Question 1: economic inclusion results in political inclusion?

[amathie]

In what way has the achievement of economic inclusion (economic citizenship) resulted in increased political participation or civic engagement? Under what circumstances do you think this is the case? Does it make a difference when people have achieved economic inclusion through collective or cooperative means? Are there gender and class differences in the nature of this political participation?

A particularly strong example of this is the work of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India. In the words of its founder, Ela Bhatt, “Self-employment has the potential to develop all aspects of the person – the social, the economic, and the political.” In practice, the organizaation of self-employed women in the informal sector (a term contested by Bhatt), is an example of how women have empowered themselves as economic actors and, through their federated structures and through more direct political action, have enlarged the space for the “informal sector” to be legitimised through a Bill passed recently to protect vendors livelihoods (http://www.sewa.org/glorious-victory.asp). SEWA in fact not only shows how women have achieved economic and political inclusion but also how that collective power has been used to shape local economies on Gandhian principles.

[amathie]

What this example illustrates is that economic inclusion may not by itself lead to political inclusion. In this example, political empowerment  goes hand in hand with the organizational requirements of economic empowerment —  this collective “people’s institution” strengthens the political voice of economically empowered women so that they can protect and claim their right to livelihood.

Are there other examples like this? What can we learn from them?

[vagisha]

When you say “the achievement of economic inclusion (economic citizenship)”, are you strictly referring to marginalized groups (or people that were previously dis-empowered) in a given society? The reason I ask this reflects the current reality of post-war Sri Lanka (SL). In the post-war period, the state has become even more centralized, and power has been further concentrated under the President. This creeping authoritarianism is buttressed by a powerful military. At the level of society, the hegemony of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and polarizing identity politics further strengthens the concentration of state power. there is a visible deepening of capitalist development that will accentuate the social contradictions of capitalism and add a new dimension to state-society relations in SL. There are new elements within this regime that want to utilise state power for the purpose of capital accumulation within a market economy. what seems to be new under the current regime is the power of these new social classes. these political forces do not want a shift in economic policies from the direction of an open market policy. But they seek to utilise state power for their own ends within this framework. The current regime has considerable support from these classes. These classes are certainly not ‘marginalized’, but they certainly influence political decision making because of their economic citizenship. They have achieved economic inclusion through collective and cooperative means – patronage networks. Many politicians enter politics in order to access state resources for the purpose of distributing it through a patronage network and ensuring that they remain in power. what is alarming is that there is a large section of the SL population that does no see any problem with this phenomenon, and expects politicians to behave in this manner. Unfortunately, this environment is not conducive to the achievement of economic inclusion of marginalized groups. The trend we’re seeing now is the opposite.

[amathie]

Yes, we are referring to marginalised groups, but as you so rightly point out, economic inclusion of whom is key — it shapes the way political decision-making is influenced. We need to have a more class-based understanding of this and discuss what constitutes “economic citizenship” in these different circumstances. Your point about patronage networks and collusion is also very relevant. Another twist on this is an interesting case study about women leaders of traders in an urban market in Cotonou,  illustrating the contrast between  (i) a leader in a clientelist network and how she built a political career and acted as a broker between vendors and shifting governments; and (ii) a market woman leader who linked with an international NGO to launch a cooperative venture, running this on a highly democratic basis (Prag, in Lindell, 2010). In tomorrow’s discussion we can probe more deeply into the question of state collusion with established economic actors v creating an enabling environment for economic inclusion by marginalised groups, but it is obviously very relevant to today’s discussion also.

[rmohanty]

Hi Vagisha
First of all welcome to the group!
To your question whether economic citizenship/ inclusion in the context of our work is about the disempowered people – yes, it is about socio-economically marginalized groups. The restructuring of the economy towards free market economy as you describe is going on in other countries too. In the Indian context it has further disempowered the groups either by taking away their resources such as land, forest etc. for capitalist growth or by excluding them from the benefits of the growth or by pushing them outside the boundary of formal economy. The state is an active supporter in this negotiations of economic and political power. Economic marginalization of the already marginalized groups is thus accelerated and fraught with new complexities as large number of people come to occupy the informal sector of the economy with its associated vulnerabilities. How do the poor respond to this by creating new forms of economic activities /inclusion or by strengthening their hold over their subsistence resources or old forms of livelihood, and whether this economic empowerment enables them to make political decisions / raise voices/ claim rights? We see this happening in India, but the groups have to struggle against tremendous odds that also reduce their agency many times.

[vagisha]

My next comment is about the following: “Under what circumstances do you think this is the case?”

Again, my observation of SL indicates that centralization of political power significantly diminishes the inclusion of marginalized groups into the economy. SL is a very good example of how authoritarianism is in a very happy marriage with market-oriented policies. Even during the war, SL’s economic performance shows that it has been opened up for capitalist accumulation and that the private sector has performed well (with political power concentrated in the center). Around half the GDP is concentrated in the Western Province close to the capital. The districts that cover the south-western quadrant of the country account for the bulk of economic activities. The operation of markets and the shrinking proportion of agriculture in the economy signify a slow dismantling of rural livelihoods, especially in the small holder paddy sector where the bulk of the rural population has been engaged. even in households that are classified for the purpose of census as “agricultural”, a significant proportion of income comes from wage labour. by contrast. there is significant growth of a wage earning class. wage labour in sectors such as garments and plantations and migrant labour to the Middle East have become main sources of surplus and foreign exchange. The bulk of this labour is female. it is this working class that has been generating the surplus for maintaining a dysfunctional state. yet they have very limited labour rights. The real problem of SL in the area of social exclusion has been the inability of a bloated and dysfunctional state to intervene on behalf of the marginalized in the context of penetration of capitalist production relations. As I mentioned earlier, this has been largely due to the undermining of state capacity through patronage politics.  

[bvonlieres]

Hi all, a really interesting discussion so far. Aly Karam (from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa) and I will be working on a case case study that focuses on the intersections between informal economic activity and political participation amongst immigrant communities in two cities: Toronto, Canada and Johannesburg, South Africa. The aim of the study is to explore how different forms of informal economic engagement map onto emerging forms of local political participation amongst immigrants in high-poverty neighbourhoods in both cities. Our research project will examine the differences and/or similarities in histories and patterns of immigration in both cities, and how variances in political context, city management, political authority and social mobilization shape emerging intersections between economic and political citizenship. We plan to partner with community-based organization that have already engaged extensively in research on informal economic activities amongst immigrant communities in both cities.

In response to our e-dialogue’s first question about the relation between econmic citizenship and political participation or civic engagement, here are some initial thoughts. While much recent research has focused on mapping the range of informal economic activities high poverty immigrants engage in, relatively little work has been done to understand how their experiences of economic activity (as opposed to “citizenship” which implies inclusion ) generate new forms of informal or formal political participation or “political” citizenship. In recent years there has been a renewed focus on political participation or “political citizenship” as a mechanism for overcoming not only political exclusion, but also social and economic exclusion. However, while there is a growing consensus on the importance of political participation for marginalized communities’ access to economic resources, there are surprisingly few studies that examine how informal economic activities potentially generate inclusive political participation that in turn produce more empowered forms of economic citizenship. The few studies that do look at the intersection between economic and political citizenship have shown that political participation (formal and informal) does not necessarily lead to deeper forms of economic inclusion and vice versa. We need to understand under what conditions, if any, this might occur. So in our study we are keen to explore whether there are, in fact, mutually empowering relations between new forms of informal economic citizenship and diverse forms of political participation. There might not be any mutually empowering relations given how many recent immigrants experience disempowerment in their new host communities which themselves are fragile – at least in Toronto. In our research we will examine the intersections between informal economic activities and specifically local forms of informal and formal political participation. By informal political participation we mean non-institutionalised political activity. Here we include:
• informal, unregistered social and community networks
• informal grassroots advocacy campaigns
• informal, unregistered local associations (religious, cultural, political)
By formal participation we mean institutionalised political participation. This includes:
• registered neighbourhood associations
• local government and municipal government participation
• political party participation

[amathie]

You raise important issues about the  challenges of asserting genuine inclusionary economic and political citizenship. Recently I have been reading about the idea  “agrarian citizenship,” an aspiration of social movements such as L Via Campesina which sees the citizen as having rights to a rural livelihood as a producer and also as having state-supported responsibilities as a steward of environmental sustainability.  The decline of this role, especially the shift to wage labour in globalised food regimes, is what this movement is trying to address.

[rmohanty]

Hi Vagisha
If you could clarify this for me to understand SL situation- you say that patronage politics has undermined the state capacity, my query is – Isn’t it that the rise of patronage politics rests at the core of changing nature of the state as neoliberal economy reconfigures the social and political powers? isn’t it then that patronage politics is part of, and result of, the loss of state capacity than the cause ?

[amathie]

Great discussion so far — Vagisha has injected concerns about  capitalist collusion with state power and the limited rights of an increasingly marginalised waged labour sector in Sri Lanka. Ranjita has also contributed on the way in which political and economic neo-liberal regimes have negatively impacted people at the margins, and how people are responding to this. Bettina and I have discussed the way in which people in the informal economy find ways to be active as political citizens in both formal and informal spaces, and how some collective initiatives have not only claimed economic space, but also tried to shape alternative economic relations.

Looking forward to hearing more from you  in Bangladesh, South America and East Africa  on this question of whether an how economic citizenship impacts political citizenship. Tomorrow (9am eastern) I’ll post the question for Day 2

[vagisha]

Hi Ranjita, it’s a good question. I agree with you that initially it was the loss of state capacity that led to patronage politics. But in SL, the post-1977 period is characterized by the institutionalization of patronage politics….the principal feature of this phenomenon is access to political power being utilized to doll out state resources (not only monetary resources, but things such as government jobs) to groups networked with members of the political class. Family, kinship, links through old school networks, etc. provides this network. Now these networks are rooted in political and economic institutions and are so powerful to the extent that they influence policy. An example would be the various business interests and the political class who are keen on making use of state power to exploit the resources and the labour in the North and East of SL. But of course, it has to be understood in SL’s context – domination by a centralized state + supported by the military + the public distracted by identity politics.

[vagisha]

Bettina, thanks for clarifying the question further. This really helps. In this sense, I believe we can look at case studies of garment factory workers and the plantation workers groups in SL. Do we have a time frame within which the cases have to be selected? The reason I ask is that there are many historical accounts (late 1800s to 1950s) of how certain castes in SL gained access to formal political participation via their economic citizenship.

[rmohanty]

Hi All
Thanks Vagisha for clarifying; I can now put it in perspective.
Reading all the posts this morning I find few key ideas that will help guide this work further.
One is the overall macro context of the country and the global context in which new patterns of economic exclusion are contested and new patterns of inclusion are claimed. And whether there are possibilities for political inclusion. And if so, then what kind and to what extent. This is visible in SL and India. The trends are visible in other countries as well.
Solidarity economy towards which Alison points out and the kind of political citizenship it creates.
What I think emerging very strongly is – different types, or their lack, of political citizenship. Bettina has spoken about it. This aspect needs more unpacking. The correlation between economic and political I suspect may not be straight forward in many cases.

That’s for now.

[Author]

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