Awards

• Winner of 2016 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

Overview

World poverty is both an intractable and ever-mutable problem. It has afflicted humanity since the earliest times, but its basic features - aside from the constant, want - have evolved as history has moved from epoch to epoch. Today, there is broad recognition that a significant segment of the global population (the 'bottom billion,' to use Paul Collier's term) is impoverished despite the globalization of the world economy. Two questions - why destitution is so persistent despite massive global economic growth and what can be done about it - have animated debates among development scholars and poverty researchers for decades. Those who concentrate on the first question focus on the failure of anti-poverty efforts and typically stress why particular solutions on offer have not worked. Those addressing the second question have focused on either improving material conditions or on creating institutional frameworks (economic, social and political) that will allow the masses in poor countries to escape from poverty. Yet until now, virtually no one has addressed in a substantial way the most basic precondition for alleviating poverty: human safety. In most poverty-stricken areas of the world, violence is endemic. Whether it is generated by criminals who operate with complete abandon or by the state itself via predatory police forces, violence and threat of it have locked hundreds of millions of people into poverty. Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros's The Locust Effect focuses on the central role of violence in perpetuating poverty, and shows that if any headway is to be made, this issue has to become a top priority for policymakers. Simply put, if people aren't safe, nothing else matters. Shipping grain to the poor, helping them vote, or assisting their efforts to start a farm is irrelevant. Whatever material improvements we provide will simply wash away in the face of the corrupt police forces, out-of-control, armies, private militias, organized criminals, and - not least - failed justice systems that plague poor countries. Throughout, the book will feature real-world stories ranging from Thailand to Bolivia to India to Nigeria that vividly depict how violence undercuts antipoverty efforts. While they argue that this violence is the fundamental issue facing the antipoverty movement, they do not merely identify the problem. They also draw from their experience running the International Justice Mission to show that ground-up efforts to reform legal and public justice systems can generate real, positive results. Sweeping in geographical scope and filled with unforgettable stories of individuals trapped within the mutually reinforcing cycle of poverty and violence,The Locust Effect will force us to rethink everything we know about the causes of poverty and why it is so difficult to root out.Readership: General readers, international aid workers, lawyers, Christian lawyers, students and scholars of International Development and International Law

Full Product Details

Author:   Gary A. Haugen (President and CEO; Visiting Professor of Law, International Justice Mission ; University of Chicago Law School) ,  Victor Boutros (Federal Prosecutor in the Civil Rights Division; Visiting Professor of Law, US Justice Department; University of Chicago Law School)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 16.20cm , Height: 3.20cm , Length: 23.80cm
Weight:   0.606kg
ISBN:  

9780199937875

ISBN 10:   0199937877
Pages:   368
Publication Date:   13 March 2014
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

I. The Deeper Waters of ViolenceChapter One: The Desperate Drama Beneath the SurfaceChapter Two: Five Nightmares that Destroy the DreamII. If You're Not Safe, Nothing Else MattersChapter Three: The Poor Have No Protection and The Emperor Has No Clothes Chapter Four: No Medical Remedy for ViolenceChapter Five: Violence and the Dream of Universal Human RightsChapter Six: Interesting But Not HelpfulIII. The Invisible Oxygen the Global Poor Don't Get to BreatheChapter Seven: Impunity Not PovertyChapter Eight: The Invisible Oxygen of Law and OrderChapter Nine: Inside the Public Justice PipelineIV. Why So Broken? Three Surprising StoriesChapter Ten: The Absurdity that Makes SenseChapter Eleven: Private Substitutes for Public JusticeChapter Twelve: You Get What You Pay ForChapter Thirteen: Threats to the Status QuoV. Justice is Possible for the Poor: The Problem that Simply Must-and Can-be SolvedChapter Fourteen: Hope and the Recovery of a Lost HistoryChapter Fifteen: Lessons of Hope from an Emerging MethodologyChapter Sixteen: A Way Forward: What We All Need to Do Now

Reviews

The Locust Effect provides a much-needed argument for reducing violence against the poor and a demonstration -- through first hand stories that are both shocking and true -- of why that goal is so vital. By reminding us that basic legal protections are not a privilege, but a universal right, Gary Haugen has issued a moral call to arms that informs the brain and touches the heart. --Madeleine Albright, Former U.S. Secretary of State This extraordinary book offers surprising and valuable insights about the nature and the drivers of the plague of violence that haunts the global poor as well as smart ideas about how to tackle it. A must-read. --Moises Naim, Scholar, Carnegie Endowment, author of The End of Power, and former editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy You may 'know' that the world's poor suffer common everyday violence -- robbery, extortion, rape, murder, torture-a stream of humiliating assaults on their dignity. You may 'know' that this implies lost productivity and ultimately lost growth for low-income economies. Haugen asks why, if we know all that, we do so little? ...Read this book and you will be convinced the issue deserves more of your attention. --Nancy Birdsall, Founding President, Center for Global Development Some of the biggest ideas are right in front of us but still invisible. The Locust Effect brings home, in convincing and powerful detail, the simple but oh-so-important point that poverty results from violence as much as violence results from poverty. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in development, security, and the failure of billions of people to achieve their potential. --Anne-Marie Slaughter, President, New America Foundation, and Professor Emeritus of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University The Locust Effect presents a compelling and shocking portrayal of the relationship between violence and poverty. The book convincingly argues that violence is the missing link in our unde

Author Information

Gary A. Haugen is founder and president of International Justice Mission (IJM) - a global nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the poor from violence by rescuing victims, bringing the criminals to justice, restoring survivors to safety and strength, and helping local law enforcement build a safe future. Haugen received the Trafficking in Persons Hero (TIP Hero) award by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 for the work of his organization to combat human trafficking overseas. Prior to founding IJM in 1997, Haugen was detailed by the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as Senior Trial Attorney with the Police Misconduct Task Force of the Civil Rights Division, to serve as Officer in Charge of the United Nations' investigation of the Rwandan genocide. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School, Haugen was also honored for his human rights leadership by the University of Chicago, Pepperdine University, Prison Fellowship and Sojourners, among other institutions. Haugen and the work of IJM have been featured by Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Forbes, the Times of India, CNN, Dateline NBC, FOX News, MSNBC and National Public Radio, among many other outlets. Victor Boutros is a federal prosecutor who investigates and tries nationally significant cases of police misconduct, hate crimes, and international human trafficking around the country on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. He is also a member of the Justice Department's Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, which consolidates the expertise of some of nation's top human trafficking prosecutors and enhances the federal government's ability to identify and prosecute large human trafficking networks. Boutros trains federal and local law enforcement professionals on investigating and prosecuting federal civil rights crimes and has taught trial advocacy to indigenous lawyers working on similar issues in the developing world. Prior to his work with the Justice Department, Boutros worked on prison reform in Ecuador, documented bonded slaves in India, and helped strengthen anti-trafficking efforts as a visiting lawyer with the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa. Boutros is a graduate of Baylor University, Harvard University, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago Law School.

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