Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality

Integration of Trade and Disintegration of Production in the Global Economy

Abstract: The last few decades have seen a spectacular integration of the global economy through trade. The share of imports (or exports) in GDP for the United States has approximately doubled in the last two decades, and if intra-OECD trade is omitted, the same is true for the OECD countries generally. Trade does remain a seemingly small fraction of U.S. GDP. This is not surprising in view of the fact that large economies trade less with others, and more internally. But the modest share of trade in total national income hides the fact that merchandise trade as a share of merchandise value-added is quite high for the United States and the OECD, and has been growing dramatically. In fact, if one focuses on merchandise trade relative to value-added, the world is much more integrated today than at any time during the past century. The rising integration of world markets has brought with it a disintegration of the production process, in which manufacturing or services activities done abroad are combined with those performed at home. Companies are now finding it profitable to outsource increasing amounts of the production process, a process which can happen either domestically or abroad. This represents a breakdown in the vertically-integrated mode of production—the so-called ‘‘Fordist’’ production, exemplified by the automobile industry—on which American manufacturing was built. A number of prominent researchers have referred to the importance of the idea that production occurs internationally: Bhagwati and Dehejia (1994) call this ‘‘kaleidoscope comparative advantage,’’ as firms shift location quickly; Krugman

Introduction: The Embeddedness of Economic Markets in Economics:

Abstract: Even as the market seems triumphant everywhere and its laws progressively and ineluctably impose themselves worldwide, we cannot fail to be struck by the lasting topicality of the following wellknown quotation from D. North: 'It is a peculiar fact that the literature on economics ... contains so little discussion of the central institution that underlies neoclassical economics-the market' (North, 1977).) How can this surprising shortcoming be explained? How can this self-proclaimed failure of economic theory be accounted for? By distinguishing the thing from the concept which refers to it, the marketplace from the market, the English language suggests a possible answer. While the market denotes the abstract mechanisms whereby supply and demand confront each other and adjust themselves in search of a compromise, the marketplace is far closer to ordinary experience and refers to the place in which exchange occurs. This distinction is, moreover, merely a particular case of a more general opposition, which the English language, once again, has the merit of conveying accurately: that between economics and economy, between theoretical and practical activity, in short, between economics as a discipline and economy as a thing. If economic theory knows so little about the marketplace, is it not simply because in striving to abstract and generalize it has ended up becoming detached from its object? Thus, the weakness of market theory may well be explained by its lack of interest in the marketplace. To remedy this shortcoming, economics would need only to return to its object, the economy, from which it never should have strayed in the first place. The matter, however, is not so simple. The danger of abstraction and unrealism which is supposed to threaten every academic discipline-and which time and again has been exposed and stigmatized,

The political system of European Union

Abstract: Introduction: Explaining the EU Political System PART I: GOVERNMENT Executive Politics Legislative Politics Judicial Politics PART II: POLITICS Public Opinion Democracy, Parties and Elections Interest Representation PART III: POLICY-MAKING Regulation of the Single Market Expenditure Policies Economic and Monetary Union Citizen Freedom and Security Policies Foreign Policies Conclusions: Rethinking the European Union Appendix: Decision-making Procedures of the European Union Bibliography

Ethics and politics in qualitative research

Abstract: Getting straight on ethics in qualitative research is not an internal matter only Putting ethics and politics together is the right move intellectually, but it engages a major agenda beyond adjustments in qualitative theory and methods The overall issue is the Enlightenment mind and its progeny Only when the Enlightenment’s epistemology is contradicted will there be conceptual space for a moral-political order in distinctively qualitative terms The Enlightenment’s dichotomy between freedom and morality fostered a tradition of value-free social science and, out of this tradition, a means-ends utilitarianism Qualitative research insists on starting over philosophically, without the Enlightenment dualism as its foundation The result is an ethical-political framework that is multicultural, gender inclusive, pluralistic, and international in scope