Using Rural Water Supply (RWS) policy practices as a case study, this article shows that the disjunction between implementation as formally conceived and informally practised is not a question of ineffective policy cycle dynamics, but... more
Using Rural Water Supply (RWS) policy practices as a case study, this article shows that the disjunction between implementation as formally conceived and informally practised is not a question of ineffective policy cycle dynamics, but rather an inherent feature of Vietnam’s Cultural Political Economy. Drawing on critical realist approaches to social and state theory, we argue that formal and informal RWS policy practices, as a set of two interconnected spheres, serve as key, separate but connected, mechanisms for reproducing the distribution of material resources (primarily through the informal sphere) and the hegemony of ideas (primarily through the formal sphere) in Vietnamese society. We conclude that the formal, administrative practices of RWS policy are primarily to be understood in their function of reproducing the idea of the state and state legitimacy. RWS administrative practices are functional to sustain the core social and political order in Vietnam as institutionalised in ‘the state’, rather than being primarily oriented to improving rural water supply. The findings raise questions for donor-supported programmes that focus on formal administrative institutions and practices for performance improvement of the water sector.
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O modelo de fomento indireto, em que se basearam as políticas públicas para o audiovisual a partir dos anos noventa, revelou-se de fato uma política de oferta de longasmetragens cinematográficos, oferecendo poucas possibilidades para o... more
O modelo de fomento indireto, em que se basearam as políticas públicas para o audiovisual a partir dos anos noventa, revelou-se de fato uma política de oferta de longasmetragens cinematográficos, oferecendo poucas possibilidades para o estímulo à presença da produção independente nas grades de programação das televisões abertas ou fechadas. Este artigo analisa as políticas públicas desenvolvidas para o audiovisual brasileiro a partir dessa
perspectiva, apontando algumas modificações no Governo Lula, apesar de tímidas, que culminaram na aprovação da Lei 12.485/11, que prevê a obrigatoriedade de veiculação de
produção independente brasileira no horário nobre nos canais de TV por assinatura.
L'articolo esamina il rapporto tra cittadinanza e paradigma dell'indebitamento alla luce dei flussi precarizzanti che la recente crisi finanziaria ha mobilitato in Europa. Ciò consente di tracciare il contesto genealogico in cui inserire... more
L'articolo esamina il rapporto tra cittadinanza e paradigma dell'indebitamento alla luce dei flussi precarizzanti che la recente crisi finanziaria ha mobilitato in Europa. Ciò consente di tracciare il contesto genealogico in cui inserire una discussione su alcune fondamentali torsioni del discorso neoliberalista degli ultimi anni ed esaminare, per questa via, alcune pratiche di auto-organizzazione articolate attorno all’esperienza del comune.
"[...] Não pretendo aqui diabolizar o Espaço Garagem que – repito – me proporcionou um final de dia muito agradável. Esta experiência recordou-me, porém, outros espaços, fortemente institucionalizados, alguns adstritos à administração... more
"[...] Não pretendo aqui diabolizar o Espaço Garagem que – repito – me proporcionou um final de dia muito agradável. Esta experiência recordou-me, porém, outros espaços, fortemente institucionalizados, alguns adstritos à administração estatal, que constroem temporadas segundo o mesmo modelo adotado pelo exemplo de partida deste artigo. Basta observar o exemplo do Palácio Foz, em Lisboa, cuja programação cultural é, em parte, construída por via deste tipo de expediente. O problema torna-se ainda mais complexo quando se verifica ser real a necessidade destas pessoas se apresentarem com frequência em público, tanto por motivos formativos, curriculares ou mediáticos. Contudo, na maior parte dos casos esbarram contra as portas fechadas das instituições com maior poder simbólico, tanto por parte das respetivas administrações e direções artísticas, como pelos discursos altamente influentes imanentes da comunicação social – incluindo a crítica musical. Este ciclo vicioso acaba por não permitir a constituição de uma cena musical verdadeiramente diversificada, verdadeiramente democrática, privilegiando, sim, um grupo restrito de artistas que muitas vezes não dá provas de ser capaz de corresponder à remuneração que – a estes sim – é regular e inquestionavelmente atribuída."
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"[...] Ressalvo que a luta até aqui levada a cabo pela Escola de Música do Conservatório Nacional me parece totalmente justa! A segurança é um direito tão fundamental que a sua mera referência pode parecer ridícula. O estado a que se... more
"[...] Ressalvo que a luta até aqui levada a cabo pela Escola de Música do Conservatório Nacional me parece totalmente justa! A segurança é um direito tão fundamental que a sua mera referência pode parecer ridícula. O estado a que se permitiu chegar o edifício da EMCN é, porém, revelador da premência ou, melhor, da urgência em reafirmar esse direito! Mas um edifício de alto valor patrimonial só tem sentido se dentro e fora dele viverem pessoas e se o propósito para que foi construído for efetivamente levado a cabo. Por outras palavras, é minha opinião que, caso as reivindicações continuem a resumir-se às obras de renovação, se não se apostar na coordenação de esforços com outras instituições e organismos – públicos e privados – em circunstâncias semelhantes, a EMCN incorrerá numa rasteira autofágica: os orçamentos estatais para a educação e cultura continuarão a minguar, as condições de trabalho de artistas e professores continuarão a degradar-se; em suma, a Cultura tornar-se-á uma área – permitam-me a tautologia – ainda mais insignificante. Todos os seus agentes se extinguirão, esvaziando de vida os edifícios deste e doutros conservatórios que permanecerão – ou não! – como ruínas de um passado que fechou os olhos às possibilidades de um futuro a longo prazo."
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"[...] Assinalo que, contudo, exemplos como este são expressão de uma sociedade civil que aspira ter acesso à cultura, estando para tal disposta a organizar-se com vista a encontrar soluções para o desinvestimento que tem sofrido no... more
"[...] Assinalo que, contudo, exemplos como este são expressão de uma sociedade civil que aspira ter acesso à cultura, estando para tal disposta a organizar-se com vista a encontrar soluções para o desinvestimento que tem sofrido no decurso dos mandatos de sucessivos governos. Sem dúvida meritórios, casos como o do Espaço Garagem são inerentemente circunscritos e desprovidos dos meios financeiros e de mediatização essenciais ao estabelecimento de temporadas regulares e captação de públicos mais vastos. Não tendo, por conseguinte, capacidade para substituírem, quanto a estas matérias, as funções estatais, colocam a descoberto as responsabilidades que a atual Secretaria de Estado da Cultura tem negligenciado [...]."
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This is the 2nd, working, draft of the paper I presented at the Amsterdam Critical Discourse Community (ACDC) seminar on the 2nd April this year. It is still a work in progress (as the final paper will also be) intended to stimulate... more
This is the 2nd, working, draft of the paper I presented at the Amsterdam Critical Discourse Community (ACDC) seminar on the 2nd April this year. It is still a work in progress (as the final paper will also be) intended to stimulate conversation about the relationship between critical event studies and critical approaches to discourse analysis. As yet it has not been proof read or referenced. This draft is a more complete version of the one I posted at the end of March - though it is still a working draft that does not reflect the very useful and interesting discussion that followed my ACDC presentation. I will be working on a final draft over the coming months which will, no doubt, be significantly different from this and the previous version: developing ideas from the ACDC discussion and any emerging from a version presented at the PORESO conference  at Leeds Beckett University - later this year. The final draft will be sent for consideration for journal publication, and elements included in the introductory chapter of the book Louise Platt and I are editing for Palgrave (Scheduled publication 2016).
NB: The version here is intended to stimulate discussion and debate.
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I uncover the existence, extent, and mechanism of exports deflection, which followed exports destruction, after the imposition of exports sanctions against Iranian exporters. Using highly dis-aggregated data about Iranian non-oil exports,... more
I uncover the existence, extent, and mechanism of exports deflection, which followed exports destruction, after the imposition of exports sanctions against Iranian exporters. Using highly dis-aggregated data about Iranian non-oil exports, I show how exporter size, past export status, and pricing strategy matter in the process of exports deflection. The main findings are as follows: (i) two thirds of the value of Iranian non-oil exports thought to be destroyed by exports sanctions have actually been deflected to destinations not imposing sanctions; (ii) exporters reduced their product prices as they deflected exports to new destinations; (iii) exporters deflected more of their core and homogeneous products; (iv) larger exporters deflected more of their exports than smaller exporters; (v) the new destinations are more politically-friendly with Iran; and (vi) the probability of an exporter to deflect exports to another destination rised if the exporter already existed in that destination, suggesting that cost of exporting matters too. I conclude that exports sanctions may be less effective in a globalized world as exporters can deflect their exports from one export destination to another.
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Business, Entrepreneurship, Management, Marketing, Business Administration, and 268 more
This research area provides a pluralistic and interdisciplinary forum for the analysis of financial markets and its role in economy and society. All aspects of finance are taken into consideration. Given the current economic situation,... more
This research area provides a pluralistic and interdisciplinary forum for the analysis of financial markets and its role in economy and society. All aspects of finance are taken into consideration. Given the current economic situation, this research area pays particular attention to post crises dynamics, how financial markets work, what their function in contemporary capitalist systems actually is and how systemic risks are produced and managed.

In line with this years conference theme, we are particularly interested in contributions that discuss possibilities, obstacles and consequences of the new international and European financial architecture. For this years EAEPE Annual Conference we ask for submissions on questions posed by new regulatory frameworks regarding financial institutions and practices. Repercussions of the recent financial crisis led to new modes of risk, supervision or credit, i.e. investment strategies, business models for banks, new forms of banking as well as (European) financial governance.
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About the Conference: In recent years, various regions have drawn growing interest in scholarly and popular debates. Clandestine migration overflows national borders along routes that often follow historical connections. Regionalist... more
About the Conference:

In recent years, various regions have drawn growing interest in scholarly and popular debates. Clandestine migration overflows national borders along routes that often follow historical connections. Regionalist projects draw on pre-national pasts as they attempt to create supra-national political and economic formations. Infrastructural projects like pipelines, offshore mineral exploitation, highways, and telecommunication cables bind places and articulate stakes in ways that both reimagine the past and reconfigure the future on a vast scale. Yet, most academic analysis of these trends oscillate between local, national, and global scales of analysis. This conference seeks to examine the spaces, scales and routes of such dynamics by promoting a comparative approach to region formation.

What distinguishes the current regionalism from the earlier area studies? What has given the idea of the region new traction, what is it contrasted with, what kinds of projects does it underwrite, and through what processes is a regional space materialized? This interdisciplinary conference will address these questions by examining the region, not as a pre-given scale of social life, but as a product of both “expert” classification and of social practice. We will inquire what analytical purchase the idea of the region has had, what scholars are responding to by elevating the region analytically, and what spatial practices they showcase as constitutive of region formation.

Conveners

Vincent Brown
Charles Warren Professor of American History, Department of History; Professor of African and African American Studies, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University.

Ajantha Subramanian
Professor of Anthropology and of South Asian Studies, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.
The purpose of this issue is to open up space for a more extended dialogue between cultural economy and the rhetoric of economics, particularly in light of the 30-year anniversary of McCloskey's writing on the topic.
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Critical Theory, Finance, Semiotics, Rhetoric (Languages and Linguistics), History, and 105 more
‘Teoria della Distruzione del Valore’: teoria elaborata da Massimo Morigi afferente al ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’, al ‘Repubblicanesimo’, al ‘Neo-repubblicanesimo’, al ‘Marxismo’ e al ‘Neo-marxismo’. Pur condividendo la critica di... more

‘Teoria della Distruzione del Valore’: teoria elaborata da Massimo Morigi afferente al ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’, al ‘Repubblicanesimo’, al ‘Neo-repubblicanesimo’, al ‘Marxismo’ e al ‘Neo-marxismo’. Pur condividendo la critica di Karl Marx all’individualismo metodologico dell’economia classica (in specie la critica ad Adam Smith e David Ricardo, individualismo metodologico che poi sarà in seguito trasmesso anche all’economia neoclassica o marginalismo), la ‘Teoria della Distruzione del Valore’ rovescia la teoria del plusvalore di Karl Marx, affermando che il rapporto sociale che va sotto il nome di ‘capitalismo’ non opera una sottrazione del valore del lavoro erogato dal lavoratore a vantaggio del capitale ma, invece, una distruzione del valore di questo lavoro, distruzione del valore che si evidenzia sul “libero mercato” dove s’incontrano – entrambi formalmente liberi – gli operai (decisori omega-strategici), che apportano su questo mercato un lavoro svalutato (distrutto quindi nel suo valore) originatosi proprio dalla libertà di questo mercato (ossia dalla sua mancanza di regole) e i datori di lavoro capitalisti (decisori alfa-strategici) che così possono avvalersi di questo valore-lavoro effettivamente svalutato (o, meglio, distrutto).
 
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Economics, Political Economy, Kant, Globalization, Political Theory, and 1009 more
This is a first, working, draft of the paper I will be presenting at the Amsterdam Critical Discourse Community (ACDC) seminar on the 2nd April this year. It is still a work in progress (as the final paper will also be) intended to... more
This is a first, working, draft of the paper I will be presenting at the Amsterdam Critical Discourse Community (ACDC) seminar on the 2nd April this year. It is still a work in progress (as the final paper will also be) intended to stimulate conversation about the relationship between critical event studies and critical approaches to discourse analysis. s yet it has not been proof read or fully referenced yet. Post presentation, on the 2nd April, I will remove this draft and upload a more complete version - though that will also be a working draft, released before a more final version is sent to a journal for consideration.
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Introductory. Advertising communication in general. Evolutionary stages. Diagram of flow. Some basic terms of mass media research. The media process in advertising. Definition of media deregulation. Commodity form. Quantitative terms of... more
Introductory. Advertising communication in general. Evolutionary stages. Diagram of flow. Some basic terms of mass media research. The media process in advertising. Definition of media deregulation.
Commodity form. Quantitative terms of the mass media. Basic concepts and structure of an advertising campaign. Transformations of advertising communication. The system of objects. What is a brand? The role of advertising.
About the audience. Transformation of viewers/listeners into audiences and consumers. The role of semiotics in advertising. The convergence of mass media, advertising and consumption-e.g. the Greek example. The content  of TV programmes.
Definition of kitsch & examples from the media. Commercialization levels and the mass media. Transformations of the  mass media content. On marketing.
The system of needs. The advertising agency and mergers. Public & private mass media. Dramatization and the mass media.
Cultural industries. Cultural economy. Concerning audiences and quality of content in the mass media.
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This is the synthesis of a research which main goal was to analyze and measure the amount of public expenditure in culture and communications, from 2000 to 2010, in Italy. Definition of “culture” includes 8 sectors: cultural heritage,... more
This is the synthesis of a research which main goal was to analyze and measure the amount of public expenditure in culture and communications, from 2000 to 2010, in Italy. Definition of “culture” includes 8 sectors: cultural heritage, cinema, performing arts, publishing, videogames, radio, tv and music.
Next to those sectors we decided to analyze investments in communications infrastructures. This choice is dictated by the desire to reflect on culture as a point of interaction between various interconnected sectors within the same industry, where creation is upstream on one end of the chain and distribution lies downstream on the other end.
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The culture - economy dialectic (CED) -- the opposition of the concepts and phenomena of culture and economy -- is one of the most important ideas in the modern history of ideas. Both disciplinary boundaries and much theoretical thought... more
The culture - economy dialectic (CED) -- the opposition of the concepts and phenomena of culture and economy -- is one of the most important ideas in the modern history of ideas. Both disciplinary boundaries and much theoretical thought in social science are strongly influenced or even determined by the CED. For that reason, a thorough analysis and evaluation of the CED is needed to improve understanding of the history of ideas in social science and the currently fashionable research on the cultural influences on economic differences between countries and regions. This thesis is an attempts to do just that. The concepts of "culture" and "economy" (and related concepts) and the (assumed) relations therebetween are compared and analyzed. Empirical results from earlier studies are summarized and some new test are presented. These new tests are partly based on a measurement of Dutch regional culture. However, most theories of the CED are (nearly) impossible to verify (empirically). There appears to be some influence of wealth on specific cultural phenomena (such as individualism and post-materialism), but the often assumed influence of culture on entrepreneurship and economic growth remains unconfirmed. Moreover, from an analysis of the theories themselves, it appears that most of these cannot be falsified and are, therefore, hardly 'scientific'. Many of the theories of the CED and, in fact, many theories of social science in general are of a conceptual rather than a causal nature. These theories cannot be falsified (or verified) by empirical means alone, but must be studied by means of conceptual analysis. In the final conclusions, this thesis, therefore, argues for conceptual analysis in -- and a more anarchist approach to -- social science.
The culture - economy dialectic (CED) -- the opposition of the concepts and phenomena of culture and economy -- is one of the most important ideas in the modern history of ideas. Both disciplinary boundaries and much theoretical thought... more
The culture - economy dialectic (CED) -- the opposition of the concepts and phenomena of culture and economy -- is one of the most important ideas in the modern history of ideas. Both disciplinary boundaries and much theoretical thought in social science are strongly influenced or even determined by the CED. For that reason, a thorough analysis and evaluation of the CED is needed to improve understanding of the history of ideas in social science and the currently fashionable research on the cultural influences on economic differences between countries and regions. This thesis is an attempts to do just that. The concepts of "culture" and "economy" (and related concepts) and the (assumed) relations therebetween are compared and analyzed. Empirical results from earlier studies are summarized and some new test are presented. These new tests are partly based on a measurement of Dutch regional culture. However, most theories of the CED are (nearly) impossible to verify (empirically). There appears to be some influence of wealth on specific cultural phenomena (such as individualism and post-materialism), but the often assumed influence of culture on entrepreneurship and economic growth remains unconfirmed. Moreover, from an analysis of the theories themselves, it appears that most of these cannot be falsified and are, therefore, hardly 'scientific'. Many of the theories of the CED and, in fact, many theories of social science in general are of a conceptual rather than a causal nature. These theories cannot be falsified (or verified) by empirical means alone, but must be studied by means of conceptual analysis. In the final conclusions, this thesis, therefore, argues for conceptual analysis in -- and a more anarchist approach to -- social science.
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