Towards food sovereignty: interrogating peasant voice in the United Nations Committee on World Food Security

The goal of the direct participation of food producer constituencies – and other citizens – is a key component of food sovereignty, the policy framework first launched by La Vía Campesina and engendering the much wider food sovereignty movement. In this paper, I outline the reasons why the reform of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) can be regarded as historically significant to this goal. Focusing upon the CFS's aspirations for inclusivity, I outline a framework for interrogating the experiences of social movement activists representing food producer constituencies seeking to convert their formal right to participate in the CFS into substantive participation. Going beyond the capturing of their experiences, the framework also reveals the different ways in which their challenges in attaining substantive participation can be overcome, with a particular emphasis upon adjustments within the arena itself. The paper concludes with an overview of the research agenda suggested by Raj Patel (2009), amongst others, and alluded to further in the content of this paper.     

软实力视阈下的日本动漫外交

近年来,日本在经济持续低迷与少子老龄化的背景下,努力寻求通过文化"软实力"来提高国家影响力的新途径。受美国学者约瑟夫·奈的启发,日本政府认识到"动漫"是日本的软实力资源之一,并实施了一系列动漫外交。日本政府的动漫外交促进了日本文化产业的发展,对构建国家形象和提升国家软实力发挥了重要作用。     

Why are public offices sold in Kyrgyzstan?

Why are public offices for sale in Kyrgyzstan? To address this question, this article attempts to set out a new logic for understanding the motives, nature, and consequences of corruption in the country. Rather than securing access to a single favor through bribery, officials invest in political and administrative posts in order to obtain access to stream of rents associated with an office. Political and administrative corruption is organically linked in this system, and corruption stems not so much from weak monitoring as from being a franchise-like arrangement, where officials are required to pay continuous “fees” to their bosses. The key is to be the public official influencing the redistribution of rents as well as participating in the informal market where “public” goods are privatized and exchanged for informal payments. Thus, instead of control over the pure economic assets of the state, influence over the state's institutional and organizational framework is the dominant strategy for earning and investing in the country.     

Is Russia a militocracy? Conceptual issues and extant findings regarding elite militarization

The dominant paradigm for understanding contemporary Russia holds that Vladimir Putin's tenure in office has been accompanied by a massive influx of former KGB and military personnel – so-called “siloviki” – into positions of power and authority throughout the polity and economy. Claims of extensive elite militarization, however, are largely based on the analyses of only one research program and, moreover, the validity of the estimates produced by that research program is open to question on numerous grounds. In this article, we review existing research on elite militarization in Russia; discuss a series of conceptual and empirical issues that need to be resolved if valid and meaningful estimation of military–security representation is to be achieved; introduce new findings; and evaluate the totality of existing evidence regarding whether the Russian state under Putin deserves to be labeled a militocracy. We find that the most straightforward reading of existing data indicates that the percentage of siloviki in the political elite during Putin's first two terms as president was approximately half of that which has been widely reported in both scholarship and the media, and also declined during the Medvedev presidency. In addition, our analysis of a broader cross section of the elite estimates military–security representation during the Putin presidency to have been lower still. Overall, existing data paint a less alarming picture of the depths to which siloviki have penetrated the corridors of power since 2000 than has been commonly portrayed and thereby cast doubt on Russia's status as an “FSB state.” On the other hand, past trends also provide some basis for expecting that the numbers of siloviki will once again rise during Putin's current presidential term.     

The Seattle Teamsters and the procedural state, 1935–1942

The Teamsters Union often clashed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Seattle between 1935 and 1942. At times the Seattle Teamsters resisted the NLRB, yet in other cases the union worked within the agency's procedures to expand. In the years after the Wagner Act, the Teamsters exploited the NLRB to block employees from choosing their own union. This article uses archival records to explore cases where the Seattle Teamsters successfully adapted to federal regulation of collective bargaining between 1935 and 1942. Seattle workers opposed to the Teamsters bravely fought to protect their right to organize, yet these employees faced a union skilled at working with the procedural state. These cases show the increasing ability of the Seattle Teamsters to enroll workers wary of the union by complying with NLRB rules.     

The origins of severance pay in unemployment compensation: a comparative analysis

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to an under-developed field in the social policy literature through an analysis of the origins of severance pay (SP)/redundancy pay schemes and, more specifically, their first designs in nine countries—Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal. It has two objectives: first, to identify the key actors who shaped the design of the first SP schemes; second, to explain variations in terms of their mode of regulation, generosity and coverage. By building on the state-centric and power-resource perspectives, it identifies the conditions under which the state had an autonomous role vis-à-vis organized labour in SP reforms and the circumstances under which organized labour was the main actor. When the state was the key actor, it preferred legislation for the regulation of SP either to legitimize its apparatus in a ‘revolutionary’/‘potentially revolutionary’ context or to facilitate structural transformations of the economy in a ‘reformist’ context. When organized labour was the key actor, its preference was to regulate SP through ‘only collective bargaining’ or ‘legislation’, subject to the degree of unionization. Lastly, the paper argues that key actors (the state or organized labour) took into account the distributive structure of existing UI schemes when designing the coverage and generosity structure of the first SP schemes during the post-war era.     

Chinese state capitalism and neomercantilism in the contemporary food regime: contradictions,continuity and change

ABSTRACT

A significant proportion of critical agri-food literature has, to date, focused on the uneven relations of power between the Global North and the Global South, and the neoliberal characteristics of the corporate food regime. This literature has often overlooked the nuances in varieties of capitalism, particularly in East Asia. China is re-emerging as a powerful state actor in an increasingly multipolar global food system. It is also an important hub of capital, facilitating agribusiness mergers and acquisitions, as well as new East–South and South–South flows of agri-food trade, technology and capital. This paper aims to contribute to understanding state-led capitalism in China and neomercantilist strategies in the agri-food sector. The paper provides a critical analysis of a case study of China's state owned agri-food and chemical companies ‘going global’. It contends that the current food regime is in a period of transition or interregnum – a period of fluidity separating the continuity of successive regimes. Arguably, the analytical contours of a contemporary food regime in transition cannot be adequately comprehended without recognising the incipient importance of state-led capitalism and neomercantilism, and how contemporary socio-political and economic dynamics are reshaping relations of power in the global political economy of food.     

People,power, change: three pillars of a food sovereignty research praxis

ABSTRACT

This article is situated within nascent debates on the role of academics within food sovereignty movements. Drawing on insights from a collective autoethnography, we report on our experiences conducting three food sovereignty research projects in different contexts and at different scales. We suggest that that the principles and practices of food sovereignty translate into a food sovereignty research praxis. This consists of three pillars focusing on people (humanizing research relationships), power (equalizing power relations) and change (pursuing transformative orientations). This article discusses these pillars and analyzes the extent to which we were able to embody them within our projects.     

芬兰二战后经济发展与社会保障的特点与启示

作为一个北欧小国,从自然禀赋上看,芬兰不具备优势,除林业资源和渔业资源外,现代经济发展中关键的煤和石油奇缺。但进入21世纪以来,在世界经济论坛每年所做的全球经济竞争力的排名中,芬兰一直名列前茅,甚至有4次名列榜首,成为最具有经济竞争力国家,这则更加体现出较好的研究和参考价值。芬兰在二战后独特的混合经济体制以及社会保障福利国家体系,构成了芬兰在二战以来经济和社会诸多方面的发展特点。这些特点对中国和其他发展中国家未来的发展道路有着较强的启示和借鉴作用。     

The fractured state in the governance of private game farming: the case of KwaZulu-Natal Province,South Africa

Conversion from livestock and/or crop farming to game farming has been a notable trend on privately owned land in South Africa over the last decades. The rapid growth of wildlife ranching is associated with an annual increase in the areas enclosed by game fences and high demand for wildlife which is being traded privately and at wildlife auctions. Key environmental, agricultural and land reform legislation has been passed since 1994 that impacts this sector, but this legislation does not provide a clear regulatory framework for the game farming industry. This article seeks to understand why game farming is thriving in a regulatory environment plagued with uncertainty. The focus is on one province, KwaZulu-Natal. It is clear that the state is not a homogeneous and monolithic entity applying itself to the regulation of the sector. There is no clear direction on the position of private game farming at the interface of environmental and agricultural regulations. The argument put forward is that the fractured state, in fact, provides space within which the game farmers are able to effectively manoeuvre and to maximise their advantages as private landowners. While game farmers may complain about strict wildlife regulation in the province, the benefits they gain from the combination of a divided state and the presence in this province of a strong, autonomous conservation body are considerable.