Concluding the Internet of Toys

The concluding chapter reviews the key themes as set out in the introduction and in the contributions to this volume. Here, Mascheroni and Holloway revisit the concepts of datafication and surveillance capitalism in order to emphasise critical questions and map out possible trajectories that future research in the field could address and pursue. The discussion of surveillance capitalism emphasises the double positioning of children in the market as both digital consumers and digital labourers. The chapter also makes the argument that the social and political consequences of datafication extend beyond privacy issues to the transformation of the very conditions under which citizenship is enacted

Development through integration? EU aid reform and the evolution of Mediterranean aid policy

The recipient states for Mediterranean aid are the middle-income Arab countries of the Mediterranean littoral. Due to the region's importance for Europe there is a comprehensive EU strategy for the region and this has shaped Mediterranean aid policy more than the EU's generic aid policy reforms, although these have also had an impact. The EU's approach to developing these countries is to instigate liberal economic reform and integrate them economically with Europe. This takes the form of a regional free trade area and bilateral integration with the EU's single market. Mediterranean aid from 2001 to 2007 has been targeted at supporting and enabling reform in key sectors. A crude form of allocative (rewards-based) conditionality has been applied. Assistance is thus more focused and coherent with EU policy than before. The Country Strategy Paper format and the organisational reforms of the aid programme facilitated this, but the political importance given to the Mediterranean area is the major reason. In any case, the broader reform and development strategy is not a success, as there is little sign that partial integration with Europe will enable economic development. While there is a new, post-2006, aid instrument for the region this is not fundamentally different to its predecessor. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.