Political Economy Framework Research Articles

The political economy of agricultural trade liberalization in Northeast Asia: comparisons with the West and between Japan and Korea

This paper contrasts agricultural protection of Japan and Korea with the West and identifies major differences between them. It characterizes agricultural protection of Japan and Korea (net heavy food importers) as “tariff-based and scarcity-sensitive” aimed at promoting survival and the West (net food exporters) as “subsidy-based and surplus-inducing” aimed at enhancing farm income. We then identify factors underlying the coevolution and divergence in the extent of agricultural trade liberalization between Japan and Korea since the launch of the Uruguay Round in 1986. Korea accepted deep cuts in agricultural tariffs in bilateral FTAs with the US and EU during the 2000s while Japan continued to protect farm interests by concluding low levels of FTAs with politically sensitive products excluded from tariff concessions. The two countries’ stances reversed since 2013 with Japan becoming proactive in pursuing high levels of FTAs with major agricultural exporting countries and Korea decelerating its opening of agricultural markets. To explain such divergences, this paper develops a political economy framework in which the incumbent political leadership would consider both national interests and sectoral (farm as import competing industries and business/manufacturing as exporting industries) special interests. Our analysis shows that President Roh (2002–2007)’s embracing of neoliberal paradigm in formulating foreign trade policies that would promote national interests underlies the unprecedented level of agricultural trade liberalization in Korea during the 2000s, while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s determination not to be outcompeted by the rising China and Korea’s ambitious FTA strategies underlies Japan’s proactive bilateral and mega-FTA drives since 2013.

Gender approaches in the study of the digital economy: a systematic literature review

The data and debates around the negative impact of online work for women’s work-life balance during the digital acceleration generated by the COVID-19 crisis have lent greater relevance to the study of gender and the digital economy. This paper sheds light on this complex relationship by systematically studying the research on gender in the digital economy over the last 25 years. The methodology used is a systematic literature review (SLR) of scientific works and policy papers across different social sciences from 1995 to 2020 in the Google Scholars and Scopus databases. The SLR has resulted in the creation of three samples on which a quantitative and qualitative analysis was carried out to evaluate the volume of the research, trends across time, gender approaches and study topics. The general conclusions indicate that gender approaches to the digital economy stem from a wide range of academic disciplines, and also that there is a lack of theoretical consistency about gender analysis. First, the paper provides an overview of the volume of works and an analysis of some trends across time. Second, it identifies the three main gender approaches applied to the digital economy: (1) the ‘feminist theory of technology and ICT’ approach; (2) the ‘feminist political economy’ approach; (3) the ‘mainstream economic analysis and women’s participation and labour in the digital economy’ approach. Moreover, it distinguishes eight main gender analysis issues within these three approaches. Finally, the paper concludes by identifying future developments for a feminist political economy framework for the digital economy.

A Global Communication M.A. Double Degree Program: Conceptualizing and working through diversity

At a time when diversity and de-westernization are current buzz words for injecting social justice into the future of communication studies, we must address how we conceptualize and con-front these concepts in practice. Academic Cosmopolitanism has been proposed as one way forward, but it remains in the trenches of cosmopolitan theory’s difficulty of dealing with diversity in political systems. Simon Fraser University and the Communication University of China’s Global Communi-cation MA Double Degree Program embodies many of the core values of academic cosmopolitanism. Grounded in a transcultural political economy framework however, it embraces some of the kinds of conflicts that cosmopolitanism sets up as barriers. Via autoethnographic accounts from the pro-gram’s first teaching assistant and an alumnae from its first cohort, we explore how the conflicts involved in conceptualizing and confronting diversity are experienced on the ground. We conclude by highlighting the ways in which transcultural political economy enriches discussions on diversity and inform efforts to de-colonize communication studies.

Political economy framework and the occurrence of noncommunicable diseases. “Framing dietary practices in Ghana as the receptacle”

Context: Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, hypertension, kidney diseases, and diabetes account for sizeable proportion of global deaths. The proximate causes aside biological and genetics are behavioral risk factors include dietary practices. Unhealthy dietary practice leading to the occurrence of NCDs blamed for the drawback of social and economic development of lower- and middle-income countries. Aims: This research focuses on establishing links among the political economy framework (education, occupation, income, residential place, and mass media), dietary practices, and the occurrence of NCDs in Ghana. Settings and Design: It adopted a mixed method approach using the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (2014), with a sample of 4122 and 32 qualitative interviews from four regions. Subjects and Methods: In-depth, key informant interviews, focus groups discussions, and secondary data were used. The qualitative arm was analyzed using the thematic content analysis. Statistical Analysis Used: Descriptive statistics and probit regression were used to ascertain the influences of the constituents of political economy using individual's dietary intakes. Results: The present study found that, differences in income levels (P < 0.05), residential place of stay (P < 0.05), and access to mass media (P < 0.05) were statistically significant to dietary practices and had major implications for NCDs occurrence. The qualitative outcome revealed that, educational and occupational status of individuals may influence dietary practices. The regression revealed that females are exposed to unhealthy dietary practices by 6.2% points. Moreover, rural dwelling had moderate influence on unhealthy dietary practices (3.3% points) than urban dwelling. Again, professionals, sales, and service categories have 5.8%, 5.7%, and 7.6% points unhealthy practices, respectively.

ACCOUNTING FOR THE MAIN COMPONENTS OF THE ECONOMY

The economic system is a complex social organism undergoing a constant process of metamorphosis. The conceptual framework of political economy captures the compo-nents of this system, its interaction with the socio-political superstructure, as well as its inherent contradictions. The article examines the laws of system development and their impact on econom-ic growth. It is revealed that the laws of development are the foundation on which the theoretical foundations of economic analysis are implemented and the assessment, diagnosis and forecasting of organizations' development is carried out. Accounting for the laws of system development al-lowed us to identify the main analytical tasks and indicators - the parameters of the organization that are affected by the laws considered. The main result of the economic reforms of independent Kazakhstan was the creation of a market-type economy and a system of effective state regulation that is adequate to the principles of market management. The process of economic reform is not complete: Kazakhstan's economic policy is gradually focusing on supporting its own most profit-able industries.

Hollywood survival strategies in the post-COVID 19 era

Since the arrival of the Coronavirus in the United States, Americans have been forced to quarantine themselves at home in dramatic fashion, unlike almost any other time in the nation’s history. Moreover, the American workforce has been equally impacted by virtue of state-imposed shutdowns that have affected innumerable businesses, including the Hollywood entertainment industry, which is the subject of this research. I examine how commercial entertainment conglomerates like AT&T, Comcast, Disney, ViacomCBS, and Fox have responded to mandatory closures for businesses that employ a human workforce upon whom they rely for their labor, and to human consumers they seek to distribute their film and television commodities to for profit. Using historical and discourse analyses in a political economic theoretical framework, I review contemporary reports about the economic conditions which have influenced the industry’s technological adaptation and innovation and argue that the Hollywood television and film industries will capitalize upon this current public health crisis as a motivator to adopt streaming platforms as the new preferred distribution mechanism of entertainment long after COVID 19 is a memory. This qualitative research examines the technological adaptations employed by these entertainment conglomerates to analyze (1) how the transition to streaming video on demand has occurred, and evaluates (2) what the adoption of these survival strategies mean for Hollywood’s long-term economic future and survival in a “digitally competitive” (Smith and Telang, 2017) marketplace.

Why coal? – The political economy of the electricity sector in the Philippines

The Philippines encounter a rapidly growing electricity demand which is planned to be met mainly with coal. The build-up of coal-fired electricity generation is the result of a complex interplay of political economy factors. This analysis follows a novel political economy framework to shed light on actors, their objectives and how they influence policy-making given the country's context factors, such as the vulnerability to climate change and the oligopoly in the power sector. It is based on 35 semi-structured expert interviews with 50 stakeholders conducted in Metro Manila in October and November 2019. We identify four main goals determining electricity sector policy: reducing energy poverty, energy security, ecological sustainability, as well as private profits. Our insights on the political economy of the electricity sector in the Philippines can help to identify possible entry points for policies to decarbonize energy production.

Democracy and Socio-Economic Crises in Africa: The Nigerian Experience

The democratic transition process, which almost all African States have inevitably swung into since the early 1980s, has made their vulnerability to social and economic crises more intense. The problems that are concomitants of these transitions, which have exacerbated the extant socio-economic problems, have been dramatized by the increased level of poverty, widening income gap, sustained low (negative in many cases) growth rate, etc. in the African states. Democracy in Africa has thus deepened the contradictions in the economy and between the weak and the powerful in both absolute and relative terms. This paper is directed at unraveling these conflicting realities, particularly the implications of the patterns for overall socio-economic development. A study of Nigeria’s experiences at `democratising' permits a clearer appreciation of the nature and trends of democracy in Africa. This is done within the context of the political economy frame work. This paper argues that, democratization in Africa is one which focuses mainly on economic deregulation and liberalization while at the same time denying the need for political decentralization that can give the weak and poor access to the gains of development, and that, the prebendial nature of politics in Africa makes it an exclusive business for the rich thus narrowing the possibility for empowerment of the poor people at the long run. It is our conclusion therefore, that the above contradictions can only be resolved if the right political context for economic democratization is created, because, in Africa, politics, more then anything else constraints economic development. Keywords: Democracy, Democratization, Socio-Economic Crises, Development and Political Economy DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-8-03 Publication date: April 30 th 2021

Global Fertility Chains: An Integrative Political Economy Approach to Understanding the Reproductive Bioeconomy

Over the last two decades, social scientists across disciplines have been researching how value is extracted and governed in the reproductive bioeconomy, which broadly refers to the various ways reproductive tissues, bodies, services, customers, workers, and data are inserted into capitalist modes of accumulation. While many of these studies are empirically grounded in single country–based analyses, this paper proposes an integrative political economy framework, structured around the concept of “global fertility chains.” The latter articulates the reproductive bioeconomy as a nexus of intraconnected practices, operations, and transactions between enterprises, states, and households across the globe, through which reproductive services and commodities are produced, distributed, and consumed. Employing a diffractive reading of the literature on commodity chains and care chains, this unified approach scrutinizes the coproduction of value, biology, and technoscience and their governance mechanisms in the accumulation of capital by taking into account (1) the unevenly developed geographies of global fertility chains, (2) their reliance on women’s waged and unwaged reproductive labor, and (3) the networked role of multiple actors at multiple scales without losing sight of the (4) constitutive role of (supra)national states in creating demand, organizing supply, and accommodating the distribution of surplus value. We empirically ground this integrative political economy approach of the reproductive bioeconomy through collaborative, multisited fieldwork on transnational reproduction networks in Israel/Palestine, Romania, Georgia, and Spain.

The FDA and the COVID-19: A political economy perspective.

This article utilizes a political economy framework to examine how FDA regulations impacted the U.S. healthcare sector's ability to address COVID‐19. I specifically examine the developing COVID‐19 testing, the approval of the medication remdesivir, and COVID‐19 vaccines. By examining periods before and after the FDA issued Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs), my analysis finds that the FDA's regulations enacted before the COVID‐19 pandemic began strongly restricted clinician and patient access to COVID‐19 testing, remdesivir treatment, and approving vaccines. After the FDA issued EUAs, the healthcare sector quickly adopted COVID‐19 testing and remdesivir with little evidence of negative consequences. These findings contribute to the economics literature examining the FDA and contemporary COVID‐19 policy research.

Labour of Love: Fan Labour, BTS, and South Korean Soft Power

With the steady rise in global popularity of the Korean music group BTS, the South Korean government and surrounding industries have swiftly begun utilizing their image and international recognition for specific nation branding purposes. While K-pop soft power strategies are not novel to the South Korean state, what is new is the rapid speed at which BTS have become a beacon for South Korean culture, language, and symbolism in the international arena. However, few scholarly works have sought to investigate the role fans have played in this heightened position for the group as state representatives, with minimal research conducted into the work fans do within the framework of ARMY fan culture. This paper will thus aim to fill the gap in scholarship on ARMY as an organized labour network, focusing on the role fans play as labourers in online spaces that work to promote, disseminate, and cultivate wider recognition for BTS as artists. Through the conjunct engagement of a political economy framework and theories of participatory culture, this paper will explore the manner through which the free labour of ARMY, premised on affect, has constructed the fandom as active agents of soft power alongside BTS themselves.

Labour of Love: Fan Labour, BTS, and South Korean Soft Power

With the steady rise in global popularity of the Korean music group BTS, the South Korean government and surrounding industries have swiftly begun utilizing their image and international recognition for specific nation branding purposes. While K-pop soft power strategies are not novel to the South Korean state, what is new is the rapid speed at which BTS have become a beacon for South Korean culture, language, and symbolism in the international arena. However, few scholarly works have sought to investigate the role fans have played in this heightened position for the group as state representatives, with minimal research conducted into the work fans do within the framework of ARMY fan culture. This paper will thus aim to fill the gap in scholarship on ARMY as an organized labour network, focusing on the role fans play as labourers in online spaces that work to promote, disseminate, and cultivate wider recognition for BTS as artists. Through the conjunct engagement of a political economy framework and theories of participatory culture, this paper will explore the manner through which the free labour of ARMY, premised on affect, has constructed the fandom as active agents of soft power alongside BTS themselves.

Critical policy frontiers: The drugs-development-peacebuilding trilemma

Recent years have seen the emergence of a policy consensus around the need for fundamental reforms of global drug policies. This is reflected in the call for ‘development-oriented drug policies’ that align and integrate drug policies with development and peacebuilding objectives, as captured in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These calls have been important in acknowledging the damage caused by the war on drugs and in drawing attention to how drugs are inextricably linked to wider development and peacebuilding challenges. Yet there is surprisingly limited academic research that looks critically at the drugs-development-peace nexus and which asks whether the goals of a ‘drug-free world’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘the promotion of peace’ are commensurate with one another, can be pursued simultaneously, or are indeed achievable. This article studies these policy fields and policy-making processes from the geographical margins of the state – frontiers and borderland regions – because they offer a privileged vantage point for studying the contested nature of policymaking in relation to the drugs-development-peace nexus. We set out a historical political economy framework to critically assess the assumptions underlying the integrationist agenda, as well as the evidence base to support it. By developing the notion of a policy trilemma we are critical of the dominant policy narrative that ‘all good things come together’, showing instead the fundamental tensions and trade-offs between these policy fields. In exploring the interactions between these policy fields, we aim to advance discussion and debate on how to engage with the tensions and trade-offs that this integrationist agenda reveals, but which have to date been largely ignored.

Economía política del regionalismo - Caso Angola y Namibia

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo desarrollar una revisión teórica sobre el regionalismo en el marco de la economía política, según diversas contextualizaciones que se han planteado sobre éste; tomando el caso de Angola y Namibia como expresión de este proceso en el continente africano. Al respecto, se brinda una conceptualización acerca del tema, ofrecida por autores como Sánchez Ortiz (2009), Murillo Zamora (2004), Bernal Meza (2009), quienes lo definen como un proceso dirigido a alcanzar el desarrollo endógeno, la conformación de grandes espacios económicos, el incremento y la diversificación de la producción en países africanos, específicamente en Angola y Namibia. Para recabar la información se procedió con la revisión, lectura, análisis e interpretación de información recabada de distintas fuentes documentales, organizadas atendiendo a los temas abordados en este artículo. Como conclusiones destacan que la regionalización pretende favorecer el desarrollo económico, social, político y cultural de los países africanos, dentro de los cuales en Angola y Namibia se ha llevado a cabo un proceso de integración dirigido a conformar una red de acuerdos, cuya administración ha estado signada por la presencia de dificultades que han limitado el logro de los objetivos trazados, así como en cuanto al cumplimiento y desarrollo de acuerdos bilaterales de cooperación.

The political economy of places from a Sustainable Human Development perspective: the case of Emilia-Romagna

Abstract In this article, we discuss how integrated industrial policy can simultaneously pursue value-added generation and productivity enhancement in regional economies, along with inclusiveness and social cohesion. Our arguments are rooted in the integration of the literature on human development and capability approach, on economic geography and on industrial policy. In particular, we introduce a people-centred and place-based perspective on Sustainable Human Development and an interpretative political economy framework for the structural analysis of collective action in places. These arguments are illustrated by analysing recent industrial policies for a new social cohesion in the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy.

The political economy of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation: an analysis from seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT Background: Non-communicable diseases are on the rise across sub-Saharan Africa. The region has become a targeted growth market for sugar-sweetened beverages, which are associated with weight gain, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Objective: To identify politico-economic factors relevant to nutrition-related fiscal policies, and to draw lessons regarding strategies to strengthen sugar-sweetened beverages taxation in the region and globally. Methods: We collected documentary data on policy content, stakeholders and corporate political activity from seven countries in east and southern Africa augmented by qualitative interviews in Botswana, Namibia, Kenya and Zambia, and stakeholder consultations in Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Data were analysed using a political economy framework, focusing on ideas, institutions, interests and power, and a ‘bricolage’ approach was employed to identify strategies for future action. Results: Non-communicable diseases were recognised as a priority in all countries. Kenya, Zambia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda had taxes on non-alcoholic beverages, which varied in rate and tax base, but appeared to be motivated by revenue rather than health concerns. Botswana and Namibia indicated intention to adopt sugar-sweetened beverage taxes. Health-oriented sugar-sweetened beverage taxation faced challenges from entrenched economic policy paradigms for industry-led economic growth and was actively opposed by sugar-sweetened beverage-related industries. Strategies identified to support stronger sugar-sweetened beverage taxation included shifting the economic discourse to strengthen health considerations, developing positive public opinion, forging links with the agriculture sector for shared benefit, and leadership by a central government agency. Conclusions: There are opportunities for more strategic public health engagement with the economic sector to foster strong nutrition-related fiscal policy for non-communicable disease prevention in the region.

Industrial ecology and sustainable change: inertia and transformation in Mexican agro-industrial sugarcane clusters

ABSTRACT This article explores the capacity of industrial ecology to generate sustainable development in Latin America’s agro-industrial clusters. An evolutionary analytical approach is outlined, which is used to study Veracruz’s (Mexico) sugarcane cluster through a qualitative methodology. Our goal is to show that social innovation is key to promoting the sustainable development of clusters characterized by fragmented social, power, and innovation networks. Accordingly, innovations in the realm of industrial ecology often have a dual impact. On the one hand, in the dominant network, industrial ecology is reduced to its technological dimensions within a political-economic framework constrained by its external insertion and the maintenance of power dynamics. On the other hand, industrial ecology is a vehicle for a kind of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship driven by the core values of trust, transparency, acknowledgement of other people’s capabilities, and non-discrimination. This new transformative network promotes true socio-technical change by enhancing local resources and involving other intermediate actors. It also creates a localized agro-food system that promotes the development of cluster-based dynamics in the territory through radical innovations in industrial ecology. The article presents a new way of inserting industrial ecology into the dynamics of cluster-based organizations.

The political economy of and practical policies for inclusive growth—a case study of Scotland

AbstractThe concept of ‘inclusive growth’ (IG) is discussed in a political economy framework. The article reports comparative analysis of economic and planning policy documents from Scotland, England and the UK and findings from expert workshops held in Scotland, which identify four key policy areas for ‘inclusive growth’: skills, transport and housing for young people; city-regional governance; childcare; and place-making. These policies share with the ‘Foundational Economy’ an emphasis on everyday infrastructure and services, but add an emphasis on inter-generational justice and stress the importance of community empowerment as much as re-municipalisation. Factors enabling IG policy development include: the necessary political powers; a unifying political discourse and civic institutions; and inclusive governance and participatory democracy.

Nurture commodified? An investigation into commercial human milk supply chains

The material conditions in which women provide breast milk range widely, on the basis of their class and geographical provenance. The commercialisation of breast milk provision throws up questions related to debates on the transnational reconfiguration of social reproduction as they intersect with discourses on motherhood and healthy child development as well as contemporary processes of commodification of the body and the emergence of new gendered forms of atypical work in the global economy. This article presents a study of the first commercial human milk processor in India, NeoLacta Lifesciences that obtained an export license for the Australian market in 2017. These practices may be seen to be part of a wider Reproductive Industrial Complex, in which women’s reproductive bodily capacities are enrolled in wider economic and financial processes, instantiating new relations between gender, race, economies and care. This article employs a feminist political economy framework that places into dialogue analyses of social reproduction and commodification with feminist science/technology studies and medical/political anthropology in order to analyse the social, political, and technical processes that transform breast milk into a commodity that is internationally traded and the implications of this for contemporary understandings of work and gender.

Political consciousness and governance in Africa

This paper interrogates the subject of political consciousness and political governance vis-a-vis the mounting level of global restiveness precipitated by an unprecedented level of disparity in the global distribution of wealth. It borrows from the mainstream Marxian political-economic framework, arguing that the material existence of the growing and restive global population spurs political consciousness and questions the legitimacy of many national governments, as well as the global governance structures that support them. The paper is a desk study which relies heavily on secondary data, supported by a qualitative review of existing literature. Findings suggest that the global capitalist ideology – regulated by market forces – and accentuated by political globalization has failed to satisfy the legitimate aspirations to better conditions of living for the majority of the world’s population, especially in the developing countries, but particularly in Africa. The paper strongly recommends the strengthening of regional governance architecture in order to hold national leaderships accountable and responsive.