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Purpose – This paper examines the changing regimes of governance and the roles of accounting therein in a less developed country (LDC) by using Sri Lanka tea plantations as a case. It captures the changes in a chronological analysis, which identifies four regimes of governance: (a) pre-colonial, (b) colonial, (c) post-colonial and (d) neo-liberal. It shows how dialectics between political state, civil state and the economy affected changes in regimes of governance and accounting through evolving structures, processes and contents of governance.

Methodology – It draws on the works of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi to articulate a political economy framework. It provides contextual accounts from the Sri Lankan political history and case data from its tea plantations for the above chronological analysis.

Findings – The above four regimes of governance had produced four modes of accounting: (a) a system of rituals in the despotic kingship, (b) a system of monitoring and reporting to absentee Sterling capital in the despotic imperialism, (c) a system of ceremonial reporting to state capital in a politicised hegemony and (d) good governance attempts in a politicised hegemony conditioned by global capital. We argue that political processes and historical legacies rather than the assumed superiority of accounting measures gave shape to governance regimes. Governance did not operate in its ideal forms, but ‘good governance’ initiatives revitalised accounting roles across managerial agency to strengthening stewardship rather than penetrating it into the domain of labour controls. Managerial issues emerged from contradictions between political state, civil state and the economy (enterprise) constructed themselves a distinct political domain within which accounting had little role to play, despite the ambitious aims of good governance.

Originality – Most accounting and governance research has used economic theories and provided ahistorical analysis. This paper provides a historically informed chronological analysis using a political economy framework relevant to LDC contexts, and empirically demonstrates how actual governance structures and processes lay in broader socio-political structures, and how the success of good governance depends on the social and political behaviour of these structural properties.

Placing expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia in the context of the global land grab, this paper analyzes the contemporary extent and early historical periods of plantation expansion via the theory of accumulation by dispossession (ABD).

After reviewing the empirical debate about the land grab, this paper examines the importance of ABD to understand the land grabs in general and for oil palm plantations in Indonesia in particular. Rather than a new phenomenon of the last four decades of neoliberalism, ABD has a history of several centuries.

Accumulation by dispossession (ABD) is a powerful and appropriate lens by which to understand the land conversion and social displacement occurring in Indonesia. Building on historical understanding of ABD, this paper applies the theory to the Indonesian oil palm case, making the case that the multiple and uncertain sequences of engagement with oil palm expansion are reflective of a broader struggle against dispossession.

ABD is not just a global financial process of corporate-led neoliberalization but also shaped importantly by domestic state and local elites. These elites have shaped ABD differently in colonial, authoritarian, and neoliberal periods.

Although there have been extensive studies on the hydrological and erosional impacts of logging, relatively little is known about the impacts of conversion into agricultural plantation (namely rubber and oil palm). Furthermore, studies on morphological impacts, sediment-bound chemistry and forensic attribution of deposited sediment to their respective sources are scarcer. This chapter introduces the potential for using the multi-proxy sediment fingerprinting technique in this context. Featuring pilot projects in two major flood-prone river systems in Malaysia, the studies explore application of geochemistry-based sediment source ascription. The geochemical signatures of sediment mixtures on floodplains were compared to sediments from upstream source tributaries. The tributaries were hypothesised to have different geochemical signatures in response to dominant land management. The first case study took place in the Segama River system (4,023 km²) of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo where a mixture of primary forest, logged-forests and oil palm plantations were predominant. The second case study was in the Kelantan River Basin (13,100 km²) with two major tributaries (Galas River and Lebir River) where logged-forests and rubber and oil palm plantations are dominant land-uses. Both case studies demonstrated the applicability of this method in ascribing floodplain deposited sediment to their respective upstream sources. Preliminary results showed that trace elements associated with fertilisers (e.g. copper and vanadium) contribute to agricultural catchment signatures. Alkaline and alkaline-earth elements were linked to recently established oil palm plantations due to soil turnover. Mixing model outputs showed that contributions from smaller, more severely disturbed catchment are higher than those from larger but milder disturbed catchments. This method capitalises on flood events to counter its adverse impacts by identifying high-priority sediment source areas for efficient and effective management.

One of the growing segments in tourism industry in Bali is agritourism, a market segment, which has not been fully explored in terms of tourists’ point of view. Thus, knowledge about tourists’ motivation and satisfaction to choose this activity is still in its early stage. This chapter identifies the motivation and satisfaction of local tourists to visit civet coffee plantations. The research, based on a quantitative method, identifies five motivational factors which affect the satisfaction of tourists. The findings improve our understanding of people who choose coffee plantations for their holidays and offer opportunities to maintain and enhance the current situation for this type of agritourism site.

While scholars have commonly inquired into how capital structures the material world, far less attention has been paid to how the material world has structured the historical relations of the capitalist world economy. This chapter is concerned with the expansion of Caribbean sugar industry in the world economic conjuncture of the first half of the nineteenth century. It examines the relation of the material requirements of sugar production, regional geography, and productive space. The ability of planters in particular locations to respond to world economic conditions was subject to material and spatial constraints. Increased output and technological innovation were dependent on the creation of new productive spaces – including both the formation of new commodity frontiers and the reconstitution the sugar plantation – that conformed to the changing requirements of sugar manufacture. Thus, the spatial and material conditions of staple production shaped the pattern of accumulation and political economic development.

The present effects of transnational corporations (TNCs) on social, health, and environmental aspects of local societies have a long history. The pre-conditions for the insertion of the types of economic initiatives now seen in the Global South, and driven by TNCs, were set through histories of colonialism and development schemes. These initiatives disrupted local economies and modified environments, delivering profound effects on livelihoods. These effects were experienced as structural violence, and have produced social suffering through the decades.

In this paper, we compare two African cases across time; the conjunction of development initiatives and structural adjustment in the Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe in the early 1990s and industrial plantation forestry in present-day Uganda. Each case presents a specific constellation of political and economic forces that has produced prejudicial effects on local populations in their time period of application and are, essentially, different versions of structural violence that produce social suffering. While each case depicts a specific type of violent encounter manifest at a particular historical moment, these are comparable in the domains of environmental impacts, disruptions to societies, co-opting of local economies, disordering of systems of meaning and social reproduction, and nefarious effects on well-being. We analyze the conjunction of these effects through a theoretical lens of structural violence and social suffering. Our analysis draws particular attention to the role of TNCs in driving this structural violence and its effects.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on profitability in agricultural sector companies, especially the agricultural sub-sector in the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). These sub-sectors are designated as one sub-plantation group with one value and another valuable sub-sector. This study uses secondary data of financial statements for the period 2015–2016 accessed on the following website: www.idx.co.id.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The data analysis method used in this research, using dummy regression method with an independent variable, is called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), and Net Profit Margin (NPM) are used as dependent variables. Besides this, this study included a sub-sector variable in agricultural sector as a dummy variable.

Findings – This study found that the ability to explain CSR is greater by the ROE on plantation companies. These findings indicate that CSR has a signal for investors when investing in capital markets.

Research Limitations/Implications – This study had restrictiveness in model that was used only profitability ratio as an independent variable. This study also used during a two-year period. Alongside that, the next study is needed to search in other sectors by entering a sector variable as a dummy variable.

Practical Implications – Implementation of CSR was a solution for company to repair organizational and financial performance. So, Properly Company Management uncertainly implement CSR on their environment.

Originality/Value – All sub-sectors in agriculture in the IDX did not have different viewpoints for the implementation of a CSR program to their environment.

Drawing upon recent interests in Michel Foucault’s anti-essentialist conception of the state, I provide an analysis of state power in colonial slave societies that is attentive to the ongoing processes of “statification” and governmentalization of the state. This approach represents an alternative to classic state theory, which seems inadequate to describe the diverse political context of Caribbean colonial slave societies.

I apply the Foucauldian conception of the state to the empirical case of the Danish West Indies in the second half of the 18th century. Here, I focus on the problem of public order and its formation in relation to growing concerns over general economic, social, demographic, and political risks that the institution of slavery posed to colonial society. I argue that the slave laws of the 18th century can be seen as a governmental strategy to manage the risks of slavery by constituting a public order that would be subject to policing by the state. I also argue, however, that the specific circumstances of colonial slavery shaped the regulative practices toward the necessities of a flexible, adjustable, responsive government. I suggest that this should be interpreted as a governmental strategy calibrated to the realities of the specificities of colonial rule, rather than simply a reflection of incoherence and incompetence on the part of colonial authorities. The larger argument is that actual state practices have to be seen as results of problems of government in a given context, and as a function of the dynamic and reciprocal processes of government.

The purpose of this chapter is to give an interpretation to the limits of Indonesia’s forestry policy through the sustainable development approach analyzing the crossroads between economic development and environmental sustainability. There is an expansion and intensification of industrial plantations such as palm oil, as part of the economic development strategy, which must coexist with ongoing efforts of conservation of forest resources in the pursuit of environmental sustainability, including policies such as the Forest Moratorium.

The study explores the influence of the economic development of the palm oil industry in the environmental sustainability of the Forest Moratorium during the period 2011–2014. A case study on the Forest Moratorium is presented analyzing the operativeness of sustainable development principles in the discourse and concrete actions of this specific policy.

The study evidences that there is a basic problem in Indonesia’s forestry policy and the sustainable development approach, not only because of its inherent contradictions, but also due to the flaws in its interpretation and implementation. It is necessary to rethink the sustainable development, its scopes and limitations, taking into consideration its hybridity, dynamism, and constant transformation. It is also necessary to consider the feasibility of a paradigm shift or a search for sustainable solutions based on other parameters. One way of doing it should include a more participatory approach with a joint work by the government, local communities, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and academia.

First, as this is a case study the findings are not generalizable; and second, the social dimension of sustainable development is not incorporated in its entirety, as this study focuses mainly on the economic and environmental dimensions.

The findings contribute to the discussion in the theoretical and public policy fields, on the crossroads between economic development and environmental sustainability in the international agenda for sustainable development.

The study allows capturing the discussion in a concrete case and learning from the experience of Indonesia, its institutional failures, and the causes of its environmental problems.

This chapter illuminates why and how a group of local social entrepreneurs improved farmers’ living conditions and contributed to the preservation of Kerinci Seblat National Park (KSNP) through sustainable coffee farming. KSNP is the largest national park on the Island of Sumatra and is a UNESCO world heritage site. However, since 2011, it has been listed as a “World Heritage in Danger” due to illegal logging, encroachment, and poaching of KSNP land. To save KSNP and improve the living conditions of the people around the national park, a group of local social entrepreneurs gathered in 2014 and devised a vision of “preserving the nature by empowering the community” by establishing Koperasi Alam Kopi Kerinci (ALKO cooperatives). The cooperative started to recruit seasoned farmers and younger people who wanted to become agripreneurs. The coffee supply chain was strengthened by educating farmers about good farming practices and coffee traceability technology, so Kerinci coffee could compete in the export market. After seven years of collaborative work, by early 2021, the initiative empowered 516 farmers who cultivated 410 hectares of coffee plantations in 24 villages with a total production of 350 tons of Arabica specialty Kerinci coffee. Ninety-five per cent of coffee productions were exported with premium prices to Belgium, Norway, France, the Netherlands, England, New Zealand, the USA, China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Farmers started to enjoy the fruit of their hard work. Some illegal loggers stopped poaching KSNP and started to plant coffee outside KSNP. The endeavor to preserve the nature and empower the community has started to show good results.