1,720,987 research outputs found
Corporate governance and informal institutions: Experiences of BRICS economies
Full text linkThe article attempts to explore the divergence between corporate governance on paper and on the ground in non-Western societies. In doing so, it excavates the role of informal institutions in the practice of corporate governance. Through a comparative study of BRIC economies, the article argues that variables pertaining to informal social norms (articulated in the histories and cultures of societies) are crucial to explaining the emergence of rather peculiar models of corporate governance
"Death of a discipline": Locating heterodoxy in law
No full textThe paper reminds us of the impending disasters in the discipline of law and attempts to suggest the frames in which new questions need to be carved in, for sustenance of the discipline. It reminds scholars of their anxiety that often brews when they notice the divergence between what they write and expect about the order of the world, and what they see in reality. The paper encourages the scholars to embrace this anxiety. This embrace - as it argues - is a much needed entry point into heterodoxy. It elucidates on what is meant by disciplinary heterodoxies, and explores three significant efforts of heterodoxy in law: critical legal studies, third world approaches to international law and law and development. Examining their births and 'deaths' the essay draws a pattern of what constitutes such deaths, and how heterodoxy sustains itself. It discusses the (dis)enchantment of heterodoxy with notions of 'leftism' and argues for more fertile understanding of it. Finally, it dissects a heterodox mind, tickling the reader with symptoms of arrival of heterodoxy
Inefficient parastatal agencies and the growing modern food market in India: the need for private participation in food sector
Full text linkThe issue of food security is pivotal to the sustenance and growth of any economy. India's case in this respect has been particularly depressing. This article attempts to identify problems relating to food security in India, many of which can be attributed to government intervention in the food market through both its policies and agencies. In doing so, it also observes the ongoing trends in urban food markets and builds a case for increased private participation in Indian food sector. The article attempts to explore the causes of this food security paradox and shows how poor government policies implemented through parastatal agencies are to blame for the crisis. In doing so, several government policies that have intensified food security problems in the country are discussed and the need for their redesign is emphasised. One of the possible and efficient solutions, the article suggests, is to bring private players into the market
Mafia organizations: The visible hand of criminal enterprise
No full textBook review: Mafia Organizations: The Visible Hand of Criminal Enterprise. By Maurizio Catino. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019
Ethics and governance in climate change debate: Need for institutional shift from nation-states to individuals
No full textMy aim in this chapter will be twofold. First, I attempt to discover and collate the blind spots of existing ethical frameworks which dominate climate change debate, and show how this leads to failed attempts for identifying a unanimous binding framework. Second, I offer an alternative perspective, based upon a focus on rich and poor people, rather than rich and poor people, rather than rich and poor nations. Here, I will shift the attention from the international governance rubric to integrity concerns, domestic institutions and remapping of key variables
Telecom woes in India what does it tell us about regulation?
No full textThe Supreme Court ruling has shaken the telecom sector, putting the future of Vodafone-Idea at a serious risk. But, is this the real issue that ails the sector? The deeper problems in the telecom sector are examined to show why, in the future, the emerging nature of judicial decision-making and rapid changes in the innovation dynamics of this market require a different type of regulatory governance and designs
Of modernity, house prices and suspending singularity of time
Full text linkWhy do we buy houses as opposed to renting one? This question, in its simplistic formulation captures, inter alia, some of the most fundamental emotions of temporal values that we impose on ourselves. Yet, the question has attracted little scholarly scrutiny. The article, using this question as a case, attempts to excavate the silences of our imagination of time in the cacophony of modernity. Time has had varying versions of existence in the modern world. When time is singular, it has the same meaning attributed to by everyone in the same community. A pluralistic conception of time is the exact opposite. I use discount rates as a unique entry point to understand how people view their future (time), and thereby a conceptual aperture to see if time is losing its singularity or not. More importantly, how so. I collected data on house prices in India in five major metropolitan cities in India and compared those prices with rental values. The crude estimation is a useful proxy to observe discount rates, and consequently, varying conceptions of time. I show that time has become a homogenized entity for people falling in similar economic class while it has lost its singularity for those within the same social class (community). This gets folded into questions of ethical implications of modernity’s impact on one’s aspirations
The enchantment of urbanization: closer look at market’s narrative in Indian cities
No full textThe purpose of the paper is to show that the experiment of ‘development,’ being a byproduct of modernity, is an experiment that has gone too far. Despite exposing its miseries, it sustains its popularity on its enchantment. This enchanted view is predicated upon a particular version of economic thinking that celebrates markets and continues to reproduce various visions of development, most ‘attractively’, urbanization. Given the acute failure of urbanization to develop an inclusionary society and politics in developing countries, there is an urgent need to reconfigure how the imagination of urbanization, as a poster-child of enchanted development should be recrafted. It locates blind-spots in the standard narrative of market-driven-development, and alert the policy maker regarding the continuum of a characteristic growth trajectory that developing nations are miserably (and yet wondrously) stuck in
Responsibilization through regulatory intermediaries in informal markets: Examining the governance of prostitution in India
No full text“Independent” sex work outside red light areas in big cities in developing countries is an understudied phenomenon. Through a survey of independent sex workers in Delhi, India, this paper sheds light on the governance of independent prostitution. It shows that in the sex work industry, which is informal in nature and faces a complex legal architecture, regulatory intermediaries (RIs) drive both regulation and responsibilization strategies. On behalf of the state, the police act as regulatory intermediaries, implementing hierarchical regulation. In red light areas, sex workers' collectives and solidarity networks operate as RIs on behalf of workers. But in independent sex work, it is pimps who act as intermediaries for workers, driving their responsibilization strategies. Independent sex workers take up the services of pimps even though they charge hefty fees, in large part because pimps can negotiate their protection from the police. I examine several characteristics of the relationships between prostitutes, pimps, clients, and the police, and refine the RIT model of regulatory intermediaries (Abbott et al. 2017) in the context of prostitution in a developing country
Ill-Conceived Laws and Exploitative State: Toward Decriminalizing Prostitution in India
Full text linkPart II describes the history of prostitution in India and shows how the skeletons of morality were reconstructed during colonial rule. It also discusses the lack of strong evidence that prostitute women were treated in the same deplorable way in ancient India as they are today. In Part III, we explore the legal landscape in India concerning prostitution and describe how, even though prostitution is not illegal per se, the associated legislative and enforcement apparatus in India has, in effect, rendered it criminal activity in the eyes of the law. Part IV discusses the forms and players involved in exploitation, violence, and harassment directed at sex workers. This behavior is the very tendency that our proposal seeks to suppress. Part V forms the main body of the paper where we systematically argue in favor of decriminalizing prostitution, drawing our responses from (a) feminist theories, (b) contract theory and economic rationales, (c) social norms perspective, (d) public health view, and (e) game theoretic analysis. The discussion in Part VI helps identify the mistaken importance given to viewing prostitution as an institution. We contend that one of the reasons why prostitution is criminalized, and, therefore, why it is viewed in such an unfavorable light, is because of an illogical obsession with institutionalizing the practice of prostitution, which, in reality, is an extremely heterogeneous practice. Shedding the institutional view of prostitution is important to appreciate the value of freedom and agency that decriminalization of prostitution is expected to bring. Part VII offers our conclusions
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