Suchergebnisse

Atul Kohli, Poverty Amid Plenty in the New India. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, India. 2012. 272 pages. ₹ 395

We inhabit a thoroughly globalized world. People are increasingly and visibly connected by a "World Wide Web," by a world market, and by universalist discourses of human rights and democracy. At the same time, full citizenship in a political community—and the rights conferred by such citizenship—is an exclusive status that remains, remarkably, tied to accidents of birth and historical circumstance. And what one has a right to—gainful employment, education, health care, political voice, mere presence—is largely a function of whether one has the precious status of citizenship or is, alternatively, regarded as an alien. Ayelet Shachar's The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality is a compelling account of the moral arbitrariness of this state of affairs. A study in "normative political theory," it is a work of political science that incorporates legal theory, moral philosophy, political economy, and public policy. The author tackles issues of increasing global political importance—global disparities of wealth; unequal access to clear air, water, and a secure place to live; and the increasingly contentious politics of immigration and immigrant rights.So it seems fitting to invite a range of political science scholars who work on these topics to comment on the book. The basic editorial charge of this symposium is thus straightforward: How do you assess Shachar's arguments and the attention she focuses on the phenomenon of "birthright lottery"? How does this argument bear upon the topics and approaches that characterize your own scholarship? And how do these topics and approaches shed light on the book and its arguments? While the focus of the symposium is this provocative book, the discussion of it should also be regarded as an opportunity to address the question of whether or not the bases of citizenship need to be fundamentally reconceived, and in what ways political science can and should contribute to such a rethinking.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

At the same time that the world has reached unprecedented prosperity, issues of economic inequality have attained great political salience. In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, there are major differences in opinion regarding the responsibility of the United States and other wealthy countries and what the proper response should be. In July 2008, the Doha round of negotiations at the WTO broke down after developing countries could not reach an agreement with wealthy countries on agricultural trade. The IMF is under pressure to reform its governance to provide better representation to middle-income and poor countries. And development experts admonish the world about the growing gap between the world's affluent countries and "the bottom billion" (Collier 2007). It used to be that economic-development strategies would target economic growth and "let the rising tide lift all ships." Now, there is growing concern that growth be inclusive in order to make optimal use of societal resources and mitigate the political volatility that results when substantial segments of societies are excluded from the benefits of development.

The articles in this symposium present politics as an important intervening variable in the relationship between inequality and development. They highlight the complex and contingent ways in which politics mediates this relationship. The articles examine three key issues: (1) the extent and nature of international inequality and domestic inequality in the developing world; (2) the process through which inequality becomes—or does not become—a salient issue on the political agenda; and (3) the relationship between inequality and development under democratic and authoritarian regimes.