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Research stream Business and Politics 2: Cotton Sector Reforms
Led by Dr Renata Serra of the University of Florida, Business and Politics 2 is exploring the idea of ‘working with the grain’ by undertaking a comparative study of reform processes affecting the production and export of cotton in several West African countries. A common feature of these reforms is greater use of market incentives and competition. But it is clear from previous studies that market liberalisation can fail by undermining and not replacing existing forms of market coordination, including mechanisms that rest upon political power relations, informal reciprocities and the social norms of a ‘cotton culture’.
With a network of collaborating researchers in Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali, the APPP team are seeking to understand better and in a more systematic way how governance works in practice within cotton sectors, so to be able to identify which elements and mechanisms underlying the functioning of the sector may be more supportive of the type of change that leads to better developmental outcomes. By taking an explicitly comparative approach, the research aims to generate conclusions and policy implications that are generalisable at least to the subset of ‘French model’ cotton producers, thus contributing towards building a theory on ‘governance that works’ within African productive sectors.
An information sheet providing additional description and contact details for the stream is downloadable from here (
English 165KB). An interim report on progress and findings in the stream is included in the Research Progress Report, also downloadable from the page.
Latest Downloads
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APPP Working Paper 12, Developmental patrimonialism? The case of Malawi by Cammack, Kelsall with Booth, Jul 2010 Eng More Info |
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APPP Working Paper 9, Kelsall and Booth, Developmental patrimonialism?, July 2010 Eng More Info |
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Business and Politics 2 Fr More Info |
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Business and Politics 1 Fr More Info |
