Debates In Political Economy Research Articles

Constructing Disraeli in Twentieth-Century Conservatism

Abstract Since the 1960s, when historians first dethroned the dominant view of Benjamin Disraeli as a Tory democrat and social reformer, his association with an interventionist, socially inclusive Conservatism has largely been considered an exercise in political myth-making. This focus on the Disraeli ‘myth’ has tended to obscure the myriad and substantive ways in which Disraeli’s life and works were interpreted and put to work in Conservative ideological debates and political practice in the twentieth century, reducing them to social policy and state intervention in the economy and overlooking the lineages of his political career in Conservative political economy debates, conceptions of the nation and the constitution, and imperial and foreign policy thinking. This article examines interpretations of Disraeli, and how his legacy was constructed, by conservative biographers, historians and public intellectuals from the decades after his death until the historiography of the 1960s. It traces how Disraeli was memorialised and celebrated in the Conservative movement and popular culture; how his life and works were interpreted for popular audiences by an important group of conservative historians in the inter-war period; and how Disraeli was mobilised in Conservative and Unionist Party debates on tariff reform, social reform, the nation and empire, concluding in the aftermath of the Second World War, when his legacy and statecraft were consistently evoked in Conservative debates on post-war Britain. It demonstrates that Disraeli was interpreted in much more diverse ways, and with more diverse political objectives, than the standard readings of the Disraelian tradition have hitherto appreciated.

A political economy analysis of the income inequality-CO2 emissions nexus in Canada

ABSTRACT Our study investigates the association between income inequality and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in Canada, using data from 1981 to 2021. We employ the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to cointegration. The central finding is a positive long-run cointegrating relationship between changes in the share of income of the top 1% and changes in CO2 emissions. Specifically, a 1% increase in the share of income of the top 1% is associated with a 0.07% increase in CO2 emissions. This finding, which aligns with the political economy argument and the Veblen effect, has significant policy implications. One is that it underscores the importance of considering income redistribution in the context of addressing environmental degradation in Canada.

Hardy peasants, passive landlords: translating difference into agrarian capitalism

ABSTRACT This article explores changes in British liberal thought during the second half of the nineteenth century by investigating the work of Sir George Campbell, a Scottish MP and long-term colonial official in India who was influential on Gladstonian land reform in Ireland. Campbell’s life and writings show that colonial experience in Ireland and India were influential on the increasing desire to safeguard small farmers during a time of consolidation under agrarian capitalism. Many histories of these changes in British liberal thought focus instead on debates in political economy and the subsequent questioning of universal models that allowed policy to match social differences in various localities, like in Ireland and India. I instead highlight the myriad of influences that impacted Campbell’s romanticisation of small farmers, including morality, concepts of masculinity, a conservative criticism of modernity, agricultural science, and class anxieties. In the end, the rehabilitation of small farmers was meant to protect social hierarchies between a passive landlord benefitting from the productivity of his tenants, and between the modern scientist and the practical traditions of the small farmer.

Inside the world of stepsiblings: Linking global production networks to sustainable supply chain management

AbstractThe theoretical foundation of (sustainable) supply chain management (SSCM) is an issue of frequent debate. Integrating it with the Global Production Networks (GPN), which is a kind of stepsibling, can help expanding the theoretical foundations of SSCM. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the GPN approach links to SSCM in analysing and explaining interorganizational sustainability. This paper is conceptual. Five central GPN constructs are identified: (1) the emerging supply chain structures and sustainability; (2) the importance and relevance of embeddedness and governance; (3) power dynamics; (4) the stakeholder approach; (5) the sustainability dimensions and the implementation strategies. They are explained in detail and then contrasted with how the related topics are dealt within SSCM. The paper provides insights into the ongoing discussions in GPN and integrates the political economy debate into SSCM research. Findings reveal that GPN offers an alternative and yet complementary explanation about network and cluster formation in supply chains, the effect of embeddedness (geopolitical, social, and cultural) power relationships and governance mechanisms and their role in implementing ecological and social sustainability across the supply chains. The comparison of these complementary disciplines allows for the exchange of ideas between the SSCM and GPN approaches, thereby providing an enriched understanding for managing supply chain sustainability. The selective comparison of the SSCM and GPN constructs is the first of its kind and should trigger further research at this intersection. Five propositions capture core directions for future research.

In the name of TRIPS: The impact of IPR harmonisation on patent activity in Latin America

We analyse the effect of country-specific regulatory changes consistent with mandates included in the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement on patenting activities in Latin America (LA) with the aim of contributing to the ongoing debate on patent regimes, innovation and development. TRIPS implied tight negotiations between developed and developing countries. By analysing national legislation on IPR in 36 countries, we build a variable that captures when each country exhibits “the spirit of TRIPS”, which may occur before or after signing TRIPS. We follow two goals: i) to assess whether the impact of changing regulation was different in LA in contrast to developed countries; ii) to analyse specifically the impact on patent activities of residents and non-residents in LA in contrast to developed countries. Our results show that regulatory changes aligned with TRIPS increased patent activities in LA more than in developed countries, but only by non-residents. This is consistent with the political economy argument stating that the international agenda on intellectual property rights was pushed by large multinational corporations headquartered in developed countries as part of their globalisation strategies. Our results are also consistent with the economics of innovation literature that suggests that stronger patent regimes only have positive effects on innovation after some national income threshold is attained.

Work, labour and mobility: opening up a dialogue between mobilities and political economy through mobile work

This paper demonstrates how mobilities perspectives might contribute to debates in political economy on labour and work, by interrogating mobility’s relation to work and labour. The paper makes four interventions. It offers (1) an overview of the literature on mobile work, working with mobilities concerns to develop a typology grounded in movement in geographical space. (2) It then examines how different types of mobile work are coordinated. Coordination is achieved by devices, some of which (timetables and algorithms) choreograph movement in space and time whilst others (e.g. signals, tachographs, apps) control, record and evaluate movement. Focusing on coordination devices allows for mobile labour to be differentiated from mobile work. In platform-mediated mobile work the governance of work through dashboards of mobility, and the consolidation and marketization of mobility data from mobile workers, turns mobile work to mobile labour, and the relation of labour and mobility from one of contingency to dependency. The paper further shows (3) how coordination devices shape the conditions of mobile work and the affective experience of working on-the-move in space and time. As a condition of more jobs is that they are done on-the-move, a consequence (4) is that labour activists recognise the conditions of mobility in employment.

Left by the left? The politics of poverty alleviation

AbstractResearch shows that low-income groups are increasingly left behind economically and excluded from the policy-making process of advanced democratic societies. This suggests that governments do not sufficiently address the needs of the poor. In this article, we explore to what extent labour power positively influences redistribution and policies for society overall and for the poor in specific. Following standard political economy arguments, a powerful working class leads to more egalitarian forms of capitalism as they are the main beneficiaries from redistribution. But do social-democratic parties and trade unions also represent the poorest in society, those who participate less in political decision-making and whose jobs are often not covered by collective bargaining agreements? Using comparative time-series data for 23 OECD countries since the 1980s, the findings suggest a positive role of the Left, at least for trade unions on poverty reduction, but less for specific policies benefiting the poor.

Making Social Spending Work by Peter H. Lindert

<i>Making Social Spending Work</i> by Peter H. Lindert

Gone with the wind: how state power and industrial policy in the offshore wind power sector are blowing away the obstacles to East Asia’s green energy transition

Offshore wind power (OWP) is emerging as the fastest growing sector in the global race towards renewables, and likely to emerge in just a few years as the largest segment in absolute terms. It has grown from accounting for just 1% of wind power capacity in 2010 to 10% by 2019 and is anticipated to reach 20% early in the 2020s. The OWP sector involves heavy engineering in the building of huge turbines, steel and concrete platforms, and extensive subsea cabling that resembles the shipbuilding industry more than mass production of consumables like solar cells. European firms were early developers of OWP but are now witnessing the rise of strong competitors from Northeast Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan) as well as potentially the USA. We use the framework of developmental environmentalism to argue that NEAsian developmental state traditions are being extended in the way that firms and governments from the region are promoting OWP. We frame an evolutionary political economy (EPE) argument that characterizes these NEAsian states as in their different ways utilizing OWP as a sustainable and scalable renewable energy source, particularly when linked to green hydrogen production, and are developing a new generation of industrial policies to break down resistance to the energy transition. We frame an argument for these NEAsian transitions as continuing the developmental tradition in what has been described as developmental environmentalism, with state agencies playing a continuing role in setting new directions — in this case towards OWP. We contrast this framework with that of the widely recognized multilevel perspective (MLP) with its emphasis on bottom-up processes. We highlight the role played by fossil fuel companies in finding a place for themselves in the green transition, as they diversify from oil and gas operations (e.g., floating oil platforms) to renewable energy operations (offshore wind), redeploying their resources and capabilities to do so.

F.A. Hayek on the political economy of endogenous preferences: An historical overview and contemporary assessment

In this paper, we analyse Hayek's views on endogenous preferences. Perhaps surprisingly in the light of his remarks that economists ought to take people's preferences as given, there are several places in Hayek's economics and political economy where preference endogeneity plays a significant role. We begin by documenting those cases, providing an historical overview of Hayek's views on preference endogeneity. We then go on to argue that in his work on theoretical psychology Hayek provides an account of the causal mechanisms through which people's preferences can change in response to their social context. Finally, we assess Hayek's views on preference endogeneity in the light of more recent work on the topic in behavioural economics, before going on to consider what Hayek's analysis can add to contemporary debates in political economy.

The finance‐growth nexus enigma: Bringing in institutional context and the productiveness debate

AbstractThis paper surveys the literature on the relationship between finance and growth, from the initial simple correlation through debates on causality and channels of impact to the more recent threshold analysis. The gaps in the revisionism regarding the relationship between finance and growth are critically teased out, not least neglect of the effects of speculative finance in developing countries where a positive nexus continues to hold sway in the threshold analysis. The paper argues that the literature has focused on pursuit of a positive nexus, with inadequate attention to institutional context, which is prerequisite for enhancing a positive relationship. It has also narrowed drastically the complexity of cause and effect and ignored broader analytical approaches to the relationship between finance and growth. The classical political economy debate on finance productiveness is drawn upon, in which positive contribution is based on real output, as a critical point of departure for why greater emphasis ought to be placed on institutional context to enhance the contribution of finance to growth.

Reactive, Individualistic and Disciplinary: The Urban Resilience Project in Dhaka

ABSTRACT The World Bank’s Urban Resilience Project (URP) champions resilience as the best response to tackle environmental hazards faced by inhabitants in Dhaka, Bangladesh without sacrificing economic development. Embedded within neoliberal risk management and sustainable development frameworks, the URP supports ongoing forms of urban expansion and densification in Dhaka as the key driver of Bangladesh’s economic growth, purporting that this strategy will enable the city to address increasing and intensifying forms of flooding, heat waves, fires and earthquake risk. This paper argues that the URP depoliticises the causes of and proposed solutions to environmental hazards in Dhaka and the manner in which they are unevenly experienced. Drawing on fieldwork using qualitative methods, this paper posits that three facets guide resilience in Dhaka: reactive neoliberal policies, individualism, and disciplinary control. Ultimately, the URP obfuscates a wider regime of urban development in Dhaka that benefits certain groups (the state, international organisations, elite classes) while further economically and environmentally marginalising those living and working informally. In developing theoretical and empirical contributions to understandings of resilience in global political economy the paper contributes to debates in global political economy and environment, the everyday life of global political economy, and the inter-scalar governance of capitalist societies.

F.A. Hayek on the Political Economy of Endogenous Preferences: An Historical Overview and Contemporary Assessment

In this paper, we analyse Hayek’s views on endogenous preferences. Perhaps surprisingly in the light of his remarks that economists ought to take people’s preferences as given, there are several places in Hayek’s economics and political economy where preference endogeneity plays a significant role. We begin by documenting those cases, providing an historical overview of Hayek’s views on preference endogeneity. We then go on to argue that in his work on theoretical psychology Hayek provides an account of the causal mechanisms through which people’s preferences can change in response to their social context. Finally, we assess Hayek’s views on preference endogeneity in the light of more recent work on the topic in behavioural economics, before going on to consider what Hayek’s analysis can add to contemporary debates in political economy.

A Value Theory of Inclusion: Informal Labour, the Homeworker, and the Social Reproduction of Value

AbstractCritically engaging with Marxist‐Feminist debates, this article argues that only interpretations of social reproduction as value‐producing capture the features of contemporary informalised labour relations. Building on early social reproduction analyses and informed by debates in political economy of development and feminist geography, the article sketches a “value theory of inclusion” premised on the centrality of all labour to value‐generation; accounting for different forms of exploitation; and stressing the dynamic interpenetration of production and reproduction in processes of labour‐surplus extraction. By re‐centring the geographical focus on the global South, the article illustrates this interpenetration by identifying three reproductive mechanisms of value‐generation, based on: industrial housing arrangements; spatial processes of externalisation of reproductive costs across urban–rural divides; and processes of formal subsumption of labour, analysed with special reference to women homeworkers in India. An inclusive theorisation of value‐generation is crucial for the development of inclusive politics, recognising exploitation in its varied manifestations.

When extractive political institutions affect public-private partnerships: Empirical evidence from Indonesia's independent power producers under two political regimes*

This paper examines how extractive political institutions are associated with the performance of public-private partnerships (PPPs) using the case of the electricity sector in Indonesia, where a political regime shift has impacted the independent power producers’ (IPPs) arrangements in the power generation sector. Using a two-stage empirical strategy (data envelopment analysis and the difference-in-differences regression), I analyzed the economic performance of 20 coal-fired plants for the period between 2010 and 2016 that consists of IPPs endorsed by the two political regimes, both authoritarian and democratic, and the state-owned power plants. The results indicate that the extractive political institutions are associated with a reduced efficiency of the IPPs endorsed by the authoritarian Soeharto regime by −0.135 points, or 0.16% of the mean, showing that across all other power plants that produced the same output, the plants endorsed by the Soeharto regime used input or expenditure 0.16% higher than the average input or expenditure used by other plants. These findings are consistent with the political economy argument that extractive political institutions might have created economic policies that allow for the political elite to extract rents from PPPs.

The Strategic Logics of State Investment Funds in Asia: Beyond Financialisation

ABSTRACT Financialisation presents a constraint on state power. It also offers opportunities. State-led development, with the Asian experience at the forefront, is increasingly operationalised through different forms of state investment funds. Some of these funds have a strategic development mandate underwritten by a shareholder-value logic. While financialisation as a concept gives meaning to the embrace of the shareholder value model to explain the convergence of sovereign funds with operational practices and guiding norms of conventional financial market actors, it is insufficient in explaining how and why state investment funds differ from conventional financial actors and the underlying political dynamics that drive their emergence and evolution. To address this gap, this article advances three strategic logics: a developmental logic, a logic of regime maintenance, and a geo-political legitimacy logic. Reference to these logics provides a more nuanced understanding of state financialisation, avoiding a potentially narrow reading presented by the convergence dynamics inherent in the adoption of conventional financial practices. As such, this article contributes to emerging debates in political economy on the employment of financial logics in the pursuit of economic and political statecraft. The argument is developed empirically through an analysis of strategic investment funds in Singapore, Malaysia and Kazakhstan.

Reforming International Organizations

Abstract Recent scholarship has highlighted the role of domestic pressures in determining state preferences toward the reform of international organizations (IO s). This article adds a new dimension by examining how partisanship and ministerial control affect state preferences toward IO empowerment. The article derives two expectations from the existing literature. First, partisan position will determine preferences toward IO empowerment. Second, when a government is constituted by multiple parties, the position of the party with the IO’s ministerial portfolio will determine the government’s position toward IO empowerment. The article illustrates this argument by examining the positions of four net donors (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and two net recipients (Brazil and India) during the World Bank’s reforms. By bringing domestic politics back in, this article complements existing studies on the politics of IO reform and weighs in on central debates in comparative politics and international political economy.

Of economic whips and political necessities: a contribution to the international political economy of uneven and combined development

After being recovered and expanded by Justin Rosenberg almost two decades ago, Trotsky’s concept of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) has inspired many articles, dissertations and books, becoming the core of one of the most exciting contemporary approaches within the cacophonic discipline of International Relations. Nevertheless, the contribution of the emerging UCD literature remains largely unbalanced. Most of it revolves around the classical sociological problems of capitalist transition and state formation. As such, the UCD scholarship disproportionately belongs to the field of international historical sociology, favouring expansive explanations and broad historical questions. With few exceptions, contemporary UCD has had little to say in shorter-term, policy-oriented, International Political Economy (IPE) debates. To fruitfully inform IPE analysis, UCD must expand and refine its highly abstract conceptual toolkit. In this article, I take stock of the existing literature and offer an original contribution to the UCD-IPE framework. Specifically, I unpack the general notion of the ‘whip of external necessity’ into more granular and operational concepts, setting the foundations for a UCD-inspired exchange-rate, monetary and fiscal policy analysis. Finally, the potential of an expanded UCD-IPE framework is illustrated through considerations on the uneven and combined effects of the 2008 financial crisis.

The political determinants of benefit work conditionality

ABSTRACT The increasing conditionality of access to social protection on claimants’ proven willingness to seek and accept work has been one of the major dimensions of welfare state transformation of recent decades. Our understanding of the political determinants behind this trend, however, remains insufficient. This article assesses the state-of-the-art of political research on benefit work conditionality; points out a series of gaps and inconsistencies in existing research; and formulates an agenda for renewed and intensified research on the politics of work conditionality reforms, highlighting also how this research would contribute to important debates in welfare state research and political economy more generally.

Why Cannot Direct Payments Be Capped in Slovakia? A Political Economy Perspective

Annually the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) provides support to the farming sector amounting to more than EUR 50 billion in the EU, of which direct payments (DPs) take around 70%. DPs are often argued to be granted unfairly to large farms. In this paper we analyse implications and the political economy of DP capping in Slovakia in the context of the ongoing negations about the future CAP reform. The simulation results for Slovakia show that if the 2018 Commission proposal was approved it would lead to losses of EUR 190.1 million (68% of total DPs) to large farms when labour costs are not subtracted. These losses would decrease to only EUR 12.2 million (4.4% of total DPs) when the labour costs are subtracted. Further, the results show that potentially affected large farms in Slovakia show lower performance and lower compliance with the agricultural policy objectives than farms unaffected by the DP capping. Similar to the past CAP reforms, the position of Slovakia against DP capping is expected to be maintained also in future, which could be explained by three main factors: the productivity argument, the political economy argument linked to the lobby pressure from large farms and low economic distortions caused by DPs.