Volume 4, Issue 1

This paper explores, empirically and at the global level, the relation between economic globalization and informal employment. Based on data over a long period of time on labor informality, economic globalization, level of development and institutional freedom in various countries, three linear models are advanced. One is a static model which suggests that a greater level of globalization reduces the level of informality. In contrast, two alternative dynamic models show that, taking into consideration the historic development of each country, a differential impact of globalization on employment informality becomes evident. In developing countries, higher globalization levels will result in higher levels of labor informality, while in developed countries the effects of globalization will be the opposite and produce lower levels of informality. An additional finding is that an institutional context of economic liberalization at the national level increases labor informalization.

The international legalization process has triggered a debate over the scope of international law in which optimists assert the emergence of an international rule of law while skeptics doubt international legal norms effectively bind states. Some multilateral treaties include provisions on dispute resolution seeking to regulate state behavior. We introduce a framework to assess the judicialization of such dispute settlement procedures and corresponding state practices. In the issue areas of international trade (GATT/WTO), international security (UNSC), and environmental protection (CITES), we analyze state behavior in disputes arising from selected treaty norms and compare trends across time and issue areas. Our data reveals an uneven judicialization, which differs considerably between issue areas and also depends on whether states act as complainants or defendants. All in all, there is no uniform trend towards an international rule of law, but high judicialization in the trade sector only, with the environmental sector in midfield and security issues clearly lagging behind.

Transnational practices have an established record in feminist academic and activist circles. In this piece, I sketch some of the major characteristics of the formation called transnational feminism, with a focus on works that have re-theorized feminist histories.

There is no shortage of criticism of globalization, but what of globalizations of criticism? Six transformative roles of cultural critics crucial to the 21st century are themselves critically examined here: exposure, dissent, analysis, interpretation, pragmatism and counter-production. Contemporary and historical examples ranging from Islamic criticism of the West to Chinese criticism of violence, from the Frankfurt School to that of Gandhi, become focal points around which a new “globalized criticism” of cultural, political and socioeconomic value is put forth, with worldwide campaigns underway for a “culture of peace” as a springboard. In these as contexts, as within our own, the empowering transformative roles of the critic emerge not from within single traditions organically, but from multiple ones by collaborative design. Questioning not only the assumptions of critical practices, but also their current technological and philosophical underpinnings, points to renewed critical practices for our times.

Assessing the Barack Obama administration at mid-term is no easy task. The first step must be to delineate Obama's own legalistic thinking and its effects on both his domestic agenda and his attempt to present a different and possibly radical new American face to the world.