The OECD and “The Rest”: Analyzing the Limits of Policy Transfer

Abstract

Prompted by the rise of the emerging economies and the growing importance of the G20, the OECD has formally announced its intention of establishing itself as a key actor in global policy coordination. As part of this ambition, it has embarked on cultivating closer relations with five G20 countries it designated as key partners through the so-called “Enhanced Engagement” programme: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa. This article mobilizes concepts from the policy transfer literature to explain why the OECD’s attempts to increasingly involve all five countries in its policy have fallen short of its original ambitions, and also why the transfer of its policy work has been uneven across policy and country issue.     

The prospects of egalitarian capitalism in the global South: Turkish social neoliberalism in comparative perspective

Abstract

This paper studies the transformation of economic and social policy in Turkey during the 2000s. The policy mix that has emerged can be usefully conceptualized as social neoliberalism, combining relatively orthodox neoliberal economic policies and retrenchment of the protective welfare state (e.g. labour market institutions) with a significant expansion, both in terms of public spending and population coverage, of the productive welfare state (e.g. public health care). Therefore, social neoliberalism as a development model is distinct both from social democracy and orthodox neoliberalism. Its rise in Turkey during the 2000s is arguably best understood with reference to the interests of the AKP's support coalition, the salience of inequalities in access to public services, and the disconnect of social policy-making from civil society mobilization. Turkey's experience with social neoliberalism provides an important reference point for theorizing the ‘social turn’ that since the 2000s has occurred in many late-developing countries with now maturing welfare states, including Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Chile.     

Paul Gilroy: Race and culture in postmodernity

Abstract

Using archival evidence, this paper tries to use Callon's idea of ‘embeddedness of the economy in economics’ in order to understand the process of economization of India under the East India Company. The Company's state self-consciously tried to construct an economic terrain by using their coercive power, but the rise of the market did not lead to the proliferation of ‘calculative agencies’. The paper seeks to explore the reasons behind this by delving deeper into the history and politics of marketization in colonial India and by reflecting on some unexamined presuppositions of the process of economization.     

Regionalism through social policy: collective action and health diplomacy in South America

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the place of social policy as a driver of region building in South America. The contention is that while much has been written about economic integration, institutions and security communities in regionalism, a discussion of the significance of other regional projects has lagged behind. Social policy, particularly in the Americas, has been neglected as a policy domain in the account of regionalism. Changes in the political economy of Latin America in the last decade suggest that we need to engage afresh with regional governance and social policy formation in the Americas. By looking at the institutions, resources and policy action in the area of health within the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) this paper reconnects regionalism and social policy and explores two interrelated, yet largely unexplored, issues: the linkages between regional integration and social development beyond the historical hub of trade and finance; and the capacity of UNASUR to enable new policies for collective action in support of social development goals in the region, and to act as a broker of rights-based demands in global health governance. In so doing, the paper contributes towards a more nuanced understanding of regionalism and regionalization as alternative forms of regional governance.     

The Global South is dead,long live the Global South! The intersectionality of social and geographic hierarchies in global capitalism

Abstract

This article explores two critical approaches to the study of the continuing relevance of the North—South divide. One is based on a postcolonial politics of difference and stresses the fundamental geographic divergences between the North and South. The other, referred to as the global capitalism school, argues that the North—South divide is rendered obsolete by social divisions, represented by the rise of a transnational capitalist class. I criticize the former due to its dismissal of the idea of capitalism as a universal force. In regards to the latter, to determine whether the primary fault line in global capitalism revolves around transnationally organized classes, I conduct an interpretive analysis of the world views of capitalist elites in Latin America. My findings demonstrate the complex, intersecting nature of different axes of identity, and contradict this literature by suggesting the continuing relevance of a place-based North—South divide. In other words, neither position can by itself elucidate the contours of our contemporary global economic system. What I propose is a framework that captures the intersectionality between the social and geographic within a universal story of capitalist globalization. The key is to conceptualize how global capitalism operates as a universalizing force, but not a homogenizing one.     

Seeking ontological security through the rise of China: New Zealand as a small trading nation

Maintaining global peace as China rises is a key strategic goal of Western liberal democracies. Compared to other western liberal democracies, New Zealand's response to the ‘rise of China’ is notable for its absence of security and political frictions and for the achievement of a series of diplomatic ‘firsts’. Can this be explained only by material concern over the national economic interest as China's role in the global economy increases or do ideational factors also underlay how New Zealand engages China? This paper employs the ontological security framework to demonstrate how New Zealand identity as a ‘small trading nation’ and ‘good international citizen’ has shaped its turn to Asia and response to the ‘rise of China'. It first analyses the origins of New Zealand's outward facing identity and resultant foreign policy positions long before China became an important aspect of New Zealand trade policy. It then shows how New Zealand seeks ontological security as a ‘small trading nation’ and ‘good international citizen’ in its relations with China and how China has responded to this type of engagement. The paper illustrates the importance of ideational factors in Western liberal democracies’ responses to the ‘rise of China’.     

Currency devaluations and consolidating democracy: the example of the South African rand

Abstract

In 2001 the South African rand depreciated suddenly and steeply against the dollar and euro. This triggered inflation as the prices of imported products gapped upward. To offset the imminent inflationary effects and attract foreign exchange, the Reserve Bank raised interest rates, resulting in slower domestic growth. The critical question was the cause of the currency depreciation. We argue here that the rand's decline was the result of a concatenation of internal and external factors, specifically the way the operations of the global financial markets magnified and exacerbated the effects of internal financial policy decisions. The article illustrates the heightening connectivity between domestic policy decisions aimed at regulating the national economy and the globalizing financial markets that operate on an altogether different logic. The Reserve Bank's attempt to regulate the local foreign exchange regime in concert with the corporate use of financial instruments to circumvent these exchange controls led to a relatively illiquid currency market that was easily susceptible to attack by speculative capital. The end result was a crippling devaluation that especially hurt the impoverished black South African majority in the process of getting on its feet economically, thereby adding a further constraint on the consolidation of post-apartheid democracy.     

The domestic politics of international development in South Korea: stakeholders and competing policy discourses

Abstract

The paper examines the domestic politics surrounding South Korea's foreign aid policy. It delineates the institutional characteristics and strategic interests of key government and non-government stakeholders, and suggests an analytical framework to comprehend the country's aid policy regime. It suggests that two competing policy discourses exist – one emphasising ‘intellectual leadership’ and the other ‘ethical leadership’ as the key principle of aid policy. In practice, the country's political leadership promulgates a complex amalgam of these discourses in alignment with their own political imperatives and interests. The paper discusses ‘Global Saemaul Undong’ as such an example under the incumbent Park Geun-Hye administration.     

Introduction: economic security,globalization and governance

Abstract

This introductory article examines different approaches to conceptualizing economic security by drawing on the broader social science literature beyond realism/neorealism. Arguing that traditional conceptions of economic security that see economics as a source, or instrument of state power are insufficient, it draws on a growing literature that looks directly at the economic roots of conflicts, particularly those arising from the manner in which capitalist production is organized in distinct settings. While the paper identifies a range of ways in which scholars, policy practitioners and communities think about economic security depending on the particular circumstances different states and societies find themselves in, the paper, nonetheless, argues for a notion of economic security that also emphasizes issues of justice/fairness and distributive equity. Under conditions of globalization, it is important for us to think of the needs of those made insecure by prevailing systems of market governance but in ways that do not undermine the integrity of the market nor sanction protection for chronically uncompetitive firms. Drawing on insights from International Political Economy and Economic Sociology, the paper suggests one useful way of conceptualizing economic security under conditions of globalization: that of ensuring a low probability of damage to (a) the income and consumption streams that are deemed appropriate for individual well-being; (b) the income-generating potential of an economy; and (c) some minimal level of distributive equity. To this end, appropriately designed national, regional and global institutions can function as mechanisms of governance in the interests of economic security. The rest of the papers in this Special Issue provide empirical case studies drawn from East Asia on many of the points raised in this introduction.     

The United States,Japan, and the European Union: comparing political economy approaches to China

Abstract

This paper examines US, Japanese, and European political economy approaches to China, and their effect on US–Japan and US–EU relationships. Great powers with a greater security concern in dealing with another major country care more about power while those with less of a concern are preoccupied with calculations for wealth. China's rise and its actions have posed a far greater security challenge to the United States and Japan and are driving the two countries closer together. The political economy game involving China reveals a dominant welfare motive among the advanced market economies. The ambition to transform China politically has diminished. China's integration into the global market makes a relative gains approach difficult to implement. Globalization simply limits the ability of a state to follow a politics-in-command approach in the absence of actual military conflict, which explains why the political economy approaches of the United States, Europe, and Japan are not that different in the scheme of things. China's own grand strategy to reach out to the world to outflank the US–Japan alliance has also contributed to a divergent European policy toward China although there are severe limitations to Beijing's ability to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe.     

Cursed resources,or articulations of economic theory in the Gulf of Guinea

Abstract

Economic experiments, or attempts to shape national and local economies with the help of economic theory, have been typical of post-war development efforts. Economic sociologists have explored the role of such experiments to demonstrate how economics – as a set of practices, ideas and technologies – enacts its worlds. This paper examines one such case of high-powered economic theory and its enactment in an emergent West African oil economy by focusing on economist Jeffrey Sachs's advisory project in São Tomé and Príncipe. It pivots on the ‘resource curse’, an economic device that has recently gained purchase in global policy circles. This paper argues that economic devices are not simply imposed on pre-arranged worlds. Instead, they collide with and adjust to already existing politico-economic and socio-cultural conditions, resulting in complex articulations. Drawing on ethnographic material, I critique the ability of the resource curse to make sense fully of apprehensions of the past, present and future consequences of extractive industry developments. Contrasting economic accounts of an incipient curse with competing and complementary local accounts of the effects of oil wealth, I propose a new model for the sociological analysis of the variety of articulations into which an economic device, such as the curse, may enter.     

The limits of economic globalization in East Asian developmental states

Abstract

In an attempt to adjust to economic globalization or internationalization, East Asian developmental states have liberalized their domestic economic systems, accelerating the introduction of the free‐market ideology. Despite their plan to establish the internationally compatible open‐market economy, however, the extent to which they can advance economic liberalization is limited. Political and economic burdens that the developmental state's extensive intervention in the market has incurred in the course of state‐led mercantile economic development, make it impossible for those states to execute full‐scale economic liberalization. The South Korean case clearly shows this. The Korean developmental state retains two major economic burdens: the exclusive ownership and the poor financial structure of the chaebôl. Insofar as Korean big business preserves those weak spots, the government cannot surrender the power of regulation despite its spontaneous implementation of the economic liberalization policy. In addition, the common ‘egoistic’ interests which government bureaucrats and the political class share also limit the degree to which economic liberalization policy can be implemented. The degree of state intervention in the market in Korea has been deeper than that in Japan which pioneered Asian developmental statism, and, thus, the political and economic burdens it has incurred for itself are heavier. Consequently, the East Asian developmental state cannot entirely withdraw its intervention in the market. The ‘support’ of industries is likely to diminish, but ‘regulation’ for the formation of the autonomous market will increase. For the Korean developmental state, globalization and economic liberalization are political economic slogans to re‐launch economic growth and to elevate the international economic competitiveness of industries under the initiative of the state, and motivated by nationalistic reasons. Hence, the role of the state in the market is still far from becoming redundant even in the tide of globalization and economic liberalization in the case of South Korea, where the legacy of strong developmental statism remains considerable.     

Contested meanings of environmentalism and national security in green Korea

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relationship between national security and environmentalism in South Korea. The 2009 South Korean Presidential Committee on Green Growth set a long-term vision for South Korea to ‘go green’. This is promoted as a new state-led development paradigm and a response to new global security risks. The paper identifies official and unofficial contested narratives on development, environmentalism and national security. By focusing on civil society movements, the paper identifies challenges to the exclusionary realist and liberal institutional approaches to South Korea's Green Growth initiative. These alternative discourses of national security are unpacking and reconstructing the relationship between development and environmentalism through the question of who defines ‘national security’ and for whose interests.     

Unintended consequences: social policy,state institutions and the ‘stalling’ of the Malaysian industrialization project

Abstract

This paper examines the relation of particular forms of social and labour market policy to economic development. Taking the history of Malaysian industrialization as its empirical case, the paper assesses the unintended consequences of redistribution policy, on the one hand, and migration policy, on the other, for the limited upgrading of the country's electronics industry. It argues that, while the former has been central to social harmony in Malaysia's multi-racial society, it has contributed to the underdevelopment of small and medium-sized firms capable of linking with the TNCs on the basis of knowledge-intensive and higher value-added operations. Migration policy, on the other hand, has allowed manufacturers to have continued access to supplies of low-cost, lower-skilled labour that have released the pressures that would otherwise have been there for technological and skill upgrading in the electronics industry. Only in Penang, where regional state institutions have intervened to encourage SME upgrading, has the national picture been moderated. Malaysia's industrialization project emerged at time when export competition in manufactured commodities was less intense than it is now. Largely as a result of federal government priorities and for other reasons explored in the paper, advantage was not taken of this ‘window of opportunity’. As a consequence, the country's industrialization project – exemplified by its electronics industry – is now ‘stalling’ in the sense that it remains locked into low- to medium-technology operations. With the rise of China as a manufacturing exporter, this is a dangerous situation for a country's principal industry to be in.     

Korea's pursuit of low-carbon green growth: A middle-power state's dream of becoming a green pioneer

Abstract

After a brief introduction of the existing literature on environmental pioneer states and their internal characteristics, this study examines various low-carbon green growth (LCGG) initiatives that the South Korean government introduced to market Korea as a trendsetter in the global environmental arena. The country's domestic foundations for environmental innovation, however, reveals a dissonance between its international aspirations and the internal conditions that are needed to sustain the pursuit. This case of mixed environmental achievements by a rising middle-power state suggests the insufficiency of a state-led approach to environmental innovation and leadership.     

From asset to patrimony: the re-emergence of the housing question

Abstract

The global financial crisis has ushered in a major housing crisis in many European countries. The paper seeks to shed light on why, despite massive housing crises, there are few policy efforts at tackling it. Probing into the policy paradigms that have informed housing policies, the paper demonstrates a shift towards housing as an asset before the crisis. Increasingly, housing policies have become interwoven with financial markets. This has led to a major policy mismatch after the crisis: while the return of the ‘housing question’ would have required renewed efforts at establishing housing as a social right, de facto policy makers sought to stabilise financial markets. The result is a paradoxical outcome, where neoliberal market-driven programmes are embedded in increased dependence on family wealth. The article demonstrates the shift from housing as asset to housing as patrimony in three different varieties of residential regimes, represented by Ireland, Denmark and Hungary.     

Developmental tendencies in the situation of East Elbian rural labourers ∗

Abstract

Whereas orthodox economists supported the liberalization of goods and capital markets in the current global era, they typically assumed away the need to liberalize labour markets at an international level. The unexpected rise and then persistence of international immigration indicated the shortcomings of the orthodox account in theory and practice. Various recurring and contradictory or unsupported narratives were developed to ‘explain away’ the necessity or desirability of a policy of free migration, and this in spite of an ideology that otherwise promoted liberalization and choice in matters affecting goods and factor markets. There was, finally, a normative contradiction at the core of the orthodox account.     

Financial derivatives and the theory of money

Abstract

Financial derivatives are used and counted as money, but it is unclear exactly what sort of money they are. This article explores the monetary role of financial derivatives in securing the global financial system. It finds that derivatives commensurate the values of different forms of financial assets, and, in the process, they facilitate continuity across different forms of money. In this role they are a form of commodity money, but very different from conventional understandings of commodity money. In developing this idea, the paper engages recent debates in Economy and Society about the nature of money. In particular, it takes issue with Ingham's state theory of money, which cannot adequately engage exchange rate volatility and extra-national roles of money, and Lapavitsas’ approach to a Marxist theory of money, which relegates commodity money to a historical abstraction.     

The Dilemmas of China’s Political Science in the Context of the Rise of China

The rise of China has changed the global balance of power, which could also have an impact on the international development of political science scholarship. Very little attention, however, has been paid to the impact of China’s rise on the development of political science within China. This article examines how the rise of China has posed serious challenges to political studies in China. It addresses critical issues concerning the contemporary features and strategic direction of the discipline. It first analyzes three different meanings of what constitutes China’s political studies and discusses three different intellectual production models. It then highlights the dilemmas that political science faces in China, and exposes problems of and obstacles to its development, such as an unwarranted sense of pride, the bureaucratization of the scholarly community, and, critically, the absence of democracy and academic freedom. The paper examines and engages several ongoing debates on China’s political studies. In responding to the debate over whether it is desirable for Chinese political studies to move towards scientification, this paper presents four arguments for a balance between science and the humanities and outlines four strategies for achieving this balance. It also examines the debate on the localization of Chinese political studies and the doctrine of China’s uniqueness; and points out that the rise of China requires Chinese political studies to be cosmopolitan, global and universal, but the current regime is interested in reproducing the discourse of China’s uniqueness to maintain its political legitimacy.