Observing FDI spillover transmission channels: evidence from firms in Uganda

Abstract

We observe and analyse three intra-industry foreign direct investment (FDI) spillover transmission channels using unique firm-level data collected from on-site interviews and observations regarding domestic and foreign firms operating in Uganda in 2015. Our main results are: (1) the spillover effects mainly depend on the channel(s) by which they occur (the competition channel is most important while spillover benefits through the worker mobility and the imitation channels are less prevalent) and (2) both positive and negative spillover effects occur within the same channel and, moreover, effects differ by channel for the same case. These are novel and challenging findings that have not yet been recognised in theoretical and empirical research on FDI spillovers. Our results suggest that long-term pecuniary spillover effects are predominantly stimulated via the competition channel and show that only limited short-term and long-term technological spillover effects occur through the imitation and the movement of workers channels. These channels are not only less prevalent, but also appear to be constrained by competition-determined spillovers. We are confident that these directions for future research will have a high pay-off because, as shown by this exploratory fieldwork, a more complete picture of the spillover effects is reached when the channels are considered simultaneously.     

论井冈山革命根据地斗争经验的普遍意义

井冈山革命根据地,是毛泽东率领湘赣边界秋收起义军创建的中国第一块农村革命根据地,井冈山根据地创造性地提出和总结的丰富斗争经验具有普遍指导意义,得到中共中央的充分肯定和积极推广,井冈山革命根据地的星火在中国大地上迅速形成了燎原之势,“工农武装割据”的局面不断巩固扩大,以农村包围城市的武装革命道路胜利实现。     

Workers without rights as citizens at the margins

This article presents a normative account of citizenship which requires respect for labour rights, as much as it requires respect for other human rights. The exclusion of certain categories of workers, such as domestic workers, from these rights is wrong. This article presents domestic workers as marginal citizens who are unfairly deprived of certain labour rights in national legal orders. It also shows that international human rights law counteracts the marginal legal status of this group of workers. By being attached to everyone simply by virtue of being human, irrespective of nationality, human rights can complement citizenship rights when both are viewed as normative standards. The example of domestic work as it has been approached in international human rights law in recent years shows that certain rights of workers are universal. Their enjoyment cannot depend on citizenship as legal status or on regular residency. The enjoyment of labour rights as human rights depends, and should only depend, on the status of someone as a human being who is also a worker.     

Autonomy and Psychic Socialization: From Non-Alienated Labour to Non Surplus Repressive Sublimation

Abstract

The work of Herbert Marcuse, unlike that of certain of his col leagues at the Institut für Sozialforschung, is most often maligned as being excessively positive and identitarian. His work on Freud, for example, is criticized for being grounded in a crude biological determinism which points towards an ultimate reconciliation of both psychic and social conflict. This essay will attempt to counter such readings by critically juxtaposing Marcuse's concept of non-repressive sublimation with Cornelius Castoriadis's understanding of psychic socialization. It will be suggested that the affinities between Marcuse and Castoriadis's appropriations of Freudian metapsychology reveals the degree to which the former can be read as a radical democratic thinker affirming the values of autonomy and creativity. This reading demonstrates that Marcuse has much to contribute to contemporary debates on the role of the aesthetic and the sensuous in democratic theory.     

Opposition and Dissent in Soviet Type Regimes: Civil Society and its Limitations

Abstract

Following the collapse of Communist regimes in 1989, academics and dissidents alike were quick to claim that agents of ‘civil society’ had played an integral role in the 1989 ‘Velvet Revolutions’. However, the appropriation of civil society to explain events in Eastern Europe is highly problematic. In arguing that civil society offers an inappropriate framework in which to study opposition and dissent in Soviet type regimes, this article recommends dismissing the typology for this particular scenario. Instead, a new typology, the totalitarian public sphere, is introduced. This article concludes by elaborating on why the totalitarian public sphere serves as a more comprehensive typology by which to explain dissent and opposition in Soviet type regimes.     

Using the Law as a ‘Harmonious Weapon’: The Ambiguities of Legal Activism in Favour of Migrant Workers in China

Abstract

Legal mobilization has spread in China over the past 20 years and is generally considered by both activists and scholars as a way to advance democracy and rule of law. Focusing on the mobilization in favour of migrant workers and on politically moderate practices, which are both more frequent and widely held as more successful, I argue to the contrary that resistance and reproduction of political domination are mutually constitutive. Public interest litigation and administrative litigation appear as new forms of political participation that constitute an internal regulation to the authoritarian regime, thus contributing to explain the regime's capacity to adapt and its durability. This article also accounts for new strategies developed by some lawyers that shun the courts and use law to ‘empower civil society’ and that thus do not contribute to structural reproduction. Though activists are struggling to turn their strategies into more institutionalized practices, they remain an ad hoc mechanism of internal control.     

Fulani on the Move: Seasonal Economic Migration in the Sahel as a Social Process

Most research on short-term rural to urban migration and its impacts takes an economic approach and often emphasises negative aspects of migration, linking it synergistically with rural poverty in sending areas. Data from Fulani migrants in Northern Burkina Faso challenge this pessimistic view of short-term labour migration. Rather than a response to destitution, migration seems to be a useful way in which reasonably prosperous households can further enhance livelihood security. Moreover, factors not easily incorporated into a standard economic analysis, identity and village networks, emerge as being essential to the understanding of migration in this population. Finally, migration emerges as a highly dynamic process, which an ahistorical, static framework of analysis fails to capture.     

Post-socialist China: Labour relations in Korean-managed factories

Abstract

How are labour relations practiced in Korean-managed factories in China? It is often said that labour relations in Korean transnational factories are abusive, even despotic. In this article, I argue that the disciplinary nature of labour relations in Korean factories in China is more complex and so multi-dimensional that they cannot be characterised as a simple economic matter of labour exploitation. These relations entail hierarchical segregation, normalising workers' behaviour through fines and salary reductions, personal degradation and dissimilar cultural practices.     

African women in leadership: Current knowledge and a framework for future studies

Abstract

While the empirical literature on leadership and management in Africa is sparse, the literature on African women in leadership is even sparser. This article offers a critical examination of the current state of knowledge on African women in leadership and management. It draws from an extensive review of existing published research to summarise what has been studied and is currently known about their status, leadership styles, and the influence of gender on their experiences as leaders and managers. Based on this review, an integrative framework, drawing from African feminism and postcolonial theory, is proposed to advance the study of African women in leadership and management.     

The EU and Russia's conflicting regime preferences in Ukraine: assessing regime promotion strategies in the scope of the Ukraine crisis

This paper evaluates the competitiveness of the European Union (EU) and Russia's regime preferences in their foreign policies towards Ukraine in the scope of the on-going Ukraine crisis. It is argued that the underpinning geopolitical environment Ukraine currently resides in, wedged between two much larger powers (the EU and Russia), renders it a vulnerable target state for regime promotion from both sides. Indeed, since the 2004 Orange revolution in Ukraine, both the EU and Russia have had discernible regime promotion strategies in their foreign policies. The EU's regime promotion has focussed on facilitating democracy in Ukraine, along with more material interests (trade and strategic aims) while Russia has reacted with increasingly zero-sum policies which pursue its preference for having a loyal and Russian-facing regime in Ukraine. Ultimately, the increasing competitiveness of the EU and Russia has been a key factor in the onset of the Ukraine crisis, which offers important insight into the relationship between large powers and the smaller third states which lie in their overlapping spheres of influence.