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

这一博士论文项目调查了西非蝗虫暴发管理的不同规模。机构往往与它们被授权解决的问题不匹配。这种不匹配往往是空间规模的，例如，受权解决国际规模问题的国家机构，或受权解决地方规模管理问题的国际组织。这种机构错配构成了许多生态和公共卫生管理制度共同的智力难题，这些制度包括水污染控制、病媒疾病预防和气候治理。这项研究关注的是科学和技术专家如何在被指派精确解决这些不匹配的危机的机构内运作和适应。它侧重于国家和国际努力，以管理一种特别擅长逃避和超过国家能力的农业害虫危害：成群的沙漠蝗虫，它定期威胁整个西非和北非的农作物。为此，本研究审查了在(1)一个蝗虫科学研究中心(在法国)、(2)一个国家蝗虫控制中心(在马里)和(3)负责协调与蝗虫控制工作有关的科学专门知识、管理活动和资金分配的国际机构的会议中，蝗虫科学家和蝗虫管理专家和技术人员之间的社会和技术做法及其相互作用。对有关行为者活动的访谈和观察将补充对各种文件材料(蝗虫科学文献、会议记录和植保机构报告)的分析，以确定群体、专家和当局之间对蝗虫及其控制的看法如何不同，哪些因素指导和控制蝗虫控制资源的流动，以及这些因素如何以及是否随着时间和机构的不同而变化。通过解释某些蝗虫管理做法受到青睐的方式和原因，以及针对哪些挑战或机遇，这项研究将确定管理能力的具体失误的根源，这反过来将使决策和风险分析更加知情。在国际发展努力中提供机会修改病虫害防治的性质。这为降低干预的财政和环境成本提供了前景，并使它们更容易受到不同公众明确的政治谈判的影响。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门知识在国际发展援助和知识网络中的作用，它们与国家制定挑战的关系，并将有助于找到增加机构与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世界各地现实而紧迫的环境问题的战略至关重要。传播计划面向学术和非学术受众。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.