The high-quality academic books, upper-level student texts and journal articles on our Business, Management and Economics list offer fresh perspectives on the economy, the future of work and organisations, and the relationship between business and addressing global social challenges.
The list is home to a number of series including Organizations and Activism and Feminist Perspectives on Work and Organization, all of which are edited by leading scholars from the field, along with our journals in the area: Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice, Work in the Global Economy and Global Political Economy.
Business, Management and Economics
The process of developing an industrial project, whether mining, petroleum or wind power, is highly regulated in Norwegian law and governance. The meticulous procedures detail how and at which points in the planning process there should be involvement of the public, of local populations, and of the Sámi Parliament and other affected rights holders in areas with Sámi population. Mining is further regulated under the Planning and Building Act, which gives municipalities considerable control in the early phase of the planning process. These procedures are intended to ensure that all voices are heard in the different stages before and during construction. Yet stakeholders often do not know where in the process they can exert the most influence. Their rights may be labelled only as ‘interests’ or regulations based on municipal representation may fail to include those stakeholders that migrate between different areas during the year. This chapter examines two instances of planning in the Finnmark region within the past decade, where the process has been ‘by the book’ but failed to reconcile conflicts over land and rights. We examine how industry regulation produces other kinds of injustices, and point to what this means for regulation in the region in the future.
This chapter considers what might be deemed relevant normative standards when taking responsibility for the effects of rising global temperatures on the territories and communities of the Arctic. Are globally produced harms chiefly the responsibility of territory-specific communities in terms of their dire effects, as is often assumed? The focus will be on the unjust basis of this assumption. Alternatively, it will propose a relational model of responsibility where emphasis is placed on the interconnections between peoples, regions, climate actions and outcomes. In response to the need to actualize a more embracing conceptualization of climate justice, prospects for a ‘civic connections approach’ will be critically assessed, one where a cooperative imperative, when applied across sectors and regions, works to address the ‘multiple domination’ (Forst, 2020) experienced by climate vulnerable communities and further, seeks to establish the presumptive responsibilities of major polluters for injuries caused to the peoples, nature and landscapes of the Arctic.
As a pivotal institution within Arctic governance, the Arctic Council is often perceived as an institution at the forefront of global governance norms. Yet despite the innovative nature of Arctic governance, which is inclusive of Arctic states, Indigenous representation and other states from the near Arctic and beyond, issues remain with regards to questions of justice within these structural arrangements and the broader structure of governance for the region. Positioned within the International Relations theory of Constructivism, which emphasizes rules, agents, interests and identities, this chapter reflects on the structure of Arctic governance arrangements through Iris Marion Young’s conceptions of structural injustice, five faces of oppression and designations of responsibility for (in)justice.
For decades the Arctic has been subject to development projects with a high degree of environmental impact due to its richness of natural resources. The concept of Sacrifice Zones can contribute to an innovative and unifying framework in sociological analyses of the link between human and environmental challenges in industrial extractive projects in the Arctic. The framing of communities and landscapes as Sacrifice Zones is vital for building clarifications of how discourses resonate in different places and situations. The concept, which has become significant in American environmental and geographical literature and activism, is useful in the study of Arctic justice, but has little analytical clarification. Nevertheless, this chapter reveals that Sacrifice Zones concede as an analytical concept – shedding light on both the environmental and social impacts of extractive industry development. Based on research literature, the concept is reviewed both in relation to its content and potential. The chapter provides a systematization of concepts and phenomena and links it further to sociological theories of environmental (in)justice and (in)equality, and discusses its usability in studies of industrial development in the Nordic Arctic.
This chapter revisits the processes of gaining social value out of the development of the oil and gas industry in Arctic cities. We base this exploration on the case study of Norway’s Hammerfest, where the oil and gas industry has been proactive in supporting the development of urban and social infrastructure. The key to that process has been an intensive and multi-level dialogue grounded in the community’s actual needs, experiences and perceptions. Inspired by the philosophy of practical wisdom, we argue for the ethical significance of the ‘lived politics of practice’ with regard to how public/social value is negotiated, created and captured. The chapter thus contributes to a better understanding of the nexus between experiential practices, socio-spatial contexts and justice. We also problematize the future of Arctic urban economies relying on hydrocarbon industries under a low-carbon transition. A Just Transition implies building up, strategically but incrementally, from existing circumstances, and allowing local communities the opportunity to develop alternative industry competences and capacities. Overall, we argue for a new epistemology of Arctic urban development grounded in the complex realities of local communities (web of life) and governed by a deliberative politics.
In a long review of Acemoglu and Robinson’s 2019 The Narrow Corridor McCloskey praises their scholarship but criticizes their relentless statism—their enthusiasm for a bigger and bigger Stato, so long as it is somehow “caged.” Their case is mechanical, materialist, and structuralist, none of which is a good guide to history or politics. Their theory of social causation mixes up necessary with sufficient conditions, though they are not unusual among political scientists and economists in doing so. They downplay the role of ideas, which after all made the modern world through liberalism. They recognize how dangerous the modern “capable” state can be, what they call The Leviathan, after Hobbes. But their construal of “liberty” is the provision of goodies to children by a beneficent Leviathan. It is not the adultism that in fact made the modern world of massive enrichment and true liberty. Their vision is deeply illiberal, and mistaken as science.
Contemporary academic discourses are located within the neoliberal landscape. The particular juncture of time, space and status of academia today is generating or reinforcing competitive and masculine approaches to researching, which have made the need to rethink the way we inhabit academia even more urgent. It is important to consider this landscape, because when we write it is never in isolation, even when we do it on our own – we write against the backdrop of a specific system and its sociocultural, professional or financial implications. Within this context, this chapter provides an overview of the main characteristics of contemporary neoliberal academia and focuses on some key factors – for example, hyper-performativity and the need to perform and publish according to traditional masculine understandings of research and the overarching hegemony of masculine metrics. From this discussion will emerge why researching and writing differently can be considered and used as a tool for challenging the status quo, and why it is a particularly important project now.
This chapter will explore some key themes that are often encountered in writing differently, with exemplars from the literature. First, the chapter will provide an outline of the dynamic between time and movement. In researching, reading and writing differently, time and movement are inextricably bound with emotions and embodiment, which are also investigated here. The final section provides considerations around vulnerability, risk and exposure in researching and writing differently, with reflection on different aspects of the meaning and importance of this type of writing from an individual and collective perspective.
