Approaching the socialist factory and its workforce: considerations from fieldwork in (former) Yugoslavia

The socialist factory, as the ‘incubator’ of the new socialist (wo)man, is a productive entry point for the study of socialist modernization and its contradictions. By outlining some theoretical and methodological insights gathered through field-research in factories in former Yugoslavia, we seek to connect the state of labour history in the Balkans to recent breakthroughs made by labour historians of other socialist countries. The first part of this article sketches some of the specificities of the Yugoslav self-managed factory and its heterogeneous workforce. It presents the ambiguous relationship between workers and the factory and demonstrates the variety of life trajectories for workers in Yugoslav state-socialism (from model communists to alienated workers). The second part engages with the available sources for conducting research inside and outside the factory advocating an approach which combines factory and local archives, print media and oral history.     

Global poverty and inequality: are the revised estimates open to an alternative interpretation?

The level of, and trends in, global inequality and global poverty are indicative assessments of who has benefited from economic growth. The revision of price data has led to a reassessment of those estimates. Through an extensive overview of the implications, we argue that the data can be read in different ways. Official estimates show global extreme poverty and global inequality are considerably lower than previously thought. We argue that these changes are much less significant than they at first appear, and we present a more nuanced alternative interpretation by exploring changes across the entire global distribution.     

东亚生产网络中的两岸产业合作

两岸产业合作目前的形态与模式形成的根本原因,除了两岸间密切的经贸关系外,更是由两岸共同处于的东亚生产网络所驱动的。在全球金融危机之后,两岸间产业合作开始共同面对亚太区域经济整合、全球价值链重新布局的外部压力,同时由于两岸经济实力和比较优势的变迁,两岸间产业开始逐渐由互补走向竞争。当外部与内部经济环境同时发生变化时,两岸产业合作的传统模式面临挑战和选择。     

Toilets and resistance in Italian factories in the 1950s

ABSTRACT

In the literature on industrial conflict, the Italy of the 1950s is often described as marked by worker acquiescence and an absence of conflict, ensured by high unemployment and the severe repression of union activism. My research challenges this. While formal, organized collective action subsided, workers continued to show their defiance and opposition to factory authorities by means of diverse acts of individual resistance that have escaped scholarly study. Drawing on anthropological theory, particularly Scott’s notion of ‘weapons of the weak’ – the strategies used by subordinate classes when facing heavy repression or lack of resources – this article undertakes an innovative analysis of the use of insults, irreverent behaviour, rumours and mockery of foremen and bosses to undermine the authority and legitimacy of factory hierarchies. It casts new light on the protest cultures and practices of Italian workers in the 1950s and improves our understanding of post-1945 industrial conflict.     

Can the global South take over the baton? What cosmopolitanism in ‘unlikely’ places means for future world order

As the West’s centrality fades, the global South may have a decisive influence in shaping future world order. Will that future see a retreat from globalisation to hard-edged particularisms? Or will the emerging post-Westphalian global society let the global South take over the baton of cosmopolitan institution building in its own way? This article draws on a multi-country survey of educated youth to find promising signs of imagined common ground with other countries. It suggests the flavours of cosmopolitan integration that the global South is likely to support in coming decades.     

Taxing Digital Economy: A Critical View around the GloBE (Pillar Two)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) proposal for taxation of digital economy constitutes one of the most ambitious projects in the field of taxation and may lead to the most significant reform to international tax rules in the 20th century. Based on a two-pillar approach, Pillar Two of the proposal suggests the adoption of Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) provisions that are aimed at introducing a worldwide minimum tax. In this article, a critical analysis is based that the GloBE proposal suggests that it represents a shift in the OECD policy. As compared to base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), it jeopardizes the tax sovereignty of jurisdictions and it raises fundamental challenges of implementation, both in terms of amendments to domestic law and conflicts with tax treaties.     

Investments in Global Warming Mitigation: The Case of “Activities Implemented Jointly”

This paper examines bilateral cooperation between developed countries (home country) and developing countries (host country) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to enhance carbon dioxide sinks. With the home-host country pair as the unit of analysis, our logistic regression model examines 158 Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ) investment projects from 1993 until 2002 across 2541 country-pairs. Because the marginal costs of reducing emissions may be lower in developing countries, the AIJ projects served as a policy laboratory to assess whether such investments might be advantageous to both countries in the event future regimes allowed emission credits from such bilateral projects. Instead of investing in home countries where maximum pollution reductions (or carbon sequestration) might be possible, home countries invest in locations where they can conduct their policy experiments at low transaction costs. Prior trade and aid relationships were used as a proxy. Regarding energy projects, location decisions are driven by home countries’ desire to reduce air pollution that they receive from abroad. Geography – proximity of a host country to a home country – in interaction with host country's coal production, is a very important driver of location decision in AIJ energy sector projects. Location of sequestration projects is impacted by the host country's potential for avoiding deforestation as well as by previous aid and trade patterns between a home and a host country. Proximity is not important in this case.     

Back to the factory: the continuing salience of industrial workplace history

ABSTRACT

Factories remain significant sites of employment, crucial to capitalism. In the twentieth century, scholars registered achievements in documenting their history, but since the late 1980s, and for a generation, the field lost impetus within labour history although insights continued to accumulate through work in adjacent disciplines. The factory has not featured on the agenda of ‘transnational’ and ‘global’ labour history, but we suggest that it can and should contribute to that broader global project, reinvigorating labour history, not least by contributing a dimension close to workers’ everyday experience.     

试析互联网治理的概念、机制与困境

目前最具影响力的互联网治理机制是互联网名称与数字地址分配机构和它的挑战者——联合国系统下的三个机构：国际电信联盟、信息社会世界峰会和互联网治理论坛。这两套互相竞争的机制各有不足之处,前者合法性不足,后者有效性不够。但这只是互联网治理困境的表象,其深层原因不仅在于网络安全问题本身的复杂性,还和国际体系转型过程中全球治理的困境密切相关,集中反映在三大矛盾上,即霸权国和国际社会的矛盾、中关之间的矛盾以及国家行为体和非国家行为体之间的矛盾。任何国际治理机制的有效性和合法性在很大程度上依赖于新兴大国的参与,互联网治理机制也是如此。基于此,中国如果能在其中扮演更加重要的角色,将对互联网治理起到积极的作用。