Harper Collins.
• Deutsch, D., 1997,The Fabric of Reality, Penguin
• Frank, R.H. 1988, Passions within Reason - the Strategic Role of Emotions, Norton.
• Hofstede, G. 1994, Cultures and Organisations, Harper Collins
• Margolis,S., 1982; Selfishness, Altruism and Rationality, Cambridge University Press.
• North, D.C., 1990, Insititutions, Insititutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge University Press.
• Strange, S., 1994: States and Markets, 2nd. edition, Pinter.
• Tarnas, R., 1991: The Passion of the Western Mind, Pimlico, Random House.
• Dennett, D. C., 1995: Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the meanings of Life, Penguin Books

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LAST UPDATED: October, 2010.
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