scholarly journals International Organizations and Global Labor Standards

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-81
Author(s):  
Friederike Römer ◽  
Jakob Henninger ◽  
Thuy Dung Le
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Social Discourse ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Regional Organizations ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Future Challenges ◽  
Conflicting Discourses

AbstractThis chapter compares how three International and two regional Organizations, namely the ILO, the WTO, and the World Bank, as well as ASEAN and Mercosur, approach the global governance of labor standards. Defining ‘labor standards’ is notoriously difficult. We therefore use Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining (FACB) rights as a benchmark to assess the positions taken by the five regional organizations. We argue that two main discourses have been pursued in the global debate, a ‘social’ discourse, and a ‘neoliberal’ discourse. We find that organizations whose intrinsic features allow for an institutionalized representation of workers’ interests pursue variations of the social discourse, whereas a neoliberal position predominates in organizations where this representation is lacking. This is true both at the international and regional level. Moreover, we show that the coexistence of these two conflicting discourses has led to contestation, but also to exchange and cooperation. We furthermore outline to what extent the two discourses have changed over time. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of future challenges for the global governance of labor standards.

scholarly journals International Organizations in Education: New Takes on Old Paradigms

2021 ◽  
pp. 127-161
Author(s):  
Dennis Niemann
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Global Education ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Discourse ◽  
Education Discourse ◽  
Over Time

AbstractIn Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-78885-8_5, Dennis Niemann analyzes international organizations (IOs) and their education ideas. Different ideological paradigms dominated the global education discourse at different periods. Fundamentally, they revolve around two poles of an economic utilitarian view on education and on an interpretation that emphasizes the social and cultural value of education. Both leitmotifs were influenced by general developments in world politics, and they were also reflected within IOs. Niemann analyzes how global education IOs, specifically the World Bank, the OECD, UNESCO, and the ILO, influenced the global discourse on education. First, he argues that within the IOs, the antipodal views on education became more complementary over time. Second, he demonstrates the pattern of interaction between the IOs has also changed from competition to cooperation.

scholarly journals New possibilities of identifying social capital for its use in sustainable rural development

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 57-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Lošťák
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Rural Development ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Sustainable Rural Development ◽  
New Methods ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

In relation to sustainable rural development, the paper starts with the question of its conditions. One of them is social acceptance of various projects or programmes. This issue is joined with the co-ordination of human activities. The mechanism facilitating the co-ordination in contemporary societies is related to social capital. Its concept is outlined through the references to the basic literature about the topic. Using content analysis, based on the quantification of the categories created through the analysis of the literature about the topic, the social capital in selected municipalities is investigated. The main aim of the paper, however, is to show the role of this method in social capital fast identification. Although the approach necessitates further elaboration, it can be considered as the first important step in the practice of development activities. The background of the paper reflects the challenges of the World Bank concerning the elaboration and development of the new methods of measuring social capital.

Developing and Spreading a Social Investment Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Jenson
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Capital Investments ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Capital Investments ◽  
Capital Development

In the mid-1990s, the practice of international organizations began to cohere around the social investment perspective, with strategies that were child-centred and advocated human capital investments for economic growth and social development. This chapter examines the World Bank, which endorsed the policy instrument of conditional cash transfers (CCT) to allow very poor families to invest in children’s health and education—a stock-plus-buffer strategy. Then it scans the OECD, which recommended early childhood education to ensure human capital development and the labour-market activation of parents—a stock-plus-flow strategy. Both organizations developed anti-poverty positions with attention to the intergenerational transfer of disadvantage and investments in human capital. This similarity has declined in recent years, as the World Bank incorporated the social investment perspective into its new inclusive growth frame, while the OECD turned its attention to problems of inequality rather than poverty and thereby associated itself less with the social investment perspective.

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