Prince Claus Chair

Mansoob Murshed, summary curriculum vitea

• Professor Murshed studied Economics at the University of London and obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham (England). His PhD thesis was entitled Analytical Models of North-South Interactions;
• He has been a Lecturer, Research Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham (1986-89), the University of Surrey (1989-93), the Northern Ireland Economic Research Centre in Belfast (1993-94), the University of Bradford (1994-99), UNU-WIDER in Helsinki (1999-2001) and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague (2001 onwards);
• Professor Murshed has undertaken consultancy activities for the United Nations Development Programme and for the European Union in Bangladesh;
• Since 2000, he has been a member of the United Nations DESA Expert Group on the Report on Social Protection (a paper on the economic causes of civil war), the United Nations DESA Expert Group on Conflict, and the World Bank Research Network on Conflict;
• Professor Murshed serves on the editorial advisory boards of a number of academic journals in the fields of economy and development, and is the editor of Issues in Positive Political Economy and Globalization, Marginalization and Development, both published in 2002.

For more information, please visit his personal pages at the ISS and the University of Birmingham.

Inaugural address of Professor S. Mansoob Murshed, Utrecht University, 12 May 2003

The Decline of the Development Contract and the Development of Violent Internal Conflict

The central argument of this inaugural lecture is that the development contract that characterised North-South interaction prior to 1980 has been steadily declining since that time. Instead of concern with genuine development, we have instead a culture of containment motivating the North’s relations with the South. International development policies are not truly developmental, but are motivated by security considerations, which include the danger of excessive poverty in the South becoming a threat to the North. By contrast, in the earlier pre-1980 era of ideological rivalry between capitalism and socialism, policies and prescriptions with regard to the third world were more developmental and the North-South dialogue more meaningful. The period since 1980 has also been the period of accelerating globalisation. Globalisation has resulted in the marginalisation of vast swathes of the South. Evidence for that is declining growth rates in Africa and Latin America, and the rise in the inequality of incomes between rich and poor nations. In fact, the middle group in the international community of nations has shrunk in the past forty years. Our concern with poverty reduction is laudable, but true development also necessitates the narrowing of the North-South income gap. This is all the more true in a digital age when information disseminates rapidly. At the same time we have seen the rise in violent internal conflict, civil wars, international crime, terrorism and aggressive unilateralism on the part of some great powers despite the growth of multi-party electoral competition. This too is a symptom of development failure, and of institutions of conflict management, domestically and internationally. Ultimately, a policy of containing the South is self-defeating, as the developed world cannot live safely and in prosperity in a world where certain developing nations are stagnating. Reform of the international institutions of global governance is key to restoring the development contract.

Full text inaugural address (pdf, 22kb)

Activities 

• As holder of the Prince Claus Chair for 2002/2003, Professor Murshed resided at Utrecht University’s Utrecht School of Economics in April, May and June 2003.
• On 12 May 2003, Professor Murshed gave his inaugural address entitled  ‘The Decline of the Development Contract and the Development of Violent Internal Conflict’;
• During his term as holder of the Chair, Professor Murshed wrote papers for the World Bank Conference on Poverty and Horizontal Inequality, held in Washington on 9–11 June 2003, and for the New York Conference on Globalization, held on 5–7 June 2003;
• Professor Murshed gave seminars at the Netherlands Centre for Human Rights and the Utrecht School of Economics, as well as an Symposium on Conflict and Development in September 2003, which you can find on this page.
• As holder of the Chair, in 2003 Professor Murshed gave lectures at the Utrecht School of Economics and at the universities of Eindhoven and Amsterdam;
• Professor Murshed was a member of the Steering Committee of PREM (Poverty Reduction and Environmental Management) at the IVM of the Free University of Amsterdam (VU). Responsibilities included membership of a selection committee for research projects in developing countries funded by the DGIS (Development Cooperation Directorate) of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A lecture was held for the project participants on 16 June 2003;
• Professor Murshed’s teaching duties included giving a new course organised by the Utrecht Centre for Conflict Studies and supervising assignments carried out by Bachelor’s degree students of the Utrecht School of Economics and by Master’s degree students of the ISS.

Symposium Conflict and Development

Conference organized at the Institute of Social Studies, under the auspices of Professor S. Mansoob Murshed, holder of the Prince Claus Chair in Development and Equity 2002/2003, on 4 September 2003.

Chairs: 
Professor Manas Chatterji (State University of New York (SUNY), Binghamton)
Professor Hans Opschoor (Rector of the Institute of Social Studies)

Speakers:
Professor Mansoob Murshed (Prince Claus Chair Holder 2002-2003, Institute of Social Studies) on Globalisation and the Rise of Conflict in Developing Countries
Dr Anke Hoeffler (Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Oxford University) on Poverty and Conflict.

Professor Scott Gates (Peace research Institute Oslo (PRIO)), on Modelling the Duration of Civil Wars: Selection Bias, Measurement and Estimation Issues.

Dr Sam Perlo-Freeman  (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol on Military Spending and Economic Development.

Professor Kevin Clements (Secretary General International Alert London and 
the University of Queensland) on The quest for Justice and Peace: the 
Development – Peacebuilding Nexus.

Professor Bas de Gaay Fortman (Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), University of Utrecht) on Early, Early Warning: Collective Violence in a Multi-Dimensional Setting.

Professor Mohammad Salih (Institute of Social Studies) on Development as Conflict.

Professor Georg Frerks (Clingendael Institute, Utrecht and Wageningen Universities) on Development as conflict resolution: Turning an ambivalent process conflict-sensitive.