Governance and Business-Society Relations in Areas of Limited Statehood: An Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 000765032098508
Author(s):  
Sameer Azizi ◽  
Tanja Börzel ◽  
Hans Krause Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Global South ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
Collective Goods ◽  
International Ngos ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Critical Reflections

In this introductory article we explore the relationship between statehood and governance, examining in more detail how non-state actors like MNCs, international NGOs, and indigenous authorities, often under conditions of extreme economic scarcity, ethnic diversity, social inequality and violence, take part in the making of rules and the provision of collective goods. Conceptually, we focus on the literature on Areas of Limited Statehood and discuss its usefulness in exploring how business-society relations are governed in the global South, and beyond. Building on insights from this literature, among others, the four articles included in this special issue provide rich illustrations and critical reflections on the multiple, complex and often ambiguous roles of state and non-state actors operating in contemporary Syria, Nigeria, India and Palestine, with implications for conventional understandings of CSR, stakeholders, and related conceptualizations.

scholarly journals Introduction to special issue on digitalization, labour and global production

2020 ◽  
pp. 102452942091447
Author(s):  
Gale Raj-Reichert ◽  
Sabrina Zajak ◽  
Nicole Helmerich
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Digital Communication ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
Global North ◽  
Global Systems ◽  
The Relationship

This special issue contributes to the emerging literature on digitalization and its impact on work and workers in global systems of production. Three key themes are featured in the collection of papers. They are on the relationship between the use of digital communication technologies and power relationships, working conditions of online workers or crowd-workers, and shifting geographies of production. The papers also largely focus on the global South, contributing to research on digitalization and labour which has thus far tended to examine large and higher income countries mainly in the global North. This introductory article expands on and situates the papers broadly within the literature on digitalization and labour and within the three themes more specifically, and discusses their implications for future research.

Editorial: The shadows of enlargement: Theorising mobility and inequality in a changing Europe

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Amelina ◽  
Andreas Vasilache
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Geographic Mobility ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Migration Studies ◽  
European Studies ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
The Social ◽  
Societal Context

This introductory article of the special issue is based on the criticism of the sedentarist lens used in migration studies on social inequalities. It is organised around two questions: In what ways have forms of inequality and patterns of migration in the enlarged Europe been changed, and how should the nexus between migration and social inequality be rethought after the ‘mobility turn’ in the social sciences? First, the article proposes that the mobility turn and transnational sociology be combined to approach varieties of geographic mobility in the current Europe and that inequality analysis be conceptualised from a ‘mobile perspective’, meaning that forms of mobility and patterns of inequality be considered as mutually reinforcing. Second, Europe is considered as a fragmented and multi-sited societal context, which is co-produced by current patterns of mobility. The article discusses recent societal shifts such as supranationalisation and the end of socialism in the Eastern part of Europe (among many others) and identifies the concept of assemblage as a useful heuristic tool both for migration studies and European studies. Third, the final part illustrates how the contributions collected in this special issue address the challenges of the sedentarist lens and provide conceptual solutions to the analytical problems in question.

Media and the ageing body: Introduction to the special issue

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilie Givskov ◽  
Line Nybro Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
The Media ◽  
Ageing Body ◽  
Changing Practices ◽  
The Relationship

In this introductory article we offer a frame for understanding the relationship between the ageing body and the media as the focus for this special issue. As societies age, issues of representations of old bodies and people’s practices and embodied experiences with media technologies requires a deeper investigation. At the same time, contemporary society is undergoing processes of mediatization, which invites us to think of the ways in which media can be said to play a role in changing practices or changing representations regarding the older body. The introduction is concerned with this duality: the changing sociocultural conditions for the ageing body and the changing authority of media and its role for the ageing body. Finally, we briefly introduce the articles that are part of the special issue ‘The ageing body and the media’.

scholarly journals Sustaining Social Protection and Provision: the front line in the battle for the Good Society

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 2081-2084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Evans
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Global South ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Market Prices ◽  
Good Society ◽  
Social Provision ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

Abstract In an era when social policy priorities are subordinated to regressive capitalist agendas, sustaining collective commitments to social protection and social provision defines the front line of the battle for the good society. The conflict manifests itself across a range of arenas, but health is analytically archetypal. This introductory article for the special issue assumes the dynamics of the contradiction between the inherently collective character of health provision and capitalist insistence on using individual consumption valued in market prices to measure societal success. Left unchecked, the elite bloc whose agenda is defined by pursuit of the interests of capital will destroy existing social provision and protection, making societies, especially in the Global South, ugly places to live for ordinary citizens. The articles in this volume leave us with a challenge: how can we construct the oppositional agency necessary to expand and strengthen social provision and protection in an era of regressive capitalist domination?

scholarly journals How do countries of origin engage migrants and diasporas? Multiple actors and comparative perspectives

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Koinova ◽  
Gerasimos Tsourapas
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Science Review ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Multiple Actors

The relationship of states to populations beyond their borders is of increasing interest to those seeking to understand the international politics of migration. This introduction to the special issue of International Political Science Review on diasporas and sending states provides an overview of existing explanations for why states reach out to diasporas and migrants abroad and problematizes in important ways the idea that the sending state is a unitary actor. It highlights the need to examine the extraterritorial behaviour of agents within countries of origin, such as parties, bureaucracies and non-state actors, and to account for why and how their outreach differs. This entails looking at how outreach is conditioned by a state’s sovereignty and capacity, type of nationalism, and regime character. This special issue starts a new conversation by delving deeper into the motivations of agents within countries of origin, and how their outreach is determined by the states and regimes in which they are embedded.

scholarly journals Future imaginaries in the making and governing of digital technology: Multiple, contested, commodified

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-236
Author(s):  
Astrid Mager ◽  
Christian Katzenbach
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Sociotechnical Imaginaries ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Society ◽  
State Actors

Visions of the future are omnipresent in current debates about the digital transformation. This introductory article and the full special issue are concerned with the function, power, and performativity of future visions and how they relate to the making and governing of digital technology. Revisiting existing concepts, we particularly discuss and advance the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries. In difference to ephemeral visions and partisan ideas, imaginaries are collectively held and institutionally stabilized. Nonetheless, we hold that they are multiple, contested, and commodified rather than monolithic, linear visions of future trajectories enacted by state actors. Introducing and summarizing the articles of the special issue, we conclude that imaginaries are increasingly dominated by technology companies that not only take over the imaginative power of shaping future society, but also partly absorb public institutions’ ability to govern these very futures with their rhetoric, technologies, and business models.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Labor in the Global South—A Search for Solutions

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 293-301
Author(s):  
Abigail Cooke ◽  
Taekyoon Lim ◽  
Peter Norlander ◽  
Elena Shih ◽  
Chris Tilly
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Special Issue

Capitalism and the State in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esteban Torres ◽  
Carina Borrastero
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The State ◽  
American Sociology ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Relationship

This article analyzes how the research on the relation between capitalism and the state in Latin America has developed from the 1950s up to the present. It starts from the premise that knowledge of this relation in sociology and other social sciences in Latin America has been taking shape through the disputes that have opposed three intellectual standpoints: autonomist, denialist, and North-centric. It analyzes how these standpoints envision the relationship between economy and politics and how they conceptualize three regionally and globally growing trends: the concentration of power, social inequality, and environmental depletion. It concludes with a series of challenges aimed at restoring the theoretical and political potency of the autonomist program in Latin American sociology.

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