Economic Arrangements Research Articles

Improving Post-Relocation Support for People Resettled by Infrastructure Development

ABSTRACT Lagging other components, project-induced resettlement rarely, if ever, is completed after those resettled are compensated and replacement infrastructure handed-over. Initiating livelihood restoration programs may jumpstart but fall short of re-articulating dismantled local economies. Successful resettlement requires pre- and post-relocation actions that will help resellers and their hosts re-articulate new routine social and economic arrangements and improve their well-being. This Special Issue examines the distinct challenges of the post-relocation phase of resettlement. During this phase, the resettlement burdens shift from the relocation project to the resettlers, their hosts, and third parties; from individual to collective issues; and from mitigation to development. For decades, China has experienced with a variety of long-term, post-relocation policies, programs and methodologies. The contributors provide a glimpse of an extensive toolkit being crafted for use in this localized context-defined phase. Some are transferable. Others are not. Post-relocation support (PReS) adds value to improving the likelihood of successful outcomes.

People, power and politics: Developing a public sector sharing economy

In this paper, we explore how a local authority in the North of England attempted to develop a public sector sharing economy to deliver welfare services in new and innovative ways. The study examines how and why public sector sharing differs from commercial and not-for-profit sharing, and assesses the implications of this for getting public sector sharing economies off the ground. Our analysis suggests that public sector sharing comprises hybridized forms of sharing, in which some aspects align with a ‘collaboration’ style of sharing economy, not too dissimilar to typical marketplace exchange relationships. In other aspects, however, public sector sharing resembles a ‘reciprocity’ style of sharing more usually associated with the ‘sharing culture’ in evidence in not-for-profit sharing economies. In the public sector sharing economy under investigation, characteristics of state ‘redistribution’ also linger, as the local authority seeks to move away from traditional economic arrangements towards the sharing economy. Overall, our study shows that public sector sharing appears to exhibit a much higher degree of complexity than other types of sharing economy, which arises from the different motivations, values and ways of working among the various organizations and community groups involved. We conclude that an imperative of heterogeneity in governance strategies is needed to match the heterogeneity in evidence in the public sector sharing economy being developed.

Calculation model and bearing capacity optimization method for the soil settlement between piles in geosynthetic-reinforced pile-supported embankments based on the membrane effect.

The geosynthetic-reinforced pile-supported embankment (GRPSE) system has been widely used in road construction on soft soil. However, the application of the GRPSE system is often restricted by its high-cost. The reason is that they are designed for bearing control as defined in the past. During the construction process, the pile spacing is reduced to meet the requirements for the embankment bearing capacity and settlement. These factors cause the membrane effect to not be exploited. As a result, the utilization efficiency of the bearing capacity of the soil between the piles is low and the project cost is high. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of insufficient bearing capacity of soil between piles, we established a settlement calculation model of soil between piles based on membrane effect. The model considers the relationship between the geosynthetic reinforcement (GR) and the pile spacing. Based on the obtained model, a method for optimizing the soil bearing capacity of GRPSEs is proposed. By controlling the settlement of soil between piles, the bearing capacity of soil between piles and the membrane effect of embankment can be fully utilized. Therefore, the project cost can be reduced. Finally, the method is applied to field tests for comparison. The results show that the method is reasonable and applicable. This method can effectively exploit the membrane effect and improve the utilization efficiency of the bearing capacity of the soil between piles. An economical and reasonable arrangement scheme for the piles and GR was obtained. This scheme can not only ensure the safety of the project, but also fully utilize the bearing capacity of the soil between the piles and provide a new method for engineering design.

When Coffee Collapsed: An Economic History of HIV in Uganda

ABSTRACT In some Ugandan fishing communities, almost half the population lives with HIV. Researchers designate these communities “HIV hotspots” and attribute disproportionate disease burdens to “sex-for-fish” relationships endemic to the lakeshores. In this article, we trace the emergence of Uganda’s HIV hotspots to structural adjustment. We show how global economic policies negotiated in the 1990s precipitated the collapse of Uganda’s coffee sector, causing mass economic dislocation among women workers, who migrated to the lake. There, they entered overt forms of sex work or marriages they may have otherwise avoided, intimate economic arrangements that helped to “engineer the spread of HIV,” as one respondent recounted.

Reappraising B. R. Ambedkar’s Thoughts of Inclusive Indian Nation

Dr B. R. Ambedkar, one of the makers of the Indian Constitution, is known best as the emancipator of the untouchables. Ambedkar’s effort to make India as a nation through ‘breaking the internal differences’ is much debated and not widely recognized as he has still been confined only to his identity as a ‘liberating leader of the Dalits’. Ambedkar’s ideas—caste annihilation, securing rights to the depressed class, representation of the oppressed in political affairs, egalitarian economic arrangement, women’s rights and thoughts on democracy—all have the potential to be linked with his ideas of a nation, which is inclusive in nature.

“(IM)MOBILE PRECARITY” AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE IN NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

Mobility for work and education among young people has been a key feature of contemporary life. Drawing on focus groups with youth living in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as key informant interviews with people who work for community-based organizations that serve youth, I examine the relationship between young people’s employment- and education-related geographical mobilities and precarity. I draw on recent insights from scholars examining precarity as grounded in both labouring conditions and ontological experience. In foregrounding the experiences and subjectivities of poor and working-class youth, I show how the structure of youth labour markets and of education and training cheapens youth labour, with implications for youth’s capacity for independence. In a context of broader regimes of mobility associated with resource extraction, young people without formal qualifications live precarious lives: they move from job to job and place to place, and rely on family and friends to support their housing and other needs. In this context of uncertainty and labour market volatility, youth expressed disorientation regarding decisions about work, education, and mobility, reflecting the high stakes of not making the “right” choice, and developed a pragmatic approach to work as a way to make a living rather than a pathway to a meaningful life. I conclude by situating these findings as a critique not just of precarity but of capitalist economic arrangements more broadly, with implications for the kinds of solutions that can address structural class inequalities.

Tracing the Birth of the Audience Commodity: A Review of Zoe Sherman’s Modern Advertising and the Market for Audience Attention

Scholars in the field of critical political economy of communication have long considered how the media industry’s economic arrangements have influenced modern capitalist systems. Notably, these scholars have argued that the media industry’s primary goal has been the construction of an “audience commodity” that can be sold to advertisers. In Modern Advertising and the Market for Audience Attention: The US Advertising Industry’s Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Transition, Zoe Sherman outlines the origins of this idea of the consumable audience. This review highlights the significant contributions of Sherman’s work for communication scholars. Moreover, it considers whether economic models that stress the power of information and data ownership are best suited to challenge the contemporary realities of surveillance capitalism, the roots of which Sherman traces to the professionalization of the advertising industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

An Anticapitalist Archive

This essay reflects on David Ruccio’s blog, Occasional Links & Commentary, in light of his broader work on economic representations: a project that decenters economic knowledge beyond the ivory tower in order to understand how other kinds of economic knowledge are formed and how they might offer alternatives to existing economic arrangements. The blog can be understood as an instantiation of that project: an anticapitalist archive that breaks down the boundaries between academic and everyday perspectives on the economy and between what are often seen as separate spheres of economics, politics, and culture.

Geopolitics of China's Rising Media and Soft Power in Africa: Eating and Being Eaten

China is part of a group of countries rapidly projecting their geopolitical power in an expanded engagement with Africa. The extent to which this is imperialism is debatable among Africans, with some arguing that China is actually Africa's best ally when it comes to trade and development. Using Zimbabwe as a case study of local responses to China's expansionist geopolitics, the article contributes to debates on international development based new forms of imperialism and dependency perpetrated by rising economic powers in the Global South. The article innovatively analyses China's rapidly rising media and soft power in Africa as evidence of a new scramble for the continent and South-South imperialism. This is done in terms of what the Cameroonian anthropologist Francis Nyamnjoh regards as “eating and being eaten”, a form of dog-eat-dog “cannibalism” at the heart of global capitalism that has been evident in past enslavement, extractive colonialism and in today's exploitative neoliberal economic arrangements. The findings from the current Zimbabwean study build on the author's previous research on the media coverage of China in Zimbabwe that showed how for smaller and less powerful states, when dealing with China, there are mixed and complex responses within the emerging Sino-African relations. Using research from 2011–2020, including interviews and findings from the media, the Sino-Zimbabwean relations illustrate acceptance, resistance and negotiation as pragmatic strategies, in an attempt to “eat” whilst trying not be “eaten”. The current study contributes to work on media and geopolitical relations from the theoretical lens of new imperialism and dependency.

Why do women support socio‐economic systems that favour men more? A registered test of system justification‐ and social identity‐inspired hope explanations

AbstractWhy do women support social and economic arrangements that disadvantage them? System justification theory (SJT) proposes that an autonomous system‐level motive is responsible for this tendency, beyond any group‐interested considerations (e.g., hope of future group advancement). The social identity model of system attitudes (SIMSA) disputes the existence of a unique system‐level motive and instead argues that hope of future group advancement can explain women's system‐justifying attitudes. Meta‐analyzed results from three experiments (Studies 1, N = 200; 2, N = 200; & 3, N = 700 women) revealed, consistent with SIMSA's social identity‐based explanation, that strongly identified women supported socio‐economic systems that historically favor men over women, mostly when they were hopeful about future gender equity. Contrary to SJT's system motive explanation, we did not find consistent evidence across the studies represented in our meta‐analysis that women were more supportive of socio‐economic realities that undercuts their group's interests when group motives were nonsalient.

“You Can’t Catch ‘Em and Sell ‘Em”: Perceptions of Obstacles to Direct Marketing among Georgia Fishers

Direct marketing of seafood is a promising avenue for seafood sales in the United States, utilizing local foods venues such as farmers markets and Community Supported Fisheries (CSFs). While interest in locally sourced seafood among local foods communities in Atlanta and Athens, Georgia is high, fishers from coastal Georgia have not filled this profitable niche. We investigate why this opportunity is not exploited by conducting qualitative interviews with twenty-one fishers. Fishers described numerous obstacles to direct marketing, focused on the simultaneous labor investment in on-shore and “on the water” efforts. In addition, fishers’ concerns reveal the financial and social risks that fishers would undertake by attempting to sell seafood outside of their existing economic arrangements with docks. This relationship echoes the understudied patron-client relationships described in fisheries in Southeast Asia. We conclude with a recommendation for modifying direct marketing expectations to accommodate successful integration of seafood.

Sale of agricultural lands located outside built-up area in Romania: novelty elements introduced by Law no. 175/2020

Law no. 17/2014 on some measures to regulate the sale of agricultural land located outside the built-up area was adopted among other reasons to ensure food security and protect national interests in the exploitation of natural resources. These goals are perfectly justified and foreshadow changes in the global environment that will affect social and economic arrangements in the future with great impact. In this context, the importance of protecting agricultural land as a natural resource of central importance is a legitimate political goal. However, the methods used must be very carefully chosen in order to create a legal regime for the sale of agricultural land that respects, on the one hand, the requirements of European law and, on the other hand, fulfills the national interest as far as possible. The current legal regime, created by amending Law no. 17/2014 by Law no. 175/2020 for the amendment and completion of Law no. 17/2014, in force since 13 October 2020, creates a legal regime that raises more questions than it settles regarding the real challenges outlined above.

Can't save or won't save: financial resilience and discretionary retirement saving among British adults in their thirties and forties

AbstractThis study examines retirement saving activity outside the state and workplace pension saving schemes among British adults aged between 30 and 49 on the premise that individuals are increasingly encouraged to save for their retirement in the new pension policy structure in Britain. The issue of under-saving among the younger adults has been studied with the focus on internal characteristics, such as undesirable attitudinal or behavioural tendencies (‘won't save’), or on external factors, such as income (‘can't save’). Building on these discussions, this study tests the role of internal characteristics and further examines the interplay between internal and external factors. The decision-making process for retirement saving is mapped based on the Model of Financial Planning with minor modifications. The analysis utilises the fourth wave of the Wealth and Assets Survey (2012/2014), and is conducted in the structural equation modelling framework. Results show that younger adults’ discretionary retirement saving is an outcome of a complex interplay between internal and external factors.Financial resilience, which indicates current financial behaviours and wellbeing, is found to be the strongest predictor for identifying a discretionary retirement saver, but it is closely connected to individuals’ income and home-ownership. The findings also suggest that social and economic arrangements are important to consider associal ageing, individuals’ projection on their lifestages, may be more informative than ageper sefor understanding younger adults’ retirement saving behaviour. These findings have important implications for the policies that aim to increase retirement saving participation.

Moving beyond direct marketing with new mediated models: evolution of or departure from alternative food networks?

For some time we have seen a shift away from direct marketing, a core feature and dominant exchange form in the alternative food world, towards a greater role for intermediation. Yet, we still need to better understand to what extent and in what ways new mediated Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) represent an evolution of or departure from core tenets of alternative food systems. This paper focuses on AFNs with new intermediaries that connect small-scale producers with urban end-consumers. Based on original research in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Calgary, we analyze three different types of mediated AFNs: one driven by consumers, one by an external intermediary, and one by producers. Our cases include non-capitalist, capitalist, and alternative capitalist economic practices as identified by Gibson-Graham. Conceptually, we base our analysis on the three-pillar-model of alternative agri-food systems, which we further refine. Besides comparing our cases with each other, for heuristic purposes we also compare them with an ideal-type model that adheres to core tenets of alterity in all three pillars. Our empirical analysis shows that intermediary organizations can bring important benefits and that mediated AFNs are in principle able to hold true to the core tenets of alternative agri-food systems. However, it is very important to develop models of democratic control and ownership as well as economic arrangements in which created value is fairly shared. Only then can the potentials of new mediated models be realized while the pitfalls of the conventional systems they seek to replace be avoided.

Feminist Approaches to International Law

This chapter offers accounts of three feminist “success stories,” each of which has invoked a sense of crisis to call for carceral and militarized international legal responses. We argue that these projects have reinforced many dangerous aspects of both feminism and international law, as they have used a focus on harm to women – particularly sexual harm – to aid in the legitimization and extension of legal, military and economic institutional arrangements that exacerbate the precarity of marginalized individuals, communities, and states. Their use of crisis has participated in the crowding out of a variety of alternative feminist (and other) perspectives, particularly those that take aim at the often quotidian forms of violence based in the overlapping structures of colonialism, racism, gender normativity, and gross economic inequality. We contend that anti-imperial and sex-positive feminisms as well as queer theory offer important vehicles for challenging the dominant approaches. We gesture toward how they might even consider invoking crisis (such as the often everyday and unnoticeable crises of neocolonial, neoliberal, carceral, and militarized dimensions of global governance) to foster transformative feminist, queer, and redistributive ends.

Africa from Post-Colonialism to Multilateralism

Abstract This article deals with a differentiation of the historical phases of African trajectories in the global context from independence to the present day in order to overcome colonialism and global capitalism. It explains how to understand the historical trajectories from post-colonialism to unilateralism, multilateralism, and finally, the potential of polylateralism. It focuses on the problems and tendencies of advancement in Africa, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, in order to indicate a potential model for the social, political, economic, and cultural arrangement of relations for the recognition of people in Africa in global interactions.

Self-development of regions as a factor in Russia's political and economic infrastructure improvement

Subject. This article discusses the importance of self-development of regions for the country's economy. Objectives. The article aims to identify the reasons for the decline in interest in the idea of self-development of regions and search for approaches to its mainstreaming. Methods. For the study, I used statistical and analog procedure approaches. Results. The article names and describes the main factors hindering the self-development of the Russian Federation regions. Conclusions. It is necessary to change the strategy of the political and economic infrastructure arrangement of the country to promote a model implying that strong regions do construct the basis of a strong center and power of the country. The methodological approaches to encouraging the regions to switch over to the self-development mode should be adjusted.

The nexus between (re)production of space and economic resilience: An analysis of Chinese cities

The uneven geography of economic resilience is generally considered to be dependent on local-specific attributes such as economic structure, human actions, and institutional arrangements. Going beyond these internal attributes, this study draws insights from Harvey's spatial fix concept and explores the impact of the (re)production of space on economic resilience across 285 prefectural-level cities in China in relation to the economic crisis of 2008. Economic resilience was measured by the cities' resistance to decline during the crisis period (2007–2009) and its recoverability in the period immediately afterwards (2009–2016). For each period, we used regression models to assess the relative impact of fixed-asset investment, economic structure, and local government spending on the cities' economic resistance or recoverability. The (re)production of space, as measured by fixed-asset investment in urban space, was found to have a consistently positive and significant effect on economic resilience across the cities. In addition, the manufacturing sector showed a positive and significant effect on the cities' resistance to decline whereas the service sector was key to their recoverability during the post-crisis period. Our analysis extends the perception of space in regional resilience by corroborating the proposition that the built environment can serve as a resource system for sustained and resilient growth. The robustness test confirmed that the spatial-fix effect on economic resilience was consistently significant across Chinese cities regardless of spatial and temporal variations in local contexts.

Politics against individualism?

Politics against individualism?

Under different umbrellas: intersectionality and alliances in US feminist politics

Macro-level forms of inequality work intersectionally to establish democracy normatively, as well as shape its institutions. Liberal democracies, once revolutionarily new political formations, rest on an equally revolutionary understanding of male domination based not on descent, but on economic arrangements (the new ‘breadwinner’ role) and political institutions (the ‘brotherhood’ national state). Over time, social movements have diminished liberal democracy’s original exclusions of women and minority ethnic men so that many citizens’ daily lives now contradict this once hegemonic normative order. The US party binary pushes contemporary movements to transform or restore this understanding of democracy under the political umbrellas of the competing Democratic and Republican parties. This polarisation then contributes to the gendering of movement claims and political representation. Gendered polarisation creates opportunities for cohesion among movements on both sides and yet blocks more fundamental reforms of US democracy.