Liberalization Efforts Research Articles

Liberal Economic Reforms and the Rise of Crony Capitalism in the MENA Region

This article examines how the economic liberalisation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region created a ripe climate for crony capitalism. The incomplete character of the neoliberal program that was encouraged by Western governments and international financial institutions in the 1990s resulted in selective liberalisation and allowed for the tightening of state-business relations. The implementation of the liberal economic agenda facilitated the takeover of state resources and privileged access to the domestic market by dominant political-economic coalitions and produced a novel regime whereby hopes of a plural political system and a de-regulated free market were replaced with a version of Arab ‘crony capitalism’. The evolvement of this phenomenon is analysed and explained by appealing to the example of economic reforms that took place in Egypt and Tunisia, two countries which, between the 1990s and 2010s, were hailed as success stories of the neoliberal reforms in the Arab World. Although the façade of the countries' respective economies became apparent as de-regulated, new reforms became a powerful instrument for the foundation of a novel network of preferential beneficiaries leading to the reshuffling of alliances among the country's major players. The overarching argument of this paper is that liberalisation efforts in Egypt in Tunisia, rather than eradicating distributional coalitions, have merely rearranged them by reshuffling the existing alliance among the countries' major players.

“So Far to Leeward”: Eliza Moore’s Fugitive Cosmopolitan Routes to Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century Caribbean

Eliza Moore, an enslaved domestic born in British Antigua in the late 1700s, petitioned for her freedom in 1836 and 1838, using Britain’s 1834 abolition of slavery to facilitate her emancipation from the Danish Caribbean. The article frames Moore’s liberation efforts as “fugitive cosmopolitanism,” a concept emphasizing that enslaved people’s subjectivity within the Black Atlantic was marked by travels across great distances and a hard-won savvy—derived from licit and illicit movements in service of freedom—but also by constant uncertainty and an unguaranteed liberty. The unlikely ways that mid-nineteenth-century enslaved people in the Caribbean learned that their bondage was unlawful reflected the cosmopolitan knowledge they acquired through dangerous acts of fugitivity. Moore’s ultimately successful attempt to assert British subjecthood also depended on the support of her kinswomen in Antigua, as well as the broader and contradictory implications of British abolitionism in an era of continued imperial competition and enslavement elsewhere in the Caribbean. Additionally, her trajectory reveals the multilayered exploitation at work in women’s enslavement, as the risk of rape and sexual servitude remained ever-present in the Danish domestic slavery that Moore endured. The uncertainty that overshadowed Moore’s efforts to self-emancipate made her eventual freedom bittersweet at best, as her return to Antigua as a British subject disrupted her ties to a son who remained enslaved in Saint Thomas.

BOOK REVIEW CHARLES THOMAS AND TOYIN FALOLA, SECESSION AND SEPARATIST CONFLICTS IN POSTCOLONIAL AFRICA. CALGARY: UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY PRESS, 2020. PP. VIII, 344.

The book, Secession and Separatist Conflicts in Postcolonial Africa, is a timely intervention on this important dimension to conflicts in Africa, especially in the post-cold war order where intra-state conflicts have become the norm rather than exception. Armed with suitably relevant historical analysis and epistemological methodology, the authors cleverly approach the varieties of conflict cases associated with secessionist, separatist and irredentist moves and Movements across Africa. Such liberation efforts span through struggles towards decolonization and struggles for self-determination or autonomy. The arrangement of the book is methodical, encompassing the dynamics and structures of successful, failed, protracted and short-lived attempts at secession and separatism in Africa and implications for sub-Saharan African states.

An Introduction to Reading the Past Critically

An Introduction to Reading the Past Critically

Revisiting time as a trade barrier: Evidence from a panel structural gravity model

AbstractIn this paper, we revisit the evidence on the effects of time spent on border‐crossing procedures for international trade using a theory‐consistent structural gravity model. We exploit a rich panel dataset including domestic trade flows and employ a recent econometric estimator that exhibits favorable asymptotic properties for inference. The results indicate a significant negative effect of the time required for border procedures that is driven by the time needed for document preparation. We find that an additional day spent on those procedures corresponds to an ad valorem tariff equivalent of 0.4 percentage points. The parameters of our structural model are used to simulate three counterfactual scenarios, quantifying the effect of past and potential future trade facilitation efforts for middle‐, low‐, and high‐income countries. Full endowment general equilibrium effects suggest that in times of stagnating multilateral and bilateral trade liberalization efforts, unilateral implementation of trade facilitation carries the potential to induce an alternative stimulus for trade and welfare, especially for low‐ and middle‐income countries.

The Global Comrades of Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science: Placing May Fourth in a Transnational History of Science Activism

The May Fourth movement is widely recognized as a watershed within Chinese cultural and political history, but it was also a significant local episode within a global history of science activism. Quaintly idiosyncratic as Chen Duxiu’s “two gentlemen,” Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science, may appear, they have also animated (in only somewhat less personified form) a transnational “conversation” very much alive today. Focusing on neglected Marxist participants, this paper reconstructs meaningful snatches of that long conversation in China, Russia, Britain, the US, and Japan. It finds that Chinese voices contributed in timely and important ways, especially on the problem of imperialism for science and democracy. It further shows that Marxists, in China and beyond, have shared certain modernist values with their liberal counterparts, including a faith in the democratic potential of universally valid scientific knowledge; however, they have offered highly divergent perspectives on what constitutes democracy and how it relates to science, challenging liberal efforts to separate science from politics and highlighting the contradictions generated by capitalism. A fuller understanding of the significance of Marxist and Chinese contributions to the cumulative discourse on science and democracy, and a livelier engagement with their voices, will help generate more liberatory socio-technical imaginaries.

LIBERALISATION AND THE LEGAL PROFESSION IN ENGLAND AND WALES

AbstractThis article explores the process and impact of liberalisation on the legal profession in England and Wales. Liberalisation brings a tendency to consider the profession in market-focused terms, with the professional–client relationship reconfigured in overtly economic fashion as constituting the interaction of supply and demand. The article examines the past and present structure of the profession, arguments for liberalisation and manifestations of liberalisation efforts. Having identified the distinctive dynamics of supply and demand within legal services markets, the article considers the potential implications, both immediate and in broader societal terms, of reconceptualising the legal profession in this manner.

Disputed Conceptions of Motherhood

This chapter, which will appear in the Oxford Handbook of Feminism and Law in the U.S. (Deborah Brake, Martha Chamallas & Verna Williams, eds.), examines feminist efforts to disentangle womanhood, biological motherhood, and social motherhood in order to promote equality in the law. It argues that this approach has produced important feminist influence and results in some areas of law but has led to a lack of feminist influence in areas where biological and social motherhood overlap, such as parental rights, reproductive technology, and surrogacy. Just as the law needed a theoretical boost that went beyond gender neutrality to see the gendered harm of sexual harassment at work, it needs a feminist account of pregnancy and birth that recognizes that these biological processes have social, relational dimensions.

Analysis of Female Sexism from the Perspective of English Language

Language is an important part of social culture. Language and culture interact with each other and are mutually conditional. Language is a mirror reflecting society. The choice of language reflects the culture and ideology of the language users. Sexism, as a universal social phenomenon, will be reflected in languages with specific social and cultural awareness. Sexism is a prejudice without sufficient factual basis held by members of one gender against members of another gender. It is a social attitude that deviates from objective facts and is a direct manifestation of thought. Belittling and discrimination against women are common in English language. Objectively speaking, the term refers to both men and women. The word in this paper mainly refers to discrimination against women. Language is not static, but evolves with social history. As a result, the degree of sexism in language varies from period to period. Since the 20th century, thanks to the efforts of feminists, linguistic scholars and the public, sexism in the English language has been greatly weakened, and the neutrality of English has become increasingly evident. The phenomenon of sexism in English language has existed for a long time and has received widespread attention. This paper enumerates representative examples of everyday language phenomena, discusses the sexism in English language, explores the reasons behind it, and deduces the development trend of sexism in English language.

Media, Criminal Injustice, and the Black Freedom Struggle

Since the mid-20th century, media outlets have driven publicity for newsworthy events and shaped content for their receptive audiences. Commonly, massive movements seek publicity to attract attention and participation for protests, demonstrations, slogans, and unfortunate events. For instance, the black freedom struggle of the 1950s through the 1970s took advantage of their traumatic narratives of oppression to attract national and international attention. Many African Americans who experienced dastardly components of a racist criminal justice system were, in turn, earning respect and power from their freedom-seeking counterparts by commodifying the emotion that fueled black liberation efforts.[i] Media, therefore, became a tool for exposing the nation to racist law enforcement and legal action. Ultimately, black freedom struggle activists deployed media depictions of their policing, arrest, and imprisonment to be used as movement publicity, earning increased participation and advancing movement motives through this subsequent growing interest. [i] Colley, Zoe A. Ain't Scared of Your Jail: Arrest, Imprisonment, and the Civil Rights Movement. University Press of Florida, 2012. 4.

Trade Liberalization, IMF Conditionality and Policy Substitution in Developing Countries

Substantial tariff reductions and increased usage of non-tariff measures (NTMs) have been key dynamics of global trade policy in recent decades. We use highly disaggregated data on tariffs, NTMs, and trade to investigate how IMF conditionality as a form of external pressure to reduce tariffs contributed to this dynamic in developing countries. Our results show that tariff conditionality was an effective tool in reducing tariffs without increasing the usage of NTMs. Furthermore, we show that tariff conditionality was more effective in initiating tariff cuts for countries without greater globalization efforts previously, rather than being a “catalyst” for ongoing liberalization efforts.

The effect of financial liberalization towards financial stability of Islamic banks in Malaysia

Financial liberalization will affect the stability of the financial system due to excessive risk. Liberalization effort in Islamic banks players raises the issues of the ability of how Islamic banks can survive in the financial liberalization regime. Financial liberalization induced competition and thus impact on financial stability due to excessive risk taking. Malaysia is operating in dual financial system, the effect of mediating roles of competition and interest rate between financial liberalization is expected to be vary at some extend due to shariah constraint. This paper aims to analyze the effect financial liberalization and financial stability. Structural equation model – Partial least square (PLS-SEM) is used to analyze the research model with a comprehensive data set covering the Islamic banks over 1994 -2017. The empirical results denote a significant negative impact of financial liberalization on Islamic banks' financial stability in Malaysia. Lastly, it can be concluded that this study has an implication for policymakers and the banking industry
 Financial liberalization will affect the stability of the financial system due to excessive risk. Liberalization effort in Islamic banks players raises the issues of the ability of how Islamic banks can survive in the financial liberalization regime. Financial liberalization induced competition and thus impact on financial stability due to excessive risk taking. Malaysia is operating in dual financial system, the effect of mediating roles of competition and interest rate between financial liberalization is expected to be vary at some extend due to shariah constraint. This paper aims to analyze the effect financial liberalization and financial stability. Structural equation model – Partial least square (PLS-SEM) is used to analyze the research model with a comprehensive data set covering the Islamic banks over 1994 -2017. The empirical results denote a significant negative impact of financial liberalization on Islamic banks' financial stability in Malaysia. Lastly, it can be concluded that this study has an implication for policymakers and the banking industry

Urgent Need for Market Access Disciplining of Agriculture Trade: Profiling of Stringent and Non-Codex SPS based MRL Standards

The world trade organisation (WTO) has liberalised trade considerably, but there are instances of imbalance and systemic issues persisting although we celebrate two-decade of the existence of this regulatory body. This paper provides insights into how there is a lack of disciplining of WTO compatible non-tariff measures at the multilateral level. It has led to members stretching the use of permissible provisions (Articles 5 and 7) under the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement, allowing for deviation from international standards and not notifying with HS codes. All these actions, particularly over the last two decades, have increased the level of protection of their domestic industry under pressure from tariff liberalisation and correspondingly led to a rise in protectionism. Especially when the restrictions put on the imports, they are not adequately notified to the WTO. Information asymmetry (of various forms like – the WTO notifications without trade linkage, non-standardised approach to market access, non-codex MRL standards etc.,) is one of the biggest challenges to overcome when it comes to addressing the menace of non-tariff measure created mainly by the SPS and TBT measures. This paper attempts to bring to the forefront some of the imbalances in the global trading arena that have co-existed along with the WTO led tariff alone liberalisation efforts since 1995. To do this, we have analysed ten players in the global arena, considering various strategic consideration for India. In the paper, we have attempted to bridge this by providing what exactly is the level of requirements across ten countries in terms of active ingredients MRL standards. To elaborate on this issue, we have done the mapping of maximum residual limits (MRL) standards on active ingredients as provided by the Global MRL Database for ten countries alongside Codex standards (international). An analysis of the stringency test performed to quantify a comparison MRL standards scenario vis-a-vis the Codex standards for ten countries. The paper highlights the growing importance of MRL standards on active ingredients in determining global players in agricultural exports. This paper also analyses the MRL standards faced by top 33 agricultural products of India in nine markets. Further, there is an attempt to analyse the interface of tariff liberalisation (MFN) with MRL-based SPS standards, which are dominantly present “behind the border”.

A LUTA POR SORORIDADE

O artigo faz reflexões acerca de estímulos patriarcais à competição entre mulheres e o esforço feminista para combater essa competitividade com seu oposto – a mútua e profunda união feminina, o que chamamos de sororidade. Além disso, são analisados aspectos da chamada “masculinidade tóxica” e de premissas que visam a subalternização da mulher. Uma ação no âmbito das Artes da Cena, promovida pelo grupo de palhaçaria feminina do Distrito Federal Cabaré das Rachas, teve uma clara prerrogativa de engrandecer a união entre mulheres artistas da cena e de contestar a cultura machista satirizando-a e ironizando padrões que precisam ser destruídos. Pensar a arte como instrumento de militância e meio para abordar pautas relevantes como a opressão de gênero é o que impulsiona o texto.
 Palavras-chave: Feminismo, sororidade, militância.

Biyoiktidar, Beslenme ve Annelik: Emzirmenin Kültürel ve Politik Görünümleri

This study aims to discuss how motherhood, infant nutrition, and the female body have become open to various regulations and discourses using the case of breastfeeding as the basis for reinforcing socio-political processes and ensuring the continuity of the patriarchal system. Today, nutrition and the body have become the focus of socio-political processes and discourses on these subjects with effects on the developments in natural diet, ecological life, and technological and medical knowledge. In this context, while infant nutrition with healthy and additive-free features on one hand has become important again, on the other hand it has been drawn into the center of new market and consumption processes by emphasizing these features and has been commercialized and commoditized within market relations. In this way, motherhood is being constructed normatively, and the female body has become open to supervision through discussions about breastfeeding, breast milk, and infant formula usage. From this point of view, the study will discuss issues regarding motherhood, breastfeeding, and infant nutrition in terms of the micropower relations that have control over the body as well as the concepts of biopolitics and medicalization. In this regard, the study’s main argument is that the processes concerning motherhood have been morally disciplined and constructed through the biopolitical, cultural, and medical discourses generated about motherhood and infant nutrition, despite transformations in social structures and the struggles of feminist efforts. 

How Chinese Filmmakers Effectively Respond to Chinese Government Policy for Enhancing Their Competitiveness

AbstractIn spite of the substantial liberalization of China’s film industry, it is still highly regulated and protected from foreign competition through a series of policy measures. In the midst of pushing both liberalization and protectionism, Chinese firms tend to exploit favorable government policies and avoid restrictive regulations through alternative options to maximize profits. Most preceding studies emphasized the liberalization efforts by the Chinese government as a significant contribution to the film industry, while neglecting the response and strategies of Chinese filmmakers that have upgraded their overall competitiveness. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the government‐firm interplay and their influences on the enhanced competitive advantages of Chinese filmmakers and the film industry, by utilizing the theoretical framework of the ABCD model to demonstrate this interaction. Based on the comprehensive analysis of both Chinese achievements and remaining challenges, this study further provides useful policy implications for improving China’s film industry.

Representation, Ideology and Writing from Below: On the Paradox of Standpoint Epistemology and the Limits of Intersectionality

Feminist standpoint epistemology (FSE) is an important form of writing from below; that is, writing from embodied experience. FSE and other forms of writing from below involve practices of representation that are mediated by ideology. In this article, I tease out some of the complexities and limitations of feminist efforts to use FSE to situate and embody thought. Some feminist standpoint theorists understand Cartesian dualism as a dualism or a division that can be collapsed or reversed, but I show that what is called “Cartesian dualism” is in fact a paradox and therefore cannot be overcome but must be grappled with on an ongoing basis in our efforts to write from below. The article begins with an exploration of the basic tenets and presumptions of two schools of FSE. While neither school can evade the politics of representation, I show that one is able to withstand an intersectional critique whilst the other is not. Having unpacked these schools of FSE, I reflect on Himani Bannerji’s ideology critique of intersectionality to lay bare the limitations of this concept that some writers from below deploy and to advance a reflexive materialist epistemology.

Precarious lives, precarious care: Young men's caring practices in three coastal towns in England

A decade of austerity and cuts to local services have had severe impacts on coastal towns in England, resulting in high levels of inequality and precarious employment prospects for many residents, including young men growing up in working class families. Forms of care typically provided by the family and the state are are becoming unavailable, and access to secure employment has become difficult, especially for men with few educational qualifications, skills or work experience in places where work in seasonal. In this article we explore the effects of austerity and precariousness on the daily lives of 30 young men living in coastal towns, focusing on the ways they have come to care for each other. We build on feminist efforts to ‘trouble’ care, highlighting unexpected caring practices, as well as the conflicts that shape barriers to care and the ways care itself may play out in careless ways, shaped by the austere contexts of its enactment. We pay attention to the significance of place and the everyday spaces in which care is practiced, as well as the ways in which friendship networks are paradoxically both caring and careless.

Decomposing Central and Eastern Europe’s Trade: Extending the Evidence

In the early nineties Central and East European Countries (CEEC) took considerable liberalization efforts which led to visible changes in CEEC trade. In the period under observation, from 1995 to 2016, these countries recorded high growth rates, which exceeded the performance of other regions, such as the OECD and Russia. These trade developments are described and interpreted in this note on a descriptive rather than an analytical basis. First, trade volumes by goods categories are examined to account for what kind of goods are the major trade growth drivers. The expansion of CEEC imports and exports can be accounted for by trade growth specifically of goods used in production, i.e., parts and components, capital goods and transport equipment. It can be associated with the development of vertical production networks among the old EU member states and the new EU-8 countries. Examining EU-8 exports to and imports from Germany confirms this finding: EU-8 states tend to import parts and components and intermediate goods from Germany to produce and export parts and components or final capital goods to Germany. Using the notion of comparative advantage further helps to attribute the extensive development of vertical linkages with the CEEC to the similarity of sectoral productivity vectors between the CEEC and the rest of the world. Second, the effects of liberalization on the variety versus the intensity of trade are described. The liberalization of the CEEC economies is expressed by the strong rise in newly traded goods, especially goods used in production, rather than volume growth in already traded goods. Considering imports, a higher input variety might thereby signal a change of the economy’s state of technology.

Taking back the Swedish night: making and reclaiming space

With a spatial analytical framework, we study Take Back the Night demonstrations as a way of mobilizing for safety and claiming the right to the city. The marches are a symbolic display of women’s distress about living in fear of violence. It is a critique of society’s inability to handle the problem of prevailing gendered power relations and the unequal access to city spaces that stem from these. The aim of this paper is to examine feminist struggles to challenge gendered spatial power relations, focusing on Take Back the Night mobilization. Hence, this qualitative study focuses Take Back the Night demonstrations as a phenomenon and as an actual spatial strategy, by analysing representations regarding Take Back the Night in Sweden at large, and in Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, in particular. We discuss feminist efforts to create temporary safe spaces in terms of the demonstrations’ emancipatory potential and how these spatial claims provoke resistance. The demonstrations and the reactions they create reveal existing inequalities and power structures.