The social science of human rights: the need for a ‘second image reversed’?

What are the causes of state-initiated human rights violations? Are intra-national factors alone causally responsible for the emergence of human rights crises in the developing world? This article critically examines contemporary social science literature on the causes of human rights compliance and violations, particularly in the fields of international relations and comparative politics. It underscores the finding that the current research agenda on human rights has yet to fully recognise the causal and constitutive links between transnational and domestic factors in generating variations in states’ level of compliance. The main goal of the paper is to analytically explore the possibilities of generating social scientific research that recognises the interactive causal dynamics among extra-national and domestic variables as they jointly produce cross-national variations in the quality of a state’s compliance with human rights norms. Based on a critical analysis of the current scholarship in human rights research, the paper offers several pathways the academy must traverse in order to enhance our understanding of the causal underpinnings of human rights violations in the global South.     

Sewing their way up the social ladder? Paths to social mobility and empowerment among Sri Lanka’s global factory workers

Studies on global assembly line workers showcase how gains women make are counteracted by physical, social and psychological problems stemming from long hours of working, low wages and the precarity of work. Few studies analyse these workers’ experiences after they terminate factory work. Using life histories collected over 12 years and in-depth interviews, this article highlights the different paths former workers pursue to achieve social mobility and identifies key work and life experiences that contribute to social mobility and empowerment. I argue that contrary to popular belief global factory work does lead to forms of social mobility and empowerment.     

Global journalism studies: Beyond panoramas

Abstract

This article examines the challenges that the accelerated globalisation of the media industry pose to journalism education and research, with a particular focus on journalism studies in the global South. Through references to key features of recent debates in the field of journalism studies, the article argues for the adoption of a critical perspective on global journalism studies in research and teaching, the integration of that perspective across journalism curricula and research agenda, and a reflexive and inclusive view of the relationship between global journalism and new media technologies.     

基于全球价值链视角的中国制造业国家价值链的构建

中国制造业经过30多年的对外开放已经全面融人全球价值链体系,这种融入主要是通过中国出口产品的国际市场份额、RCA指数以及产业内贸易IIT指数等三个指标来反映,但在全球价值链分工中中国一直处于低位徘徊的地位,而要改变这种状况必须在全球价值链体系下构建中国制造业国家价值链。该文着重分析了影响中国制造业国家价值链构建的主要因素,包括来自发达国家的干涉和封锁、中国的政府行为及政府间利益冲突等,强调在中国制造业国家价值链重构过程中要积极发挥政府的作用,包括政府要切实降低本国制造企业构建国家价值链的制度成本、规范地方政府竞争行为的导向、促进加工贸易企业转型升级以及要加快培育中国的中等收入阶层等方面的思路和建议。     

Real-time biopolitics: the actuary and the sentinel in global public health

Abstract

This paper analyses the mechanisms through which experts in the field of global health work to manage the future well-being of populations. It develops a contrast between two ways of approaching disease threats: actuarial and sentinel devices. If actuarial devices seek to map disease over time and across populations in order to gauge and mitigate risk, sentinel devices treat unprecedented diseases that cannot be mapped over time, but can only be anticipated and prepared for. The paper shows that a recent controversy over vaccination in Europe in response to the H1N1 pandemic can be understood in terms of the tension between these two kinds of security mechanisms.     

Cloth without a weaver: power,emergence and institutions across global value chains

Abstract

In studies of the fragmentation and internationalization of production, most value chain approaches consider the inter-firm balance of power as the critical dynamic in development. With the firm as the primary unit of analysis, research long held out two promises: first, bridging the ‘micro-macro gap’ in development theory, meaning making valid inferences from micro-level actors (firms) to macro-sociological outcomes; and second, reconciling its firm-level organizational approach with institutionalism. This paper argues, first, that the literature is artificially constrained in bridging the micro-macro gap due to its delimited conceptualization of ‘power’, based on the ‘agentic-strategic’ behaviour of firms. It argues for broadening the notion of power to bridge the levels of analysis, based on the concept of ‘emergence’. Second, while institutional critics are correct in criticizing value chain scholarship for its neglect, this paper finds that the effects of institutions are not as consistent or determinative as suggested, and hence it seeks to expand the scope for incorporating institutionalism. These points are illustrated through an intra-industry comparative study of three textile agro-industries in China.     

All the world is a stage: global governance,human resources,and the ‘problem’ of smallness

Abstract

The involvement of small island states (SISs) in a growing number of international organisations (IOs) has placed increased pressure on domestic bureaucracies and political systems. Rapid turnover among SIS leaders, combined with generational change and decreased local support, has amplified disadvantages. Growing complexity has therefore further exposed the long-standing vulnerabilities of SISs. They can play a creative role at the margins, and on certain issues in certain IOs, but in general asymmetries prevail. The lesson is that national sovereignty does not always equal control, and what might superficially appear to be equal access is constrained by the availability of technical expertise to the detriment of SISs.     

Where the Low Road and the High Road Meet: Flexible Employment in Global Value Chains

This article examines production organisation and employment patterns in the export-orientated centres of Denizli (Turkey) and Tiruppur (India). It argues that Denizli and Tiruppur's involvement in global value chains has resulted in segmented production patterns and insecure employment arrangements. Larger producers use sub-contractors as a strategy to mediate the instability of international contracts and pass the uncertainty in their global linkages on to smaller firms and their workforces. Such flux, then, has become a regularised feature of manufacturing work within the ranks of sub-contractors. Employers have solidified these production arrangements by recruiting rural and female workers. The article sheds light on the relationship between new production forms and rising employment insecurity.     

Reviews

The expansion of the global economy and the governance deficit it has generated raise questions about the possibilities for regulating the practices of participants in global production networks. This paper focuses on the regulation of industrial relations in Cambodia's textile and garment industry – a unique ensemble of state, trade union, private sector and international institutions that is promoted as a “fair model of globalisation.” We track the trajectory of Cambodia's industrialisation and insertion into the global economy over three interrelated phases: first, the beginnings of export-orientated garment production in the mid- to late 1990s; secondly, the promotion of Cambodia as an “ethical producer” from 1999; and, thirdly, privileging “competitiveness” in global production networks over labour compliance for its advantage. In doing so we centre our analysis on the complex intertwining of global production, the genesis of the unique ensemble of actors in Cambodia and the anomaly of Cambodia's labour movement.     

Between collective action and a fragmented political economy: the G20 and the return of protectionist impulses

Not unlike the 1930s, the current state of global economic governance is marked by a vacuum of leadership as neither traditional leading states nor emerging economic actors have proven able or willing to coordinate collective action. This interregnum has allowed space for the G20 to emerge as a calibrating force for the maintenance of a liberal economic order. Protectionist impulses, however, are increasingly emerging victorious as unemployment and domestic interests drive political action. The stabilizing presence of the G20 is thus tested in an environment privileging divisive domestic-oriented forces allowed greater space under conditions in a fragmented post-hegemonic global economy. These spaces for domestic concern, and the receptiveness of policy leaders to them, represent a return to the promise of embedded liberalism and away from the era of hyper-liberalization that has marked the past several decades of broadly measured economic growth.