Kevin Gray – författare

This volume explores the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for the sustainability of the present global political and economic system and the extent to which that system may as a result be undergoing transformation. Towards this aim, the contributing authors raise a number of key questions. First, what is likely to be the impact of the pandemic on the current global order based on neoliberal hyper-globalization? Second, what insights do earlier pandemics along with other inter-related crises such as those of climate, inequality, social reproduction, and continued fallout of the global financial crisis offer for understanding the medium- to long-term implications of COVID-19? Third, to what extent might the COVID pandemic lead to progressive political transformations? Towards this latter goal, the contributors to this volume also offer a number of suggestions as to what a post-COVID-19 world might look like and how post-COVID transformations might be channeled in a direction more conducive towards social justice and equality.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.

This volume explores the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for the sustainability of the present global political and economic system and the extent to which that system may as a result be undergoing transformation. Towards this aim, the contributing authors raise a number of key questions. First, what is likely to be the impact of the pandemic on the current global order based on neoliberal hyper-globalization? Second, what insights do earlier pandemics along with other inter-related crises such as those of climate, inequality, social reproduction, and continued fallout of the global financial crisis offer for understanding the medium- to long-term implications of COVID-19? Third, to what extent might the COVID pandemic lead to progressive political transformations? Towards this latter goal, the contributors to this volume also offer a number of suggestions as to what a post-COVID-19 world might look like and how post-COVID transformations might be channeled in a direction more conducive towards social justice and equality.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.

One of the most remarkable aspects of South Korea’s transition from impoverished post-colonial nation to fully-fledged industrialized democracy has been the growth of its independent and dynamic labour movement. Korean Workers and Neoliberal Globalisation examines current trends and transformations within the Korean labour movement since the 1990s.

It has been a common assumption that the ‘third wave’ of democratisation, the end of the Cold War, and the spread of neoliberal globalisation in the latter part of the 20th century have helped to create an environment in which organised labour is better placed to overcome bureaucratic national unionism and transform itself into a potential counter-globalisation movement. However, Kevin Gray argues that despite the apparent continued phenomena of labour militancy and the rhetoric of anti-neoliberalism, the mainstream independent labour movement in Korea has become increasingly institutionalised and bureaucratised into the new capitalist democracy. This process is demonstrated by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions’ experience of participation in various forms of policy making forums. Gray suggests that as a result, the KCTU has failed to mount an effective challenge against processes of neoliberal restructuring and concomitant social polarisation.

The Korean experience provides an excellent case study for understanding the relationship between organised labour and globalisation. Korean Workers and Neoliberal Globalisation will appeal to students and scholars of Korean studies and International Political Economy, as well as Asian politics and economics.

One of the most remarkable aspects of South Korea’s transition from impoverished post-colonial nation to fully-fledged industrialized democracy has been the growth of its independent and dynamic labour movement. Korean Workers and Neoliberal Globalisation examines current trends and transformations within the Korean labour movement since the 1990s.

It has been a common assumption that the ‘third wave’ of democratisation, the end of the Cold War, and the spread of neoliberal globalisation in the latter part of the 20th century have helped to create an environment in which organised labour is better placed to overcome bureaucratic national unionism and transform itself into a potential counter-globalisation movement. However, Kevin Gray argues that despite the apparent continued phenomena of labour militancy and the rhetoric of anti-neoliberalism, the mainstream independent labour movement in Korea has become increasingly institutionalised and bureaucratised into the new capitalist democracy. This process is demonstrated by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions’ experience of participation in various forms of policy making forums. Gray suggests that as a result, the KCTU has failed to mount an effective challenge against processes of neoliberal restructuring and concomitant social polarisation.

The Korean experience provides an excellent case study for understanding the relationship between organised labour and globalisation. Korean Workers and Neoliberal Globalisation will appeal to students and scholars of Korean studies and International Political Economy, as well as Asian politics and economics.

This volume contributes to the growing debate surrounding the impact that the rising powers may or may not be having on contemporary global political and economic governance. Through studies of Brazil, India, China, and other important developing countries within their respective regions such as Turkey and South Africa, we raise the question of the extent to which the challenge posed by the rising powers to global governance is likely to lead to an increase in democracy and social justice for the majority of the world’s peoples. By addressing such questions, the volume explicitly seeks to raise the broader normative question of the implications of this emergent redistribution of economic and political power for the sustainability and legitimacy of the emerging 21st century system of global political and economic governance. Questions of democracy, legitimacy, and social justice are largely ignored or under-emphasised in many existing studies, and the aim of this collection of papers is to show that serious consideration of such questions provides important insights into the sustainability of the emerging global political economy and new forms of global governance.

This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

This volume contributes to the growing debate surrounding the impact that the rising powers may or may not be having on contemporary global political and economic governance. Through studies of Brazil, India, China, and other important developing countries within their respective regions such as Turkey and South Africa, we raise the question of the extent to which the challenge posed by the rising powers to global governance is likely to lead to an increase in democracy and social justice for the majority of the world’s peoples. By addressing such questions, the volume explicitly seeks to raise the broader normative question of the implications of this emergent redistribution of economic and political power for the sustainability and legitimacy of the emerging 21st century system of global political and economic governance. Questions of democracy, legitimacy, and social justice are largely ignored or under-emphasised in many existing studies, and the aim of this collection of papers is to show that serious consideration of such questions provides important insights into the sustainability of the emerging global political economy and new forms of global governance.

This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

The Chinese Communist Party’s response to the wave of factory strikes in the early summer of 2010 has raised important questions about the role that labour plays in the transformation of world orders. In contrast to previous policies of repression towards labour unrest, these recent disputes centring round wages and working conditions have been met with a more permissive response on the part of the state, as the CCP ostensibly seeks to facilitate a transition away from a model of political economy based on ‘low-road’ labour relations and export dependence.

Labour and Development in East Asia shows that such inter-linkages between labour, geopolitical transformations, and states’ developmental strategies have been much more central to East Asia’s development than has commonly been recognised. By adopting an explanatory framework of the labour-geopolitics-development nexus, the book theorises and provides an historical analysis of the formation and transformation of the East Asian regional political economy from the end of the Second World War to the present, with particular reference to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China.

This book will be required reading for students and scholars of international relations, development studies and comparative politics.

The Chinese Communist Party’s response to the wave of factory strikes in the early summer of 2010 has raised important questions about the role that labour plays in the transformation of world orders. In contrast to previous policies of repression towards labour unrest, these recent disputes centring round wages and working conditions have been met with a more permissive response on the part of the state, as the CCP ostensibly seeks to facilitate a transition away from a model of political economy based on ‘low-road’ labour relations and export dependence.

Labour and Development in East Asia shows that such inter-linkages between labour, geopolitical transformations, and states’ developmental strategies have been much more central to East Asia’s development than has commonly been recognised. By adopting an explanatory framework of the labour-geopolitics-development nexus, the book theorises and provides an historical analysis of the formation and transformation of the East Asian regional political economy from the end of the Second World War to the present, with particular reference to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China.

This book will be required reading for students and scholars of international relations, development studies and comparative politics.

A quarter of a century has now passed since the historic popular uprising that led to the overthrow of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. The mass movement known as the "People Power Revolution" was not only pivotal to the democratic transition within the Philippines, but it also became an inspiration for subsequent mass movements leading to further democratic transitions throughout the Third World and in the former Communist bloc in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. However, the neoliberal economic policies subsequently pursued by newly democratic governments throughout the Third World led all but the most celebratory observers to note the constrained and limited nature of these formal political transitions. This volume poses the question of the extent to which ‘people power’ has been able to play an active role resisting neoliberalism and deepen substantive democracy and social justice. Through a series of case studies of the regions and individual countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, the contributions in the volume provide a new set of original and in-depth critical assessments of the nature of the longer-term impact of the democratic transitions commencing in the 1980s and continuing until the present, and questioning their impact and potential influence on human dignity, freedom, justice, and self-determination, and thus opening new avenues of enquiry into the future of democracy.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.