Crisis Of Inequality Research Articles

Does income inequality undermine the carbon abatement benefits of artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has great potential to address the carbon crisis, but unlocking its environmental benefits faces challenges. Income inequality, a key constraining factor, has received insufficient research attention. This study innovatively incorporates income inequality into the AI-carbon emissions relationship research framework. Using 2002–2019 panel data from 50 countries, we employ empirical methods to analyze how income inequality moderates the impact of AI technology on carbon emissions. Additionally, we utilize a panel threshold model to explore the nonlinear effects and heterogeneity of this moderating influence. Results show: (1) Overall, AI has a significant emission reduction effect; (2) Income inequality undermines the abatement benefits of AI, and when the income gap exceeds a threshold, the emission reduction effect of AI will be reversed; (3) The moderating effect exhibits heterogeneity across countries with different income levels, with the abatement efficacy of AI in low- and middle-income countries being more affected by inequality. The study reveals income disparity's constraint on AI's emission reduction potential, highlights the importance of considering social equity in AI development, provides a basis for designing fair and effective environmental policies, and offers insights into synergistically resolving the climate and inequality crises.

Institutionalism, the corporation, and the climate crisis

The transition to a zero-emissions world entails vast political economic restructuring. How resources are mobilized, what sorts of technological infrastructures are constructed, who funds, controls and has claim to profits from investments contributing to the green transition will shape political economies for generations to come. This article suggests that early 20th-century American institutionalism and subsequent legal institutionalist literatures provide a valuable resource for energy transitions scholars and other social scientists, activists, and policy-makers of the energy transition. The article summarizes some of the major lines of thought in classical and legal institutionalism and briefly outlines three areas in which they can inform thinking about political economies of the Anthropocene. First, these literatures are generative of creative thinking on how business activity is organized and help overcome reductionist public-private dichotomies. Second, the history of institutionalist and progressive thought in the New Deal-era runs parallel, in revealing ways, to thinking based on environmental, social and governmental (ESG) principles in the present. Lastly, the article discusses radical proposals for transformation of private property and investment in the thought of institutionalist Adolf Berle relevant to simultaneously addressing both climate and inequality crises.

Can the global marine aquarium trade (MAT) be a model for sustainable coral reef fisheries?

Globally, 6 million coral reef fishers provide ~25% of emergent countries' catch, but species have low value. The marine aquarium trade (MAT) targets high-value biodiversity, but missing data amplify draconian governance and demand for international prohibition. To stimulate sustainability and reef conservation investment, we generate a fiscal baseline using the first global analysis of numbers, diversity, and biomass of MAT-traded organisms. Each year, ~55 million organisms worth US$2.15 billion at retail are traded comparable with major fisheries, e.g., tuna. A sustainable MAT also requires overexploitation assessments. We identify 25 species/genera with "Extremely High" risk ratios and place the Indonesian and Sulu-Celebes Seas in the highest exploitation category. Despite predicted hobbyist number increases, unabated reef degradation and low governance will transform the MAT into an aquaculture-dominated industry decoupled from communities (i.e., culture located in importing countries). A "MAT-positive" future requires evidence-based management/governance, consumer education, and sustainable practice incentivization but can address the biodiversity and social and economic inequality crises.

U.S. Climate Politics: Strategic Conditions and Interactions Among Actors and Structures

In the United States, the years following the Great Recession were pivotal to the advancement of sustainability solutions to current climate and inequality crises. Despite marked gains in renewables and energy efficiencies following the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), crises and warnings from the IPCC continue to grow direr. Drawing on James Jasper’s players and arenas strategic perspective, we examine how the context for sustainability action has shifted since ARRA. Much of the context appears favorable. External pressure from climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and social unrest intensified the need and resources to act. Market conditions for renewable and efficient energy greatly improved, and public support for government investments increased. Despite the coexistence of many positive trends, a countervailing context exists, including a legacy of inaction, greenwashing, and recalcitrance, which is thwarting the speed in which change is happening.

:Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis

:<i>Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis</i>

성인교육 분야 국제개발협력에서 임파워먼트 논의의 변화

Purpose: This study aims to explore how the concept of empowerment has been discussed over time by exploring the development process of empowerment discourse, focusing on the field of adult education in international education development cooperation. In addition, it studies the characteristics of change in terms of the content of the discourse and examines the context that influenced the change. Originality: Despite the social movement origin of empowerment, the instrumentalist meaning prevails and the discussions have shifted to emphasizing capacity building of individuals in international development cooperation. It is necessary to explore whether these changes have also occurred in the field of adult education, which has traditionally been interested in the issue of power and the liberation of minorities. This process is important because changes in meaning can affect the participants' lifeworld through policy and project implementation. Methodology: Discourse analysis was applied as a research method, and the conceptual discussions of Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory were used throughout the research process. Discourse analysis was conducted on UNESCO's official published materials related to empowerment and adult education published from 1984 to 2022. Result: From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, when the radical meaning of empowerment diffused in the field of international development cooperation, the social transformation meaning of empowerment was also emphasized in UNESCO adult education discourse. From the late 1990s to the early 2010s, when the international community's focus on poverty eradication and human development expanded, discussions on empowerment related to expanding individual capacities, choices, and opportunities increased. After the mid-2010s, the era of sustainable development, the empowerment discourse that ordered learners to be competent in global challenges has spread. Conclusion and Implication: Empowerment has been a floating signifier that flowed without a fixed meaning in UNESCO adult education discourse, and the equivalent relationship of identities constituting the discourse has also changed from time to time. However, since the concept of empowerment with social transformation meaning is still important in the practice of international development cooperation, this study proposed responses in two directions. First, efforts are made to reconstruct the equivalent relationship of identities that creates the discourse of empowerment. Second, the discovery of alternative terms reveals the critical problem consciousness raised by empowerment, which paid attention to the crisis of inequality and the problem of power distribution.

Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis by James L. Gibson and Michael J. Nelson

Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis <i>by James L. Gibson and Michael J. Nelson</i>

Transitioning to sustainable academic conferences needs more experimentation and reflection

Non-technical summary Accelerated decarbonization of academic conferences is necessary and urgent. Despite the window of opportunity that COVID-19 created for rethinking conferences, there is a risk of slipping back into old habits now that restrictions are lifted. This commentary reports on recent experiences with a unique, sustainable approach to academic conferencing involving an international partnership and hub model across three continents. There is a need to continue to experiment with and implement new modes of sustainable academic conferencing. Technical summary In response to increasing demands to move away from carbon-intensive academic conferences, and a need to address social justice issues, the author-team designed, implemented, and experimented with a new conference model. Three key-design choices informed the model. First, instead of the common single-host-single-location approach, we established a partnership between three universities across three continents. Second, we adopted a hub model of three online conference days, followed by three non-hybrid, in-person only conference days. Third, we sought to accommodate global participation by organizing each of the online conference days during daylight hours in the respective time zones. We find that the model promotes less air travel and improved global south participation. Our approach adds to a growing number of experiments with new modes of academic conferencing in a world that is facing climate and inequality crises. Social media summary Decarbonizing academic conferences is necessary and urgent. This commentary reveals experiences with a hub-based format.

THE ANTI-OLIGARCHY POPULAR CONSTITUTION

THE ANTI-OLIGARCHY POPULAR CONSTITUTION

Response to Benjamin G. Bishin, Thomas J. Hayes, Matthew B. Incantalupo, and Charles Anthony Smith’s Review of Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis

Response to Benjamin G. Bishin, Thomas J. Hayes, Matthew B. Incantalupo, and Charles Anthony Smith’s Review of <i>Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis</i>

Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis. By James L. Gibson and Michael J. Nelson. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 2021. 356p. $35.00 paper.

Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis. By James L. Gibson and Michael J. Nelson. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 2021. 356p. $35.00 paper.

Climate emergency: how the inequality crisis is dynamically linked to the sociogenesis of climate change

The failure of COP26 to secure binding commitments delivering a pathway to global warming limited to 1.5°C is attributable to a UN political process that prevents addressing the inequalities between and within nations in generating greenhouse gases. Historical divergences of national wealth and the present extreme inequalities of purchasing power (Piketty, Milanovic, Savage) manifest themselves in how the richest people in the richest nations are now the leading forcers of climate change. A second dimension of inequality, receiving less attention, concerns the inequalities between nations of environmental resources in fossil energy, agricultural land, minerals and renewable alternatives. The concept of sociogenesis of climate change analyses the combination of these two dimensions of inequality to account for the present political impasse, national and international. A dominant feature of a nation’s wealth has historically been based on the unrestricted exploitation of its own environmental resources, or those that it commands through colonisation or trade. This has resulted in the US now producing more than double the CO₂eq per capita than China, or Germany consuming four times more coal per capita than India. The COP26 impasse on coal and fossil fuels arose in part from China’s and India’s unwillingness to strand its environmental assets without alternative pathways to equivalent national wealth, while wealthier nations continue to excessively exploit theirs. A sociogenic analysis of wealth and environmental resource inequalities signals the need for a radical change in the political processes required to mitigate the climate emergency.

Gendered labor legacies of authoritarian neoliberalism: Chile's double crisis

AbstractLegacies of Chile's democratic crisis pose challenges for workplace gender equity. This paper brings together scholarly debates on gender regimes and factory regimes to examine the gendered labor practices in a high‐tech, transnational agricultural sector. Specifically, I ask how gender regimes and regulatory practices entrenched in Chile's authoritarian past shape labor dynamics in this industry today. I argue that we must look to the past to understand how firms benefit from unequal social relations embedded in institutions and for identifying mechanisms of change. I document how the neoliberal and authoritarian policies of the democratic crisis in Chile (1973–90) became the baseline conditions in democracy, leaving stark gender and labor inequalities that persist today. The resulting neoliberal pact continues to privilege elites and marginalize the working poor, especially women, contributing to the slow‐brewing inequality crisis that came to a head in 2019. Based on ethnographic observation and semi‐structured interviews in Arica, Chile, a major hub for corn seed development, I show how these legacies enable firms to benefit from Chile's unequal gender relations to develop high‐value products without paying the price associated with the skill needed to produce them. I find that conservative gender norms together with labor relations inherent in Chile's neoliberal model, rooted in a 17‐year dictatorship, create obstacles to efforts to address gender inequality.

Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis

Political Science QuarterlyEarly View Original Article Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis JAMES L. GIBSON, JAMES L. GIBSONSearch for more papers by this authorMICHAEL J. NELSON, MICHAEL J. NELSONSearch for more papers by this author JAMES L. GIBSON, JAMES L. GIBSONSearch for more papers by this authorMICHAEL J. NELSON, MICHAEL J. NELSONSearch for more papers by this author First published: 29 March 2022 https://doi.org/10.1002/polq.13318Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue RelatedInformation

The Importance of a Natural Social Contract and Co-Evolutionary Governance for Sustainability Transitions

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic offers an opportunity for dealing with persistent problems, through a transformative recovery process. It is a crisis that offers opportunities for dealing with three interrelated crises: the ecological crisis (climate change, loss of biodiversity, resource depletion, pollution and ecosystem destruction), the confidence crisis (people losing trust in government, politics, companies, regular news channels, science, each other and the future), and the inequality crisis (the widening of the gap between rich and poor). Our argument is that sustainability transitions will not succeed without a different economy and another social contract with rights and duties of care for the environment and the well-being of others, including future generations. A different social contract is not only desirable from the point of view of sustainability and fairness, and justice and equality, but it is also necessary to restore citizens’ trust in politics, government, companies and each other. In the paper we discuss mechanisms towards a Natural Social Contract: systemic leverage points for system transformations and possibilities for co-evolutionary governance by actor coalitions interested in transformative change. The combination of those three elements helps to synchronize different agendas and reduce the chance that they will work against each other.

Transformaciones en la educación básica mexicana a causa del distanciamiento forzado por COVID-19

One year after that the forced social distancing due to the COVID-19 health emergency began, the deficiencies of the Mexican Education System came&nbsp;under the spotlight. The closure of educational institutions has implied the loss of school space as a privileged place for interaction,&nbsp;while&nbsp;pre-existing structural inequalities have been exacerbated. The purpose of this essay is to carry out a general description of the changes in basic education due to the forced distancing based on a general overview&nbsp;of the inequality crisis that our country has faced since the pandemic began,&nbsp;with the aim of reflecting on its future sequels.&nbsp;

Crisis of Inequality and Dependency of Third World States in Global Politics: An Evaluation

The study examines the historical evidence of the phenomena of colonialism that led to the situation of economic subservience and political control by the industrialised countries who incidentally are the former colonial master of most third world states. Arising from this, the study was guided by two main objectives. The first is to examine the major contradictions in the relationship between scarcity and human inequality in the distribution of available resources in developed and third world states. The second is to evaluate the crisis of inequality and dependency and their effects on the political economy of third world states, including Nigeria. To achieve these objectives, the study adopts the World System theory as its explanatory framework for analysis of the issues raised in the study. The study is historical in nature; therefore, it is purely descriptive, and it relied on secondary data as the main sources of information. Findings of the study show that the existing relationship between third world states and developed countries is a product of structural historical discontent built on the exploitation of the post colonies or developing countries. Findings further reveal that very little had changed as third world states were still being dominated and controlled economically and politically by developed countries, hence the clamour by third world states for more freedom for individuals and states to guarantee rapid economic growth and political stability. It recommends the redressing of the structural imbalances of globalisation and deliberate proactive development interventions in the area of new economic order to mitigate the problems of inequality and dominance by developed countries.

A procedure for globally institutionalizing a ‘beyond-GDP’ metric

If governments are serious about meeting environmental and social goals, they should overcome dominance of the GDP indicator in political discourse. Institutionalizing a beyond-GDP metric would be an essential step, in interaction with a shift in the direction of an “agrowth” paradigm. For a significant step forward, a permanent UN panel could be charged to explore the options and prepare a metric for global implementation. This essay outlines the choice spectrum and provides criteria and guidelines for the metric-selection process. It is suggested that the panel considers four critical dimensions of potential alternatives, namely means versus ends, objective versus subjective information, aggregate index versus multiple indicators, and monetary versus other units. In deciding about each dimension, serious attention needs to be given to the psychological-communicative appeal of the resulting options, so as to guarantee a fluent uptake of the selected beyond-GDP metric in society, media and politics. The combined environmental and inequality crises at national and global scales make this the right time to finally translate a respectable history of beyond-GDP thinking into practical action.

Challenges and LIS Responses to Digital Literacy in Crisis

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in the Spring of 2020, vulnerable Canadians were left behind by digital exclusion, which was exacerbated by an increased reliance on digital technologies. In this article, I seek to provide an overview of the links between digital inclusion, social justice, and the values of the LIS profession. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, another crisis of digital exclusion has revealed the ways in which digital citizenship and socio-economic exclusion are fundamentally intertwined. In response, many LIS professionals have overcome extensive closures and reductions in resources to find innovative solutions to this crisis of inequality. This article will provide just a few examples of these responses from LIS organizations. Indeed, even among overwhelming barriers, LIS professionals have not lost sight of community values and commitment to social justice in challenging times. In unprecedented times, LIS professionals have found innovation to address ongoing social and economic barriers of digital exclusion.

Reimagining university–community engagement

This article is based on a keynote address to the second Higher Education Conference in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the environmental and inequality crises confronting South Africa and the world. After an examination of the societal context of universities, the article discusses critical issues in relation to university-community engagement. It attempts to address these issues by firstly providing an overview of the long-standing debates in our country concerning the academy’s responsibilities and accountability to various constituencies beyond the universities gates and the imperative to rethink scholarship to engage communities meaningfully. Secondly, it will provide an appreciation of the overarching political economy of higher education and the corporatisation of universities before drawing conclusions about the processes that impede or allow the university to be responsive to community engagement. The article will provide a few historical and contemporaneous examples of the work of university-based researchers with various communities. The research of those who have an orientation toward working class communities and aim to democratise knowledge production will be highlighted. It will be argued that the latter’s “praxis epistemology” (Amini 2017) assists us in reimagining university-community relations.