National Trajectories Research Articles

Statecraft strategies and housing financialization at the periphery: Post-socialist trajectories in Russia and Poland

AbstractA new literature on housing and financialization has emerged in recent years, but scholars have yet to examine how political actors shape national trajectories of housing financialization. In this article, we address this shortcoming by examining the cases of Russia and Poland in the 1990-2018 period. We argue that in both contexts political elites implemented a radical market-oriented reshaping of housing finance. However, by pursuing distinct statecraft strategies and modes of integrating the domestic economy into global markets, Russian and Polish political elites created two divergent trajectories of housing financialization. Russian political elites pursued patrimonial statecraft strategies and a mode of global economic integration based on raw material exports. The Putin administration channeled revenues from raw material exports into the securitization-based housing finance system and used this infrastructure as an instrument of hegemonic power. In doing so, the Russian government shielded homeowners from exposure to financial risk. In contrast, Polish political elites pursued liberal statecraft strategies and a mode of global economic integration based on foreign capital inflows. Polish political parties therefore enabled foreign banks to dominate the housing finance system and sell foreign currency mortgages, which exposed homeowners to considerable financial risk. In light of these findings we call for further research into the political factors that shape the process of housing financialization, both in the post-socialist space and beyond.

A relational perspective on the dynamics of the organic sector in Austria, Italy, and France

Despite a common legal framework at EU-level, organic farming has developed differently in Member States. Previous analyses showed the influence of various factors on the development of the organic sector, including public policies, discourses, and marketing channels. Building on a relational perspective, we propose a conceptual framework that provides a situated understanding of national trajectories. We argue that the organic sector emerges based on relations between organic actors, policymakers, mainstream farmers associations, advocacy groups, and actors along the food chain. Based on these relations, we analyse the development of the organic sector in Austria, Italy, and France. We show that its dynamics result from a complex and evolving intertwining of relations over time. These dynamics are unpredictable, as they depend on whether and how actors can build and maintain relations between organic agriculture and broader issues in the agrifood system, such as the maintenance of family farms, environmental protection, gastronomic heritage, fairness in the food chain, or export promotion. The relational perspective highlights the historicity of relations, as well as the extent to which relations are influenced by the temporal and the spatial context. By framing the agrifood system as an ensemble of emergent social practices rather than a field of invariant logic and automatic unfoldings, the relational perspective emphasises the importance of seizing windows of opportunity, and the role of creativity in actions.

Child Labour in India: Literary Representations along the Trajectory of Nation

This paper will examine literary representations of children as earning members of society against the history of child labour in India, as a means of understanding the relationship between class, labour, nationalism and childhood. It is part of my ongoing attempt to examine formulations of childhood in the Global South as a way of engaging with the concept of ‘multiple childhoods’ and examining their position vis-à-vis global, universal (and, according to scholars like Emer O' Sullivan, Western) paradigms of childhood. In the wake of The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2016, the historical and constitutional journey India embarks on is examined, beginning with the Indian Factory Act, 1881, along the path of its nascent nationhood, to The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 and the subsequent Amendment. The focus is on Mulk Raj Anand's Coolie and Anita Desai's The Village by the Sea as texts which portray two different modes of thinking about labouring children. Applying Viviana Zelizer's definitions of the ‘uselessness’ and ‘usefulness’ of children, my paper studies these two literary representations of useful childhood in India, published at different points in India's journey as a nation, in a political and historical continuum within which the futurity of a young country is embodied by the willing labour of youth.

Reforming a state in formation: from Structural Adjustment Programs to Results-Based Management – lessons from two decades of administrative reform in Cameroon

This article sets out to examine, from a socio-historical standpoint, the administrative change process specific to Cameroon. By analyzing the mechanisms and processes driving the administrative reforms put in place since the end of the 1980s, the study pinpoints the regularities characteristic of the national trajectory of administrative reform in Cameroon. The article is divided into three sections. The first presents the analytical approach chosen. The second part presents the various repertoires of the reforms put in place, as well as an overview of the main programs. The third, finally, sets outs the lessons drawn from the study.Points for practitionersThe article explores the dynamic relationship between the production of administrative reforms and the impact of reforms on the politico-administrative order in Cameroon. It is thus demonstrated that while reform has become considered over the years as a specialized know-how and an objective framework for the construction of public action, it continues to be plagued by rationales that are foreign to the organizational purpose, and comes across as the “art of doing.”

Democratic Waves in Historical Perspective

For over two centuries, the evolution of democracy has been marked by repeated democratic waves. Yet these cross-border bursts of revolution and reform have varied widely in their origins, intensity, and success rates. How do we compare cascades of regime change, and what lessons do they offer about the spread of democracy? I lay out a historical framework of democratic waves that focuses on recurring causal mechanisms across time. Thirteen democratic waves are categorized according to two dimensions: 1) the origins of external influence, located in eitherverticalhegemonic transformations or inhorizontalcross-border linkages; 2) the strength of external influence, taking the form ofcontagionwhen outside forces dominate andemulationwhen domestic focal points shape the timing of contention. This approach allows for more meaningful comparisons between these important, recurring, yet seemingly incomparable democratic waves. More generally, it suggests that the global history of democracy cannot be reduced to the sum of its national trajectories.

Institutionalizing EU strategic spatial planning into domestic planning systems: trajectories of change in Italy and England

ABSTRACTThis paper proposes approaching the emergence and evolution of the Europeanization of national planning using conceptual frameworks from historical institutionalism in order to shed light on the mechanisms and trajectories of domestic change arising from the influence of EU strategic planning. It seeks in particular to examine Europeanization in terms of the extent to which EU spatial planning has become a driving force for institutional changes in very different national planning systems. Returning to the changes that occurred in the Italian and English planning systems in the last two decades, the author provides insight into the attempts to insert and transpose EU spatial planning concepts and instruments into domestic systems, dealing with path dependency and European influence. By reading these processes from a historical institutionalist perspective, the paper aims to enhance understanding of the relative influence of European spatial planning on national planning systems, identifying mechanisms and trajectories of domestic change in different planning systems. Key findings concern the diverse modes and degree of institutionalization of EU strategic spatial planning, examining tendencies to replace the status quo through displacements in England and to progress through a path-dependent trajectory in Italy.

A participatory methodology for future scenario analysis of sub-national water and sanitation access: case study of Kisumu, Kenya

ABSTRACTThis study pilots a participatory methodology for sub-national spatial planning of urban and peri-urban water and sanitation services. Three groups of key informants were presented with evidence on national historic and future service provision trajectories and asked to map water and sanitation access in the city of Kisumu, Kenya, by 2030, assuming current trends continue. Comparison of the groups’ outputs suggests greater certainty among participants regarding service access in Kisumu’s urban core compared to peri-urban areas. We discuss extensions to this preliminary methodology, including the potential benefits of its application to Kenya’s rapidly expanding small towns as suggested by participants.

Market integration and transformation of business politics: diverging trajectories of corporatisms in Mexico and Turkey

Abstract Transformation of interest politics in the context of globalization has been widely studied with respect to advanced countries. In a similar vein, this article examines the recent transformations and diverging national trajectories against the backdrop of global market integration, focusing on business politics in upper-middle-income countries. Tackling the ways in which domestic political arrangements refract the impact of global forces, the article indicates that the market integration process engenders diverging effects in national settings contingent upon executive–legislative relations. Where power is concentrated in the executive, market integration upholds a form of corporatism; and where legislative power increases, it promotes a form of pluralism. Based on the empirics of Mexico and Turkey, this article shows the links between increasing legislative power and emerging legislative lobbying in Mexico in contrast to increasing executive power and centralization and concentration of interest politics in Turkey. It delineates a major variation in national trajectories in business politics in the age of globalization—the rise of ‘elite-pluralism’ dominated by large firms in the former, and ‘competitive corporatism’ vastly controlled by the executive branch in the latter.

Chinese Nationality and Coloniality of Hong Kong Student Movement, 1960–1970s

Abstract The present study investigates the episode of Hong Kong student movement in the 1960s to 1970s inspired by the charismatic idea of the Chinese Nation. Unlike most other cases of nationalist politics in colonial societies, Chinese identity politics in Hong Kong not only failed to challenge fundamentally the legitimacy of the British colonial state. It also did not proselytise Hong Kong people towards Chinese national identification and preoccupy Hong Kong society with the Chinese Question thereafter. Propitious colonial modernisation experience acting upon a diasporic population, which found it hard to establish meaningful rapport with the Chinese Nation, had attributed to the eccentric trajectory of Chinese Nationalism in Hong Kong. Local societal and cultural formations were then the eclectic solution to the ideational paradox of colonial modernity and Chinese Nationality in Hong Kong, which, however, remains problematic on its own, and connects closely with the lingering coloniality observed in this post-colonial society.

Comparing persons found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder for sexual offences versus nonsexual violent offences

ABSTRACTUsing data from the National Trajectory Project, we compared 50 individuals found Not Criminally Responsible on account of Mental Disorder (NCRMD) for sexual offences with 50 age- and gender-matched individuals found NCRMD for nonsexually violent offences. We also described the concurrent offenses, the symptoms at the time of the offense and the characteristics of the victims of offenders found NCRMD for sexual offences. Persons found NCRMD for sexual offences were less likely to be employed and were significantly younger at time of first psychiatric contact, but did not differ in other sociodemographic characteristics, other aspects of their psychiatric histories or in criminal history. Despite no differences in recidivism and no differences in behaviours between Review Board hearings when adjusting for unequal time at risk, persons found NCRMD for sexual offences had longer tenures under a Review Board mandate than persons found NCRMD for nonsexually violent offences. Given the many similarities between the two groups, this finding suggests that Review Boards may be unnecessarily conservative in how they manage sexual offenders.

Regional Growth Paths and Resilience: A European Analysis

abstractResearch highlighting the differential resilience of economies to shocks opens up the possibility that long-run growth paths are associated with how regions cope with and recover from such shocks. To date, however, there has been limited exploration into whether long-run evolutionary growth paths or trajectories influence regional economic resilience and what types of trajectories might be more associated with resilience. This article explores the connections between regional economic resilience and regional and national growth trajectories by utilizing a novel set of methods to group regions according to the similarity of their growth paths, identifying the relative importance of national growth for regional growth, and categorizing regions according to their resilience to the 2007–2008 economic crisis. The results suggest that regions have empirically identifiable long-run and path-dependent development trajectories that are significantly associated with industrial employment shares and observed resilience outcomes. Critically, however, these regional growth paths are significantly shaped by national trajectories. Furthermore, regions with greater employment shares in sectors that are less susceptible to demand fluctuations are likely to experience more stable growth rates and be more resilient to economic downturns. This has implications for understanding the importance of evolutionary trends and specifically the role of national contexts and industrial legacies in shaping regional resilience.

Probabilistic projection of subnational total fertility rates.

BACKGROUNDWe consider the problem of probabilistic projection of the total fertility rate (TFR) for subnational regions.OBJECTIVEWe seek a method that is consistent with the UN’s recently adopted Bayesian method for probabilistic TFR projections for all countries and works well for all countries.METHODSWe assess various possible methods using subnational TFR data for 47 countries.RESULTSWe find that the method that performs best in terms of out-of-sample predictive performance and also in terms of reproducing the within-country correlation in TFR is a method that scales each national trajectory from the national predictive posterior distribution by a region-specific scale factor that is allowed to vary slowly over time.CONCLUSIONSProbabilistic projections of TFR for subnational units are best produced by scaling the national projection by a slowly time-varying region-specific scale factor. This supports the hypothesis of Watkins (1990, 1991) that within-country TFR converges over time in response to country-specific factors, and thus extends the Watkins hypothesis to the last 50 years and to a much wider range of countries around the world.CONTRIBUTIONWe have developed a new method for probabilistic projection of subnational TFR that works well and outperforms other methods. This also sheds light on the extent to which within-country TFR converges over time.

Two worlds of educational research? Comparing the levels, objects, disciplines, methodologies, and themes in educational research in the UK and Germany, 2005–2015

Embedded in social worlds, education systems and research reflect distinct national trajectories. We compare two contrasting traditions of educational research (ER). Whereas British ER exhibits a multidisciplinary and pragmatic character, German ER reflects pedagogy and mainly humanities-based traditions. Yet, in both countries, policymakers’ growing demand for evidence in ER resulted in increased funding, specific research programs, and mandatory large-scale assessments. These have reshaped the field, suggesting more similar ER agendas. Based on a comprehensive original dataset of basic ER projects funded by the main grant-making agencies in both countries (2005–2015), we analyze five dimensions: levels, objects, disciplines, methodologies, and themes. We find epistemic drift, with partial convergence characterized by a multi-level focus, multidisciplinary approach, strongly empirical and quantitative methodology, and a premium on teaching and learning themes. The cases remain distinct in exploring systemic questions in a wider contextual frame (UK) or concentrating more narrowly on the individual learner (Germany).

Psicologia Escolar no Maranhão: História da Formação e Tendências Atuais para Atuação

This article discusses historical aspects about the education in School Psychology in Maranhão, from documentary sources and locally produced literature of the area. In order to carry out a critical and contextualized analysis upon the insertion of such matter in Maranhão’s scenario, it will be necessary to consider factors related to the national trajectory of Psychology and its ramifications for education and performance in the regional scenario. In the first part, it will be presented historical information on the training in Psychology in Maranhão, within the context of Psychology in Brazil. Secondly, the panorama of education of school psychologists in Maranhão will be discussed: transformations occurred through the last decades in the context of Higher Education Institutions will be highlighted, with focus on the Federal University of Maranhão and CEUMA University. Finally, it will construct some reflections over training trends and challenges, regarding the regional demands of school psychologists, based on data from the Regional Council of Psychology in Maranhão.

The Emergence of Australian Film Criticism

In this article, we trace the emergence of film criticism in Australia, from the period of its first appearance in the 1920s to its formalisation in the academy in the 1970s. Through an examination of trade, fan, newspaper and journal publications, we identify along the way four significant moments when broader industrial, public and institutional configurations gave rise to different kinds of film criticism: an ‘independent commentary moment’ (the 1920s), a ‘film as film moment’ (1930s), a ‘film appreciation moment’ (1950s–1960s) and a ‘production principle moment’ (1970s). Each attended to some new way of taking up and being with film and is associated with its own particular array of practices. This historical trajectory of film criticism was characterised by increasing complexity and variety. Rather than replacing or displacing existing forms, each new form of film criticism built upon existing forms, produced new layerings and relations among critical forms. Using Bennett’s [Making Culture, Changing Society (Abingdon, 2013), 125.] perspectives on the relation between culture and government, we identify film criticism as a form of expertise for adjudicating films and guiding their uptake. In this way, we show film criticism as being shaped not only by the shifting priorities of film and the film world, but also by broader contingencies of media, education and public culture. This lens reveals an important Australian difference when compared to the US, Britain and continental Europe: the Australian uptake of a film-as-film aesthetics in longer form film writing and reviewing is very much a response to and a consequence of the coming of sound rather than of the late silent period. We end with some remarks on the contribution this national trajectory of film reviewing made to the formation of film writing in the Australian academy and to the revival of Australian film-making, which both began in earnest in the 1970s.

Foreign Policy’s Role in Promoting Development: the Brazilian and Turkish Cases

Foreign policy’s role in promoting a country’s development is a matter of great importance for understanding its national trajectory, especially in the case of an emerging country. This article aims to analyse lines of action of foreign policy that help emerging countries’ development. In order to do so, it has as its main hypothesis that six lines of action work together towards that goal: (a) trade promotion; (b) investment policy; (c) economic, financial, and commercial negotiations; (d) resource exploration rights; (e) international co-operation; and (f) international projection. To verify their applicability, it analyses the cases of two emerging countries, Brazil and Turkey.

The impact of public services outsourcing on work and employment conditions in different national regimes

This article examines the impact of outsourcing of public services on employment relations and working conditions in three countries: Italy, the United Kingdom and Denmark. It presents six matched case studies and investigates whether contracting out by public administrations causes a market-driven convergence across national boundaries or whether cross-country differences endure. Although outsourcing blurs the organizational boundaries between public and private sectors everywhere, making terms and conditions of employment fragmented and less protected, distinct structures and legacies of national employment relations institutions result in differences between national trajectories.

China and Japan: A Clash of Two “Anti-Status Quo” Powers?

Sino–Japanese political antagonism is, in part, driven by a clash between two “anti-status quo” powers. Ironically, both China and Japan, despite being neighbours, may view “the other” as an anti-status quo power threatening its own status, interests and aspirations in East Asia. Both are major Northeast Asian powers with their own concepts of regional and global order but their preferred orders invariably clash with each other. Apparently, China seeks to become a more complete great power while Japan aspires to be a “normal” state. The vector of these two national trajectories may well result in tension and conflict, threatening the regional status quo and leading to a new order in international affairs.

Handle with Care: The influence of New Institutionalism on Collection Displays in Italian Contemporary Art Museums

This article examines the curatorial debate in Italy over the last decade, concentrating specifically on the curatorial experiences implemented in permanent collections within museums of contemporary art that have registered a higher degree of heterodoxy, both on a theoretical and display level. This research is formulated according to two concentric objectives. The first is to observe different national trajectories—until now considered unrelated—as part of a single European collective curatorial experience: New Institutionalism. It will become apparent that the projects under analysis respond to the same mode of conceiving curatorial practice in relation to permanent collections in such a way that, within aesthetic language, a path towards political thinking can be found. The second objective is to highlight how the realignment of the national with respect to the international debate is an essential step to take in order to overcome the position of weakness in which the Italian system currently finds itself. To trace this narrative, the pivotal models of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and Reina Sofia in Madrid will be analyzed first, with the national case studies being delved into later.

The Future of Reconstruction Studies

The Future of Reconstruction Studies Elliott West Reconstruction in the West http://journalofthecivilwarera.org/forum-the-future-of-reconstruction-studies It is time to reconstruct our thinking about Reconstruction. Specifically, we need to reconceive the middle of the nineteenth century as a time when the United States was fundamentally changed by two events, the Civil War and our expansion to the Pacific between 1845 and 1848. Each event altered greatly the national trajectory, and so each deserves our attention on its own terms. Both, however, interacted, raised, or amplified the same basic questions and answered those questions in strikingly similar ways. Bringing the two narratives together requires us to expand the boundaries of Reconstruction in both time and space. The Greater Reconstruction began in 1845 and ended around 1877, with the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the South and the culmination of the War against Indian America, and it encompassed the full expanded nation, from coast to coast and in its new international connections, in particular with Latin America to the south and the Pacific basin the west. Expansion played crucially in the national narrative from then until now. It brought into the United States’ boundaries the extraordinary resources, starting with gold and silver, that fueled the nation’s rise to global power. Its geographical challenges provoked new technologies and new partnerships of government and business. Its sudden inclusion of former Mexican citizens and dozens of native peoples greatly heightened old questions of citizenship, while its new international borders brought opportunities and problems that continue to profit and bedevil the nation. That last point is illustrated by a brief consideration of the United States’ turn toward the Pacific world after 1848, including how Pacific dreams inspired southern passions for connections to the far coast during the prewar years. In any case, a satisfying narrative of those crucial years is possible only when we see South, North, and West in play together in reconstructing the nation. [End Page 14] Copyright © 2017 The University of North Carolina Press