Money Order? The Discursive Construction of Bretton Woods and the Making and Breaking of Regulatory Space

1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (12) ◽  
pp. 1861-1890 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Leyshon ◽  
A Tickell

In this paper we analyse the ‘ordering’ of the international financial system in the 20th century, focusing upon the making and breaking of ‘Bretton Woods’. We argue for a more reflective, reflexive, and historical economic geography and for the need to take economic discourse seriously. This argument is developed by providing two accounts of the rise and fall of the Bretton Woods System. The first of these accounts is drawn from regulation theory, the second from neo-Gramscian political economy. These alternative accounts of the creation of the Bretton Woods System, and of the later reactions to its crisis, focus attention upon the central role of economic discourse in ordering economic processes in general and financial processes in particular. In making sense of the making and breaking of Bretton Woods, regulationist and neo-Gramscian approaches have afforded greater importance to issues of discursivity and have been more attentive to matters of money and finance. These developments are seen to be constituent of one another. The world of money is increasingly one of interpretative power struggles, where competing sets of scripts and discourses conjure up alternative plausible ‘orderings’ of the economic world. Moreover, the speed at which the discursive world of money and finance transforms itself continues to accelerate, so that the time—space horizons of the financial world are now at odds with those of conventional political thinking and of extant political institutions. This ontological disjuncture signifies an important imbalance between the social power of financial capital and those who would wish to bring about a ‘reordering’ of the economic world in favour of less powerful social groups.

Africa ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chapurukha M. Kusimba

Ironsmiths occupy an important yet ambiguous position in many African societies. They are both revered and feared, because they wield social power which arises from their access to occult knowledge, not only of metallurgy but of healing, divination, circumcision and peacemaking. In some societies smiths enjoy high status and are the wealthiest people. In others they are feared, covertly maligned, and blamed for societal misfortunes. In still others the smiths' position is often marginal except when they are needed to intercede on their society's behalf to solve natural or cultural predicaments. The forge or smithy plays a central role in the community as tool-making centre, a place of refuge from violence, of purification, and for healing. This article examines the social context of iron forging among the ironsmiths of the Kenya coast, focusing on the role of iron forging in the coastal economy, the forge, the smiths' life cycle, the institution of apprenticeship, the ritual and technical power of smiths, the role of women in the smiths' community, and the future of iron forging on the coast. It is argued that, while coastal smiths are marginal and despised, they hold important ritual and spiritual powers in coastal society. The article concludes that a detailed understanding of the traditional crafts historically practised on the coast can do much to illuminate the complex history of coastal society.


Author(s):  
Veronica R. Dawson

This chapter traces the concept of organizational identity in organization theory and places it in the social media context. It proposes that organizational communication theories intellectually based in the “linguistic turn” (e.g., the Montreal School Approach to how communication constitutes organizations, communicative theory of the firm) are well positioned to illuminate the constitutive capabilities of identity-bound interaction on social media. It suggest that social media is more than another organizational tool for communication with stakeholders in that it affords interactants the opportunity to negotiate foundational organizational practices: organizational identity, boundaries, and membership, in public. In this negotiative process, the organizing role of the stakeholder is emphasized and legitimized by organizational participation and engagement on social media platforms. The Montreal School Approach's conversation–text dialectic and the communicative theory of the firm's conceptualization of organizations as social, are two useful concepts when making sense of organization–stakeholder interaction in the social media context.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Alfeetouri Salih Mohammed Alsati ◽  
Al-Sayed Abd ulmutallab Ghanem

The current research aims at identifying and measuring the political knowledge of the students of the two universities of Al- Balqaa in Jordan and Omar Al- Mokhtar in Libya. The two communities are almost similar in terms of the social formation, Arab customs and traditions, the Bedouin values, the difference in the institutional age and the political stability.The study attempts to measure and compare the political knowledge in the communities of the two universities using the descriptive and comparative analytical method. The study uses a 400 random questionnaire of 30 paragraphs to measure eight indicators divided into internal and external political knowledge, and other aspects of knowledge: general political knowledge, knowledge of the political institutions and leaders, the political interest, the geographical and historical knowledge, and knowledge of the methods of exercising the political process. The study also attempts to identifying the most important sources and the role of the university in university students’ political knowledge.The results show that the level of the political knowledge is medium while its level in the sample of the Jordanian students is high. According to the samples, the internal political knowledge is more than the external knowledge with a lack of interest in the political matters. The samples do not consider the political matters as their priorities. The political knowledge as a whole needs to much effort to be exerted to confront the current circumstances. The variables of the place of resident, age and the educational level make big difference in the political knowledge. In contrast, the level of the parental education does not create big differences.


Author(s):  
Vladislav V. Fomin ◽  
Marja Matinmikko

In this chapter, the authors inch towards better understanding of the notion of informational infrastructure and the role of standards in the development of infrastructures in the new information age. Specifically, the authors consider the standardization process as pertaining to informational infrastructure development. They focus on two particular aspects of standardization: temporal dynamics and the social organization. Using Bauman's concept of liquid modernity, the authors argue that standards often become hybrids of solid and liquid modernities linking together different scales of time, space, and social organization. To better illustrate theoretical concepts, they draw on practical examples from the development of informational standards, infrastructures, and services, particularly from the domain of Cognitive Radio Systems (CRS), a new generation of “paradigm changing” communication technologies and services. The aim of this chapter is to offer the scholars of standards and innovation a fresh, non-mainstream perspective on the social and temporal dynamics of standardization and infrastructure development processes, to bring forth new understandings of the complexity of relationships between business, technology, and regulatory domains in the formation of informational infrastructure.


Author(s):  
Dickon Bevington ◽  
Peter Fuggle ◽  
Liz Cracknell ◽  
Peter Fonagy

This chapter lays out AMBIT’s core integrating theory of mentalizing, and the developmental and experimental research evidence supporting it. Mentalizing is a specific (prefrontal cortical) activity of mind, directed at explaining an agent’s (one’s own or another’s) behavior on the grounds of presumed or imagined intentional mental states. The chapter covers evidence from developmental and attachment studies supporting this. The multidimensional nature (automatic–controlled, self–other, internal–external, cognitive–affective) and complexity of this activity is described, as well as the implications when it fails—as it frequently does, given its fragility in the face of anxiety or arousal. Finally, the role of mentalizing in allowing access to learning from another person is explored. It is a powerful ostensive cue, triggering epistemic trust (trust in the social value of information that a helping individual may have to offer). AMBIT is reframed as a systemic application of this theory of communication.


1995 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Lieberman ◽  
Helen Ingram ◽  
Anne L. Schneider

In this Review in June 1993 Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram argued that the social construction of target populations is an important political and policy phenomenon. Robert Lieberman criticizes Schneider and Ingram's “circular” conceptualization of public policy and social construction. He proposes a “historical-institutional” framework for understanding the role of group identities in political change. Lieberman analyzes the dual experience of African-Americans in the American welfare state as an example of political institutions and policy changes' affecting changing group constructions. Ingram and Schneider respond that their purpose is to understand how social constructions shape policy designs, which in turn affect citizen perceptions and participation, and argue that Lieberman's ideas of institutions and history yield no analytic improvement. They provide their own analysis of the case of welfare to illustrate the advantages for future research of their conception of policy targets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (71) ◽  

Metaphysics, which deals with concepts such as existence, existentialism, space and god in its general content, is a branch of philosophy. It sought answers to questions related to these concepts through methods and perspectives different from science. The reason for all these questions is the effort to define the universe. Metaphysical philosophy has been the search for a solution to helplessness caused by the uncertainties caused throughout the history by life and death. Perspectives developed in parallel with the perception of the period have also shaped the questions and propositions. All these metaphysical approaches do not contain a definition that is independent of time and space. Time and space, as one of the most fundamental problematics of metaphysics, are accepted as the most important elements in placing and making sense of the human into the universe. In this context, metaphysics, which has a transphysical perspective as well as the accepted scientific expansions of real and reality, was mostly visible in the field of art rather than science. The aim of this article is to analyze the role of metaphysical philosophy in the emergence of metaphysical art in the context of the effects of social events, especially the destructions and disappointments caused by the world wars in the 20th century, on the artists and the reflections of the existential inquiries related to this. Furthermore this study includes definitions and processes of metaphysics. The works of Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carra have been interpreted in terms of form and content within the scope of metaphysics by considering the concepts of time-space. Keywords: Metaphysics, Space, Time, Metaphysical Art


Author(s):  
Dan Taylor

Taking as its starting point the formative role of fear in Spinoza’s thought, this book argues that Spinoza’s vision of human freedom and power is realised socially and collectively. It presents a new critical study of the collectivist Spinoza, wherein we can become freer through desire, friendship, the imagination, and transforming the social institutions that structure a given community. A freedom for one and all, attuned to the vicissitudes of human life and the capabilities of each one of us to live up to the demands and constraints of our limited autonomy. It repositions Spinoza as the central thinker of desire and freedom, and demonstrates how the conflicts within his work inform contemporary theoretical discussions around democracy, populism and power. Spinoza’s politics and their development are analysed both philosophically and historically. The argument approaches Spinoza’s texts critically, presenting new findings from the Latin. It critically engages with diverse hermeneutic traditions in Spinoza studies, from continental readings of Spinoza’s ontology and politics to more analytical or historicist Anglophone approaches to his epistemology and metaphysics, alongside recent work sensitive to the socially useful roles of the imagination and the affects. The book sets out new concepts to work through with Spinoza like commonality, collectivity, unanimity and interdependence, and analyses existing debates around democracy, the multitude, slavery and autonomy. Its overarching claim is that freedom in Spinoza is a necessarily political endeavour, realised by individuals acting cooperatively, requiring the development of socio-political institutions and communal imaginings that can realise the common good.


Author(s):  
Vladimir M. Akhmedov ◽  

The article explores the core components of Iran’s politics in the Middle East and its latest developments achieved in the region since the 1990s. The author focuses on the Iranian activity in some Arab countries, mainly in Syria, showing why and how Iranian influence managed to ground so deeply in the social fabric of the Syrian society. The author briefly characterizes historic background of Arab-Iranian relations, showing the place and role of Iranian politics in Arab society and political institutions on the eve of ‘Arab Spring’. The article studies the influence of ‘Arab Spring’ on Arab-Iranian relations and shows the challenges, caused by this popular uprising on its early stages in some Arab countries, for Iran and its relations with Middle Eastern states. The stand of the Arab authorities with regards of the given situation and its ability to influence its development are demonstrated as well. The author explores the latest actions of IRI to create structures under Iranian control in some Arab countries, showing the latest developments of Iranian penetration into Arab countries, first of all into Syria. The author analyzes the actions of Iranian diplomacy in concerning the above mentioned goals to strengthen Iranian positions in the Middle East. The article shows the main spheres of Iranian, Israeli, Turkish and Russian contradictions in some Arab countries, first of all in Syria, paying special attention to the development of Russian-Iranian relations in the Middle East. The author estimates Iran’s chances to safeguard its present position in the Middle East in the contexts of latest developments in the region and with regards to Iran’s relations with Russia and Turkey. The author tries to predict transformations in Iran’s Middle Eastern politics in view of further political developments in the region, sharing his views about reconsidering Russian-Iranian relations aiming to improve it, considering the upcoming challenges in the region, where Moscow pursues today an active policy.


Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle

This chapter looks at neoconservative Catholicism, and in particular the work of Michael Novak. Neoconservative Catholics were critical of both progressive Catholics and the US Catholic bishops for not recognizing the benefits of the free-market economy. In his work, Novak provides a defense of what he calls democratic capitalism, consisting in a free-market economy, democratic political institutions, and a pluralistic culture. Novak offers a Catholic justification of democratic capitalism, appealing to human creativity and the social bonds created through commerce. The chapter also considers criticisms of Novak’s work, looking at issues such as the role of institutions and structures in the economy and the relationship between human creativity and the call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.


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