Perceptions of “National Security” in Turkey and Their Impacts on the Labor Movement and Trade Union Activities

The Turkish army has played a major role as custodians of the state since the beginning of the republic. Toward this end, the armed forces have intervened directly in the country’s politics three times. These interventions have taken various forms, and even in the course of the periods of normalization of military-civilian relations, the concept of national security has strongly influenced the trade unions and the labor policies as a whole. Although the principal objective of trade unions has been defending the employment and the livelihoods of workers, and to build a better working environment in the workplace in general, trade union organizations have historically been organized and functioned under the shadow of national security related concerns in Turkey. As we discuss in this paper, even though the trade union movement originated in the post war era, and started to become a stable force in the social and political scene, the Turkish labor movement has been dominated by state concerns over national security, and the level of freedom enjoyed by organized labor has been limited. In our work, we addressed the outcome of the national security concerns over the organization efforts of the trade unions, and display how these interventions interrupted the development of the trade unions since the legalization of the labor movement in 1947

Out in The Numbers : Youth and Gang Violence Initiatives and Uneven Development in Portland\u27s Periphery

Incidence of youth and gang violence in the Portland, Oregon metro area has increased dramatically over the past five years. This violence has recently become more spatially diffuse, shifting outwards from gentrified, inner city neighborhoods, towards the city\u27s periphery. These incidents exist within the context of a shifting regional political economy, characterized by a process of gentrification associated displacement and growing, and distinctly racialized and spatialized, inequalities. While gang researchers have long argued a corollary between the emergence of gangs and economically and culturally polarized urban landscapes, the ongoing suburbanization of poverty in American cities suggests a new landscape of uneven power differentials playing out between disenfranchised youth and those seeking to police and prevent violence. This paper provides a critical examination of how local agencies charged with addressing youth and gang violence are responding to shifts in the landscape of violence and navigating the inequitable distribution of wealth and resources in the progressive city. Drawing on interviews conducted with police, policy makers and gang outreach workers, the author investigates both perceptions of gentrification\u27s role in youth and gang violence and the spacialities of emerging enforcement and prevention efforts. My findings suggest that prevention and enforcement efforts frequently rely on techniques and models designed to replicate conditions in older, gentrified neighborhoods, while perhaps unwittingly reifying existing inequalities. Ultimately, I hope to reveal some of the links, both at macro-structural levels and those of daily practice, between a shifting political economy and emerging forms of suburban policing

Law and Development of Cuba under US-led Sanctions and its Implications for HR757

This paper examines the law and development of Cuba under the duress of US sanctions, examining impacts and consequences of those sanctions as well as their socio-political and economic reasons. By configuring sanctions as the departure point of this analysis of Cubas law and development, this paper provides an analysis of parallels that can be drawn to the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016, or HR757. By identifying the similarities between HR757 and the sanctions placed against Cuba, this paper shows that the unpredictable impacts of the Cuba sanctions can be extrapolated to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). The unique features of the Cuban revolutionary narrative during an equally extraordinary period in modern history christened the economic sanction of the Cold War era: targeted not at specific actions, but rather the personality of a State and its behaviour. The strong ideological language in these sanction mechanisms ignited equally ideological recalcitrance against them by Cuba. One can identify similar trends in the DPRK, though at significantly larger stakes with access to innovatively destructive instruments of war. The high stakes of this final front of the Cold War make it imperative to ensure that sanctions, as perhaps one of the final steps before military action, are informed rather than absolved by history

“Put a crapaud in a suit and people will vote for the PNM”: A critical examination of patronage, loyalty, and the structuring force of party partisanship in Trinidad

This dissertation examines an unflattering aspect of political partisanship in Trinidad: the ambivalences of being a party loyalist. Extensive scholarship on Trinidadian politics points to the confluence of race and patronage shaping political decisions yet less is spoken of the conflicting subjectivities of loyalists that are obscured by their exercise of franchise once every few years. In truth, there are limited options to reject one’s socio-historical conditioning towards a party in Trinidad because, here, political identities are also psycho-social identities. They are entangled in generational dependencies, shared egalitarian aspirations, and hyper-local networks of reciprocity that make opting out an almost impossible proposition even when faced with a sense of betrayal, anger and anguish towards one’s underperforming party. I trace this disjuncture between lived experiences and political choices against the backdrop of eight local government reform consultations held in the country in 2016. Here I witnessed a disconnect between the political performativity of these events organized and sponsored by the PNM party and the emotional and affective interjections of a disgruntled and distressed public. Tellingly, the majority of my participants who attended these events also identified as PNM party supporters. Through interviews and participant observation at political events, community meetings, intimate family affairs, and backyard parties or “limes,” I piece together the compelling configuration of ethnic mobilization, political patronage and everyday sociality that fundamentally shapes partisan articulations of being and belonging. By continually realigning themselves to their failing party, my participants came to reenact their structural dispositions even as they asserted their own agency – concealing race talk in articulations of morality, demanding patronage through narratives of entitlement, and disavowing politics while seeking intervention in civic matters. My goal is to complicate our assumptions of party loyalty as a stable, purposeful and individualistic display of partisanship by viewing it also as a product of contested and ambivalent political subjectivities

A Comparative Study of the Factors Influencing the Level of State Government Privatization

Since the 1980s, privatization has gained increasing acceptance among state governments. Yet, few empirical studies have investigated the factors influencing the level of state government privatization focusing on a multitude of programs and services aggregated across departments. Most prior state level empirical research has emphasized single cases or programs but has not addressed the aggregate level of privatization undertakings across the states. The paucity of empirical research that investigated the amount of state privatization and the drivers thereof created an important gap in the literature that this study attempted to fill. Drawing on historical and contemporary privatization literature, this research examined the influences of variables related to socioeconomic, economic, political, and ideological factors on the level of state government privatization. This study employed ordinal logistic regression and tested fourteen hypotheses and four state comparative models (socioeconomic, economic, political, and ideological) and developed a fifth model of best fit. The bivariate results show that all but state pension spending and political culture variables were insignificant. The multivariate results indicate that in the socioeconomic model only state pension spending variable was significant in the expected direction and the hypothesis was supported. In the economic model, state per-capita spending, state fiscal capacity, and state deficits were significant in the opposite direction than expected and the hypotheses were not supported. With the exception of the political culture, all the variables in the political model were insignificant. The traditionalistic political culture was significant at both the bivariate and multivariate level, but in the opposite direction than expected and the hypothesis was not supported. The moralistic political culture was significant in the expected direction, but its significance disappeared in the model of best fit. All the variables in the ideology model failed to achieve statistical significance. In general, the analysis reveals that a large part of the variance in the dependent variable remained unexplained. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that socioeconomic, political, and ideological factors are less likely to influence state government privatization. On the other hand, the findings do suggest that economic factors matter; although the influences of the significant variables in the economic model were in the opposite direction than expected, the findings nonetheless appear to provide tentative support to the argument in the literature that economic factors are more likely to influence the level of privatization by state governments

Indian Women Between Tradition and Western Modernity. The Impact of Multi- and Transnational Corporations in India on the Life, Social Role and Self-Perception of Their Indian Female Employees in the Early 2000s

Exploitation or empowerment? Arguing from the interface of Cultural Studies and Political Science, the following thesis investigates a specific effect of globalisation in India: the impact of Indian women’s employment in multi- and transnational companies (MNCs) on their life, social role and self-perception. On the basis of twelve case studies with MNCs, comprising comprehensive questionnaires and interviews with employees and experts, the study aims to assess possible socio-economic and cultural transformations by examining in detail the women’s work satisfaction, their responses to the influences of a foreign culture, the impact of their employment on their private lives as well as – in reverse – on the corporate culture of the company

営業の観点から見た日本の民間銀行 : 1931年から1945年までの経営史の一考察

This essay reconsiders the part played by the largest private sector banks in the Japanese economy during the years between the Manchurian Incident (1931) and the end of the Pacific War (1945). In contrast to much of the previous writing on prewar and wartime finance, which places the emphasis on the importance of the state and public policy in directing the actions of the financial industry, this research note gives primacy to the actions the banks themselves took to obtain funds and to use those funds productively and profitably. Drawing on the accounts presented by the six biggest banks in the corporate histories they have published from time to time, I argue that private sector bankers concentrated on trying to build and maintain safe and sound business, and wanted an environment in which business could prosper. While they complied with changes in political conditions and regulations and even at times aggressively pursued new business related to military expansion and war, and while some bankers expressed strongly patriotic sentiments, a number of senior executives also voiced concerns that the economic controls introduced by the government after the outbreak of war in China in 1937 were against the interests of a healthy financial industry, and they lamented the progressive erosion of the discretionary credit decision-making powers of bank managers. By adapting to circumstance and acting opportunistically to make the best of a bad situation, private sector bankers abetted the war-making of the Japanese state

Industrial pollution control and management in Ethiopia : a case study on Almeda textile factory and Sheba leather industry in Tigrai Regional State

As a new emerging industrializing nation, industrial pollution is a challenge in Ethiopia. To address the problem, the government has introduced different laws, policies, strategies and established environmental organizations at federal and regional levels. However, the government has not performed well in this regard due to various barriers militating against sustainable industrial pollution control and management. Partly this is due to organizational weaknesses, lack of effective implementation of standards as well as the absence of expertise and capacity building. The aim of this research is to investigate the practice of industrial pollution control and management in Ethiopia with particular emphasis on two selected industries. For the practical investigation a methodology that combines semi-structured interview from key informants in industrial pollution, together with documentary and observational data has been employed. The findings of the research show that the magnitude of industrial pollution is rapidly increasing in the country. This is particularly the case in the textile and leather industries. It is also more severe in urban centers where most of the industries are located. The problem is most operating industries in Ethiopia do not have waste treatment plants. They simply discharge their untreated effluent to the nearby rivers or drainage facilities in violation of the established standards. Even for those industries with treatment plants (including the two case study industries) the treatment plants are not functioning properly due to cost implications; and they discharge their effluent to the nearby rivers with nominal treatment. Thus, they are sources of damage to the environment and the nearby communities. The main barrier to industrial pollution control has been the application of weak form of sustainable development policy and lack of institutional regulations—including laws and organizational implementing mechanisms. This is manifested through lack of political will on the part of the government to enforce the existing industrial pollution control laws; lack of capacity (resource and personnel) and coordination among the environmental organizations. On the part of the affected community there is lack of awareness and organization to protect their constitutionally enshrined right—the right to clean and healthy environment. Similarly there is also lack of corporate social responsibility on the side of the two industries subject of the study