Corporate Power Research Articles

The making of the Philippines as a Neoliberal Nation-State: Dissecting the global-local nexus and their implications for social change

AbstractThe neoliberal globalization project of expanding and maintaining capitalism globally requires the shaping of neoliberal nation-states that will entrench its ideology, political structures, and practices. In that sense, the neoliberal nation-state provides an appropriate conceptual site for investigating the local-global nexus in the dynamics of global capitalism. Using the Philippines as an example, this paper investigates the various factors or dimensions in the making of the Philippines as a neoliberal nation-state from the colonial era to the supranational structures that exert external control on the Philippine political economy: the global power of transnational corporations, the IMF, American and Chinese imperialism, including the American military aid that supports militarization and counter-insurgency against movements that challenge the neoliberal agenda of the past and current regimes. In addition, this paper offers implications for policy changes and strategies for global resistance that anti-globalization movements can consider.

The incumbent advantage: corporate power in agri-food tech

ABSTRACT The agri-food tech sector is touted for its potential to disrupt established industry. Yet research reveals that incumbent agribusinesses are buying their way into the sector through startup investments and acquisitions. Drawing from extensive qualitative research, we show that incumbent influence also shapes agri-food tech in more subtle and pervasive ways. Startups rely on incumbents’ social and material infrastructure to achieve the rapid growth demanded by their venture capital funders. Incumbent influence, we argue, is ambient, continuous, and frequently indirect. It saturates the spaces where malleable startups take shape, influencing even those with whom incumbents have no direct contact.

Breastfeeding, first-food systems and corporate power: a case study on the market and political practices of the transnational baby food industry in Brazil.

The exploitative marketing of commercial milk formula (CMF) reduces breastfeeding, and harms child and maternal health globally. Yet forty years after the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes (The Code) was adopted by WHO member states, many countries are still to fully implement its provisions into national law. Furthermore, despite The Code, worldwide CMF markets have markedly expanded. In this paper, we adopt Brazil as a case study to understand the power of the baby food industry's marketing and corporate political activity, and how this influences the country's 'first-food system' in ways that promote and sustain CMF consumption. We used a case study design, drawing data from from documents and key informant interviews (N = 10). Breastfeeding rates plummeted in Brazil to a historic low in the 1970s. A resurgence in breastfeeding from the mid-1980s onwards reflected strengthening political commitment for a national policy framework and breastfeeding protection law, resulting in-turn, from collective actions by breastfeeding coalitions, advocates, and mothers. Yet more recently, improvements in breastfeeding have plateaued in Brazil, while the industry grew CMF sales in Brazil by 750% between 2006 and 20. As regulations tightened, the industry has more aggressively promoted CMF for older infants and young children, as well as specialised formulas. The baby food industry is empowered through association with powerful industry groups, and employs lobbyists with good access to policymakers. The industry has captured the pediatric profession in Brazil through its long-standing association with the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics. Brazil illustrates how the baby food industry uses marketing and political activity to promote and sustain CMF markets, to the detriment of breastfeeding. Our results demonstrate that this industry requires much greater scrutiny by regulators.

Growing Restiveness of the Peasantry in Contemporary India: Context and Challenges

The global rise of neoliberalism has drastically altered the economic landscape of the peasantry and deepened the agrarian crisis of the countries of the Global South, including India. The roots of India’s agrarian crisis can be traced to a very significant transition from dirigiste to a neoliberal macroeconomic policy regime, in 1991, which has continued till date. Its most gruesome manifestation has been high and ever-rising farmers’ suicides. Factors such as substantial compression of rural development expenditures, increasing input prices, vulnerability to world market price fluctuations due to greater openness, inadequate crop insurance and substantial weakening of the provisioning for credit, along with the governments’ apathy to the demand for remunerative prices for farm produce, are among the obvious causal correlates of the contemporary agrarian crisis in the country. An important consequence has been a steady building up of peasant resistance, particularly over the last decade, leading up to the recent mass protests. Given their scale, intensity, and tenacity, they have been widely hailed as among the most significant resistance movements within the country and across the world against the machinations of corporate power and the interests of big business. This article addresses some of the primary features of the farmers’ movement in India, and the contradictions and challenges with which it has been contending.

International Laws and The Reality: The Complexity of Corporate Law in Empowering Human Rights

Corporations inevitably violate human rights in a variety of ways. As corporations evolved into massive multinational businesses, corporate violence—which is a legacy of colonialism and corporate power—continues to exist today. Corporate players maintain their freedom in pursuing their objectives using convoluted and obscure multinational organizations and supply networks, through the utilization of corporate law principles like the veil of corporate ownership, and also through other practices like tax evasion and lobbying of political bodies. The objective of this article is to explore the legal aspects of the problem of corporate violence, and suggesting reforms to ensure justice for the affected parties. This article uses the doctrinal research method along with the comparative method, focusing on both primary and secondary data. This article makes the case that the issue stems from the structural and systemic flaws in the framework of international law as well as in corporate laws that continually preserve corporate institutions in frustrating the advancement of the cause for human rights. To effectively enhance the corporate and human rights environment, a framework of hard law, soft law, and non-law reforms and actions is needed.

Media Policy, Structural Power, and Political Development at the US State-Corporate Interface

This article illuminates an underappreciated political dimension of capitalism by elaborating media policy as a site for the dynamic interaction of corporate power and the state. Synthesizing Marxian analyses of monopoly capital, American political development (APD) perspectives on public policymaking, and communication studies conceptions of media systems as fields of democratic struggle, I trace the institutional mechanisms that enable corporate media interests to reinforce systemic imperatives and maintain political-economic dominance. I illustrate my argument with examples from the Telecommunications Act of 1996. My analysis sharpens APD’s critical edge by defining path dependency, policy feedback, and policy drift as processes through which capital leverages structural power to fend off political challenges under changing economic, social, and technological conditions. State-sanctioned ownership and control of news outlets, communication platforms, and information networks furnish a unique mechanism for influencing the structural terms of public discourse on all issues, including media policy. This implicates corporate media power in the ongoing US political communication crisis and as a central force in the entrenchment of inegalitarian and undemocratic social relations. Lending greater theoretical coherence and empirical grounding to these material and ideological dynamics historicizes public communication and highlights contingent political openings for radical engagement with media policy.

Agroecology and corporate power in the U.S.

Agroecology and corporate power in the U.S.

Smoke and Mirrors? AI Regulation and Corporate Power

Smoke and Mirrors? AI Regulation and Corporate Power

An Overview Regarding the U.S domestic Economic Strategies: Role of Think Tanks

Even though federal government of U.S play the primary role in managing the nations various systems such as fiscal policy, healthcare, defense and welfare, the existence of different political ideologies plays a part in national and international stability[1] , in sense that each ideology strategy in managing economic issues reach a different conclusion, proved by the numerous economical tragedies such as the greater recession , implements the bases of each ideologies perspective on government's role in reducing economic inequality, addressing job displacement due to technological change, and striking a balance between free market principles and government intervention during economic crises.1 To discuss the economical view of each side, one must fully understand in clarity the differences between two ideologies, in simplest form liberalism is described by the government's sole responsibly in preserving freedom protections its citizens individual liberty while also minimizing its intervention in its citizens lives, on the other hand, conservatism allows the government vast influence thus to conserve the established norms and institutions such as the cultural and religious traditions of its nation. While this is nearly the correct definition of what each ideology stands for, such political movements do tend to abuse power through the ideological privileges they stand for. Furthermore, the existence of the federal government is crucial in interfering with conservative or liberal administrations when their policies threaten economic stability. Federal governments’ regulatory agencies such as federal reserves and the Environmental protection agencies exist to act as checks on extreme economic policies. Under a conservative administration that Favors deregulation and reduced taxes, the federal government may intervene to prevent excessive corporate power or environmental harm that could arise from such policies.[2] Conversely, in a liberal administration pushing for expansive social programs or aggressive tax hikes, the federal government’s budgetary and constitutional frameworks can limit excessive spending or prevent overreach that may stifle economic growth.[3] Thus, regardless of the political ideology in power, the federal government ensures a balanced approach to economic management by safeguarding essential public interests while keeping national economic stability.

Land, Labor, and the Railroad in Industrial Appalachia: How the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Engineered Space, 1843-1872

During the nineteenth century, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad reshaped the social, political, and physical environment of the mid-Atlantic around the needs of the industrial economy. The creation of industrial space, and the proliferation of communities to populate it, is seen retrospectively as an inevitable consequence of technological innovation, but engaging with contemporary corporate records reveals that this space, like the railroad, was engineered. In order to design a supply chain that would make industrialization economical, the railroad and coal industries engaged in political and social engineering to design the new locales of industrialism, exemplified in the Allegheny Mountains by the coal company town. As this new type of space was populated by the workers necessary to its function, the spatial practices of those workers and their families informed its evolution, defining its boundaries and informing the ways in which it transcended them. Using an environment as methodology, this paper explores the early history of American industrialism, the spatial inflection of corporate power, and the role of working class contestations in the construction of the built environment.

Corporate Power Purchase Agreements: A Policy Perspective

Corporate Power Purchase Agreements: A Policy Perspective

Land, Labor, and the Railroad in Industrial Appalachia: How the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Engineered Space, 1843-1872

During the nineteenth century, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad reshaped the social, political, and physical environment of the mid-Atlantic around the needs of the industrial economy. The creation of industrial space, and the proliferation of communities to populate it, is seen retrospectively as an inevitable consequence of technological innovation, but engaging with contemporary corporate records reveals that this space, like the railroad, was engineered. In order to design a supply chain that would make industrialization economical, the railroad and coal industries engaged in political and social engineering to design the new locales of industrialism, exemplified in the Allegheny Mountains by the coal company town. As this new type of space was populated by the workers necessary to its function, the spatial practices of those workers and their families informed its evolution, defining its boundaries and informing the ways in which it transcended them. Using an environment as methodology, this paper explores the early history of American industrialism, the spatial inflection of corporate power, and the role of working class contestations in the construction of the built environment.

Analysing the Influence of Talent Management Strategies on Organisational Performance at Namibia Power Corporation

Talent management strategies have a huge impact on the productivity of employees in various organisations of which Namibia Power Corporation (Nam Power), Windhoek, Namibia is no exception. The locus of this study was to analyse the influence of talent management on organizational performance. The study aimed to analyse the impact of strategic talent management strategies on organisational performance at Nam Power, to determine the factors that hinder talent management in an organisation, and to design a model for the implementation of talent management programs that enhance organisational performance. The research philosophy underpinning this study is descriptive in nature and used to establish the association between the dependent and independent variables. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were applied to collect the data. Some data was subjected to rigorous quantitative analysis through the use of questionnaires and managers were also interviewed to collect qualitative data. The collected data was analysed and synthesised using SPSS (Statistical Package of Social Science) software with multiple regression analysis. This software enabled the researcher to analyse data, visualize findings, and draw meaningful conclusions. The researcher used regression analysis to examine the relationship between the predictor variable and outcome. The data was analysed and displayed using bar graphs and pie charts in Microsoft Excel. The study revealed that the factors that hinder talent management in the organisation institution among others include a shortage of capacity building and professional development, absence of enthusiasm, and a shortage of professional development programs. It was recommended that to attract, develop, and maintain high-performing employees in the organisation, management should introduce increased salaries, create staff development programs, advocate for a clear communication channel between staff and leadership, and have a dynamic team of human resources professionals with competent HR systems and procedures. The study further recommends that for these programs to effectively yield good results, the organisation needs to design a talent management model that should include these components such as planning, attracting, developing, retaining, and transitioning.

Human resource accounting in public sector undertakings: A case study on national thermal power corporation limited

Human resource accounting in public sector undertakings: A case study on national thermal power corporation limited

Distribution System Operator (DSO) Functions in South Korea—Part I: Development, Practical Obstacles, and Future Work

This paper presents our initial research findings on distribution system operator (DSO) functions in South Korea. The project team includes the Korean Electric Power Corporation, which is the only public utility company in South Korea. The planned development is based on a real distribution network and real‐world environments. The project encompasses DSO–transmission system operator coordination and management of real‐time distribution network congestion; this paper focuses on the latter aspect. For real‐time congestion management, algorithms that handle all steps from database analysis to data export, including data preprocessing, topological configuration, power flow calculation, sensitivity analysis, and derivation of solutions to congestion, are developed. The distribution system equipment database of Korean Electric Power Corporation is used to develop a network congestion management system. When examining the database, many gaps between the theoretical and practical environments were found which are introduced in this paper. A practical distribution network database for South Korea is developed to narrow these gaps and to implement practical congestion management techniques. The remaining problems are introduced as future works.

Research on Hierarchical Layer Strategy for Power Material Warehouses---A Case Study of X-Electric Power Corporation

We will raise total factor productivity to make China’s industrial and supply chains more resilient and secure. This paper first provides a hierarchical layer strategy and proposes a hierarchical layout model to minimize operating costs. Warehouse management of electrical materials is a critical link in power supply. This paper analyses the situation of power material warehouse layout, including the models of warehouses layout and the main functions of each warehouse. Then makes a hierarchical layer strategy for power material warehouses on X electric power corporation. Distribution Centre is needed for allocation when the power material companies transport critical production. The flow of materials is draw. Finally, built the hierarchical layer strategy model of power material warehouses, which must consider many influencing factors, such as transportation costs, warehouse maintenance costs, and time penalty costs. This serves as a foundation for research into active distribution of electrical materials.

Detato: Perjalanan Identitas "Kesalehan" dalam Kebertubuhan

This article examines detattooing (tattoo removal) as an expression of pious identity tied to the objectification of the body, which is inseparable from the hege­monic “pietism” of the socialized body. In the discourse of the revival of piety in contemporary Indonesia, the struggle for body identity in the Hijrah Tattoo Program shows the commotion between personal meanings and the occurrence of a conflict of power. Using in-depth interview methods and internet searching, as well as a psycho­analytic perspective, particularly that of the three registers elaborated by Jacques Lacan, this study juxtaposes and compares the strength of political, corporate, re­ligious, and family power relations in the practice of detattoo and the three stages of detattooization in Indonesia. The results of the analysis show that detattooization in the discourse of social piety is a product of the hegemony of political, corporate, and religious power relations which are managed by the subjects of detattoo as a negotiating strategy to reclaim access to conditions of fulfillment validated by the family hierarchy.

Corporate Power, Environmental Devastation and Children's Literature: Insights from Dr. Seuss's The Lorax and Bill Peet's The Wump World

Corporate Power, Environmental Devastation and Children's Literature: Insights from Dr. Seuss's The Lorax and Bill Peet's The Wump World

Contesting corporate responsibility in the Bangladesh garment industry: The local factory owner perspective

In the developing economy of Bangladesh, local factory owners in the garment industry have felt great pressure to improve factory safety, but the costs for those improvements are not shared by the global apparel firms that wield immense influence over them. Consequently, we examine whether multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), as vehicles of corporate social responsibility (CSR), offer platforms for democratic oversight or merely serve as new arenas to exercise corporate power. Given their role in connecting global and local contexts and their history of safety incidents, local factory owners possess a unique perspective on the impact and contested nature of CSR in global supply chains. This article presents a qualitative study of MSIs in the Bangladesh garment industry, particularly after the Rana Plaza collapse. Through interviews with local factory owners and executive managers, we explore the reasons behind their opposition to CSR as exercised by global apparel firms, and the contestation of those practices by their local business association. Our findings lead us to conclude that garment industry MSIs are unlikely to be effective without labor procurement practices that harmonize global and local interests to mitigate the competitive pressures on local factory owners.

Future scenarios of digital technology-driven energy consumption in South Korea

This study explored potential future scenarios of digital technology-driven energy consumption in South Korea. A Battelle Scenario Inputs to Corporate Strategies analysis was conducted to derive the future scenarios. This study identified four key factors and the specific order among factors that will drive future energy consumption: energy mix, energy network, energy trading market, and changes in the industrial structure. A total of 13 scenarios were derived, and the three most likely scenarios were identified. In the first scenario, energy efficiency centered around Korea Electric Power Corporation. The second scenario involved a transition to a digitally powered society. Finally, an energy-centered, hyper-connected society was predicted for the third scenario.