Tiempos de Cambio: Repensar América Latina

América Latina está en movimiento. Frente al frágil desarrollo económico de la región, ya son pocos los que ponen en duda el fracaso del neoliberalismo: Pues, lo que más ha crecido durante las últimas décadas no han sido las economías nacionales, sino sobre todo la dependencia del mercado mundial, la pobreza y la desigualdad social. Y para muchos, la última década de la esperanza se ha convertido en una década de desesperanza. Desde hace unos años, también el mapa político de América Latina está cambiando susceptiblemente: Cada vez son más los gobiernos, partidos y movimientos sociales que exigen un cambio de paradigma económico y político, dando nuevamente prioridad a la justicia social, al incremento de la participación y al desarrollo local. Sin embargo, hasta ahora, estas nuevas ideas y prácticas todavía han sido muy poco concretas, divergentes y opuestas, frecuentemente difusas y hasta confusas. Ello es razón suficiente para reflexionar a más profundidad sobre políticas innovadoras más allá del neoliberalismo, más allá del los “tiempos de cambio”. El libro “Tiempos de cambio - Repensar América Latina” del politólogo alemán Hans-Jürgen Burchardt retoma tal desafío y en vez de recetar nuevas panaceas, empieza con un inventario histórico y sobrio. En él se explican y examinan términos que solían ocupar y monopolizar la política de antes, términos que ahora hay que llenar con nuevos contenidos. Algunos de ellos se refieren a los temas más importantes de nuestro futuro: globalización, Estado, democracia, sociedad civil, descentralización, pobreza y justicia social, y relaciones entre el Norte rico y el Sur pobre. Se trata de problemas y soluciones entre ayer y mañana, entre desarrollos probables y alternativas posibles. Pero no se ofrecen respuestas simplistas, y tampoco se pretende convencer de un paradigma único. Se trata más bien de estimular discusiones y debates, indispensables para encontrar alternativas prometedoras para el futuro. Hoy en día, las perspectivas de América Latina ya no se encuentran fuera del continente. Han sido demasiadas las ocasiones en las que los conceptos y estrategias de otros han llevado al fracaso. Por ende, lo más importante ahora es aprender de las experiencias y errores, fortalezas y debilidades propios, en vez de volver a seguir a las propuestas ajenas. Por lo tanto, el trasfondo de las reflexiones aquí presentadas siempre es América Latina. Debido a esto se proporcionan respuestas claras a la pregunta si la política de Cuba o la Revolución bolivariana de Venezuela contiene elementos de un modelo para el futuro que pueda indicar un camino a seguir. Los nuevos “tiempos de cambio” brindan múltiples oportunidades de acción, pero al mismo tiempo requieren conocimientos sobre las realidad y las opciones existentes. El libro de Burchardt ayuda a desarrollar una posición propia en la creciente complejidad de nuestros tiempos. Invita a participar de manera activa y competente en la creación de una política innovadora de la región y a la vez a reinventar América Latina.

‘Ethical’, but Gender-Biased?

The migration of healthcare professionals from developing to developed countries, often aided by recruitment agencies, is a phenomenon of great international concern, as reflected in the construction of numerous ethical recruitment codes, which aim to govern the process. In an attempt to provide an overview of the situation, dealing specifically with the migration of nurses, as well as a critical and gender sensitive analysis of the codes, this paper follows three broad steps: first, it reviews the literature dedicated to the migration of nurses from developing to developed countries, adding a gendered account to more conventional push-pull explanations; second, it delineates the positive and negative effects that nurse migration has at the stakeholders levels of the individual, institutional, national and international level, paying particular attention to the role of gender; and third, it reviews and compares numerous codes for the ethical recruitment of nurses, highlighting the gendered rationale and consequences they may have. In showing that nurse migration is a gendered phenomenon, the paper questions whether the codes, written in gender neutral language, will come to bear unintended consequences that will effectively work to uphold gender stereotypes and inequalities.

Universität und solidarische Ökonomie

RESUMO: A economia solidária é aqui apresentada como um movimento social emancipatório e como uma das formas de resistências das trabalhadoras e trabalhadores ao modelo de desenvolvimento capitalista. O movimento contemporâneo de economia solidária abrange o processo de produção, comercialização e finanças. A economia solidária é caracterizada pela posse coletiva dos meios de produção e pelo controle dos trabalhadores dos empreendimentos através de autogestão, cooperação e solidariedade. Os empreendimentos econômicos solidários se organizam sob a forma de cooperativas, associações e grupos informais. Um dos maiores desafios da economia solidária está no campo educativo, porque impõe a desconstrução dos princípios individualistas e privatistas preponderantes na maioria das relações econômicas, e exige a construção de outra cultura pautada na solidariedade. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa realizada, tem como objeto de estudo as metodologias de incubação fomentadas pelas universidades nas ações de economia solidária. Para isso, analisamos as experiências da Incubadora de Economia Solidária da Universidade Federal da Paraíba - Brasil e da Incubadora na Universidade de Kassel- Alemanha – Verein für Solidarische Ökonomie e.V. A pesquisa buscou conhecer e analisar as práticas de incubagem das universidades na economia solidária, como processos de mudança social. A coleta de informações foi realizada, tendo por base, uma revisão bibliográfica, relatórios das Incubadoras, registros fotográficos, observação participante e entrevistas semi-estruturadas. Os resultados da análise indicam que as metodologias de incubação na economia solidaria, por terem um caráter aberto e participativo, por considerarem os condicionamentos históricos e as diferentes culturas, fazem-nas portadoras de mudanças sociais. Esta metodologia pode ser utilizada por diferentes atores, em lugares e situações distintas. A pesquisa indica ainda, a centralidade da questão ecológica como elemento que poderá unificar o movimento internacional de economia solidária.

Beyond the Prototypical Male Migrant

The primary theoretical accounts of migration have been largely unaffected by the feminisation of migration. But this does not mean that they are gender neutral. Drawing on the concept of gender knowledge developed by German sociologists Irene Dölling and Sünne Andresen, on the feminist critique of knowledge, feminist economics and studies on gender and migration, the paper interrogates two influential models of migration from neoclassical economics for their gendered assumptions: the Roy-Borjas selection model of migration and Jacob Mincer’s model of family migration. An analysis of their gendered assumptions about the individual, the family, the institution of the labour market and immigration policies shows that both theories explicitly and implicitly assume a male migrant as the norm and frame female migrants as passive dependents. However, the paper argues that it is not “men as such” who serve as prototypical migrants, but a specific type of white, heterosexual and middle-class masculinity, which is set as the norm while other migration realities and knowledge about the structuration of migration processes through social relations of gender, race and class are excluded. Finally, it is argued that with knowledge being a powerful site for the production of meaning in social relations, the gender knowledge in mainstream migration theories could lead to discriminatory migration policies and might also affect migrant subjectivities. This underscores the need for a more sustained dialogue between feminist and mainstream migration scholarship to further engender the field.

The Containment of Labour Unrest in the Post Socialist China

Due to its transition from the socialist mode of production to the capitalist mode, workers in China have been exposed to the exploitative class relations that they hardly experienced before. The working class is now assuming a subordinate position in the relations of production while the capitalist class remains in the dominant position. As a consequence, workers’ protests are constantly emerging and class conflicts are exacerbating in the contemporary China. I have set out to study in this paper how the party-state in China contains labour unrest through the All China Federation of Trade Unions (the ACFTU), which I argue is a state apparatus that performs the ideological, political and economic functions in different situations. There has been an ongoing academic debate on if the ACFTU is defending workers’ interests. Some scholars have expressed optimism while some have taken a dim view. Drawing on Poulantzas’ theory of capitalist state, I hope to make contribution to this debate by demonstrating that the ACFTU is under some circumstances serving the short term interests of workers as individuals, but not the economic and political interests of workers as a class. Instead of organizing workers to overcome the effects of isolation or forming a class for itself, the ACFTU attempts to contain labour unrest and reproduce their subordination in the relations of production.

China's Labor Question

The Honda workers’ strike in 2010 attracted world wide attention. It was one of thousands of labor disputes that happen every year in China, but it was the first major calling for the right of workers to represent themselves in collective bargaining. The question of representation is therefore the main topic of the book. The various contributors to this volume share the view that the Chinese party-state takes the protest against social inequality seriously. It has enacted many laws aimed at channeling dissatisfaction into safe channels. The implementation of these laws, however, lags behind and these laws do not include the right of freedom of association. Without this right, super-exploitation will persist and the system of labor relations will remain prone to eruptive forms of protest. The first part of the book provides an overview of the economic context of Chinese labor relations, the transformation of class-relations, the evolution of labor law, and government policies intended to set a wage floor. Based on extensive field research, the second part looks at the evolution of labor relations at the industry level. In the third part, the focus shifts to the Corporate Social Responsibility agenda in China. The final part looks at the connection between land reform and social inequality.

UEBERflow

In der Dissertation wird der Frage nachgegangen, welche globalen bildungspolitischen Maßnahmen erforderlich sind, um auch bislang exkludierten Menschen den Kompetenzerwerb zu ermöglichen, der benötigt wird, eine positive User Experience in benutzergenerierten, digitalen Lernumgebungen auszubilden, damit sie an der modernen Weltgesellschaft selbstbestimmt teilhaben können. Zu diesem Zweck wurden Castells ‘Netzwerkgesellschaft’ und Csikszentmihalys ‘Theorie der optimalen Erfahrung’ als analytische Grundlagen zur Einordnung der sozialen Netzwerk-Aktivitäten herangezogen. Dies ermöglichte es, unter Rückgriff auf aktuelle Lerntheorien, Kompetenzdebatten, ökonomische Analysen des Bildungssystems und User Experience-Forschungen, einige individuelle und gesamtgesellschaftliche Voraussetzungen abzuleiten, um in der Netzwerkgesellschaft konstruktiv überleben zu können. Mit Blick auf unterschiedliche sozio-kulturelle Bedingungen für persönlichen Flow im ‘space of flows’ liessen sich schließlich differenzierte Flow-Kriterien entwickeln, die als Grundlage für die Operationalisierung im Rahmen einer Real-Time Delphi (RTD)-Studie mit einem internationalen Expertinnen-Panel dienen konnten. Ziel war es, bildungspolitische Ansatzpunkte zu finden, den bislang Exkludierten bis zum Jahre 2020 erste Rahmenbedingungen zu bieten, damit sie potentiell teilhaben können an der Gestaltung der zukünftigen Netzwerkgesellschaft. Das Ergebnis der Expertinnen-Befragung wurde unter Rückgriff auf aktuelle Global und Educational Governance-Studien und das Einflusspotenzial der Zivilgesellschaft auf den Digital Divide reflektiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund konnten abschließend vier bildungspolitische Verlaufsszenarien entworfen werden, die es ermöglichen könnten, bis 2020 die Kluft zu den global Exkludierten wenigstens etwas zu schließen.

The Pursuit of Alternatives

Stories of peoples’ struggles across the globe are testaments to their determination to resist exploitation and injustice, and to imagine and construct their own narratives of economic and political difference. These stories of emancipatory moments demonstrate that something radically different in terms of dominant socio-economic relations and mental conceptions of the world may arise out of and beyond capitalism. The Pursuit of Alternatives: Stories of Peoples’ Economic and Political Struggles Around the World presents a fresh and new perspective on how the ‘process of becoming’ alternatives might take place based on peoples’ lived experiences. The chapters here, by labour activists and academics, explore how various forms of peoples’ economic and political initiatives and struggles in six countries – Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Nigeria, the Philippines, and South Korea – might become ‘actually existing’ spaces and moments for the development of critical consciousness and transformative capacities which are both central in challenging the dominant social, economic and political relations. The stories in this book bring to light today’s language of peoples’ struggles; what inspires people to create their own emancipatory moments and spaces for transformative self-change. While this book does not aim to propose an alternative to capitalism per se, it makes a stimulating contribution to the continuing debate on what alternatives to capitalist relations and arrangements might look like by grounding these alternatives in the everyday lives and struggles of workers, women, aboriginal peoples, the unemployed, and the poor.

Re-Framing Trade

Given the substantial and increasing encroachment of trade agreements into almost every aspect of economic and social life, there is a pressing need for research that provides a more coherent framework for understanding the source and effectiveness of organised labour ’s power and capacity to influence international trade policy. Taking the union protests against the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as a case study, this research uses core concepts derived from social movement theory to analyse the opportunities that existed for unions to influence these trade negotiations and their capacity to identify and take advantage of such opportunities. Importantly, it adds a power analysis designed to reveal the sources of power that unions draw on to take action. The research demonstrates that even where unions faced considerable constraints they were able to re-frame trade issues in a way that built broad support for their position and to utilise opportunities in the trade negotiation process to mobilise resistance against the GATS and further liberalisation of services. The theoretical framework developed for the research provides conceptual tools that can be developed for improving strategic campaign planning and for analytical assessment of past campaigns. The theoretical framework developed for this research has potential for further application as an analytical and strategic planning tool for unions.

The Impact of Electricity Sector Privatisation on Employees in Argentina and Brazil

This book investigates country-specific responses to privatisation by examining two of the most important Latin American examples of the 1990s, the Argentine and the Brazilian programmes, and one essential public service sector, electricity. In doing so, it aims to: identify the impact of privatisation on electricity sector employees in Argentina and Brazil during the 1990s; explore how the impact came about; and analyse the reasons for this impact. A multi-dimensional perspective provides a comparative analysis of privatisation processes, regulatory contexts, and results, striving to capture the phenomenon by combining insights from political and economic analysis.