Gramsci,Eurocommunism and the Comintern

This paper discusses the problematics of Eurocommunism and neoGramscianism and after comparing them discusses their relation to the central concepts of the Prison Notebooks. These are elaborated at some length before being located in relation to the views of the Comintern on a variety of political issues. It is argued that Gramsci's prison writings are only meaningfully to be seen as a solution to some problem of politcal strategy of the 1920s, which Gramsci had alrady approached in a more orthodox way before. The type of solution offered by Gramsci in the Notebookswas basically a historicist one, with few of the implications later interpreters have claimed to find in it.     

Gramsci, Machiavelli and International Relations

The paper begins by expressing some doubts about how Gramsci has been appropriated by the so-called 'Italian School' of International Relations/International Political Economy (IR/IPE). Particularly questionable is the attempt to 'internationalise' his concepts of 'civil society' and 'hegemony', whose respective meanings are sometimes extended beyond Gramscian usage. Also dubious is the tendency to assume that his conceptual framework supports a counter-discourse within IR/IPE that contradicts the 'realist' mainstream. In his political ideas, Gramsci was as much a child of Machiavelli as of Marx, and he praised the Florentine for developing a progressive or 'transformative' realism in opposition to the conventional type of realism that seeks only to 'manage' the status quo. This interpretation of Gramsci as a kind of realist is defended by highlighting three 'Machiavellian' aspects of his thought: (a) his contempt for abstract ideals of justice or democracy, (b) his hostility to 'vague and purely ideological' (his words) internationalism; and (c) his surprising (for a supposed Marxist) doubts about the prospects for a non-coercive and egalitarian society. In conclusion, it is pointed out that Gramsci helps us to illustrate a tension at the heart of Marxism: that between utopianism and realism. Because of his admiration for Machiavelli, he eventually betrayed second thoughts about Marx's vision of a world without borders or conflict. His idea of transformative realism, rather than his concept of hegemony, should perhaps be seen as his chief contribution to IR/IPE.     

A literature review of partnerships

In today＇s competitive era, all organizations and enterprises, including small and medium enterprises （SMEs）, should have collaboration with each other to survive and they cannot be globally successful by working alone. A partnership is the relationship existing between two or more persons or entities that join to carry on a trade or business. Each one contributes money, property, labor or skill, and expects to share the profits and losses of the business. There are different types of partnerships, and organizations should inform from them and apply from it in suitable cases. Each partnership has its own advantages and disadvantages as well. This paper aims to describe some types of partnerships between governments, communities, new social movements and firms.     

Two Conceptions of State: Antonio Gramsci and Michael Mann

Gramsci revised classical Marxist accounts of the role of the state in society, culture and ideology, and stressed the autonomy of the political process from the economic base. Sociologists often labelled neoWeberian also focus on social change, the state and the political process. Michael Mann, whilst remaining discrete from Marxism has nevertheless moved away from classical Weberian sociology, engaging deeply with materialism in analysing the state. This article compares the work of Gramsci and Mann regarding the state, to examine whether a genuine synthesis is possible between Gramsci (perhaps the first 'neo-Marxist') and Mann, a neoWeberian.     

Evaluation of training. A review of the literature

The literature on evaluation needs to be classified into education and training. The latter reveals many difficulties as regards evaluation. Scientific and quantitative methods are not popular. Evaluation appears to be undertaken reluctantly and with the simplest methods. Behavioural objects are rarely even set by trainers. Progress in the techniques of evaluation has been slow, though a good deal of research has been done. The literature is small but growing.     

Evaluating development assistance: A review of the literature

Three phases of development of the subject of evaluation are identified. Up to 1979 it was still in its infancy, with the main impetus coming from the USA (the World Bank and US AID), and from one or two large UN organizations, although the OECD also did some useful work in bringing evaluators together. The second phase (1979-1984) saw rapid ‘take-off’, with greatly increased resources going into evaluation work, and a veritable ‘explosion’ of interest worldwide. All the main donors had by now set up evaluation units and were amassing enough material to begin to ‘synthesize’ the findings. The OECD provided a focus and a forum through its Expert Group on Aid Evaluation. The third phase, from 1984 onwards, finds the subject having ‘come of age’, its maturity being marked by the publication of major works such as Cassen's Does Aid Work?. The emphasis now is switching from ex-post evaluation towards improving project design through such techniques as the logical framework.     

Policy entrepreneurship in developing countries: A systematic review of the literature

What can be learned from two decades of studies on policy entrepreneurship in developing countries? Policy entrepreneurship is a rapidly evolving analytical concept. A growing number of studies exploring public policy in developing countries use policy entrepreneurship as an explanatory theoretical concept. However, a substantial part of this research relies on qualitative case study analysis, lacking a comprehensive overview of the concept of policy entrepreneurship. This paper conducts a systematic review of the literature on policy entrepreneurship in developing countries. A total of 47 papers addressing policy entrepreneurship in the developing world, published between 1993 and 2017, have been analysed. The purpose and contribution of this paper are to offer a clearer picture of policy entrepreneurship in the developing world by concentrating on two aspects. First, we describe the characteristics of the studies on policy entrepreneurship in the developing world. Second, we analyse such studies, identifying the lessons that can be drawn on the phenomenon of policy entrepreneurship in the developing world. We conclude with an agenda for future studies, examining new theoretical, methodological, and empirical opportunities to advance the understanding of policy entrepreneurship in developing countries.     

The nationalisation of electoral politics: A conceptual reconstruction and review of the literature

This article revisits the theory of the nationalisation of electoral politics from both a conceptual and a methodological perspective. Presenting and evaluating this theory through a critical analysis of the major works, the article focuses on the analytical utility and the theoretical interest of such a re‐examination, and provides a new conceptual and operational definition of this political phenomenon. The concept of nationalisation is discussed in regard to three electoral dimensions: homogeneity of support; uniform swing; and responses to national factors. Combining these three dimensions, the article provides a typology of the different forms of nationalisation, explores the possibilities of its analytical application, and tries to establish the extent to which the operational definition of nationalisation corresponds to the conceptual and theoretical definition.     

Modern slavery: A literature review using bibliometric analysis and the nexus of governance

This article reviews and analyses the empirical and theoretical literature on modern slavery, a topic that has received substantial attention in recent years. A qualitative and quantitative meta-literature review was carried out on modern slavery literature published between 1999 and 2021. A total of 280 works on the topic were analysed using citation analysis (Harzing's Publish or Perish and VOSviewer software) and content analysis. Several noteworthy aspects in the literature were identified, specifically the topics, articles, authors, journals, institutions, countries, co-authorship networks, and research streams. The research streams fall into three categories: 1) an overview and growth of modern slavery, 2) modern slavery and theories, and 3) modern slavery and country behaviour. The review and analyses led to the development of 15 research questions for future research. In addition, two views about current research on modern slavery were established: 1) the assertion that modern slavery is not exclusive to specific nations, jurisdictions, or periods, and 2) despite the numerous areas of accounting research on modern slavery, there is still a lack of studies on the topic. This study is the first to use inclusive mapping to empirically evaluate modern slavery.