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Geographers and 'globalization': (Yet) another missed boat?
Abstract
Over the years, geographers have developed a disturbing – even dysfunctional – habit of missing out on important intellectual and politically significant debates, even those in which geographers would seem to have a major role to play. The syndrome of processes currently bundled together within the term ‘globalization’ is intrinsically geographical, as are the outcomes of such processes. Yet, once again, it seems, we are not, as a discipline, centrally involved in what are clearly very ‘big issues’ indeed. The purpose of this paper is to explore, in the context of ongoing globalization debates, the bases of this undesirable situation and to consider what might be done to redress it in ways that could both enhance intra- and interdisciplinarity and also make a contribution towards building a better world.
... Analysis of waves of interaction between spaces of flows and places is reinforced by insights from relational economic geography linked to GPN analysis (Amin, 2002(Amin, , 2004Coe et al., 2008;Dicken, 2004Dicken, , 2007Hughes et al., 2007;Yeung, 2005). This suggests that expansion of GPNs has created a new hybrid and decentred modes of governance that 'transect geographies of regulation based on territorial jurisdiction and scalar reach' (Amin, 2002(Amin, , 2004Hughes et al., 2007;Yeung, 2005). ...
... GVC analysts argue the commercial dominance of lead firms in 'buyer-driven' production networks allows them to exert the power to govern and control their operations across production locations (Dicken, 2007;Gereffi, 1994;Nathan and Kalpana, 2007). However, GPN analysis acknowledges that private, state and civil society actors are 'imbued in an ever-changing mixture' of both collaboration and contestation, through which power relations play out within the wider commercial context of GPNs (Barrientos, 2013;Coe et al., 2008: 288;Dicken, 2004). According to Coe et al. (2008), such apparently contradictory behaviour should warn us against assuming relationships between actors are always of one type. ...
... The waves described in Table 1 are not intended to represent particular moments, but rather illustrate dynamic processes in the development of hybrid systems of labour governance. Analysing these waves shows how the evolution of South African MSIs has involved an 'ever-changing mixture' of both collaboration and contestation between private, state and civil society actors (Coe et al., 2008: 288;Dicken, 2004;Hughes et al., 2007). Our case study analysis highlights tensions within and between these various stakeholders at places of production linked to fruit and wine GPNs. ...
Recent studies highlight the emergence of standards, including multi-stakeholder initiatives developed and applied within the global South where supplier firms are usually based. This trend has created a complex ethical terrain whereby transnational standards flow through global production networks and intersect with domestic initiatives at places of production. The paper complements global production network analysis with the concepts of ‘space of flows’ and ‘space of places’ and insights from relational economic geography, to examine how some multi-stakeholder initiatives in the global South can shape the broader governance of labour standards in global production networks. The following questions are addressed: How is the governance of labour standards in global production networks shaped by dynamic spatial interactions between actors? What role have diverse Southern multi-stakeholder initiatives played in influencing the governance of South African fruit and wine? We draw on research conducted over seven years into two standards in South Africa, the Wine and Agriculture Ethical Trade Association and Sustainability Initiative of South Africa. Our analysis shows that these two Southern-based multi-stakeholder initiatives contributed to shaping the broader governance of labour standards through dynamic non-linear waves of interaction over time, involving both collaborative and contested exchanges between actors across space of flows and places. We further argue that despite the development of multi-stakeholder initiatives by Southern actors, commercial power asymmetries in global production networks limit their ability to promote significant improvements for producers and workers.
... If unions have suffered from the increased mobility of capital generally, shifts in the organisational form of capital in particular, most notably the emergence of Transnational Corporations (TNCs), have also entailed a distinct set of challenges. According to Peter Dicken (2007) TNCs have played a major role in both increasing the mobility of capital and of stretching out production networks across space. Their role in promoting and enabling the mobility of capital, however, does not capture the extent of the challenges they pose to trade unions. ...
... Lerner 2007). While the statistics used to form these comparisons are questionable (revenues are not comparable to GDP), it is clear that the considerable financial consolidation germane to major TNCs has widened the asymmetry of resources available to capital and labour (Dicken 2003). In the case of major TNCs, capital is arguably better placed to absorb and contain industrial action than ever before, insofar as even national strikes only partially affect a TNC's operations. ...
... Although theorisations of transnational elites are generally underpinned by political economic processes, for instance Sklair (2001) defines the transnational capitalist class in terms of the super rich capitalists, high level executives and state functionaries, there are also attempts to understand the cultural dimensions of this formation as well, something which is evident in the development of shared tastes and practices which are reinforced by intimate spaces of encounter such as the World Economic Forum and to a lesser extent wealthy expatriate enclaves (Robinson and Harris 2000). While the extent to which a discernable sameness amongst the transnational capitalist class is developing is often questioned (Cook 2008;Dicken 2003) It is my contention that it is possible to identify transnational class formations, but we should not expect these to replicate national class formations. Moreover, whereas the tendency in class theory has been to place increasing emphasis on non-economic factors, economic factors such as relations to the means of production and, more concretely, changing employment relations may be of primary significance, particularly when it comes to understanding the contours of transnational class resistance. ...
trade unions, transational union organising, strategic union campaigns, labour geography, community organising, SEIU, TGWU, UniteHere, London Citizens
... A consequence of this 'move away' from regional geography has been the inability of geographers to contribute to emerging global debates (Wei 2006). For example, Dicken (2004) lamented the 'missing geographers' in the globalisation debate and relates this directly to the decline of regional geography in the university curriculum. He goes on to call for a 'revitalization of regional geography' in order to increase the relevance of, and contribution made by geography to society. ...
... To some extent, regional geographers persist, but prefer to call themselves systematic geographers, such as economic or urban geographers. But Dicken (2004) argues that "the identity of geography is forever associated with regional geography, whether you like it or not"! In terms of the public face of geography, it has been argued that "regional geography is perhaps the best link between academic geography and general society" (Wade 2006 p. 188), as "the branch of the discipline [geography] that most closely conforms to this general [public] understanding is regional geography" (Murphy & O'Loughlin 2009 p. 246). ...
... Geography graduates, who one might expect to be amongst the principal promoters of geography, often find it a challenge to express what geography is and what it means to be a geographer; frequently citing that they specialised in physical or human geography sub-disciplines. This fragmentation precludes an holistic appreciation of the discipline, and a revitalisation of regional geography, as suggested by Dicken (2004), might provide an overarching framework within which students could contextualise their studies. The aim of this paper is to briefly review the current status of regional geography within Higher Education and to discuss the results of a survey of students at a British university who have experienced a deliberate re-introduction of regional geography in the undergraduate curriculum. ...
Regional geography was, until the 1970s, an important component of undergraduate geography programmes. Due largely to increased specialization within geography, regional geography was subsequently pushed to the margins of the discipline. This paper briefly reviews the changing status of regional geography. Some authors argue that regional geography is the main public perception of geography, but that it has been undervalued by geographers resulting in limited engagement with regional issues and participation in global debates, such as globalization. Regional geography can provide a context for geographical concepts and help students appreciate and understand interconnections. A UK case study illustrates one approach to reinstating regional geography at the core of the curriculum, with student views supporting pedagogic benefits of regional geography. Whilst regional geography appears to be slowly returning, other disciplines are developing similar sub-disciplines, such as place-based learning focused on place, community and sustainability. Clearly these are central to geography, but to what extent are geographers involved?
... As this advances, it will lead to a fundamental geographic redistribution of work that is also nearly certain to have profound effects on the global economy. These two themes are not new as Dicken (2004) touched upon these in his lament that geography was being left out of the globalization discussion. To presage my concluding discussion I will argue that geography has been so swept into the study of clusters and the interest in cultural studies that it is missing the macroforces that are transforming the world economy. ...
... With such exciting topics, the growing awareness in all of the social sciences of the importance of the spatial, the interest in understanding globalization, and the intellectual ferment within economic geography provides ample grounds for optimism for the future of economic geography. To justify this optimism, economic geography must escape from the cul de sac of post-modernist (best left in architecture where it made sense), deconstructionist (best left in literature) cultural studies to reengage with studies of the real world of economic action, otherwise it seems likely that the core topics of economic geography will be absorbed by the other social sciences and as Dicken (2004) so well sums it up, 'geography will miss the boat'. ...
... Human Geographers have argued that there is interconnection and place interdependence, which makes two places look homogenous. Nevertheless, there are no two same places (Dicken, 2004). Furthermore, human geographers have argued that different places react to and are moulded differently even when subjected to the same global force (Castree, 2009;Cresswell, 2009). ...
... Furthermore, geographers argue that the feeling or perception people carry about fosters a sense of attachment and belonging to a particular place they inhabit (Adams, 2016;Agnew, 1989;Altman & Low, 1992). Likewise, the perception about a particular place-phenomenon might differ among different people due to the singularity of sense of place (Dicken, 2004;Preston, 2015). The literature conceptualizes determinants of adaptation strategies and barriers to effective adaption by smallholder farmers as an expression of their sense of place. ...
This critical review paper expands on the meaning of place. It opens a new narrative on how the geographic concept of place is conceptualized in smallholder farmers and climate change adaptation literature in Sub-Saharan Africa. The review suggested that place is not only the ‘where’ of a location but a location geographically connected and interdependent to illustrate how smallholder farmers’ experiences in adapting to climate shocks interact with global efforts such as improving food security, eliminating poverty and building sustainable rural livelihood. Through the various climate change adaptation strategies exhibited by different farmer groups, the paper demonstrated that people in places have the agency to make choices that control their destinies irrespective of whatever global force overwhelms them. The paper argues sense of place expressed through ecological place meaning shapes people’s intuition, beliefs, actions and experiences as illustrated by smallholders’ perception of the determinant and barriers to effective adaptation strategies. The ecological place meaning also influences the ‘glocalization’ of climate impact on agroecological-based livelihoods at different locations and how maladaptive outcomes are perceived. Place gives people identity by (re)shaping actions and experiences and vice versa. There is an undeviating relationship between power, place and people’s experience. Further exploration of the relationship between lifeworld experiences, people, and power is central in understanding the meaning of place in smallholder farmers and climate change interaction.
... After experiencing a transition from space of places to space of flows, economic geography is increasingly focusing on cross-regional flows and transfers of technology [53,54]. Regional (city) economic growth is increasingly dependent on technological advancement and innovation, especially on the ability to acquire external knowledge and technology [55,56]. ...
... For example, international technology transfer led by multinational companies is crucial to global economic integration. In the technology transfer research literature, patent transfer is often used to measure university-industry technology transfer, international technology transfer and inter-region technology transfer [53][54][55][56][57]. This is not only because patent transfer itself is a way of technology transfer, but also because patent data is easier to obtain than other data (such as project cooperation, technical consultation, etc.). ...
Recently, the Chinese government decided to support the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) in a national strategic way. On this background, this paper investigates the regional integration in the technology transfer system of the YRD based on patent transfer from three levels: overall, technology supply chain, and technology sales chain. It also uses the modularity maximization method to detect the community structure of the inter-city patent transfer network in China. The results show that regional integration of the technology transfer system of the YRD at both overall level and technology supply chain level had not been realized up to 2015, but had been achieved at the technical sales chain level. Technology flow in the YRD was increasingly moving across the border, and the intra-region technology transfer network was increasingly unable to meet the needs of technological development of the cities in the YRD. This paper has several limitations concerning the representativeness of patent data, the manifestation of patent data in technological transfer and international comparison.
... For others, Europeanization has opposite effects, strengthen ing the territorial state and state-based orders and creating more, not less, national government (Milward 1992;Moravcsik 1998Moravcsik , 1999. Between these two positions -as with debates on contemporary globalization (Dicken 2004;Held et al. 1999;Herod 2009;Martin 2004;Mittelman 2004) -there has emerged a growing literature on the permeability of the nation-state to Europeanization and the state's strategic capacity to mediate its effects (Goetz 2001;Goetz and Hix 2001;Green Cowles et al. 2001;Gualini 2003). More recently, Europeanization has been characterized by political sociologists as the product of global social movements as much as the transformation of institutions and governance (Delanty and Rumford 2005). ...
... Bu anlamda insan faaliyetleri üzerinde 'genişleten, yoğunlaştıran hızlı ve etkili özellikler ile uzamzaman bağlamında bir değişim süreci' olarak tanımlanması tatmin edici bir kapsam oluşturmaktadır (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, & Perraton, 2000). Pratik ve söylemdeki sorunlarına dikkat çeken Dicken (2004), küreselleşmenin coğrafi ve sosyal anlamda eşit olmayan sonuçlara sahip bir süreç yaratmakla kalmayıp modern toplumun her yönünü kapsayan ve bir araya getirdiğini nitelenmektedir. Aynı zamanda spesifik bir geleneğin küresel çapta topluluklar tarafından benimsenmesi ile ortaya çıkan kültürel türdeşlik (homojenizasyon) nedeniyle bölgesel ve yerel kimlikler üzerinde aşındırıcı bir etki oluşturduğu düşünülmektedir. ...
Tango Nuevo is a genre focused on instrument music developed by Astor Piazzolla
in the 1950s with musical ideas and approaches from different genres. This genre,
which is the interaction and synthesis of traditional Tango music with Western
Classical Music and Jazz Music, has had a controversial impact on the traditional
tango scene in Argentina in terms of dance and music. Tango Nuevo, which
presents a conflicting situation in terms of originality and cultural ownership due to
its cultural and musical context, represents a musical phenomenon that has an
interaction between more than one nation with the effect of globalization. Tango
Nuevo, which can be seen as an example of cultural hybridization and a danceable
musical form, is notable for its transnational identity. When negotiated in terms of
musicology, Tango Nuevo, with its different place/space codes and practitioner
community, offered a renewing dimension for traditional Tango music in the
globalized world. This study aims to evaluate the transnational and hybridity scope
of Tango Nuevo, and its musical formation.
Keywords: Globalization, Transnationality, Hybridization, Tango, Cultural Anthropolgy
... Commenting on the different spatial experiences of globalization, Dicken (2004) observes that we live in a world market economy governed by neo-liberal rules. However, there is no one single form of capitalism and each form of capitalism is determined by the way the main actors of global capitalism interact in the network and the power relations between them. ...
This article examines the ways in which neo-liberal discourses of globalization and development have been used to imagine and enact higher education in Mozambique. It argues that higher education developments in Mozambique in the past fifteen years are not only reflective of free market economy logic, but also ignore the social and historical contextualities, a course which deepens social inequalities. Using a postcolonial perspective to de-naturalize neo-liberal regimes of knowledge production, the article analyses how the course of higher education in Mozambique is indicative of broader social (trans)formations. It shows how the policy framework evokes and puts to work a set of technologies such as self-empowerment, self-regulation and a culture of managerialism to enforce the belief that individuals can make choices to fulfil their hopes of improving lives through higher education. It also argues that this belief does not take into account how such technologies of hope are configuring power relations which may lead, in the long run, to social inequalities because very few households can afford access to higher education.
... However, it is the work on global production networks (GPN) that proves the most useful concept to apply to research on old industrial regions. Without accepting the hyperbole of globalisation discourse (Dicken 2004), it is important in this respect to understand how regional development prospects are increasingly bound up and embedded within wider sets of spatial relations beyond the national level, and in particular how regional adjustment is linked to the international and global production networks within which a region's firms are embedded (see Dicken et al 2001;Henderson et al 2002;Coe et al 2004). ...
The problem of the development of regions, that suffer from economic recession due to the fading significance of industrial factors for economic growth, is in the focus of modern regional policy at the global, in particular European, level. Structural transformations in such regions are adjusted to the requirements of post-industrial society due to complex application of regional, structural and industrial policy tools. For Ukraine, solving the development problems of such regions requires updating the state policy concept, based on factoring in global economic trends in changing the principles of productive forces’ allocation; strengthening the institutional influence on specific features of regions (endogenous depressiveness, structural and social inertia); increasing the inclusiveness of regional labor markets, ensuring the integration of regional economies into global value added chains on the basis of neo-industrialization. The introduction of the updated concept of structural transformations in old industrial regions is important in connection with the implementation of the overall post-war recovery plan for Ukrainian economy. Offered recommendations on ensuring effective structural changes in old industrial regions of Ukraine based on updated state policy concept relate to the elimination of shortcomings in state regional and industry policies and improving their mutual coordination. The main ways to modernize the economy of the regions on the basis of proposed conceptual approach are the improvement of domestic institutional support for regional development; overcoming the imperfection and instability of sectoral legislation (in particular, relating to the restructuring of coal industry); factoring in the peculiarities of the structural transformation of old industrial regions in the policy on post-war economic recovery of Ukraine.
... In this way, 'power relationships between gpn actors are not only structurally determined but also they are not unidirectional' (Coe et al., 2008: p. 288). Each of these actors could be involved either in collaboration, conflict or competition, depending on the context (Dicken, 2004). Despite the generality with which this perspective addresses the labor process (Taylor, 2010;Thompson et al., 2015), its introduction enables to place odp s in a more complex production network as well as understanding the dynamics of 'the value in movement' (Taylor, 2010;Rainnie et al., 2011;Newsome, 2015). ...
This article describes and analyzes the labor process of Rappi, one of the main ordering and delivery platforms ( odp ) in Latin America. An exploratory qualitative case study was carried out and the results are based on the content analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews to platform workers as well as ethnographic work done in 2019–2020 in Santiago de Chile. This article contributes to, first, describe and analyze labor processes organized by an odp whose property and operation is managed in the Global South; second, it enables to explore the role played by Rappi within the Chilean retail production network; third, it connects diverse labor processes organized by odp s further on the ‘pick-up and deliver’ orders task; finally, it analyzes different control mechanisms executed by Rappi beyond algorithmic control, together with individual and collective resistance practices adopted by shoppers and riders.
(Individuals are eligible for free access to the Journal of Labor and Society until 31 December 2022, using access token JLSO4U. https://brill.com/fileasset/downloads_products/37770_JLSO4U.pdf)
... Innovation includes the adoption of new production methods, production of new products, new markets development, expansion of new supply sources or organisation forms, etc, acquiring innovative knowledge is the fundamental purpose of innovative activities (Cooke, 2004). To the effect of academic thought, economic geography research has evolved into innovation connections (Dicken, 2004). As part of such innovation process, firms are redesigning the regional structure of economic activities by creating new organisation, such as innovation networks (Fields, 2006). ...
... Globalization is a geographical process, which is largely characterized by urban economic development and urban geographic development. During globalization cities have become the spatial manifestations of socio-economic systems governing the citizens [50]. ...
... Tooth (2009) wrote of invisible geomorphology, and concerns about the discipline being little known and little understood, expressing fears that its practitioners were 'commonly absent' from major science debates, not dissimilar to some of the concerns that were raised with the decline of regional geography (e.g. Dicken, 2004). The analysis of the submissions to REF2014, discussed above, suggests, however, a different trajectory for geomorphology, and one that is not negative, simply different from what has gone before. ...
Physical geography continues to have complex relationships both with Geography as a whole and the natural sciences. At a time when the nature and future of physical geography and its sub-disciplines has been questioned, I explore these changing relationships and their impacts on the discipline itself and on our collective ability to understand and address environmental crises. The exploration is through the themes of disciplinary shape and institutional change, physical geography’s content and interactions, and how its practitioners badge themselves in an increasingly inter- even trans-disciplinary world. I conclude that there is now a fluidity between disciplines in which Geography holds an important place in research addressing key environmental challenges. This is evidenced by records of publication, conferences and employment mobility between the silos of academic departments. More than ever, the challenges facing environment and society today require collective, inclusive, efforts to achieve solutions that are beyond the capacity of a single discipline. Geography’s complexity and frequent rewiring position it well to be part of the research into global grand challenges that require disciplinary agility. Fears over Geography’s shape and practice can be more than offset by the need to contribute to holistic endeavours, so long as vital sub-disciplinary building blocks are not lost in desiloing endeavours.
... In analysing positionality and its association with economic growth, a scalar approach is important because with the division of large production units into multiple subsidiaries across different geographical scales (Dicken 2004) the spatial reach of nations has advanced and they tend to occupy diverse positions in different network scales (van der Knaap 2006). Further, various geographical scales may influence a city's competitiveness (Asheim and Isaksen, 2002) or may even simultaneously influence them (Malmberg and Maskell, 2002). ...
Deepening globalisation and the unrestricted flow of resources across domestic
borders has led to the emergence of an intertwined world, which has replaced the influence
of local to global forces on places. In this situation, there has been an advent of a network
paradigm, as understanding how nations are placed within these networks has become
critical in ‘globalizing’ policies. Although literature posits that the fate of places has
become increasingly reliant to their position in networks shaped by the international flows
of investment and trade, this is more often asserted than demonstrated, as little studies
probes on whether positionality of nations in a network directly converts to improved
economic performance. Drawing upon data on Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) from
financial times, in this paper we test the relationship between network positionality in
different scales of integration and economic performance between 2003 and 2016 for the
Southeast Asian countries.
... In analysing positionality and its association with economic growth, a scalar approach is important because with the division of large production units into multiple subsidiaries across different geographical scales (Dicken 2004) the spatial reach of nations has advanced and they tend to occupy diverse positions in different network scales (van der Knaap 2006). Further, various geographical scales may influence a city's competitiveness (Asheim and Isaksen, 2002) or may even simultaneously influence them (Malmberg and Maskell, 2002). ...
The health status of the population has always influenced the economic state of
the country and has been influenced, in turn, by the economy. Due to the increased index of
disease worldwide, an aspect that leads to the increase of the costs of health services, there
is more and more talk about the difficulty of the states in the financial support of this sector.
The present article intends to carry out an analysis of the evolution of the financing models
adopted by Romania during communism and post-communism. The importance of the topic
addressed derives from the understanding of health as a resource for the development of
society and not as a resource consumer, while understanding the role of decision-makers in
the importance of efficient management of financial resources for this sector. Thus, beyond
the individual perspective on health, its subjective perception and the individual decision to
choose behaviors that keep the state of health in the balance, the state can be an important
factor in ensuring the functioning of this system.
... Since globalization is inherently a geographical process, spatial theories have played an important role in the formation of globalization theory (Harvey 1990;Sassen 1991;Castells 1996;Brenner 1999;Dicken 2004). But so has social theory, particularly in the form of Euro-American macrotheories of social change. ...
Although globalization theories have flourished over the last four decades, they are still struggling to overcome some of their long-standing limitations. After an initial discussion of influential mappings of globalization theories that frame the discussion of their shortcomings, this article takes up two persistent limitations. First, major concepts of globalization theory still lack definitional precision as well as clear analytical and historical delineation. The article addresses these problems by reexamining four core concepts of globalization theory. The ensuing exercise in conceptual clarification draws on Raymond Williams’s pioneering approach to “keywords.” The second limitation concerns the slowness with which many globalization theorists have included pertinent keywords outside familiar meaning orbits. The article argues for an expansion of the core vocabulary of globalization theory to achieve a more systemic integration of new keywords, especially from postcolonial and environmental theory. Overcoming these two persistent limitations of globalization theory depends on the success of a number of critical measures proposed in this article.
... First, sometimes the concern within economic geography is about a failure to engage sufficiently with debates of contemporary importance and significance. Dicken (2004) noted that geographers were absent from wider debates on globalization during the 1990s and early 2000s, despite it being a subject upon which geographers -not least economic geographers such as Dicken (1994;2015) -had made important cross-disciplinary contributions and interventions. As Dicken balefully concluded: ...
This article is the first of three reviews in which economic geography is viewed through the lens of crises. This article focuses on the resurgence of uneven development as a political problem, which has led to public policy debates and responses in which economic geography is an underpinning construct. The article focuses on the UK where public policy responses have engaged with the problems caused by uneven development. Arguments made over many years about the long-term damaging impacts of geographical inequalities in opportunity and income have broken through into the political mainstream and gained traction. The article explains how this happened, as an already unbalanced regional economy was exacerbated first through growth led by financial services and then austerity-led decline. There are opportunities for economic geography in this public policy conjuncture, although it will require an ability to engage competently and critically with mainstream economics, and a willingness to work with political actors and a challenging, frustrating, and uncomfortable political process. Moreover, it also requires that the problem of uneven development remains adequately defined and attended to, so that appropriate public policy responses may be formulated, and continues to garner sufficient political attention, to allow both time and opportunity for intervention in public policy.
... Contemporary human geography offers a scale discussion that investigates space as 'scalar' and explores how spatial scales are expressed and interrelated (Latham & McCormack, 2012, p. 53) which is relevant for an urban discourse. Human geography handles a variety of positions: Regarding whether globalization is a productive concept, Dicken (2004) challenges the idea that the concept of globalization alone can explain causality of happenings in the world and that it is rather used to package contemporary trends without differentiation of causes or consequences (Strange, 1995, p. 293). Various interrogations of scale made in relation to the urban, transnational or global are developed through the contested scale of the urban fabric (Brenner, 2019), in the abandonment of scale as a concept entirely (Marston, Jones III, & Woodward, 2005) "into multiple sites of practices, relations, events and processes which are both situated in place and extended through space" (Jonas, 2006, p. 399), or in the flattening of scale in favour of networks (Latham & McCormack, 2012). ...
The urban expansion currently under development around the two materials science facilities MAX IV and European Spallation Source in Lund, Sweden, surrounds two meticulously designed research facilities steered by global demands. The new urban area, together with the research facilities dedicated to science and the development of knowledge, expands the city of Lund onto high-quality agricultural land. In doing so, the municipal planning is attempting to align contemporary ideas of sustainable urban development with large-scale scientific infrastructure. This actualizes an ethical dilemma as the urban expansion onto productive agricultural land overrides previous decisions taken by the municipality regarding land use. It can also be understood as going against national land use policy which states that development on productive agricultural land should be avoided. As the planning stands today, the research facilities heavily push local urban development into the area while the intended research outcomes primarily relate to a global research community tied to international scientific demands for materials science. Although the Brunnshög area is realized through a neutralizing planning strategy, thought to balance and compensate for the development on farmland, the effects of the counterbalancing acts are primarily played out at a local urban level in terms of diverse, exciting, and locally sustainable neighbourhoods. The land use protection policies meant to secure national food production rather operates on a national scale. The argument made in this text is that sustainable development, and the intended balancing acts it involves, ought to be carefully considered in terms of scalar effects. Sustainable planning effects’ scalar extent should be taken into account through careful assessment of the step between good intentions and expected outcomes.
... Brenner, for instance, developed the concept of 'scale structuration', to emphasize the links between scales and the (re)hierarchization across the 'vertically differentiated spatial units ' (1998: 603). Some have viewed this vertical dimension as too rigid, turning to networked, horizontal and relational understandings of social processes (see for instance Cox, 1998b;Dicken, 2004), whilst others have brought horizontal and vertical approaches together (Amin, 2002;Brenner, 1998;Leitner, 2004;Taylor, 2004). Brenner has since argued that scales do not just exist in vertical or horizontal dimensions, but in both, advocating a relational understanding 'in terms of upwards, downwards and sidewards links to other geographical scales situated within tangled hierarchies and dispersed interscalar networks' (Brenner, 2001: 605). ...
This paper argues that human geography’s scale debate has arrived at somewhat of an impasse surrounding scale’s relative position to ontology. Divides are most evident between those that see scales as ‘already existing’ and those considering this as a form of ‘ontological reification’ that stifles our understanding of politics. I suggest that reading the ‘politics of scale’ through Jacques Rancière’s political thinking, and in particular his aesthetic approach to the problem of ontological reductionism, can offer one way forward. It enables geographers to take existing ‘common-sense’ ideas around scale seriously whilst also being sensitive to emergent politics.
... However, these studies have overlooked the way in which these interconnected locations have been affected. Geographers have contributed to this approach by suggesting that the predominance of multinational companies (MNCs) as the major operators in such chains (Dicken et al. 2001) be balanced with the need to better take into account all of the actors mobilized in these networks (Dicken 2004, Coe et al. 2004), using the concept of a Global Production Network (GPNs). However, despite their quality, these studies are not always applicable when it comes to dealing with the "world's other economy" (Mathews et al. 2012). ...
... Production assumes the circulation of information, goods and services, financial capital and the continued search for new ideas, inventions and discoveries in the most varied fields. Thus, production networks must avail themselves of other networks, with which they tend to combine (Dicken, 2004). Here are the most relevant of such networks (which are touched on only): ...
Purpose
Any kind of production flow is obtained not from individual production organizations but from a more or less widespread Production Network of interconnected production modules located in different places and times. All of these modules are, consciously or not, necessarily connected, interacting and cooperating in a coordinated way to combine and arrange, step by step, the factors, materials, components, manpower, machines and equipment to obtain flows of products’ final goods, in particular’ and to sell these where there is a demand for them. The purpose of this paper is to determine, in logical and formal terms, the minimum conditions that bring about the formation of production networks and to discover the laws that explain their dynamics over time.
Design/methodology/approach
At the global level, the continuous and accelerated economic progress of mankind is witnessed. There is an increase in the quantity and quality of satisfied and yet to be satisfied needs, of attained and yet to be attained aspirations. The increase in productivity and in quality has become unstoppable and appears to guide the other variables in the system. It is natural to ask who produces and governs these phenomena. It does indeed seem there is a Ghost in the “Production” machine whose invisible hand produces growing levels of productivity and quality, increases the quality and quantity of satisfied needs and aspirations and reduces the burden of work, thus producing increasingly higher levels of progress in the entire economic system. This conceptual framework gives a simple answer: there is nothing metaphysical about this evolution towards unstoppable and irreversible progress, and it is produced by the spontaneous genesis and activity of selfish nodes and governed by the rules and laws of the production networks.
Findings
The author has identified ten “rules of selfish behavior” on the part of the nodes, whose application necessarily and inevitably produces three evolutionary dynamic processes “which refer to the network as an entity” which the author has called the “rules of the production networks” to emphasize their cogency: continual expansion, elasticity-resiliency and continual improvement in performance. The cognitive and creative processes that characterize the nodes do not allow us to predict the actual evolution of production networks; nevertheless, if it is assumed that nodes “consciously or not” follow the 10 “rules of selfish behavior”, then several typical trends, or behavioural schema, can be deduced which the author has called as the “laws of networks”, to highlight their apparent inevitability and cogency.
Research limitations/implications
More than any other structure, Production Networks display Holland’s features and Arthur’s properties as their modules, viewed as autonomous entities with cognitive functions, represent a collectivity of agents that interact and exchange information with their environment to maintain over time their internal processes through adaptation, self-preservation, evolution and cognition, making individual and collective decisions as part of a network of micro behaviours.
Social implications
This new conception of production through production networks, which takes into account the “rules” and “laws” regulating their behaviour, also sheds new light on the development of networks and their natural tendency to become globalized.
Originality/value
Although the concept of a network is becoming more popular in economic and business studies, it is yet to see an interpretation of production as deriving exclusively from the actions of increasingly larger networks. This paper presents an integrated view of production that does not discard the notion that production is carried out by organizations and companies but introduces the broader concept of the integration among organizations, which must be interpreted as nodes of a broader network that produces the flows of all the components needed to obtain the flow of a specific product. This represents an innovative view that will help us in understanding the difficulties policymakers encounter in governing production and controlling the basic variables that characterize it, specifically productivity, quality, quantity, prices and value. This perspective also allows to derive rules and laws for the behaviour of production networks that appear to be cogent and unvarying over time.
In recent decades the world has witnessed an unparalleled growth of philanthropic initiatives and institutions that has proven inextricable from the vast accumulation and concentration of wealth on a global scale. Echoing recent calls for geographers to study philanthropy, this paper seeks to advance a critical geographical understanding of globalising philanthropy. Inspired by geographical scholarship on relational thinking, the paper frames the varied manifestations of contemporary philanthropy as a ‘philanthropic complex’ in order to understand philanthropy through central themes of relationality, intermediation and stabilisation. Advancing theories of philanthropy by characterising the complex's geographical unevenness and political functions of depoliticisation, the paper closes by outlining avenues in which relational thinking about philanthropy can advance geographical theories of elites and global development.
In a globalized world, there is a need for interdisciplinary education that is deeply connected to the world where the boundaries between countries are permeable, events, trends, and decisions in one part of the world can have far-reaching consequences elsewhere. The result of this interconnectedness is globalization, whereby people can create intricate social and commercial networks over great distances, both within and outside of national and cultural boundaries creating cooperation and collaboration between people and countries. The connectedness generates knowledge that requires responsible conduct of research, taking advantage of the opportunities available enabled by new technologies. The chapter interrogates the extent to which academic research adheres to the ethical requirements, equity and fairness in such collaborations, global cultural goals and practices, and how scholars adapt their research to address issues that arise due to globalization. How research findings are disseminated and who gains from the dissemination is also assessed.
Kolonialismus ist ein historisches Thema, ein Gegenwartsthema und ein geographisches Thema. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes verbinden diese drei Perspektiven und zeigen die Relevanz räumlicher und sozialer Machtverhältnisse des Kolonialismus in der Gegenwart auf. Diese »Kolonialität« genannte Kontinuität zeigt sich in der Wissensproduktion, in öffentlichen Debatten, in der Gestalt europäischer Städte, in lokalen Kämpfen sowie internationalen Politikfeldern. Der Sammelband vereint Beiträge aus der Geographie und Stadtforschung, die sich auf Forschungsansätze der Black Studies, Postcolonial Studies und Decolonial Studies beziehen.
Innovation is the primary driving force and important support for Northeast China’s revitalisation strategy to move toward ‘high-quality development’. Based on 1985–2016 data, this study aimed to explore structural characteristics and organisational patterns of a co-innovation network from a high-quality development perspective based on social network analysis. Previous literature on the co-innovation network only emphasise network scale expansion and network density increases, ignoring the optimisation of network structure. The evolutionary analysis showed that the co-innovation network in Northeast China presents high growth, openness, hierarchy, assortativity, accessibility and clustering. Regarding organisational patterns, the network’s top-level structure was reconstructed, developing from ‘dual-core drive’ to ‘multi-core resonance’, forming a ‘multi core and semi core and peripheral city’ structure. To improve the high-quality network development, it is necessary to strengthen the radiation-driving ability of core cities, clarify the function orientation of non-core cities, eliminate administrative barriers and guide the professional and differentiated development of non-core cities.
This study reviews the last ten years of literature relating technology and knowledge transfer with issues that permeate urban planning. In order to compose the bibliographic portfolio of articles, the methodology Methodi Ordinatio was employed in order to qualify and rank the papers according to their scientific relevance. Papers from the last ten years are used as the study framework. Results indicate that the subject, applied to the context of cities, it is little explored and existing studies are predominantly theoretical. This article also contributes by bringing important information on the topics, serving as a guide for future publications.
The article dwells on the study of network 'core-periphery' production structure as a firm pattern of EU automotive manufacturing. The Visegrad countries integration into the sector of EU economy is dissected with multiscalar approach. The first section of the paper deals with the complex analysis of geographical, structural, and topological foundations of the network 'core-periphery' model. In the second section the quantitative assessments are elaborated to demonstrate the relevant properties of the EU automotive core-periphery pattern. As a result, two of four empirical hypotheses have been proved. It has also been suggested that EU automotive core-periphery dynamics follows the introduced 'factor price equalization cycle'. The results obtained allow for the further forecasting of the European network core-periphery model evolution. The insufficiency of regional-level data is a limitation of the study conducted.
The informal sector occupies a significant position and proportion of modern-day configuration of global e-waste recycling networks. The internal governance in the work and life of informal waste actors is crucial to sustain the spatial coordination of used goods trade. Using the global production network (GPN) framework, this paper investigates the value of trust and social networks in organising the predominantly informal e-waste processing activities in India. Based on an extensive primary research conducted between 2011 and 2013 in Delhi and a subsequent revisit to the field in 2018 and 2021, it provides a much-needed analysis of the robust informal linkages in the political economy of e-waste in the country. The GPN literature has not sufficiently explored the significance and interplay of trust in informal governance relationships in waste management. Drawing from the rich scholarship on trust and social network to analyse the empirical evidence, this research argues that inter-personal ties, shared norms and clustering practices nurture trust that is fundamental for constructing and regulating informal business endeavours. It contributes to the GPN understanding of vertical and horizontal network governance by demonstrating how the cohesive power of trust vitalises the recycling landscape and consolidates the position of informality therein despite recurring legislative endeavours to stifle informal operations.
Contemporary globalization research increasingly occurs within the loose academic framework of “global studies,” which, in the late 1990s, emerged as a transdisciplinary endeavor exploring the many dimensions of globalization. After an initial comparative discussion of the academic use of the concept “transdisciplinarity,” this chapter argues that attempts to understand the social complexities related to today’s globalization processes raise a plethora of empirical, normative, and epistemic concerns that cannot be sorted out by specialists operating within the narrow and often rather arbitrary confines of single disciplines and their associated idioms. To illustrate these dynamics, this chapter presents concrete examples of how globalization researchers working within the global studies framework employ transdisciplinarity strategies to understand global complexity. As will be shown, they are critical of the tendency to compartmentalize social existence into discreet spheres of activity, and thus have been increasingly committed to the engagement and integration of multiple knowledge systems and research methodologies. The chapter closes with a call to extend these transdisciplinary modes of engaging in globalization research. Indeed, this transdisciplinary imperative of “globalizing the research imagination” has the potential to reenergize and reconfigure research projects across the social sciences and humanities.
For the global studies scholar, the lofty ambitions in Globalization Matters are challenging ones. Since ours is a collective endeavour, the global studies community needs just a few more practical footholds to systematically fill critical gaps in our knowledge without being overwhelmed by the complexities of globalities and globalizations. I attempt to rearticulate the strength of Steger and James’ framework and propose an illustration that encompasses the major elements of their framework. I suggest places where the framework might be strengthened and lead the way for a productive, coherent, and collective effort among scholars of globalization and global studies. I offer possible conceptual guideposts to strengthen elements of their framework with the goal of offering a few practical, conceptual footholds to move scholarship forward. I sketch a few topics within ‘globalization matters’ that illustrate my suggestions for pursuing systematic elaborations of the proposed conceptual guidelines.
This article explores the concepts associated with globalisation. It demonstrates how they can be seen to be challenging, and are often contested and in competition with each other. It examines the foundations of ideas that are commonly advanced to explain globalisation, and recognises that these may have roots in disciplines other than geography. The underpinnings of globalisation are discussed in relation to both processes and networks, rather than a narrow consideration of globalisation as a singular condition; thus highlighting the significance, for geographers in particular, of its spatial aspects. Here education is selected for particular consideration – both as an activity that is prone to the forces of globalisation, and with respect to what is taught to young people about globalisation. The conclusion draws together some of the different approaches to, and understandings of, the concepts of globalisation.
The subject transformation of Ukrainian geographical science demonstrates the strengthening of the monistic approach, which considers the Earth’s envelope as an integral socio-natural geosphere, in which the natural environment and man with his economic and spiritual activity are inextricably linked. Accordingly, one of the main directions of modern methodological developments is the geographical sciences systematization according to their composition and their multilevel ordering on the basis of the unity and integrity of the common object of geographical research - the landscape envelope of the Earth. The article proposes the authors’ scheme of the modern system of geographical sciences, in which the structuring of geographical researches directions is carried out according to the following basic principles: a) the system of geographical sciences is developed not in the list of relevant subjects and disciplines, but in the main areas of geographical research; b) the theoretical and methodological core of the geographical sciences system should be the direction of general integrated geographical research; c) directions of geographical researches and corresponding subject areas and disciplines are organized according to the levels of the landscape envelope structural organization and divided into global (geospheric), regional (country studies, regional studies) and local (environmental and socio-natural activities); d) the proposed systematics does not directly take into account the traditional division of geographical sciences and disciplines into basic - auxiliary - servicing.
The digital and IT revolution, together with the spread of the Internet, has changed and enhanced our tools and ways of communication. To what extent can these new forms of interaction and transmission of ideas be used in an improved manner in the geography education process? One of the areas that has seen a relevant transformation is the production and distribution of audiovisual content. Starting from the question of whether and to what extent current video techniques are a valuable method for the dissemination of scientific ideas, this paper discusses the main phases of a project conducted by the University of Siena's Geography Laboratory, which involved the production of targeted films aimed at the explanation of a complex theme such as globalization. One of the key characteristics being highlighted was the technical quality. This intellectual analysis also entailed an assessment of the degree of approval, usability, and efficacy in the learning process with geography students at college level.
This chapter demonstrates the impact of ethnic entombment practices on the consumption of housing market in a heterogeneous society. It illustrates the dynamics in relationships, either in inter-family interactions or exchanges between ‘the living and the dead'. This signifies an expanded traditional frontiers of stakeholders (e.g., marketers and governments) in the negotiation of consumption in the market. Particularly, the chapter analyses how circumstances of customs and belief systems impact the supply of houses and consequent deterioration of neighbourhoods (e.g., slumming). It draws on narratives gathered from in-depth interviews conducted with eleven informants/gatekeepers undertaken in a large metropolitan city in the South-West region of Nigeria. Findings reveal the interchange between culture and consumption in housing market and how the affective potentiality of a tradition initiates emotive configurations that shape a community's housing stock aesthetic exposition.
As innovation and technological change have become increasingly important for the competitiveness and sustainable growth of firms, cooperative innovation is now crucial for traditional industries in the context of globalization. This paper proposes a framework for analyzing the spatial pattern of cooperative innovation for traditional industries in developing countries. Based on in-depth interviews with 35 firms in the oil equipment manufacturing industry in Dongying City, China, this study argues that different firms in the innovation pyramid have various innovation activity preferences and spatial patterns. Firms with high innovation abilities tend to cooperate with various partners that are geographically dispersed and continuously expanding, while firms with inferior abilities usually cooperate with nearby fixed partners. Due to the differences in innovation environment and actor locations, firms tend to make different choices regarding innovation types and models, which highlight the importance of personnel training and basic scientific research at the global scale and practical product research and development at the national scale. Additionally, talent flow is the most important way to realize relationships for firm innovation activity.
Cambridge Core - Political Sociology - Globalization Matters - by Manfred B. Steger
El rol de la energía en la transformación y la producción social del espacio ha sido ampliamente ignorado. Incluso desde la teoría social crítica (posmodernismo, posestructuralismos, poscolonialismo, feminismo y marxismo) el aprovechamiento de la energía se ha dado por sentado en las dinámicas del capitalismo global industrial. De esta manera, la energía se ubicó más como un objeto empírico de análisis y menos como un concepto analítico. El objetivo de este trabajo es reafirmar la energía como un concepto central para comprender la producción social del espacio. Exploramos dicha producción en tres dimensiones, guiada cada una por un interrogante. Primero, observamos el espacio normado respondiendo a la pregunta, ¿Cómo se ha construido el espacio de extracción energética desde la planificación energética en Colombia?. En segundo lugar, nos ocupamos del espacio disputado, analizando ¿Cuáles son las territorialidades que se disputan en los conflictos socioambientales por la instalación de megaproyectos hidroeléctricos? Y, en tercer lugar, abordamos el espacio representado mediante la figura de la frontera extractiva, y nuestro interrogante allí es ¿Cómo se han construido los espacios de expansión de la frontera minero-energética entre 1990 y 2014 en Colombia? Cada uno de estos interrogantes es abordado en un artículo de investigación. El primero, analiza como la planificación energética construye espacios normados, ordenados y priorizados exclusivamente por un atributo, la disponibilidad de recursos energéticos. El segundo, mediante la sistematización de la conflictividad socioambiental que se experimentó en la instalación del parque hidroeléctrico colombiano, se describe la construcción de los espacios en disputa, y se identifica una amalgama de símbolos y prácticas de territorialización, presentes en los sitios de extracción de energía. En el último, somos nosotras las que construimos una representación del espacio impactado por la extracción, atado a procesos sociales más amplios, tales como el conflicto armado, la concentración de la tierra y el centralismo colombiano, entre otros.
The discussion on innovation networks of patents or papers has attracted many economic geographers; however, the Industrial Technology Innovation Strategy Alliance (ITISA) has been ignored, although it is also an important innovation form of firms, and the formation mechanism of alliance innovation networks is unclear. This study is based on the data of Shanghai high‐tech ITISAs between 2010 and 2015, and employs the methods of social networks and negative binomial regression to analyse the actor structure, spatial structure, and proximity mechanism of innovation networks of Shanghai high‐tech ITISAs. Results highlight the following: (a) Firms comprise the largest number of actors in alliance innovation networks, and universities, research institutions, and industry associations also play some roles. (b) The local and rooted characteristics of the innovation networks of ITISAs are obvious. The spatial distribution of innovation partners is mainly in Shanghai, and a few innovation actors are located in neighbouring cities, such as Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Ningbo in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration. (c) Proximity significantly promotes the formation of innovation networks in an ITISA and contributes to the improvement of innovation ability, and organizational proximity plays a greater role than geographical proximity or cognitive proximity.
As Mittelman rightly observes, neoliberal practices of repurposing universities in pursuit of the impossible goal of world-class standing – the gold standard for educational policy in the global age – have put the soul of the academy at risk. He also makes an important point when he argues that necessary ‘corrective steps’ must push far beyond the palliative rhetoric of ‘reformist reforms’ clothed in neoliberal platitudes about greater ‘stakeholder’ input and the saving grace of digital technology. Still, this article extends Mittelman’s constructive discussion of ‘plausible alternatives’ by making the case for the significance of transdisciplinarity in the practical realization of one of his five corrective steps: the ‘commitment to cultures of creativity’. Indeed, a deep and enduring commitment to transdisciplinarity must play a major role in pushing back against the prevailing neoliberal academic order.
Cet article présente le dossier thématique des Annales de géographie consacré aux nouvelles relations que les entreprises et les territoires développent face aux conséquences de la démondialisation. Le terme de « mondialisation » ne présente plus de problèmes de définition en géographie économique. En revanche, cela n’est pas encore le cas de la « démondialisation », dont l’usage reste controversé, d’autant que sa signification a beaucoup évolué en quelques années seulement. Il désigne essentiellement aujourd’hui une phase spécifique de la mondialisation contemporaine, celle de « la crise de la mondialisation ». Un schéma inédit permet de clarifier la place respective de la mondialisation et de la démondialisation dans la dynamique économique du monde contemporain. Celle-ci se caractérise par deux mouvements concomitants, mais de sens opposé : le premier encourage les processus d’ouverture au monde (mondialisation) ; le second prône davantage le statu quo , le repli sur soi et la fermeture au monde. Entreprises et territoires figurent en première ligne face à cette dualité. Devant la montée des incertitudes, ils se singularisent par la recherche de solutions innovantes pour résister aux effets des crises multiformes.
This paper advances ideas about relational geographies to explore ‘everyday austerity’. Whilst geographers have analysed the causes and aftermath of the recent financial crisis, the focus largely remains on problems within economic systems and urban governance, rather than austerity as lived experience. I outline how focusing on everyday relationships and relational spaces – family, friendship and intimate relations – provides exciting opportunities for thinking geographically about everyday life in austerity. Using examples of care and support and mundane mobilities, I demonstrate how a relational approach extends current understandings of how austerity cuts through, across and between spaces.
Primate cities in Southeast Asia, primarily a Western colonization product, have evolved from port cities to metropolitan development since World War II. Their growth was mainly attributable to high postwar population growth rates, massive rural-urban migration, and export-led industrialization and agglomeration effects accelerated by global linkages. Spatial effects of globalization impacts used to be more substantial in more internationally integrated market economies (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia), but they have now penetrated also the transitional economies (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar). Our aim in this paper is to revisit the theoretical debate whether primate city regions have grown “too big” as well as reassess the question of equilibrium city size in the context of decentralization and regional integration strategies – namely, through extensive physical infrastructure networks – in the new ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) framework. Other issues such as the characteristics of the Southeast Asian primate cities in the urbanization process, their major development trends in the twenty-first century, and the ways in which they have responded to the territorial impacts of globalization are also addressed.
In China, geography is a stand-alone subject beginning in middle school. As an obligatory course, geography education in China has great potential to provide the next generation with global understanding (GU). In this chapter, the authors aim to contribute to the implementation of GU for geography education in China. This research analyzed geography content standards regarding GU in secondary school according to the ten categories. Next, the authors used an online survey of 100 geography teachers in Shanghai and 17 other provinces employing a questionnaire tool Sojump. The findings show that (1) GU was clearly presented in geography standards, but slightly differently in middle school than in high school; (2) the content of GU is not sufficient in geography standards for geography teachers; and (3) geography curriculum resources and best practices for GU are not sufficient. The authors discuss these findings and provide suggestions to improve GU in geography education.
This paper considers synergisms between the impacts of two global processes, climate change and economic globalization. Both processes entail long-term changes that will have differential impacts throughout the world. Despite widespread recognition that there will be “winners” and “losers” with both climate change and globalization, the two issues are rarely examined together. In this paper, we introduce the concept of double exposure as a framework for examining the simultaneous impacts of climate change and globalization. Double exposure refers to the fact that certain regions, sectors, ecosystems and social groups will be confronted both by the impacts of climate change, and by the consequences of globalization. By considering the joint impacts of the two processes, new sets of winners and losers emerge.
This article builds on Whitley's comparison of the business systems and global commodity chains approaches to the study of economic organization within and across nations and regions. My objective is to provide a fuller exposition of the logic and evidence underlying the emergence, evolution, and variation in buyer-driven and producer-driven commodity chains. While there are clearly national differences within commodity chains, the idea that nations matter more than industrial sectors in generating contrasting forms of economic organization in global capitalism remains debatable. One of the central propositions of the commodity chains perspective is that globalization tends to diminish the influence of national origins on business systems. The way firms do business in the international economy thus is determined to an increasing extent by their position in global commodity chains, not their national origins. Nonetheless, because they highlight different units and levels of analysis, the business systems and commodity chains approaches are best viewed as complementary (rather than competing) theoretical frameworks.
This book offers a new perspective in studying contemporary development. Part I explores how the ending of the cold war, shifting relations among capitalist powers, changing patterns of finance, globalization of trade and production, and new ideological currents have altered development in four major third-world regions. Part II suggests how development options were molded by the dominant international power in each region: the United States in Latin America, Japan in East and Southeast Asia, and Europe with the international financial institutions in Africa. Part III provides a conceptual framework for analyzing regional performance: variation in economic capacity, trade opportunities, and access to finance shaped the development chances of each region, producing rapid growth in Asia, stagnation in Latin America, and economic contraction in sub-Saharan Africa during the 1980s and early 1990s. It also speculates about future trends based on varying development models.
This article outlines a framework for the analysis of economic integration and its relation to the asymmetries of economic and social development. Consciously breaking with state-centric forms of social science, it argues for a research agenda that is more adequate to the exigencies and consequences of globalization than has traditionally been the case in 'development studies'. Drawing on earlier attempts to analyse the cross-border activities of firms, their spatial configurations and developmental consequences, the article moves beyond these by proposing the framework of the 'global production network' (GPN). It explores the conceptual elements involved in this framework in some detail and then turns to sketch a stylized example of a GPN. The article concludes with a brief indication of the benefits that could be delivered by research informed by GPN analysis.
There are three main drivers of economic globalization in the latter half of the 20th century: investment by transnational corporations, international trade, and the Internet. Whereas producer-driven and buyer-driven commodity chains characterize the phases of investment-based and trade-based globalization, respectively, the emergence of the Internet in the mid-1990s heralds a new age of digital globalization. The explosion in connectivity that is enabled by the Internet has launched an e-commerce revolution that is beginning to transform the structure of business-to-business (B2B) as well as business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions in global industries. New infomediaries that navigate access to rich information and greater reach by businesses and consumers are prominent in B2C digital networks. The Internet's most significant impact to date, however, has been in B2B markets, where e-commerce is reshaping the competitive dynamics and power alignments in traditional producer-driven and buyer-driven commodity chains such as automobiles and apparel.
The concept of embeddedness has gained much prominence in economic geography over the last decade, as much work has been done on the social and organizational foundations of economic activities and regional development. Unlike the original conceptualizations, however, embeddedness is mostly conceived of as a ‘spatial’ concept related to the local and regional levels of analysis. By revisiting the early literature on embeddedness in particular the seminal work of Karl Polanyi and Mark Granovetter and critically engaging with what I will call an ‘overterritorialized’ concept, a different view on the fundamental categories of embeddedness is proposed. This reconceptualization then is illustrated using the poststructuralist metaphor of a rhizome to interpret the notion of embeddedness and its applicability to different geographical scales.
What can geography tell us about the economy other than drawing maps of it? The spatiality of economic activity points towards the practical and performative complexity of the economic as well as to the complexity of geography in its embedding of the economic. While the synthetic nature of geography – its raison d'être is the relationships between, rather than the separation of, processes and things – disrupts economy in profound ways, its treatment by nonpractitioners is weak and over-narrowly interpreted. At the same time, a tendency for geographers to sidestep certain economic imperatives undermines more culturally and socially inflected interpretations of economy. What is at issue here, however, is not simply an attempt to reconcile two disciplines or to reclaim either one of them but a need to embed the one relationally in the other in mutually formative ways. This involves a transcendence of disciplinary perspectives by stressing the complex practices of social reproduction operating at all scales from the ultralocal to the hyperglobal. It is this stress on practice and instance, rather than a determinative claim for place or space, that makes geography matter in the construction of understandings of the economy.
Recent debates on globalization have tended to be polarized between those wishing to ‘unthink’ the broad set of economic, political and cultural processes it encompasses and those who enthusiastically embrace them. This article maps out the recent geographical literature on the politics of globalization as an idea, and suggests some of the directions in which less polarized and more sophisticated interpretations of globalization are heading. The focus of the article is on globalization as a political discourse, which is addressed through ideas on the production of scale. The problematic association of globalization with neoliberalism is also explored. Five ‘counterdiscourses’ of globalization are then identified which attempt to rethink the political orthodoxy of neoliberal globalization. The article concludes by arguing for a ‘relational’ view of scale and suggesting some of the promises, and pitfalls, of rethinking the global scale.
Research on the globalization experience of cities in the less-developed world is sparse. There is a notable gap in the existing literature between theory on global cities and empirical studies of cities in the less-developed world. What is needed is a return to the kinds of intensive fieldwork and primary data collection that were common in “Third World” cities in the 1960s and 1970s—but informed by theory on the changing global political economy. To this end, we present research findings from parallel studies of Accra and Mumbai. These cities were chosen because of their similar political-economic histories and their similar geographic functions as gateways cities in the global economy. A historical theoretical perspective based on the cities’ roles in global political economy is employed to detail important phases in urban evolution in the less-developed world. We concentrate on the changing corporate presence in the two cities as one important manifestation of globalization. Our research focuses on identifying the most salient changes and continuity in the corporate geographies of Accra and Mumbai over time. Our empirical analysis is based on extensive fieldwork conducted locally in both cities. The research findings indicate the emergence of multiple central business districts (CBDs) that are differentially integrated in the wider economy, at local, national, and global scales. We argue that the experiences of Accra and Mumbai are relevant to other cities with a similar history and with a high current exposure to the global economy.
Applying the new economics of organization and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross‐national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterize the ‘varieties of capitalism’ found among the developed economies. Building on a distinction between ‘liberal market economies’ and ‘coordinated market economies’, it explores the impact of these variations on economic performance and many spheres of policy‐making, including macroeconomic policy, social policy, vocational training, legal decision‐making, and international economic negotiations. The volume examines the institutional complementarities across spheres of the political economy, including labour markets, markets for corporate finance, the system of skill formation, and inter‐firm collaboration on research and development that reinforce national equilibria and give rise to comparative institutional advantages, notably in the sphere of innovation where LMEs are better placed to sponsor radical innovation and CMEs to sponsor incremental innovation. By linking managerial strategy to national institutions, the volume builds a firm‐centred comparative political economy that can be used to assess the response of firms and governments to the pressures associated with globalization. Its new perspectives on the welfare state emphasize the role of business interests and of economic systems built on general or specific skills in the development of social policy. It explores the relationship between national legal systems, as well as systems of standards setting, and the political economy. The analysis has many implications for economic policy‐making, at national and international levels, in the global age.
This book argues that there is no single best institutional arrangement for organizing modern societies. Therefore, the market should not be considered the ideal and universal arrangement for coordinating economic activity. Instead, the editors argue, the economic institutions of capitalism exhibit a large variety of objectives and tools that complement each other and cannot work in isolation. The various chapters of the book explore challenging issues in the analysis of differing institutional arrangements for coordinating economic activity, asking what logics and functions they follow and why they emerge, mature and persist in the forms they do. They conclude that any institutional arrangement has its strengths and weaknesses and that such institutions evolve according to a logic specific to each society. They also note that institutions continuously respond to changing circumstances, and are not static entities.
In this theoretically original work, two distinguished authors explore the mutual interdependence of states and firms throughout the world. They show how global structural changes - in finance, technology, knowledge and politics - often impel governments to seek the help and cooperation of managers of multinational enterprises. Yet, as Professors Stopford and Strange demonstrate, this is constrained by each country's economic resources, its social structures and its political history. Based on grass-roots research into the experience of over 50 multinationals and more than 100 investment projects in three developing countries- Brazil, Malaysia and Kenya - the authors develop a matrix of agendas. They present the impact on projects of the multiple factors affecting the bargaining relationships between the government and the foreign firm at different times and in a variety of economic sectors. In conclusion they offer some guidelines for actions to both governments and firms and some points to future interdisciplinary research.
Cambridge Core - International Trade Law - Global Business Regulation - by John Braithwaite
Globalization is a highly debated term, and struggles over its meaning are played out in a variety of ways, from academe and the media to the streets of Seattle, Melbourne and Genoa. This book provides a welcome introduction to the discourses, practices and technologies that have been grouped together under that term. It outlines the historical contexts of globalization, and addresses the politics of naming that are so central to the reproduction of the narratives and patterns of globalization. The authors examine specific sites that are being transformed by globalization such as capitalism, state governments, the media and cultural identity, and explore the notion of a post-globalization world. This will be a valuable book to undergraduate and MA students on communication, media, cultural studies, sociology, politics and development courses.
Globalization: Faustian bargain, development saviour or more of the same? the case of the developing world and the emerging international trade regime Economic geography should rest at the core of all discussions of globalization. Globalization, whether economic, political, social or cultural, is inherently the analysis of the spatial spread of interconnectedness and interaction. In spite of this natural link, few geographers are present in the high-profile global debates about key issues in the current wave of globalization. It has become, by default, a terrain dotted with aspatial analysts such as economists and lawyers. One important exception is Peter Dicken's work and writings that can be found cited amidst discussions of the causes and effects of globalization (see also Yeung and Peck, in this volume). Peter's writings and public engagements incorporate some of the most important problems facing the contemporary evolution of the global system, from the emergence of new mechanisms ...
Capitalist economies are organised in a variety of different ways and, increasingly, have become more interdependent in the late twentieth century. Two recently developed frameworks for comparing systems of economic organisations and their interconnections are the business systems and global commodity chains approaches. The former focuses on particular configurations of firms and markets that have become established in distinctive institutional contexts, while the latter deals with the co-ordination of economic activities across national boundaries. These approaches differ in the specific phenomena being explained, the dimensions on which they vary, explanatory factors, major lacunae and key intellectual affinities. They are both, though, concerned with systems of economic organisation and so could be integrated into a common framework capable of explaining variations in both national and international economic co-ordination systems.
Postwar international trade relations are built on multilateral free trade principles that regard regional trade coalitions as suboptimal arrangements. A rising share of international trade, however, appears to be occurring within regions, raising the fear that the world economy is disintegrating into inward-looking trading blocs. Such fears are now being challenged because the regionalization of world trade is said to be a ''natural'' process strongly influenced by geographic proximity. Furthermore, prevailing regionalization is taking place in a context of stronger global linkages. This paper examines global regionalization tendencies by tracing trade interactions from 1965 to 1990 and finds a trend toward a less spatially fragmented world economy. Five dominant trade regions may be identified in 1990 as compared to eight smaller regions in 1965. The regions have become more geographically oriented, with the majority of members associated with the regional cores of Japan, Germany, and the United States. Greater regionalization, however, need not contradict multilateralism. gr examining the time-trends of each region's propensity to trade extraregionally, I show that regions have also increased their inclination to trade a larger share of their gross domestic product with the rest of the world. This suggests that the world economy is increasingly characterized by regional cosmopolitanism and may not disintegrate into isolated trading blocs.
Today the global spatial structure of the textile and apparal industries is evolving largely in response to trade policy. Increased foreign competition has prompted developed nations to protect their home markets. American companies have chosen to postpone strategic reorientation and adjustment. Simultaneously, trade barriers have steered developing nations into new avenues of competition and strengthened their emerging industries. Consequently, for US companies options such as moving up-scale appear to have passed. Maintenance of status quo firm and industry strategies have essentially welded the textile and apparel industries to regions where production has historically been concentrated. Changing trade regimes threaten to spur the ongoing process of globalization and heavily impact regions with large shares of these increasingly uncompetitive industries. -from Authors
British human geographers have disengaged themselves from the study of large areas of the world: they have become parochial and myopic in their research and teaching. This must be changed, and more work must be done on other societies, to reduce geographical ignorance within society and thereby promote world understanding. To do this, regional geography must be revived, not in its traditional focus on singular places but through the study of the unique characteristics of regions that result from the interaction of general economic processes with individual decision-making agents acting in their cultural contexts.-Author
Research within industrial geography has illuminated the relationship between the restructuring of manufacturing and the reshaping of urban space. Industrial geographers have paid little attention, however, to the dramatic social and economic changes occurring throughout rural America. I contend that evident sectoral and urban biases mask an underlying issue: a persistent conceptual schism between agriculture and industry, in which agriculture is comparatively undertheorized as an arena of capitalist development. As a result, a significant part of the story of economic restructuring - the transformation of farming and the creation of new forms of rural development - remains largely unexamined. This paper sets out to bridge the gap separating industry from agriculture and thereby begins to recover this lost side of industrial restructuring. I argue that the incorporation of agriculture into industrial geography involves much more than a simple mapping of industrial theory onto farm terrain; it requires an exploration of the distinctive process of industrialization surrounding farm production. A careful treatment of agricultural development allows farming to be reclaimed from the conceptual backwater, while also providing an opportunity to scrutinize industrial theory from a forgotten perspective. Drawing on recent political economic research in geography and allied fields, I focus on three themes that emerge from the study of agriculture and discuss the lessons they impart to industrial geography: (1) the importance of sectoral difference to regional development, (2) the multiplicity of industrialization paths, and (3) the importance of locality. Each theme is illustrated using examples drawn from the Midwest.
With the publication of his best-selling books "Competitive Strategy (1980) and "Competitive Advantage (1985), Michael E. Porter of the Harvard Business School established himself as the world's leading authority on competitive advantage. Now, at a time when economic performance rather than military might will be the index of national strength, Porter builds on the seminal ideas of his earlier works to explore what makes a nation's firms and industries competitive in global markets and propels a whole nation's economy. In so doing, he presents a brilliant new paradigm which, in addition to its practical applications, may well supplant the 200-year-old concept of "comparative advantage" in economic analysis of international competitiveness. To write this important new work, Porter and his associates conducted in-country research in ten leading nations, closely studying the patterns of industry success as well as the company strategies and national policies that achieved it. The nations are Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. The three leading industrial powers are included, as well as other nations intentionally varied in size, government policy toward industry, social philosophy, and geography. Porter's research identifies the fundamental determinants of national competitive advantage in an industry, and how they work together as a system. He explains the important phenomenon of "clustering," in which related groups of successful firms and industries emerge in one nation to gain leading positions in the world market. Among the over 100 industries examined are the German chemical and printing industries, Swisstextile equipment and pharmaceuticals, Swedish mining equipment and truck manufacturing, Italian fabric and home appliances, and American computer software and movies. Building on his theory of national advantage in industries and clusters, Porter identifies the stages of competitive development through which entire national economies advance and decline. Porter's finding are rich in implications for both firms and governments. He describes how a company can tap and extend its nation's advantages in international competition. He provides a blueprint for government policy to enhance national competitive advantage and also outlines the agendas in the years ahead for the nations studied. This is a work which will become the standard for all further discussions of global competition and the sources of the new wealth of nations.
There is a growing recognition that the emerging global system of business has become a serious threat to human interests. The aim of this book is to confront the issue of modern corporate power. It argues that a convergence of ideological, political and technological forces is occurring, separating their interests from humanity at large. The harmful effects of economic globalisation are exposed and the roots of today's social, economic, environmental, and political crises are traced. A strategy is proposed for creating localised economies that empower people and communities within a system of global cooperation. The author stresses that human survival depends upon on a community-based, life-centred alternative beyond the outmoded strictures of communism and capitalism, and steps to achieve this goal are proposed. -from Publisher
The past two decades have seen a wholesale rethinking and reworking of public policy, and have provided geographers with a major opportunity to enter and help shape the policy debate. Yet, disappointingly, the impact of geography on the policy realm has been limited. Increasingly, it seems, other social, political and environmental scientists, and even media pundits, shape public perception and government policy in areas where we as geographers could – indeed should – be having much greater influence. In this article I examine the reasons for this state of affairs. The fundamental problem, I argue, is that for a variety of reasons much contemporary social and economic geography research renders it of little practical relevance for policy, in some cases of little social relevance at all. The more significant reasons for this lack of relevance to, and influence on, the policy realm include: the effects on the subject of the postmodern and cultural ‘turns’; the consequential emphasis on ‘sexy’ philosophical, linguistic and theoretical issues rather than on practical social research; the retreat from detailed, rigorous empirical work; the intellectual bias against policy studies; and the lack of political commitment. The article makes a plea for a new ‘policy turn’ in the discipline, and concludes with some tentative suggestions for how we might move towards a ‘geography of public policy’.
The article begins by considering the recently revived debate about the ‘North–South divide’ in the UK, and argues that theoretical work in geography on questions of regional uneven developments have had little impact on its political formulation. It takes off from this to reflect on the role of ‘the academic’, on the nature of social science practice and the status of its ‘knowledge production’, and on geography's potential social roles (and current popular image). It argues that geography needs to be more confident of its own specificity, for in that lies its potential contribution. Two elements of specificity are pointed to (among many potential ones): the coexistence of physical and human geography and the significance of, and need for the reformulation of, many popular and political concepts of space.
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Recent media and political events illustrate some links between consumption and production. The author explores these links through the concept of commodity chains. This concept has been partially developed in the literature, and an attempt is made to specify this further by means of the illustration of gold. The message is that the 'geographies of consumption' literature is insufficient by itself but becomes stronger when joined with a materialist commodity-chain analysis. The author moves from a deconstruction of the images of men and women in gold advertisements, at the consumption end, to the various places of production, beginning with Italian gold jewelry factories, then South African gold mines and apartheid, and third Lesotho, where Basotho men migrate to South African gold mines leaving behind 'gold widows'. The material reality of these gold widows stands in contrast to the 'gold windows' of Tiffany's and the images of women and men in advertisements for gold. The author opines that this sort of analysis necessitates a politics of consumption in which the two ends are reconnected; and that this could lead to a new 'commercial geography'.
The history of nations is a history of haves and have-nots, and as we approach the millennium, the gap between rich and poor countries is widening. In this engrossing and important new work, eminent historian David Landes explores the complex, fascinating and often startling causes of the wealth and poverty of nations. The answers are found not only in the large forces at work in economies: geography, religion, the broad swings of politics, but also in the small surprising details. In Europe, the invention of spectacles doubled the working life of skilled craftsmen, and played a prominent role in the creation of articulated machines, and in China, the failure to adopt the clock fundamentally hindered economic development. The relief of poverty is vital to the survival of us all. As David Landes brilliantly shows, the key to future success lies in understanding the lessons the past has to teach us - lessons uniquely imparted in this groundbreaking and vital book which exemplifies narrative history at its best.
While the environment has increasingly become an area of research for many social and natural scientists, there has only been a limited engagement with these issues by industrial geographers, This paper investigates the contribution that industrial geographers can make to the environmental debate, particularly in relation to the integration of economic and environmental policy. The importance of the appropriate scale at which to address environmental problems is discussed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.