Economic Dimensions of Regionalism

Theme of my Doctoral Research work

ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, REGIONAL IDENTITY AND SECESSIONIST MOVEMENTS:

A Comparative Study of Telangana and Gorkhaland Movements

Abstract of Proposal

Scholars on secessionist movements have advanced several propositions to establish relationship between economic inequality and regional identity.  Those who view economic inequality as predominant cause of regional identity often encompass the notion in broader terminology like relative depravation and politics of marginality.  Ted Robert Gurr, Beverly Crawford, Edwin Wilmsen, Viva Ona Bartkus, Anthony Mughan, Milika Bookman et. al., come into this category.  Those who dispute the centrality of economic inequality in forging regional identity believe that economic inequality when combined with other factors only can produce separatist identity.  Metta Spencer, Bertrand Roehner, Ralph Premdas, Paul R. Brass, Dipankar Gupta, Hurst Hannum, et. al., come into this category.  Thus economic inequality appears to be a significant factor in creating regional identity for some and not significant factor for others.

 However in reaching their conclusions, most of the scholars had focussed on the empirical reality of the economic inequality between the territory seeking separation and the territory from which separation is sought, rather than the constructed reality created by the movement leaders. That causes the ambiguity in their findings, as there may be a disjuncture between movements' interpretation of the situation regarding economic inequality and the situation depicted by empirical data.

This ambiguity warranted the present study on the role of economic inequality in secessionist movements.  The relationship between economic inequality and regional movements will be put to test by adapting the following hypothesis: The primary cause of secessionist movements is perceived economic deprivation while the manifestation tends to be actual economic deprivation.

Telangana and Gorkhaland cases are chosen for comparative study as the former treated as an offshoot of economic deprivation while the latter as for other reasons.  This study will focus particularly on two aspects of these movements: First, the empirical data available on actual economic inequality between the territory seeking separation and the territory from which separation is sought and second, the image of economic inequality constructed by movement leaders in their creation of regional identity.  

          The primary objective of this study is to attempt to arrive inductively to a generalisation about the relationship between economic inequality and regional identity.  This study is aimed at resolving the controversy, i.e., to determine the centrality of economic inequality in the identity assumed by separatist movements. The proposed study will help us finding out certain key variables as well as structural and mobilising causes that can be identified and that can inform an appropriate analytical model of secessionist movements.  Further the study has its specific importance because secessionist movements are widespread in India and posing significant threat to the economic stability of nation and disrupting the public life.  The proposed study may offer a few definitive conclusions to end the hostilities and avert the conflicts.

Research Method

The proposed study will first establish a relationship between the economic inequality, group identity and secessionist movements based on the previous studies.  Then the economic inequality will be divided into two categories, i.e., manifest and perceived.  Manifestation of economic inequality refers to the actual economic deprivation while perceived economic inequality refers to the image of economic deprivation created by the movement leaders.  By differentiating the actual economic inequality from perception of economic inequality the ambiguity in answers to the economic inequality and separatism question can be addressed adequately.  The study will look at the actual economic inequality from structural dimension since inequality in access to governmental institutions and customary regional discrimination can put people belonging to a region at disadvantage.  Data on manifested economic inequality is primarily quantitative in nature and derived from primary source such as Census of India, available Human Development Indexes and Social and Economic Surveys, Report submitted by the Committee for Consultations on the Situation in Andhra Pradesh headed by Justice Sri Krishna and other reports related to these regions, on economic development and structural discrimination, prepared by various governmental and non-governmental organisations.  Data on perceived economic inequality is qualitative and derived from both primary and secondary sources such as news paper statements, interviews and other programmes in electronic media and public speeches given by movement leaders, views of movement supporters on economic deprivation expressed in web blogs, literature supporting economic deprivation in news papers, journals, movement supporting pamphlets etc.  The study will also include an examination of parliamentary and assembly debates related to the development of these regions and the opinions expressed by experts in influential journals, books and newspapers.

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P. V.V. SATYANARAYANA

Lecturer in Political Science

Government Degree College

RAMPACHODAVARAM

Populatin Growth, Resource Scarcity and Armed Conflict

Abstract of M.Phil Dissertation
Research Superviser: Prof. Varun Sahni
Submitted to School of International Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University

New Delhi, India

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Title

Population Density, Environmental Scarcity and Domestic Armed Conflicts, 1989-1995

Introduction

The end of cold war and the ensuing search for a new security paradigm helped open the security debate to new issues.  Numerous scholars have concluded that struggle over access to and control over natural resources has been an important cause of tensions and conflict. However some scholars had objected to include resource and environmental factors into security paradigm on the grounds that most of the findings are based on the studies where both environmental stress and armed conflict are or have been present.

Despite of criticism the idea of relating resource scarcity with domestic armed conflicts remains a plausible assumption.  Hence this study has made an empirical assessment of relationship between national population pressure and the probability of escalating armed conflict.  Population pressure is measured as population density.

Chapter I: Environmental Scarcity and Domestic Armed Conflicts

From 1970 onwards number of domestic armed conflicts had increased considerably in international system, particularly in developing countries, which are suffering from severe environmental degradation.  This has brought about change in the perception of national security from military preparedness to the health of economy and natural resource base.  This kind of shift in thinking has brought about changes in the security policies of developed economies as well.

Resource scarcity can be broadly classified into four categories, i.e., physical, geographical, degradational and socio-economic or distributional.  Physical scarcity refers to availability of resource in finite quantity, while geographical scarcity refers to unequal distribution of natural resource by nature itself.  Degradational scarcity refers to manmade destruction of renewal resource by overusing or polluting the resource base.  Socio-economic or distributional scarcity refers to the unequal distribution of power to procure natural resources within societies.

Environmental scarcity refers to the combination of last two categories, i.e., degradational and distributional scarcities.  This can produce a set of common social effects like decreasing agricultural production, decline in economic development, mass migration in search of livelihood and weakening of social institutions.  Coupled with these a sense of relative deprivation among different cultural groups can lead to violent conflict, when the nature of state is not democratic and not reacting to civil society needs.

Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya during 1950s, Revolution by New People’s Army in Philippines in 1987, Bougainville revolution in Popua New Guinea during 1990s, farmer’s conflict over Yellow River waters in east China in 2000 and Karachi protests in Pakistan over Indus water share in 2001 are some examples of scarcity induced conflicts.

Chapter II: Population Density: A Cause of Resource Scarcity

The effects of population growth are recent, but the assertions that population growth could affect human welfare are not.  Literature on population growth and its effects is broadly classified into two categories, i.e., Cornucopian (optimistic) and neo-Malthusian (pessimistic).  Former believe that people have the creative capacity to overcome potential environmental harm resulting from a growing population, while latter foresee potential political, social and environmental deterioration.

Neo-Malthusians make their case by pointing to rapid growth of world population, growing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, declining health of oceans, reduction in bio-diversity, and degradation of land so on.  Cornucopians point to the general improvements in human health and life expectancy, rising per capita incomes, remarkable advances in food production and technical innovations that can reduce environment pollution.  In fact they see population growth as stimulant to human innovation and genius.

However population growth and its effects on environment can be better understood by a combination of three factors.  They are size of population, individual level of consumption or affluence and level of technological development.  Thus population density and environmental degradation are directly related and in the societies where technological development is low impact tends to be worse.

Chapter III: Population Density and Domestic Armed Conflicts: A Quantitative Analysis

Existing literature on relationship between population density and armed conflicts is primarily divided into two categories, i.e., deprivation hypothesis and state weakness hypothesis.  Deprivation hypothesis claims that population growth and resultant environmental pressures can impoverish individuals, thereby inspiring them to indulge in conflicts.   State weakness hypothesis says that violence can occur when scarcity induced poverty coupled with state’s weakness to maintain order in society.  Another argument also has cropped these days in the name of state exploitation hypothesis which, says that environmental scarcity can lead to civil strife when state elite try to capitalise on scarcities of resource and related social grievances to advance their parochial interests.

Based on the above analysis this study has adapted a hypothesis: countries with high population density are more likely to experience domestic armed conflicts than countries with low population density due to greater scarcity of resources in the former.  The relationship between two variables, i.e., population density and domestic armed conflicts, is studied with the data available in 202 countries in international system.

To run the correlation between the variables countries have been divided into three categories, i.e., low population density states (density below 50 per sq.km.) medium population density states (density above 51 and below 300 per sq.km.) and high population density states (density above 301 per sq.km.).  Conflicts are categorised as low, medium and high intensity conflicts based on the number of casualties.

From the coefficient scores derived after running correlation between variables the study found that result is in assumed direction when moving from low population density states to medium population density states.  But the result is in opposite direction to our assumption when moving towards high population density states.  Thus, states having medium population density are experiencing more number of conflicts than the states having high population density.  Another important feature observed is based on intensity of conflict, the most violent conflicts are occurring in the low population density states.

Conclusion

Theoretically, states with high population density are supposed to be more prone to domestic armed conflicts.  But the empirical results have shown a very weak relationship between population density and armed conflicts.  Thus, the relationship between population density and domestic armed conflicts is not direct and that population density does not have a significant impact in escalating armed conflicts.  Therefore, it becomes necessary to consider other variables, such as the per capita availability of resources, level of economic development, rate of resource depletion and most importantly the level of availability of advanced scientific technology.  The empirical results in this study suggest that demographic pressure is neither a necessary nor wholly sufficient explanation of civil strife.  Thus population density may produce conflict only in certain institutional, social and economic contexts.

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P.V.V. SATYANARAYANA

Lecturer in Political Science

Government Degree College

RAMPACHODAVARAM