Class Struggle or Embedded Markets? Marx,Polanyi and the Meanings and Possibilities of Social Transformation

Marx and Polanyi both held that socialism, in one form or another, was a preferable and possible alternative to capitalism. Their ideas are seen to offer theoretical tools to understand the tensions and contradictions of capitalism, and to inform ways to overcome them. This paper discusses Polanyi's work from a Marxist perspective in order to illuminate his strengths and weaknesses. Its main focus is to discuss Polanyi's juxtaposing of commodification against exploitation, in diagnosing the problems of capitalist expansion. We suggest that by juxtaposing these two moments, Polanyi not only misses out on a crucial arena of capitalist activity (exploitation), but also undermines his own explication of processes of commodification. This has deleterious consequences for his understanding of the prevalence of poverty under capitalism. It also means that his vision of social transformation and of socialism is profoundly different, and potentially antithetical, to that of Marx. We suggest that for Polanyi's conception of de-commodification to gain greater traction it needs to be combined with Marx's analysis of exploitation and class struggle.     

Capital as in capitalism,or capital as in capital goods,or both?

The Review of Austrian Economics - Austrian economists employ two different concepts of capital. Sometimes they treat capital as a universal phenomenon of human action as such. Capital is then...     

Changing the rules? Institutional innovation and the diffusion of microgeneration

The paper addresses the question of how institutional change relates to the diffusion of microgeneration energy technologies in the UK, posed in a research project comprising interviews with thirty-one respondents connected with the field of microgeneration in the UK. It analyses the nature of institutional rules in the prevailing regime of electricity generation and in microgeneration niches. It examines how such rules might facilitate systems innovation, or contribute to the maintenance of the prevailing system or partial change. The conclusions of the paper inform and deepen understanding of how conformity to or innovation in institutional rules may hamper or potentially contribute to diffusion of environmentally sustainable microgeneration of energy.     

Lessons from Constitutional Culture and the History of Constitutional Transfer: A Hope for Constitutionally Limited Government?

The literature shows a clear correlation between sound constitutional environments and human flourishing. However, the path to adoption of sound constitutions is much less clear. This paper turns to the history of constitutional transfer to propose an alternative to taxonomies offered in the literature, which typically classify constitutions either by governmental structure (presidential v. parliamentary, or centralized v. federalist) or by source of influence (e.g. US 1787, Spain 1812, France 1958). These classifications are found wanting; instead, this paper proposes a new taxonomy based on the origin of the constitutional ideas and adoption. Formal constitutional parchment must match informal constitutional culture, so a constitution’s likelihood of success is greatest when the ideas are indigenous; the source of adoption is ultimately secondary. The paper closes with four case studies of constitutional transfer and adoption.     

Who are “We The People”? Bruce Ackerman, Thomas Jefferson, and the Problem of Revolutionary Reform

Bruce Ackerman of the Yale Law School proposes new procedures for constitutional reform to supersede the amendment process set forth in Article V of the U.S. Constitution. He argues that the revolutionary character of regime changes in the 1780s, 1860s, and 1930s has been disguised by the fiction of constitutional continuity. Americans will not be prepared for future constitutional crises if they fail to develop new amendment procedures to facilitate future reform efforts.Thomas Jefferson's constitutionalism provides a critical perspective on Ackerman's project. Like Jefferson, Ackerman sees constitutional change as an opportunity for the People to return to revolutionary first principles; unlike Jefferson, he equates American nationhood with the progressive concentration of power in the federal state.     

Unravelling the Puzzle of Social Standards’ Design in EU and US Trade Agreements

The European Union (EU) and the United States (US) are signing preferential trade agreements (PTAs) increasingly used as vehicles for exporting social regulation, such as labour and environmental standards. Despite the similarity in terms of the inclusion of such provisions, their design varies greatly between US and EU agreements. The US exports its domestic standards, relying on coercive enforcement, while the EU emphasises international rules and soft measures. Why do US PTAs have stricter social standards than those signed by the EU? Using the principal–agent approach to explain the domestic politics of social provisions in EU and US PTAs, I argue that greater insulation of trade executives from interest groups and legislators results in their ability to set the agreement agenda independently, in accordance with their normative preferences. The argument is supported by case studies and original interview data.     

Assets versus Autonomy? The Changing Face of the Gender-Caste Overlap in India

Inter-group disparity in India is multifaceted; this paper focuses on gender and caste as two important indicators of disadvantage. An assessment of the contemporary state of the gender-caste overlap suggests that the economic condition of women continues to be defined and constrained by their caste status. At the same time, the traditional distinction between lower caste and upper caste women, based on the relative egalitarianism and greater freedom of movement of the latter, needs to be revised. The Dalit (low caste) women are the worst off, as they belong to a group that is materially at the bottom of the ladder; their relative deprivation is compounded by low levels of autonomy and greater exposure to domestic violence.     

Return, purchase, or skip? Outcome, duration, and consumer behavior in the rent-to-own market

Rent-to-own (RTO) is attractive to financially distressed consumers. It allows immediate access to merchandise and an opportunity for eventually acquisition. Yet goods can be returned at any point without penalty or other adverse consequences. We use a competing risk methodology that accounts for unobserved consumer heterogeneity to study how contracts conclude, estimating the probabilities of exit??via return, purchase, or skip??and the associated durations. The estimated outcome probabilities highlight the use of the embedded return option by RTO consumers and the trade-offs and cross-subsidization implicit in the RTO contractual arrangement. We offer rational and behavioral explanations of consumer behavior in the RTO market, which we believe can be generalized to other consumer loan markets.     

A Return to ‘Civilisational Geopolitics’ in the Mediterranean? Changing Geopolitical Images of the European Union and Turkey in the Post-Cold War Era

The prevalence of the discourse of ideological geopolitics during the Cold War meant that both Turkey and the EU belonged to the West by virtue of their ideological orientation. In the absence of this prevalent geopolitical discourse, both the EU and Turkey have spent the 1990s trying to locate themselves geographically. Drawing on the literature on critical approaches to political geography and international relations, this article seeks to answer the question of whether the EU's post-Cold War security discourse on the Mediterranean in general and on relations with Turkey in particular point to a return to the earlier discourse of civilisational geopolitics. The article also presents a reading of Turkish policy makers’ attempts to resist EU's representation of Turkey in ‘non-Europe’ (as with the ‘Middle East’ or the ‘Mediterranean’) as boundary-producing practices which have served to underline the boundaries between the ‘West’ and the ‘non-West’.     

Militarism,Realism, Just War,or Nonviolence? Critical Geopolitics and the Problem of Normativity

Despite illuminating multiple modalities by which armed conflict is discursively justified, critical geopolitics can be criticised for providing a weak normative engagement with the social institution and practices of warfare. This has limited the impact of this school of thought outside of geography and critical security studies at a time when the ethics of military intervention have been prominent in public debate. This article explores the moral discourse of critical geopolitics through an examination of Gerard Toal's writings on Iraq and Bosnia. This scholarship is reviewed in the light of Coates's typology of major traditions of moral reflection on war – militarism, realism, just war theory, and pacifism/nonviolence. This analysis interrogates Toal's narratives, in which American military intervention was advocated in the Former Yugoslavia and opposed in Iraq. This suggests that rather than a thoroughgoing commitment to pacifism/nonviolence, or a blanket cynicism about American foreign policy, Toal's thinking includes an underlying attachment to some form of just war reasoning. However, its implicit and partial appropriation leads to a certain incoherence and selectivity that calls for further reflection. This presents a challenge to critical geopolitics. If it chooses to engage more explicitly with just war theory, its insights into identity and militarism could in turn inform a reworking of aspects of the theory, thereby facilitating critical geopolitics' engagement with wider public anti-militaristic modes of discourse. However, as this risks blunting the political potential of the project and repeating the mistakes of twentieth-century geopolitical thought, the paper concludes with a call for a wholehearted commitment to nonviolence.     

Conquering or mapping? Textbooks and the dissemination of human capital theory in applied economics

Textbooks are an important subject for the study of science in general and economics in particular. In this paper, we analyse at the process of the acceptance of human capital theory through its inclusion in economics textbooks by looking at two specialized fields to which this theory became highly influential: labour economics and the economics of education. The analysis will compare the patterns of the dissemination of these new theoretical developments in a more consolidated field and in an emergent field of economics research with a particular focus in the early stages of that dissemination process.     

Another Nail in the Coffin? Or Can the Trade Based Explanation of Changing Skill Structures Be Resurrected?

The skill structure of wages and employment has altered markedly in recent years. In some countries (most notably the UK and the US) wage inequality has risen sharply and in most countries relative demand has shifted unfavourably against the less skilled. In this paper we reassess the evidence that rising international competition from developing countries is the crucial factor underpinning these changes. Our results, based on newly constructed internationally comparable industry data, find little support for the predictions of the basic Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) trade model.
JEL classification: J 31; F 14     

Believing Facts in the Fog of War: Identity,Media and Hot Cognition in Ukraine’s 2014 Odesa Tragedy

ABSTRACT

How do people form beliefs about the factual content of major events when established geopolitical orders are violently challenged? Here, we address the tragic events of 2 May 2014, in Odesa, Ukraine. There, Euromaidan protest movement supporters and opponents clashed following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the onset of the Donbas conflict, culminating in the worst civilian death toll the city had seen since World War II. Shortly after, we surveyed Ukraine’s population about who they thought had actually perpetrated the killings and relate people’s answers to alternative narratives (frames) that an original content analysis finds were available to Ukrainian citizens through different media. We find evidence, consistent with theories of hot cognition and motivated reasoning, that the Odesa violence triggered emotional responses linked to ethnic, regional, and partisan identity, which then activated attitudes associated with these identities that, in turn, led people to adopt very different (sometimes highly improbable) beliefs about who carried out the killings. Ethnic identity in particular is found to have strongly moderated the effects of television, with Ukrainian television greatly influencing Ukrainians but backfiring among Russians, and Russian television mainly impacting non-Ukrainians. Education and local information are found to reduce susceptibility to televised factual narratives.     

Consumption,Identity, and the Sociocultural Constitution of “Preferences”: Reading Women's Magazines

This paper shows how the concept of identity may figure importantly into shifts in preferences and patterns of consumption. We explore the 1970s emergence of the “working woman” – a woman who worked outside the home and regarded work as central to her identity. Women's magazines were especially involved in working out the “working woman” image, stressing how products could be used to attain her readily-identifiable appearance and efficient, pleasant home life. As such, they played into a shift in social valuation of female identities – away from those centered on traditional feminine pursuits, towards those centered on intensified labor-force involvement, consumerism, and commodified private life.     

Sand in the wheels or spanner in the works? The Tobin tax and global finance

This paper presents a radical critique of the Tobin tax—atax on currency transactions—by undercutting certain assumptionsabout the size and character of the world's foreign exchangemarkets which furnish the tax with its basic rationale. Whileit is acknowledged that only a fraction of the massive volumesof FX transactions relate directly to trade in goods and servicesor to cross border investments, it is denied that all the residualtransactions are motivated purely by exchange rate considerations(speculative or hedging activities). Rather, the argument isthat a significant proportion of FX trades have money marketcharacteristics and that these trades, together with domesticmoney market transactions, play an important role in the dayto day operation of the global financial system. This perspectiveis used to show that the imposition of a Tobin tax would causeextensive material damage to the system, with consequences thatmay run counter to the expectations of supporters of the tax.     

Where is Serbia? Traditions of Spatial Identity and State Positioning in Serbian Geopolitical Culture

This article studies the geopolitical traditions of spatial imagining of Serbia amongst the country’s political elites since the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. It examines some of the socially dominant discourses of spatial positioning of Serbia as a historical-political narrative. The study argues that one can identify five distinct geopolitical traditions that, in variably overlapping or mutually contradicting ways, address two questions: ‘Where is Serbia’ and ‘How is its perceived smallness felt and described’? A first tradition is that which attributes sacred, divine and martyr-like features to the country, its small earthly “Serbian lands” and people. A second tradition conveys spatially maximised and biopolitical visions of “Serbdom”, amounting to variable designs of a “Greater Serbia” anxious about its felt frontiers and smallness. The final three traditions are the mutually exclusive positioning of Serbia around an East-West axis as either Eastern or Western, or a geographically unique and exceptional bridge between the two, whereby each positioning recasts smallness as a crucial feature of geopolitical exceptionality. The article concludes with some general observations on the challenges of studying geopolitical cultures.     

Sarantis Archigenes (Serandi Arşizen), Pellegrino Rossi and the spread of the classical approach in the Ottoman Empire

Abstract

Although he succeeded Say at the College de France as chair in 1833, Pellegrino Rossi is not considered a great economist nor has he been appreciated as an original one. However, his lectures in the College de France inspired a young Ottoman-Greek, Sarantis Archigenes, who wrote a political economy book which discussed the economic problems of the Ottoman Empire of the mid-nineteenth century. This article provides an account of the traces of Rossi's ideas in the formation of Archigenes' views, with an aim to present Rossi's role in the dissemination of Classical political economic ideas in the Ottoman lands.     

Growth Miracle or Endangered Development? Vested Interests,Policy-Making,and Economic Development in the Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is often considered among the most successful developing countries, based primarily on its high and relatively sustained growth rates over the last two decades. On the other hand, indicators of human and social development, healthcare, and education have been particularly poor. I argue that the polarization of economic power plays an important role for this development. Furthermore, I analyze the structure of the Dominican economy in order to show that the country has relied on tourism, services, and special economic zones to obtain relatively high growth rates. These activities do not require high-skilled labor and will not allow the economy to generate high incomes for the population, but benefit a few families who control most conglomerates. In turn, this explains low investment in education and social spending, as well as low taxation rates.     

Monetary and Financial Integration in the EMU: Push or Pull?

This paper examines the channels through which monetary union increased financial integration, using panel data on bilateral international commercial bank claims from 1998–2006. I decompose the increase in claims into three channels: a "borrower effect," as a country's EMU membership may leave its borrowers more creditworthy in the eyes of foreign lenders; a "creditor effect," as membership in a monetary union may increase the attractiveness of a nation's commercial banks as intermediaries, perhaps through increased scale economies or through an improved regulatory environment after the advent of monetary union; and a "pairwise effect," as joint membership in a monetary union increases the quality of intermediation between borrowers and creditors when both are in the union. Isolating these three channels through a series of difference-in-differences specifications, I find that the pairwise effect is the primary source of increased financial integration. This result is robust to a number of sensitivity exercises.     

Do natural resources help or hinder development? Resource abundance,dependence, and the role of institutions

The resource curse literature presents conflicting evidence on the relationship between natural resources and development. We evaluate the direct effect of resources on developmental outcomes vis-à-vis their indirect effect through the weakening of political institutions using a 3SLS instrumental variable setup that simultaneously estimates development outcomes and institutions. We find that resource abundance and resource dependence affect development outcomes through different channels. While resource abundance generally has a direct positive effect on developmental outcomes, resource dependence has a stronger negative indirect effect that operates through its negative impact on institutional quality. The results also depend on the type of development outcome considered, with more consistent positive direct effects found for physical capital measures and stronger negative indirect effects for human capital development. The use of a simultaneous framework and dual measures of resources reconciles seemingly contradictory findings in earlier work.