GEOG10001 -无代写
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GEOG10001
FAMINE: THE GEOGRAPHY OF SCARCITY
LECTURE 8: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF
HUNGER, POVERTY AND ENTITLEMENTS
DR SERGIO JARILLO
LECTURE OUTLINE
1. The Political Economy of Hunger
- Political economy
- Distribution theory
- Political Ecology
2. Poverty and Livelihoods
- Livelihoods and poverty
- The Market
- Politics, war and conflict
3. Poverty and Entitlements
- Origins of poverty
- Poor households
- Entitlement’s theory (Amartya Sen)
Amartya Sen
Nobel Prize in
Economics,
1998
Part 1. The Political Economy of Hunger
• Contrasting theories (abundance theory vs distribution)
• Distribution and political ecology
- Scale
- Livelihoods and poverty
- The market
- Politics and policy
- War and conflict
What is political economy?
A discipline/theoretical lens concerned with the relationship of 3 elements:

Markets Society
Political Power
Political Economy in the context of Distribution
Theory and Political Ecology thinking
Political economy focusses on:
• The roles of the state, political interests and economics in the production,
exchange and distribution of resources, rights and opportunities

• Power and power dynamics: the social, political and economic interests
to direct or influence behaviours and course of events to obtain an
outcome
• Power creates inequality, marginalization and hunger – Power fights
inequality, marginalization and hunger
What is political economy?
Markets Society
Political Power
- The state
- International
organizations
(UN)
- Political parties
- NGOs
- Religious institutions
- Stock markets
- Financial institutions (banks,
credit rating agencies)
- Corporations
- Cooperatives
- Trade unions
- Foundations
The Political Economy of Distribution Theory
• Focuses on the distribution of food:
- Who produces it
- Who gets it (and who holds it)
- Why distribution is uneven
• Considers the economic, political and cultural factors that affect food
availability
• Political power over food access and use drives hunger across scale
(global, regional, national and local) and level (household and individual)
Distribution theory
Why do famines take place in
situations of moderate to good
food availability? (Sen 1981)
Highlights how uneven distribution is a
socially created problem, orchestrated
through political economic dynamics
- Uneven access/hoarding/misallocation
e.g. the ‘paradox of plenty’:
resource/food rich countries can have
deep poverty/hunger (Boucher 1999)
- Resource curse (e.g. petro states)
What is political ecology?
A discipline/theoretical lens that looks at how economic structures
(markets) and power relations drive environmental change.
Markets Environment
Political Power
Political ecology theory
• What drives environmental change and degradation?
- Resource extraction (e.g. mining, logging)
- Agricultural conversion
• Why political ecology?
- Provides a counter to Malthusian and Neomalthusian arguments that
blame environmental degradation and famine on growing human
populations
- Demographic growth is too simplistic to explain an unsustainable use of
resources
• Political ecology looks at the role of capitalist markets state forces in:
- Local dispossession
- Environmental disruption
Political ecology and famine
- Economic and political changes influence the environment
- Changes in the environment are not ‘natural’ but human-made and
motivated by market forces and political interests
- Those changes affect use of and access to land, food production
and food exchange
- Everything is connected (global, national and local politics and
economic influence)
- Control is never absolute and unchecked: resistance, pushback, class
struggles, Indigenous movements etc. (Scott’s Weapons of the Weak,
1985, where he explains that oppressed peasants resist domination
not through organized rebellion but through everyday, hidden acts of
defiance that collectively undermine power structures while
minimizing personal risk)
Political ecology and famine
• Highly uneven forms of access and control over
resources and their implications for the environment
can deepen hunger and starvation over time and
space (Peet and Watts, 1996, p. 6).
• Key temporal, spatial concepts:
-Commodification
-Alienation, Ecological Change
-Adaptation, Resistance
CAUSES OF FOOD INSECURITY AND FAMINE ARE ROOTED IN
UNEVEN ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, CULTURAL, POLITICAL AND
ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS AND OUTCOMES IN THE CONTEXT OF
• LIVELIHOODS/ FOOD/ POVERTY (EMPHASIS TODAY)
• MARKET FAILURES (ECONOMIC ISSUES)
• POLICY FAILURE AND POLITICS
• WAR AND VIOLENT CONFLICT

Decreased access/ use
increased
marginalisation
Ecological
change/ decline
Using distribution theory and political ecology to
examine:
The issue of scale in the political economy of famine
(for distribution theory and political ecology)
Scales of analysis
Global
Regional (e.g. the Sahel)
National
Provincial
Local (e.g. village)
Household
Individual
In political ecology
scales are nested too:
‘Glocal’
Part 2. Poverty and Livelihoods
Livelihoods and poverty
• The cyclical nature of poverty
(or poverty traps)
• Economic growth does not
necessarily reduce poverty (or
increase food security)
• Other variables
(internal/external political
economic processes,
environmental…
Quality/ type
of environment
Access/ use
constraints
Gender relations
Debt, savings
Markets
Power / control
Culture
adaptation
resistance
Familial support
Labour and land
Sharing etc
The poverty trap and political economic variables
- Food is cultivated,
collected, traded, bought
through livelihood
specialisations
- Landscapes are
multifunctional (and often
a function of livelihoods
and viceversa)
- Food can be
grown/exchanged and
this is influenced by: land
tenure regimes,
knowledge systems, assets,
labour, culture…
- Food insecurity is not
always due to poverty!
The Sustainable
Livelihoods Framework
(SLS)
- Tool/analytical device
- Holistic and integrated
- Use for analysis (but also policy-
making = can change peoples
lives)
- Especially for people, households
and communities that are
vulnerable
- Looks at the elements that allow
people to make a living
(livelihoods) sustainably over time
Livelihood and poverty
Poverty: when social and material needs are least satisfied
• Chronic: chronically poor are more or less permanently food insecure
• Transitory: people can move above and below poverty thresholds at
certain times
• Relative and absolute poverty
PNG data: Gibson
2001
Calories/
capita/day
% of children stunted % of household
expenditure on sweet
potato
Rural PNG 2,665 47% 12%
Urban PNG 2,645 20% 1.8%
All PNG 2,662 43% N/A
Relative poverty
Not having as much as others in the same society
Measured by relative shares of income of richest and poorest (ascertains
in/equality)
Gini coefficient:
- 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality)
- Countries with > 0.6: means the poor have a very small share of income
Gini coefficient
- 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality)
- > 0.6: the poor have a very small share of income
Country
Share of
income
of
poorest
10%
Share of
income of
richest 10%
Gini
Australia 3% 27% 0.35
Brazil 1% 42% 0.51
Colombia 1% 42% 0.51
Honduras 1% 46% 0.50
Norway 1% 21% 0.27
Slovak
Rep
4% 21%
0.25
Absolute poverty
When basic needs
cannot be met
Measured against a
standard baseline
World bank uses US$2.15
pp/day
Country
% pop below
USD$2.15 / day
Australia 0.30%
Benin 50%
Burkina Faso
44%
Niger 46%
Norway 0%
Zambia 58%
Given what
we learned in part I
what does $2.15
omit? Is money the
only way to examine
poverty?
The market
In essence, markets are institutions that enable structured exchanges
for the interests of buyers and sellers – mediate livelihoods and
poverty
Markets are political as much as economic
• Capitalist, free markets
Less government, individual property rights, money price, profit
drives supply and demand
• Socialist (market economy), ‘less free’ market
More government (state ownership), collective rights, govt sets
prices, redistribution meets supply/ demand
The market
National, Domestic
• State politics, ideology
• Markets strongly influence the
supply, distribution and
consumption of food:
– among countries
– within countries
• And trading of food and non-food
goods and services for income:
– among countries
– within countries
Globally
• Global monetary institutions
• Countries export and import
• The terms of trade (price for
exports relative to price of imports)
is an important determinant of
food supply
• how much of one commodity (say
rice) a country can purchase by
selling a unit volume (say a ton of
coffee) of another commodity?
Politics, war and conflict
Political factors (scaled):
• Strategic disruptions in supply
– South Sudan today, Ethiopian famine
1983-5
– Western media
• Persistent development biases, e.g:
– Some countries favoured over others
cities over towns and rural areas
– ethnicity, class and religious influences
focus of development activities
– bias in household consumption against
females
Politics, war and conflict
The Guardian 23 Oct 2014
Politics, war and conflict
Political factors:
• Democracy (vs authoritarian/ command, control)
- Multi-party elections
- Failure to act means government may not be re-elected
- Democracy is an ‘anti-famine political contract’ (Waal 1997). Really?
Not always
• Free press (holds governments accountable and exposes misdeeds)
• Campaigning civil society
- to publicize emergencies, drive votes
Politics, war and conflict
Policy issues:
• Agricultural policy
- Cash crops vs subsistence crops (food for domestic consumption)
- Research and development
- Investments
- Land tenure
• Environmental policy
• Transport infrastructure policy
• Water allocation policy
• Population policy
• “Famine is largely a
function of institutional,
organisational, and policy
failure” (von Braun et al.
1998:2)
• Political famines do not
operate according to the
economic rules of supply
and demand
• In famines created by
repressive governments or
civil conflict, the link
between individual wealth
and access to food is
broken
Politics, war and conflict
War and armed conflict:
• Disrupts economic activity
• Disrupts food production
• Disrupts food transport and storage
• Armed forces appropriate food
and medical assistance

• Labour shortages through conscription
and death
Distribution theory vs political ecology: which one
provides a better answer?
In different ways, they both interrogate:
• Interactions within the world economy
• Complex state policies
• Distribution of wealth within countries
• Allocation of wealth within households
• Sudden failures in access to food
• Local perspectives
Bottom line is that examining relationships and associations critically might
be more important than ascertaining causality (especially if causality is
simplified or wrong!)
Remember these 2 things:
1. Food insecurity and famine is
more complex than the simple
balance between population
and food supply.
2. Food problems cannot be
understood independent of broader
political economic systems that
operate across a range of scales
(global – individual). Food problems
are always a combination of
political, economic, ecological, and
distributional problems.
Art by Juliana
Naufel
Part 3. Poverty and Entitlements
Origins of poverty
Modernisation Theory, Economic Growth and Poverty
• Modernisation theory (1960-80s): stated that top-down economic
development will inevitably ‘progress’ traditional societies [and
reduce poverty] as they adopt modern ways and means as part of
societies’ march to capitalist industrialisation (Harrison, 1990)
• Walt Rostow (1960): 5 Stages of Economic Growth:
Traditional Society → Preconditions of Take-off → Take-off
→ Drive to Technological Maturity → High Mass consumption

Origins of poverty
Modernisation Theory, Economic
Growth and Poverty
• Modernization and Trickle Down
Economics
• Increasing levels of wealth
without redistributing, where
wealth and income goes does
not change relative poverty
(inequality), and may not
influence absolute poverty
Origins of poverty
Instead of the simplistic modernization theory, real world causes of
poverty include a combination of:
• Unemployment • Poor transport
• Job insecurity • Lack of savings schemes
• Lack of inputs to agriculture • Corruption
• No access to technology • No political power
• Lack of access to markets • No access to education
• Lack of credit facilities • No social welfare
• Insecure land tenure • Debt
Poor households
1. Have minimal capital assets (a significant piece of property that I
useful/yields benefit)
• Land ownership customary and contested: formal to them, informal to
state (not recognized in law, so no deeds)
– If no property rights, no ownership, less legitimacy (renters, occupants)
• Have few productive assets (tools, livestock)
3. Labour is their main resource
• Familial, labour exchange
• Age, gender and health constraints/biases
• Wages is a critical determinant
• Costs of travel; red tape etc
Poor households
3. Rely heavily on social capital (relations in the community, including family
and neighbours)
• Personal (social) relationships: kinship and community provide support→
afford ACCESS
• Strong bonds and networks an advantage (weak bonds break in times of
crisis)
• Enable flexibility:
- Donations/loans in times of need
- Access to new markets
• Widen economic space through migration and remittances
Poor households
4. Knowledge, skills and education (human capital)
• Usually low formal education (but in rural areas high local knowledge,
adaptive skills superior)
• Restricted range of formal employment (but diverse range of local
livelihood opportunities → diversification – spreads risk)
• Limited to low wage employment (but diverse forms of procuring
income)
• Education is usually a priority, but often unaffordable, and has risks.
Poor households
4. Socially marginal (sometimes
deliberately)
• Geographically remote from power
May be by design (Art of Not Being
Governed, Scott 2009)
• Socially remote from power (class,
ethnicity and gender discrimination)
• Inadequate governance structures
• Victims of repression / violence
”The hills are places of refuge from
state power” (Scott’s thesis is that
people have historically fled to
highland regions to escape state
control, taxation, and forced labor.
Poor households
In a famine:
• Income decreases when labour opportunities decline, land is taken,
when there’s no fixed minimum wage, & when agri-commodity
production collapses
• Food inflationary prices increase (scarcity); and price of export
commodities drop…. Debts recalled (creditors need capital)
• Social capital forms of support dwindle
• Chronically food insecure now become severely food insecure =>
morbidity => mortality
Entitlements (and why poverty is not just about
income)
Amartya Sen, 1981, Poverty and Famines
1998 Nobel Prize (economics)
Many famines occurred without a food availability deficit
Is there enough food?
Does everybody have enough food? (beyond income, to access, use
and for their well being)
Entitlements: “the set of alternative commodity bundles that a person can
command in a society using the totality of rights and opportunities that he
or she faces.” - Sen, 1984: 497. Entitlements are the resources and goods
that a person can actually access based on their rights and opportunities
in society.
Entitlements
For Sen, entitlements are legally-based social and material rights
Food Availability Decline (FAD Approach)
vs
Food Entitlement Decline (FED Approach)
“Starvation deaths can reflect legality with a vengeance” (Sen,
1981: 49)
Entitlements
Four entitlements categories
(or the right to…)
1. Production-based (growing food)
2. Trade-based (buying food)
3. Own-labour (working for food)
4. Inheritance and transfer (aid)
Entitlements are mobilized with:
1. Capabilities (what allows
people to do things)
2. Endowments (bundles of
resources)
Entitlements
Capabilities are the conditions and rights that enable people to
do things (Sen 1999)

• Bodily health and integrity and an ability to imagine, reason,
feel, play, affiliate with others, and to hold property (Nussbaum
2000).
• Enabled by bureaucratic, legal, cultural and customary
institutions that set the norms and rules of social conduct
Entitlements
Endowments are bundles of resources (social and material assets) and
capabilities (conditions and rights) that can be transferred into (producing)
food, or to goods and services that can be exchanged for food
• Productive capital
• Non-productive capital
• Human capital
• Income
• Claims
Remember the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and the Five Capitals?
Entitlements
Individual actions to expand endowments (assets) and capabilities
(rights and conditions):
1. Increasing wages
- Education/training
- Migration
2. Borrowing
- E.g. microfinance
3. Relying on social capital (providing others are willing and capable)
Entitlements
But individual actions also enabled by social freedoms and opportunities, e.g.
1. Education
2. Health care
3. Regulation of labour markets
4. Law and order
5. Property rights
6. Infrastructure
7. Freedoms
(e.g collective action, suffrage, assembly)
Conclusions
1. Two kinds of poverty: relative and absolute poverty
2. Absolute poverty causes food problems
3. The poorest households have the most severe food problems and are the
most vulnerable to famine
4. Hunger and famines can be seen as a problem of Food Entitlement
Decline
5. Poverty is contextual – social and material

Key takeaways
1. Famines are political, not just natural
2. Critical theories help deconstruct mainstream narratives
3. Famine prevention requires addressing power, inequality, and
governance

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