Fikret Adaman, Tugçe Bulut, and Yahya Mete Madra
“Global – Local Clash: Embedding the Global Economy in the
Local Society”
Today, the hegemony of global neoliberalism, manifesting itself in a globalized and “self-regulating” market economy and a Washington-led unilateralist world politics, is not only endangering—if not openly attacking—the values of social diversity and collective responsibility, but also making any form of peaceful coexistence an impossibility. As the logic of globalization is threatening the ecologies, cultural identities, and diverse economic livelihoods of communities worldwide more and more forcefully, the need to radically rethink the relation between the global and the local is also becoming more and more urgent.
However, the construction of a new global order with an emphasis on the coexistence of diverse systems of social organization, as well as the resolution of the antinomies of globalization, require not only a deconstruction of the existing structures and relations of power and a thorough-going de-naturalization and de-universalization of capitalism and its “laws” of development, but also a reconsideration of alternative forms of economic integration. In rewriting the globalization theory, and devising feasible policy suggestions to cure the disasters of globalization, Karl Polanyi’s work with its enduring insight pertaining to the primacy of the social continues to be an indispensable principle.
As the movement towards self-regulating markets calls forth a countermovement of protection, contemporary globalization came with its dialectical process of localization. Although it would not be wrong to contend that it is the great uncertainty and anxiety caused by “self-regulating” dynamics of globalization that impel the resurgence and the proliferation of particularized and local identities, the global may well challenge the local as in the cases where local customs and cultural practices are challenged by the globalization of a homogenizing culture of consumerism, or where the local sustainability is threatened by environmental degradation caused by the socially non-accountable transnational capital.
Resolving the dilemma created by globalization will, therefore, be ensured through complex network of relations between the global and the local, both at principal and policy levels. Regarding the former, the primacy of the social over the dominance and prevalence of “self-regulating” economy, as dictated by the contemporary globalization, can only be secured by (re)embedding the economy in the network of social relations through the process of localization. To complement this, at the policy level, the solutions to global problems (environmental degradation, gender discrimination, arms race, etc.), which should not be left to the cruel laws of self-regulating market economy, can rather be dealt with at the local level through the mechanisms of participatory democracy.
In this paper, we will argue that the resolution of the dilemma of globalization will require not only a shift of emphasis from the global towards the local, from the primacy of the economy to that of the social, and from a “self-regulated” economy to a socially embedded one, but also the design and the institutionalization of the political and economic mechanisms of participatory democracy and self-governance that will concretize such a change in perspective.

Larissa Adler Lomnitz
“From Reciprocity to Market Exchange: ‘Spontaneous’ Privatization in Post-Communist Hungary”
Following my previous interest on the economic importance that reciprocal exchange social networks has had for the Latin American and Soviet state-employed middle classes, this paper explores the importance social networks ("connections") have had on the process of privatization and market liberalization of post-Communist Hungary.

Kenji Aramaki
“The Post-Crisis Asia and Japan: Regional Integration and
Financial Globalization”
In the post-crisis Asia, the intra-regional trade interdependence, which once dropped after the crisis, has started to recover and increase, and negotiations of bilateral free trade agreements have recently gained momentum, showing clear trends toward deepening of economic integration in the region.
On the contrary, developments toward globalization as opposed to regionalization are more conspicuous in the financial area. After the crisis in the late 1990’s, with a view to prevent future crises, Japan proposed various region oriented policies in the financial area including abandonment of the de-facto dollar peg system in favor of the basket peg system and the expanded use of the yen. However, Asian currencies have started to effectively return to the dollar pegging after the crisis subsided, and the predominance of the dollar in the region has shown little change. The share in financial activities in the region of Japanese banks has been also shrinking. Moreover, the policies and institutions of the Asian countries are now monitored more closely than before in the light of what may be called standardized good practices under the IMF-led surveillance activities such as the Financial Sector Assessment Program and the Report of Observance of Standards and Codes.
In this way, two types of developments, i.e., economic regionalization and financial globalization, are simultaneously taking place in Asia. Such discrepancy between real and financial developments indicates that the Asian (real) economies may well continue to be susceptible to negative effects arising from external financial shocks. In order to cope with such risks, the ASEAN + 3 (Japan, China and Korea) countries agreed to strengthen regional financial cooperation in May 2001(the Chiang Mai Initiative) and are now working to construct a regional network of bilateral swap arrangements of foreign exchanges. Furthermore, the development of regional bond markets is under study. It is hoped that such intra-region arrangements for mutual financial cooperation will contribute to enhancing stability of economic development of the region even in the face of instability inherent in the globalized financial market.

René Audet and Emmanuelle Champion
“Coexistence ou hybridation entre régulation publique et privée dans les domaines de la responsabilité sociale corporative et de l’environnement”
La prolifération des codes de conduite et des certifications sociales et environnementales basés sur les méthodes de production ou sur la bonne gestion de l’entreprise révèle l’émergence de nouveaux foyers de régulation en marge de la régulation étatique. D’un côté, le débat sur la responsabilité sociale de l’entreprise a conduit à l’élaboration de nouveaux outils de régulation; de l’autre, on voit apparaître des certifications et des labels conçus par certaines ONG dans le but d’identifier des produits conçus selon des critères éthiques, équitables ou environnementaux. Qu’elles émanent de l’entreprise sous forme de codes de conduite ou des ONG sous forme de certifications, ces initiatives constituent des tentatives d’autorégulation de l’entreprise. La nouveauté de ces initiatives privées d’autorégulation demande à être examinées à la lumière de leur articulation avec les États. Depuis quelques années, ces derniers cherchent en effet à les intégrer par divers moyens à leurs législations.
Cette communication a précisément pour but de décrire et de classer quelques initiatives publiques à l’égard de ces stratégies privées d’autorégulation. Nous arguons que ces tentatives d’intégration par les instances publiques aboutissent à des formes d’articulations originales entre des normativités privées et publiques. Pour illustrer ce point, nous nous intéresserons à cinq initiatives récentes dans le domaine de la responsabilité sociale corporative et de la protection de l’environnement. À travers l’analyse de l’Eco Management Auditing Scheme (EMAS), du Livre Vert de l’Union Européenne sur la responsabilité sociale corporative, du nouveau label social Belge, et des lois qui encadrent la certification des produits biologiques comme la loi sur le Conseil d’accréditation du Québec et le National Organic Program (NOP) américain, nous établirons une typologie de ces formes d’hybridation privée/publique.