Book Reviews
The Paradox of Scale: How NGOs Build, Maintain, and Lose Authority in Environmental Gov-
ernance. Balboa, Cristina M. 2018. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Reviewed by Craig N. Murphy
Wellesley College
The Paradox of Scale is an interesting exercise in theory building. It uses three case
studies of environmental NGOs in the Asia-Pacific region to develop an expla-
nation of why global-level NGOs often have trouble operating successful and
legitimate programs at the local level and why successful and legitimate local
NGOs often have so much difficulty scaling up.
Balboa’s three cases are all recent, somewhat unsuccessful, habitat and ma-
rine species conservation efforts. The first involves Conservation International’s
(CI) local-level work in the least-populated province of Papua New Guinea. IL
second considers the attempt to expand an innovative local Philippine project
initiated by an American ornamental fish hobbyist. The project initially encour-
aged sustainable and humane fishing practices at a number of sites in the one
country, and successfully expanded to other countries in the region and even
beyond, but collapsed when USAID funding, upon which it had become depen-
dent, was severely delayed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The third
looks at an attempt to extend internationally a project assisting fishing commu-
nities in developing their own conservation systems; the project began in a tiny,
outlying community in the microstate of Palau (which is between the Papua
New Guinea and the Philippines); leaders were able to balance global and local
demands for many years but never fully developed the needed global adminis-
trative capacity.
In each of the case studies, Balboa demonstrates that the political, admin-
istrative, and technical capacities needed for the organizations to thrive at the
local level differed from those needed to manage an international or transna-
tional organization. The local level required flexible organizations steeped in
local knowledge. At the international level, the capacity to deal with global do-
nors and follow complex reporting conventions was essential. Relatedly, the ac-
countability mechanisms differed at the two levels: it is one thing to be
successful in the eyes of local clients focused on sustaining traditional liveli-
hoods; it is something quite different to navigate successfully among the
often-conflicting requirements of national governments, intergovernmental
organizations, and big foundations. The paradox of scale is that what contrib-
utes to authority (cioè., power and legitimacy) at one level not only fails to do
so at the other level; it can even get in the way.
Global Environmental Politics 20:2, May 2020
© 2020 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
162
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Craig N. Murphy
(cid:129) 163
Balboa argues that the dilemmas that this paradox creates need to be over-
come, and they can be. Local-level organizations face an imperative to grow in
order to solve what are international, if not global, problems. Allo stesso tempo,
global organizations need to work at the local levels at which the human actions
that threaten habitats take place. In each of these cases, there were people and
institutions that served as bridges between the two levels. What is needed is to
assure that those bridges are strong enough for both levels to operate effectively.
The Paradox of Scale develops a theory that is convincing enough to be tested
ulteriore, especially alongside other hypotheses that may account for some of the
things Balboa observes.
In their internationalized versions, each of her cases can be considered in-
stances of hybrid forms of global governance in which local NGOs act as exe-
cuting agencies for global-level funders, whether national (per esempio., USAID),
intergovernmental (per esempio., UNDP), or nongovernmental (per esempio., CI). Recent studies
of both peacebuilding and development have noted an increasing denigration
of country-level experience and local knowledge among most global funders
over the last twenty-five years, with a negative impact on their effectiveness.
The problem may be not the paradox of scale but the perversity of funders.
Inoltre, there are long-standing movements that have, from the begin-
ning, successfully worked simultaneously at the local, national, and international
levels. They have created similar organizations and used similar methods of
legitimation at every level. Perhaps the most prominent of these is the industrial
standardization movement that operates through a nested set of organizations
under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Standard-
setting bodies at all levels work though the consensus of experts representing
key stakeholders—the producers of a good or service in question, their imme-
diate consumers, and the “general” or public interest. The resulting standards
tend to be both influential and highly legitimate (Ancora, at all levels). This is
true even in the environmental field, where these organizations have become
increasingly active. This legitimacy sometimes surprises both the big environ-
mental NGOs and environmental social entrepreneurs based in the Global
North, although perhaps it should not, since the ISO-style process has involved
at least some participants from the Global South for decades. The stakeholder
standard setters would probably argue that different methods of legitimation
are not needed at different levels; what are needed are just methods that equally
engage everyone that matters at every level.
Finalmente, it may be important to foreground the fact that the problems Balboa
investigated, like many global environmental problems, do have this North–
South dimension. The number of powerful organizations that are equally legiti-
mate in the Global North and the Global South is probably quite small, ma il
cause of that phenomenon may not be apparent if we look only at the organiza-
tional level of analysis. Nonetheless, The Paradox of Scale makes it abundantly
clear that studies at the organizational level can provide practical critical insight
into some of the most vexing problems of global environmental governance. IL
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164 (cid:129) Book Reviews
book’s clear, straightforward, and sensible analysis makes it a good model to
recommend to advanced undergraduate and graduate research students.
Africa’s Gene Revolution: Genetically Modified Crops and the Future of African Agriculture.
Schnurr, Matthew A. 2019. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s Press.
Reviewed by Robert L. Paarlberg
Harvard University
Matthew Schnurr’s book, Africa’s Gene Revolution, stakes out an important posi-
zione. It argues that genetically modified crops (commonly known as GMOs)
have not been widely taken up in Africa because they fail to meet the needs
of the numerous smallholder farmers on that continent. GMO crops can deliver
benefits on some large-scale commercial farms (operated by white farmers in
South Africa), and on some large irrigated farms (cotton farms in Sudan), Ma
for poor smallholder farmers, the seeds are less valuable. Per esempio, GMO
cotton seeds protect against the wrong crop pests in Uganda, and they have pro-
duced low-quality fibers in Burkina Faso. They are developed and disseminated
top-down, by distant researchers who do not understand the social and eco-
nomic circumstances of poor farmers.
Schnurr builds his case from an impressive research effort inside Africa,
including more than 125 interviews conducted over a decade with local infor-
mants, as well as ranking exercises with more than 200 farmers. The result is a
detailed country-by-country, crop-by-crop account, packed with valuable tech-
nical and institutional detail. The language is clear and the tone is admirably
nonpolemical. The frequently alleged food safety and environmental safety risks
associated with GMOs are for the most part not evaluated in the book, in parte
because the author has concluded that they are “relatively minimal.” Instead,
the focus is on whether GMO seeds are “pro-poor,” and the author’s judgment
is negative, because the seeds seldom fit the distinct needs and circumstances of
smallholder farmers.
Missing from Schnurr’s work is an alternative explanation for why GMO
crops have failed to spread in Africa, an explanation based on the regulatory
actions of African governments. In nearly all of Africa, government regulations
have made it illegal for farmers to plant GMO crops. Schnurr may be right about
the new seeds being a poor fit to the needs of smallholders, but how can we
know, so long as government “biosafety” policies have blocked farmers from
even trying the seeds? The only country in sub-Saharan Africa to have fully le-
galized the planting of any GMO food crops so far has been the Republic of
South Africa, and there they have been widely successful.
Schnurr ignores this regulatory blockage. In his chapter on rules and reg-
ulazioni, he describes Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, Ethiopia, Mozambique,
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Robert L. Paarlberg
(cid:129) 165
Swaziland, and Cameroon as “emerging adopters” of GMO crops, yet among
these countries, only the governments of Nigeria and Ethiopia have so far ap-
proved the commercial planting of any GMO crops at all, and the only crop
approved has been cotton, not a food crop. This lack of approval means that
food crop producers in all of these countries, along with the rest of the region,
are still legally blocked from planting GMO varieties of maize, rice, yams, cas-
sava, or banana. Some African countries do have significant GMO crop research
programs (Kenya has been doing research on GMOs since the 1990s, as Schnurr
points out), but they have yet to give their farmers permission to grow these
crops.
Schnurr’s analysis also downplays the source of Africa’s highly precaution-
ary GMO regulations. They were brought in primarily from Europe, through
NGOs, foreign assistance agencies, and the United Nations system. Highly pre-
cautionary biosafety regulations have kept GMOs out of farm fields in Europe,
so it is no surprise that similar regulations copied from Europe would do the
same in Africa. Schnurr correctly identifies the African Model Law of the Orga-
nization of African Unity (OAU) as an umbrella instrument framing these pol-
icies, but he fails to mention that promoting this model law in Africa was a
German foreign assistance project. Schnurr discusses Zambia’s rejection of
GMO food aid, but little or no attention is given to the role of European NGOs
in scaring the Zambians away from the aid. One organization from the United
Kingdom, named Farming and Livestock Concern, even told the Zambians that
GMO maize might introduce a retrovirus similar to HIV (Paarlberg 2008).
While underplaying Europe’s blocking efforts in Africa, Schnurr also ex-
aggerates the promotional efforts made by GMO supporters, such as USAID
and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. USAID’s Program for Biosafety
Sistemi (PBS) actually reinforced the risk narratives around GMOs by training
African regulators to do separate risk assessments for these seeds. When the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation launched its Alliance for a Green Revolution in
Africa (AGRA), the first board chair, Kofi Anan, specifically excluded GMO
crops from the technologies AGRA would develop and promote (Southgate
2007).
Schnurr’s book can still be used to good advantage, especially by those
with research interests in the case studies. Schnurr’s work on the Insect Resistant
Maize and Water Efficient Maize projects, and on cotton in Sudan, Burkina Faso,
and South Africa, is well informed and up to date. Yet even here something is
missing. When Schnurr concludes that GMO cotton will not work for the kind
of smallholder farmers found in Africa, he never mentions that smallholders in
China and India have been using Bt cotton widely and successfully for several
decades now. Most Bt cotton farmers in India are very small, planting only three
to four acres of the crop. Bt cotton spread rapidly in these two countries as soon
as government regulators legalized use of the seeds; African farmers in cotton-
growing countries like Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania deserve a similar chance
to try the seeds in their own fields.
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166 (cid:129) Book Reviews
Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Prize–winning scientist who grew up on a
small farm in Iowa, and who launched the original green revolution in South
Asia in the 1960s, uttered these last words before he passed away: “Take it to the
farmer” (Quinn 2010). That would be good advice for Africa today.
Riferimenti
Paarlberg, Robert. 2008. Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa.
Cambridge, MA: Stampa dell'Università di Harvard.
Quinn, Kenneth. 2010. President’s Welcome. Take It to the Farmer: Reaching the World’s
Smallholders. 2010 Borlaug Dialogue Highlights: World Food Prize. Available at
2010WFPHighlights_3EB4B339D46E6.pdf, last accessed March 23, 2020.
Southgate, Douglas. 2007. Africa Needs Its Own Green Revolution. Business Day, rep-
rinted in AgBioWorld. Available at www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm/index.
php?caseid=archive&newsid=2751, last accessed March 19, 2020.
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Ecomodernism: Tecnologia, Politics and the Climate Crisis. Symons, Jonathon. 2019. Camera-
ponte, MA: Polity Press.
Reviewed by Peter Howson
Nottingham Trent University
A few months ago, 7.6 million people joined a week-long global coordinated
strike to protest government and business inaction on climate change. Millions
of schoolchildren around the world continue to walk out of their classrooms
every Friday in solidarity with sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg. This movement
is on fire, says the left-wing journalist and author Naomi Klein. For Klein
(2019), there has never been a more obvious appetite for abandoning incre-
mental moves away from fossil fuels, in favor of a radical decarbonization of
society, redistributing wealth to fund a just, zero-carbon energy transition.
According to Symons in Ecomodernism, these fear-based appeals to drum
up public support for frugality are turning people away, rather than attracting
them toward taking effective action on climate change. The book requests more
faith in government and corporations and underscores the value of individual
aspiration and technological innovation to provide a more hopeful response. In
doing so, Symons promotes the capability of a global capitalist economy to
solve social and environmental issues. The book’s recurring metaphor of the
US HIV/AIDS epidemic attempts to exemplify how state-funded innovation
should engage with such crises. In the early 1980s, the costly (yet profitable)
pharmaceutical development of retroviral drugs was thwarted by ideologically
conservative arguments promoting celibacy and heteronormativity. The ecomo-
dernist innovations required to address the contemporary climate crises include
Peter Howson
(cid:129) 167
nuclear energy; natural gas fracking; more sustainable (yet highly industrial) ag-
riculture; GMO experimentation; E, once a global democratic consensus is
achieved, a permanent global program of geoengineering.
Ecomodernism is critically engaged, but instead of squaring up to the usual
international corporations and neoliberal governments, its critique is aimed at
the “Greens,” whose emotive fearmongering Symons blames for historical inac-
tion on climate change. The Greens in question are a “bizarre” and “beguiling”
(7) group of popular left-leaning journalists, such as Naomi Klein and George
Monbiot, lumped together with the conservative author of The Population Bomb,
Paul Erlich, and other “globaphobic” thinkers. Distancing itself from fearmon-
gering rhetoric, the book adopts a cold algorithmic utilitarianism. Nuclear power,
genetic engineering, and other options are all considered through their climate
mitigation potentials, often ignoring other social and environmental risks and
contemporary ethical debates. Symons seems to reject a precautionary principle
with these innovations so long as net emissions are reduced. Geoengineering,
despite its severe risks from unforeseen outcomes, including global “termina-
tion shock” (179), is considered tolerable, as it would efficiently decrease emis-
sions while helping poor people in the tropics whose day-to-day lives are
already blighted by heat.
Ecomodernism opposes scholars who assume that global market forces are
the culprit for accelerating ecological decline. Globalization, for Symons, is held
up as the necessary solution to reduce poverty and the associated drivers of en-
vironmental degradation. He maintains an enduring faith in regulated global
markets and carbon pricing regimes. The book omits discussions concerning al-
ready existing global carbon market mechanisms, payments for ecosystem ser-
vices projects, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation
(REDD+).
The concept of ecomodernism is loosely conceptualized in the book’s in-
troduction, which also functions as a manifesto for nuclear energy as much as
for an entrepreneurial state. The definition of ecomodernism gains coherence in
the following two chapters. The concept attempts to marry competitive markets
with globally egalitarian social outcomes. In this spirit, action on climate change
is technical, rather than emancipatory. Symons engages alternative theoretical
frameworks for assessing the technological challenge, such as political ecology,
more-than-human thinking, and degrowth, but not enough to allow the reader
much room to explore.
Proponents of growth-based development discourses, nuclear energy, E
already-existing agricultural technologies may find this book useful. The book
describes these technologies as “zero-carbon” (78), but proponents of Green
New Deal thinking, advocated for by Klein and others (see Pettifor 2019; Rifkin
2019), are likely to question the conservative decarbonization visions described
by the book. The book’s brief conclusions do not mention pioneering disruptive
technologies, Per esempio, tackling climate change with blockchain, artificial in-
telligence for conservation, or the Internet of Things (IoT) for natural resource
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168 (cid:129) Book Reviews
management (see Howson 2019). Such technologies could provide emancipa-
tory outcomes without having to wait for the author’s proposed formal system
of “global social democracy” or other political settlement. In the 1980s, HIV/
AIDS sufferers from around the world mobilized a mass movement against neo-
liberal government and corporate interests, using peaceful disobedience to pro-
mote a more socially just response to crises. Allo stesso modo, while we wait for a
system of global social democracy to end the climate crisis, shouldn’t today’s
activists do the same?
Riferimenti
Howson, Peter. 2019. Tackling Climate Change with Blockchain. Nature Climate Change
9 (9): 644–645.
Klein, Naomi. 2019. On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal. London, UK: Allen
Lane.
Pettifor, Ann. 2019. The Case for the Green New Deal. London, UK: Verso Books.
Rifkin, Jeremy. 2019. The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by
2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth. New York, NY: St. Martin’s
Press.
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