bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Wage and Labour Regulation in Vietnam within the Poverty Reduction Agenda
Authors: Brassard Caroline 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
This paper analyses the extent to which current wage and labour regulations can help reducing poverty levels in Vietnam. It begins with an overview of population and employment trends since 1990. It then discusses wage and labour regulation in Vietnam, particularly the 2002 amendments to the 1994 labour code, focusing on the minimum wage regulation in enterprises, farms labourers and female and junior labourers. The paper then analyses labour market imperfections and the provision of safety nets Vietnam, whilst linking with the poverty alleviation strategy. Next, the paper presents data analysis at the commune level, based on the Vietnam Living Standard Survey of 1998, comparing the northern and southern communes. The findings show significant gender differences within regions for daily agricultural wages, and significantly lower wages in the North. As for industrial wages in the state and private sector, we find that northern wages are below the legal minimum wage in the textile industry, and differ significantly between gender and regions, and where children under eighteen tend to earn as little as 25 percent of adults’ salaries. In the formulation of poverty alleviation policies, this paper highlights the importance of recognizing: the regional and sectoral related-characteristics of the labour market; the impact of gender differences in wage labour; and the implications on child labour.
Confronting the Reality of a Nuclear North Korea: The Challenge of Shrinking Policy Options
Authors: O’Neil Andrew 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
This article analyses the narrowing range of policy choices for dealing with a nuclear-armed North Korea. One of the central themes of my argument is that diplomacy has failed to constrain Pyongyang from proceeding across the nuclear threshold. North Korea's strategic worldview, in particular the regime's ingrained perception of the US as a threat to its very existence, has meant that it has resisted successfully bilateral and multilateral attempts to stop it going nuclear. Yet while diplomatic efforts have failed, I argue that the widely canvassed option of pre-emptive strikes to neutralise North Korea's nuclear program is unnecessarily risky and fraught with acute uncertainties. However carefully calibrated, such strikes would raise the likelihood of full-scale war on the peninsula. And, in any event, the complex targeting challenges facing the US mean that it would struggle to nullify Pyongyang's nuclear capability with any degree of certainty. The final section of the article examines the alternative of simply accepting North Korea's nuclear capability as a fait accompli. I argue that the advantages of this option have been underestimated and that, given the failure of diplomacy and the dangers associated with using military coercion, it is an alternative that deserves careful deliberation on the part of policy makers.
Paradigmatic Crisis in International Economic Governance: Explaining the Explosion of Protest
Authors: Hira Anil 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
Anti-globalisation protests and increasing dissonance internationally, including a host of new leftist leaders in Latin America and insider criticism are the signs of paradigmatic crisis for both neoliberalism and “free” trade agreements. This introductory essay seeks to demonstrate that such phenomena are not isolated events of passing unhappiness, but can be interpreted as part of a long-term shift, reflecting changes in the experience and opportunity structure of the young generation in the North. Ironically, the relative wealth and peace of the current generation sets up a relative expectations problem in light of declining economic prospects. Northern youth are the first generation to face potentially long-term declining income and job prospects in at least the last 2 centuries. While the system is in crisis, no new paradigm is yet apparent. Neither a global Keynesian state nor a breakdown of neoliberalism and free trade seem possible in the foreseeable future. This volume explores the nature of the crisis from a variety of angles that have not received adequate attention, but which signal long-term shifts in global economic governance.
Global Trade Politics and the Cycle of Dissent Post-Cancún
Authors: Drache Daniel 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
This paper examines the realignment of forces that derailed the Cancún meeting to broaden and deepen the WTO’s world trade agenda held in September 2003, which according to conventional wisdom was supposed to be a done deal. The growing disjuncture between global cultural flows of people and ideas, and the rules and practices of globalisation has created a highly unstable environment with many opportunities but at the same time significant political costs. Regardless of what the EU and US may admit in public, at Cancún global dissent counterpublics acquired visible agendasetting power. The growth in influence of the “nixers” and “fixers” has contributed to a tectonic shift in the international economy that has immediate and far-reaching consequences for destabilizing globalisation and its narrow economic agenda.
The second argument is that global cultural flows of ideas, texts and wealth have deepened the global environment of dissent at the WTO. Many of these flows are the consequence of free trade itself. They have accelerated as economic barriers have fallen facilitating the movement of ideas, people and texts driven by new technologies and the appetite for mass culture. Increased trade has increased cultural interaction globally. When these global cultural flows function as catalysts for change, they become both a conduit and channel to set new agendas and, it is this agendasetting capacity that challenges state authority globally no less locally. So far there is no single over-riding vision that addresses the collective problem of diversity at the global level. Nonetheless, the global dissent movement intends to have a prominent role in defining public culture and in shaping it in inherently democratic ways.
Financial Governance and the Public Sphere: Towards a Global Modality of Governance?
Authors: Germain Randall D 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
Recent efforts to reform the international financial architecture have focused attention on the way in which decision-making occurs within an increasingly globalised structure of financial governance. I explore an important development within this structure: the emergence of what may be identified as a global financial public sphere. This article considers the formation and foundation of the global financial public sphere, and discusses its relationship to the globalised structure of financial governance. The argument of the paper is that a strengthened public sphere is both an increasingly significant attribute of financial governance and a welcome development, but one that is not yet fully consolidated.
BITing Back: Bilateral Investment Treaties and the Struggle to Define an Investment Regime for the Americas
Authors: Alexander Haslam Paul 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
This paper examines the consequences of the breakdown of talks on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the generalized shift from multilateralism to bilateralism in the Americas for the region’s emerging foreign investment regime. The paper argues that multilateral processes have historically benefited Latin American countries when their interests have diverged from those of the US. In terms of investment, the foreign investment regime advanced by the United States (in bilateral investment treaties) differs significantly from that advanced by subregional powers such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, particularly regarding investment rules on national treatment and performance requirements. This suggests that, in the absence of multilateral negotiations, US norms on investment and development will progressively define the emerging hemispheric investment regime.
The Role of the Provinces in Canadian Foreign Trade Policy: Multi-Level Governance and Sub-National Interests in the Twenty-First Century
Authors: Kukucha Christopher J 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
Canada has a history of supporting the evolution of trade related multi-level governance structures. In the post-war period these commitments had limited implications for domestic policy space. Over time, however, these governance frameworks began to increasingly focus on areas of provincial jurisdiction. This paper argues that these developments have empowered a range of traditional and non-traditional actors within Canadian provinces. On an institutional basis, this includes engagement by provincial executives, bureaucratic interests, and emerging consultative structures within Canadian federalism. Sectoral interests have also responded by pressuring provincial governments to adopt specific policy positions. In addition, neo-liberal ideational factors are significant although some provincial governments have at times challenged this ideological consistency. Societal considerations, on the other hand, have the least impact provincially. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between national and sub-national interests when evaluating Canada’s foreign trade policy. In the case of Canadian provinces it is clear that institutional, sectoral, and ideational factors are most prominent.
Revisiting Organizational Politics: Toward a Postempirical Approach
Authors: Fischer Frank 
Published: October 2008

AbstractAlthough common knowledge has long acknowledged the place of political behaviour in organizational life, few attempts to rigorously theorize a political model of organization appeared before the 1980s. Developed in significant part to offset the more technical, overly rational, top-down conceptions of organization and management, these emerging models offered interesting new ways to look at both intra- and interorganisational action. While the approach can shed light on political realities typically ignored or neglected by dominant mainstream theories, it has suffered from an uncritical pluralist theory of politics. To adequately elucidate the basic political issues, as critical organizational theorists have argued, the model requires a more complex theory of power. But also missing is an alternative postempiricist epistemology capable of systematically investigating the hidden sides of organizational power and politics that a critical theory seeks to explain. The analysis draws out and illustrates the need for more interpretively-oriented qualitative modes of understanding inherent to such a perspective, in particular narrative analysis. In the course of the discussion, the essay examines the implications of such an approach for the critical study of organizational politics more generally.
Regulating Genetic Engineering in the United States and the European Union: Policy Development and Policy Resilience
Authors: Skogstad Grace , Moore Elizabeth 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
The article offers an explanation of the distinct trajectories of policy development of the American and European Union regulatory regimes for genetically modified foods and crops. The permissive American regulatory regime has been resilient; the rigorous EU regime, much less so. The account of policy development and policy resilience directs attention to the foundational ideas and material legacies of regulatory policies at an early critical juncture of their development, and the distinct mechanisms of reproduction that resulted. It argues that the constitutive ideas of US policies for GM crops and foods, and the material coalitions these ideas induced, created power and functionalist mechanisms of reproduction that have stabilised policies and limited reforms to incremental adaptations. By contrast, the initial critical juncture of EU policy development resulted in core ideational principles that relied on different functional and legitimation logics. Their material (power) base much weaker, early EU regulatory policies for GM foods and crops failed to be resilient when the institutional and normative context shifted.
Independent Food Agencies – Restoring Confidence
Authors: Hellebø Rykkja Lise 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThe article examines food agencies created in the wake of the mad cow disease or BSE crisis in 1996. Two specific food agencies, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in Great Britain, and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in the EU, are compared. Central research questions focus on the reasons and reasoning behind their establishment, and the comparison is centred on dimensions of activities and degrees of independence. The establishment of independent agencies has been highlighted as a recent trend in public policy and management. The creation of such agencies is frequently assumed to produce accountability, trust and confidence in regulation and regulating institutions by separating execution from policy making institutions. In the case of food agencies, an additional essential dimension is the question of independence from agricultural and commercial interests, whereas food safety regulation has a fundamental legitimacy basis within the field of public health.
The Politics of Global Legalism and Human Security
Authors: Franceschet Antonio 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThis article argues that human security discourses and initiatives are made intelligible by the politics of applying legalism to global politics. Human security projects like the International Criminal Court, the Ottawa Treaty on landmines, and coercive interventions like Kosovo are shaped, mobilised, but also limited and constrained by the wider problematic of the legal constitution of global politics. Although human security has been the justiﬁcation for efforts to liberalise and humanise politics through law, it has also been associated with exceptionalistic and non-universal legal relationships that reinforce the interests of the most dominant actors in global politics. As a result, human security runs the danger of becoming an instrument of hegemony. Nonetheless, the article also argues that there are always progressive political openings in the politics of a global rule of law that can facilitate a wider conception of human security than has been pursued since the mid-1990s.
The Helms-Burton Bill and Canada’s Cuba Policy: Convergences with the US
Authors: Deonandan Kalowatie 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
This analysis reassesses Canada’s Cuba policy by challenging the prevailing view that it has been largely independent of the US. The thesis posited here is that despite its opposition to the US’ Helms-Burton legislation (which seeks to increase economic pressures on the Cuban economy by penalising foreigners who conduct business with the island) the Canadian government has been pursuing a Cuba strategy which closely converges with the Americans, and this has been particularly evident since the late 1990s. This argument is made through a discussion of the following themes: Canada’s support for US hegemony; its shared interest with the US in protecting the global trading regime; its desire to defend its trading relationship with the US; its support for the US’ position in the Organization of American States vis a vis Cuba; and its commercial competition with the US in Cuba.
Policy Divergence as a Response to Weak International Regimes: The Formulation and Implementation of Natural Resource New Governance Arrangements in Europe and Canada
Authors: Howlett Michael , Rayner Jeremy 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThis article addresses the issue of convergence and divergence in Europe, and elsewhere, of a specific type of governance arrangement: “Natural Resource New Governance Arrangements” (NRNGAs). Two cases of the development of these regimes in the environmentally-related areas of forest and fisheries management are examined in Europe and North America, focusing on the Canadian experience in the latter case. The findings reveal significant similarities across sectors and countries but little evidence of any larger pattern of policy convergence. While the impetus for the adoption of both these NRNGAs lies in the international and regional realms, without the force of either international law or competitive advantage, consequential pressure for convergence is weak. It is proposed that the reasons for the differences in NGA adoptions thus lie primarily in the interaction of the changing capacities of domestic public and private actors active in the affected resource policy arena: specifically, the interplay between the effect of the internationalisation of resource policy issues, tending to increase private capacities at the expense of the public one, and the declining importance of primary industries, which has the reverse effect.
The Europeanisation of CO2 Regulation in the Scandinavian Countries
Authors: Pedersen Lene Holm 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
The impact of European integration differs over time and between states. This article demonstrates how the increasing europeanisation of CO2 regulation in the Scandinavian countries has lead to increasing convergence in the regulatory systems for very important target groups. The same system is being implemented in EU-member states (Denmark and Sweden) and an EEA member state (Norway), but at this stage the implementation is dissimilar in the sense that the established CO2 tax delimits where quotas are introduced in Norway. In contrast, however, the quota systems in Sweden and Denmark delimit to a higher extent where the CO2 taxation continues to exist. However, at this stage, it cannot be concluded that the variation is due to different degrees of Europeanisation.
Discourse in Comparative Policy Analysis: Privatisation Policies in Britain, Russia and the United States
Authors: Gabrielyan Vache 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
Privatisation has been of the most widely used and extensively debated policies in the world for the last quarter century. This phenomenon, though, is mostly unified by rhetoric, and substantially varies across time and space, particularly in implementation. To answer the question of what presupposes a choice of particular mechanism of privatisation, three distinct cases of privatisation (the US, the UK, and Russia) are analysed through Fischer's (1995) model of practical policy deliberation. The model tests the reasons for policy ranging from its technical efficiency to its relation to the ideological principles that justify the societal system. The elaborated theory suggests that privatisation policies generally pursue multiple goals, with the prevailing goal being determined by the dominant discourse in which the topic of privatisation is debated in society. The prevailing goal, in turn, determines the privatisation mechanism that maximises this particular goal.
Inside Deliberative Experiments: Dynamics of Subjectivity in Science Policy Deliberations
Authors: Görsdorf Alexander 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
Deliberative procedures – like consensus conferences, citizen juries, and scenario workshops – are intended to give voice to the citizens and to arrive at a more comprehensive knowledge base for political decisions. This paper seeks to enrich the analysis and practice of these endeavours, drawing attention to dynamics of subjectivities. Such interpretive dynamics among participants may ensue not only with respect to the problem tackled by the procedure but, importantly, with respect to the deliberative procedure itself. The main argument is that failing to accommodate these dynamics within the procedures may result in participants’ alienation from the event, effectively undermining the endeavour's participatory promises. As a consequence, the paper calls for more analytical attention to the micro-level of deliberative processes, which yields important insights into the interpretive and communicative processes upon which citizen panels’ statements and arguments rest. I illustrate my point by reflecting on my observations of a scenario workshop on the future of biomedical research, an ambitious experiment that took place in Germany in 2002 and sought to bring together citizens and experts in a new form of collective reflection and cooperative inquiry.
No Watertight Compartments: Trade Agreements, International Health Care Reform, and the Legal Politics of Public Sector Exemptions
Authors: Crawford Mark 
Published: October 2008

AbstractDebates over the legal interpretationof trade treaty (WTO and NAFTA) exemption clauses for public services display a common pattern. Critics of trade agreements argue that these clause sare likely to be narrowly interpreted, providing scant protection from international trade rules to public health care. Defenders usually argue that they will be given a reasonably expansive deinition and that trade obligations (atleast the more onerous WTO national treatment obligations) will generally not apply to public health care services. This paper argues that although the optimism of trade agreement defenders may be well-founded when viewed from a static perspective, the protection afforded by exemption clauses shrinks with the expansion of market elements in healthcare. Hence, the major implication of such “carve-outs” for health policy makers will not be the liberty to engage in “business as usual”, but rather the need to assess the trade-related risks associated with market-based reform in the future. This paper analyses theWTO and NAFTA provisions limiting the application of these trade agreements to the health care sector in terms of the various risk scenarios posed by different models of health care reform.
Deep Integration and Shallow Governance: The Limits of Civil Society Engagement across North America
Authors: Ayres Jeffrey , Macdonald Laura 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
This article investigates the complex position of civil society within the unfolding processes of regional governance across North America. The analysis focuses on the region's evolution and institution-building under the North American Free Trade Agreement, as well as the negotiations that have accompanied more recent efforts to deepen continental integration. We argue that North American regional governance has clearly shifted from a state-centric to a more contested, pluralistic model of multilateralism, but is a model that still betrays a more elitist, non-cooperative orientation. Yet, beyond theorising about regional governance, this article raises concerns about the future of the North American governance project in the face of national and transnational civil society political contestation against the still exclusionary character of regional governance. It is suggested that there are both normative and political reasons why North American governance should be transformed to open new democratic channels for civil society participation in the emerging debates on deepening continental integration.