Functional Actorness? Border Security in the EU and Turkey

The European Union (EU) has fortified its external borders using a number of measures including the creation of new institutions and networks such as FRONTEX and EUROSUR. In non-EU countries such as Turkey, border security is being reorganized with EU support and cooperation. By combining the literature on EU actorness and neo-functionalism, I provide a theoretical toolkit to critically unpack these new developments through conceptualizing multiple dimensions of what I call functional actorness. The contribution analyzes how the functional transformation of EU and Turkish border security has produced a number of side effects which are critically appraised.     

Can the World Bank Build Social Capital? The Experience of Social Funds in Malawi and Zambia

Social funds have been one of the main manifestations of the World Bank's move toward promoting projects with a participatory orientation. Supporters of social funds argue that participation in social fund activities builds community social capital. Critics of the Bank's use of social capital argue that it ignores power structures but these critics have focused on the Bank's research rather than its operations. This paper examines ‘social capital’ in a project context: social funds in Malawi and Zambia. In contrast to the model of collective action suggested by proponents of social funds, it is shown that the nature of community participation is indeed shaped by existing power and social relations. Project identification and execution is led by a small number of people in the community, usually the head teacher in cooperation with the PTA and traditional authorities. The community is then mobilised using the traditional structures of village headmen. Most community members participate actively in making bricks, but passively in decision making. However, this process should be seen as an institutional adaptation to what social funds offer, not elite capture. Most community members are satisfied with the outcome, although the chosen project is not what they would have chosen themselves. Given these processes, social funds do little to build social capital but instead, appear to be users of existing social capital.     

Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation: Multilateral Policy or Unilateral Ambitions?

Ambivalence and misconceptions surround the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). Relying upon the literature on multilateralism, state–IGO relations, regionalism and security governance, this study examines: which goals Russia is pursuing in its CSTO policy; how Russia engages with its individual members within the organisation; how Russia uses it in five foreign policy situations and with which results. It shows that Russia’s CSTO policy is more mixed and complex than is usually assumed. Russia uses the CSTO in pursuit of unilateral ambitions but it is also searching for partners. Russia’s policy has resulted in the formation of instrumental multilateralism within the CSTO.     

Social darwinism and the taylor system: a missing link in the evolution of management?

Whereas linkages between Social Darwinism and Frederick Taylor's system of Scientific Management have been noted, there has been little elaboration on the relationship. In this paper, the parallels between the Social Darwinist theory of Herbert Spencer and the major tenets of Taylorism are explored. By the early 20th Century, members of the business community and leaders of organized labor had developed very different attitudes toward the principle of “survival of the fittest.” These opinions, informed by the prevailing ethos of society, appear to have colored business's and labor's reactions to Taylor's Scientific Management system. In addition, management historians may have developed different views concerning the strength of the relationship between Social Darwinism and Scientific Management because of the various forms of Social Darwinist theory.     

Do Remittances Diminish Social Violence?

This paper represents the first attempt to formalise the relationship between remittances and social violence by developing a model that predicts that migrants’ remittances lead to the reduction of social violence in the recipient economy under the condition that remittances increase the average product of labour. Using homicide data as an indicator of social violence, we tested our model’s prediction. Controlling for the endogeneity problem with appropriate instruments, we found that remittances tend to reduce social violence. We performed sensitivity analysis on remittances in the empirical specification and found it robust with an unchanged negative sign.     

South African manufacturing industries catching up or falling behind?

This article argues that intra‐industry trade with developed countries is an important source of technology transfer. South Africa has an industrial structure that is suited to such trade, but high costs and weak social capacity to assimilate new technology. Therefore, reintegration into the world economy is likely to reinforce dependence on resource‐intensive industries. In the short run this need not adversely affect economic growth, but unless the quality and quantity of education and training are improved, the prospects for rebuilding the technological capacity and catch up with OECD countries are bleak.     

Social security in the european community: co-ordination,harmonization or thirteenth state?

As the magical date December 31, 1992 is drawing closer full economic integration in the European Community is becoming a reality. At the same time it is getting clear that the future economic union has no social counterpart. International, as well as European social security law has been developed along the lines of two different techniques: co-ordination and harrnonization. While the former technique leaves the national legislation intact, only regulating cases with international aspects, the latter does have consequences for national law. The co-ordination of national social security law within the European Community is ruled by co-ordination Regulations 140817 1 and 574172. The mere amendment of the existing Regulations seems insufficient to create a social dimension within the European Community.Moreover, the co-ordination technique seems handicapped by its intrinsical complexity. A genuine harmonization, on the other hand, seems both for political and technical reasons impossible

in the short run. The Thirteenth State scenario aims both at offering an alternative for the complexity of co-ordination and providing a first impetus towards harmonization. This scenario was elaborated by a team of specialists at the University of Leuven, Belgium. The result of this research is an extensive blue-print for a European Community social insurance scheme.The authors offer an overview of the main goals of the scenario and a number of basic choices that have been made in develop-ing it. Finally they give some comments on the legal grounds for a European social insurance scheme and on the problems concerned with the elaboration of the administrative structure for such a scheme.     

Who Are We? Who Are They? The Real Facts of a Globalized Chimerica

China's remarkable progress has shown that modernity does not only belong to the West. At the same time, China's modernization has been largely fueled by direct investment of foreign firms which also dominate key technologies and critical positions in the global supply chain. In this section we get the real facts on the interpenetration of China and the global economy. A leading Chinese entrepreneur and thinker puts modernization with Chinese characteristics in historical perspective. One of China's leading dissidents assesses the arrest of Ai Weiwei.     

Mapping the Theoretical Foundations of the Social Work–Migration Nexus

This article revisits the social work–migration nexus by investigating the implications of the debate on mobility and transnationalism. The conceptual boundary between migration as single-directed movement and as an extended and multidirected process has been much discussed across the social sciences but not yet fully in social work. However, the dialectic of sedentarism versus mobility makes for a key challenge to the arrangements and the tacit assumptions of this field of research and practice. Building on an innovative analytical framework and on a variety of examples, we highlight the friction between sedentarism and mobility as central to social work with immigrants and their families.     

Why were So Many Social Scientists Wrong about the Green Revolution? Learning from Bangladesh

Most social scientists once took a negative view of the socio-economic consequences of the Green Revolution. Events have since proved them wrong. Using Bangladesh as an example, we offer three reasons why social scientists were mistaken. One is the focus on village studies at the expense of nationally representative surveys. Another is insufficient appreciation of the technical limits of the new rice technology. The third is a misleading model of agrarian change. The inability of village studies to validate generalisations, the reluctance to abandon the historical model of de-peasantisation, and opposing beliefs about how to evaluate socio-economic consequences created a Rashomon Effect that made the controversy hard to resolve.

Convictions are greater enemies of truth than lies. (Nietzsche)     

Social Entrepreneurs and Social Inclusion: Building Local Capacity or Delivering National Priorities?

Abstract

Western governments have increasingly sought to tap the potential of the voluntary and community sectors in delivering neighborhood-based initiatives to combat social exclusion. The particular attributes claimed for the ‘third sector’ include closeness to the community and a capacity for flexibility and innovation. In-depth evaluation of the UK’s Neighbourhood Support Fund, a ‘flagship’ program designed to combat the social exclusion of disaffected young people living in deprived inner urban areas, demonstrates that to operate successfully in the current policy environment, community-based projects not only need these skills but must also acquire managerial capacity. In particular they have to be able meet the increasing demand from central government for detailed performance data. Successful community based projects therefore not only need to have the capacity for entrepreneurial activity but must now also have managerial skills not traditionally associated with the ‘not for profit’ organisations.     

Post-communist political studies: ten years later,twenty years behind?

The collapse of communism has led to a number of different research agendas in post-communist political studies. These include political culture, “transitology,” nationalism, institutionalism, and political economy. This article critically reviews these approaches, comparing them to the more general lines of research in comparative politics. It asks what contribution each is making, and argues that a political economy perspective may be the most interesting and revealing for post-communist societies.     

The Rise of Militant Islam and the Security State in the Era of the ‘Long War’

This paper distinguishes between political and militant Islam and analyses the latter's current ability to confront empire and to become a social force in Muslim-majority states. This analysis is within the dialectic of collaboration and resistance, starting with client postcolonial states' pivotal role in bringing to fruition the collaboration between political Islam and US imperialism during the cold war era. The post-cold war period signals the imperialist putsch to confront militant Islam in the ‘Long War’ by employing the cold war strategy of ‘permanent war’ and universalising the idea of the security state. Militant Islam's resistance to the Long War and the security state makes this two-pronged imperial strategy a losing proposition for the USA. Paradoxically this strategy has also become the prime mover for militant Islam's ascendancy. The paper addresses the paradox of the USA's continuation with its losing Long War strategy and securitisation agenda which, although providing succour to militant Islam, is also achieving its larger objectives to buttress capitalist globalism; fuel the military–industrial and security–industrial complexes; and support ‘big oil’.     

After Oslo and Utøya: A Shift in the Balance Between Security and Liberty in Norway?

The article addresses the challenges a society faces to when trying to balance security and liberty after a terrorist attack. A main question is to what extent attitudes toward counterterror measures changed in Norway after the massive terror attacks in July 2011. A hypothesis that people will be more in favor of such measures after a terror attack is examined using data from two surveys—one conducted in 2006 and one in August 2011, with additional results from a survey in 2012. The Norwegian response after the 2011 attacks is compared to the response to the same questions in the United States shortly after 11 September 2001. A main finding is that in Norway, in contrast to the United States, levels of support for counterterror measures declined immediately after the attacks. The authors argue that this can be explained partly by the different levels of trust in the two countries, and partly by differences in the political executive's framing of the crisis. In 2012, support of counterterror measures in Norway has risen to pre-2011 levels. This is related to the changed discourse after the publication of the report from the 22 July Commission.