Search

This paper develops a measurement of culture on the product category level, called the cultural embeddedness of products (CEP) scale, and progresses the scale in accordance with standard procedures. It defines CEP as the degree to which a product is connected with ethnic/national culture. The centrality of national/ethnic identity and culture, and its meanings for individuals, lead us to propose CEP as predictive of consumer attitudes and intentions. In particular, we posit that CEP plays a role for local products and potential brands, similar to that played by perceived brand globalness for global brands. We validate a two dimensional CEP scale in two cultures - American and Norwegian - and find that the scale exhibits good psychometric qualities in both. We also present the particularly consistent effects of the ethnic identity relevance dimension of CEP on attitudes and purchase intentions through perceived product quality. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for marketing research theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Written in the autumn of 1985, this paper argued that the political economy of Britain under Margaret Thatcher had up until then been discussed largely as a national phenomenon, and one that reflected the subordination of industry to financial interests. The paper proposed that the internationalisation of British capital was in fact a crucial part of the strategy to defeat labour and roll back the state, since Thatcherism welcomed inward investment as well as outward, and was supported by industry as well as finance. A left alternative had not only to challenge this strategy at national level, but also to be resolutely internationalist in its theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Defining the role of cities within economic networks has been a key theoretical challenge, particularly as nuanced understandings of positionality are increasingly championed over hierarchical notions of influence or power in the World City Network (WCN). This paper applies social network analysis (SNA) to identify the critical role that a wide range of cities plays in the Australian economic system. Drawing upon the set of Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed firms, four distinct sub-networks are compared against the overall urban network. Each of the materials, energy, industrials, and financials sector sub-networks are found to have unique configurations of inter-urban relations, which are articulated through institutional and industry-specific factors, grounded in diverse histories and path-dependent trajectories. This analysis applies five different centrality measures to understand how positionality within the overall network and respective sub-networks might better inform policymakers formulating ‘globalizing’ urban policy. This addresses the long-standing theoretical debate regarding territorially articulated hierarchies of urban/corporate power, extricating WCN research from the core-periphery assumptions tied to its world-systems theory lineage. Understanding how, rather than if, cities are global provides contextual knowledge about how cities are situated within broader circuits of production, and the exogenous relations that shape urban economies around the world, providing a framework for research in other global contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade India has become the financing hub for cricket, a broadcaster in its own right, and an agenda-setter in the management of all forms of the game. What some commentators have called the ‘Indianization’ of cricket extends beyond business: it is a social, political, and cultural phenomenon. For five seasons, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has offered a glimpse of this phenomenon, prompting enthusiasm from young fans and those who stand to profit from the new league, and resistance from traditionalists. This paper discusses the material and symbolic roles the IPL has come to play in global cricket. It begins with an overview of the IPL’s history, discusses how the IPL is changing the global business of cricket, and explores how the IPL is challenging the traditional culture of the sport. The paper concludes with arguments about the IPL as a grand spectacle, and a cultural phenomenon that, despite its problems, might prove its critics wrong. Throughout, the paper treats the IPL as a useful case study not only in the business of sports, but also more widely in our theoretical and empirical studies of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using Dumont’s analysis of value, this paper discusses the interplay between equality and hierarchy in Ambrym Island, Vanuatu. From this vantage point Melanesian egalitarianism appears to be a dynamic and hybrid form that reproduces itself through tensions between different forms of potential inequality. The discussion is situated within a thoroughly globalized society, where money and Christianity have played a fundamental role for over a century, and where ceremonial displays and exchanges of food are still absolutely central to village life. Those food ceremonies create important material spectacles of sociality, where the exhibition, destruction and distribution of food are part of an ongoing process of submitting potentially hierarchical structures to an ethos of egalitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents abstracts on planning literature which include approaches to empirical work in regional economics, understanding the barriers to social adaptation, and management of large city regions.

This paper argues that human rights-based approaches to human security overlook the importance of caring values, relations of care, and care work in the achievement and long-term maintenance of human security. It outlines an alternative approach to the ethics of human security which combines a feminist ontological and normative position on the centrality of caring values and practices in sustaining life with a feminist account of the gendered political economy of contemporary globalisation. Moreover, it argues that a critical, feminist ethics of care can provide a comprehensive ontological and normative framework for integrating economic exclusion with violence, and thus for understanding and conceptualising human security in a way that is sensitive to the role played by gender identities and other types of power relations. This, I argue, can be achieved through an interrogation of the relationship between neoliberal globalisation and hegemonic forms masculinity in the context of contemporary global governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts of papers on city planning published from 2007 to 2008, including "Streets, Sounds and Identity in Inter-war Harlem," by Clare Corbould, "(Re)making the Other, Heterosexualising Everyday Space," by Kath Browne, and "Rankings and Reactivity: How Public Measures Recreate Social Worlds," by Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder.

David Harvey's adaptation and redeployment of Marx's notion of 'primitive accumulation' – under the heading of 'accumulation by dispossession' – has reignited interest in the concept among geographers. This adaptation of the concept of primitive accumulation to different contexts than those Marx analyzed raises a variety of theoretical and practical issues. In this paper, I review recent uses and transformations of the notion of primitive accumulation that focus on its persistence within the Global North, addressing especially the political implications that attend different readings of primitive accumulation in the era of neoliberal globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stories of firms that exceed local compliance requirements in their environmental performance appear routinely. However, we have limited theoretical explanations of what propels these firms to exceed compliance. Our theory suggests that global competitive and institutional pressures lead multinational firms to develop high-level, environmental management systems (EMS) that make them more competitive. For economic and other reasons, select firms make the choice to rationalize their collective environmental performance to the highest common denominator rather than the lowest. Regulations around the world differ widely and are a moving target in many settings. The need to comply with such myriad, shifting rules leads to firms creating EMS to help stay ahead of regulations worldwide. Using institutional and internationalization theories as our basis, we offer a propositional model concerning global competitive/institutional pressures and their effects on corporate environmental performance. We conclude the paper with a discussion of the implications of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines current Chicago school reform in the context of economic restructuring, the drive to become a "global city," and the cultural politics of race. The discussion focuses on high stakes testing and accountability policies and on new, special programs and schools. My analysis is based on data from four qualitative case studies of Chicago elementary schools, school system data on the nature and geographic distribution of differentiated programs and schools, and examination of labor force trends and economic development policies. Contrary to the discourse of equity that frames Chicago school reform, I argue that the current policies exacerbate existing race and class inequalities and create new ones. The policies promote unequal educational opportunities and experiences and produce stratified identities with significant implications in Chicago's new, highly stratified work force. As a whole, Chicago's reforms support the inherent inequalities of global city development, gentrification, and the displacement of working-class and low-income communities, especially communities of color. I argue that education policies are part of a cultural politics of race aimed at the control and regulation of African-American and Latino youth and their communities. The paper concludes with proposals toward the democratic reconstruction of urban education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is perhaps understandable that until the fall of the Soviet Union, the study of Marxism within the discipline of international relations was restricted largely to discussion of the state ideology Marxism-Leninism. The events of 1989, and the spectacular rise of the sub-discipline of international political economy in the context of globalisation, have, somewhat paradoxically, led to a resurgence of interest in critical, open forms of Marxism. Attempts to break away from the dogmatism of Marxism-Leninism whilst avoiding the complementary error of humanistic subjectivism have, of course, a long tradition in marxist thought.[1] Consistent with the 'open', critical tradition is the work produced by, amongst others, Luxemburg, Korsch, Bloch, Rubin, Pashukanis, Rosdolsky, the Italian tradition of 'autonomist' Marxism and the work of contributors to debates on value and the state held in the early years of the Conference of Socialist Economists.[2] This paper briefly outlines the contribution the 'CSE tradition' offers to the study of international relations and the fashionable analysis of globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines regional integration in Central Asia in the context of two types of knowledge, that is, knowing-that and knowing-how. While knowing-that prioritizes representational (i.e. “talking”) practices of actors to explain region-building processes, knowing-how focuses on non-representational (i.e. “doing”) practices. The article demonstrates that the orthodox scholars, who deal with the region of Central Asia, mostly employ knowing-that to explain region-building processes. The article criticizes knowing-that, assuming that this type of knowledge limits our understanding with regard to how regions get their boundaries and symbolism in the era of globalization and standardization of sectoral activities. Thus the article develops and introduces an alternative knowing-how framework to better understand the region-building processes in Central Asia and beyond it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary urban leaders use exotic fiscal and financial schemes to fund development, which scholars theorize as tools for creating public goods or critically as growth entrepreneurs' speculative self-enrichment schemes. Neither approach accounts for financing schemes' reactivity, or their tendency to shape development patterns. This paper facilitates analysis of the latter by developing a new theory of growth coalitions: the politics of earmarking perspective. Urban leaders are akin to local state builders whose superordinate concern is establishing priority over revenues earmarked for noncity functions, a goal they pursue by pairing financing schemes with developments that maximize discretionary revenue under unique geographic, fiscal, and regulatory constraints. I illustrate this perspective's utility by comparing scholarship on California's municipal fiscal crises with an ethnography of development in two Iowa cities. Although reliant on the same financing mechanism-tax increment financing-California's municipal leaders pursued discretionary revenue by incentivizing extravagant commercial developments, whereas Iowa's directed industries to outlying business parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on topics related to history and planning including attitudes towards menstruation in Elizabethan England, sexual fantasy in modern America, and feminism.

This paper uses the exemplar of global headhunting firms to provide new insights into the intricacies of internationalization and related 'spatial economies' of producer services in the world economy. In particular, we unpack the complex relationships between the organizational rationale for, the selected mode of, and future benefits gained by internationalization, as headhunting firms seek and create new geographical markets. We achieve this through an analysis of headhunting firm- specific case study data that detail the evolving way such firms organize their differential strategic growth (organic, merger and acquisition, and alliances/network) and forms (wholly owned, networked, or hybrid). We also highlight how, as elite labour market intermediaries, headhunters are important, yet understudied, actors within the (re)production of a 'softer', 'knowledgeable' capitalism. Our argument, exemplified through detailed mapping of the changing geographies of headhunting firms between 1992 and 2005, demonstrates the need for complex and blurred typologies of internationalization and similarly complex internationalization theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has a simple theme: namely, that many of the major interpreters of neoliberal globalisation are more influenced by their own — mostly deterministic — world views and ideologies than they are of the need for a holistic, critical scrutiny of the dominant tendencies of modem capitalism. The first section analyses some of the major works in favour of neoliberal globalisation, paying special attention to their emphasis on the positive tendencies of the system, and the perspectives that colour the story. The second section examines some of the major works against neoliberal globalisation, where they centre on the negative aspects of global capitalism and the Washington consensus, under serious influence of a one-sided ideology. The next section illustrates that these respective positions are merely different sides of the same coin. A truly endogenous view of neoliberal globalisation recognises that the positives are inextricably linked with the negatives; they are holistically generated together in the fusion of systemic reproduction. Using the values and perspectives associated with an interdisciplinary critical view of the system is a better method of comprehending neoliberal globalisation than a deterministic, one-sided evaluation of the facts as is more commonly utilised. The governance implications are then analysed, paying particular attention to the conflicts and instabilities that require resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insofar as most farming and otherwise agrarian families are still primarily male head-of-household families,examining the challenges facing agrarian communities is necessarily to examine the challenges facing the agrarian male. Those challenges fall mainly into two categories--economic and environmental (or ecological). Men in agrarian communities are wrestling specifically with the constrictions of (1) the increasing agribusiness pressures that continue to endanger the small-scale farmer, (2) the "Wal-Martization" of the agrarian economy that not only raises ethical questions but also limits local economic options, and (3) the suburbanization of the land, as more and more farms are sacrificed to economic realities and converted into upscale housing developments for the economically privileged. This essay elucidates a number of the challenges facing agrarian men--whether full-time farmers, part-time farmers, or others embedded in local agrarian communities and their interrelated economic and ecological systems. The intellectual framework draws heavily on the wisdom of eastern Kentucky's own "gentlemen farmer," Wendell Berry, as well as upon a number of ecotheologians, while pragmatically drawing equally heavily on the lived experience of specific men in rural western North Carolina. The paper argues that the 19th-century paradigm of virtually self-sufficient, small family farms no longer works and must be superceded by an alternative 21st-century paradigm of small farms, full-and part-time farm families, and their communities in collaborative networks, thereby collectively challenging the predominating and ever-globalizing 21st-century economic, geopolitical, and environmental status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animating the debate over 'globalization' is the specter of 'the power of the corporation.' High-profile anti-trust cases and mega-mergers have heightened fears of the fulfillment of Marx's 'law' of the concentration of capital. But how concentrated and durable is global corporate 'power?' And do mega-mergers increase it? This article attempts to answer these questions by examining corporate concentration and turnover in 18 global industries over the last half of the 20th century. It finds monopoly-like positions by industry 'number ones' to have been rare and transitory, that most industry leaders achieved their positions through internal growth, and that most who 'bought their way to the top' did not stay there long. Four-firm industry concentration is also not especially high. The top four firms account for less than 60% of the total sales revenues of the top 12 firms in 13 of the 18 industries as of 2000. Following notable industry de-concentrations during the 1960s and '70s when European, then Japanese firms challenged American corporate hegemony, concentration was stable until the late 1990s when it increased in a few industries. Despite this surface stability, however, the identities of the top one and the top four firms often changed from decade to decade. Some global leadership positions have endured, but turnover occurs even at the very top. Turnover is higher among the 'top four' than among 'number ones.' The odds of displacement or disappearance increase even further among smaller companies. There seems little risk of 'control' of world industry by 'the' corporation, by a few corporations, or by a few American corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban and rural sociology is currently dominated by two relatively separate approaches. One perspective emphasises political economy and increasing globalisation. Another focuses on the meaning of urban and rural areas in people's lives. This paper argues for a fusion between these two views. Urban and rural sociology should be concerned with the relations between political economy on the one hand and the biological and psychological bases of human behaviour on the other. Recent developments in the human sciences and psychology assist in making this link. They can be used to extend the original insights of the early Chicago School of sociology, particularly as regards the formation of human identities. Nevertheless, there remain substantial arguments as to how 'the Chicago School's biotic level' should be conceptualised and how we envisage its links to the more conscious, pre-planned, aspects of human behaviour. Early Marx and Williams's now somewhat neglected work on the country and the city offer provocative yet helpful ways forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines mass public opinion toward international financial-market regulations, known as "capital controls." Conventional wisdom maintains that most voters do not pay attention to or care about capital controls, but no previous studies have directly evaluated this claim. We argue that capital controls are likely to become a publicly salient issue under some conditions—specifically, when economically unstable countries reimpose regulations on capital outflows. Original data from two surveys fielded in Argentina support this argument. We show that most citizens are knowledgeable about capital controls, many consider it an important issue, individuals' preferences reflect their economic self-interest, and attitudes toward capital controls influenced vote choice in a presidential election. These results, along with illustrative evidence from four other cases, indicate that ostensibly complex policy issues such as international financial regulation can become electorally salient under some conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did the 2018 URPE at 50 conference appear to a "lurker," someone interested, even enthusiastic, about radical political economy but not directly involved in the organization? Based on observations at the conference, the author ponders the absence of research and activist connections between media, communication, and cultural studies and radical political economics. Exploring the rise of intersectionality that has emerged due to digital communication and social media platforms, the author appeals for collaborative efforts to expand the range of interactions to benefit radical political economy as well as the fields of media, communication, and cultural studies. Jel Classifications: Z18, 033, 035 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extant literature views the decision to protect women’s economic rights as made by firms and neglects the role of the state. This study argues that states are pressured to improve the protection of these rights by enacting gender parity–promoting policies in response to similar policy choices by their economic competitors, resulting in a specific type of policy interdependence—the upward policy convergence. Additionally, this convergence should be stronger in laws than in practices because some states continue to benefit from women-suppressing policies, and because improving laws is less costly than improving policy implementation. Using newly coded global data from 1999 to 2009 on women’s economic rights that distinguish between laws and practices, spatial econometrical analyses support these conjectures. Essentially, this study shows that the race to the bottom is not the sole consequence of globalization, a climb to the top is possible as well when we look closer and more carefully. In other words, trade and capital dependence can generate positive policy gains too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From demand for natural resources to sustainability initiatives, everything seems to hinge on China. China’s environmental entanglements call out for the analysis and understanding that environmental sociologists practice. Environmental sociologists from within and beyond China have begun to explore how society, polity, and ecology intersect, but we have yet to fully take on the challenges that China’s environmental struggles pose. This article focuses on four domains in which China’s experience compels us to rethink our theories: environmental ideology, political economy, civil society and environmental justice, and international environmental politics. In each domain, China’s institutions, discourses, and place in the world-system reframe major currents of thought in environmental sociology. These points challenge us to decenter environmental sociologists’ focus on how things happen within liberal polities in the global North; they likewise push us to reconsider arguments about the South. Together, these challenges present an opportunity to extend our theory and practice, fashioning a more global environmental sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long-term trend of globalization masks a frank deterioration of the situation of the have-nots. Since 1970, polarization has grown faster than inequality, with alarming consequences for human rights and the economy overall. Globalization has continued to enrich the few at the expense of providing a decent livelihood and respecting the human rights of the many. Industrialized countries continue to be the rule makers—poor countries the rule takers. Rich countries go for growth, but an inequality-entrenching growth that brings about human rights violations and poverty. In many developing economies, income inequality and the violation of human rights have clearly increased over the past 3 decades. Discriminated losers have been fighting globalization before it had a name; they still are. Globalization has thus actually resulted in greater income inequality plus human rights violations and disrupted lives. Globalization may well be a finished project. We must remind our respective governments that they have the power to improve working people’s lives so that they, once and for all, address the needs of those who lose out from technological change and globalization. Otherwise, our political problems will only deepen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing internationalization of Chinese telecommunication companies’ business operation beyond the shore of Asian region is reconfiguring the global markets of telecommunication, and information and communication technologies in terms of chain of distribution, competition, and partnership. This is particularly evident in the African telecommunication markets where Huawei is now challenging the European and American multinational companies’ market dominance in telecommunication infrastructures, network expansion, and equipment supply. This article examines the political economy of Huawei’s business strategies and engagement in the Nigerian telecommunication sector, which is the biggest telecommunication market in the West African region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, scholars have been calling attention to the macro-social and institutional structures shaping development and welfare. In this study we offer a socio-temporally situated understanding of quality of life (QOL) in a developing country setting and investigate the effects of macro structures on consumer well-being. Specifically, we focus on neoliberal development (led by the business sector, rather than led or directed by the government) and examine how a neoliberal transformation of the marketplace affects consumers’ QOL perceptions. The context of our research is Turkey, a developing country that has been an avid follower of neoliberal policies since the 1990s. We focus on three key macro-social developments that have been shaping Turkish society in the past decades – globalization, religion, and economic growth – and seek to understand how these forces influence consumers’ satisfaction with life. Our study contributes to the literature on development and QOL by first, showing the moderating effect of income, and second, introducing faith and global brands as important variables in conceptualizing QOL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of new technologies together with the process of globalization and global outsourcing raise a question mark over the potential advantages of locating in an industrial district. In this context, there is a clear need for new studies to investigate whether the district effect still exists in these new circumstances. We propose that the increased availability of social capital, knowledge, and innovation would justify the firms in industrial districts obtaining competitive advantages and, therefore, greater levels of performance over the rest of the companies in an industry, allowing us to explore why the district effect is maintained in the current circumstances. The development of this study, in the footwear industry in Spain, has allowed us to analyze the existence of significant differences between industrial district firms and firms outside industrial districts. The results obtained in our study show that agglomerated firms, that is, firms located within industrial districts, achieve a greater performance than firms outside the industrial districts. With this study, we contribute to a deeper analysis of the competitive differences arising from the district effect. On one hand, we analyze if the competitive advantages of companies located in the districts will reveal differences in the obtained performance—growth, profitability, innovation performance, and general performance. We also analyze three key competitive factors in the competitive dynamics of industrial districts, with particular attention to social capital. In this sense, we look separately at the three dimensions of social capital—structural, relational, and cognitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalisation has been treated as a homogenising, even Americanising, process. Its complex nature means that its effects can be observed at various levels of analysis: economic, political, social, cultural and legal. The books under review here tackle different aspects of globalisation, with the overarching theme of US hegemony and how that has been employed in the reconfiguration of the global order. Two titles deal specifically with British decline, albeit without a perspective informed by political economy, the absence of which is argued to weaken their respective analyses. The analytical purchase provided by Marxist political economy is also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization drives a process of diet convergence among developing and developed countries that challenges the predictions about future patterns of food consumption. To address this issue, the objective of this article is to map the range of the possible future diet changes and to explore their impact on agriculture using the Nexus Land-Use model. This model computes agricultural intensification in the crop and livestock sectors at the global scale, based on an architecture accounting for the different types of food calories. By considering four scenarios built on distinct assumptions regarding diet convergence, this article sheds light on the pivotal role of diet changes as drivers of tensions on agriculture and land use and shows the uncertainty associated with processes of diet convergence for foresight exercises on food and agriculture. Finally, the interactions between food production and the other land-use patterns are explored by testing the sensitivity of our results to assumptions regarding biofuel production, deforestation, potential crop yields, and nutrient-use efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the potential contribution for international shipping and long-haul aviation to contribute to sustainable development (SD). The trade literature shows that newly industrializing countries are benefitting from international trade for export-led growth. However, the least developed countries with limited access to international trade networks do not participate in the new global production networks. The World Trade Organization/General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regimes do not have the development of more sustainable transport systems as a priority. In this sense, international transport remains on the fringes of the environment and development policy fields. Three transition pathways to SD have been developed: (a) information and telecommunications technologies leading to particip.ation of least developed countries in global production networks, (b) changes in social preferences toward a high priority for the environment, leading to an extensive growth in fair-trade networks and sustainable production and consumption, and (c) SD from economic growth in newly industrializing countries, with an increased priority placed on solving environmental problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. comprehensive immigration reform from 2013, known as Senate Bill 744. Attention is paid to the immigration quotas, the impact of immigration on U.S. workers, and the point system that would assess the economic qualities of the prospective migrants, such as academic degrees or position availability in their field of occupation. The author suggests that the U.S. government tends to accept the migration as an economic tool instead of a human right.

This article aims to compare Portuguese and Spanish radio broadcasting systems from the mid-1970s to the present, from a political economy approach. It analyses the regulatory framework (communication policies) and the ownership structure. It explains how a highly similar situation has been reached despite having stemmed from a situation defined by different principles, when both political transitions began. To do so, this work also analyses the role of deregulation and its globalising nature. The study focuses on three key periods: the initial period in both transitions, the years following both countries’ admission into the European Community and the start of the new century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Structural human ecology, ecological modernization theory, and international political economy perspectives are engaged to assess the extent to which coal consumption is influenced by various demographic factors, socioeconomic characteristics, and international relationships. Results of panel analyses for a sample of 66 countries from 1990 to 2005 indicate that both total population size and economic development increase levels of coal consumption. Additional findings suggest that export-oriented manufacturing increases coal consumption in developing nations but not in developed nations. The authors conclude by reflecting on the theoretical implications of the study and the policy relevance of the results for dealing with the human causes and consequences of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does globalization encourage and facilitate the development of generalized trust, or does it, on the contrary, foster mutual suspicion and distrust? This question preoccupied intellectual elites during the early phases of expansion of world markets, and it has become once again relevant in the context of contemporary globalization. This article proposes a sociological redefinition of this question by distinguishing between different aspects of globalization (economic competition and cultural embeddedness in the world polity) and specifying how those aspects affect trust. Using hierarchical models with individual and cross-national data from the World Values Survey and other sources on 41 countries for the 2005–2008 period, the article finds empirical support for the propositions that globalized competition decreases generalized trust in the countries most exposed to it, while competitiveness in prestigious cultural activities (such as scientific production) increases generalized trust. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The manner in which open economies in a globalized world shape social policy development is highly disputed, as is the impact of the current financial crisis on social policy. One argument is that globalization and economic austerity force social policy dismantling. Alternatively, it is proposed that open economies – facing greater volatility, especially during crisis – push for greater social protection. Using the examples of Botswana and Mauritius, two open middle-income countries, this article suggests that, in fact, both arguments may be correct. The impact of globalization and economic crisis depends on the character of the welfare system already in place and the organized interests underpinning it. In Botswana a main social policy thrust is to increase efficiency in spending, whereas issues of job security and compensation are more prevalent in Mauritius. The findings imply that divergence across welfare systems persists and that, even in crisis, countries often use tried social policy solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Improving access to potable water has become an increasingly urgent concern for developing nations in the current era of globalization. According to standard wisdom, if developing countries undertake certain domestic reforms, such as investing in infrastructure and engineering, then safe and clean drinking water will improve. This analysis uncovers, however, that in addition to such domestic efforts, one of the greatest factors affecting water uncertainty is, in fact, internationally induced: trade. Surprisingly, both scholars and practitioners have neglected the potential impacts of expanding trade on access to potable water. This analysis is the first large-N cross-national study of water that focuses on the interplay of trade and politics—both international and domestic—as the primary driving forces behind improvements in (or constraints to) water access. The author hypothesizes that growing export pressures are constraining drinkable water in poor countries, but a particular domestic condition can mitigate this effect: the existence of lower levels of income inequality. As the socioeconomic actors disadvantaged by openness, particularly in more equal countries, seek reparations for the growing threats to potable water, the adverse affects of trade on water may be averted. Empirical evidence from 77 developing countries and case studies of Vietnam and India provide support for this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The industrialization of developing countries has fundamentally transformed work, employment, and labor for millions. Despite the industrialization of most of the developing world, we present evidence that Latin America has experienced stagnating industrial employment in the past few decades. Benefiting from recently available data on industrial employment as a percentage of total employment from 1980 through 2006, we analyze fixed-effects models for 20 Latin American countries. Specifically, we examine three theoretical explanations: productivity/comparative advantage, institutionalism, and dependency/world-systems. Our analyses demonstrate that the prevailing productivity/comparative advantage explanation has limited value. By contrast, we find supportive evidence for a combination of institutional and dependency/world-systems variables. In particular, the stagnating industrial employment share in Latin American countries has been driven by the negative effects of (in order of magnitude) the Mercosur trade agreement, mineral and ore exports (as a percentage of total exports), the duration of the current political regime, military spending (as a percentage of GDP), and inward foreign direct investment flows (as a percentage of GDP). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

• Summary: Since the mid-1970s the Australian welfare state has faced a continuing crisis of resourcing and legitimation. Social work as a central entity within the welfare state has been challenged in terms of to its value base and relevance. As with much of the Western world, this challenge has been heightened with the rise of neoliberalism, which has pervaded most aspects of Australian society. Neoliberalism has consequently had a profound effect upon Australian social workers. The challenges to the Australian welfare state and social work are from without and within, by neoliberal ideas and its practices.• Findings: While neoliberalism’s relationship to social work as a broad theme is explored in the literature, the complexity of marketization and inclusive aspects have not been considered in any detail in relation to social work. The evidence in the Australian context is even slimmer, and as a consequence the particularity of the Australian welfare state and its relationship to neoliberalism, and the consequences for Australian social work, remains largely untested. Furthermore, while there are some indications of the day to day impact on social work in the context of a post-welfare state regime, little work has been conducted on the capacity of neoliberalism to infiltrate social work through its new institutions of the social and thus become embedded in social work.• Application: This article lays the foundations for a research project to examine the extent to which neoliberalism has become embedded in Australian social work and how social workers and social work educators are responding to these hegemonic influences. What are the ways in which social workers have become complicit in neoliberalism? Is Australian social work part of the neoliberal project to the point where neoliberalism has become part of its understandings and everyday activity? It is hoped that through this research, a more sophisticated understanding of the impact of neoliberalism on social work will contribute to the revitalization of critical social work in Australia and forms of resistance to the neoliberal project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008, commentators speculated that the relative buoyancy of China’s economy signaled the onset of an epochal shift of world power from West to East. This article considers the evidence by reviewing the state of the Sino-American economic relationship against the backdrop of the urgency of action on climate change. The lead established by Chinese companies in the clean technology sectors underpins the PRC’s primacy in the alternative fuel economy, but political and social need for a high GDP growth rate is irreconcilable with the demand for decarbonization. By contrast, U.S. efforts to jumpstart a green industrial revolution are stymied by political resistance from oil and gas lobbies, and the longterm recovery of its economic dominance as a trade super power is in doubt. The initiative lies with Beijing, thrust, once again, into the role of making history under conditions not of its own making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article draws on theories about the internationalization process of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and feminist arguments to explain gender differences in export propensity. Findings are based on a large-scale survey of Canadian SMEs. After controlling for sector, firm, and owner attributes, female majority-owned firms were significantly less likely to export than firms owned by men. The implications for entrepreneurship and feminist theory, export policy, and research are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstract on planning including a micro-level analysis of the Black voting during the civil rights movement, the influence of land-use planners on flood hazard mitigation and the use on public transport timetable data into health care accessibility modelling.

The article discusses the economic condition of the labour sector in Great Britain. It states that the British labour sector took 12 years to be able to produce a new type of higher rate income tax. It says that the New Labour of the country is considered to be in the period 1997-2010 wherein some rich countries managed to obtain a good performance on inequality instead of globalisation. It adds that the New Labour is viewed to be characterised under former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The article presents abstracts on city planning-related topics, including visions of waterfront development in postindustrial Philadelphia, the construction of a town planning perception of Colombo, and city planning and the U.S. census.

The relationship between the religious commodity market, popular culture and political economy remains under-theorized. The globalization of religion has led to a massive global trade in on-line and off-line religious commodities. This article explores the mobile Christian commodity form and its specific politics of use. Using examples from India and the US, it explores the ways in which Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal groups use multi-media products and platforms for evangelization. The profit potential in religious fare has not gone unnoticed in corporate circles, and synergistic relationships have developed between media corporations and Christian production houses involved in creating commodities for segmented audiences. The article argues that in the context of the global expansion and export of Christian fundamentalism, the increasingly close relationship between mediated Christianity and the commodity form facilitates the extension of specific, conservative, forms of values-based capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on planning-related topics which include an examination of the popularity of dancing in New Zealand during the 1920s and 1930s, an examination of how religious diversity in community affects church membership in a period of high growth and social change and an examination of child labor in urban industries in the Dutch Republic.

The article presents abstracts on land use planning topics, including "Historical Amnesia: New Urbanism and the City of Tomorrow," "More Than Sector Theory: Homer Hoyt's Contributions to Planning Knowledge" and "Methodology for the Survival Analysis of Urban Building Stocks."

Patents are a performance, in both their creation and subsequent enactions. They require skill, tacit/embodied knowledge, and practice if they are to be successfully enacted. Western intellectual property law, however, is blind to the performative aspect of patents. This sociolegal reality has helped to create significant asymmetries between nations, particularly after the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) exported Western patent law to all corners of the globe. The article begins by reviewing the philosophical underpinnings of Western patent law, focusing specifically on those aspects that locate intellectual property within the disembodied subject. Next, attention turns to detailing the formation and implementation of TRIPS. Two asymmetries created by TRIPS are then discussed, which take place at the front and back ends of the patenting process. When taken together, these asymmetries work to further lock in global inequalities. The article concludes with suggestions about how these global inequalities might be reduced in light of this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of planning. They include "The Fall and Rise of the Local Community: A Comparative and Historical Perspective," by Hellmut Wollman, "The Compact Versus the Dispersed City: History of Planning Ideas on Sofia's Urban Form," by Sonia Hirt, and "A Paradigm for Practice," by Ronald D. Brunner.

An extensive range of evidence and analysis has been employed to understand the complex relationship between Britain and the process of European integration. This article builds on a body of work within the study of European integration that examines British economic interests in European policy-making. However, I show that a comprehensive explanation of this relationship requires the application of a politico-economic analysis on national articulations of global and transnational processes. It is, I propose, Britain's distinctive insertion into the global economy that enables us to understand and explain Britain's problematic relationship to the processes of European integration. This is explored through an analytic narrative of Britain's historical relationship to the process of European integration. From a broad comparative perspective, I emphasise the exceptional character of Britain's globalised political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]