Suchergebnisse

"Some two decades will shortly have passed since the WTO's Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement came into force in 1995. TRIPS is widely considered to have had a negative impact on access to medicines through its rules on pharmaceutical patents. This volume is the first cross-country analysis of how TRIPS has affected the capacity of 11 major low or medium income countries to produce generic drugs and assesses the wider political economy of drug production and consumption in the Global South"--

This volume brings together a set of studies analyzing different aspects of food and agriculture in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This sector is of crucial importance to the MENA economies, especially in terms of employment. Agriculture is particularly important for the poor, both on the consumption side - a large part of their budget is allocated to food - and as a source of incomes as most of the poor live in rural areas where agriculture dominates. Agriculture production in MENA is severely constrained by water scarcity and low, irregular rainfall. Sustainability is a major concern in many parts of the region as the quality of land and water resources is deterioration and scarcity becomes more severe due to growing competition from other parts of the economy. The fact that the region relies on imports for a large share of its food consumption is a major concern for policymakers who view this as a threat to national food security and a source of political vulnerability. The studies included in this volume range from regional overview to micro studies. The chapters with a country focus cover issues that are recurrent in many MENA countries, giving them a broader relevance. The analyses cover policy issues in a wide range of areas - water, drought management, agriculture technology, producer and consumer subsidies, domestic food distribution, and foreign trade - and discusses how coordinated policies in these and other areas can contribute to more rapid, sustainable growth and poverty reduction

Commentary on the successful directing and scriptwriting debut of Florian von Donnersmarck, The Lives of Others, tends to divide into those faulting the film for its lack of historical accuracy and those praising its artistry and conciliatory symbolic function after the reunification of the GDR and BRD. This essay argues that even when we grant the film's artistic premise that music can convert the socialist revolutionary into a peaceful liberal, suspending the demand for realism, the politics intrinsic to the film still leads to a problematic conclusion. The stern Stasi officer in charge of the surveillance of a playwright and his actress partner comes to play the part of a selfless savior, while the victimized actress becomes a betrayer. Her shame however, is not shared by the playwright, Dreyman, and the Stasi officer, Wiesler, who never meet eye to eye but instead become linked in a mutual gratitude centering on the book dedicated to Wiesler, written years later when Dreyman learns of the other's having subversively protected him from imprisonment. Despite superb acting and directing, dependence on such tenuous character development makes the harmonious conclusion of the film ring hollow and implies the need for more serious challenges to German reunification.

Commentary on the successful directing and scriptwriting debut of Florian von Donnersmarck, The Lives of Others, tends to divide into those faulting the film for its lack of historical accuracy and those praising its artistry and conciliatory symbolic function after the reunification of the GDR and BRD. This essay argues that even when we grant the film's artistic premise that music can convert the socialist revolutionary into a peaceful liberal, suspending the demand for realism, the politics intrinsic to the film still leads to a problematic conclusion. The stern Stasi officer in charge of the surveillance of a playwright and his actress partner comes to play the part of a selfless savior, while the victimized actress becomes a betrayer. Her shame however, is not shared by the playwright, Dreyman, and the Stasi officer, Wiesler, who never meet eye to eye but instead become linked in a mutual gratitude centering on the book dedicated to Wiesler, written years later when Dreyman learns of the other's having subversively protected him from imprisonment. Despite superb acting and directing, dependence on such tenuous character development makes the harmonious conclusion of the film ring hollow and implies the need for more serious challenges to German reunification.

This article appraises the role of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) in West Bengal, where the CPM-led Left Front formed government uninterruptedly between 1977 and 2011. It identifies four phases of Left politics in West Bengal: the period during which communists built support for a programme of radical transformation; the post-1977 years when the Left Front introduced land reform and effective local government that produced a 'party society' in rural areas; a third stage when popular support was subverted through clientelism tinged with coercion and petty corruption; and the 1990s, when growth in agricultural output petered out, the proportion of landless labourers increased and employment in manufacturing stagnated. The Left had also not delivered significant progress in social policy. The CPM turned to corporate investments and special economic zones. This trajectory points to problems of party ideology and the imperative of renewal to devise an anti-capitalist strategy.

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Pharmaceutical benefits provide a stable framework within which consumers, prescribers, suppliers, pharmacists and other actors undertake transactions. The state in effect delivers a good that enhances individual autonomy. A major reason for the legitimacy enjoyed by pharmaceutical benefits in both Australia and Sweden is that these programs have strong attributes of universalism (rather than targeting). Sweden's predominantly public health system allows greater scope for pharmaceutical policy innovation. Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), while historically resilient and effective, is now wedged precariously between traditional considerations of equity and public health on the one hand, and constant pressure for increased marketisation on the other.

In the first half of the 1970s, Egypt turned away from the Soviet Union and initiated an economic open-door policy. Since then, the United States, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank have encouraged comprehensive reforms that would make Egypt an outward-looking market-oriented capitalist economy in which the private sector plays a dominant role. While the Egyptian economy had gone in that direction between 1974 and 1990, it had fallen far short of what they were looking for. In lengthy negotiations with the IMF, Egypt had, in spite of strong pressure, remained unwilling to implement many elements in this orthodox reform package. At the same time, most observers agreed that the government's own policies were not successful: living standards declined while the foreign debt grew rapidly, undermining the country's political independence. Analysts attributed this resistance to reform in the face of foreign pressure to a mix of domestic and foreign factors.