‘Marching from all governorates’: labour lacunae in Mubarak’s Egypt

Abstract

Starting in 1991, Egypt undertook ‘structural adjustment’ reforms at the behest of international financial institutions and the country’s foreign donors. These reforms have often been included in a larger discussion of economic reforms and the withdrawal of the state from the Egyptian market. While certainly market-based, these reforms were interpreted and implemented in a uniquely Egyptian context and moved forward not through a market logic but with a specific understanding of political feasibility. Despite these local peculiarities, Egypt experienced a backlash familiar to researchers of structural adjustment internationally. How did Egypt’s structural adjustment and other ‘liberalizing’ reforms produce spatialized and sectoral backlash and drive workers from quiescence to militancy? Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted in 2011–2013, this paper argues that the choices made by the Egyptian regime from 1991 to 2010 generated ‘labour lacunae’ – spaces in the political-economic structure where methods of interest aggregation were replaced by coercion or neglect – allowing militancy to flourish. I explore how labour entrepreneurs exploited these ‘lacunae’ to redefine ‘local’ protest in the run-up to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.     

Local Public-Services Provision under Public–Private Partnerships: Contractual Design and Contracting Parties Incentives

When deciding to resort to a PPP contract for the provision of a local public service, local governments have to consider the demand risk allocation between the contracting parties. In this article, I investigate the effects of demand risk allocation on the accountability of procuring authorities regarding consumers changing demand, as well as on the cost-reducing effort incentives of the private public-service provider. I show that contracts in which the private provider bears demand risk motivate more the public authority from responding to customer needs. This is due to the fact that consumers are empowered when the private provider bears demand risk, that is, they have the possibility to oust the private provider in case of non-satisfaction with the service provision, which provides procuring authorities with more credibility in side-trading and then more incentives to be responsive. As a consequence, I show that there is a lower matching with consumers’ preferences over time when demand risk is on the public authority rather than on the private provider, and this is corroborated in the light of two famous case studies. However, contracts in which the private provider does not bear demand risk motivate more the private provider from investing in cost-reducing efforts. I highlight then a tradeoff in the allocation of demand risk between productive and allocative efficiency. The striking policy implication of this article for local governments would be that the current trend towards a greater resort to contracts where private providers bear little or no demand risk may not be optimal. Local governments should impose demand risk on private providers within PPP contracts when they expect that consumers’ preferences over the service provision will change over time.     

From contention to social bargaining: labour unions and democratic consolidation in Spain

The main objective of this article is to examine how the links between trade unions and affiliated political parties of the left influenced the strategies of labour during the transition and the early years of democracy in Spain. It argues that political partisanship is a key factor for understanding the unions' strategies. After a period of intense labour conflict during the transition to democracy, labour mobilization decreased and Spain's unions and other social actors initiated distinctive processes of social bargaining, starting in 1979. The central argument is that the relationship of unions and political parties in the authoritarian and transition periods was a major factor in conditioning strategies in the post-authoritarian period. In the end, the consolidation of Spanish democracy has led to the strengthening of the main trade unions. Contrary to what happened in other historical periods they used this power to contribute to governability and the consolidation of the new democratic regime.     

Labour market risks and political preferences: The case of temporary employment

The political economy literature has gathered compelling evidence that labour market risks shape political preferences. Accordingly, insecurity fuels support for redistribution and left parties. This article analyses this argument for temporary workers, a so far neglected risk category which has increased dramatically in the past two decades. Temporary workers also have been in the focus of recent insider‐outsider debates. Some authors in this line of research have argued that temporary work leads to political disenchantment – for example, non‐instrumental responses such as vote abstention or protest voting. This contradicts risk‐based explanations of political preferences. The article discusses both theoretical perspectives and derives conflicting hypotheses for the empirical analysis of temporary workers' policy and party preferences. The review reveals considerable ambiguity regarding the questions which parties temporary workers can be expected to support and what the underlying motives for party choice are. Synthesising arguments from both perspectives, the article proposes an alternative argument according to which temporary workers are expected to support the ‘new’ left – that is, green and other left‐libertarian parties. It is argued that this party family combines redistributive policies with outsider‐friendly policy design. Using individual‐level data from the European Social Survey for 15 European countries, the article supports this argument by showing that temporary, compared to permanent, workers exhibit higher demand for redistribution and stronger support for the new left. Neither the risk‐based nor the insider‐outsider explanations receive full support. In particular, no signs of political disenchantment of temporary workers can be found. Thus, the findings challenge central claims of the insider‐outsider literature.     

The Development of Good Practices in Cooperation With the Use of Educational Offer of Academic Centers for Employees of an International Corporation

The paper describes the genesis of the industry＇s needs for training employees whose main purpose is to stimulate ones to be more innovative. Responded to this demand, academic centers helped in the development of training strategies and concepts. The paper brought the closer concepts of training in range and effect that they have brought. An attempt was made to approximations, summary, and evaluation of programs that have been implemented in the framework of academic consortia, among governments founds, academic development, and companies competing in the regional and international telecommunication markets. Analyzed cases of such cooperation, for programs in which several people were involved, as well as beneficiaries of the projects in which were several thousand employees. Efforts made in these programs indicate good practice for those who would like to emulate or improve programs. Experiences that were collected and described in this paper are the ideal start for similar initiatives that may be taken without regard to the scale and location of economic participants.     

Explaining the immigration policy mix: Countries' relative openness to asylum and labour migration

Western democracies have developed complex policies to manage migration flows. Much of the scholarly literature and political discourse assume that countries have become increasingly selective and that they prioritise economic intakes. Despite clear efforts by policymakers to distinguish between refugees and migrant workers, we know surprisingly little about how countries combine different policy dimensions and which factors shape their relative openness to different target groups. In this article, we shed light on how countries combine two of the main admission channels, asylum and labour migration, by introducing the concept of the ‘immigration policy mix’. A comparative analysis of 33 OECD countries between 1980 and 2010 examines the pattern and drivers behind their immigration policy mix: Does the policy mix follow a pattern of convergence, is it subject to political dynamics or is it path dependent? The results reveal that despite a shift in political sympathies from asylum to labour migration, countries' immigration policy mixes have strongly converged into more liberal policies overall. The immigration policy mix primarily reflects governments’ limited room to manoeuvre due to competing political pressures. These insights demonstrate that the immigration policy mix serves to enhance our understanding of countries’ complex regulation of immigration.     

The Laffer effects of a program of deregulation cum detaxation: the Italian reform of labour contracts in the period 1997–2001

We examine the Laffer effects of the policy of social security tax reduction cum partial deregulation of labour market undertaken in Italy in the period 1997–2001. Laffer effects of tax cut are generally delayed and governments responsible of the reform cannot benefit from the resulting increased revenues when in office. Our empirical findings show that tax cuts combined with policies of liberalization determine almost immediate Laffer effects. In terms of coherent supply-side political programs, the effects of the two measures are not separable. Reflection on our results may broaden the scope of the supply-side policies of deregulation and detaxation.

合同解释中的司法能动与克制

法官对合同的解释无法脱离其能动性,而主观性的解释须以客观性为目的。当法官在合同解释出现障碍时应恪守两个标准：理性第三人标准和社会公共利益标准。同时,必须对法官的能动性予以下列限制：法官在适用理性第三人标准时,应尽量避免以所谓的＂理性第三人＂之名而作出偏离缔约人真意的解释;法官在合同解释中的自由裁量权要受合同解释规则、合同文本内容、法官职业共同体之规则、公平、正义、诚信等基本原则的限制。     

劳权本位:劳动法律体系构建的基点和核心--兼论劳动法律体系的几个基本理论问题

劳动法律体系的建构,应以劳权本位作为理论出发点,应以劳权的实现和保障为其基点和核心.本文所提出的劳权概念,是指法律所规定或认可的劳动者在履行劳动义务的同时所应享有的与劳动有关的权益.劳权即劳工权益应是劳动法律的基本范畴和劳动立法起始概念.本文提出和论证了劳动者的概念和法律特征,认为市场经济下的劳动关系中的劳动者应为受雇于他人的以工资收入为基本生活来源的直接生产者.本文还提出了劳权关系的概念,认为劳权关系是劳动法律关系的本质体现,这一关系是相对于产权关系和经营权关系而言的,现代企业制度的经济权利结构是由产权、经营权和劳权的三权关系所构成的.     

Resistance to Chronic Violence in Informal Workplaces: The Strategies of Domestic Workers in Brazil (2003–2018)

This article analyses the repertoire of individual strategies utilised by domestic workers to resist routinised workplace violence in the cities of São Paulo and Ilhéus, Brazil. Findings suggest that domestic workers favour two strategies of resistance: exit (quitting work without prior notice) and voice (negotiating workplace conditions). The latter strategy is divided into two subtypes: voice-pleading (appealing to decency) and voice-confrontation (warning and rights-claiming). Voice strategies appear more effective than exit in ameliorating patterns of chronic workplace violence, particularly when they incorporate labour rights claims and when emotional ties exist between workers and employers.