Transnational Level Research Articles

Can access to company boards improve transnational employee representation? Insights from employee representation in European Companies

Ways of strengthening workers’ voice within multinational companies, especially with regard to cross-border restructuring, have been much discussed in recent years. Research shows that European Works Councils (EWCs) are not always informed and consulted in a timely or comprehensive manner, limiting and sometimes entirely preventing employee representatives from exercising early and coordinated influence at transnational level. Against this backdrop, one might ask whether access to bodies such as supervisory and administrative boards, in which economic and strategic decisions are taken, can make a difference to transnational employee representation. Little is known, however, about how institutions for transnational information and consultation are linked to board-level employee representation. This article aims to fill this research gap by analysing the different modes of horizontal articulation between SE Works Councils and board-level employee representation within European Companies (Societas Europaea). Building on evidence from case studies, we identify a number of different modes of articulation and highlight how articulation rests mainly on and is sustained by the overlapping roles of the individuals involved and the holding of multiple mandates.

Study and work paving the way for Moroccan migrants: the entrepreneurial path to transnational and domestic business activities

Abstract In this article we look at the various paths taken by transnational and domestic entrepreneurs based on their education and work experience. These act as catalysts for skills that allow migrant entrepreneurs to better position themselves in different markets. Differences in migrant entrepreneurs allow us to better understand the strategies employed and the consequences for society and the economy at both domestic and transnational levels. Earlier research has extensively analysed individual characteristics of migrant entrepreneurs and, to a much lesser extent, the geographical nature of their business activities. This article addresses this gap by looking at the geographical orientation of migrant entrepreneurs’ businesses. The research question is as follows: In what ways are transnational or domestic activities of Moroccan migrant entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and Italy influenced by skills acquired in earlier experiences? We provide empirical evidence on the different paths leading to domestic and transnational activities using a micro-level perspective of the experiences collected in the narratives of first-generation Moroccan migrant entrepreneurs who have migrated to Milan or Amsterdam (N=70). Four different paths combining these two life experiences emerged from the interviews: #1 Job-based, #2 Education-driven, #3 Job-education merger, and #4 By chance (neither education nor work experience). The most relevant paths for migrant entrepreneurs seem to be the first (#1) and third (#3) paths. Furthermore, our findings show that transnationally oriented entrepreneurs have an extended business-oriented education and rely on skills learned, in contrast to domestically oriented entrepreneurs who become entrepreneurs ‘by chance’.

Spacing Decoloniality: De-figuring the Coloniality of Space and Subjectivity in the Caribbean and Oceania

When juxtaposed with more classical Benjaminian concepts, such as aura and the role of storytelling in industrial modernity, the archipelagic vision, which is preeminently spatial and therefore impinges directly on the interface between objective and subjective concerns of ekistics, is emblematic of the political role that art and literature play in refiguring the coloniality of space in the Caribbean and Oceania. The argumentative crux of this article hinges on the premise that, considered as the specifically spatial expression of the cosmological sphere of experience whose generic name is Glissant’s Relation, and taken within the specific historical context of imperial cartographic practices in both regions, the archipelagic is a useful guiding principle that could inform decolonial ekistics policymaking. With that purpose, the author discusses the work of several artists and writers from the Caribbean and Oceania, in order to illustrate how an archipelagic understanding of space and subjectivity inform their practices. By examining the work of Ibrahim Miranda, John Puhiatau Pule, Epeli Hau’ofa and Eduardo Lalo the essay shows that their work constitutes a reactivation, at the transnational level, of the classical modernist motif of re-forming what Walter Benjamin called the human sensorium. Moreover, it is argued that these artists do so in order to challenge and undo the cartographic paradigms that were imposed in the region by successive Western empires. Such acts of cartographical undoing and reformulation under an archipelagic paradigm are important to force Caribbean and Oceanian subjectivities to dissolve the weight of colonial history, as it overdetermines their relationship with their space.

The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’: Construction and legitimation through a discursive institutionalist lens

Transnational policy discourses shape teacher professionalism through discursive patterns in policy initiatives from the global policy actor, OECD. The policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’ has emerged through discourses on teacher professionalism, spurring ambiguities regarding what the policy idea is and ought to be in Sweden. The aim of this article is to critically examine the construction and legitimation of the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’, in relation to teachers and the educational institution, through the lens of discursive institutionalism and strands in Curriculum Theory. The focus is a critical understanding of the interplay between ideas, discourses, actors and institutional context. The analysis of policy documents shows how the policy idea is constructed and legitimised through actors’ coordinative and communicative discourses at the national level, influenced by the OECD at the transnational level. The policy idea is intertwined with ideas and discourses on teachers’ professional development through a national professional programme and institutional conditions for goal attainment in schools. Tensions emerge regarding underlying assumptions about teacher quality, highlighting ideas of what teachers are and ought to be, within comprehensive reform strategies. Tensions entail emerging ideas of standardisation and differentiation and ambiguities regarding the policy idea of ‘the teacher assistant’.

Voluntary standards and the SDGs: Mapping public-private complementarities for sustainable development

To strengthen global sustainability governance, academics and policymakers have called for a better integration of private governance with public policy instruments. Surprisingly, however, systematic research on the state of such public-private complementarities in the field of sustainable development is lacking. With a focus on voluntary sustainability standards and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, this article addresses this research gap. It uses a novel dataset of 232 voluntary standards to examine how their policies and organizational processes interact with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their targets. We identify significant public-private complementarities, but also areas of institutional disconnect. We further explore how the creation of institutional linkages in this issue area is driven by instrumental, managerial, and normative concerns and develop an agenda for future research. This includes research on whether and how intensifying public-private interactions at the transnational level translate into tangible impacts for sustainable development on the ground.

The French connection at the Council of Europe: éducation permanente as a pan-European policy repertoire

ABSTRACT This paper examines transnational circulation of political and pedagogical ideas associated with éducation permanente with particular reference to post-war Western Europe. It offers a socio-historical reconstruction of pan-European dissemination and reception of policy repertoires articulated by governmental and non-governmental policy actors. It focuses on advocacy regarding permanent education as a pan-European repertoire associated with the Council of Europe during the 1960s and 1970s. The paper explores involvement of French and other francophone nationals in circulatory regimes, who were engaged in mediating partisan reform aspirations, exchange of information, and dissemination of innovative practices at national, transnational, and pan-European levels. The more specific focus of this paper addresses participation of ‘rooted cosmopolitans’ in policy formation, who are defined as policy actors rooted in specific national contexts, but who engage in regular activities involving their participation in transnational networks. The conclusions call for further research into circulatory regimes at local, sub-national, regional, national, bilateral, transnational, and pan-European during the 1960s and 1970s. Such research should focus on revisiting different expert, reformist, missionary, and militant networks responsible for building peripatetic ‘scholar-militant-activist’ coalitions that historically contributed to pan-European policy repertoires seeking to mobilise citizens to participate in the unfinished political project of pan-European cultural democracy.

The World Association of Kazakhs as a model of transnational ethnic identifications

The intensification of globalization processes in the modern world, the deepening of relations between states, the openness of interstate borders, the implementation of repatriation policy, the emergence of new modern information technologies have contributed to the acceleration of international migration processes and transnational ethnic identity. The problem of self-determination of the diaspora is transnational, since the ties between the diaspora and the historical homeland include various national-territorial and interstate relations. As a result, networks are being created linking foreign diasporas with their historical homeland, transnational organizations and associations are being created, political actors operating at the international level are being created. One of the striking examples of such a political process is the creation and functioning of the World Association of Kazakhs. The article analyzes the peculiarities of the course of ethnic identity at the transnational level, world experience and the Kazakh model, considers the problem of formation and preservation of national and cultural identity in the context of globalization from the standpoint of ethnopolitical concepts. Topical issues are raised from spiritual and cultural interaction with foreign Kazakhs to economic cooperation, potential forces that can contribute to the development of Kazakhstan, more than five million disparate Kazakh diasporas in the countries of the world, proposals are given that contribute to the development of work in this direction. Keywords: migration policy, national policy, diaspora, irridenta, cooperation, historical homeland, repatriation, World Association of Kazakhs, compatriots.

Humanitarian Assistance in G5 Sahel: Social Sustainability Context of Macrologistics Potential

The G5 Sahel works in collaboration with various international organizations and countries, which are responsible for managing logistics activities, financial flows, and technological solutions. Humanitarian assistance holds a critically important role in the region, despite its multiple challenges and limitations in macroeconomic development. This research aimed to examine the macrologistics potential of humanitarian assistance and protection, on both national and transnational levels, in the social sustainability context. Most of the humanitarian emergencies in the region originate from conflicts, food insecurity, and malnutrition. Sahel countries require multiple initiatives to minimize the negative effects of climate change and natural disasters. The state of logistics infrastructure, a wide range of natural and man-made disasters, as well as the macroeconomic situation of the G5 Sahel, result in common problems with the organization of humanitarian logistics from the national and transboundary perspectives. Based on the selected indicators, identified problems of humanitarian assistance and protection in G5 Sahel suggest that the above-mentioned potential of logistics activities requires tightening of transnational collaboration.

A theory of informal and formal social citizenship and welfare

AbstractFormal social citizenship is limited in how it enables us to think about informal social citizenship and informal welfare. This informal perspective is important in all contexts where access to social rights is negotiated through local and transnational spaces, and where the state is a relatively minor player. By drawing on work on moral economy (Scott, 1976) and informal welfare (Gough and Wood, 2006) the article aims to propose a new theoretical model to understand the nature and social practice of both informal citizenship and welfare. This model departs from a western-centric understanding of nation-state-based citizenship and national welfare states, adopting instead the perspective that informal social citizenship and welfare have existed independently of the nation state as long as there have been human communities. Formal citizenship together with formal welfare rights represent just one particular crystallization of such informal practice. Our proposed model highlights the interdependent (rather than evolutionary) relationship between formal welfare at national level and informal welfare practices at local and transnational levels.

Lessons for Left-Wing Populism from the 2010s Austerity Wave in Europe

Lessons for Left-Wing Populism from the 2010s Austerity Wave in Europe

Statecraft under God: Radical Right Populism meets Christian Nationalism in Bolsonaro’s Brazil

Using Brazil as a case study, we examine ways in which radical right activists and leaders actively participate in world politics through religious nationalist narratives which operate on both national and transnational levels. We propose the existence of a particular subcategory of populist radical right (PRR) politics, which we call religious-populist radical right. Our argument is divided into three parts. First, we argue that religion provides ideational and material capabilities that have allowed the PRR to capture state institutions through elections. Second, we claim that once in power, the PRR’s governing strategy is conducted through transnational culture wars with religious overtones. Third, we argue that the PRR establishes novel patterns of international alliances to advance their vision of a new world order based on independent ethno-religious communities. By exploring the entanglements between the PRR and religious nationalism, we conclude that religion provides the radical right with the ideas, means, and social power to transform both state forms and world orders. Création de l’État devant Dieu : l’intersection du populisme radical de droite et du nationalisme chrétien dans le Brésil de Bolsonaro

The Evolution of Transnational Jihad: Identities, Grievances, and Legitimacy Crisis in Arab States

ABSTRACT This study examines change in the transnationalism of jihad in the light of political processes in Arab states. Reviewing transnational Sunni jihadism from the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s until the demise of the Islamic caliphate in 2019 the article identifies the inception, maturation, and diffusion phases in the evolution of transnational jihad, and traces fluctuations from localism to internationalism and back. The study highlights the link between political dynamics at the state level and jihadist behavior at the transnational level, showing the importance of issues of identity, grievances, and legitimacy in Arab states for understanding global jihad.

The effects of online disinformation on a digital society in a fragile democracy

Internet is part of our daily lives and we live in a digitalized world. Social Media usage has increased rapidly during the outbreak of Covid 19 in 2019, as due to imposed lockdowns, users started spending more time online. Social media is plagued with content containing disinformation, misinformation and hate speech. In the first half of 2020, Facebook has removed 3.3 billion pieces of fake or misleading content. “Disinformation” and “Hate Speech” are the most contested categories on social media as is difficult to agree on a universal definition of these terms. This article discusses problems faced by fragile and unconsolidated democracies on social media and how human rights are often violated at the expense of protection afforded to online free speech. Georgia has been selected as a case country because it has a deeply polarised society which is further ruptured by disinformation circulating on social media. The Article analyses online disinformation data from Georgia, where Facebook is actively used by more than 75% of the adult population, discusses types of disinformation fed to digital society and how it poses a threat to internet users’ human rights. Furthermore, the Article also analyzes the regulatory framework in place at the transnational level to combat disinformation as well as self-regulatory mechanisms adopted by social media platforms on the example of Facebook’s Oversight Board. In the end, the article identifies media literacy as the key instrument in battling online disinformation in Georgia.

“I will sample until things get better – or until I die.” Potential and limits of citizen science to promote social accountability for environmental pollution

Mining can cause harm to both human health and ecosystems. Regulators in low-income countries often struggle to enforce decent environmental standards due to financial, technical, and personal capacity constraints and political capture. In such settings, social accountability strategies are often promoted through which citizens attempt to hold governmental and private actors directly to account and demand better governance. However, social accountability initiatives are rarely effective. We demonstrate how political ecology analysis can inform social accountability theory and practice by identifying the power structures that define the potentials and limits of a social accountability strategy. We study the coal mining area of Hwange in Western Zimbabwe, where mining not only supplies coal to power plants and factories of multinational companies but also pollutes the Deka River. Together with local community monitors, we implemented the first citizen science project conducted in Zimbabwe and identified the sources and extent of the pollution. The scientific data strengthened the community monitors’ advocacy for a cleaner environment and empowered them in their exchanges with the companies and the environmental regulator. However, only some of their demands have been met. The political ecology analysis, spanning from the local to transnational levels, reveals why local social accountability initiatives are insufficient to spring the low-accountability trap in a state captured by a politico-military elite, and why corporate governance regimes have not been successful either. We argue that pro-accountability networks are more effective when they include complementary players such as multinational enterprises, provided their responsible procurement approach moves from a corporate risk management to a developmental logic.

A Contested Pill: Transnational Controversies over Medical Abortion in Germany, France, and the United States

In 1988, French pharmaceutical company Roussel Uclaf introduced Mifepristone (RU 486), a pill which medically induces abortion, but withdrew the drug one month later after severe protests. The abortion pill caused transnational controversies from 1988 to 1993. This article examines these controversies as a gateway to the entanglements between biomedical research, economic interests, and social protests in the last third of the twentieth century, as the American antiabortion movement initiated protests against the drug's French producer and its German parent company after its market release in France. The movement used boycotts against French products and utilized discomforting references to Germany's Nazi past to put pressure on pharmaceutical executives. In contrast, German, French, and American feminists and family-planners relied on transnational networks to enable medical trials and ensure the global distribution of Mifepristone. The article highlights how feminist demands for individual choice and public health concerns clashed with the antiabortion movements’ demands and entrepreneurs’ concerns about crude Holocaust comparisons. It shows that actors on both sides of the abortion controversy employed nonmedical arguments to influence scientific research and social movements acted on a transnational level to influence the market introduction of new biomedical advances.

Keeping the peace in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the quest for positive peace

Southeast Asia has gone through a remarkable transformation in recent decades and seen peaceful change since the end of the Cold War era despite great power interference and rivalry and ongoing territorial disputes including the South China Sea conflict. The region has transformed its image from the so-called Balkans of the East in the 1960s and 1970s to an economically competitive and peaceful region today. Despite these accomplishments, the record of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in maintaining regional peace and security has also been seriously challenged, particularly at the domestic and transnational level. The paper argues that the Southeast Asian experience of peaceful change calls for a different framework of analysis that goes beyond the traditional International Relations theories which do not provide a compelling answer to whether regional peace has prevailed. It reviews ASEAN’s approaches to managing peace and security in Southeast Asia and brings close attention to domestic and international dynamics. The paper claims that the Southeast Asian states’ approach to positive peace, reflected in the notion of comprehensive security and the building of national and regional resilience, is instructive in understanding peaceful transformations in the region.

Atrans‐Europeanperspective on how artists can support teachers, parents and carers to engage with young people in the creative arts

AbstractWhilst the link between young people's well‐being and the creative arts is strengthening, there is a lack of research which focuses on the roles that artists play to help teachers and parents engage young people in the creative arts. This paper explores the benefits of and barriers to artists working in education in six European countries (England, Iceland, Germany, Greece, Italy and Austria). Using the ‘5A's model of creativity’ and a view of professional development taking place within ‘landscapes of practice’, the data were analysed in order to explain how creativity is operationalised in the different contexts. Our study highlights the need for policy at a national and transnational level to value the creative arts in order to help teachers cross boundaries and utilise the full potential of the creative arts in schools. Our study also highlights that further research is needed into how artists shape teaching and curriculum and how schools engage parents in the creative arts in order to build an evidence‐base relating to young people's positive mental health that can affect policy at these levels.

The 'digital transnational solidarity' and protection of health: Commentary to Principle no. 7 of the Rome Declaration.

Point 7 of the Rome Declaration is aimed at improving data sharing and technological and knowledge transfer as instruments to implement health policies. The objective of the current paper is to understand if the legal framework (especially at a transnational level) may actually help to achieve the objectives laid down by Principle 7 or if some interpretative or legislative actions will be necessary. The paper analyses the legal sources at international and EU levels. The applicable rules are based on the idea that the information and material are forms of 'property' of the individuals or of the states (i.e., the sovereign). According to the traditional idea of property, the owner has a sort of absolute power over the res and is entitled to exclude others from any rights over the thing. The 'property paradigm' may be useful to protect some relevant interests, but it can also affect collective interests, such as those concerning health during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to build a global system for the exchange of data and materials as provided for by Principle 7 of the Rome Declaration, a new legal approach should be elaborated which takes into consideration the international corpus of fundamental rights, including research freedom, the right to health and the principle of transnational 'digital' solidarity.

Reflections on the spaces of populist politics in Europe

A discussion of the record of left- and right-wing populist parties in Europe in response to the austerity policies that followed on from the financial crisis of 2007-8, focusing both on the populist right and on the trajectories of Syriza and Podemos. Questions discussed include: the issue of definition - whether populism is more than a mobilising strategy/understanding it as a hybrid political practice; what happens to left populist parties when they come into government; what the difference is between left social democracy and populism; the different geographies of populism - how it operates at the local, national and transnational levels; right-wing populism in Spain, including the Partido Popular as well as Vox, particularly in Madrid; authoritarian populism; populism and nationalism, especially in relation to hostility to migration; right-wing populism in Greece.

Producing decent work indicators: contested numbers at the ILO

Abstract The article investigates the production of decent work indicators within the ILO, to demonstrate that developing measurement infrastructures in global policymaking requires political work. The concept of decent work responds to the perceived marginalization of the ILO in social and labor policy and was supposed to provide a new unifying normative framework for the organization. The article shows that creating decent work indicators encountered challenges due to its highly politicized production process. Proponents of quantification (mostly workers’ representatives) and opponents (mostly employers’ representatives) disagreed about the function of indicators: should they be country-specific or allow for universal assessment of progress from above. In effect, although indicators of decent work have been integrated into the Sustainable Development Goals—mostly as part of goal no. 8, many are still incomplete. As a result, the indicators did not establish a “framework of assessment,” which would have been guided by universal standards of progress allowing the ILO to “govern at a distance,” and could not initiate a paradigmatic policy shift, impeding the infrastructuralization of measurement. Theoretically, the article advances our understanding of policy formulation and design on the transnational level by showing the political foundation of knowledge-based instruments. Empirically, it rests on a Grounded Theory-based analysis of key ILO documents, including Governing Body minutes, conference and expert meeting reports, and official publications, mainly from the period from 1998 to 2015.