Global Aspirations Research Articles

The Clash of Architects: Impending Developments and Transformations in International Law

Abstract The world stands at the precipice of a transitional moment in the international law writ caused by the reasonable likelihood that new architects will be joining (and eventually supplanting) the present-day architects. Transformative geo-political and economic developments such as obor, the aiib, ndb and the increasing internationalization of the Yuan all herald potentially significant changes to the existing international governance architecture. “Revisionist” states with strong motivations and global ambitions, may will become international law creators as these new architects influence the economic and legal orders. International law is not static and several of the new architects’ customs and norms inherently conflict with current Western ideals. Will international law norms converge? Will Western notions gravitate towards the other spectrum in enlightened self-interest? The impact on international law norms, enforcement, human rights, sustainability, trade and investment treaties and arbitration will be far-reaching. Understanding how this potential re-orientations in power will affect international law is of critical importance.

Income Inequality and Digital Advertising Strategies: Evidence from a Field Experiment

In a globalized digital economy, it is not clear whether it is better to use globally- or domestically-oriented images in marketing communications, or how the optimal strategy would be affected by economic inequality. We explore this using field experiment data from Facebook in India. In these field experiments, consumers were shown ads that encouraged them to join an online community that shared reviews of wedding vendors. These ads randomized the extent to which the images of weddings showed global versus local aspirations. In general, the globalized images performed poorly. However, this is moderated by the degree of inequality in the surrounding region. People living in more unequal regions are more likely to embrace globalized images. We present suggestive evidence that this has to do with consumers trying to distance themselves from an environment of poverty, rather than because inequality is correlated with other regional characteristics that make the globalized image appealing.

Overlooked Transport Participants – Mentally Impaired but Still Mobile

Providing an inclusive transport system is a global ambition. Whereas, mobility needs and mobility barriers of people suffering from a physical impairment have already been observed frequently, people suffering from mental impairments (due to e.g. anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, dementia or other degenerative diseases) are often overlooked. Numerous studies already suggest that the number of people with mental impairment will significantly increase due to the demographic change and is also shown by the prevalence of mental diseases. Whereby, not even the data collected do necessarily give the full picture of the actual situation. Thus, the importance of mobility needs and mobility problems of people with mental impairments will gain dramatically. Participating in the transport system is a basic need that furthermore requires the ability of adopting different roles (e.g. driver, pedestrian). Due to explanatory studies of the authors, it could be shown what kind of problems people with mental impairment are faced with while participating in the transport system or interacting in public space. Thus, these studies represent the first step that is needed to consider the specific needs of people with mental impairments in future planning. The identified problems of people who are suffering from mental impairment are various. Thereby it can be distinguished between problems triggered by structural (e.g. absence of emergency buttons, spacious stations), organisational (e.g. absence of security stuff, lacking information according time table of transit) or social conditions (e.g. crowed places or vehicles, stigmatisation). This paper presents an overall view of specific requirements of people with mental impairment and suggests possible solutions for planning and designing an inclusive transport system.

Using Indigenous Feminist Land Ethics to Queer the Korean Missionary Position in Canada

This essay reflects on my practice of building solidarity with Indigenous peoples in a research project on diasporic Korean Christian missionary involvement with Indigenous communities in British Columbia. I incorporate an Indigenous feminist land ethic of relationality to queer my investigation of Korean missionary relationships with Indigenous peoples in Canada. I bring queer, woman of colour and Indigenous feminist perspectives into conversation with Asian Canadian studies to examine how the relationships between Korean diasporic and Indigenous subjects are structured by the normative logics of settler colonialism and late global capitalism. Korean Canadians occupy a conflicted position as marginalized citizens in a settler nation with global economic aspirations. Yet, in the context of neoliberal multiculturalism, they can also be complicit in white settler colonial and capitalist projects, which encourage Koreans to perform and be recognized as respectable, upwardly mobile citizens. By theorizing personal memoir and lived experience, my aim is to present a self-reflexive research methodology and explore how Indigenous feminist perspectives offer non-normative epistemologies that can transform institutions in radically queer ways.

Measuring progress and projecting attainment on the basis of past trends of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals in 188 countries: an analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

SummaryBackgroundThe UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are grounded in the global ambition of “leaving no one behind”. Understanding today's gains and gaps for the health-related SDGs is essential for decision makers as they aim to improve the health of populations. As part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016), we measured 37 of the 50 health-related SDG indicators over the period 1990–2016 for 188 countries, and then on the basis of these past trends, we projected indicators to 2030.MethodsWe used standardised GBD 2016 methods to measure 37 health-related indicators from 1990 to 2016, an increase of four indicators since GBD 2015. We substantially revised the universal health coverage (UHC) measure, which focuses on coverage of essential health services, to also represent personal health-care access and quality for several non-communicable diseases. We transformed each indicator on a scale of 0–100, with 0 as the 2·5th percentile estimated between 1990 and 2030, and 100 as the 97·5th percentile during that time. An index representing all 37 health-related SDG indicators was constructed by taking the geometric mean of scaled indicators by target. On the basis of past trends, we produced projections of indicator values, using a weighted average of the indicator and country-specific annualised rates of change from 1990 to 2016 with weights for each annual rate of change based on out-of-sample validity. 24 of the currently measured health-related SDG indicators have defined SDG targets, against which we assessed attainment.FindingsGlobally, the median health-related SDG index was 56·7 (IQR 31·9–66·8) in 2016 and country-level performance markedly varied, with Singapore (86·8, 95% uncertainty interval 84·6–88·9), Iceland (86·0, 84·1–87·6), and Sweden (85·6, 81·8–87·8) having the highest levels in 2016 and Afghanistan (10·9, 9·6–11·9), the Central African Republic (11·0, 8·8–13·8), and Somalia (11·3, 9·5–13·1) recording the lowest. Between 2000 and 2016, notable improvements in the UHC index were achieved by several countries, including Cambodia, Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, Laos, Turkey, and China; however, a number of countries, such as Lesotho and the Central African Republic, but also high-income countries, such as the USA, showed minimal gains. Based on projections of past trends, the median number of SDG targets attained in 2030 was five (IQR 2–8) of the 24 defined targets currently measured. Globally, projected target attainment considerably varied by SDG indicator, ranging from more than 60% of countries projected to reach targets for under-5 mortality, neonatal mortality, maternal mortality ratio, and malaria, to less than 5% of countries projected to achieve targets linked to 11 indicator targets, including those for childhood overweight, tuberculosis, and road injury mortality. For several of the health-related SDGs, meeting defined targets hinges upon substantially faster progress than what most countries have achieved in the past.InterpretationGBD 2016 provides an updated and expanded evidence base on where the world currently stands in terms of the health-related SDGs. Our improved measure of UHC offers a basis to monitor the expansion of health services necessary to meet the SDGs. Based on past rates of progress, many places are facing challenges in meeting defined health-related SDG targets, particularly among countries that are the worst off. In view of the early stages of SDG implementation, however, opportunity remains to take actions to accelerate progress, as shown by the catalytic effects of adopting the Millennium Development Goals after 2000. With the SDGs' broader, bolder development agenda, multisectoral commitments and investments are vital to make the health-related SDGs within reach of all populations.FundingBill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement hurts the US

The Trump administration's domestic plans would have curtailed the nation's climate action even if it had stayed in the Paris Agreement. Yet, the decision to leave the agreement undermines US international energy and climate leadership and the prospects of ramping up global climate policy ambition.

Aspirational urbanism from Beijing to Rio de Janeiro: Olympic cities in the Global South and contradictions

ABSTRACTThe critical geography scholarship on mega-events mostly adopts the framework of accumulation by dispossession, highlighting the disruptive legacies such as displacement and gentrification wrought upon host cities. Though the critique is largely correct, it has failed to capture the complex layers of historical and institutional contexts that underlie urban social change in mega-event cities. This article makes a case for broadening our analytical perspective by introducing the concept of aspirational urbanism, which refers to the diverse practices and discourses launched by state and business elites in an attempt to remake their cities bourgeois and world-class. Aspirational urbanism underscores the gap between global aspirations and local realities and draws our attention to the ad hoc economic, political, and cultural strategies used by state and business elites to bridge the gap. The concept is particularly useful for studying transformations in mega-event cities in the Global South, because these are the places marked by sharp contrasts between global city ambitions and developing-country realities. By way of introducing this special issue on urban transformations and spectacles in Brazil, this article presents a comparative analysis of the Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Beijing 2008 Olympics to examine how aspirational urbanism unfolded differently in the 2 cities.

Relating CEO leadership behavior and organization culture in the Indian context

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between CEO leadership behavior and the culture of the organization within the context of Indian organizations.Design/methodology/approachTwo five-scale questionnaires were completed by senior executives (n=485) who have interaction with their CEO. The first instrument captured the executives’ perspective of their CEO’s leadership behavior along six dimensions (People Centric, Global Ambitions, Opportunity Sensing, Visionary, Exemplary, and Dependable). The second instrument captured the executives’ perspective of their organization’s culture along six dimensions (Results Focused, Talent Development, Employee Empowerment, Equity and Fairness, Open Communication, and Decentralization). These data were analyzed using factor analysis, correlation analysis, and least-squares regression.FindingsA correlation analysis indicates that a significant relationship exists between several aspects of CEO leadership behavior and characteristics of the organizational culture. Regression analysis indicated that the overall CEO leadership behavior prominently explains (R2=0.397) the organization’s culture. Notably, two CEO dimensions, People Centricity and Global Ambition, were found to have an exceptionally high degree of association with the culture of the organization.Research limitations/implicationsThere is consistency between findings from western academic leader-culture research and the same in the Indian work setting.Practical implicationsFindings of this study can serve as a guidepost for the selection of leaders in an organization.Originality/valueThere is a scarcity of leader-organization research involving national culture features; the Indian context is fundamental to this study and is called for by the growing presence of India-born leadership in western organizations.

International and European Measures for De-offshoring: Global Ambitions and Local Hypocrisies

This article discusses the most sophisticated measures put in place in recent years at international level and within the European Union, for deoffshoring the world. Most of them have a common ground in the automatic exchange of information among countries which certainly represents an unimaginable tsunami wave rapidly increasing in power due to the interconnections with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislations. However, whether it is more likely than not that in the long run the world will be affected by these innovative forms of cooperation (the sticks), many doubts arise on the rate of success of de-offshoring in the short term. Indeed, each single State of the international community still prefers to take care of its own interest with unilateral measures (the carrots) bringing back home alone its slice of the undeclared financial assets, and doing so, why not, trying to eat the revenue of other States, so inducing to offshoring again. The reality is a never ending story.

Amaravati and the New Andhra

The article explores the cultural politics of regionalism in Coastal Andhra following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh through a focus on the planning of a new capital city, Amaravati. The envisioned city embodies an imagination of the state’s future development, in which older signifiers of Andhra identity are sutured with global aspirations. Viewing Amaravati as a symbolic space where Andhra is being reconstituted, the article traces the reterritorialization of the region by a deterritorialized provincial elite through return flows of capital and state-led revitalization of regional identity. While the Amaravati plan reflects broader trends of neoliberal urbanization in India, it is also deeply embedded in regional development aspirations and contestations.

Construing International Climate Change Law as a Compliance Regime

AbstractUnder the no-harm principle, states must prevent activities within their jurisdiction from causing extraterritorial environmental harm. It has been argued elsewhere that excessive greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from industrial states constitute a breach of this principle and instigate state responsibility. Yet, the relevance of general international law for climate change does not obviate a need for more specific international climate change agreements. This article argues that the climate regime is broadly compatible with general norms. It can, furthermore, address a gap in compliance with general international law – namely, the systematic failure of industrial states to cease excessive GHG emissions and to provide adequate reparations. As a compliance regime, the international climate change law regime defines global ambition and national commitments and initiates multiple processes to raise awareness, set political agendas, and progressively build momentum for states to comply with their obligations under general international law.

Do Parent Units Benefit from Reverse Knowledge Transfer?

AbstractEmerging market multinationals resort to knowledge acquisitions from their overseas subsidiaries to springboard and realize their global ambitions. Drawing from the knowledge‐based view and social capital perspective, this study explores the effects of organizational collaboration and tacitness on multiple dimensions of reverse knowledge transfer (RKT). Data were collected through a survey, from senior and middle level managers of parent Indian multinationals, pertaining to RKT from their overseas subsidiaries. The hypotheses are analysed using partial least squares modelling. The results demonstrate positive effects between the extent and benefits of RKT. Collaboration was found to have a positive influence on both dimensions of RKT. Tacitness also has a positive impact on the benefits from RKT. The implications of the findings and the limitations of the study are discussed along with suggestions for future research.

Broadening the scope of loss and damage to legal liability: an experiment

ABSTRACTThe 2015 Paris Agreement represents a historic deal in the form of a strong international response to address climate change. This outcome came as a surprise for some, as several controversial issues had been postponed from previous conferences, and were expected to complicate the talks in Paris. One related to the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (L&D), and potential legal remedies for L&D in the form of compensation payments. This issue had been particularly contentious with some developing countries advocating ideas for climate damage liability, which developed countries were unwilling to include in an agreement. Although the negotiations on L&D secured many positive outcomes, Decision 1/CP.21 adopting the Paris Agreement notes that there is no possibility of claiming liability and financial compensation for developing countries. This article, however, argues that, rather than triggering endless compensation claims disputes, a liability mechanism could actually serve as a commitment and reciprocity device, ultimately increasing global policy ambition. In this regard, this article reports the results of two experiments testing the effects of liability rules on the climate policy investment decisions of two players that differ in wealth and vulnerability. Results show that liability rules imposing a responsibility for precaution on both parties increase cooperation significantly, consequentially minimizing risk of L&D occurrence in the first place. Liability rules could thus not only help to address future losses, but also to drive global mitigation and adaptation ambition.POLICY RELEVANCEThe research results presented in this paper suggest that policymakers would be well advised to further intensify negotiations on a climate-related compensation mechanism beyond that already committed to in the Paris Agreement. Our findings show that a compensation mechanism that implements a rather simple negligence rule makes climate cooperation more attractive and rewarding, potentially leading rich and poor nations to boost their investments in mitigation and adaptation for climate protection. Thus, far from opening up a Pandora’s box of endless compensation claims towards industrialized countries, a liability mechanism could make global climate cooperation more effective, and in the longer run also less costly.

Russia in Middle East: Playing the Long Game?

Russia has re-emerged as a major player in the Middle East once again, mainly because of its military intervention in the Syrian civil war in September 2015. This article throws light on Russia’s civilizational links with the region and what its aims in the region have been over the years, including the during Cold War. While Russia’s foreign policy towards the Middle East was passive in the tumultuous years following the fall of the Soviet Union, over the last few years, it has begun reorienting and recalibrating its policy towards the region. This article discusses Russia’s current aims in the region and its global ambitions, linking these to its intervention in the Syrian civil war, paying particular attention to the close ties that Russia has with Syria. This article attempts to explore whether Russia’s presence in the region is sustainable. It also explains the consequences of Russia’s intervention for the region and for Russia itself.

Building More Inclusive Solidarities for Socio‐Environmental Change: Lessons in Resistance from Southern Appalachia

AbstractIt is increasingly recognized that socio‐environmental justice will not be achieved through liberal and cosmopolitical forms of activism alone. Instead, more diverse and inclusive solidarities must be achieved across political ideologies for transformative change. By engaging with one constituency often overlooked by mainstream environmentalists—rural, conservative Americans—we argue for a situated solidarity that can be forged among people whose views of nature, community, and politics differ significantly. This framework rejects totalizing expressions of global ambition that erase important place‐based differences. To explore this ethic, we examine a localized anti‐fracking campaign in western North Carolina to determine how place‐based forms of environmental resistance can be brought in closer connection with the cosmopolitical movement for climate and energy justice. This requires that cosmopolitical movements make room for more customary forms of cultural politics, while conservative movements look beyond their own place‐based struggles to resist mutually experienced forms of oppression.

Technology as a driver of climate and energy politics

Technological innovation, often induced by national and subnational policies, can be a key driver of global climate and energy policy ambition and action. A better understanding of the technology–politics feedback link can help to further increase ambitions.

From Kampungs to Condos? Contested accumulations through displacement in Jakarta

Across cities of the global South, major initiatives are underway to assemble land from informal settlements in order to make it available for large-scale infrastructure and commercial real estate projects. Driven by global city aspirations, profit-seeking developers, demands from emergent middle classes for modern residential, consumption and recreational spaces, and, last but not least, the availability of finance, these land transformations seek to commodify and enclose residential urban commons and involve the displacement of thousands of urban residents. Through an examination of two field sites, a ‘legal’ kampung where land is being acquired through negotiations between kampung residents with land rights and developers’ land brokers, and two ‘illegal’ kampungs whose residents were evicted in the name of flood mitigation, we conclude that the default theory for explaining these processes—accumulation by dispossession—is inadequate for capturing the variegated and complex nature of such processes. By thinking through Jakarta, we seek to provincialize the dominant concept of accumulation by dispossession, proposing an extension that we suggest is better attuned to capture the distinct features of Southern cities: Contested accumulations through displacement.

Introduction: The ‘graduation dilemma’ in foreign policy: Brazil at a watershed

Brazil attracted international attention in the early 2000s as a promising emerging market, a rising power with increasing international leverage, and a key player (potentially, a leader) in international organizations and blocs. High expectations were set in the largest Latin American country, partly encouraged by the popularity of the then president, ‘Lula’ da Silva, who fostered international activism and longstanding regional and global ambitions. At the same time, as Soares de Lima and Hirst argue,1 efforts both to acquire greater international influence and to improve the country's record on poverty, inequality and political participation became facets of the same process. International expectations remained very high at the beginning of the current decade. However, the global economic crisis, shortcomings in the multilateral system, the falling of global commodity prices, slow national economic growth, corruption scandals, and social protests during Dilma Rousseff's interrupted administration (2011–2016) have cast serious doubts on those initial very positive forecasts.2 To date, it is not clear whether Brazil has been able to reconcile domestic practice and international foreign policy discourse and ambitions in difficult times; or, more concretely, whether and how, despite domestic instability and contestation, Brazil is currently able to effectively influence international negotiations and global governance mechanisms.

Comment: Programmed to fulfill global ambitions.

Comment: Programmed to fulfill global ambitions.

Reservoir-model-based scenarios for assessing the viability of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies through CO2 enhanced oil recovery

This study aims to show that utilization of captured carbon dioxide from the power and industrial sectors for enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) can be a key means of supporting global climate change ambitions. Normative business scenarios are developed to support the economic evaluation of CO2-EOR under different contexts. A reservoir simulation model provides a realistic basis for economic input parameters and has been developed to support the determination of scenarios in which energy price variations, production tax rates and carbon dioxide prices will make CO2-EOR economically viable. The scenarios are used to test CO2-EOR project economics under a variety of oil prices. Projects are shown to be resilient and profitable investments, though arguably not all projects may lead to long-term CO2 storage. Through the scenarios it is shown that stakeholders, particularly the global citizen, have the ability to significantly impact CO2-EOR project investments.