Guest Editors: Daniel Shefer and Peter Nijkamp
Antonio
L. Rappa
Urban
Political Theory and the Symmetrical Model of Community Power in Singapore
Abstract
Modernity's concern
within metropolitan regimes includes the revival of community
power through 'growth machines' and 'urban regime' theory.
This paper introduces the symmetrical model of community power
for the creation of civil society in urban centres like
Singapore which, apodictically, represents a 'First World'
city-state in a 'Third World' region. Singapore's urban growth
engines falls within a variety of state-sanction and
quasi-private metropolitan urban regimes that have contributed
to innovative uses of human and material resource allocation.
But can the people creatively empower themselves? The model is
premised on liberal democratic ideals of community empowerment,
and represents a plausible alternative to paternalism in
preparation for the uncertainties of modernity in the
twenty-first century.
Petr
Matějů and Martin Kreidl
Re-building
Status Consistency in a Post-Communist Society – The Czech Republic
1991-1997
Abstract
In this paper we
perform an empirical analysis of status consistency in a
postcommunist society. We supply three arguments as to why the
various dimensions of social status can be expected to have
crystallized following the fall of communism. First,
post-communist societies have experienced a significant
increase in income and wealth inequality. Second, there have
been significant changes in the class structure and, third,
processes that generate inequality and social structure have
been changing as well. The analysis demonstrates the increase
in status consistency in the Czech Republic in the period
1991-97. Further, we explore the degree of status
inconsistency in different subpopulations and the political
consequences of status inconsistency.
Anne
Alvesalo and Steve Tombs
Can
Economic Crime Control be Sustained? The Case of Finland
Abstract
In this paper, we present some
findings from research conducted in Finland on the emergence and nature of the
Finnish government's Action Plans to Reduce Economic Crime and the Grey
Economy. We set out the origins of the Finnish economic crime control
programme, a programme that, if not unique, is peculiar in its concerted
effort to attack this particular form of crime. We then address at length the
prospects of such a programme - which has had some initial successes - being
sustained. We consider this question through three forms of material: first,
through seeking to draw some 'lessons' from other countries' experiences of
efforts to control economic crime, and indeed some general international
trends in this regard; second, via a conceptual consideration of the processes
whereby economic crime control efforts are likely to slip down crime control
agendas; and, third, through a brief analysis of the extent to which the
conditions which gave rise to the Finnish initiative in the 1980s have since
passed. In a discursive concluding section, we present some data on the
changing levels of support for, and interest in, the programme within Finland.
Gerald
Berger, Andrew Flynn, Frances Hines and Richard Jones
Ecological
Modernization as Basis for Environmental Policy: Current Environmental
Discourse and Policy and the Implications on Environmental Supply Chain
Management
Abstract
Sustainable
development and ecological modernization are the two
theoretical frameworks that underlie environmental policy
making in industrialized countries. It is especially the
theory of ecological modernization that describes recent
changes in environmental policy making and assumes a
positive-sum game between the economy and the environment. The
article critically reflects upon ecological modernization as a
basis for current environmental policy and discourse. It uses
experiences of a project on environmental supply chain
management to explore the implications of ecological
modernization on practical environmental policy outcomes. We
conclude that sustainable development and ecological
modernization must be viewed as ideological and political
concepts, at least as much as they are about the relationship
between the economy and environment. Therefore, further
analyses of environmental policy making must include issues of
power and influence.
Liana
Giorgi, Steven Ney and John Crowley
Surveying
the European Public Space – A Political and Research Agenda
This paper examines the reasons why it is
justified to talk about a European 'democratic deficit'. The
creation and consolidation of a European public space
necessitates conceptual clarification at the normative
theoretical level - as liberal democracy is historically
closely bound to the nation-state - and action at the policy
and political levels. A Union of European Citizens is a step
towards, but not equivalent to, a democratic Union based on
European citizenship. Formal announcements, normative
convictions, or even institutional reforms are not enough to
guarantee openness or support contestation. European democracy
is de facto a process to be observed but it is also a project
to be defined. The article outlines an agenda for European
democracy both with regard to political deliberation and
empirical research.
