Dissertation•
Political economy of port competition : institutional analyses of Rotterdam, Southern California and Dubai
01 Jan 2007-
About: The article was published on 2007-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 37 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Port (computer networking) & Competition (economics).
Citations
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01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: Fukuyama's seminal work "The End of History and the Last Man" as discussed by the authors was the first book to offer a picture of what the new century would look like, outlining the challenges and problems to face modern liberal democracies, and speculated what was going to come next.
Abstract: 20th anniversary edition of "The End of History and the Last Man", a landmark of political philosophy by Francis Fukuyama, author of "The Origins of Political Order". With the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 the threat of the Cold War which had dominated the second half of the twentieth century vanished. And with it the West looked to the future with optimism but renewed uncertainty. "The End of History and the Last Man" was the first book to offer a picture of what the new century would look like. Boldly outlining the challenges and problems to face modern liberal democracies, Frances Fukuyama examined what had just happened and then speculated what was going to come next. Tackling religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes and war, "The End of History and the Last Man" remains a compelling work to this day, provoking argument and debate among its readers. "Awesome ...a landmark ...profoundly realistic and important ...supremely timely and cogent ...the first book to fully fathom the depth and range of the changes now sweeping through the world." (George Gilder, "The Washington"). Post Francis Fukuyama was born in Chicago in 1952. His work includes "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy" and "After the Neo Cons: Where the Right went Wrong". He now lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and children, where he also works as a part time photographer.
235 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the recent corporatisation process of three seaports in Asia and Europe, focusing on whether the newly established seaport governance structures follow a path largely affected by the local/national institutional frameworks and the political traditions in place.
Abstract: Bringing in neo-institutional perspectives, this paper investigates the recent corporatisation process of three seaports in Asia and Europe. We focus on whether the newly established seaport governance structures follow a path largely affected by the local/national institutional frameworks and the political traditions in place. Findings confirm that path-dependent decisions largely preserve the institutional characteristics of local/national systems, resulting in implementation asymmetries when different countries seek generic governance solutions.
160 citations
Cites background from "Political economy of port competiti..."
...Given calls for more balanced regional development (see Jacobs, 2007b), the government also ensured that the PoR would not gain significant competitive advantage due to public financing....
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...…line with the transformation of Singapore (Airriess, 2001a) and Dubai (Jacobs and Hall, 2007) to global hubs, the comparative study of ports in South California, Dubai, and Rotterdam by Jacobs (2007a; 2007b), and Lee et al's (2008) remarks on the importance of contextual traditions for port models....
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...…representatives, the national government pushed a (trans)port expansion agenda (the Main-port Agenda) against the reservations of city authorities who were less keen on attracting more business within the port's premises through too drastic port governance reform (for details, see Jacobs, 2007b)....
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...It is only recently that scholars (ie Hall, 2003; Jacobs, 2007a; Jacobs and Hall, 2007) have focused on a concept previously applied in the context of transportation (Heritier et al, 2001) and maritime (Pallis, 2002) policy evolution: institutional settings do matter....
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...…political traditions and relevant frameworks on port governance between (or within) nations has only recently attracted academic interest, with Airriess (2001a), Hall (2003), Jacobs (2007a), and Jacobs and Hall (2007) examining Singapore, Baltimore, Dubai, and Los Angeles/Long Beach, respectively....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the location patterns of firms that provide specialized advanced producer services (APS) to international commodity chains that move through seaports are analyzed and the authors conclude that while port-related APS activities predominantly follow the world city hierarchy, a number of port cities stand out because they act as nodes in global commodity flows and as centres of advanced services related to shipping and port activities.
Abstract: In this article we analyse the location patterns of firms that provide specialized advanced producer services (APS) to international commodity chains that move through seaports. Such activities can take place in world cities or in port cities. The analysis of APS location patterns in port cities provides a good opportunity to integrate the study of world cities into the framework of Global Production Networks. Based upon our empirical findings, we conclude that while port-related APS activities predominantly follow the world city hierarchy, a number of port cities stand out because they act as nodes in global commodity flows and as centres of advanced services related to shipping and port activities. Based on these empirical findings we address future avenues of research.
155 citations
Cites background from "Political economy of port competiti..."
...However, some cities that did not rank high in the GaWC research, such as Houston, Rotterdam, Panama City, Piraeus, Hamburg and Antwerp, clearly emerge as prime locations....
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...Second, ports are important transport nodes in the global supply chains of specific commodities in which value is created (Jacobs 2007; Robinson 2002; Wang et al. 2007) but have hardly been analysed from the GCC-GVC-GPN perspective....
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...Institutionally, the devolution of local government control on the port‟s management (see Brooks and Cullinane 2007; Jacobs 2007) further eroded port-city relationships....
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Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston, and from that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible.
Abstract: In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about. Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. It recounts how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur, Malcom McLean, turned containerization from an impractical idea into a massive industry that slashed the cost of transporting goods around the world and made the boom in global trade possible. But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean's success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container's potential. Drawing on previously neglected sources, economist Marc Levinson shows how the container transformed economic geography, devastating traditional ports such as New York and London and fueling the growth of previously obscure ones, such as Oakland. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world's workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe.
132 citations
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: In this article, path dependence in seaport governance has been studied and a process of institutional stretching takes place when port authorities see a need to develop new capabilities and activities, gradually leading to a formalised governance reform but without breaking out of the existing path of development.
Abstract: This paper deals with path dependence in seaport governance. A central notion in this respect is lock-in. Economic geographers have recently started to reconsider the deterministic perspective on lock-in and developed the concept of institutional plasticity. Such plasticity is the result of actions of actors to purposefully ‘recombine and convert or reinterpret institutions for their new objectives or transfer institutions to different contexts’ (Strambach, 2010). This concept is applied to seaports, where so far, path dependence and lock-in have not been studied in detail. Our main conclusion is that a process of institutional stretching takes place when port authorities see a need to develop new capabilities and activities. In this process new layers are added to existing arrangements, gradually leading to a formalised governance reform but without breaking out of the existing path of development.
131 citations
References
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TL;DR: The authors argue that the subnational scales of major urban regions represent strategic institutional arenas in which far-reaching transformations of state spatiality are unfolding, and suggest that processes of urban governance represent a key mechanism for the rescaling of (western European) state space.
Abstract: While many analyses of globalization and the changing state have focused on the construction of new supranational political regimes, such as the European Union, this chapter argues that the subnational scales of major urban regions represent strategic institutional arenas in which far-reaching transformations of state spatiality are unfolding I suggest, in particular, that processes of urban governance represent a key mechanism for the rescaling of (western European) state space First, managerial-welfarist forms of urban governance are shown to have played a major role in the consolidation and eventual crisis of nationalized state spaces between the 1950s and the mid-1970s Second, the entrepreneurial, growth-oriented approaches to urban governance that have proliferated during the post-1970s period are interpreted as significant expressions and catalysts of a fundamental rescaling of inherited national state spaces In contrast to the project of national territorial equalization associated with Keynesian welfare national states, contemporary “urban locational policies” promote the formation of Rescaled Competition State Regimes (RCSRs) in which (a) significant aspects of economic regulation are devolved to subnational institutional levels; and (b) major socio-economic assets are reconcentrated within the most globally competitive urban regions and industrial districts
366 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors demonstrate that because of the rapidly changing environment the port and liner shipping markets are not stable any longer, individual terminal operators and shipping lines tend to walk different paths on a quest for higher margins and increased customer satisfaction.
Abstract: Globalisation, deregulation, logistics integration and containerisation have reshaped the port and shipping industry. Port and maritime companies are challenged to redefine their functional role in the value chain for the sake of creating customer value and of ensuring the survival and growth of the company. Companies are busily trying to disrupt the status quo rather than preserve it. Based on empirical evidence, this paper demonstrates that because of the rapidly changing environment the port and liner shipping markets are not stable any longer. Individual terminal operators and shipping lines tend to walk different paths on a quest for higher margins and increased customer satisfaction. And more than once they (have to) change paths.
355 citations
"Political economy of port competiti..." refers background in this paper
...…lines specialized in containers, the rise of global terminal operators, and the scale enlargement within containerized shipping in general, has been addressed by several scholars (Notteboom, 2004; Notteboom & Winkelmans 2001; Slack et al 2002; Pinder & Slack 2004, Heaver et al 2000, Brooks 2000)....
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Book•
15 Nov 2001
TL;DR: Boyer and Yves Sailard's "Theorie de la Regulation" introduced the Francophone public to one of the most important new currents in social science of the past half-century as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Robert Boyer and Yves Sailard's "Theorie de la Regulation" introduced the Francophone public to one of the most important new currents in social science of the past half-century. This long-awaited translation will help broaden its impact still further. "Regulation" "Theory" focuses on the structural features of a given model and has helped enliven the examination of core economic concepts.
351 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors locate the roots of this shift in the crisis of the Fordist mode of regulation and political responses to it, suggest that a reworked regulation theory can provide a useful perspective from which to interpret current changes and outline the research framework that such a perspective involves.
Abstract: During the last fifteen years the local government system in Britain has been transformed into one of local governance in which a multitude of unelected agencies (public, private and voluntary) have become involved in attempting to influence the fortunes of local areas. In this paper, we locate the roots of this shift in the crisis of the Fordist mode of regulation and political responses to it, suggest that a reworked regulation theory can provide a useful perspective from which to interpret current changes and outline the research framework that such a perspective involves. Although a key role for local government in Fordist processes of regulation may be identified, it is doubtful that new forms of local governance are contributing to the emergence of stable regulation in the 1990s. One reason for this is the geographical differentiation of contemporary regulatory processes.
302 citations