Jan-Hendrik Passoth and Nicholas Rowland on "Actor-Network State : Integrating Actor-Network Theory and State Theory"

I have been writing about the way in which globalization has de-centered the state in emerging systems of behavior management.  Backer, Larry Catá, Governance Without Government: An Overview and Application of Interactions Between Law-State and Governance-Corporate Systems  in  Beyond Territoriality: Transnational Legal Authority in an Age of Globalization (Günther Handl and Joachim Zekoll Editors, Leiden, Netherlands & Boston, MA: Brill Academic Publishers, forthcoming 2012). (March 1, 2010). Penn State Legal Studies Research 10-2010.  I have also suggested the ways in which the ideology of the state system itself has contributed to the difficulty of engaging in these changes that effectively threaten the fundamental ordering  presumptions inherent in the law-state.  Backer, Larry Catá, On the Tension between Public and Private Governance in the Emerging Transnational Legal Order: State Ideology and Corporation in Polycentric Asymmetric Global Orders (April 16, 2012).

(Pix (c) Larry Catá  Backer 2012)

The power of the ideology of the state and the current framework for understanding reality through it has been the subject of excellent work by political sociologists and international relations scholars. An excellent recently published article merits close reading:  Jan-Hendrik Passoth and Nicholas Rowland, "Actor-Network State: Integrating Actor-Network Theory and State Theory,"  International Sociology 2010 25: 818-841 (2010).

New Blog: Show and Tell: Sharing While Chairing the Penn State Faculty Senate

I was elected to Chair the Pennsylvania State University Faculty Senate and will serve a short term, April 2012-April 2013 in that capacity. I assume this role at a time that the University is working through a crisis of culture and governance that erupted with the arrest of a former employee on charges of sexual misconduct with young boys and the related arrests of university officials.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá  Backer 2012)

The University has been working on rethinking governance, transparency and engagement.  The faculty is also engaging in this exercise.  This site is dedicated to enhancing transparency and engagement in shared governance. It is specifically focused on issues and affairs that touch on the role of the PSU Faculty Senate and its work. Though the materials are specific to Penn State, it may have relevance to the functioning of shared governance generally within universities and colleges. People within and outside the Penn State faculty are encouraged to read and engage. 

Between Law and Norm, State and Globe: Thoughts on the Exporpriation of Repsol by the Argentine State

I have for some time be writing about the increasing autonomy of corporations from the states that created them.  I have suggested that the logic of globalization has inverted the relationship between state and multinational corporate entity, an inversion that results in the commodification of law as states vie for the business of large corporate actors. Backer, Larry Catá, Governance Without Government: An Overview and Application of Interactions Between Law-State and Governance-Corporate Systems, in Beyond Territoriality:  Transnational Legal Authority in an Age of Globalization (Günther Handl and Joachim Zekoll Editors, Leiden, Netherlands & Boston, MA: Brill Academic Publishers, forthcoming 2012). ; Backer, Larry Catá, Multinational Corporations as Objects and Sources of Transnational Regulation. ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2008.

 

(Women walk past a poster that reads “CFK – YPF. They’re ours, they’re Argentine” in Buenos Aires last week. Photo: Reuters)

Now comes the recent actions of Argentina, which having privatized its state owned oil industry in the late 1990s has to the former Spanish state owned enterprise Repsol has determined to expropriate that interest and return this business to the state sector.  That is, having sold the company to Repsol in the 1990s, it will now take it back with an “expressed determination to “pay nothing at all” in compensation to the Spanish oil company. ” Fiona Govan, Argentine government to pay Repsol ‘zero pesos’ for YPF seizure as Spanish oil company issues legal warning, The Telegraph (UK), April 25, 2012.

New Essay: Reaction Paper--On the Tension between Public and Private Governance in the Emerging Transnational Legal Order: State Ideology and Corporation in Polycentric Asymmetric Global Orders

For those interested, I have posted the following essay to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) website.  Larry Catá Backer,  On the Tension between Public and Private Governance in the Emerging Transnational Legal Order: State Ideology and Corporation in Polycentric Asymmetric Global Orders.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá  Backer 2012)

It was submitted as a reaction paper as part of a Global Governance Debate (with Peer Zumbansen, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Canada), “On the Tension Between Public and Private Governance in the Emerging Transnational Legal Order” sponsored by the Robert Schuman Centre’s Global Governance Programme. European University Institute, Florence, Italy. April 16, 2012.

Peer Zumbansen on Why Compare?

My colleague Peer Zumbansen, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Canada, has produced a marvelous essay on comparative law in the new world of transnational legal pluralism:  Peer Zumbansen, "Transnational comparisons: theory and practice of comparative law as a critique of global governance, " Transnational Comparisons 9: 186-211(2012).

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2012)

New Essay: Transnational Corporate Constitutionalism: The Emergence of a Constitutional Order for Economic Enterprises.

For those interested, I have posted the following essay to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) website. Larry Catá Backer, Transnational Corporate Constitutionalism: The Emergence of a Constitutional Order for Economic Enterprises. 

(Pix (c) Larry Catá  Backer 2012))

It continues work on the issue of constitution legitimately organized non-state governance organizations, in this case, in the form of multinational corporations. It was recently presented as part of a Global Governance Debate (with Peer Zumbansen, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Canada), “On the Tension Between Public and Private Governance in the Emerging Transnational Legal Order” sponsored by the Robert Schuman Centre’s Global Governance Programme. European University Institute, Florence, Italy. April 16, 2012.

Text of Remarks Delivered at Penn State: Penn State’s New Reality--Four Lessons Learned About University Governance in Crisis

What follows is the text of remarks I delivered at an Academic Leadership Seminar of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation hosted by Penn State April 13, 2012. 

The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) is a consortium of the Big Ten member universities plus the University of Chicago, which was formed to coordinate collaborative enterprises among its members, and is overseen and funded by the provosts of the member institutions.  "For more than half a century, these world-class research institutions have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs. Governed and funded by the Provosts of the member universities, CIC mandates are coordinated by a staff from its Champaign, Illinois headquarters."  CIC, About CIC. 

Part XXVII—Zhiwei Tong (童之伟) Series: Reform of the Political System Should Start with the Party Constitution rather than the Constitution

 (Zhiwei Tong, PIX (c) Larry Catá Backer)

For 2012, this site introduces the thought of Zhiwei Tong (童之伟), one of the most innovative scholars of constitutional law in China.   Professor Tong has been developing his thought in part in a essay site that was started in 2010.  See, Larry Catá Backer, Introducing a New Essay Site on Chinese Law by Zhiwei Tong, Law at the End of the Day, Oct. 16, 2010.  Professor Tong is on the faculty of law at East China University of Political Science and Law.  He is the Chairman of the Constitution Branch of the Shanghai Law Society and the Vice Chairman of the Constitution Branch of the China Law Society.

The  Zhiwei Tong (童之伟) Series focuses on translating some of Professor Tong's work on issues of criminal law and justice in China, matters that touch on core constitutional issues.  Each of the posting will include an English translation from the original Chinese, the Chinese original and a link to the original essay site. Many of the essays will include annotations that may also be of interest.  I hope those of you who are interested in Chinese legal issues will find these materials, hard to get in English, of use.  I am grateful to my research assistants, YiYang Cao and Zhichao Yi for their able work in translating these essays.

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THE SERIES AVAILABLE HERE.

  

 (Emblem of the Communist Party of China )

Part XXVII—Zhiwei Tong (童之伟) Series:  Reform of the Political System Should Start with the Party Constitution rather than the Constitution

From the AAUP: Tenure, Financial Exigency, and Shared Governance in an Era of "Made to Market" Education

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has just released two reports.  AAUP, Layoffs at Two Louisiana Universities Violated Academic Standards: Faculty Fired, Then Offered Lower-Paying Jobs Teaching the Same Classes,, April 12, 2012.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2012)

These highlight the way some institutions are moving to re-frame both the governance relationships between faculty, board of trustees and administrators, but also the way in which this re-framing increasingly packages faculty as fungible commodities that, like the programs that faculty are meant to operationalize, may be deployed to suit the moment in the production of profits to the institution. 

Part XXVI—Zhiwei Tong (童之伟) Series: In accordance with the Constitution, court cases must be public

 (Zhiwei Tong, PIX (c) Larry Catá Backer)

For 2012, this site introduces the thought of Zhiwei Tong (童之伟), one of the most innovative scholars of constitutional law in China.   Professor Tong has been developing his thought in part in a essay site that was started in 2010.  See, Larry Catá Backer, Introducing a New Essay Site on Chinese Law by Zhiwei Tong, Law at the End of the Day, Oct. 16, 2010.  Professor Tong is on the faculty of law at East China University of Political Science and Law.  He is the Chairman of the Constitution Branch of the Shanghai Law Society and the Vice Chairman of the Constitution Branch of the China Law Society.

The  Zhiwei Tong (童之伟) Series focuses on translating some of Professor Tong's work on issues of criminal law and justice in China, matters that touch on core constitutional issues.  Each of the posting will include an English translation from the original Chinese, the Chinese original and a link to the original essay site. Many of the essays will include annotations that may also be of interest.  I hope those of you who are interested in Chinese legal issues will find these materials, hard to get in English, of use.  I am grateful to my research assistants, YiYang Cao and Zhichao Yi for their able work in translating these essays.

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THE SERIES AVAILABLE HERE.

Molding and Practicing CSR--Amy O'Connor and Michelle Shumate on a View from the Corporation Out

In Amy O’Connor and Michelle Shumate, “An Economic Industry and Institutional Level of Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility Communication,” Management Communication Quarterly, 24(4):529-551 (2010), the authors explore how companies communicate about corporate social responsibility and what that means for the values premises, claims of legitimacy and the  use of communication about CSR to develop better relationships with targeted stakeholders.  This post considers some of the insights from that article. 

Amy O'Connor

Michelle Shumate

Amy O'Connor  is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at North Dakotah State University.  Her program of research examines how the corporate form shapes and is shaped by our understandings of social issues, work, and community. Michelle Shumate is an Assocaite Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the director of Interorganizational Networks (ITO) research group at the University of Illinois and writes a useful blog, The Sector Blender, a blog about the growing relationships and blurring boundaries among nonprofit, for profit, and government sectors.

The Private Corporation as a Threat to the Political Order: Of Cuban State Corporations and Private the Vehicle for Private Economic Development

The Cuban Communist Party and state apparatus have adopted a set of Guidelines (Lineamientos) in April 2011.  VI Congreso del Partido Cominiosta de Cuba,  Lineamientos de la política económica y social del partido y la Revolución (aprobado el 18 de abril de 2011).  These Lineamientos serve as a detailed, though still general, basis for reordering the economic framework within which Cuban socialism is understood.  They suggest the opening to potentially significant structural changes in Cuban economic policy.

 (Caption: "La política trazada incluye la estrategia de desarrollo de sectores generadores de los principales ingresos en divisa libremente convertible como el turismo Jorge Luis Baños - IPS"; From Cuba priorizará sector cooperativo, Inter Press Service, March 27, 2012)

  Among the least explored aspects of the Lineamientos has been its framework for organizing economic activity in the private sector. The key feature of that organization is the prohibition of the aggregation of capital or other means of production outside of the state sector.  If corporations are prohibited as a form of private economic activity but reducing such activity to prescribed simple sole proprietorships may not produce the sort of positive economic growth necessary to avoid economic stagnation, then the question of finding an alternative form of economic activity that permits private aggregations of economic activity becomes critical to the forward movement of Cuban economic reforms consistent with its governing ideology.  For that purpose the Cuban state will offer the cooperative in a form that is yet to be determined.  What follows describes the context in which this development is occurring and recent movements by state official to implement this form of activity. 

"Between Faculty, Administration, Board, State, and Students: On the Relevance of a Faculty Senate in the Modern U.S. University": Talk Delivered at the AAUP Symposium at Penn State

On April 2, 2012, the American Association of University Professors and Pennsylvania State University faculty hosted a symposium--The Future University: Academic Freedom, Shared Governance, and Contingent Faculty.

(Pennsylvania AAUP web page)

This post includes the conference program information, conference program and the text of my presentation to the conference:  Between Faculty, Administration, Board, State, and Students: On the Relevance of a Faculty Senate in the Modern U.S. University.