State Intervention (state + intervention)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


PHILANTHROPY AND ENTERPRISE IN THE BRITISH CREDIT UNION MOVEMENT

ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 2 2005
Paul A. Jones
Through the 1990s hundreds of credit unions were established to serve indebted communities throughout Britain. These volunteer-run financial co-operatives did not meet growth expectations because of restrictive legislation, inadequate development models and well-intentioned but unproductive state intervention. British credit unions are more successful when they develop as market-oriented social enterprises able to build effective partnerships with banks, government and the private sector to serve low-income communities. [source]


Exporting the German Model: The Establishment of a New Automobile Industry Cluster in Shanghai

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2005
Heiner Depner
Abstract: Recent work has provided evidence that the establishment of new industry clusters cannot be jump-started through policy initiatives alone. This evidence does not imply, however, that the genesis of a new cluster cannot be planned at all. Especially in the context of a developing economy, it seems useful to reinvestigate the relation among economic development, the strategies of multinational firms, and state intervention in this respect. Drawing from the case of the automobile industry and its supplier system in Shanghai in which German firms play an important role, we provide empirical evidence of the evolution of a new cluster that is supported by the state in various forms and characterized by a focal, hierarchically structured production system. We use a multidimensional approach to clusters, which leads to a more nuanced understanding of the evolution and growth of a cluster than that provided by earlier accounts. This approach allows us to distinguish the development of the Shanghai automobile industry cluster along its vertical, horizontal, external, institutional, and power dimensions. We provide evidence that another dimension,"culture",plays an important role, especially in its relation to issues of power and institutions. The role of this dimension is demonstrated in the case of German firms, which tap into the Chinese innovation system. This system is characterized by particular business relations, institutions, norms, and various social practices that are new to German firms. We demonstrate how this difference creates problems in establishing local production and supplier relations and how these problems can be overcome. [source]


"Grabbing Hand" or "Helping Hand"?: Corruption and the Economic Role of the State

GOVERNANCE, Issue 2 2007
JONATHAN HOPKIN
This article seeks to disentangle which features of government intervention are linked to corruption and which are not, by distinguishing between the government roles of regulator, entrepreneur, and consumer. It finds that the degree of regulation of private business activity is the strongest predictor of corruption, and that high levels of public spending are related to low levels of corruption. There is no evidence of direct government involvement in production having any bearing on corruption. It is concluded that advanced welfare capitalist systems, which leave business relatively free from interference while intervening strongly in the distribution of wealth and the provision of key services, combine the most "virtuous" features of "big" and "small" government. This suggests that anti-corruption campaigners should be relaxed about state intervention in the economy in general, but should specifically target corruption-inducing regulatory systems. [source]


The impact of EU accession on Turkish industrial relations and social dialogue

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 3 2008
Engin Yildirim
ABSTRACT This article examines whether the European Union membership process is transforming the ,deep structure' of Turkish industrial relations. We make an attempt to illustrate this through the prism of Turkish experience in social dialogue regarded as an indispensable tool of the European social model. Turkish industrial relations is characterised by restrictive labour laws, employer hostility to unionisation, a large informal economy and labour market, and strong state intervention, which have historically constituted the main elements of ,the deep structure' of Turkish industrial relations. In procedural terms, the institutions for social dialogue have been established but the influence of the social partners is limited because of the dominance of the state and the weakness of labour. The existing attempts at developing social dialogue rest on shaky foundations emanating mostly from the state's and employers' disrespect of basic labour rights. [source]


Industrial relations law, employment security and collective bargaining in India: myths, realities and hopes

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2000
Anil K. Sen Gupta
This article examines the debate on reforms in industrial relations law in India, needed to support its economic liberalisation programme. Analysing a distinctively Indian experience of state intervention in industrial relations, it concludes that the thrust of the reform should be towards entrusting union recognition and promotion of dispute settlement to an authority that is independent of the state executive. [source]


Tourism and the state in Cuba: from the past to the future

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Issue 3 2009
Richard Sharpley
Abstract It has long been recognised that nature and extent of state intervention in tourism development closely reflects the prevailing political-economy and ideology within the destination state. This is certainly the case with Cuba which, since the 1959 revolution and despite the collapse of communism elsewhere, remains the world's only centrally-planned economy that boasts a significant international tourism sector. Tracing the development of tourism since 1959, this paper explores the relationship between the evolution of Cuba's political-economic structures and processes and their subsequent influence on the planning, control, development and ownership of tourism on the island. In particular, it considers the potential future of tourism in Cuba, challenging the widespread belief that, in a post-Castro era, the island's tourism sector faces a bright future. It concludes that, even with a potential move towards market reform, significant improvements will be required with respect to the quality, value and diversity of the island's tourism product. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Revisiting the welfare state system in the Republic of Korea

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 2 2008
Yong Soo Park
Abstract The Republic of Korea's welfare system has undergone radical institutional expansion since the 1990s, largely as a consequence of the financial crisis of 1997. In spite of these changes, public social expenditure remains extremely low , particularly with regard to all other OECD countries , with the result that the overall social insurance system and social welfare service sector remain underdeveloped. Thus, the current welfare system can best be characterized as a residual model, in that state intervention as a provider of welfare remains highly limited and the family and the private market economy play the central roles in offering a social safety net. This situation is largely the legacy of the so-called ,growth-first' ideology, which has remained the dominant approach favoured by the majority of the country's political and economic decision-makers since the period of authoritarian rule (1961-1993). The adoption of Western European-style neo-liberal restructuring, implemented following the 1997 financial crisis, has also played a role. [source]


Tentative evaluation of the impact of public transfers on the dynamics of poverty: The case of Russia

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 1 2007
Matthieu Clément
The aim of this article is to offer a dynamic impact analysis of the system of transfers in Russia, based on a comparison of indicators of well-being measured before and after state intervention. We shall begin by assessing the impact of public transfers on different forms of poverty and demonstrate that, while the system is seeing a fall in chronic and transitional poverty, there is very little movement between categories. We shall then evaluate the capacity of the system to keep non-poor households from falling into poverty (protection) and to help poor households escape poverty (promotion). Several studies suggest that the Russian system of transfers is well suited to protection but has proved incapable of attaining the goal of promotion. In other words, in its current form it cannot claim to be an effective tool to combat long-term poverty. [source]


,It Takes Two Hands to Clap': How Gaddi Shepherds in the Indian Himalayas Negotiate Access to Grazing

JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 1 2007
RICHARD AXELBY
This article examines the effects of state intervention on the workings of informal institutions that coordinate the communal use and management of natural resources. Specifically it focuses on the case of the nomadic Gaddi shepherds and official attempts to regulate their access to grazing pastures in the Indian Himalayas. It is often predicted that the increased presence of the modern state critically undermines locally appropriate and community-based resource management arrangements. Drawing on the work of Pauline Peters and Francis Cleaver, I identify key instances of socially embedded ,common' management institutions and explain the evolution of these arrangements through dynamic interactions between individuals, communities and the agents of the state. Through describing the ,living space' of Gaddi shepherds across the annual cycle of nomadic migration with their flocks I explore the ways in which they have been able to creatively reinterpret external interventions, and suggest how contemporary arrangements for accessing pasture at different moments of the annual cycle involve complex combinations of the formal and the informal, the ,traditional' and the ,modern'. [source]


Social Exclusion and the Welfare of the Child

JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2001
Shelley Day Sclater
The ,best interests of the child' is a pervasive notion in law, and the welfare discourse within which it acquires meaning has become increasingly dominant in our culture's stock of ,common sense'. Because this discourse positions children as dependent and vulnerable, it underpins images of children that can perpetuate the social, legal, and political marginalization of children. This paper uses the area of children and divorce to explore the ways in which this exclusion of children persists alongside both an ostensible commitment to the welfare of children and an increasingly strong rights discourse. We argue that constructions of the child as victim have both political and psychological dimensions: they serve to legitimize state intervention into ,private' family life, and they help assuage social anxieties about the alleged demise of ,the family'. At an individual level, they facilitate a process whereby children can become the repository for feelings with which adults cannot cope. We then suggest that two fundamental changes are required in order to address children's exclusion: the development of a more psychodynamically informed view of personhood and a new image of the child to inform policies. [source]


Toward a Critique of Latin American Neostructuralism

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2008
Fernando Ignacio Leiva
ABSTRACT This article offers a critical assessment of the first postneoliberalism development framework that emerged in Latin America after 1990. The ability of neostructuralism to present an attractive narrative about a twenty-first-century "modernity with solidarity" is based on abandoning key tenets of ECLAC's structuralism and the thinking of Raúl Prebisch and Celso Furtado; namely, a focus on the distribution and appropriation of economic surplus and a framing of Latin American development problems in a world capitalist system. This article argues that Latin American neostructuralism's discursive strengths, as well as its analytical weaknesses, stem from the marginalization of power relations from key dimensions of the region's political economy. Since 2000, neostructuralism has exacerbated its descriptive, short-term perspective, further dulling its analytical edge, by focusing on policies that promote social cohesion and state intervention in the cultural and the socioemotional realm. [source]


Public Good, Private Protections: Competing Values in German Transplantation Law

LAW & POLICY, Issue 2 2002
Linda Hogle
Organ transplantation has become almost routine practice in many industrialized countries. Policy, ethical, and legal debates tend to center on fairness of allocation rules or alternatives to promote greater numbers of donations. There are also certain beliefs about the use of bodily materials that are often presumed to be homogenous across Euro,American societies. In Germany, however, the idea of using the bodies of some for the good of others, and the right to proclaim some bodies dead for large,scale medical and political purposes is highly charged. This is due to the historical context of medical experimentation, selection, and euthanasia under National Socialism, and the former East German socialist policies which intervened in the private lives and bodies of citizens. This article is based on an ethnography of organ procurement practices during the period when German policymakers struggled with writing a transplant law. Active public resistance revealed deep concern about state intervention in private matters and amplified the growing unrest over definitions of moral community in a changing, post,reunification society. The article shows how public disputes about health policy become a way through which societies deal with other social conflicts. [source]


Fuzzy Legality and National Styles of Regulation: Government Intervention in the Israel Downstream Oil Market

LAW & POLICY, Issue 1 2002
Margit Cohn
This article examines the role of statute law in regulation and government intervention through a detailed historical case study of a crucial retail market. The history of state intervention in the Israeli oil supply market is dominated by "fuzzy legality," a concept expounded in a former article. Legal fuzziness allowed the industry, acting in concert with the government regulator, to retain a lucrative, practically non,accountable arrangement in changing politico,economic climates. Three central forces encouraged continuing fuzziness: a "cloud" of state security, institutional stickiness that preserved colonial mandatory legal structures, and a prevalent national culture of nonlegalism. The article ends with a careful suggestion regarding the Israeli national style of regulation. Compared to American "adversarial legalism," and its opposite, "consensual nonlegalism" the Israeli style may be termed "adversarial nonlegalism," and holds less promise for balancing market and public interests. [source]


Constitutional responses to extremist political associations ,ETA, Batasuna and democratic norms

LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2008
Ian Cram
Systems of representative democracy require that the electorate be given at regular intervals the opportunity to replace the party in government with a rival political association. In this context, the right of individuals to freedom of association permits the formation of competitor parties and prevents forms of state intervention that might otherwise privilege existing office holders and their political programmes. It follows then that restrictions on the right to political association are deserving of particularly close scrutiny. At the same time, liberal democratic constitutions usually insist that participants in electoral process manifest a level of commitment to core liberal democratic norms (such as the rule of law, toleration, the equal worth of each individual and the peaceful resolution of grievances). In the case of intolerant, extremist parties that would reject some/most of these norms, the state may invoke a range of defensive measures up to and including proscription in order to safeguard democracy. This paper takes as its focus the constitutional issues raised by the banning in Spain of Batasuna , the political wing of ETA. A legal challenge to the ban is currently before the European Court of Human Rights. Making reference to work of John Rawls, this paper considers whether the ban on Batasuna is justifiable in terms of liberal political theory, before analysing the extent to which proscription conforms to international human rights law and European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence. [source]


The Moral Economy of Tobacco

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2009
David Griffith
ABSTRACT Even faced with overwhelming evidence that tobacco threatens human health, along with economic developments undermining their status as independent producers, North Carolina tobacco farmers view tobacco production in ways congruent with a moral economy. A shift from independent to contract production of tobacco and the dismantling of government price supports have challenged this moral economy, converting tobacco producers into a quasi,working class dependent on tobacco companies while leading to fewer tobacco farms and an increase in the average tobacco farm's size. These changes signal a shift away from a moral economy of tobacco, although moral-economic dimensions remain. Producers today emphasize different moral dimensions of economic behavior, such as producing quality human beings, than during earlier eras, when moral-economic actors pressed for state intervention in economic crises. Moral-economic principles are not restricted to either non-Western or historical peoples but, rather, influence economic production and ideology in advanced capitalist settings today. [source]


Ordnungspolitik auf illegalen Märkten: Der Drogen- und Waffenmarkt

PERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 1 2002
Hanno Beck
In this paper, the economic structure of illegal markets with special reference to the markets for illegal drugs and arms is analyzed. Analytical tools of System Dynamics are employed to emphasize the dynamic aspects of these markets. The results of our analysis enable us to evaluate state intervention in the illegal markets for drugs and arms. It seems possible to mitigate the drugs problem by supplying drugs to heavily addicted people on the basis of health care measures. However, a similar policy seems not to exist for the illegal arms trade. This shows that each illegal market requires a deeper understanding before it can be fought effectively. [source]


Comparing services: a survey of leading issues in the sectoral literatures

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2006
Dominique Moran
Abstract This article locates the following sector articles in a review of recent research into government interventions in the non-state provision (NSP) of education, health, water and sanitation. Non-state providers (NSPs) are defined here to include all those existing outside the public sector, whether they operate for profit or for philanthropic purposes. Operators may be communities, NGOs, faith-based organisations (FBOs), private companies, small-scale informal providers or individual practitioners. The article prefaces this Symposium by discussing the extent of previous research and identifying gaps in the literature with regard to key issues regarding NSP. It deals with state intervention and the state/non-state relationship in service provision, considering the main aspects of this relationship that are covered in the sector articles: policy dialogue and government capacity to regulate and facilitate, and to contract NSPs. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]