David Harvey's
Research
Page
(Where I try to have fun while being useful, and
hope
that you can, too)
"If our minds were simple enough for us to understand them, we
would still
be too stupid to do so"
(Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World)
[last update: October, 2010]
Back to DRH Index Page
CONTENTS
Policy & Trade Analysis etc. (Old CAP, new
HAT -
Healthy Agricultural
Trade?):
- <>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.
Back to DRH Research IndexBack
to DRH Research Index
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).
Back to DRH Research Index
Conceptual Development of
Social
Science and Methods:
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:
Reconciliation of Academic Rigour and Policy
Relevance
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.
Back to DRH Research IndexBack
to DRH Research Index
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:
- 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?"
- 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?"
- 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?"
- 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?"
- 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?"
The brief for this essay series is that entries should be rigorous,
readable
and relevant. The objective is to narrow the gulf between academic
thought
and the issues of the public policy debate. They should, according to
the
brief, be engaging, informative, inspiring and well-written. They
should
display new ideas, and contribute effective communication. They should
display an intersection between academic expertise, public perceptions
and understandings, government practice and principles and media
treatments
of major issues.
Leadership, Competition and
Governance
- what Futures?
Well, I read this challenge with interest. If
I
am serious about trying to integrate social science, I should have
something
useful to say on at least one of these questions. If I
am
really serious about integrating social science, I should be able to
write
on ALL FIVE questions, and furthermore, integrate the answers into a
coherent
whole, shouldn't I? So I tried, and here are the results - designed to
be read in this particular order:
- Authority: Who needs it?
- Knowledge: How do we come by it and what
does it
mean?
- Culture Clash and War
- Is Trustice Possible?
- Equality: the beginning or the end?
The judges of this competition thanked me for my entries but had no
further
comment to make. Such is life! So, if you cannot now be
bothered
to read all this junk, you might like to try a condensed version (of
most
except Knowledge), which I submitted as an entry to the American
Agricultural
Economics Association "Essay for the 21st. Century Competition".
This also failed to win approval, of course, so has now been re-written
and submitted to the Journal of
Economic Perspectives (Jan. 2001), who
also turned it down (June, 2001) as being too philosophical for their
tastes! A similar article was also submitted to Ecological Economics, who did at
least have the decency to return more extensive reviewers' comments,
the major one being that I should write it as a book, since the
arguments are too dense to fit into a journal article. One of
these days, I will get it written as a book. Meanwhile,
I may still have to go sailing instead.
Otherwise, I did finally manage to get some of this stuff published
(over the considerable antagonism of at least one referee) in the house
journal of the Academy
of Social Sciences - 21st
Century Society (2008) - thank you, Editor.
Well, this stuff makes some sort of sense to me!
Maybe the time has come to remove the "Agri" from "Agricultural
Economics"
-> Cultural Economy (or Cultonomy; Culturomics; Comics?)
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
MEANWHILE, I occupy quite a lot of my
time being the Editor of the Journal of
Agricultural Economics for the Agricultural Economics Society.
Back to DRH Research Index
Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed yourself.
Comments
& Suggestions welcome
Or
return to SAFRD home
page?
LAST UPDATED: October, 2010.
Back to DRH Index Page