scholarly journals Paradigm change and power in the world food system—Synthesis paper

Author(s):  
Matthew Gaudreau

The articles by Friedmann, Koç and Wise draw out overarching issues in the world food system, offering complementary views of the relationship between the dominant model of the world food system and its myriad issues. This contribution uses the concept of transnational policy paradigms to illustrate the key tension between the status quo of food policy and emerging alternatives.

1978 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 655-677
Author(s):  
Robert L. Paarlberg

Too often world food problems are viewed as North-South problems, as matters to be resolved between rich and poor. In fact, most world food trade takes place entirely among the rich. The industrial nations of the European Community, Japan, and the USSR import more food today than all of the poor countries combined. These industrial food importing nations make a dubious contribution to the stability and security of the world food system. In different measure, they seek to shift adjustment burdens onto others, to enjoy something of a free ride. All have subsidized production for export in times of world surplus, and all have stepped ahead of poor countries to purchase high priced imports in times of scarcity. To these burden-shifting trade policies, the USSR in particular adds its own troublesome nonparticipation in most multilateral efforts at world food policy management. Prospects for improved burden sharing in the future are dim. Fortunately, the world food system still gains most of its stability and security from separate production decisions within nations, rather than from collective storage, trade, or aid decisions among nations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 671-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Thaler

This essay reconstructs the place of utopia in realist political theory, by examining the ways in which the literary genre of critical utopias can productively unsettle ongoing discussions about “how to do political theory.” I start by analyzing two prominent accounts of the relationship between realism and utopia: “real utopia” (Erik Olin Wright et al.) and “dystopic liberalism” (Judith Shklar et al.). Elaborating on Raymond Geuss’s recent reflections, the essay then claims that an engagement with literature can shift the focus of these accounts. Utopian fiction, I maintain, is useful for comprehending what is (thus enhancing our understanding of the world) and for contemplating what might be (thus nurturing the hope for a better future). Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed deploys this double function in an exemplary fashion: through her dynamic and open-ended portrayal of an Anarchist community, Le Guin succeeds in imagining a utopia that negates the status quo, without striving to construct a perfect society. The book’s radical, yet ambiguous, narrative hence reveals a strategy for locating utopia within realist political theory that moves beyond the positions dominating the current debate. Reading The Dispossessed ultimately demonstrates that realism without utopia is status quo–affirming, while utopia without realism is wishful thinking.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongmin Zhang ◽  
Yuting Zeng ◽  
Danqi Xie

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has ravaged the world, has led to a rethinking of the relationship between humans and nature and the clichés of the economic-centered model. Thus, the ecological economy has been reviewed, especially from an ethical worldview. This paper uses statistical methods to retrieve and categorize 3,646 wildlife crime cases for analysis and quantitative research. It adopts legal and ethical perspectives to analyze the subject and the subjective, incidence, and sentencing factors of wildlife crimes and uses the ecological economic ethical model to measure wildlife crimes. We argue that the existing judicial system fails to answer the difficulties of the economic ethics of wildlife crimes. It is recommended that ecological and economic ethical awareness be internalized. We suggest calling for comprehensive legislation on wildlife crimes from the perspective of ecological economic ethics to effectively prevent and reduce wildlife crime and eventually promote public health.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Scott Brown

The vogue for the philosophy of Henri Bergson, and the popularity of vitalist ideas more generally, periodically claims the attention of historians of early twentieth-century American thought and culture. There is little appreciation, however, for either the broad epistemic significance of these ideas or for their profound ethical and political implications. This essay explores the activity of Bergsonian vitalism, particularly as applied by Bergson's radical compatriot, Georges Sorel, within the fractious conversation that attended the emergence of revolutionary syndicalism as a significant force in the pre-war 1910s. Understanding the ways in which this seemingly unprecedented menace to the status quo was understood facilitates a rethinking of the relationship between ideas and experience in the rise of the Industrial Workers of the World, and illuminates the attraction of radically empiricist approaches to interpreting social phenomena in the Progressive Era. Here, as elsewhere, Bergsonism challenged dominant materialistic and mechanistic explanations in the name of “life,” a seductive alternative for those alienated by, or suffering under, the juggernaut of urban-industrial modernization.


Author(s):  
Neil E. Williams

Systematic metaphysics is defined by its task of solving metaphysical problems through the repeated application of a single, fundamental ontology. The dominant contemporary metaphysic is that of neo-Humeanism, built on a static ontology typified by its rejection of basic causal and modal features. This book offers and develops a radically distinct metaphysic, one that turns the status quo on its head. Starting with a foundational ontology of inherently causal properties known as ‘powers’, a metaphysic is developed that appeals to powers in explanations of causation, persistence, laws, and modality. Powers are properties that have their causal natures internal to them: they are responsible for the effects in the world. A unique account of powers is developed that understands this internal nature in terms of a blueprint of potential interaction types. After the presentation of the powers ontology, it is put to work in offering solutions to broad metaphysical puzzles, some of which take on different forms in light of the new tools that are available. The defence of the ontology comes from the virtues of metaphysic it can be used to develop. Particular attention is paid to the problems of causation and persistence, simultaneously solving them as it casts them in a new light. The resultant powers metaphysic is offered as a systematic alternative to neo-Humeanism.


Author(s):  
Rachel J. Crellin ◽  
Oliver J.T. Harris

In this paper we argue that to understand the difference Posthumanism makes to the relationship between archaeology, agency and ontology, several misconceptions need to be corrected. First, we emphasize that Posthumanism is multiple, with different elements, meaning any critique needs to be carefully targeted. The approach we advocate is a specifically Deleuzian and explicitly feminist approach to Posthumanism. Second, we examine the status of agency within Posthumanism and suggest that we may be better off thinking about affect. Third, we explore how the approach we advocate treats difference in new ways, not as a question of lack, or as difference ‘from’, but rather as a productive force in the world. Finally, we explore how Posthumanism allows us to re-position the role of the human in archaeology,


2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.


2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
Slobodan Ivanović

Very often, there are more imitators than innovators in the hotel industry. There are very few hotel enterprises engaged in continually innovating their services. Creative imitators help to diffuse innovations and to meet the needs of certain segments o f the tourist market. They realise the improvement possibilities of the tourism product or service, which requires innovation. Changes to certain features o f the product or service can help to increase their value for both domestic and foreign tourists. Hence, it is maintained that creative imitation is sooner to take hold on the tourist market than on the tourism product or service. The globalisation process of the world economy, as well as the hotel industries, has imposed a certain way of thinking referred to in journalism as "change as a constant necessity" or putting it harshly "innovate or disappear from the business scene”. Anything that is different represents change. Innovation means accepting ideas for services which are new to hotel enterprise. Because innovations disturb the status quo of the hotel enterprise, they are met with resistance by some members of the organisation. Strategic thinking is what every hotel enterprise needs to prevent it being caught off guard by the affects of changes in its micro and macro environment. Namely, troubles begin for the hotel enterprise when it fails to adapt in an adequate and acceptable way to the changes occuring within the hotel industry. Adverse changes in the environment and the inability of the hotel enterprise to respond to these changes are the cause of incongruity between the hotel’s potential (accommodation and other facilities) and the demands of the hotel industry i.e. the tourist markets on which it is present.


2017 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 133-148
Author(s):  
Jolanta Jabłońska-Bonca

“THE EFFECT OF AUREOLE” AND “EFFECT OF PARTICIPATION” IN THE LIGHT OF INDEPENDENCE OF LAWYERS-SCIENTISTSThe purpose of the text is to signal the need to investigate the conditions for the preserva­tion of the independence of lawyers who practice and simultaneously engage in science. Research independence is understood in the text as loyalty to the principles of methodology and ethics of research. There have been, and will be, lawyers-scientists who are creative, well-skilled to do re­search, and also autonomous, capable of criticizing the status quo, striving for truth no matter what the consequences. In the 21st century, being in such aposition is getting harder and harder. This is due to the fact that many lawyers-scientists concurrently perform important social and occupational roles besides scientific research. The article focuses on two examples of conditions that hinder the preservation of independence and entice lawyers-scientists into the world of politics and ideology. It is: a the activity of lawyers-scientists in the mass media and the consequences of the so-called “aureole effect”, as well as b the “dual occupancy” and the meaning of “participation effect”.


2006 ◽  
pp. 131-149
Author(s):  
Milan Balazic

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the process of globalization has been understood as a necessary fate. The myth of the almightiness of the market economy, liberalization and deregulation is revitalized. Before us, there is a phenomenon Lacan?s discourse of University, which in 20 century was firstly given as a Stalinist discourse and today is given as a neo-liberal discourse of globalization. From underneath og a seeming objectivity, a Master insists-either the Party and the Capital. Just as the utopia of the world proletarian revolution has fallen apart, the utopia of globalize capitalism and liberal democracy is also falling apart. The 9/11 event is opening opportunities for a construction of the field of social and political, out of the contour of the status quo. The coordinates of the possibility has changed and if we take the non-existence of the grand Autre on ourselves, then the contingence interference in the existent socio-symbolic order is possible.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document