Visa restrictions and economic globalisation

The cross-border mobility of people, goods and services, and capital has expanded enormously both in intensity and diversity over recent decades. States have a general interest in facilitating these flows in order to benefit from economic globalisation. Yet, mainly due to security concerns, most governments grant visa-free mobility only very selectively. Drawing on a new bilateral visa policy database covering up to 194 destination and 214 origin countries over the 1995 to 2013 period, our analysis finds that the introduction of a visa restriction by a destination country for citizens from a particular origin country deters tourism inflows by about 20 per cent. Visa restrictions also reduce bilateral trade and foreign investment, but to a smaller extent than previous studies have suggested. We further find that some of the deterred flows in tourists and goods and services are redirected to other (visa-free) destinations. This deterrence-cum-deflection effect of restrictive visa policies implies significant economic costs for both visa-issuing and visa-targeted countries, but it creates some positive externalities for countries with a more liberal visa policy. Liberalised visa policies would in particular help poorer countries to partake more in the benefits of economic globalisation.     

Africa in the rise of rights-based development

This paper explores the rise of rights-based development (RBD) and its endorsement by prominent international institutions (such as the United Nations) and International Development Agencies (IDAs) like the World Bank. It situates RBD in global political context and analyses it in relation to the international politics of development, especially the politics of neo-liberal adjustment policies in Africa. The paper shows how RBD emerged against a backdrop of debate about four international issues associated with neo-liberalism and its discontents, namely globalisation and uneven development; capability and good governance; human rights and human development; and NGOs in the politics of development. Debates about those four issues keep repositioning the state as the central actor in RBD, and holding the state accountable for development (or the lack thereof) under international law. The paper’s basic point is that state-centric RBD is paradoxical and highly political. Greater accountability is being demanded of states––especially in Africa––from the same neo-liberal forces (such as the World Bank) charged with weakening state capacity, undermining democracy, and diminishing state authority. In terms of international power relations and the politics of development, RBD does signal something of a willingness to rethink certain aspects of the dominant neo-liberal agenda. And yet adjusted states are being subjected––in the name of RBD––to novel methods of international surveillance and forms of conditionality. States are ultimately held responsible for human rights violations, even when it is non-state actors (and their neo-liberal policies) that caused those rights to be violated in the first place. RBD is, therefore, a partial answer (at best) to the questions of empowerment and change raised by critics of neo-liberalism.     

Economic geography and organized crime: A critical review

This review argues that organized crime accounts for a significant proportion of global economic activity but despite this has yet to receive substantive attention from economic geographers. It argues that the study of organized crime would expand the empirical terrain of economic geography and produce more holistic, nuanced accounts of globalisation but also that economic geography has much to offer the existing literatures of organized crime. The paper briefly discusses the nature and extent of the global organized crime economy and then goes onto consider the relatively limited explorations of the spatialities of organized crime to date. It then explores the often blurred distinctions between licit and illicit economic practices before considering what empirical investigations of organized crime might add to our understanding of processes of contemporary globalisation.     

Eco-localisation as a progressive response to peak oil and climate change - A sympathetic critique

This paper critically but sympathetically examines eco-localisation as a response to ‘peak oil’ and to reduce the emission of CO₂ to avoid dangerous climate change. Rather than seeing the politics of climate change and peak oil as in some way ‘post-political’, the paper argues that protagonists of localised economies are developing radical new conceptions of livelihood and economy that directly cut against the logic of growth-based capitalist economic strategies and elite conceptualisations of economic development. Building on development theory, the paper develops a conceptualisation of ‘immanent’ and ‘intentional’ localisation, with the former a simple move by businesses of economic activities that have high transport costs closer to their markets. Advocates of intentional localisation are working more pro actively at grassroots level to develop local solutions to peak oil and climate change based on developing less resource-intensive yet enjoyable and fulfilling livelihoods in more localised economies. In discussing the contested nature of localisation, the paper engages with critiques of eco-localisation from neoliberal advocates and from the left, before concluding that localisation should be seen more as a different calculation of where economic activities would be located, which aims to reduce oil consumption and CO₂ emissions, rather than a call for autarky. The paper concludes by arguing that analyses of the scale of economic networks need to pay more attention of the materiality of oil consumption and CO₂ emissions, and that scales cannot be seen as socially constructed.     

Paradoxes of modernity: imperial Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1821

This paper examines the spatial dynamics of urbanism in Rio de Janeiro during the early nineteenth century. Conventional narratives of modernisation fail to capture the complexities of this moment, between 1808 and 1821, when the city replaced Lisbon as the capital of the Portuguese empire. The position of colony and metropolis were inverted, Portuguese absolutism was bolstered by British liberalism, and a market-economy arose alongside the expansion of slavery. As the newly-created imperial capital, Rio felt the effects of these various transformations: the physical boundaries of the city rapidly expanded, its economy diversified and the cultural life of the city was re-shaped. Our aim in this paper is to understand this particular moment of urban transformation as a product of the intersection of global networks of trade, slavery and industrial capitalism. Rather than depicting the historical geography of the city as a passive space for European conquest and expansion, we consider the extent to which its urban dynamics were shaped by a distinct local geography of globalisation. In particular, we examine the interrelated spatialities that are part and parcel of the modernising process.     

Mahsuri’s curse—globalisation and tourist development in Pulau Langkawi

The legend of Mahsuri abounds in Malaysian school textbooks. Mahsuri was a beautiful and very charming village maiden who lived in Pulau Langkawi and was wrongfully put to death in 1819 or the year 1235 hijrab. Accused of adultery by a jealous member of the royal house, Mahsuri, who was married to the Chief Minister, was sentenced to death together with her alleged lover, a trader from a place which is now part of Thailand in Phuket. Killed with her own family’s keris (a traditional Malay sword), Mahsuri put a curse on Pulau Langkawi for seven generations. She swore before her death that there would be no peace or prosperity on the island for the duration of these seven generations. Mahsuri’s family moved to another village in what was then the territory of Thailand and finally settled in Phuket, illustrating the cultural and trading links that have existed in this northern part of Malaysia between the southern parts of Thailand and the states of Perlis and Kedah. Mahsuri’s family and she appear to have not been allowed to rest in peace since her premature death. Her tomb, which was enshrined by the villagers, has been relocated several times and the exact location of its whereabouts may not be known. The tombstone itself is now housed in a museum that has been constructed near to the site where the tomb is believed to be. A huge tourist complex called Kota Mahsuri is being developed around the site of Mahsuri’s tomb. Pulau Langkawi may be the island paradise lost. Perhaps Mahsuri’s curse lingers, no matter that seven generations have passed and with them the industries that integration with the global economy has seen developed, declined and disappeared. Then again, perhaps this is indeed the curse—the quest for prosperity in a globalizing world and its relentless exploitation of the heritage in strategic parts of Malaysia—both natural and cultural—for the gains of a few and questionable benefits to the rest.     

The ideology behind the technology - Chilean microentrepreneurs and public ICT policies

Digital divides are differences in access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) which tend to reflect the social and regional inequalities between and within countries. This paper presents a case study from Chile, which is among the leaders in Latin America both in levels of e-readiness and in social and regional inequality. The Chilean state’s ICT policies are situated within the “Third Way” approach of the centre-left government, reflecting the tensions between a pro-active and positive view of neoliberal globalisation, and state social programmes to support poorer sectors of society.The paper presents a multi-level analysis of two elements of Chilean ICT policy: Chilecompra, an online public e-procurement system aimed at creating transparent and competitive transactions in line with neoliberal economic theory, and Red Comunitaria, a network of Community Information Centres which offer free internet access and training to individuals, including microentrepreneurs. Interviews were conducted at the national, regional and local level. Findings were that the Community Information Centres (telecentros) had indeed furthered digital inclusion while in the meantime the shift to e-procurement had excluded many microentrepreneurs who had not registered with the system of Chilecompra. The larger of the local enterprises had registered but were having difficulties competing online with bigger companies located in the regional and national capitals.The paper argues that while both state policies see themselves as successes, the political objectives underlying the technology mirror the Chilean government’s struggle to simultaneously embrace neoliberal globalisation while working towards greater social and regional cohesion. At the local level there is evidence of the failure to reconcile the two approaches which may be indicative of a more general tension between these goals.     

Assessing vulnerability of selected farming communities in the Philippines based on a behavioural model of agent's adaptation to global environmental change

Behavioural models that allow simple representation of the complexity of human–environment links are important in vulnerability assessment because they allow the analysis of human adaptive processes in a changing environment. This paper applies an agent-based framework that considers the behavioural model of farmers in three villages in a municipality in the Philippines. Agent-based modelling is a useful policy tool for simulating the effects of different adaptation options on reducing vulnerability because it allows representation of not only the dynamic changes in climate and market but also the dynamic adaptive process of different groups of communities to the impacts of these changes. Model simulations of adaptation options under various global change scenarios showed that production support would significantly reduce future vulnerability only if complemented with appropriate market support. It is thus important for policy to provide a complementary bundle of adaptation measures. Lack of money and information are the most important reasons for not applying available technical adaptation measures, which currently hinder reduction of vulnerability in selected villages in the municipality. Social networks, which play an important role in adapting to environmental changes, are limited to relatives and neighbours, who are important sources of informal credit.     

Focusing on artisanal fleets in a new scenario: The case of Andalusia (Spain)

This paper analyses how artisanal fleets in the South Atlantic Coast of Spain (Andalusia) are transformed at the macro-level by political and economic processes. The article will first describe the web of economic and political dynamics, and it will then outline several socioeconomic and cultural patterns of artisanal fleets, examining strategies that are used to encourage commercial specialisation, technological innovation, capitalisation and productive intensification. The resulting social conflict is also examined. From such a study, this essay intends to promote a theoretical debate concerning the importance of new conceptions of artisanal fishing today, a time when local and global processes are highly interconnected.