Steering and Monitoring Model of State-Owned Enterprises

The aim of this study is to systematize the heterogeneous field of stated-owned enterprises (SOEs) especially for steering and monitoring purposes. Based on the existent literature and the heterogeneous field of the Finnish state’s share portfolio, we create a model for steering and monitoring purposes. In our model, the SOEs are grouped into categories according to how much the state as an owner is concerned with the social service assignment principle, strategic interests, or purely shareholder value interests. Consistency in the basis, extent, and listing status of SOEs for steering and reporting creates good preconditions for ownership policy decision-making and ultimately improves the outcomes of ownership policy and steering.     

Evaluating Brazilian South–South Cooperation in Haiti

I focus on evaluating Brazilian development and humanitarian cooperation in Haiti to answer how emerging providers such as Brazil are contributing to global development through cooperation. The paper establishes criteria for evaluation, arguing that global standards for aid effectiveness need to be expanded. I argue that when assessed on ownership, efficiency and sustainability, cooperation holds several advantages and limits, such as misplaced assumptions that Brazil’s approach is appropriate elsewhere. The discussion is rooted in the context of Haiti in order to underline how outcomes are not pre-determined, but rather depend on the model’s interaction with the partner context.     

Wage Differentials in Brazil: Theory and Evidence

The investigation of wage determination and wage differentials in developing countries has concentrated on the effects of human capital and different sources of segmentation associated with institutional arrangements and structural characteristics on earnings. In this article, we use micro-data for Brazil for the 1980s and 1990s to test several competitive theories, and models with segmentation explained by efficiency wages. We find that unmeasured abilities and efficiency wage models seem to play a role in wage determination, while compensating differentials and transitory difference theories were found to be irrelevant to wages formation.     

Multinational Enterprises and Technological Effort by Local Firms: A Case Study of the Malaysian Electronics and Electrical Industry

It is often assumed that foreign MNEs are the driving force behind technological development in developing economies but it has become evident in recent years that the actions of MNEs in isolation from the domestic economy will not significantly improve the stock of technology in an economy. This study, therefore, examines the determinants of local firms' decisions to undertake technological effort, not only in isolation, but also in the context of linkages between domestic firms and MNEs. There is evidence that linkages between MNEs and local firms are important in explaining technological effort by local firms but direct technological assistance from MNEs does not seem to play a major role in fostering increased technological effort by local firms.     

Political leadership and ‘non-traditional’ development cooperation

This article explores the relationships between (so-called) ‘non-traditional’ development cooperation (NTDC) and political leadership. Using the case studies of Brazil and South Korea, we propose that certain emblematic elements of NTDC discourse and practice can act to influence the relationship with political leaders in particular ways. These are (a) elevated language of affect, (b) interleaving of personal biographies with the developmental trajectories of states, (c) the use of NTDC to legitimise domestic policies and promote domestic political leadership, (d) the prominence of presidential diplomacy and (e) the challenges confronting rapidly expanding domestic development cooperation institutions and systems.     

Anti-Corruption Policy: China’s Tiger Hunt and India’s Demonetization

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the different styles of anti-corruption strategy, particularly at the local level in China and India. In China there has been a central push with a role of anti-corruption agencies that have law-enforcement power. In India there has been a focus on institutional building together with a visible role of the civil society. China has had a top-down approach while India has more of a bottom-up approach combined with top-down initiatives such as demonetization. Interviews with 44 mid-career and senior officials investigate the two approaches and the impacts of anti-corruption measures in China and India. Interviewees support the approaches adopted by China and India but doubt their effectiveness and sustainability. The way forward, they suggest, is to reduce the influence of political parties especially in India and to enhance e-governance in both countries. Experiences of the two countries have significant implications especially on capacity building, institutional development, and law enforcement.     

From centralisation to fragmentation and back again: the role of non-state actors in Brazil’s transformed foreign policy

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Brazil’s foreign policy-making, traditionally a highly centralised and hierarchical process, has become more fragmented, plural and horizontal. In this context, the role of non-state actors has been increasingly relevant. The impact and significance of these actors have been however a matter of debate. While there are authors that consider that non-state actors play only a secondary role in the policy-making process, there are others that assert that these actors work alongside governmental actors and directly influence policy choices. Drawing on the concept of network governance, the paper proposes a different view from the two recurrent approaches in the literature mentioned above. It argues that the recent steps to transform Brazil’s state governance from hierarchy to horizontal networks have indeed expanded the room for the direct participation of non-state actors in the policy process. However, state authorities fought to adjust this tendency, in order to retain control over the decision-making process, by putting in place formal and informal coordinating mechanisms led by the Ministry of Foreign Relations and the Presidency. This suggests Brazil’s foreign policy was made in the shadow of hierarchy. The paper demonstrates the argument using the case of Brazil’s foreign policy towards China.     

Political Bases for the Dissolution of a Public Corporation: A Nigérian Case

All social theory emphasises that institutions universally play a crucial role in organising the ways in which people live together. At the same time the concept is vaguely defined and used in different ways. Inspired by the pragmatic sociology of critique, we emphasise how institutions enable people and things to hold together and provide important references for action in settings with limited predictability for everyday life. We first analyse how the concept of institutions has been used in scholarship on land tenure in Sudan. We then suggest, using a case study, that increased attention to the different ways in which actors validate or challenge institutions helps to examine the precariousness of institutional orders in the Sudans. This can move Sudan Studies beyond some of the limitations of previous scholarship, such as a tendency towards interpretations that reiterate institutions as timeless, discrete and immutable units such as “traditional” or “modern”.     

Hemispheric reconfigurations in Northern Amazonia: the ‘Three Guianas’ amid regional change and Brazilian hegemony

Regional and hemispheric reconfigurations in Latin America and the Caribbean are increasingly mediated by Brazilian power, and the engagement of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana with this emerging context is intriguing. They are tentatively moving away from a Caribbean region with which they are culturally contiguous, towards a South American continent in which they are geographically located. This is partly a reflection of the gradual opening up of the Northern Amazonian space that they share collectively, and also with Venezuela and Brazil. These processes are occurring as cause and effect of Brazil’s emergence as a regional – and even regionally hegemonic – power. With reference to wider debates on regionalism and hegemony, we analyse the uncertain consequences of these shifts.