Poverty,competition, democracy,and ownership: A general equilibrium model with vertical preferences

We consider a general equilibrium model where individuals are simultaneously workers, consumers, and shareholders, with two possible market structures: Monopoly and Duopoly, and two extreme ownership structures: egalitarian and concentrated. Considering three standard poverty indicators, the questions are, whether more competition generates more or less poverty for a given ownership structure; and whether a democratic choice between Monopoly and Duopoly leads to the alternative with less poverty. When the ownership is concentrated, we show that Duopoly generates less poverty than Monopoly and the majority votes for the alternative with less poverty. When the ownership is egalitarian, Duopoly may generate more or less poverty and democratic choice alleviates poverty regarding at least one poverty indicator and worsens poverty regarding at least another one, the three poverty indicators never converging. An empirical study on the effect of competition on poverty supports to some extent our theoretical findings.     

Authority and Democracy in Corporate Governance?

Although McMahon offers a potentially valuable extension of Joseph Raz's conceptualization of authority by distinguishing three different kinds of authority, this paper argues, first, that his account of the conditions and considerations that would justify managerial authority is problematic because it relies on a conception of reasons for action that excludes precisely the kind of rationality that plays an important role in the␣explanation and justification of authority in economic␣organization. This paper explains, second, why McMahon's thesis of the justificatory similarity of authority in governments and nongovernmental organizations can also be seen to hold for corporate governance of publicly owned firms more specifically. Finally, this paper raises some critical objections against McMahon's presumption of democratic governance in governments and NGO's alike. The thrust of these objections is that democratic corporate governance does not make sense in the publicly owned firms because: (1) it will not produce results that are fair or welfare maximizing, and (2) it will undermine the legitimacy of managerial authority in such firms. J. (Hans) van Oosterhout holds an M.A. in political science from Leiden University and a PhD in organization theory from RSM Erasmus University, where he is currently an associate professor. His research involves the positive and normative theory of organizations and institutions, with a current emphasis on corporate governance and comparative economic and political organization. Earlier publications have appeared in: Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Business Ethics and Futures.     

Evaluating Strategies for Negotiating Workers’ Rights in Transnational Corporations: The Effects of Codes of Conduct and Global Agreements on Workplace Democracy

Following the offshoring of production to developing countries by transnational corporations (TNCs), unions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have criticised working conditions at TNCs’ offshore factories. This has led to the emergence of two different approaches to operationalising TNC responsibilities for workers’ rights in developing countries: codes of conduct and global agreements. Despite the importance of this development, few studies have systematically compared the effects of these two different ways of dealing with workers’ rights. This article addresses this gap by analysing how codes of conduct and global agreements both independently and interactively affect workers’ rights. We do this based on a qualitative study of the Sri Lankan operations of a Swedish TNC in Sri?Lanka, and on interviews with union and NGO representatives actively involved in codes of conduct and global agreements. Our results indicate that global agreements independently address all the aspects included in codes of conduct, while also addressing additional, more process-oriented aspects of workers’ rights. Hence, on their own, global agreements seem to comprise the superior approach to promoting workers’ rights. Furthermore, our results indicate that promoting codes of conduct has negative interactive effects on global agreements. Based on these results, we argue that the current focus on codes of conduct is counterproductive for the promotion of workers’ rights.     

我国利益集团对地方政府决策的影响

目前,我国正处于由传统社会向现代社会转型的关键时期,利益集团现象的出现是一种历史必然,在这期间,如何正确认识我国利益集团现象及其对地方政府决策的影响,是我们必须直面的一个重要问题。因此分析和研究当代我国社会的利益集团问题,具有深刻的理论意义和现实意义。     

黄河流域民主参与式的水资源统一管理

针对黄河流域水资源管理存在逐利、水资源被分割管理,以及缺乏民主参与等问题,提出黄河干流及其主要支流实行水资源统一管理,成立利益相关者参与的民主管理监督机构。     

The legitimation of risk and Bt cotton: a case study of Bantala village in Warangal,Andhra Pradesh,India

This article explores Ulrich Beck’s theorisation of risk society through focusing on the way in which the risk of Bt cotton is legitimated by six cultivators in Bantala, a village in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, in India. The fieldwork for this study was conducted between June 2010 and March 2011, a duration chosen to coincide with a cotton season. The study explores the experience of the cultivators using the ‘categories of legitimation’ defined by Van Leeuwen. These are authorisation, moral evaluation, rationalisation and mythopoesis. As well as permitting an exploration of the legitimation of Bt cotton by cultivators themselves within the high-risk context of the Indian agrarian crisis, the categories also serve as an analytical framework with which to structure a discourse analysis of participant perspectives. The study examines the complex trade-off, which Renn argues the legitimation of ambiguous risk, such as that associated with Bt technology, entails. The research explores the way in which legitimation of the technology is informed by wider normative conceptualisations of development. This highlights that, in a context where indebtedness is strongly linked to farmer suicides, the potential of Bt cotton for poverty alleviation is traded against the uncertainty associated with the technology’s risks, which include its purported links to animal deaths. The study highlights the way in which the wider legitimation of a neoliberal approach to development in Andhra Pradesh serves to reinforce the choice of Bt cotton, and results in a depoliticisation of risk in Bantala. The research indicates, however, that this trade-off is subject to change over time, as economic benefits wane and risks accumulate. It also highlights the need for caution in relation to the proposed extension of Bt technology to food crops, such as Bt brinjal (aubergine).     

中国共产党中央监察委员会创建之因由——百年征程中的党内监督机构探源

中国共产党党内监督的历史，可以追溯至1927年诞生的中央监察委员会。当时，之所以创建这一党内监督机构，主要原因和理由归于：深受列宁关于党内监督理论的影响，顺应中国共产党纪律建设的历史趋势，同时，也是完成中国革命重要任务的现实需要。     

The nexus between corruption and academic freedom: An international investigation of the underlying linkages

Studying a relatively under-researched aspect in economics, this paper examines the nexus between corruption and academic freedom. Our main hypothesis is that greater corruption undermines academic freedom and we test this hypothesis using data for 104 nations from 2012 to 2018. Our results support the main hypothesis, and this finding also generally holds across alternative aspects of academic freedom. Another contribution of this work lies in dissecting the direct and indirect (through corruption) effects of various drivers of academic freedom. Finally, additional insights are gained by considering different dimensions of academic freedom and how they are impacted by corruption.     

PLURALITY IN URBAN POLITICS: Conflict and Commonality in Mouffe and Thévenot

In this article we introduce a pragmatist interpretation of agonistic pluralism and develop this into an analytical framework that is applied to the analysis of urban conflicts. In the article, we take stock of contemporary critical and radical urban scholarship, our aim being twofold. First, we substantiate Chantal Mouffe's notion of agonistic pluralism with tools from French pragmatic sociology. We suggest that, in a democracy, plurality emerges both as a plurality of conflict manifested in the variety of possible ways to identify injustices, and formulate and justify claims in public struggles, and a plurality of commonality, manifested in different logics by which a ‘we’ can be formed and action coordinated so as to solve issues without resorting to physical violence. Secondly, by applying the developed conceptualization of plurality to an ongoing urban conflict concerning an airport, we showcase the value of the approach for identifying and analyzing different forms and phases of actually existing political conflicts, and for recognizing their meaning for democracy.     

Sovereign debt assistance and democratic decision-making

Organizational reforms stimulating democratic decision-making play a role in the economic effectiveness of concessional debt and debt relief. Effectiveness is defined as the increase in project approval produced by debt assistance. This claim is supported by a theoretic model illustrating the role of democratic decision-making in increasing lending as well as in determining the effectiveness of debt assistance. Using the framework of group decision-making in a fixed-size committee, we suggest a novel explanation to the advantage of conditioning debt assistance on organizational reforms that target the decision-making structure in organizations. The results imply that if the aid organization can affect the level of democratization in organizations, it can exploit its advantage and set the debt assistance that induces the maximal increase in project approval. We derive conditions under which organizational reforms that impose various forms of democratic norms in decision-making are important for increasing the effectiveness of debt assistance. We also point to the case where replacing an autocratic decision maker can cause debt assistance effectiveness to decline.