From Steering Capitalism to Seeking Market Acceptance

This article puts into a historical context the employment conceptions and policies of leading Social Democrats in Finland from 1975 to 1998. It takes into account both the strategic decision-making and public argumentation of the Social Democrats in employment-sensitive issues related to economic, employment, labour market, state company, competition, globalization and integration policies.

Finland’s Social Democrats moved towards emphasizing private sector-led employment, approached the middle classes, adopted monetarist ideas, accepted the ‘market economy’ and favoured ‘controlled restructuring’ over counter-cyclical measures in a series of steps in 1975–1998. The deregulation of financial markets meant a shifting of the basis of Social Democratic employment policy from steering the capitalist economy to seeking market acceptance of the party’s politics. This did not manage to guarantee full employment in Finland during the period.

Furthermore, Finland’s Social Democrats seemed initially to practise a ‘third way’ type of ‘Bad Sillanpää’ policy long before its adherents in the UK. such as Tony Blair. After the mid-1970s, the Finnish Social Democrat-led governments no longer imitated Sweden, while implementing many reforms which were followed by the Swedish Social Democrats.     

Enclavic tourism spaces: territorialization and bordering in tourism destination development and planning

ABSTRACT

Enclave tourism is a growing field of research. In general, tourism enclaves are seen as products of global capitalism and a non-locally-driven neoliberal market economy. Enclaves also manifest certain kinds of tourism planning and development modes in destination societies. The enclaves are exclusively planned spaces that usually contain the vast majority of facilities and services needed for tourists who have limited possibilities or desire to leave the enclave. At the same time, the locals' access to these spaces can be limited or otherwise controlled. Therefore, there are always power issues and processes of inequalities and uneven development involved, which calls for a further understanding of enclaves and their evolution and governance in tourism planning and development. This paper aims to discuss and synthesize the conceptual idea of enclaves in tourism and get an overview of some of the key theoretical perspectives on how enclavic spaces are produced, bordered, and governed in contemporary tourism planning and development. It is concluded that in critical situations the enclave tourism spaces with all-inclusive products can turn out to be all-exclusive for local communities in development. To understand the nature and development of enclave tourism and to guide their transformation in more sustainable directions, further research on policy and governance aspects of enclave tourism is needed.     

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.     

Border food and food on the border: meaning and practice in Mexican haute cuisine

Restaurants and their attendant practices are high-profile sites at which regional and national cuisines are experienced, experimented with, and negotiated. In particular, they are important settings for the consumption and production of national identity—a crucial space through which to understand the coalescing of the material and representational. This article focuses specifically on the production side of the pairing through an examination of restaurants that are part of a prominent culinary movement (alta cocina mexicana) in the Mexican border town of Tijuana. The central argument of the paper is that Tijuana's culinary scene is indicative of the reassertion of boundaries between Mexico and the USA through the intentional rejection of northern stereotypes of Mexican food. The emphasis on traditional Mexican cuisine, rather than an internationally hybrid cosmopolitan approach, suggests that chefs are adhering to a set of rules that reflect Mexicanness. Restaurants propagating alta cocina mexicana work to differentiate the border and act as social devices which both complicate conventional understandings of Mexican food and disrupt hegemonic discourses of the border as productive of hybridity.     

China's Dynamic Industrial Sector: The Automobile Industry

Two leading Beijing- and Singapore-based economic geographers examine the recent developments and spatial change in China's automobile industry (currently the world's third largest). The paper covers changes in market share among major automobile transnational corporations as well as domestic assemblers; industrial restructuring in the form of product diversification (SUVs to hybrid cars) and production concentration; the massive increase in exports of motor vehicles; and the rise of new automobile production centers. Also included in the paper is a case study of the firm Chery to illustrate the development path of Chinese domestic car assemblers. The embeddedness of transnational corporations and deregulation by the Chinese government are advanced as the two major factors that shape the car industry's geographic distribution in China. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D20, F21, L62. 15 figures, 2 tables, 46 references.     

‘Globalization with hardware’: ITER’s fusion of technology,policy, and politics

This article explores the history of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a fusion energy megaproject currently being built in southern France. It examines three main aspects of the project’s history, focusing largely on the European research community’s perspective. First, it explores how European scientists and science managers constructed a transnational research community around fusion energy after 1960 that was part of Europe’s larger technological integration. This article also expands Gabrielle Hecht’s concept of ‘technopolitics’ to the larger international dimension and explores how the political environment of the late Cold War and the post‐9/11 era helped shape ITER’s history, sometimes in ways not entirely within researchers’ control. Finally, this essay considers ITER as a technological project that gradually became globalized. At various stages in the project’s 30‐year history, we discover processes whereby national borders became less important while social, economic, legal and technological linkages created a shared social space for fusion research on an expanding scale.     

Aerial screens

This article traces a history of inflight entertainment in order to examine the relationship between globalization, the urban imaginary and contemporary modes of travel. I rely on the many meanings of the word ‘screen’ to launch my analysis of the role of inflight entertainment in post-World War II air travel. Rather than examine the material displayed via inflight entertainment technologies, I take the installation of these technologies on aircraft as signifying particular attitudes airlines had toward their passengers, as well as larger struggles and negotiations over the meaning of travel. These coalesce in a cosmopolitan identity that takes the world to be easily accessible and readily visible, the desire of airlines to keep their passengers mollified and calm, and an emergent conception of travel as effortless activity.     

Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on China's Migrant Workers: A Survey of 2,700 in 2009

An Australian geographer examines the effects of the global financial crisis on China's migrant workers, based on a recent survey of over 2,700 such workers conducted during January-February 2009. The author focuses on the number of migrant workers returning to their home villages for the annual New Year holiday period, the types of workers that were laid off, options available to such workers upon losing employment, and the reasons underlying their subsequent moves. Implications of the findings for labor policy in China are briefly outlined and several directions for future research identified. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E240, G010, J610, J690. 7 tables, 68 references.     

ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN MATERIAL WELFARE OF THE POPULATION: THE GEORGIAN SSR

Spatial differences in the material welfare of the population of the Georgian SSR are evaluated on the basis of five per capita indices (monetary income, total savings, number of motor vehicles, retail trade turnover, and provision of basic services) for 61 administrative units of varying type, including ASSRs, rayons, and cities under union republic jurisdiction. Rankings on individual indices are then aggregated into a summary rating. Major cities and areas of commercial agriculture (tea, citrus) tended to have higher summary ratings than mountainous areas with difficult topography and climate and remote from major markets (translated by Jay Mitchell; PlanEcon, Inc.; Washington, DC 20005).     

Restructuring of the Polish Passenger Car Industry through Foreign Direct Investment

A U.S.-based geographer discusses the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Polish passenger car industry. The paper illustrates the magnitude of enterprise restructuring and changes in a significant economic sector. Using the case study approach, the author focuses on three of the largest foreign-owned passenger car makers in Poland: Fiat Auto Poland, Daewoo-FSO, and Opel Polska. He then considers FDI in the rest of the Polish automobile industry, noting inter alia Poland's proximity to West European markets and the country's low-cost labor. The case studies, based in part on recent interviews, discuss investment policies, enterprise restructuring, production trends, and effects of FDI in the supplier bases of car makers. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D20, F21, L62. 6 figures, 1 table, 76 references.