Corruption and Palm Oil in a Cross-National Perspective: How India Contributes to Forest Loss in Peripheral Nations
From Journal of South Asian Development
In the early 1990s, India put into place neoliberal economic reforms to avoid a balance of payment problem that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was India’s largest provider of foreign aid. The reforms led to unprecedented economic growth and industrialization with India moving from a peripheral to a semi-peripheral nation and, in the process, having a mixture of characteristics of core and peripheral nations.
In this regard, India has experienced development in part due to access to and consumption of natural resources and agricultural commodities that they import from peripheral nations. However, India’s development has been uneven because it also produces goods and services for core nations using the same natural resources imported from the periphery to support its own industrialization.
For instance, the percentage of people living in ‘extreme poverty’ or living on less than $2 per day fell from 46% to 21% from 1990 to 2015 (World Bank, 2020). Further, India’s middle class—individuals earning $10 or more per day—increased from 300 million to 600 million people during the same period (World Bank, 2020). These improvements have corresponded with changing consumption patterns with people eating more food and deriving larger portions of their diets from meat, dairy and processed foods.
However, poverty remains pervasive in India. In 2015, 175 million people—mainly women and members of lower castes and tribes—continued to subsist on less than $2 per day (World Bank, 2020). The number of people living in extreme poverty ensures an abundant supply of cheap labor for foreign firms producing goods and services for sale to core nations (Downes, 2009). It also keeps wages lower than would otherwise be the case in India, which, in turn, means poverty and a corresponding demand for cheap foodstuffs, like palm oil, persist (Gonsalves, 2006).
The support for ecologically unequal exchange theory with higher levels of palm oil exports from peripheral nations to India is related to increased forest loss in peripheral nations. However, we do not find that either petty or grand corruption predicts significant variation in forest loss alone. This is somewhat surprising given previous cross-national research, though it makes sense when considering how petty and grand corruption interact with palm oil exports sent from peripheral nations to India, which we address again below.
Excerpt from the article “Corruption and Palm Oil in a Cross-National Perspective: How India Contributes to Forest Loss in Peripheral Nations”
This study examines the complex relationship between corruption and the palm oil industry, highlighting how India's demand significantly ||divorce lawyers in nassau county new york||How much does a Divorce cost New York drives deforestation in developing countries. By analyzing cross-national data, it underscores the urgent need for more transparent and sustainable practices to mitigate environmental damage.
ReplyDeleteThe problem of corruption has existed for many years but it has never been completely solved.
ReplyDeleteA worrying news for India. A country that is losing its forests. We need to take measures to stop this from happening.
ReplyDeleteThis is an insightful analysis of the relationship between India's economic growth, its consumption of natural resources, and the consequences of forest loss in peripheral nations. While it’s surprising that corruption alone doesn’t significantly predict forest loss, the interaction with palm oil exports adds a crucial layer to the discussion. It’s a reminder of how complex the global trade system is, and how interconnected the issues of environmental degradation and economic inequality are. In a world of rapid globalization, platforms like plinkogames.cc could potentially offer simulations or interactive tools that help users visualize the impact of these dynamics on both local and global scales.
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