Monotowns and the political economy of industrial restructuring in Russia

During the 2008–2009 economic crisis, Russia's monotowns – one-industry towns left from the Soviet era – gained widespread attention as potential sources of social protest and unrest. Will such worries resurface under current economic conditions? While fears about monotowns were exaggerated during the last economic crisis, Russia's leadership has reason to remain concerned. Despite the dramatic transformations of the last two decades, Russia's post-Soviet industrial landscape has largely survived intact, leaving a significant number of monotowns with unprofitable enterprises in a precarious position. Yet given its emphasis on social stability, we can expect the government to continue subsidies, both explicit and hidden, that seek to maintain employment and avoid social conflict, but that preserve the country's inefficient industrial geography.     

Greening growth in the South: practice,policies and new frontiers

Today's development model promotes the exploitation of natural resources regardless of the consequences for the environment or the impact that the quality of the environment has on people's lives and livelihoods. Without a shift in current consumption and production patterns, a sustainable model of development is out of reach. The 1992 Earth Summit acknowledged the need to marry growth and environmental sustainability, but more than 20 years later the world still lacks concrete goals, commitments, benchmarks of progress and frameworks to secure benefits across social, economic and environmental dimensions. The global South is emerging as a green growth laboratory, with innovation and creativity to tackle these concerns. This article analyses these efforts in the context of public policy, and shows that both positive and negative patterns in practice and policy are emerging, which should be considered as broader global green growth efforts are further consolidated and the post-2015 development agenda is being defined.     

Membership accession in the African Union: The relationship between enforcement and compliance,and the case for differential membership

It is argued in this paper that the level of non-compliance is high in the Organisation of African Unity/African Union in part because the organisation failed to institute and enforce strict membership accession conditionalities. Across the life of the organisation, this has resulted in non-compliance, mainly the non-payment of dues and non-implementation of policies. This position adds a historical dimension to arguments that identify weak economic capacity and the lack of political will as the main sources of non-compliance. It also supports the thesis that the enforcement of strict accession rules prepares states to perform their obligations and sets them up to receive benefits from the group. In 2002, Africa's continental body changed its mandate from liberation to integration. Since integration requires the strict enforcement of accession rules, the paper suggests that the organisation proceed by choosing differential membership to align the behaviour of its members to their obligations.     

Repopulating the Industrial Landscape: Giving Former Employees a Voice in History

This paper examines the concept of putting history “under the power of the public”. It discusses the role played by former employees in researching and publishing the histories of two former large industrial history/heritage sites in Perth, Western Australia. The projects originated not in academia but from past employees who sought the help of labour historians to record the histories. Former employees provided much of the research material and assisted as sources of information, interviewers and interviewees, site guides and critics of work put forward for publication. While academic authors were responsible for interpreting their own research, past employees had a voice in the ways in which the sites’ stories were presented to the public, and the veracity of that information. The article explores the subversive potential of subaltern histories such as these, as well as some principles for putting history under the power of the public. It concludes by examining the strengths and weaknesses of this method, including the extent to which the pressures of academia discourage historians from engaging with “popular” projects requiring “a different voice”.     

东盟产业集群发展的现状与特点

随着东盟工业化进程的加速发展,东盟各国产业集群逐步形成与发展,其比较优势和竞争优势也逐步显现。东盟较有竞争力的产业集群都有跨国公司的参与,跨国公司的投资带动了产业集群的发展,而产业集群又吸引了更多跨国公司的投资。跨国公司与东盟产业集群的互动,促进了各国的经济发展、产业调整和技术进步。     

Civil society participation in regional integration in Africa: A comparative analysis of ECOWAS,SADC, and the EAC

There is an undeniable trend towards civil society participation in virtually all issue-areas of global governance, yet civil society participation varies widely among international organisation (IOs). While this trend has inspired a voluminous academic literature, empirically-based, comparative studies of IO-civil society interaction in Africa remain largely absent. This article therefore examines civil society participation in three African subregional organisations – the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). What are the factors that have made regional integration in ECOWAS relatively more people-driven, and that have thus far hindered effective civil society participation in the affairs of SADC and the EAC? Support from member states, allies in the respective organisation’s bureaucracy, and characteristics of civil society itself, the research shows, affect participation in regional integration, with the latter aspect apparently more salient in SADC and the EAC than in ECOWAS.     

Declining might in the limelight: European responses to new regional powers

The article analyses the responses of three established European powers, France, Britain and Germany, to a world of rising regional hegemons. It argues that Europe as a region remains unique as it consists of three regional powers of similar material and ideational power resources and is the most institutionalised region worldwide. The current transformation of world power configurations, debated in competing visions of global order, challenges Europe's central place. Facing gradual marginalisation, the foreign policy adaptations of Germany, Britain and France have been insufficient and remarkably static. Old foreign policy identities still play a significant part in European self-perceptions. However, views are gradually changing as the world becomes more heterogeneous. Among the emerging regional powers, China, India and Russia are perceived as decisive global players. Other rising powers are viewed as mainly regional and, hence, more manageable actors. Finally, the article calls for a general shift in European attitudes towards the non-European world and argues that European powers should overcome traditional Euro-centric world views. Rather, they should start to engage with rising powers in a serious discourse over common global responsibilities.     

Production networks,economic integration and the services sector: Implications for regional trade agreements in southern Africa

Debate on an appropriate framework for economic integration in southern Africa has hitherto focused largely on matters relating to trade in final goods, with little analysis of the potential benefits of production sharing and fragmented trade, or of challenges related to the accompanying role of the services sector. The first goal of this article is thus to explore the possible benefits for the development of specialisation and trade expansion related to the international fragmentation of production, and whether such benefits may be better harnessed by southern African countries in a context of regional integration. Secondly, the critical role of the services sector in production-sharing arrangements leads to questions about developing country services sectors and regional versus multilateral services liberalisation. The article therefore considers the importance of the services sector in the fragmentation context, and the growing debates surrounding services aspects of developing country regional trade agreements. It is argued that while there may be a case for the promotion of production-sharing arrangements in regional trade agreements in southern Africa, key constraints that continue to hinder the region's trade and development agenda remain the conflicting rules of origin in economic arrangements with overlapping membership, and non-tariff barriers to trade, particularly intra-regional transport costs.     

Economic crisis,families, and family policy in the Baltic states, 2009–2014

ABSTRACT

The three Baltic countries experienced the most rapid population decline throughout the 1990s and 2000s in Europe. The resulting critical demographic situation motivated the governments of the Baltic states to pay more political attention to family policy issues than in the rest of Europe. The aim of the paper is to analyze the development of family policy in Baltic countries and factors that influenced it during the 2009 economic crisis. Also, the outcomes in terms of child poverty and fertility are highlighted. Results show that the economic resources and fertility level had an essential impact on family policy in the Baltic states. Economic support to families, in turn, directly alleviate the poverty level of families and indirectly influence fertility.     

Gender equality and the electoral system in the regional council of Sardinia

This article provides an account of the process followed by the legislative assembly of the autonomous region of Sardinia, the regional council, to change its electoral law. More specifically, this article will focus on equal access to the elective office at the regional council that the electoral law should have guaranteed. The introduction of measures of gender equality is part of the broader process of change in the electoral law of Sardinia. It is also part of the wider review process of Sardinian autonomy that finds its roots in the amendment of title V of the Italian Constitution of 2001. Following these reforms, constitutional law 3/2013 states that ‘In order to achieve the balance between men and women in representation’, the new electoral law should ‘promote a new equal opportunity in the access to the office of regional councillor’ (article 16). The introduction of double preference for male and female candidates would have guaranteed equality, instead of reserving a share of seats to the underrepresented sex. It would have involved a new approach to the problem of underrepresentation of women. At the 20 June 2013 meeting, however, double preference was rejected in a secret ballot. Yet only four years later, on 21 November 2017, the electoral law was changed to guarantee equal access for women.     

Structural weaknesses and the role of the dominant political party: democratic backsliding in Croatia since EU accession

ABSTRACT

Croatia is regarded as a success story of the EU’s enlargement policy. However, this narrative conflicts with the situation on the ground and with expert surveys, which depict incremental, yet persistent democratic backsliding in recent years. A shift towards illiberal practices, primarily focused on the liberal part of the liberal-democratic nexus, is taking place. This research aims to explore the prevalence and causes for the re-emergence of illiberal practices in Croatia by employing an interpretive method to evidence gathered from media articles and research reports published 2013–2019. The use of illiberal policies by the governing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in three areas of the political system – the capture of independent agencies, control of the judiciary, and the weakening of independent media – is found to be the driver of democratic backsliding. Causes are found in structural reasons linked to the dominant party. Without either internal power-sharing constraints or external EU conditionality pressure, the HDZ has been able to take advantage of structural weaknesses of the system it built and shaped during the 1990s.     

The United States in a world of rising regional powers: farewell Lilliput,hello Shanghai

Regional powers such as China, India, Russia, and to a lesser degree Brazil and South Africa, now occupy a significant role on the world stage. The United States, while still enjoying superpower status, has taken note. At the same time, the transnational nature of the challenges facing the world will require multilateral and bilateral co-operation perhaps unprecedented in modern history. How will the United States respond to these new requisites within the context of this changed world? While it is too early to assess the Obama administration's foreign policy substantively, it looks to be adopting an approach emphasising the building of consensus and multilateralism in its international engagement. Moreover, there is reason to expect that it will actively seek a more constructive set of relationships with regional powers. United States domestic political constraints may yet hamper Obama in this new approach, as might the type of response the new administration receives from old and new powers to its overtures. Whether the changes are more in tone than substance remains to be seen.     

Cultural Prototypes of the Successful Entrepreneur: Comparison of Estonia and the United States

This study compares and contrasts perceptions of entrepreneurship success factors in Estonia and the USA. The 115-item E-World survey is used to highlight differences of implicit beliefs about behaviors and characteristics of successful entrepreneurs between the USA, a country with a long history of entrepreneurial development, and Estonia, a small economy where entrepreneurship has played an important role in the transition from a command to a market economy. Cultural differences and the institutional context emerge as key models in interpreting the social obligations of entrepreneurs, thus linking future orientation and communication, and entrepreneurs’ perceptions of entrepreneurial risks and challenges.     

The council of expediency: crisis and statecraft in Iran and beyond

Abstract

Giorgio Agamben argues that in contemporary governance the use of ‘emergency’ is no longer provisional, but ‘constitutes a permanent technology of government’ and has produced the extrajudicial notion of crisis. The engendering of ‘zones of indistinction’ between the law and its practice is what Agamben defines as a ‘state of exception’. This article adopts the notion enunciated by Agamben and revisits it in the Islamic Republic of Iran. There, the category of crisis has been given, firstly, a juridical status through the institution of maslahat, ‘expediency’, interpreted in a secular encounter between Shi^ca theological exegesis and modern statecraft. Secondly, crisis has not led to the production of a ‘state of exception’ as Agamben argues. Instead, since the late 1980s, a sui generis institution, the Expediency Council, has presided and decided over matters of crisis. Instead of leaving blind spots in the production of legislative power, the Expediency Council takes charge of those spheres of ambiguity where the ‘normal’ – and normative – means of the law would have otherwise failed to deliver. This is a first study of this peculiar institution, which invites further engagement with political phenomena through the deconstruction and theorization of crisis politics.     

Looking back,thinking forward: Understanding the feasibility of normative supranationalism in the African Union

The creation of the African Union (AU) in 2002 was seen as a significant paradigm shift in the course of continental integration. Unlike its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity, the AU has a normative framework that espouses supranational aspirations. Various aspects of the AU framework, such as the nature of some of the AU institutions, the declared right of intervention, and the objective of harmonising the policies of Regional Economic Communities under the AU umbrella, are allusions to supranationalism. Furthermore, it appears that normative supranationalism is the goal, in that these aspects indicate the intention on the part of the architects of the AU to create a regime under which AU laws and policies are superior to national and sub-regional rules. The fact that, after a decade of the AU's existence, little or no progress has been made in this regard requires serious introspection. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore some of the factors that militate against the effective operation of normative supranationalism in the AU and proffer recommendations on how to address those constraints.     

Two elections and a political regime in crisis: Turkish politics at the crossroads

Turkey had its fourth National Assembly elections on 7 June 2015 in the twenty-first century and this time they resulted in a hung parliament. The efforts at establishing a coalition government failed and the country moved to a snap, ‘repeat’ election on 1 November 2015. This paper focuses on how the voters registered their party preferences almost 5 months apart in the same legislative general elections and why. Using the same sample and interviewing those who lived at the same addresses as those in the ISSP Citizenship survey conducted February to April 2015 and again in October 2015, a panel data-set was constructed. A theoretical framework for voting behaviour that uses party identification, political ideology, ethnic, religious, social class identities and perceptions of the performance of the economy of the respondents to understand what factors help to influence the party preferences of the same respondents 5 months apart. A multivariate (binary logistic regression) analysis of the pre-June and October 2015 data sets revealed that economic voting had been the predominant factor in the June elections, but security concerns also interacted with popular economic evaluations in the November 2015 elections to reinstall the AKP to power.     

Security relations in the Black Sea region: Russia and the West after the Ukrainian crisis

The Ukrainian conflict – as all post-Soviet conflicts – has three interrelated dimensions – global, regional and local – with deep implications for international security including the Black Sea region. The strategic interdependence between Russiaand West during the last decade became not only anaemic but antagonistic. The regional implications of that can be compared to the boomerang effect: problems at the strategic level affect the regional level and return to the originators. Generally speaking, Commonwealth of Independent States conflicts can be viewed as the product of the Soviet legacy and the patchy collapse of the USSR as well as the ill-conceived policies and mistakes of the involved parties, Russia and external actors – USA, NATO and EU.