The Involvement of Business Elites in the Management of Homelessness: Towards a Privatization of Service Provision for Homeless People?

Although the influence of local urban elites on urban planning is well established in urban studies and geography, the ways in which business and property owners take part in the management of homelessness has received far less attention. This article focuses on Portland (OR) in the United States as a means of understanding the motivations that underlie the role of the private sector and its impact on public policies. To this end, I focus on the support by Portland's downtown Business Improvement District of homeless outreach programs, and on the funding of two homeless shelters by business elites / philanthropists. I argue that although public authorities have different views on the actions to be taken to end homelessness, business elites often manage to bring initially-reluctant public authorities to support their projects in what might be termed a forced-march cooperation. I also highlight the versatility of the private sector and business elites’ participation in homelessness management, given that the outreach programs they support and the homeless facilities they fund provide services for the homeless while simultaneously removing them from visible public space. In this sense, the involvement of business and property owners is also a way for them to protect their own interests.

Political Finance Assessment of Fiji

Fiji, being a transitional democracy with fragile institutional and regulatory mechanisms, is susceptible to the negative effects of money in politics. Yet for a very long time, regulations related to the funding of political parties, candidates and election campaigns, commonly known as political finance, were largely absent in the South Pacific country. Biased political appointments, corruption in the awards of public procurement tenders, cronyism and capture by business elites are some of the challenges that Fiji is vulnerable to, which thrive in an environment with insufficient institutional and legislative regulation of political finance. This report, which is the first of its kind, has undertaken a systematic study of the political finance regulatory framework in Fiji using an internationally developed, and tried and tested, analytical framework. The study is part of a larger International IDEA initiative to review political finance systems in selected countries in order to advance an evidence-based global policy debate on money in politics.

CHINESE ENGAGEMENT IN LATIN AMERICA AND EUROPE: INSIGHTS FOR ROMANIA

This paper examines Chinese commercial, political, and security engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean, comparing it with similar engagement in Europe. It findsevidence that PRC engagement globally is driven by a strategy focused on re-orienting the world to the economic benefit of the PRC, with nonetheless important political, institutional,and security engagement in support of these objectives and the consequences of their pursuit. It finds common elements in China’s pursuit of secure sources of supply, markets andtechnology across regions, its use of the PRC government supporting roles, with differences reflecting the governance and political structure of each partner, the economic opportunitiesavailable, and the imperatives of geography. It finds that PRC “soft power” over political and business elites in both regions is significant, based more in the expectation of benefit than analignment of values, and thus can coexist with mistrust of the PRC. It finds that Europe can not only gain insights from examining Chinese engagement in Latin America, but that engagementimpacts Europe directly through the roles of its companies as both competitors and partners of European ones in the region, and through intraregional supply chains and the flows of fundsthrough mergers and acquisitions by China of stakes in European companies.Keywords: PRC, China, Latin America, Belt and Road, BRI, Infrastructure, Security Engagement.

The Emergence of Mafia-like Business Systems in China

A large body of literature on state–business relations in China has examined the political role of capitalists and collusion between the state and the private sector. This paper contributes to that literature and understanding of the internal differentiation among China's business elites by documenting the emergence of a particular kind of large, non-state business group that we argue is more akin to a mafia system than any standard definition of a firm. Drawing on large-N descriptive data as well as deep ethnographic and documentary research, we argue that mafia-like business systems share organizational principles (plunder and obfuscation) and means of growth and survival (relations of mutual endangerment and manipulation of the financial system). Understanding the particular moral economy that underlies mafia-like business systems and their interactions with the state challenges methodological foundations of research on China's political economy and helps to explain recent conflict between high-profile business people and the state.

Sobre Mark Wasserman, Pesos and Politics. Business, Elites, Foreigner, and Government in Mexico, 1854-1940

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Settling and 'selling' Canada's West : the role of immigration

This major research paper explores the promotional immigration material created by the Department of Agriculture during Sir John A. Macdonald's time as Prime Minister and within the context of western migration. The paper begins by examining the historiography of Canadian western expansion and continues by exploring the idea of western development as espoused by the business elites in Upper and Lower Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald's National Policy, which focused on increased tariffs, the completion of a transnational railway, and immigration are explored as well. Many attribute the active promotion of Canada to Europeans overseas with Clifford Sifton and the Laurier government. Sifton is known for having envisioned an agricultural paradise in western Canada and the idea of attracting hardworking peasant farmers, yet the contents of the promotional materials produced by the Department of Agriculture contain the same themes.

Settling and 'selling' Canada's West : the role of immigration

This major research paper explores the promotional immigration material created by the Department of Agriculture during Sir John A. Macdonald's time as Prime Minister and within the context of western migration. The paper begins by examining the historiography of Canadian western expansion and continues by exploring the idea of western development as espoused by the business elites in Upper and Lower Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald's National Policy, which focused on increased tariffs, the completion of a transnational railway, and immigration are explored as well. Many attribute the active promotion of Canada to Europeans overseas with Clifford Sifton and the Laurier government. Sifton is known for having envisioned an agricultural paradise in western Canada and the idea of attracting hardworking peasant farmers, yet the contents of the promotional materials produced by the Department of Agriculture contain the same themes.

GOVERNMENT-OPPOSITION RELATIONS IN UKRAINE, 2010–2013

Summary. The research aims at defining the key methods Yanukovych’s regime applied to fight the opposition parties and their top leaders. The research methodology is based on historicism and objectivity principles, comprises general scientific (analysis, synthesis, comparison) as well as specified historic methods (those of diachrony, synchrony, historical genesis and retrospective). The article’s scientific novelty is determined by a system analysis of the methods Yanukovych’s retinue applied against his political opponents highlighting their role in building up the fourth President of Ukraine’s authoritarian rule. Conclusions. The specificity of Ukraine’s political and legislative climate under Yanukovych’s rule has been demonstrated. The patterns of the criminal proceedings against the opposition leaders have been defined and researched. The criminal prosecution against Yuliya Tymoshenko, the Preimer and the leader of Batkivshchyna party, following her government’s management audit, serves as a case of Ukraine’s political field’s prime cleanup. The key phases of the criminal prosecution against Yurii Lutsenko, the Orange Top leader, have been defined. The political repressions of more than twenty Tymoshenko’s supporters, the article suggests, serves as a background for preparing and implementing the tax overhaul project authored by V. Yanukovych and S. Tigipko. The fundamentals of this reform, as well as its reception by Ukrainian business elite, have been analyzed in brief to provide the necessary context, i.e., to demonstrate the roles the agents affiliated with the Regions Party had taken and the methods they applied to break the so-called Tax Maidan and to subsequently persecute its organizers and participants. Specific attention has been paid to the fight Yanukovych’s regime initiated against the radical right and nationalist movement, forging the criminal cases against the members of certain nationalist organizations and movements functioning in Zaporizhzhya and Kyiv regions, i.e., "Tryzub" ("The Trident"), "Ukraine’s Patriot", "Social National Assembly". Restraining the forces opposite to the Regions Party and the regime was done through bribing or granting governmental preferences to the business elites. The secret ledgers of the Regions Party serve as an important source for identifying the officials thus corrupted by the regime. To define the corruption scales and the key bribery initiators identities, a thorough analysis of these ledgers (known as "the spreadsheets") has been provided.