Continental Blocs Research Articles

Examining regional asymmetries in drivers of international migration flows

AbstractMigration is key to economic development, with varying implications and uneven impacts on origin and destination regions. This paper examines the variation in the major drivers of migration within and across continental blocs and the OECD in a gravity framework. The empirical model uses bilateral migration flow data for 182 countries over a 25 year period (1990–2015) while controlling for push and pull drivers of migration. The novelty of the study rests in the added dimension of the variation in the impact of migration drivers that is based on the direction of migration flow. The results suggest that migration drivers vary significantly across several economic blocs based in different regions and OECD countries. We find that the weight and significance of the impact of migration drivers vary significantly based on the direction of flow across continental blocs and the OECD, although some similarities exist in some regions regardless of the direction of migration flow. The results specifically show that economic and socio‐cultural drivers of migration are strongest when migration originates in continents dominated by developing countries and terminates in other continents, compared to migration that originates and terminates within the continents. This raises some anomalies and several issues of potential policy intervention.

African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement and the Mega-Regional Trade Agreements (MRTAs): what are the underlying challenges and prospects for Africa-South-South trade?

This study examines the possible challenges and prospects of the recent signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement on South-South trade. The recent ratification of the agreement by the African Union (AU) Heads of Government and the establishment of the mega-regional trade agreements (MRTAs) by the major global trading economies are the biggest since the establishment of the WTO. One of these regional and continental agreements' principal objectives is to further strengthen trade terms and balance of trade statistics between member nations. Whereas almost all the regional and continental blocs have to a large extent, achieved the purpose of their trade agreements, Africa stands out as the only region whose intra-trade value still constitutes less than 15% of global trade share. Many reasons have been adduced to be responsible for the weak trade performance, one of which is weak regional integration. This study, therefore, concludes that for Africa to achieve significant improvement in global trade, the region needs to encourage regional trade, which will act as a catalyst for transforming the domestic economies and lay a robust foundation for healthy regional competition and integration

Contemporary Medical Practices at National Health Service (NHS)

The main aim of this study was to determine the impact of Brexit on the NHS service. Other objectives included an examination of some of the challenges that the NHS system might face while striving to assure better health outcomes in the post-Brexit era, as well as recommend some of the strategies that the institution could implement towards addressing the perceived challenges with which Brexit might be associated. Imperative to note is that the study employed the Games Theory to explain some of the effects that a country’s withdrawal from a continental bloc could have on its public service; including the health sector. It is further notable that this study relied on secondary data to collect and analyze information regarding the current and future impact of Brexit on the NHS. Indeed, most of the findings concurred with the current literature regarding the complexity and mixed outcomes surrounding the debate of Brexit versus NHS. On the one hand, some of the secondary sources consulted acknowledged that Brexit promises positive outcomes in terms of improved funding. Particularly, these studies contended that the £19 billion that the UK has been channeling to the EU could be redirected to other government priorities and public service in the UK, including the NHS. However, studies that argue that Brexit poses a negative impact on NHS suggest that future uncertainties surrounding the immigration status of EU-origin staff account for the mass exit. The studies hold further that the departure might lead to a significant increase in vacancy rates, with the cost of training nurses and doctors to replace the departing groups documented to exceed that which the UK would have incurred to import trained workers. Therefore, lasting solutions lie in the provision of adequate resources, political will, and the involvement of EU staff in feedback provision, cost-effective analyses of response strategies, and regular seminars and conferences that seek to sensitize workforces regarding the criticality of aligning their personal goals to the overall mission and vision of NHS. Whereas Brexit’s uncertainties reflect a looming crisis at the NHS, the manner in which senior leaders and managers will transform challenges into opportunities for improvement will shape the ability of the institution to emerge victorious.

Colonial or Continental Power? The Debate over Economic Expansion in Interwar France, 1925–1932

In the 1920s various French elites argued that the nation state was not viable in an increasingly interdependent world economy dominated by ‘continental blocs’ such as the United States and the Soviet Union; instead, they hoped to expand French economic power through larger political structures, whether France's existing empire or a federal Europe. French foreign minister Aristide Briand called for the organisation of Europe at the same time that other elites advocated the consolidation of the French empire. Although imperial rivalry would trump European cooperation in the interwar years, the 1920s created a framework for post-1945 debates about whether France would achieve economic growth and maintain political independence through colonial development, continental cooperation or some combination of the two. Conventional narratives locate the origins of European integration in the devastations of the Second World War and the crisis of empire. This article argues that integration was conceived within and in tension with, not outside of, an imperial framework.

Spatial Multi-Criteria Based Analysis to Assess Dynamics and Vulnerability of Forest Ecosystems to Global Changes: Case of Maamora Forest-Morocco

Maamora forest is of high importance both to its surrounding local population and Morocco as a whole, thanks to the products and services that it provides. In fact, it was the largest one stand cork oak forest in the world until beginning of the 20th century. However, since 1951, this forest has been subject to significant dynamics, characterized by the replacement of cork oak by pine, eucalyptus and acacia plantations. This replacement has been for long time motivated by the failure in cork oak regeneration. Assuming that the consideration of vulnerability would guarantee more success in the regeneration programs, this study consisted of analyzing vegetation dynamics prior to studying the vulnerability of forest ecosystems to global changes. The study confirmed the importance of dynamics in Maamora forest, and pointed to the fact that vulnerability was more marked in continental or eastern parts of the forest and that ecosystems are expected to become more vulnerable in the future. In fact, for 53% of the forest area presenting a low vulnerability in 2010, only 11% would remain with low vulnerability at horizon 2045 with climatic scenario RCP 4.5 whereas all the forest would be moderately to highly vulnerable considering the scenario RCP 8.5 in 2045, or for both scenarios at horizon 2070. These results helped suggest to forest managers to promptly proceed with the regeneration of cork oak stands in the westernmost blocs (A, B and C), as well as judiciously proceed with regeneration in the continental blocs (D and E).

English

A significant forum of scholarly and practitioner-based research has developed in recent years that has sought both to theorize upon and empirically measure the competitiveness of regions. However, the disparate and fragmented nature of this work has led to the lack of a substantive theoretical foundation underpinning the various analyses and measurement methodologies employed. The aim of this paper is to place the regional competitiveness discourse within the context of theories of economic growth, and more particularly, those concerning regional economic growth. It is argued that regional competitiveness models are usually implicitly constructed in the lineage of endogenous growth frameworks, whereby deliberate investments in factors such as human capital and knowledge are considered to be key drivers of growth differentials. This leads to the suggestion that regional competitiveness can be usefully defined as the capacity and capability of regions to achieve economic growth relative to other regions at a similar overall stage of economic development, which will usually be within their own nation or continental bloc. The paper further assesses future avenues for theoretical and methodological exploration, highlighting the role of institutions, resilience and, well-being in understanding how the competitiveness of regions influences their long-term evolution.

Same Bed, Different Dreams: China's ‘peaceful rise’ and Sino–Russian rivalry in Central Asia

China is already outpacing Russia, which is encountering ever more difficulties in trying to arrange a continental bloc of satellite states. While it may not be possible for China to organize its own version of such a bloc given the deep-rooted regional fears and apprehensions about Chinese objectives, in the coming years it will probably be the primary foreign economic presence in Central Asia, able to cash in on the political advantages that accrue to any such power.

Paleo movement of continents since 300 Ma, mantle dynamics and large wander of the rotational pole

Apparent polar wander (APW) is known to be mainly linked to internal mass distribution changes and in particular to changes in subduction and large-scale upwellings in the mantle. We investigate plate motions during the last 410 million years in a reference frame where Africa is fixed. Indeed, Africa has remained a central plate from which most continents diverged since the break-up of Pangea. The exact amount of subduction is unknown prior to 120Ma. We propose an approach, based on one hand on the study of the past subduction volcanism to locate ancient subduction activity, and on the other hand microplate motion history in the Tethyan area derived from geology and paleomagnetism. The peri-Pacific subductions seem to be a quasi-permanent feature of the Earth's history at least since the Paleozoic, with however localized interruptions. The “Tethyan” subductions have a complex history with successive collisions of continental blocs (Hercynian, Indo-Sinian, Alpine and Himalayan) and episodical rebirth of E–W subduction trending zones. Assuming that subducted slabs sink vertically into the mantle and taking into account large-scale upwellings derived from present-day tomography and intra-plate volcanism in the past, we compute the time variation of mantle density heterogeneities since 280Ma. Due to conservation of the angular momentum of the Earth, the temporal evolution of the rotational axis is computed in a mantle reference frame where the Africa plate is fixed, and compared to the apparent polar wander (APW) observed by paleomagnetism since 280Ma. We find that a major trend of both paleomagnetic and computed APW are successive oscillatory clockwise or counter-clockwise motions, with tracks separated by abrupt cusps (around 230Ma, 190Ma and 140–110Ma). We find that cusps result from earlier major geodynamic events: the 230Ma cusp is related to the end of active subduction due to the closure of the Rheic Ocean basin after the Hercynian continental collision (340–300Ma) and to renewed subduction zone West of Laurentia, whereas the 190Ma cusp results from the Indo-Sinian collision (270–230Ma) and the subsequent end of the Neo-Tethys ocean subduction.

Regional Benchmarking in a Global Context: Knowledge, Competitiveness, and Economic Development

Benchmarking exercises have become increasingly popular within the sphere of regional policy making. However, most exercises are restricted to comparing regions within a particular continental bloc or nation.This article introduces the World Knowledge Competitiveness Index (WKCI), which is one of the very few benchmarking exercises established to compare regions across continents.The article discusses the formulation of the WKCI and analyzes the results of the most recent editions.The results suggest that there are significant variations in the knowledge-based regional economic development models at work across the globe. Further analysis also indicates that Silicon Valley, as the highest ranked WKCI region, holds a unique economic position among the globe’s leading regions. However, significant changes in the sources of regional competitiveness are evolving as a result of the emergence of new regional hot spots in Asia. It is concluded that benchmarking is imperative to the learning process of regional policy making.

The post-Fordist world: labour relations, international hierarchy and global ecology

This article was first presented as the RIPE annual lecture at Durham University on 7 November 1995. It seeks to explore the transformation of the capital-labour relation in the aftermath of the postwar crisis of Fordism. It examines how various solutions to this crisis, in the developed world, the newly industrialized world and, latterly, the former socialist bloc, have brought about a radical restructuring of the world's economic hierarchy. One consequence has been the emergence of continental blocs characterized by the heterogeneity of the economic systems within their sphere. The coexistence of countries with differing labour regimes within integrated continental blocs is the primary focus, with each bloc analysed in turn for its particular aspects. This leads to consideration of the possibility of a third international division of labour. The article concludes with an examination of an unexpected consequence of this restructuring, namely the relation between systems of labour-capital relations and attitudes towards global ecological crisis.