Navigating the Aftermath of Crisis and Risk in Mexico and Turkey

This article aims to expose the economic and political relations of power disguised in the concept of financial risk as institutionalized in post-crisis economic policies and practices. We do so by examining, from a historical materialist approach, the actors and social struggles implicated in the aftermath of crisis in Mexico and Turkey. We argue that Mexican and Turkish state authorities have targeted workers so that they may disproportionately bear the costs of financial uncertainty and recurrent crises as workers, taxpayers, and debtors in the aftermath of the 2008-09 crisis. We emphasize, though, that there are important institutional mediations and case study specificities. Mexico’s reforms that target labour as one of the main bearers of financial risk have been locked into legislation and constitutional changes. Turkey’s policies have been implemented in a more ad hoc manner. In contemporary capitalism, we see risk as not confined to national borders but as also flowing through the world market. We further argue that the World Bank Report 2014 Risk and Opportunity: Managing Risk for Development emerges out of and reflects such real world responses to crisis that have been predominantly shaped by advocates of neoliberalism, to the benefit of capital. As an expression internal to global capitalism, the World Bank Report functions to legitimise the exploitative content of contemporary financial risk management policy prescriptions. Democratized financial alternatives that privilege the needs of workers and the poor are required

Global frameworks, local strategies: Women's rights, health, and the tobacco control movement in Argentina

The article examines how civil society organisations in Argentina used the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to frame the country's failure to enact strong national tobacco control legislation as a violation of women's rights in the late 2000s. We analyze this case study through the politics of scale, namely the social processes that produce, reproduce, and contest the boundaries of policies and socio-economic relations. This approach understands how multiple scales overlap and connect to obstruct or enhance the right to health in Latin America. In Argentina, the global organisation of tobacco companies, the reach of international financial institutions and the national dynamics of economic austerity and export-orientation promoted the local production and use of tobacco (leaf and cigarettes) and reproduced health inequalities in the country throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. Yet, the visible legacy of local and national human rights struggles in the adoption of international human rights treaties into Argentina's national constitution allowed the tobacco control movement to link the scale of women's bodies to the right to health through the use of CEDAW to change national legislation, tackling the social determinants of the tobacco epidemic

La guerra contra las drogas en México. la política exterior canadiense y los derechos humanos

Canada’s foreign policy towards Mexico is mostly focused on trade, investment and security while human rights issues have low visibility in the bilateral agenda. The article argues that the low visibility of human rights violations in Mexico in Canada’s foreign policy is due to three reasons. First, a narrow conception of electoral democracy prevents the Canadian government from engaging into a discussion on human rights abuses in Mexico because the latter is considered a democracy. Second, a human rights focus towards Mexico might hinder Canada’s current strategy of trade and investment, particularly in the mining sector, with its southern neighbour. Third, Mexico’s subordination of human rights issues to the security agenda resembles that of Canada’s security strategy in domestic politics.En la actualidad, la política exterior de Canadá hacia México se enfoca principalmente en el comercio, la inversión y la seguridad, mientras que los derechos humanos tienen escasa visibilidad en la agenda bilateral. El presente artículo argumenta que esta escasa visibilidad se debe a tres razones. Primera, la concepción limitada de democracia electoral del gobierno canadiense evita que este último considere discutir los abusos de derechos humanos en su agenda con México porque es considerado una democracia.. Segundo, un enfoque de derechos humanos hacia México podría afectar la actual estrategia gubernamental canadiense de comercio e inversión, particularmente en el sector minero, respecto de su país vecino del sur. Tercera, la subordinación de los asuntos de derechos humanos en México a la agenda bilateral de seguridad coincide con la estrategia doméstica de seguridad canadiense