3,002 research outputs found
From Localities via the spatial turn to spatial-temporal fixes: a strategic relational odyssey.
No full text'Requisite irony' and the knowledge based economy: a critical discourse analysis of the drafting of education policy in the european union
No full textThis chapter makes a case for combining the critical analysis of discourse with an embrace of ‘self-reflexive irony’ (Jessop, 2002, 2004a) in the investigation of the articulations between the Knowledge Based Economy (KBE) and education policy in the European Union (EU). Irony is embraced as a topic within the study of EU governance of education policy in so far as it contributes to an analysis of the activities of supranational and national actors within complex multi-scalar political structures. In addition, the implications of self-reflexive irony are considered so as to suggest a series of clarifications for the process of analysing policy texts within a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework (Fairclough,1989,1996,1999). In essence, the chapter does two things. It interrogates the contradictory strategies and sources of conflict in the production of EU scale education policy texts and questions both the significance and the stability of the articulation of education reform with KBE discourses. At the same time, the chapter argues that the production of such texts contingently but incrementally contributes to the production of a relatively stable governance framework for EU scale education policy and that it is to the significance of this that a critical discourse analysis leads
Life History of American Eels from Western Newfoundland
No full textBiological data are limited for American eels Anguilla rostrata from the northern portion of the species' geographic range. The biological characteristics of American eels from two sites in western Newfoundland varied by sex, maturation stage, and habitat. Female and male sexually mature (silver) eels from the Castors River were comparable in length range with eels reported from other Newfoundland sites. Female silver eels from the Castors River began their spawning migration at a lower developmental stage for the gonadosomatic index, eye index, and pectoral fin length index than did eels from more southerly sites in eastern Canada and the United States. Annual growth rate declined with increasing age (r = −0.93, P < 0.001). The growth rate at a given age was higher for eels from Muddy Hole (an estuarine habitat at the mouth of Flat Bay Brook) than for those from the Castors River (a freshwater habitat) primarily because growth rate decreased with an increasing proportion of residence in freshwater (r = −0.74, P < 0.001). Most eels (64-72%) from both sites had a history of occasional migration between and residence of variable duration in both freshwater and saline water, as determined from otolith strontium: Calcium analysis. The mean growth rate of eels that had resided primarily in estuarine waters was 3.2 times greater than the growth of eels that had resided only in freshwater. Additional studies are required to clarify the life history and distributional relations of northern populations of American eels
Regulation Theories in Retrospect and Prospect.
No full textThis chapter critically assesses the regulation approach to the critique of political economy. It starts with the theoretical background to regulation theories; moves on to compare the main approaches and their various fields of application; and then offers some methodological and epistemological criticisms of the leading schools. Then come some more general methodological remarks on the object and subject of regulation and some specific comments on one of the weakest areas of regulation theory - its account of the state. Thus this chapter focuses on methodology and general theory rather than empirical analysis
Critical Semiotic Analysis and Cultural Political Economy.
No full textA case is made for cultural political economy (CPE) by exploring the constitutive role of semiosis in economic and political activities, economic and political institutions, and social order more generally. CPE is a post-disciplinary approach that adopts the �cultural turn� in economic and political inquiry without neglecting the articulation of semiosis with the interconnected materialities of economics and politics within wider social formations. This approach is illustrated from the emergence of the knowledgebased economy as a master discourse for accumulation strategies on different scales, for state projects and hegemonic visions, for diverse functional systems and professions, and for civil society
Measurements of B((B)over-bar(0) -> Lambda(+)(c)(p)over-bar and B(B- -> Lambda(+)(c)(p)over-bar pi(-)) and studies of Lambda(+)(c)pi(-) resonances
No full textWe present an investigation of the decays B-0 -> Lambda(+)(c)(p) over bar and B- -> Lambda(+)(c)(p) over bar pi(-) based on 383 X 10(6)Y(4S) -> B (B) over bar decays recorded with the BABAR detector. We measure the branching fractions of these decays; their ratio is B(B- -> Lambda(+)(c)(p) over bar pi(-))/B((B) over bar (0) -> Lambda(+)(c)(p) over bar) = 15.4 +/- 1.8 +/- 0.3. The B- -> Lambda(+)(c)(p) over bar pi(-) process exhibits an enhancement at the Lambda(+)(c)(p) over bar threshold and is a laboratory for searches for excited charm baryon states. We observe the resonant decays B- -> Sigma(c)(2455)(0)(p) over bar and B- -> Sigma(c)(2800)(0)(p) over bar but see no evidence for B- -> Sigma(c)(2520)(0)(p) over bar. This is the first observation of the decay B- -> Sigma(c)(2800)(0)(p) over bar; however, the mass of the observed excited Sigma(0)(c) state is (2846 +/- 8 +/- 10) MeV/c(2), which is somewhat inconsistent with previous measurements. Finally, we examine the angular distribution of the B- -> Sigma(c)(2455)(0)(p) over bar decays and measure the spin of the Sigma(c)(2455)(0) baryon to be 1/2, as predicted by the quark model
Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Urban Governance: A State Theoretical Perspective.
No full textThis paper discusses the recurrence and the recurrent limitations of liberalism as a general discourse, strategy, and regime. It then establishes a continuum of neoliberalism ranging from a project for radical system transformation from state socialism to market capitalism, through a basic regime shift within capitalism, to more limited policy adjustments intended to maintain another type of accumulation regime and its mode of regulation. These last two forms of neoliberalism are then related to a broader typology of approaches to the restructuring, rescaling, and reordering of accumulation and regulation in advanced capitalist societies: neoliberalism, neocorporatism, neostatism, and neocommunitarianism. These arguments are illustrated in the final part of the paper through a critique of the World Report on the Urban Future 21 (World Commission 2000), both as an explicit attempt to promote flanking and supporting measures to sustain the neoliberal project on the urban scale and as an implicit attempt to naturalize that project on a global scale
Search for the decay (B)over-bar(0) -> Lambda(+)(c)(p)over-barp(p)over-bar
No full textWe report a search for the decay (B) over bar (0) -> Lambda(+)(c)(p) over barp (p) over bar. Using a data sample of 471 x 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II2 storage ring at SLAC, we find no events and set an upper limit on the branching fraction B((B) over bar (0) -> Lambda(+)(c)(p) over barp (p) over bar x B(Lambda(+)(c) -> pK(-)pi(+))/0.050 pK(-)pi(+)) to the world average value
The Crisis of the National Spatio-Temporal Fix and the Ecological Dominance of Globalizing.
No full textThis article addresses globalization from a doubly heterodox regulationist viewpoint. The regulation approach is already heterodox in relation to mainstream economics; my own perspective also differs from that of the hegemonic Parisian regulation school. It can be interpreted as the work of an 'informed outsider' (1) who has attempted to re-specify the object, modes, contradictions, dilemmas, and limits of regulation in three main ways. First, I proceed more consistently than do most Parisian regulationists (2) today from the Marxist premise that capital involves inherently antagonistic and contradictory social relations. Thus my approach stresses the inherent limits to the regulation (or, better, regularization) of capital accumulation and seeks to avoid a 'premature harmonization of contradictions' (3) in analysing capitalist social formations. (4) Nonetheless, in contrast to the tendency for non-Parisian theorists to turn the regulation approach into soft economic sociology, I share the Parisians' hard political economy emphasis on the central role of economic mechanisms in Department of Sociology at Lancaster University 2 capital's reproduction and regulation. Second, I aim to provide an account of the structural coupling and co-evolution of the economic and extra-economic in capitalist development that is more radical and extensive than Parisian studies have offered. (5) My analysis of these issues owes much to Polanyi and Luhmann and recent students of governance. In contrast to the approaches of most such thinkers, however, mine remains firmly rooted in Marxist political economy. In particular I will suggest how one can use their ideas to reformulate the traditional but inadequate Marxist principle of 'economic determination in the last instance' and to radically rethink its implications for base-superstructure relations. Third, while Parisian regulationists often privilege the national level in their analyses � an understandable tendency given their initial focus on Atlantic Fordism and its crisis, my analysis is more concerned with the creation and articulation of different scales of accumulation and regulation. My account is closer here to other variants of the regulation approach, notably the Grenoble and Amsterdam schools, and its appropriation by geographers (e.g., Groupe de recherche sur la régulation d'économies capitalistes 1991; Overbeek 1993; van der Pijl 1998; MacLeod 1998). This approach is applied below to five issues regarding globalization. Much of the confusion surrounding this topic derives from failures to examine the interconnections among different scales and/or to define and analyse relevant topics of inquiry at equivalent levels of abstraction-concreteness and simplicity-complexity. Thus it is important to distinguish scales and levels of analysis in exploring the five issues. They comprise: (1) the structural and strategic dimensions of globalization seen from a perspective that is temporal as well as spatial; (2) the role of globalization, especially in its neo-liberal form, in enhancing the ecological dominance of the capitalist economy, i.e., in enhancing the relative primacy of the capital relation in an emerging world society; (3) the significance of the global scale for capitalist reorganization and its relationship to other scales of economic activity; (4) the impact of the new scalar dynamics of globalizing capitalism on the relative primacy and forms of appearance of capital's inherent contradictions and dilemmas; and (5) the implications of globalization for the state and politics. To address these issues adequately, however, the theoretical underpinnings of my doubly heterodox regulationism must first be presented. Thus I begin with a strategic-relational analysis of capital and its inherent contradictions and dilemmas and also assess its implications for the regularization of capital accumulation. Then follows a review of some key concepts from evolutionary theory for analysing the relation between the economic and extra-economic moments of capital accumulation and the conditions under which the self-expansion of a globalizing capital might come to dominate an emerging world society. Next comes a discussion of the spatio-temporal fixes that help to secure the always partial, provisional, and unstable equilibria of compromise that seem necessary to consolidate an accumulation regime and its mode of regulation. This involves not only relatively stable institutions but also capacities for governance in the face of turbulence. Thus equipped, I then offer some provisional answers to the five issues mentioned above. My contribution ends with some general remarks on the limits to neo-liberal globalization
Bringing the State Back In (Yet Again): Reviews, Revisions, Rejections, and Redirections.
No full textThis article addresses West European and North American developments in theorizing the state. It briefly reviews the first major post-war revival of theoretical interest in the state that began in Western Europe during the mid-1960s. This was mainly led by Marxists interested in the general form and functions of the capitalist state; but a key supporting role was played by Marxist-feminists who extended such ideas to the patriarchal capitalist state. A second revival during the late 1970s is then described. This involved many more theoretical currents and substantive concerns and was also more institutionalist in overall approach. Although the self-declared movement to �bring the state back in� originated in the USA, some of the most innovative work in this theoretical movement is rooted in less overtly state-centred approaches originating in Western Europe. Indeed some of them argue that the state as such should be dethroned from its central position in analyses of political power and domination. Thus, in addition to neo-statism, I also consider Foucauldian theory, feminism, and discourse analysis. By the 1990s this proliferation of approaches had contributed paradoxically to an apparent withering away of interest in the state as such. None the less, as I argue below, research on the state is continuing in new and exciting forms and directions
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