Political Economy Framework Research Articles

Singapore’s educational export strategies: ‘branding’ and ‘selling’ education in a favourable global policy marketspace

ABSTRACT Since the 1990s, Singapore has firmly established its reputation in the global education policy space as one of the best education systems in the world. However, existing policy transfer literature on Singapore has been mainly interested in Singapore as a decontextualised, ahistorical case, rather than as a unique player in the global education policy sphere. Analysis of how Singapore’s educational policies and lessons have been exported to other countries tends to focus on the mediating roles of international assessments and global policy actors like the OECD or McKinsey consultants. What has been much less clear is Singapore’s own proactive branding and education export strategies. Guided by the Cultural Political Economy framework, this paper draws attention to how an enabling global education policy context with an insatiable appetite for fast policy lessons has aligned with Singapore’s own initiatives to cultivate and export its brand of educational success.

From a Fishing Village to Tourist Destination: Hongjia Village in Northeastern China

Economic transitions from fishing into coastal tourism are common in many contemporary coastal communities globally, and particularly in the case of China. Drawing on interviews from a village in Liaoning province in Northeastern China, we use a political economy framework to more systematically understand the drivers and outcomes associated with the transition from fishing to tourism. We find that while state policies and market forces have encouraged shifts away from fishing and into tourism, tourism is currently governed largely by informal institutions informed by social relations and culture. Our findings emphasise how economic transitions from fishing to coastal tourism are mediated by these inter-related and shifting relationships between state, society, and markets.

Being Cared for in the Context of Crisis: Austerity, COVID-19, and Racialized Politics

Abstract This article presents an investigation into the racialized and gendered dynamics of the intensifying crisis in care for older people in the United Kingdom. Deploying a feminist political economy framework, we reveal how the care crisis is an intersectional crisis of social reproduction worsened by both austerity and COVID-19. We do this through an analysis of a small set of interviews with South Asian older women with care needs, conducted during the first period of UK national lockdown in 2020. This was a pilot study, focusing on the challenges faced in accessing formal and informal care during this period of the pandemic. The experiences, fears, and vulnerabilities that came through in the interviews are located within a broader analysis of the racialized care crisis—one that reveals the long-term harms that austerity, including “austerity Islamophobia,” generated for these older women and their families as they struggled to provide and access un/paid care.

Using Independent Contracting Arrangements in Integrated Care Programs for Older Adults: Implications for Clients and the Home Care Workforce in a Time of Neoliberal Restructuring.

Integrated care programs reshape the processes of health and social care delivery in the home care sector to be more continuous, cooperative, equitable, and efficient. An independent contracting model is one approach being used to overcome issues related to home care fragmentation. To better understand the implications of this model of service delivery for clients and carers, interviews were conducted in 2013 with 22 key informants. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis and interpreted using a feminist political economy framework. This study finds that independent contracting arrangements improve care continuity for clients while simultaneously reinforcing precarious working conditions for home care workers. This research calls for reform to this model of service delivery to better support home care workers as they provide the care necessary for older adults to age in place.

How are employers represented in and affected by the policymaking of in-work benefits? Policy stakeholders’ views in Hong Kong

Based on an employer-focused political economy framework, this qualitative study investigates how employers are represented in and affected by the policymaking of in-work benefits (IWBs), given employers’ political status and labour market conditions. Respondents addressed the importance of employers’ tacit support of the wage subsidies funded by the government. Arguably, it was considered that IWBs did not have a direct impact on wages, but they subsidised employers as a constraint against the minimum wage, boosted the workforce’s availability, and reduced recruitment costs for employers. This research substantiates the understanding of IWBs by integrating the perspectives of policy stakeholders and expands IWBs’ case studies in an authoritarian context.

Citizen science as a form of social empowerment of youth and volunteers’ engagement in research in the context of mobilized economy of knowledge

The article reflects the systematization of approaches to stimulating the participation of young people in scientific volunteering in an economy mobilized to produce and implement new knowledge and ensure the country’s leadership in global innovative growth. The needs of Russian society in involving young categories of the population in the implementation of citizen science have been studied within the framework of theoretical socioadministrative analysis and political economy. Open citizen science is based on the sociocultural regulation of the motives of young people to participate in national research projects, which makes it very important to systematize the motives and needs of young people to turn to citizen science. The article presents the results of a theoretical analysis of the motivation for the participation of young citizens in scientific projects, based on the analysis of the case study and secondary research, the main recommendations for organizing and stimulating the involvement of young people in citizen science are formulated. The article presents the specifics and requirements of the mobilization economy for the branches of knowledge production; the tasks of involving citizens in scientific projects are formulated; the essential characteristics of open science, citizen science are determined; the main approaches to attracting young categories of the population as volunteers in research activities based on their motivation are identified. The article also provides some practical recommendations on the use of managerial tools to stimulate youth participation in citizen science. Formed approaches to the motivation of young people’s participation in research activities.

When the supply chain breaks: strategies for the chip shortage

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a political economy framework for strategic supply chain decisions by identifying lessons from the global chip shortage.Design/methodology/approachGlobal supply chains have been viewed as holistic political economies because each supply chain is more important than the individual buyer–supplier relationships that comprise it.FindingsEach supply chain is a combination of many different vendor–supplier relationships that seem independent but are actually dependent on one another.Originality/valueWith significant geopolitical shifts, it has become necessary holistically consider the cultural, sociopolitical and economic conditions that surround supply chains. This points attention to managing the entire supply chain, rather than the immediate buyer–supplier relationship at hand.

The ties that don’t bind: trading state debates and role of state capacity in Turkish foreign policy

ABSTRACT The literature on trading states has advanced our understanding of foreign economic policy dynamics, but what constitutes a proper trading state and determines its resilience remains somewhat unclear. This article contributes to the literature by developing a political economy framework to assess the role of ‘state capacity’ in conditioning Turkey’s foreign economic policies. Using Turkey as a case, we argue that states are more likely to show suboptimal economic engagement in case of weak state capacity, as (i) they fail to pursue effective industrial policy resulting in low exit costs, (ii) business elites cannot put pressure on the political leadership for the preservation of existing trade ties in the event of an external shock, and (iii) weak financial support mechanisms lead to insufficient assistance to national firms operating abroad.

Looking at COVID-19 effects on intimate partner and sexual violence organizations in Canada through a feminist political economy lens: a qualitative study.

ObjectivesIntimate partner violence and sexual violence organizations such as women’s shelters play a crucial role in advancing gender equality in Canada. COVID-19 has challenged how such organizations operate. This study explored how intimate partner violence and sexual violence organizations in Canada have been affected by COVID-19 and the consequences on service delivery.MethodsWe interviewed 17 frontline and management staff from intimate partner violence and sexual violence organizations and programs across Canada, and analyzed the data using thematic analysis and applying a feminist political economy lens.ResultsWe identified the following themes: (1) Adapting; (2) Struggling financially; (3) Resourcefulness; (4) Troubles connecting; (5) Narrowing scope of work; and (6) Burden of care.ConclusionA feminist political economy framework considers the gendered impact of the pandemic and related measures on the workforce. Both the pandemic and measures to control it have affected intimate partner violence and sexual violence organizations in Canada, the staff working in these organizations, and the quality of relationships between staff and clients. Intimate partner and sexual violence organizations in Canada have been chronically underfunded and their predominantly female staff underpaid, affecting their ability to meet the needs of women. The onset of COVID-19 not only worsened these issues but converged with a shift in focus to more pandemic-related tasks, further limiting the scope and reach of organizations. Whether the adaptations, innovations, and perseverance demonstrated by such organizations and staff can tip the balance in favour of more equitable policy and outcomes remains to be seen.

Current Perspectives on Teacher Unionization, and What They’re Missing

Educational policy research on teacher unionization in the United States has been dominated by two theoretical perspectives: rent-seeking and teacher voice. While bringing valuable insights to bear, these views have mutated into rigid and often ideologically charged alternatives with strong normative claims about teacher collective bargaining. Drawing from a political economy framework, this article advances a distinct theoretical perspective focusing on the progressive coalition building activities of teachers’ unions (i.e., organizing and mobilizing to promote the interests of working people in policymaking). This perspective resolves previous theoretical anomalies of union behavior; provides many new avenues for research; and highlights distinct considerations for the practice of teacher organizing.

Theorizing tourism meaning creation: An exploration of the cultural political economy framework

• Tourism is an important meaning creation phenomenon and industry. • Tourism meaning creation has been studied from various conceptual approaches. • There are limits to the explanatory value of these conceptual approaches. • Cultural Political Economy seems a useful framework for theorizing tourism meanings.

Governance, Politics, and Economic Development: Some African Perspectives

The article documents the evolution of governance measures in Africa during post-independence: economic freedom, electoral competitiveness, political rights and civil liberties, executive constraint, and polity2. It examines their implications for economic development, considers political instability (PI) in the form of coups d’état and civil wars on the premise that PI results from poor governance. In addition, the article sheds light on the links between the more recent measures of governance – the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) – and economic development outcomes among African countries. The article concludes by paying special attention to potential governance/institutional instruments that might reflect “good governance”, and highlights the implicit risks faced by African countries in their efforts to sustain the continent’s recent economic gains within the current political economy framework.

Crumbotti and rose petals in a ghost mountain valley: foraging, landscape, and their transformations in the upper Borbera Valley, NW Italy

BackgroundThe abandonment of mountain areas in Europe is a process that started during industrialisation and whose traces are still present nowadays. Initiatives aimed at stopping this decline and preserving the local biological and cultural diversities reflect the crucial issue of fostering sustainable rural development. This article contributes to the ongoing debate in assessing and preserving local ecological knowledge (LEK) in a highly marginalised mountain community in the Piedmontese Apennines to support local development. In so doing, it continues a larger project assessing how local botanical knowledge and landscapes evolve over time, in order to understand in more depth which factors affect how LEK is shaped, eroded, and re-created, and how this could be revitalised.MethodsWe compared information about the current gathering and use of local wild plants in the upper Borbera Valley (Carrega Ligure municipality, NW Italy), elicited via 34 in-depth open and semi-structured interviews, with the findings of a field study conducted in the same location, most likely carried out at the end of the 1970s and published in 1981.ResultsThere were remarkable quantitative and qualitative differences between the two ethnobotanies. The gathering and use of some wild medicinal plants growing in meadows, woodlands, and higher mountain environments (Achillea, Centaurea, Dianthus, Ostrya, Picea, Polygonum, Potentilla, and Thymus) seems to have disappeared, whereas the collection of plants growing in more anthropogenic environments, or possibly promoted via contacts with the “reference” city of Genoa (the largest city close to Carrega and historically the economic and cultural centre to which the valley was mostly connected), has been introduced (i.e. ramsons, safflower, bitter oranges, black trumpets) or reinvigorated (rose petals). This trend corresponds to the remarkable changes in the local landscape ecology and agro-silvo-pastoral system that took place from the first half of the twentieth century, dramatically increasing woodland and secondary vegetation, and decreasing coppices, plantations, grasslands and segregating cultivated land.ConclusionThe findings show a very difficult rearrangement of the LEK, as most of the areas the local actors still know are within their villages, and they no longer have daily experience in the rest of the abandoned woodland landscape (except for mushrooming and gathering chestnuts). This situation can be interpreted in two ways: as the start of the complete abandonment of the valley, or as a starting residual resilience lynchpin, which could possibly inspire new residents if the larger political-economic framework would promote measures for making the survival of the mountain settlements of this municipality possible, and not just a chimera.

Home-Based Women Workers Vulnerability during the COVID-19: A Gendered Perspective of Political Economy

This research uses a gender perspective to explore the condition of home-based women workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and analyze coping mechanisms adopted to mitigate the social and economic vulnerability. By applying the feminist political economy framework, the research focused on the vulnerability of home-based women workers in the Special Region of Yogyakarta (DIY), Indonesia. Home-based women's enterprises constitute a major component of the local businesses. This research used a qualitative research design. Results showed that home-based women workers (PPR) are exposed to six traits of vulnerability, namely: Workers' exploitation and low wage standard; lack of social security; nonexistence of job guarantee and weak law protection; bearing the work risk that should be the employers' obligation; low bargaining position; and unregulated working hours. In addition, compounded by inadequate education and high domestic responsibilities, these women are vulnerable to political and economic conditions that are in part attributable to the societal context they find themselves in. However, amid these vulnerabilities, home-based women workers in DIY have developed resilience through community networks supported by a local NGO called YASANTI. Thus, local NGOs have played a significant role in strengthening PPR resilience in DIY.

India’s Biotech Emergence: A Critical Political Economy Analysis

This article examines how political economic transitions in India have shaped the trajectory of the biotech sector. With the increasing global prominence of biotechnology as a potential tool for economic growth, the Indian state also started prioritizing it. However, under the economic reforms that were initiated starting from the early 1980s, such growth is envisaged through encouraging private sector and public--private partnerships (PPP) while weakening the public sector units (PSU). Employing a political economy framework, we analyze three initiatives, namely Bharat Immunological and Biological Corporation Limited a PSU and Genomed, The Centre for Genomic Applications under PPP model established as first of its kind ventures. Our analysis shows that the PSU established with the mandate of production of affordable vaccines deviated from this role and became a part of the global value chain of vaccine market controlled by the Trans National Corporations. Similarly, the public--private initiatives have been appropriated to cater to the goals of private enterprises at the cost of public resources.

The Technical Fix

This essay examines Bitcoin enthusiasts’ abstract and material arguments about the viability of bitcoin in El Salvador through historical and political-economic frameworks. In June 2021, with legislators in tow, President Nayib Bukele declared that the adoption of Bitcoin would encourage flows of capital into El Salvador’s crisis-addled economy—flows that would lift all boats. In a sense, riding on Bitcoin’s success or failure in El Salvador is a test case for Bit-coin’s claim to be the future of money and for other such “technical fixes” of capitalism’s shortfalls in the developing world. By comparing Bukele’s move with El Salvador’s push to dollarize in 2001, this essay traces a comparable strategy of El Salvador’s economic and political elites where the swap of currencies becomes a vehicle for massive accumulation at the top, while popular classes suffer. Consequently, this essay argues that Bukele’s “technical fix” on his nation’s economy is a mere pretext. By leveraging the assets of the broader populace, he pursues the class interests of El Salvador’s new oligarchy.

Turkey’s public–private partnership experience: a political economy perspective

ABSTRACT Public–private partnerships (PPP) are the contractual arrangements between public and private parties to deliver infrastructure and services in which costs, risks, and benefits are shared. Good governance of PPPs, traditionally associated with an effective regulatory and institutional framework, appropriate risk-sharing, competitive and transparent procurement have recently been broadened to include citizens’ perspectives. Turkey uses PPPs to deliver public infrastructures such as airports, energy plants, highways, bridges, and hospitals. Our first section into Turkey’s PPP experience explores how the partnership between state and capital is instituted. We reveal nine crucial governance problems: Complexities of megaprojects, fragmented legal and regulatory framework, weak institutional capacity, risk-sharing discrepancies, poor value for money, non-affordable public services, lack of transparency, limited accountability, and disregard for environmental sustainability. We maintain that a deeper understanding of PPPs requires complementing this governance analysis with insights from critical political economy. Accordingly, we draw a critical political economy framework to explain why, when, and how PPPs in Turkey are utilized in our second section. We underline the neoliberal transformation and financialized capital accumulation dynamics. We argue that PPP projects have fuelled the construction-led economic growth model, distributed resources to pro-government capital groups, and reproduced political power in Turkey.

Wet Underwear: The Perils of Vote -Buying and Bad Governance in Nigeria

It was anticipated that the re-emergence of democratic rule in Nigeria in 1999 after a long interregnum of military dictatorship would usher in good governance in the country. However, after over two decades of democratizing, the negative bargain whereby citizens sell their votes (mandate) lured with vote-buying by politicians seems to have conspired to democratically “imprison” the masses to poverty in a serial display of bad governance by ruling mega parties. This paper examined the outstanding issues that facilitate vote-selling by citizens and vote-buying by candidates in the country. The paper is qualitative and descriptive in nature, and relied on secondary sources of data. It adopted the dialectical materialism approach, generally referred to as the Marxian political economy framework to guide data collection and analysis. Data were gathered from libraries and the Internet. The contents of the secondary data collected were dialectically analyzed in line with the objective of the paper. It was found that the retention of the inherited colonial state structure coupled with the economic disadvantageous position of the masses exposed citizens to collide in selling their mandate which gave the ruling elite the impunity to tactically institutionalize bad governance. To this end, among others, the paper recommended and concluded that only a simultaneous structural reform of the state and a deliberate robust human development programme can reverse the peril of vote-buying, which is reflected in the serial bad governance in the Nigerian system.

From Motorcycle to Tricycle: Neoliberal Political Economy, Informal Transportation, and Urban/Peri-Urban Mobility in Nigerian Cities

Abstract In most African states informal motorcycle transportation is a popular means of urban and semi-urban mobility. While studies have examined the transportation–economic development nexus, the political economy of the ban of motorcycles and shift from informal commercial motorcycle to tricycle operation for urban/peri-urban mobility in Nigeria has been grossly neglected in academic discourses. Using a qualitative approach and neoliberal political economy framework, this study investigates how the ban of commercial motorcycles and their replacement with commercial tricycles have impacted urban/peri-urban mobility in Nigerian cities. Contrary to the expectation that replacing motorcycles with tricycles would increase the vulnerability of the majority of informal transport operators and constrain transportation of urban/peri-urban poor without personal/private means of mobility, the replacement has facilitated the development of road infrastructure, reduced road crashes, minimized motorcycle induced crimes, and improved the income of informal transport operators in Nigerian cities. The study concludes that sustainable use of commercial tricycles for urban and peri-urban transportation is relevant for achieving organized and safe informal commercial transportation in Nigeria and other less-developed countries.

Institutional reform, technology adoption and redistribution: a political economy perspective

We examine technology adoption and growth in a political economy framework where two alternative mechanisms of redistribution are on the menu of choice for the economy. One of these is a lump-sum transfer given to agents in the economy. The other is in the form of expenditure directed towards institutional reform aimed at bringing about a reduction in the cost of technology adoption in the presence of uncertainty. The choice over these mechanisms is examined under three alternative approaches to collective decision making, namely a voting mechanism, and social planning with a Benthamite and Rawlsian social welfare function respectively. We find that the extent of uncertainty, and initial inequality, working through the political economy mechanism, have a positive impact on long run average wealth levels in the economy in all settings. All economies converge to the same inequality and growth rates in the long run; however, the speed of transition is fastest with the voting mechanism and slowest in the case of social planning with the Rawlsian social welfare function. Transitional inequality is highest in the Rawlsian framework, suggesting that egalitarian objectives in collective decision making do not necessarily correspond to egalitarian outcomes for the economy.