{"title":"The power of platforms—precarity and place","authors":"Anna R. Davies, B. Donald, M. Gray","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsad011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad011","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74717141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Valentin Niebler, Giorgio Pirina, Michelangelo Secchi, Franco Tomassoni
The issue of employment classification has been central in the politics around the platform economy. Crucial has been the phenomenon of ‘bogus self-employment’, whereby workers in de facto dependent employment relationships conduct services as independent contractors. Legislators around the world have aimed to tackle this issue by obliging platforms to classify their workers as employees. Based on empirical research in the ride-hailing industry of Berlin, Paris and Lisbon, where such classification exists already, we highlight its contradictory outcomes. We argue that platform companies have managed to introduce forms of ‘bogus employment’ whereby even formally employed workers lack basic worker rights.
{"title":"Towards ‘bogus employment?’ The contradictory outcomes of ride-hailing regulation in Berlin, Lisbon and Paris","authors":"Valentin Niebler, Giorgio Pirina, Michelangelo Secchi, Franco Tomassoni","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsad007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The issue of employment classification has been central in the politics around the platform economy. Crucial has been the phenomenon of ‘bogus self-employment’, whereby workers in de facto dependent employment relationships conduct services as independent contractors. Legislators around the world have aimed to tackle this issue by obliging platforms to classify their workers as employees. Based on empirical research in the ride-hailing industry of Berlin, Paris and Lisbon, where such classification exists already, we highlight its contradictory outcomes. We argue that platform companies have managed to introduce forms of ‘bogus employment’ whereby even formally employed workers lack basic worker rights.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"257 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75957327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This commentary explores the feasibility of blockchain technologies (and cryptocurrencies) in contesting the power of centralized, corporate platforms. While proponents of blockchain and cryptocurrencies regularly proclaim their power to decentralize and counter corporate power, I am much more constrained in my assessment and note the significant challenges facing open blockchain approaches in competing with platforms. From this, I highlight three key areas in which blockchains may complicate platform operations, albeit in indeterminate ways. These include (i) closed, state-based blockchain systems focused on making back-office processes more efficient, (ii) the use of cryptocurrencies for platform-based transactions and (iii) providing digital objects with an element of “uniqueness” that makes them tradable in new ways. In the end, blockchain and cryptocurrencies are technologies like any others, providing affordances for some kinds of action over others but ultimately their embeddedness in practice and space shapes how they impact the organization and geography of economies, societies and regions.
{"title":"Platforms, blockchains and the challenges of decentralization","authors":"Matthew Zook","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsad008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This commentary explores the feasibility of blockchain technologies (and cryptocurrencies) in contesting the power of centralized, corporate platforms. While proponents of blockchain and cryptocurrencies regularly proclaim their power to decentralize and counter corporate power, I am much more constrained in my assessment and note the significant challenges facing open blockchain approaches in competing with platforms. From this, I highlight three key areas in which blockchains may complicate platform operations, albeit in indeterminate ways. These include (i) closed, state-based blockchain systems focused on making back-office processes more efficient, (ii) the use of cryptocurrencies for platform-based transactions and (iii) providing digital objects with an element of “uniqueness” that makes them tradable in new ways. In the end, blockchain and cryptocurrencies are technologies like any others, providing affordances for some kinds of action over others but ultimately their embeddedness in practice and space shapes how they impact the organization and geography of economies, societies and regions.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87650098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper develops case studies of the UK and China to analyse divergent national financial regulatory approaches to FinTech as a novel political economy of platforms. Regulating with platforms is core to the approach taken in the UK, where start-up and early-career platforms are enrolled into an innovation-friendly financial regulation regime that promotes consumption and competition balanced with stability. In China, meanwhile, measures are being instituted to enhance rules and restrictions imposed on FinTech platforms. BigTech-led FinTech expansion was encouraged to expedite financial reforms to fuel economic growth and ensure authoritarian state control, but regulation is now shown to be working against the furtherance of platform power.
{"title":"FinTech platform regulation: regulating with/against platforms in the UK and China","authors":"P. Langley, A. Leyshon","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsad005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper develops case studies of the UK and China to analyse divergent national financial regulatory approaches to FinTech as a novel political economy of platforms. Regulating with platforms is core to the approach taken in the UK, where start-up and early-career platforms are enrolled into an innovation-friendly financial regulation regime that promotes consumption and competition balanced with stability. In China, meanwhile, measures are being instituted to enhance rules and restrictions imposed on FinTech platforms. BigTech-led FinTech expansion was encouraged to expedite financial reforms to fuel economic growth and ensure authoritarian state control, but regulation is now shown to be working against the furtherance of platform power.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80235225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The actions of platforms and their all-inclusive impact on place development is coined platform-based place making in this article. We use the actor-network theory to analyse a typical e-commerce platform-based place making, namely the emergence, development and upgrading of Taobao villages in China, and to explore the mechanisms of platform place making power. Our study shows that platforms ‘make’ places by platform–place interactions of progressively expanding the enrolment of intra-regional and extra-regional actors. In addition, our research advances the actor-network theory and its application and transcends the urban and production-side bias of economic geography.
{"title":"Placing the platform economy: the emerging, developing and upgrading of Taobao villages as a platform-based place making phenomenon in China","authors":"Hanyue Chu, R. Hassink, D. Xie, Xiaohui Hu","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsad004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The actions of platforms and their all-inclusive impact on place development is coined platform-based place making in this article. We use the actor-network theory to analyse a typical e-commerce platform-based place making, namely the emergence, development and upgrading of Taobao villages in China, and to explore the mechanisms of platform place making power. Our study shows that platforms ‘make’ places by platform–place interactions of progressively expanding the enrolment of intra-regional and extra-regional actors. In addition, our research advances the actor-network theory and its application and transcends the urban and production-side bias of economic geography.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"128 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78760503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding the post-COVID state and its geographies","authors":"M. Gray, M. Kitson, L. Lobao, R. Martin","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsad001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81765046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
COVID Keynesianism evaluates the USA and UK’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic and compares it to the previous iterations of the Anglo-American policy response template. The analysis details the morbid character of neoliberal state intervention by tracing the distributional routes of monetary and fiscal measures into global corporations and across the domestic economy. The comparative findings show the degree to which emergency economic relief measures, despite their size and early success, have amplified the fault lines of inequality. The argument is that monetary flows generated windfall wealth gains for the already wealthy, while fiscal flows provided temporary gains and provisions for those on low-incomes and in deprived regions. Neoliberal efforts to protect wealth-holdings are discussed with reference to the structural conditions that generate permanent crises.
{"title":"COVID Keynesianism: locating inequality in the Anglo-American crisis response","authors":"J. Montgomerie","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsad003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 COVID Keynesianism evaluates the USA and UK’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic and compares it to the previous iterations of the Anglo-American policy response template. The analysis details the morbid character of neoliberal state intervention by tracing the distributional routes of monetary and fiscal measures into global corporations and across the domestic economy. The comparative findings show the degree to which emergency economic relief measures, despite their size and early success, have amplified the fault lines of inequality. The argument is that monetary flows generated windfall wealth gains for the already wealthy, while fiscal flows provided temporary gains and provisions for those on low-incomes and in deprived regions. Neoliberal efforts to protect wealth-holdings are discussed with reference to the structural conditions that generate permanent crises.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80616697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Denmark is a Nordic welfare state with local government autonomy in public service provision related to workfare policies. We use a policy experiment that re-opened on-site public employment services after the first COVID-19 lockdown in a spatially staggered manner to provide evidence on the effect of public employment services on job placement during a crisis. Early re-opening of on-site public employment services is associated with a better local labour market performance. It particularly benefits low-skilled unemployed and rural areas with specific sector mixes and demographic structures, why workfare-oriented welfare state arrangements remain important to counter social and regional imbalances.
{"title":"Crisis and the welfare state: the role of public employment services for job placement and the Danish flexicurity system during COVID-19","authors":"T. Schmidt, T. Mitze","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsad002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Denmark is a Nordic welfare state with local government autonomy in public service provision related to workfare policies. We use a policy experiment that re-opened on-site public employment services after the first COVID-19 lockdown in a spatially staggered manner to provide evidence on the effect of public employment services on job placement during a crisis. Early re-opening of on-site public employment services is associated with a better local labour market performance. It particularly benefits low-skilled unemployed and rural areas with specific sector mixes and demographic structures, why workfare-oriented welfare state arrangements remain important to counter social and regional imbalances.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89730545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Covid-19 and a state in crisis: what can the UK learn from its own history?","authors":"H. Cooper, S. Szreter","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsac048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsac048","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74005943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores a neglected aspect of platform work: how the spatial mobility that app-based couriers must perform requires them to violate taken-for-granted assumptions that define who belongs where. By assigning tasks during atypical hours and requiring gig workers to use their personal clothing, tools and vehicles, platforms strip delivery workers of signifiers that legitimate their presence in consumers’ neighbourhoods. The result is a condition we call ‘unbelonging’ – a liminal state in which their presence is considered problematic, exposing them to threats of physical and symbolic violence. Our findings, which draw on 45 interviews with parcel delivery workers, contribute to the developing literature on urban geography and the socio-spatial impacts of the platform revolution.
{"title":"Delivering difference: ‘Unbelonging’ among US platform parcel delivery workers","authors":"H. Johnston, Yana Mommadova, S. Vallas, J. Schor","doi":"10.1093/cjres/rsac046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsac046","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper explores a neglected aspect of platform work: how the spatial mobility that app-based couriers must perform requires them to violate taken-for-granted assumptions that define who belongs where. By assigning tasks during atypical hours and requiring gig workers to use their personal clothing, tools and vehicles, platforms strip delivery workers of signifiers that legitimate their presence in consumers’ neighbourhoods. The result is a condition we call ‘unbelonging’ – a liminal state in which their presence is considered problematic, exposing them to threats of physical and symbolic violence. Our findings, which draw on 45 interviews with parcel delivery workers, contribute to the developing literature on urban geography and the socio-spatial impacts of the platform revolution.","PeriodicalId":47897,"journal":{"name":"Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society","volume":"106 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75324485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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