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Here's Question No. 5 (It's a Short-Answer Concepts question.):Until the recent economic recession, global forces have pressured countries to carry out programs of structural adjustment.
What is structural adjustment? What are two pressures accompanying the recession that have encouraged governments to make policy decisions that would be antithetical to structural adjustment? (3 point question)
(See pp. 33-34, 42, 117, and 159-161 in What You Need to Know.)
2 comments:
Here is a response to this question by a brave student.
"Structural adjustment, also known as shock therapy in Russia, is the instant acceptance of capitalistic policies in a previously un-capitalistic system. This includes privatization of industries, market-based prices, deregulation and the elimination of state subsidies."
One point for the definition. Note that "shock therapy" refers to those situations in which there is a nearly "instant" change to privatized industries, etc. (Such changes cannot be literally instantaneous.) Structural adjustment is most commonly a process that is done in stages over considerable time.
"One pressure of the recent recession is the rising unemployment associated with falling prices and an uninterested market. This unemployment then leads the government towards a more socialist viewpoint, much like that of Soviet Russia or depression era United States, where the government becomes the provider of jobs rather than the market. Thus an increased unemployment sector leads to increased government intervention, an antithesis of the market-oriented structural adjustment."
One point for identifying the pressure and the explanation. Note that the explanation is necessary to earn this point even though the question does not specifically ask for it. The authors of AP questions presume that you need to explain why the pressure leads to a reluctance to carry out structural adjustment. In this case, merely identifying "rising unemployment" would not be enough to earn the point.
"Additionally the recession has created the pressure of fear in the market, especially in foreign market exchanges. This hurts the process of structural adjustment for a government will be unable and wary of privatization if the market does not have the confidence to support the privatized industries. Rather than have these industries fail in a weak and skeptical market, countries will choose to continue the prior practice of state-control, also antithetical to structural adjustment."
No points for this identification/explanation. It's close though. I read this several times and even made a little chart of the logic. (Something I would never have had time to do as an exam reader.)
If the explanation had focused on falling demand or on international trade, the explanation might have been adequate to earn the point. The fear of failure is correctly identified, but the cause is vague. The real "anti-structural adjustment" policy would be new or continued state subsidies more than state control.
Two of three possible points is on target for a very good score on the FRQ section of the exam.
Other possible pressures that would be acceptable would include rising energy prices, price reductions by competitors in other countries, threats by large customers to buy elsewhere, market or political pressures on currency values, domestic unrest by unions or ad hoc groups of unemployed workers, declining investment by domestic or global interests, and decisions by global companies to withdraw from the domestic market (e.g. Google in China).
The author of the sample response here goes to school at West Springfield High School in Springfield, Virginia
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