"This Woman's Work" in a "Man's World": A Feminist Analysis of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002
This paper will discuss the background of the 2002 Farm Bill and its origins in the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (hereinafter the 1996 Farm Bill). Secondly, a basic discussion of feminist international relations and more generally, feminist legal theory will be invoked to provide a theoretical beacon for the rest of the journey. Thirdly, specific arguments about ecofeminsim and postcolonial feminism are teased out in order to critically investigate the direct and indirect consequences of United States farm policy. Fourthly, the 2002 Farm Bill's disparate impact on international womyn will be discussed and theories about the need for critical investigation of international law from a feminist perspective will be developed. Next, the impending expiration of the 2002 Farm Bill and the possibilities and problems associated with the pending 2007 Farm Bill will be analyzed to provide a starting point for those interested in affecting agricultural policy and international trade, with emphasis paid to feminist theory. Lastly, the paper will conclude with recommendations for future inquiry and ways in which agricultural policy can be advanced while preserving the value of womyn's work.
Reputational Fallacies in International Law: A Comparative Review of United States and Canadian Trade Actions
Reputation is an important and complex issue for individuals, communities and nations. The notion behind reputation is that individuals receive information about the behavior of others from third parties; this information is then used to decide whether or not to behave in a similar manner, and how to interact with the other person. Positive reputational information results in increased willingness to act cooperatively with the other person, while the opposite reaction occurs when individuals are provided negative reputational information. Similar to the reputations of individuals, state reputations can be highly inaccurate. State reputations may be flawed or bear little resemblance to the actions of the states themselves, creating reputational fallacies. Reputational fallacies raise important issues for international law. In particular, the utility of reputation as a compliance mechanism, when reputation does not accurately reflect state behavior, may impact the effectiveness of international law. This Article will examine the problem of reputational fallacies through a comparative examination of two states with very different reputations in the international trade arena: the United States and Canada. The ensuing examination of U.S. and Canadian trade actions explores whether each state's reputation is logically connected to its actual behavior in the international trade arena. This Article ultimately concludes that there is little substantive support for each state's reputational difference. While this Article's examination is confined to the trade actions of the United States and Canada, it nonetheless suggests that reputation - as a means of enforcing state compliance with international obligations - is, at best, an inaccurate tool of international law. In fact, this Article suggests that reputation, at its worst, is harmful to international law compliance because it introduces fallacies and inefficiencies, as well as a whole host of other problems associated with its inherent inaccuracy.
Complexity, Network-Decisions And Alternative Risk Premia: Some New Theories Of Structural Change And Portfolio Decisions.
Structural Change is the basis for many decisions such as government fiscal and monetary policies, government interventions, corporate-expenditure decisions, corporate strategic decisions, portfolio management decisions in finance; household allocation decisions, etc.. Structural change in industries and national economies is increasingly more difficult to detect partly because of the growth and dominance of Complex Systems and “Networks” in modern industries and economies – such Networks and Complex Systems include GVCs (global value chains), retail store networks; franchising networks; internet networks; services networks; credit-chains in industries; online social networks; etc.. The relationship between Complexity and Structural Change is well established in the physics, applied math and economic dynamics literatures. Traditional definitions and modeling of structural change have erroneously focused on changes in labor, technological progress, market share, and or capital – which are grossly inadequate in the new economy and post- global financial crisis (as confirmed by changes in the global retailing and housing industries and other industries). Also the modeling of structural change seems to be constrained by the availability of data, and often omits the relationship between structural change on one hand, and globalization, financial stability and international financial contagion. This article: i) introduces the Operations Strategy Model of structural change, explains how it differs from the Lewis Model of Structural Change; and explains the often omitted relationship between operations strategy (of companies and government agencies) and structural change; ii) introduces other new Complexity-based models/theories of Structural Change in industries; iii) reviews the relationships among Operations Research, Complexity and Structural Change; iv) explains the symbiotic relationship between structural change on one hand, and economic growth, financial stability, financial contagion and globalization; v) discusses the significant gap between academic research and practice and explains some issues and factors that should be considered in the development and testing of structural change models; vi) explains how alternative risk premia can be generated from new models of Structural Change.