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The Mythology of Modern Lawby Peter Fitzpatrick (London and New York: Routledge), 1992 pp 235 (£12.99).

Exploring and updating the controversial debates about the relationship between democracy and development, this Research Handbook provides clarification on the complex and nuanced interlinkages between political regime type and socio-economic development. Distinguished scholars examine a broad range of issues from multidisciplinary perspectives across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Analysing the relationship between political regime types, including varieties of democracies and autocracies, and broader development indicators, chapters cover economic growth, poverty and human development, inequality, corruption, conflict, human rights, and environmental sustainability. The Research Handbook examines longstanding and unresolved debates in the field over the past 60 years, as well as investigating contemporary issues of rising global inequalities, the resurgence of authoritarian populism, and the crisis of liberal democracy.

This article examines the Partnership for Governance Reform in Indonesia, described as an innovative co-operation arrangement among the Indonesian government, civil society organizations, the private sector and Indonesias international development partners. It inquires into whose agenda prevails. Is there genuine national ownership, with subordination of external activities to locally-devised reform strategies, as claimed? Alternatively, is partnership merely the latest ploy to disguise international intervention and simultaneously accord it greater legitimacy? Such questions are addressed by two means: first, by exploring whether the Partnerships reform agenda coincides with the main challenges to sustained democratization in Indonesia; and secondly, by examining the structure and activities of the Partnership and whether Indonesian or international influences predominate.(Contemp Southeast Asia/DÜI)

AbstractThe question of whether social movements can catalyze change has preoccupied researchers but an understanding ofhowsuch change can be created is equally important. Specifically, there has been little investigation of how women's movements engage in the process ofimplementationof women's rights laws. We use a case study of Ghana's Domestic Violence Coalition to examine the challenges that movements face in the policy implementation process. The Domestic Violence Coalition, a collective of women's rights organizations, was instrumental to the passage of Ghana's Domestic Violence Act in 2007. Our study investigates the coalition's subsequent attempts to influence the act's implementation. Drawing from the social movement literature, we apply an analytical framework consisting of three internal factors (strategies, movement infrastructure, and framing) and two external factors (political context and support of allies) that have mediated the coalition's impact on implementation. We find that changes in movement infrastructure are most significant in explaining the coalition's relative ineffectiveness, as these changes adversely affect its ability to employ effective strategies and take advantage of a conducive political context and the presence of allies. This article advances the literature on rights advocacy by women's movements by analyzing the challenge of translating success in policy adoption to implementation and explaining why women's movements may have less impact on implementation processes.

AbstractThis article examines irregular South‐South migration from China to Ghana, and the role it played in transforming livelihoods and broader developmental landscapes. It looks at the entry of approximately 50,000 Chinese migrants into the informal small‐scale gold mining sector from 2008‐2013. These migrants mainly hailed from Shanglin County in Guangxi Province. In Ghana, they formed mutually beneficial relationships with local miners, both legal and illegal, introducing machinery that substantially increased gold production. However, the legal status of Chinese miners was particularly problematic as, by law, small‐scale mining is restricted to Ghanaian citizens. In mid‐2013, President Mahama established a military task force against illegal mining, resulting in the deportation of many Chinese miners. The article examines the experiences of both Chinese migrants and Ghanaian miners. Findings are that irregular migration into an informal sector had long‐lasting impacts and played a significant role in the transformation of economic, political, and physical landscapes in Ghana.