Confirming the status quo: the political economy of EU-ACP economic partnership agreements

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Darren Cheong ◽  
Soo Yeon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Status ◽  
Economic Partnership

The Political Economy of Localism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Ali
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Alternatives ◽  
Critical Regionalism ◽  
Local Media ◽  
The Status ◽  
Policy Windows ◽  
Definition Of

In Chapter 6, the case studies are analyzed through the frameworks of critical regionalism and critical political economy. The first section describes how a political economy of localism has come to exist within media policy discourse. This system favors the status quo over alternatives, tethers local media exclusively to specific places, and impedes our ability to think through ways to bridge the spatial and social divides of localism. The second section reintroduces critical regionalism as an approach that tempers this political economy. The chapter argues that while the political economy of localism works to stifle policy alternatives, there are policy windows – “moments of critical regionalism” – that require our attention. The chapter offers a definition of media localism based on critical regionalism and the case studies.

scholarly journals What’s the Problem with Learning Analytics?

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Selwyn
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Learning Analytics ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
The Status

This article summarizes some emerging concerns as learning analytics become implemented throughout education. The article takes a sociotechnical perspective — positioning learning analytics as shaped by a range of social, cultural, political, and economic factors. In this manner, various concerns are outlined regarding the propensity of learning analytics to entrench and deepen the status quo, disempower and disenfranchise vulnerable groups, and further subjugate public education to the profit-led machinations of the burgeoning “data economy.” In light of these charges, the article briefly considers some possible areas of change. These include the design of analytics applications that are more open and accessible, that offer genuine control and oversight to users, and that better reflect students’ lived reality. The article also considers ways of rethinking the political economy of the learning analytics industry. Above all, learning analytics researchers need to begin talking more openly about the values and politics of data-driven analytics technologies as they are implemented along mass lines throughout school and university contexts.

scholarly journals The political economy of health financing reform in Malaysia

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 732-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Croke ◽  
Mariana Binti Mohd Yusoff ◽  
Zalilah Abdullah ◽  
Ainul Nadziha Mohd Hanafiah ◽  
Khairiah Mokhtaruddin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Health Financing ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Financing System ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
The Status

Abstract There is growing evidence that political economy factors are central to whether or not proposed health financing reforms are adopted, but there is little consensus about which political and institutional factors determine the fate of reform proposals. One set of scholars see the relative strength of interest groups in favour of and opposed to reform as the determining factor. An alternative literature identifies aspects of a country’s political institutions–specifically the number and strength of formal ‘veto gates’ in the political decision-making process—as a key predictor of reform’s prospects. A third group of scholars highlight path dependence and ‘policy feedback’ effects, stressing that the sequence in which health policies are implemented determines the set of feasible reform paths, since successive policy regimes bring into existence patterns of public opinion and interest group mobilization which can lock in the status quo. We examine these theories in the context of Malaysia, a successful health system which has experienced several instances of proposed, but ultimately blocked, health financing reforms. We argue that policy feedback effects on public opinion were the most important factor inhibiting changes to Malaysia’s health financing system. Interest group opposition was a closely related factor; this opposition was particularly powerful because political leaders perceived that it had strong public support. Institutional veto gates, by contrast, played a minimal role in preventing health financing reform in Malaysia. Malaysia’s dramatic early success at achieving near-universal access to public sector healthcare at low cost created public opinion resistant to any change which could threaten the status quo. We conclude by analysing the implications of these dynamics for future attempts at health financing reform in Malaysia.

The Political Economy of the Emergency Looking for Ideology

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-96
Author(s):  
Christophe Jaffrelot ◽  
Pratinav Anil
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Balance Sheet ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
The Status

The chapter presents a balance sheet of the political economy during the Emergency. It focuses on the divergence between the socialist rhetoric of Mrs Gandhi’s Twenty-Point Programme and her dirigiste corporatism in practice. It also denotes the complementarity of authoritarianism and populism, as populism has no ideology either. This depoliticization, which is described as a major characteristic of authoritarian regimes by Linz, helped to bridge the class divide in order to maintain the status quo. This was followed by policies to allow some redistribution, such as land reforms and by keeping essential commodities affordable to prevent mass protests. However, the chapter concludes that the little progress that was made due to redistribution policies was offset by the class war, with the elites eventually maintaining the status quo.

scholarly journals Who wants violence? The political economy of conflict and state building in Colombia

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (78) ◽  
pp. 671-700
Author(s):  
Leopoldo Fergusson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
State Building ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Weak States ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
The Status

I propose three broad sets of political economy underpinnings for the persistence of conflict and the weak state. First, a “public goods trap” rooted in inequality implies that a low supply of, and demand for, public goods reinforce each other. Second, economic and political rents create vested interests in the status quo. Political rents are particularly problematic, partly because reformers face a curse of dimensionality: many things have to work well for state capacity and stable peace to consolidate. Finally, a very clientelistic pattern of political exchange consolidates a weak state, and weak states are fertile ground for clientelism.

Deras, Dalit Assertion and Resistance: A Case Study of Dera Baba Bhure Shah Sappanwala

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Surinder Singh ◽  
Jasbir Singh
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Rural Society ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Village ◽  
Political Economy Approach

The article argues that in Punjab several Deras are facilitating the elevation of the socio-economic conditions of Dalits through didactics and commandments. It further challenges the varying inimitable dominant agrarian structure of the village/rural society. The dominant strata/caste(s) of the society, however, resists this Dalit assertion by using socio-religious, economic and political forces to maintain the status quo. The present study explores such type of Dalit assertion through a Dera and resistance they encounter from the dominant agrarian caste, Jat Sikhs, of the village. The article employs the political economy approach to analyse the Deras of Punjab, by focusing on Dera Baba Bhure Shah Sappanwala as its critical reference point.

scholarly journals Narrating technonatures: discourses of biotechnology in a neoliberal era

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 186
Author(s):  
Myles Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Economic

This article considers the role played by discourses of nature in structuring the cultural politics of anti-GMO activism. It argues that such discourses have been successful rhetorical tools for activists because they mobilize widely resonant nature-culture dualisms that separate the natural and human worlds. However, these discourses hold dubious political implications. In valorizing the natural as a source of essential truth, natural purity discourses fail to challenge how naturalizations have been used to legitimize sexist, racist and colonial systems of injustice and oppression. Rather, they revitalize the discursive purchase of appeals to nature as a justification for the status quo, indirectly reinforcing existing power relations. Moreover, these discourses fail to challenge the critical though contingent reality of GMOs' location within the wider framework of neoliberal social relations. Fortunately, appeals to natural purity have not been the only effective strategy for opposing GMOs. Activist campaigns that directly target the political economic implications of GMOs within the context of neoliberalism have also had successes without resorting to appeals to the purity of nature. The successes of these campaigns suggest that while nature-culture dualisms remain politically effective normative groundings, concerns over equity, farmers' rights, and democracy retain potential as ideological terrains in the struggle for social justice.

scholarly journals Gestation, equality and freedom: ectogenesis as a political perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Cavaliere
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Positive Case ◽  
The Political ◽  
Small Subset ◽  
Human Fetuses ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
Women's Equality ◽  
The Status ◽  
Limited Scope

The benefits of full ectogenesis, that is, the gestation of human fetuses outside the maternal womb, for women ground many contemporary authors’ arguments on the ethical desirability of this practice. In this paper, I present and assess two sets of arguments advanced in favour of ectogenesis: arguments stressing ectogenesis’ equality-promoting potential and arguments stressing its freedom-promoting potential. I argue that although successfully grounding a positive case for ectogenesis, these arguments have limitations in terms of their reach and scope. Concerning their limited reach, I contend that ectogenesis will likely benefit a small subset of women and, arguably, not the group who most need to achieve equality and freedom. Concerning their limited scope, I contend that these defences do not pay sufficient attention to the context in which ectogenesis would be developed and that, as a result, they risk leaving the status quo unchanged. After providing examples of these limitations, I move to my proposal concerning the role of ectogenesis in promoting women’s equality and freedom. This proposal builds on Silvia Federici’s, Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s and Selma James’ readings of the international feminist campaign ‘Wages for Housework’. It maintains that the political perspective and provocation that ectogenesis can advance should be considered and defended.

scholarly journals Bodily abjection and the politics of resistance in Tom Paulin’s Greek tragedies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Torrance
Keyword(s):  
Open Channel ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
The Status ◽  
Politics Of Resistance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
Political Actions

Abstract Tom Paulin’s Greek tragedies present extremes of bodily abjection in order to service of a politics of resistance that is tied, in each case, to the political context of the drama’s production. The Riot Act (1984), Seize the Fire (1989), and Medea (2010), share a focus on the degradation of oppressed political groups and feature characters who destabilize the status quo. Yet the impact of disruptive political actions is not ultimately made clear. We are left wondering at the conclusion of each tragedy if the momentous acts of defiance we have witnessed have any power to create systemic change within politically rigged systems. The two 1980s plays are discussed together and form a sequence, with The Riot Act overtly addressing the Northern Irish conflict and Seize the Fire encompassing a broader sweep of oppressive regimes. The politics of discrimination in Medea are illuminated by comparison with similar themes in Paulin’s Love’s Bonfire (2010). Unlike other Northern Irish adaptations of Greek tragedy, Paulin’s dramas, arrested in their political moments, present little hope for the immediate future. Yet in asking us to consider if individual sacrifice is enough to achieve radical change they maintain an open channel for political discourse.

The Armenian duduk resounds in Artsakh

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Milka Marie-Madeleine Malfait
Keyword(s):  
International Community ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mountainous Region ◽  
The Third ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
Descriptive Method

Throughout its history, Artsakh had to guard against the external threats of Neo-Ottomanism. At the present time it is especially relevant. September 27, 2020 marks escalation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh – which means Artsakh in Armenian. This led to six weeks of cease fire, humanitarian disaster, which killed many people and destroyed cultural and religious heritage of Artsakh. The mountainous region is surrounded by Azerbaijani land, although populated by Armenians. Due to the political novelty of this issue, the author employed analytical and descriptive method. The acquired results demonstrate that the history repeats itself in Neo-Ottomanism, which has been a threat to Artsakh and Armenia since its emergence until the present day. In recent years, the concept of reunification with Armenia, as well as the independence of Artsakh, outlined the prospects for the future. The third solution to the conflict became the ceasefire agreement of 9 November 2020, nobly negotiated by Russia to save Armenia from military collapse. However, this solution is more painful than the status-quo. The main conclusion consists in the statement that the international community should be more vigilant and prevent the expansion of such threats.

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