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This paper explores some features of the development paths taken by Brazil and China (two member countries of the BRICS grouping) in the current context of the crisis of neoliberal globalization and transformation of the political and economic world order. The authors use Polanyi’s ‘double movement’ thesis to argue that newly emerging rural development (RD) dynamics in China and Brazil are part of a protective ‘countermovement’, driven by actors and institutions responding to the contradictions of the concentration and internationalization of agrifood systems. However, thedirectionand scope of these countermovements are still open; their transformative potential should be viewed in Gramsci’s terms as a struggle for hegemony the outcome of which depends on the concrete ‘balance of social forces’. First, the paper characterizes the impacts of China’s rise on Brazil’s development, which subsequently found its economy under threat of reprimarization and deindustrialization. The paper then sketches some stylized facts of production and consumption within the Brazil–China soy–meat complex, a key element of the current global food regime, with a focus on corporate control of the soy–meat value chain, and its negative consequences. Finally, the paper identifies the key roles that actors and institutions linked to peasants and family farmers are playing in the RD dynamics of each country. Although China and Brazil represent two very different realities, the comparison shows that critical rural and agrifood issues are indeed moving onto the centre stage of the contemporary ‘double movement’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How does increased integration to the global economy affect patterns of social provision at the local level? This study investigates the impact of economic openness on the subnational variation of welfare provision in China. Examining welfare expansion as a political response to provincial economic integration, I analyze how the effect of globalization on welfare expansion is conditioned by the threat of social unrest. Using a panel dataset on 31 provinces in China from 2001 to 2015, I find that provinces with open economies and higher threat of social unrest provide broader social insurance coverage. On the other hand, provinces with similar levels of economic openness but with lower levels of social unrest are associated with lower levels of coverage. These findings suggest that provincial governments may be more likely to utilize social policy instruments to compensate for the social costs of globalization, particularly in cases where exposure to the international market leads to increased social instability and discontent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how trade openness influences income inequality within countries. The sample includes 139 countries over the period 1970–2014. We employ predicted openness as instrument to deal with the endogeneity of trade openness. The effect of trade openness on income inequality differs across countries. Trade openness tends to disproportionately benefit the relative income shares of the very poor, but not necessarily all poor, in emerging and developing economies. In most advanced economies, trade openness increased income inequality, an effect that is driven by outliers. Our results suggest a strong effect of trade openness on inequality in China and transition countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent micro-level studies have suggested that globalization—in particular, economic globalization and trade with China—breeds political polarization and populism. This study examines whether or not those results generalize by examining the country-level association between vote shares for European populist parties and economic globalization. Using data on vote shares for 267 right-wing and left-wing populist parties in 33 European countries during 1980–2017, and globalization data from the KOF institute, we find no evidence of a positive association between (economic or other types of) globalization and populism. EU membership is associated with a 4–6-percentage-point larger vote share for right-wing populist parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether localized trade shocks from China influence Brazilians' views on integration with the country. We test the following hypotheses: (1) as trade shocks are localized, views on trade should form at the local, rather than at the individual level, and (2) as localized trade shocks affect both workers and companies in a same region, they should also influence legislators' views on China. Our analyses find support for both claims, but only among losers from Chinese trade. Residents and legislators from localities hurt by import shocks tend to hold negative views about economic ties with China, whereas neither residents nor legislators from localities benefitted by export shocks exhibit more positive views about the country. Our paper contributes to the literature on the politics of trade by incorporating meso-level theories of trade preference formation and by establishing the conditions under which the interests of constituencies should shape legislators' views on international trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is aimed at better understanding China's Overseas Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) choices through a post-War Japanese historical perspective. It will focus in the main on OFDI as a marker of an advanced stage of the East Asian 'developmental state' formula, wherein the 'China Brand' takes shape. The transition process from heavy-industry and low-value added goods to frontier-technology manufacturing with global brand recognition will be placed under scrutiny. A Japanese perspective is called for, as much of the theory in the field of international business to do with OFDI and the growth of multinational corporations (MNCs) is currently primarily derived from a Western developed-economy setting, and hence does not seek to offer much in the way of predictive insight about all-important yet middle-income China, as it proceeds towards becoming the largest economy on the planet. The article surveys the historical trajectory of Chinese OFDI, underling its correlation with inbound foreign investment into China; it then offers a comparative view of Japanese OFDI in the pre- and post-War era. It then assesses Chinese brand strength in the electrical appliance, automobile, and IT areas. Finally, it offers a prognosis as to the future direction of Chinese OFDI, and how it might affect the contours of globalization as well as Sino-American rivalries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Productive transformation from commodity production to higher value added activities is at the heart of the transition from a middle-income to a high income economy. The key is the development of domestic innovation capabilities to move up the value chain on a broad enough basis to generate sustained productivity growth. Since WW II few countries have achieved this transition. Under the market-led strategies of the past 30–40 years, Latin American countries have become trapped at the middle-income level. Informed by a structural-evolutionary approach, I investigate the reasons for the poor productivity performance in the region. I analyse the 'within' and 'across' sector sources of productivity growth in nine Latin American countries over the period 1950–2011, compare it with China's, and link the outcomes to public policy, both with respect to state-led and market-led strategies, and to specific policies aimed at advancing innovation. I argue that the current globalisation process, particularly the rise of China, have shifted the goal posts for middle-income countries and increased the urgency to develop domestic innovation capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a recent wave of scholarship on urban development in East Asia, this article offers a critical account of the twists and turns of Hong Kong’s urban development by focusing on class recomposition, state strategies and their relationships with the city’s changing position in its regional political economy. To do so, it examines how the middle class and their housing and investment demand have begun to lose their significance as a driver of urban gentrification. Meanwhile, since the resumption of China’s sovereignty over the city and the outbreak of Asian financial crisis, the local and central state have engineered a finance-led growth model whose diverse neoliberal interventions and political calculations have persistently lead to widespread discontent with “developer hegemony” and private property-led urban redevelopment. Using a case study of Wan Chai and the rise of serviced apartments, this article argues that this transition has marked the rise of a new urban developmentism in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses how the competition between China and the EU in export markets has affected the trade performance of European countries. It first draws on a comparison between Germany and France before turning to discuss the economic and social impact of China's internationalization on Europe's economies. The results suggest that even in the recent years when China has gained prominence, it should not be blamed for more than half of the measured effects for emerging countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A number of contemporary paradoxes warrant explanation. First, in China, economic development has reduced poverty but dramatically increased inequalities. Second, the finance-led growth regime of North America has brought about a rupture with the Fordist Golden Age, causing a surge of inequality because of quite specific spill-over effects from the economy to policy. Third, the Eurozone crisis is often perceived as reflecting the limits of welfare states and the ideal of social equality, but some countries continue to exhibit an extended welfare system, moderate inequalities and a dynamic innovation and production system. To explain these paradoxes, this article applies a socio-economic approach based upon the concept of inequality regimes. Conventional interpretations stress the universality of the mechanisms that widen individual inequalities within each nation-state but reduce the hierarchy of national standards of living. This analysis, however, concludes that China, North America and Europe do not follow the same trajectory at all, since they have developed contrasting regimes of inequality that co-evolve and are largely complementary at the global level. This suggests an alternative to the hypothesis of an irreversible globalization of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Chinese artists have long been marginalized in China as their ideas conflict with the mainstream political ideology. In Beijing, artists often live on the fringe of society in “artist villages,” where they almost always face the threat of being displaced owing to political decisions or urban renewal. However, in the past decade, the Chinese government began to foster the growth of contemporary Chinese arts and designated underground artist villages as art districts. This article explores the profound change in the political decisions about the art community. It argues that, despite the pluralization of Chinese society and the inroads of globalization, the government maintains control over the art community through a series of innovative mechanisms. These mechanisms create a globalization firewall, which facilitates the Chinese state in global image-building and simultaneously mitigates the impact of global forces on domestic governance. The article illuminates how the authoritarian state has adopted more sophisticated methods of governance in response to the challenges of a more sophisticated society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]