scholarly journals Labour Regimes and Workplace Encounters between China and Africa

2019 ◽  
pp. 239-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Oya
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Chinese Firms ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Regime Analysis

This chapter explores labour outcomes and dynamics for Chinese FDI and infrastructure contractors through their encounters with workers, states, and labour institutions in Africa. The chapter critically assesses the most popular claims about job creation and working conditions in Chinese firms in Africa and offers an alternative and more empirically nuanced view of the employment realities and dynamics in construction and industrial Chinese firms across Africa. The chapter questions claims of ‘Chinese exceptionalism’ in labour relations, and proposes a labour regime analysis to grasp the power of global capitalist forces, national political economy, and micro-level workplace processes to better understand labour relations in China as well as in Africa, in the sectors where Chinese firms are particularly present. This framework is deployed to illustrate the variation, diversity, and changes in labour regimes in China and among Chinese firms in Africa, and the key factors that drive such variations.

scholarly journals ‘We Have Equal Opportunities – in Theory’: Lay Perceptions of Privilege, Meritocracy and Inequality in Denmark

Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003803852199920
Author(s):  
Ditte Andersen ◽  
Malene Lue Kessing ◽  
Jeanette Østergaard
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Reference Groups ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Lay Perceptions ◽  
Micro Level

This article reports on the findings from a qualitative, longitudinal study on lay perceptions of opportunity structures among young adults in Denmark. Previous research suggests that people often underestimate the extent of inequality and that rising inequality aggravates misperceptions. Our study deepens the understanding of the multi-layered processes that form meritocratic beliefs, and it identifies key factors at the macro-, meso- and micro-level. A macro-level factor that proved influential was a cultural script revolving around the Danish lay concept, social arv [social inheritance]. At the meso level, the factor of reference groups in socio-economic heterogeneous schools was instrumental for formations of inequality perceptions, but in dissimilar ways depending on micro-level subjective factors. Overall, the participants viewed the free educational system in Denmark as part of a welfare system that equalises opportunity structures in principle, while the majority simultaneously exhibited a nuanced awareness of social forces negating meritocracy in practice.

scholarly journals Labour Politics in a Naval Dockyard: The Case of Karlskrona, Sweden c. 1880–1925

2001 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Hilson
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Shipbuilding Industry ◽  
Improve Working ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
State Employees ◽  
Military Discipline ◽  
Unique Relationship

Naval dockyards have been largely neglected by labour historians, a surprising omission given their importance as industrial workplaces with a distinct culture of labour and labour relations. This article considers labour politics in Karlskrona dockyard, Sweden, in the light of a growing body of research on work and labour relations in the British and other European dockyards. Evidence from Karlskrona suggests that, rather than being repressed by military discipline or bought off by generous state benefits, the dockyard workforce drew on aspects of its unique relationship with the national state to improve working conditions. Particular attention is given to the role of the dockyard trade union in creating a sense of workforce identity as state employees. This is in contrast to the British dockyards where unionism was founded on the rigid division of labour in the shipbuilding industry.

Exploring the Income of the Czech Entrepreneurs

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-96
Author(s):  
Ondřej Dvouletý
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
Working Hours ◽  
Age Group ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
European Survey ◽  
Employed Women

Although individuals mostly pursue an entrepreneurial career from non-economic reasons, it is also interesting to see how well they perform in their business financially. This book chapter exploits two recent waves (2010, 2015) of the European Survey on Working Conditions (EWCS) and compares earnings of the Czech self-employed, concerning characteristics including job creation, gender, age, education, and number of working hours. The obtained findings from paired t-tests and correlations show that Czech self-employed with employees (job creators) earn on average by 14.6% more when compared to solo self-employed. Gender-differences in earnings have also been found in the case of the Czech entrepreneurs. Solo self-employed women earn on average less when compared to males. The highest earnings were observed in the age group of 31-40 years, and self-employed with higher levels of education also earn, on average more. This book chapter contributes to the regional knowledge on entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic.

scholarly journals Coping with economic uncertainty: women's work and the protoindustrial family in eighteenth-century Lyon

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Anne Montenach
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Adaptive Strategies ◽  
Women's Work ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Economic Uncertainty ◽  
Silk Industry ◽  
Women’S Work ◽  
Real Issue ◽  
Micro Level

AbstractThe aim of this article is to analyse how female working conditions and remunerations were affected by the structural and economic crises that impacted Lyon's silk industry in the second half of the eighteenth century. It concentrates, at a micro level, on different circumstances in which sources allow us to see women and their families coping with economic uncertainty: small-scale wage conflicts with their employers, clandestine work and illicit activities. This essay studies how women's work was a real issue in power conflicts and a tool for household adaptive strategies during periods of crisis.

scholarly journals Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementarities in the Political Economy: An Empirical Analysis

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Hall ◽  
Daniel W. Gingerich
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Institutional Reform ◽  
Varieties Of Capitalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Comparative Capitalism ◽  
The Impact

This article provides a statistical analysis of core contentions of the ‘varieties of capitalism’ perspective on comparative capitalism. The authors construct indices to assess whether patterns of co-ordination in the OECD economies conform to the predictions of the theory and compare the correspondence of institutions across subspheres of the political economy. They test whether institutional complementarities occur across these subspheres by estimating the impact of complementarities in labour relations and corporate governance on growth rates. To assess the durability of varieties of capitalism, they report on the extent of institutional change in the 1980s and 1990s. Powerful interaction effects across institutions in the subspheres of the political economy must be considered if assessments of the economic impact of institutional reform in any one sphere are to be accurate.

Cave! hic dragones: a critique of regime analysis

1982 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 479-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Strange
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
General Theory ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Limiting State ◽  
Regime Analysis

This article questions the usefulness of the concept of regimes on the grounds that it is a fad; ambiguous and imprecise; value-biased towards order rather than change or equity; essentially static in its interpretation of the kaleidoscopic reality of international cooperation and conflict; and, finally, rooted in a limiting, state-centric paradigm. Each of these objections represents a dragon that unwary young scholars should be warned to avoid—or at least to treat with caution. On the grounds that those who look for a tidy general theory encompassing all the variety of forces shaping world politics are chasing a will o' the wisp, the article suggests as an alternative that we should pay attention to the overlapping bargaining processes, economic and political, domestic as well as international, by which the outcomes of the interaction of states, of authorities with markets and their operators, and of political institutions and economic enterprises, determine between them the "who-gets-what" of the international political economy.

In search of an adequate European policy response to the platform economy

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Fabo ◽  
Jovana Karanovic ◽  
Katerina Dukova
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
European Policy ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Platform Economy ◽  
Disadvantaged People

This article contributes to the debate on labour platforms (e.g. TaskRabbit, CoContest, ListMinut) by analysing the potential of such platforms. Although we see potential in online platforms in terms of job creation and providing opportunities to discouraged and disadvantaged people, we also address some of the challenges related to such work. Presenting empirical data, we argue that the current labour market and working conditions created by online platforms resemble 19th century laissez-faire. We thus call for the urgent creation of a regulatory framework taking into consideration the suggestions presented in our article.

scholarly journals Collective Action “Going Digital”: Overcoming Institutional and Micro-Structural Constraints through Technology Use

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-213
Author(s):  
Carol Soon
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Structural Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Internet Studies ◽  
Internet Technologies ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Depth Interviews

Traditionally, macro-level and micro-level approaches have been used in silos to explain and determine the threshold where one crosses from non-participation to participation in social movements. Technological advancements have enriched but also complicated the process of collective action. This qualitative study is based on the premise that a confluence between political economy approaches, micro-structural analysis and Internet studies is needed to dissect the dynamics behind technology use in collective action. Through in-depth interviews with 26 activist bloggers in Singapore, this study sheds light on how Internet technologies are used by activists to overcome issues of collective incentives, structural proximity and structural availability, and negotiate the institutional terrain.

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