Global Aspirations Research Articles

Brazil’s global aspirations and the public: an assessment on perspectives, drivers and consistency

The goal of this article is to build on, and contribute to, the debate on foreign policy and public opinion by determining whether Brazilians react positively or negatively to a higher level of integration with the world, whether their opinion is influenced by their political orientation or socio-economic variables, and to assess the coherence of those opinions. We found through a regression analysis that even though Brazilians have a positive view of internationalization processes in general, it is hard to determine what influences their perceptions. Social class was the only variable found in the literature with some correlation to people’s views, pointing to the need for more data. Nevertheless, responses showed coherence and consistency regarding immigration policy, therefore exposing some of the limitations of the Almond-Lippmann consensus. Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é contribuir para o debate sobre política externa e opinião pública, determinando se brasileiros reagem positiva ou negativamente a um alto nível de integração com o mundo, se suas opiniões são influenciadas por orientações políticas ou variáveis socioeconômicas e avaliar a coerência dessas opiniões. Descobrimos através de análises de regressão que apesar de brasileiros terem uma visão positiva de processos de internacionalização em geral, é difícil determinar o que influencia tais percepções. Classe social foi a única variável encontrada na literatura correlacionada à percepção dos indivíduos, apontando para a necessidade de mais dados. No entanto, respostas mostraram coerência e consistência no que diz respeito às políticas imigratórias, expondo, desta forma, algumas das limitações do consenso Almond-Lippmann. Keywords: Foreign policy. Globalization. Public opinion. Palavras-chave: Globalização. Opinião pública. Política externa. Recebido em 20 de Setembro de 2018 | Received on September 20, 2018 Aceito em 08 de Fevereiro de 2019 | Accepted on February 08, 2019 DOI: 10.12957/rmi.2018.37388

Global Ambitions: Internationalization and China’s Rise as Knowledge Hub

The four decades since reform and opening up have seen dramatic changes in China’s higher education system. Focusing on international dimensions, the analysis supports the view that reform and opening up was not merely an economic and political reform, but an opening of the mind to the outside world, after the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. But it is important to be reminded that China’s relations with the outside world have a much longer history, with the spread of Confucian ideas to East and Southeast Asia, and the importation of Buddhism from ancient India; both during the Tang dynasty. The article points to key ongoing debates in China about the extent to which it can incorporate ideas from outside, while still retaining a Chinese essence. The rise of China as a knowledge hub and destination for international students is also charted, and the prospects for further development are assessed.

Implications for workability and survivability in populations exposed to extreme heat under climate change: a modelling study

SummaryBackgroundChanges in temperature and humidity due to climate change affect living and working conditions. An understanding of the effects of different global temperature changes on population health is needed to inform the continued implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and to increase global ambitions for greater cuts in emissions. By use of historical and projected climate conditions, we aimed to investigate the effects of climate change on workability (ie, the ability to work) and survivability (the ability to survive).MethodsIn this modelling study, we estimated the changes in populations exposed to excessive heat stress between the recent past (ie, 1986–2005) and 2100. We used climate data from four models to calculate the wet-bulb globe temperature, an established heat exposure index that can be used to assess the effects of temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors on humans. We defined and applied thresholds for risks to workability (where the monthly mean of daily maximum wet-bulb globe temperature exceeds 34°C) and survivability (where the maximum daily wet-bulb globe temperature exceeds 40°C for 3 consecutive days), and we used population projections to quantify changes in risk associated with different changes to the global temperature.FindingsThe risks to workability increase substantially with global mean surface temperature in all four climate models, with approximately 1 billion people affected globally after an increase in the global temperature of about 2·5°C above pre-industrial levels. There is greater variability between climate models for exposures above the threshold for risks to survivability than for risks to workability. The number of people who are likely to be exposed to heat stress exceeding the survivability threshold increases with global temperature change, to reach around 20 million people globally after an increase of about 2·5°C, estimated from the median of the models, but with a large model uncertainty. More people are likely to be exposed to heat stress in urban than in rural areas. Population exposure can fluctuate over time and change substantially within one decade.InterpretationExposure to excessive heat stress is projected to be widespread in tropical or subtropical low-income and middle-income countries, highlighting the need to build on the Paris Agreement regarding global temperature targets, to protect populations who have contributed little to greenhouse gas emissions. The non-linear dependency of heat exposure risk on temperature highlights the importance of understanding thresholds in coupled human-climate systems.FundingWellcome Trust.

Soft power from Ningxia to Cairo: Chinese-to-Arabic translation of modern and contemporary literature

ABSTRACTLiterary translation is a major part of China’s present soft power push. Substantial attention and resources are for the first time being directed to the translation of Chinese literature into Arabic, in line with the geopolitical agenda of China’s Going Global ambitions and the Belt and Road Initiative. This article provides a historical overview of Chinese-to-Arabic translation of modern and contemporary literature, with a focus on the growth and transformation of translation in this language pair over the last decade. However, examination of the networks that have incentivized and produced this translation boom shows that the crucial element of soft power in this relationship is the performance of cultural exchange in service of the People’s Republic of China’s self-representation as benevolent and harmonious power, rather than any substantive cultural or literary interaction via translated texts.

Incorporating basic needs to reconcile poverty and ecosystem services.

Conservation managers frequently face the challenge of protecting and sustaining biodiversity without producing detrimental outcomes for (often poor) human populations that depend on ecosystem services for their well‐being. However, mutually beneficial solutions are often elusive and can mask trade‐offs and negative outcomes for people. To deal with such trade‐offs, ecological and social thresholds need to be identified to determine the acceptable solution space for conservation. Although human well‐being as a concept has recently gained prominence, conservationists still lack tools to evaluate how their actions affect it in a given context. We applied the theory of human needs to conservation by building on an extensive historical application of need approaches in international development. In an innovative participatory method that included focus groups and household surveys, we evaluated how human needs are met based on locally relevant thresholds. We then established connections between human needs and ecosystem services through key‐informant focus groups. We applied our method in coastal East Africa to identify households that would not be able to meet their basic needs and to uncover the role of ecosystem services in meeting these. This enabled us to identify how benefits derived from the environment were contributing to meeting basic needs and to consider potential repercussions that could arise through changes to ecosystem service provision. We suggest our approach can help conservationists and planners balance poverty alleviation and biodiversity protection and ensure conservation measures do not, at the very least, cause serious harm to individuals. We further argue it can be used as a basis for monitoring the impacts of conservation on multidimensional poverty.

Global aspirations, regional variation? Explaining the global uptake and growth of forestry certification

Private governance, in the form of certification schemes, has grown remarkably in the past decades as a response to some of the most pressing environmental and social challenges. Certification schemes denote steering mechanisms that allow enterprises to voluntarily adhere to a set of verifiable principles. While certification has global aspirations, its uptake and growth are heterogeneous across different countries. Yet, few studies empirically analyze such variation. We address this gap by focusing on the Forest Stewardship Council, a major sustainable forestry management certification program. We empirically evaluate uptake and growth across 151 countries and hypothesize that market and socio-political characteristics explain variation in uptake and growth. We find that a value-added wood industry, state-control of the forestry industry and competing certification programs, contrary to the literature, are key drivers.

Baghdad’s Arab Biennial

In 1974, the First Biennale of Arab Art was inaugurated in Baghdad, envisioning a radical nomadic exhibitionary model that preceded the European equivalent, Manifesta, by two decades. The ostensible aim was to celebrate regional artistic virtuosity, and provide opportunities for evaluating and disseminating Arab art. By examining disputable claims to the event’s genesis and Ba’thist politics at the time, however, and by situating it within contemporaneous global currents, including oil embargos and Cold War alliances, this article argues that Iraq instrumentalised the biennial towards tightening control locally and asserting its position as the centre of the Arab world. While the regime’s manipulations ultimately compromised the initiative, the collective project signaled an exemplary moment of regional confluence and exchange, thus challenging hegemonic conventions and networks that often excluded Arab artists. Most importantly, the article argues that the biennial was motivated by global ambitions around which both the regime and Arab artists converged.

“Vibrant Entanglements”: HIV Biomedicine and Serodiscordant Couples in Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACTThe global ambition to “end AIDS” hinges on the universal uptake of HIV treatment-as-prevention and is undergirded by the assumption that biomedical technologies have consistent, predictable effects across highly diverse settings. But as anthropologists argue, such technologies are actively transformed by their local encounters, with various constitutive effects. How priority populations, such as HIV “serodiscordant” couples, negotiate treatment-as-prevention remains relatively unknown. We consider the “vibrant entanglements” that can shape couples’ engagement with global biomedical technologies in the local context of Papua New Guinea (PNG)—a relatively uncharted biomedical landscape—and what we hope our current research in this setting will achieve.

A comradely politics of gestational work

In response to the four commentaries on ‘Cyborg uterine geography’, in which I argued normatively for reorganizing gestation on the basis of comradeliness, I grapple with three overlapping conceptual areas highlighted: the ethical and political affordances of the term ‘generosity’ in relation to care and pregnancy; the methodological question of bringing insights from the uterine field of ‘sympoeisis’ (‘making-with’, Haraway (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.) into the practice of scholarship; and the desire for more place-based specificity in the mapping of uterine geographies (plural, rather than singular; ‘normal’, as well as ‘queer’). Throughout this reply, I tie my remarks back to the core framework I advance in my piece, of gestation being work which, as such, has no predetermined gender, is subject to transformation through struggle, should not be romanticized (for instance, by identifying it with ‘the biological maternal’). Firstly, I rethink what it means to valorize gestational relationality in terms of generousness, from an antiwork perspective. Secondly, I engage the question, ‘can uterine geographies also create a methodology of engagement’? while seeking to qualify the proposed embrace of ‘indeterminacy’. Thirdly, I respond to concerns about the ‘universality’ in my piece by considering some contemporary examples of uterine politicization, specifically around abortion, that suggest to me that specificity has served as the matrix through which a ‘militant particularism’ (Harvey and Williams (1995) Militant particularism and global ambition. Social Text 42(Spring): 69–98.) can emerge in the form of geographically far-flung Reproductive Justice solidarities.

Narratives and Pathways towards an Ecological Civilization in Contemporary China

AbstractSince the United States committed to withdraw from the UN Paris Agreement on climate change, international observers have increasingly asked if China can take the lead instead to raise global ambition in the context of a world leadership vacuum. Given the country's increasing economic and strategic focus on sustainable and low-carbon innovation, China might seem well placed to do so. However, much depends on the direction of governance and reform within China regarding the environment. To better understand how the government is seeking to make progress in these areas, this article explores key political narratives that have underpinned China's policies around sustainable development (kechixu fazhan) and innovation (chuangxin) within the context of broader narratives of reform. Drawing on theoretical insights from work that investigates the role of power in shaping narratives, knowledge and action around specific pathways to sustainability, this article explores the ways in which dominant policy narratives in China might drive particular forms of innovation for sustainability and potentially occlude or constrain others. In particular, we look at ecological civilization (shengtai wenming) as a slogan that has gradually evolved to become an official narrative and is likely to influence pathways to sustainability over the coming years.

The global ambitions of the biometric anti-bank: Net1, lockin and the technologies of African financialisation

ABSTRACT This paper follows the development of Net1 UEPS—the firm that, until recently, delivered social grants to a third of the South African population—from its origins in the precocious interbank networking systems that developed here in the early 1980s to its position as the outstanding international agent of biometric banking for the world’s poor. The paper shows that an unrelenting engineering effort lay behind the company’s growing infrastructural dominance. Two decades ago Shapiro and Varian labelled this strategy lockin, and the paper shows that Net1 followed their suggestions to the letter until the very recent public debacle that shattered the company’s control over its South African market. The paper also suggests that networked financialisation should be understood as the product of carefully and consistently engineered technological interventions designed to address political and economic interests in the face of political and legal constraints and regulation. This is to argue for a return to the idea of soft determinism in the study of financialisation: that key technological changes are motivated by and support political interests.

Correction to: Local knowledge, global ambitions: IPBES and the advent of multi-scale models and scenarios

In the original publication of the article.

Language at work in the Big Four: global aspirations and local segmentation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how professional service firms (PSFs) manage the linguistic tensions between global Englishization and local multilingualism. It achieves this by analysing the work of Big Four audit firms in Luxembourg, where three official languages co-exist: Luxembourgish, French, and German. In addition, expatriates bring with them their native languages in a corporate environment that uses English as its lingua franca.Design/methodology/approachThe paper combines the institutionalist sociology of the professions with theoretical concepts from sociolinguistics to study the multifaceted role of language in PSFs. Empirically, the paper draws from 25 interviews with current and former audit professionals.FindingsThe client orientation of the Big Four segments each firm into language teams based on the client’s language. It is thus the client languages, rather than English as the corporate language, that mediate, define, and structure intra- and inter-organizational relationships. While the firms emphasize the benefits of their linguistic adaptability, the paper reveals tensions along language lines, suggesting that language can be a means of creating cohesion and division within the firms.Originality/valueThis paper connects research on PSFs with that on the role of language in multinational organizations. In light of the Big Four’s increasingly global workforce, it draws attention to the linguistic divisions within the firms that question the existence of a singular corporate culture. While prior literature has centred on firms’ global–local divide, the paper shows that even single branches of such firm networks are not monolithic constructs, as conflicts and clashes unfold amid a series of “local–local” divides.

Local knowledge, global ambitions: IPBES and the advent of multi-scale models and scenarios

In 2016, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published its first methodological assessment report on scenarios and models, identifying important gaps in the literature. IPBES has since then moved onto Phase 2, namely a commitment to build on the assessment findings to catalyse the development of the next generation of multi-scale models and scenarios for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Part of that commitment involves the inclusion of Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) in those models and scenarios. IPBES is both an institution (with its governance structure, work programme, deliverables, and so on) and a network (with its member states, authors, stakeholders, and readership). Within that network, the methodological assessment report can be said to be ‘performative’, ergo playing a significant role in shaping engagement and research pathways in the years to come. Within the social sciences, this paper marks a first attempt at evaluating some of the potential challenges of Phase 2—with specific regard to the inclusion of ILK—and strives to generate more engagement from social scientists and humanities scholars on this issue. I combine in-depth expert interviews with document analysis and focus on the ideas of ‘scale translation’ and the translation of ILK into quantitative data—which I contend are likely to be the most contentious and arduous aspects of ‘integration’. I conclude that while IPBES is on track for leading the research community away from IPCC-type global, panoptic models and scenarios, a more honest and genuine dialogue between natural scientists, social scientists, and ILK holders is still required—so as to better communicate what may be (scientifically) feasible and (politically) acceptable.

Middle-class Meritocracy and Neoliberal Technologies of the Self at an Indian Business School

We examine the intersection of Indian middle-class discourse of merit with neoliberal technologies of the self among MBA students at an Indian business school. This middle- class discourse of merit propelled by familial expectations, invokes hard work, educational achievement and global aspirations. Neoliberal technologies of the self manifest as rationality, responsibilization and enterprising selves. These technologies of the self intersect with and animate discourse of merit to produce a hollowing-out of individuals and cultures of hyper-masculinity and ethical somnolence. In doing so, we contribute to critical management education by illustrating how discourse of merit is deployed to justify and normalize moral indifference and aggression among the soon-to- be professional managerial class. We also contribute to understanding the discursive registers by which Indian middle and upper classes shore up privilege and the role of business schools in the reproduction of widening social inequalities.

US farm bills and the ‘national interest’: an historical research paper

AbstractThis paper is an historical analysis of how global pressures and aspirations have affected US farm bill debates over time, from the first farm bill in 1933 to the current debates over a 2018 farm bill. It focuses in particular on how nationalist and patriotic arguments have been used to support the USA's desired place in global agricultural markets over time. For example, debates over the 2008 farm bill reflected strong international concerns around both trade and energy, with early discussion focusing on keeping the USA ‘competitive’ as an agricultural exporter alongside emerging agricultural powerhouses, and later debates focusing on increasing domestic bioenergy production to ‘protect’ the USA from what were seen as risky energy imports. In other words, debates over trade and energy in 2008 provide insight into how stakeholders positioned the USA with respect to the rest of the world and how that positioning changed over the course of debates. But such questions about the USA's global aspirations—whether to maximize US production for export or protect US agriculture from global rivals—have been part of the farm bill since its earliest days. This analysis will examine how concerns over such national agricultural prominence in a globalizing context have played into and influenced the contours of domestic farm policy over time, with implications for the 2018 farm bill debates.

Military Government by Induction: American Strategic Ambiguity in the Military Government of Cuba, 1899

In the wake of the Spanish American War, the United States became a world power. How consciously the USA pursued global ambitions is the subject of intense scholarly debate. This article examines US strategic policy toward Cuba in 1899 and argues that the USA prioritized stability and left US commanders to infer via a process of experimentation the true strategic direction of US policy in Cuba.

From Global Ambition to Local Reality: Initiatives for the Dissemination of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Norway, 1948–1952

ABSTRACTDissemination of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its content started immediately upon its adoption in December 1948. This article is an exploration into how an early UNESCO initiative for what later was termed human rights education was central to dissemination efforts in Norway in the years 1948 to 1952. An underlying argument is that by shifting the scale of observation from the international level and onto the individual, we can gain new insights into early efforts to spread knowledge about human rights during the early Cold War. Based on archival material and open sources, it provides a glance into a rather understudied field of research for historians.

Analysis Informal Social Control Scale toward Integrity Value of the Young People

Young people are agents of national transformation that drive the country towards global aspirations. To spur national transformation in line with religious and cultural values, applying the values of integrity of young people directly produces ethical leaders and reduces the tendency of immoral acts in the country's political system. To test the value of integrity, Informal Social Control was selected to be tested on 400 students from four Higher Education Institutions in Melaka namedly Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Multimedia University (MMU) and Kolej Universiti Islam Melaka (KUIM). The Informal Social Security Scale Instrument is formed from the Social Bond Theory and the Religious Scale to test the value of the integrity of the young through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and the establishment of Confirmatory Factor Analysis Model of informal Social Control scale. Findings show that multi-dimensional models of social control scales have achieved goodness of fit accuracy and achieve convergence validity based on significant relationship variables. This scale also achieves discriminant validity and predictive validity that supports the psychometric characteristics of the Malay version. This study directly contributes to the formation of an Informal Social Control Scale that is less attention to researchers.

Between a rock and a hard place: dilemmas regarding the purpose of public universities in South Africa

This paper examines the idea of ‘core business’ in contemporary South African public universities. South Africa’s public higher education system has global ambitions, but is also highly internally stratified. Drawing on new data from interviews with higher education leaders and government policymakers across a number of South African institutions, we show that while the rhetoric of ‘core business’ of the university has been adopted by higher education leaders, the question of what constitutes the purpose of the university, in South Africa and arguably beyond, is subject to ongoing debate and negotiation. The multiplicity of conflicting but coexisting narratives about what universities should do in South African society—producing excellent research, preparing a labour force, or addressing societal inequalities—exposes a persisting tension surrounding the purpose of a public university. And while this tension has historical origins, we show that responses to addressing these various roles of the institution are not developed organically and in a neutral context. They emerge under conflicts over limited state funding and attendant and opportune market pressure put on public universities in times of crisis, that shape profoundly their framing and outcomes, and the future of the universities.