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Article
Publication date: 1 January 2021

Positioning construction workers' vocational training of Guangdong in the global political-economic spectrum of skill formation

Wei Pan, Le Chen and Wenting Zhan

This paper explores the vocational training of construction workers in Guangdong Province of China and identifies its position in the global political-economic spectrum of…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper explores the vocational training of construction workers in Guangdong Province of China and identifies its position in the global political-economic spectrum of skill formation.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reviews construction vocational education and training (VET) of major political economies to develop a theoretical framework that guides an in-depth case study of Guangdong. Document analysis, field trip observations, meetings and semi-structured interviews were combined to explore the political-economic environment, political stakeholders and quality assurance mechanisms of industrial training in Guangdong's construction sector. The findings were compared with construction VET of other economies reported in the literature.

Findings

Construction training in Guangdong is deeply rooted in the local history and culture, under strong dominance of the state, while continually evolves to respond to the fluid market and therefore can be conceptualised as “market-in-state”. The political stakeholders are embedded within the state to ensure that skills policies are implemented in-line with industry policies. The differences between the training of Guangdong and its foreign counterparts are attributed to their divergent political-economic models.

Research limitations/implications

As the case study was undertaken only with Guangdong, the generalisability of its findings can be improved through future research within a broader context of multiple provinces of China through both qualitative and quantitative research approaches.

Practical implications

Plausible foreign VET approaches are likely adaptable to the Chinese context only when conducive political-economic environment could be enabled. The findings are useful for developing countries to learn from the VET experience of industrialised economies. Construction workers' training in Guangdong can be improved by strengthening labour regulation at lower subcontracting levels and ensuring the presence of industrial associations and unions for collective training supervision.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the field of construction engineering and management with a theoretical framework that guides empirical studies on the influence of the political-economic environment upon the ways political stakeholders develop and participate in construction VET. The exploration based on this framework revealed the position of the vocational training of construction workers in Guangdong in the global political-economic spectrum of skill formation.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-11-2019-0641
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

  • Political economy
  • Vocational education and training
  • Skill formation
  • Construction industry
  • China
  • Guangdong

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Book part
Publication date: 15 December 2015

On the Entry of Employee-Owned Firms: Theory and Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing Industries, 1870–1960

Michael A. Conte and Derek C. Jones

We outline an economic theory of choice of organizational form, concentrating on explaining the selection of contractual relations within employee-owned firms. We then…

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Abstract

We outline an economic theory of choice of organizational form, concentrating on explaining the selection of contractual relations within employee-owned firms. We then test the theory on a new database of U.S. producer cooperatives and find that the theory is largely supported by the data. Our principal conclusion is that producer cooperative formations have been rather strongly responsive to variations in economic conditions. While procyclical theories are clearly rejected, countercyclical theories receive considerable support. Neither political motivations nor legal institutions, especially the existence of cooperative incorporation laws, appear to have accounted for a portion of cooperative formations on a systematic basis. Support organizations have significant positive impacts on the formation rate of new cooperatives.

Details

Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory & Labor-Managed Firms
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0885-333920150000016001
ISBN: 978-1-78560-379-2

Keywords

  • Employee ownership
  • cooperatives
  • labor-managed firms
  • entry
  • formation
  • J54
  • P13
  • D23
  • J33
  • J38

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Book part
Publication date: 31 March 2015

Colonialism, Neopatrimonialism, and Hybrid State Formation in Malaysia and the Philippines

Daniel P. S. Goh

In Weberian scholarship, conventional wisdom views the corruption of the modern rational-legal bureaucratic state by local patrimonialisms as an endemic feature in…

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Abstract

In Weberian scholarship, conventional wisdom views the corruption of the modern rational-legal bureaucratic state by local patrimonialisms as an endemic feature in non-Western postcolonial state formation. The resultant neopatrimonial state is often blamed for the social, political, and economic ills plaguing these societies. This essay challenges conventional wisdom and argues that neopatrimonialism is a process of hybrid state formation that has its origins in the cultural politics of colonial state building. This is achieved by drawing on a comparative study of British Malaya and the American Philippines, which offers contrastive trajectories of colonialism and state formation in Southeast Asia.

Because of the precariousness of state power due to local resistance and class conflicts, colonial state building involved the deepening of patron–client relations for political control and of rational-legal bureaucracy for social development. In the process, local political relations were marked and displaced as traditional patrimonialisms distinguished from the new modern center. Through native elite collaborators and paternal-populist discourses, new patron–client relations were institutionalized to connect the colonial state to the native periphery. However, colonial officials with different political beliefs and ethnographic world views in the center competed over native policy and generated cyclical crises between patron-clientelist excess and bureaucratic entrepreneurship.

Instead of the prevailing view that postcolonial states are condemned to their colonial design, and that authoritarian rule favors economic development, my study shows that non-Western state formation is non-linear and follows a cyclical pattern between predation and developmentalism, the excesses of which could be moderated.

Details

Patrimonial Capitalism and Empire
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0198-871920150000028007
ISBN: 978-1-78441-757-4

Keywords

  • Colonial
  • patrimonial
  • state formation
  • patronage
  • development
  • cultural politics

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Book part
Publication date: 22 September 2015

Locating the State: Uneven and Combined Development, the States System and the Political

Steve Rolf

This paper uses Leon Trotsky’s theory of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) in order to transcend both globalising and methodologically nationalist theories of the…

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This paper uses Leon Trotsky’s theory of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) in order to transcend both globalising and methodologically nationalist theories of the global political economy. While uneven development theorists working in economic geography have demonstrated the logical corollary of capitalist development and the completion of the world market in the persistence of geographic unevenness, they fail to specify or problematise the role of states in this process. This leads to an ambiguity about why the states system has persisted under conditions of deep economic integration across states. State theorists, meanwhile, tend to exclude the world market and system of states as conditioning factors in state (trans)formation. For this reason, much state theory offers only a contingent account of the relationship between patterns of capital accumulation and states’ institutional forms. Geopolitical economy, with its focus on the competitive interrelations between states as constitutive of capitalist value relations, is well placed to transcend the pitfalls of these twin perspectives by closely engaging with the theory of UCD. UCD provides a nonreductionist means of integrating global processes of capital accumulation with their distinctive and peculiar national mediations. A research programme is developed to operationalise UCD for purposes of concrete research – something lacking from recent development in the field.

Details

Theoretical Engagements in Geopolitical Economy
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0161-72302015000030A012
ISBN: 978-1-78560-295-5

Keywords

  • Capitalism
  • uneven development
  • combined development
  • state
  • Marx

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Book part
Publication date: 29 July 2009

Chapter 1 A study of endogenous fragmentation of states as deterrence to peace

Partha Gangopadhyay and Manas Chatterji

The fragmentation can either lead to an all-out civil war as in Sri Lanka or a frozen conflict as in Georgia. One of the main characteristics of fragmentation is the…

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The fragmentation can either lead to an all-out civil war as in Sri Lanka or a frozen conflict as in Georgia. One of the main characteristics of fragmentation is the control of group members by their respective leaders. The chapter applies standard models of non-cooperative game theory to explain the endogenous fragmentation, which seeks to model the equilibrium formation of rival groups. Citizens become members of these rival groups and some sort of clientelism develops in which political leaders control their respective fragments of citizens. Once the divisions are created, the inter-group rivalry can trigger violent conflicts that may seriously damage the social fabric of a nation and threaten the prospect of peace for the people for a very long time. In other words, our main goal in this chapter is to understand the formation of the patron–client relationship or what is called clientelisation.

Details

Peace Science: Theory and Cases
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1572-8323(2009)0000011005
ISBN: 978-1-84855-200-5

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Book part
Publication date: 7 August 2013

Binding Institutions: Peasants and Nation-State Rule in the Albanian Highlands, 1919–1939

Besnik Pula

The seminal literature on state formation proposes a model of “co-opt and expand” to explain the rise of centralized nation-states in modern and early modern Europe…

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Abstract

The seminal literature on state formation proposes a model of “co-opt and expand” to explain the rise of centralized nation-states in modern and early modern Europe. Building on this literature’s distinction between direct and indirect rule, other analysts have expanded the scope of this model to explain patterns of state building in the non-Western world, particularly in the construction of centralized authority in postcolonial and postimperial contexts. According to this literature, the failure of central rulers to co-opt local elites has frequently produced weak states lacking capacities of rule in their peripheries. Using archival materials to examine the Albanian state’s relatively successful penetration of the country’s highland communities during its early decades of national independence, this article suggests that state building can proceed along an alternative path called “co-opt and bind,” in which state builders “bind” peasant communal institutions to the institutional idea of the nation-state to legitimize and implement state building goals. The article identifies three mechanisms used by early Albanian state builders to generate legitimacy and institute political order in its remote communities, including disarmament, the institution of new forms of economic dependency, and the invocation of peasant cultural codes of honor.

Details

Decentering Social Theory
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0198-8719(2013)0000025008
ISBN: 978-1-78190-727-6

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Article
Publication date: 25 December 2019

Exploring entrepreneurial-group formation by smallholder Burundian farmers

Bélyse Mupfasoni, Aad Kessler, Thomas Lans and Rama Lionel Ngenzebuke

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of specific internal states (i.e. the set of sustainable values and motivations) that underlie group formation and joint…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of specific internal states (i.e. the set of sustainable values and motivations) that underlie group formation and joint business idea identification of farmer groups in the context of Burundi.

Design/methodology/approach

Quantitative and qualitative data were combined in this study. Quantitative data were analyzed using basic statistics. Qualitative data were collected in focus group discussions with farmer groups.

Findings

Findings revealed that groups are not just formed on the basis of homophily (same level of internal states) but also on “compensation” and “committed leadership.” Moreover, prior sustainable behavior of members influences sustainability of new group business ideas and the nature (e.g. focus on farming) of that business idea.

Research limitations/implications

As this study was done at an early stage of group formation and does not include group dynamics over a longer period of time, further monitoring of the groups is needed to examine if the observed motivation persists.

Originality/value

Although there is a vast amount of literature on entrepreneurial and top management teams, literature on the (early) mechanisms of entrepreneurial group formation in an emerging economy and rural context is relatively scarce.

Details

Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies, vol. 10 no. 1
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JADEE-12-2018-0181
ISSN: 2044-0839

Keywords

  • Motivation
  • Rural development
  • Entrepreneurial teams
  • Group formation
  • Burundi
  • Sustainable agriculture
  • Internal states

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Book part
Publication date: 9 September 2020

Citizenship, Democracy, and the Transformation of Public Law

Chris Thornhill

This chapter proposes a sociological reconstruction of the emergence of citizenship as a source of legitimacy for political institutions, and it focuses on examining the…

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This chapter proposes a sociological reconstruction of the emergence of citizenship as a source of legitimacy for political institutions, and it focuses on examining the historical processes that first gave rise to this concept. It explains how citizenship has its origins in the transformation of feudal law, a process that culminated in patterns of military organization that characterized the rise of the early modern state in Europe. On this basis, it describes how the growth of constitutional democracy was integrally marked by the militarization of society and explains that military pressures have remained palpable in constitutional constructions of citizenship. In particular, it argues that, through the early growth of democracy, national citizenship practices were closely linked to global conflicts, and they tended to replicate such conflicts in national contexts. It concludes by showing how more recent processes of constitutional norm formation, based largely in international human rights law, have acted to soften the military dimensions of citizenship.

Details

Law and the Citizen
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720200000084004
ISBN: 978-1-80043-028-0

Keywords

  • Citizenship
  • state formation
  • militarization
  • democratization
  • social conflict
  • human rights

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Article
Publication date: 1 March 2006

Redefining the role of the public service under neoliberal states in developing nations

M. Shamsul Haque

This article explains that in the current global context dominated by market ideology, there has been a significant shift in the nature of the state based on promarket…

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This article explains that in the current global context dominated by market ideology, there has been a significant shift in the nature of the state based on promarket neoliberal principles in most countries, including those in the developing world. Under this emerging neoliberal state characterized by the primacy of market forces and adoption of market-driven policies and programs, the role of the public service has also changed in terms of its increasing concern for streamlining public sector activities, enhancing economic efficiency, improving customer satisfaction, and so on. After exploring such impacts of the current neoliberal state formation on the public service's role, the article briefly examines the socio-political consequences of this changing role, especially in developing nations.

Details

International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, vol. 9 no. 2
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-09-02-2006-B003
ISSN: 1093-4537

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Book part
Publication date: 2 July 2010

The theory of failure and the failure of theory: ‘state failure’, the idea of the state and the practice of state building

Stein Sundstøl Eriksen

This article provides a critique of the discourse of ‘failed states’ and outlines an alternative approach to studying state formation. It is argued that through its taking…

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This article provides a critique of the discourse of ‘failed states’ and outlines an alternative approach to studying state formation. It is argued that through its taking the model of the modern state for granted, and analysing all states in terms of their degree of correspondence with or deviation from this model, the failed states discourse does not help us understand the nature of the states in question or the processes that lead to strong or weak states. It is suggested that the idea of the modern state should be treated as a category of practice rather than as a category of analysis. State formation could then be analysed by focusing on the interrelationship between the idea of the state and actual state practices, and on both the ways in which states have become linked to domestic society and their relations with the external world.

Details

Troubled Regions and Failing States: The Clustering and Contagion of Armed Conflicts
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S0195-6310(2010)0000027005
ISBN: 978-0-85724-102-3

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