Who Drives Climate-Relevant Policies in the Rising Powers?

The future of human life on our planet is influenced increasingly by what goes on in the rising powers. This paper provides a political economy analysis of the climate-relevant policies of China, India, Brazil and South Africa. It shows that alliances play a key role in driving such policies. However, most actors who support such policies have priorities other than climate change mitigation. Their support for such policies comes from concerns with securing energy, building competitive green industries, creating jobs or providing a basis for future public revenue. This insight is not just of analytical but also of political importance. It means that climate-relevant policies can draw on support from a wide constituency – not just those with green convictions. Such analysis provides the stepping-stone for understanding the political feasibility of low-carbon transformations. PLEASE NOTE: this article supersedes IDS Evidence Report: Who Drives Climate-relevant Policies in the Rising Powers? http://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/993

Territorial rights and colonial wrongs

What is wrong with colonialism? The standard—albeit often implicit—answer to this question has been that colonialism was wrong because it violated the territorial rights of indigenous peoples, where territorial rights were grounded on acquisition theories. Recently, the standard view has come under attack: according to critics, acquisition based accounts do not provide solid theoretical grounds to condemn colonial relations. Indeed, historically they were used to justify colonialism. Various alternative accounts of the wrong of colonialism have been developed. According to some, colonialism involved a violation of territorial rights grounded on legitimate state theory. Others reject all explanations of colonialism's wrongfulness based on territorial rights, and argue that colonial practices were wrong because they departed from ideals of economic, social, and political association. In this article, we articulate and defend the standard view against critics: colonialism involved a procedural wrong; this wrong is not the violation of standards of equality and reciprocity, but the violation of territorial rights; and the best foundation for such territorial rights is acquisition based, not legitimacy based. We argue that this issue is not just of historical interest, it has relevant implications for the normative evaluation of contemporary inequalities

Trade in the Shadow of Power : Japanese Industrial Exports in the Interwar years

During the interwar years, Japanese industrialisation accelerated alongside the expansion of industrial exports to regional markets. Trade blocs in the interwar years were used as an instrument of imperial power to foster exports and as a substitute for productivity to encourage industrial production. The historiography on Japanese industrialisation in the interwar years describes heavy industries' interests in obtaining access to wider markets to increase economies of scale and reduce unit costs. However, this literature provides no quantitative evidence that proves the success of those mechanisms in expanding exports. In this paper we scrutinise how Japan—a relatively poor country—used colonial as well as informal power interventions to expand regional markets for its exports, especially for the most intensive human capital sector of the industrializing economy

The Third wave in globalization theory

This essay examines a proposition made in the literature that there are three waves in globalization theory—the globalist, skeptical, and postskeptical or transformational waves—and argues that this division requires a new look. The essay is a critique of the third of these waves and its relationship with the second wave. Contributors to the third wave not only defend the idea of globalization from criticism by the skeptics but also try to construct a more complex and qualified theory of globalization than provided by first-wave accounts. The argument made here is that third-wave authors come to conclusions that try to defend globalization yet include qualifications that in practice reaffirm skeptical claims. This feature of the literature has been overlooked in debates and the aim of this essay is to revisit the literature and identify as well as discuss this problem. Such a presentation has political implications. Third wavers propose globalist cosmopolitan democracy when the substance of their arguments does more in practice to bolster the skeptical view of politics based on inequality and conflict, nation-states and regional blocs, and alliances of common interest or ideology rather than cosmopolitan global structures

The making of European society: contesting methodological nationalism

The paper is concerned with the problem of ‘society’ and in particular with the notion of ‘European society.’ Rather than reject the possibility of society, it draws on theories of the social as networks. The thesis proposed is that the concept of society should rather be understood as a relational field of interconnections. It is argued that this is highly relevant to the analysis of Europe conceived of in terms of a society. This approach can be seen as an alternative to methodological nationalism. The paper applies a network conception of society to Europe with the emphasis on the on the nineteenth century. In this account, European society is not something that was produced by European integration. Rather than see European society as a recent development, it is argued that the field of tensions between capitalism and democracy constituted the major elements that shaped a European model of society

Britain and globalization

Many perspectives on globalization see it as differentiated in its effects and reception, culturally driven, either pre-modern or post-modern, best captured by globalist or sceptical perspectives, and an equalising phenomenon. This article discusses the British experience of globalization in the light of such approaches and argues that looking at this case gives an alternative view. Six themes on globalization are explored across four areas of the British experience of globalization. It is argued that in Britain globalization is, in contrast to the approaches outlined above, differentiated but also generalising, economically driven, modern, best understood with a mix of globalist and sceptical perspectives and structured by power, inequality and conflict. It is also argued that the British experience of globalization is a specific one and that Britain is a very globalized and globalizing country, economically, culturally and politically

The Role of Demography in the Transition to Sustainable Societies

Currently, although the global population has surpassed 7.5 billion and continues to increase in about 80 million each year, attention to demography is almost absent in most of the studies and publications related to the current situation of planetary emergency and the necessary transition to sustainable societies. For this reason, our first aim in this paper has been to discuss if this current lack of attention to demography is justified or not. With this purpose, we begin considering the scientific meaning of Sustainability, in order to overlay distorted and impoverish views of this concept that may hinder our study. Then, we analyse the reasons given by experts for and against the incidence of demographic growth in the current unsustainable situation of planetary emergency. Finally, we present proposals to face the ensemble of interconnected socio-environmental problems (including demographic evolution), to make possible an appropriate transition to sustainable societies. Aunque la población mundial ha sobrepasado los 7500 millones y continúa aumentando anualmente en alrededor de 80 millones, la atención a la demografía está hoy prácticamente ausente en la mayoría de los estudios y publicaciones acerca de la actual situación de emergencia planetaria y la necesidad de una transición a sociedades sostenibles. Con el propósito de analizar si esta falta de atención a la demografía está o no justificada, en esta contribución comenzamos discutiendo el significado científico de Sostenibilidad socioambiental, para evitar concepciones distorsionadas y empobrecidas de este concepto que pueden dificultar dicho análisis. A continuación estudiaremos las razones dadas por distintos expertos a favor y en contra de la incidencia del crecimiento demográfico en la insostenible situación actual de emergencia planetaria. Finalmente presentamos propuestas para hacer frente al conjunto de problemas estrechamente interconectados - incluido el problema demográfico - que caracterizan dicha situación, para hacer así posible una adecuada transición a sociedades sostenibles