Political Economic Forces Research Articles

'Decolonization, development and disease: a social history of malaria in Sri Lanka' by Kalinga Tudor Silva (Orient Black Swan, 2014)

‘Disease’ is not merely a medical issue; it is a social phenomenon intercepted by power, politics, political economy, culture, language, religion and historical forces, not to speak of ecology or geography. This is the main perspective of Kalinga Tudor Silva’s path breaking study on A social history of malaria in Sri Lanka, published by Orient Black Swan in 2014.The argument has a Foucauldian connotation after Michel Foucault’s much famed study Madness and civilization (1967). Spanning into 258 pages with tightly knit and logically ordered seven chapters, the book is an in-depth study of the malaria epidemic in Sri Lanka for over 80 years from early 1930s to the present day, both covering the colonial and postcolonial dimensions of this deadly disease and its socio-economic and political ramifications. This intensive analysis, following the best traditions of research methodologies of interdisciplinary sociology, places the in-depth empirical investigations and material (18 tables, 7 figures and 9 maps), including its field research, within a universally acceptable theoretical and a historical framework for any discerning reader to understand the main theses or the respective arguments in a logical manner. Although not completely free from controversy or debate, the author appears to counter or question the tropical medicine thesis that malaria is a permanent ‘tropical disease with a firm foundation in a fixed tropical environment.’ Instead, the author in his own words highlights the “significance of human interventions, such as social and environmental changes brought about by plantation development under colonialism and economic development, migration and war under postcolonial regimes in the transmission and control of epidemic malaria in particular” in the case of Sri Lanka.

The Fun and the Fury of Transforming American Studies

The Fun and the Fury of Transforming American Studies Lisa Duggan (bio) On December 4, 2014, two overwhelming events shaped the year to come, for me and many other members of the American Studies Association. At 9 a.m. Anna McCarthy called to tell me that José Muñoz (one of the cochairs and a chief architect of this year’s ASA conference) had died suddenly in the early hours of the morning. At about 12 noon, the ASA announced publicly that the resolution supporting the academic boycott of Israel, approved by our National Council, would be sent to the membership for a vote. These events together generated a complex field of joy and misery, mourning and conflict. Together they produced pressures that tested the stamina of everyone involved in keeping the ASA going and in planning this conference. In recognition of that fact, I would like to take a moment to thank some of the people who bore up under the pressures to keep the ASA strong (with increased membership, individual and institutional, and strong fund-raising) and whose efforts bring us together here. Curtiz Marez, ASA president, 2013–14 John Stephens, ASA executive director T’sey-Haye Preaster, 2014 conference coordinator The National Council and Executive Council Fred Moten, Jack Halberstam, and Sandy Soto, program cochairs The Program Committee Jewish Voice for Peace and the Center for Constitutional Rights, especially Liz Jackson of Palestine Solidarity Legal Support Ryan Senser and Stephanie Willerton, Christina Hanhardt, Conor Reed, and Lex Taylor (research and map) J. DeLeon (for technical assistance with this presentation) These two events pulled in seemingly opposite directions: the death of a beloved friend and colleague toward somber withdrawal into the circle of mourners, the boycott vote announcement toward vigorous public engagement [End Page 281] in the worlds of media, politics, law. The planning of the theme “The Fun and the Fury” also seemed to pull us in one direction, to focus on new ways of thinking through and sharing our scholarship, with our collective mourning and our intense public engagement pushing and pulling us in other ways. But many of us began to see connections. The fun and the fury of mourning José, celebrating his work and each other as well as raging at mortality, did come to overlap with the fun and the fury of responding to both the enormous joy that created the boycott vote and the considerable dissent and rage over that vote in multiple arenas. To illustrate these overlaps, and in honor of José, I want to begin with what he might have considered an ephemeral archive, or what Jack Halberstam might call a “silly archive.” I want to start with the hate mail we collected on the website bdsloveletters.com. For me, the volume and tone of the hate mail I began to receive on December 4 was something of a revelation. Though others here have long experience with this kind of epistolary emoting, I had had little. After I recovered from my initial shock, I started to find it interesting. Aside from the messages that simply argued against the boycott, in a range of tones and linguistic styles, there was an avalanche of fascinatingly insulting messages. I started to ask my most vigorous and vivid correspondents to send me more! Some did. I began to trace the thematic patterns in the messages. I found it particularly noteworthy that so many of these e-mails featured sexual themes. This is my area of research interest, after all! I always find it enlightening to try to connect sexual themes to political economic forces and global events. So here was a surprisingly rich archive. As an example, here is one of several messages I received from one correspondent: From: XXXXX Date: December 16, 2013 at 3:35:12 PM EST Subject: congratulations congratulations on your election to the presidency of the American Study Association It is groups like the ASA who are exemplars in the proactive support of Islamo terrorists, suicide bombers, killers of Jewish babies & unarmed civilians. Your promotion & adherence to deviance from sexual norms makes your election especially noteworthy. We know how warmly the Islamos embrace dikes, homos, switch hitters, gender-confused...

THE ASEAN–CHINA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT: POLITICAL ECONOMY IN INDONESIA

The ASEAN–China Free Trade Agreement has been the most consequential trade agreement for ASEAN in the past decade. In this article, I use partial equilibrium modelling to estimate the direct impacts of the agreement on Indonesia and China, and from these estimates draw political economy implications for Indonesia. Although the agreement has contributed to a modest trade surplus for Indonesia overall, it has led to a larger bilateral deficit with China. In addition, the shifts to surplus for Indonesia have mostly been in resource-based sectors, while the shifts to deficit have occurred in many manufacturing sectors that the government would like to see grow. I argue that pushback against the agreement has contributed to a resurgence of non-tariff trade barriers in the country, although other political economy forces also have been at work. The agreement ultimately provides a cautionary tale: cutting regional import tariffs can lead to pressures for more complex and less transparent trade policies.

A comparative analysis of place branding in Michigan and Ontario

Place branding has increasingly been adopted as a municipal initiative to change the trajectory of local economic development. Specifically, local municipalities and communities have used place branding not only as a response to the influence of globalization and neo-liberalism, but also economic challenges and restructuring. Like any other initiative, the ultimate goal is to enhance the economic and social well-being of local jurisdictions. Although a popular strategy, it is not clear if and how locally specific factors mediate the process. By comparing two cross-border geographical areas, this study attempts to identify how regional variability in the manifestation of political-economic forces, as well as geographical influences, affects the use of place branding at local scales. Every municipality in Michigan (n = 1774) and Ontario (n = 414) was systematically examined for the presence and message of local place brands as presented through logos and slogans. The comparative analysis demonstrated that Ontario’s municipalities utilized place branding to a greater extent, and that the dominant messages differ by region. Further, this analysis shows that – beyond political differences – geographical context appears to have an effect on both local place branding usage and message.

Immigration and School Choices in the Midst of the Great Recession

This paper empirically analyzes the effects of immigration on the schooling decisions of natives. We employ household-level data for Spain for years 2000-2012, a period characterized by a large immigration wave and a severe recession. Our estimates reveal that Spanish households responded to immigration by increasing their educational expenditures. This result was mainly driven by an important native flight from tuition-free schools toward private ones. We also find strong evidence of cream- skimming: only the more educated native households switched to private schools in response to immigration. Finally, our simulations suggest that the reduction in household income due to the Great Recession mitigated the flight toward private schools triggered by immigration but was not enough to offset it. We argue that these findings are driven by several factors: school assignment rules, concerns over negative peer effects, and political economy forces.

The bitter and sweet of chocolate in Europe

This paper examines the changing role of chocolate in European society, especially in light of the food movement turn to slow, small batch, craft chocolate, as a way to critically analyze relationships of labor and race, gender, and class inequality. The changing culture of chocolate consumption over centuries, from its pre-Columbian origins to the ways European colonists culturally and economically adopted chocolate shows a trajectory of increasing permeation of European foods (more foods contain chocolate) and regionalization of tastes in chocolate recipes, most recently by small batch chocolate makers whose work crafts local identity through branding of a tropical product. Europe is the world’s biggest importer and processor of cacao as well as the largest per capita consumer of chocolate. Industrial chocolate is higher in sugar and less complex in taste compared to the variety of local chocolate makers, so chocolate occupies an uneasy place in European diets, especially in light of growing rates of obesity and recent “junk food taxes” that target sugary foods. The historical context and analysis of labor in cacao farming and chocolate production shows a critical reliance on coerced labor. While the legacy of the past has been the decoupling of horrific coerced labor in cacao production from the consciousness of everyday chocolate consumers, the growing vitality of small batch chocolate makers refocuses attention on the country of origin--the conditions of production--as well as local, European tastes-- the conditions of consumption. The authors employ interdisciplinary methodologies of close readings of primary sources that include historical recipes, critical analysis of representation in historic and contemporary images and media, and descriptive economic data of export and consumption levels. This systematic study of taste in chocolate and its social, economic, political, and cultural implications is carried out in an analytical framework of the historical contingency of the social construction of realms of value, and that such construction takes place within global and local political economic forces that tend to propagate inequality as a solution to greater economic efficiency. Examining food access and food justice in the light of ways people produce and consume chocolate can challenge assumptions about social inequalities, race, health, and identity and offer insights into long-term sustainability. The critical analysis of these social factors suggests directions for future education, investment, and action by the fine and craft chocolate industry in Europe that can promote mutual benefits for producers and consumers. Keywords: chocolate, ethics, quality, flavor, anthropology, craft, taste, labor

Video games and the political and cultural economies of health-entertainment

Focusing mainly on the company Nintendo, this paper examines the political economic and cultural forces underpinning the video game industry’s recent interest in merging entertainment and health promotion. This is a trend best exemplified in sexagenarian actress Helen Mirren’s endorsement of Nintendo’s fitness-themed game Wii Fit Plus. In one sense, ‘health-entertainment’ is deemed a product of the coercive laws of competition that impress the need for reinvestment and innovation as a way of warding off industry rivals. Nintendo’s turn to health promotion is from this perspective an extension of the ‘console wars’ that in the past drove gaming companies to pursue verisimilitude on screen in hopes of attracting (young male) consumers. In another sense, the present moment offers an ideal time to direct innovation towards the issues of health and healthy ageing in particular, as the cultural logics of healthism and the ‘third age’ both emphasise the virtues of ‘healthy’ and autonomous consumer activity. As such, Nintendo has pursued aesthetic simplicity but kinaesthetic realism as a way of extending the appeal of video gaming beyond the male youth demographic. In examining the implications of these developments, it is argued that health and entertainment, as independent constructs, are conceptually reimagined through their integration with one another. The pursuit of entertainment is made ‘responsible’, thereby remedying the concern that video gaming is an unhealthy activity. The pursuit of health, meanwhile, becomes a matter of playful, technology-enhanced and ultimately consumption-based experience.

Introduction to the special issue on the political economy of multilateral trade negotiations

Multilateral trade negotiations (MTNs) are on life support. 1 The Doha Round of negotiations launched in 2001 has missed most of the targets set in the “July Package” of 2004. If the success of the Trade Facilitation Agreement concluded in Bali in December 2013 gives some hope, it should be reminded that this is a fairly narrow agreement where the necessary funds for its implementation are yet to be found. It is clear that the system has found its limits and as Richard Baldwin’s article in this special issue suggests “it is time to start thinking ahead on global trade governance.” The papers in this special issue all help us better understand the causes and consequences of the deadlock in MTNs. The interaction of political economy forces within and across countries is at the heart of the analysis. The papers suggests that the deadlock could be partly explained by a misunderstanding of how these different political economy forces interact with each other, as well as with negotiations in other forums, such as bilateral, regional and plurilateral agreements. A failure by negotiators in the World Trade Organization (WTO) to understand how trade in the 21st century differs from 20th century trade may have misled them when they defined the negotiating agenda. This may explain why there is so little domestic political support among WTO members for the issues put forward in the 2004 “July Package.” Over the last two decades the political economy literature has made important progress in helping understand the different rationales behind international trade agreements and their impact. The internalization of terms-of-trade effects among large trading partners has been shown to be an important rationale behind trade agreements trying to solve a prisoners’ dilemma (Bagwell and Staiger 1999, 2011). These models often allow for domestic politics but tend Rev Int Organ (2014) 9:135–142 DOI 10.1007/s11558-014-9196-2

Beyond scarcity: Rethinking water, climate change and conflict in the Sudans

This article develops a new framework for understanding environment-conflict relations, on both theoretical grounds and through a qualitative historical analysis of the links between water and conflict in the states of Sudan and South Sudan. Theoretically, the article critiques the dominant emphases on ‘scarcity’, ‘state failure’ and ‘under-development’ within discussions of environmental security, and proposes an alternative model of environment-conflict relations centring on resource abundance and globally-embedded processes of state-building and development. Empirically, it examines three claimed (or possible) linkages between water and conflict in the Sudans: over trans-boundary waters of the Nile; over the links between internal resource scarcities and civil conflict; and over the internal conflict impacts of water abundance and development. We find that there exists only limited evidence in support of the first two of these linkages, but plentiful evidence that water abundance, and state-directed processes of economic development and internal colonisation relating to water, have had violent consequences. We conclude that analysts and policymakers should pay more attention to the impacts of resource abundance, militarised state power and global political economic forces in their assessments of the potential conflict impacts of environmental and especially climate change.

Woman Abuse in Canada

Woman abuse in Canada started receiving much sociological attention in the mid-1980s. This article describes past scholarly achievements, assesses current contributions, and suggests progressive ways of responding to future challenges. Special attention is given to how broader political economic forces help shape and constrain research on a variety of highly injurious male-to-female assaults that occur in private settings.

Reprint of “The production of urban vacant land: Relational placemaking in Boston, MA neighborhoods”

The persistence of vacant land in urban areas exhibits geographic unevenness. While central cities have experienced waves of reinvestment over the past decades, vacant lands often persist in adjacent low-income neighborhoods. Thus a networked local-scale perspective is integral for understanding metropolitan areas. Local scale analyses require an understanding of informal decision-makers and institutions and the ways that they connect more broadly with other actors. Drawing on focus groups with civil society organizations (CSOs) and a neighborhood design/build case study, this paper characterizes “on the ground” perceptions of and responses to vacant lots in urban neighborhoods in order to provide insight into their analysis and management. The fieldwork extends insights from studies of community gardens to suggest that access to and potential ownership of vacant parcels, in addition to the political economic forces driving land-use change, are critical factors that drive vacant land governance at the neighborhood-scale. Public–civic partnerships in weak market areas have the potential to strengthen this access and ownership in a way that improves vacant lot management.

The Republicans Are the Nation? Thomas Jefferson, William Duane, and the Evolution of the Republican Coalition, 1809–1815

This essay explores Thomas Jefferson's early retirement political activity and binary vision of Federalism/Republicanism within the context of the broader political economic forces of the early nineteenth century. It shows that his notions of unity and legitimacy, so rooted in the life and death struggles of 1790s state building, increasingly no longer were relevant. His participation in a minor affair illuminates this point quite well. In the spring of 1811, Jefferson played a central role in a battle over loyalty, editorial prerogative, and the maintenance of party unity. It began when William Duane, book publisher, editor of the Philadelphia Aurora and long-time power broker within the coalition, sought Jefferson's help in securing funding from Virginia Republicans. Duane was facing a financial meltdown, and he hoped that the “sage of Monticello” might provide him a way out. Jefferson ultimately rejected the request in the name of party harmony, the irony of which is that Duane's “schism” reflected more of the future of the Republican movement than the harmonious nation Jefferson was hoping to preserve.

The production of urban vacant land: Relational placemaking in Boston, MA neighborhoods

The persistence of vacant land in urban areas exhibits geographic unevenness. While central cities have experienced waves of reinvestment over the past decades, vacant lands often persist in adjacent low-income neighborhoods. Thus a networked local-scale perspective is integral for understanding metropolitan areas. Local scale analyses require an understanding of informal decision-makers and institutions and the ways that they connect more broadly with other actors. Drawing on focus groups with civil society organizations (CSOs) and a neighborhood design/build case study, this paper characterizes “on the ground” perceptions of and responses to vacant lots in urban neighborhoods in order to provide insight into their analysis and management. The fieldwork extends insights from studies of community gardens to suggest that access to and potential ownership of vacant parcels, in addition to the political economic forces driving land-use change, are critical factors that drive vacant land governance at the neighborhood-scale. Public–civic partnerships in weak market areas have the potential to strengthen this access and ownership in a way that improves vacant lot management.

International Criminal Law: An Ideology Critique

AbstractThe article engages in an ideology critique of international criminal-law texts and discourse, drawing on a theoretical framework developed by critical legal studies scholars in order to interrogate, in a different jurisprudential context, the assumptions undergirding contemporary international criminal-law (ICL) scholarship. It argues that the triumphalism surrounding ICL and its adequacy to deal with conflict and violence ignores the factors and forces – including specific international legal interventions in countries’ political economies – that shape or even help establish the environment from which such conflict and violence emanate. In uncritically celebrating ICL and equating it with a pacific international rule of law, ICL scholarship risks shaping passive acquiescence in the status quo and discouraging more throughgoing efforts to address the systemic forces underlying instances of violence, including political–economic forces shaped by international legal institutions.

The status of women in naturopathy: A view from the United States and Australia

Like other professionalized heterodox medical systems in Western societies, naturopathic practitioners and the leaders of naturopathic professional associations historically appear to have been predominantly males. Conversely, this situation appears to have started to change in the 1970s. Today the vast majority of naturopathic students and naturopathic practitioners in the United States and Australia, are women. While women have moved into positions of leadership in the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, various Australian naturopathic professional associations, and naturopathic training programs in both the US and Australia, the presence of men in positions of organizational and education leadership appears to exceed their diminished numbers as practitioners. Bearing these thoughts in mind, this essay explores why women have been drawn to naturopathy in great numbers and the political-economic and socio-cultural forces that still hinder their professional development as practitioners and professional leaders within the contexts of the American and Australian dominative medical systems.

Scaling Up What Works: Experimental Evidence on External Validity in Kenyan Education

The recent wave of randomized trials in development economics has provoked criticisms regarding external validity. We investigate two concerns — heterogeneity across beneficiaries and implementers — in a randomized trial of contract teachers in Kenyan schools. The intervention, previously shown to raise test scores in NGO-led trials in Western Kenya and parts of India, was replicated across all Kenyan provinces by an NGO and the government. Strong effects of short-term contracts produced in controlled experimental settings are lost in weak public institutions: NGO implementation produces a positive effect on test scores across diverse contexts, while government implementation yields zero effect. The data suggests that the stark contrast in success between the government and NGO arm can be traced back to implementation constraints and political economy forces put in motion as the program went to scale.

On the origins of land use regulations: Theory and evidence from US metro areas

We model residential land use constraints as the outcome of a political economy game between owners of developed and owners of undeveloped land. Land use constraints benefit the former group via increasing property prices but hurt the latter via increasing development costs. In this setting, more desirable locations are more developed and, as a consequence of political economy forces, more regulated. These predictions are consistent with the patterns we uncover at the US metropolitan area level.

From practice to theory: emerging lessons from Asia for building urban climate change resilience

This paper aims to capture and analyze emerging experiences, lessons and tensions evident from several years of work underway through the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, a network of secondary cities in South and Southeast Asia that have engaged in a process to analyze vulnerabilities and plan and implement measures to address them. With the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and numerous partners, these cities have identified more than 59 specific resilience-building measures, of which 23 are being implemented. Through this work we see 10 critical urban climate change resilience action areas that cities must consider in order to strengthen their ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to the types of sudden and slow onset impacts. These are: climate sensitive land use and urban planning; institutional coordination mechanisms and capacity support; drainage, flood and solid waste management; water demand and conservation systems; emergency management and early warning systems; responsive health systems; resilient housing and transport systems; strengthening of ecosystem services; diversification and protection of climate-affected livelihoods; and education and capacity building of citizens. We present case studies of how these measures are implemented in specific cities and highlight the tensions and challenges that have emerged. Primary tensions arise around the powerful political economy forces that influence decisions in cities; ensuring that the risks and benefits of resilience-building measures are distributed equitably; aligning incentives of various stakeholders in cities; and developing the mandates, coordination and capacities needed to manage a multi-scale and multi-sector issue as complex as urban climate change resilience. This empirical base of practice provides important learning to help guide further the refinement of both theory and practice in the nascent field of urban climate change resilience.

Transformation of the US Healthcare System: Why is change so difficult?

The United States spends considerably more on medical care than any country in the world but is the only resource-rich country where a substantial portion of its residents lack health insurance coverage. Moreover, the US continues to rank low on most measures of health outcome compared to other developed countries. Therefore, there was considerable incredulity by those unfamiliar with the US as to why a revamping of this obviously broken system was not widely embraced by the American public when in 2009 a popularly elected president made healthcare reform his top priority. This commentary examines this phenomenon and discusses why a meaningful transformation of the US healthcare system has proven so elusive. Among the factors discussed here are political institutions and economic forces, a powerful medical establishment, the dominant private insurance industry, an extensive liability system and a public that is highly suspicious of any government involvement in healthcare.

Tasting Earth: Healing, Resistance Knowledge, and the Challenge to Dominion

This article explores an indigenous Hawaiian perspective on health that accords nature the status of healing agent. It reemerged in the Native Hawaiian decolonization struggle of the 1990s where it provided an explicit critique of Western sociocultural and political–economic forces, particularly of the effects these had on the bodies and souls of the colonized and neocolonized Hawaiians. This understanding of healing derives from the ancestors of present-day indigenous Hawaiians, as well as from the enduring ways of knowing and being that survives the onslaught of colonial power. Lying at the core of such understandings—expressed through the Polynesian principle of mana—are ideas about the interdependency between human beings and the earth. Thus, this article asks, how does mana become a basis for resistance? Can it be best understood by contrast to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic theology of dominion? While mana stresses interconnectedness with, love for, and dependence on nature, the biblical text (of Genesis 1:28) posits, in contrast, the separateness from and dominance over nature—a theology at the root of the 20th century, which this article concludes amounts to a politics of human dispossession and environmental degradation.