Soziotechnischer Wandel als graduelle Transformation

Processes of socio-technical change that are triggered by new technological opportunities do not occur as radical fractures over short periods of time, which then quickly lead to new periods of technological, institutional and organizational continuity. What appears to be radical socio-technical change is in fact the result of longer search and restructuring processes that are influenced by a number of related technological and socio-economic changes. Once these changes accumulate they lead to substantial adjustments within the technological, institutional and (inter-)organizational foundations of society, the economy or other sectors. How can an analysis of processes of both radical and gradual change be introduced? What modes are involved in their occurrence, which patterns do they follow and what variations do they assume? Against the background of technology-driven change within economic sectors, this paper develops a concept of gradual socio-technical transformation. This concept can be used to analyze and structure multi-phased, often erratic and non-linear processes of socio-technical change that only over time evolve into substantial sectoral adjustments.     

Organizing K-Pop: Emergence and Market Making of Large Korean Entertainment Houses, 1980–2010

This paper studies the connection between the emergence and market making activities of the large Korean entertainment houses and the global level success of “K-pop,” an increasingly popular type of Korean popular music. We review a set of conventional explanations, respectively pointing to cultural factors, government support, and technological development as core factors that led to the global success of K-pop. We find all three explanations unsatisfactory and, alternatively, building on studies of market intermediaries, argue that the roles of three large entertainment houses—SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment—have been the most crucial in the development and success of K-pop. Through combining data from Korean music charts, newspaper articles, and revenue data, we trace the increasingly systematic musical production strategies of the entertainment houses and the macro-consequences of their organizational activities.     

CPI(ML), India documents and discussion

What is meant by the term “industrialisation”? We would define the concept in the very broadest sense so that it includes not only the idea of technological change (e.g. the introduction of machine technology into agriculture, mining, manufacturing, construction and the like) but also a radical social, economic and political transformation of the societies in which it is occurring. For instance it can, but need not necessarily entail massive urbanisation. It can, but need not necessarily encompass the development of industrial capitalism and the growth of the proletariat. The specifics of each historical instance needs therefore to be treated as problematic, not taken-for-granted. Our aim in this paper is not to examine the broad sweep of social change. The notion of industrialisation as a very diverse process, however, informs our thinking, even though we focus more narrowly on change in just one sector of one society, viz manufacturing in Malaysia. In particular, we will try to establish the extent to which a capital goods sector has developed there, the form it has taken and the degree to which linkages have been formed between capital goods producing companies and the local economy.     

Democracy and Social Policy in Brazil: Advancing Basic Needs, Preserving Privileged Interests

Has democracy promoted poverty alleviation and equity‐enhancing reforms in Brazil, a country of striking inequality and destitution? The effects of an open, competitive political system have not been straightforward. Factors that would seem to work toward this goal include the voting power of poor people, the progressive 1988 Constitution, the activism of social movements, and governance since 1995 by presidents affiliated with center‐left and left parties. Yet these factors have been counterbalanced by the strong political influence and lobbying power of organized interests with a stake in preexisting arrangements of social protection and human capital formation. An analysis of four key federal sectors, social security, education, health care, and public assistance, illustrates the challenges for social sector reforms that go beyond raising basic living standards to enhancing socioeconomic inequality.     

Somaliland: An African Struggle for Nationhood and International Recognition

This paper investigates the benefits of Chinese companies to the Ugandan economy using data gathered during fieldwork in Kampala. Potential contributions to the Ugandan economy are analysed through a number of economic and managerial factors, and their determinants. This paper shows that potential benefits vary on the basis of sector, investment size and ECCO registration. The potential harm caused by one sector in particular is indicated. The paper presents recommendations regarding how potential benefits can be maximised and harm reduced. Given the increased presence of Chinese enterprises in Africa, these findings are relevant to African policymakers and academics.     

Notes on contributors

Deregulation, technological change, and the integration of markets increase the competitive pressures on forms of national and sectoral governance. The heart of the issue is whether the continental, consensus‐oriented model of capitalism is gravitating towards the Anglo‐Saxon, market‐oriented model. This essay examines the heuristic value of this convergence thesis, using the German financial sector and its relations to industry and government as a case in point. It will be argued that while the institutional restructuring that is taking place within Germany reflects characteristics of Anglo‐Saxon capitalism, institutional hurdles, such as federal structures and the veto power of certain societal lobbies, have thus far prevented such a convergence throughout the entire system.     

Exporting corporate social responsibility into Africa? The experiences of South African companies in Swaziland

The economic expansion of South African corporates across the continent is an evolving and contested process. This paper seeks to inform knowledge on the experiences of South African companies expanding into Africa by looking at the social investment approach of five large companies within South Africa and in their Swaziland operations. While social responsibility programmes are proving to be useful for the private sector, the experiences of these companies highlight the need for more studies to find evidence on the developmental role of major private sector players like South Africa in the region and the impact of corporate social investment and corporate social responsibility in Africa.     

Global Shift: The U.N. System and the New Regionalism in Latin America

This study analyzes Latin America in light of the post–Cold War transformation of the global system. Much of Latin American foreign policy studies traditionally has been concerned with the region's subordinate position to "core" countries (generally, developed states and their ruling elites) and the degree to which these countries' policies constrain Latin American policies and development. While this juxtaposition is still a major topic, it ignores the leverage of new "spheres of authority" (SOAs), where global rules and norms are increasingly sustained. A hypothesis presented here is that the U.N. system is an example of such an SOA, which creates a new context for the insertion of periphery demands in the international agenda. A second hypothesis is that such insertion is increasingly made through the creation of new regional groupings, which are an expression of national development and security demands. Such processes carry both new possibilities and challenges.     

Perception of risks associated with economic sanctions: the case of Russian manufacturing

This paper is focused on assessing the risk factors for Russian manufacturing firms posed by sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU, US, and other countries in 2014. While there is an extensive literature assessing the successes and failures of international sanctions on the economies of both those imposing and targeted by sanctions on a macroeconomic level, we are more interested in trying to understand the corporate response – i.e. which firms evaluate the introduction and increasing scale of economic sanctions as a threat to their corporate strategy, and their possible reactions aimed at adjusting to a changing environment due to the geopolitical shock. Our research, based on a recent survey of manufacturing companies, provides evidence that over the last decade Russian manufacturing firms have become much more integrated into the global economy than is commonly assumed, through foreign direct investment, foreign trade (including imports of both technological equipment and raw materials and components), international partnerships, and by extensively supplying foreign companies that operate in Russia. Considering the self-selection effect of the top-performing firms in terms of foreign trade, we can state that sanctions could prove most harmful not only for the targeted firms, but for the entire population of better-performing and globalized firms involved in foreign trade with the EU and Ukraine. Thus, the impact of the sanctions on the prospects of the Russian manufacturing sector may be very strong over the medium-to-long term.     

NEPAD and good governance

This paper is an analysis of South Africa's public service improvement strategies since 1994. It first describes the historical factors that underpinned South Africa's service delivery initiatives before 1994. It is argued that the pre-1994 public service sector was racialised and highly politicised, as opposed to being people-centred and service delivery oriented. The transition to democracy in 1994 necessitated a complete revision of South Africa's public administrative system in order to meet the developmental challenges of service delivery needs. However, this transition also coincided with global reform initiatives that were taking place in the public sector, as informed by the new public management (NPM) paradigm with its emphasis on cost effectiveness, accountability and transparency. The primary argument of the paper is that commendable legislative reforms have been enacted in South Africa's public administration system in the post-1994 period, based on the NPM, but the fragility of the state bureaucracy as manifested in the silo approach characterising the South African government operations, as well as capacity limitations, encumbers the success of these reforms. The Community Development Worker (CDW) programme, operating in South Africa's Eastern and Western Cape Provinces, is used as a case study to illustrate this argument. A brief look at India's experience of the NPM also informs the discussion. The significance of the case study lies in the fact that it was conceived in the interest of increased responsiveness and accessibility to government services, a vital pillar of the NPM framework.     

International capital,Singapore's state companies,and security

Since the Asian economic crisis in 1997-98, the Singapore government has embraced neoliberal globalization to a degree not matched elsewhere in East or Southeast Asia. Yet the consolidation and expansion of Singapore's state companies are also integral to this strategy. These companies are increasingly the objects of critical attention from elements of international capital that are seeking to make inroads into various sectors of the Singapore economy. This includes pressures to reform governance systems from which state companies derive competitive advantages. This article examines the nature and political strength of these challenges, the responses to them by the Singapore government, and the implications of this for the future of the authoritarian regime. The article also analyzes the changing geopolitical context within which such disputes are being played out. Security concerns by the U.S. government in particular, it is argued, are mediating conflict over state companies and presenting new opportunities for the authoritarian regime to consolidate.     

La ñata contra el vidrio: urban violence and democratic governability in Argentina

The article argues that the increase in crime and urban violence in Argentina, especially in Buenos Aires, can be explained as an outcome of the interaction of four factors: the new social relations established by neoliberalism; the incapacity of the state to resolve the social conflicts which have arisen from these new social relations; the failure to democratise the security forces; and the exclusion of a sector of society from the rights of effective democratic citizenship. The increase in crime and urban violence is, thus, analysed as a problem of governability.     

The Neoliberal Inheritance: Agrarian Policy and Rural Differentiation in Democratic Chile

This paper critically appraises the core philosophies of the three Concertación governments with respect to agrarian change and rural restructuring in Chile since 1990. It identifies common ideological ground in the successive administrations' perspectives on the nature and role of agriculture in the wider economy, arguing that a 'neoliberal inheritance>> has pervaded each. In drawing on primary and secondary data from the non-traditional fruit export sector the paper challenges the concept of reconversión as a panacea for rural under-development and grower failure. Given the simultaneously regionalising and globalising context which frames the Chilean transition, the paper highlights the tough choices that face policy makers at the current time. Developmental dilemmas are increasing in the sector, given the stated desire of the Concertación governments to move beyond pure, efficiency-driven, neoliberalism towards the incorporation of equity and sustainability goals. After ten years of democratic transition it is timely to ask if policy shows any signs of moving beyond reconversión .     

The ‘Regulatory State’ in Higher Education: Assuring Quality through New Modalities of Control in Brazil

The Brazilian Higher Education (HE) sector, following a global trend of rapid transformation, has undergone marked changes over the past two decades. These changes have involved the design of quality assurance tools as instruments for regulatory governance. In presenting an overview of the recent history and characteristics of quality assurance in the Brazilian HE sector, this paper contextualises the Brazilian experience according to broader conceptual frameworks and discusses how and why regulatory governance in this sector has so radically changed.     

Rethinking the Political Economy of Import Substitution Industrialization in Brazil: A Clientelist Model of Development Policymaking

Import substitution industrialization was the postwar development policy of choice in Latin America, and the diagnosis of its weaknesses heavily influenced subsequent policy recommendations. Yet few attempts have been made to test the predominant sectorally based explanation of ISI's failings against alternatives. This article develops a model of direct (clientelistic) linkages between politicians and their supporters and tests it against the standard sectoral model based on indirect linkages. Examining three features of process (economic sector influence, legislative voting, and exchange rate policy) and analyzing the distributional implications of the overall policy in Brazil, this article demonstrates that a clientelist model provides a more complete and coherent account of the empirical record. By demonstrating that variation in linkage type alters the political constraints on policy choice, the analysis also provides new insight into enduring puzzles, including the better performance in East Asia.     

Regional Implications of China’s Quest for Energy in Latin America

This paper analyses the Chinese quest for energy resources in Latin America, arguing that the strengthening of relations in this sector can only be explained by a conjunction of interests on both sides. Looking at the presence of Chinese national oil companies in the regional energy sector, we show that China’s incursion has allowed the region to shift its traditional energy partners, introducing a factor of change into economic and political relations with geopolitical implications for the regional arena.     

Disempowering Music: The Amandla! Documentary and Other Conservative Musical Projects

Scholars of black South African popular music have established important connections between music and society. Lara Allen’s studies of pennywhistle-kwela, Christopher Ballantine’s research on marabi and African jazz/mbaqanga,and David Coplan’s social history of black city music, among others, have underwritten the new literature in South African musicology and cultural studies. Previous neglect of black popular culture has made oral testimony crucial to the writing of these musical pasts. Recent investigations in the field, which are preoccupied with the articulation of black struggle to music, and the expression of struggle through music, have adopted a more popular format. Within these, the autobiographies of Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela are integral, as is Lee Hirsch’s documentary film, Amandla!. The popularity of these studies and their subjects, and their foregrounded debt to oral testimony and veneration of ‘the Struggle’ has tended to foreclose scrutiny of their representational politics. This article questions whether their homological substitution of music and musicians for anti-apartheid struggles in a postapartheid South Africa enables the radical stories they would tell of that past.     

New shop owners in old buildings: spatial politics of the apparel industry in Kyrgyzstan

This article adopts a political economy approach with insights from the political geography literature to illuminate how the apparel manufacturing sector in Kyrgyzstan has thrived in a region known for significant challenges in electricity access and availability. In contrast to studies that have analyzed the role of state policies and informal relations in promoting industrialization, we focus on how myriad shop owners gain access to elite-controlled, privatized urban infrastructure through owner–tenant relations in a new market economy. Drawing upon original interviews with Bishkek-based shop owners, we find that despite the challenges associated working in these spaces, including poor infrastructure and exploitative relationships with owners, they remain due to the constant provision of electricity and convenient location. We contribute to understanding how everyday shop owners make sense of and grapple with production challenges in a new market context, against the backdrop of Soviet infrastructural legacies and post-Soviet privatization processes.     

Dancing with Difference: Hugh Tracey on and in (African) Music

Hugh Tracey (1903–1977) founded the International Library of African Music (ILAM) and is well known for his recordings of traditional African music. This paper examines Tracey’s written representations of African music and of the musical interactions involved in the formation of his archive, finding contradictory repressive and collaborative elements in his work and an ambiguous stance toward musical difference. In doing so, it reveals Tracey’s implication in racialized colonial and apartheid power structures and challenges the celebratory view of him as a champion of indigenous culture.     

An institutional assessment of the public interest and accountability committee (PIAC) in Ghana’s oil and gas sector

ABSTRACT

Ghana’s Petroleum Revenue Management Act 815 (amended to Act 893 in 2015) established the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) in 2011 with the mandate to ensure accountability and transparency in the management and usage of oil and gas revenue. This paper critically examines the activities and operations of the PIAC from 2011 vis-à-vis its legally reposed mandate. It points to severe deficit in accountability but improvements in transparency in the management of oil and gas revenues in spite of the existence and operations of the PIAC. After eight years of operation, the PIAC continues to suffer monumental challenges that undermine its effectiveness in serving as an accountability and transparency initiative in Ghana’s oil and gas sector. The paper makes some recommendation based on the empirical challenges of the PIAC identified to strengthen the PIAC to deliver effectively on its mandate.