The business case for a free trade agreement between the European Union and Australia

ABSTRACT

The free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the European Union holds the promise of strengthened political collaboration and increasing economic integration. Both Australia and the European Union note increasing bilateral trade and investment. Oftentimes, data does not take current trends in global-value-chain participation for intermediary goods and services movements into account. Behind this sit the cross-border strategies and activities of business entities, whether multinationals or large, small or medium-sized enterprises. This article provides an in-depth investigation of the premise stemming from an FTA for Australian business. What advantages can politics hope to support through a business perspective? What is the global-value-chain part of the story, and what are the business challenges ahead? How can economic policy help shape this FTA to foster a productive bilateral business environment in a geopolitical and geoeconomic context in which regionalisation has taken on new momentum? Specific focus is given to the analysis of the higher education sector and to agriculture. These are two of the leading sectors in this FTA debate. Generating business value means setting negotiation agendas to target tariff and non-tariff barriers to counterbalance ambiguity in the conditions that shape the global business environment.     

Navigating the Fault Lines: Race and Class in Philadelphia's Solidarity Economy

In debates over post‐capitalist politics, growing attention has been paid to the solidarity economy (SE), a framework that draws together diverse practices ranging from co‐ops to community gardens. Despite proponents’ commitment to inclusion, racial and class divides suffuse the SE movement. Using qualitative fieldwork and an original SE dataset, this article examines the geospatial composition of the SE within the segregated geography of Philadelphia. We find that though the SE as a whole is widely distributed across the city, it is, with the exception of community gardens, largely absent from poor neighborhoods of color. We also identify SE clusters in racially and economically diverse border areas rather than in predominantly affluent White neighborhoods. Such findings complicate claims about the SE's emancipatory potential and underscore the need for its realignment towards people of color and the poor. We conclude with examples of how the SE might more fully address racial injustice.     

Neoliberalisation from the Ground Up: Insurgent Capital,Regional Struggle,and the Assetisation of Land

In this paper we argue that “assetisation” has been a central axis through which both neoliberalisation and financialisation have encroached in the post‐Fordist era. We focus on the mobilisation of land as a financial asset in northwest England's former industrial heartlands, offering an account of how property developer the Peel Group came to dominate the land and port infrastructure of the region through aggressive debt‐led expansion and, in particular, a hostile takeover of the Manchester Ship Canal for its land‐bank. In doing so, we illustrate how the capture of resources, especially land, by private corporations has shaped both substance and process of neoliberalisation from the ground up. By focusing on transformative struggles over land we contribute to research agendas attempting to understand the systemically dispossessive nature of assetisation, its relationship to fictitious capital formation, and the way such neoliberalising transformations are produced through grounded and situated socio‐spatial struggles.     

When Epistemic Communities Fail: Exploring the Mechanism of Policy Influence

Epistemic communities are an established concept in the study of international relations but can also explain policy change at the domestic level. This article asks why some epistemic communities manage to convince decision makers of their preferred policies while others do not. It suggests that the reason lies in the causal mechanism of epistemic communities' influence on decision makers, mediated by decision makers' demand for expert input. Most epistemic communities scholarship focuses on single case studies where the communities' influence on policy was strong and clear, leading to an overestimation of the groups' influence. To help correct this probable bias, this article compares a successful case of epistemic community influence (health technology assessment in Poland) with an unsuccessful example of the same policy (in the Czech Republic). The juxtaposition allows for unpacking of the necessary parts of the causal mechanism (emergence of an epistemic community, its activity, access to decision makers, and successful suasion) and separating them from the crucial scope condition. Decision makers' uncertainty about the policy issue at hand has traditionally been the key scope condition for epistemic communities but the successful Polish case demonstrates that epistemic communities can be influential even in highly certain areas of routine policymaking, leading to a reconceptualization of uncertainty as policymakers' demand for expert input. Demand can originate from various sources, but any change of it affects individual parts of the causal mechanism, leading to a success or failure of epistemic communities' policy enterprise.     

巴马盘阳河流域季节性移民社区类型与形成机理

季节性移民聚居现象受到西方学术界的极大关注,而我国鲜有研究。采用观察法和访谈法,对巴马盘阳河流域"一地多类"的季节性移民社区的形成过程、类型特征与作用机理进行归纳与揭示。研究表明：①季节性移民社区演变历经萌芽、快速参与和转型发展三个阶段,社区人口结构、聚居空间、经济业态、景观设施及人文氛围在不同时期呈现出不同的特征;②季节性移民社区形态存在差异,可以归类为交融性社区、优势性社区,共享性社区,纯粹性社区。③季节性移民社区是差异化的"美好生活"需求、独特的长寿资源及乡村生活环境、外来商业资本、地方政府调控和利益共生等"五力驱动"的结果,不同发展阶段其主导动力和作用方式存在差异。     

‘IT'S ALL A QUESTION OF BUSINESS’: INVESTMENT IDENTITIES,NETWORKS AND DECISION‐MAKING IN THE CLEANTECH ECONOMY

Cleantech has emerged in the last decade as a major new investment sector at the forefront of the green economy. It responds to the need for innovative technologies to combat the impact of global environmental, climate and resource trends. Focusing on the cleantech sector, this article explores the central importance of relationality within the financial domain of the green economy. The central aim of this article is to deepen understandings of the operation of cleantech investment by examining the decision‐making processes of cleantech actors, how these are influenced by (and influence) cleantech investment networks, and the relationships between these factors and the macro‐level drivers and discourses focused on the cleantech sector. A relational economic geography approach is used in conjunction with other frameworks (spanning the cultural, structural and actor‐network dimensions of cleantech investment) to investigate: how cleantech investors define the sector; the macro‐ and micro‐level drivers of cleantech investment; and how cleantech networks form and operate to create and disseminate cleantech discourses and to generate the mutual trust and information sharing needed to secure cleantech investments. In so doing, the article seeks to shed greater light on the micro‐level processes contributing to the creation and growth of cleantech investment markets as an essential catalyst and component of the green economy.     

Italy's unfinished transition: between domestic dynamics and international change

In the early 1990s, Italy was drawn into a spiral of unprecedented transformation precipitated by changes that were taking place both inside Italy and on the international scene. Financial, political and institutional crises were superimposed in ways that brought into question the survival of the whole Italian system. This occurred at a moment when world geo-political relations were shifting dramatically and radically changing established relations, attitudes and policies and marked the beginning of a long period that is often described as a ‘transition’. But since the outcomes still remain far from certain, it is necessary to consider how accurately this term describes what has been taking place in Italy over the last two decades. This paper shows how more careful identification of the different phases and components of the crisis enable us to understand why the upheavals of 1992–94 have led to a systemic crisis of the Italian economy and politics.     

明代年例银制度形成探论

明代年例银制度是经过长期演变逐渐形成的一项军事供给制度。宣德十年(1435)首先出现京运银,历经景泰、天顺时期,京运银两中有一笔银两开始向"岁例"发生制度性转变的趋势;成化、弘治之际,"常数"、"岁运"、"岁例"、"年例"、"年例银"等名称的出现是这笔京运银两制度化发展的结果,标志着明代年例银制度的初步形成;嘉靖十六年(1537)年例银一年一发的规定以及年例银会计预算制的出现,意味着明代年例银制度的完全确立。年例银制度的形成和确立,改变了明代国家的军事供给体制,是明代军事财政史上的一个重大变革。