Higher education development and knowledge economy optimism in Ethiopia

Higher education has been assigned new global importance. It is now the vehicle of choice for nations seeking to increase their competitiveness in an expanding knowledge economy. In developing nations, higher education has also been linked to goals to reduce poverty, under the influence of transnational aid agencies such as the World Bank and its knowledge-driven poverty reduction strategies. Drawing on Amartya Sen’s capability approach to development, this paper argues that this instrumentalization of higher education produces narrow conceptions of development, poverty and knowledge, and an unfounded optimism in ‘knowledge for skills’. The site for this analysis is the development and rapid expansion of Ethiopia’s higher education system, with its antecedents in a centuries-old religious education system but with more recent beginnings in the 1950s and, since the 1990s, under the influence of the World Bank. At stake are opportunity and process freedoms and the deprivation of capability (i.e. poverty) resulting from the constraint of these, evident in the nation’s higher education system. The paper concludes that without concerted efforts to redress injustices and to protect and expand people’s freedom, Ethiopian higher education has little to contribute to national socio-economic transformation agendas.

Exporting social policy from Latin America to the Philippines: Securitisation, neoliberalism and multilateral mediation of poverty policies

Recent years have seen an increased acceptance of social transfers as part of renewed efforts at poverty alleviation policies based on social risk management. There has been an instance in the use and promotion of conditional cash transfer (CCT) policies by multilateral development agencies (MDAs). One case is the Philippines. The ideational basis of CCTs can be traced to the influence of neostructuralism in Latin America. One facet of this was an attempt to reconcile neoliberal strategies of development with aspirations for guaranteed minimum incomes. The adoption of CCTs was mediated by MDA s that further reduced the modest concessions to poor people's rights implicit in Latin American programs. The Philippines demonstrates that MDAs have promoted a more heavily securitised and compliance-focused versions of CCTs that was derived the Colombian security state. Although small grants are welcomed by poor households, they have acted to further enforce state control while maintaining a neoliberal policy focus.

Critical success factors for positioning Australian business talent in the global knowledge economy : a current research agenda

"Globalisation‟ and the "global knowledge economy‟ have become some of the most common "buzzwords‟ in Australian business, economic, and social sectors in the past decade. Further, knowledge service exports are a growing sector for Australia that utilise complex technical and creative capacities, increasingly rely on virtual work innovations, require new socio-technical systems to establish and maintain effective client relationships in global contexts; and – along with other innovations in the electronic age – may require novel coping abilities on the part of both managers and their employees to achieve desired outcomes (Bandura, 2002). Accordingly, this paper overviews such trends. The paper also includes a research agenda which is a "work-in-progress‟ with a major global company, Shell (Australia); it highlights both the objectives and proposed methodology of the study; it also outlines anticipated key benefits arising from the research.

Competing in the new economy through large scale collaborative ventures (LSCV): a strategic marketing approach based on a study of the multifunction polis.

This paper draws on a study of government initiat ives aimed at facilitating economic development, specifically the Multifunction Polis Feasibility Study involving the governments and business enterprises of Australia and Japan (1987-1991). Large scale projects that involve collaboration between gove rnment and business (termed: large scale collaborative venture LSCV)are identified as one aspect of competing in the new economy . The study pursued the research propos ition that a LSCV can be effectively facilitated by following a theory based process similar to those in corporate practice. An approach to managing such ventures is outlined, based on strategic marketing theory that may enhance their success and thereby help countries part icipate more successfully in global competition through such ventures.

Haunting the knowledge economy

Review of Haunting the Knowledge Economy by Jane Kenway, Elizabeth Bullen, Johannah Fahey with Simon Robb. London: Routledge, 2006; for the journal of the Higher Education Research & Development Society of Australia.

Australia : The Challenges of Poverty, Pedagogy, and Pathways

A discussion of 2008/2009 developments in Australian educational policy, with specific reference to the adoption of US and UK trends in accountability, testing and school reform.

Critical Systems Theory: A Political Economy of Language, Thought, and Technology

An emergent form of political economy, facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICTs), is widely propagated as the apotheosis of unmitigated social, economic, and technological progress. Meanwhile, throughout the world, social degradation and economic inequality are increasing logarithmically. Valued categories of thought are, axiomatically, the basic commodities of the “knowledge economy”. Language is its means of exchange. This paper proposes a sociolinguistic method with which to critically engage the hyperbole of the “Information Age”. The method is grounded in a systemic social theory that synthesises aspects of autopoiesis and Marxist political economy. A trade policy statement is analysed to exemplify the sociolinguistically created aberrations that are today most often construed as social and political determinants.

Total rural land performance in a free trade economy

The importance of agriculture in many countries has tended to reduce as their economies move from a resource base to a manufacturing industry base. Although the level of agricultural production in first world countries has increased over the past two decades, this increase has generally been at a less significant rate compared to other sectors of the economies. Despite this increase in secondary and high technology industries, developed countries have continued to encourage and support their agricultural industries. This support has been through both tariffs and price support. Following pressure from developing economies, particularly through the World Trade Organisation (WTO), GATT Uruguay round and the Cairns Group Developed countries are now in various stages of winding back or de-coupling agricultural support within their economies. A major concern of farmers in protected agricultural markets is the impact of a free market trade in agricultural commodities on farm incomes and land values. This paper will analyse the capital and income performance of the NSW rural land market over the period 1990-1999. This analysis will be based on land use and will compare the total return from rural properties based on world agricultural commodity prices.

Hypercapitalism:Political economy, electric identity, and authorial alienation

Hypercapitalism, with its "knowledge economy", is the form of capitalism under which thought itself is produced, commodified, and exchanged within the globally integrated system of communication technologies. As such, hypercapitalism may be seen as not so much a revolution, but rather an evolution: the progressively thorough, inexorable totalisation of social relations by Capital. The study on which this paper is based synthesises the sociological perspectives of Marx (1970, 1844/1975, 1846/1972, 1976, 1978, 1981) and Adorno (1951/1974, 1991; Horkheimer & Adorno, 1944/1998), and the Critical Discourse perspectives of Fairclough (1989, 1992) and Lemke (1995) to argue that alienated thought and language are the fundamental, irreducible commodity-forms of Cybersociety’s knowledge economy.

Domestic violence in the urban fringe

Police call data for domestic violence incidents in the city of Brisbane were used to further explore the locational disadvantage thesis. it was hypothesised that the supposed additional burdens and stresses on disadvantaged families living in the outer suburbs may be reflected in significantly higher rates of reported domestic violence. Using an index of relative socioeconomic disadvantage and employing Analysis of variance (ANOVA) this research shows that significantly higher rates of reported domestic violence occur in the inner suburbs relative to the middle or outer suburbs of Brisbane. This finding adds further doubt to the magnitude of locational disadvantage impacts on outer suburban low income family households.