This chapter sketches a literary history of writing the colonial interregnum through the comparison of a canonical Dublin text and its filmic adaptation with a canonical Johannesburg text and its filmic adaptation. Njabulo Ndebele’s short story ‘Fools’ (1983) repurposes formal elements from Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ (1914), transposing strategies for representing late colonial Dublin to a Johannesburg township during the height of apartheid in a context of extreme racial domination; beginning with close comparative readings of both stories, my chapter argues (...) that the context in which ‘Fools’ emerges determines the significance of its reappropriation of Joycean formal devices and simultaneously forces a re-reading of Joyce’s flirtation with bourgeois naturalism in ‘The Dead.’ Further, the respective publishing contexts of ‘Fools’ and ‘The Dead’ go on to determine their reception and recirculation, as demonstrated by the diverse histories of the American John Huston’s adaptation of ‘The Dead’ (1984), and Ramadan Suleman’s South African adaptation of ‘Fools’ (1997). In following this circumatlantic history of influence and adaptation from Joyce to Ndebele to Huston to Suleman, across hemispheres and media, I mean to articulate a relationship between modernist form and forms of modernity, particularly as those forms that appear and reappear in the global south over the course of the long twentieth century. Particular attention is paid here to the history of underdevelopment in the global south and how it impinges upon the production and circulation of literary adaptations. (shrink)

The article examines how the rules on formation of contract and on mistake, contained in the various transnational model rules that have been published over the past two decades, have taken shape. The approach adopted here is based on an analysis of the ‘textual stratification’ of European private law. The relevant instruments (Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, Principles of European Contract Law, UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, Draft Common Frame of Reference, Principes contractuels communs) (...) are analysed and compared in their historical sequence. To what extent and why have the texts been transformed in the process? The article demonstrates that there is a very considerable common ground reflecting the state of the art of comparative research in these fields over the past hundred years. It also highlights issues on which consensus must still be reached and it suggests patterns towards reaching such consensus. It is argued that the Principles of European Contract Law, rather than the Draft Common Frame of Reference, should provide the point of departure for future discussions. The scene for the article is set by a critical examination of the concepts of contract and legal act, as used in the Draft Common Frame of Reference. (shrink)

The increasing use of transnational standard-setting bodies to address quality uncertainties and coordination issues across the global economy raises questions about how these bodies establish and maintain their legitimacy and accountability outside the sovereignty of democratic states. Based on a discussion of the legitimacy challenge posed by global governance, we provide an overview of mechanisms by which such bodies can defend their legitimacy claims and examine the actual mechanisms used by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). While the IASB (...) staked its initial credibility on technical competence and independence, it has increasingly emphasized due process norms in its claim for support. Our analysis evaluates the IASB due process against the cultural benchmarks established by domestic standard-setters in the USA and UK and against a normative model of procedural legitimacy. These comparisons help us to understand the modifications that were made in the hope of due process adding legitimacy to accounting standard-setting beyond the state. They also reveal the broader political context of competing legitimacy criteria that confronts transnational standard-setters. (shrink)

Cross-cultural comparisons face several methodological challenges. In an attempt at resolving some such challenges, Nathan Sivin has developed the framework of “cultural manifolds.” This framework includes all the pertinent dimensions of a complex phenomenon and the interactions that make all of these aspects into a single whole. In engaging with this framework, Anna Akasoy illustrates that the phenomena used in comparative approaches to cultural and intellectual history need to be subjected to a continuous change of perspectives. Writing about comparative history, (...) Warwick Anderson directs attention to an articulation between synchronic and diachronic modes of inquiry. In addition, he asks: If comparative studies require a number of collaborators, how does one coordinate the various contributors? And how does one ensure that the comparison is between separate entities, without mutual historical entanglement? Finally, how does comparative history stack up against more dynamic approaches, such as connected, transnational, and postcolonial histories? Gérard Colas, for his part, claims that comparisons cannot allow one to move away from the dominant Euroamerican conceptual framework. Should this indeed be the case, we should search for better ways of facilitating a “mutual pollination” between philosophies. Finally, Edmond Eh first asserts that Sivin fails to recognize the difference between comparisons within cultures and comparisons between cultures. He then argues that the application of generalism is limited to comparisons of historical nature. (shrink)

This essay analyses discussions of national versus international or transnational science, with an emphasis on the journal Osiris from 1986 to 2009, including the concepts of national science, national styles and characters in science, scientific internationalism, transfer of science and scientists from one nation to another, and comparison of different national examples. The author argues that perceiving science as a ‘national’ activity has not only been persistent, it is also perhaps inevitable. This special issue on transnational histories (...) of science raises the question of what is gained and lost by such an approach. First of all, what is the distinction between ‘transnational’ and ‘international’? The dictionary defines the latter as something existing, occurring, or carried on between two nations, while the former extends or operates across national boundaries. Thus ‘international’ implies some sort of commerce. In contrast, transnational is a loosely defined term. (shrink)

The defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945 required historians in both countries to reevaluate the past to make sense of national catastrophe. Sebastian Conrad's The Quest for the Lost Nation analyzes this process comparatively in the context of allied military occupation and the Cold War to reveal how historians in both countries coped with a discredited national history and gradually salvaged a national identity. He pays special attention to the role of social, discursive, and transnational contexts that shaped (...) this process to highlight the different courses that the politics of the past took in postwar Germany and Japan. The picture that emerges of German and Japanese historiography and the respective attempts to come to terms with the past is at odds with the conventional narrative that usually praises West German historians and society for having come to terms with their dark past, as opposed to postwar Japan, which is usually regarded as having fallen short by comparison. There was in fact far more critical historiographical engagement with the past in Japan than in West Germany in the 1950s. Reasons for the divergent evolution of the politics of the past in Germany and Japan should not be sought in the peculiarities of postwar national history but rather in an entangled transnational context of defeat, occupation, and the Cold War, whose effects played out differently in each country. These conclusions and others reveal some of the opportunities and special challenges of comparative transnational history. (shrink)

James Bohman’s Democracy across borders: from demos to demoi is a rich and deep text. It is also deceptively short in length in comparison to those authors he engages and compactly reconstructs. Bohman puts forward strong normative arguments for a ‘reconstructed’ ideal of transnational democracy and provides models for realizing these ideals that also aim to meet standards of practicability. Bohman articulates the minimum necessary conditions for any democratic ideal in terms of freedom from domination and freedom to (...) initiate and engage in efficacious democratic deliberation across the borders of currently existing political communities. The argument charts a novel democratic ideal in terms of the global deliberative situation that is fundamentally different from the authors he discusses in light of existing facts about globalization, institutions, and the pluralism of demoi. In these comments I will focus on two main areas. (shrink)

Purpose: Despite various comparative studies in the field of cultural heritage protection in the world, there is still a significant lack of comparative research on policies related to the legal system of countries' governance. The purpose of this study is to address the comparative policies in Iran and Italy, with a particular focus on the results of the executive experiences of two different types of policies in the cities of Oroumieh (North-West of Iran) and Turin (in North-West of Italy). Design/methodology/approach: (...) Utilising the comparative, analytical, bibliographic and descriptive historical research methodology, which is based on the study of the local, national and international comprehensive review of regulations and policy-making of cultural heritage preservation policies in Iran and Italy. In this research, the related documents in three languages (Persian, Italian and English) have been examined to compare profoundly and comprehensively the policies and regulations adopted in these two countries to be able to analyze the national and transnational regulations and local policies in the cultural heritage sector. Findings: In addition to many cultural similarities and numerous commonalities, especially in the multiplicity of urban cultural heritage in historical centers, the results suggest that the legislation structure in Iran is much more centralized than in Italy. Also, the findings suggest that Italy focuses on aligning its previously centralized national legislative system in line with contemporary European heritage and preservation policies. Originality/value: The paper outlines how to use historical and cultural similarities through comparative study to benefit the experiences of two historical countries in urban heritage conservation and policy-making part despite their differences. (shrink)

This article argues that the extension of the international regime of human rights to companies has not changed the essentially state-centric nature of the regime. The analysis focuses on three recent United Nations initiatives: (1) 'Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights', (2) the Global Compact, and (3) the work of the UN special representative on business and human rights. The analysis shows that, despite these initiatives, states are the primary (...) holders of human rights obligations and have a key role in the decision making and enforcement of the regime. Companies have participated to the regime, but they have done so mainly through lobbying governments and thus enforcing the role of states. The analysis also shows that the engagement of new actors to decision-making about the extension of regime norms is essential for norm adoption. Finally, the issue of non-compliant companies needs to be resolved before the regime can be considered established. (shrink)

This article explores national dimensions of transnational interaction between the French Socialist Party (SFIO) and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the 1940s–1950s within a comparative framework. Doing so allows us to uncover why the French and German parties retained intensive transnational contacts with one another despite their disappointments with postwar socialist internationalism. The SFIO and SPD were eager to put a socialist stamp on reconstruction, European integration, and French-German relations. The article shows why transnational engagement (...) with their cross-Rhine colleagues appeared the most promising path to do so. Despite lengthy conflicts on Cold War politics, the international politics of reconstruction, and, later, decolonization and the Algerian and Suez Wars, the SFIO and SPD successfully compartmentalized their differences by establishing an autonomous track for transnational relations in European parliamentary assemblies. French-German cooperation on matters of European integration yielded the period’s greatest transnational successes, including the establishment of the Congress of Socialist Parties of the European Communities. In the early 1960s, the two-track nature of French-German inter-socialist relations endured but structural factors eroded the balance of power between French and Germans needed to sustain the mutual satisfaction with transnational cooperation that had peaked in the mid-1950s. (shrink)

An illustrative comparison of human rights in 1948 and the contemporary period, attempting to gauge the impact of globalization on changes in the content of human rights (e.g., collective rights, women's rights, right to a healthy environment), major abusers and guarantors of human rights (e.g., state actors, transnational corporations, social movements), and alternative justifications of human rights (e.g., pragmatic agreement, moral intuitionism, overlapping consensus, cross-cultural dialogue).

In this paper, we compare the two Global Reporting Initiative reporting standards, G3.1, and the most current version G4.0. We do this through the lens of political corporate social responsibility theory, which describes the broadened understanding of corporate responsibility in a globalized world building on Habermas’ notion of deliberative democracy and ethical discourse. As the regulatory power of nation states is fading, regulatory gaps occur as side effects of transnational business. As a result, corporations are also understood to play (...) a “political role” to fill regulatory gaps and contribute to a global governance system by voluntarily engaging in self-regulation. Such corporate political action, however, is not always legitimate as it suffers from a democratic deficit. Consistent with scholars in the field of political CSR, this paper argues that only by means of communication and discourse can this drawback be avoided. That is why CSR reporting and guidelines for standardizing the disclosed CSR information is key for political CSR. By comparing the GRI standards from a political CSR perspective, one can see whether these often-used reporting guidelines fulfill the communicative requirements and whether they are adequate tools to face the challenges of the twenty-first century. We present results from a theory-derived and criteria-driven comparison of the two guidelines. Indication of the effectiveness of voluntary self-regulation is, for example, important considering the 2014 directive of the European Union to make CSR reporting mandatory. We offer a guideline-based view on current CSR theory as well as CSR reporting practice. We discuss implications for CSR theory, particularly the appropriateness of deliberation in the Habermasian sense, which is the basis of political CSR theory. We do so by introducing the notion of “uncommitted deliberation” with regard to the refined concept of materiality in GRI 4.0, which induces subjectivity and reduces data-driven comparability. Finally, we address the limitations of this research as well as research questions for future studies. (shrink)

Rather than reflect on the process of an alleged "modernization" of historical scholarship, an intercultural comparison of historiography should take the European origins of academic history as its starting point. The reason, as this article argues, is that in non-European countries the European genealogy of the discipline of history continued to structure interpretations of the past. Both on the level of method, but more importantly on the level of interpretive strategies, "Europe" remained the yardstick for historiographical explanation. This article (...) will use the example of postwar Japanese historiography to show that historians resorted to a European model in order to turn seemingly unconnected events in the Japanese past into a historical narrative. This is not to imply, however, that Japanese historiography passively relied on concepts from Western discourse. On the contrary, Japanese historians appropriated and transformed the elements of this discourse in the specific geopolitical setting of the 1940s and 1950s. This act of appropriation served the political purpose of positioning Japan with respect to Asia and the "West." However, on an epistemological level, the priority of "Europe" persisted; Japanese historiography remained a "derivative discourse." Studies in comparative historiography, therefore, should be attentive to these traces of the European descent of academic history and privilege the transnational history of historiography over meditations on its internal rationalization. (shrink)

Unlearning is a recurrent theme in Japan. To further understanding of what this entails, we focus on the view of learning laid out by a revered 13th century Zen-inspired playwright. For Zeami, learning involved a movement from the acquisition to unlearning of skills, punctuated by an experience of mushin, followed by creative reemergence. To deepen understandings of this unlearning model, we turn to draw comparison with recent discussions in the Western literature, focusing on Double-Loop Learning and Learning III, both (...) inspired by Bateson. Learning III, which Bateson utilized several Zen references to explicate, appears to gesture towards the alternative punctuation of learning envisaged by Zeami, although differences remain. We then shift to highlight empirical work on contemporary Japanese schooling, highlighting practices which suggest elements of a Zeami-like worldview continue to live on in Japan’s learning culture. Unlearning, when viewed as a living tradition embedded in culture, rather than merely a premodern past or future philosophical possibility, help sets the stage for a transnational, transdisciplinary dialogue on how we learn. We perform our own extended dialogue that led to this piece, a mode of engagement we view as methodological innovation, as we work to unlearn our past parochialisms. (shrink)

International reports welcoming Iran's recognition of transgender/sexuality and the permissibility of sex-change operations sometimes mixed celebration with an element of surprise: How could this be happening in an Islamic state? In other, and especially later, accounts, the sanctioning of sex-change became tightly framed through a comparison with punishment for sodomy and the presumed illegality of homosexuality. For legal and medical authorities in Iran, sex-change is explicitly framed as the cure for a diseased abnormality, and on occasion it is proposed (...) as a religio-legally sanctioned option for heteronormalizing people with same-sex desires and practices In this essayI aim to capture the polytheistic scattered practices that were a critical element in shaping trans-lives and subjectivities in this period in Iran, to map out a situated "cartography of desire," which locates the contemporary discourses and practices of transgender/sexuality in a longer historical trajectory and intersecting discursive sites, including medicine, religious doctrine, psychology, criminology, the family, trans-activism, and practices of everyday life. What transgender/sexual as a "human kind" means today in Iran is specific to a nexus formed not simply by transnational diffusion of concepts and practices from a Western heartland to the rest, but is also the product of the sociocultural and political situation in Iran over the previous half century. (shrink)

Do we need global ethics for the net? Is it even possible to put these into the form of a universal agreement, embodying the necessary rules and principles in an all-encompassing code of conduct? Or will any such endeavors simply shatter on the differences of cultures? Ought they be labeled as sort of attempted imperialism, more subtle perhaps in comparison with other forms of cultural imperialism—but nevertheless an attempt of such? If so, then ethical concepts need to be restricted (...) to territorially or ethnically specific realms. In that case, the quest for Net-Ethics could perhaps be substituted by pragmatic actions: instruments of control that are simply technical and formal, devoid of moral input and moral convictions. Such a viewpoint has been offered lately in the form of a concept by the Bertelsmann Foundation, which combines rating and filtering instruments with a social lattice-work of net-supervision and transnational combinations of institutions of control. That concept indeed has its charm. It has its problems too; problems that can be made obvious from an ethical viewpoint and which counter the notion, that it is possible to supplant moral instances with pragmatic action. The text therefore reconstructs the concept in question, criticizes it and attempts to sketch an ethical approach to the problem that respects diversity and plurality. (shrink)

In this essay I first set out the advantages the " multivariate democratic polity " framework proposed by Ferrara offers in comparison to other more consensus-based notions of democratic legitimacy. Secondly, I highlight some ambiguities concerning the meta-theoretical status of this frame, since it is not clear whether it consists of an adaptive realistic description, or otherwise is a normative argument. Thirdly, I cast some doubts on the compatibility between the multivariate frame and the " dualist conception of democratic (...) constitutionalism " adopted by Ferrara, since the latter seems too indebted to the domestic analogy, and to a consensus-based model of legitimacy. Finally, I argue that the dualist approach does not seem a convenient way to include citizenship in deliberative processes, and the question of the emergence of a transnational demos should rather be reconsidered as crucial for this purpose. (shrink)

King Ferdinand VII of Spain was often compared to the Ottoman sultan. It was a rhetorical operation that continued a tradition in Western Christendom by which Christian rulers were compared to oriental despots not because they were considered to be equal to them, but to show how far astray from the ideal of good government they were. This article examines the multiple dimensions of this comparison. To what extent was it a reaffirmation of the construction of the Turk as (...) a radical other? Or were there new essential elements, and therefore the metaphor of the Turk can also be interpreted within a new universalistic discourse that opposed tyrants to oppressed peoples across cultural and religious barriers? Our examination leads to a reflection on the transnational character of the discursive frameworks in which the metaphor of the Turk was built and rebuilt, on its circulation and limits, and on its specific uses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 29.4 (1999) 84-115 [Access article in PDF] Be-longing and Bi-lingual States Doris Sommer "How sad that people don't keep commitments any more. Even marriages last only about five years.""Yes, but long-distance marriages can stretch those five years out over weekends and vacations to make relationships last a lifetime."Benedict Anderson's provocative new book, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World, raises questions about political relationships over (...) time and over space. Like precarious modern marriages and their corollary "political" kinships (in-laws in Spanish are one's familia política), national sentiment today strains with the movements of transnational communities from home to distant enclaves. Over time, ties can unravel as modern subjects choose, or not, to identify with adopted political relatives. Is one's country the bastion of a people reluctant to receive more immigrants? Is it the sender of surplus people who will, in turn, send money home? (Heads of state in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico typically object to US restrictions on immigration.) Or is it the harbor for many peoples? Does belonging even to a recently invented country anchor an existential need, a be-longing, because being a "man"--as Hannah Arendt still called the subject of politics--means striving for recognition among equals? Or, do many citizens today feel like resident aliens (to themselves or to others), belonging rather to ethnic minorities and perhaps--long-distance--to other nations of origin or of choice? Anderson is right to worry about precarious belongings and optional obligations.In the end though, he finds solace from the threats of egotism and despair, and from the social decomposition of too much movement (what Arjun Appadurai calls "modernity at large") in the resilient promise of the "goodness of nations." Confidence in the extrapersonal goals and pride in national belonging appears, almost miraculously, in the last of seventeen chapters. Each of these brilliant and erudite essays will reconfirm our admiration for Anderson. My own personal debt includes his extraordinary generosity and the good counsel that encourages me to follow him, sometimes with a swerve, as will be evident when my appreciation for be-longing plays bi-lingual games.The opening pages of The Spectre of Comparisons theorize a paradox in the postcolonial condition: the inescapable folly of comparing one's nation to another, or to a mother country. Concepts like nation or culture, after all, take on meaning in their particular contexts and by contrast with others. The core chapters chronicle aborted beginnings and abusive conflations of the nation and the state. But hope has the last word, thanks to three guarantees of national imaginings: the promising and innocent unborn generations; the nation's dead (war heroes); and the living who are ever willing to give the nation another chance, and yet another. Feelings of pride and shame come together in the end, because citizens invest, often against the evidence, in "the goodness [End Page 84] of nations" [364]. This resilience shows up right after the trouble in chapter 16, where shame was the connection between nation and narrator in Mario Vargas Llosa's 1987 novel about Peru. Unfounded but unrelenting, Anderson's hope follows on shame rather abruptly and suggests that shame itself is a sign of our care for our countries. 1 The narrator of El hablador had tried to escape from his ill-fated country, his "malhadado país," only to be haunted by it.My question is whether Anderson's coda to this Peruvian novel is inspired by the same indomitable demon of comparisons that he has been exposing throughout the essays. José Rizal had named the meddling devil to blame it for distracting the Filipino from the lovely garden he saw in Manila, assailing him with memories of a European original or model [2]. This double vision raises a specter of possible inauthenticity; it undermines meaning as models slip from centers to peripheries. Local concepts lose their particularities in global vocabularies. Anderson calls the movement a "logic of seriality." I prefer to call it trans-latio, literally a carrying from one place to another... (shrink)

This chapter gives a brief overview of the composition of the volume and explains why it is important to undertake a detailed scholarly analysis and comparison of the following ethico-legal regimes of surrogacy and egg donation: the permissive-unregulated but transitory regime of India; the permissive regime of Israel, although highly regulated by professional, medical and religious norms, and the extremely restrictive regime of Germany, being legally permeable for particular forms of cross-border reproductive practice despite the non-permissive national law. It (...) uses an interdisciplinary lens to examine how the ethical, social, legal and cultural issues are interwoven in each regime. Moreover, we highlight the importance of a comparative analysis to understand how local developments cannot be isolated from each other, but deeply influence each other through transnational markets, modern media and the transfer of knowledge, people and body parts. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has focused on the tensions, contradictions, and limits of place-based branding through labels of origin, place-named agricultural products, and geographical indications. Existing literature demonstrates that even well-intentioned efforts to use place-based branding to protect the livelihoods and cultural and ecological practices of small producers are often undermined by transnational firms, states, and local elites who attempt to capture the benefits of these marketing strategies. Yet, little attention has been given to the implications of place-based branding for competition (...) among geographically dispersed agricultural producers. While place-based branding can be used for emancipatory ends, it can also be used strategically by agricultural producers to expand their market share at the expense of others. To explore these dynamics, I trace an alternative history of place-based branding that begins not in the potentially emancipatory politics of protecting terroir but rather in the tensions and contradictions characterizing the rise and decline of the US food regime. Drawing on a cross-time comparison of branding strategies within the global cotton trade, I make two key arguments. First, I argue that US producers and the US state forged the use of different types of branding strategies in response to the distinct tensions and contradictions characterized by the rise and decline of the US food regime. Second, these distinct branding strategies organized competition among geographically dispersed cotton producers in different ways. (shrink)

Cet ensemble d'articles constitue une étude de cas exemplifiant le processus d'internationalisation d'un événement. Fondés sur une grille d'analyse commune et des critères homologues dans la constitution des corpus examinés, six articles signés par des collègues étrangers examinent la façon dont un même événement, les attentats de Madrid du 11 mars 2004, a été traité et mis en débat dans la presse écrite de six pays choisis en fonction de leurs liens directs et indirects avec les faits et la situation (...) concernés ou de paramètres géopolitiques considérés comme pertinents. Cette mise en présence et en comparaison fait surgir d'une part, certaines similitudes témoignant de l'existence de logiques médiatiques transnationales et d'autre part, des écarts traduisant le déclenchement, dans chacun des contextes, de «radiographies sociopolitiques » provoquées par cet événement.This series of articles is a case study exemplifying the internationalization process of an event. Based on a common analysis grid and criteria counterparts in the constitution of the corpus examined, six articles written by foreign colleagues examine how the same event, the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004, was treated and debated in print in six countries chosen for their direct and indirect links with the facts and circumstances relevant or geopolitical parameters considered relevant. This contact and comparison brings out one hand, some similarities demonstrating the logical existence of transnational media on the other hand, differences reflecting the trigger in each context, the "X-rays sociopolitical" caused by this event. (shrink)

This book offers an empirical and theoretical account of the mode of governance that characterizes the Bologna Process. In addition, it shows how the reform materializes and is translated in everyday working life among professors and managers in higher education. It examines the so-called Open Method of Coordination as a powerful actor that uses “soft governance” to advance transnational standards in higher education. The book shows how these standards no longer serve as tools for what were once human organizational, (...) national or international, regulators. Instead, the standards have become regulators themselves – the faceless masters of higher education. By exploring this, the book reveals the close connections between the Bologna Process and the EU regarding regulative and monitoring techniques such as standardizations and comparisons, which are carried out through the Open Method of Coordination. It suggests that the Bologna Process works as a subtle means to circumvent the EU’s subsidiarity principle, making it possible to accomplish a European governance of higher education despite the fact that education falls outside EU’s legislative reach. The book’s research interest in translation processes, agency and power relations among policy actors positions it in studies on policy transfer, policy borrowing and globalization. However, different from conventional approaches, this study draws on additional interpretive frameworks such as new materialism. (shrink)

By analysing the policies and ideas of German social democracy, the British Labour Party and the Italian Communist Party, this article explores their attitude towards science and their imagination of the future in the 1950s. Deeply different, social democrats and communists shared a positivist attitude in favour of scientific progress and high modernity. This painted their attitude towards the space race, peaceful nuclear power and automation. Science was conceived as a neutral power to be supported, but it required political guidance (...) to harness it and turned it into social progress. Thus, their disagreement was over the political implications for capitalist societies experiencing growing prosperity. Science was also a powerful rhetorical argument to castigate the conservatives for failing the nation and allowing it to decline and fall behind its competitors. The article combines comparison and transnational history, innovating the latter by introducing the concepts of horizontal, vertical and antagonistic transnationalism. (shrink)

The impact and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in healthcare settings has been increasing since 2019. This is greatly due to the COVID‐19 pandemic. But beyond accommodating an extraordinary and complex situation in terms of healthcare services, or beyond replacing personalised care delivered by healthcare professionals (HCPs), has there been a process of information and consultation for communities and HCPs? Do we have the basic requirements needed to make such use commonplace in health care? What will the impact (...) be on communities and their governance? Have we arrived here by consensus or by imposition? Our purpose has been to conduct a transnational analysis by approaching communities, social actors, and healthcare professionals in three territories in a pilot study following a qualitative methodology. The aim being to discover the potential impact of such measures beyond the right to health and if such measures are compatible with the purpose of population settling in rural areas. Furthermore, to identify if this entails a conflict of value and priorities or if we need new ethical reviews both for communities and healthcare professionals. (shrink)

This article aims to advance the discussion of how multinational companies manage the tension between global integration and local responsiveness in their corporate social responsibility. In particular, it studies the relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries in a transnational CSR strategy and the types of coordination mechanisms used. Building on a qualitative study of a multinational bank, we find that in addition to formal and informal coordination mechanisms, a transnational CSR strategy cannot be fully understood without considering lateral learning (...) and participatory decision making. Further, we suggest that discussions about the transnational approach to CSR should not be disentangled from the question about a company's CSR orientation. Finally, we propose some characteristics of transnational CSR and discuss its theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

According to the reports in the past decade, some Asian subcontractors, mainly Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea transnational corporations, tend to be labor abusive in their overseas investment destinations like China or Southeast Asia. Taking Vietnam as an example, this paper raises questions as to why Taiwanese transnational companies can control workplace unions in a trade-union-supportive regime. Given the government s constraint of political rights, and the individualized workplace unions, the function of trade unions in Vietnam is destined (...) to be limited. The trade unions turn out be an arm of management, rather than representing workers interests in these transnational companies. This article also explores the influence of the newly developed codes of conducts from Western buyers. In the survey of three companies which are required to follow the codes of conduct by buyers, trade unions had no more freedom than those in companies without codes of conduct. The paper discusses the implications of this research, offering strategies for labor rights improvements. (shrink)

Based on the theoretical reconstruction of neglected post-WWI writings and political action of W. E. B. Du Bois, this volume offers a normative account of transnational cosmopolitanism. Pointing out the limitations of Kant's cosmopolitanism through a novel contextual account of Perpetual Peace, Transnational Cosmopolitanism shows how these limits remain in neo-Kantian scholarship. Inés Valdez's framework overcomes these limitations in a methodologically unique way, taking Du Bois's writings and his coalitional political action both as text that should inform our (...) theorization and normative insights. The cosmopolitanism proposed in this work is an original contribution that questions the contemporary currency of Kant's canonical approach and enlists overlooked resources to radicalize, democratize, and transnationalize cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

In The Metaphysics of Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway, Marcy P. Lascano holds up the metaphysical views of two early modern women philosophers alongside one another in order to demonstrate that...

In the following article, we propose an analytical framework for the analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Standards based on the paradigmatic nexus of voice and entitlement. We follow the theory of decentration and present the concept of Transnational Norm-Building Networks (TNNs), which — as we argue — comprise a new nexus of voice and entitlement beyond the nation—state level. Furthermore, we apply the analytical framework to the ISO 26000 initiative and the Global Compact. We conclude the article with (...) remarks on the legitimacy and the effectiveness of norms generated by TNNs. Through this, we aim to contribute a new theoretical foundation to the analysis of CSR standards, which enables us to undertake a more differentiated description of TNN structures which have hitherto been ignored in academic literature. Secondly, we will contribute to the practical debate on ISO 26000 and the Global Compact by proposing new perspectives on the conditions of their legitimacy and effectiveness based on the voice-entitlement nexus. (shrink)

Why does scholarship on transnational labor regulation (TLR) consistently fails to search for improvements in working conditions, and instead devotes itself to relentless efforts for identifying administrative processes, semantics, and amalgamations of stakeholders? This article critiques TLR from a pro-worker perspective, through the philosophical work of Georg Lukács, and the concepts of reification and commodification. A set of theoretically grounded criteria is developed and these are applied against selected contemporary cases of TLR. In the totality that is capitalism, reification (...) of social relations of production conceals completely the experiences of workers. In TLR, managerialist and process-oriented scholarship is dominant, verifiable outcomes and positive improvements in conditions of employment are not sought, and worse, meaningless procedures are celebrated as positive achievements. (shrink)

Many people find comparisons of the value of persons distasteful, even immoral. But what can be said in support of the claim that persons have incomparable worth? This chapter considers an argument purporting to show that the value of persons is incomparable because it is so great—because it is infinite. The argument rests on two claims: that the value of our capacity for valuing must equal or exceed the value of things valued and that our capacity for valuing is unbounded (...) in a very strong sense. After laying out this argument, I consider its implications for how we should regard each other. In particular, I suggest that it complicates efforts to understand morality as a system of principles. Instead, I propose that an aesthetic attitude, not unlike our experience of the sublime, is an apt response to humanity’s infinite value. -/- . (shrink)

Globalisation impacts every aspect of modern society and today's law graduates are expected to deal with complex legal problems that require knowledge and training that goes beyond domestic law. This textbook provides an overview of how law is becoming increasingly transnational, facilitating theoretical and practical engagement with transnational legal institutions and phenomena. It advances an analytic framework that will help students to understand what to look for when they encounter transnational legal institutions and practices, and what are (...) the practical and normative implications of their findings. By considering both the theory and practice of transnational law and taking a discursive approach to the material, students are encouraged to arrive at their own conclusions. Adopting interdisciplinary techniques and using case studies from around the world, this book offers a holistic, balanced exploration of a new and emerging discipline. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Private governance raises important questions about democratic representation. Rule making is rarely based on electoral authorisation by those in whose name rules are made—typically a requirement for democratic legitimacy. This requires revisiting the role of representation in input legitimacy in transnational governance, which remains underdeveloped. Focussing on private labour governance, we contrast two approaches to the transnational representation of worker interests in global supply chains: non-governmental organisations providing representative claims versus trade unions providing representative structures. Studying the Bangladesh (...) Accord for Fire and Building Safety, we examine their interaction along three dimensions of democratic representation: 1) creating presence, 2) authorisation, and 3) accountability to affected constituents. We develop a framework that explains when representative claims and structures become complementary but also how the politics of input legitimacy shapewhoseinterests get represented. We conclude by deriving theoretical and normative implications for transnational representation and input legitimacy in global governance. (shrink)

Globalization arguably generated a governance gap that is being filled by transnational rule-making involving private actors among others. The democratic legitimacy of such new forms of governance beyond nation states is sometimes questioned. Apart from nation-centered democracies, such governance cannot build, for example, on representation and voting procedures to convey legitimacy to the generated rules. Instead, alternative elements of democracy such as deliberation and inclusion require discussion to assess new instruments of governance. The recently published standard ISO 26000 is (...) an interesting example of transnational governance. ISO 26000 was developed in a lengthy multiorganizational process for the purpose of giving guidance on the social responsibility of organizations. By assessing the specific case of ISO 26000, this study sheds light on the question of how legitimacy beyond nation-state democracy is ensured or constricted. Centering on the idea of deliberate democracy and democratic legitimacy, the study offers in-depth insights on the normative legitimacy of the development process of ISO 26000. Positioned on the interface of business studies and public policy, this article contributes to the academic literature on transnational governance and on the role of multistakeholder processes in shaping the role of business in society. (shrink)

Transnational effects are identified as those economic effects which cross state boundaries. Where these effects are negative, as illustrated by the ‘transnational case’, it is asked what the appropriate ethical analysis of such a case might be. If we leave aside a social distributive justice analysis, for reasons given, then a typical move is to claim that transnational economic effects are analysable as human rights violations. The paper examines this claim and identifies the specific view of human (...) rights which motivates it: the ‘outcomes view of human rights’. It is then shown how the outcomes view of human rights ultimately collapses into social distributive justice-type standards and so suffers from the same problems raised against using those standards for transnational effects. An alternative approach to human rights is sketched, although a complete theory of human rights is not offered. Finally, a different type of justice analysis for transnational cases is offered in which a form of international justice proper is proposed. (shrink)

This article identifies a misfit between transnational feminist networks observed at the World Social Forum and the extant scholarship on transnational feminism. The conceptual divide is posited as one between transnational feminism understood, on the one hand, as a normative discourse involving a particular analytic and methodological approach in feminist knowledge production and, on the other, as an empirical referent to feminist cross-border organising. The author proposes that the US-based and Anglophone character of the scholarship, its post-structuralist (...) and post-colonial genealogies and the transnational paradigm’s displacement of area studies can be seen as contributing to the misfit. The article concludes by arguing for theoretical reconsideration of activist practice, place and the ‘posts’ – post-structuralism and post-colonialism – in the study of contemporary transnational feminist activisms. This marks an effort to get beyond the binary framework of ‘transnational feminism’ versus ‘global sisterhood’ in analysing activist practices within an increasingly diverse and complex transnational feminist field. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In a series of reports the United Nations Special Representative on the issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations has emphasized a tripartite framework regarding business and human rights that includes the state “duty to protect,” the TNC “responsibility to respect,” and “appropriate remedies” for human rights violations. This article examines the recent history of UN initiatives regarding business and human rights and places the tripartite framework in historical context. Three approaches to human rights are distinguished: moral, political, and (...) legal. It is argued that the tripartite framework’s grounding of the responsibility of TNCs to respect human rights is properly understood as moral and not merely as a political or legal duty. A moral account of the duty of TNCs to respect basic human rights is defended and contrasted with a merely strategic approach. The main conclusion of the article is that only a moral account of the basic human rights duties of TNCs provides a sufficiently deep justification of “the corporate responsibility to respect human rights” feature of the tripartite framework. (shrink)

Within the social ontology of the nationalist model, the main agents of global justice claims are viewed as nation states or national collectivities. By contrast, within the cosmopolitan model, individuals, as citizens of the cosmopolitan world, are viewed as agents of global justice claims. I argue that neither of these models appropriately reflect the ontological conditions and circumstances of justice that have been produced by the current processes of globalization nor capture the justice claims of women who suffer as a (...) result of the global economy. As an alternative, I propose a transnational feminist model: processes of globalization have generated transnationalized socioeconomic units as ontological conditions of justice, and, in such conditions, transnational women’s collectivities are viewed as agents of global justice. -/- . (shrink)

This article discusses the emergence of the concept of ‘transnational feminisms’ as a differentiated notion from ‘global sisterhood’ within feminist postcolonial criticism. This is done in order to examine its usefulness for interrogating the globalization of reproductive technologies and women’s right to selfdetermination over their own bodies by using these technologies. In particular, women’s use of technologies for assisted conception, and the local and global transactions in reproductive body parts form a testing ground for transnational feminisms. Does the (...) construction of individual reproductive rights still leave some ground for women’s collective struggles? It is proposed that, if at all, transnational solidarity on this issue is possible, it will have to be built on the concept of universal ethical norms regarding human dignity. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a descriptive and normative analysis of the requirements for effective transnational solidarity between southern NGOs and their northern partners. Drawing on interviews conducted with staff members of Senegalese women’s rights NGOs and a private international development foundation, I contend that existing theories of feminist transnational solidarity cannot allow us to properly acknowledge the power asymmetries and obstacles to solidarity that these NGOs are facing. After assessing the divisions related to gender interests and limited (...) resources that characterize this NGO-ized development landscape, I develop a partial theory of transnational solidarity that would center power asymmetries in order to address practical and political obstacles to solidarity. I argue that an effective account of transnational solidarity must include a commitment to disrupting global hierarchies of power as well as to building practices of accountability and attentiveness to power structures. (shrink)

This article explores the controversial practice of transnational gestational surrogacy and poses a provocative question: Does it have to be exploitative? Various existing models of exploitation are considered and a novel exploitation-evaluation heuristic is introduced to assist in the analysis of the potentially exploitative dimensions/elements of complex health-related practices. On the basis of application of the heuristic, I conclude that transnational gestational surrogacy, as currently practiced in low-income country settings , is exploitative of surrogate women. Arising out of (...) consideration of the heuristic's exploitation conditions, a set of public education and enabled choice, enhanced protections, and empowerment reforms to transnational gestational surrogacy practice is proposed that, if incorporated into a national regulatory framework and actualized within a low income country, could possibly render such practice nonexploitative. (shrink)

A poem delivered upon the memorial of Viola Cordova in honor of indigenous women everywhere. "Two millennia of indigenous diasporas, yet we are all indigenous to this planet . . . There is a transnational indigenist agenda at work here to preserve and protect the human race for humans to remain among all our relations" .