Ajustements nationaux de mécanismes prix face aux fluctuations du prix mondial: les leçons du coton en Afrique Zone Franc
The French colonial power committed itself in promoting cotton, well before its colonization was achieved. Promotion eventually succeeded only from 1952 onward, thanks to the set up of a pricing mechanism which integrated the needed adaptation to world price fluctuations. Since 1985, this mechanism was adjusted several times, along the collapses of the world price which came out more frequently with great magnitude. The adjustments did not lead to the expected results, although production kept on increasing, because the cotton sectors were close to bankruptcy several times. In most African francophone countries, the very conflicting relationship between stakeholders resulted directly or indirectly from the mechanism adjustments. This article analyses the errors and difficulties in adjusting pricing mechanism under the pressure, still very vivid, of world price fluctuations.
Farmer's response to the evolution towards globalisation: the case of cotton production in Mali
Cotton production in Mali is analyzed to emphasize that globalization could be considered as the culmination of a process towards the liberalization of the economy of the cotton sector that was implemented during the last two decades. Some distance has become possible to observe farmers' reaction to this process through the examination of their cultivation practices. In spite of some diversity in their reaction, it is noted that neither cotton production, related incomes for farmers nor food security were negatively affected, at least in the short run. These outcome are actually achieved at the expense of maintaining production capacities in the mid-run. Correcting this undesirable effect would require carrying out new cultivation techniques with more robust economic efficiency towards hazards of various orders, as well as institutional innovations that would facilitate their sustainable adoption by farmers. (Resume d'auteur)
Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History
This book explores the history of the Dominican Republic as it evolved from the first European colony in the Americas into a modern nation under the rule of Rafael Trujillo. It investigates the social foundations of Trujillo's exceptionally enduring and brutal dictatorship (1930-1961) and, more broadly, the way power is sustained in such non-democratic regimes. The author reveals how the seemingly unilateral imposition of power by Trujillo in fact depended on the regime's mediation of profound social and economic transformations, especially through agrarian policies that assisted the nation's large independent peasantry. By promoting an alternative modernity that sustained peasants' free access to land during a period of economic growth, the regime secured peasant support as well as backing from certain elite sectors. This book thus elucidates for the first time the hidden foundations of the Trujillo regime.