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Dramatic advances have recently marked the study of international joint ventures (IJVs). The progress has been mixed, however. Although several theoretical dimensions have been emphasized in the literature, researchers have not addressed certain crucial questions at the heart of the IJV relationship. Consequently, individually useful IJV studies have not coalesced into a collectively coherent body of work with an underlying theoretical structure. This weakness in theory development. I argue, may stem from the convergence of "hard" methodological approaches with "soft" behavioral variables. In proposing and justifying a research program toward deeper understanding of voluntary interfirm cooperation, I offer a theoretical framework for OVs, develop a typology of theory-development approaches, and apply this framework and typology to demonstrate how a near-term shift in foci can accelerate rigorous IJV theory development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of a body of knowledge concerned with the definition and assessment of political risk has been uncoordinated, due to the absence of a consensus regarding the conceptual framework on which to develop. In this paper, previous work is drawn together as a first step in establishing such a framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does foreign aid build peace? The answer is of paramount importance for policy makers and practitioners, given that the world's poor are growing increasingly concentrated in conflict-affected countries. Scholars have also demonstrated keen interest, primarily examining the relationship between foreign aid and civil wars. This review takes stock of the existing literature through a survey of key theoretical arguments connecting aid to the onset, dynamics, and recurrence of civil wars. It then articulates a key challenge posed by undertheorization of aid allocation, which is largely nonrandom, making the causal effects difficult to infer. I identify five areas in need of greater attention: microfoundational theoretical assumptions about aid flows; aid in the context of other foreign policy options; explicit articulation of other factors that may mediate or moderate aid's effects; levels of observation and aggregation; and measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The financial crisis of 2008-09 ascertained the connotation of bank performance in national as well as international economies. Thus, falling short of managing capital standards has received a great deal of consideration from regulators and researchers to maintain the capital adequacy requirements. Maintaining capital adequacy and asset quality are two important soundness indicators of banks. In this paper we analyse and compare the status of capital adequacy ratio in the light of Basel norms of selected public and private sector banks in India from 2006-2014, and also assess the quality of assets by examining the ratio of the gross non-performing assets of banks. We find that all the public and private sector banks are maintaining the prescribed norm of CRAR by RBI i.e. 9 per cent and BCBS i.e. 8 per cent. The category-wise CRAR of private sector banks is much higher than public sector banks. Public sector banks pose poor quality of assets as their NPAs show an increasing trend. Contrarily, private sector banks demonstrate less credit defaults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how China's economic cooperation affects authoritarian persistence elsewhere. For the period 1998-2008, the article assesses quantitatively whether the effects of economic cooperation from China vary, conditioned by the regime type of the recipient. The analysis finds that China's economic cooperation is associated with regime durability in party-based regimes. In non-party regimes, in contrast, it is associated with regime collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature examines the link between preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and peace among member states. However, despite the potentially competitive nature of these agreements, there has been little research examining whether and how PTAs could induce hostilities between members and nonmembers. In this article, I argue that dyadic conflict is more likely when one dyad member’s exclusive PTA with a third party results in lower exports for the dyad member that is excluded from the agreement. Importantly, I contend that trade creating as well as trade diverting PTAs can have this effect. I use a triadic extension of the gravity model of trade to estimate how an exclusive PTA influences the exports of nonmembers relative to PTA members. Using these estimates in statistical tests of dyadic militarized interstate dispute onset spanning 1961 to 2000, I find that PTA-induced trade distortions are associated with a higher likelihood of conflict between members and nonmembers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the significant role of middle classes on sustainable and just global economy. Topics discussed include the increased number of new middle classes, pressure among the old middle classes, politicl role of middle classes and social security. The future of development cooperation is also noted.

The 2014 USACOR report forecasts that economic cooperation across the Atlantic will increase through the implementation of free trade agreements such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the development of free trade areas in the African continent. Such agreements shall be complemented by multilateral security cooperation to prevent conflicts, asymmetric warfare and also to guarantee food and water security. The report recommends that free trade agreements be supported by fair labor and antitrust laws to protect working and middle classes, common environmental regulations and multilateral mechanisms for dispute resolution. The report underlines the vast availability of undiscovered mineral resources, especially in Africa, and the need for public-private partnerships to exploit such resources. It stresses the importance of environmental protection in the exploration and extraction of resources to preserve the fragile ecosystem. The main priority for economic development in Africa is the improvement of the health condition of its population. The education is essential to promote religious tolerance and harmony in a diverse religious environment. The report also recommends limiting factory fishing within territorial waters and reforestation through soil enhancement techniques. The use of genetically engineered photosynthesizing bacteria would increase the production of electricity. Many types of algae and bacteria can flourish in salt water, conserving fresh water for saline-adverse crops. Vaccination and water sanitation are the two factors that would improve the health conditions in Africa. Investments from the private sector in conjunction with public institutions are Future of Atlantic & Role of Africa in International Development Francesco Stipo et al necessary to implement such techniques and to foster sustainable economic development in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the international efforts to achievement an agreement on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, with a particular focus on the U.S. and China's role in achieving an agreement with North Korea. An overview of South Korea and Japan's relations with North Korea, including the South Korea's Vision Korea Projects to reconstruct North Korean infrastructure, is provided. An overview of the use of deterrence in international negotiations with North Korea on its nuclear weapons program is also provided. Economic factors regarding reaching an international agreement with North Korea, including in regard to the offering of economic assistance, are discussed.

The security externalities of globalization and capitalism continue to play an influential role in peace research. Typical contributions to these interrelated areas of scientific inquiry address the hope that the external openness (commercial liberalism) and the internal freedom of an economy (capitalist peace) pacify interstate as well as intrastate relations. I claim, despite the empirical support both theses have received, that they face considerable analytical hurdles. Commercial liberalism has, on a theoretical level, not yet moved much beyond the opportunity cost arguments that enlightenment philosophers first advanced more than 200 years ago. The capitalist peace research program similarly does not offer clear micro-level mechanisms explaining why the interactions between economic agents and political decisionmakers should be more peaceful in capitalist than in state-dominated economies. Drawing on the political economy literature, I argue that economic liberalism should distinguish between level- and change-effects of both globalization and capitalism and that thinking in analogies between domestic and interstate peace has prevented the field from making analytical headway. Both literatures will only profit from the advent of ‘big data’ in the case that the field addresses the theoretical challenges upfront. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cooperation to produce collective goods is widespread in society, and yet so is its failure. Theorists have identified competing mechanisms for facilitating group cooperation, including group identity, sanctions and reciprocity. Here I use empirical data to explore how these mechanisms influence cooperation in the natural laboratory of microcredit borrowing groups. Microcredit makes loans to high-risk borrowers through borrowing groups in which individuals 'access to credit is dependent on the behavior of other members of the group, thereby creating a social dilemma for members and an opportunity to observe cooperation in real world groups. By analyzing both collective goods production (loans) and compliance (repayment), I find that the competing mechanisms have differential effects. Group identity, sanctions and reciprocity are all associated with more borrowing in the group. Only reciprocity, however, limits loan delinquency and is associated with group longevity, suggesting both that collective goods production is a distinct process from group compliance over time, and that reciprocity may be an important mechanism in both processes. I discuss how these findings contribute to our understanding of group cooperation, as well as the implications for the related theoretical concept of embeddedness.

The protests that took place at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, Washington, in late 1999 (and the series of similar, subsequent protests around the globe) have marked a new phase in the struggle for social justice. One approach to understanding the demonstrations is to view the activists as protesting what they perceive to be their lack of control--over the conditions of their economies, environments, lives and communities. In association with such protests, discontent has also been manifest through the efforts of local-scale actors to confront a `spaceless and timeless globalization' by pursuing strategies to assert power over local conditions at the local scale. Using the United States as an example, this article examines such local scale efforts in relation to international political economic changes and after-Fordist urban political restructuring. It explores three ways groups or individuals attempt to pursue local economic development within a liberal democratic capitalist system without compromising the equally important goals of justice and equity: (1) local ownership; (2) local regulation; and (3) local market development. The argument put forward in this article is that, while after-Fordist scalar restructuring represents a strategic effort by capital to gain power over and opportunity for capital accumulation, it may also present new opportunities for social justice activism at the local scale, provided local scale actors can develop and mobilize a consciousness of justice and a multi-scalar understanding of place, and can utilize the politics of scale by linking together similar projects across scalar divisions.

To keep my economist union card, I am required every morning when I arise to place my hand on the leather-bound family heirloom copy of Adam Smith's The Wealth of [...]

Using survey data collected in 1995, this article examines how Mexicans assess responsibility for the 1995 PESO DEVALUATION CRISIS. Mexicans primarily blame former president, Carlos Salinas, but a significant number also blame external actors and institutions for the crisis. The tendency to blame recent presidents is related to assessments of economic conditions and to partisanship; by contrast, the tendency to blame external actors and institutions is related to traditional Mexican nationalism with its defensive posture toward the United States. This posture is found primarily among the economically maginalized and the politically alienated. Nationalism remains an important force in citizen politics in Mexico, but its meaning is still contested. A traves de una encuesta de 1995, este articulo examina la manera en que los mexicanos deslindan la responsabilidad de la crisis de la devaluacion del peso en 1995. Por lo general, los mexicanos culpan al presidente Carlos Salinas, aunque un buen numero atribuye la crisis a factores e instituciones externas. La tendencia a culpar a los presidentes recientes se relaciona con la evaluacion de las condiciones economicas y las lealtades de partido; por contraste, la tendencia a culpar a factores e instituciones externas se relaciona con el nacionalismo tradicional y con su actitud defensiva hacia los Estados Unidos. Dicha actitud se percibe principalmente entre los marginados economicamente y los alienados politicamente. De tal modo que el nacionalismo aun permanece como una fuerza importante en la politica del ciudadano en Mexico aunque su significacion to-davia se disputa.

Amid the gloom of current world affairs, there are hopeful signs and promising opportunities that stand out, by which the current state can be withstood. On May 24, 2002, the [...]

Recent events suggest that justice is a central yet neglected element in the theory and practice of international organization. For example, in March 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) [...]

The article discusses the reported benefits of interdependence in relation to global activities such as trade, travel, and investment as of November 2013, focusing on efforts to eradicate global poverty prior to the Global Financial Crisis of the early 21st century. The Internet and mobile technology are addressed in relation to their impacts on the global economy. Economic empowerment measures in developing countries are examined, along with an assessment of America's economy since 1993.

Archaeology provides a powerful lens for revealing the complex social processes and profound consequences of global encounters. This study of archaeological ceramics from the southern Philippines investigates patterns of quality, source variation, and spatial distribution for Chinese trade porcelain dating before and after Spanish colonization. It aims at placing archaeological research on ceramics trade into the broader context of trans-Pacific trade between East Asia and Spanish America, as well as the historical circumstances for the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities involved in the global exchange. The patterns documented reveal continuity and transformation of the Asiatic trade network and the diverse responses to the colonial condition by native communities. The ceramic trade and indigenous political development were juxtaposed with the global competition of empires and changing economic dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are difficulties associated with arguing that globalization is creating coordinates for class creation that are no longer national. Transnationalization of the capitalist class is certainly a clear historical trend, but a contradictory one and thus limited.

Issues raised by debate about transnational class formation, globalization and the emergence of a transnational state are discussed. It is argued that, in the age of globalization, competition between capitals is just as strong as it ever was under capitalism, although this competition has new forms.

Class conflict, and in particular the ruling class, receive very little attention within debate about globalization and transnational economic activity. It is vital to avoid a one-dimensional transnational model, recognizing that globalization embraces more than just the economy.

This article examines the impact of globalization and the introduction of shopping malls on the sociology and consumer lifestyle of Egyptians throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Topics addressed include shopping malls and social class in Cairo, consumer taste and cultural hybridity, and how public spaces reflect gender roles.

Randolph B. Persaud (*) Capitalism has generally found laborers when and where it needed them, and migratory movements have carried labor power to market all across the globe. --Eric Wolf, [...]

This article discusses the effects of globalization on the wages and conditions of workers, which labor unions seem unable to protect. Issues include third world countries efforts to manage workers' conditions, the lack of global policies to protect the poor, international labor migration and the increasing economic insecurity of U.S. workers.

Public belief regarding globalization and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is examined. The author maintains one aspect of public belief focuses on environmental and health risks of GMOs which has been covered by the media, and other aspects focus on biotechnology corporations, which are portrayed as profit driven and working against the small farmer, and globalization.

The future of economic relations among Asian countries, especially as it relates to Japan, are examined, focusing on the idea that the determining factor for success may not so much be in political or military power as in cultural unity. Topics include Japan's historical role on the boundary between Western and Asian cultures; the defining factors of culture such as language and philosophy; and signs of a new Asian culture.

This article examines the relationship between stakeholder management, shareholder value, and corporate social participation. Research suggests that greater stakeholder management increases shareholder value while socially responsible actions taken by corporations may be negatively linked with shareholder value.

This article discusses the effects of globalization on the study of French history in the United States. The author suggests that fewer academic positions for teachers of French history may result in the short term and encourage research that emphasizes France's role as a colonial power; long term consequencies may be the abandonment of the creation of a national culture in the universities.

The movement against business-driven globalization continues to gain support. Those opposed to globalization believe that there should be a radical new form of internationalism.

This article discusses the past and future of radical history. The author discusses his interest in radical history, and maintains that radical history scholarship is largely reliant on the support of academic institutions and the labor movement, and radicalism must be utilized to combat globalization.

Issues discussed concern the social aspects of the globalization of the mass media industry. The article focuses on international software companies and the emergence of multimedia applications, and how these applications relate to cultural values and national identities.

The author asserts that studies of social transformations continue to be influenced by Western models of nation-states and industrialization, despite the increasing significance of globalization. Suggested new approaches to research include: focusing on transnational processes; analyzing the local aspects of change; and constructing interdisciplinary, international networks to facilitate research.

This article discusses the the impact of globalization on language and communication. Topics include culture, reflexivity, and linguistic change.

The article discusses the relationship between the law and macroeconomics as of December 2012, focusing on the economic aspects of private law topics such as torts and contracts, as well as jurist Mark Kelman's study of the history of law and economics in 1993. Law reform efforts and a globalized international economy are mentioned, along with an analysis of the influence of politics on economic thinking and practice. Economist John Maynard Keynes is also examined.

This article discusses the impact of globalization and economic reform on social welfare and compares it to the welfare system of the United States. Topics include poverty inflation, employee exploitation, and economic policy.

The prominence of English in Malaysia suggests a one-way flow of globalization; the author examines local usage and perspectives of the language as used by three Malaysian writers to evaluate this assertion. The superiority of English is questioned by developing a familiarity with it; the colonial language is used to explore the history of Malaysia, its society and cultural identity; a more pluralistic view of culture, politics and the economy is demanded, in order to control globalization's imperializing tendencies.

This article evaluates the effects of globalization on the indigenous peoples (IPS) of Sarawak, Malaysia and on the process of democratization and other political processes in this region. The author concludes that democratization allows people to control how globalization impacts their lives by placing it at a local level and thus empowering the people; examples of this include IPS protesting against the state's environmental policies by unlawful occupation of state-owned lands and putting up blockades, and with the intervention of international nongovernmental organizations forcing the government to take the issue seriously.