bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
World-Economy Centrality and Carbon Dioxide Emissions: A New Look at the Position in the Capitalist World-System and Environmental Pollution
Authors: Prew Paul
Published: September 2015

With the ever-growing concern of climate change, much attention has been paid to the factors driving carbon dioxide emissions. Previous research in the World-Systems perspective has identified a relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and position in the world-economy. This study intends to build on the previous research by developing a new, more parsimonious indicator of World-System position based on Immanuel Wallersteins theoretical concepts of incorporation and core-periphery processes. The new World-System indicator is derived from the centrality measure in network analysis based on import data from the International Monetary Funds Direction of Trade Statistics. Based on the theoretical concepts of core-periphery processes, carbon dioxide emissions are predicted to rise based on the predominance of energy-intensive, high-technology, core processes within the nation. The results tend to demonstrate a strong relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and position in the world-economy, and the new World-System position indicator is more strongly related with carbon dioxide emissions than Gross Domestic Product per capita.
Transnational Corporations in a Global Monetary Theory of Production: A World-Systems Perspective
Authors: Pilkington Marc
Published: September 2015

In this paper, I argue that it is possible to enrich world-systems analysis with a heterodox Keynesian monetary theory of production known as the Theory of Money Emissions, based on the views put forward by the French economist Bernard Schmitt. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, I aim to rehabilitate and adapt the old Keynesian proposal of an international clearing union to the modern world-system by providing a rationale behind a common world currency and a renewed perspective on money and transnational production.
The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation, by Wilma Dunaway: Review Essay
Authors: Bush Rod
Published: September 2015

This is an explosive book, iconoclastic, myth-shattering, and profound. But it is also fine tuned and rich in detail, the work of a master (no pun intended) craftswoman. You have simply got to read this book. Wilma Dunaway has issued a provocative rebuttal to those who have argued that slaveholders rarely broke-up enslaved African families; that slaves were adequately fed, clothed, and sheltered; and that slave health or death risks were no greater than those experienced by white adults. According to Dunaway these weaknesses in much scholarly research stem from a flawed view of the slave family, scholarly neglect of small plantations, limited analysis of Upper South enslavement, and academic exaggeration of slave agency. Dunaways study relies largely on her analysis of slave narratives.
Global Commodity Chains and the Spatial-Temporal Dimensions of Labor Control: Lessons from Colombias Coffee and Banana Industries
Authors: Hough Phillip
Published: September 2015

In this paper, the author seeks to explain the trajectories of local labor regime dynamics in Colombias coffee and banana industries from the post war developmental decades until the present. In order to explain these dynamics, the author first develops a neo-Gramscian ideal-typical schema to highlight the full range of labor regime dynamics emergent in Colombia, including hegemonic, despotic, and crisis regimes. The author then develops a theory of local labor regime types that draws from Giovanni Arrighis work on commodity chains. Finally, using comparative and world-historical methods, the author finds that the shifting trajectories of labor regimes in Colombia are affected by the nodal location of these regimes within their respective commodity chains.
Debt, Structural Adjustment, and Non-Governmental Organizations: A Cross-National Analysis of Maternal Mortality
Authors: Shandra John M. , Shandra Carrie L. , London Bruce
Published: September 2015

We begin this study by considering dependency theory claims regarding the harmful influence of both debt and structural adjustment on maternal mortality. We expand upon previous research by conducting the first cross-national study to examine the impact of health and womens non-governmental organizations on maternal mortality. In doing so, we use lagged dependent variable panel regression for a sample of sixty-five poor nations. We find substantial support for dependency theory that higher levels of debt service, structural adjustment, and multinational corporate investment are associated with increased maternal mortality. Initially, we find no support for world polity theory that health and womens non-governmental organizations are significantly related to maternal mortality. However, we respecify our original models in order to test the idea that democratic nations provide a "political opportunity structure" that improves the ability of health and womens non-governmental organizations to deliver health and other social services. We find substantial support for this hypothesis. The results indicate that both health and womens non-governmental organizations are associated with decreased maternal mortality in nations with higher levels of democracy than in nations with lower levels of democracy. We conclude with a discussion of the findings, theoretical implications, methodological implications, policy implications, and potential directions for future research.
Horizontalist Youth Camps and the Bolivarian Revolution: A Story of Blocked Diffusion
Authors: Wood Lesley J.
Published: September 2015

Between 2001 and 2005, the Intercontinental Youth Camp at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil became associated with a decentralized, horizontalist form of organizing. When the polycentric forum took place in 2006, this horizontalist identity and strategy did not diffuse successfully to the new site in Caracas, Venezuela. This article argues that for diffusion to be successful, the local hosts must be able to deliberate on the locally new idea, see themselves as similar to the earlier users, and have the opportunity to adapt the tactic to the local context. Analysing interviews with participants, and activist writing, I argue that the relational context of Caracas, Venezuela, along with recent events in that city, made such processes impossible. In particular, the deliberation essential for diffusion was blocked by the centralization and polarization of the political field, the formalization of the potential adopters, and the temporal proximity of a similar event, the World Festival of Youth and Students.
African Voices and Activists at the WSF in Nairobi: The Uncertain Ways of Transnational African Activism
Authors: Pommerolle Marie-Emmanuelle , Siméant Johanna
Published: September 2015

Transnational social movement studies have long neglected the way activists from the South, and particularly from Africa, have participated in World Social Forum processes. Alterglobal activists have also been accused of neglecting or dominating southern voices. The organization of the WSF in Nairobi was seen as an opportunity to make African voices be heard. This examines how Africans activists participated in Nairobi, and the complex relationship they have to northern and other southern (such as Asia and Latin America) activists. The African alterglobal movement is seen as a space of tensions (i.e. between South Africans and the rest of the continent, between French and English speaking Africa, or between NGOs and more radical organizations) reflected in national mobilizations. Our team of 23 French and 12 Kenyan scholars made collective ethnographic observations in more than a hundred workshops and conducted 150 biographical interviews of African activists in order to examine how: Africa was referred to in the WSF; activists financed their trip to Nairobi; and Afrocentric, anti-imperialist, and anticolonial arguments have been used.
Remittances in Central America: Whose Money is it Anyway?
Authors: Rocha Jose Luis
Published: September 2015

In opposition to optimistic visions that present remittances as an opportunity for developing countries, this paper shows they are part and parcel of a process of economic imperialism, whereby their use and final destinations are strictly conditioned. In order to go beyond a conception of remittances as epiphenomenon, and in order to trace the role they play, this paper focuses on the transnational strategies of capital. It finds that remittances enable an increase in foreign investment and import production by facilitating the rise of a new class of consumers in Central America. Remittances create and feed a purchasing power that would not exist in their absence. Factories, fast food restaurants, communications companies, banks, travel agencies, and supermarkets are opening new branches throughout Central America in order to benefit from transnational savings that would otherwise be used differently. In this way, remittances are conditioned and co-opted by transnational capitals strategies to sustain an ever growing market, with Central America more generally  and once again  potentially at risk of becoming characterized by enclave economies and chronic commercial deficits. The remittance-based economic model furthermore cannot be sustainable in the long run unless Central American countries keep exporting workers ad infinitum, something that is obviously not possible.
Interlocking Corporate Directorates and the Global City Hierarchy
Authors: Kentor Jeffrey , Sobek Adam , Timberlake Michael
Published: September 2015

This paper examines the direct and indirect economic linkages of the most prominent cities in the world, those commonly referred to as global cities, in terms of the direct and indirect linkages of the boards of directors of Fortune Global 500 firms headquartered in a given city with boards of directors of other firms. Specifically, we identify the interlocks of corporate boards located within these major cities with other Fortune 500 boards of directors by degrees of separation, and present a new ranking for selected global cities based upon these direct and indirect ties. We find that New York clearly dominates these economic linkages, followed by London and Paris. This is most pronounced for financial companies. Contrary to other global city rankings, we locate Tokyo below Frankfurt and Chicago on this dimension. We argue that these multiple levels of indirect relationships reflect a significant, and until now unexplored, dimension of what it means to be a global city.
Within-Country Inequality and the Modern World-System: A Theoretical Reprise and Empirical First Step
Authors: Mahutga Matthew C. , Kwon Roy , Grainger Garrett
Published: September 2015

This article calls for a renewed investigation of the world-system positioninequality link. We begin by outlining two general types of causal mechanisms through which a countrys position in the world-system should impact the distribution of income within it. The first type impacts inequality indirectly by conditioning the developmental process, and call for conceptual and empirical models of inequality that account for the link between world-system position and economic development. The second type impacts inequality directly through processes that are more or less unobservable because they change over time or belie cross-nationally comparative indicators, and can thereby be captured by direct measurements of world-system position itself that stand in for varying or unobservable causal processes. We then analyze five measures of world-system position to identify which, if any, provides the most useful association with income inequality. Our findings suggest that the classic measure of Snyder and Kick (1979) provides the strongest association. We conclude by suggesting fruitful directions for future research.
The Capitalist World-System and U.S. Cold War Policies in the Core and the Periphery: A Comparative Analysis of Post-World War II American Nation-building in Germany and Korea
Authors: Jo Y. Hugh
Published: September 2015

In response to the emerging cold war, why did the United States stress industrial expansion in Western Europe but focus on primary production alongside policing operations in the non-western world? Examining US postwar occupation in Germany and Korea from a world-systems perspective, this article argues that a given countrys standing in the capitalist economy generally shapes American foreign policy toward that particular country in the early cold war years. A paladin of system-wide prosperity and peace, the United States sought to restore the international division of labor after World War II. Reactions varied across the system, however, because of distinct socio-economic developments. The presence of capital-intensive export-dependent industry afforded western Germany flexible labor-management relations. Politics was overall stable there, and America dispensed with heavy-handed intervention. In southern Korea, labor-exploitive tenancy farming rendered interclass compromise virtually impossible. As intransigent peasants threatened the market economy, the United States used force to keep the ally in the system.
Neoliberalism, Grievances, and Democratization: An Exploration of the Role of Material Hardships in Shaping Mexicos Democratic Transition
Authors: Shefner Jon , Stewart Julie
Published: September 2015

This article explores the relationship between neoliberalism and democratization in Mexico. For decades the Mexican state maintained the one-party rule of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) through a complex arrangement involving corporatist and clientelist practices. The onset of neoliberalism  including the 1982 peso crisis and the imposition of structural adjustment policies  realigned state policies with the result that the Mexican state transformed from a populist provider for many Mexicans to the instrument of their severe hardships. The state did little to protect people from nation-wide declines in wages and increases in unemployment, while withdrawing a range of subsidies necessary for daily survival. The size, scope and density of the resulting hardships, in turn, united a multi-class coalition that for the first time was able to work together to demand political change. Multiple demands emerged, corresponding to different sectors of society and different hardships, but in the end the demand for democracy became the unifying strategy. A decade after the end of one-party rule in Mexico, we can evaluate how hardships united people to demand change, even as that change has been more procedural than substantive.
Global Commodity Chains & World Income Inequalities: The Missing Link of Inequality and the Upgrading Paradox
Authors: Brewer Benjamin D.
Published: September 2015

This article links key findings from two major research literatures within contemporary development and globalization studies: global commodity/value chains, and world income inequalities. Forging this missing link exposes what I call the upgrading paradox within commodity and value chain analysis. The paradox hinges on the disconnect between the global commodity/value chain literatures focus on the potential for firms and nations to upgrade their position within chains and the roots of the global commodity chain construct in world-systems analysis, a theoretical framework that rejects the potential for widespread and generalizable developmental progress. Findings from the world income inequalities literature do indeed confirm the paradoxical nature of the upgrading discourse, so I conclude by discussing two potential paths for a post-paradox commodity chain analysis.
The Long Twentieth Century and Barriers to China's Hegemonic Accession
Authors: Gulick John
Published: September 2015

Giovanni Arrighi's The Long Twentieth Century is an almost unfathomably ambitious andcomplex work. Its monumentality derives from Arrighi 's conviction that the best way to handicapthe possible futures of the world capitalist geo-economy is to analyze the structural evolution ofthis global system, an evolution spanning more than five centuries; the genius of the work rests inthe distinctive approach that Arrighi takes. At the core of his approach is the identification ofthose long-term trends and accreted characteristics - one might call them "systemiccontradictions" - that promise to send the world capitalist geo-economy in a radically differentdevelopmental direction as US hegemony wanes. Arrighi 's assessment of these contradictionscompel him to make a provocative suggestion: in all likelihood, no singular concentration of stateand economic power possesses the territorial scale or the organizational capacities required tolead the global system through another round of restructuring and expansion. Properly framed,this illuminating insight could serve as the starting point for a theoretical exploration of thesocio-ecological constraints to global capitalist reproduction, but such is a journey (mostly) nottaken by Arrighi in The Long Twentieth Century. In fact, to the degree that he subsequentlycontemplates the prospect of a China-centered reconstitution of the world geo-economy, Arrighimarginalizes the question of global systemic contradictions altogether.
The Coffee Commodity Chain in the World-Economy: Arrighi's Systemic Cycles and Braudel's Layers of Analysis
Authors: Talbot John M.
Published: September 2015

This article presents a history of coffee in the modern world-economy, w;ing an analyticalframework synthesized from Arrighi's concept of systemic cycles of accumulation and Braudel'snotion of three levels of economic analysis: material life, the market economy, and capitalism. Ittakes the commodity chain as the unit of analysis, and argues that this choice helps to illuminatethe caw;al connections between Braudel 's three layers. The method of incorporated comparisonis w;ed to compare restructurings of the coffee commodity chain with the restructurings of thelarger world-economy during each of Arrighi 's systemic cycles.
Five Centuries of Regional Development in Northwest Germany and the Netherlands
Authors: Terlouw Kees
Published: September 2015

Germany and the Netherlands have developed very differently over the centuries. A closeexamination of Dutch and German regions show the differentiated way in which regions profitfrom the changing developmental opportunities of the world-system. This article studies long-term regional development using regional urban population in the Netherlands and NorthwestGermany. Initially the coastal regions profited from the emerging trade based agricultural world-system. Later on, state formation enabled some of the previously developed regions to regaintheir position. Industrialization concentrated the development. In recent times, developmentspreads, giving developmental opportunities to some previously disadvantaged regions that arewell located and well-endowed to profit from the recent developments in the world-system.
Ecology, Capital, and the Nature of Our Times: Accumulation & Crisis in the Capitalist World-Ecology
Authors: Moore Jason  W.
Published: September 2015

In this essay, I elaborate the possibilities for a unified theory of historical capitalism - one thatviews the accumulation of capital and the production of nature (humans included!) asdialectically constituted. In this view, the modern world-system is a capitalist world-ecology, aworld-historical matrix of human- and extra-human nature premised on endless commodification.The essay is organized in three movements. I begin by arguing for a reading of modernity's"interdependent master processes" (Tilly) as irreducibly socio-ecological. Capitalism does notdevelop upon global nature so much as it emerges through the messy and contingent relations ofhumans with the rest of nature. Second, the paper engages Giovanni Arrighi's handling of time,space, and accumulation in The Long Twentieth Century. I highlight Arrighi 's arguments for a"structurally variant" capitalism, and the theory of organizational revolutions, as fruitful ways toconstruct a theory of capitalism as world-ecology. I conclude with a theory of accumulation andits crises as world-ecological process, building out from Marx's "general law" ofunderproduction. Historically, capitalism has been shaped by a dialectic of underproduction (toofew inputs) and overproduction (too many commodities). Today, capitalism is poised for a re-emergence of underproduction crises, characterized by the insufficient flow of cheap food, fuel,labor, and energy to the productive circuit of capital. Far from the straightforward expression of"overshoot" and "peak everything," the likely resurgence of underproduction crises is anexpression of capitalism's longue duree tendency to undermine its conditions of reproduction.The world-ecological limit of capital, in other words, is capital itself
Green Economy or Green Utopia: The Salience of Reproductive Labor Post-Rio+20
Authors: Salleh Ariel
Published: September 2015

Sociologists use the concept of class variously to explain and predict people's relation to the means of production, their earnings, living conditions, social standing, capacities, and political identification. With the rise of capitalist globalization, many sociologists focus on the transnational ruling class and new economic predicaments faced by industrial workers in the world-system (see, for example, Robinson and Harris 2000). Here I will argue that to understand and respond to the current global environmental crisis, another major class formation should be acknowledged - one defined by its materially regenerative activities under "relations of reproduction" (Salleh 2010).
Indices of Trade Partner Concentration for 183 Countries
Authors: Babones Salvatore , Farabee-Siers Robin M.
Published: September 2015

Trade partner concentration can be used to operationalize important concepts like dependency and globalization, but it can be very time-consuming to calculate concentration indices. In research for which export, import, or total trade partner concentration would be useful as one among many variables but is not the primary variable of interest, potential users of concentration indices are likely to be deterred by the high level of commitment required to process the raw data. In addition, the expense of acquiring the raw data can be a deterrent to some scholars. To address these problems and broaden access to data we report seven indices of export, import, and trade partner concentration for all 183 countries for which data are readily available for the years 1980-2008. The raw data underlying the indices are drawn from the International Monetary Fund's Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) database. Details of data preparation and index construction are provided and basic characteristics of the resulting concentration indices described. The indices presented here are likely to find use in regression-based and time-trend studies of the structure and political economy of the contemporary world-system.
Theorizing Environmental Governance of the World System: Global Political Economy Theory and Some Applications to Stratospheric Ozone Politics
Authors: Gareau Brian J.
Published: September 2015

This paper incorporates world-systems perspectives into an analysis of global environmental politics, thus adjoining a political economic analysis of scale with studies of global environmental policy. It is the ability of some social groups and institutions to jump scale that determines how global environmental policies are shaped. The United States carbon-intensive economy is seen to face larger short-term costs from global environmental agreements than many other countries in the core of the world-system, but what remains unexplored in the environmental politics literature is the question of why the United States sees its long-term economic condition hindered by these agreements. This analysis points to the ways industry actors intervene at multiple scales of global environmental negotiations to affect national policy positions as well as larger discourses about science and risk. The article reviews the methyl bromide controversy in the Montreal Protocol to explain why this agreement has recently failed to live up to expectations in removing ozone-depleting substances. The United States is particularly responsible for this impediment: rather than innovate in response to new information and changing international contexts, industry actors have drawn upon US hegemony to enforce their dominant market positions. As the parties to the Montreal Protocol remain polarized over questions of methyl bromide use, this analysis calls for attention to the ways capital, states, and other social institutions are embedded in international environmental agreements and how they use such arrangements to obstruct successful multilateral agreements. I conclude by suggesting that environmental and other social movements might strategize in two ways: 1) by helping support an emergent green hegemony (most apparent in Chinese policy) as a counterhegemonic alternative, and 2) by developing strategies that account for the ways industry interests overlap with declining US hegemony in a shifting world-system.
Urban Slums and Children's Health in Less-Developed Countries
Authors: Jorgenson Andrew K. , Rice James
Published: September 2015

We utilize first-difference panel regression analysis to assess the direct effect of urban slumprevalence on national level measures of under-5 mortality rates over the period 1990 to 2005.Utilizing data on 80 less developed countries, the results illustrate increasing urban slumprevalence over the period is a robust predictor of increasing child mortality rates. This effectobtains net the statistically significant influence of gross domestic product per capita, fertilityrate, and educational enrollment. Cross-sectional analyses for 2005 that include additionalcontrols provide further evidence of the mortality / urban slum relationship. The results confirmurban slum prevalence growth is an important contextual dynamic whereby the socialproduction of child mortality is enacted in the less developed countries.
Land, Space, and People: Constraints of the Capitalist World-Economy
Authors: Wallerstein Immanuel
Published: September 2015

The coming into existence of the capitalist world-economy created new constraints on utilizingthe land for productive purposes. The single most important change is that it established asystematic legal basis for what is called title to the land. Title to the land is fundamentally apolitical question masked by a legal veneer. The amount of land that is governed by title is, eventoday, not 100% of the global land surface. But it has grown as a percentage of the total globalland surface throughout the history of the modern world-system. Population growth has led totwo forms of expansion. There is extensive growth, the bringing of more and more land areasinto the system of titled land. But there is also intensive growth, the ever greater concentration ofthe population of the world into close-contact areas. We call this urbanization. The world leftfaces a fundamental dilemma. On the one hand, the world left has stood for measures that wouldreduce the enormous real north-south gap. On the other hand, the world left (or at least agrowing portion of it) is standing against further commodification of land rights and furtherecological degradation of the world. The two strategies are contradictory and incompatible onewith the other. Land rights stand as the crucial deciding point.
Stepan, Alfred, Juan J. Linz, and Yogendra Yadva. 2011. Crafting State-Nations: India and other Multinational Democracies. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press. 308 pages, ISBN 978-0-8018-9723-8 cloth ($60), ISBN 978-0-8018-9724-5 paper ($30).
Authors: Coyne Gary
Published: September 2015

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Çalişkan, Koray. 2010. Market Threads: How Cotton Farmers and Traders Create a Global Commodity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 248 pages, ISBN 978-0-691-14241-8 Cloth ($39.50).
Authors: Lake Sarah E.
Published: September 2015

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Policing the Global Crisis
Authors: Robinson William I.
Published: September 2015

As part of my research for a book manuscript on the crisis of global capitalism I recently finished writing (Robinson forthcoming), I decided to re-read the classic 1978 study conducted by the noted socialist and cultural theorist Stuart Hall and several of his colleagues, Policing the Crisis. The authors show in that book how the restructuring of capitalism as a response to the crisis of the 1970s - which was the last major crisis of world capitalism until the current one hit in 2008 -led in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to an "exceptional state," by which they meant a situation in which there was an ongoing breakdown of consensual mechanisms of social control and a growing authoritarianism.
Occupy Wall Street, the Global Crisis, and Antisystemic Movements
Authors: Reifer Thomas E.
Published: September 2015

The ancient discussion about the purposes of wealth and the conflict between oligarchy- rule of the rich - and democracy- the rule of the demos/the people comes to the fore once again within the current systemic crisis, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy protests, to the Arab Fall. Even as counterrevolution and growing regional and global turbulence - political, economic and military - appear to be triumphing over the new wave of democratic revolutions and rebellions, at least in the Arab world, with the threat of regional and global conflagration all too real, the underlying structural causes reality of a militarized capitalist world-system in deep crisis will ensure continued waves of antisystemic protests for years to come.
Five Linked Crises in the Contemporary World-System
Authors: Chase-Dunn Christopher
Published: September 2015

This essay uses the evolutionary world-systems perspective to address questions about the current crises in the global system. This approach analyzes the structure and changing institutional nature of the whole world-system over the past 500 years, with attention to comparisons with earlier regional world-systems (Chase-Dunn and Lerro 2013). The main idea is that the waves of global integration have been driven by system-wide class and national struggles in which the elites of core states contend with one another and the most successful are those that can effectively deal with the resistance from below. This has produced a spiral of capitalism and socialism that has been connected with the rise and fall of hegemons.
Impacts of Colonialism: A Research Survey
Authors: Ziltener Patrick , Kunzler Daniel
Published: September 2015

The impacts of colonialism in Africa and Asia have never been compared in a systematic manner for a large sample of countries. This research survey presents the results of a new and thorough assessment of the highly diverse phenomenon - including length ofdomination , violence, partition, proselytization, instrumentalization of ethno-linguistic and religious cleavages, trade, direct investment, settlements, plantations, and migration -organized through a dimensional analysis (political, social, and economic impacts). It is shown that while in some areas, colonial domination has triggered profound changes in economy and social structure, others have remained almost untouched.
Embedding Post-Capitalist Alternatives: The Global Network of Alternative Knowledge Production
Authors: Carroll William K. , Sapinski J.P.
Published: September 2015

Since the 1970s, transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) have emerged as a component of global civil society, generating visions and strategies for a "globalization from below" that point toward post-capitalist alternatives. Here, we map the global network ofTAPGs and kindred international groups in order to discern how TAPGs are embedded in a larger formation. In this era of capitalist globalization, do TAPGs, like their hegemonic counterparts, bridge across geographic spaces (e.g. North-South) and movement domains to foster the convergence across difference that is taken as a criterial attribute of a counter-hegemonic historical bloc? Our network analysis suggests that TAPGs are well placed to participate in the transformation of the democratic globalization network from a gelatinous and unselfconscious state, into an historical bloc capable of collective action toward an alternative global order. However, there are gaps in the bloc, having to do with the representation and integration of regions and movement domains, and with the salience of post-capitalism as a unifying social vision. Also, our architectonic network analysis does not reveal what the various relations and mediations in which TAPGs are active agents actually mean in concrete practice. There is a need both for closer analysis of the specific kinds of relations that link transnational alternative policy groups to other international actors, including intergovernmental organizations and funding foundations, and for field work that explores the actual practices of these groups, in situ.
Transnational Body Projects: Media Representations of Cosmetic Surgery Tourism in Argentina and the United States
Authors: De Casanova Erynn Masi , Sutton Barbara
Published: September 2015

Cosmetic surgery tourism (CST) is part of the growing trend known as medical tourism. As people in the global North travel to less affluent countries to modify their bodies through cosmetic surgery, their transnational body projects are influenced by both economic "materialities" and traveling cultural "imaginaries." This article presents a content analysis of media representations of cosmetic surgery tourism in a major country sending patient-tourists (the United States) and a popular receiving country (Argentina). The power relations of globalization appear to be played out in the media. U.S. sources assert U.S. hegemony through a discourse emphasizing the risks of CST in the global South, in contrast with medical excellence in the U.S. Argentine sources portray Argentina as a country struggling to gain a foothold in the global economy, but staking a claim on modernity through cultural and professional resources. The analyzed articles also offer a glimpse of how patient-tourists fuel sectors of the global economy by placing their bodies at the forefront, seeking to merge medical procedures and touristic pleasures. There is a gender dimension to these portrayals, as women are especially likely to engage in CST. Their transnational body projects are tainted by negative media portrayals, which represent them as ignorant, uninformed, and driven mainly by the low price of surgery overseas. Our comparative approach sheds light on converging and diverging perspectives on both ends of the cosmetic surgery tourism chain, showing that patterns in CST portrayals differ according to the position of a country in the world-system.
Towards a Gendered Agro-Commodity Approach
Authors: Nakazibwe Primrose , Pelupessy Wim
Published: September 2015

Commodity or value chains are the dominant means to channel agro-food products from cultivators to consumers. Direct open markets are either non-existent or insignificant . These chains are also the main mechanisms for integrating underprivileged groups into the world economy. Why do global value chains generate sorrow for many and joy for a few, and why are these outcomes heavily gender biased? To look for answers this article critically reviews the post-2000 and earlier gender literature by proponents and opponents of the mainstream value chain approach. The purpose is to provide a methodological contribution on the integration of gender into the commodity chain approach. Most studies have fo cused on the economic effects of chain dynamics on women in agricultural product and labor markets. Some have extended this reasoning with social and cultural effects. Despite these advances, analytical gaps still exist as most existing research has concentrated on the agricultural nodes of modern, high value chains and lacks a gendered conceptual foundation. Scarce attention has been given to traditional staple crops, non-agricultural nodes, and feed back effects of gender relations on the chain. Our results indicate that an appropriate GCC approach should also consider the gendered impacts of the interaction between the governance structure and the institutiona l embeddedness, as well as the consequences of intra-household division of resources and labor in all stages of the chain. These two conceptual complements will be needed to explain the opportunities and constraints to improve gender equity in traditional and modern agro-commodity chains.
Private Governance, Hegemonic Struggles, and Institutional Outcomes in the Transnational Cotton Commodity Chain
Authors: Quark Amy
Published: September 2015

Transnational firms have rolled out new forms of private governance at the same time as the rise of new economic powerhouses like China has fomented growing inter-state tensions. This points to critical questions: how does inter-state competition shape private governance of transnational commodity chains and how does private governance shape inter-state rivalries? I explore these questions by tracing the construction and dissolution of sectoral hegemonic coalitions that govern commodity chains. Drawing on the case of cotton quality governance from 2000-2012, I argue that a coalition of the U.S. state and transnational merchants has reconstituted its sectoral hegemony to allow expanded accumulation and accommodate their main rival~China. The U.S. state created standards with Chinese characteristics, while transnational merchants made the authority structure of their institutions more inclusive. However, this reconstituted hegemony remains unstable. Facing continued regulatory competition from China, the U.S. state has constructed new forms of meta-governance that could facilitate a shift to Chinese-led sectoral hegemony but under U.S. oversight. Moreover, these sectoral hegemonic struggles compelled Western transnational merchants to fracture their long-standing relationship with the U.S. state in the hegemonic coalition in order to position their private institutions as geopolitically neutral and thus compatible with the hegemonic leadership of either the U.S. or Chinese states in the sector. By tracing struggles among coalitions of leading firms and states for hegemony over the institutions governing particular commodity chain sectors, we can shed light on possible trajectories within broader world-system level hegemonic struggles that at once constitute and are constituted by these sectoral dynamics.
Editors’ Introduction
Authors: Smith Jackie
Published: September 2015

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From Waste to Resources? Interrogating ‘Race to the Bottom’ in the Global Environmental Governance of the Hazardous Waste Trade
Authors: Lucier Cristina A. , Gareau Brian J.
Published: September 2015

The rise of global environmental governance regimes allegedly contradicts the process of an environmental “race to the bottom” (RTB) that results from capitalist globalization. We examine new developments in this area through a qualitative case study of the Basel Convention. Here, we find that new regulations in toxic wastes governance are in fact being co-created with industry actors and aim to accelerate the flow of toxic “resources” to less-developed countries. Further, these shifts are legitimized by a shift in discourse— from thinking of toxics materials as “wastes” to thinking of them as “resources”— that re-frames the toxic wastes trade as essential for sustainable economic development rather than as a manifestation of global environmental injustice, thereby undermining environmentalist claims. Our findings suggest that, despite an expansion of hazardous waste regulations, the RTB concept is still relevant in the context of global environmental governance. We conclude that a fruitful avenue for applying the RTB concept in this context is to go beyond a strict materialist interpretation of global politics to also consider the role of discourses and contesting ideologies in shaping global environmental policy debates.
The Breakaway Boss: Semiperipheral Innovations and the Rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad
Authors: Harris Kevan
Published: September 2015

Within a year of becoming president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad had already confused much of the world. Explanations of his political ascent in a semi-peripheral country rely largely on the concept of charismatic authority. This is a non-explanation, however, as the charismatic historical figure who seemingly holds creative command over the social world also has to be created. Instead, I argue that Ahmadinezhad’s trajectory from an Islamist engineering student to the presidency of a post-revolutionary state highlights three mechanisms of social-political innovation that are bounded by space and time: the situated overlap of social capital, the paradox of vertical clientage, and the breakaway of the machine boss. These mechanisms are usually misread as timeless signifiers of national backwardness or as charismatic dei ex machina. By showing these mechanisms at work through biography, we can challenge scholarly and popular explanations of social change that implicitly rehash modernization theory.
Editors' Introduction
Authors: Smith Jackie , Bair Jennifer , Byrd Scott
Published: September 2015

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Breaking Ships in the World-System: An Analysis of Two Ship Breaking Capitals, Alang-Sosiya, India and Chittagong, Bangladesh
Authors: Frey R. Scott
Published: September 2015

Centrality in the world-system allows countries to externalize their hazards or environmental harms on others. Core countries, for instance, dump heavy metals and greenhouse gases into the global sinks, and some of the core's hazardous products, production processes and wastes are displaced to the (semi) peripheral zones of the world-system. Since few (semi) peripheral countries have the ability to assess and manage the risks associated with such hazards, the transfer of core hazards to the (semi) periphery has adverse environmental and socio-economic consequences for many of these countries and it has spawned conflict and resistance, as well as a variety of other responses. Most discussions of this risk globalization problem have failed to situate it firmly in the world-system frame emphasizing the process of ecological unequal exchange. Using secondary sources, I begin such a discussion by examining the specific problem of ship breaking (recycling core-based ocean going vessels for steel and other materials) at the yards in Alang-Sosiya, India and Chittagong, Bangladesh. Attention centers on the nature and scope of ship breaking in these two locations, major drivers operating in the world-system, adverse consequences, the unequal mix of costs and benefits, and the failure of existing political responses at the domestic and international levels to reduce adequately the adverse consequences of ship breaking.
Periodizing the Thought of Andre Gunder Frank: From Underdevelopment to the 19th Century Asian Age
Authors: Chase-Dunn Christopher
Published: September 2015

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Will China's Development lead to Mexico's Underdevelopment?
Authors: Schwartzman Kathleen C.
Published: September 2015

China has become an important global actor in the arenas of production, trade, and foreign investment. In 1948, China contributed slightly less than 1 percent to global exports; by 2013, it had grown to almost 12 percent. Has China's vertiginous trade growth come at the expense of other exporters or does it represent an expansion of new consumer markets? For policy makers in the so-called "emerging markets," this is most relevant since many have adopted the export-led model as their engine of development. The goal of this article is to add to the current literature on the effect of China's growth on Mexico. Combining elements of world-systems, race-to-the-bottom, and global commodity chain frameworks, I analyze the consequences of China's export growth in garlic. The evidence strongly suggests that China's entrance into this global market has had deleterious consequences for Mexico's production and exports.
From Socialism to Hedge Fund: The Human Element and the New History of Capitalism
Authors: Huyssen David
Published: September 2015

Alfred Winslow Jones was a socialist who founded the first hedge fund in 1949. He had been U.S. Vice Consul in Berlin from 1931 to 1932, Soviet sympathizer and anti-Nazi spy with dissident German communists, humanitarian observer during the Spanish Civil War, acclaimed sociologist of class, and an editor for Fortune magazine. At every stage of his life, Jones occupied positions of advantage, and his invention of the modern hedge fund has had an outsized impact on global capitalism’s contemporary round of financialization. On its face, then, his life would appear to offer ideal material for a “great-man” biography. Yet this “great man” also wrestled with the continual recognition that structural forces were undermining his fondest hopes for social change. Following Georgi Derluguian, Giovanni Arrighi, and Marc Bloch, this article proposes a world-system biography of Jones as a method better suited for mapping the internal dialectics of twentieth-century capitalism, using Jones as a human connection between cyclical and structural transformations of capitalism, and across changes of phase from financial to material expansion—and back again. On another level, it suggests a theoretical reorientation—toward what Bloch called “the human element”—for studies of capitalism’s cultural and material history. It argues that such a reorientation would hold rewards for the “new history of capitalism” field, which until now has pursued its quarry primarily by tracing the movements of commodities, capital, institutions, and ideas.
Effect of Government Capital Expenditure on Manufacturing Sector Output in Nigeria
Authors: Emmanuel Falade Olanipekun , Oladiran Olagbaju Ifeolu
Published: September 2015

The study investigates the relationship between government expenditure and manufacturing sector output in Nigeria. Government expenditure is disaggregated into capital and recurrent with a view to analyse the relative effect of these categories of government expenditure with emphasis on the capital component. The study employed time series data from 1970 to 2013.  Data on manufacturing sector output, capital and recurrent expenditure, nominal and real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), exchange rate and interest rate were collected from Statistical Bulletin and Annual Report and Statement of Accounts published by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Econometric evidence revealed stationarity of the variables of interest at their first difference while the Johansen cointegration approach also confirms the existence of one cointegrating relationship at 5 percent level of significance. In addition, error correction estimates revealed that while government capital expenditure has positive relationship with manufacturing sector output in Nigeria, recurrent expenditure exerts negative effect on manufacturing sector output. The results showed that one per cent increase in government capital expenditure resulted in an increase of 11.2 per cent in manufacturing sector output while recurrent expenditure decreases it by 26.9 per cent. This reveals that government capital expenditure has positive impact on manufacturing sector output. The study therefore suggests that larger percentage of government expenditure in the annual budget should be on capital component coupled with improved implementation of expenditure policies rather than recurrent expenditure which does not really have a significant impact on the manufacturing sector.