Contemporary Political Economy Research Articles

Aboriginal-led development – the case of the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust

ABSTRACT This case study explores the developmental practices and institutional environment which have supported the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust to build a sense of Aboriginal agency and ownership over efforts to promote development in remote central Australia. Drawing on interview data with practitioners and Aboriginal participants, the study demonstrates that flexible, adaptive practices which embrace learning and prioritise respectful relationships in pursuit of culturally appropriate fit-for-purpose governance is conducive to supporting Aboriginal-led development. The study further identifies the importance of institutional settings that enable this work, including relational leadership, long-term commitment, risk appetite, creating space for reflection and adaptation, and appropriate recruitment. It also identifies the constraints on the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust (WETT) within the contemporary political economy of Indigenous affairs, which limit the extent to which such practices and institutions can, by themselves, further Aboriginal-led development approaches.

Editorial

How is progressive politics developing in the wake of the multiple global crises that we currently face? What does it mean to be politically progressive in contemporary politics? Is the electoral turn the only path for today’s progressive politics? This special issue seeks to explore the current range of opportunities and obstacles facing advocates of progressive politics following more than a decade of eventful developments since the 2008 global economic crisis. It focuses especially on two core themes which we consider to be central to the journal Global Political Economy. First, we explore the nature of the current crisis/crises in the contemporary global political economy. Second, we highlight the forms of progressive politics that we consider to have the potential to respond to that crisis. In doing so, we seek to delineate the scope for resistance, dissent and emancipation in the contemporary global political economy; and, in doing so, focus our attention on the contested nature of that global political economy, and the trajectories for change which instances of contestation have the potential to produce.

Weak progressive politics and resistance without guarantees in the post-pandemic global political economy: a broadly Marxist account

There have been historically high levels of social contestation throughout the contemporary global political economy for over a decade now. Nevertheless, there are no obvious signs of a post-neoliberal global order on the horizon. In seeking to address this puzzle, this article presents a broadly Marxist framework through which to understand the contemporary global political economy, its contestation, corresponding political articulations, and shifting processes of institutionalisation. In adopting this framework, the article argues that the configuration of pressures in today’s global political economy are such that, at best, we can expect and hope for a form of ‘weak’ progressivism, as the systemic obstacles to more substantially emancipatory outcomes are greater than our current global neoliberal (alienated) society is equipped to challenge. This, however, should not necessarily be a cause for (only) pessimism.

Wage theft and the contours of accumulation

This article examines the theft of migrant workers’ wages in England by their employers, drawing from original accounts and testimonies of a sample of workers employed between 2018 and 2023. It builds on and establishes new conceptual understandings of wage theft by examining it as a violent form of accumulation, with a range of logics and functions including those which are connected to labour processes and the management of labour forces. In making this argument, the article situates the theft of migrant workers’ wages – in this context at least – at the apex of at least three convergent dynamics: namely, the contours of immigration control and attacks on migrants’ rights, a reworking and undermining of regulatory structures relating to labour protections, and ongoing forms of labour market restructuring. As such, it suggests that these dynamics are structural; and furthermore, at a point where each of these policy trajectories is being aggressively pursued, they are intensifying. In dominant narratives wage theft is frequently depicted as something carried out by ‘rogue’ employers, at the margins of labour markets. But in contrast, this article suggests it must be understood as a structurally-situated component of contemporary political economy. Indeed, it is a core contention of the analysis that follows that movements to resist and tackle wage theft must acknowledge these broader connections and the broader political economy of which they are a part.

IDEOLOGY AND AFFECT IN POLITICAL POLARIZATION AND FANDOM ONLINE

In recent years, scholarly attention has indicated the increased enmeshment of the political and entertainment media spheres, a change that has happened so gradually that it has not been as remarked upon as it should be. This is perhaps most observable in studies of community dynamics around both $2 and $2 . The backdrop of digital surveillance capitalism, and the specific platform affordances on which these communities exist and interact, exacerbates both. Furthermore, beyond these inverse scenarios whose distinctive boundaries grow blurrier by the day, there is a third domain in the overlap, of the exploitation – or compensation – of fans, fandoms, and fan labor for political and financial gain. This, too, exists in a reactive feedback loop with the always-on conditions of our contemporary digital political economy. As consequence, there are prominent recent streams of work explicating what exactly the fields of fan studies and political sociology can offer each other for researching communities online in such contexts. Responding to both the current landscape and recent exemplary and novel scholarship in the field, our panel presents four papers which each delve into an intersection of identity, community, and their ideological and affective ties. They investigate online affective community practices in reaction to fractured sociopolitical polarization, and contribute to the expanding picture of interdisciplinary frameworks and methodologies available — and increasingly, required — to comprehend the motivations, justifications, and trajectories of community dynamics under such drivers.

Innovation Policy in OECD Activities: A Historical Reconstruction on Neo-Gramscian Foundations

The article offers a historical analysis of the formation and development of the concept of “innovation” in the discourse of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The theoretical and methodological foundation of the analysis is based on contemporary international political economy, which posits the necessity of considering international institutions as expressions of certain group interests. A characteristic feature of this approach is its reliance on the views of A. Gramsci, who argued that contrary to the original tenets of historical materialism, social processes do not arise as a direct realization of the interests of the ruling class but reflect compromises reached between it and other groups in society. Accordingly, examining the development of ideas about innovation from this perspective demonstrates that this process operates as a reflection of the converging interests of the scientific community, financial capital, and the electronics industry, forming a “historic bloc” that holds a stable position in Western society. Taking OECD documents as the subject of research, which acts as an influential center for policy development with characteristic features of both a political and scientific organization, allows for discerning traces of the historical bloc’s construction and its ideological shaping within these documents. The article traces the prehistory of the emergence of this bloc, the formation of compromises that bind its participants, and the construction of innovation policy as a way to express interests that have come to the forefront as a result of these compromises.

Accumulation through destabilization: manufacturing indigenous consent for industrial mining in Latin America

ABSTRACT This article explores the consolidation of industrial mining in Latin America, documenting the strategies that mining companies have used to deepen and widen extractive frontiers in Ecuador and Peru. Based on original fieldwork in the Andean highlands, we find that companies deployed payments, land purchases, and small gifts – or regalitos – to destabilize important norms governing reciprocity, community, and the commons, leading to significant conflict among community members. Our analysis contributes to a contemporary political economy that examines the ways in which mining companies use land purchases and gift giving to manipulate processes of community conflict, decision making and social consent.

A geographer's place matters: Reflections from a ‘local scholar’ and the politics of North/South knowledge production

AbstractThe most prominent and influential Geography literatures about the Global South are predominantly produced by scholars in the North and less so by intellectuals whose homes are located in the Global South—the ‘local scholars’. As a Cambodian scholar, I argue that the challenges of participating in collaborative, English language knowledge production derive not merely from skill disparities between international and ‘local’ academics, but also from constraints in finding the right platforms for research and academic expression. Constrained conditions for knowledge participation and expansion are rooted in a long history of colonialism in the Cambodian education system and the contemporary political economy of academia. Rather than directly engage with international intellectual and political discussions, in many cases, Cambodian scholars largely supply compelling stories—in the form of ethnographic evidence, data, images and affect to fuel theoretical debates taking place in the North. Beyond emphasising this well established inequity in the political economy of knowledge production, I contend that being ‘on the ground’ not only equips local scholars with contextual depths but also confines them to think and act locally.

Debunking the Myth of Nicaraguan Exceptionalism: Crime, Drugs and the Political Economy of Violence in a ‘Narco-state’

AbstractNicaragua is often held up as an exception within the Central American panorama of criminal violence, widely presented as the safest country in the region due to its particular revolutionary legacies, the (supposed) absence of transnational gangs and drug-trafficking organisations, and the National Police's representation as an efficient and professional force. This commentary proposes an alternative reading of Nicaragua's contemporary political economy of violence in order to reveal the profoundly misleading nature of this prevalent view. In particular, it highlights how Nicaragua is governed through a particular political ‘settlement’ underpinned by drug trafficking, police and judicial corruption, as well as ‘mafia state’ governance. These factors have coalesced to establish a highly efficient and engrained ‘narco-state’ whose undoing is unlikely in the short term.

Decolonizing the pocket monster: Smartphones, Pokémon Go and generational conflict in Malaysian Borneo

This article analyzes the generational politics of smartphones in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in the context of Bornean history and contemporary Sarawakian political economy. We respond to a global north bias in the standing literature on smartphone media and suggest approaches to improve representation of global south perspectives. Concretely, we propose three programmatic maxims as a methodological guide to incorporate perspectives and concerns from the global south more fully. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in Sarawak, we demonstrate the value of these suggestions by framing smartphones in the perspective of Bornean history as tools for maintaining instrumental social networks more than exchanging information across spatial disjunction. These tools are used differently by young urbanites and older rural populations. This leads us to show how Pokémon Go refracts generational conflicts by becoming the cultural touchstone of the changing political economic conditions of Malaysian urbanization.

Agro-extractivism

ABSTRACT The term agro-extractivism has become synonymous with large-scale, corporate-controlled, monoculture plantation agriculture. The aim of this concept note is to clarify the extractivist dynamics in the current context of the capitalist development process. The paper surveys the development of agro-extractivism as a conceptual framework and as a feature of the contemporary political economy of agrarian change in Latin America. It briefly reflects on the potential contributions of land-based struggles to post-extractivist alternatives based on food sovereignty politics. The paper concludes by assessing the broader implications of agro-extractivism for our understanding of the agrarian question in the twenty-first century.

The Prescience and Ongoing Relevance Found in Thorstein Veblen’s Political Economy

This inquiry advances the thesis that selected ideas of Thorstein Veblen should be appreciated, not only for their prescience but also for their ongoing relevance. To this end our inquiry considers selected chapters of Veblen’s The Theory of Business Enterprise, especially Chapters II, IX and X. In this 1904 publication Veblen introduced the idea that a “social problem” would emerge as pecuniary ambitions of businessmen exerted influence over “media,” the variable that he singled out for its ability to carry into the future a distinct culture that underpinned the rise and achievements of the bourgeois-liberal western world. Veblen’s notion of the “social problem” is reconsidered and relied upon to explain developments in the contemporary political economy of the United States, especially the emergence of forms of patriotism and nationalism that endorse the rise of autocratic regimes, replacing what has been known and appreciated as representative democracy rooted in civil society.

Market Affect and the Rhetoric of Political Economic Debates

Market Affect and the Rhetoric of Political Economic Debates

Strategic Performance Measurement and Management: The Distinctive Nature of the Public Sector and Implications on Performance Measures

Purpose : Strategic performance measurement and management (SPMM) as a subject has come over increased research radar over the last four or so decades. The so-called “performance measurement revolution” of the 1980s to 1990s concentrated on the private sector. “Business managerialism” and “accountingisation” kicked-in into the public sector with transplanting of hitherto private sector management techniques under New Public Management (NPM) and other administrative reform programmes by various governments internationally. Specifically, the 1990s saw the implementation of modern multi-dimensional SPMM systems originally in the private sector. Considering the nuanced nature of the public sector, the transfer of SPMM systems from the private to the public sector has not been straightforward due to technical, conceptual and behavioral factors. This paper contrasts the features of the private and public sectors and investigates the implication of the distinctive nature of the public sector on the application of SPMM in the public sector. This will augment our perceptions and comprehension of existing public sector SPMM theory and practice. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study adopted a systematic literature review (SLR), a mode of research which has been widely adopted and strongly justified for adoption in business and management research since the turn of the 21st century. The study conducted a content and thematic analysis on the commonalities and differences between private and public sectors and implication of the differences on public sector strategic performance measurement and management. The study itself covered 233 published and unpublished documents covering the seven decades to 2023 which to our knowledge constitutes the most comprehensive update on the public-private debate trends to date. Findings: The study thoroughly interrogated the literature perspectives or models on the commonalities and differences between the public and private sectors. The study then deep-dived into the underlying characteristics which differentiate the public and private sectors producing one of the most detailed side-by-side analyses of public-private differentiation based on organisational characteristics, dimension, or concept of all time. The systematic review further identified and derived several thematic areas related to public-private differences and went on to establish the implications of the public-private divergences from an SPMM perspective especially as it relates to the derivation and application of public sector performance measures. These findings are critical for both practitioners and academics as they explore the subject of transplanting private sector SPMM practices into the public sector which is another overripe area for research. The findings provide public managers with a comprehensive and critical cog in their management toolbox as they navigate the practical realities and difficulties of implementing SPMM in the public sector’s unique and complex environment. Research Limitations: The main challenge with conducting a comprehensive research of this magnitude relates mainly to the broad range of literature covered, the unwieldy and onerous analysis and lots of judgement calls which could impact bias and replicability. Practical Implications - This paper conducts a comparative analysis of the key features of the private and public sectors found in the literature and evaluates how they drive attendant management practices in the two sectors and specifically how the public sector’s distinctive nature impacts on the measures of performance. Originality/value - Studying the differences and how they impact the choice of public sector KPIs is crucial in attempting to address the myriad of challenges and potential hindrances to future institutionalisation of SPMM in contemporary PSOs. Exploring and understanding the differences and similarities between public and private sectors is a beneficial springboard to cultivate erudition, cross-pollination and facilitation of knowledge transfer between the two sectors of the contemporary global political economy. Keywords: Strategic, performance management, performance measurement, performance measures, key performance indicators, public-private differences DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/13-2-03 Publication date: March 31 st 2023

The Moral Economy of High-Tech Modernism

Abstract While people in and around the tech industry debate whether algorithms are political at all, social scientists take the politics as a given, asking instead how this politics unfolds: how algorithms concretely govern. What we call “high-tech modernism”- the application of machine learning algorithms to organize our social, economic, and political life-has a dual logic. On the one hand, like traditional bureaucracy, it is an engine of classification, even if it categorizes people and things very differently. On the other, like the market, it provides a means of self-adjusting allocation, though its feedback loops work differently from the price system. Perhaps the most important consequence of high-tech modernism for the contemporary moral political economy is how it weaves hierarchy and data-gathering into the warp and woof of everyday life, replacing visible feedback loops with invisible ones, and suggesting that highly mediated outcomes are in fact the unmediated expression of people's own true wishes.

Labor's End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work

Labor's End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work

Economic Rights, The Very Idea

This article seeks to provide the philosophical foundations for the very idea of economic rights, comparable to the foundations that have long been available for the rights around the notion of liberty. The author then situates economic rights, so understood, within the realities of contemporary capitalist political economy, as it has been analysed over the years by Prabhat Patnaik. JEL Codes: B0, K1, N1, P1, P2

Blasting the Post-Critical Out of the Continuum of Cold War Political Economy

This article aims to complicate the economic and political terrain on which debates within Polanyi Studies take place, arguing that imprecise terminology and an ossified set of Cold War concepts erect dubious and simplistic dichotomies (e.g., liberal/conservative, markets/planning, freedom/totalitarianism, etc.) that are not up to the task of appropriately navigating contemporary political economy. The essay accomplishes this task by offering counterexamples to status quo assumptions in Polanyi Studies as well as by suggesting more nuanced avenues for future Polanyian exploration.

FIRE Watchers: The Centrality of Surveillance (Studies) for Finance, Insurance, Real Estate

The deepening integration of the technology sector with the FIRE sector (finance, insurance, real estate) is, arguably, one of the most consequential developments in contemporary political economy. With names like fintech, insurtech, and proptech, the influence of these industries can be found everywhere and only continues to grow. At their heart, the rise of FIRE-tech is about upgrading old and building new forms of surveillance and then applying them to increasingly more people, places, and processes. And yet, critical research on FIRE-tech from the field of surveillance studies has not kept pace with these developments. This special issue offers us a chance to look back on the contributions made by the field and look ahead at the challenges it now faces. As we think about the issues and agendas that should guide our research moving forward, there is value in bringing surveillance studies and FIRE-tech into closer alignment. Doing so provides an opportunity to increase the analytical power and ongoing relevance of the field by critically confronting the development, purpose, and impact of FIRE-tech. In short, we should frame FIRE as surveillance and we should see surveillance via FIRE.

In the middle of things: the political economy of labour beyond the market

AbstractWhile legal analyses of political economy typically centre on events and processes within the market, this discussion argues that contemporary dilemmas requires attention to labour and productive activity at its edges and beyond. Questions surrounding labour provide an unparalleled vantage point from which to assess how groups are differentially situated within the economy, especially at moments of economic crisis and transformation. The constitutive role of law in market relations, in turn, makes legal analysis fundamental to understanding how risks and rewards at work are distributed.Reflecting on the role of macroeconomic governance to work, evident in times of crisis in particular, and drawing upon concepts and tools developed within critical legal thought, this paper analyses two sites of labour, unpaid household care work and informal labour, that are at the centre of distributive struggles around work now. As the historical separation of the household and market labour discloses, transformations of legal form, and classification played a critical role in the simultaneous production of waged labour and valueless care. Similar processes are underway in labour markets now; thus, understanding the legal constitution of value and of work itself remains central to questions of inequality now.Bargaining analysis as well as taxonomies of family law suggest the significance of a wide range of legal rules and their interaction to labour market outcomes and the position of workers. The analysis of informal work points in a similar direction, as contract, competition, and corporate law and beyond are all implicated in the growth of informality and precarity at work. Finally, uncovering the legal foundations of racial fragmentation at work requires attention to multiple legal regimes as well as the conceptual and ideological commitments that sustain them. All engage questions about the role, and transformation, of legal form, classification and consciousness within contemporary political economy.