Economic Political Institutions Research Articles

“E-waste” Colonialism: Mechanism of Late Modernity in Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide

Abstract Among numerous literary works on international waste trade, by way of which the toxic waste has been exported basically from developed countries to underdeveloped areas, the Chinese writer Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide is the only one that examines one of the most toxic waste streams, namely, the electronic waste, or the e-waste. However, this particular novel has not received much critical attention in the anglophone world. The few studies on this science fiction tend to focus on the capital market, the conflict between global and local, or the alienation of human and nature, neglecting its significant thematic concern on the e-waste. In this context, this study seeks to address this gap by analyzing the author’s focus on the neglected issue of e-waste in the system of waste colonialism. By exploring this work from the perspective of waste colonialism, this study attempts to disclose how the e-waste functions as a special symbol of late modernity and in what mechanism late modernity works to exert its effect respectively on economic-political institutions, knowledge system, and human cognition of their own subjectivity. Significantly, this study will argue that, in late modernity, the system of waste colonialism has developed into what this study terms “e-waste” colonialism, promoting the reconsolidation of power structure, the intensification of expert knowledge, and the deconstruction of human subjectivity.

Private-led policy transfer: the adoption of sector skills councils in Chile

ABSTRACT This study investigates the adoption process of a TVET policy, usually driven by the state, by private actors. Considering a Cultural Political Economy analytical approach, we use the adoption of Sector Skills Councils in three Chilean sectors (mining, wine, maintenance) to examine the different factors that explain the process. We draw on interviews with key informants at the sectoral and national levels, sectoral documents, and press articles. Our analysis shows that the framing actions of a local policy entrepreneur and their interaction with neoliberal political-economic institutions were key to explaining the policy’s attractiveness for private actors. Furthermore, economic and organisational conditions at the sectoral level explain why these three sectors adopted SSCs. We offer further insights about the TVET policy transfer process from the perspective of local and sectoral actors, and in particular, the role of non-state actors.

A Green New Deal for all: The centrality of a worker and community-led just transition in the US

This paper argues that labour and community-led advocacy efforts towards a just transition are fundamental to delivering the promises of a Green New Deal (GND) and a just post-carbon world. To this end, an ambitious, far-reaching project was launched by the Labor Network for Sustainability, a non-governmental organization dedicated to bridging the labor and climate movements, in Spring 2020 called the “Just Transition Listening Project'' (JTLP). Over the course of several months, the JTLP interviewed over 100 individuals, including rank-and-file union members, union officials, environmental and climate justice advocates, and Indigenous and community advocates to understand what makes transition “just,” what opportunities exist for a broad coalition to advance a GND-style proposal, and to document the struggles facing working people and communities across the U.S. In doing so, we utilize the tools of political geography to examine the politics of spatiality, networks, and scale as well as the geographical and spatial dimensions of policy and political-economic institutions. We are particularly mindful of two spatial dynamics. First, that transition policies, particularly in a hegemonic country like the USA, have global implications. The industrial transition that took place from the 1970s to the 1990s, for example, bred nativism because it cast other countries as the cause of the problem. Second, critical geographers have pointed out that environmental justice (EJ) has been neoliberalized in the U.S. as a result of its operationalization, spatialization, and administration, starting with the Clinton Administration. Because JT is rising on the national and global agendas, we pay close attention to whether these dynamics that affected EJ are also operating with respect to JT, as well as how they can be contained. This research is particularly timely given the ongoing federal governmental efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 and provide basic economic and social supports. The process of the JTLP parallels the goals of the GND--intersectional efforts rooted in community knowledge for the development of a people-led GND. This paper details the process of the JTLP and the prospects for intersectional, broad-based movements that are the only way a GND can be realized.

Turning Traditional Wisdom of Culture around: Making a Possible Transition to a Wiser World Driven by Culture of Wisdom Inquiry Real

In this article I discuss the problem of how we can change our world into a wiser world that is driven by a culture of wisdom inquiry (CWI), i.e., a world that frees humanity from a looming totalitarian catastrophe. How best can we interrogate the traditional wisdom of culture (TWC) that is responsible for the academic institutions of learning, among other kinds of institutions, dogmatically and solely aiming at the acquisition of knowledge and technological prowess (technologisches koennen), instead of the promotion of wisdom and human well-being? What kind of strategic transformations of institutional design, policy and goals within diverse institutions, particularly academic institutions of learning, regionally and globally, are imperative? This article argues from the principle of universal interconnectedness across nature/universe and the fundamental asymmetry of human well-being interests and nature’s well-being interests. From this, the development of a culture of wisdom inquiry as an overarching (allumfassend) methodology of institutional change from within at two levels of analysis is proposed, viz., (1) at the level of the ecological–economic analysis of safeguarding nature’s abundant ecosystems from human greed; and (2) at the level of the transformation of the educational, academic and political–economic institutions, as well as international institutions, that must be dedicated to human well-being.

The 2021 Veblen-Commons Award Recipient: Deborah M. Figart: Good Work

: COVID-19 has exposed underlying weaknesses in the economy, including the political economic institutions structuring work. The labor market has moved toward more precarious work, negatively affecting job quality and well-being. After a summary of the current context shaping work, I discuss a new, 2021 Top Ten list of policy proposals aimed at institutionalizing good work. This list revises ten public policies I proposed in 2003, and reconsiders how they might be updated given evolving economic structures and context. Theoretically, the article draws upon major concepts in institutional and heterodox economics: progressive institutional change, invidious distinctions, countervailing power, social balance, capabilities, caring labor, and social provisioning.

Responding to Socioeconomic Diversity in the European Union (and to Steven Klein’s Essay) with Democracy-Enhancing Conflicts Law

Responding to Socioeconomic Diversity in the European Union (and to Steven Klein’s Essay) with Democracy-Enhancing Conflicts Law

Settler‐colonialism's anti‐social contract The Wiley Invited Lecture at the 2019 annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Geographers

Contemporary liberal governance requires constant access to a historical “reset” button, a simultaneous acknowledgement and disavowal of history. This is especially so in times of emergency or crisis; we are, supposedly, “all in this together.” The political economic institutions that facilitate this false solidarity—the anti‐social contract—range from the mundane to emergency measures, but they share an origin in, and gain their legitimacy from, a key mechanism of liberal social life: contract. If contracts “settle” the past, what can build solidarity in the shadow of a past that cannot be settled?

Turkey and Africa in the Context of South-South Cooperation

In spite of their historical and cultural ties, Turkey and African countries did not develop close relations during the Cold War. The unstable environment in domestic politics of Turkey and several African countries hindered a proper rapprochement in the 1990s as well. Since the turn of the 21st century, however, they have been engaged in a fast-paced cooperation. Turkey’s growing engagement in Africa has progressed in tandem with that of other Asian powers, namely China, India, South Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia. When the increasing presence in Africa of Latin American countries, of Brazil in particular, is added into the whole picture, it can be said that the first two decades of the 21st century has seen a boom in South South Cooperation. This paper treats the mentioned cooperation paradigm as a new aspect of Turkish foreign policy. Given the fact that Ankara was ideologically distanced to the Global South during and soon after the Cold War, the fast-paced Turkish-African cooperation over the last two decades denotes a partial revision in Turkish foreign policy orientation. In the context of this revisionist orientation, the main finding of the paper is that Turkey considers SSC as a way of not only reframing its relations with its African nations but also strengthening the cooperation between rising powers, underdeveloped nations and Islamic political-economic institutions.

The local low skills equilibrium: Moving from concept to policy utility

It is more than three decades since the publication of Finegold and Soskice’s (1988) influential article ‘The failure of training in Britain: Analysis and prescription’. This widely cited publication popularised the notion of the low skills equilibrium (LSEq). The LSEq described how at the national level, weakness in the education and training system, aligned with the nature of political-economic institutions, acted as both a cause, but was also a consequence, of weak economic performance. In the period since, the LSEq thesis has been developed and deployed in a range of ways, including with an increasing emphasis on localised low skills equilibria and their relationship to spatially uneven development. However, there are a number of unresolved concerns with the use of the LSEq to describe regional, urban and local outcomes. These include the limits to aggregate analysis, which obscures detailed assessment of causal mechanisms; weaknesses in approaches to measurement to test the LSEq; and insufficient attention to change over time. This article makes three central contributions. First, it assesses the important conceptual issues associated with the development of the LSEq, its application to regional and local economies and the related measurement issues. Secondly, the article outlines a set of research gaps and an agenda to help identify the ways these issues might be resolved. Thirdly, the article addresses the question of policy, and the extent to which a better understanding of the problem might facilitate interventions aimed at unlocking the local LSEq.

Institutional complementarity, firm behavior, and firm heterogeneity: A cross-national analysis

AbstractHow do political economic institutions and different types of institutional complementarity in particular influence firm behavior? Existing studies do not offer much help in answering this question. In this research, we systematically connect institutional complementarity and its two distinct logics (the logic of reinforcement and the logic of compensation) to firm performance. Using a sample of more than fourteen thousand firms from twenty advanced industrial democracies, our empirical analysis finds that institutional complementarity is related to firm performance in a distinct way. That is, the different logics of institutional complementarity apply only to specific segments of the economy. While the logic of reinforcement works for small firms and labor-intensive firms, the logic of compensation favors large firms and capital-intensive firms. The empirical novelty of our research lies in offering a cross-national, firm-level and large-n analysis of institutional complementarity. Theoretically, our finding of firm heterogeneity helps in establishing the boundary conditions of institutional complementarity and hence advances the general understanding of the subject.

A transition in the Dutch wastewater system? The struggle between discourses and with lock-ins

ABSTRACTRecently, calls have increased for a paradigm shift or transition towards resource recovery and a circular economy in the Dutch wastewater system. However, we have observed diverging interpretations on the nature of the transition. This reflects the political environment of sustainability transitions: political struggle emerges over the definition of problems, futures and strategies to be used. In order to help clarify the emerging debate and identify political choices, we conducted a discourse analysis. We identified three discourses that reveal some of the political choices to be made. One discourse is becoming dominant and focusses on optimising the large-scale infrastructure, market development and legislative changes. The discourse draws on the existing infrastructure and current political-economic institutions, which gives it an advantage in becoming dominant. Our findings also suggest that this discourse shapes a transition pathway that is characterised by lock-in effects and, at most, incremental changes instead of a fundamental shift in the established Dutch wastewater system.

Making Sense of Civic Enterprise. Social Innovation, Participatory Democracy and the Administrative State

Civic enterprises (CEs) - groups of citizens, often organized as cooperatives, who produce social goods in a democratic way, responsive to local and individual needs – are a rapidly proliferating phenomenon in Europe, in fields as diverse as sustainable energy, social care and urban regeneration. Yet, we know relatively little about them. Using research on social care CEs in the Netherlands, I discuss them respectively as instances of the social economy, social enterprises and as a form of participatory democracy. CEs operate in a dense administrative environment. I show how CEs experience serious constraints from the laws, procedures, operating procedures and financial regimes of state organizations and business corporations that erode their democratic nature. I conclude that CEs suffer from a democratic paradox: although they demonstrate considerable innovative potential, this goes unacknowledged by dominant economic-political institutions.

Revisiting Industrial Unionism in Korea in the Wake of the 1997 Financial Crisis: Neoliberal Rhetoric, Bargaining (De)centralization and the State

This paper revisits the rise of industrial unionism in Korea in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis at the turn of the twenty-first century. By closely investigating the reorganization of labour unionism in the context of neoliberalization, it challenges the alleged converging impact of neoliberal rhetoric or hegemony on industrial relations. To this end, this paper raises following substantive questions: How far did Korea’s industrial unionism advance under the new economic circumstances and how stable was it? More importantly, what were the fundamental factors behind such re-formation of labour unions? This paper finds that the transformation of labour unions in Korea is a mixture of the rise of industrial unionism and the persistence of enterprise unionism, that is to say a precarious progress of industrial unionism. It argues that behind the unstable development of industrial unionism in Korea were state-fostered legacy of power imbalance within labour in favour of enterprise unions, especially at chaebols, and continuing state intervention in the re-formation of labour unions in the neoliberal era. Finally, it argues that the seemingly sweeping neoliberal rhetoric or hegemony does not override the long-standing political-economic institutions of industrial relations and the leverage of the state, but it is filtered and reified by them.

The Rise of the Platform Business Model and the Transformation of Twenty-First-Century Capitalism

This article explores the changing nature of twenty-first-century capitalism with an emphasis on illuminating the political coalitions and institutional conditions that support and sustain it. Most of the existing literature attributes the changing nature of the firm to developments in markets and technology. By contrast, this article emphasizes the political forces that have driven the transformation of the twentieth-century consolidated firm through the firm as a “network of contracts” and toward the platform firm. Moreover, situating the United States in a comparative perspective highlights the distinctive ways US political-economic institutions have facilitated that transformation and exacerbated the associated inequalities.

Ownership and Board Independence in a Context of Capital Market Liberalization

We examine what predicts the extent of board independence, with a focus on the role of international owners in a sample of French corporations, during a period where the French context witnessed accelerated capital market liberalization. Board independence is a means to ensure effective monitoring over management for the benefit of shareholders. We test the idea that different types of owners will differentially impact the extent to which a board will be independent, one main reason being the differences in the legal and political economic institutions in the owners’ home countries. Despite some global convergence, owners may still differ in their views depending on their country of origin on the importance of board monitoring relative to other board tasks, such as resource provision to management.

Harnessing Oil Wealth in Guyana Via a Sovereign Wealth Fund: Look Before You Leap

Like other developing countries endowed with non-renewable natural resources but underdeveloped political economic institutions, Guyana, a new addition, will face similar challenges.

Core tenets of the theory of ecologically unequal exchange

In this article, core tenets and claims of the theory of ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) are synthesized. EUE theory postulates a net flow of natural resources from peripheral developing to core industrialized countries through international trade, a situation which undermines the development of the periphery while enhancing that of the core. The key claims and EUE mechanisms are categorized and discussed under three topics: 1) the structure of the capitalist world-economy, 2) monetary valuation, and 3) equity and justice. The treadmill logic of capitalism in which capital extracts ecological resources and release waste in an endless pursuit of profits creates an expansionary dynamic which draws peripheral countries into exploitative market relations. This peripheralization is supported by 'free trade' economic policies, while nation-states and other political-economic institutions such as the WTO and IMF provide the regulations which ensure proper functioning of the system. Monetary valuation caps it by obscuring the inverse relationship between thermodynamics and economics, in which low-entropy energy and materials indispensable in economic production processes are lowly priced while processed goods which have dissipated most of their matter-energy are highly priced, ensuring that biophysical resources and profits accumulates in the industrialized Northern countries. This EUE framework is applied to the EU's Raw Materials Initiative from the vantage point of policy as implicit theory. By challenging mainstream policies and their underlying theories, the EUE perspective demonstrates that alternatives to neoliberal policy prescriptions exist and policy can play a crucial role in bringing about the necessary structural changes.Key words: ecologically unequal exchange, environmental justice, EU, capitalism, free trade, policy

The Eurozone and Political Economic Institutions

This review sets out a recently developed comparative political economy literature on the Eurozone, which has a basis in both varieties of capitalism and modern macroeconomics. It contrasts the export-oriented, northern European, skill-intensive, coordinated market economies with coordinated wage-bargaining, on the one hand, with the southern European, demand-driven economies with strong public sector unions, on the other. It analyzes the Eurozone as an ongoing grouping of sovereign democratic states, each with strong concerns to remain within the Eurozone but in principle with an exit option. It argues that the origins of the Eurozone and its trajectory primarily reflected national economic concerns and not a political drive toward European integration; and its deflationary preference has been the rational choice of the export-oriented members and their bargaining power in the Eurozone, not an irrational rejection of Keynesianism. The Eurozone functioned well (comparably to the advanced economies outside the Eurozone, though with major imbalances in both) during its “dual growth model” period from inception to the Eurocrisis. The absence of flexible core labor markets suggested by the optimum currency area literature has not impeded its effectiveness; and there has been little Eurozone-generated institution building, except very partially in banking. The only important development, Outright Monetary Transactions, has made the European Central Bank the de facto lender of last resort to fiscally stable member states.

Inter-generational micro-class mobility during and after socialism: The power, education, autonomy, capital, and horizontal (PEACH) model in Hungary

We propose a theoretical model of how occupational mobility operates differently under socialism than under market regimes. Our model specifies four vertical dimensions of occupational resources—power, education, autonomy, and capital—plus a horizontal dimension consisting of linkages among occupations in the same economic branch. Given the nature of state socialist political-economic institutions, we expect power to exhibit much stronger effects in the socialist mobility regime, while autonomy and capital should play greater stratifying roles after the market transition. Education should have stable effects, and horizontal linkages should diminish in strength with market reforms. We estimate our model's parameters using data from surveys conducted in Hungary during and after the socialist period. We adopt a micro-class approach, though we test it against approaches that use more aggregated class categories. Our model provides a superior fit to other mobility models, and our results confirm our hypotheses about the distinctive features of the state socialist mobility regime. Mobility researchers often look for common patterns characterizing mobility in all industrialized societies. Our findings suggest that national institutions can produce fundamentally distinct patterns of mobility.

Good Governance, Neoliberalism, Inequality within International Organizations Discourse: a Critical Approach Lidia Lo Schiavo and Pierre Vercauteren

Good Governance, Neoliberalism, Inequality within International Organizations Discourse: a Critical Approach Lidia Lo Schiavo and Pierre Vercauteren Lidia Lo Schiavo, Pierre Vercauteren Abstract The analytical and critical investigation of the concept of good governance is the topic of this paper. The main lines of inquiry singled out here regard the theoretical analysis of the concept, the exploration of its semantics and evolution within the discourse of the main international political economic institutions (i.e. the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, along with the OECD and the UN as forums of discussion, specialized agencies and, above all, as policy-makers). The concept’s normative principles and empirical consequences are also assessed, and we critically deconstruct its ideological connotations. The last part of this essay focuses on a critique of the concept, considered as a key tool in the neoliberal consensus according to some scholars, and we evaluate the potential opening of a window of opportunity triggered by the entry of the concept of inequality within this discourse for the paradigm shift away from hegemonic neoliberal consensus. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jsspi.v4n2a4