The British state and capital accumulation 1945-51

This thesis examines the British state's international economic strategy in the postwar period of Attlee's governments 1945-51. It assesses the international political determinants of economic management in the Chancellorships of Dalton, Cripps, and Gaitskell. Special attention is paid to a critical examination of the orthodox interpretations of postwar British action which claim that the British state capitulated to American demands. The evidence of this thesis suggests that this claim is incorrect. The Labour government rejected a radical socialist solution to the economic problems facing Britain in 1945. To realise Labour's programme of domestic reconstruction the state required rapid accumulation which could only be achieved if Britain could reconstruct an adequate international payments system to facilitate trade and secure regular imports of essential commodities and raw materials. Although the postwar structure of production and trade left Western Europe heavily dependent on the economic resources of the United States, Britain had a strong bargaining position which rested on London's role as the primary financial centre and the UK's initial political and economic strength in relation to the other nations of Western Europe. Britain exploited these strengths to subvert the American objectives of world domination and ultimately coax the USA into accepting an Atlantic partnership to the mutual interest of each party. Whilst Britain's long-term objective was to re-establish sterling as a world currency, this objective should not be seen as simply serving US wishes or realising the interests of the City of London against 'national interests'. The objective was based on a material necessity, to overcome the primary barrier to accumulation which was the inappropriate structure of production and trade experienced in the dollar gap. Britain therefore used dollar aid to restructure trade, stimulate production, and reduce the dollar gap to gain some degree of independence from the United States

Ideology, political economy and the crisis of the capitalist state

Keynesianism, Monetarism, and the Crisis of the State is perhaps Simon’s greatest intellectual and political contribution. This article sets the book in the context of his teaching at Warwick and the development of his thought through Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology to the publication of Keynesianism. Building on his analysis of the ideological dimensions of classical political economy, Simon set himself the ambitious task of grasping the coherence and complexity of the relationship between economics, politics and ideology in the crisis-ridden development of capitalism. In so doing, he developed a work of immense significance fusing conceptual and empirical analysis to produce a devastating critique of social democracy, neoliberalism and reformism. Although read widely within Conference of Socialist Economists circles, Keynesianism has not achieved the recognition it clearly deserves. Post-Keynesianism, Simon extended his analysis to worker organisation in Russia and beyond. His theoretical and empirical work on capitalism in all its forms offers a unique and enduring contribution to everyone interested in socialism and the limits of refor

Neo-liberalism, crisis and the contradictions of depoliticisation

This paper develops a political economy analysis of depoliticisation in the context of the crisis of neo-liberalism in Western Europe. Following a discussion of the theoretical foundations of the concept, it emphases that whilst depoliticisation strategies are often associated with neo-liberalism, such strategies have a longer trajectory existing even within Keynesian regimes. The paper then details the many forms taken by depoliticisation within neo-liberal governing regimes focusing on the reorganisation of civil society and the state from the late 1970s to the present primarily with examples from the UK. It suggests, contrary to much popular discussion, that there is a significant degree of continuity in the form of economic manage-ment followed before, during and after the recent financial crisis of 2008/09. Both in terms of ideology and practice, many governments have maintained and even deepened their commitment to depoliticised gov-erning principles. However it seems clear that attempts to depoliticise neo-liberal economic policy have not enabled state managers to avoid the emergence of crisis at the level of the state. Contrary to accounts which argue in simplistic fashion that `economic’ crisis produces `political’ crisis, this paper suggests that crisis is best understood as expressed simultaneously in both economic and political forms. Crisis at the level of the state precipitated in part by the entrenchment of depoliticised governing strategies is not simply the result of economic crisis but is an aspect of that crisis contributing to its depth and apparent insolubility. In this way the paper challenges some critiques of depoliticisation which have suggested (Hay 2014, 303) that the concept is in part both fatalistic and functionalist removing much of the political contingency of the moment of crisis itself.<br /

Factors Associated with Missed Vaccination during Mass Immunization Campaigns

Achieving a high percentage of vaccination coverage with polio vaccine, while necessary, is not sufficient to eliminate or eradicate polio. The existence of pockets of under-vaccinated children has allowed outbreaks of polio in countries that have achieved high levels of vaccination coverage and in countries with no cases for many years. In a literature review, 35 articles were identified that described factors associated with missed vaccination in mass immunization campaigns. An annotated bibliography was developed for each article; these were then coded using the AnSWR program, and codes were organized into three larger thematic categories. These thematic areas were: (a) organization and implementation of mass campaigns; (b) population characteristics; and (c) knowledge and practices of caretakers. If these factors were geographically clustered, it was suspected that these clusters might have higher likelihood of becoming pockets of unvaccinated children. Immunization programme managers can target resources to identify if such clusters exist. If so, they can then ensure supervision of vaccination efforts in those sites and take further action, if indicated, to prevent or mitigate pockets of unvaccinated children

Evaluating the Experience of GAPS—A Methodology for Improving Quality of Mass Immunization Campaigns in Developing Countries

The existence of pockets of under-vaccinated persons has allowed outbreaks of disease in countries that have achieved high levels of vaccination coverage. A field-based methodology—GAPS (Geographic Assessment of Planning and Services)—was developed to predict, in advance of an immunization campaign, the sites of which are most likely to have a pocket of unvaccinated persons and then use this information to improve planning, supervision, and evaluation of the campaign. At this time, there have been two applications of GAPS (Nepal and Ethiopia). The purpose of this paper was to evaluate these two applications of GAPS and make recommendations regarding its future use. Structured, expert interviews were conducted with at least three campaign organizers to evaluate each application of GAPS using purposive sampling. An evaluation of an individual campaign was considered positive when at least two of the three campaign organizers considered GAPS to be useful and worthwhile. The three campaign organizers interviewed following the GAPS application in Ethiopia responded that GAPS was useful and worth the effort. In Nepal, all four campaign organizers responded that GAPS was useful and worth the effort. Some suggestions for improvement were also identified. Although this evaluation was limited in the number of applications evaluated, GAPS appears to have promise as a practical method to help improve the quality of mass immunization campaigns. And even if no pockets of unvaccinated persons are found, the method may serve as a rapid quality-check of administrative estimates of coverage. Further applications in different settings are needed to confirm these findings or under what circumstances GAPS might best be used. GAPS may also be considered for improving other types of health campaigns, such as distribution of insecticide-treated bednets, vitamin A capsules, and deworming medications

Habitat‐related error in estimating temperatures from leaf margins in a humid tropical forest

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142103/1/ajb21096.pd

Language specificity in cortical tracking of speech rhythm at the mora, syllable, and foot levels

Published: 05 August 2022Recent research shows that adults’ neural oscillations track the rhythm of the speech signal. However, the extent to which this tracking is driven by the acoustics of the signal, or by language-specific processing remains unknown. Here adult native listeners of three rhythmically different languages (English, French, Japanese) were compared on their cortical tracking of speech envelopes synthesized in their three native languages, which allowed for coding at each of the three language’s dominant rhythmic unit, respectively the foot (2.5 Hz), syllable (5 Hz), or mora (10 Hz) level. The three language groups were also tested with a sequence in a non-native language, Polish, and a non-speech vocoded equivalent, to investigate possible differential speech/nonspeech processing. The results first showed that cortical tracking was most prominent at 5 Hz (syllable rate) for all three groups, but the French listeners showed enhanced tracking at 5 Hz compared to the English and the Japanese groups. Second, across groups, there were no differences in responses for speech versus non-speech at 5 Hz (syllable rate), but there was better tracking for speech than for non-speech at 10 Hz (not the syllable rate). Together these results provide evidence for both language-general and language-specific influences on cortical tracking.In Australia, this work was supported by a Transdisciplinary and Innovation Grant from Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Dynamics of Language. In France, the work was funded by an ANR-DFG grant (ANR-16-FRAL-0007) and funds from LABEX EFL (ANR-10-LABX-0083) to TN, and a DIM Cerveau et Pensées grant (2013 MOBIBRAIN). In Japan, the work was funded by JSPS grant-in-aid for Scientific Research S(16H06319) and for Specially Promoted Research (20H05617), MEXT grant for Innovative Areas #4903 (17H06382) to RM

The only way is up: retail format saturation and the demise of the American five and dime store, 1914-1941

We examine a classic ‘wheel of retailing’ episode – the abandonment of the five and dime pricing formula by American variety chains. These switched from a conventional product lifecycle, focusing on cost reduction through standardisation, to a reverse path up the ‘service cost - unit value’ continuum. We show that, rather than reflecting deteriorating managerial acumen, this was a response to the continued imperative for growth following retail format saturation. Firm-specific (rather than format-specific) competitive advantages were too weak for any chain to be confident it could win a within-format price war, making inter-format competition through raising price points more attractive