Showing papers in "Economy and Society in 1999"
TL;DR: In this paper, a change in the type of market knowledge provileged by retail banks as a result of the rise of a new implementation of information technology is discussed, and the most significant developement in this regard has been the now routine use of credit-scoring systems, which are designed to voer come the chronic problems of information asymmetries in crdit-rating systems and represent a major transformation in the knoledge base of the industry.
Abstract: This paper foucuses upon a change in the type of market knowledge provileged by ratail banks as a result of the rise of a new implementation of information technology. In traditional retail banks market knolwedge was embodied in the local manager and his/her staff in braches. Over the last decade or so, such embodied knowledge has been downgraded and greater embhasis has been placed on the moresystematic use of empirrical information on customers derived from other sources, maded possile by the rise of computer,s software and databses. The most significant developement in this regard has been the now routine useof credit-scoring systems, which are designed to voer come the chronic problems of information asymmetries in crdit-scoring systems and the rise of a marketing discourse within the industry represents a major transformation in the knoledge base of the industry. The paper critically evaluates ways in which this transformation has been brought about and considers the likely shape of the new systems o...
209 citations
TL;DR: The ways citizen participation and democracy are changing are poorly understood due to the dominance of theories inherited from the eioghteenth centruy: Democratic citizenship can be better understood if critical reflection is re-oriented around the games of concrete freedom here and now as recommended by Hannah Arendt, Ludwing Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault and Quentin Skinner as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The ways citizen participation and democracy are changing are poorly understood due to the dominance of theories inherited from the eioghteenth centruy: Democratic citizenship can be better understood if critical reflection is re-oriented around the games of concrete freedom here and now as recommended by Hannah Arendt, Ludwing Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault and Quentin Skinner. This orientation brings to light two distrinctive types of citizen freedom in the present: diverse forms of citizen participation and diverse practices of governance in which citizens participate.
197 citations
TL;DR: According to conventional economic indicators, since late 1997 history has been reversed for South Koreans as mentioned in this paper, and their current financial crisis, which would have led to a moratorium without the emergency bail-out packae from the International Monetary Fund, seems to require not only economic austerity for business firms and citizen but also a total devaluation of their developmental "micacle" in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Abstract: According to conventional economic indicators, since late 1997 history has been reversed for South Koreans since late 1997. Their current financial crisis, which would have led to a moratorium without the emergency bail-out packae from teh International Monetary Fund, seems to require not only economic austerity for business firms and citizen but also a total devaluation of their developmental ‘micacle’ in the latter half of the twentieth century. South Koreans' dilemma, if evaluated from a broad historical and theoretical perspective on their compresed modernity, is that the vary mechanisms which made their explosive economic growth possible tend to create various hazardous consequences in social, political, cultural as well as economic life. Patriarchal political authoritarianism chaebol's despotic and monopolistic business practice, abuse and exclusion of labour, neglect of basic welfare rights, ubiquitous physical dangers, and ideological self-nagation are particularly serious examples of such hazards...
148 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that a person's self-identity is a key site of conditions of their performance, and that per' selfidentity, per' identity is a crucial site of contestation in the struggle that maps out production, focusing on issues of gender and the body.
Abstract: Recent analyses of workplace organization have stressed that the self-identify of workers constitutes a key resource in new regimes of accumulation. Morever, this significance of self-identify has been understood to form part of an aestheticization of work since the techniques involved in the performance of identity are widely conceived as aesthetic or cultural practices. However, in this article we suggest that in these assumptions the questions of a person's relation to self-identity and of how the labour or work of identity may contribute to the political organization of production remain hidden. Through looking not just at the kinds of self-identity available to and performed by workers but also at the terms and conditions of their performance. We show that a person's self-identity is a key site of conditions of their performance, we show that per' self-identity is a key site of contestation in the struggle that maps out production. In particular, and through a focus on issues of gender and the body, ...
135 citations
TL;DR: The ways in which pregnancy is increasingly portrayed as a state requiring careful and detailed risk prevention are explored, and connections are made between the use of this ‘risk talk’ in prenatal advice to pregnant women and a larger practice of ‘self-regulation’ that occurs in advanced liberal rule.
Abstract: This paper explores the ways in which pregnancy is increasingly portrayed as a state requiring careful and detailed risk prevention. The subject of risk reduction in not the pregnant woman; the effort here is not to reduce maternalrisk during pregnancy, but rather to reduce possible risks to the foetus due to maternal behaviour. The deployment of risk discourse regarding foetal endangerment through maternal diet, exercise, lifestyle choices and personal habits is investigated using popular advice manuals directed at pregnant women. Through an examination of these materials, connections are made between the use of this ‘risk talk’ in prenatal advice to pregnant women and a larger practice of ‘self-regulation’ that occurs in advanced liberal rule.
130 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an analysis of the dialectics of path-shaping and dependency in relation to recent Danish reforms which appear to bring us from the Keynesian welfare national state to a Schumpeterian workfare postnational regime.
Abstract: The present article offers an analysis of the dialectics of path-shaping and path-dependency in relation to recent Danish reforms which appear to bring us from the Keynesian welfare national state to a Schumpeterian workfare postnational regime. It provides a brief outline of the theoretical framework for understanding the restructruation of the Danish welfare state along these lines of though, and describes and characterizes the recent reforms in the ficld of cconomic and social policy. To explain this particular formulation, choice and implementaion of the Danish restructuration strategy the article provides an heuristic account of the dialectics of path-shaping and path-depending. The conclusion reflects on possiblities for future research into the intricacies of welfare state restructuring.
112 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider two cases in detail: the Hamawiyya, a branch of the Tijani Sufi order whose leader was exiled by the French and which was brutally repressed in the 1940s; and the Wahhabiyya movement which emerged after World war II.
Abstract: One of the most unintended consequences of colonial rule in French West Africa was the Islamization of large parts of it. Islamic movements have often been interpreted in specifically plitical terms, as instances of ‘collaboration’ with or ‘resistance’ to colonial domination. They can better be understood in terms of the emergence of a qualitatively new ‘Islamic sphere7rsquo; conceptually separate from ‘particular’ affiliations such as ethnicity, kin group membership or salve origins, as well as from the colonial state. This paper considers two cases in detail: the Hamawiyya, a branch of the Tijani Sufi order whose leader was exiled by the French and which was brutally repressed in the 1940s; and the ‘Wahhabiyya’, an anti-Sufi movement which emerged after World war II.
111 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that the internal causes of the East Asian economic crisis were intimately associated with asymmetric state institutional capacities to mediate between the domestic and international economies.
Abstract: While rejecting arguments that locate the blame for the East Asian economic crisis in simplistic notions of ‘Crony capitalism’, this paper supplements analyses which have focused on the role of international finance capital. It does so by suggesting that threre were real internal causes of the cirsis in the countries most affectd and that these were intimately associated with asymmetrical state institutional capacities to mediate between the domestic and international economies. Nothing that the symptoms of crisis in Thailand, Malaysis, Indonesis and IIong Kong were quite different from those in Korea, the paper suggests that these differences were not coincidental. Rather they are traceable tothese asymmetric state capacities. Inter alia, the paper explores the role of Overseass Chnese conglomerates and state actors in the development of structurally weak economies in the Southcast Asian countries, and asks whether the ‘fundamentals’ of the real economies in question (including Korea)were indeed robust, ...
100 citations
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors proposed to abolish the institutional barriers between the two labour markets, in the state and the non-state sectors, to cope with the problem of the high unemployment rate accompanying the transition to the market economy.
Abstract: As the reform of state-owned enterprises proceeds, a massive number of Chinese workers have been laid off since 1993. Massive lay-offs are rooted in the full employment policy carried out in the state sector under the centrally planned economy. However, the total number of laid-off workers accumulated to a dangerous level in 1998 because the Chinese social welfare system, which depended upon work units for delivering benefits and was limited to the state sector, hindered the mobility of laid-off workers from the state to the non-state sector. To cope with the problem of the high unemployment rate accompanying the transition to the market economy, certain institutional reforms purporting to abolish the institutional barriers between the two labour markets, in the state and the non-state sectors, must be taken into account in China's policymaking
67 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a critical assessment of recent developments within economics is offered, taking a recent article by Grahame Thomapson as point of departure, it is suggested that an important aspect is the capacity to explain the social, such as institutions and structures, on the basis of individual optimzation (in the presence of imperfect and asymmetric information).
Abstract: A critical assessment is offered of recent developments within economics. Taking a recent article by Grahame Thomapson as point of departure, it is suggested that an important aspect is the capacity to explain the social, such as institutions and structures, on the basis of individual optimzation (in the presence of imperfect and asymmetric information). Such results from within economics are even more important for their impact on the relationship between economics and other social sciences, for teh colonizing of other social sciences by economics has been considerably strengthened. This is illustrated by reference to 'social capital' and a variety of other examples. While te outcome of this 'revolution' around mainstream economics remains uncertain, in retreating from postmodernism other social sciences can incorporate a renewed interest in an economic content by drawing ypon well-founded political economy as they have traditionally done in the past.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that such actions can be understood as demonstrations in the tecnical as much as in the political sense, and draw attention to the technical and ethical practices involved in the conduct of a demonstration.
Abstract: The term demonstration refers both to political and to scientific and technical activity. On the one hand, A demonstration is a public political protest. On the other hand, the condcut of a demonstration is, in a scientific or tecnical context, a matter of witnessing a natural phenomenon or atecnological possibility. the subject of this paper is the conduct of direct action against the construction of the Newbury bypass and the development of the A30 trunk road in Devon. The Paper argues that such actions can be understood as demonstrations in the tecnical as much as in the political sense. In doings so, the paper draws attention to the tecnical and ethical practices involved in the conduct of a demonstration.
TL;DR: The authors examines the means by which the Bharatiya janata Party (BJP) and its allies have sought to reinvent the political spaces of India (Hindudom) and describes the gendered rituals of pilgrimage and spatial representation that allow Hindu nationalists to position Bharat Mata(Mother India) as a geographical entity under threat from Islam and in need of the protective armies of Lord Rama.
Abstract: This paper examines the means by which the Bharatiya janata Party (BJP) and its allies have sought to reinvent the political spaces of India (Hindudom). It describes the gendered rituals of pilgrimage and spatial representation that allow Hindu nationalists to position Bharat Mata(Mother India) as a geographical entity under threat from Islam and in need of the protective armies of Lord Rama. It also explores the geopolitical claims of the BJP and its attempts to position Greater India as a Great Power. The explosion of three nuclear devices in the Rajasthan desert on 11 May 1998 can be linked to this geopolitical imaginary. The paper argues, however, that the nuclear tests were triggered by the weakness of the BJP in India's centrist Political landscapes. The ‘militarization of all Hindudomis’ is sternly contested.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that economic globalization has a life of its own because it shapes neoliberal thought in econoomics and politics and argue that globaliszation is a higl contested process, which poses a serious threat to the practice and social organization of Chinese capitalism in southeast Asia.
Abstract: To some observeers, economic globalization has led to the edn of thenation state dn geopgrphy. It assumed that globaliszation erodes nationa differeces adn geographlical heterogeneity. This globalization discourse has a life of its own because it shapes neoliberal thought in econoomics and politics. In thsi paper, I attempt to challenge this ‘stron globalization’ reading of the global political economy. I argue that, istead of leading to a ‘boderless’ world, eocnomic globalization continues to reinforce national deversity in the face ofglobal capitalism. This argument is particularly relvenat to the recent economic crissi in Southeast Asia where Chines business serves as a domnant mode o Capitalism. Through two case studies of Chinese capitalism, I argue that globaliszation is a higl contested process. On teh one hand, it poses a serious threat to the practice adn social organization of Chinese capitalism in southeast Asia. The recent collpase of Peregrine Investment Holdings is a good example of how glob...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that firms engage in non-monetary exchange in order to discount nominal prices which remain well above market-clearing levels, and conclude that the 1998 financial collapse was rooted in the breakdown of the subsidy system.
Abstract: The unprecedented reliance on non-monetary exchange (NME) in transactions among industrial enterprises is one of the most remarkable features of Russia's post-Soviet economic transformation. This paper argues that firms engage in NME in order to discount nominal prices which remain well above market-clearing levels. The mechanisms which prevent a convergence between formal and actual transaction values include asset valuation rules, depreciation schedules, tax regulations and an inadequate bankruptcy mechanism. These distortions to the price-formation mechanism effectively operate to sustain a subsidy regime which has hitherto shielded much of Russian industry from the rigours of the market. The analysis concludes with an examination of the 1998 financial collapse, arguing that the crash was rooted in the breakdown of the subsidy system just described, a process which was strikingly similar to the breakdown of the Soviet economic system a decade earlier.
TL;DR: In this article, the cosmopolitan and humanist sensibilities articulated by some of the Nazis' colonial prisoner of war are put forward as a resource for contemporary thinking about race, difference and multi-culture.
Abstract: This short piece invites reconsideration of the impact of modern raciology on the formation of the academic humanities. In the light of that all too easily forgoten connection, it asks what place the memory of the Nazi period should now enjoy in contemporary scholarly work oriented by its opposition to fraternalist and populist ultra-nationalism. The memory of the Third Reich can be recovered in a number of different ways not all of which are alive to the relationship between anti-Nazi resistance and the dynamic opposition to colonial power that succeeded it. In conclusion, the cosmopolitan and humanist sensibilities articulated by some of the Nazis' colonial prisoner of war are put forward as a resource for contemporary thinking about ‘race’, difference and multi-culture.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that these tensions may be resolved by adopting a form of rule which seeks to manage crowds throguh authority internal to the crowd, by means of strategies aimed to intensify the self-regulatory processes of crowds.
Abstract: Crowd protest activity within liberal democratic countries of the West brings into view a series of tensions within the liberal democratic mode of rule. Crowds must be controlled, but at the same time the state should not limit the right of communities to protest. In this paper we argue that these tensions may be resolved by adopting a form of rule which seeks to manage crowds throguh authority internal to the crowd, by means of strategies aimed to intensify the self-regulatory processes of crowds. Liberal strategies and tactics of social control are identified in South African legislation during the period of transition from apartheid's repressive mode of rule to the democracy of the new Sount Africa. throughout the paper it is argued that liberal democrative forms of crowd management find their conditions of possibility in recent developments in crowd psychology, which treat crowds as relational, self-regulating and indentitied phenomena.
TL;DR: In this article, a critical account of current associationalist proposals for welfare reform is presented, arguing that contrary to the associationalists' own case, the institutional structure suggested by associationalism would not better provide for the needs of welfare recipients.
Abstract: This paper presents a critical account of current associationalist proposals for welfare reform. It argues that contrary to the associationalists' own case, the institutional structure suggested by associationalism would not better provide for the needs of welfare recipients. After a detailed exposition of the fundamental claims of proponents of associational welfare, the paper challenger two of the key normative judgements that underlie the associational project. First, it criticizes the associationalist tendency to emphasize unregulated choice in welfare provision, arguing that such a settlement would ignore the important disinction between ‘needs’ and ‘preferences’. Second, it rejects the associationalists' acceptance of significant inequalities in welfare provision, suggesting that such inequlities would, almost by conceptual definition, leave many recipients' needs unfulfilled. The paper concludes by indicating that any proposed welfare reform intended to enhance provision for needs should be located...
TL;DR: In this paper, Tully's approach to political philosophy and his arguments concerning the constitutional recognition of cultural diversity are analyzed and contextualized within a discussion of Wittgenstein, showing how this approach illustrates and overcomes the limitations of analytic approaches to political political philosophy.
Abstract: This essay analyses Tully's approach to political philosophy and his arguments concerning the constitutional recognition of cultural diversity. It contextualizes Tully's approach within a discussion of Wittgenstein, showing how this approach illustrates and overcomes the limitations of analytic approaches to political philosophy. It then turns to show how this approach elucidates the character and significance of struggles for cultural recognition. The essay considers the form of civic education exemplified by this approach and some possible criticisms of Tully's arguments, before concluding with a set of reflections on the tone of political philosophy.
TL;DR: In this article, a reply to Marc Stears' reply to Associationalist Welfare: a reply is given, with a discussion of the associationist welfare problem in the context of economics and society.
Abstract: (1999). Associationalist welfare: a reply to Marc Stears. Economy and Society: Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 590-597.
TL;DR: The personal is the political: justice and gender in deconstruction as mentioned in this paper, where the personal is political and gender is defined as the social order of a person's life. But this is not the case here.
Abstract: (1999). The personal is the political: justice and gender in deconstruction. Economy and Society: Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 300-311.
TL;DR: A response to Ben Fine's "How far should we be afraid of conventional economics?" can be found in this article, where the authors argue that "far is the limit of how far we should fear conventional economics".
Abstract: (1999). How far should we be afraid of conventional economics? A response to Ben Fine. Economy and Society: Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 426-433.
TL;DR: In this article, the relationship between theories of degeneracy inspired by medicine and psychiatry in the nineteenth century and the sociological theory of Emile Durkheim is explored, and it is shown that these theories were not only aimed at sociological as opposed to biological explanations of the phenomena studied by theorists of degeneration, but also grounded a new normative understanding of these phenomena that was consonant with the humanitarian ideals of ethical individualism.
Abstract: This Paper explores the relationshipbetween theories of degeneracy inspired by medicine and psychiatry in the nineteenth century and the sociological theory of Emile Durkheim. After briefly reviewing the main themes of degeneracy theory, there follows an analysis of Durkheim's writings of the 1880s and 1890s and 1890s on crime, suicide and birth-rates. The paper argues, first, that Durkheim's relationship to degeneracy theory is considerably more complex than is generally portrayed in the secondary literature and undergoes considerable modification over time: second, that Durkheim's theoretical efforts were not only aimed at sociological as opposed to biological explanations of the phenomena studied by theorists of degeneration, but also grounded a new normative understanding of these phenomena that was consonant with the humanitarian ideals of ethical individualism.
TL;DR: In this paper, an interpretaion of Islamic fundamentalism, especially the Iranian Revolution, in the context of sociological debates about "modernity" is presented. But the problematic nature of both these terms is acknowledge.
Abstract: This paper offers an interpretaion of 'Islamic fundamentalism', especially the Iranian Revolution, in the context of sociological debates about 'modernity'. The problematic nature of both these terms is acknowledge. It criticizes explanations of 'fundamentalism' that begin from the assumption of a dichotomy between fundamentalism and modernity, arguing instead for a more nuanced understanding of both Islamic revivalism and the modern. The paper begins by offering a model of modernity as a set of bi-modal tensions within which Islamic 'fundamentalism' could be understood as a form of modernist revolutionary populism. This argument is then developed through a comparison betwen the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Jacobin phase of the French Revolution. It argues that there are parallels between the idea of Islamic revolution and the Jacobin revolutionary imagination, which demonstrate with some observations on Islam, and the closure of the Jacobin revolutionary project.
TL;DR: Gibb, Gibb, Massignon and Lane as mentioned in this paper show that Said's handling of the evidence about these figures can be less than generous, and is occasionally questionable.
Abstract: Though concerned with representation and misrepresentation, Orientatism encounters problems in its own representation of several of the figures it discusses. This paper considers Said's treatment of three of them: H.A.R. Gibb, Louis Massignon and E.W. Lane. It shows that Said's handling of the evidence about these figures can be less than generous, and is occasionally questionable. This is partly because Said's implicit cirterion for judging their encounters with the cultures they studiedd unreasonabley demnds their transcendent idenfication with those cultures. However, the point of the paper is less to berate Said than to read his treatment of these figures, as symptomatic an underlying sense of isolation.