Doctoral Dissertation Research: Institutions, Development, and the Politics of Locust Control in West Africa

本博士论文项目调查了西非蝗虫暴发管理的差异规模。机构往往与它们受权解决的问题不相匹配。这种不匹配往往是空间规模的，例如，国家机构的任务是解决国际规模的问题，或国际组织的任务是地方规模的管理问题。这种体制上的不匹配给许多生态和公共卫生管理制度，包括水污染控制、病媒疾病预防和气候治理，带来了一个共同的智力难题。这项研究关注的是科学和技术专家如何运作，并在指定的机构内进行调整，以解决这些不匹配的危机。它侧重于国家和国际努力管理一种特别擅长逃避和超过国家能力的农业害虫危害：在整个西非和北方非洲周期性威胁作物的沙漠蝗虫（Schistocerca gregaria）。为此目的，本研究审查了蝗虫科学家、蝗虫管理专家和技术人员的社会和技术做法，以及他们之间的相互作用：（1）蝗虫科学研究中心（在法国），（2）一个国家蝗虫控制中心（在马里），（3）负责协调科学专门知识、管理活动，以及与蝗虫防治工作有关的资金分配。对有关行为者活动的访谈和观察将补充对各种文件材料的分析（蝗虫科学文献、会议记录和作物保护机构报告），以确定各团体、专家和当局对蝗虫及其控制的看法如何不同，哪些因素指导和控制着蝗虫控制资源的流动，以及每一种方法是否会随着时间和机构的不同而变化。通过解释某些蝗虫管理方法如何以及为什么受到青睐，以及应对哪些挑战或机遇，研究将确定管理能力方面具体失误的根源，这反过来又将使决策和风险分析更加知情，为在国际发展努力中改变虫害控制的性质提供机会。这为减少干预的财政和环境成本提供了前景，并使干预更容易接受不同公众的明确政治谈判。在更广泛的层面上，这项研究的结果将有助于重新思考技术和科学专业知识在国际发展援助和知识网络中的作用，它们与国家决策挑战的关系，并将有助于找到增加机构和生态管理之间的契合度的方法。这些问题对于加强粮食安全和治理全世界真实的紧迫环境问题的战略至关重要。 计划向学术界和非学术界的受众传播。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该项目将提供支持，使研究生能够建立一个独立的研究生涯。

This doctoral dissertation project investigates the differential scale in which locust outbreaks are managed in West Africa. Institutions are often mismatched to the problems they are mandated to resolve. This mismatch is often of spatial scale, such as, national agencies mandated to solve problems of international scale, or international organizations mandated with local-scale management issues. Such institutional mismatch poses an intellectual puzzle common to numerous ecological and public health management regimes, which include water pollution control, vector disease prevention and climate governance. The study is concerned with how scientific and technical experts operate and adapt within agencies assigned to resolve precisely these mismatched crises. It focuses on national and international efforts to manage an agricultural pest hazard that is especially adept at evading and exceeding state capacity: the swarms of Desert Locust (Schistocerca gregaria) that periodically threaten crops throughout Western and Northern Africa. To this end, the study examines the social and technical practices of, and interactions amongst, locust scientists and locust management experts and technicians in (1) a locust science research center (in France), (2) a national locust control center (in Mali), and (3) meetings of international agencies mandated with the coordination of scientific expertise, management activities, and funding allocation related to locust control efforts. Interviews on, and observations of, the activities of the concerned actors will supplement analysis of various document materials (locust science literature, conference proceedings and crop protection agency reports) to determine how perceptions of locusts and their control vary between groups, experts and authorities, which factors direct and control the flow of locust control resources, and how and whether each of these vary over time and across agencies.By explaining how and why certain locust management practices are favored, and in response to what challenges or opportunities, the study will identify the source of specific lapses in management capacity, which in turn will allow more informed decision-making and risk analysis, providing opportunities to amend the nature of pest control within international development efforts. This holds out the prospect for reducing the financial as well as environmental costs of interventions, and making them more amenable to explicit political negotiation by diverse publics. At a broader level, the results of this study will help re-think the role of technical and scientific expertise in the networks of international development aid and knowledge, their relation to the challenges of state-making, and will help find ways to increase the fit between institutions and ecological management. These problems are crucial to strategies to both enhance food security and to govern real and pressing environmental problems throughout the world. Dissemination is planned for academic and non-academic audiences. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a graduate student to establish an independent research career.