Economic Globalization and Institutions of Global Governance

Economic globalization is reducing the significance of state boundaries. We have a global economy but lack the institutions necessary for a global polity. Unilateral action by a would–be hegemon is untenable in the long term and hence there is a need to discuss our institutions of global governance. The benefits and costs of globalization have been distributed asymmetrically, placing poor people in poor countries at a disadvantage, especially as regards the free movement of low–skilled labour and the creation of intellectual property rights. The World Trade Organization, a target of the critics of globalization, should be seen as a welcome extension of the rule of law to the international arena and a counterweight to unilateralism. More generally, global economic liberalism should be balanced by institutions which provide global public goods and international mechanisms to finance them. All of this implies a further weakening of state sovereignty and a need to ensure that global institutions are democratic and can be held accountable to people worldwide for their performance.     

瑜伽走进高校体育课探讨

本文论述了高校体育课程中增设瑜伽内容的意义,分析了开设这一课程的有利因素和制约因素,并指出促进这一课程在高校体育课程中开设的思路与建议。     

Waste Political Settlements in Colombia and Chile: Power,Inequality and Informality in Recycling

There are stark differences between the waste recycling literature from the global North and that from the global South. The literature from the global North tends to focus on empirical analyses of existing municipal recycling services and rarely considers institutional factors. When it does, the theoretical approaches adopted are limited, especially regarding the role of informal institutions. In contrast, recycling literature from the global South does focus on informal institutions, but it does so by concentrating on the struggles of waste pickers rather than on the performance of waste management services provided by local authorities. This divergence in the literature suggests the need for an analytical framework that integrates institutions and recycling performance. This article analyses waste disposal regimes in two Latin American metropolitan areas, Medellín (Colombia) and Santiago (Chile), and explores the link between income inequality and recycling. It focuses on the political settlements that lie at the heart of the waste regimes. As such, waste regimes in these two cities are understood to be a product of the interplay of balances of power, institutions and distribution of benefits. The study also highlights the need to understand informal institutions as relational phenomena that affect both the rich and the poor, and not just as a subsistence strategy by the latter.     

Rationalization and Conservation: Ecology and the Management of Nature in the United Kingdom

Nature conservation in the UK comprises not only a response to the perceived impacts of rationalization on nature but is itself a dimension of that process of rationalization. The paper describes the development of conservation institutions and ideologies in the UK and considers the ways in which ecology (and particularly ideas of nature as equilibrium) have provided the intellectual framework for conservation. Ecology underpinned the establishment of government conservation institutions, provided intellectual strategies for classifying and objectifying nature, and provided the knowledge base for the control and management of nature. The paper discusses the implications of non-equilibrial ideas in ecology for ideas and practice in conservation and the implications of responses to them in the form of re-rationalization.     

Imperial Liberalism and Institution Building at the End of Empire in Africa

ABSTRACT

This article discusses political liberalism at the end of empire in British Africa through analysis of British ideas about institution building below the level of parliamentary democracies. It suggests that while processes of institution-building have largely been discussed through the prism of development, they also constitute fruitful sites for the exploration of British ideas about the nature of politically-liberal systems. I argue that new articulations of an imperial liberalism during decolonisation had an energising effect on some Britons within domestic institutions whose expertise was called upon to assist with the development of successor institutions in emergent states. As they engaged in a process of institution-building, these individuals acted in ways that were not only determined by Western liberalism, but also by distinctive British ideas of the appropriate relationship of institutions to the state. I suggest, however, that while their approach to institution building in emergent states reflected deep rooted convictions about the kind of institutions that were essential to the operation of politically liberal systems, these ideals were in tension with more self-interested concerns which could in practice compromise efforts to replicate British institutions.     

16世纪威尼斯的贫困与济贫问题

16世纪的欧洲经历了一场普遍的贫困危机,欧洲各国政府纷纷采取了各种济贫措施,以缓解贫困问题对社会造成的压力,天主教城市共和国威尼斯也不例外。通过颁布济贫法和改革大兄弟会等旧式救济组织,威尼斯引导宗教慈善组织朝着世俗化方向发展,从而建立起行之有效的近代济贫制度,有效地缓解了贫困问题造成的压力。威尼斯的经验表明,在推动近代早期欧洲济贫活动世俗化的诸因素中,最重要的因素是社会环境,而非传统上认为的宗教因素。     

CHILD PATIENTS,HOSPITALS AND THE HOME IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

Abstract

This article seeks to map out some of the principal pathways to medical care used by the parents of poor children. We focus on the most formal provider of healthcare in eighteenth-century towns, the voluntary general hospitals, but we use these institutions as a prism to consider the way that the treatment of child sickness was managed more generally in five local settings. Utilising eighteenth-century hospital admissions and discharge registers we find that not only were children consistently treated as patients; but that these institutions also operated as part of a wider medical network which included domiciliary care, poor law services, and other medical charities. The boundaries surrounding hospital treatment in eighteenth-century towns were thus considerably more porous than is usually thought, and suggests that they operated as part of a wider medical network accessed by poor families for their children.     

Making the IMF and the World Bank more Accountable

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (the Bank) are now regularly accused of being secretive, unaccountable and ineffective. Not only radical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) but equally their major shareholders are demanding that the institutions become more transparent, more accountable and more participatory. Accountability, in particular, has become the catchcry of officials, scholars and activists in discussing the reform of the institutions. Yet few attempts have been made to dissect the existing structure of accountability within the international financial institutions (IFIs), to explain its flaws and to propose solutions. That is the aim of this article. The first section examines the structure of accountability planned by the founders of the IMF and the World Bank. The second section discusses the defects in this structure. Section three analyses recent attempts to make the institutions more accountable. The conclusion offers some recommendations for improving the institutions, and a warning about the limits of accountability at the international level.     

Recovering a ‘Subjugated History’: Disability and the Institution in the Industrial City

The paper explores physically disabled people’s experiences of institutions in the industrial city, focusing on the case of nineteenth-century Melbourne. Here ‘institutions’ refers to the panoply of public, semi-public, private and charitable places that were established in industrial cities to house, and frequently confine, a diverse estate of poor, ill, elderly, disabled and otherwise socially dependent persons. The aim of this paper is to retrace the institutional experiences of disabled people in nineteenth-century Melbourne, with a view to explaining the role of the institution within a broader ‘social space of disability’in the industrial city. In particular, the analysis seeks to identify the type of institutions that disabled people were admitted to, including places of confinement such as gaols. The paper also explores how disabled people coped with the ‘duty to attend the asylum‘ (after Foucault) that weighed heavily on socially marginalised people in the industrial city.     

Economic Restructuring,Coping Strategies and Social Change: Implications for Institutional Development in Africa

Since the early 1980s, most African countries have experienced unsatisfactory rates of economic growth and profound changes in livelihood systems, which have affected the way their modern institutions function. However, when confronted with evidence of poor economic performance in countries undergoing adjustment, the international financial institutions often blame governments for their lack of political will in regulating the activities of bureaucrats and vested interests. They recommend policies aimed at restructuring public sector institutions through privatization, public expenditure cuts, retrenchment, new structures of incentives and decentralization. Despite efforts to implement these measures in a number of countries, the problems of low institutional capacity remain. Two key contradictions appear to explain why institutions have been largely ineffective in crisis economies in Africa: the growing contradiction between the interests of bureaucratic actors and the goals they are supposed to uphold; and the contradiction between the institutional set-up itself and what goes on in the wider society. To understand how these contradictions work, it is necessary to look more closely at the set of values and relationships that anchor institutions on social systems. The issues here are social compromise and cohesion; institutional socialization and loyalties; overarching sets of values; and political authority to enforce rules and regulations. The crises in these four areas of social relations, which are linked to the ways households and groups have coped with recession and restructuring, have altered Africa's state institutions so that it has become difficult to carry out meaningful development programmes and public sector reforms without addressing the social relations themselves.     

Exploring the Frontier of Livelihoods Research

This article discusses the value of livelihoods studies and examines the obstacles which have prevented it from making a greater contribution to understanding the lives of poor people over the past decade. After examining the roots of the livelihoods approach, two major challenges are explored: the conceptualization of the problem of access, and how to achieve a better understanding of the mutual link between livelihood opportunities and decision‐making. The article concludes that access to livelihood opportunities is governed by social relations, institutions and organizations, and that power is an important (and sometimes overlooked) explanatory variable. In discussing the issue of access to livelihood opportunities, the authors note the occurrence of both strategic and unintentional behaviour and the importance of structural factors; they discuss concepts of styles and pathways, which try to cater for structural components and regularities; and they propose livelihood trajectories as an appropriate methodology for examining these issues. In this way, the article also sets the agenda for future livelihoods research.     

New technologies in cultural institutions: theory,evidence and policy implications

Publicly-funded cultural institutions such as theatre companies, symphony orchestras, museums, libraries and so on are increasingly engaging with new technologies as a means of improving their operational efficiency and extending the range of ways in which they pursue their cultural missions. For example, opera companies are broadcasting performances by satellite to cinemas, and art museums are using the Internet to show virtual exhibitions. These developments have implications for funding authorities who need to update their policy approaches to encompass a range of new technological phenomena. This paper provides a framework for assessing technological innovation in cultural institutions, and discusses the ramifications of such a framework for cultural policy. The paper is illustrated using the results of a recent research project that evaluated the UK National Theatre’s NT Live experiment and the Tate Gallery’s use of a web-based exhibition as strategies to expand their audience reach.     

Credit and parochial charity in fifteenth-century Bruges

In late medieval Bruges, the poor tables, lay-run parochial charitable institutions that fed the resident paupers of the parish, obtained regular income by investing gifts and surplus funds in annuity rents, low-interest loans secured by property. The market in annuity rents provided an important source of inexpensive long-term credit that the merchant bankers, deposit bankers, and pawnbrokers of Bruges did not or could not supply, allowing the property owners of Bruges to draw upon the value of their immovable property without alienating it. Charitable gifts thus not only fed the poor but also kept capital circulating within the urban economy.     

Credit and parochial charity in fifteenth-century Bruges

In late medieval Bruges, the poor tables, lay-run parochial charitable institutions that fed the resident paupers of the parish, obtained regular income by investing gifts and surplus funds in annuity rents, low-interest loans secured by property. The market in annuity rents provided an important source of inexpensive long-term credit that the merchant bankers, deposit bankers, and pawnbrokers of Bruges did not or could not supply, allowing the property owners of Bruges to draw upon the value of their immovable property without alienating it. Charitable gifts thus not only fed the poor but also kept capital circulating within the urban economy.     

Useful work for idle hands or a brightening and elevating influence? The introduction of the Brabazon Employment Scheme to Glasgow’s public institutions in the late 19th century

Women’s ability to effect changes in welfare policy during the later workings of the new Poor Law has been presented as a ‘marginal influence’ within past historiography. This perspective is contested in recent empirical work, which argues for a more positive view of female agency. The Brabazon Employment Scheme was a charitable initiative, which occupied the poor unable to take part in the routine work of public institutions. Findings from its operation in Glasgow demonstrate how women drew upon philanthropic experience as well as elected positions in the management of institutions to secure the scheme’s introduction in these settings. While the initiative originated in the English workhouses, local women extended the Brabazon activities to address gaps in welfare provision for asylum patients. In doing so, the article shows how organised charity continued to function as an avenue of support for the poor alongside municipal relief into the early 20th century.     

Structural Adjustment and Poverty Alleviation: An Interpretative Survey

There are few simple generalizations about the effects of adjustment programmes on poverty. There remain many data and methodological problems, and outcomes are complex and varied. Poverty groups often are harmed by adjustment programmes, especially the urban working poor, but there has been a tendency to over-emphasize negative outcomes. There are many other influences on poverty. In the long term, adjustment is essential to the eradication of poverty. The principal responsibility for achieving anti-poverty objectives must lie with national governments but they do not always display much concern with the poor. However, the international financial institutions must share the responsibility and could do more to design structural adjustment programmes within a cost-minimizing framework. The principal policy tasks are to formulate a long-term anti-poverty strategy and ensure that adjustment policies are consistent with that, without detracting from the imperative of adapting the economy to changing circumstances.     

Geography in the Baltic Republics on the 50th Anniversary of the Great October Revolution

A review of the status of geography in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia during the Soviet period lists geographic research and educational institutions, the principal research projects, authors and publications in the various geographic disciplines, and discusses the role of the geographical societies of the three republics.     

Revolution and elite transformation in Eastern Europe

The external and internal causes, elite‐mass dynamics, and elite‐level changes that appear, respectively, to have preceded, accompanied, and followed the revolutionary upheavals in Eastern Europe between 1989–1991 are examined comparatively. Particular attention is paid to the possible emergence of national elites that share a consensus on rules of the game and that are unified in defence of democratic institutions. Prospects for such elites are judged to be best in Poland and Hungary, less good in Czechoslovakia, poor in Romania, Bulgaria and Albania, and virtually nonexistent in the Yugoslav republics.     

LAST CALL BEFORE THE UNDERTAKER: A COMMUNITY’S PERCEPTION OF THE LOCAL WORKHOUSE AND OLD PEOPLE’S CARE BEFORE AND AFTER THE INCEPTION OF THE WELFARE STATE

Abstract

Workhouses were no doubt the first old people’s homes. Sick old people without social or financial resources had no alternative other than admission to one of these state institutions . These institutions instilled fear in local communities and admission represented a failure in society. Due to medical advances and improved social conditions, people lived for longer and during the 20th century the majority of the inmates were old people. After the inception of the welfare state institutional care for older people was mainly in buildings inherited from the poor law. Consequently, even after I948, for many old people admission to an institution still carried a stigma. By using oral histories of relatives and professionals who cared for old people during this time, alongside documentary sources, this article examines how the process of transition from poor law to welfare state affected families in Oxford. This first-hand perspective, missing from most studies on the history of ageing, explores how caring for old people at a time of great social change was influenced by the local workhouse.     

Planning reform and development rights in Greece: institutional persistence and elite rule in the face of the crisis

This paper discusses the process of development rights allocation in Greece and the changes to that process which occurred from 2009 onward. It argues that the interaction of institutions which regulate the allocation of development rights, with social practices of formal and informal land development, gives rise to development pathways which demonstrate institutional persistence. In the case of Greece, these pathways range from ‘urban development by state organisations’, to development without planning permission on land that is not owned by the developer. The crisis was a shock to the Greek governance system, yet the analysis in this paper shows that the reforms of the development rights allocation process followed the pre-existing ‘mentality of rule’. The paper therefore argues that development pathways reflect a political arrangement between the ruling elites and other social strata. The technologies of governance and the associated institutions and practices which support elite rule, were sustained, if not reinforced, during the crisis. This analytical approach therefore offers insights of relevance to other countries in Europe and around the world which contemplate reforms to their development rights allocation system.