Pub Date : 2023-11-10DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2279077
Merve Sancak
This article combines the comparative political economy of skill formation literature with the one on growth models to analyse the state's role in skill systems of late industrialising countries. It focuses on Mexico and Turkey, which constitute crucial cases for a most similar case analysis. The article shows that Mexico and Turkey followed different growth models after their economic liberalisation, which led to distinct state roles in two key skill system institutions, namely the minimum wage and the vocational education and training (VET) system. In Mexico, the state aligned these institutions with the ‘dependent-downgrading' growth model, which was reliant on external demand and investments with low industrial upgrading and sometimes downgrading, and minimal working-class cohesion. Minimising labour costs was prioritised to attract foreign investment and to reduce the prices of exports, leading to extremely low wages and a liberal VET system in Mexico. In Turkey, the growth model was ‘domestic-upgrading’ with higher role of domestic investments and demand, and some improvements in industrial upgrading and working-class social cohesion. Ensuring high minimum wage and comprehensive VET system constituted key strategies for the state to maintain this growth model in Turkey, leading to relatively higher minimum wage and a statist VET system.
{"title":"Why do national skill systems vary? The state’s role in skill system institutions for maintaining growth models","authors":"Merve Sancak","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2279077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2279077","url":null,"abstract":"This article combines the comparative political economy of skill formation literature with the one on growth models to analyse the state's role in skill systems of late industrialising countries. It focuses on Mexico and Turkey, which constitute crucial cases for a most similar case analysis. The article shows that Mexico and Turkey followed different growth models after their economic liberalisation, which led to distinct state roles in two key skill system institutions, namely the minimum wage and the vocational education and training (VET) system. In Mexico, the state aligned these institutions with the ‘dependent-downgrading' growth model, which was reliant on external demand and investments with low industrial upgrading and sometimes downgrading, and minimal working-class cohesion. Minimising labour costs was prioritised to attract foreign investment and to reduce the prices of exports, leading to extremely low wages and a liberal VET system in Mexico. In Turkey, the growth model was ‘domestic-upgrading’ with higher role of domestic investments and demand, and some improvements in industrial upgrading and working-class social cohesion. Ensuring high minimum wage and comprehensive VET system constituted key strategies for the state to maintain this growth model in Turkey, leading to relatively higher minimum wage and a statist VET system.","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135136993","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}
Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2275014
Havva Ezgi Dogru
ABSTRACTThe mass-scale expansion of student loan schemes in Turkey over the last two decades has been accomplished by a governance technique which the article defines as authoritarian debtfarism. By restructuring the Credit and Dormitories Institution (KYK) as subordinated to the executive and insulated from democratic intervention, the authoritarian neoliberal state in Turkey has sought to fulfil its new economic function, i.e. enabling the societal reproduction of the youth by increasing their financial dependency on credit money. The state-led student loan expansion in Turkey emerged in a tuition-free higher education setting without a sophisticated financial infrastructure and in an economic environment marked with perpetual graduate unemployment as well as inflationary pressures on repayment amounts. Based on a detailed interrogation of the official documents and in-depth interviews with defaulters, this article argues that authoritarian debtfarism has imposed a rigid market discipline over the university youth by using non-transparency and arbitrariness as its governance mechanisms. Consequently, future labour of the graduates is put on hold through a long-term debt relation, compelling them to integrate into labour market precariously as a new segment of the relative surplus population.KEYWORDS: Student loan politicsTurkeyauthoritarianismdebthigher education AcknowledgementsI am thankful for the feedback received on a previous version of this paper, which was presented at the 17th National Social Science Congress organised by the Turkish Social Sciences Association in February 2023. The author expresses gratitude to Susanne Soederberg, Canan Şahin, and Rebecca Hall for their valuable feedback.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Like Turkey, China, India and Brazil experienced a rapid increase in their gross enrollment rates. To illustrate, from 2001 to 2021, the GER increased from 8 to 64 per cent in China, from 10 in to 31 per cent in India and from 21 to 55 per cent in Brazil (Ziderman Citation2023, World Bank Citation2023a). This trend was accompanied with the expansion of student loans, with 30 per cent of the total university students taking loans in China (Yang Citation2017), 26 per cent in India (Chalil Citation2021), 40 per cent in Brazil (Lavinas et al. Citation2019) and 27 per cent in Turkey (see Figure 2). The reason why time reference for these countries is not standardised is a lack of data regarding the countries mentioned.2 While accurate default rates are unavailable, non-performing assets rose in the late 2010s, which reaches one-third in some states of India (Chalil Citation2021, p. 128) and 30 per cent in some underdeveloped regions in China (Cai et al. Citation2019, p. 98), 47 per cent in Brazil (Lavinas et al. Citation2019).3 The data is retrieved from the same source used for Figure 2. Please see the endnote 14.4 These figures have been computed using data from TU
摘要过去二十年来,土耳其学生贷款计划的大规模扩张是通过一种治理技术完成的,本文将其定义为专制债务主义。通过重组信贷和宿舍机构(KYK),使其从属于行政部门,不受民主干预,土耳其的威权主义新自由主义国家试图实现其新的经济功能,即通过增加年轻人对信贷货币的经济依赖,使他们能够实现社会再生产。土耳其政府主导的学生贷款扩张,是在高等教育免学费的背景下出现的,没有成熟的金融基础设施,而且经济环境的特点是毕业生永远失业,还款金额面临通胀压力。本文通过对官方文件的详细询问和对违约者的深入访谈,认为威权债务主义以不透明和随意性作为治理机制,对大学青年施加了严格的市场纪律。因此,通过长期债务关系,毕业生的未来劳动力被搁置,迫使他们作为相对过剩人口的新部分不稳定地融入劳动力市场。关键词:学生贷款政治sturkeyauthorarianismdebdeber教育致谢感谢收到的对本文前一版本的反馈,该版本于2023年2月由土耳其社会科学协会组织的第17届全国社会科学大会上发表。作者对Susanne Soederberg, Canan Şahin和Rebecca Hall的宝贵反馈表示感谢。披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。注1与土耳其一样,中国、印度和巴西的毛入学率也出现了快速增长。举例来说,从2001年到2021年,中国的GER从8%上升到64%,印度从10%上升到31%,巴西从21%上升到55% (Ziderman Citation2023, World Bank Citation2023a)。这一趋势伴随着学生贷款的扩大,中国有30%的大学生贷款(Yang Citation2017),印度有26% (Chalil Citation2021),巴西有40% (Lavinas等)。Citation2019)和土耳其的27%(见图2)。这些国家的时间参考没有标准化的原因是缺乏有关上述国家的数据虽然无法获得准确的违约率,但不良资产在2010年代末有所上升,在印度的一些州达到了三分之一(Chalil Citation2021, p. 128),在中国的一些不发达地区达到了30% (Cai等)。Citation2019, p. 98),巴西47% (Lavinas et al.)。Citation2019)。3数据是从图2中使用的相同源中检索的。这些数据是根据TUIK 2022年第四季度统计数据和İŞKUR 2023年1月统计数据计算得出的,由“年轻失业”平台编制。该计划由社会科学家组成,旨在通过每月提供数据见解来支持和联系失业青年。可从https://gencissizler.org/2023/02/17/genc-issizlik-bulteni-subat-2023/获得[2023年5月10日访问]我每年使用“贷款金额”(代码08)计算学生债务与GDP的比率,这些贷款金额来自于KYK和青年和体育部的CoA报告。与全球北方高度金融化的学生贷款体系相反,由于学生贷款组合与GDP的比例很大,违约率上升对经济产生了传染效应,美国为6.5% (Kirney和tanzei Citation2022),英国为5.5% (Keep和Bolton Citation2018),到2021年,学生贷款与GDP的比例都不会达到0.097%,违约率的数量也不会对土耳其经济造成灾难性影响(学生贷款金额与GDP之比如下:2013年为0.15126%;2014年为0.22972%;2015年为0.15958%;2016年为0.21313%;2017年为0.18894%;0.17115% 2018;2019年0.16144%;2020年为0.13714%;2021年为0.09662%)Koç, sabancyi, Özyeğin和ya<e:1>大学是由tusiad的有影响力的成员建立和私人拥有的。7作者的新研究是关于传统城市中心以外的大规模项目与次国家发展之间的联系。这本参考书是一本详尽记录的新闻报道,详细描述了学生们的经历以及他们在当地剥削性经济中遇到的困难私立基础大学的数量也从2005年的26所增加到2022年的79所,增长了近三倍。
{"title":"The politics of student loan in Turkey: regimenting the youth through <i>authoritarian debtfarism</i>","authors":"Havva Ezgi Dogru","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2275014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2275014","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe mass-scale expansion of student loan schemes in Turkey over the last two decades has been accomplished by a governance technique which the article defines as authoritarian debtfarism. By restructuring the Credit and Dormitories Institution (KYK) as subordinated to the executive and insulated from democratic intervention, the authoritarian neoliberal state in Turkey has sought to fulfil its new economic function, i.e. enabling the societal reproduction of the youth by increasing their financial dependency on credit money. The state-led student loan expansion in Turkey emerged in a tuition-free higher education setting without a sophisticated financial infrastructure and in an economic environment marked with perpetual graduate unemployment as well as inflationary pressures on repayment amounts. Based on a detailed interrogation of the official documents and in-depth interviews with defaulters, this article argues that authoritarian debtfarism has imposed a rigid market discipline over the university youth by using non-transparency and arbitrariness as its governance mechanisms. Consequently, future labour of the graduates is put on hold through a long-term debt relation, compelling them to integrate into labour market precariously as a new segment of the relative surplus population.KEYWORDS: Student loan politicsTurkeyauthoritarianismdebthigher education AcknowledgementsI am thankful for the feedback received on a previous version of this paper, which was presented at the 17th National Social Science Congress organised by the Turkish Social Sciences Association in February 2023. The author expresses gratitude to Susanne Soederberg, Canan Şahin, and Rebecca Hall for their valuable feedback.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Like Turkey, China, India and Brazil experienced a rapid increase in their gross enrollment rates. To illustrate, from 2001 to 2021, the GER increased from 8 to 64 per cent in China, from 10 in to 31 per cent in India and from 21 to 55 per cent in Brazil (Ziderman Citation2023, World Bank Citation2023a). This trend was accompanied with the expansion of student loans, with 30 per cent of the total university students taking loans in China (Yang Citation2017), 26 per cent in India (Chalil Citation2021), 40 per cent in Brazil (Lavinas et al. Citation2019) and 27 per cent in Turkey (see Figure 2). The reason why time reference for these countries is not standardised is a lack of data regarding the countries mentioned.2 While accurate default rates are unavailable, non-performing assets rose in the late 2010s, which reaches one-third in some states of India (Chalil Citation2021, p. 128) and 30 per cent in some underdeveloped regions in China (Cai et al. Citation2019, p. 98), 47 per cent in Brazil (Lavinas et al. Citation2019).3 The data is retrieved from the same source used for Figure 2. Please see the endnote 14.4 These figures have been computed using data from TU","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135320861","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}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2275017
Tobias Haas
Various analyses show that right-wing populist parties (RWP) tend to be sceptical of climate science and policy. This points to a blank space in the dominant analyses of populism: their blindness towards society-nature relations. This paper aims to develop an approach grounded in Cultural Political Economy (CPE) that can be used to decipher the mediation of RWP within the context of economic, political, and cultural developments as well as society–nature relations. Against this background, the argument is developed that RWP is concerned not only with countering migration and processes of societal liberalisation, but also with defending an existing way of life that is firmly rooted in the destructive appropriation of nature. As a current of right-wing politics, RWP defends the imperial mode of living by expressing scepticism towards the existence of anthropogenic climate change. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the political economy of RWP by linking the dimensions of social domination with the appropriation of nature.
{"title":"On the links between climate scepticism and right-wing populism (RWP): an explanatory approach based on cultural political economy (CPE)","authors":"Tobias Haas","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2275017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2275017","url":null,"abstract":"Various analyses show that right-wing populist parties (RWP) tend to be sceptical of climate science and policy. This points to a blank space in the dominant analyses of populism: their blindness towards society-nature relations. This paper aims to develop an approach grounded in Cultural Political Economy (CPE) that can be used to decipher the mediation of RWP within the context of economic, political, and cultural developments as well as society–nature relations. Against this background, the argument is developed that RWP is concerned not only with countering migration and processes of societal liberalisation, but also with defending an existing way of life that is firmly rooted in the destructive appropriation of nature. As a current of right-wing politics, RWP defends the imperial mode of living by expressing scepticism towards the existence of anthropogenic climate change. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the political economy of RWP by linking the dimensions of social domination with the appropriation of nature.","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135863923","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}
Pub Date : 2023-10-30DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2275008
Pedro M. Rey-Araújo
{"title":"Social reproduction theory and the capitalist ‘form’ of social reproduction","authors":"Pedro M. Rey-Araújo","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2275008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2275008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136068907","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}
Pub Date : 2023-10-13DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2268018
Daniela Lai
The article argues for taking political economy seriously in the study of corporate accountability in transitional justice processes. Corporate actors are now commonly involved in transitional justice (that is, attempts at doing justice in the aftermath of mass violence). However, the literature is still limited by an inclination to treat political economy as context, rather than as a structuring factor intervening both on the war-related or authoritarian violence and on the efforts to make corporate actors accountable. This article proposes three shifts towards a better understanding of the political economy of corporate accountability in TJ: from a focus on the proximate economic causes of war to a genealogical view of pre-war, wartime and post-war economies; towards a more holistic view of conflict financing; and from an emphasis on the political economy of war to the political economy of violence. These shifts allow us to analyse a greater variety of political economies of corporate accountability, address more diffuse responsibilities for violence and injustice, and cover forms of violence that extend over longer periods of time. While holding broader relevance for the field, the arguments are illustrated with reference to the former Yugoslav region and the Bosnian War.
{"title":"Beyond context: taking political economy seriously in the study of corporate accountability","authors":"Daniela Lai","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2268018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2268018","url":null,"abstract":"The article argues for taking political economy seriously in the study of corporate accountability in transitional justice processes. Corporate actors are now commonly involved in transitional justice (that is, attempts at doing justice in the aftermath of mass violence). However, the literature is still limited by an inclination to treat political economy as context, rather than as a structuring factor intervening both on the war-related or authoritarian violence and on the efforts to make corporate actors accountable. This article proposes three shifts towards a better understanding of the political economy of corporate accountability in TJ: from a focus on the proximate economic causes of war to a genealogical view of pre-war, wartime and post-war economies; towards a more holistic view of conflict financing; and from an emphasis on the political economy of war to the political economy of violence. These shifts allow us to analyse a greater variety of political economies of corporate accountability, address more diffuse responsibilities for violence and injustice, and cover forms of violence that extend over longer periods of time. While holding broader relevance for the field, the arguments are illustrated with reference to the former Yugoslav region and the Bosnian War.","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135858049","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}
Pub Date : 2023-10-11DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2268038
Giorgos Gouzoulis
This paper argues that rising household indebtedness is associated with the decline of organised labour. Over the last decades, the financial system is increasingly financing working-class households, and recent research shows that indebted employees become more risk-averse at the workplace on the fear of losing their job and defaulting. Thus, since union formation or participation is commonly punished with redundancy, rising household indebtedness is likely to be associated with the aggregate reduction in unionisation. This study examines this argument for a high-, a mid-, and low-unionisation economy over the period 1965–2018: Sweden, Japan, and South Korea, respectively. Regression analysis provides robust support in favour of this argument. The results also suggest that financial regulation and social norms about personal insolvency matter for the size of the effects of household debt on unionisation.
{"title":"Does household indebtedness contribute to the decline of union density?","authors":"Giorgos Gouzoulis","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2268038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2268038","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that rising household indebtedness is associated with the decline of organised labour. Over the last decades, the financial system is increasingly financing working-class households, and recent research shows that indebted employees become more risk-averse at the workplace on the fear of losing their job and defaulting. Thus, since union formation or participation is commonly punished with redundancy, rising household indebtedness is likely to be associated with the aggregate reduction in unionisation. This study examines this argument for a high-, a mid-, and low-unionisation economy over the period 1965–2018: Sweden, Japan, and South Korea, respectively. Regression analysis provides robust support in favour of this argument. The results also suggest that financial regulation and social norms about personal insolvency matter for the size of the effects of household debt on unionisation.","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136212043","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}
Pub Date : 2023-10-10DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2268034
Gavin Fridell
Countless socially responsible trade initiatives have emerged in recent years offering an uncertain mixture of token and substantive changes. After decades of battles over free trade, this marks a significant shift, challenging established debates over free versus regulated markets by promoting labour, gender, human, and environmental rights through trade agreements. This reorientation contains complex contradictions, with trade justice groups conceding to the popularity of trade while simultaneously insisting on a new vision of what trade is ‘about.’ Drawing on the idea of trade fetishism, this article argues that the desire for trade involves not only its material motivations, but its seductive content as a fetishised object of global capital, offering the fantasy of ‘trade’ as a symbolic source of pleasure. Through the case of the new NAFTA 2.0, it points to the relevance of trade politics that aspires not to overcome trade fetishism, but, as Lucas Pohl (Citation2022) suggests, to ‘get with’ it. Through a trade justice ratchet mechanism, advocates have pushed for unanticipated changes, while also ceding to the limitations of the current order. The outcome is a process of contesting the symbolic content of what trade is and is not about, with significant material and policy implications.
{"title":"Trade fetishism and the trade justice ratchet: between token and substantive change in NAFTA 2.0","authors":"Gavin Fridell","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2268034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2268034","url":null,"abstract":"Countless socially responsible trade initiatives have emerged in recent years offering an uncertain mixture of token and substantive changes. After decades of battles over free trade, this marks a significant shift, challenging established debates over free versus regulated markets by promoting labour, gender, human, and environmental rights through trade agreements. This reorientation contains complex contradictions, with trade justice groups conceding to the popularity of trade while simultaneously insisting on a new vision of what trade is ‘about.’ Drawing on the idea of trade fetishism, this article argues that the desire for trade involves not only its material motivations, but its seductive content as a fetishised object of global capital, offering the fantasy of ‘trade’ as a symbolic source of pleasure. Through the case of the new NAFTA 2.0, it points to the relevance of trade politics that aspires not to overcome trade fetishism, but, as Lucas Pohl (Citation2022) suggests, to ‘get with’ it. Through a trade justice ratchet mechanism, advocates have pushed for unanticipated changes, while also ceding to the limitations of the current order. The outcome is a process of contesting the symbolic content of what trade is and is not about, with significant material and policy implications.","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136358679","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}
Pub Date : 2023-09-29DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2264211
Ainsley Elbra
ABSTRACTThe politics of climate change in Australia remains highly fraught, this is despite the country experiencing acute impacts of a changing climate including mega-fires, floods, and severe and prolonged drought. Government inaction has led to limited market signals encouraging producers or consumers to move away from carbon intensive energy production to clean energy. In the absence of regulation, Australian shareholder activists are engaging directly with company boards and executives to reform corporate behaviour. This engagement, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) shareholder activism, has proliferated since 2017, much later than in comparable jurisdictions. Activists have targeted the mining, oil and gas, and finance sectors, due to their contribution to the Australian economy and their direct impact on global emissions. This paper explores the reasons for, and the implications of, the growth in ESG shareholder activism in Australia. It argues that the emergence of this activism in Australia was delayed due to complexities in the country's corporations' law. Regulatory attempts at stymying ESG shareholder activism resulted in the emergence of a duopoly of actors, at the cost of broader investor and civil society engagement. It is concluded that the rise of ESG shareholder activism in Australia is linked to growing tension between societal expectations, regulation, and the behaviour of firms. And, that ESG activists have been successful in leveraging this tension. There is evidence that large corporates have responded to activist claims, rendering this form of activism a potentially effective method for addressing some of the most pressing issues facing society.KEYWORDS: ESG shareholder activismanti-corporate politicssocial movementsclimate changeenvironmental politics AcknowledgementsThe author wishes to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the ECPR General Conference 2023 Energy Politics, Policy and Governance Standing Group panels for their generous engagement with the paper.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This was followed by an attempted hostile takeover of the firm by entrepreneur and philanthropist, Mike Cannon-Brooks. This bid ultimately failed but did lead to the appointment of four new Cannon-Brooks-backed independent board members and put an end to the proposed demerger that would have carved out the emissions intensive business.2 This figure is of course much higher for Australia’s neighbouring Pasifika communities, who are 100 times more likely to be displaced by climate induced crises than those living in Europe. It must be noted that states in the global north (including Australia) have contributed the majority of the emissions that are likely to displace those whose contributions have been minimal.3 While there are some similar actors in other jurisdictions (i.e. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the majority of filers in the UK and US partner
尽管澳大利亚正经历着气候变化的严重影响,包括特大火灾、洪水和严重而持久的干旱,但澳大利亚的气候变化政治仍然非常令人担忧。政府的不作为导致鼓励生产者或消费者从碳密集型能源生产转向清洁能源的市场信号有限。在缺乏监管的情况下,澳大利亚股东维权人士正直接与公司董事会和高管接触,以改革公司行为。这种参与,即环境、社会和治理(ESG)股东激进主义,自2017年以来激增,比可比司法管辖区晚得多。由于矿业、石油和天然气以及金融行业对澳大利亚经济的贡献以及它们对全球排放的直接影响,活动人士将目标对准了这些行业。本文探讨了澳大利亚ESG股东行动主义增长的原因和影响。它认为,由于澳大利亚公司法的复杂性,这种激进主义在澳大利亚的出现被推迟了。监管机构试图阻碍ESG股东行动主义,结果出现了双寡头垄断,代价是投资者和民间社会的广泛参与。结论是,澳大利亚ESG股东激进主义的兴起与社会期望、监管和公司行为之间日益紧张的关系有关。ESG积极分子成功地利用了这种紧张关系。有证据表明,大公司已经对激进主义者的主张做出了回应,这使得这种形式的激进主义成为解决社会面临的一些最紧迫问题的潜在有效方法。关键词:ESG股东行动主义、反企业政治、社会运动、气候变化、环境政治作者感谢两位匿名审稿人和ECPR大会2023年能源政治、政策与治理常设小组小组的慷慨参与。披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。注1紧随其后的是企业家兼慈善家迈克·坎农-布鲁克斯企图恶意收购该公司。这一收购最终以失败告终,但最终任命了四名新的坎农-布鲁克斯支持的独立董事会成员,并终止了拟议中的分拆计划,该计划原本将剥离这家排放密集型企业对于澳大利亚的邻国帕西菲卡社区来说,这个数字当然要高得多,他们因气候引发的危机而流离失所的可能性是欧洲人的100倍。必须指出的是,全球北部的国家(包括澳大利亚)贡献了大部分的排放量,它们很可能取代那些贡献最小的国家虽然在其他司法管辖区也有一些类似的行为者(例如,人道对待动物组织),但英国和美国的大多数申报者与机构投资者合作,以获得股东权利。例如,ICCR的董事会包括基金经理和美国As You Sow集团的代表,他们与持有一定数量股份的机构投资者共同提交文件。本研究得到了悉尼大学的支持。作者简介ainsley Elbra ainsley Elbra是国际政治经济学领域的研究人员。她的研究主要集中在商业国家关系、私人治理和反公司激进主义。她发表过关于跨国公司力量的文章,包括打击跨国公司避税的努力、专业服务公司的政治力量以及矿业公司在全球南方的作用。她的研究得到了澳大利亚国际政治经济网络的认可,该网络于2015年授予她首届理查德·希戈特期刊文章奖。
{"title":"The AGM as a site of contestation: evaluating the tactics of environmental shareholder activists","authors":"Ainsley Elbra","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2264211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2264211","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe politics of climate change in Australia remains highly fraught, this is despite the country experiencing acute impacts of a changing climate including mega-fires, floods, and severe and prolonged drought. Government inaction has led to limited market signals encouraging producers or consumers to move away from carbon intensive energy production to clean energy. In the absence of regulation, Australian shareholder activists are engaging directly with company boards and executives to reform corporate behaviour. This engagement, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) shareholder activism, has proliferated since 2017, much later than in comparable jurisdictions. Activists have targeted the mining, oil and gas, and finance sectors, due to their contribution to the Australian economy and their direct impact on global emissions. This paper explores the reasons for, and the implications of, the growth in ESG shareholder activism in Australia. It argues that the emergence of this activism in Australia was delayed due to complexities in the country's corporations' law. Regulatory attempts at stymying ESG shareholder activism resulted in the emergence of a duopoly of actors, at the cost of broader investor and civil society engagement. It is concluded that the rise of ESG shareholder activism in Australia is linked to growing tension between societal expectations, regulation, and the behaviour of firms. And, that ESG activists have been successful in leveraging this tension. There is evidence that large corporates have responded to activist claims, rendering this form of activism a potentially effective method for addressing some of the most pressing issues facing society.KEYWORDS: ESG shareholder activismanti-corporate politicssocial movementsclimate changeenvironmental politics AcknowledgementsThe author wishes to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the ECPR General Conference 2023 Energy Politics, Policy and Governance Standing Group panels for their generous engagement with the paper.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This was followed by an attempted hostile takeover of the firm by entrepreneur and philanthropist, Mike Cannon-Brooks. This bid ultimately failed but did lead to the appointment of four new Cannon-Brooks-backed independent board members and put an end to the proposed demerger that would have carved out the emissions intensive business.2 This figure is of course much higher for Australia’s neighbouring Pasifika communities, who are 100 times more likely to be displaced by climate induced crises than those living in Europe. It must be noted that states in the global north (including Australia) have contributed the majority of the emissions that are likely to displace those whose contributions have been minimal.3 While there are some similar actors in other jurisdictions (i.e. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the majority of filers in the UK and US partner","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135246010","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}
Pub Date : 2023-09-21DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2260986
Ludovic Arnaud
This paper contributes to the literature on the evolution of North–South trade agreements, which historically involved countries in the global South relinquishing policy space for activist trade and industrial policies in exchange for locking-in preferential and stable market access. It takes as case study the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), drawing on the agreements, media coverage of the negotiations, and 107 interviews with negotiators and stakeholders in all three countries. I show how the renegotiation resulted in changing conflicts: while the Mexican government attempted to preserve its market access and sought to further restrict its policy space due to path dependence, the Trump administration wanted to reduce market access for Mexico and create uncertainty to re-shore production. The Trump administration partially succeeded by undermining the lock-in effect of trade agreements and including unprecedented provisions in USMCA. The actions of the Biden administration indicate a long-term shift in US trade policy towards protectionism. Combined with the USMCA sunset clause, this creates the risk that the US will use USMCA review periods to create market access uncertainty instead of seizing the opportunities to strengthen North American economic cooperation.
{"title":"From NAFTA to USMCA: revisiting the market access – policy space trade-off","authors":"Ludovic Arnaud","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2260986","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2260986","url":null,"abstract":"This paper contributes to the literature on the evolution of North–South trade agreements, which historically involved countries in the global South relinquishing policy space for activist trade and industrial policies in exchange for locking-in preferential and stable market access. It takes as case study the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), drawing on the agreements, media coverage of the negotiations, and 107 interviews with negotiators and stakeholders in all three countries. I show how the renegotiation resulted in changing conflicts: while the Mexican government attempted to preserve its market access and sought to further restrict its policy space due to path dependence, the Trump administration wanted to reduce market access for Mexico and create uncertainty to re-shore production. The Trump administration partially succeeded by undermining the lock-in effect of trade agreements and including unprecedented provisions in USMCA. The actions of the Biden administration indicate a long-term shift in US trade policy towards protectionism. Combined with the USMCA sunset clause, this creates the risk that the US will use USMCA review periods to create market access uncertainty instead of seizing the opportunities to strengthen North American economic cooperation.","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136237432","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}
Pub Date : 2023-09-12DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2023.2253158
Yuning Shi
This article tackles the question of whether financialisation is present in the Chinese economy by analysing two key transformations of the country’s financial system. The first was a state-led reform process through which the Chinese financial system introduced market practices, similarly to the rest of the economy. The second was a market-led process, reflected in the emergence and rise of shadow banking, which originates from within financial markets with the aim of bypassing loan restrictions. The article shows that despite the two transformations and the enormous growth of finance during the past four decades, the underlying character of the Chinese financial system exhibits remarkable continuity. Namely, it remains bank based – albeit partially liberalised – with a predominant role for bank credit and a strong presence for the state. The relational and government-controlled structures of Chinese finance have not been replaced by arm’s length and private mechanisms. On these grounds, it is premature to consider the Chinese economy to be financialised.
{"title":"Is China financialised? The significance of two historic transformations of Chinese finance","authors":"Yuning Shi","doi":"10.1080/13563467.2023.2253158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2253158","url":null,"abstract":"This article tackles the question of whether financialisation is present in the Chinese economy by analysing two key transformations of the country’s financial system. The first was a state-led reform process through which the Chinese financial system introduced market practices, similarly to the rest of the economy. The second was a market-led process, reflected in the emergence and rise of shadow banking, which originates from within financial markets with the aim of bypassing loan restrictions. The article shows that despite the two transformations and the enormous growth of finance during the past four decades, the underlying character of the Chinese financial system exhibits remarkable continuity. Namely, it remains bank based – albeit partially liberalised – with a predominant role for bank credit and a strong presence for the state. The relational and government-controlled structures of Chinese finance have not been replaced by arm’s length and private mechanisms. On these grounds, it is premature to consider the Chinese economy to be financialised.","PeriodicalId":51447,"journal":{"name":"New Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135885734","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}