Political Economy Framework Research Articles

Identity Group Stratification, Political Economy & Inclusive Economic Rights

Abstract This essay demonstrates the necessity of formally incorporating identity group stratification as a pillar alongside economic and political understandings of any political economy framework. We make our case by juxtaposing mutual inadequacies and myopic limitations associated with two influential but polar political economy frameworks-Marxian and public choice theory-since neither framework formally incorporates an identity group stratification lens beyond class reductionism. Finally, in addition to presenting an identity group stratification lens to economic thought, we present an Inclusive Economic Rights policy framework as a critical baseline component of human rights, foregrounding political economic tendencies toward identity group stratifications as a pathway forward to achieve a “moral political economy.”

A Critical Political Economy Perspective on Indian Television: STAR, Hotstar, and Live Sports Streaming

The Indian television industry is transforming via an increasing number of Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms. This shift from broadcast to OTT has given rise to research assessing the impact on the television ecosystem. With the case of Star Network, this study examines how the emergence of live sports streaming has affected the power dynamics in the sports broadcasting ecosphere. This study employs the Critical Political Economy framework to address the following question: How do television-based media conglomerates – and by extension television itself – negotiate the challenge of Internet-based digital media in India? Keeping the focus on sports live-streaming services, we study the transition from Star television network to Disney+ Hotstar, its corresponding OTT platform. We however argue that the Political Economy of Communication holds its ground despite the apparently disruptive promise of web-based platforms. Despite the Internet posing new challenges in terms of distribution networks, media conglomerates find a way to convert their dominance of the television industry into the OTT space.

The Nurturing Food Sovereignty from the Peripheral Side: the Village Law and the Soul of Agriculture in Rural Development in Indonesia

After the enactment of the Village Law, the opportunity for the village as the spearhead of food sovereignty is widely open and the Village Law is considered a soul for village development. Village’s main activities are agriculture, including the management of natural resources with the composition of the area as a place for rural settlements, government services, social services, and economic activities. Most of the population works in the primary sector, which has various challenges to reducing or even eliminating dependence on the global food market. Rural development and the orientation of village agricultural soul so far seem to go hand in hand but tend to be particular. This study aimed to study the primary sector of agriculture and food needs as the main political discourse with the subject of the village. The study was prepared using a qualitative methodology with secondary data and policy analysis. The political economy framework is used to see how far the potential and challenges ahead are toward Indonesia's food sovereignty, amidst the onslaught of neo-liberalism in the global food system. The findings show that Village Law seeks to restore the village's dignity so that it becomes an empowered village faced with the unpreparedness of village capacity.

China’s climate and energy policy paradox revisited – domestic and international implications of a carbon lock-in ‘with Chinese characteristics’

ABSTRACT Juxtaposing China’s current situation and policies toward coal and renewables at home and abroad, we argue that China remains in a paradoxical state of carbon lock-in. We analyze the techno-economic, institutional and political factors that contribute to China’s coal-related policies following a novel approach that blends different theories and frameworks to establish an interdisciplinary dialogue between various strands of research that were hitherto unconnected. This is accomplished by applying a political economy framework through the lens of techno-institutional carbon lock-in theory in three case studies encompassing China itself, as well as China’s climate and energy policy abroad in Pakistan and Mozambique. The article draws four major conclusions about China’s energy paradox: 1) An imperative for economic growth lies at the heart of the Chinese governance system’s incentive structure, which has resulted in a coal-based energy and industrial policy. 2) China’s government should use the experimental, decentralized nature of its regionally-decentralized regime and energy sector to their advantage by promoting disruption rather than incumbency. 3) To address the structural and institutional deficiencies that maintain or even strengthen carbon lock-in, energy governance should be shaped around the primary challenge of strengthening renewable energy advocates throughout all levels of government. 4) The discussion of coal financing abroad must now go beyond the discontinuation of new projects; the building of alternative cleaner projects should be considered and the ones in progress should be halted.

Born to be different: The role of local political leaders in poverty reduction in China

By incorporating imprinting theory into a political–economic framework, this paper studies the role of local political leaders in poverty reduction. Exploiting exogenous turnovers of city-level party secretaries in China, I find that city secretaries with early-life poverty experiences are more likely to increase the incomes of poor families in their jurisdictions. I further find that the effect of city secretaries' poverty experiences on the income of the poor is more pronounced in the counties that are not officially categorized as impoverished by the central government and among the families living above the poverty line set by the Chinese government but below the international poverty line proposed by the World Bank. It is suggested that local political leaders affect poverty reduction outcomes by instilling their personal preferences, which can be shaped by their early experiences, into their economic decisions.

Trends in financing of basic education in Ghana – a political economy analysis

PurposeUsing a political economy framework, this paper examines the financing trend, by investigating three systematic spikes occurring between 2004 and 2016. The study aims to provide a useful review of the interaction of politics, financial decisions and educational outcomes. Additionally it provides a useful guide, especially to academics, to identify political and economic conceptualizations that will predict expenditure decision-making of political actors and to be able to provide policy advice on the future effect of such decisions on availability and accessibility of public goods.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a secondary data analysis approach, drawing upon secondary data sources such as from the Ministry of Education, budget statements from the Ministry of Finance, as well as relevant policy documents. Additional information for the study was also extracted from the manifestos of the two leading political parties in Ghana – the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress and their viewpoints on financing of education in Ghana.FindingsUsing two epochal years when financing of education peaked (2008 and 2012), which coincided with election years, the trend lends itself to being interpreted as opportunistic spending. It appears to give credence to a conclusion that the increases in spending are more politically directed and nonneutral.Originality/valueThis paper fulfills an identified need to study the trend of basic education financing in Ghana, which will help policy actors make better-informed decisions with the introduction of the novel “adaptive opportunism” framework analysis tool.

Engaging Traditional Leaders in Local Governance: Devising a Generalisable Framework for Sub-Saharan Africa

In Sub-Saharan Africa, traditional leaders play a significant role in local communities and their cooperation is viewed as mandatory for successful development interventions. However, systematic guidance in engaging them has been scarce due to significant heterogeneity between communities and difficulties in borrowing lessons from other contexts. Outcomes are shaped by many variables relating to the state’s engagement strategy and the community’s inherent characteristics. These variables interact in an ad hoc manner to produce outcomes. This paper demonstrates how the selectorate theory—a political economy framework originally devised to analyse national-level politics—could be adapted to local communities to interpret local power relations. Avoiding a range of indistinct variables, the selectorate theory reduces local political dynamics into two common variables, e.g. ‘selectorate’ and ‘winning coalition’, providing both a logical basis for positive engagement and a structured framework for comparative analysis.

The Right to Hospitality in International Economic Law: Domestic Investment Laws and the Right to Invest

AbstractUnder the Liberal International Order (LIO) of the post-WWII years, foreign investment protection was meant to be granted by international law and institutions. But current economic de-globalization is giving way to institutional and legal de-globalization. Domestic laws relating to foreign investment, especially in the form of Domestic Investment Laws, are taking over International Investment Agreements as the standard means of regulating cross-border trade and investment flows. The article compares substantive and procedural standards of investor protection in international and domestic investment law, as well as old and new Domestic Investment Laws, with a focus on non-discrimination and dispute settlement. The move to domestic law in IEL does not always signify a trend for most states to isolate themselves from the international economy. Rather, it is often an effort to achieve similar ends as those of the LIO but using different means. The article discusses an alternative political economy framework for an international (economic) law of ends, the cornerstone of which is the right to hospitality.

Transnational city networks, global political economy, and climate governance: C40 in Mexico and Lima

Most research on transnational city networks on climate change focuses on how they form part of a reorganization of the character of global politics away from state-centric forms of governance towards either multilevel, transnational and/or ‘polycentric’ governance. Consistent with these broad approaches to global (climate) governance, work specifically on city networks focuses on their abilities to generate coordination, learning and experimentation across and within cities regarding climate change. This article argues that analyzing these networks within political economy frameworks generates different but important additional insights. Drawing on the analysis of two cities in Latin America—Mexico City and Lima—within the C40 network, the article argues that C40 promotes particular forms of investment in its member cities, pursuing the interests of transnational capital and assembling combinations of actors to generate this effect. While such a dynamic within C40 may promote decarbonization, it nevertheless skews the process of responding to climate change in those cities. It does so by coercing those cities to prioritize climate mitigation rather than adaptation, over-riding local preferences, and, ignoring local expertise. As a result, C40 undermines the capacity for such cities to generate their own solutions.

К ВОПРОСУ О КОНСТИТУЦИОННОЙ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ ЭКОНОМИИ В РАМКАХ ИНСТИТУЦИОНАЛЬНОЙ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ ЭКОНОМИИ

The article presents a brief summary of the development of political economy. The fundamental differences between the methodology of political economy and the methodology of economics are briefly described. It is shown that modern political economy is not reduced to either Marxism or the "new political economy" of J. Buchanan. The relevance of research within the framework of institutional political economy, which is capable of developing the achievements of classical political economy, traditional institutionalism and institutional evolutionary theory, is substantiated. It is proposed to develop constitutional political economy within the framework of this particular area of political and economic research.

Devolution or Decapitation? Decentralization During Conflict in Ukraine

ABSTRACT Decentralization in Ukraine is lauded as the most successful of the country’s reforms. The devolution of power to local government has not been without controversy; however, as decentralization proceeded during the war in Donbas. This article critiques Ukrainian’s decentralization based on two promises of this reform: the weakening of oligarchic power and the empowerment of Ukrainians. Utilizing a feminist political economy framework, with relational ontological commitments, this paper argues that decentralization has, rather, empowered Ukrainian elites while marginalizing vulnerable groups during the war. To address political disempowerment and/or economic inequality, this paper concludes, decentralization must address the totality that structures social relations.

Mumtaz Anwar. The Political Economy of Foreign Aid to Pakistan. HWWA Studies. Volume 79. Hamburg: Hamburg Institute of International Economics. 2006. 141 pages. Paperback. Price not given.

Foreign aid has played a significant role in Pakistan’s economic development. In the 1950s and 1960s it was aid that helped propel the high rates of growth of the economy. Again in the 1980s and the early 21st century, aid has supported the high levels of growth in the economy. Many books and articles have looked at the role of aid in a narrow economic perspective, but the present volume looks at aid in a political economy framework. The time-period covered is 1960-2002, and both bilateral as well as multilateral aid flows are included in the analysis. Seven chapters makeup the book, along with a number of tables at the end which throw light on the author’s analysis. The theoretical framework followed is one that examines both the donor’s and the recipient’s need for aid. The objectives and the needs of both do not always match. Chapters 3, 5, and 6 form the crux of the book. Chapter 3 discusses and examines the politico-economic factors that are responsible for the allocation of aid........

Human Rights and Political Economy: Addressing the Legal Construction of Poverty and Rights Deprivation

There has been a recent resurgence in scholarly work concerned with the economics of human rights. This article builds on this work to develop a conceptual framework of human rights and political economy. It provides a theoretical basis for the turn to human rights and economics, rooted in the increasing micro-management of the economy by liberal states that can constitute the state planning of material distribution within the state. It demonstrates that human rights principles do apply to economic questions and elaborates methods and practices to realize the potential of rights in this arena. The article applies these methods and conceptualizations to state obligations and business responsibilities to excavate current limits and potentials of rights and contextualizes the project within left critiques of rights and “claim right” perspectives.

Value Circulation, Economic Structure, and the New Development Paradigm: A Theoretical Framework of Political Economy and International Comparison

This study constructs a theoretical framework for understanding the new development paradigm based on value circulation and the reproduction theory of Marx. According to these theories, the essence of economic circulation is value circulation, the core of which is mutual matching among the structures of technological, distribution, demand, and production. We adopted a three-sector reproduction model with fixed capital to understand different development paradigms under various combinations of the four aforementioned structures. On this basis, we use the 1957- 2017 input-output table to construct the three-sector tables and explain the logic of China's economic structure change and the characteristics of the resulting circulation patterns. We also compared the economic structures and circulation patterns of the United States and Japan with those of China to shed light on China's choice of future economic circulation patterns and the new development paradigms.

The Political Economy of American Exchange Rate Bill Voting: From the Perspective of RMB Appreciation

Abstract Under the theoretical framework of international trade political economy, this paper examines whether interest groups can dominate the voting of the US Exchange Rate Manipulation Act in 2015 from the perspective of RMB appreciation. Taking 100 senators as samples, this paper makes model estimation by using Full Information Maximum Likelihood Method (FIML), and quantitatively investigates the deep-seated driving factors behind the voting results of the US Exchange Rate Manipulation Act. The empirical results show that the influence of political donations from different interest groups on the voting behavior of parliamentarians is different. The political donations from American labor organization significantly affect the voting behavior of parliamentarians, but business groups and ideological organizations do not play a significant role in the voting results. In addition, senators’ personal characteristics affect the political donation of the bill to a certain extent, but do not affect the voting results. In the future, China needs to continuously pay attention to the latest progress of US exchange rate policy, correctly evaluate its impact on China’s economy, and maintain communication and coordination with important US interest groups to reduce the negative impact on related industries in China. JEL classification numbers: F14, F50, F31. Keywords: RMB Appreciation, Trade Protection, Bills Voting, Political Donation, Interest Group.

Comparing Minimum Wage Policies in East Asia: Political Competition and Labor Incorporation

This article attempts to explain the evolution of minimum wage levels in three East Asian economies: Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. A political-economic framework incorporating the levels of political competition and labor incorporation is suggested. With strong political competition and a lack of labor incorporation, South Korea exhibits the strongest minimum wage increase, followed by Taiwan with incorporated labor. Japan has the weakest minimum wage with uncompetitive politics and labor incorporation. The framework is supported by descriptive accounts of the three cases and supplemented by quantitative analysis. As a factor commonly viewed as less relevant for welfare development in the region, the impact of leftist governments is found to be conditional upon the level of political competition. This article contributes to the literature by providing a political-economic explanation of the minimum wage, as well as linking East Asia with the mainstream welfare state literature.

States and Local Government Creations in Nigeria: A Veritable Tool for the Economic Underdevelopment of the Minorities

The creation of states and local governments anywhere in the world has been a veritable instrument to drive and achieve meaningful development and bring governance structure and processes closer to the people. It is indeed one of the models through which development could easily be fostered across all regions In Nigeria. This paper examines states' and local governments' creation in Nigeria to determine whether the practice has achieved its universal purpose or otherwise, especially as it affects the minorities and people of the Niger Delta. Employing historical research methods and using both primary and secondary data, as well as the political economy framework, the paper establishes that the practice of Nigeria has rather underdeveloped the minority and oil-bearing regions in Nigeria. The experiment was purely designed for political expediency at the time and It is important to note that state and local government creation in Nigeria seems to be a veritable tool to undermine and under-develop the minority ethnic groups whose natural resources (the black gold) are used to service the entire nation and develop Lagos, Abuja and other parts of the country, with minimal amounts left to service the area where these natural resources are extracted. This has led to a series of conflicts that are still raging to date, with the minorities of South-South Nigeria demanding justice and the control of their resources through the application of fiscal federalism. They concluded that state and local government creation in Nigeria, rather than being a tool for the development of the minorities, is designed to selfishly enrich the major ethnic groups and recommends amongst others fiscal federalism as a means of assuaging the fears of continuous economic under-dev opment of the minorities by the majority ethnic groups.

Political Economy of Public Choice and Corruption

The concept of corruption is one of the discussed concepts in the social sciences literature. There are various studies that have argued that corruption undermine development, but less emphasis has been placed on the benefits of corruption to the development of human society. This study engages in the cost-benefit analysis of corruption within the framework of political economy of public choice. This study employed the descriptive research design with data collected from secondary sources such as textbooks, Journals and other internet sources while content analysis was used to analyse the data collected. It is argued here that despite the negative consequences of corruption to human society, there are instances where corruption is required to lubricate commercial activities. This explains the disparity in what constitute corruption from one society to the other. Furthermore, this study recommend that Global North countries should formulate and implement national policies that will ensure that stolen funds are returned immediately they are received from the country where these funds are looted. Lastly, the interest accrued from past stolen funds deposited in Western societies bank be repatriated to their countries of origin, in addition to the main funds laundered. As funds kept in their countries of origin will also generate interest, though may not be higher than the interest from western societies but will add value to the country-of-origin economy. Thus, gives developing countries some levels of confidence that the developed societies commitment to the fight against corruption.

Trust in things: A review of social science perspectives on autonomous human-machine-team systems and systemic interdependence

For Autonomous Human Machine Teams and Systems (A-HMT-S) to function in a real-world setting, trust has to be established and verified in both human and non-human actors. But the nature of “trust” itself, as established by long-evolving social interaction among humans and as encoded by humans in the emergent behavior of machines, is not self-evident and should not be assumeda priori. The social sciences, broadly defined, can provide guidance in this regard, pointing to the situational, context-driven, and sometimes other-than-rational grounds that give rise to trustability, trustworthiness, and trust. This paper introduces social scientific perspectives that illuminate the nature of trust that A-HMT-S must produce as they take root in society. It does so by integrating key theoretical perspectives: the ecological theory of actors and their tasks, theory on the introduction of social problems into the civic sphere, and the material political economy framework developed in the sociological study of markets.

A two-phased decision-making based grey theory framework for the best choice of payment methods in international trade

This study aims to propose a two-staged Analytic Hierarchy Process and COmplex PRoportional ASsessment model-based Grey Theory (AHP-G and COPRAS-G) to explore critical elements affecting international payment method selection in the case of import-export Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) from emerging countries. First, the AHP-G model is applied to determine the relative weights of essential factors. Second, the COPRAS- G approach prioritizes international payment method alternatives. From the literature review and experts' opinions, five main criteria were established, including: “relationship between the two parties” (RE), “type of goods” (GO), “political-economic framework factor” (MA), “characteristics of payment method” (PA); “opinions and requirements of external parties” (EX) and four international payment methods are considered as frequent payment alternatives. A real-world case study from Vietnamese SMEs in the import-export industry is presented to exemplify the applicability and robustness of the proposed approach. The weighting results indicated that (PA) had the most significant impact on international payment method selection, followed by (MA) and (RE). Letter of credit (L/C) is considered the most reliable payment method for SMEs. Furthermore, a comparative analysis was performed to examine the validity of the proposed model. The proposed approach would assist stakeholders in import-export SMEs and other industries in effectively selecting suitable payment methods in international trade.