Inequality and climate change are intricately linked, both in terms of the cause and the effect of climate change. The insight that inequality in emissions goes hand in hand with rising socio-economic inequality gives the impression that this is a straightforward, positive relationship, giving rise to the assumption that a mere redistribution of income in favour of the poor and disadvantaged will reverse the climate crisis. Focusing on the Indian context, this article shows that this may be an erroneous assumption. A redistribution of income in favour of those at the lower end of the population may actually lead to higher emissions per capita — the carbon inequality paradox. However, this does not mean that a choice has to be made between emissions and equality. While energy may be required for an egalitarian development, the source of that energy need not be dirty. The authors argue that a green energy transition is vital for any progressive fight against the twin problems of rising emissions and inequality. They propose a green development programme which, as well as promoting this energy transition, encourages socially necessary consumption through state-led expenditure programmes while socially unnecessary expenses of the elite are reined in through aggressive direct and indirect taxes.
{"title":"Socially Necessary Green Development in India","authors":"Rohit Azad, Shouvik Chakraborty","doi":"10.1111/dech.70023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70023","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Inequality and climate change are intricately linked, both in terms of the cause and the effect of climate change. The insight that inequality in emissions goes hand in hand with rising socio-economic inequality gives the impression that this is a straightforward, positive relationship, giving rise to the assumption that a mere redistribution of income in favour of the poor and disadvantaged will reverse the climate crisis. Focusing on the Indian context, this article shows that this may be an erroneous assumption. A redistribution of income in favour of those at the lower end of the population may actually lead to higher emissions per capita — the carbon inequality paradox. However, this does not mean that a choice has to be made between emissions and equality. While energy may be required for an egalitarian development, the source of that energy need not be dirty. The authors argue that a green energy transition is vital for any progressive fight against the twin problems of rising emissions and inequality. They propose a green development programme which, as well as promoting this energy transition, encourages socially necessary consumption through state-led expenditure programmes while socially unnecessary expenses of the elite are reined in through aggressive direct and indirect taxes.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"928-956"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Baptiste Albertone, Tin Hinane El Kadi, Amir Lebdioui
<p><b>UNCTAD, <i>Trade and Development Report 2024: Rethinking Development in the Age of Discontent</i>. Geneva: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2024. xiv + 190 pp</b>. https://unctad.org/publication/trade-and-development-report-2024</p><p>Fifty years later, we are living in a new crisis in global development. Only 15 per cent of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are currently on track, with some indicators even having dipped below their 2015 baselines (UN, <span>2023</span>). As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres remarked, ‘Instead of leaving no one behind, we risk leaving the SDGs behind’ (Guterres, <span>2023</span>). Since 2015, the annual financing gap of the SDGs has increased by 60 per cent, from US$ 2.5 trillion to US$ 4 trillion in 2024 (OECD, <span>2025</span>; UNCTAD, <span>2023</span>). The COVID-19 pandemic proved to be a critical stress test for a system already struggling to manage multiple and overlapping structural trends that had been building since the 2008 global financial crisis. These include rising debt burdens, widening inequalities within and across countries, a slowdown in international trade and a weak investment climate.</p><p>These challenges lie at the core of UNCTAD's historic mandate, which is why, before engaging with our critique of its <i>Trade and Development Report 2024: Rethinking Development in the Age of Discontent</i> (henceforth TDR 2024 or the Report), it is important to first understand and situate the unique and politically significant role that the institution as the principal body advocating for the economic interests of developing nations plays within the UN system. Established in 1964 amid intense debates over the inequities of the post-war international economic order, UNCTAD was created largely at the initiative of countries from the Global South to provide them with a stronger, more unified voice in global economic governance. Unlike more technocratic bodies, UNCTAD was explicitly designed as a platform for multilateral negotiations among countries at different stages of development. It aimed to problematize questions of trade, finance, investment and technology from a development perspective — areas frequently sidelined by established institutions dominated by advanced economies.</p><p>As a result, UNCTAD has been instrumental in advancing analytical work on a range of issues central to development, including the structural disadvantages facing commodity-dependent economies, barriers to technology access, the need for fairer trade rules, the dangers of capital account liberalization, pressures on sovereign borrowers and the importance of industrial policy and policy space for developing countries. In doing so, UNCTAD has consistently served as a counterpoint to more orthodox, market-led approaches favoured and advanced by institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.</p><p>UNCTAD's analysis and policy recommendations have traditionally been grounded in a structurali
{"title":"Development Rethought or Forgotten? A Review of the UNCTAD Trade and Development Report 2024","authors":"Baptiste Albertone, Tin Hinane El Kadi, Amir Lebdioui","doi":"10.1111/dech.70030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70030","url":null,"abstract":"<p><b>UNCTAD, <i>Trade and Development Report 2024: Rethinking Development in the Age of Discontent</i>. Geneva: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2024. xiv + 190 pp</b>. https://unctad.org/publication/trade-and-development-report-2024</p><p>Fifty years later, we are living in a new crisis in global development. Only 15 per cent of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are currently on track, with some indicators even having dipped below their 2015 baselines (UN, <span>2023</span>). As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres remarked, ‘Instead of leaving no one behind, we risk leaving the SDGs behind’ (Guterres, <span>2023</span>). Since 2015, the annual financing gap of the SDGs has increased by 60 per cent, from US$ 2.5 trillion to US$ 4 trillion in 2024 (OECD, <span>2025</span>; UNCTAD, <span>2023</span>). The COVID-19 pandemic proved to be a critical stress test for a system already struggling to manage multiple and overlapping structural trends that had been building since the 2008 global financial crisis. These include rising debt burdens, widening inequalities within and across countries, a slowdown in international trade and a weak investment climate.</p><p>These challenges lie at the core of UNCTAD's historic mandate, which is why, before engaging with our critique of its <i>Trade and Development Report 2024: Rethinking Development in the Age of Discontent</i> (henceforth TDR 2024 or the Report), it is important to first understand and situate the unique and politically significant role that the institution as the principal body advocating for the economic interests of developing nations plays within the UN system. Established in 1964 amid intense debates over the inequities of the post-war international economic order, UNCTAD was created largely at the initiative of countries from the Global South to provide them with a stronger, more unified voice in global economic governance. Unlike more technocratic bodies, UNCTAD was explicitly designed as a platform for multilateral negotiations among countries at different stages of development. It aimed to problematize questions of trade, finance, investment and technology from a development perspective — areas frequently sidelined by established institutions dominated by advanced economies.</p><p>As a result, UNCTAD has been instrumental in advancing analytical work on a range of issues central to development, including the structural disadvantages facing commodity-dependent economies, barriers to technology access, the need for fairer trade rules, the dangers of capital account liberalization, pressures on sovereign borrowers and the importance of industrial policy and policy space for developing countries. In doing so, UNCTAD has consistently served as a counterpoint to more orthodox, market-led approaches favoured and advanced by institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.</p><p>UNCTAD's analysis and policy recommendations have traditionally been grounded in a structurali","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"1084-1110"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.70030","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This contribution uses a discussion of the global climate finance architecture to put forward and illustrate a conceptualization of the financialization of and by international organizations. It highlights four channels through which the phenomenon operates: (1) the adoption of financial logics; (2) the advancement of financial innovation; (3) the embracing of financial accumulation; and (4) the direct financialization of member states’ policies and citizens’ lives. As consequence, four main types of financialization can be identified that are promoted within and by international organizations: within intergovernmental fora, these are the financialization of policy narratives, meaning the redefinition of policy challenges as questions of financial investment, and of standards; while international organizations, in their function as governing and administrative bodies, can drive financialization by turning public goods into the basis for financial assets, and through the direct representation of financial interests.
{"title":"Financialization of and by International Organizations: The United Nations and the Global Climate Finance Architecture","authors":"Ewa Karwowski","doi":"10.1111/dech.70022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70022","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This contribution uses a discussion of the global climate finance architecture to put forward and illustrate a conceptualization of the financialization of and by international organizations. It highlights four channels through which the phenomenon operates: (1) the adoption of financial logics; (2) the advancement of financial innovation; (3) the embracing of financial accumulation; and (4) the direct financialization of member states’ policies and citizens’ lives. As consequence, four main types of financialization can be identified that are promoted within and by international organizations: within intergovernmental fora, these are the financialization of policy narratives, meaning the redefinition of policy challenges as questions of financial investment, and of standards; while international organizations, in their function as governing and administrative bodies, can drive financialization by turning public goods into the basis for financial assets, and through the direct representation of financial interests.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"897-927"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.70022","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Conversation with Marc Wuyts","authors":"Hazel Gray","doi":"10.1111/dech.70021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70021","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"1025-1047"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.70021","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article challenges prevailing approaches to urban sustainability by reconceptualizing capitalist urbanization as a planetary process of geometabolic escalation. Hegemonic visions of sustainable cities render invisible the non-city sociometabolic preconditions and consequences of urban life under capitalism. Our dissident theorization brings to the foreground such ‘hidden abodes’ of capitalist urbanization and their role in the enclosure, operationalization and degradation of the planetary biosphere. The fossil-based metabolic regime of capital, consolidated in the 1870s and planetarized during what this article terms the ‘Long Intensification’, has transformed cities into strategic nodes within a fossil-powered formation of the capitalist urban fabric. This unevenly extended infrastructural matrix escalates the throughput of matter/energy while discharging toxic waste into the biosphere and generating planetary waves of social dispossession. The analysis reveals the dialectical relationship between throughput ecologies (of metabolic intensification) and exhaustion ecologies (of socioenvironmental destruction) that underpins this process. As carbon-intensive patterns of fixed capital are locked in and extended, cities become ‘blazing bonfires’ that metabolize colossal quantities of energy while projecting their destructive socioenvironmental impacts onto operational landscapes of appropriation and sacrifice zones of ruination. Meanwhile, rather than facilitating transitions away from fossil fuels, renewable energy has primarily supplemented expanding relays of fossil energy production and consumption, further ratcheting up capital's spatial metabolism of plunder, productivity and pollution. Urban sustainability programmes frequently serve to legitimize new forms of eco-apartheid, creating protected enclaves for privileged populations while preserving imperial circuits of extraction and waste. Drawing inspiration from Mike Davis, the article navigates between analytic despair and utopian possibility to envision alter-metabolisms that might interrupt capital's destructive planetary trajectory without succumbing to the false hopes associated with ‘renewables capitalism’. This article proposes a radically relational, anti-capitalist reconfiguration of sustainability politics, grounded in degrowth strategies, anti-imperialist sociometabolic relations, democratic control of infrastructures and programmes of ecological repair.
{"title":"The Monster ‘Within’: Capitalist Urbanization as Geometabolic Escalation","authors":"Neil Brenner, Swarnabh Ghosh","doi":"10.1111/dech.70015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70015","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article challenges prevailing approaches to urban sustainability by reconceptualizing capitalist urbanization as a planetary process of geometabolic escalation. Hegemonic visions of sustainable cities render invisible the non-city sociometabolic preconditions and consequences of urban life under capitalism. Our dissident theorization brings to the foreground such ‘hidden abodes’ of capitalist urbanization and their role in the enclosure, operationalization and degradation of the planetary biosphere. The fossil-based metabolic regime of capital, consolidated in the 1870s and planetarized during what this article terms the ‘Long Intensification’, has transformed cities into strategic nodes within a fossil-powered formation of the capitalist urban fabric. This unevenly extended infrastructural matrix escalates the throughput of matter/energy while discharging toxic waste into the biosphere and generating planetary waves of social dispossession. The analysis reveals the dialectical relationship between throughput ecologies (of metabolic intensification) and exhaustion ecologies (of socioenvironmental destruction) that underpins this process. As carbon-intensive patterns of fixed capital are locked in and extended, cities become ‘blazing bonfires’ that metabolize colossal quantities of energy while projecting their destructive socioenvironmental impacts onto operational landscapes of appropriation and sacrifice zones of ruination. Meanwhile, rather than facilitating transitions away from fossil fuels, renewable energy has primarily supplemented expanding relays of fossil energy production and consumption, further ratcheting up capital's spatial metabolism of plunder, productivity and pollution. Urban sustainability programmes frequently serve to legitimize new forms of eco-apartheid, creating protected enclaves for privileged populations while preserving imperial circuits of extraction and waste. Drawing inspiration from Mike Davis, the article navigates between analytic despair and utopian possibility to envision <i>alter</i>-metabolisms that might interrupt capital's destructive planetary trajectory without succumbing to the false hopes associated with ‘renewables capitalism’. This article proposes a radically relational, anti-capitalist reconfiguration of sustainability politics, grounded in degrowth strategies, anti-imperialist sociometabolic relations, democratic control of infrastructures and programmes of ecological repair.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"668-728"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.70015","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Carlota Perez, now in her mid-80s, is one of the world's leading thinkers on innovation and technological revolutions. Her intellectual journey, which has been anything but conventional, unfolded through a series of revolutions: from aspiring to become a missionary to studying architecture, from leaving behind a Marxist revolutionary movement to joining the civil service, from advising corporations and governments to ultimately entering academia. In the process, Carlota has developed a unique view of the global economy: where it is headed and where it could potentially go instead.</p><p>Her career in researching technology began in the 1970s with an investigation into the structural causes of the energy crisis in her home country, Venezuela. After working on international technology transfer at the Institute of Foreign Trade in the 1970s, she became the founding Director of Technological Development at the Ministry of Industry (1980‒83). There, alongside other policy instruments to promote innovation, she created the country's first venture capital fund. After holding the position of visiting researcher at Cambridge University and Centennial Professor at London School of Economics, she currently is an Honorary Professor at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) at University College London (UCL) and at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex. She is also Adjunct Professor of Technology and Socio-Economic Development at the Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance at TalTech, Estonia. She sits on the advisory boards of IIPP, at UCL, the Development Leadership Dialogue at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the Technology and Industrialisation for Development Centre, at the University of Oxford. Over the past few decades, her pioneering work has shaped our collective understanding of technological transformations and their interactions with broader economic, financial, social and political changes. Her book <i>Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages</i> (Perez, 2002), has become a classic and was chosen as one of the ‘books of the century’ in economic history by the journal <i>Foreign Affairs</i>. That book is where she first advanced her theory on the emergence and diffusion of technological revolutions, and the role of finance in the process. She is currently working on a sequel, <i>The Social Shaping of Technological Revolutions</i>, which will analyse the roles that government, business and civil society play in bringing about the golden ages of each revolution.</p><p>Why is it so important to have this conversation today? The world is undergoing considerable changes. We are living through a turning point in history, one defined by technological disruption, climate emergency and growing inequality — yet also by unprecedented opportunities for transformation. In many ways, the historical transition we are witnessing now
现年80多岁的卡洛塔·佩雷斯（Carlota Perez）是世界领先的创新和技术革命思想家之一。她的思想之旅绝非传统，而是通过一系列革命展开：从立志成为传教士到学习建筑，从离开马克思主义革命运动到加入公务员队伍，从为企业和政府提供咨询到最终进入学术界。在这个过程中，卡洛塔对全球经济形成了一种独特的看法：它将走向何方，又可能走向何方。她的技术研究生涯始于20世纪70年代，当时她调查了她的祖国委内瑞拉能源危机的结构性原因。20世纪70年代在对外贸易研究所从事国际技术转移工作后，她成为工业部技术发展部创始主任（1980-83）。在那里，除了其他促进创新的政策工具外，她还创建了该国第一个风险投资基金。在担任剑桥大学客座研究员和伦敦经济学院百年教授之后，她目前是伦敦大学学院创新与公共目的研究所（IIPP）和苏塞克斯大学科学政策研究部门的荣誉教授。她也是爱沙尼亚TalTech的Ragnar Nurkse创新与治理学院的技术和社会经济发展兼职教授。她是伦敦大学学院IIPP、伦敦大学亚非研究学院发展领导力对话以及牛津大学技术与工业化促进发展中心的顾问委员会成员。在过去的几十年里，她的开创性工作塑造了我们对技术变革及其与更广泛的经济、金融、社会和政治变革的相互作用的集体理解。她的著作《技术革命和金融资本：泡沫和黄金时代的动力》（佩雷斯，2002）已成为经典，并被《外交事务》杂志选为经济史上的“世纪之书”之一。在这本书中，她首次提出了关于技术革命的出现和扩散以及金融在这一过程中所起作用的理论。她目前正在撰写续集《技术革命的社会塑造》，这本书将分析政府、企业和民间社会在每一次革命的黄金时代所扮演的角色。为什么今天有这么重要的话题？世界正在发生重大变化。我们正在经历一个历史转折点，一个由技术颠覆、气候紧急情况和日益严重的不平等所定义的转折点，但也有前所未有的转型机遇。在许多方面，我们现在目睹的历史转变也可能需要理论范式的根本转变。当我们试图解释当代动态时，我们既需要理解过去的轨迹，也需要开发新的概念工具。正是在这个意义上，卡洛塔·佩雷斯为当今前所未有的挑战和生态危机提供了独特的视角。社会如何协调环境可持续性的迫切需要与经济和社会进步的必要性？在引导创新和工业发展走向更绿色、更公平的未来方面，国家应该发挥什么作用？这些紧迫的问题构成了这次采访的背景，在采访中，卡洛塔·佩雷斯讨论了追求可持续发展的矛盾和可能性，去增长范式的优点和局限性，民粹主义的原因以及绿色产业政策在确保共享繁荣的同时避免生态崩溃的作用。这次对话不仅提供了对当代关于国家干预和金融作用的辩论的批判性参与，还深入探讨了她的个人生活和经历，为下一代学者提供了反思和建议，以更好地装备自己来应对我们时代的挑战。卡洛塔，作为世界上在技术革命和社会经济发展方面领先的思想家之一，是什么首先激发了你对技术革命的兴趣？是否有一个特定的时刻或经历塑造了你的想法？上世纪70年代中期，我在委内瑞拉中央大学（Central University of Venezuela）参加了一门关于石油经济学的研究生课程。我和Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo（石油输出国组织（OPEC）的发起人）一起参与了一个研究小组。我们知道，每桶约2美元至7.5美元的价格上涨完全是前所未有的（通常的变化是上下几美分）。这种巨大的飞跃通常是强大的石油卡特尔无法接受的，但我们知道这是石油公司“建议”的。 随着自由市场经济的发展，大多数学术界变成了一个“以数据为基础”的内部讨论俱乐部，与现实的接触很少。事实上，数据被视为现实，而事实上，它隐藏的往往比它揭示的要多。对商界或政界人士的采访不再流行；也不是前瞻性研究。跨学科还没有成为规范，然而在现实世界中，它显然是需要的。年轻人被束缚在由期刊主导的“要么发表要么灭亡”的世界里，而这些期刊中的大多数并不致力于改善世界，而是致力于在“知识地图”上添加微小的内容。这是非常痛苦的，因为我们正处于转型的关键时刻，学术界除了极少数例外，没有加入斗争。在大规模技术变革的背景下，过去的数据推断作为对未来的预测是无效的。进步力量必须走出去，获取知识，分享知识。社会影响应该得到比现在更高的重视，良好的教学也是如此。有时候，研究可以自我隔离而不会造成太大伤害，但今天它几乎是犯罪。我们必须了解这个世界，以便让它变得更好，并将其视为我们的责任，作为一个不公平世界中的特权精英成员。最后，今天的许多年轻人对经济和环境危机感到不知所措。关于如何塑造未来，而不是感到无能为力，你会给他们什么建议？我会先说：‘你可以改变世界！不”。我会马上补充一句：“但你需要理解它是如何工作的。”年轻人被他们所看到的不公正和危险所压倒。金融和垄断的力量；难以忍受的贫困；赢者通吃社会的自私和那些为正义而战的人的无能都是压倒性的，导致愤怒、绝望和激进变革的梦想。我亲身经历过。但没有人告诉我，为了从体制中获得最好的东西而奋斗是值得的，因为这是可能的。我花了几十年的时间才明白，取得重大进展并非不可能，尽管这显然也不容易。它不会是完美和理想的进步，但它可以是一个真正的进步，一旦实现，将使数百万人受益。所以，我的基本信息是制度创新。在企业与社会、发达国家与发展中国家、人类与地球之间建立一种正和博弈的条件已经具备。它不会是乌托邦，但它是可行的，而且是紧迫的。这是这一代人面临的主要挑战。 他们需要它来在北海和阿拉斯加生产利润，他们已经在那里进行了重大投资。但我们怀疑也可能有结构性原因，我被赋予了找出原因的任务。所以，我研究了自汽车取代火车、马匹和有轨电车以来发展起来的主要技术，以及自从电力成为家庭生活的基本要素以来。我的发现令我震惊：所有的东西，绝对是所有的东西，要么使用石油，要么使用电力，要么使用一些石化合成材料。甚至农业也依赖于它！而且，由于油价长期以来一直很便宜，价格上涨可能会对制造业和生活方式造成严重打击。难怪“石油危机”如此令人震惊！所以，我的问题是，“现在石油很贵，会发生什么？”技术会改变吗？就在那时，我发现了微电子技术的潜力和不断降低的成本。这是我的顿悟时刻：廉价的微电子将取代廉价的石油，成为创新的驱动力！这让我把技术革命的概念作为我早期工作的重点，从那时起，我就在关于技术变革及其对社会影响的问题和发现的海洋中不停地航行。有趣的是，尽管我去读研究生是为了发展这种新的理解（Perez, 1983），但我并没有想到要成为一名学者。当时我的目标是在政府工作，不是作为一名政治家，而是作为一名公务员，处理新形势下的发展问题。值得庆幸的是，你并没有就此止步，而是真正成为了一名公共知识分子和学者。但在分析了几十年的技术革命之后，您的思维和理论模型是如何演变的呢？在你的研究中，什么变化最大？直到20世纪90年代中期，我的重点一直是创新，熊彼特（1939/1982）的“长波”，范式转变以及对公司在产品、生产方法、组织和机会变化方面的影响。我也对这些变化将如何为发展中国家打开可能性非常感兴趣（Perez, 1985）。你可能知道，在拉丁美洲，自从Prebisch（1950）写了一篇关于昂贵的进口制造品和廉价的原材料出口之间的价格剪刀的文章以来，我们采取了进口替代工业化。普雷维什本人以联合国拉丁美洲经济委员会（CEPAL）主
{"title":"A Conversation with Carlota Perez: A Life of Revolutions","authors":"Amir Lebdioui","doi":"10.1111/dech.70007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70007","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Carlota Perez, now in her mid-80s, is one of the world's leading thinkers on innovation and technological revolutions. Her intellectual journey, which has been anything but conventional, unfolded through a series of revolutions: from aspiring to become a missionary to studying architecture, from leaving behind a Marxist revolutionary movement to joining the civil service, from advising corporations and governments to ultimately entering academia. In the process, Carlota has developed a unique view of the global economy: where it is headed and where it could potentially go instead.</p><p>Her career in researching technology began in the 1970s with an investigation into the structural causes of the energy crisis in her home country, Venezuela. After working on international technology transfer at the Institute of Foreign Trade in the 1970s, she became the founding Director of Technological Development at the Ministry of Industry (1980‒83). There, alongside other policy instruments to promote innovation, she created the country's first venture capital fund. After holding the position of visiting researcher at Cambridge University and Centennial Professor at London School of Economics, she currently is an Honorary Professor at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) at University College London (UCL) and at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex. She is also Adjunct Professor of Technology and Socio-Economic Development at the Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance at TalTech, Estonia. She sits on the advisory boards of IIPP, at UCL, the Development Leadership Dialogue at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the Technology and Industrialisation for Development Centre, at the University of Oxford. Over the past few decades, her pioneering work has shaped our collective understanding of technological transformations and their interactions with broader economic, financial, social and political changes. Her book <i>Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages</i> (Perez, 2002), has become a classic and was chosen as one of the ‘books of the century’ in economic history by the journal <i>Foreign Affairs</i>. That book is where she first advanced her theory on the emergence and diffusion of technological revolutions, and the role of finance in the process. She is currently working on a sequel, <i>The Social Shaping of Technological Revolutions</i>, which will analyse the roles that government, business and civil society play in bringing about the golden ages of each revolution.</p><p>Why is it so important to have this conversation today? The world is undergoing considerable changes. We are living through a turning point in history, one defined by technological disruption, climate emergency and growing inequality — yet also by unprecedented opportunities for transformation. In many ways, the historical transition we are witnessing now","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"1007-1024"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.70007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
China's renewable energy development is often seen as a success story in the global green transition effort. This article examines how that success has been shaped by the interplay between the state's development rationale and the logic of capital followed by enterprises — factors that have enabled rapid capacity expansion and falling costs of production. Yet running alongside these achievements are deep structural tensions. Drawing on evidence from China's solar power, wind power and electric vehicle sectors, the article argues that the logic of capital — expressed in price wars, overcapacity and international trade conflict — has repeatedly challenged the state's strategic development goals. China's experience offers a particularly revealing case of the limits of technocratic green industrialization under capitalism. Rather than a model to emulate, China illustrates both the possibilities and the constraints of building renewables capitalism from the Global South.
{"title":"Renewables Capitalism and the Contradictions of Green Industrialization: The Case of China","authors":"Ying Chen","doi":"10.1111/dech.70018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70018","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>China's renewable energy development is often seen as a success story in the global green transition effort. This article examines how that success has been shaped by the interplay between the state's development rationale and the logic of capital followed by enterprises — factors that have enabled rapid capacity expansion and falling costs of production. Yet running alongside these achievements are deep structural tensions. Drawing on evidence from China's solar power, wind power and electric vehicle sectors, the article argues that the logic of capital — expressed in price wars, overcapacity and international trade conflict — has repeatedly challenged the state's strategic development goals. China's experience offers a particularly revealing case of the limits of technocratic green industrialization under capitalism. Rather than a model to emulate, China illustrates both the possibilities and the constraints of building renewables capitalism from the Global South.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"871-896"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.70018","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
China stands as both the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the leading producer and user of clean energy technologies. While the country has rapidly expanded its green technology sector, this growth has largely added to, rather than replaced, fossil fuel consumption. This duality presents a complex challenge in assessing China's impact on the global green transition — a challenge which is compounded by ongoing debates about the essence of China's political economy and the relatively early stage of theorizing the broader political and economic implications of the green transition. Rather than debating whether China's system is capitalist or otherwise, this analysis focuses on understanding China through the logic of the pursuit of profits, as well as the country's approach to environmental policy. The transition is often framed in terms of ‘renewables capitalism’, emphasizing either state or market drivers, but this may overlook deeper tensions between the capitalist profit logic and the green transition. By examining these dynamics in a global context, and interrogating the motives behind China's actions, this article aims to shed light both on China's future performance and the extent to which a meaningful green transition is achievable, either within or outside renewables capitalism.
{"title":"China and Renewables Capitalism in the Green Transition","authors":"Dic Lo, Niangjijia Nyangchak, Fanqi Lin","doi":"10.1111/dech.70019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70019","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>China stands as both the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the leading producer and user of clean energy technologies. While the country has rapidly expanded its green technology sector, this growth has largely added to, rather than replaced, fossil fuel consumption. This duality presents a complex challenge in assessing China's impact on the global green transition — a challenge which is compounded by ongoing debates about the essence of China's political economy and the relatively early stage of theorizing the broader political and economic implications of the green transition. Rather than debating whether China's system is capitalist or otherwise, this analysis focuses on understanding China through the logic of the pursuit of profits, as well as the country's approach to environmental policy. The transition is often framed in terms of ‘renewables capitalism’, emphasizing either state or market drivers, but this may overlook deeper tensions between the capitalist profit logic and the green transition. By examining these dynamics in a global context, and interrogating the motives behind China's actions, this article aims to shed light both on China's future performance and the extent to which a meaningful green transition is achievable, either within or outside renewables capitalism.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"847-870"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.70019","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p><b>World Bank Group, <i>World Development Report 2024: The Middle-income Trap</i>. Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2024. xxx + 241 pp</b>. <b>www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2024</b></p><p>Over the past two decades, both within academia and in multilateral policy circles, significant attention has been devoted to analysing the ‘middle-income trap’ (MIT), which generally refers to a growth slowdown at middle-income levels (Agénor, <span>2016</span>; Doner and Schneider, <span>2016</span>; Felipe et al., <span>2012</span>; Gill and Kharas, <span>2007</span>; Im and Rosenblatt, <span>2013</span>). The growing literature on the MIT suggests widespread agreement that falling into this trap is likely. Yet it is not clear whether such a trap exists at all (see discussion in Kang and Paus, <span>2020</span>). Several studies have found no generalizable pattern indicative of a ‘trap’ facing middle-income countries (Pritchett and Summers, <span>2014</span>). Others have argued that growth slowdowns attributed to the MIT took place much earlier in Latin America and parts of Southeast Asia than its proponents suggest (Palma and Pincus, <span>2024</span>). Debates also persist over its multiple definitions, the income thresholds used to delineate it, and the empirical evidence required to identify a growth slowdown (Bulman et al., <span>2014</span>).</p><p>The growing prominence of the MIT concept in policy debates is most clearly reflected in the World Bank's most recent annual flagship publication, the <i>World Development Report 2024: The Middle-income Trap</i> (henceforth WDR 2024 or the Report). The Report's lead author, Indermit Gill, now Chief Economist of the World Bank, and Homi Kharas, a former World Bank official, are often cited as having first introduced the term (Gill and Kharas, <span>2007</span>). That said, many years prior, Arthur Lewis (<span>1980</span>) had already postulated that countries tend to experience a growth slowdown as they approach high-income status due to the diminishing benefits of labour transfers from the non-capitalist to the capitalist sector in the dual economy model, once the Lewis turning point is reached.</p><p>Our article has two main objectives. First, we critically review the WDR 2024 and highlight its shortcomings. Second, we discuss alternative frameworks for explaining growth slowdowns. We argue that the Report is an oddly defensive response to the recent surge in discussions around industrial policy, especially given the World Bank's earlier openness under Justin Lin's tenure as Chief Economist. We also contend that the Report represents an attempt at paradigm maintenance, intended to limit the role of the state as ruptures between the neoclassical view of industrial policies and the enactment of such policies in the Global South become increasingly visible. Such paradigm maintenance strategies have been a feature of earlier World Development Reports (Wade, <span>1996</span>). For example, following
{"title":"Middle-income Trap or Neoliberal Trap? Industrial Policy and Ideology in the World Development Report 2024","authors":"Pritish Behuria, Andy Sumner","doi":"10.1111/dech.70013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><b>World Bank Group, <i>World Development Report 2024: The Middle-income Trap</i>. Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2024. xxx + 241 pp</b>. <b>www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2024</b></p><p>Over the past two decades, both within academia and in multilateral policy circles, significant attention has been devoted to analysing the ‘middle-income trap’ (MIT), which generally refers to a growth slowdown at middle-income levels (Agénor, <span>2016</span>; Doner and Schneider, <span>2016</span>; Felipe et al., <span>2012</span>; Gill and Kharas, <span>2007</span>; Im and Rosenblatt, <span>2013</span>). The growing literature on the MIT suggests widespread agreement that falling into this trap is likely. Yet it is not clear whether such a trap exists at all (see discussion in Kang and Paus, <span>2020</span>). Several studies have found no generalizable pattern indicative of a ‘trap’ facing middle-income countries (Pritchett and Summers, <span>2014</span>). Others have argued that growth slowdowns attributed to the MIT took place much earlier in Latin America and parts of Southeast Asia than its proponents suggest (Palma and Pincus, <span>2024</span>). Debates also persist over its multiple definitions, the income thresholds used to delineate it, and the empirical evidence required to identify a growth slowdown (Bulman et al., <span>2014</span>).</p><p>The growing prominence of the MIT concept in policy debates is most clearly reflected in the World Bank's most recent annual flagship publication, the <i>World Development Report 2024: The Middle-income Trap</i> (henceforth WDR 2024 or the Report). The Report's lead author, Indermit Gill, now Chief Economist of the World Bank, and Homi Kharas, a former World Bank official, are often cited as having first introduced the term (Gill and Kharas, <span>2007</span>). That said, many years prior, Arthur Lewis (<span>1980</span>) had already postulated that countries tend to experience a growth slowdown as they approach high-income status due to the diminishing benefits of labour transfers from the non-capitalist to the capitalist sector in the dual economy model, once the Lewis turning point is reached.</p><p>Our article has two main objectives. First, we critically review the WDR 2024 and highlight its shortcomings. Second, we discuss alternative frameworks for explaining growth slowdowns. We argue that the Report is an oddly defensive response to the recent surge in discussions around industrial policy, especially given the World Bank's earlier openness under Justin Lin's tenure as Chief Economist. We also contend that the Report represents an attempt at paradigm maintenance, intended to limit the role of the state as ruptures between the neoclassical view of industrial policies and the enactment of such policies in the Global South become increasingly visible. Such paradigm maintenance strategies have been a feature of earlier World Development Reports (Wade, <span>1996</span>). For example, following ","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"1061-1083"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.70013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145730501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article debates the prospect of renewables capitalism and the hypothesis that capitalism per se does not require fossil fuels from a feminist degrowth perspective by elucidating how capitalism, its imperatives and its contradictions — and thus the potentiality of renewables capitalism — would be viewed from this perspective. To this end, the article outlines a feminist degrowth understanding of capitalism by building on traditions and frameworks which inform degrowth thinking, delineating two aspects in particular: the biophysicality of capitalism and its conception as a heterogeneous social formation. This particular understanding of capitalism is then mobilized to elaborate on the potential contradictions of renewables capitalism, structured around the limits and constraints that the biophysical properties of renewables would pose for capitalism and the labour of social-ecological reproduction in renewables capitalism. The article concludes by highlighting the contribution of a feminist degrowth perspective to contemporary debates on renewables capitalism, as well as the lessons to be drawn from degrowth thinkers over the prospect of a renewables transition led by capital.
{"title":"Biophysicality, Social Reproduction and the Limits of Renewables Capitalism","authors":"Bengi Akbulut","doi":"10.1111/dech.70017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70017","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article debates the prospect of renewables capitalism and the hypothesis that capitalism per se does not require fossil fuels from a feminist degrowth perspective by elucidating how capitalism, its imperatives and its contradictions — and thus the potentiality of renewables capitalism — would be viewed from this perspective. To this end, the article outlines a feminist degrowth understanding of capitalism by building on traditions and frameworks which inform degrowth thinking, delineating two aspects in particular: the biophysicality of capitalism and its conception as a heterogeneous social formation. This particular understanding of capitalism is then mobilized to elaborate on the potential contradictions of renewables capitalism, structured around the limits and constraints that the biophysical properties of renewables would pose for capitalism and the labour of social-ecological reproduction in renewables capitalism. The article concludes by highlighting the contribution of a feminist degrowth perspective to contemporary debates on renewables capitalism, as well as the lessons to be drawn from degrowth thinkers over the prospect of a renewables transition led by capital.</p>","PeriodicalId":48194,"journal":{"name":"Development and Change","volume":"56 4-5","pages":"729-754"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dech.70017","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号