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Social problems in the global South are often explained by reference to domestic decisions or "institutional quality" in the Southern countries, while there are also prominent criticisms of such "nationalist explanations". Crucially, the dispute over correct mode of explanation is not only epistemological, but also political, as has been often noted in analyses of hegemony. This paper develops such ideas about "hegemonic" forms of explanation by analysing how an explanatory tendency becomes institutionalised in the operating logic of international organisations. We analyse as a case study the long-term developments within the UN in the field of multinational enterprises (MNEs). We follow the process in which an agenda focused on the regulation of MNEs shifted into the direction of focusing on local institutional quality and emphasising "partnerships" instead of regulation. The analysis demonstrates how political momentum and external challenges affect explanatory tendencies, and generally the deep impact of organisational embeddedness of these tendencies. ; peerReviewed

Artikkeli analysoi poliittisen kuluttajuuden tiloja, mahdollisuuksia ja haasteita maailmankauppatoiminnan näkökulmasta. Maailmankaupat ovat yhdistysmuotoisia reilun kaupan erikoisliikkeitä, jotka pyrkivät luomaan tasa-arvoisempaa maailmankauppaa ja tiedottamaan globaalin talouden vääristymistä. Niiden voi katsoa edustavan vaihtoehtoisia markkinoita ja kannattelevan ideaa kuluttajuudesta, jossa kaupankäynti on vain yksi väline pyrkimyksessä laajempaan yhteiskunnalliseen muutokseen. Artikkelia varten on haastateltu maailmankauppojen aktiivitoimijoita, joiden kuluttajien motivaatioita koskevia ajatuksia analysoidaan "poliittisen kuluttajan" ja "eettisen kuluttajan" ideaalityyppien kautta. Poliittisten kuluttajien ideaalityyppi tunnistetaan haastatteluissa, mutta maailmankauppojen vaihtoehtoisten markkinoiden tilan ylläpitäminen edellyttää laajempaan joukkoon vetoamista, jolloin poliittisen kuluttajuuden rajat tulevat näkyviin. Eettisestikin motivoituneita kuluttajia pidetään yksilöllisyyttä, konkreettisuutta ja paikallisuutta ylikorostavina sekä potentiaalisesti haluttomina näkemään tuottajien vallan kasvua. Toisaalta myös maailmankauppayhdistysten on tasapainoteltava pyrkiessään tuottamaan tietoa kuluttajien elämästä ja etsiessään relevanttia myytävää. Artikkeli osallistuu keskusteluun vaihtoehtoisten markkinoiden rakentamisen mahdollisuuksista tilanteessa, jossa yhtäältä eettiset motivaatiot kuluttamisessa lisääntyvät mutta toisaalta markkinoiden voimakas yhdenmukaistuminen kaventaa vaihtoehtoisia tiloja.

The article analyses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the perspective of their self-understanding of political sense expressed in key SDG documents, including both UN documents and reports produced by individual countries. Utopia and governance are presented as ideal-typical approaches and analytical tools for qualitative content analysis. This approach is argued to be particularly illuminating in the case of politics of international development, as international development is simultaneously highly utopian and deeply embedded in rationalities of governance. As this analytical framework is applied to the SDGs, it is shown that their utopian pronouncements are related to the idea of humanity as a single subject, as well as inclusive prosperity. On the other hand, the SDGs are curtailed by adherence to the ideas of contemporary governance, the international order and given ideas of development economics. The findings and the methodology are then further discussed in the broader context of international development. ; peerReviewed

The recurring financial crises and intensive financialisation force a reconsideration of theories of justice. This article analyses financial capitalism as an ideal-type. In ideal-typical financial capitalism, risks and positions of vulnerability take a pronounced role in the determination of social positions. Risks also come in a specific ontological form. Further, the analysis extends to the production of value in financial capitalism and its relation to a particular logic of determining social positions. The article discusses, how should theories of justice be updated to accommodate this particular ontology of risks. This requires also making a distinction between explicit and implicit priority orders in a society.

The article examines the challenges to self-organisation and upscaling of alternative economies from the viewpoint of defending and negotiating social space. Timebanks in Finland and the UK are presented as examples, analysing the difference of defending such social space in the contexts of a traditional welfare state (in the case of Finland) and an austerity-driven government with a "Big Society" ideology (in the case of UK). Both systems of government present different kinds of pressures on timebanks, pushing them to a given ontological categories and to action in accordance with pre-defined political goals. This difference, along with timebank reactions and the question of prospects of opening ontological space, is analysed through material from observation, interviews with timebanks activists and brokers, and survey data from timebank users. ; peerReviewed