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Backwardness is a multifaceted term comprising various dimensions that can be quantified with the help of specific representative indicators. This study intends to explore the state of backwardness and identify underdeveloped areas in the districts of Rajouri and Poonch that share a 230-km-long border along the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan and have always been under the continuous threat of cross-border disturbances and aggressive posturing from both sides, which has primarily affected the region's local communities geo-economically and socio-psychologically. A comprehensive block-level index of backwardness has been employed by applying Principal Component Analysis on 20 indicators across five dimensions—basic amenities, demography, education and health, agriculture, and water resources for mapping and quantifying the backwardness in the region. Here, the relative difference in the degree of development among the blocks measures backwardness. The results reveal that 15 blocks of the study area are the most backward, and only five blocks fall in the low category of backwardness. The results also reflect that most of the backward blocks are on the study area's eastern and south-western margins, as the former is characterized by high altitude, hilly terrain, and dense forests, whereas the latter forms the border between India and Pakistan, affected mainly by ceasefire violations. The findings provide vital insights for policymakers to prioritize targeted development programs and provision of basic amenities, improve education and healthcare, manage water resources sustainably, foster peace building, and involve local communities. This study primarily revolves around the 'contesting' spaces and border geographies and subsequent levels of development geographically, which would help researchers and policymakers worldwide understand the binary of backwardness and border geographies spatially.

The formation of directions for Ukraine’s exit from the «trap of backwardness» in the post-war period requires a logical and well-grounded conception built on the principles of modern science. In modern research, much attention is paid to the development of methodological support for the development of conceptions and conceptional provisions as a basis for the development of the country. However, there is currently no single scientifically grounded conception for Ukraine’s exit from the «trap of backwardness» after the war. The aim of the article is to substantiate the draft conception of Ukraine’s exit from the «trap of backwardness» in the post-war period. The main postulates of classical and neoclassical theories and conceptions that examine the problems of backwardness of countries by directions and dynamics of socioeconomic development, as well as individual authors’ models that describe various modifications of the «traps of backwardness» are generalized. The basic postulates of modern European research on the problems of recovery of the socioeconomic development after crises are defined. On this basis, a theoretical platform for the draft conception of Ukraine’s exit from the «trap of backwardness» is proposed. The effectiveness of the use of cognitive models to address the needs of the theory and practice of Ukraine’s post-war exit from the «trap of backwardness» is shown. The draft conception of Ukraine’s exit from the «trap of backwardness» in the post-war period is substantiated, containing a number of hypotheses and provisions, which together solve an important scientific and practical task of creating a mechanism and conditions for overcoming and destroying the trap of backwardness in Ukraine, as well as excluding the causes and possibilities of its reproduction in the post-war and long-term periods. Theoretical and practical problems that can be solved on the basis of the implementation of the draft conception of Ukraine’s exit from the «trap of backwardness» presented in the article are structured.

The nineteenth-century Hispanic world was shattered to its core by war, civil war, and revolution. At the same time, it confronted a new period of European and North-American expansion and development. In these essays, authors explore major, dynamic ways that people in Spain envisaged how they would adapt and change, or simply continue as they were. Each chapter title begins with the words “How to...”, and examines the ways in which Spaniards conceived or undertook major activities that shaped their lives. These range from telling the time to being a man. Adaptability, paradox, and inconsistency come to the fore in many of the essays. We find before us a human quest for opportunity and survival in a complex and changing world. This wide-ranging book contains chapters by leading scholars from the United States, United Kingdom, and Spain.

Based on data from a free of cost smartphone app, this paper presents a methodology to compute and integrate six transport disadvantage indicators into a widely used measure of social exclusion in Mexico, namely, social backwardness index (SBI). It is presented the case of Zacatecas metropolitan area as an example. The results are obtained through Latent Class Analysis and Principal Component Analysis, comparing the effect of transport disadvantage on SBI. A major improvement over the official methodology is that the novel measure can be computed for highly spatially disaggregated units of analysis such as neighborhoods and urban blocks.

We propose that relative economic backwardness contributes to the build-up of social tension and non-violent and violent conflict. We test our hypothesis using data on organized mass movements and armed civil conflict. The findings show that greater economic backwardness is consistently linked to a higher probability of onset of violent and especially non-violent forms of civil unrest. We provide evidence that the relationship is causal in instrumental variables estimations using new instruments, including mailing speeds and telegram charges around 1900. The magnitude of the effect of backwardness on social tension increases in the two-stage least-squares estimations.

Alan Hollinghurst’s debut novel The Swimming-Pool Library (1988) engages queer temporality, specifically Heather Love’s idea of “ backwardness” (2007). The narrator fatefully discovers the historical injuries in Britain’s past: colonialism, racism, and homophobia. This past interacts with the narrator’s dislocated and alienated present. Backwardness conveys a temporal and cultural force that upsets liberal discourses about progress in late-twentieth-century sexual politics. The narrative rejects easy resolutions for historical injuries in the past and for abiding effects of cultural memory. Backwardness shapes conflicted queer subjectivities, thwarts hegemonic temporality, and undermines progressive sexual politics.

It is generally believed that research and development on green technology are difficult, but this paper finds that the gap in green technological progress between the central and western regions and the eastern region in China is significantly smaller than the gap in technological progress, and the per capita green GDP of the central and western regions caught up with the eastern region significantly faster than the per capita GDP. This paper proposes that the comparative advantage of human capital level in the central and western regions is the reason why these regions choose the direction of green technological progress, and the choice of the direction of green technological progress in the central and western regions may further bring about the backwardness advantages of green development in these regions. Through the system generalized method of moments (sys-GMM) estimation, empirical research using panel data from 29 provinces as well as the regional panel data in the mainland of China from 1995 to 2017 proved the above proposition. Specifically, due to the comparative advantages of human capital level, the central and western regions have chosen the direction of green technological progress; further, the central and western regions will obtain greater benefits of green GDP growth from the green technological progress, that is, the green technological progress enables these regions’ backwardness to take advantage from green development. This is a useful supplement to the theory of sustainable development and the theory of backwardness advantage.

How do democratic ideals and constitutional provisions of inclusive citizenship and “reasonable classification” of universal rights to combat social oppression and promote social justice get worked out in the crannies of state policies, citizen politics and legislative and legal pronouncements? This article addresses these issues by revisiting the convoluted trajectory of positive discrimination (termed “reservation”) in India as an illustrative and instructive example. It combines an innovative reading of Constitutional Assembly Debates, constitutional provisions, constitutional amendments, and crucial Supreme Court rulings to trace the gradual undoing of constitutional ideals and provisions. An exploration of changing state policies in tune with the imperatives of a neo-liberal Hindu authoritarian regime, and shifting electoral demands of privileged upper castes and classes, allows the article to underscore a radical shift in ethos that has resulted in an interrogation of constitutional provisions for social equality and justice. A lack of consensus on the justifiability of (re)distribution of resources by extending special benefits to the socially suppressed (“backward”) castes and classes of citizens, has laid bare the ambiguities inherent in constitutional ideals and provisions, highlighted the resourceful use of such ambiguities by the socially entitled citizens to disavow caste-based social oppression, and insist on economic weakness that hampers equal opportunity as the fair ground for “reservation.” A shift in emphasis from “social backwardness” of the oppressed to “economic weakness” of the advantaged in the language of the state ratified by the Supreme Court, underscores the undemocratic consequences of democratic provisions. A serious interrogation of the fairness of reasonable classification of equality and the justifiability of distribution on the part of the socially privileged, has served to disavow calls for social justice and recognition of difference by the oppressed, and overturned the basic premise of equal respect that ground liberal theories of social justice and social democracy.

This paper presents a methodology for estimating the index of social backwardness by urban blocks at Mexico City Metropolitan Area. The index, originally developed by the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy is a measure that seeks to establish differences between geographical areas located in the same region. The area of interest is inhabited by more than 20 million people assuming to be heterogeneous in their levels of quality of life. By closely following the official guidelines and by using the Population and Housing Census 2010, the obtained results are surprising. The urban block estimation suggests a 10.1 % of total population suffering from a high degree of social backwardness, contrary to the official measurements which sets it out around 0.3 %.

This paper presents a multi-country version of the Ramsey growth model with cross-country technological interdependence. The results rationalize several stylized facts about growth and convergence. First, individual countries tend to converge toward country-specific balanced growth paths rather than steady-state equilibria. Second, an economy that accounts for a smaller share of the world technology distribution harnesses the “advantages of backwardness” to catch up at a faster speed. Third, countries grow at different rates during the phase of transitional dynamics. However, technological interdependence creates a force toward cross-country convergence in the growth rate and stability of world income distribution in the long run. Finally, cross-country differences in structural characteristics and initial conditions lead to divergences in the level of income per capita.