Suchergebnisse

This paper explores changes in Industrial Relations (IR) regulation and practice in a context of institutional crisis and change. The existing literature on industrial relations in Greece highlights a long process of deregulation that has been accelerated since the onset of the economic crisis, and the inherent segmentation of the Greek system between regulated players and largely unregulated informal and SME players. Radical neo-liberal reforms have weakened the position of those most reliant on traditional regulatory arrangements: larger formal sector employers and their workers, making the basis of Greek competitiveness more fragile. At the same time, the system cannot be dismissed as simply dysfunctional: key elite interests have done well from weak and uneven institutional coverage and have much to gain by reduced government capabilities. At the time of writing, the Greek IR system is being impelled in one direction by external pressures and elite interests, and another by a grassroots counter-movement; whilst the solutions to the Greek condition may be political, the realm of political action is circumscribed by long historical legacies.

Unlike other surviving communist regimes (China, Vietnam, Cuba), North Korea has not been able to achieve sustained growth by reforming its economy. This article will trace the failure of economic reform in North Korea to the prevailing system of political governance based on Monolithic Leadership System (MLS) reinforced by Military First Politics (MFP). The political risk aversion of the MLS-MFP system permits only an ultra cautious reform strategy, but the potential of even ultra cautious reform cannot be fully realized. The detrimental effects of the MLS-MFP system include: excessive restriction of the development of grassroots capitalism; entrenchment of the wasteful economics of militarization and the perpetuation of international isolation. The combination of stubborn regime under economic duress sets off a vicious circle of economic failure, anti-marketization, and external confrontation. Escape from this predicament depends on external initiative focused on steering the regime back onto the path of ultra cautious reform, especially by easing its need for militarization. The viability of such an initiative depends on the extent the US is prepared to accept the regime in its current form. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

North Korean women's fashion has changed in the context of women's relatively recently assumed role as critical actors in North Korea's market-dependent economy. Through examination of changes in women's fashion we learn more about how the way women choose to dress can become an agentic and empowering process. The article argues that the case of North Korean women and their dress practice can inform our understanding of how women, even in the most oppressive of circumstances, develop tactics to manipulate the systems and social order that seek to control them. North Korean women have enacted upon their agency deliberately, getting away with what they can while simultaneously skilfully avoiding the dire consequences of being identified as actors who dare to disrupt the status quo. This type of agency is not always understood or appreciated by Western liberal frames and sensibilities of agency that centralise notions of individualism and freedom. This nuanced appreciation of women's agency has the potential to expand the "rights, choices and autonomy" Western discourse of women's agency in ways that are inclusive of women who live, and sometimes manage to thrive, in the face of extreme oppression. This paper is informed by the authors' field notes from trips to North Korea and by 45 in-depth interviews with North Korean refugees, regular visitors to North Korea and NGO workers.

The informal organizations that emerged in the shantytowns of Chilean cities during military rule practically all began as mere subsistence-oriented groups. In the course of time, however, for many observers they became more than just an adaptive strategy. Women and youth were the groups most involved. Considering shantytown actors in Santiago, the author stresses the importance of examining the complex organizational dynamics of embryonic movements and the need to take generation as well as gender into account. (Lat Am Persp/DÜI)

Describes operations in hamlets near the highland township of a bakery cooperative (Mujeres Marginadas) of about 20 women, belonging to a Zapatista support base, and a weaving cooperative (Tsobol Antzetik) of about 18 women and their children, in sympathy but not connected with the EZLN.

With the secularization impulse of the modernity, the State-Prince condenses a mystification of political principles and constitutes the sense of order as a materialized metaphysics instance. In Latin America, these cultural elements crystallized the conformation of National States by recurring to the idea of antecedent community and depositing the civilization mission in the ruling classes. The consolidation of network society, the transformations of the capitalism and the question related to the structures of the hierarchical exercise of authority are three axes that from the sixties reconfigure the conditions of the politics in the world. A second secularization impulse of politics undermines the pact structures of modernity. The State is diluted in the dynamic of power/counter networks; this process strengthens the civil society where the limits of public and private sphere are diluted. This paper attempts to study the current political changes, focusing on Latin America as an exploitation zone with weak democratic consolidation. While the State has been a protagonist in different processes, it still represents a simple node in the political scene. In the current new cycle of struggles, it appears various actors, agents and movements that dispute the hegemony control or open a resignification spaces for politics, and at the same time, those actors build a synchronization tests of different social times and open popular constituent scenarios. These elements are collected through registers in collective activities, civic assemblies and multi-sectorial articulations assemblies in Northern Argentina around socio-environmental problems. ; Con el impulso secularizador de la modernidad, el Estado-Príncipe condensa una sacralización de los principios políticos y constituye el sentido del orden como instancia metafísica materializada. En América Latina, estos elementos culturales cristalizaron la conformación de los Estados-Nación apelando a la idea de comunidad antecedente y depositando en las clases directoras la misión civilizadora. La consolidación de la sociedad red, las transformaciones del capitalismo y el cuestionamiento a las estructuras de ejercicio jerárquico de la autoridad, son 3 ejes que a partir de los años sesenta reconfiguran las condiciones de lo político en el sistema-mundo. Un segundo impulso secularizador de la política socava las estructuras del pacto de la modernidad. El Estado se diluye en la dinámica de las redes de poder y contrapoder, abriendo una potencialización de lo civil, donde los límites privado/público se desdibujan. Este trabajo se propone atender las mutaciones políticas actuales, enfocando América Latina como zona de explotación y de débil consolidación democrática. El Estado, si bien es protagonista en distintos procesos, representa un nodo más en el escenario político. Dentro del nuevo ciclo de luchas, aparecen diversos actores, agentes y movimientos que disputan el control de la hegemonía o abren espacios de resignificación de la política, construyendo ensayos de sincronización de distintos tiempos sociales, y abriendo posibles escenarios de constituyentes populares. Estos elementos se recogen a través de registros en actividades de colectivos, asambleas ciudadanas y articulaciones multisectoriales en el norte Argentino en torno a la problemática socio-ambiental.

Offers a wide range of new grassroots perspectives on global migrant labour organising today. From diverse workers' organisations in South Africa to migrant worker resistance in the Gulf, from forest workers in the Czech Republic to domestic workers' unions in Hong Kong, this book brings together a wealth of lived experiences and hidden struggles for the first time. Just Work? proves that migrant workers are finding innovative ways of resisting exploitation and challenging neoliberal immigration measures, both within traditional labour orgnaisations and beyond.

According to the author, the fundamental role of women is a key feature of recent neighborhood-based organizations in Chile. Women's involvement in neighborhood-based activities is not new in Chile. During the 1960s, and particularly during the early 1970s, women joined a variety of organizations in their neighborhoods or "poblaciones". In this article the politics of gendered participation among poor and working-class people are examined. (DÜI-Sen)

Commons as systems -- Common goods -- Systems -- Elements -- From Elinor Ostrom to Karl Marx -- Commons governance -- The money nexus and the commons formula -- Commoning: the source of grassroots power -- Mobilising social labour for commoning -- The production of autonomy, boundaries and sense -- Social change -- Boundary commoning -- Commons and capital/state -- Towards postcapitalism.

What does 'anticapitalism' really mean for the politics and culture of the twenty-first century? Anticapitalism is an idea which, despite going global, remains rooted in the local, persisting as a loose collection of grassroots movements and actions. Anticapitalism needs to develop a coherent and cohering philosophy, something which cultural theory and the intellectual legacy of the New Left can help to provide, notably through the work of key radical thinkers, such as Ernesto Laclau, Stuart Hall, Antonio Negri, Gilles Deleuze and Judith Butler.

Anticapitalism and Culture argues that there is a strong relationship between the radical tradition of cultural studies and the new political movements which try to resist corporate globalization. Indeed, the two need each other: whilst theory can shape and direct the huge diversity of anticapitalist activism, the energy and sheer political engagement of the anticapitalist movement can breathe new life into cultural studies.Anticapitalism is an idea which, despite going global, remains rooted in the local, persisting as a loose collection of
grassroots movements and actions. This work argues that there is a strong relationship between the radical tradition of cultural studies and the new political movements which try to resist corporate globalization.

Introduction
1. A political history of cultural studies, part one: The Post-War Years
2. A political history of cultural studies, part two: The Politics of Defeat
3. Another World is Possible: The Anti-Capitalist Movement
4. (Anti)Capitalism and Culture
5. Ideas in Action: Rhizomatics, Radical Democracy, and the Power of the Multitude
6. Mapping the Territory: Prospects for Resistance in the Neoliberal Conjuncture
7. Beyond the Activist Imaginary: Nomadic Strategies for the New Partisans
Conclusion - Liberating the Collective
Bibliography
Index

(Originally published in Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 1998, 9, 3[35], Sept, 83-92.) NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) & social movements both tend to be autonomous, grassroots movements with similar goals, but they differ in that social movements are national in focus, whereas NGOs are international. NGOs have increased in numbers & influence since the 1970s, & some authorities regard them as a global social movement; the author believes, however, that NGOs & social movements are fundamentally different. This short article describes the present role of NGOs as agents of negotiation & implementation in both the North & South, as well as their future in global civil society. J. R. Callahan