Collection: Global Political Economy Editors’ Choice

 

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Editors Choice GPE

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Minimum income schemes were first implemented in the late 1980s. However, as is evidenced, they failed to achieve their objectives of providing everyone with the basics to live in dignity. Partly as a consequence, basic income is considered by an increasing part of both public opinion and academic research a feasible alternative that could guarantee the material existence of all. In this article, in order to observe how a basic income behaves when minimum income schemes fall short, we conduct the first logical and comprehensive scientific contribution to the technical problems preventing minimum income schemes from fulfilling their objectives. This analysis illustrates how a basic income, because of principles of universality, unconditionality and the possibility of combining with other sources of income, is more efficient than minimum income schemes in addressing the aforementioned limitations.

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Supposed green technological fixes to the climate crisis necessitate the mining of raw materials such as lithium en masse, spurring the proliferation of mining globally and the associated social and ecological harms. Major economies are engaged in a resource race for critical raw materials that are indispensable inputs for electric vehicles and digital technologies in the green transition and fourth industrial revolution (Kalantzakos, 2020; Kalantzakos et al, 2023). As this race materialises, so too has resistance and contestation on the proposed mining sites. This article engages with the critical literature on ecologically unequal exchanges (Hornborg, 1998; 2014; 2016) and extractivism (Acosta, 2013) to explore protracted civil society resistance to two lithium mining projects in rural and agrarian regions of Serbia and Portugal. The European Union is pursuing a dual agenda of decarbonising personal use transport and resource autonomy in an increasingly shifting geopolitical order; in turn a massive effort for onshoring mining activities is underway in Europe. The author argues that recent policy enactments by the European Union for onshore mining produces ecological and social harms in rural and agrarian areas and is illustrative of an unequal ecological and economic exchange. Agrarian and subsistence livelihoods are affected in pursuit of green technological solutions, highlighting the contradictory character of the green transition under capitalism and ultimately advocates for a degrowth position.

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Technological sovereignty has emerged as a prominent topic, with states positioning themselves to ensure security and economic competitiveness. However, German economic policy rarely involved strategic government interventions and industrial policies due to its deep-rooted adherence to ordoliberalism. In response to the influence of foreign big tech companies and growing economic competition from China, the German state is now formulating a strategic techno-industrial policy agenda, advocating interventions for the preservation of sovereignty. This article analyses the proposed agenda using an inductive process-tracing approach (Trampusch and Palier, 2016) and document analysis (Bowen, 2009) of strategy papers, policy documents and selected media reports. Drawing on the concepts of structural power (Strange, 2004 [1988]) and economic statecraft (Weiss and Thurbon, 2021), we argue that Germany’s pursuit of technological sovereignty represents a distinctive form of (geo-)economically motivated statecraft, primarily directed at enhancing commercial competitiveness rather than prioritising security. However, we identify limitations to this approach where the regulatory regime and institutional legacy, both at the national and EU levels, impede strategic government interventions in the economy, thus constraining the pursuit of technological sovereignty.

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