Search

Begin New Search Topic Economics Publishing Institution Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University

1. The Politics of Form and Alternative Autonomies: Indigenous Women, Subsistence Economies and the Gift Paradigm

Author:
Rauna Kuokkanen
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
Many indigenous rights advocates around the world have emphasized over and over again the paramount importance of collective autonomy as a precondition for the long-term survival of Indigenous peoples as distinctive collectivities. Despite the fears and concerns of nation-states, for a great majority of Indigenous people this kind of autonomy — autonomy as a people — does not imply secession or independent statehood but "appropriate forms of association with surrounding states that would safeguard their distinctive identities and special relationships to their territories" (Lâm 2000, 135). Indigenous peoples' struggle for self-determination, therefore, is also a struggle to exist as a collective in the future, which implies being able to decide about and have control over that future as a people. In short, there is a difference between struggles for autonomy and separatist movements. Nira Yuval-Davis suggests.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, Gender Issues, and Globalization

2. Has Financial Internationalization Turned into Financial Globalization?

Author:
Samir Saul
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
Money-capital has crossed state borders in increasing amounts since the nineteenth century. Understood as internationalization, this phenomenon has been a feature of the world economy for some time. Globalization is more complex and encompassing. It posits an intensification, a deepening and a multiplication of forward and backward links between units of a global economy. Financial globalization "is an aggregate concept that refers to increasing global linkages created through crossborder financial flows" (Prasad et al. 2003, 2). It includes uniformity of practices and liberalization — in this instance, the removal of legal barriers and regulatory restrictions to international financial flows. It assumes integration of markets, mobility of actors, interconnectedness, and multilateral relations. Historically, financial internationalization has meant largely unidirectional movement of capital from relatively capital-rich to relatively capital-poor countries. Financial globalization implies multidirectional mobility, cross-investments, as well as reciprocal back-and-forth movement of capital between investor and recipient economies.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance

3. Monetary Power and Political Autonomy: Exchange Rate Policymaking in Follower States

Author:
Louis W. Pauly
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
Common sense suggests that successful leaders need willing followers. Coercion can sometimes be effective, but even the most inexperienced parent soon learns the lesson that results achieved through unforced acquiescence tend to be better and more enduring than those achieved through the application of brute force. Political theorists typically focus on the concept of legitimacy when they evoke the quality that transforms raw power into something more acceptable to its target. Clearly implicated by that concept is another one, even more difficult to measure: respect for the ultimate autonomy of the target. In an era of rapid global transformation, when the exercise of great power is readily observable, research nevertheless proliferates on the meaning and nature of independence, of sovereignty, and of political autonomy (for an overview see Grande and Pauly 2005).
Topic:
Economics, Foreign Exchange, and Globalization

4. History, Globalization, and Globality: Preliminary Thoughts

Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
During reviews of the project application by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, we were asked how the outcomes would differ from results achieved by funding the specific investigations - each of our projects - as standard grants. How would we achieve collaborative results? What would be gained from collaborative effort? What does society gain?
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and History

5. Well-Rooted? Land Tenure and the Challenges of Globalization

Author:
Michelle Vosburgh
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
There is increasing pressure in the developing world to implement reforms that will facilitate more efficient land use and capital investment through the use of Western-style surveys, ownership and title registration. Proponents of traditional land systems have opposed these Western reforms by arguing for land's cultural and social importance. This article is a historical exploration of this issue within the context of contemporary globalization. The changing attitudes towards land tenure practices are traced through an examination of the published materials of the United Nations, its agencies and member nations. Historic and contemporary examples illustrate the difficulties of preserving traditional land systems in the face of economic and political integration.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Globalization, and Political Economy

6. State Power and the Asian Crisis

Author:
Linda Weiss
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
The Asian financial crisis has re-opened the debate about the role of the state in the region's industrialisation. Just when there seemed to be growing acknowledgment across the economic and political disciplines that certain kinds of state involvement were vital to the rapid upgrading of the Northeast Asian economies and that understanding what made states effective or ineffective was a crucial issue, along came the financial hurricane. Profound disarray of an economic and social nature has been the most immediate and important consequence of this watershed event. Theoretical disarray has followed closely in its path. This paper seeks to inject some theoretical rigour into the discussion of the Asian crisis. State power in the Asian setting - whether and in what way the state's transformative capacity is weak or robust - and how it relates to the impact of international markets is central to the argument that follows.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Asia and Northeast Asia

7. Globalisation: Challenges and Opportunities

Author:
G.B. Madison
Publication Date:
01-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
Globalization is a multifaceted phenomenon. In this paper I seek to discern some of the challenges it poses, as well as some of the opportunities it offers. To this end, attention is focused on three major aspects of globalization: the economic, the cultural, and the political. Particular consideration is given to the political-economic lessons to be learned from the recent East Asian financial (and economic) crisis; the homogenizing and civilizing ramifications of globalization in the realm of culture; and the relation between economic globalization, the threat it poses to the traditional notion of national sovereignty, and the prospects for the development of civil society, the rule of law, and democratic governance. The paper concludes by arguing that, as a result of the emerging global economy, we are witnessing the emergence of a new form of capitalism, qualitatively different from both 19th-century laissez-faire capitalism and 20th-century “managed” capitalism.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and Markets
Political Geography:
East Asia and Asia