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2371. Neologism as Theoretical Innovation in Economics: The case of 'Financialisation

Author:
Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
The term „financialisation‟ is a recognition that finance has come to play a key role on the modern capitalist economy. But users of the term do not agree on its meaning and recognition of the growing scale of finance has not brought about an increased understanding of financial processes. The paper examines the reasons for increased turnover in financial markets. The main themes in the literature on financialisation are examined and shown to lack a coherent account of financial processes that goes beyond the evidence of financial activity.
Topic:
Debt, Finance, Credit, and Financialisation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2372. The Monetary Theory of Kalecki and Minsky

Author:
Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
The monetary theory of Kalecki and Minsky is usually placed within the Post-Keynesian tradition, deriving from the monetary analysis of John Maynard Keynes. The paper argues that Kalecki and Minsky shared a common inheritance in Swedish and German monetary theory, rather than the Marshallian tradition. Thus the monetary analysis of Kalecki and Minsky emphasises the endogeneity of money through capitalist reproduction, rather than through the mechanisms connecting central bank money to credit creation in the banking system. This provides the link between the monetary theory of Kalecki and Minsky and modern circuit theory.
Topic:
Monetary Policy, Banks, Economic Theory, and Keynes
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2373. Collective Self-Action

Author:
Ananth Padmanabhan and Michael Shih
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
Abstract:
Collective self-defense is an express exception to the U.N. Charter’s prohibition on the use of force by states. It permits a member state to intervene in the defense of another member state when that state has been subject to an unlawful armed attack. Here we consider (1) the obligations that international law places on an intervening state and (2) the best practices for an intervening state that may be derived from past state practice.
Topic:
United Nations, Military Strategy, Legal Theory, Military Intervention, and Collective Defense
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2374. The Meaning of "Assist, Encourage, or Induce" in the Weapons Ban Context

Author:
Christina Koningisor
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
Abstract:
More than half of all multilateral disarmament treaties currently in force prohibit member states from “assist[ing], encourag[ing], or induc[ing]” another party in its pursuit or use of the prohibited weapon. This report examines this provision across five major disarmament treaties and arrives at three key findings
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Treaties and Agreements, Military Strategy, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2375. Optimal Deterrence: An Evaluation of the Leaks-Regulating Regime

Author:
Ananth Padmanabhan, Tina Thomas, and Jacob Victor
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
Abstract:
Recent high-profile leaks have led to renewed calls, especially from some members of Congress, for a more rigorous leaks-prosecuting regime. In response, others, most visibly the press and certain watchdog groups, have strongly resisted the claim that a more forceful response to unauthorized disclosures benefits the American public. This report evaluates the existing leaks-regulating regime and considers which of the current reform proposals are most likely to provide optimal deterrence. First, this report outlines the myriad and sometimes contradictory interests at stake implicated by unauthorized disclosure of classified information: protecting national security, safeguarding First Amendment rights, ensuring government accountability and transparency, promoting consistency in prosecution, and furthering efficient government functioning. Second, this report examines why it has proven difficult for the government to successfully prosecute leaks. It identifies four leading reasons. First, it can be difficult to identify a leaker, given the vast proliferation of the classification system and the expansion of national security bureaucracy. Second, the government faces significant legal burdens at trial— prosecutors often have to rely on circumstantial evidence; in the case of intangible information disclosure, the government may also have to deal with a heightened scienter requirements. Third, a trial may attract unwanted attention to an issue the government prefers to keep secret and defendants sometimes try to capitalize on this by using “graymail” defenses. Finally, the recipients of unauthorized disclosures—usually members of the press—enjoy robust constitutional protections that can restrict evidence gathering.
Topic:
Governance, Legal Theory, Deterrence, Classification, and Leaks
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2376. The War on Drugs and HIV/AIDS: How the Criminalization of Drug Use Fuels the Global Pandemic

Author:
Global Commission On Drug Policy
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Global Commission On Drug Policy
Abstract:
The global “war on drugs” is driving the HIV/AIDS pandemic among people who use drugs, although research has shown that repressive law enforcement forces users away from public health services and into hidden environments where HIV risk becomes markedly elevated. An assessments of the impacts concluded that many nations and international organizations tasked with reducing the drug problem have actually contributed to a worsening of community health and safety. The time for leadership is now.
Topic:
HIV/AIDS, Health, War on Drugs, and Drugs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2377. Organic Agriculture as an Opportunity for Sustainable Agricultural Development

Author:
Verena Seufert
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University
Abstract:
We need drastic changes in the global food system in order to achieve a more sustainable agriculture that feeds people adequately, contributes to rural development and provides livelihoods to farmers without destroying the natural resource basis. Organic agriculture has been proposed as an important means for achieving these goals. Organic agriculture currently covers only a small area in developing countries but its extent is continuously growing as demand for organic products is increasing. Should organic agriculture thus become a priority in development policy and be put on the agenda of international assistance as a means of achieving sustainable agricultural development? Can organic agriculture contribute to sustainable food security in developing countries? In order to answer these questions this policy brief tries to assess the economic, social and environmental sustainability of organic agriculture and to identify its problems and benefits in developing countries. Organic agriculture shows several benefits, as it reduces many of the environmental impacts of conventional agriculture, it can increase productivity in small farmers’ fields, it reduces reliance on costly external inputs, and guarantees price premiums for organic products. Organic farmers also benefit from organizing in farmer cooperatives and the building of social networks, which provide them with better access to training, credit and health services. Organic agriculture generally reduces the vulnerability of farmers as the higher organic prices act as buffer against the low prices and price volatility of conventional markets, as organic systems are often more resilient against extreme weather events, and as the often diverse organic crop-livestock systems provide a diverse set of outputs. On the other hand, organic farmers in developing countries need to access international markets, they require often costly certification and have increased demand for labour. Overall, organic agriculture thus provides promises for sustainable agricultural development, but its shortcomings need to also be considered. This policy brief therefore concludes with a set of specific recommendations on what policy options could best address the current problems of organic agriculture and ensure the success of an organic agriculture development strategy.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Food, and Sustainability
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2378. Uluslararası İlişkiler Kuramında Anarşi Söylemi

Author:
Faruk Yalvaç
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
This article discusses the development of the anarchy discourse in international relations theory. It questions the main problematiques around which the discourse of anarchy is organised and asks whether anarchy is still a valid concept to understand international relations. The mainstream IR theory analyses anarchy from an institutional framework, and is based on the assumption that state relations is sufficient to describe and understand anarchy. Post-positivist period have developed diverse criticisms to this conceptualisation. The article evaluates the criticisms of postmodernist, historical sociological, postcolonial and feminist approaches to the concept of anarchy. One of the main theses of this article is that the concept of anarchy can meaningfully be used to analyse international relations only if it is connected to social relations (and more specifically to social relations of capitalism with respect to understanding present international system). Therefore, the approach adopted in this article overlaps with many of the criticisms of anarchy by postmodernism, feminism, but more specifically with recent historical sociological approaches and the postcolonial studies. Another argument of the article is that the anarchy/order opposition can not totally be eradicated unless the social relations sustaining them can be altered.
Topic:
Political Theory, Socialism/Marxism, and Anarchy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2379. Segregasyonlar ve Jeopolitik “Yeni” Düzenler: Müteşebbis Efendiler olarak Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri

Author:
Anna M. Agathangelou and Barış Karaağaç
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
Beginning with the epistemological principle, International Relations (IR) critiques “world politics”, we look at the discipline of International Political Economy (IPE) within IR, considering to what extent IPE re-thinks key IR divides. What does IPE mean when the military-industrial complex is a site of power for the accumulation of resources and knowledge production? Can we critically theorize without understanding the international, the military, or the industrial as contested categories? How have critical theories of security and militarization and their racial formations been “globally” and “locally” positioned? Does an assumed segregation of security and property relations preclude making tensions visible in security regimes and among vulture capitalists? This essay foregrounds Turkey and its armed forces as sites of critical inquiry into the key divides of IR: national and international; global and local; the economy and state relations; rationality and bodies. We highlight what is produced as viable within the fields of the current model of global power and collective practices instrumental in changing IPE consensus about global processes and relations to dissent.
Topic:
International Political Economy, Political Theory, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2380. “Güvenlik İkilemi”ni Yeniden Düşünmek Güvenlik Çalışmalarında Yeni Bir Perspektif

Author:
Ali Bilgiç
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
Th is article will discuss the concept of “security dilemma”, which was conceptualized sixty years ago, but has been enriched and recently re-thought, in three periods. In the first period, the concept was formulated based on the security understanding dominating the Cold War era. The second period is the one during which the concept was enriched in conjunction with emerging problems in world politics and the broadened security understanding in the discipline of International Relations. In the last period, the concept was completely re-thought and fed by new ideas. Among these new ideas, the concept of “trust” was offered as a way of transcending security dilemmas. The re-generated version of “security dilemma” presents a new perspective to understand, study, and re-think what security and insecurity mean in world politics.
Topic:
International Relations, International Security, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
Global Focus