scholarly journals The political economy of staying outside the Eurozone: Poland and Sweden compared

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Sławomir Czech
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Currencies ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Starting Conditions ◽  
The Common ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Short Time

This paper deals with the issue of political constraints put on economic policies that derive from the distribution of power in democratic societies. Poland and Sweden are both euro-outsiders that are obliged to adopt the euro, but recent developments within the Eurozone and related to the 2008+ crisis engendered widespread reluctance among the public to give up national currencies. Within a short time, the general support for the euro turned strongly negative, making it a grave challenge for politicians to pursue the adoption of the common currency. On this background, we reflect on the alleged correspondence between these two countries that would allow to follow similar policies toward euro introduction. We point to the idiosyncrasy of the Swedish case that makes it virtually impossible to emulate its policies by a country like Poland with very different long-term goals and starting conditions. By doing so, we highlight the context of policymaking that seems crucial to a successful art of political economy.

Theory and Method and the Stakes of a Fragmented Discipline: Or, What Economics Taught Me About the Study of Religion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Academic Study

Abstract As a discipline, the academic study of religion is strikingly fragmented, with little engagement or shared criteria of excellence across subfields. Although important recent developments have expanded the traditions and peoples studied as well as the methods used, the current extent of fragmentation limits the impact of this diversification and pluralization. At a moment when the global pandemic is catalyzing profound pressures on our universities and disciplines, this fragmentation makes it difficult to articulate to the public, to non-religious studies colleagues, and to students why the study of religion matters. We therefore too often fall back on platitudes. I argue for a revitalized methods and theories conversation that connects us even as it bears our arguments and disagreements about what we do and how. Courses in methods and theories in the study of religion represent the most viable basis we have for bringing the academic study of religion into the common conversation or argument that constitutes a discipline without sacrificing our pluralism.

scholarly journals Continental shifts: capitalism, communications and change in Europe

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 11-23
Author(s):  
Graham Murdock
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Classic Approach ◽  
Media Markets ◽  
The Media ◽  
Distribution Of Power

This article puts forward the fundamental lines of thought on the Political Economy of Communications and the Media, since the development of capitalism up to the present day. Clarifying the distinction between Economy and Political Economy, this work examines the central split between two traditions within Political Economy: the Classic approach which is centred on markets and competition mechanisms and the Critical approach which is centred on the analysis of property and the distribution of power in society. Despite internal distinct traditions, for political economists’ questions about cultural production and consumption are never simply matters of economic organisation or creative expression and the relations between them. They are always also questions about the organisation of power and its consequences for the constitution of public life. Based on different Political Economy perspectives, this article attempts to present the most recent developments on communications and media markets in Europe and the major challenges and opportunities the discipline faces in a time marked by the emergence of a digital public sphere.

scholarly journals Political Economy of the Syrian War: Patterns and Causes

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marwan Kabalan
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
To Come ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The One ◽  
Syrian Conflict ◽  
Political Economic

Amongst all the Arab countries that have witnessed social unrest over the past decade, Syria has emerged as a unique case. What started as a peaceful social effort to bring about overdue political reform turned into a bloody conflict. The 10 year-old civil war has largely devastated the Syrian economy and is likely to have lingering consequences on the country’s development for many years to come. This article deals with the political economy of the Syrian conflict. It argues that economic liberalization, poor public policies, and persistent drought in the years preceding the crisis, upset the social equilibrium and led to unrest. The very social class that used to support the once “socialist” regime in Damascus in the period 1963–2010 felt abandoned and betrayed by its economic policies. Indeed, the transition from a state-controlled economy into a free market economy, under Bashar al-Assad, may have served Syria in many ways, but it also created many problems. The ongoing conflict can be seen as a conflict about the distribution of power and wealth and, if Syria survives it as a united country, it will likely have a political, economic, and social equilibrium drastically different from the one it had.

Determination of native (wood derived) formaldehyde by the desiccator method in particleboards generated during panel production

Holzforschung ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Birkeland ◽  
Linda Lorenz ◽  
James M. Wescott ◽  
Charles R. Frihart
Keyword(s):  
Hot Pressing ◽  
Urea Formaldehyde ◽  
Chromotropic Acid ◽  
Monitoring Methods ◽  
Emission Testing ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
The Common ◽  
Short Time

Abstract Hot-pressing wood, particularly in the production of wood composites, generates significant “native” (wood-based) formaldehyde (FA), even in the absence of adhesive. The level of native FA relates directly to the time and temperature of hot-pressing. This native FA dissipates in a relatively short time and is not part of the long-term FA emission issue commonly associated with hydrolyzing urea-formaldehyde bonds. This paper demonstrates that the common desiccator/chromotropic acid method is very specific for FA and is not influenced by other volatile compounds set free from wood during hot-pressing. Furthermore, it is shown that particleboard produces native FA at high levels even in the absence of adhesives or in the presence of one type of no-added formaldehyde (NAF) adhesive. Soy-based adhesives suppress native FA emission and provide low FA emission levels in both the short and long term. This study highlights an often overlooked aspect that should be considered for emission testing: standardizing the time and conditions employed immediately after pressing and prior to the onset of emissions testing. Addressing this issue in more detail would improve the reliability of correlation between data obtained by rapid process monitoring methods and emission measurements in large chambers.

Towards nanomedicines: design protocols to assemble, visualize and test carbon nanotube probes for multi-modality biomedical imaging

2010 ◽  
Vol 368 (1924) ◽  
pp. 3683-3712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia I. Pascu ◽  
Rory L. Arrowsmith ◽  
Simon R. Bayly ◽  
Simon Brayshaw ◽  
Zhiyuan Hu
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Teams ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Therapeutic Drugs ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Synthetic Scaffolds ◽  
Potential Risks ◽  
Sites Of Action

Nanomedicine is an interdisciplinary field, still in its infancy, where an accurate scientific assessment of potential risks and benefits is urgently needed, as is the engagement of end users and the public in this facet of the nanotechnology debate. There is increasing interest in improving our understanding of the interactions between nanomaterials and living systems, with regard to both the underlying chemistry and the physics of effects on the nanoscale. Ultimately, such knowledge promises new vistas for designing the ‘smart’ medicines of the future, of which targeted personalized drugs are the holy grail. Imaging and therapeutic components, including metallic radioisotopes, semiconductor quantum dots and magnetic materials, may be used to construct ‘nanocarriers’ (by encapsulation or conjugation) by rapid and simple (covalent and supramolecular) chemistry. The biomedical functions of the resulting materials are as yet largely unexplored. Encapsulation in nanocarriers could achieve delivery of the reagents (imaging and therapeutic drugs) to the sites of action in the body, while minimizing systemic toxicity and enzymatic degradation. These functional systems have the potential to become a general solution in drug delivery. Here we review recent developments concerning the applications of nanoparticles, including carbon nanotubes, as synthetic scaffolds for designing nanomedicines. This article will also focus on how understanding and design at the molecular level could help interdisciplinary teams develop research towards new diagnostics and therapeutics both in the short and the long term.

scholarly journals Contracting for Tax Room: The Law and Political Economy of Tax-Point Transfers

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 903-945
Author(s):  
Rory Gillis
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Fiscal Federalism ◽  
Optimal Allocation ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

Tax-point transfers are potentially a foundational tool for changing the allocation of tax room between governments, but they have fallen into disuse in Canadian fiscal federalism. This article argues that the infrequent use of tax-point transfers can be explained, in part, by impediments to the enforcement of intergovernmental contracts. The problem is twofold: (1) tax-point transfers typically consist of long-term non-sequential transactions, in which governments perform their obligations at substantially different points in time; and (2) the common mechanisms for assuring performance in long-term non-sequential transactions are either unavailable or of only modest force in tax-point transfer agreements. The primary implication is that these contractual impediments may discourage governments from using tax-point transfers to achieve an optimal allocation of tax room.

Political Economy of Turkey since the End of World War II

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Şevket Pamuk
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Political System ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Actors

This chapter examines the interaction between economic growth, the leading social actors, the state, and the global economic system in Turkey. The country’s long-term record in economic growth and human development has been close to world averages and a little above developing country averages. Turkey has experienced serious difficulties in establishing a pluralistic, open, and stable political system since 1950. While class cleavages have always mattered, equally important have been identity cleavages at both the societal and elite levels, most importantly between secularists and Islamists and between Turkish and Kurdish nationalists. These cleavages had negative consequences for state capacity and its ability to implement rules-based economic policies. The recurring tensions between the competing elites, the mixed outcomes associated with state interventionism, and the periods of political instability have made it difficult to attain a stronger record of economic development.

scholarly journals Side Effects Reported by Jordanian Healthcare Workers Who Received COVID-19 Vaccines

Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 577
Author(s):  
Osama Abu-Hammad ◽  
Hamza Alduraidi ◽  
Shaden Abu-Hammad ◽  
Ahmed Alnazzawi ◽  
Hamzah Babkair ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
The Public ◽  
Systemic Side Effects ◽  
The Common ◽  
Larger Sample ◽  
Local Side

Background Distribution of COVID-19 vaccines has been surrounded by suspicions and rumors making it necessary to provide the public with accurate reports from trustworthy experts such as healthcare professionals. Methods We distributed a questionnaire in Jordan among physicians, dentists and nurses who received a COVID-19 vaccine to explore the side effects (SE) they encountered after the first or the second dose of one of three vaccines namely: AstraZeneca Vaxzevria (AZ), Pfizer-BioNTeck (PB), and SinoPharm (SP) vaccines. Results A total of 409 professionals participated. Approximately 18% and 31% of participants reported no SE after the first dose and second dose, respectively. The remainder had mostly local side effects related to injection site (74%). Systemic side effects in the form of fatigue (52%), myalgia (44%), headache (42%), and fever (35%) prevailed mainly after the first dose. These were significantly associated with AZ vaccine, and age ≤ 45 years (p = 0.000 and 0.01, respectively). No serious SE were reported. Conclusions We can conclude that SE of COVID-19 vaccines distributed in Jordan are within the common range known so far for these vaccines. Further studies are needed to include larger sample size and longer follow-up period to monitor possible serious and long-term SE of the vaccines.

scholarly journals Critical political economy of the public infrastructure crisis in Lebanon

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 70-74
Author(s):  
Karim Eid-Sabbagh ◽  
Ulrich Ufer
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Infrastructure ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Donor Funding ◽  
The Public ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Structural Problems ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
International Donor

In this interview, Karim Eid-Sabbagh and Ulrich Ufer discuss how the case of the public infrastructure crisis in Lebanon highlights the importance of including analytical dimensions of critical political economy and global financial dynamics in technology assessment alongside a technology-society-governance perspective – in particular when focusing on the Global South. The Lebanese crisis has built up through long-term structural problems that include the legacies of colonialism, the country’s peripheral position in global capital relations, elite nepotism, sectarian strife, and the state’s dependency on international donor funding to build and maintain public infrastructure. These have coincided with short-term disintegration and disaster events over the past two years: mass migration, countrywide anti-government protests in fall 2019, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, the destruction of large parts of the country’s capital by the devastating explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020, and the spiraling devaluation of the Lebanese currency.

Was Sismondi a “Smithian” Critic of Industrialization?

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-366
Author(s):  
Nicolas Eyguesier
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
British School ◽  
The Common ◽  
Made In

The article recasts the economic writings of Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi, and his critique of industrialization in particular, in light of Sismondi’s self-proclaimed indebtedness to Adam Smith. Sismondi’s economic thought was shaped by his opposition to Napoleon’s protectionist economic policies and took the form of a critique of monopolies made in the name of the common good. After Waterloo and the collapse of the empire, Sismondi developed a critique of the British school of political economy and its corresponding model of economic development through the generalization of wage labor, mechanization, and large-scale farming. In his last years, during the early 1830s, Sismondi took aim at “industrialism” itself, a term which for him grouped together all those contemporary economic theories asserting that society should be organized by and for production exclusively. However, throughout his career as an economist, in developing these opinions Sismondi claimed to be faithful to Adam Smith’s understanding of what political economy should be. This article seeks to demonstrate that Sismondi’s theoretical production was deeply rooted in his evolving “neo-Smithianism.”

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