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The Role of the State and Industrial Relations', using a comparative approach (the European Union, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, the United States, Brazil, South Africa and India), reconstructs the general framework of global industrial relations considering challenges and future prospects and proposing a new agenda for the state. The new era of industrial relations that has been stealthily changing the world of work in recent decades seems to have reached a stage where it can be systematically monitored and analyzed, in great part because the "creeping renationalization" that has been noted since the financial crisis of 2008 has reinvigorated state intervention in essential economic structures. In the globalized word, with the internationalization of the economy and increasing competitive pressures, industrial relations are developing in new directions. The contributions in this book provide important new perspectives on the many challenges inherent in the present and future of the relationship between industrial relations and the state

- In this article the author analyses the factors that have produced the rise in commodities prices, making exasperated a food crises that has been creeping for a long time. The tightly correlated evolution in prices for both agricultural and non agricultural commodities has called the attention on a specific financial instrument, the commodity index, that connects them to the futures market where international prices are fixed. To the commodity index make reference the major banks in Wall Street to manage their financial liquidity and that of institutional investors (pension funds, foundations, insurance companies), looking for new investment opportunities after the sub-prime crises. The speculations on both sub-prime and commodities show that, independently from the perspectives of accumulation, the over accumulated capital increases the rent by dispossessing the living conditions of millions of people.Key words: food crisis; financial speculation on food; accumulation by dispossession; agricultural futures; sub-prime; commodities index.

The pandemic caused by the novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) presents a national and global crisis. Government public health responses have impacted on the social and behavioural norms that shape daily interactions in Australia. The pandemic has been accompanied by the global spread of false and misleading information including conspiratorial narratives, resulting in an online environment described as an 'infodemic'. The situation has presented far right extremists with a unique opportunity to capitalise on societal anxieties and align their narratives with wider public discourse to recruit and mobilise. To better understand the impact of COVID-19 on Australian far right extremists, this report addressed three key questions. The creeping threat posed by far right extremist narratives in online Australian sentiment across a two-year time period from 8 January 2019 to 8 January 2021. How the COVID-19 pandemic and public health responses have been appropriated by far right extremists in Australia for purposes of recruitment, engagement, and mobilisation. The impact and effectiveness of social media moderation strategies on the presence and growth of far right extremists and conspiratorial narratives in the online environment. The report draws on two data sets. The creeping threat posed by far right extremist and conspiratorial narratives on mainstream public sentiment was explored using YouTube and Twitter data. In total, 21 YouTube channels were selected, generating 13+ million comments, and 1% of Australian tweets and retweets were collected generating 5.5+ million tweets. To explore how far right extremists have appropriated COVID-19 online, screenshots from Telegram and Instagram channels were collected from groups, individuals, and personalities associated with far right extremist and militant anti-lockdown movements. ; Acknowledgements: We would particularly like to acknowledge the advice and assistance of Dr. Peter Petocz, our statistician. His advice has allowed us to perform statistical analysis of ...

"There is a growing crisis in our oceans as rates of infectious disease outbreaks are on the rise. Marine epidemics have the potential to cause a mass die-off of wildlife from the bottom to the top of the food chain, impacting the health of ocean ecosystems as well as lives on land. Ocean outbreaks are a sentinel of an impending global environmental disaster, fueled by sewage dumping, unregulated aquaculture, and drifting plastic in a warming ocean. Ocean Outbreak follows renowned scientist Drew Harvell and her colleagues as they investigate how four iconic marine animals--corals, abalone, salmon, and starfish--have been devastated by disease. Based on over twenty years of research, this firsthand account of the sometimes creeping, sometimes exploding impact of disease outbreaks on our ocean's biodiversity ends with a hopeful message. Through policy changes and the implementation of innovative solutions from nature, we can reduce major outbreaks, save some ocean ecosystems, and protect our fragile environment"--Provided by publisher

"There is a growing crisis in our oceans as rates of infectious disease outbreaks are on the rise. Marine epidemics have the potential to cause a mass die-off of wildlife from the bottom to the top of the food chain, impacting the health of ocean ecosystems as well as lives on land. Ocean outbreaks are a sentinel of an impending global environmental disaster, fueled by sewage dumping, unregulated aquaculture, and drifting plastic in a warming ocean. Ocean Outbreak follows renowned scientist Drew Harvell and her colleagues as they investigate how four iconic marine animals--corals, abalone, salmon, and starfish--have been devastated by disease. Based on over twenty years of research, this firsthand account of the sometimes creeping, sometimes exploding impact of disease outbreaks on our ocean's biodiversity ends with a hopeful message. Through policy changes and the implementation of innovative solutions from nature, we can reduce major outbreaks, save some ocean ecosystems, and protect our fragile environment"--Provided by publisher

In this article, we draw attention to similarities and synergies between eco-fascist and liberal forms of populationism which encourage reproductive injustices against Indigenous women and women of colour globally, increasingly in the name of climate change mitigation. Calls to intervene in the bodily and social autonomy of racialised women, at best, distract from ecological crisis and, at worst, encourage violent forms of reproductive injustice. We urge instead for an honest reckoning with the root problem of ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) as the system of global extraction, which enacts environmental harm and reproductive injustice. Finally, we call for an anti-imperialist eco-socialist move towards equal exchange on a world scale to end the flow of undervalued resources from the South and to limit the contaminating activities these enable. We also stress that an anti-imperialist eco-socialism needs to be attuned to the teachings of reproductive justice movements and resistant to creeping liberal eugenicism, as much as to the overt eco-fascism which has proved so deadly in recent years.

This is the 18. article in our series Trouble on the­ Far-Right. When it comes to change in social environments, a parable of philosopher Charles Handy gets pulled out quickly. If you drop a frog in boiling water, it jumps out immediately; but placed in cold water slowly warming up, it acclimates itself and falls to sleep, unaware of being boiled alive. The parable reminds us of the perceptional relativity of change: Within communities creeping developments cause habituation, abrupt breaks an arousing shock. In terms of social movements this truism becomes apparent in a double way: On the one hand, erupting crises may destabilize social orders and create the necessary space for dissident actors to gain momentum – while they would fail to mobilize outside the scenario of an anxious community gasping for a new guarantor of order. On the other hand, the rise of a dissident actor with unconventional performances may work as a shock triggering withdrawal reflexes in the broader society – while dissidents with relative habitual sentiments can find resonance in communities disappointed by the ruling order. Does this perspective offer a potential to explain the rise of far right movements in Europe? Let's examine it by the example of Germany where, in the last two years, far right actors have experienced a remarkable gain in political acceptance – on the streets, in the booths and in the talk shows. In this case, it could be argued that their success in protest and electoral mobilizations as well as their disproportionate high presence in the media rests on communication politics that effect a normalization of far right positions previously disreputed in public discourse. Through this creeping habituation by society, they are able to gain momentum in situations of crisis, producing themselves successfully as a legitimate agent of the "anxious citizens" disappointed by the government. To test this little argument, a finger exercise in frame analysis seems to be proper, a tool common in social movement studies to explain why certain ideas in certain contexts are potent to mobilize audiences – and are not in others.

"Shifting States draws on a rich history of anthropological theorising on all kinds of states - from the pre- to the post- industrial - and explores topics as diverse as bureaucracy, infrastructure, surveillance, securitization and public health. As we enter the third decade of the twentieth-century, there is a growing sense that 'the state' is everywhere in crisis. Although the nature of this perceived crisis varies from place to place, it is everywhere seen to have been caused by some combination of the (inter-related) forces of 'globalisation', of successive economic shocks, and of the rise of social media-fuelled populist movements. Yet conversely, there is also a creeping perception that state power is becoming more pervasive in its reach, and in its effects, in ways which make it ever more imminent to the material worlds in which we live, more fundamental to the ways in which we conceive of the future, and more foundational to our very sense of self. How might we try to make sense of, and to mediate, these apparently contradictory impressions? Based on ethnographic case studies from all over the world, this timely volume forges new ways of thinking about how state power manifests, and is imagined, and about the effects it has on ordinary people's lives. In so doing, it provides tools not only for understanding states' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also for judging what effects these responses are likely to have"--

Drought is a slow-onset natural hazard that is often referred to as a creeping phenomenon. The challenge of monitoring drought's onset and evolution, and identifying its termination or end is one that scientists, natural resource managers, and decision makers have been struggling with for decades. However, drought management must be aimed at reducing the risks of future drought events on economies, the environment, and the social fabric of regions. As with many countries, droughts are often managed as a crisis in Brazil, rather than events for which officials and communities proactively prepare. Although droughts are not new to Brazil, the recent spate of droughts in the poverty stricken semi-arid Northeast and the industrial hub of São Paulo in the Southeast has forced the country to think more seriously about finally changing its drought policies and management approaches. The book is told through the perspectives of the ministers and secretaries, state policy and technical officials, civil society organizations, and development practitioners that helped to facilitate the shift in paradigm in Brazil from crisis management and towards proactive management of droughts. It is written in a style that is appealing to both technical and non-technical audiences, and aims to provide a framework and lessons for other countries to consider when embarking upon similar efforts to improve their own drought policy and management systems.

Policy learning plays a significant role in shaping policy during crises. While scholarship has explored many of the mechanisms and outcomes of such learning, little is known about how policy learning takes place across different levels of a multilevel governance architecture. This is despite their prevalence and influence on crisis responses. Using a case of the Belgian COVID-19 policy response, we explore how policy learning takes place across different levels of multilevel governance within creeping crises, focusing on epistemic policy learning (learning from experts) as one of the most pronounced learning types within such contexts. By means of document analysis, supplemented by primary source data from expert and senior official interviews, we offer an exploratory account of how learning took place at the national and subnational levels. Our findings reveal how the inherent features of the COVID-19 crisis, and the existing multilevel governance architecture broke the policy learning process into smaller heterogenous learning processes at different levels. We find that decentralised approaches to learning provided the space for customised, yet often fragmented policy responses. We also find that institutional legacies, varying degrees of policymaker control over learning, and absence of common approaches to structuring and designing learning processes led policymakers in different jurisdictions to engage in varying policy learning processes. We take stock of these different learning processes and highlight their key features. We conclude by highlighting the implications of these findings for policy learning theory and practice.

Introduction : democracy and state capacity during times of crisis / Aurel Croissant & Olli Hellmann -- Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic : an aggregate level comparative analysis / Jale Tosun -- COVID-19 and democracy : creeping autocratization? / Aurel Croissant & Lars Pelke -- Closing the borders to COVID19 : democracy, politics and resilience in Australia and New Zealand / Jennifer Curtin & Dominic O'Sullivan -- Containing COVID-19 in South Korea and Taiwan : state capacity and geopolitics / Yin-wah Chu -- Navigating the early impacts of COVID-19 : South Pacific viewpoints from Fiji and Samoa / Audrey Aumua, Saunimaa Ma Fulu-Aiolupotea, Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni & Tim Fadgen -- The pandemic and competitive authoritarianism in India / Rahul Mukherji and Seyed Hossein Zarhani -- Economy first : Indonesia's calculated underutilization of state capacities and democratic resources in the early phase of COVID-19 / Marcus Mietzner -- COVID-19 in the Philippines and Cambodia : rising autocracy and weak state capacity / Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Keovathanak Khim & Tynarath Huon -- Singapore and Hong Kong : the effect of trust in high-capacity hybrid regimes / Mathew Y.H. Wong & Adrian M.H. Lam -- Proactive responsiveness and institutionalization in Vietnam's offensive against COVID-19 / Nhu Truong -- China's response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Navigating internal and external challenges / Heike Holbig.

1. Austria : municipalities as the "third tier" of Austrian federalism / Harald Eberhard -- 2. Belgium : local government in Belgium : a 'Catch 22' between autonomy and hierarchy / Alexander de Becker -- 3. Czech Republic : local government in the Czech Republic : history, current position, prospective evolution / Richard Pomahac -- 4. France : territorial decentralisation in France : towards autonomy and democracy / Irene Couzigou -- 5. Germany : local government in Germany : an indispensable level of EU governance / Eike Michael Frenzel -- 6. Greece : local authorities in Greece : organisation, recent trends, European integration, reform, and the "Kapodistrias" tendency / Grigoris Avdikos -- 7. Hungary : local government in Hungary : a creeping centralisation? / Zoltan Szente -- 8. Italy : organisation and responsibilities of the local authorities in Italy between unity and autonomy / Stefano Villamena -- 9. The Netherlands : local authorities in the Polder-Dutch municipalities and provinces / Chris Backes and Wytze van der Woude -- 10. Poland : local government in Poland : towards consolidation? / Bogusaw Banaszak -- 11. Spain : ungovernable Spain : regional subsidiarity and the crisis of local governance / Gonzalo Villalta Puig -- 12. Sweden : local government in Sweden : flexibility and independence in a unitary state / Vilhelm Persson -- 13. United Kingdom : local government in England : Localism delivered? / Michael Varney -- 14. Conclusion : the contribution of local self-government to constitutionalism in the member states and in the EU multilayered system of governance / Carlo Panara.

Argues that the Turkish Justice & Development Party (AKP) is pursuing a hidden agenda centered on creeping Islamization incompatible with a secular, democratic order & that US & EU support for the party is at the expense of liberal Muslims, who are genuine Western allies. The shallow character of Turkish secularism is touched on, & it is asserted that it suffers, to some extent, from a democratic deficit particularly under AKP leadership, which is more interested in democracy's procedure than political culture. Stating that the AKP rejects Europeanization, its efforts at de-Westernizing Turkey, embodied in a politics of cultural Islamization are noted. In terms of Turkey's accession to the EU, it is contended that civil reforms are less important than a Europeanization of Islam, particularly a Europeanization of the Turkish diaspora in Europe; however, EU policies ignore cultural challenges, leaving the diapsora & the Turkish population caught between Europeanization & Islamization. Using the legal controversy over the headscarf to illustrate, the entrenched AKP's societal desecularization is then briefly described, along with the ensuing political crisis. It is concluded that the US & EU must work to strengthen Turkish civil society & institutions. Adapted from the source document.

In late summer of 2008, there were clear objective signs of a weakening economy. Industrial production was negative (−1.5 in August), inflation was creeping up (+5.4 in August), the unemployment rate was rising (6.1% in September). Housing starts were at a near-record low, with mortgages getting hard to come by, and hard to pay for. Consumer sentiment, as measured in public opinion surveys, was dropping to levels not seen since the 1980s. But there was no talk of an "economic crisis," and reported conditions still did not qualify officially as a "recession." The disintegration of Wall Street financial giants, which began in September, quickly accelerated the scale of the perceived, and actual, decline. "At that point," as Campbell (2009, 13–14) puts it, "the economy was in crisis, perhaps teetering on the brink [of] a deep recession or even a depression," with the stock market experiencing about a 25% drop in value over one month. By October 3, a $700 billion Economic Stabilization Act had passed through Congress, and was signed by President Bush. Despite this unprecedented emergency measure, the stock market continued to tumble. During the 2008 presidential campaign, at least one voter saw the electoral relevance of these economic struggles. Francine Caruso wanted a president who would "fix the economy." Francine, an administrative assistant who lost her job, couldn't sell her home, and watched her husband postpone retirement, declared that Obama and McCain "need to stop knocking each other and tell us what they can do for us" (Amon 2008). Our overarching question, in this collection of articles, is how other voters linked the economy to their 2008 candidate choice.

Religions are creeping back into the social, political, and economic spheres previously occupied by secular institutions and ideologies. Disillusioned with industrial progress and cut off from opportunity and wealth, many are looking to Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity to restore a sense of purpose not found in daily life. Since the 1970s, the Catholic Church has sought a "holy alliance" among the world's religions to recentralize religious ideas and practice in modern society. Holy Wars or Holy Alliances explores the nation-state's current crisis to better understand its origins and future development. Focusing on the Catholic Church, Manlio Graziano looks at how Catholicism has coordinated world religions in joint actions. Through its material, financial, and institutional strength, the Church has gained power and increased its profile in international politics. Challenging the ideas that modernity is tied to progress and religion necessarily means decline, Graziano documents the "return" or the "revenge" of God in all facets of secular life. He shows that tolerance, pluralism, democracy, and science have not triumphed as claimed in modern times. To fully grasp the destabilizing dynamics at work in our world today, Graziano argues, we must appreciate the nature of the religious struggles and political holy wars now unfolding across the international stage