State Collapse as Business: The Role of Conflict Trade and the Emerging Control Agenda

This article examines the role played by conflict trade in the process of state collapse. Conflict trade is defined here as the trade in non–military goods such as diamonds, timber and drugs that finances war. Such trade includes both the export and import of goods to a war zone as well as extra–territorial trade undertaken by supporters of a warring faction. It is argued that the decline of superpower military aid coupled with the broader effects of centre–periphery exploitation mediated through a neo–liberal and western imposed version of globalization has meant such trade has a particular salience both in contemporary conflict and the process of state collapse. Equally, though, the reliance of warring factions on conflict trade means they are also susceptible to changes in the market for their goods, creating a vulnerability that can (and to some extent has been) exploited to promote peace. The emerging control agenda on conflict trade is currently characterized by a number of problems — most notably, the risk that the control of conflict trade might become a substitute for action on arms exports; that international action has largely been undertaken within an inappropriate statist paradigm; that control has sometimes taken second place to economic or strategic interests and that policy has become hostage to a ‘drugs and thugs’ agenda which risks undermining its effectiveness.     

Gender and Household Economic Strategies in Rural Appalachia

In recent decades, many Appalachian households have experienced declining incomes due to the loss of traditional male jobs in the mining and manufacturing sectors. One response to this decline has been an increase in female employment in formal sector activities. Another response is homework, or the home-based production of goods and services for sale in the formal and informal sectors. In rural Appalachia, where formal jobs are often unavailable or inadequate to support a household, many women are engaging in homework as an economic strategy. Consequently, economic restructuring cannot be fully understood without analyzing household strategies and gender relations. This paper examines the intersection of gender, households, and economic restructuring as it relates to women's homework and employment shifts in rural Appalachia. Research for this paper entailed qualitative interviews with 50 West Virginia women who are engaged in the home-based production of goods and services. The study analyzes the variety of homework activities done by rural women, their contribution to household incomes, and the effect of these activities on gender relations and divisions of labor in the home. The research forwarded in this study advances a conceptual understanding of household economic strategies and has some practical applications for women and economic development in underdeveloped regions .     

Exotica in Context: Reconfiguring Prestige,Power and Wealth in the Southern African Iron Age

Prestige goods, in various combinations and permutations, feature prominently in anthropological and archaeological templates of the emergence of social inequality and early state formation in premodern societies. In Africa, discussion of the contribution of prestige goods to the evolution of cultural behaviours such as class distinction and statehood has been conducted primarily through theoretical lenses that allocate significant weight to the proceeds of external long distance trade. The major outcome is that archaeologists have rarely paused to evaluate not just the definition of prestige goods but also the congruity between global ‘universals’ and African ‘particularities’. Using empirical evidence from the southern African historical and archaeological records, this paper seeks to evaluate the concept of prestige goods and to assess their contribution to the evolution of Iron Age (AD 200–1900) communities of different time periods, from locally centred positions. It reveals that the distribution, use and deposition of exotic imports in southern Africa is not compatible with the pattern suggested by the prestige goods model, and points towards their valuation as embedded within situational contexts of meaning. In fact, hinterland elites controlled neither the source nor the distribution of exotic goods from producer regions, making them a volatile source of power and prestige. While local elites used exotic imports when available, and imposed taxes on their citizens—payable in both local and external goods—land, cattle, religion and individual entrepreneurship were far more predictable and stable sources of prestige, wealth and power. This provides the basis for reassessing the development of complexity in the region and potentially contributes towards global debates on the impact of long-distance trade in the development of complex states.     

SERVICE EXPORTS AND REGIONAL GROWTH IN THE POSTINDUSTRIAL ERA*

ABSTRACT. The role of service industries in the regional growth process has been debated for decades. Although the importance of services in providing an essential framework for the development of exports has long been acknowledged, their ability to initiate growth has never been generally accepted. In this paper the change in composition of exports from Canada's four western provinces between 1974 and 1979 is analyzed. It was observed that service exports increased more rapidly than exports of goods on both a direct and a direct-plus-indirect basis in 88 percent of comparisons. In absolute terms, the gain in service exports was equal to 89 percent of that for goods exports.     

Balancing the Trade: Roman Cargo Shipments to India

There has been a continuing debate about the extent to which the Roman Empire suffered an economic imbalance in its trade with India (and more broadly the East), that is to say whether in volume or value the Roman Empire imported more than it exported. This imbalance is often thought to be manifested in the export of Roman gold and silver to India and the connected notion that other goods from the Roman Empire were seen as merely items of ballast. It is the intention of this article to place this debate in a practical context by demonstrating not only the physical need for mixed cargoes on ships sailing to India, but also the negligible amount of space taken up by the gold and silver. It is argued that in terms of volume (if not value) goods in kind were far more significant.     

Providing Intergenerational Goods: Implementation of National Park System Plans in Canada and the United States

The provision of inter generational goods is a challenging task for democratic governments in that benefits arrive in the future but costs are borne in the present. Public agencies usually are assigned responsibility for providing such goods, but implementation of their long-term plans often is constrained by the short-term focus of other political actors. This argument is illustrated through a comparison of Canadian and American efforts to expand national park systems according to scientific criteria. Efforts in both nations have been constrained, albeit by different sets of institutional actors. The strong federal structure in Canada has enabled subnational actors to slow and compromise agency expansion plans. American agency efforts have been constrained by the acts of individual politicians at the federal level, particularly members of Congress     

Popular and prevalent: Asian trade goods in northern New Spain, 1590–1850

Much previous scholarship has assumed that Pacific trade goods were generally restricted to the urban centers of colonial Latin America and had little influence on the culture of interior provinces. Documentary and archeological records from remote areas of northern New Spain indicate otherwise and may serve as an example of the range of Asian trade goods elsewhere in colonial Latin America. This essay focuses upon Parral and New Mexico, showing that Asian goods-especially porcelain and textiles-reached some of the most remote areas of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Throughout the colonial era, the desire to establish and maintain a sophisticated lifestyle on the periphery seems to have been operative, with imported Asian goods as signifiers of status and prestige. Although fewer imported Asian goods may have been available in the remote northern regions than in urban areas, archeological and documentary evidence indicates their quality was equal to that of the metropoles, suggesting that daily life on the northern frontier was not as poor and isolated as previously assumed, but rather, actively participated in the international trade of the times.     

基于区位和商品类型的居民购物过程分解比较——以南京为例

网络购物影响下的购物行为变革一直是国外交通统计学和地理学领域研究的热点。已有的研究,几乎都将购物看作一个整体行为,很少从购物过程分解的角度对居民购物行为的改变进行分析。本文以南京为例,以分解购物过程为切入点,通过区分不同区位、不同商品类型来研究网络购物对居民购物行为的影响,得出3点主要结论：①居民倾向于只通过网络或实体店完成所有购物活动;②网络购物对实体店购买搜索型商品存在替代与补充的混合效应,对实体店购买体验型商品仅存在替代作用,且替代作用在城区比郊区显著;③网络购物会产生搜索、体验和退换货出行,且网购体验型商品产生的额外出行比搜索型商品多,在郊区产生的额外出行比城区多。     

CANADA'S INDUSTRIAL PERFORMANCE AND PROSPECTS UNDER FREE TRADE

Canada is currently involved in renegotiating its tariffs in the present discussions on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (gatt). Although official policy seems to be cast in terms of sectoral tariff cuts, reflecting Canada's trading strengths and weaknesses, there has been strong advocacy by some economists that Canada should enter free-trade agreements with the United States or preferably on a multilateral basis (Daly and Globerman, 1976; Economic Council of Canada, 1975; Wonnacott, 1975). The recent books advocating free trade are persuasive in mood and argument but their authors follow "the established orthodoxy of most economists in this country over the past two decades: foreign investment is, of itself, not a problem except to the jaundiced eye of the (nationalist) beholder. The tariff is the real villain … There are no problems, in this view that a good dose of free trade and free capital markets will not cure" (Rotstein, 1972, 2). So, we are faced with a paradox: on the one hand some economists, including those working for the Economic Council, are strongly committed to the argument that free trade will lead to manufacturing success for Canada while on the other hand the nation is experiencing its worst negative balance for secondary manufactured goods. Canada's trading partners have indicated increasingly that Canada does not produce finished goods of the type they require at attractive prices. This anti-export syndrome is a product of the high exchange value of the Canadian dollar (till early 1977) and the high basic cost of Canadian goods.     

South Africa’s trade in cultural goods and services with a focus on cultural trade with BRICS partners

ABSTRACT

As the potential for cultural and creative industries to drive growth and job creation is increasingly recognised, developing countries like South Africa are examining their cultural goods and services trade in a new light. This article investigates the pattern of South Africa’s cultural trade, with a focus on the strategically important BRICS trading bloc. Results show that, like many small, open developing countries, South Africa has a significant cultural goods trade imbalance, especially with China and India. While cultural trade policy is still somewhat fragmented, there are indications that where policies have been put in place, such as in the crafts and audio-visual sectors, progress in reducing significant deficits has been made. At the same time, the pattern of CCI trade preferences currently favours SADC, the EU and EFTA over BRICS partners. Finally, South Africa performs well in a number of services sectors for which cultural trade is important.     

Entrepôt for Chinese Consumer Goods in Central Asia: The Puzzle of Re-exports through Kyrgyz Bazaars

Relying on mirror foreign trade statistics and their reconciliation with official data on balance of payments, two economists demonstrate the important role of bazaars as major conduits of trade in Central Asia, and particularly of Kyrgyz bazaars for the entry of Chinese consumer goods into the region. The authors estimate that in recent years up to three quarters of the goods imported by Kyrgyzstan have been unofficially re-exported to other Central Asian countries, generating substantial income for the Kyrgyz economy. A concluding section explores the implications of the re-export trade for Kyrgyzstan (e.g., positive spillovers for domestic light industry) as well as the potential emergence of new competitors (e.g., Kazakhstan).     

BEYOND COPPER: COMMODITIES AND VALUES IN MIDDLE BRONZE CYPRO‐LEVANTINE EXCHANGES

During the transition from the Middle to Late Bronze Age, Cyprus became a full participant in the Levantine maritime interaction sphere. This is reflected in the archaeological record by a dramatic increase in the Cypriot pottery found in the surrounding region, widely assumed to be the by‐product of an (archaeologically invisible) external demand for Cypriot copper. On the receiving end of this relationship, small numbers of imported ‘luxury’ goods appear on Cyprus. This paper discusses one aspect of exchange that has received little attention in the literature, the presence and significance of quantities of imported transport amphorae (Canaanite jars). These vessels have only rarely been recognized from excavations on Cyprus but recent examination of material from several sites reveals that they are more common than previously assumed. The Canaanite jar evidence may go some way towards redressing the apparent imbalance in goods exchanged and also to illuminate the processes through which Cypriot populations first engaged with the materiality of urban ways of ordering the world.     

LOCAL PUBLIC GOODS AND SPATIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN AN IDEAL URBAN CENTRE

T he major raison d'ětre of democratic governments, local and otherwise, is to provide public goods and services that their citizens wish to have and for which they are willing to pay taxes. However, it is not feasible or expedient for individuals to choose types and amounts of public goods that they wish to "consume" at a given "price" as they would for products sold on the market place-because public goods are non-rival and/or non-excludable, and/or they generate externalities. Therefore, decisions regarding public goods and the taxes to pay for them have to be placed in the hands of representatives who are entrusted with the task of articulating the citizens' collective will.     

Seismic Design of MRF-EBF Dual Systems with Vertical Links: EC8 vs Plastic Design

Despite the fact that Eccentrically Braced Frames with Vertical Links (VL-EBFs), also referred to as inverted Y-scheme, are codified in Eurocode 8, the issues related to their seismic response and design have not been widely investigated, so that design criteria commonly applied for Eccentrically Braced Frames with Horizontal Links (HL-EBFs) are commonly applied. However, the Theory of Plastic Mechanism Control (TPMC) has been recently extended to the case of VL-EBFs. The aims of this article, on one hand, are to provide a further validation of the recently proposed design procedure, based on TPMC, and, on the other hand, are to compare the seismic performance of dual systems composed by a moment-resisting part and VL-EBF part designed by means of TPMC with those occurring when Eurocode 8 design criteria are applied. The validation of the proposed design procedure is carried out by means of Incremental Dynamic Analyses (IDA). The main purpose of such analyses is the check of the fulfilment of the design goal of TPMC, i.e., the development of a pattern of yielding consistent with the collapse mechanism of global type. Such mechanism is universally recognized as the one leading to the highest energy dissipation capacity. In case of MRF-EBF dual systems, it is characterized by the yielding of all the links and all the beams at their ends. Conversely, all the columns and the diagonal braces remain in elastic range. Obviously, exception is made for the base sections of first story columns. In particular, two case studies are analyzed which are characterized by a different number of stories. Each building structure is designed according to both TPMC and Eurocode 8 provisions. The seismic response obtained is investigated by both push-over and IDA analyses. The attention is focused on the pattern of yielding obtained, the maximum interstory drift demand, the link plastic rotation demand and sharing of the seismic base shear between the moment-resisting part and the bracing part of the structural system. The results obtained point out improvement of the seismic response, compared to Eurocode 8 provisions, achieved by means of TPMC.     

Mine blast vibration response spectrum for structural vulnerability assessment: case study of heritage masonry buildings

Ground-borne vibrations induced by mine blasting are typically of low amplitudes, which are not considered a major concern for modern engineered structures. However, historic structures are often considered more vulnerable due to inadequate knowledge regarding the state of construction materials and structural response. Specifically, the construction materials used might be fragile or have deteriorated to a stage that could be vulnerable to such vibrations. Simplistic rule based on peak ground motion parameter has been adopted worldwide for safety assessment, while the frequency characteristics of vibrations are not taken into account. Further, there is very limited study on response of heritage structures to near-field blasting. This article presents a practical structural vulnerability assessment method for mine blast-induced vibrations. In particular, a design response spectrum model is proposed based on close range measurements of nearby mine blasting, which is compared with an existing design spectrum model for far-field mine blasts and a typical design spectrum model for earthquake actions. The method is illustrated through a case study of heritage masonry buildings in Australia. The unique blast data presented and the generalized methodology would be useful to both structural engineers and blast engineers in considering potential effects of blasting on heritage structures.     

Social Analysis of Mortuary Evidence in German Protohistoric Archaeology

German early historical archaeology has witnessed since the 1960s an intensive debate on the social analysis of mortuary remains. It started out with the question of archaeological criteria for the inference of social status in early medieval cemeteries. In the 1970s, attention shifted from quantitative to qualitative analyses of grave goods and to the use of data on labor investment and skeletal data. In the last decade or so, younger colleagues have tried to overcome the weaknesses of traditional inferences from grave goods (status, religion, ethnic affiliation) by looking at the implications of ritual, and new methods of analyzing biological kinship have been applied to identify families in prehistoric and early medieval cemeteries. The German debate shows similarities to as well as differences from the Anglophone debate. It is suggested that we may learn from these parallel developments, but we should also learn from the fact that two scholarly debates on the same subject could ignore each other for 3 decades.     

Probabilistic Seismic Design of Pile Foundations in Non Liquefiable Soil by Response Spectrum Approach

The behavior of pile foundations in non liquefiable soil under seismic loading is considerably influenced by the variability in the soil and seismic design parameters. Hence, probabilistic models for the assessment of seismic pile design are necessary. Deformation of pile foundation in non liquefiable soil is dominated by inertial force from superstructure. The present study considers a pseudo-static approach based on code specified design response spectra. The response of the pile is determined by equivalent cantilever approach. The soil medium is modeled as a one-dimensional random field along the depth. The variability associated with undrained shear strength, design response spectrum ordinate, and superstructure mass is taken into consideration. Monte Carlo simulation technique is adopted to determine the probability of failure and reliability indices based on pile failure modes, namely exceedance of lateral displacement limit and moment capacity. A reliability-based design approach for the free head pile under seismic force is suggested that enables a rational choice of pile design parameters.     

Does Practice Make Perfect? Craft Expertise as a Factor in Aggrandizer Strategies

The focus of this article is on exploring craft expertise and its potential as a factor in aggrandizer strategies. It is argued that there are elements of natural aptitude which enabled certain individuals to excel at flintknapping, allowing them to create objects of exceptional size and beauty in acts of elaborate knapping. Practice alone will enable an individual to reach a certain level of proficiency, but only practice in combination with ability can result in world-class performance. If, as is argued, native ability in some domain is a rare commodity, then harnessing it and developing it through practice would provide an opportunity for a potential aggrandizer to control prestige goods and accrue social capital. In situations where raw material, knowledge, and know-how are ubiquitous, as may have been true for flint technology in southern Scandinavia during the Late Neolithic, this might be one of few means available for a would-be aggrandizer to control prestigious goods.     

A SPATIAL COMPETITION APPROACH TO CENTRAL PLACE THEORY: SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES*

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the potential offered by the model of spatial competition for the study of central place theory. We consider n firms selling m substitutable or complementary goods to a continuum of consumers evenly distributed along a linear segment. Consumers have the same income and the same utility function which is quadratic in the goods supplied by the firms and linear in the numeraire. The main results are as follows. (1) In any location equilibrium in which all goods are consumed everywhere, each good supplied by a single firm is sold at the market center. In Christaller's terminology, this means that when the exhaustive principle holds in equilibrium, highest-order goods are made available at the center. (2) When all goods (excluding the numéraire) are complements to each other and each good is sold by a single firm, there always exists an equilibrium in which all the firms locate coincidentally. (3) If the stores selling a given good are under the control of a single owner then, in any equilibrium for which the exhaustive principle holds, the stores are located in a way such that the total transport cost (borne by consumers) is minimized.     

Approaching the archaeology of value: a view from the modern world

SUMMARY: The abundance of goods in the modern world has a tendency to prejudice interpretation of their value, but the way people value their goods is complex, relative and changeable — scarcity is just one factor. There is a long history of value theorization across the social sciences, but archaeological considerations of value remain uncommon and focused on prestige goods. In this paper, I review alternative conceptions of value through the lens of the modern world, with an example of Spode creamware used by a governor in the early decades of colonial Sydney. I argue that the process of devaluation, through discard and waste, offers a unique archaeological understanding of the shifting values people of the modern world placed on commodities.