Capitalist crisis and uneven development applied in Southern Africa

Some of the most decisive moments in the neoliberal era were implanted first as major changes to the United States and world financial system during the early 1980s. As an inside observer at the Federal Reserve briefly during the time, learning a bourgeois mode of economic theory and description—especially applied to the global recession, financial failures, and worsening inequality of that era—was unsatisfying. The ideological and applied power configuration was shifting from Keynesianism to Monetarism and with it came irresponsible banking deregulation. Seeing this from the Fed, and beginning to grasp the formidable implications for low-income people of the Global South—from redlined West Philadelphia to debt-riddled Southern Africa—meant that instead of social-democratic nostalgia, I sought an antidote in Marxist theory and anti-apartheid solidarity activism. With the help of Johns Hopkins University geographers, the financial frothiness that was washing over sites I was learning about in detail, suddenly became explicable in terms of underlying capitalist crisis tendencies. As I saw how they applied to uneven development, race, gender, ecological, and other super-exploitative relations in Zimbabwe and South Africa, especially using Rosa Luxemburg’s capitalist/non-capitalist framing in her theory of imperialism, not only analysis but praxis became all the more urgent. Those overaccumulation tendencies, their spatial and temporal displacement, and accumulation by dispossession have been central categories for analysis and strategy ever since.

Power Configuration Scheme for Battery Energy Storage Systems Considering the Renewable Energy Penetration Level

With the increase of the renewable energy penetration (REP) level in the interconnected power grid, the proportion of the grid-connected conventional synchronous generators reduces continuously, resulting in the decrease of the system inertia. The insufficient system inertia brings challenges to the system frequency stability. Battery energy storage systems (BESSs), regarded as the high-quality frequency regulation resource, play an important role in maintaining the frequency stability of the system with the high REP level. To configure the proper power of BESSs in system frequency regulation, a BESS power configuration scheme (PCS) considering the REP constraint is proposed in this paper. In particular, the process to obtain the REP boundary of the interconnected grid on the premise of system frequency stability is included in the PCS, and the optimal power configuration of the BESS is further determined on the analysis of the BESS impact on the REP boundary. Furthermore, a simulation model of the Australian five-area interconnected power grid is built in MATLAB/Simulink, and the proposed REP-constrained PCS is verified and analyzed. At last, the promising results show that the PCS can take full advantages of the BESS in frequency regulation and meet the system requirement of the frequency stability at a particular REP level.

Gender and Trade Unionism Advancing Female Participation and Representation in the Nigerian Context

Trade unionism is a major part of modern workplaces. It forms the basis for peaceful relations and consensus building to attain mutual goals. At the heart of trade unionism is social justice and equality, which affirms the rights of all employees regardless of gender to enjoy freedom of association and accessibility, etc. Socio-cultural exigencies have made women to face tough challenges and discriminatory treatment at work, resulting in fewer rights and liberties and leading to economic and psychological stress. The World Bank noted that the starting point is the recognition that women are disadvantaged in most indicators at work—earnings, quality of employment, participation. Trade unions are central to protecting the interests of workers, and building strong unions can foster the elimination of discrimination at work. This chapter shall proffer actionable strategies and issue-based outlines that would advance the cause of gender equality, address the lopsided power configuration between the genders at work, and engender women's participation.

Recognition Under Plurality Rule and the Paradox of Recognition in Burundi

This chapter examines the adoption and effects on peace of non-recognition under minority Tutsi rule and then recognition under plurality Hutu rule in Burundi. It reviews pre-civil-war history up to 1993, arguing that non-recognition arose from a “dilemma of recognition,” given Tutsi leaders’ concerns over mobilization effects. It discusses how the ethnic power configuration changed via the political ascendance of the Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces pour la défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD) during the civil war and through to the 2005 constitution. This shift toward majority ethnic rule accompanied a transition toward recognition, consistent with the book’s theory. On the question of effects, introducing quotas for Hutus and Tutsis in government, military, and other institutions reduced the political salience of ethnicity, a phenomenon the chapter calls the “paradox of recognition.” This paradox challenges conflict management theories proposing that recognition entrenches the political salience of ethnic identity.