Showing papers in "Globalizations in 2010"
TL;DR: This paper explore the possibility that capitalism is today undergoing the systemic equivalent to Marx's notion of primitive accumulation, only now as a deepening of advanced capitalism predicated on the destruction of more traditional forms of capitalism.
Abstract: Here I explore the possibility that capitalism is today undergoing the systemic equivalent to Marx's notion of primitive accumulation, only now as a deepening of advanced capitalism predicated on the destruction of more traditional forms of capitalism. I focus on two diverse instances which share a common systemic logic: expulsing people from more traditional capitalist encasements. One instance is that of countries devastated by an imposed debt and debt-servicing regime which took priority over all other state expenditures; at its most extreme, the ensuing devastation of traditional economies and traditional states has made the land more valuable to the global market than the people on it. The other instance, which I see as a systemic equivalent to the first, is the potential for global replication of the financial innovation that destroyed 15 million plus households in the US in two years, with many more to come; household destruction at this scale devastates whole areas of cities, and leaves vacant lan...
273 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the benefits and costs of Fairtrade coffee through an economic value chain approach, and concluded that the benefits for primary producers in the US market are modest.
Abstract: Fairtrade is a market-based approach to social and environmental development for producers through the use of standards and a price floor. This article analyzes the benefits and costs of Fairtrade coffee through an economic value chain approach. The study determines the economic income from Fairtrade coffee throughout the chain as well as exploring the benefits and consequences of Fairtrade for local producers in Nicaragua and Guatemala. Our analysis shows that consumer countries acquire the larger share of economic income, mainly because Fairtrade is positioned within the conventional market where large multinationals control the supply chain. The participation of large multinationals has led to increasing pressure and tough competition for the certified producer cooperatives in the Fairtrade market. On the consumer side, while consumer marketing narratives emphasize producer benefits of Fairtrade, our results demonstrate that its total benefits for primary producers is modest. El comercio equitativo es ...
66 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore what happens to neoliberal ideas about development when they encounter the very different political and cultural context of a developing country and argue that although much scholarship tends implicitly or explicitly to emphasise the very great power of neoliberal institutions in our world today, the influence of neoliberalism on the working of the Vietnamese state has been relatively small.
Abstract: 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...
59 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that taking a short-term look at Malaysia's response to the financial crisis of 1997-1998 does not adequately assess the socioeconomic transformation that was propagated by the crisis.
Abstract: This paper argues that taking a short-term look at Malaysia's response to the financial crisis of 1997–1998 does not adequately assess the socio-economic transformation that was propagated by the crisis. Most importantly, it falls short of accounting for the shift from a bank-based to a capital market-based financial system that occurred in post-crisis Malaysia and the ensuing increasing financialisation of Malaysian capitalism. This shift has significantly affected both corporate and individual financial cultures and led to the emergence of a new politics of debt. It coincides with rising levels of household indebtedness. Moreover, it has set in motion a metamorphosis of the institutions set up to govern Malaysian capitalism. Este articulo afirma que al observar a corto plazo la respuesta de Malasia a la crisis financiera de 1997–1998, no se logra evaluar la transformacion socioeconomica que genero la crisis. Aun mas importante, no logra explicar el cambio de un sistema financiero con base en la banca a ...
51 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a critical perspective on the current global financial crisis from the standpoint of its dynamics in Latin America is provided, arguing that the crisis is but the latest manifestations of an endemic propensity towards crisis.
Abstract: This article provides a critical perspective on the current global financial crisis from the standpoint of its dynamics in Latin America. It is argued that the crisis is but the latest manifestations of an endemic propensity towards crisis. It is also argued that in Latin America strategic responses of organisations and movements in the popular sector are paving the way for a way out of the crisis that goes beyond out-of-control markets, greedy bankers and ineffective regulation or saving capitalism. At issue is the economic model (neoliberal globalisation) used to guide national policy for the past twenty-five years. Also at issue is the capitalist system itself. Este articulo provee una perspectiva critica sobre la crisis financiera global actual desde un punto de vista de su dinamica en Latinoamerica. Se ha argumentado que la crisis no es mas que la ultima manifestacion de una propension endemica hacia la crisis. Tambien se ha sostenido que las respuestas estrategicas de organizaciones y movimientos en...
28 citations
TL;DR: Although Islamic economics is compatible with modern capitalism, in its support of free markets, economic globalisation and profit, it has clear fundamental rules on the ethics and morality of economic transactions.
Abstract: Although Islamic economics is compatible with modern capitalism, in its support of free markets, economic globalisation and profit, it has clear fundamental rules on the ethics and morality of economic transactions—it denies interest or riba, the principle of ‘making money from money’ and forbids the transference of risk from the financier to entrepreneur. There must be shared appreciation over real assets by means of its sales or lease (murabaha, ijara, salam, istisna and sukuk) while credit default swaps are disallowed. There are also other systems of checks and balances which prevent an economic crisis of pandemic proportions to arise; contractual relationships in business, finance or trade must be based on trust and familiarity of networks of common experiences (takaful) which implies that debts cannot be repackaged and resold as assets globally to faceless investors while profit must be redistributed directly to the poor (zakat) in the Holy month of Ramadhan to build and strengthen social safety nets...
26 citations
TL;DR: A special issue of Globalization addresses a real and present global financial and economic crisis, of the greatest severity in nearly a century, but also a much wider set of "multiple crises" as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This special issue of Globalizations addresses a real and present global financial and economic crisis, of the greatest severity in nearly a century, but also a much wider set of ‘multiple crises’ ...
26 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that a history of these transformations illuminates issues shaping current crises: in particular, the "givenness" (normalization) of inequalities within and between groups; belief systems that cultivate stratifications and antagonistic relations; erasure of social reproduction as the indispensable foundation of sustainability; and the idealization of "growth" that under...
Abstract: The crises we confront raise fundamental questions: how do we rethink our objectives? What are we assuming as ‘given’ that is getting in the way? I approach these questions by undertaking a ‘long history’ of accumulation processes and the social hierarchies, justificatory ideologies, and subjective investments they generate. Early state formation marked a turning point in potential scales of accumulation; the ‘industrial revolution’ and European state making marked a subsequent leap associated with modern capitalism. Accumulation throughout has involved both economic and non-economic processes and a mixture of coercion and consent. I argue that a history of these transformations illuminates issues shaping current crises: in particular, the ‘givenness’ (normalization) of inequalities within and between groups; belief systems that cultivate stratifications and antagonistic relations; erasure of social reproduction as the indispensable foundation of sustainability; and the idealization of ‘growth’ that under...
25 citations
TL;DR: The dominant narrative around the unfolding capitalist crisis is firmly focused on the dominant economies, and in particular the US as discussed by the authors, which is understandable given that the proximate causes of the crisis lie in the imperial heartlands and crisis resolution measures taken there will have a global impact.
Abstract: The dominant narrative around the unfolding capitalist crisis is firmly focused on the dominant economies, and in particular the US. This is understandable given that the proximate causes of the crisis lie in the imperial heartlands and crisis resolution measures taken there will have a global impact. But a ‘view from the South’ is needed to redress the balance and prevent the decimation of global majority likelihoods being presented as mere collateral damage. The first section below tackles the crisis from a global (globalization) perspective emphasizing its impact in the South and what that it might mean in terms of political prospects. I then go on to develop a hybrid Karl Polanyi/Antonio Gramsci theoretical lens on counter-movements based on their writings responding to the last systemic capitalist crisis in the 1930s. Finally, I turn to the ways in which the international labour movement and the subaltern or post-colonial worlds are contesting the terrain vacated by unregulated market capitalism. As ...
23 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the social, economic, and environmental problems created by the search for and application of biotechnological solutions to global hunger that are also protected by a system of globally harmonized intellectual property rights.
Abstract: This paper is an examination of the social, economic, and environmental problems created by the search for and application of biotechnological solutions to global hunger that are also protected by a system of globally harmonized intellectual property rights. These contradictions are illustrated by the example of South America's Southern Cone region (Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay) where the ‘New Green Revolution’ has since 1996 been vigorously introduced, led by genetically modified (GM) soybeans. It is argued that the ‘New Green Revolution’ is not a solution either to the problem of agro-ecological sustainability or to that of hunger and malnutrition. Este articulo examina los problemas sociales, economicos y del medio ambiente, creados en busca de soluciones biotecnologicas para el hambre global, soluciones que tambien son protegidas por el sistema global armonico de derechos de propiedad intelectual. Estas contradicciones quedan claramente ilustradas utilizando el ejemplo de la region del Cono Sur en ...
22 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the adaptive reuse of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery, a 13-acre historical site located adjacent to downtown Toronto, and ask what our fascination with industrial ruins tells us about North American and European cities in the twenty-first century.
Abstract: This paper explores the adaptive reuse of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery, a 13-acre historical site located adjacent to downtown Toronto. It asks what our fascination with industrial ruins tells us about North American and European cities in the twenty-first century. The transformation of the world's largest distillery into an upscale leisure destination illustrates many of the forces that are reconfiguring cities: commodification, gentrification, the city as theme park and spectacle, post-industrialism, and the consumer preferences of the creative class. But it would be wrong to dismiss the Distillery District simply as a Disneyified version of industrial history. Whereas typical urban entertainment destinations are places that ‘synergize’ nationally branded products, chain restaurants, and multiplex movie theatres, the Distillery District is a site for serious theatre, art galleries, and local artisanal production. The image promoted by the Distillery District could be described as the commodificati...
TL;DR: The authors argued that the US's historical record suggests that it has often been a force for global instability, as it has opportunistically sought to shift the burden of economic adjustment onto others, and examined the implications of recent efforts by states to manage hegemonic instability through an expanded role for the Group of Twenty (G-20).
Abstract: One of the most influential theories in international political economy is that hegemonic power generally and the actions of the US in particular have been essential forces for stability in the international system. Yet even before the current financial crisis that has its origins in the US there were grounds for questioning this claim. Now the argument looks increasingly implausible. The essence of our argument in this article is that the US's historical record suggests that it has often been a force for global instability, as it has opportunistically sought to shift the burden of economic adjustment onto others. We develop this argument by looking at US foreign policy toward East Asia in particular, which has been deeply affected by the actions of successive America administrations, and also examine the implications of recent efforts by states to manage hegemonic instability through an expanded role for the Group of Twenty (G-20). Una de las teorias de mayor influencia en la economia politica internacio...
TL;DR: This article argued that the origins of the financial crisis of 2008 reside in the conditions of economic globalisation in the context of an imperfect world monetary order, in which financialisation has become the dominant mode of capital accumulation.
Abstract: This article argues that the origins of the financial crisis of 2008 reside in the conditions of economic globalisation in the context of an imperfect world monetary order. It first describes the emergence of globalisation, after the demise of the Bretton Woods Monetary System, as a ‘historical structure’ in which financialisation has become the dominant mode of capital accumulation. It next outlines the interregnum period of a petrol-backed dollar reserve currency that underpinned, for a time, US hegemony. The concluding sections explore the consequences of the present crisis, the decline of the US dollar and alternative scenarios of world monetary order. Este articulo sostiene que los origenes de la crisis financiera de 2008 residen en las condiciones de la globalizacion economica dentro del contexto de un orden monetario imperfecto. Primero describe el surgimiento de la globalizacion, despues de la extincion del Sistema Monetario Bretton Woods, como una ‘estructura historica’, en la cual la financiacio...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that in order to analyse labour's current inability to defend social standards and to shape the discussion of how to overcome the financial crisis, it is necessary to examine labour's wider role in the global economy during the last 30 years.
Abstract: This article is based on the understanding that in order to analyse labour's current inability to defend social standards and to shape the discussion of how to overcome the financial crisis, it is necessary to examine labour's wider role in the global economy during the last 30 years. It will be argued that because globalisation has severely weakened labour, new strategies and power resources have to be recovered in its struggle against neo-liberal restructuring. Importantly, this requires a generally new perspective which needs to be operationalised depending on the particular industrial sector and geographical location. The experience and challenges of Northern trade unions in transnational manufacturing must not be generalised. Este articulo se basa en el entendimiento de que para poder analizar la inhabilidad actual de los trabajadores para defender los estandares sociales y para dar forma a la discusion de como superar la crisis financiera, es necesario examinar el amplio rol de los trabajadores en l...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that money in the form of military spending and finance, prevailing storylines about them, and international institutions entrench the structures of global governance have muddled its underlying dynamics.
Abstract: In our troubled times, dominant discourses about crisis have muddled its underlying dynamics. To refocus, analysis explicates the ideological effects of the narratives that accompany surges in militarization and financial securitization. It is argued that money in the form of military spending and finance, prevailing storylines about them, and international institutions entrench the structures. Whereas the task of global governance is to forge collective responses and make rules for addressing these evolving processes, their mechanisms as evidenced in top-down summitry such as Group of 20 forums have silenced many key issues. Prominent among the failings is the insubstantial agenda for development, especially in regard to the world's most vulnerable populations. The old catchphrases among developmentalists will not suffice. Rather, this inquiry touches on implications for a transformation in global governance. En tiempos dificiles, los debates sobre la crisis han confundido las dinamicas subyacentes. Para...
TL;DR: Although the G-20 and other official bodies have so far refused to acknowledge the fact, we are not simply living through a financial crisis, however grave the financial aspects of the current uphe...
Abstract: Although the G-20 and other official bodies have so far refused to acknowledge the fact, we are not simply living through a financial crisis, however grave the financial aspects of the current uphe...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the crisis of late capitalism and "barbarous globalization" through an analysis of "accumulation by dispossession" and the relation between "endless accumulation", exponential growth, and pauperisation.
Abstract: This article addresses the crisis of late capitalism and ‘barbarous globalization’ through an analysis of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ and the relation between ‘endless accumulation’, exponential growth, and pauperisation. It analyses the contrast and conflict between the affluent societies of the centre (of the world system) and the societies of the dominated peripheries, as the central axis of the alternative between ‘socialism and barbarism’. The strategies of expansion of the present financialised oligopolies and plutocracies of late capitalism are pauperising the peasantries of the periphery via large scale expropriation, and plundering of natural resources. Thus, a ‘new agrarian question’ is at the heart of the challenge in the twenty-first century. The dispossession of the peasantry of the global South and the rapacious exploitation of the South's natural resources destroys the prospect of any ‘development’ worthy of the name for the peoples in question. As the crisis deepens, this process of ac...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the world order constraints that inhibit responses to major challenges of global scope, considering especially the experience with nuclear weapons and climate change, and the major conclusion reached is that the state system is ill-equipped to produce responses to such global challenges that serve the global public interest.
Abstract: This article explores the world order constraints that inhibit responses to major challenges of global scope, considering especially the experience with nuclear weapons and climate change. The major conclusion reached is that the state system is ill-equipped to produce responses to such global challenges that serve the global public interest. This deficiency arises partly from the primacy accorded to national as opposed to global interest, the extent to which national policy is driven by short cycles of political accountability, and the biasing impact of special economic and bureaucratic interests. Este articulo explora las limitaciones que inhiben las respuestas a mayores retos de ambito global, considerando especialmente las experiencias con armas nucleares y cambio del clima. La mayor conclusion alcanzada es que el sistema del estado esta mal equipado para producir respuestas a tales retos globales que sirvan al interes publico global. Esta deficiencia surge parte por la supremacia convenida al interes...
TL;DR: In this paper, an explanatory model of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, based on Keynes and Minsky as well as on concepts derived from Schum, is presented, and the authors conclude that the orthodox account is misleading not only because it has been unable to anticipate the 2008 crisis, but also because it lacks insight even into the basic operations of financial markets.
Abstract: In order to build scenarios of possible futures and grasp the structural liabilities and tendencies of global financial markets, we do not need just historical analogies to past crises and collapses but also a conceptual-theoretical model that explains the characteristic mechanisms of financial markets Firstly, I summarise the neoclassical understanding of financial markets and its characteristic effects This understanding gave ex post legitimisation to the re-emergence of global finance in the early 1970s, and has subsequently justified and encouraged its rise to predominance in the world economy I provide reasons to suspect that the orthodox account is misleading not only because it has been unable to anticipate the 2008–2009 crisis (or any other major crisis) but more fundamentally because it lacks insight even into the basic operations of financial markets Secondly, I sketch an explanatory model of the 2008–2009 financial crisis, based on Keynes and Minsky as well as on concepts derived from Schum
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the spaces of globalization by the globalized businesses of gambling, entertainment, and resort operations, and analyze how the fantasy destination spaces built by gaming corporations unfold as packaged globalist cultural revolutions and casinopolitan modes o...
Abstract: This study explores the spaces of globalization by the globalized businesses of gambling, entertainment, and resort operations. In particular, it re-examines how the real estate development, finance, and entertainment industries have allied in the early twenty-first century in two unusual spatial settings: a newly returned territory to the People's Republic of China (PRC), or the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR), and Clark County, Nevada in the United States of America (USA) with the city of Las Vegas at its core. Neither of these sites is known for its cosmopolitan sophistication, but socio-economic networks of the global gaming, resort, shopping, and entertainment industries are using the theme park motifs rooted in huge new casino properties to generate a simulated cosmopolitan allure, which could be characterized as ‘casinopolitanism’. This paper analyzes how the fantasy destination spaces built by gaming corporations unfold as packaged globalist cultural revolutions and casinopolitan modes o...
TL;DR: The issue we face today is a crisis with multiple aspects, for which I would first like to offer an analysis as mentioned in this paper, and moreover, look ahead to a utopia, and to the question: how can a solution to this crisis move us beyond the parameters of capitalism?
Abstract: The issue we face today is a crisis with multiple aspects, for which I would first like to offer an analysis. Beyond that, moreover, I would like to look ahead to a utopia, and to the question: how can a solution to this crisis move us beyond the parameters of capitalism?
TL;DR: The authors explored points of contact between neojihadist violence and globalization as part of a strategy to provincialize the inherently presentist character of extant discussions of the current financial crisis and seek a broadening of the cultural field in which neo-ihadist projects, specifically of destruction or self-annihilation, become intelligible.
Abstract: This article explores points of contact between neojihadist violence and globalization as part of a strategy to provincialize the inherently presentist character of extant discussions of the current financial crisis It seeks a broadening of the cultural field in which neojihadist projects, specifically of destruction or self-annihilation, become intelligible Implicit in this exercise is the nagging suspicion that a focus on civilizational aspects of the general crisis offers greater access to differential registers within globalization The violence of globalization is captured in the emergence of restrictive cultural horizons preventing authentication of different forms of life Islamic nihilism is a constitute aspect of modernity, and under globalizing conditions, an integral part of cultural and religious erasure The exhaustion of a west-centered global modern as the only legitimate imagined world is the principal feature of this crisis Nihilistic violence merely uncovers the recognition of the nec
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the nature of both the financial system and the economic models deployed to price the main products that are traded in the system, like options, derivatives and collateralized debt obligations.
Abstract: What does it mean to describe the financial system as ‘irrational’? And what would be the global regulatory implications and consequences for the financial system if it were thoroughly ‘irrational’? These are the issues pursued in this article The article sets out to explore the nature of both the financial system and the economic models deployed to price the main products that are traded in the system, like options, derivatives and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) The underlying assumptions associated with these economic models are examined and the failure of the markets to track risks assessed The article moves on to review several alternative and radical theoretical approaches that draw attention to the nature of the potential irrationality of markets and decision making in the financial sphere, like ‘excessive exuberances’ and ‘animal spirits’ Finally, the article assesses the consequences of this kind of analysis for regulation A key claim is that the financial system might be more profita
TL;DR: Using a futures-oriented method, this paper reviewed 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 and festering problems with the trajectory of development in Viet Nam.
Abstract: 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...
TL;DR: The authors argued that the conceptual terrain of the global is fundamentally unstable, that its content is far from determined, and that the global constitutes its own content in various fields in which it gets deployed, selectively affirming particular images and representations, while denying, repressing, or otherwise excluding others.
Abstract: The central premise of this article is that the conceptual terrain of the global is fundamentally unstable, that its content is far from determined. This opens the door to many different interpretations and uses of the term, where the referent is not so much to a pre-given reality, or even a tangible geographical space. Rather, the global constitutes its own content in the various fields in which it gets deployed, selectively affirming particular images and representations, while denying, repressing, or otherwise excluding others. I draw on the early history of film to argue that the global is a virtual distribution of value and intelligibility, where its images and signs no longer ‘represent’ an independent reality, but actually shape and transform the inter-subjective experiences of its virtual subjects. I use a recent documentary film on call centers in India to demonstrate how distinct regimes of cinematic images enable different kinds of interventions into these virtual distributions, revealing the g...
TL;DR: The authors investigates the spatial frames that are mobilised in the discourse and practice of border policing in the Australian context and the ideological content in which those frames are embedded, finding that both in local sites and at territory's edges, border policing is indicative of a new terrain of sovereign practice.
Abstract: This paper investigates the spatial frames that are mobilised in the discourse and practice of border policing in the Australian context and the ideological content in which those frames are embedded. On the one hand, a deterritorialised frame positions unwanted migrants as a global threat from beyond. On the other, a territorialised frame enables the possibility of sovereign territorial defence. Neither of these frames, I contend, adequately captures contemporary techniques of border policing which increasingly open borders to global market ideology in the very act of their defence. Nor do they capture the strategic opportunities that exist across different places and scales to resist sovereign logics of control. The paper drills down to the level of the city and the experience of asylum seekers in Melbourne in order to further highlight the limits of simplistic spatial frames. I show that both in local sites and at territory's edges, border policing is indicative of a new terrain of sovereign practice. ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the meaning of crisis in both contemporary and historical perspective, utilizing crisis as an analytical concept to understand transformation in socio-historical system structure and world order.
Abstract: This article addresses the meaning of ‘crisis’ in both contemporary and historical perspective, utilising crisis as an analytical concept to understand transformation in socio-historical system structure and world order It examines the nature of ‘capital’ and its relation to crisis through an understanding of the historical dialectics of capital(ism) The article presents a summary of a general theory of world systemic crisis, drawing upon analysis of world historical patterns, including the key factors: overextraction, overconcentration, underconsumption, and underinvestment, the concept of ‘parasitic appropriation’ or ‘parasitic accumulation’, ‘hegemonic transition’ and ‘entropy’ It concludes with a discussion of the relation between globalization and crisis and the potential for a new radical politics of transformation in the context of the present global crisis Este articulo trata con el significado de ‘crisis’ tanto en la perspectiva contemporanea como en la historica, utilizando la crisis como un
TL;DR: The United States trade policy toward Asia has undergone an important evolution over the last 60 years, reflecting not only changes in its vision of engaging Asia but also in the general American approach to trade negotiations as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: US trade policy toward Asia has undergone an important evolution over the last 60 years, reflecting not only changes in its vision of engaging Asia but also in the general American approach to trade negotiations. Put succinctly, in the late 1980s the USA turned away from its former deep commitment to multilateral trade negotiations and began to pursue a strategy of ‘competitive liberalization’. This shift has been marketed as an innovative approach to trade negotiations, and includes the pursuit of bilateral and minilateral arrangements as well as sectorally based market opening. At the turn of the millennium we have seen the active pursuit of bilateral trade agreements. How can we categorize the patterns of US trade arrangements over time? What are the driving forces behind the evolution of US trade policy towards Asia? What are the implications, both domestically and internationally, of this changing US trade strategy? And finally, what is the likely direction of future US trade policy? La politica come...
TL;DR: In this article, the intersection of language and space as reflected in the interplay of global ideologies and urban landscapes is discussed, and the authors aim to illuminate and problematise the production of ideologies as both discursive and spatial phenomena by grounding their analyses in cities of global North and South.
Abstract: This article introduces the central problematic behind this special edition: the intersection of language and space as reflected in the interplay of global ideologies and urban landscapes. We aim to illuminate and problematise the production of ideologies as both discursive and spatial phenomena by grounding our analyses in cities of the global North and South. We outline our reasons for this focus in relation to the prominence of space in contemporary social theory and in relation to more everyday local-global conditions. Specifically, we point to the declining availability of conventional ‘public spaces’ as sites of ideological dissent; the proliferation of ideologically embedded metaphors and neologisms that narrow the diverse potentials of spatial transformation; the constraints that disciplinary boundaries place on socio-spatial inquiry; and the normative drive to build heterogeneous futures other than those set out by elites as universally ‘global’. We outline the contributions to this special editi...
TL;DR: The current crisis has implications for the structure of world power as discussed by the authors, and it is worth noting that during the Great Depression, Third World countries that adopted less-orthodox policies did better than core countries.
Abstract: The current crisis has implications for the structure of world power. Some parts of the developing world have enjoyed a very ‘good’ crisis, with sustained economic growth and even increasing equity. Similarly, during the Great Depression, Third World countries that adopted less-orthodox policies did better than core countries. These relative successes helped shape a generation of thinking about economic policy. Unfortunately, policies that made sense when the core was weak made less sense when the core again became strong, yet some states continued to follow them. A generation from now, some of today's successful states may find themselves confronting different changed circumstances with policies that have become equally problematic. Chinese policy makers may learn a lesson that will prove incorrect: that the centralization of authoritarian government in the hands of a small, pro-capitalist clique is good for economic growth and global power. In contrast, the lessons learned during the crisis by successfu...