Renminbi appreciation and Global Value Chains in China: exploring the linkages

China has experienced a rapid integration into Global Value Chains and a decade long appreciation of its exchange rate. However, these trends have been analysed largely in isolation from each other. In this paper, we explore the linkages between the two based on interviews with a sample of firms in Jiangsu Province. We show (1) how the distribution of the costs and benefits of exchange rate appreciation depends on the power hierarchies between firms in GVCs; (2) how exchange rate changes are important drivers of upgrading and even downgrading in GVCs; and (3) that the firm heterogeneity evident in GVCs provides additional insights into the politics of exchange rate determination in China.     

Law and Market Economy: The Triadic Linking of Law,Economics, and Semiotics

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

The geopolitics of climate change: power transitions,conflict and the future of military activities

Climate change is emerging as one of the primary geopolitical challenges of the early twenty-first century, one that will likely involve military engagements and deployments in both traditional and non-traditional missions. Unlike mass casualty terrorism, climate change does not have a single galvanising event that can encourage collective mitigation efforts by both developed and developing states. International efforts to counter putative climate change causes have, thus far, been only marginally successful. Consequently, some of the more pernicious effects of climate change—extreme weather, heat waves, droughts and floods—will likely continue to manifest in the years and decades ahead. From a geopolitical perspective, climate change may influence the trajectory of rising or declining states in an increasingly multipolar world. It may also induce or exacerbate resource competition between states, particularly with regard to energy resources, water and food. Climate change may also exert a general weakening effect on lesser developed countries, thus necessitating increasingly intrusive and costly humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) missions, some of which may be conducted by military agencies. Overall, these trends suggest that climate change will continue to emerge as a significant factor that shapes and defines future military missions and deployments.     

Metaphors and Mantras: a comment on Shultz and Vogt's discussion of terrorism,intelligence, and war

Author: HOUGHTON, DAVID PATRICK; US Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis; Reviewer: Gabriel Ben-dor; Author: MALCOLM, NOEL; Kosovo: A Short History; Reviewer: Robert P. Hager; Author: HATINA, MEIR; Islam and Salvation in Palestine: The Islamic Jihad Movement; Reviewer: Ami Pedahzur; Author: WHITE, JONATHAN R.; Terrorism - An Introduction; Reviewer: Ami Pedahzur; Author: CABRITA, JOAO M.; Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy; Reviewer: E. Ike Udogu