Globalization and Utopian dreams: Deconstructing the ‘G’ word

Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, Globalization in Question (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996), 227 pp., ISBN 0–7456–12458

Winfried Ruigrok and Rob Van Tulder, The Logic of International Restructuring (Routledge, London, 1995), 344 pp., ISBN 0–415–12239–2

Robert Boyer and Daniel Drache (eds), States against Markets (Routledge, London, 1996), 448 pp., ISBN 0–415–13726–8

Dick Bryan, The Chase Across The Globe (Westview Press, Oxford, 1995), 204 pp., ISBN 0–8133–2356–8     

Ethnic Identity and the Nation?CState in the Era of Globalization: the Case of Cyprus

This paper addresses the philosophical question whether the nation?Cstate will be entering a final phase of demise or whether it will continue to prosper within the framework of the era of regional blocs and globalization. In order to do so, we briefly put forward some theoretical premises in relation to the nation?Cstate and globalization and how they have affected each other. This discussion also draws from the recent experiences of the international economic crisis and how the EU reacted in relation to the serious economic crisis of Greece. We also assess the case of Cyprus within the framework of this discussion. The question raised in relation to Cyprus is whether there can be an integrated society that encourages a particular common value system and also respects the ethnic identity of citizens and communities. A major question is whether the EU can offer the framework for such an outcome.     

Debt Politics and the Free Trade ‘Package’: the case of the Caribbean

While much has been written on how powerful institutions have used debt crises to foist free trade agreements on poorer states, this paper explores how the foisting of free trade agreements on poorer states has resulted in debt crises. Part one critiques the common-sense understanding of ‘free trade’ as a mere technical or policy issue, arguing that it is an intricate political, economic and ideological ‘package’ rooted in complex social, historical and cultural forces. Part two explores the role of debt in the free trade package by examining the impact of free trade agreements on the Caribbean over the past decade, during which time the region has experienced growing public and personal debt crises, further fuelled by an aid packages that included millions of dollars of concessional loans. It is argued that the contradictions of ‘free trade’ are mitigated through a ‘debt for trade’ paradigm, which Caribbean states are beginning to subvert through new preferential South–South partnerships.     

The Globalization of Nationalism and the Future of the Nation?CState

The state is a specific form of government, distinguished from others by its impersonal character and the recognition on the part of the office holders that they represent the will of the people. This form of government is an implication of nationalism. Thus, every state is a nation?Cstate. Since nationalism is the cultural framework of modernity in all its expressions, every state is also a modern state. The future of the nation?Cstate depends on the future of nationalism. The recent globalization of nationalism into the formidable civilizations of South-East Asia has opened a new era for the latter. Therefore, the future of the nation?Cstate at present looks brighter than ever.     

Polanyi's “Ports of Trade”: Salaga and Kano in the Nineteenth Century

This article explores the salient, often ignored, convergences between the discourses of colonizers and the colonized in Africa. Using Nigerian criticisms of British colonial handling of the Great Depression, and a similar critique of British colonial economic recovery measures penned by the British colonial statistician in Nigeria, S.M Jacob, the article contends that, in spite of stylistic and motivational differences, both sets of critics desired similar colonial reforms and were grounded in a common desire to compel British colonialism to fulfill its paternalistic promises to Nigerians during a time of economic crisis. The article argues that the two bodies of anti-colonial criticism wittingly or unwittingly sought to salvage the colonial enterprise by compelling the colonial state to avert public outrage that might threaten British rule. Although Nigerian critics recognized the imperative of eventual self-government, their critiques and those of Jacob were united in their common conviction that the best way to avert a further discrediting of British colonial rhetoric was for the state to provide relief to Nigeria's economically beleaguered peoples. Both sets of critics desired a colonial system that functioned effectively for the benefit of Nigerians, even if their motivation for desiring this outcome and their ultimate goals differed.     

Labor Standards and Labor Market Flexibility in the Middle East: Free Trade and Freer Unions?

This paper examines how two, potentially opposing trends—pressure to adhere to international labor standards and movement toward greater labor market flexibility—have affected labor market characteristics in the Middle East. Focusing on 13 countries, the paper presents indices of de jure and de facto labor flexibility and standards in the region. The paper makes two main contributions. First, it develops a typology of post-independence Middle Eastern political economies based on oil dependence and political regime type (including oil monarchies, low-income republics, and low-income monarchies) to explain widely divergent sub-regional trends in labor flexibility and standards. Second, it argues that different actors have spurred changes in labor flexibility and standards in distinct sub-regional political economy groupings. In the low-income countries, the state and domestic business were most instrumental in driving increased flexibility, although unions were able to win concessions in countries where the political system permitted some voice for labor. In the oil monarchies, international pressure, particularly through negotiations over trade agreements with the USA, spurred a trend toward increased labor standards, while domestic programs to indigenize the workforce account for a trend toward decreased flexibility.     

Distributive Effects of Regional Trade Agreements on the ‘Small Trading Partners’: Mercosur and the Case of Uruguay and Paraguay

It is disputed whether trade liberalisation processes are sufficient for reducing poverty and inequality. We explore how ‘gains from trade’ have been distributed in the two minor trade partners of Mercosur, Uruguay and Paraguay, by analysing the impact of trade liberalisation on poverty and inequality through two main transmission channels: prices and income. In the case of Uruguay, trade liberalisation favoured a reduction in poverty indicators but had an almost zero effect on income inequality. In the case of Paraguay, trade liberalisation had a markedly negative impact in terms of poverty yet income distribution improved. We conclude that in the case of Mercosur, the effect of trade on poverty and income inequality varies per country and per region. In particular, we conclude that trade integration policies cannot be regarded as ‘poverty-alleviating’ per se.     

Power in Global Trade Governance: Is the EU a Unitary Actor,a Tool for Dominance,or a Site of Contestation? GATS and the TTIP Negotiations

The European Union (EU) plays multiple roles within global trade governance as a unitary actor with particular interests to promote, a tool for dominance by powerful interests, and a site of contestation facilitating civil society mobilization. Identifying these roles is key to analyzing the role of the EU particularly in times of crisis in global trade governance where new forms of politics are most likely to emerge. This is investigated through considering two cases of politically sensitive trade negotiation in which the EU played, and continues to play, an active role: the GATS 2000 negotiations and the EU-US TTIP.     

Nationalist Jāhiliyyah and the Flag of the Two Crusaders,or: ISIS,Sovereignty, and the “Owl of Minerva”

This article argues that by understanding Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) state-building processes we are able to understand how ISIS has developed while also developing a united citizenship body built from people in Iraq and Syria and those making hijra. The fragmentation of Iraq and Syria resulted in conditions that would prove conducive to the group's expansion and identifying these conditions is imperative to understanding Sunni extremism in the Middle East. The article argues that ISIS builds citizenship in two ways: first, by developing asabiyya—group feeling—among Sunni and second, by securitizing the Shi'a threat. Identifying and engaging with the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship helps to develop much stronger policy responses.     

Pan-Africanism and communism: the Comintern,the ‘Negro Question’ and the First International Conference of Negro Workers,Hamburg 1930

Abstract

This article charts the history of a now largely forgotten Pan-African gathering, the historic First International Conference of Negro Workers, organised by the Communist International (CI) and held in Hamburg in 1930. The CI had taken an interest in organising Africans and those of African descent in the colonies, and in Europe and the US, from its foundation, but the key factor in developing political work concerned with the ‘Negro Question’ was the founding of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers in 1928 and the activities of black communists. The difficulties experienced in organising the conference in Hamburg suggest that these activists were key to holding this historic event. The Hamburg Conference linked the communist movement with important black trade union and anti-colonial activists in Africa, the Caribbean, the US and Europe and subsequently had a significant influence on the future development of the Pan-African movement.