‘Do Public Private Partnerships help to eliminate poverty through private involvement in infrastructure, or are they part of an infrastructure of wealth extraction?
You may have noticed that these titles echo the kinds of titles used in reports by campaigning, advocacy and research organizations like Oxfam, ActionAid, or the Corner House (see example reports below). The idea here is to encourage you to approach your topic the way that researchers at these kinds of organizations approach their work. This does not mean your assignment is ‘not an essay’ – it is still an essay. But, in addition to the generic marking criteria, I am looking for the following:
* Your assignment must address itself to a contemporary problem pertaining to wealth, inequality and development, ideally one which we have covered in the course (e.g., tax avoidance, infrastructure, rising middle classes). There are several reasons for this, including the need to assess how far you have met the ‘Learning Outcomes’ for the module. If you wish to write your essay on a closely related topic that we have not directly covered, please arrange to discuss this with me.
* You may notice that some of the example reports below write about general issues on a global scale. This is because they are trying to foreground ‘headline’ issues of policy concern. In your essay, however, you will need to focus on at least one project/country/regional case study in particular. This is to ensure that you have the required depth of focus to enable you to show that you have met the course Learning Outcomes
* Because you will be dealing with a contemporary problem, you are encourage to draw on ‘grey literature’ and official reports from development agencies (e.g., to give you data on the scale of certain inequalities, the scale of tax avoidance, etc.), as well as academic literature. Remember, this is still an essay and you are being marked according to the Global Studies Undergraduate Generic Assessment Criteria.
* Because your essay will not be based on original research, you are of course not expected to go into as much detail as in the example reports listed below! However, you are expected to show a greater engagement/reflection on academic debates than some of these reports do. This could mean:
* Reflecting on the methods used to gather the information on inequality;
* Reflecting on the theories of inequality that are either implicit or explicit in certain policy initiatives/discourses (e.g., is there an assumption that wealth is channeled towards those who ‘deserve’ it, or do policymakers consider issues like ‘rent’ or unearned income; is this an issue framed in terms of ‘inequality of opportunity’ or ‘inequality of outcome’ – and why might that matter?)
* Reflecting on the different dimensions of inequality considered (going beyond statistical measures of wealth/income inequality to think about historical and social drivers of inequality; the entanglement of racial, gender and wealth inequalities; etc.)
Example Reports:
• Infrastructure (Corner House)
• Infrastructure PPPs (Corner House)
• Tax & Sugar (ActionAid)
• Tax & Beer (ActionAid)
• Global Inequality (Oxfam)
