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Getting robots in ‘our own hands’: Structural drivers, spatial dynamics and multi-scalar industrial policy in China
Full text linkRobots are a key digital production technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In 2020, China accounted for one third of all industrial robots in operation globally. The emerging literature has mainly focused on the effects of robotization, while evidence on its drivers and spatial diffusion remain limited. We address this gap by producing new evidence on the complex mix of structural and policy factors driving fast robotization across China and its regions. We identify three ‘structural drivers’ of robotization – demand pull, supply push and capability preconditions – and study the resulting spatial dynamics of technology adoption. We find significant heterogeneity in robots’ adoption across regions and sectors, in robots manufacturing and technological capabilities. Furthermore, we highlight the key role of a fourth ‘policy driver’ – industrial policy – and conduct an in-depth analysis of robotization policies at the national and province levels since 2016. We identify four main robotizing regional hubs in China – Guangdong, Yangtze-River-Delta, Beijing-Tianjin and Jilin-Liaoning. We finally analyse three emerging policy interfaces linking Made in China 2025 (within which China’s robotization policy is framed) and the Belt and Road Initiative – that is, opening markets, shaping industry and standards, and directing finance. With this new multi-scalar industrial policy configuration, China is further reshaping the domestic and international political economy of robotization, ultimately moving the country ahead in the digital technology race
A Lone Star and The City on The Hill: The health of democracy in two US state legislatures
No full textElected politicians in Texas and Massachusetts tend to claim that both their states are exceptional, their legislatures advanced, and their democracies healthy. Despite having nearly identical governing institutions at the same time, Texas and Massachusetts have different legislative and political cultures that produce dramatically different laws and social outcomes, particularly around the issues of reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. This article seeks to illustrate how similar institutions can give rise to dramatically different legislative outcomes and thereby push against some biases with extant parliamentary studies and studies of legislatures. More transparency and citizen engagement do not necessarily lead to more democratic outcomes. The authors, two anthropologists of legislatures, suggest an approach for using the ethnographic study of local legislatures as a way to inquire into scrutiny, the relative health of democracy and why deep rather than shallow democracy is so hard to achieve
Forms of Exploitation and Social Reproduction: Jairus Banaji and Silvia Federici on Capitalism, Value and Unfree Labour
No full textThis chapter contributes to the mode of production debate by offering a joint reading of theories recognizing many ‘Forms of Exploitation’ (FoE) and Early Social Reproduction Analyses (ESRA). Focusing on the work of Jairus Banaji and Silvia Federici, the chapter illustrates how their insights broaden the conceptual boundaries of exploitation, offering a deeper understanding of global labour realities, both past and present. They also deepen our understanding of value generation and surplus extraction across the productive and reproductive continuum, while highlighting the centrality of labour unfreedom in capitalism. This joint reading provides an opportunity to reconsider rigid interpretations of what constitutes a ‘unitary theory of capitalism’. What is often forgotten is that the very possibility of such a theory is conditional on the definition of capitalism we adopt. If, in line with Banaji, Federici and ESRA, we define capitalism as a mode of production driven by the extraction of surplus-value operating through diverse forms of exploitation, crossing realms of production and reproduction, then we can construct an alternative unitary theory of capitalism with pivotal consequences for our understanding of revolutionary subjects and anti-capitalist struggles
Review: Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of Kusazōshi, edited by Laura Moretti and Satō Yukiko
No full textAI, Taiwan Studies, and the Challenge of the Information Crisis
Full text linkReflections from the ‘AI and Taiwan Studies Forum’, National Taiwan Normal University, 24 May 202
Recalibrating Authoritarian Coercion With Neoliberalism: Prepaid Meters, Techno‐Politics and Mundane Governance in Egypt
Full text linkThis article examines how authoritarian governance, in Egypt, is being recalibrated through infrastructural technologies that embed regulation into everyday life. It argues that, in the current phase of neoliberal financialisation, authoritarian governance must, by necessity, harness citizens' capacities for self-regulation to achieve the neoliberal objective of making the population creditworthy. Focusing the analysis on the recent nationwide rollout of prepaid electricity meters, the article traces a gradual shift from direct police coercion to technopolitical control, where mundane devices are used to discipline consumption and enforce financial compliance. Using digital ethnography, the study investigates citizens' responses to the new technologies of governance. The analysis shows that, in their engagement with these technologies, citizens articulate a normative critique that challenges the inequity and exclusion embedded in them, forging a distinct idiom of contestation and opposition
The Paradox of Madagascar's Legal Institutions: Rethinking Law's Rule
No full textThe western liberal institutional approach centers law and legal institutions within the state. Consequently, it is presumed that an ideal, institutional rule of law is essential for dispensing justice and facilitating effective governance (Chan, 2020). This chapter argues that this state-centred rule of law is ill-suited for attaining justice or effective governance within developing countries with weak state institutions and strong non-state normative systems like Madagascar. It particularly demonstrates that Madagascar’s perceived rule of law deficit is underpinned by the struggle to reconcile its state and non-state institutions following recurring low and high intensity crises (Lwabukuna , 2022). This presumably stems from the western-centric conceptualisation and practice of rule of law, notably, the failure to acknowledge and embrace the reality and role of non-state institutions and norms in Madagascar’s legal and governance structures
Assembling UK-India relations through the cultural and creative industries
Full text linkCulture and the creative economy reflect inherently ideological interpretations and meanings when embedded within policy agendas. We situate culture and the creative economy within contemporary UK–India relations by specifically charting the rise of the CCIs as a policy agenda. Utilising the notion of assembling futures (Harrison 2015. “Beyond ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’ heritage: Toward an ontological politics of heritage in the age of the Anthropocene.” Heritage and Society 8 (1): 24–42. doi:10.1179/2159032X15Z.00000000036), we argue that the rise of CCIs reflects wider currents and processes of marketisation and neoliberalism alongside more hard power strategies pertaining to the uses of culture within areas of trade, security and defence by respective UK and Indian governments. By analysing the 2030 Roadmap for UK–India Future Relations, we highlight how culture and creativity have been hardwired into the construction of a narrative for strategic UK–India relations precisely as definitional, regulatory, trade and policy terms of the CCIs are being assembled
Nigerian English research: Developments and directions
Full text linkThis article describes the progress made by scholars over a period of more than five decades in the field of Nigerian English studies. It will thus serve as a useful tool for those researching in this field; and apparently there has been no such attempt to date to review the research landscape of Nigerian English in order to show its key concerns. The article makes the case that, despite the claim that Nigerian English is under‐researched, Nigerian English has been the subject of a substantial body of research, even if much of it is unknown outside Nigeria. Following the qualitative‐oriented synthetic approach to literature review involving a synthesis of common themes across studies, research preoccupations, developments and directions in all the various language areas are examined, with opportunities for further research highlighted. Finally, prognostications are offered concerning the future directions of Nigerian English research
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