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British Cultural Studies includes over thirty essays written by expert contributors, covering almost every aspect of culture and identity in Britain today and addressing the current transformations of British culture and identity in the context of globalization. The opening section of the book deals with different conceptions of Britishness and identity, including English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Asian and Black British identities. Section Two then analyses the interplay between tradition and heritage in contemporary culture, whilst the final section looks at the world of lifestyle groups, subcultures, and cultural politics and the way in which they have come in many ways to substitute for notions of Britishness.

We provide evidence on the impact of globalization on labor market outcomes analyzing pay differences between foreign-acquired and domestically-owned firms. For this purpose, we use firm level data from 16 European countries over the time period 19992006. Applying propensity score matching techniques we estimate positive wage premia of cross-boarder merger and acquisitions (M&As), suggesting that foreign acquired firms exhibit higher short-run (post-acquisition) wages than their domestic counterparts. The observed wage disparities are most pronounced for low paying firms (with average wages below the median). Finally, we find systematic wage premia in Western European countries, but not so in Eastern Europe. (VLID)4458744

The article reviews the book “The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st-Century Capitalism,” by Robert B. Reich.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been an increasingly important issue for private and non-government businesses to consider when investing in countries. The paper specifically addresses transnational corporations and how they can negatively affect the development of countries when socially irresponsible and notes the increasing consumer awareness of corporate irresponsibility. It argues that better relationships between governments and corporations need to be established to reduce low living standards, exploitation, poverty, and unemployment, which would contribute to overall sustainable development. The paper recommends having CSR indicators for measurement, addresses why CSR should matter to business corporations, and gives insight into how the ILO can act and relate to CSR. This paper was written as an insight into the work of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization 2004 that aims to provide a fairer globalization for all.

Expectations of Modernity is a gripping narrative of the other side of the “globalization process” that calls into question many of its assumptions. James Ferguson’s study of declining urban Zambia presents a sensitive and informed critique of modernization theory and of the widespread myth of access to the blessings of industrial consumer society for all if only the “market” can reach them. (Even UN Secretary Kofi Annan has recently joined the chorus of uncritical “globalists”.) It is a pity that it is unlikely to be read by those who need it most—those working in the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the development aid ministries of the “donor” countries. In this fascinating study, Ferguson reveal the painful “win-lose” situation that globalization is for many, especially in Africa. using the Zambian example, he questions the teleological models of modernization and industrial development that have long dominated economic and social science debates and led to so many misguided conclusions. He underlines that phases of material development and boom are not a linear move toward affluence but often temporary and, to the dismay of those caught up in them, apt to end in decline and deep crisis. The social and cultural effects of dramatic downturns are conveniently ignored by economists and advocates of unfettered globalization. When modernity, in its material shapes of industrialization, urbanization, economic growth, and rising consumption levels, collapses, personal disarray, loss of meaning, and despair can be the result (p. 14) as the ideological superstructure of values, aspirations, and expectations dissolves. Ferguson presents an interesting and acute analysis of such a process in Copperbelt Zambia. Zambia had a promising future at the time of its independence in 1964 because of its seemingly successful trajectory of industrialization and modernization

We investigate the impact of import competition from low-cost countries on the exit of domestic firms from the manufacturing industries of eight European countries. We find a significant positive impact on the exit of large firms, while small firms are not directly affected. The empirical evidence is consistent with small firms having a comparative advantage in terms of flexibility and niche-filling capabilities, on a narrower relevant geographic market. ispartof: FBE Research Report MSI_1001 pages:1-9 status: published

This study is the antidote to an overdose of what the author labels “globaloney.” Undoubtedly, the term “globalization” tends to overwhelm more than it explains, and this book is designed as a guide for readers seeking to plant the seeds of a progressive future in the many fractures and weaknesses of the international economy. In place of a monolithic process of globalization, Moody reveals the gradual economic and political construction of the new world order, which contains more opportunity for change than most tend to see. Moody does not depict workers and their unions as stupefied and bewildered victims of the immense scope and pace of international change; instead, we see how recent transformations have pushed many wage earners into active resistance on the local level and how they have even managed to create crucial linkages of solidarity across the economic landscape. Workers in a Lean World frames globalization as an open-ended process, one that the world labor movement can affect profoundly.

Academics and activists who have followed the discussions of globalization in the World Social Forum literature and in progressive publications will readily agree with Soederberg that globalization does not simply signify an “inevitable and unstoppable” (26) process. In focusing on the concept of global governance, she contributes to the critical problematization of an international economic regime which all too frequently is treated as benevolent in its consequences and independent of politics. Soederberg strongly resists mythological descriptions of global (and regional) financial and other economic regimes, by pursuing an historical - materialist analysis of the emergence of the relevant organizations and institutions, always identifying the role of power, political influence and political planning in their construction. She nimbly walks the reader through a plethora of institutions which even the informed lay-person and political activist will not know how to distinguish. She obviously possesses enormous knowledge of their workings and their history. In this sense this is a very useful book to read, particularly for those who are not specialists in the fields of international relations, Third World development or the politics of international financial institutions.

Der Aufstieg des globalen Südens hat Folgen für die bislang eurozentrische Soziologie. Der Aufsatz fasst einige Aspekte des Aufstiegs und der eurozentrischen Soziologie zusammen, um dann einige Folgerungen für die Erneuerung der Soziologie zu ziehen.

POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, AND GLOBALIZATION Ambreena Manji, The Politics of Land Reform in Africa: From Communal Tenure to Free Markets. London and New York: Zed Books, 2006. vii + 149 pp. Notes. Index. £50.00. Cloth. £16.99. Paper. Ambreena Manji's book is an insightful analysis of the logic and agencies governing land reform in Africa in the age of neoliberal globalization. Building on World Bank reports and the new laws African governments are adopting to change land relations, the book examines the shift from a redistributive statist model, dominant until the 1970s, to one stressing the formalization of tenurial property, with the introduction of titling and registration, as the thrust of land reform on the continent. A legal scholar, Manji is interested in understanding why the law has come to play a central role in the definition of land reform. She argues that this innovation is consistent with a neoliberal project wherein the law acts as an instrument for the globalization of capitalist relations and the transfer of power from the local to the global, in this case removing the control over land policy from the nation-state and local communities to international "donors" and financial institutions, beginning with the World Bank. She also suggests that the formalization of land relations is an attempt to contain the struggles of rural people's movements which, faced with land grabbing by states, private companies, and local chiefs, and with the state's failure to address the historic injustices that are the legacy of colonialism, are demanding more secure access to land and opting for direct action through land occupations. In her view this pressure from below accounts for the populist language by which land reform is promoted, portraying it as a strategy for "poverty reduction." Manji points to the influence on the World Bank's land policy of Hernando De Soto's theory, according to which Third World rural populations are mired in poverty and economic stagnation because of the continuing existence of communal land tenure regimes which make for uncertain property relations, dampening incentives for investment and rural innovation. Hence the promise that titling and the expansion of land markets will open a new era of development and prosperity for African peasants, if only they could learn that land as such is a "dead asset" that becomes alive only when "brought to the bank" as collateral for the acquisition of rural credit and the financing of rural business. …

Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong, ed. Themes in West Africa's History. Athens: Ohio University Press/Oxford: James Currey/Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 2006. xii + 323 pp. Photographs. Bibliography. Index. $49.95. Cloth. $24.95. Paper. This edited volume is an exciting new West African history textbook that could be used effectively at both undergraduate and graduate levels. As its editor makes clear in the introduction, however, Themes in West Africa's History is not intended to be a substitute for a conventional historical textbook: it does not provide a narrative history of events. Nor is it organized, like Boahen's classic (though now out of date) Topics in West African History (Longman 1986 [1966]), around major episodes in West African history such as the trans-Saharan trade, Islamization, the slave trade, and colonialism. Rather, the chapters in this volume focus on themes-poverty, social inequality, environment and disease, religious transformation-that are particularly relevant to current conditions in the region; indeed, the authors of this volume share an interest in contributing to a "history of development" that speaks to Africa's contemporary problems and challenges. Thus while Themes does not solve the problem of out-of-print or out-of-date textbooks, it does potentially serve as a useful substitute, eliminating the need for a supplementary readings that, given copyright laws, can be costly. The volume comprises an introduction and thirteen essays-including contributions from linguists, political scientists, economists, and anthropologists, as well as historians-organized into three parts. The essays are well-written, reflect up-to-date scholarship, and conclude with useful recommended reading lists. Part 1 provides an excellent introduction to the most significant methodological approaches in the reconstruction of African history. Susan McIntosh summarizes the archaeological and climatological evidence for the prehistory of West Africa from roughly 10,000 BP; underlining the indigenous sources of food production, urbanism, and occupational specialization, she puts to rest earlier theories attributing West African social innovation and complexity to external stimulus. James Webb's chapter on ecology and culture complements Mcintosh's discussion, focusing on human adaptations to the environment through the period of increased external contact brought on by the trans-Saharan and Atlantic trades, colonialism, and postcolonial globalization. M. E. Kropp Dakubu provides a particularly lucid and accessible overview of historical and comparative linguistics, contact studies, and the importance of language studies for historians. And David Conrad suggests how the content and form of Manding oral traditions reveal important cultural values, as well as a sense of history at odds with the European historiographical tradition; his chapter might be productively assigned alongside The Epic of Sunjata, a staple of West African history courses. …