The Politics of Food Regulation and Reform in Ireland

Amid a period of increasing political anxiety generated by the BSE crisis, the Irish Government sought to replace a confusing medley of food regulations with a single agency responsible for regulating food from the 'farm to the fork'. Presented as a radical departure from a regime previously discredited, its remit would be to redefine the relationship between risk assessment, management and communication. In this context, the paper puts forward three principal arguments. First, that while the Minister for Health and Children was keen to extol both the scientific credentials of the agency, and the importance of shifting regulatory responsibility from the Department of Agriculture and Food (DAF) to the Department of Health and Children (DOHC), what remains novel is the manner in which reform has managed to retain political access for influential agri-business interests. Second, that any reform undertaken should be fully cognisant of the international agreements between the European Union and the World Trade Organisation which extended further a free market in food trade. The agency's institutional architecture therefore was framed with the intention of restoring market confidence without threatening the habitat of those multi-national companies that occupy this arena. Finally, that the role of science (and risk) in food regulation has altered. Rather than perform the task of sustaining order through responsible government, science now participates in (re)constituting order through the market.     

Corporate Governance: A Defence of the Status Quo

J.E. Parkinson, Corporate Power and Responsibility: Issues in the Theory of Company Law , Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, xxv + 464 pp, hb £50.00, pb £19.95.     

Endogenous development: some issues of concern

This article aims to provide knowledge and practical guidance to managing and implementing within the framework of endogenous development. The paper gives a theoretical overview of endogenous development, linked to issues of globalisation and poverty, and ongoing work among European institutions and academics that suggest shifts in Europe from exogenous to endogenous development approaches. It then makes a case for a paradigm shift – an African alternative to modernisation and development, namely endogenous development – using experiences with two NGOs in Ghana and Zimbabwe to locate theory in practice. The paper concludes with some empirical pre-requisites for conducting endogenous development with rural communities.

This article is prompted by the requests of my students at the University for Development Studies, Ghana, for knowledge and information, and practical guidance to managing and implementing within the framework of endogenous development. I start by giving a theoretical overview of the concept of endogenous development and link it with current issues of globalisation and poverty. I briefly mention current work among European institutions and academics that suggest shifts in Europe from exogenous to endogenous development approaches. Encouraged by such developments, I then make a case for a paradigm shift – an African alternative to modernisation and development, endogenous development. I bring to light the experiences with endogenous development in two NGOs – CECIK (Ghana) and AZTREC (Zimbabwe) – in order to locate theory in practice (praxis). I conclude by providing some empirical prerequisites for conducting endogenous development with rural communities, which demonstrate one way of conducting experimentation with farmers within the context of endogenous development.     

Miracle to meltdown: A pathology of the East Asian financial crisis

The financial crisis in East Asia was made more dramatic by the fact that the region's performance in terms of economic growth over the preceding decade had been widely perceived as a 'miracle'. What was it that transformed the region's fortunes, and what are the chances for a speedy economic recovery? Systematic analysis reveals that, while there is no unicausal explanation, and while few if any commentators anticipated the crisis before the event, the fundamental difference from previous international financial crises is the extreme indebtedness of the corporate sector of the crisis countries. Private sector repayment difficulties and the associated banking crises triggered the sudden withdrawal of capital and the collapse of exchange rates. Failure to address the underlying private sector debt overhang, and reliance instead on conventional macroeconomic policy solutions, have led to a decline in output and a depreciation in exchange rates which have been far greater than need have been the case.     

Failure of auditors: The lack of compliance for business combinations in China

This empirical study investigates the compliance of 344 Chinese listed companies with the Accounting Standard for Enterprises No. 20‐Business Combination, a mandatory reporting standard applicable to companies involved in business combinations. China has recently reformed its auditing sector, enabling private firms to provide auditing services. The results of the study show a low level of compliance by Chinese listed companies. While companies audited by Chinese domestic auditors have significantly lower compliance than companies audited by Big Four auditors on supplementary disclosure that is mandatory under the Chinese accounting standards, compliance remains low even after companies receive unqualified reports from these international auditors. There appears to be a lack of commitment, and possibly expertise, among Big Four auditors, in fully applying the reporting requirements of the business combination standard in a Chinese setting. This raises concerns about the independence of Chinese auditing in disclosing reliable information about business combinations. Broader theoretical contributions of the paper go beyond the Chinese context by problematizing whether well‐resourced international auditors uphold internationally expected standards or succumb to local non‐compliant practices.     

Duverger's Law, Penrose's Power Index and the Unity of the UK

As predicted by Duverger's Law, the UK has had two-party competition for long periods in most electoral districts. However, there are different patterns of two-party competition in different districts and more than two effective parties in the Commons. Since 1874, parliament has always contained parties wishing to modify the Union and contesting seats only outside England. By calculating the Penrose power index for all parties in the House of Commons for all general elections since 1874, we identify when such parties were pivotal. We explain various legislative changes (for example the Crofters Act 1886, the first three Irish Home Rule Bills, the Parliament Act 1911) and non-changes (for example the failure to enact female suffrage before 1914) by reference to the Penrose index scores. The scores also explain how and why policy towards Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland changed and did not change in the 1970s.     

Land grab/data grab: precision agriculture and its new horizons

ABSTRACT

Developments in the area of ‘precision agriculture’ are creating new data points (about flows, soils, pests, climate) that agricultural technology providers ‘grab’, aggregate, compute and/or sell. Food producers now churn out food and, increasingly, data. ‘Land grabs’ on the horizon in the global south are bound up with the dynamics of data grabbing, although hitherto researchers have not revealed enough about the people and projects at issue. Against this backdrop, this paper examines some key issues taking shape, while highlighting new frontiers for research and introducing the concept ‘data sovereignty’, which food sovereignty practitioners (and others) need to begin considering.     

‘Tied to the kitchen sink’? Women's Lives and Women's History in Mid-Twentieth Century Britain and Australia

In the decades after World War Two, women in Britain and Australia lived with—and sometimes against—a compelling expectation about women's role: they should marry and devote their lives to suburban domesticity and childcare. This article considers how the life stories of four women—born in Britain between 1928–38, and living in Australia from the 1950s to the 1970s—can illuminate and complicate our understanding of the experience of the postwar suburban dream. It shows how women sometimes articulated imaginative responses to limiting circumstances and thus stretched the boundaries of possibility.