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Today’s ‘irregular migration’ from Sub-Saharan Africa has its roots in decades of policies which have impoverished rural economies and dispossessed small-scale producers to make room for export-oriented monocultures. Under pressure from opportunistic xenophobic political configurations the EU is reacting by seeking to block the unwanted flow of African migrants in their home countries through measures denounced by European civil society organizations. Its long-term recipe for ‘addressing the root causes of migration’ involves using EU cooperation funds to leverage resources from private investors ‘looking for new investment opportunities in emerging markets’, thereby promoting the same model of agricultural production and global value chains that has sparked today’s migration waves. An absent voice in the debate is that of the rural organizations in the territories from which the migrants originate. This paper seeks to reframe the issues from the viewpoint of these social constituencies, to recuperate their popular history of the evolutions that have transformed a portion of rural mobility into Europe-bound irregular migration, to map relevant contemporary rural transformations and the complexities of relations they engender, and to highlight initiatives underway today to build options of dignified and remunerative rural livelihoods for young people. Setting the West Africa-Europe nexus in the context of global processes of migration governance, this paper explores the opportunities for counter-hegemonic strategizing that EU internal policy contradictions open up and suggests how convergences might be promoted among actors and spaces that are currently inadequately connected with a view to defending both the right to migrate and the right to choose to stay at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on Pécoud’s international migration narratives (IMN) as an analytical framework to examine the Global Forum on Migration and Development’s Civil Society Days (GFMD-CSD). We analyse the narratives both produced and challenged at the GFMD-CSD, suggesting that while the GFMD-CSD poses a gentle challenge to existing IMN, it falls short of meaningfully (re)politicizing predominant migration paradigms. This is partly due to how the forum is a fraught space that reflects and reproduces uneven power dynamics between the Global North and South, concealing and nullifying contestations of power. Nonetheless, the GFMD-CSD, as a hybridized, experimental and fluidly defined discourse-led ‘global’ space, still functions as an important arena through which challenges to depoliticized state-led rhetoric might slowly trickle. Therefore, a closer interpretation of self-reflexive GFMD-CSD civil society strategies might challenge Pécoud’s conceptualization of what constitutes a ‘depoliticized’ approach to migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Places of worship in the Christian tradition are often considered to retain fixed and static identities. However, circuits of globalization and global mobilities are increasingly present within such sites and drawn upon to construct new forms of place and geographies filtered through the individual church’s channels of mobilities. Following on from the new mobilities paradigm and relational approaches to ‘place’, this paper explores how the global and the local become implicated in places of worship. Using participant-observation and diary-interview methods based in Baptist churches in Bristol, UK, and framing the findings through Urry’s framework (Mobilities, Cambridge: Polity, 2007), the research examines the multiple interdependent mobilities of imaginary travel, communication, virtual travel, and corporeal travel. Whilst global mobilities were present within the sites, locality and local mobilities also featured prominently. The combination of interdependent mobilities, produced unique place identities in each of church that engaged with the global yet retained local circuits and community identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ebola crisis of 2013-2015 highlighted the relationship between cultural heritage, neoliberal globalization and public health. It also raised the problem of cultural compatibility between organizations within the global ‘epidemic space’, which intruded on the pre-existing ‘heritage space’. In this paper, we discuss the differences and disjunctures between ‘heritage’ as it was explicitly and implicitly defined by two organizations positioned very differently in the global epidemic space - UNESCO, and the University of Makeni, Sierra Leone’s first private university. A thematic analysis of documents produced by these institutions reveals that they both placed the themes of human dignity and cultural heritage at the forefront of their responses. It also reveals that they dealt with those themes in sharply disjunctive ways, indicating the limits of cultural compatibility within the global ‘epidemic space’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade unions and environmental movements are often seen as political opponents most prominently discussed in the form of the ‘jobs vs. environment dilemma’. Based on historical examples of the conflict relations between trade unions and environmental groups in the Austrian energy sector, this paper showcases how the relationship between the two groups has changed from enmity to first attempts at alliance building. Drawing from analysis of union documents and problem-centred interviews conducted with Austrian unionists, it shows that newly emerging alliances between unions and environmental movements contain the seeds for a broad societal movement that can help overcome the paradigm of growth and actively engage in the creation of policies that support a social-ecological transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Just transition’ (JT) is an increasingly popular concept developed by unions and adopted and adapted by academics, environmentalists, government and non-governmental organizations, and international institutions in recognition of the need to address social concerns and inequities emerging from efforts to address environmental problems. It has been noted, however, that ‘JT’ lacks both conceptual clarity and empirical evidence of its practical applications. This paper examines the ‘theory’ and practice of ‘JT’ by first considering the competing interpretations and conceptual understandings of ‘JT’ and second, the challenges of realizing a ‘JT’ in an Australian coal region where transition is occurring. The paper argues that achieving ‘JT’ requires more than government provisions and interventions and that unions must perform an active part in the ‘JT’ process through their relations with employers, workers, government, and community. It suggests the lack of clarity within the ‘JT’ literature may be the concept’s lasting strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Environmental Labour Studies may benefit from incorporating the perspective of environmental justice. We offer a theorization of working-class ecology as the place where working-class communities live and work, being typically affected by environmental injustice, and of working-class environmentalism as those forms of activism that link labour and environmental struggles around the primacy of reproduction. The paper’s theoretical section draws on a social ethnography of working-class ecology in the case of Taranto, a mono-industrial town in southern Italy, which is experiencing a severe environmental and public-health crisis. We show how environmental justice activism since the early 2000s has allowed the re-framing of union politics along new ways of politicizing the local economy. We conclude by offering a conceptual topology of working-class ecology, which situates different labour organizations (confederal, social/community, and rank-and-file unions) according to their positioning in respect to environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions of decolonizing world politics have flourished in international studies recently but few of these engage with popular culture, especially sports. In this paper, I address this gap and consider sports - specifically the sport of cricket - as a global phenomenon, useful for discussing key decolonizing strategies. This paper argues that cricket, as a form of popular culture, offers language and practices to critique oppressive sociopolitical norms and global hierarchies. It draws upon the cricket-writing of C.L.R. James, specifically his book Beyond a Boundary, as well as on the experiences of playing cricket to outline some decolonial strategies. These strategies include shifting perspectives on world politics, the role of biography and autobiography as critique, and the relevance of positionality in describing global processes and in the construction of knowledge. Overall, this paper claims that popular culture, especially those which are popular in the Global South, offers ways to rethink and rework relations between the powerful and less powerful. Cricket provides examples of ways in which these various decolonial strategies can be enacted in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the political-economic outgrowth of Brazilian capitalism in the global south after the outset of the global financial crisis. In analysing the public-sector finance policy of the Workers’ Party (PT) during the crisis, I argue that a structuration of investment was established. Utilizing theoretical premises of uneven and combined development and sub-imperialism, this paper traces the motions of the industrial financing processes that perpetuate Brazilian capitalism outside of the boundaries of the nation-state to shed light on the relationship between ‘emergent’ economies, their state structures, and the developing world. I argue that such structures represent a policy to accelerate capital accumulation abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital communication technologies have given dissidents from authoritarian contexts better opportunities to pursue political activism from exile. After the exit from their home country, activists stay involved in domestic debates and channel politically relevant information to international audiences, building up external pressure on the regime. Yet, at the same time, digital media and social networks create multiple points of exposure that state actors can exploit. Using the case of Iran, this paper shows how digital communication technologies enable new and influence established tactics of state repression beyond borders. Based on interviews with Iranian activists and journalists who were forced to leave the country after the controversial elections of 2009, I analyze mechanisms and aims of repressive measures targeting exiled dissidents. I argue that in an environment of intense transnational communication and information exchange, authoritarian regimes can monitor and respond to the activities of political exiles rapidly and on a large scale. State actors seek to undermine the links of exiles into the country (horizontal voice) as well as to punish claims to public attention that challenge the regime’s position in the domestic and international arenas (vertical voice). With these measures, authorities pursue a parallel strategy: expanding authoritarian power and practices beyond borders while distancing political exiles from contacts in the home country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some features of the development paths taken by Brazil and China (two member countries of the BRICS grouping) in the current context of the crisis of neoliberal globalization and transformation of the political and economic world order. The authors use Polanyi’s ‘double movement’ thesis to argue that newly emerging rural development (RD) dynamics in China and Brazil are part of a protective ‘countermovement’, driven by actors and institutions responding to the contradictions of the concentration and internationalization of agrifood systems. However, thedirectionand scope of these countermovements are still open; their transformative potential should be viewed in Gramsci’s terms as a struggle for hegemony the outcome of which depends on the concrete ‘balance of social forces’. First, the paper characterizes the impacts of China’s rise on Brazil’s development, which subsequently found its economy under threat of reprimarization and deindustrialization. The paper then sketches some stylized facts of production and consumption within the Brazil–China soy–meat complex, a key element of the current global food regime, with a focus on corporate control of the soy–meat value chain, and its negative consequences. Finally, the paper identifies the key roles that actors and institutions linked to peasants and family farmers are playing in the RD dynamics of each country. Although China and Brazil represent two very different realities, the comparison shows that critical rural and agrifood issues are indeed moving onto the centre stage of the contemporary ‘double movement’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Land grabbing in poor countries by transnational corporations has been increasing, causing great concern over human rights violations in countries where states often lack the ability or will to regulate the conduct of foreign-owned companies. Civil society organizations have played a significant role in attempts to hold companies from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries accountable for human rights violations by their subsidiaries in poor countries. However, civil society pressure for accountability from companies whose home base is in non-OECD, middle-income, countries is rare. This paper explores the human rights impacts of the Cambodian operations of Vietnam’s Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) company, and how affected communities and NGOs in Cambodia have tried to hold HAGL accountable for its wrongdoing through approaching the Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation. This is an initial attempt to examine how civil society and affected communities have challenged a Vietnamese company with no prior record of engaging with players from outside its home territory about the human rights impacts of its investments in Cambodia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The financialization of housing and the massive suburbanization in many parts of the world pose a plethora of significant problems that contribute to distortions of ecological balances (also known as the Anthropocene) which might reach an irreversible point. This work argues that the financialization of the suburban real estate market operates as a predatory formation. The theories of Urban Political Ecology (UPE) pave the way to understand how the suburbanization process in the twenty-first century has become one of the leading reasons of the Anthropocene. The task of UPE is to understand the political processes that shape, produce and reproduce the configuration of urban, nature and time. The latest suburbanization process has a special role in comprehending how processes and relations over the spatial configuration result in the collapse of ecological balances. This paper explores, through the case of Istanbul, how the financialization of housing market brings about a new ecological reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last 50 years have witnessed a set of changes in the scale of humankind's ecological imagination toward 'thinking globally'. Developments in earth and planetary sciences have elaborated a creation story that dethroned humans from a position of claimed supremacy to a status on a par with other systemic forces that have shaped the planet. So marked is the human imprint that it has earned its own name in the annals of geology, environmental history, and geopolitics: the anthropocene. The scientific refutation of human exceptionalism has not elicited either instant humility or greater self-awareness in the uses of expert knowledge to combat global problems such as climate change. This paper looks at sites of struggle between a persistent human imperialism, expressed through the continued commodification of nature, and more humble ways of knowing and guiding humanity's planetary future from standpoints in ethics, politics and law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the question as to whether humanity is now for, rather than simply in, itself. This issue is of particular significance at this time for two major reasons. First, there is the problem of climate change and its potentially disastrous consequences. Second, there is the matter of the coronavirus Covid-19 that is presently sweeping dangerously across the world. In this overall discussion the themes of glocalization as well as global history as they stand in relation to global studies are given attention with regard to climate change and the present pandemic. The concluding part of this contribution is principally occupied with a brief discussion of the significance of the travels of Alexander von Humboldt. The work of von Humboldt is regarded here as a missing element in the new book by Steger and James, as well as having considerable relevance to the general themes of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the political processes surrounding the implementation of a neoliberal economic agenda by the Brazilian President, Michel Temer's government, from 2016 to 2018. With its point of departure in the literature on authoritarian neoliberalism, the paper argues that the impeachment of the democratically elected President, Dilma Rousseff, led to a 'democratic vacuum' in which neoliberal reforms were instituted on a fragile mandate of elite support. The processes defining the approval of the public spending ceiling, labour reform, and the failed attempt at pension reform are analysed as an expression of authoritarian governance through the insulation of policy-making from wider public scrutiny. In the Brazilian case, these policies were pursued within a formally normal institutional context, which nonetheless was characterized by a lack of democratic legitimacy and electoral accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Rose Revolution (2003) marked a beginning of the ‘new’ Georgian state and led to the recovery of the Georgian economy, but the level of dollarization remained high, exceeding 70%. Even though dollarization is a direct threat to the monetary sovereignty, as well as financial and political stability, it did not become an integral part of the state building project. Dollarization persistence remains an unresolved puzzle in the academic literature, as well. In contrast to the economized debates on dollarization, this paper engages with a political economic analysis of the phenomenon. It conceptualizes dollarization within a peripheral state framework on the example of Georgia (2003–2009) and argues that dollarization is embedded in the state building agenda of the post-revolution government, as well as in the accumulation regime, global currency hierarchy and government-central bank relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay focuses on the commonly used term 'business as usual' and theorizes the change it entails. Business as usual refers to the continuation ad infinitum of established social practices, the current socio-material structures, whatever they might be. Yet, business as usual also entails change. It refers to a general type of social change; cumulative socio-material change inherently linked to the reproduction of established practices. Cumulative change should be seen as distinct from both evolutionary and revolutionary types of change. Uneventfully unfolding cumulative processes have significant impacts on our societies and their 'built' and 'natural' environments. They are typically non-disruptive, but they ordinarily exhibit nonlinearities and sometimes disruptions. Transforming business-as-usual changes from an ordinary 'state of affairs' to pressing political-economic problems may be see as general and global grand challenge that requires transformative agency targeting apex social practices, such as neoliberalism, that define the framework of action for most life-worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do the EU Recovery Plan and Green Deal (EGD) break with disciplinary neoliberalism? Eschewing binary 'yes or no' answers, this article draws on Gramsci's idea of passive revolution as 'progressive restoration' to analyse these important developments in the European political economy. It offers a balance sheet of 'progressive' and 'restorative' elements and argues that these cohere in an integral response to geopolitical pressure and legitimation problems by the 'Piedmont of Europe' – Germany's power bloc. A concluding section argues that the most significant changes engendered by these initiatives may not reside in the substance in policy but rather in how policy is carried out – in the form. It seems that it is becoming increasingly difficult to depoliticize disciplinary neoliberal governance in Europe. Future research is needed on the nature and implications of this for theory and (progressive) practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Plan F of Great Britain's Women's Budget Group (UKWBG) and the Scottish Women's Budget Group (SWBG) for gender equality in Spain that will lead to sustainable development. Topics include negative impact of austerity policies on women empowerment and well-being; development of a Briefing Paper by organizations to promote women rights and economic recovery; and several aspects of the paper such as reverse cuts, establishment of equal pay and access to affordable care.

Contract farming schemes have recently been portrayed by global development agencies as an alternative to 'land grabs', promoting processes of inclusive development through the integration of smallholders within global agro-industrial production complexes. The paper takes issue with such argument, using the case-study of contract farming scheme at Kakira Sugar Works in Uganda as empirical terrain for this investigation. It argues that despite contract farming schemes at first sight appear not to generate dispossession or displacement, they lead to forms of expulsion and/or marginalization of poor smallholders from sugar agro-poles through social differentiation. It also maintains that rather than being the antithesis to land enclosures, contract farming represents one instance of global neoliberal agricultural restructuring, functional to the expansion of the sugar frontier at cheap costs. This process, which I term sugarification, involves the maximization of value extraction from farmers, its appropriation by agribusiness and finance capital, and a regime of production which devaluates labour (wage and family) and nature, while dramatically affecting existing livelihoods and landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the connections between two global phenomena: land grabbing and financialization of farmland and agriculture. Drawing upon case studies, we analyse the expansion of two large-scale agricultural firms founded in Argentina to the Latin American Southern Cone during the 2000s commodities boom, focusing on their network models and business strategies. Based on a qualitative approach towards financial and productive practices, we unravel some intersections between the financialization of farmland, land grabs, and renewed social relations and patterns of agricultural organization. We propose that financial and productive logics impinge upon each other and that this imbrication entails tensions and contradictions in crucial but differentiated ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the global food crisis, China has been in the spotlight as a major actor in the global 'land grab'. In the context of Australia – a key target of Chinese investment – rising Chinese farmland ownership has provoked a contentious debate, eventually leading to a revision of Australia's foreign investment regime. The paper analyses how concerns over the assumed 'state-driven' and 'food security'-oriented nature of Chinese investment have been mobilized to tighten governmental scrutiny over foreign investment flows into Australian agriculture. I argue that the reregulation of Australia's foreign investment regime must be understood as part of a broader effort by Australian political and agribusiness interests to balance the opportunities and threats associated with China's rise as a key agri-food player. Ultimately, these controversies have precluded a substantial reflection upon the problematic productivist assumptions that characterize common understandings of who should own Australian farmland and to which ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the 2008 triple crisis (finance, food, environment), large-scale land investments raised concerns about their negative impacts on local populations. To counter risks to agribusiness' reputation, sustainability certifications legitimize investments fulfilling certain production criteria. But do such certifications ensure local populations' land access? This paper investigates the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and argues that its definition of sustainability fails to ensure such land access for two reasons: (1) It refers to land rights instead of recognizing the human right to land (2) It promotes contract farming as win-win. By focusing on local contexts and practices in Colombia, field research provides evidence that to ensure local populations' land access, the RSPO should opt for a human rights approach. For the Colombian peace process, this result means that the RSPO's current definition of sustainability is not in line with the integral rural reform planned in the peace agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global Wealth Chain analysis explores the potential for wealth creation to become wealth capture. Corporate tax avoidance is a component in many GWC. The problem is complex, involving both practices and undergirding macro-narratives that support a status quo and limit political and regulatory action. In this paper, I argue that the Laffer theorem and its legacy plays a background role in framing tax avoidance. The theorem is one component in a general direction of travel of neoliberal policy. Following general discussion of the issues I note that the original version of the theorem takes no account of avoidance and subsequent iterations do so based on incompatible concepts of firm behaviour. These problems are rooted in mainstream economic methodology and distort a more historical, sociological and institutional understanding of the economy. This has additional consequences for issues of tax justice, since these sit awkwardly with formal economic analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aim to examine the changing dynamics of the conflict over seed saving of genetically modified soybeans in Argentina. After analysing recent global transformations in seed production, we provide a summary of some noteworthy examples of this confrontation, stressing the actions taken by the social actors involved, in particular the state, whose role in the conflict has changed over time. After battling the attempts of biotechnology and seed companies to charge fees for seed saving, the state has allowed the implementation of a royalty collection system for biotechnological traits. This political shift, we argue, is linked to the specificity of capital accumulation in Argentina, which is based on the appropriation of ground rent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes three arguments. First, it provides an embryonic blueprint for 'reglobalization' by crystallizing the insights of the special issue. We can and should build a better globalization that addresses enduring inequality, based on a radical analysis cognizant of the partiality, fragility and incompleteness of the existing global governance architecture, and which seeks to expand, upgrade and democratize the multilateral order. Second, following a post-financial crisis interregnum replete with morbid symptoms, the Covid-19 shock potentially represents the dénouement of a long period of neoliberal decay, after which different approaches to globalization will be necessary. Finally, only a reformed G20 can provide the crucial coordinating function that any process of progressive reglobalization requires, with three necessary reforms: its proper institutionalization with a permanent Secretariat; a widening of its remit to cover all aspects of contemporary globalization; and a concomitant narrowing of its focus to discharge aggressively that specific coordinating function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food sovereignty and neo-extractivism are two highly contentious concepts that have emerged in the development studies literature and as development alternatives pursued predominantly by governments in Latin America. This paper engages with both Critical Development Studies (CDS) and Critical Globalization Studies (CGS) to analyze the dynamics of this post-neoliberal model in Bolivia, providing insights into the convergences and contradictions of neo-extractivism and food sovereignty. Rather than challenging or transforming the neoliberal model of development, it is argued that the post-neoliberal model has been used strategically by states to gain and maintain legitimacy while facilitating and even exacerbating exploitative forms of extractivism for the accumulation of wealth and power. This has been possible, in part, due to the contradictory class positions that have materialized as the rural poor are increasingly dependent upon, and adversely incorporated into, new 'modes of extraction'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical Development Studies has long engaged with the study of globalization. However, the ways in which it does so and how these interact and fuse with, or diverge from, others working in the broad field of globalization studies remain avenues to explore. In this Introductory essay, we describe how critical development studies emerged and highlight some of its contributions before presenting an overview of the six papers which comprise this Special Issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global food security challenges give rise to contentious debates. Conventional approaches to agricultural development call for capital-intensive industrial-scale farming to increase global productivity. Sub-Saharan Africa is the main target for agro-industrial farmland investments. Critical scholars oppose these trends in the region, arguing that the large-scale farming model causes a devastating loss of land resources and harms rural livelihoods. Critical development scholars and critical globalization scholars generally intersect in their candid rejection of global capitalism and the commodification of agri-food resources. This paper adds to existing critiques by advancing a governance approach. In reviewing case study evidence from eight countries, it highlights the crucial role of governments, who ultimately wield sovereign authority to regulate the agricultural sector. This analysis represents a fusion of critical development studies and critical globalization studies. Rather than rejecting the global capitalist system, it sheds light on the need for effective regulation and identifies key actors and policy areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates Canada–China relations in the context of recent internet developments and debates about information and communication technologies (ICTs) infrastructure. I argue that protest events in Hong Kong surrounding the #occupycentral movement help us understand the tension between internet access, technological innovation and state centric forms of internet governance. By foregrounding the tension between the horizontal exchange of ideas and national surveillance and control, it is possible to identify important similarities between Canadian and Chinese state and the experience of internet users. In the wake of the Hong Kong occupy protests, it is possible to see how the internet promotes the practices of ‘Other Diplomacies’, functional relationships between citizen, market and foreign actors that present challenges for national regulation and traditional diplomatic mechanisms. The paper proposes a revival of the concept of Cyber-Diplomacy to better explain the challenges of state-to-state relations in an era of ICT innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores how finance capitalism materializes as socio-ecological process, shedding light on the complex causalities in which current shifts in control over natural resources are embedded. Housing is a critical aspect of financialization. A case study of the financialized housing sector in Central Mexico shows (i) how housing policy serves as a mechanism for the redistribution of wealth from the working class to global finance capital, and (ii) how mortgage-financed housing projects come into being onlythroughan existing water governance regime, while in turn leading to new structures of groundwater governance with profound social and ecological implications. The paper concludes that current accumulation and natural resource regimes interact in complex and contradictory ways that go beyond straightforward resource grabbing. It suggests that Moore’s concept of ‘capitalism in the web of life’ could help to understand how finance capitalism simultaneously transforms the socio-natural world and is produced by it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that a class against capital emerged in Guangdong province between 2007 and 2014. I base my arguments on data drawn from significant strikes in the province and the processes of collective bargaining that partially resolved them. I observe that the formation of a working class against capital in Guangdong, made up primarily of migrant workers, has at least partially overcome fragmentary pressures it continues to face. I argue that it is the self-activity of workers themselves that is chiefly responsible for the significant improvement in wages and, to a lesser extent, working conditions that unfolded during this period. While collective bargaining remains mostly—but not exclusively—outside institutional norms, workers’ agency pushed the practical application of forms of collective bargaining on to both the political and labour relations agenda in Guangdong and beyond. Continued pressure from below will keep it there. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the past decade, security has emerged as a new discourse in water governance beyond transboundary conflicts and cooperation. This paper will examine how security is framed in the context of international river basin organizations (RBOs), key regional organizations in transboundary water governance operating in many international river basins around the world. As an example of cross-border governance, RBOs can promote joint cooperation and information sharing, and serve as a form to bring together diverse stakeholders. This paper focuses on the discursive construction of ‘security’ in a particular context of cross-border river basin governance in the Mekong River Basin. We ask: How is security framed in the discourse of RBOs? We examine how diverse actors frame security in the context of RBOs and at various scales and around certain management actions in a case study of the Mekong River Commission, a well-established RBO. Attention will be paid to the links between water security, food security, and energy security in the broader water and development discourse. We analyze what the findings mean for cross-border governance more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Resource-dependent regions have long been integrated into global markets. But while integration with global markets has been a long process, it is one which has undergone continual change and been subject to numerous phases. This is evident in the case of northern British Columbia, a resource-dependent region known for its exports of lumber, fish, metals, coal, oil, and gas. Currently, the region is experiencing a new phase of globalization as the importance of Asia, and China in particular, grows. This new push for global integration in a geographical area which has long been shaped by global economic forces invites analysis. I argue that it is useful to distinguish between two distinct meanings of ‘globalizing’. The first is ‘globalizing’ as an adjective, as a descriptor of increasing global economic integration and measured by trade and numerous phases. The second is as a verb, with agents actively ‘globalizing’ the region through a distinct set of actions and policies. The paper demonstrates how the two meanings of ‘globalizing’ lead to quite different interpretations of the same historical periods. The paper therefore contributes to our conceptual understanding of the multiple meanings of globalization and demonstrates more precisely how one resource-dependent region is globalizing. Las regiones dependientes de los recursos han estado integradas por largo tiempo en los mercados globales. Pero mientras la integración con los mercados globales ha resultado en un largo proceso, la misma ha padecido un cambio continuo y ha estado sujeta a numerosas fases. Esto es evidente en el caso de Columbia británica del norte, una región dependiente de sus recursos, conocida por sus exportaciones de madera, pescado, metales, carbón, petróleo y gas. Actualmente, la región está experimentando una nueva fase de globalización, mientras que la importancia de Asia y China en particular, crece. Este nuevo impulso a la integración global en un área geográfica la cual ha sido forjada desde hace mucho tiempo por fuerzas económicas globales, invita al análisis. Sostengo que es útil distinguir ente dos significados de ‘globalizar’. El primero es ‘ globalizado’, un adjetivo, como descriptor de una integración económica global en aumento y cuantificada por el comercio y varias fases. El segundo es un verbo con agentes que ‘globalizan’ activamente la región a través de una serie distinta de acciones y políticas. El artículo demuestra cómo los dos significados de ‘globalizar’ conducen a interpretaciones muy diferentes de los mismos periodos históricos. Por lo tanto, el artículo contribuye a nuestro entendimiento conceptual de los múltiples significados de la globalización y demuestra más precisamente cómo una región dependiente de sus recursos se está globalizando. 资源依赖的地区早已被融入全球市场。但是，这种融入是一个长期的过程，而且经历着持续的变迁，并且取决于各个时段。就北不列颠哥伦比亚的案例而言，这一点是明显的。该地区是一个资源依附地区，以出口木材、鱼类、金属、煤炭、油气等知名。目前，由于亚洲，尤其是中国的重要性增长，该地区正在经历着一个新的全球化阶段。有必要对此种长期以来受到全球经济力量塑造的地区走向全球整合（一体化）的新努力加以分析。我认为，区分两种不同意义的“正在进行的全球化”是有益的。第一种是作为一个形容词，以及作为一个日益增加的全球经济整合、并由贸易和各个时段来衡量的描述性的术语“正在进行的全球化”。第二中是作为一个动词的，具有能动者，通过一系列明确的行动和政策而积极促使本地区“正处在全球化中”。本文证明这两种不同意义的“正在进行的全球化”如何导致了关于同一个历史时段的不同解读。因此，本文有助于对全球化多重意义的概念性理解，以及更加精确地证明一个资源依赖地区到底是如何进行全球化的。 اندمجت المناطق ذات الاعتماد على الموارد منذ وقت طويل في الأسواق العالمية. وإذا كان هذا الاندماج في الأسواق العالمية يمثل عمليةً طويلة، فقد مرت هذه العملية بتغييرات مستمرة ومراحل عديدة. ويظهر هذا الأمر بوضوح في حالة كولومبيا البريطانية الشمالية، وهي منطقة تعتمد على الموارد، وتشتهر بصادراتها من الأخشاب والسماك والمعادن والفحم والنفط والغاز. وتشهد المنطقة حالياً مرحلةً جديدةً من العولمة مع تنامي أهمية آسيا، والصين على وجه الخصوص. وهذا الاندفاع الجديد نحو الاندماج العالمي، في منطقة ظلَّت منذ زمن بعيد تتشكل بفعل قوى اقتصادية عالمية، هو أمر يستدعي التحليل. وترى الدراسة الحالية أنه من المفيد التمييز بين معنيين متمايزين لمصطلح "العولمة"، وأولهما هو معنى "العولمي" كنعت ي 오랜 동안 자원 의존적 지역들이 지구적 시장으로 통합되었다. 그러나 지구적 시장과의 통합이 오랜 과정있었지만, 지속적인 변화를 경험하고 여러 단계에 종속되는 통합이다. 그것은 목재, 어류, 금속, 석탄, 석유와 가스 수출로 알려진 자원 의존적인 지역인 북부 브리티시 콜럼비아 사례에서 명백하다. 현재 그 지역은 아시아 특히 중국의 중요성이 커지면서 세계화의 새로운 단계를 경험하고 있다. 지구적인 경제적인 힘에 의해서 오랫동안 영향을 받은 지역에서 지구적 통합을 요구하는 새로운 압력은 분석을 요한다. 나는 ‘세계화(globalizing)’의 두 가지 서로 다른 의미를 구분하는 것이 유용하다고 주장한다. 첫째는 점증하는 지구적 경제통합을 기술하는 것으로 무역과 다양한 단계에 의해서 측정되는 형용사로서의 세계화의 의미이다. 둘째는 독특한 행위와 정책을 통해서 지역을 적극적으로 ‘세계화’하는 행위자와 함께 동사로서의 의미이다. 이 글은 세계화의 두 가지 의미가 동일한 역사적 시기에 대한 아주 다른 해석을 낳는다는 것을 보여준다. 그러므로 이 글은 세계화의 다양한 의미에 대한 개념적 이해에 기여하고 자원 의존적인 지역이 어떻게 세계화되는가를 좀 더 정확하게 보여준다. Зависимые от ресурсов регионы уже давно интегрировались в глобальные рынки. В то же время интеграция с мировыми рынками была долгим процессом, который претерпевал непрерывные изменения и прошел многочисленным фазы. Это очевидно в случае Северной Британской Колумбии, зависящего от ресурсов региона, известного своим экспортом древесины, рыбы, металла, угля, нефти и газа. В настоящее время регион испытывает новую фазу глобализации, когда важность Азии и Китая, в частности, растет. Этот новый толчок для глобальной интеграции в географической зоне, который долго формировался глобальными экономическими силами, призывает к анализу. Я считаю, что полезно различа&# [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the past decade the world economy has been characterized by escalating global current account imbalances between the United States and East Asian states. This paper argues that US structural power in the global monetary system allowed the consolidation of a finance-led growth regime in the US based on massive capital inflows, asset inflation and consumption growth while inducing East Asian emerging market economies to establish export-led growth regimes. The global credit crisis has clearly uncovered the boundaries of US monetary hegemony, imposing severe adjustment throughout the global political economy. I analyse the political economy of global economic adjustment and argue that the crisis of US monetary hegemony is based domestically on the crisis of the finance-led growth regime and globally on the shortage of global demand. On the basis of an analysis of the impact of the crisis on the models of capitalism of the US, the Eurozone, and China, this paper shows that global demand deficiency will persist in the short to medium term. Durante la última década, la economía mundial se ha caracterizado por el aumento de los desequilibrios de cuentas corrientes globales entre los Estados Unidos y los estados del Asia oriental. Este artículo sostiene que el poder estructural estadounidense en el sistema monetario global permitió la consolidación de un régimen de crecimiento impulsado por las finanzas en Estados Unidos, en base a las entradas masivas de capital, inflación de los activos y crecimiento de consumo, mientras inducían a las economías de mercado emergente de Asia oriental, a establecer regímenes de crecimiento impulsado por las exportaciones. La crisis de crédito global ha puesto claramente al descubierto los límites de la hegemonía monetaria estadounidense, imponiendo un ajuste severo a través de la economía política global. Analizo la economía política del ajuste económico global y sostengo que la crisis de la hegemonía monetaria estadounidense está basada – domésticamente – en la crisis del crecimiento del régimen impulsado por las finanzas y – globalmente – en la escasez de la demanda global. En base a un análisis del impacto de la crisis en los modelos del capitalismo de los Estados Unidos, la Eurozona y la China, este artículo muestra que la insuficiencia en la demanda global persistirá en el corto y mediano plazo. 过去的十年，世界经济的一个特征一直是不断升高的美国与东亚国家之间的全球经常账户不平衡。本文认为美国在全球货币体系中的结构性权力使得美国基于大规模资本流动、资产膨胀、消费增长的金融业领导的增长机制得到巩固，同时诱使东亚新兴市场经济建立出口领导的增长机制。全球信贷危机已经清楚地揭示了美国金融霸权的范围，这一霸权通过全球政治经济强加严酷的调整。笔者分析全球经济调整的政治经济学，并且认为美国货币霸权的危机在国内是因为金融业领导的增长机制的危机，而在全球（国际）则是因为全球需求的短缺。基于危机对美国、欧元区和中国的资本主义模式的冲击的分析，本文认为，全球需求不足将在近中期持续。 اتسم الاقتصاد العالمي على مدى العقد الماضي بتصاعد أشكال الاختلال في الحسابات المالية الجارية على المستوى العالمي بين الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية ودول شرق آسيا. وترى هذه الدراسة أن النفوذ الهيكلي للولايات المتحدة في النظام النقدي العالمي قد أتاح ترسيخ نظام نمو ترتكز على العنصر المالي في الولايات المتحدة، وهو يقوم على أساس من التدفق الكبير لرؤوس الأموال، وتضخم الأصول ونمو الاستهلاك، بينما يغري اقتصاديات السوق الناشئة في شرق آسيا بإقامة أنظمة نمو ترتكز على التصدير. وقد كشفت الأزمة المالية العالمية بوضوح حدود الهيمنة النقدية للولايات المتحدة، والتي تفرض تكيّفاً شديداً في مجمل الاقتصادر السياسي العالمي. وتحلل الدراسة الاقتصاد السياسي للتكيّف الاقتصادي العالم&#x6 지난 십여 년에 걸쳐 세계경제는 미국과 동아시아 간에 확대되는 지구적 무역 불균형에 의해서 특징지어진다. 이 논문은 지구적 금융체계 내에서 동아시아 신흥 시장경제가 수출주도형 성장체제를 확립하게 하면서, 미국의 구조적 권력이 대규모 자본 유입, 자산 인플레와 소비 증가에 기초한 미국의 금융 주도 성장체제를 공고하게 했다는 것을 주장한다. 세계 금융위기는 분명히 전지구적 정치경제를 통해서 커다란 조정을 강요하면서 미국의 금융 헤게모니의 경제를 드러내게 했다. 나는 지구적 경제조정의 정치경제를 분석하여 미국의 금융 헤게모니가 국내적으로는 금융 주도 성장체제의 위기에 근거하고 있고, 지구적으로는 지구적 수요부족에 근거하고 있다고 주장한다. 위기가 미국, 유럽과 중국 자본주의 모델에 가한 충격 분석에 근거하여, 이 글은 지구적 수요 부족이 중단기적으로 지속될 것이라는 것을 보여준다. В прошлое десятилетие мировая экономика была охарактеризована эскалацией глобального дисбаланса текущего счета между государствами Восточной Азии и Соединенными Штатами. В данной статье утверждается, что американские власти, в структуре мировой валютной системы, позволили консолидацию финансово-экономического режима роста в США на основе массивного притока капитала, инфляции активов и роста потребления, вызывая в Восточной Азии, с формирующейся рыночной экономикой, создание экспортно-ориентированного режима роста. Глобальный кредитный кризис ясно показал границы американской валютной гегемонии, вводящей жесткое регулирование во всей глоб& [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The production of silk occupies a unique place in Thai cultural and economic practices. However, the practice is rarely passed on to the younger generation and is widely considered to be a dying craft. In response, influential organizations have proposed use of the internet as a way to reinvigorate the industry and attract new customers. This paper looks at the discourses used to sell silk and the ways in which sellers are either framing Thai silk as a traditional craft in need of saving or as an enterprise that efficiently engages with the commercial needs of the global economy. The paper reviews the range of, often problematic, emotions, images, and associations used to sell a dying craft. Ultimately, it argues that, in contrast to many of the theorized effects of the internet, it seems to be neither encouraging mass homogenization nor pushing sellers to effectively integrate themselves into global markets. La producción de la seda ocupa un lugar único en la cultura y las prácticas económicas tailandesas. Sin embargo, la práctica pasa muy raramente a la generación más joven y está ampliamente considerada como una artesanía que está desapareciendo. Como respuesta, organizaciones influyentes han propuesto el uso de internet como una vía para reforzar la industria y atraer nuevos clientes. Este artículo examina las discusiones que se usaron para vender la seda y las maneras en que los vendedores están ya sea conceptualizando a la seda tailandesa como una artesanía tradicional que hay que salvar, o como una empresa que se compromete eficientemente con las necesidades comerciales de la economía global. El artículo revisa la serie de asociaciones, imágenes y emociones frecuentemente problemáticas, usadas para vender una artesanía que está desapareciendo. Finalmente, sostiene que en contraste con muchos de los efectos teorizados de internet, parece ser que no está animando a una homogenización de masa ni empujando a los vendedores a integrarse efectivamente a los mercados globales. 丝绸生产在泰国经济与文化的各行业中占据独特地位。然而，此行业却鲜能薪火相传，且被广泛认为是一门挣扎在死亡线上的工艺。为了挽救该行业，有影响力的组织已经提议使用因特网重振该产业，并吸引新的消费者。本文审视用来出售丝绸的话语体系，以及（丝绸）卖家的方式，他们或者定位泰国丝绸为一门需要拯救的传统工艺，或者为一个可以有效地与全球经济的商业需求相联系的企业。本文评估了用来营销一个濒于灭绝行业的做法，尽管它们都是有问题的，例如，动之以情、树立形象和建立联络。最后，与因特网的许多理论化效应做了对比，本文认为，这种做法激励大规模的同质化，有助于卖家有效地融入全球市场。 يحتل إنتاج الحرير مكانةً متفردةً في الممارسات الثقافية والاقتصادية في تايلند. ومع ذلك، فنادراً ما تُنقل هذه الممارسات إلى الأجيال الأصغر، كما يُنظر إليها على نطاق واسع باعتبارها صنعة منقرضة. ورداً على ذلك، اقترحت بعض المنظمات ذات النفوذ استخدام الإنترنت لإعادة إحياء تلك الصناعة واكتساب عملاء جدد. وتتناول هذه الدراسة أنواع الخطاب المستخدمة لبيع الحرير، والطرق التي يلجأ إليها البائعون لتصوير الحرير التايلندي إما باعتباره صنعة تقليدية تتطلب الحفاظ عليها وإما باعتباره استثماراً يدخل بجدارة في المتطلبات التجارية للاقتصاد العالمي. وتتناقش الدراسة أنماط المشاعر والصور والارتباطات المستخدمة لترويج صنعة منقرضة، وهي أنماط كثيراً ما تنطوي على إشكاليات. وتخلص الد&#x63 비단 생산은 타이 문화와 경제에서 독특한 위치를 차지하고 있다. 그렇지만, 비단생산은 젊은 세대에게 거의 전수되지 않고 사라져 가는 수공업으로 간주된다. 대응해서 영향력 있는 조직들이 산업을 다시 부흥시키고 새로운 고객을 유치하기 위하여 인터넷 사용을 제안하였다. 이 논문은 비단을 팔기 위해 사용된 담론과 판매자들이 타이 비단을 보호가 필요한 전통 산업으로 프레이밍하거나 혹은 세계 경제의 상업적 필요에 효율적으로 개입하는 기업으로서 프레이밍하는 방식을 살펴본다. 이 글은 죽어가는 공예품을 팔기 위해 사용되는 때로는 문제가 되는 감정, 이미지와 단체들을 살펴본다. 궁극적으로 이론적으로 다루어진 많은 인터넷 효과와는 대조적으로 인터넷은 대량 동질화를 촉진시키기도 않았고, 판매자들을 세계 시장으로 통합시키지도 않았다는 것을 주장한다. Производство шелка занимает уникальное место в тайской культурной и экономической практиках. Однако, практику ремесла редко передают молодому поколению и, как широко полагают, оно является умирающим. В ответ влиятельные организации предложили использование Интернета как способа вдохнуть новую жизнь в отрасль и привлечь новых клиентов. Эта статья рассматривает дискурс, который используется для продажи шелка и способы, которыми продавцы преподносят тайский шелк в качестве традиционного ремесла, нуждающегося в сохранении или как предприятия, которое эффективно взаимодействует с коммерческими потребностями мировой экономики. В статье рассматрив&#x4 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the transformation of the proper site of waste disposal across ecosocial landscapes throughout twentieth century Mongolian history to today. As Western ecological discourses became dominant in public space, they were not set up in a vacuum but rather mixed with vernacular ideas of waste from pre-socialist times as well as socialist cultural campaigns. If Mongolian zero-waste and waste recycling associations claim to belong to international movements and adopt a globalized upper-class eco-habitus, their discourses also reinterpret two imperial and idealized parts of Mongolian history: socialist modernity, when proper waste management was a sign of modernity and culture, and the Mongol Empire, when even Genghis Khan would not have left permanent traces along his path. This article is therefore about the present reinventing the past through ecologist discourses that allow Mongolians to define themselves both as modern and as true Mongols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the politics of creating and calibrating monetary poverty indicators in Jordan using interviews with policy-shapers and documentary analysis. It highlights the significance of these dynamics for conceptualizing governance and statehood in the Middle East. I argue that poverty indicators have served a dual purpose: they have functioned as a tool of state legibility, seeking to enable governments to act on poverty and increase accountability. At the same time, opacity in their production has made it possible to shirk responsibility for worsening socio-economic situations. The combination has helped to reproduce the state as a distinct entity that should, at least in principle, be able to tackle socio-economic inequalities. By empirically and conceptually highlighting the intertwinement between transparency and opacity, the article not only contributes a new perspective to debates around governance through indicators, but also to de-exceptionalizing the Middle East in discussions on the globalized politics of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development, in an age of globalizations, has indeed become a global project. However, this project remains contested and contestable. While much attention has been given to this contestation at a macro-policy level, the dynamics of such contestations on the ground remain less studied. Noting that development projects, policies and programs are themselves products of power relations and social struggles, this paper focuses on the dynamics of these relations and struggles in relation to the dissemination of the global development project in Malawi. Drawing from the experiences and fractious journey from 2000 to 2006 of the broad-based civil society network involved in Malawi's ongoing PRSP process, the paper shows how local actors draw creatively on globalized discourses of participation and representation to contest and confound the objectives of the elites, thereby complicating the channels through which the global development project is promulgated. El desarrollo en la era de la globalizacion, se ha convertido en un proyecto global. Sin embargo, este proyecto sigue siendo controvertido y cuestionable. Mientras que se le ha dado mucha importancia a esta controversia a nivel macro-politico, la dinamica de estos cuestionamientos es menos estudiada a nivel local. Dado que los proyectos, programas y politicas de desarrollo son a su vez el producto de las relaciones de poder y de las luchas sociales, este articulo se centra en la dinamica de estas relaciones y de estas luchas en la diseminacion del proyecto global de desarrollo en Malawi. Con base en la experiencia y las dificultades que surgieron entre el 2000 al 2006, entre el proceso PRSP de Malawi y la amplia red de la sociedad civil involucrada en el, el articulo demuestra como, de manera creativa, los actores locales, basandose en el discurso globalizado de la participacion y representacion, protestan y confunden los objetivos de las elites, complicando los canales a traves de los cuales se divulga el proyecto de desarrollo global. 在全球化时代，发展问题已然成为一个全球性项目。然而，对这一项目仍然存有争议。不过争议主要集中在宏观政策层面上，对争议在草根层面上的动力学研究不足。本文注意到发展项目、政策和方案本身是权力关系和社会斗争的产物，着重研究涉及马拉维全球发展项目传播过程中这些关系和斗争之间的动态关系。从基础广泛的市民社会网络从2000年到2006年的经验和反抗历程来看（该网络参与了马拉维正在进行的减贫战略文件进程），本文表明了当地行为者是如何创造性地利用参与权和代表权等全球性话语，来竞争和挫败精英的目标，从而使得全球发展项目的传播路径复杂化。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a case study of Vietnam, this paper explores what happens to neoliberal ideas about development when they encounter the very different political and cultural context of a developing country. The paper argues that although much scholarship tends implicitly or explicitly to emphasise the very great power of neoliberal institutions in our world today, an analysis of continuity and change in Vietnam during two decades of extensive engagement with neoliberal actors suggests that the influence of neoliberalism on the working of the Vietnamese state has been relatively small. The paper seeks both to document and explain this through an account which is attentive to both structure and agency and which in turn sheds new light on the nature of power in our world. En este articulo se explora que sucede con las ideas neoliberales, cuando el desarrollo se enfrenta a contextos culturales y politicos muy diferentes en paises en vias de desarrollo, con base en un estudio de caso en Vietnam. El documento argumenta que aunque la academia tiende a enfatizar de manera implicita o explicita el gran poder de las instituciones neoliberales en nuestro mundo actual, un analisis de continuidad y cambio en Vietnam durante dos decadas de compromiso extenso con los actores neoliberales, sugiere que la influencia del neoliberalismo en el estado vietnamita ha sido relativamente debil. Este articulo busca documentar y explicar a traves de un analisis cuidadoso, tanto de la estructura como de las intervenciones de desarrollo, que a su vez resalta una nueva perspectiva sobre la naturaleza del poder en nuestro mundo. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary versions of globalization assume that market deregulation is the precursor to democratic development and the growth of livable cities. This paper examines the specific case of Viet Nam to describe how the creation and construction of cities in the developing world may be laying the foundations for future social inequality. Using a futures-oriented method, the paper reviews the development of urban poverty in North America during a period of rapid urban transition as a heuristic device for understanding some of the potentially unobservable, yet festering problems with the trajectory of development in Viet Nam. The paper uses the examples of new urban social institutions, residential and economic segregation, and the creation of 'new towns' to highlight the importance of new forms of local governance, as well the declining relevance of national authorities. The paper ends with a brief discussion of four 'ideological cages' that are likely to become increasingly constrictive to urban analysts as Vietnamese cities develop. Las versiones contemporaneas de la globalizacion asumen que la desregulacion del mercado es el precursor al desarrollo democratico y al crecimiento de ciudades habitables. Este articulo examina el caso especifico de Viet Nam para describir como la creacion y construccion de ciudades en el mundo subdesarrollado pueden haber puesto las bases para las desigualdades sociales futuras. Mediante un metodo orientado a futuros, el articulo revisa el desarrollo de la pobreza urbana en Norteamerica durante un periodo de rapida transicion urbana, como un componente heuristico para entender algunos de los problemas potencialmente inobservables, no obstante supurantes, con la trayectoria del desarrollo en Viet Nam. El articulo usa los ejemplos de nuevas instituciones sociales, la segregacion economica y la creacion de 'nuevas ciudades', para destacar la importancia de nuevas formas de gobierno local, como tambien la trascendencia decadente de las autoridades nacionales. El articulo termina con una breve discusion de cuatro 'jaulas ideologicas' que muy probablemente estan por llegar a ser progresivamente constrictivas a los analistas urbanos, a medida que se desarrollan las ciudades vietnamitas. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporations have gained enormous power and influence in recent decades as mergers and acquisitions in just about every sector of the global economy have given rise to mega-sized companies that influence almost every aspect of our lives. In this contribution, we examine the rise of corporate concentration and control in two key sectors – agriculture and extractives – where in recent years consolidation has accelerated due to a combination of technological change, weakening state regulation and financial pressures, leaving these sectors largely controlled by just a handful of giant players. Corporate concentration and control in these sectors has important consequences, contributing to heightened inequality, environmental harm, and human rights violations. This paper reflects on the strategies of civil society and social movements in contesting extreme consolidation and corporate power. It calls for a multiscale approach that restores the regulatory powers of states and reestablishes people's sovereignty on a broader scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

9/11 is a historically significant event that was hastily designated by authorities as an act of both terrorism and war. It led to a call for forensics investigations and commissions of inquiry, notably the 9/11 Commission, which reported famously on alleged lapses in intelligence, preparedness and bureaucratic imagination. Some high profile crime events may be understood as 'apex crimes', conceptualized here as a subtype of political crime in which the ideological order, official narrative, contested and problematic forensics and third party review are each constitutive features. In support of a sociology of 9/11 as a criminal event and apex crime, the paper considers how 9/11 has 'played out' or been understood in criminology. The implication of the analysis is that the absence of serious academic engagement with 9/11 as a crime event is indicative of a lack of critical scrutiny of high-level political crimes in scholarly discourse (in criminology and other disciplines) and that this gives a pass to one of the most significant crime events in the past 50 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The illicit drug crops opium and coca are conventionally regarded as sources of instability, an 'evil' that breeds fragility and violence. Fragile states are supposed to be most vulnerable to their production and consequent harms. Yet by looking into the local contexts of the world's leading opium and coca producers – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Colombia and Bolivia – these illicit crops are found to also be sources of stability, even drivers of economic growth. They enable marginalized communities and territories abandoned by the state to be reinserted into national and global markets. Within so-called 'fragile' and conflict-affected areas are displaced and dispossessed households adopting innovative and unorthodox strategies for coping and survival in changing and insecure environments. This paper maps out an approach, useful for examining the resilience that has emerged amidst violence and uncertainty in illicit-crop-producing territories, and which can hopefully tackle the continuing disconnect between drugs and development policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to different media and analysts, globalization could be in a phase of 'slowbalization', de-globalization or even secular stagnation. After surveying academic proposals for defining, classifying and measuring globalization, by means of the Elcano Global Presence Index, this paper explores to what extent globalization has stagnated and/or whether it has changed its nature. Our results show that globalization has slowed down, but not retrenched. However, economic globalization has lost traction (something that probably explains the general perception on de-globalization) while soft projection has become the main driver of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on industrial policy in Africa has generally explained its political origins in terms of ruling elites' distribution of benefits to their supporters. However, in competitive political contexts in which policies are deeply political and designed to satisfy clients, such as policies that support party donors, the problem of policy discontinuity is bound to arise because a change in ruling party is bound to alter the direction of distributional policies. The current paper uses Nigeria's backward integration policy (BIP), an industrial policy on cement production, to sharpen the analytical distinction between the origins and persistence. Although the ruling elites' political quest for survival explains the origin of Nigeria's industrial policy on cement (ruling elites were in search of re-election funds and teamed up with domestic capitalists for donations, who in turn influenced the political elites to create policies in their area of business), it does not explain the continuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After more than 50 years of war, in 2016, the Colombian government signed a historic peace accord with the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Although the cessation of hostilities between the rebel group and the government is a monumental step, violence remains rife in the country. By drawing attention to the correlation between neoliberal economic development in the country and militarism, this paper sheds light on several structural issues that have been left potentially unresolved by the peace negotiations, each with the potential to ignite further violence. We introduce the concept of militaristic neoliberalism to argue that there is a fundamental link between Colombia's neoliberal development and a culture of militarism, which relies on gendered and racialized constructions of 'self' and 'other', that exacerbate structural inequalities and severely hampers prospects for achieving peace for many of Colombia's citizens post-conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few decades, the changing nature of global production and distribution processes has raised a number of critical questions regarding work and employment relations. Presenting a qualitative case study of the football industry in Pakistan as an example of the general mechanism of the social relations of re/production in a global system of industrial organization, this research highlights how and under what conditions informal workers are embedded in extended global production networks. By drawing on the integrated conceptual framework of the global production network (GPN) and labour process theory (LPT), this research sheds light on the working conditions and living realities of informal workers. A potential contribution of this paper is to extend the horizon of production network theory by analysing the work and employment conditions of informal workers, which are absent in existing discussions of these conceptual frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]