Cost‐benefit appraisal of the industrial areas programme in Greece: Aims,methodologies and assumptions

The Industrial Areas Programme in Greece aims to promote and propagate industrial activity in targeted regions. The policy mainly provides for the acquisition of industrial land and the development of the public infrastructure and has been operational since 1968. The objectives of this research are to evaluate the cost‐effectiveness of this policy in terms of the stated aims. Cost‐benefit methods are used to compare the likely outcomes of the policy in the light of the resources deployed. The research illustrates the variety in performance levels that individual projects achieve but concludes overall that the programme has been more than worthwhile. This paper deals with the objectives of the study and how they are to be achieved.     

The industrial district: A stage of a diffuse industrialization process—the case of Roanne

The industrial district is an important element of the theoretical debates concerning the appearance of original features of regional development in Europe. Issuing from Marshallion theory, this concept was ‘reinvented’ in the late 1970s in order to interpret a series of ‘regional success stories’ of industrial development that occurred in middle Italy. Thus, for some economists and geographers, the industrial district has become a new ‘standard’ of regional development, appearing as an autonomous integrated system, whose functions are based on the principle of ‘automation’. This system represents an optimal structure in terms of economic efficiency and resource allocation, and owns its proper mechanisms of reproduction related to specific territorial regulations. A crisis for such a system can only be related to exogenous factors. Rejecting this static vision of economic structures, which reintroduces the ‘growth/crisis’ divide in the analysis of economic development, it seems necessary to promote a more dynamic approach in terms of ‘change through continuity’. This approach was initially developed by some Italian authors who tried to analyze the original features of regional development in the Third Italy in terms of ‘industrialization without fracture’. This approach does not deny the existence of industrial districts, but refuses to accept that they are static: districts can evolve, change, develop . . . Thus, they appear as a particular stage of development in a diffuse industrialization process. Their evolution is no longer simply related to exogenous variables but also to endogenous ones; and this evolution does not necessarily lead to an implosion or a complete transformation of space but can also lead, through the continuity of the industrial district's mechanisms, to a post‐district organizational configuration.     

Knowing scale: intelle©tual property rights,knowledge spaces and the production of the global

In this article, I am concerned with the importance of knowledge spaces to the construction and politics of scale. I draw together literatures on re-scaling with feminist critiques of knowledge to show how struggles over the scale at which knowledge claims are represented and legitimized are an important, and under-recognized, element of rescaling. I draw from Neil Smith's (1984) concept of scale-jumping to see the construction of the global space of knowledge as a scale-jump in which one particular situated knowledge, Western folk belief, is redefined as global and universal. What distinguishes it from other forms of local/anecdotal/unrecognizable knowledges is its relation to power and its capacity to achieve a scale-jump in which it is defined as global knowledge. I contrast the social, economic and power relations associated with knowledge in the village of Puno in the Philippines with those of technoscientific knowledge, as manifested by regimes of intellectual property, to show that knowledges are not a natural way of understanding a separate, pre-existing world but inform how that world is experienced. I build upon David Turnbull's (1997) concept of knowledge spaces to reveal all knowledges as not only arising from a particular context but also as creating that context.

Connaître l'échelle: les droits relatifs à la propriété intellectuelle, les espaces de savoir et la production du mondial

Dans cet article, je me penche sur l'importance des espaces de savoir dans la construction et les politiques d'échelle. Je marrie les corpus sur les transformations d'échelle et les critiques féministes du savoir pour montrer comment les débats qui entourent l'échelle à partir de laquelle les prétentions au savoir sont représentées et admises comme légitimes sont une dimension importante et peu connue des transformations d'échelle. Le concept de saut d'échelle proposé par Neil Smith (1984 Smith, N. 1984. Uneven Development, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]) me sert de point d'appui pour mieux situer la construction d'un espace mondial du savoir en tant que saut d'échelle par lequel un savoir contextualisé, en l'occurrence les croyances folkloriques occidentales, est redéfini en fonction du mondial et de l'universel. Ce savoir se démarque des autres formes de connaissances locales/anecdotiques/indiscernables par son rapport au pouvoir et par sa capacité d'opérer un saut d'échelle vers un savoir mondial. Je compare les relations sociales, économiques et de pouvoir liées au savoir dans le village de Puno aux Philippines avec celles qui relèvent du savoir technoscientifique, telle qu'elles se manifestent dans des régimes de propriété intellectuelle, pour montrer que ces connaissances ne sont pas un moyen naturel de comprendre un monde distinct et préexistant, mais représentent plutôt une source d'informations sur la manière dont le monde est connu. Je prolonge le concept des espaces de savoir de David Turnbull (1997 Turnbull, D. 1997. Reframing science and other local knowledge traditions. Futures, 29: 551–563. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) afin de démontrer que toutes les connaissances proviennent non seulement d'un contexte en particulier, mais qu'elles peuvent également créer ce contexte.

Sabiendo escala: derechos de propiedad intelectual, espacios de conocimiento y la producción de lo mundial

En este artículo trato la importancia de espacios de conocimiento con relación a la construcción y la política de escala. He unido literatura sobre el reescalar con críticas feministas sobre conocimiento para ilustrar como la lucha sobre la escala a que se representa y legitima los conocimientos es un elemento del reescalar importante y poco reconocido. Hago uso del concepto de Neil Smith (1984 Smith, N. 1984. Uneven Development, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.  [Google Scholar]) de saltar escalas para ver la construcción del espacio mundial de conocimiento como un salto de escala en que un conocimiento particular, la creencia folklórica occidental, se redefine como mundial y universal. Lo que le diferencia de otras formas de conocimiento locales/anecdóticas/irreconocibles es su relación al poder y su capacidad de saltar de una escala para otra, así redefiniéndose como conocimiento mundial. Comparo las relaciones sociales y económicas y relaciones de poder asociadas con conocimiento en el pueblo de Puno en las Filipinas con las relaciones de conocimiento tecnocientíficas, tal como son manifestados por regimenes de propiedad intelectual para ilustrar que los conocimientos no representan una manera natural de entender un mundo separado que ya existía, sino que informan la manera en que se experimenta ese mundo. Amplio el concepto de espacios de conocimiento de David Turnbull (1997 Turnbull, D. 1997. Reframing science and other local knowledge traditions. Futures, 29: 551–563. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) para revelar que todos los conocimientos no sólo surgen de un contexto paricular, sino que también crean ese contexto.     

‘Diogenes in search of an honest man’: the genesis of the industrial inch,the first global standard of length

This paper discusses the evolution of the metrology of interchangeable manufacture, and the genesis in the 1930s of the industrial inch, the first global standard of length. I argue that standardization of industrial products during the nineteenth century was a major factor in the change from the proprietary metrologies of earlier interchangeable manufacture to public metrologies based on national length standards. This evolution is placed in the context of the different cultures and techniques of American and British mechanical engineering. Internationalization of manufacturing in the early twentieth century then provided impetus for agreement on a single global industrial standard of length. In exploring these developments, I emphasize the importance of the needs of user groups in the construction of effective standards, and the related subjugation of metrological purity to pragmatism and practicality.     

Unemployment — a socially painful stage in the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy: The case of Poland

The article presents the results of research on the structure of unemployment in Poland at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, described in terms of both kind and spatial variation, by the 49 voivodeships (administrative districts) of the country, using multivariate statistical analysis. The work starts with an analysis of the rise in unemployment over the last few years, since the departure from the centrally controlled economy which was claimed, for ideological reasons, to be free from this problem and which, in fact, was concealing it in its ineffective structures. Unemployment is also related to another factor responsible for the destabilization of the economy, namely inflation. The article closes with a multivariate delimitation of regional labour markets. Although the study is only concerned with Poland, the high unemployment level as a socially painful phenomenon is a feature of the economies of all the post‐Communist countries of Europe.     

‘The labour market under the iron fist of the state’: the Franco dictatorship in the mirror of Hitler,Mussolini and Stalin

This article focuses on the idea that intervention in the labour market through the suspension of labour rights and freedoms, fear and a fall in purchasing power all played a key role in achieving political and economic objectives in the regimes of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. However, in each of these cases, the success of this policy was not as had been expected. These European experiences were essential for the configuration of the labour framework in the Franco dictatorship. The iron-fisted control of the labour market came to Spain through legal texts and institutions that were in many cases a blatant copy of those applied in Italy and Germany. In spite of the ideological distance between them, we can also find some common traits with Stalin's labour policies. The results obtained were even worse for Spain, and the negative effects on the economy were more serious, due to the greater longevity of the Spanish dictatorship.     

The challenge of the spaceship: Arthur C. Clarke and the history of the future, 1930–1970

Arthur C. Clarke’s 1946 essay on ‘The Challenge of the Spaceship’ was one of the founding manifestoes of the Space Age, and helped to establish him as the West’s leading techno-prophet. Restating his ideas in subsequent factual and fictional works, Clarke successfully propagated the belief that man’s destiny lay in space and that the process was already underway. On the surface Clarke’s oeuvre offers a classic astrofuturist model of progress as technology-driven, but on closer examination it also incorporates a more pessimistic, historically based strand of philosophy, British rather than American. This essay traces the genesis of Clarke’s early work and the influence upon him of the historian Arnold J. Toynbee and the moral philosophers Olaf Stapledon and C.S. Lewis. Toynbee was essentially a Christian pessimist who believed that western civilization was on the way out; his long historical perspectives were an important source of inspiration for Clarke, leading him to a cyclical rather than a simply progressive model of history which contemplated both the beginning and the end of civilizations. The concerns of Stapledon and Lewis with grand narratives of decline and redemption were also influences on Clarke. All this needs to be understood in relation to both the European experience of World War I and to the coming of the atomic bomb, the latter a profound influence on Clarke’s generation. Such perspectives gave European astroculture a more modulated vision of the human future in space than the technologically based astrofuturism which dominated in the USA.     

Mechanics,thermodynamics and locomotive design: The machine‐ensemble and the development of industrial thermodynamics

The need to treat history of technology as history of ideas is stressed and a definition of philosophy by G.C. Lichtenberg is adapted to serve as a tool for analysing technological change.

A case study of locomotive design is introduced, and the influence of rational mechanics, on the machine‐ensemble or locomotive‐track union, beginning with the work. of L. Carnot, is briefly outlined. The development of industrial thermodynamics from S. Carnot (1824) to H. Riall Sankey (1898) is summarized to serve as a reference for later papers.

The general influence of Mechanical Philosophy, and Thermodynamical Philosophy, on the development of the machine‐ensemble, is traced. It is concluded that the United Kingdom steam‐railway machine‐ensemble was the grand exemplar for technology from 1830 to 1880, after which date American railway practice served as model for railway engineering and business methods, whilst electrotechnology became the exemplary technology.

Mechanical Philosophy shaped the machine‐ensemble throughout the 19th C to a much greater extent than did thermodynamics. First Law Analysis, and the use of improved test methods and concepts as standardized by Sankey, together with the introduction of stationary and controlled road trials improved locomotive performance between 1880 and 1910, but Second Law Analysis was of little significance until the 1920s when attempts were made to reform the classic Stephenson‐Goss archetype which rational method had evolved by 1910.     

Failing to live up to the promise: the politics of equal pay in ‘new’ workplace and industrial relations institutions

Workplace and industrial relations regulations are key sites for policy intervention to address Australia's gender pay gap, which, at 15.3 per cent, is almost as large as it was in 1997. In both the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth) the goal of equal pay has a more central place than it did in predecessor legislation. In particular, the Fair Work Act has the potential to deliver more gender-equitable wage structures through addressing systemic gender-based undervaluation at the industry level. Adopting a feminist institutional approach this article examines equal pay policy in the operations of workplace and industrial relations regulation to ask why, despite some recent successes, this potential appears unlikely to be realised.