Changing Institutional Context Research Articles

Decentering Nations: The Role of National Institutes for Culture in the Promotion and Circulation of European Cinema

When considering the circulation of European films across Europe within a post-national framework, an investigation on the role of national institutes for culture could offer a particular take on the “Europeanisation” (Carpentier 2021) process through cinema-related initiatives. If they were conceived to promote national heritage and values, they have found themselves in the ambivalent position of pursuing their main goal within a changing institutional and cultural context that requires more integrated approaches, since the beginning of the 1990s, namely after the end of the Cold War. Notably, since the creation of the European National Institutes for Culture network (hereafter EUNIC) in 2006, they have been asked to cooperate and to valorise the heterogeneity and multiplicity of European subjectivities and communities, according to the motto “unity in diversity” (Liz 2016; Bondebjerg, Novrup Redvall, and Higson 2014). In particular, this research concentrates on the circulation, among European and Italian institutes for culture, of films that deal with European issues, and has reflected on how they affect the construction of a transnational European identity by addressing sensitive topics.

An analysis of the evolution of Chinese cities in global scientific collaboration networks

Abstract This paper examines the emergence of China – now the world’s largest source of scientific publications – in global science from the perspective of the connectivity of its major cities in interurban scientific collaboration networks. We construct collaboration networks between 526 major cities (including 44 Chinese cities) for 2002–2006 and 2014–2018 based on co-publication data drawn from the Web of Science. Both datasets are analyzed using a combination of different centrality measures, which in turn allows assessing the shifting geographies of global science in general and the shifting position of Chinese cities therein in particular. The results show that: (1) on a global scale, the bipolar dominance of Europe and North America has waned in light of the rise of Asia-Pacific and especially China. Most Chinese cities have made significant gains in different centrality measures, albeit that only a handful of cities qualify as world-leading scientific centers. (2) The rise in connectivity of Chinese cities is therefore geographically uneven, as cities along the East Coast and the Yangtze River corridor have become markedly more prominent than cities in other parts of China. The uneven trajectories of Chinese cities can be traced back to changing institutional, economic, and geopolitical contexts. (3) Evolution in the global scientific collaboration network exhibits strong ‘Matthew Effects’, which can be attributed to the path-dependent nature of knowledge production and preferential attachment processes in scientific collaboration.

The Evolution of Gender Wealth Inequality in the United States in a Changing Institutional Context

This article analyzes the patterns of household-level gender wealth inequality in light of financial sector transformation in the US since the 1980s. Securitization, the subprime lending expansion, and wider liberalization measures influenced wealth disparities by determining access to different types of wealth, asset values, and relative indebtedness. The evolution of the gender wealth gap in the context of these institutional changes is not yet clearly established in the literature. Using the US Survey of Consumer Finances between 1989 and 2019, the study examines changes in wealth inequality between unpartnered male-headed and female-headed households and its determinants. It finds substantial heterogeneity of the gender wealth gap, and within-group inequality for female-headed households, across different categories of marital status, family structure, race/ethnicity, and percentile of wealth distribution. Homeownership is estimated to have an equalizing impact, while differences in employment income, age, self-employment, and ownership of high-yielding assets are associated with increasing wealth disparities. HIGHLIGHTS The study examines the unconditional and conditional wealth gaps across unpartnered households. Gender wealth inequality increased in the subprime era and after the Great Recession. The highest inequality is observed across marital status, family structure, and race. The highest inequality is found among the least wealthy households. Wealth inequality can be lowered by reducing disparities in income and asset ownership.

Neoliberal governance, evaluations, and the rise of win–win ideology in corporate responsibility discourse, 1960–2010

AbstractDespite conflicts between social and economic goals, contemporary US firms routinely depict such aims as synergistic. Analyzing 300 annual reports from a sample of 80 large US public firms between 1960 and 2010, we examine the rise of ‘win–win’ conceptions of corporate responsibility (CR), which include both the social benefits of economic activities and economic gains from social responsibility. Our findings support arguments that the rise of win–win ideology in large corporations is tied to the emergence of neoliberal governance in society. Indicators of firms’ changing institutional context include financialization, numbers of non-profit organizations and voluntary regulation schemes. However, the macroeffect is mediated by firm attention to these institutional changes; mentions of external evaluations in annual reports are associated with higher levels of win–win ideology. The study contributes to institutional theories of the historical development of CR and to understanding heterogeneous organizational responses to societal-level institutional change.

Globalization, Democracy and Child Health: Asia vs. Latin America

Child mortality in an important indicator of shortcomings in health provisions to the most vulnerable segments of the society i.e., children under five. In this highly connected world, the trends in child mortality need exploration within the context of institutional change and global connectivity. This study explores the effect of globalization on child health in Asia and Latin America. These two regions over the last three decades have undergone waves of liberalization as well as an inconsistent drive towards democratization with very different outcomes in terms of child mortality, making for apt comparison in the context of this study. The study also examines how the level of democracy changes the relationship between globalization and child health in the two regions for the time-period 1970 to 2016 using System GMM estimation technique. The results indicate that economic globalization improves child health in Asia while social and political globalization show different results for infant and child mortality. In Latin America political globalization was found to be most effective in reducing infant mortality, while all dimensions of globalization were found to be either insignificant or increasing under-five mortality. That said, the interactions between dimensions of globalization and democracy were found to be consistently significant and mortality reducing. This result signifies the existence of complementarity between democracy and globalization in improving child health outcomes.

Explaining Supranational Entrepreneurship Under the Juncker Commission: Fiscal Union vs. Banking Union

This article considers the supranational entrepreneurship of the Juncker Commission in achieving a more integrated fiscal union and completing the banking union. Empirical treatments of supranational entrepreneurship have prioritised structure over agency. To reintroduce agency, a new framework for evaluating the conditions for successful entrepreneurship in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is proposed. This is achieved by drawing on insights from ‘discursive institutionalism’. The changing institutional context as the crisis shifted from its fast- to slow-burning phase is examined, and the different economic ideas in EMU reform exposed. It is found that the Commission proceeded with caution on fiscal union but was ambitious in pursuing supranational reform on banking union. The decisive factor was institutional context and the opposition from Germany and the new ‘Hanseatic League’ for deepening fiscal union. It is argued that the outcome is comparable with the ‘strategic entrepreneurship’ that took place under Barroso II.

Agricultural Extension Service Delivery in Provincial and Local Government of Nepal: An Integrative Literature Review

Three tiers government system as new structured governance transformation in Nepal has opened up an opportunity for making agricultural policies especially at the province and local level to promote bottom-up approach of agricultural extension delivery system. Restructuring of extension system has also leaded the way to multiple challenges in achieving the goals and vision of various strategies and plans. The paper discusses the emerging issues and challenges of agricultural extension service delivery in the changing institutional and policy context. Through an integrative review of literatures, the paper discusses the prospects of agricultural extension service system in federal context and highlights the gaps in current extension service delivery mechanism. The paper concluded that with the implementation of federal system based on the rule of law, federal governance, balanced power-sharing and values, it has opened up an opportunity for making agricultural policies at the province and local government level and thus promoting the participatory, demand driven agriculture planning and implantation. However, Nepalese agriculture extension service delivery has been facing difficulties in transforming itself in the changed context due to lack of the coordination between the layers of government, niche- based expertise, long term visualization and capitals. There are very few studies and research regarding the structural reorganization of extension system in Nepal. In this context the paper aims to identify the background, prospects and challenges faced by agricultural extension system of Nepal in federal context.

Market imperative and cluster evolution in China: evidence from Shunde

ABSTRACTDrawing upon the notion of lock-in in evolutionary economic geography perspective and concept of market imperative in global production network 2.0 theory, this study explores the role of market imperatives of local suppliers in the evolution of local industrial clusters in China. Through a case study of the furniture cluster in Shunde, this paper argues that market imperatives of furniture firms have changed dramatically, urging furniture firms to de-lock from previous low-end domestic markets in China and expand to different market segments in China as well as in other emerging economies. The changing market imperatives led to the breaking-out of lock-ins and the transformation of local clusters in the changing institutional context.

Understanding educational inequality in Hong Kong: secondary school segregation in changing institutional contexts

Since the mid-1990s, important education policy changes, such as the growth of Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) schools and the reform of the medium of instruction (MOI) policy, have been made in Hong Kong. Little is known about their impact on school segregation and educational inequality. We address this issue using six successive cycles of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study data. We found evidence for rising levels of secondary school segregation in terms of family socio-economic status and mathematics achievement from 1995 to 2011, whereas segregation declined from 2011 to 2015. We speculate that the salience of the MOI policy in expediting the segregating tendencies of the DSS sector might explain a growing magnitude of the effect of family socio-economic status on academic achievement between 1995 and 2011, and the reversed direction of such trends between 2011 and 2015. Implications are discussed.

From Human Rights Aspirations to Enforceable Obligations by Non-State Actors in the Digital Age: The Example of Internet Governance and ICANN

As the global policy-making capacity and influence of non-state actors in the digital age is rapidly increasing, the protection of fundamental human rights by private actors becomes one of the most pressing issues in Global Governance. This article combines business and human rights and digital constitutionalism discourses and uses the changing institutional context of Internet Governance and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (‘ICANN’) as an example to argue that economic incentives act against the voluntary protection of human rights by informal actors and regulatory structures in the digital era. It further contends that the global policy-making role and increasing regulatory power of informal actors such as ICANN necessitates reframing of their legal duties by subjecting them to directly binding human rights obligations in international law. The article argues that such reframing is particularly important in the information age for three reasons. Firstly, it is needed to rectify an imbalance between hard legal commercial obligations and human rights soft law. This imbalance is well reflected in ICANNs policies. Secondly, binding obligations would ensure that individuals whose human rights have been affected can access an effective remedy. This is not envisaged under the new ICANN Bylaw on human rights precisely because of the fuzziness around the nature of ICANN’s obligations to respect internationally recognized human rights in its policies. Finally, the article suggests that because private actors such as ICANN are themselves engaging in the balancing exercise around such rights, an explicit recognition of their human rights obligations is crucial for the future development of access to justice in the digital age.

Changing institutions for environmental policy and politics in New Era China

ABSTRACTThe evolution of Chinese environmental policy and politics can be better understood in the broader context of institutional changes that have taken place since the late 1970s. In this study, an analytical framework was established to analyze how overall institutional changes were reflected in the roles of relationships between governmental and non-governmental actors engaged in environmental governance. Institutional changes were observed at three levels: informal institutions (cultural traditions, and political ideology); formal institutions (the polity, political system, property rights, and judiciary); and governing mechanisms (structures, regulatory approaches, and incentives). This analysis of interactions between institutional changes and the changing environmental process explained not only the drives and constraints behind China’s environmental policy evolution so far but also shed light on future challenges and opportunities.

Rod Serling’s Vast Promised Land: Battling Sponsors, Debating the FCC and Fighting for Mature Television, 1959–1966

This article explores the ‘public’ television career of Rod Serling, drawing upon the collection of his papers held by the Winsonsin Historical Society, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Serling is best known as creator of the science fiction television anthology series The Twilight Zone (1959–1964) but his place in American television history is not defined solely by that one series. The article demonstrates how Serling responded to the changing institutional and cultural contexts of television broadcasting. It focuses in particular on his appearances before the Federal Communications Commission and his advocacy of creative freedom against censorial and sponsors’ intervention. It concludes with an assessment of Serling’s place in television history and his role as a ‘godfather’ of American Quality Television.

NGOization of Islamic Charity: Claiming Legitimacy in Changing Institutional Contexts

Islamic welfare organizations are currently going through processes of ‘NGOization’. Drawing on qualitative data from Pakistan, Norway and the UK (2012–2015), this article examines how two Islamic welfare organizations which are embedded in Islamic political movements, become ‘Muslim NGOs’. The NGOization of Islamic charity signifies not only a change in organizational structure and legal status, but also more profound changes in organizational discourse and practice, and in the ways the organizations make claims to legitimacy. To claim legitimacy as providers of aid in changing institutional environments, the organizations draw on both religious and professional sources of authority. By analysing the NGOization of Islamic charity, the paper brings out the importance of normative frameworks in shaping organizational legitimacy and sheds light on the continued significance of both moral and transcendental aspects of the discourses, practices and identities of Muslim NGOs.

Reflections from an Accidental Sports Historian: Arriving, Striving, and Surviving

This article reflects on my serendipitous encounter with, and subsequent career in, sports history, and ponders on the career impacts of the changing institutional and structural contexts in which academic sports historians work.

Behind film performance in China\u2019s changing institutional context: The impact of signals

Grounded in signaling theory, this paper investigates the signals reflecting product quality, innovativeness, reputation and cultural background which influence film performance, that is, film survival (duration on cinema screen) and box office success, in China’s changing institutional context. This market has grown substantially and still possesses potential for further development. However, China’s unique institutional context presents challenges. By examining an expanded range of potential signals, two of which have not previously been examined in the literature, namely imported films and enhanced format film formats such as 3D and IMAX, we develop a conceptual framework and argue that signaling theory needs to be combined with institutional context. Similar to findings for film industries in other countries, we find quality and reputational signals including budget, star power, sequels, and online consumer reviews to be important in China. However, unique results are also revealed. Chinese consumers react to an innovativeness signal in that they are specifically attracted to enhanced format films. Film award nominations and prizes are insignificant reputational signals. Once other signals are taken into account, imported films on average do not perform as well as domestic films. We link these findings to China’s unique institutional setting and offer important implications for management, recognizing the challenges to film companies of competing in an increasingly globalized market. This paper is also of relevance to policymakers given their continued efforts in shaping the development of China’s film industry.

Indonesia. Promises and predicaments: Trade and entrepreneurship in colonial and independent Indonesia in the 19th and 20th centuries Edited by Alicia Schrikker and Jeroen Touwen Singapore: NUS Press, 2015. Pp. 334. Tables, Figures, Bibliography, Index.

Promises and predicaments: Trade and entrepreneur ship in colonial and independent Indonesia in the 19th and 20th centuries Edited by ALICIA SCHRIKKER and JEROEN TOUWEN Singapore: NUS Press, 2015. Pp. 334. Tables, Figures, Bibliography, Index, doi: 10.1017/S0022463416000606 This edited book is a tribute to Thomas Lindblad, who contributed significantly to the development of Indonesian economic history in the Netherlands over the past thirty years. More importantly, it is an excellent and quite well-structured survey of current research on Indonesian economic history with contributions from both senior and junior players in this international field of study. The introduction, authored by both editors, sets out the thematic vectors along which Indonesia's colonial and postcolonial economy can be most fruitfully studied: trade and investment, entrepreneurship, and changing political regimes. Whilst the 2002 economic history by Howard Dick, Vincent Houben, Thomas Lindblad and Thee Kian Wee (The emergence of a national economy: An economic history of Indonesia, 1800-2000) focused on the intertwinement of globalisation, state-formation, and the emergence of a national economy, this volume addresses the interplay between foreign trade, economic actors, and the political economy. In doing so, it highlights the intersections between the economic activities of different socioethnic groups, the spatial distribution of economic activity, and temporal trajectories across the colonial and postcolonial regimes. The main part of this study consists of 16 chapters that are grouped into the three above-mentioned thematic domains. Changes and continuities in trade and investment are dealt with in the first section over four chapters. Anne Booth undertakes a long-term survey and analysis of the effects of imbalances in export and import growth between Java and the rest of the archipelago on regional development within Indonesia. Hal Hill compares the sectoral shifts, inter-sectoral labour productivity, and the demographics of six Southeast Asian countries and finds that, although structural change has been rapid everywhere, the phenomenon's multidimensionality has led to marked differences between the countries studied. Pim de Zwart et al. engage in a longue duree analysis of 'openness' (the share of trade in the total economy of Indonesia) and its impact on growth and wage levels. Contrary to neoliberal thinking, the correlation between the two was not straightforward; rather, it depended to a large extent on changing institutional contexts and unequal geographic distribution. Alex Claver examines the role of money in the Dutch colonial economy and perceives a gradual adaptation to the different needs of the European trading sector and the peasant economy. The second section on entrepreneurship, focusing on the economic roles of specific groups, consists of five chapters. Leonard Blusse addresses the role of Chinese sailors on VOC ships sailing to Europe during the late nineteenth century, and discusses recruitment arrangements as well as gives evidence on the harsh conditions on board. Freek Colombijn studies contractors and subcontractors in Medan's construction sector during the 1950s. He proposes the term 'complementarisasi to describe the economic relationship between actors belonging to different ethnic groups during the extended process of decolonisation in Indonesia, where some groups engaged in a single production chain and others divided the market by occupying certain niches. Roger Knight writes on the connection between sugar production in Java and Japan from the 1880s until 1945. This connection oscillated between coexistence and conflict, involved essentially Asian actors and was, at least for sugar production, marked by discontinuity. Bambang Purwanto deals with the informal, low-level military entrepreneurship in the 1950s and 1960s that affected society through entertainment and event organisation, a phenomenon that has until now been neglected within the existing historiography. …

The Communal Search for Truth in Concrete Facts: The Social Infrastructure of Philology in Eighteenth-Century China

One of Benjamin Elman's most significant contributions to Chinese intellectual history in general, and to Qing intellectual history in particular, has been his in-depth exploration of the “revolution”—“revolution in discourse,” “epistemological revolution,” “philological revolution,” or, more generally, the “intellectual revolution”—that took place during the eighteenth century. Elman has also demonstrated how the “professionalization of academics,” the “shared epistemological perspective,” and the “consensus of ideas about how to find and verify knowledge” had been intertwined with the changing social and institutional context wherein individual scholars operated. In this article, I take this social context one step further, to emphasize how developing social networks were critical for the revolution in knowledge, and in particular to examine how reading practices, letters, and paratext-writing have been much more communal than intimate. The development of such social networks and the epistemological paradigm shifts they advanced consisted of the social infrastructure that was to underlie the far-reaching implications of the philological turn in eighteenth-century China. These social networks and communal practices were thus tightly connected to the new philological zeitgeist of the eighteenth century and enabled it to become, as Elman put it, “a consensus” that spanned well into the nineteenth and even twentieth centuries.

ПРЕКАРИАТ И ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНАЯ ИДЕНТИЧНОСТЬ В КОНТЕКСТЕ ИНСТИТУЦИОНАЛЬНЫХ ИЗМЕНЕНИЙ

ПРЕКАРИАТ И ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНАЯ ИДЕНТИЧНОСТЬ В КОНТЕКСТЕ ИНСТИТУЦИОНАЛЬНЫХ ИЗМЕНЕНИЙ

Running Lean: Refactoring and the Multiliteracy Center

Abstract This article addresses ways in which multiliteracy centers can be administratively structured to respond to change by encouraging stakeholder participation. To argue for the approach, the article draws from the computer programming concept of refactoring, which is a process software development teams use to share in the development of a system by cleaning up messy computer code. Used as a lens for thinking about the administration of a system like a multiliteracy center, refactoring provides Writing Center Professionals a method for responding to changing institutional contexts by using participatory methods. Further, to illustrate how refactoring as a concept is useful in multiliteracy centers, the article describes a framework for working with stakeholders to support a shared approach to assessment, particularly when considering ongoing revision of a center's policies, procedures, and tools. Finally, the article makes connections between refactoring and lean management principles such as a focus on outcomes, team discovery, shared understanding, failing successfully, and user-centeredness. Drawing from such principles, the article investigates methods of encouraging stakeholder expertise as a way to navigate change in multiliteracy centers, and to create environments that encourage collective engagement and action.

Greening the state? The framing of sustainability in Dutch infrastructure governance

This paper investigates how the notion of ‘sustainability’ is strategically framed in the context of Dutch infrastructure governance in the Netherlands. By conducting a frame analysis (based on policy documents, websites and semi-structured interviews), the paper discerns six sustainability frames. These frames concern substantive (e.g., more focus on ecology), process (activating new networks) and organizational (e.g., new practices of work) aspects. The paper also illustrates how these sustainability frames relate to the changing institutional context of infrastructure policy and governance more broadly. The paper discusses some of the productive and challenging implications of the dynamics of sustainability in today’s complex and multi-dimensional world of governance.