Volume 2, Issue 1 (2011)


Upgrading through Integration? The Case of the Central Eastern European Automotive Industry
Johann Fortwengel
This paper explores whether there are signs that the automotive industry in selected new European Union member states from Central Eastern Europe was able to upgrade in the wake of economic and political integration. In this context, a broadened understanding of upgrading is brought forward. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that while upgrading in the narrow sense is taking place, serious barriers to upgrading conceptualized in broader theoretical and empirical terms remain. As a broader perspective on upgrading takes the embeddedness of a particular value chain into consideration, this paper suggests that the institutional and regulatory context on the local, national, and regional level structures the international division of labor to a significant extent and thus the upgrading potential.

Globalization and democracy: four paradigmatic views
Kavous Ardalan
Any explanation of globalization and democracy is based on a worldview. The premise of this paper is that any worldview can be associated with one of the four broad paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. This paper takes the case of globalization and democracy and discusses it from the four different viewpoints. It emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the phenomenon from their certain paradigmatic viewpoint; and together they provide a more balanced understanding of the phenomenon under consideration.

Human Trafficking in the era of Globalization: The case of Trafficking in the Global Market Economy
Majeed A. Rahman
This paper employs the microeconomic model of "demand" and "supply" to explain how human trafficking is organized and executed in the global market economy, in which victims are commodities distributed in a market to consumers.

A Commentary on Boike Rehbein's Approach to Critical Theory after the Rise of the Global South and on his Concept 'Kaleidoscopic Dialectic'
Ercüment Çelik, Veronika Wöhrer, Christian Ersche, Florian Stoll, Jose Gabriel Jimenez, Judith Altrogge, Maximilian Vogelmann

Book Review
Ercüment Çelik: Street Traders: A bridge between trade unions and social movements in contemporary South Africa