Showing papers on "Sovereignty published in 2023"

The Employment Cost of Sovereign Default

Abstract: This paper analyzes the interaction between government default decisions and labor market outcomes in an environment with persistent unemployment and financial frictions. Sovereign risk impairs bank intermediation through balance sheet effects, worsening the conditions for firms to pre-finance wages and vacancies. This generates a new type of endogenous domestic default cost -- the employment cost of default. The persistence of unemployment produces serial defaults and rationalizes high debt-to-GDP ratios. In the dynamic strategic game between the government and the private sector, anticipation effects allow the study of debt crises in addition to outright default episodes. Introducing employment subsidies and bank regulations affect the government's ability to commit to debt repayment.

Technology sovereignty as an emerging frame for innovation policy. Defining rationales, ends and means

Abstract: In recent years, global technology-based competition has not only intensified, but become increasingly linked to a more comprehensive type of competition between different political and value systems. The globalist assumptions of the post-Cold War era that reliable mutually beneficial agreements could be reached with all nations, regardless of ideology, have been shattered. A previously less visible, mostly political, risk dimension has been brought to the fore by recent geopolitical and geo-economic developments. Against this background, the notion of technology sovereignty has gained prominence in national and international debates, cutting across and adding to established rationales of innovation policy. In this paper, we propose and justify a concise yet nuanced concept of technology sovereignty to contribute to and clarify this debate. In particular, we argue that technology sovereignty should be conceived as state-level agency within the international system, i.e. as sovereignty of governmental action, rather than (territorial) sovereignty over something. Against this background, we define technology sovereignty not as an end in itself, but as a means to achieving the central objectives of innovation policy - sustaining national competitiveness and building capacities for transformative policies. By doing so, we position ourselves between a naive globalist position which largely neglects the risks of collaboration and the promotion of near autarky which disregards the inevitable costs of creating national redundancies and reducing cooperative interdependencies. We finish by providing a set of policy suggestions to support technology sovereignty in line with our conceptual approach.

The feminist dimensions of food sovereignty: insights from La Via Campesina’s politics

Abstract: ABSTRACT Expanding and defending women’s rights and eradicating women’s oppression have become key to La Via Campesina and its conceptualization and practice of food sovereignty. In this paper, we analyze how gender equality and feminism have gained momentum within the movement, and how the work on gender issues configures a feminist politics and praxis at the global level. As LVC celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, we examine what difference women’s decades-long struggles have made within the movement, especially since 1996, and how these have shaped the movement’s politics, both organizationally and politically. We argue that women’s activism has contributed to radicalizing food sovereignty with a feminist perspective.

The digital services act: an analysis of its ethical, legal, and social implications

Abstract: ABSTRACT In December 2020, the European Commission issued the Digital Services Act (DSA), a legislative proposal for a single market of digital services, focusing on fundamental rights, data privacy, and the protection of stakeholders. The DSA seeks to promote European digital sovereignty, among other goals. This article reviews the literature and related documents on the DSA to map and evaluate its ethical, legal, and social implications. It examines four macro-areas of interest regarding the digital services offered by online platforms. The analysis concludes that, so far, the DSA has led to contrasting interpretations, ranging from stakeholders expecting it to be more challenging for gatekeepers, to others objecting that the proposed obligations are unjustified. The article contributes to this debate by arguing that a more robust framework for the benefit of all stakeholders should be defined.

Digital neo-colonialism: The Chinese model of internet sovereignty in Africa

Abstract: China is making a sustained effort to become a 'cyber superpower'. An integral part of this effort is the propagation by Beijing of the notion of 'internet sovereignty' - China's supreme right to govern the internet within its borders and keep it under rigid control. Chinese companies work closely with Chinese state authorities to export technology to Africa in order to extend China's influence and promote its cyberspace governance model. This contribution argues that the rapid expansion across Africa of Chinese technology companies and their products warrants vigilance. If African governments fail to advance their own values and interests - including freedom of expression, free enterprise and the rule of law - with equal boldness, the 'China model' of digital governance by default might very well become the 'Africa model'.

Vicente L. Rafael's The Sovereign Trickster: Death and Laughter in the Age of Duterte

Abstract: Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints is an internationally refereed journal that publishes scholarly articles and other materials on the history of the Philippines and its peoples, both in the homeland and overseas. It believes the past is illuminated by historians as well as scholars from other disciplines; at the same time, it prefers ethnographic approaches to the history of the present. It welcomes works that are theoretically informed but not encumbered by jargon. It promotes a comparative and transnational sensibility, and seeks to engage scholars who may not be specialists on the Philippines. Founded in 1953 as Philippine Studies, the journal is published quarterly by the Ateneo de Manila University.

Technological Sovereignty as Ability, Not Autarky

Abstract: Aspirations toward technological sovereignty increasingly pervade the political debate. Yet, an ambiguous definition leaves the exact goal of those aspirations and the policies to fulfil them unclear. This opens the door for vested interests who benefit from misinterpreting the goal, e.g., as a strive for autarky, nationalism, and the rollback of globalization. To close this gap, we show how certain key technologies challenge state sovereignty as conventionally understood. By interpreting technological sovereignty in this light, we develop a competence-based definition, which puts innovation policy at the core of fulfilling sovereignty aspirations. Moreover, we establish the important role of international cooperation and trade to enhance technological sovereignty understood as ability. Hence, autarky would be detrimental rather than helpful to technological sovereignty. Two case studies illustrate how innovation policy helps to achieve technological sovereignty.

A moving target. EU actorness and the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Abstract: ABSTRACT The war in Ukraine sends mixed signals about the capacity of the EU to be a relevant actor. Despite steps forward over defense, strategic autonomy has been seen as a ‘pipe dream’ that has encountered a ‘reality check’. Key member states are in a similar predicament. Despite talk of a Zeitenwende, Germany has been deemed a ‘reluctant giant’. France has allegedly seen discourse on European sovereignty vindicated, but at the same time has managed to alienate a few EU countries. We interpret this ambivalence as an effect of the fragmentation of the liberal international order, accelerated by war in Ukraine, and claim that this process is increasing the requirements for EU actorness. We then identify a range of reactions to such situation. We map them and leverage the mapping to offer a research agenda on the politics of EU foreign policy.

Sistem Keamanan Siber dan Kedaulatan Data di Indonesia dalam Perspektif Ekonomi Politik (Studi Kasus Perlindungan Data Pribadi) [Cyber Security System and Data Sovereignty in Indonesia in Political Economic Perspective]

Abstract: Cyber security system and data sovereignty is the foundation in realizing the protection of personal data. Technological developments place data into a very valuable commodity. In the aspect of political economy, data sovereignty of a country is faced with the position of the state with the private sector in a global context. The main role of the state is to produce cyber data protection and cyber security regulations. Guaranteed protection of personal data is a citizen’s right that requires the capacity and capability of citizens. A state centered approach is often used in cyber security development. However, without a people centered approach, it will be difficult to realize protection and protection for citizens regarding their personal data which is very valuable. For this reason, this research will look at how the capacity and capability development of citizens is needed in the development of cyber security and data sovereignty related to the protection of personal data in Indonesia. The author chose qualitative research methods to facilitate the collection of data obtained through books, journal articles, online media, and other sources. The results of the study indicate that the dominance of the state-centered approach in cybersecurity development has not realized national data sovereignty, as well as the protection of the protection of the personal data of each citizen. Building the capacity and capability of citizens is very necessary to protect their personal data in cyberspace. Abstrak Sistem keamanan siber dan kedaulatan data merupakan pondasi dalam mewujudkan perlindungan data pribadi. Perkembangan teknologi menempatkan data menjadi sesuatu komoditi yang sangat bernilai. Dalam aspek ekonomi politik, kedaulatan data suatu negara dihadapkan pada posisi negara dengan sektor swasta dalam konteks global. Peran negara utamanya adalah untuk menghasilkan regulasi perlindungan data siber dan keamanan siber. Jaminan perlindungan data pribadi merupakan hak warga negara yang membutuhkan kapasitas dan kapabilitas warga negara. Pendekatan berbasis state centered seringkali digunakan dalam pembangunan keamanan siber. Akan tetapi, tanpa pendekatan yang bersifat people centered akan sulit untuk mewujudkan perlindungan dan proteksi bagi warga negara terkait data pribadinya yang sangat bernilai. Untuk itu, penelitian ini akan melihat bagaimana pembangunan kapasitas dan kapabilitas warga negara diperlukan dalam pembangunan keamanan siber dan kedaulatan data terkait perlindungan data pribadi di Indonesia. Penulis memilih metode penelitian kualitatif untuk mempermudah pengumpulan data yang didapatkan lewat buku, artikel jurnal, media daring, dan sumber-sumber lainnya. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa dominasi pendekatan negara yang bersifat state centered dalam pembangunan keamanan siber belum mewujudkan kedaulatan data secara nasional, juga proteksi perlindungan data pribadi masing-masing warga negara. Pembangunan kapasitas dan kapabilitas warga negara sangat diperlukan untuk melindungi data-data pribadinya di ruang siber.

Peace in Digital International Relations

Abstract: The international architecture of peacebuilding and statebuilding is currently responding to a shift from 'analogue' to 'digital' approaches in international relations. This is affecting conflict management, intervention, peacebuilding, and the all-important role of civil society. This Element analyses the potential that these new digital forms of international relations offer for the reform of peace praxis – namely, the enhancement of critical agency across networks and scales, the expansion of claims for rights and the mitigation of obstacles posed by sovereignty, locality, and territoriality. The Element also addresses the parallel limitations of digital technologies in terms of political emancipation related to subaltern claims, the risk of co-optation by historical and analogue power structures, institutions, and actors. We conclude that though aspects of emerging digital approaches to making peace are promising, they cannot yet bypass or resolve older, analogue conflict dynamics revolving around power-relations, territorialism, and state formation.

Regenerative agriculture: a potentially transformative storyline shared by nine discourses

Abstract: Abstract Modern agriculture is underpinned by a colonial, industrial and productivist discourse. Agricultural practices inspired by this discourse have fed billions but degraded socio-ecological systems. Regenerative agriculture (RA) is a prominent alternative seeking to transform food production and repair ecosystems. This paper proposes that RA discourse is supported by a shared storyline binding diverse actors and discourses together—a discourse coalition. Consequently, multiple discourses contribute to the over-arching discourse of RA. A discourse analysis was conducted on texts from ninety-six organisations and complimented by twenty-two interviews in Australia and the USA. This analysis identified nine discourses contributing to RA discourse: Restoration for Profit; Big Picture Holism; Regenerative Organic; Regrarian Permaculture; Regenerative Cultures; Deep Holism; First Nations; Agroecology and Food Sovereignty; and Subtle Energies. This paper describes and examines these component discourses and discusses tensions that may make RA vulnerable to co-optation and greenwashing, diluting its transformative potential.

Government Choices of Debt Instruments

Abstract: Governments borrow from a range of creditors—commercial banks, sovereign bondholders, official bilateral creditors, and multilateral financial institutions. Sovereigns’ creditor portfolios vary significantly across space and time. While creditor portfolios partly reflect supply-side considerations (macroeconomic profiles and associated default risk), they also reflect governments’ preferences over fiscal transparency. Governments that prefer to disclose less information about economic outcomes will choose borrowing instruments that are less public, such as private loans from banks (versus bondholders) and official sector borrowing from bilateral (versus multilateral) creditors. Empirical analyses of government debt composition across developing nations confirm these predictions. We also find support for our claims at the subnational level, using data from Mexican municipalities. We treat various types of credit (bilateral lending, multilateral finance, and sovereign bonds) as related, rather than distinct.

Thirty years of sowing hope to globalise the struggle: women and youth of La Via Campesina in the construction of food sovereignty – a conversation

Abstract: ABSTRACT Since the 1990s, La Vía Campesina (LVC) has become one of the most important transnational movements in the world. Francisca ‘Pancha’ Rodríguez is one of the founders of both LVC and one of its regional expressions, the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC), as well as of the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI), in Chile. In this article, she tells us about these movements’ history and challenges, especially for peasant women and youth.

Revisioning psychology and deglobalisation: The case of Brexit

Abstract: This article approaches the theme of the psychology of de/globalisation by taking up the example of Brexit as an historical conjuncture that hinges upon troublesome questions of sovereignty. Operating at the interface between history and psychology, and informed by liminality scholarship, the paper offers a broad genealogical sketch of three mutations in the semantics of sovereignty as a mode of power that implicates subjectivity. Theological (premodern), nationalist (modern), and neoliberal/economic (postmodern) variants share the mythical motif of absolute autonomy. An account of globalisation as the spatial spread of the events of an initially partial process across the whole of a global field offers a view of the psychological as a subjective field of intelligibility shaped by societal and political settings. Drawing upon data from a focus group study conducted just before the 2016 referendum, attention is given to the resurgence of the theme of sovereignty amongst ordinary people.

Getting back to that point of balance: Indigenous environmental justice and the California Indian Basketweavers’ Association

Abstract: Emerging theories of Indigenous environmental justice reframe environmental problems and solutions using Indigenous onto-epistemologies, emphasizing the agency of non-human relations and influence of colonialism. The California Indian Basketweavers’ Association (CIBA) embodies this paradigm in its work to expand access to gathering areas, revitalize cultural burning, and stop pesticide use. Through our different positionalities as CIBA members, California Indian basketweavers, and researchers, we construct a case study of Indigenous environmental justice that articulates environmental stewardship as intrinsically linked with cultural and spiritual practice. Through education, information sharing, relationship building, lobbying, and collective action among its membership and land management agencies, CIBA has expanded basketweavers’ access to safe and successful gathering. By sustaining millennia of tradition, CIBA builds Indigenous sovereignty and shifts California’s land management paradigm toward environmental justice and global survival.

Book review: Abhishek Kaicker, The King and the People: Sovereignty and Popular Politics in Mughal Delhi

Abstract: Abhishek Kaicker, The King and the People: Sovereignty and Popular Politics in Mughal Delhi. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, 351 pp.

Cockacoeske’s Rebellion: Nathaniel Bacon, Indigenous Slavery, and Sovereignty in Early Virginia

Abstract: Abstract:The expansion of the plantation complex in seventeenth-century Virginia put Indigenous Virginians at risk of enslavement and land loss. In 1676, Cockacoeske, a Powhatan weroansqua, confronted both physical attacks on her land and legal and cultural arguments about her people’s lack of sovereignty. European travel writing and international law were fertile areas that colonists such as the newly arrived Nathaniel Bacon drew on to claim that Indigenous women such as Cockacoeske had no place as sovereigns and were instead suited to racial slavery. Almost captured and enslaved by Bacon, Cockacoeske rebelled against his racialized arguments for anti-sovereignty and slavery. She signed a treaty with the English Crown after the rebellion that changed the trajectory of Native slavery in Virginia: only Indigenous people whose nations could not establish sovereignty before the crown would be subject to racial slavery. Her successful battle to protect Powhatans shows how Native women like herself had to navigate the distinction between slavery and sovereignty in the early South. Though Cockacoeske was protected from enslavement, the slave trade into Virginia continued from the deeper South, and Indigenous women whose governments could not claim subjecthood or tributary status within the English Empire were successfully racialized and forced to pass slavery on to their children.

Debt in the time of COVID-19: creditor choice and the failures of sovereign debt governance

Abstract: ABSTRACT While countries in the Global North have staved off the worst economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic through massive stimulus spending, this option has been unavailable to many low- and middle-income countries, largely because high debt burdens have constrained fiscal spending. Nevertheless, almost no debt relief has materialized. The ad hoc approach to sovereign debt governance that emerged out of the debt crises of the 1980s helps explain why. It established an absolute commitment to upholding the right of private creditors to choose whether to participate in debt restructurings that has helped obstruct all significant sovereign debt governance reforms, preventing meaningful debt relief even in the context of the worst humanitarian crisis since the Great Depression.

Mapping the spatial politics of Australian settler colonialism

Abstract: Cartography has historically been a weapon of colonists used to demarcate land stolen by empire. More recently, however, ‘critical cartographies’ have emerged as a means of critiquing colonial discourses, revealing maps as representations of the dominating ideologies that produce them. This article explores a series of ongoing questions raised by our own work seeking to map the intersection of colonial and Indigenous governance regimes in so-called Australia. As a visualisation of the intense intervention into Indigenous lives by the settler state, this map tells a story of colonial extraction and elimination, as well as of Indigenous survival, thriving, resistance and resurgence, “denaturalis[ing]” settler geographies of power to contextualise current tensions in governance relations within a continuing history of colonisation (Razack, 2018). Drawing on Indigenous critical theory and the Latourian concept of the immutable mobile (1986) as a way of naming the apparatus that operationalises colonial mapping, we explore the ethical and political dynamics of critical cartography, characterised by a tension between reinscribing and undoing colonial power. We argue that, in navigating and attempting to foreground these tensions, our mapping project has value in its visual inversion of conventional representations of sovereignty. It reveals the fragility, incompleteness, and material violence of colonial sovereignty, which is so often understood as neutral and inevitable. It maps this colonial project in relation to and as rendered impossible by the endurance of Indigenous sovereignty. Against the colonial imagining of Indigenous sovereignty as fragile, disappearing and mutable, it resituates this sovereignty as inhering in the land and in Indigenous peoples as “resilient existent” and as the true immutable (Moreton-Robinson, 2021, p. 258).

The shape of the cloud: Contesting date centre construction in North Holland

Abstract: The article analyses local contestation of data centres in the Dutch province of North Holland. I explore why and how local councillors and citizen groups mobilized against data centres and demanded democratization of decision-making processes about digital infrastructure. This analysis is used as a vantage point to problematize existing policy and academic narratives on digital sovereignty in Europe. I show, first, that most debates on digital sovereignty so far have overlooked the sub-national level, which is especially relevant for decision making on digital infrastructure. Second, I insist that what matters is not only where digital sovereignty lies, that is, who has the power to decide over digital infrastructural projects: for example, corporations, states, regions, or municipalities. What matters is also how power is exercised. Emphasizing the popular democratic dimension of sovereignty, I argue for a comprehensive democratization of digital sovereignty policies. Democratization in this context is conceived as a multimodal multi-level process, including parliaments, civil society and citizens at the national, regional and local levels alike. The shape of the cloud should be citizens’ to decide.

The Digital Sovereignty Trap: Avoiding the Return of Silos and a Divided World

Abstract: This book presents a fresh perspective on the issue of the current crisis in multilateralism and global collaboration

The forgotten lender: the role of multilateral lenders in sovereign debt and default

Abstract: The role of multilateral lenders in sovereign default has been traditionally overlooked by the literature. However, these creditors represent a significant share of lending to emerging markets and feature very distinct characteristics, such as lower interest rates and seniority. By including these creditors in a traditional DSGE model of sovereign default, I reproduce the high debt levels found in the data while maintaining default probabilities within realistic values. Additionally, I am able to analyze the role of multilateral debt in emerging economies. Multilateral loans complement private financing and reduce the incompleteness of international financial markets. Also, multilateral funding acts as an insurance mechanism in bad times, providing countries with some degree of consumption smoothing, opposite to the role of front-loading consumption fulfilled by private financing.

A Geopolitical War in Europe: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and its Implications

Abstract: The security-insecurity paradox in a geopolitical struggle between Russia and its ex-territory; Ukraine along with the politics of the influences between great powers has made the Russian invasion a reality. Russian intervention in its periphery in February 2022 has sent shockwaves to the European Union and NATO members, and posed various challenges to the Eurasian states. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is a protracted one, but this new phase is more complex and multi-layered. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol in 2014, and support to the militant separatists in Donbas, undermined Ukrainian sovereignty. A series of border skirmishes occurred during 2014-2021, which led to thousands of people dead and injured.[1] The tension converted into a humanitarian crisis with millions of refugees and collateral damages after the 2022 war. This recent situation can be termed as a geopolitical warfare, which is based on the politics of security to assert political advantages in the desired geopolitical sphere of influence. In this paper, an effort has been made to examine the structural, bilateral, and regional issues that have led Russia to engage in a risky war. It hypothesise that this war cannot be recognized only as a bilateral war between Russia and Ukraine based on the old issues, rather it is the result of new developments in the shape of Ukraine’s pursuit for a new identity and affinity with West, its bid for NATO membership and as a client of US and EU against Russia in the great power rivalry. The theoretical lens of Neo-Realism and the security dilemma best explains the causes of the war between the two. Finally, this study also endeavours to trace some important implications for the Eurasian Region. [1] Conflict-Related Civilian Casualties in Ukraine. United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, 2022.

Does Geopolitical Risk Matter for Sovereign Credit Risk? Fresh Evidence from Nonlinear Analysis

Abstract: The recent geopolitical uncertainty and the alarming increase in the sovereign credit risk of many countries have motivated us to investigate the potential asymmetric co-movement between geopolitical risk and sovereign credit risk for nineteen countries (China, Russia, USA, Brazil, UK, South Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Italy, Morocco, France, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Japan, and Greece). Using data consisting of Sovereign Credit Default Swap (SCDS), Geopolitical Risk (GPR), and the Quantile-on-Quantile approach (QQA), empirical findings indicate that (i) the effects of GPR on SCDS were heterogeneous, mainly positive, asymmetric, and varied across quantiles and countries; (ii) when the SCDS and GPR are both in upper quantiles, the impacts of GPR are more pronounced; (iii) the countries with the most significant sovereign wealth funds (Norway, China, Saudi Arabia) are less affected by geopolitical uncertainty.

Geopolitical Risks and Yield Dynamics in the Australian Sovereign Bond Market

Abstract: Geopolitical risks and shocks such as military conflicts, terrorist attacks, and war tensions are known to cause significant economic downturns. The main purpose of this paper is to determine the dynamics between Australian sovereign bond yields and geopolitical risk. This is achieved by employing a quantile regression analysis. The findings of this study indicate that the impact of geopolitical risk on Australian sovereign yield dynamics is asymmetrical. Furthermore, an increase in geopolitical risk only impacts short-term yields at extreme regimes. However, the impact is, by and large, insignificant. On the other hand, an increase in geopolitical risk does have a statistically significant positive impact on medium- and long-term yields across most quantiles. Lastly, an increase in geopolitical risk tends to result in a steeper yield curve at the belly of the curve but causes the yield curve to flatten at the long end. This study is the first study that holistically examines the dynamics between geopolitical risk and Australian sovereign bond yields. The study thereby contributes to the body of knowledge on Australian bond yields, specifically, and adds to the sparse body of knowledge on the dynamics between geopolitical risk and sovereign bond yields. The findings of this study have implications for monetary policy makers, given that shifts in sovereign bond yields could impact all three core mandates of the Australian Reserve Bank. Furthermore, changes in the slope of the yieldcurve could be used by monetary policy makers to pre-empt changes in future economic growth. The results of this study also relate to fiscal policy formulation, given that yields directly impact the cost of government borrowing. Lastly, portfolio managers could benefit from the results of this study, as these results provide information on the ability of Australian sovereign bonds to hedge against geopolitical risk.

‘It would be smart to discuss this on telegram’: China’s digital territorialization project and its spatial effects on contentious politics

Abstract: Despite extensive literature examining digital activism, there is limited geographical research exploring the spatialities of digitally centred contentious politics. This article makes use of recent literature examining territory, terrain, sovereignty and digital territorialization projects to produce a conceptual framework that can make sense of the complex geographies of digital activism in contemporary China. It then uses this conceptual framework to analyse the spatial effects of digital territorialization projects and the development of digital sovereignty on those practising contentious politics in China. To do this, it uses the case study of #BeijingSurgery#, a Beijing-centred hashtag and instant messaging project attempting to contest narratives around the eviction of migrants from Beijing in 2017.