Introduction

This introductory chapter offers an overview of the book. It identifies the growing size and importance of overseas state investors and how they challenge current political economy analyses of the state. The phenomenon is well illustrated by Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs): state-owned investment bodies, often from Asia and the Middle East, that have bought shares in major firms in strategic sectors ranging from finance to communications and transport, as well as landmark buildings. The chapter presents the puzzle of the widespread acceptance of SWF investments: national responses to SWF purchases might have been expected to be hostile, especially as they represent entry into Western stock markets by non-Western overseas states. Yet many Western governments have accepted and often actively encouraged SWF investments, seeing them as an additional means to govern their domestic economies and pursue their political strategies. The chapter then situates this puzzle in the wider political economy literature on the role and power of the state in an increasingly internationalized economy. It argues that recent political economy works focus on the internationalization of private capital, ignoring the capacity of the state itself to become a cross-border economic actor. It summarizes the book’s findings that several Western governments have engaged in internationalized statism, underlining that the patterns of policy differ sharply from those that might be expected given popular and academic views of economic openness.

Is a Strategic Partnership Between Turkey and Russia Feasible at the Expense of Turkey’s Relations with the EU and NATO?

The article mainly contends that since the real and expected benefits from the European Union (EU) and NATO were not delivered sufficiently from Turkey’s perspective, Turkey looked for alternatives and collaborated with Russia more intensely in recent years. Turkey’s cooperation with Russia was also facilitated by several global, political, economic, conjectural, security-related, and individual-level factors. Another argument of the study is that despite Turkey’s intensive collaboration with Russia, it is not feasible for Turkey to build a strategic partnership with it in the short- and medium-term at the expense of its relations with NATO and the EU. The main reasons for this are, in addition to the institutional and social shortcomings, geostrategic divergences, Russia’s inadequacy as an economic actor, the pitfalls of an asymmetric relationship with Russia, the security risks posed by Russia, NATO’s continuing importance for Turkey’s security needs, and the incompatibility of Russia’s and Turkey’s political systems.

Culture et Modèle de l’acteur Socio-économique : Cas du Congo

Cet article montre que la situation d’existence d’un acteur détermine l’interaction. Pour le démontrer, on caractérise cette situation par une culture qui impacte l’acteur socio-économique à travers la personnalité de base ou l’organisation de l’interaction. La personnalité de base ou l’organisation incarne les attitudes et comportements communément reconnus ou partagés. La culture et la personnalité de base sont des dispositions régulières du capital humain mobilisées dans la décision et l’action à travers une organisation. Dans le cas du Congo, la culture est appréhendée à travers des hypothèses résultant d’un constat, d’un vécu ou d’une perception régulière des congolais ou de l’environnement social du Congo. De ces hypothèses, on anticipe les attitudes et comportements attendus des acteurs à partir de la norme sociale. Les hypothèses ont été testées et confirmées dans une enquête. Elles sont aussi confirmées par d’autres analyses et données sur le Congo. Les résultats montrent que la culture mise en évidence est irrationnelle -au sens de l’économie ou de la gestion- et favorable au sous-développement. L’irrationalité se traduit surtout par la déviance, l’opacité, l’absence de liberté ou d’État de droit, le mysticisme et les traditions. Cette irrationalité s’accompagne d’une culture du sous-développement caractérisée par la pauvreté, la dépendance à l’étranger et la prépondérance des activités informelles. Il en découle une personnalité sociale inadaptée face aux défis du développement et de l’intégration dans l’économie mondiale. This article shows that the existence situation of an actor determines the interaction. To demonstrate this, we characterize this situation by a culture that impacts the socio-economic actor through the basic personality or the organization of the interaction. The basic personality or organization embodies commonly recognized or shared attitudes and behaviors. Basic culture and personality are regular dispositions of human capital mobilized in decision and action through an organization. In the case of Congo, culture is understood through hypotheses resulting from an observation, experience, or regular perception of the Congolese or of the social environment of the Congo. From these assumptions, the expected attitudes and behaviors of the actors based on the social norm was anticipated. The hypotheses were tested and confirmed in a survey. They are also confirmed by other data analysis on Congo. The results show that the highlighted culture is irrational - in the sense of economics or management - and favorable to underdevelopment. Irrationality manifests itself above all in deviance, opacity, lack of freedom or the rule of law, mysticism, and traditions. This irrationality is accompanied by a culture of underdevelopment characterized by poverty, dependence on foreign countries, and the preponderance of informal activities. The result also shows a social personality unsuited to the challenges of development and integration into the world economy.

How the European Central Bank and Other Independent Agencies Reveal a Gap in Constitutionalism: A Spectrum of Institutions for Commitment

Today’s central banks wield extraordinary powers, both monetary and regulatory, and with a capacity to substitute for elected governments tempted to pass the buck. Debates about central banking’s powers and legitimacy barely touch, however, on whether and how monetary independence fits with the values that drive constitutionalism. It turns out that, for modern economies using fiat money, independence is a corollary of the higher level separation of (fiscal) powers between the legislative and executive branches. Even though independence is necessary, it needs to be carefully constrained by a “money-credit constitution.” Those general arguments, applicable in liberal democracies, do not carry across cleanly to the euro area. A principled case can be made for the ECB’s mandate being specially tight, but that is in tension with its de facto role as the emergency economic actor for the euro area. Facing up to that will be necessary sooner or later.

Tackling Undeclared Self-Employment in South-East Europe: from Deterrents to Preventative Policy Measures

This paper evaluates two contrasting policy approaches for tackling those working on an own-account basis who do not declare all their paid activities to the authorities for tax, social security and/or labour law purposes. The conventional deterrence approach, based on a rational economic actor view, has sought to raise the costs of engaging in undeclared work by increasing the expected sanctions and risk of detection. Recently, an alternative preventative approach has emerged viewing participants more as social actors operating in the undeclared economy when there is a lack of vertical trust (in government) and horizontal trust (in others to operate legitimately).Consequently, this seeks to improve vertical and horizontal trust in order to elicit voluntary compliance. To evaluate the effectiveness of these contrasting policy approaches in tackling undeclared self-employment, evidence is reported from a 2019 Eurobarometer survey in seven South-East European countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia). This reveals that the likelihood of participation in undeclared selfemployment is not significantly associated with the deterrent measures of increasing the perceived sanctions and risk of detection but is significantly associated with the preventative measures of improving vertical and horizontal trust. The implications for theorising and tackling undeclared self-employment are discussed.

Explaining different types of undeclared work: lessons from a 2019 Eurobarometer survey

PurposeUntil now, most scholars have used one of four competing theories to explain undeclared work. Political economy theories explain undeclared work as resulting from the exclusion of workers from formal work and welfare, neo-liberal theories explain such work as a voluntarily chosen rational economic decision and neo-institutionalist and post-structuralist theories explain those engaging as social actors who disagree with the formal rules or seek to help others out respectively. Recognising that each theory focuses upon different employment relationships, this paper evaluates the proposition that these different theories are more explanations of different types of undeclared work.Design/methodology/approachTo evaluate this, data reported is collected in 2019 across 28 European countries (the 27 member states of the European Union and the United Kingdom) in special Eurobarometer survey 92.1 involving 27,565 interviews.FindingsOf the 3.6% of citizens participating in undeclared work, 10% engage in undeclared waged employment, 42% in undeclared self-employment and 48% in undeclared paid favours. Reporting their rationales, 7% state purely political economy exclusion-driven reasons, 19% solely neo-liberal rational economic actor reasons, 20% purely social actor reasons and 54% mixed motives. A logistic regression analysis finds those engaging in undeclared waged employment significantly more likely to state purely exclusion-driven rationales, those engaging in undeclared self-employment significantly more likely to state neo-liberal rational economic actor and neo-institutionalist social actor rationales and those engaging in undeclared paid favours post-structuralist social actor motives.Practical implicationsThis finding suggests that the policy initiatives required to tackle undeclared work will vary according to the type of undeclared work addressed. These are outlined.Originality/valueEvidence is provided that a different weighting needs to be given to different theories when explaining each type of undeclared work.

Internationalization, Whiteness, and Biopolitics of Higher Education

From a postcolonial perspective, U.S. higher education is entangled with the colonial past and the neoliberal neo-colonial present as an economic actor that dominates global educational markets through internationalization. The COVID pandemic and the nationwide movement for racial justice have brought these entanglements into stark relief in the ways U.S. colleges and universities are implicated in the neoliberal biopolitics of race. Applied to higher education, Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics as the management of life and wellbeing of populations and his conceptualization of racism as a biopolitical tool illuminate how U.S. colleges and universities maintain racialized categorizations of lives worth protecting and lives considered disposable in the service of dominant whiteness. De-centering whiteness and eliminating its advantage and superiority in research, curricula, instruction, and internationalization is a necessary step toward a future that envisions a more inclusive and equal citizenship.

The Time of Contingency in International Law

The normative affirmation that international law could have been otherwise upholds material commitments to an actually-existing distribution of goods, which international law supports. To make this clear, this chapter begins by sketching a larger context by which the contingency of international law can be made legible. The larger context here pertains to a Western humanist tradition, following which international law relies on contingency to sustain a humanist fantasy of a temporal economic actor. The humanist fantasy includes an emancipatory pretension to political pre-eminence that is inscribed in its temporality, but at odds with its material, economic underpinnings. The pretension to pre-eminence corresponds historically with an ascendant normative regime that has succeeded as an economic programme but continuously failed as an emancipatory one. The frustrated emancipatory project is a complementary counterpart to the successful economic one. The former persists not despite but on the basis of failure and contradiction: in the face of historical failure, international law always already contains within itself the normative solution; its past failures are proof of future successes, a source of assurance and self-affirmation. When political ideals fail, specific temporal logics entangled with international law enable an affirmation of the subject who maintains those failed ideals, for no other reason than persisting as the same idealistic subject in the same material system that produced the failure. As a result, international legal practice redirects energy for social objectives into subjective self-affirmation, leaving other forces at work for political purposes.

EXPANSÃO DO CAPITAL E AÇÕES DOS ESTADOS NACIONAIS NA GRAN AMAZONÍA (2000-2019): impactos e impasses

CAPITAL EXPANSION AND ACTIONS BY NATIONAL STATES IN THE GRAND AMAZONIA (2000-2019): impacts and impassesEXPANSIÓN DE CAPITAL Y ACCIONES DE LOS ESTADOS NACIONALES EN LA GRAN AMAZONÍA (2000-2019): impactos e impassesRESUMOA emergência da China como ator econômico global no limiar do século XXI impactou diretamente na consolidação e ampliação de novos e velhos centros de extração e produção agromineral em grande parte da América Latina. Objetiva-se, neste artigo, discutir sobre relevantes impactos dos investimentos chineses na Gran Amazonía no período 2000-2019 e mostrar como os Estados nacionais sul-americanos contribuíram para incrementar as frentes de expansão neste imenso espaço subcontinental. Como metodologia, apresenta-se o levantamento mais recente sobre as principais frentes de expansão do capital nos países da Gran Amazonía, com base em dados de pesquisa de campo, consultas a instituições governamentais, não governamentais, empresariais e outras organizações civis, além de bibliografia atualizada. Conclui-se que a expansão do capital chinês sobre toda a Gran Amazonía foi produto de uma relação consensual com os Estados Nacionais, gerando oportunidades econômicas, porém, com importantes implicações socioambientais.Palavras-chave: Expansão do Capital (China); Gran Amazonía; Ação dos Países Sul-americanos.ABSTRACTThe emergence of China as a global economic actor on the threshold of the 21st century had a direct impact on the consolidation and expansion of new and old centers of extraction and agromineral production in much of Latin America. The aim of this article is to discuss the relevant impacts of Chinese investments in Gran Amazonía in the period 2000-2019 and to show how the South American national states contributed to the expansion fronts in this immense subcontinental space. As a methodology, the most recent survey on the main fronts of capital expansion in the countries of Gran Amazonía is presented, based on data from field research, consultations with governmental, non-governmental, business and other civil organizations, in addition to updated bibliography. It is concluded that the expansion of Chinese capital over the whole of Gran Amazonía was the product of a consensual relationship with the National States, generating economic opportunities, however, with important socio-environmental implications.Keywords: Capital Expansion (China); Gran Amazonía; Action by South American Countries.RESUMENEl surgimiento de China como actor económico global en el umbral del siglo XXI tuvo un impacto directo en la consolidación y expansión de nuevos y viejos centros de extracción y producción agromineral en gran parte de América Latina. El objetivo de este artículo es discutir los impactos relevantes de las inversiones chinas en la Gran Amazonía en el período 2000-2019 y mostrar cómo los estados nacionales sudamericanos contribuyeron a los frentes de expansión en este inmenso espacio subcontinental. Como metodología se presenta la encuesta más reciente sobre los principales frentes de expansión de capital en los países de la Gran Amazonía, con base en datos de investigaciones de campo, consultas con organizaciones gubernamentales, no gubernamentales, empresariales y otras organizaciones civiles, además de bibliografía actualizada. Se concluye que la expansión del capital chino por toda la Gran Amazonía fue producto de una relación consensuada con los Estados Nacionales, generando oportunidades económicas, sin embargo, con importantes implicaciones socioambientales.Palabras clave: Expansión de Capital (China); Gran Amazonía; Acción de Países Sudamericanos.

RENT SEEKING DAN PRAKTIK KORUPSI DI TUBUH BUMD: KASUS BUMD PT BANTEN GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT (BGD)

Artikel ini membahas tentang praktik rent seeking di tubuh Badan Usaha Milik Daerah (BUMD) spesifik pada PT Banten Global Development (BGD) sebagai perusahaan milik Pemerintah Provinsi Banten. Alih-alih memberi kontribusi terhadap Pendapatan Asli Daerah (PAD) dan pembangunan di Banten, PT BGD justru hanya menjadi alat perburuan rente antara state actor dan economic actor dengan memanfaatkan sumber daya keuangan yang dimiliki pemerintah untuk kepentingan ekonomi politik segelintir elit. Artikel ini berusaha memetakan pola rent seeking yang bekerja dibalik pengelolaan perusahaan PT BGD. Metode kualitatif dipilih dalam penelitian ini, adapun pengumpulan data dilakukan melalui studi literatur terhadap berbagai bahan bacaan yang relevan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pembentukan PT BGD menciptakan korupsi pada perusahaan pemerintah melalui praktik rent seeking. Pola rent seeking yang terbentuk adalah “rent seizing” yaitu state actors berusaha mendapatkan hak mengalokasikan rente yang dihasilkan dari institusi pemerintah untuk kepentingan individu dan kelompoknya. Di sisi lain, pihak perusahaan (economic actor) memperoleh keuntungan dari kebijakan yang dibuat oleh elit politik dengan cara menyuap dan cara-cara lain yang melanggar konstitusi. Pihak perusahaan yang dimaksud tidak merujuk pada perusahaan swasta melainkan perusahaan milik pemerintah yaitu BUMD PT BGD.