#523: CALL FOR PAPERS (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Gina Ulysse <gulysse@abacus.bates.edu>



> Subject: 	CALL FOR PAPERS
> 
> Please act on or circulate as widely as possible this CALL FOR PAPERS.
> Thank you. 
>   
> CALL FOR PAPERS
> Institute of Social & Economic Research, U.W.I. Cave Hill Campus
> January 12-14, 2000  - Sherbourne Centre, Barbados
> YEAR 2000 CONFERENCE
> THEME: ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT - THE ROLE OF THE SERVICES SECTOR
> 
> The end of the Cold War, new international trade rules, and technological
> revolutions in science, knowledge and production have increased the stakes
> of competition among countries in the international system. Caribbean
> governments  have in recent years targeted the promotion of
> export-services as key to restoring competitiveness for the
> island-economies. This point of view registers deeply enough in the
> Eastern Caribbean sub-region, constituting as it is the central plank in a
> strategy document 'Towards an OECS Development Strategy'. Indeed the last
> decade has witnessed the unraveling of prior development strategies staked
> on the promotion of tourism, offshore export production, and the sale of
> one or two cash crops.  To be sure, Barbados, Antigua & Barbuda, and
> increasingly, Anguilla more than St. Lucia, Dominica, St.Kitts-Nevis and
> St. Vincent & the Grenadines have developed offshore financial and other
> specialisms offering foreign clients legal, fiduciary, insurance
> management, financial consultancy, banking, accounting and
> holiday-resorting services. Industrial policy in these countries is
> rapidly coming to mean the further promotion and expansion of these
> services  to include health, entertainment, film and education services.
> But the idea that a development strategy could be staked upon services
> promotion is one which requires interrogation on its own terms. This
> Conference on Alternative Development is intended to stimulate dialogue
> and feedback among intellectuals, policy professionals, workers and
> activists on the way forward for small island Caribbean states and the
> current thrust towards services expansion. 
> 
> We are interested in receiving papers exploring issues suggested by the
> questions and themes  below: 
> 
> *	Is it possible to realise sustained levels of growth based on
> services promotion?  What kind of services can the sub-region pursue for
> promotion?
> *	What are the constraints and resource requirements (i.e. financial,
> skill and technology) associated with services promotion?
> *	Are there likely to be problems of complementarity with respect to
> agriculture and manufacturing?
> *	If culture is the content of the service industry, how can
> governments see culture as trade in its own right, and ensure that it has
> a real public, home and abroad?
> *	Considering the political dimensions of services development, what
> is the nature of the state-private sector relationship? What accounts for
> the shared consensus among elite powerholders on the goal of services
> promotion? Is all this a manifestation of nation-state weakness or
> incapacity to tackle the industrial option?
> *	Considering as well the social dimension of services development,
> what impact will a services strategy have on civil society? What do other
> countries' experiences suggest? What has been our experience thus far? Can
> the spectre of 'maquiladorisation' be avoided?
> *	What of issues of management and planning of services development?
> Does any possibility exist for country partnerships, joint promotion of
> services between firms of different countries?
> 
> THE DEADLINE DATE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS IS SEPTEMBER 30, 1999; AND
> FOR FINAL PAPERS NOVEMBER 30, 1999. Please submit materials to Jennifer
> Hinkson, ISER, Cave Hill Campus, University of the West Indies, or e-mail:
> iser@uwichill.edu.bb or jhinkson@uwichill.edu.bb. Contact can also be made
> through Telephone (246) 417-4477; Fax (246) 424-7291. Visit our Website:
> http://www.uwichill.edu.bb/iser.
> 
>