Exploring the Causes of Immiserizing Growth: A Comparison of Pathways

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-136
Author(s):  
Benjamin Liu ◽  
Siyuan Yeo ◽  
John A. Donaldson
Keyword(s):  
Dominican Republic ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
International System ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Gdp Growth ◽  
Causal Pathways

Why do some countries experience long bouts of immiserizing growth? This chapter identifies and examines a handful of countries that over at least a five-year period experienced positive GDP growth rates of at least 2 per cent per year while simultaneously experiencing declines in the income of the bottom 20 per cent. Process tracing reveals that the diverse cases traversed three distinct causal pathways: structural reforms (Dominican Republic, 1984–9), structural transformation (Singapore 1978–83), and the systematic exclusion of indigenous populations from the benefits of growth (Bolivia 1991–7). The conclusions have implications for our understanding of the political causes of immiserizing growth, the role of the international system in causing such incidents, and how cases that otherwise might be perceived as successful included the systematic exclusion of vulnerable portions of the population.

scholarly journals The Media Industry’s Structural Transformation in Capitalism and the Role of the State: Media Economics in the Age of Digital Communications

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Knoche
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Digital Communications ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Media System ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Media

Abstract: This paper discusses how the capitalist media industry has been structurally transformed in the age of digital communications. It takes an approach that is grounded in the Marxian critique of the political economy of the media. It draws a distinction between media capital, media-oriented capital, media infrastructure capital and media-external capital as the forms of capital in the media industry. The article identifies four capital strategies that media capital tends to use in order to try to maximise profits: a) The substitution of “old” by “new” media technology, b) the introduction of new transmission channels for “old” media products, c) the definition of new property rights for media sectors and networks, d) the reduction of production and transaction costs. The drive to profit maximization is at the heart of the capitalist media industry’s structural transformation. This work also discusses the tendency to the universalization of the media system in the digital age and the economic contradictions arising from it. It identifies activity fields of the media industry’s structural transformation and shows how the concentration of the capitalist media markets is an essential, contradictory and inherent feature of the capitalist media system and its structural transformation. The paper identifies six causes of why capital seeks to employ capital strategies that result in the media industry’s structural transformation. They include market saturation, overaccumulation, the tendency of the profit rate to fall, capital-concentration, competition pressure, and advertising. The paper finally discusses the role of the state as an agent of capital in general and media capital in particular. It discusses the role of the state in privatisations, neoliberal deregulation, the formation of national competitive states, and various benefits that the state provides for media capital. This contribution shows that capital and capitalism are the main structural transformers of the media and communications system. For understanding these transformations, we need an approach that is grounded in Marx’s critique of the political economy.Translation from German: Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval

Deals and Development

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lant Pritchett ◽  
Kunal Sen ◽  
Eric Werker
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Development Framework ◽  
Political Settlement

This chapter sets out the deals and development framework, a conceptual framework which offers a new way to analyse growth. The framework focuses on analysing the political settlement within a country and the rent space, i.e. which individuals receive the returns to assets and how. The processes of how deals are made between economic and political elites are discussed, and open or closed and ordered or disordered deals distinguished. The framework highlights the interconnectedness of these three ‘variables’ and shows how changes in either the political settlement, rent space or deals space affect growth rates and the structural transformation within a country.

Divining Disposition: The Role of Elite Beliefs and Gender Narratives in Women’s Suffrage

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariel J. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
And Gender

Most accounts of franchise extension hold that elites extend electoral rights when they believe expansions will consolidate their political power. Yet, how do elites come to believe this? And how do elites make inferences about the political preferences of the disenfranchised? I argue that elites utilize the cue of “disposition” to determine the consequences of enfranchisement. Disposition refers to the innate characteristics of an individual (or group) that are believed to shape behavior and decision-making. Importantly, because disposition is perceived to be intrinsic, elites assume it is more stable and permanent than party identification or policy preferences. Using historical process-tracing and discourse analysis of primary documents, I determine that disposition was frequently and repeatedly used to either support or oppose women’s enfranchisement in New Zealand.

The Democratizer Army Paradox: The Role of the Algerian Army in Impeded Democratization

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (7) ◽  
pp. 1033-1047
Author(s):  
Furkan Halit Yolcu
Keyword(s):  
Process Tracing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

The main paradox of the civil–military relations theory has been the protection of the political sphere from the military, which is administered by the politicians. The new dilemma lies under the paradox that occurs when the political sphere is entirely co-opted by the military, which is legitimized through democratization instead of protection of the civilian sphere. The question regarding the continuity of the pathology, the military superiority over the civil administration, has been largely omitted. This study is an attempt to respond to this conundrum related to the continuity of pathological civil–military relations. The main focus is the pathology that occurs when the military is the modernizer or the democratizer in a country. The study uses process tracing to collect the data as research attempts to unravel the rationale behind the continuity of military dominance in politics. In doing so, it will attempt to trace the causality between the lack of democratization and military dominance over politics in the case of Algeria.

scholarly journals Contestando a “Ciência Social Norte-Americana”: críticas à postura conservadora das teorias do mainstream das Relações Internacionais / Disputing the "American Social Science": critical to conservative stance of the mainstream theories of IR

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 448-480
Author(s):  
Hermes Moreira Jr.
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status

A concepção de uma disciplina acadêmica sistematizada para o estudo das relações internacionais se deu atrelada à necessidade de criação de um arcabouço teórico para a compreensão da dinâmica do sistema internacional e das possibilidades de mudança ou estabilidade da ordem política nesse sistema. Nesse sentido, o objetivo deste texto é demonstrar em que medida as teorias do chamado mainstream acadêmico, tradicionais na análise da política internacional, ao naturalizar a conformação da ordem política internacional e minimizar o papel das disputas entre as forças sociais na constituição das relações internacionais, exercem um papel favorável à manutenção da ordem hegemônica e conservação do status quo. Não obstante, perspectivas contestatórias reconheceram e evidenciaram os limites das teorias do mainstream e preencheram a lacuna político-acadêmica contida nas teorias tradicionais de Relações Internacionais ao longo do desenvolvimento de seu campo acadêmico e institucional. Abstract: The design of an academic discipline for the systematic study of international relations occurred tied to the need to establish a theoretical framework for understanding the dynamics of the international system and the possibilities for change or stability of the political order in this system. Accordingly, this paper aims to demonstrate the extent to which the so-called mainstream academic theories, traditional analysis of international politics, to naturalize the conformation of the international political order and minimize the role of the disputes between the social forces in the constitution of international relations, play a role in favor of maintaining the hegemonic order and preserving the status quo. Nevertheless, prospects contesting recognized and showed the limits of the mainstream theories and filled the political and academic gap contained in traditional theories of international relations during the development of their academic and institutional concepts. 

Internal Battles and External Wars: Politics, Learning, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan

1993 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Mendelson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Cognitive Learning ◽  
Epistemic Community ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy

Studies explaining the end of the cold war and change in Soviet foreign policy tend to emphasize the role of the international system: decision makers “learned lessons” about the international system, and this learning brought about Soviet accommodationist policies. Such systemic and cognitive learning approaches tend, however, to mask the political and highly contingent nature of the policy changes. To understand these changes, one must explore how certain ideas got placed on the political agenda and how others were forced off.This essay stresses the role of ideas about both the foreign and the domestic scene, as well as the role of a network of specialists that helped put these ideas on the national agenda. Ideas alone cannot explain any one outcome. They must be understood in terms of the political process by which they are selected. Ideas are more likely to be implemented and epistemic communities are more likely to be influential under three conditions: (1) access to the leadership, (2) salience of the ideas to the leadership, and (3) the ability of the leadership to control the political agenda.One critical example of great change in foreign policy was the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. This study examines the interplay of ideas and politics over time and explains how the decision to withdraw was implemented and why it occurred when it did. It focuses on (1) the mobilization of an epistemic community before Gorbachev came to power, (2) massive personnel changes within Soviet institutions in the 1980s, and (3) the empowerment of the epistemic community once Gorbachev had consolidated his power.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold? Thinking About Sovereignty, Expertise and Neoliberalism in the Light of Brexit

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (S1) ◽  
pp. 117-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ntina Tzouvala
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Great Transformation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Eu

“The true nature of the international system under which we were living was not realised until it failed.”Karl PolanyiThe Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (1944)There is a certain degree of irony in writing about Brexit for a law journal- a read put together, hosted and read mostly, if not exclusively, by ‘experts’. The irony lies in the fact that the outcome of the UK referendum on the EU was, amongst other things, a rejection of experts; or rather, of current mobilizations of expertize and the political allegiances of a large number of experts. Despite this irony, or precisely because of it, I will reflect on three interrelated questions that, in my mind, determined the content and outcome of this historic referendum. First, I will discuss the discourse of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘control’ at the centre of the Leave campaign. Secondly, I will focus on the role of expertize and (technocratic) knowledge both in the construction of the European project and in the revolt against it. Finally, I will argue that given neoliberal hegemony and its heavily unequal distributive outcomes, revolts against contemporary structures of power, both national and inter/supranational are to be expected. Therefore, the question for progressive lawyers is how to mobilize our expertise so that these revolts do not become the exclusive playing terrain of the extreme right with unforeseen consequences.

scholarly journals Relationalist View on the Dissolution of Former Yugoslavia and Emergent New States

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. p35
Author(s):  
Igor Janev
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
New States ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
International Interactions

Times After a logic-based foundation of Dialectic Relationism, as a holistic doctrine and a comprehensive systemic-dialectic methodology, in which the relations between the elements (units) constituting a system play the dominant role in its behavior, and even determine the very existence of the elements (units), we demonstrate its applicability to the political arena of international interactions of states and, in particular, to the dissolution of complex state entities and the emergence of new states. Then, we examine in more detail the processes leading to the dissolution of Former Yugoslavia and the emergence of new states following its break up. We elucidate the role of both internal and external factors in the dissolussion process and the role of international relations and environment in the political recognition of the new states. This Relationism concept provides a general framework for description and understanding of socio-political processes and regimes in individual states and international system as a whole.

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