The established, the outsiders and scale strategies: studying local power conflicts

Established – outsider theory has been a useful tool for explaining the nature and course of local conflicts since its introduction in the 1960s. However, increased mobility and changing lifestyles have led to a change in the role of the local community in people's lives. Established – outsider theory can still be very relevant in explaining the course of local conflicts, if combined with new insights on the relation between space and community and the geographical concept of scale. Then it becomes clear that groups can use a number of scalar strategies in order to win a local conflict. An analysis of local conflicts in the Dutch village of Amerongen shows the related character of these strategies.     

Promoting food security and well-being among poor and HIV/AIDS affected households: Lessons from an interactive and integrated approach

Participatory and interdisciplinary approaches have been suggested to develop appropriate agricultural innovations as an alternative strategy to improve food security and well-being among HIV/AIDS affected households. However, sustainable implementation of such interactive approaches is far from easy and straight forward. This study reports of the Interactive Learning and Action (ILA) approach, a methodology for agricultural innovation which has been adapted to the context of HIV/AIDS. Role players in agriculture and health were brought together to stimulate and sustain innovation among three support groups for poor and affected households in a rural high HIV/AIDS prevalence area in South Africa. The effectiveness of the approach was evaluated using both outcome and process criteria. The results indicate that an interactive approach in which service providers/researchers engage themselves as actors to explore the livelihood system and develop appropriate solutions in joint collaboration with resource users has potential. However, it also revealed that cooperation among participants and stakeholders at the interface of agriculture and HIV/AIDS is complicated and sensitive to erosion. Of particular concern was the difficulty of mobilizing members from poor and affected households to participate and to overcome stigma and discrimination. Lessons and potential applications for the further development of interactive approaches are discussed.     

Social income transfers and poverty: A cross‐country analysis for OECD countries

Caminada K, Goudswaard K, Koster F. Social income transfers and poverty: a cross‐country analysis for OECD countries Poverty alleviation is an important policy objective in developed welfare states. This article reports on a study of the association between social transfer policies and poverty. It has been claimed in several studies that based on a simple bivariate approach, high social effort goes along with low poverty levels. Empirical studies have also found that factors such as demographic and economic conditions may also have an influence on poverty, affecting the relationship between social spending and poverty. In the present study, we empirically analysed the impact of social expenditure on poverty for the period 1985–2005, and in contrast to previous research, demographic and macroeconomic differences across countries were controlled for. Quite a strong negative relationship was still found between the level of social expenditure and poverty. Ageing and unemployment rates were found to have some explanatory power but without affecting the association between social transfers and poverty. Thus, the multivariate approach chosen in this study confirms the results of earlier research.     

On the convergence of social protection systems in the European Union

Member States of the European Union are autonomous when it comes to the design of their social protection systems. However, they are committed by a recommendation accepted by the European Council addressing the convergence of social protection objectives and policies. Besides, convergence of social protection systems is expected to come about as a result of economic integration. In this paper we examine whether such convergence has occurred during the past decades, using data on replacement rates and social expenditure ratios. We find a rather strong trend of relative convergence and, only during the past two decades, an absolute convergence of social indicators in the EU. But there are only weak signs that these trends are the result of European integration.