Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy

Chantal Maillé and Micheline Nadeua de Sève
“Le mouvement féministe sur la scène internationale”
La communication portera sur l’impact de certains aspects de la mondialisation sur les revendications et les stratégies de mobilisation des groupes de femmes dans le contexte québécois. Nous tenterons d’examiner: 1) Dans quelle mesure et pourquoi ces groupes qui luttent en faveur d’une plus grande justice sociale et économique au sein de la société québécoise recourent aux organisations gouvernementales internationales et à des réseaux informels internationaux pour faire avancer leurs intérêts et leur vision particulière de l'équité dans les rapports de sexe au plan local ou national; 2) Comment et dans quelle mesure la mondialisation affecte la mise en forme de leurs stratégies de revendication et de mobilisation. Les auteurs présenteront des résultats préliminaires d’une recherche terrain, menée auprès d’organisations non-gouvernementales (ONG) québécoises qui représentent et défendent, au plan politique, des groupes de femmes et leur insertion à égalité avec les hommes dans la société. Sur la foi de stratégies de résistance qui s’inscrivent d’emblée en dehors des frontières nationales, plusieurs auteur-e-s concluent au caractère transnational de la dynamique sociopolitique au sein des territoires nationaux modernes, annonçant dès lors, la fin ou l’affaiblissement de l’État nation et des mutations radicales dans la signification de la citoyenneté et du vivre ensemble au sein des États nations. Les auteures discuteront également du bien-fondé de cette assertion.

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Makoto Maruyama
“Local Currency: Alternative Money or Complementary Money?”
From the very beginning of the use of Green Dollar in LETS communities, it has been taken for granted that G Dollar will never be traded in a money market.
Money without interest is the main characteristic of Silvio Gesell’s Freiegeld (free money). G Dollar does not necessarily model itself after free money, but the two monies have lots in. In this paper, I will first illustrate the common feature of free money and Green Dollar. Both currencies are aimed at facilitating the exchange of goods and services in a community. They are also designed to separate the markets of goods and services from the money market. Then I will focus on the difference between the two. I will argue, on the one hand, that Gesell’s free money is alternative, rather than complementary to the modern money. The implication of this argument will be that the local market with free money would become independent and detached from the business cycle of the world market. I will argue, on the other hand, that Green Dollar is complementary, rather than alternative to the modern money. G Dollar is used along with the modern money. G Dollar assists the circulation of modern money where the latter does not circulate in itself. I will then provide the bird’s eye view of Japanese local currencies (this last part will be the supplement to my previous presentation in Mexico City in 2001). I will illustrate that Japanese local currencies become more and more diverse and seem to attract more people to the community activities.

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Julie Maurais
“The Coexistence of Industries, NGOs and Governments in Environmental Governance: The case of the Forestry Sector”
During the last 10 years, governments from industrialized countries have modified their method of regulating environmental issues. The traditional command and control measures are today considered inefficient due to the administration costs and structures necessary to implement them. The new approaches which have been adopted focus more on flexible, voluntary and cooperative regulatory structures, implying a modification of relations between governments, corporations and civil society. According to this system of governance, the private sector is not just part of the problem, but is also part of the solution.
Certain tools have gained the favour of both government authorities and industries. One of these is an auto-regulation system, which is applied in different sectors like agriculture, fisheries as well as in the forestry industry. The forestry sector is particularly interesting due to the recent developments of forest certification propelled by corporations: most of the existing certification programs applied in industrialized countries have emerged following industry initiatives.
However, enterprises are not the only actors implied in forest certification. At the bases of this expanding private regulatory movement, another group of actor has played and important role: the NGOs. NGOs have initiated the certification movement by developing the first certification program, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Business and NGOs are thus both implicated in those auto-regulatory measures which seek better practices in forestry. Indeed, through the application of forest certification, corporations of the forestry sector take a voluntary step toward the implementation of measures permitting to reach a higher degree of sustainable forest management.
Although NGOs and Industries are moving toward this new mode of regulation, governments are not excluded from the process. Certification, which is emerging as the new type of environmental governance, is directly linked to the governmental authority. The role taken by governments varies in degree but serves most of the time to legitimate the action of industries and NGOs. Thus, my intention is to clarify the new articulation of the different actors implicated in the forest certification movement. This will lead to a better comprehension of the transformation of the governance in the environmental field.

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Olga Navarro-Flores
“De la dépendance aux relations de partenariat : vers une nouvelle coexistence Nord-Sud”
On s’entend généralement pour dire que les années 1990 se caractérisent par l’arrivée de la mondialisation, qui constitue une accélération sans précédent des échanges d’informations, de capitaux, de biens et de services. L’arrivée de la mondialisation a suscité une série de changements profonds s’étendant, entre autres, vers la montée des partenariats, constituant une nouvelle forme de coordination de l’activité économique, alternative à la concurrence et à la hiérarchie (Hollingsworth et Boyer, 1997). En effet, les corporations, les États et les organisations locales non gouvernementales et à but non lucratif établissent de plus en plus des partenariats afin d’attirer des investissements et de créer de l’emploi (Petrella, 1985), afin d’assurer la relève des programmes sociaux (Favreau, 1996; Vaillancourt, 1996), et même afin de s’attaquer à certains problèmes socioéconomiques de la communauté (Loizides, 1994; Peterson et Sundblad, 1994). Le concept fait désormais partie du langage courant dans tous les secteurs socioéconomiques, de sorte que, même dans le cadre de la coopération internationale, où la mondialisation a si brusquement scindé le pouvoir Nord-Sud, on assiste paradoxalement à l’émergence de nouvelles relations de partenariat. Mais attention, car ce concept suppose une relation entre pairs, dont l’utilisation et la pratique pourraient nous conduire équivoquement à penser que les partenariats équilibrent finalement les relations de pouvoir entre les parties, ce qui n’est pas le cas. Nous tenterons ici d’illustrer, à partir de deux études de cas de coopération internationale, que les partenariats, tels que vécus par les acteurs du Nord et du Sud, constituent une manifestation particulière des rapports de pouvoir, laquelle, étant plus égalitaire que la dépendance qui caractérisait les débuts de la coopération, promet un renouvellement des formes traditionnelles de coexistence Nord-Sud.

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Walter C. Neale
“Sir Henry Sumner Maine: Social Scientist for the Twenty-First Century”
Few books have been as badly misunderstood as Maine’s Ancient Law. The misunderstandings begin with a misinterpretation of the famous line--“the movement of progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract”--and go on to ignore the major theme of the book: that the writing of history should be based solely on evidence from that time and place. It also ignores Maine’s attack upon systemic a prioris and natural law philosophy.
I propose to correct these misconceptions. First I shall show how Maine’s text makes it clear that he is only dealing with Indo-European societies and that ‘progressive’ means a society whose laws and social structure are not embedded in religion. Then I shall discuss how his attack upon natural law philosophy supports his critique of ‘speculative history.’ Finally, I shall show how the structure of the book lends support to the thesis that it is a history of Roman law, an example of how to do good history, and an example of how such history can be used to explain the interdependence of law and portray social structure.
The relationship of this analysis of Ancient Law to the work of Karl Polanyi will be brought out by showing how Maine’s and Polanyi’s treatment of history complement and reinforce each other.

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Chris Nyland
“Marketization, Globalization and Social Protection Reform in China: Implications for the Global Social Protection Debate and Foreign Investors”
As part of its transition to a market economy and its integration into the global economy China has initiated a major transformation of its social protection regime. By social protection is meant "the set of policies and programs designed to reduce poverty and vulnerability by promoting efficient labor markets, diminishing people's exposure to risks, and enhancing their capacity to protect themselves against hazards and interruption/loss of income." (ADB 2001). The form of social protection embraced by communities and governments can impact significantly on the labor costs that accrue to firms and consequently on the management strategies of enterprises and the extent to which nations are attractive investment sites. Despite this being the case, scholars have paid little attention to how business practices are influenced by the social policies adopted by governments. This omission contrasts with the contribution forthcoming from social policy analysts in recent years. The onset of globalization has induced a new level of interest in the response of the business community to social reform by policy analysts because many have come to fear that globalization may be undermining the capacity of governments to sustain the levels of welfare that became the norm across the OECD in the 1945-1975 period. In this paper we seek to encourage the study of the implications of social policy for international business by exploring the implications of emerging social protection regime in China for investors. We have chosen China as the focus of our study because it has become the world's second largest recipient of foreign direct investment after the USA and because it is a nation that is currently undertaking a major overhaul of its social protection regime as a part of its strategy for integrating into the global economy. The paper begins by introducing the literature that has explored the link between social protection and labor markets and in so doing highlights the fact that the major global financial agencies now accept that a sound social protection regime is a necessary feature of a successful globalization strategy. We next proceed to detail the nature of the reforms being implemented in China and undertake two case studies that add important details to our broader discussion. Finally, we consider the likely implications of these developments for the global social protection debate and for investors undertaking business activity in China.

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