The Incidence of Visible Underemployment: Evidence for Trinidad and Tobago

This article presents an empirical analysis of the incidence of visible underemployment in Trinidad and Tobago. Visible underemployment consists of workers who work less than the normal duration of working hours but are willing and available to work more. We find that compared to other groups of the labour force the visibly underemployed tend to be less educated and are more likely to work in the private sector. We also find that their revealed behaviour is consistent with their desire for more hours. Only about 50 per cent of the visibly underemployed are able to find full-time employment within three months and little except firm size helps predict who will.     

技术民族主义对全球价值链的影响分析——以全球半导体产业为例

目前,由新技术引发的新一轮产业革命正推动全球政治经济权力结构发生重大调整,围绕新技术特别是影响下一代生产方式的关键技术的竞争呈加速态势。在此背景下,技术民族主义作为一种新的地缘政治思潮快速兴起,并与大国传统战略博弈叠加,驱动全球技术主导国美国对中国的战略认知改变和战略行动升级。美国对中国实施的全面技术封锁与技术遏制战略行动,以影响和破坏全球半导体价值链和产业链最为典型,影响了全球重要产业链的正常运转,压制了全球技术链协同,并对未来全球政治经济治理带来更多不确定性风险。     

Philanthrocapitalism: rendering the public domain obsolete?

Engaging the lively debates about the next expression of neoliberalism, this study suggests that it is evolving into philanthrocapitalism. After a brief discussion of the trajectories from neoliberalism, the article addresses the core ideology of philanthrocapitalism. The central thesis explores how philanthrocapitalism is moving beyond the requirement of ‘business practices’ for recipients of donor funds, into enforcing ‘business rule’ on to the public domain. Although philanthrocapitalism is most debated in the fields of health care and education, this article uses empirical analysis of international agricultural policies trying to enlist Southern Africa policies. It explores how philanthrocapitalist rule is reducing transparency, participation and deliberation within the public domain, well beyond requesting efficient business practices for greater food security. It concludes with how smallholder farmers are actively organising to resist business rule over their genetic resources and farming practices.     

Praxis and paradigms of local and expatriate workers in ‘Aidland’

This paper discusses practices and paradigms that expatriate and national humanitarian aid workers use to deal with major problems they encounter in their daily work. It views ‘Aidland’ as an arena where different actors encounter, negotiate and shape the outcome of aid. One of the main findings is that there are consistent differences in the way expatriate and national aid actors perceive problems in their field, as well as in the way they respond to these issues. The paper shows that these perceptions often translate into heterogeneous paradigms and practices between expatriate and national staff, particularly around remote control aid, partnerships and donor reporting. These findings are highly relevant in the current context of ‘localisation’, suggesting that the so-called North/South divide continues to exist and more explicit attention should be given in aid research to the heterogeneous strategies of different actors working in the aid sector. The paper is based on analysis of data derived from a multiple-round Delphi expert panel study involving 30 highly experienced humanitarian aid practitioners.     

Fragile states and the evolution of risk governance: intervention,prevention and extension

Following the plane crashes into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, Ulrich Beck claimed that the West would need to pursue ‘border-transcending new beginnings’ towards a more cosmopolitan world. Rather than any radical transformation along cosmopolitan lines, however, this paper maps a process of incremental reform and policy bricolage, where the post-cold war politics of intervention, and the securitisation of development, have been extended to encompass international terrorism in three overlapping phases. Although these overlapping phases – intervention, prevention and extension – are reflexive moments, they constitute a strengthening of the prevailing rationalities and technologies of risk rather than a radical rupture.     

The Road to Good Governance: Via the Path Less Accountable? The Effectiveness of Fiscal Accountability in Liberia

Accountability mechanisms are touted as a path to “good governance.” But are accountability mechanisms a sure route to achieving the objectives of “good governance”? Limited case studies have offered inconsistent evidence (Blair, 2000 Blair, H. 2000. Participation and accountability at the periphery: Democratic local governance in sex countries. World Development, 28(1): 21–29. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Charlick, 2001 Charlick, R.B. 2001. Popular participation and local government reform.. Public Administration and Development, 21: 149–157. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Devas &; Grant, 2003 Devas, N. and Grant, U. 2003. Local government decision-making-citizen participation and local accountability: Some evidence from Kenya and Uganda. Public Administration and Development, 23: 307–316. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). But empirical evidence of the relationships among principles of good governance—high citizen participation, low levels of corruption, high-quality service delivery—and accountability mechanisms is lacking. We examine the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms in Liberia and find relationships between measures of county level fiscal accountability and measures of good governance do not always produce expected results, making fiscal accountability mechanisms no guarantee for achieving goals of good governance.     

The Role of Civic Engagement in Trisectoral Governance Approaches as Factors for Success in East German Municipalities

The demographic diminution and the special economic situation in the East necessitate flexible strategies that make use of all available on-site resources. This includes taking into account economic concerns in governmental and developmental strategies for the public sector as well as improved integration of ‘active citizens’, for whom the government must provide adequate basic parameters in order to assure lasting and effective participation. In this context, the following article presents the findings of a study on East German municipalities that clarifies the obstacles and specific potentials of a stronger cooperation between the various societal sectors that is characterised by trisectoral governance.     

Rethinking global governance: a China model in the making?

This paper examines Chinese perspectives on global governance, an area in which China has increased substantially the depth and breadth of its participation. The paper attempts to draw a mainstream perspective to inform our understanding of some key aspects of China's foreign policy. It demonstrates that while China's statist preference appeals to some Third World countries, such a preference leads the country to clash with the West over how to tackle global issues collectively, particularly over humanitarian intervention. While the Chinese perspective is in the process of evolving and far from reaching maturity, it is questionable whether the global community led by the West would find the Westphalian practice that China embraces admirable.     

The BRICS and global governance: China’s contradictory role

The impact of rising powers generally and the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - in particular on the existing global order has become controversial and contested. Donald Trump’s nationalist foreign policy agenda has raised questions about the BRICS willingness and capacity to provide leadership in place on an American administration that is increasingly inward looking. As a result, the rise of BRICS poses potential normative and structural challenges to the existing liberal international order. Given its geoeconomic significance, China also poses a potential problem for the other BRICS, as well as the governance of the existing order more generally. Consequently, we argue that it will be difficult for the BRICS to maintain a unified position amongst themselves, let alone play a constructive role in preserving the foundations of ‘global governance’.     

What is the opposite of corruption?

Corruption has turned out to be difficult to define and what should be counted as the opposite to corruption remains widely disputed. If the goal for a post-conflict society is not only to become democratic and prevent a return to violence but also to reduce systemic corruption, we need to know what it is that should be fought and how the opposite to systemic corruption should be conceptualised. To define the opposite to corruption, choices have to be made along four conceptual dimensions. These are universalism vs relativism, uni- vs multidimensionality, normative vs empirical and whether the definition should relate to political procedures or policy substance. As a result of this conceptual analysis, it is argued, a universal, one-dimensional, normative and procedural definition should be preferred. The suggested definition is that of impartiality as the basic norm for the implementation of laws and policies. This conceptual analysis ends with a discussion of why such a norm has historically and in the contemporary world been hard to achieve and why it is especially problematic in post-conflict societies.