Showing papers on "Globalization published in 2010"

The Sociolinguistics of Globalization

Abstract: Human language has changed in the age of globalization: no longer tied to stable and resident communities, it moves across the globe, and it changes in the process. The world has become a complex 'web' of villages, towns, neighbourhoods and settlements connected by material and symbolic ties in often unpredictable ways. This phenomenon requires us to revise our understanding of linguistic communication. In The Sociolinguistics of Globalization Jan Blommaert constructs a theory of changing language in a changing society reconsidering locality, repertoires, competence, history and sociolinguistic inequality.

Academic Writing in a Global Context: The Politics and Practices of Publishing in English

Abstract: Academic Writing in a Global Context addresses the issue of the pressure on academics worldwide to produce their work in English in scholarly publishing, and why the growth of the use of academic English matters. Drawing on an eight year ‘text-ethnographic’ study of the experiences of fifty scholars working in Europe, this book discusses these questions at both a macro and micro level- through discussions of knowledge evaluation systems on all levels, and analysis of the progress of a text towards publication. In addition to this, case studies of individual scholars in their local institutions and countries are used to illustrate experiences of using English in the academic world. Academic Writing in a Global Context examines the impact of the growing dominance of English on academic writing for publication globally. The authors explore the ways in which the global status attributed to English is impacting on the lives and practices of multilingual scholars working in contexts where English is not the official language of communication and throws into relief the politics surrounding academic publishing. This book will be of interest to postgraduates and professionals in the fields of World Englishes, language and globalization and English Language Teaching.

New Structural Economics : A Framework for Rethinking Development

Abstract: This issue includes the following: HIV testing : principles and practice, by Mark Gersovitz. Corporate governance and performance around the world : what we know and what we don't know, by Inessa Love. A comparative perspective on poverty reduction in Brazil, China, and India, by Martin Ravallion. Adaptation amidst prosperity and adversity: insights from happiness studies from around the world, by Carol Graham. Financial transactions tax : panacea, threat, or damp squib?, by Patrick Honohan and Sean Yoder. Urban road transportation externalities : costs and choice of policy instruments, by Govinda R. Timilsina and Hari B. Dulal.

Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization

Abstract: Centering his analysis in the dynamic forces of modern East Asian history, Kuan-Hsing Chen recasts cultural studies as a politically urgent global endeavor. He argues that the intellectual and subjective work of decolonization begun across East Asia after the Second World War was stalled by the cold war. At the same time, the work of deimperialization became impossible to imagine in imperial centers such as Japan and the United States. Chen contends that it is now necessary to resume those tasks, and that decolonization, deimperialization, and an intellectual undoing of the cold war must proceed simultaneously. Combining postcolonial studies, globalization studies, and the emerging field of “Asian studies in Asia,” he insists that those on both sides of the imperial divide must assess the conduct, motives, and consequences of imperial histories. Chen is one of the most important intellectuals working in East Asia today; his writing has been influential in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and mainland China for the past fifteen years. As a founding member of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society and its journal, he has helped to initiate change in the dynamics and intellectual orientation of the region, building a network that has facilitated inter-Asian connections. Asia as Method encapsulates Chen’s vision and activities within the increasingly “inter-referencing” East Asian intellectual community and charts necessary new directions for cultural studies.

Services Trade and Policy

Abstract: Since the mid-1980s a substantial body of research has taken shape on trade in services. Much of this is inspired by the WTO and regional trade agreements. However, an increasing number of papers focus on the impacts of unilateral services sector liberalization. The literature touches on important linkages between trade and FDI in services and the general pattern of productivity growth and economic development. This paper surveys the literature on services trade, focusing on contributions that investigate the determinants of international trade and investment in services, the potential gains from greater trade, and efforts to cooperate to achieve such liberalization through trade agreements. There is increasing evidence that services liberalization is a major potential source of gains in economic performance, including productivity in manufacturing and the coordination of activities both between and within firms. The performance of service sectors, and thus services policies, may also be an important determinant of trade volumes, the distributional effects of trade, and overall patterns of economic growth and development. At the same time, services trade is also a source of increasing political unease about the impacts of globalization on labor markets, linked to worries about offshoring and the potential pressure this places on wages in high income countries.

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Abstract: Ha-Joon Chang's "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism" turns received economic wisdom on its head to show you how the world really works. In this revelatory book, Ha-Joon Chang destroys the biggest myths of our times and shows us an alternative view of the world, including: there's no such thing as a 'free' market Globalization isn't making the world richer; we don't live in a digital world - the washing machine has changed lives more than the internet; poor countries are more entrepreneurial than rich ones; higher paid managers don't produce better results; and we don't have to accept things as they are any longer. Ha-Joon Chang is here to show us there's a better way. "Lively, accessible and provocative ...read this book". (Sunday Times). "A witty and timely debunking of some of the biggest myths surrounding the global economy".("Observer"). "The new kid on the economics block...Chang's iconoclastic attitude has won him fans". (Independent on Sunday). "Lucid ...audacious ...increasingly influential ...will provoke physical symptoms of revulsion if you are in any way involved in high finance". ("Guardian"). "Important ...persuasive ...an engaging case for a more caring era of globalization". ("Financial Times"). "A must-read ...incisive and entertaining". ("New Statesman Books of the Year"). Ha-Joon Chang is a Reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge. He is author of "Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective", which won the 2003 Gunnar Myrdal Prize, and "Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations", "Poor Policies" and the "Threat to the Developing World". Since the beginning of the 2008 economic crisis, he has been a regular contributor to the "Guardian", and a vocal critic of the failures of our economic system.

Regulation and economic globalization: Prospects and limits of private governance

Abstract: Introduction The last two decades have witnessed a remarkable burst of innovation in ‘private governance’, i.e., non-governmental institutions that ‘govern—that is they enable and constrain—a broad range of economic activities in the world economy’. These institutions serve functions that have historically been the task of governments, most notably that of regulating the negative externalities of economic activity. Private governance takes many forms: standards governing a vast array of environmental, labor, health, product safety, and other matters; codes of conduct promulgated by corporations, industry associations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs); labels that rely on consumer demand for ‘green’ and ‘fair trade’ products; and even self-regulation by corporations under the banner of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The move towards private governance is best seen as a response to societal pressures spawned by economic globalization and by the inadequacy of public governance institutions in addressing them. As firms, production networks, and markets transcended national boundaries, public (governmental) systems of economic governance built on the unit of the nation-state proved inadequate for regulating an increasingly fragmented and footloose global economy. In the language of Polanyi, markets became ‘dis-embedded’ from societal and state institutions (Polanyi, 1944. See also Evans, 1985; Ruggie, 1982). Logically, economic globalization demands global regulation, but at the international level regulatory standards are generally weak and there is little capacity to enforce them. In the developing world, where production is increasingly concentrated, many states lack the capacities of law, monitoring, and enforcement needed to regulate industry, even when they have strongly worded legislation on the books. The failure of public governance institutions to keep pace with economic globalization has, therefore, created a global ‘governance deficit’. As Polanyi would predict, workers, environmentalists, human rights activists, and others in civil society have mobilized to demand new forms of governance. Part of this response focused on attempting to alter public policies—i.e., pushing back against neoliberal economic prescriptions or demanding that market opening be accompanied by regulatory measures. Frustrated with the perceived inability of governmental institutions to respond to the governance challenge, however, many social activists and labor groups also turned to pressure campaigns targeted at corporations and to other strategies designed to use market pressure to regulate the behavior of producers.

Problems with making and governing global kinds of knowledge.

Abstract: During its 20 years of publication, the journal Global Environmental Change has given visibility and coherence to the eponymous research paradigm. Global environmental research has brought forth new kinds of knowledge about the multi-scale interactions between physical and social dimensions of the environment. This essay reflects on some of the problems with making and governing these global kinds of knowledge, as suggested through the perspectives of a nascent geography of science. I use climate change – an emblematic theme of global environmental change research over the last 20 years – to examine three facets of the global environmental change paradigm: making global kinds of knowledge, globalising environmental values and the governance of knowledge-making. New global kinds of knowledge have gained power and visibility in contemporary scientific, public and political fora and yet such knowledge can be ‘brittle’, easily cracked and broken. A geography of global environmental change knowledge therefore demands we turn our attention away from the globalising instincts that so easily erase difference and collapse meaning, and instead concern ourselves with understanding the relationships between knowledge-making and human culture in evolving places. Only then will we recognise the ambiguities, voids and blind spots in our understanding of the world's complexity.

The Changing Incidence of Geography

Abstract: The incidence of bilateral trade costs is calculated here using neglected properties of the structural gravity model, disaggregated by commodity and region, and re- aggregated into forms useful for economic geography. For Canada's provinces, 1992-2003, sellers' incidence is on average some five times higher than buyers' incidence. Sellers' incidence falls over time due to specialization, despite constant gravity coefficients. This previously unrecognized globalizing force drives big reductions in "constructed home bias," the disproportionate predicted share of local trade; and large but varying gains in real GDP. (7£LF11,F14,R12) The large gravity literature has revealed much information about bilateral trade costs (Anderson and Eric van Wincoop 2004). But the literature has not addressed incidence: the proportions of trade costs paid by sellers and buyers. The omission is important because incidence is what matters for most issues of regional specialization, welfare and policy. For example, even with uniform trade costs, sectors with larger sellers' incidence will tend to have smaller supply, all else equal. As for welfare and policy, uniform trade cost reductions confer benefits with buyers' and sellers' incidence varying across trade partners. Recently discovered properties of structural gravity are used here to calculate sectoral incidence measures of trade costs for Canada's provinces, 1992-2003. We uncover a secular fall in sellers' incidence that induces a fall in home bias and a rise in real GDP. This reflects a previously unrecognized force of globalization: specialization acting to reduce the trade cost bill. We add to the gravity literature new methods and new empirical lessons about Canada's trade costs.1 Inward and outward multilateral resistance (Anderson and van Wincoop 2003, 2004)

Global Value Chains in a Postcrisis World: A Development Perspective

Abstract: The world is in the midst of a sporadic and painful recovery from the most severe economic crisis since the 1930s’ Great Depression. The unprecedented scale of the crisis and the speed of its transmission have revealed the interdependence of the global economy and the increasing reliance by businesses on global value chains (GVCs). These chains represent the process of ever-finer specialization and geographic fragmentation of production, with the more labor-intensive portions transferred to developing countries. As the recovery unfolds, it is time to take stock of the aftereffects and to draw lessons for the future. Have we experienced the first global crisis of the 21st century or a more structural crisis of globalization? Will global trade, demand, and production look the same as before, or have fundamental changes occurred? How have lead firms responded to the crisis? Have they changed their supply chain strategies? Who are the winners and losers of the crisis? Where are the engines of recovery? After reviewing the mechanisms underpinning the transmission of economic shocks in a world economy where trade and GVCs play increasing roles, the book assesses the impact of the crisis on global trade, production, and demand in a variety of sectors, including apparel, automobiles, electronics, commodities, and off-shore services. The book offers insights on the challenges and opportunities for developing countries, with a particular focus on entry and upgrading possibilities in GVCs postcrisis. Business strategies and related changes in GVCs are also examined, and the book offers concrete policy recommendations and suggests a number of interventions that would allow developing countries to better harness the benefits of the recovery.

Mapping the Bonanza: Geographies of Mining Investment in an Era of Neoliberal Reform*

Abstract: Geographic analyses of how national policies of economic liberalization influence global patterns of economic activity often draw their conclusions from studies of the paradigmatic sectors of manufacturing and, to a lesser extent, services. There is, by contrast, relatively little work examining how neoliberal policy reforms in the developing world may be driving changes in the geography of primary sector (i.e., extractive) activities at the global scale. This article presents and analyzes new data on direct investment in the international mining industry. It reports methods and results from a research project to systematically map and evaluate changes in the commodity mix and geographical spread of mining-related investment in the world economy since 1990. It confirms and quantifies what was hitherto anecdotal evidence of a geographic shift in investment during the 1990s away from mature targets toward a small number of “rising stars” in the developing world, following the adoption in many countries of n...

Sustainable development: from Brundtland to Rio 2012. Background paper prepared for consideration by the High Level Panel on Global Sustainability at its first meeting 19 September 2010.

Abstract: It is generally accepted that sustainable development calls for a convergence between the three pillars of economic development social equity and environmental protection Sustainable development is a visionary development paradigm; and over the past 20 years governments businesses and civil society have accepted sustainable development as a guiding principle made progress on sustainable development metrics and improved business and NGO participation in the sustainable development process Yet the concept remains elusive and implementation has proven difficult While sustainable development is intended to encompass three pillars over the past 20 years it has often been compartmentalized as an environmental issue Added to this and potentially more limiting for the sustainable development agenda is the reigning orientation of development as purely economic growth The recent financial crisis and the beginning of the decline of trust in the liberalization and globalization model could mean some renewed receptivity for a new sustainable development paradigm A new model could chart a development path that truly is concerned with equity poverty alleviation reducing resource use and integrating economic environmental and social issues in decision making The opportunity is ripe to move beyond incrementalism to real systemic change (Excerpts)

Toward a Theory of Status Consumption in Less Industrialized Countries

Abstract: How does status consumption operate among the middle classes in less industrialized countries (LICs)—those classes that have the spending power to participate effectively in consumer culture? Globalization research suggests that Bourdieu’s status consumption model, based upon Western research, does not provide an adequate explanation. And what we call the global trickle-down model, often invoked to explain LIC status consumption, is even more imprecise. We study the status consumption strategies of upper-middle-class Turkish women in order to revise three of Bourdieu’s most important concepts—cultural capital, habitus, and consumption field—to propose a theory specific to the LIC context. We demonstrate that cultural capital is organized around orthodox practice of the Western Lifestyle myth, that cultural capital is deterritorialized and so accrues through distant textbook-like learning rather than via the habitus, and that the class faction with lower cultural capital indigenizes the consumption field to sustain a national social hierarchy.

Multinational enterprises, development and globalisation: some clarifications and a research agenda

Abstract: This paper considers how economic globalization has affected opportunities and challenges for developing countries in following a multinational enterprise (MNE)-assisted development strategy, revisiting an earlier article by the authors. The growing share of industrial activity owned and/or controlled by MNEs has not—by and large—led to a proportional increase in sustainable domestic industrial growth. Particular attention is paid to how MNEs have responded proactively to globalization by modifying their strategies, spatial organization and the modalities by which they interact with host economic actors, and how these changes alter our understanding of MNEs and development. What has been learnt over the last decade about embeddedness, institutions, inertia, absorptive capacity, spillovers and linkages, and how they can explain the success of some countries (or regions) in promoting growth, and the failure of others, is examined. The need to link MNE and industrial policies systematically is highlighted. A...

Preparing Globally Competent Teachers: A New Imperative for Teacher Education

Abstract: Globalization is one of the most powerful forces that will shape the future world in which our children will live. How to prepare our children to live successfully in this world has become a challenging question for education. This article discusses the challenges globalization presents to education and the implications for teacher education.

The evolution of the world trade web: a weighted-network analysis

Abstract: This paper employs a weighted network approach to study the empirical properties of the web of trade relationships among world countries, and its evolution over time. We show that most countries are characterized by weak trade links; yet, there exists a group of countries featuring a large number of strong relationships, thus hinting to a core-periphery structure. Also, better-connected countries tend to trade with poorly-connected ones, but are also involved in highly-interconnected trade clusters. Furthermore, rich countries display more intense trade links and are more clustered. Finally, all network properties are remarkably stable across the years and do not depend on the weighting procedure.

Medical tourism today: What is the state of existing knowledge?

Abstract: One manifestation of globalization is medical tourism. As its implications remain largely unknown, we reviewed claimed benefits and risks. Driven by high health-care costs, long waiting periods, or lack of access to new therapies in developed countries, most medical tourists (largely from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe) seek care in Asia and Latin America. Although individual patient risks may be offset by credentialing and sophistication in (some) destination country facilities, lack of benefits to poorer citizens in developing countries offering medical tourism remains a generic equity issue. Data collection, measures, and studies of medical tourism all need to be greatly improved if countries are to assess better both the magnitude and potential health implications of this trade.

Globalization : Myths and realities

Abstract: The current decline of the developmentalist paradigm, and its view of the rural as increasingly residual, revitalizes rural sociology. The blossoming of studies of rurality and ecology is paralleled by the growing currency of globalization as an object of analysis. This is more than a coincidence—in fact, globalization crystallizes local diversity. The two phenomena go hand in hand. But each needs to be understood as an historical construct; that is, they need to be problematized. In problematizing “globalization,” I argue that it must be understood as a post-developmentalist construct. The postwar goal of national development, institutionalized in the international Bretton Woods regime, has run its course—dramatized by the assault on developmentalist states and institutions in the monetarist regime established under the auspices of the 1980s debt crisis. The nationally oriented institutions of the developmentalist era are now being replaced by globally oriented institutions under the legitimizing cloak of efficiency and financial credibility. Related to this trend, producing communities scramble to reposition themselves either through finding niches in a new global economy or through resistance to global pressures. Either way, there is a new emphasis on defining the local. This article explores the conjunction of global and local definition.

Foreign direct investment and economic growth in Vietnam

Abstract: By making use of a recently released panel dataset that covers 61 provinces of Vietnam from 1996–2005, this study examines the link between foreign direct investment and economic growth. Our analysis, which is based on a simultaneous equations model, reveals that in overall terms a mutually reinforcing two-way linkage between FDI and economic growth exists in Vietnam. However, this is not the case for each and every region of Vietnam. The results presented in this study suggest that the impact of foreign direct investment on economic growth in Vietnam will be larger if more resources are invested in education and training, financial market development and in reducing the technology gap between the foreign and local firms.

Multi-product exporters: product churning, uncertainty and export discoveries*

Abstract: Recent research on international trade focuses on firm-product-level heterogeneity and the role of uncertainty in shaping international trade. This article contributes to the literature by examining product-level dynamics within firms in the context of Mexican trade integration under NAFTA. The data show intense product churning within firms and confirm the existence of within-firm product heterogeneity. The data indicate that new exporters enter foreign markets with a small number of varieties, most of which were previously sold at home, and with a small export small volume. The data also suggest that export discoveries are relatively rare and are imitated within a short period of time. To deepen the understanding of the complex interactions between globalisation and economic development, trade economists have recently increased their interest in two related areas: the link between micro-heterogeneity and aggregate export response, and the role of uncertainty in international trade. It has been recognised that progress in both areas can contribute to devising more effective policies for promoting growth (Hausmann and Rodrik, 2003; Bartelsman and Doms, 2000; Tybout, 2000).

The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad

Abstract: Why has transnational war volunteering increased so dramatically in the Muslim world since 1980? Standard explanations, which emphasize US-Saudi support for the 1980s Afghan mujahideen, the growth of Islamism, or the spread of Wahhabism are insufficient The increase in transnational war volunteering is better explained as the product of a pan-Islamic identity movement that grew strong in the 1970s Arab world from elite competition among exiled Islamists in international Islamic organizations and Muslim regimes Seeking political relevance and increased budgets, Hijaz-based international activists propagated an alarmist discourse about external threats to the Muslim nation and established a global network of Islamic charities This “soft” pan-Islamic discourse and network enabled Arabs invested in the 1980s Afghanistan war to recruit fighters in the name of inter-Muslim solidarity The Arab-Afghan mobilization in turn produced a foreign fighter movement that still exists today, as a phenomenon partly di

Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India

Abstract: List of Figures and Tables ix Acknowledgments xiii Chapter 1: The Missing Leg of the Globalization Triad: International Migration 1 Chapter 2: Analytical Framework and Research Methodology 23 Chapter 3: Selection Characteristics of Emigration from India 50 Chapter 4: Economic Effects 84 Chapter 5: Social Remittances: Migration and the Flow of Ideas 124 Chapter 6: International Migration and the Paradox of India's Democracy 162 Chapter 7: The Indian Diaspora and Indian Foreign Policy: Soft Power or Soft Underbelly? 185 Chapter 8: Civil or Uncivil Transnational Society? The Janus Face of Long-Distance Nationalism 210 Chapter 9: Spatially Unbound Nations 253 Appendix I: Survey of Emigration from India (SEI) 273 Appendix II: Survey of Asian Indians in the United States (SAIUS): Methodology 281 Appendix III: Survey of Asian Indians in the United States (SAIUS): Questionnaire 287 Appendix IV: Database on India's Elites (1950-2000) 293 Bibliography 297 Index 315

Creative Industries after the First Decade of Debate

Abstract: It has now been over a decade since the concept of creative industries was first put into the public domain by the Blair Labour government's Creative Industries Mapping Documents in Britain. The concept has gained traction globally, but it has also been understood and developed in different ways in Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and North America, as well as through international bodies such as UNCTAD and UNESCO. A review of the policy literature reveals that although questions and issues remain around definitional coherence, there is some degree of consensus emerging about the size, scope, and significance of the sectors in question in both advanced and developing economies. At the same time, debate about the concept remains highly animated in media, communication, and cultural studies, with its critics dismissing the concept outright as a harbinger of neoliberal ideology in the cultural sphere. This article couches such critiques in light of recent debates surrounding the intellectual coherence of the concept of neoliberalism, arguing that this term itself possesses problems when taken outside of the Anglo-American context in which it originated. It is argued that issues surrounding the nature of participatory media culture, the relationship between cultural production and economic innovation, and the future role of public cultural institutions can be developed from within a creative industries framework and that writing off such arguments as a priori ideological and flawed does little to advance debates about twentieth-century information and media culture.

Globalization and the Growth of International Educational Testing and National Assessment

Abstract: Education has long been characterized as a central requirement for national economic development and political democratization in the contemporary world. Moreover, international benchmarking has been identified as the “basis for improvement. . . . It is only through such benchmarking that countries can understand relative strengths and weaknesses of their education systems and identify best practices and ways forward” (OECD 2006, 18). Statements such as this example signal an international consensus that has emerged— at least among “developed” countries—about the legitimacy and, even more so, the necessity of international testing and national assessment. As David P. Baker and Gerald K. LeTendre (2005) observe, both international testing and national assessment are linked to efforts to reform educational systems and are often themselves stimuli for further cycles of reform. The results of international testing, they note, will fuel further interest in national assessment. Here we develop an argument about the global forces that have led to the explosive growth of national educational assessment and international testing. In particular, we argue that the international acceptance of testing comes from key ideological forces in the world polity that are associated with the accelerating globalization of national and international cultural, economic, and political structures. As we develop and warrant this argument, we also qualify it by pointing out that national adaptations to this larger world culture may vary depending on the presence and capacities of international organizations and regional associations that act to mediate and adapt these changes to conditions in individual countries. In addition, we consider the effects of subnational movements in introducing pressures for change that may favor more national assessment.

Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy

Abstract: Out of the crisis of our times, Joseph Stiglitz's "Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy" is a convincing, coherent and humane account that goes to the heart of how we run our societies. When the world economy went into freefall, so too did our unquestioning faith in markets. But what happens now? Are bailouts and stern lectures enough, or do we need a rethink of our entire financial system? This acclaimed and inspiring book, by one of the world's leading economic thinkers, dissects the flawed ideas that led to the credit crunch, but also looks to the future. Drawing on his years spent shaping policy at the World Bank, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz shows why far more radical reforms are needed to avoid future crises, why the cost of recovery should be borne by the financial sector, and how we now have the opportunity to create a new global economic order. "Bang on the money ...unafraid to ask tough questions ...we need more of his ilk". (Will Hutton, "Observer"). "A brilliant analysis ...always enthralling". (Martin Jacomb, "Spectator Business"). "A powerful new book". (Devin Leonard, "The New York Times"). "A seer of almost Keynesian proportions ...this is Joe Stiglitz's victory lap". (Michael Hirsh, "Newsweek"). Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist at the World Bank until January 2000. He is currently University Professor of the Columbia Business School and Chair of the Management Board and Director of Graduate Summer Programs, Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 and is the author of the best-selling "Globalization and Its Discontents", "Making Globalization Work", "The Roaring Nineties" and "The Price of Inequality", all published by Penguin.