Arunas Juska

Beyond political economy: actor networks and the globalization of agriculture

This article provides a critical assessment of the traditional political economy approaches in analysis of agricultural globalization. The use of the actor network perspective is suggested to enhance our understanding of the globalization process. To illustrate the applicability of actor network theory to political economy studies, the globalization of the Canadian rapeseed (Brassica rapa and B. napus) industry is analyzed. It is shown that the globalization of the rapeseed industry proceeded through three simultaneously occurring developments: modification of relationships among people and plants; extension of rapeseed production networks; and redistribution of power, wealth and status among the actors engaged in global rapeseed production networks. Implications of the actor network approach for political economy studies are discussed.

Manufacturing bacteriological contamination outbreaks in industrialized meat production systems: The case of E. coli O157:H7

This article outlines aconceptual framework for examining recentoutbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 infectionassociated with the consumption of beef in theUnited States. We argue that beef produced inthis country is generally safer frombacteriological contamination than in the past.Paradoxically, increasing intensification andconcentration in the meat subsector since theearly 1980s has (a) altered agro-food ecology,including characteristics of foodborne bacteriaand human physiology; (b) created conditionsfavorable for the rapid amplification of lowconcentrations of pathogens; and (c) reducedthe beef industrys flexibility to introducechanges necessary to preclude and/or controlthe rapid spread of pathogens in meat and meatproducts. As a result, beef industry currentlyis capable of producing large quantities ofbacteriologically safe meat whilesimultaneously becoming more vulnerable to foodcontaminations that can be fatal in some cases.The limitations and effectiveness of a newregulatory regime, the HACCP (Hazard Analysisand Critical Control Points) system as well asother efforts to decontaminate the beef supplyare discussed.

The changing character of criminality and policing in post-socialist Lithuania: From fighting organized crime to policing marginal populations?

This paper argues that the character ofcriminality in post-socialist Lithuania isundergoing a significant change. Up untilthe mid 1990s criminality was defined bythe conflict between the state and criminalgroups who challenged the states authorityin the re-distribution of state property.Criminal groups used violence to challengethe states rules and regulations regardingthe process and outcomes of privatization. The state responded by legal andinstitutional reforms leading tomilitarization and centralization of thepolice force.Successful legal and police reformsinitiated during the early 1990s led to adramatic decline in organized crimeactivities. Crime rates also began tostabilize because of the improvingsocio-economic situation in the country. As a result, by the mid 1990s the characterof criminality began to change. There aresigns that it is increasingly associatedwith the growing social and economicmarginalization of those segments of thepopulation, which did not (or could not)adapt to the introduction of competitivemarkets. The situation was aggravated by arapid decline of employment within theLithuanian economy and significantcurtailment of social welfare provided bythe state. A growing number ofindividuals, especially males with poorskills and education whose employmentopportunities were severely restricted withthe decline in manufacturing industries,were dropping out from the labor force evenin the presence of jobs; were not marrying;and were increasingly plagued by a varietyof social pathologies and health problemsincluding crime, alcoholism, drug abuse,and depression. New forms of entrenchedpoverty unknown during the socialist erasuch as vagabonds and homelessness,including homeless children, has nowdeveloped and is associated with itsapparently inevitable concomitant increasedpetty criminality.

THE BLACKLEG EPIDEMIC IN CANADIAN RAPESEED AS A “NORMAL AGRICULTURAL ACCIDENT”

In an attempt to encourage the growth of a desired plant, humans transform various characteristics and surrounding ecological conditions, often giving rise to periodic plant disease epidemics. This paper uses the case of a blackleg epidemic caused by Leptosphaeria maculans in rapeseed in Canada to demonstrate that such epidemics may be seen as “normal accidents,” i.e., the result of a particular set of social, natural, and technical relations. The paper discusses how the pressures to increase the uniformity and productivity of rapeseed agriculture led to the creation of favorable conditions for the spread of blackleg in the crop. We argue that more proactive agroecosystems are needed in order to reduce the risk of normal accidents. We suggest that this may be achieved by developing and modifying legal frameworks for plant variety protection, farming practices (e.g., rotations, multilines), and organizations so as to emphasize greater variability rather than distinctness and homogeneity.

Ethno-political transformation in the states of the former USSR

The collapse of the USSR resulted in a decline of institutions which had supported the dominance of ethnic Russians throughout the periphery of the country. In their place new institutions and mechanisms have been developed to regulate the access of people of different nationalities to power, resources and prestige. This article provides a comparative analysis of ethnic transformation in ten of the fourteen successor states of the former Soviet Union. The analysis identified five types of ethnic transformation in the successor states. In the Baltics the attempts of titular ethnic groups to secure predominance over ethnic Russians and radically transform institutions of the Soviet state resulted in the creation of exclusive ethnic democracies. In Central Asia an elite-negotiated transformation led to the emergence of ethnocracies in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, while the regimes formed in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were characterized by a mixture of ethnocratic and consociationalist features. In...

Changing Typology of Organised Crime in a Post-Socialist Lithuania (the Late 1980s–Early 2000s)

This paper analyzes the dynamics of organised crime in post-socialist Lithuania. Three overlapping periods in evolution of organised crime are discerned. During the mid 1980s organised crime emerged with the attempts to liberalise the state socialism by legalizing cooperative and individual property as a basis for economic activities. By the early 1990s organised crime in Lithuania began to metamorphose from illegal manufacturing to opportunistic criminality associated with the privatisation of state property. Since the mid 1990s organised crime has again undergone change. It has entered what could be termed a maturation phase. This maturation was influenced by a number of factors including; the end of the privatization process, resumed growth of the economy, development of the legal and fiscal infrastructure to regulate a market economy, and increasing effectiveness and successes of policing in Lithuania [1]. In this article the political, socio-economic, organisational and cultural factors that influenced the dynamics of change in organised crime are analyzed.

Globalization of agricultural production and research : The case of the rapeseed subsector

In the realms of business, policy and intellectual discussion, science and technology have been treated historically as enabling agents for the development of new products, technologies, knowledge, organizational and geographical arrangements of economic activities. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the analysis of how the globalization of production activities, which has been made possible in part by various scientific achievements, is changing technoscience itself. This paper examines the worldwide interaction between agricultural research and agricultural production by using the rapeseed subsector as an example. Bibliometric data on rapeseed, and economic statistics of production, import and export of rapeseed and its products between 1940 and 1996 are used simultaneously to examine the globalization of the rapeseed subsector and research activities in Canada, the US, Japan, China, India, the UK, France and Germany. A typology of production and research strategies that major rapeseed producing countries use to compete on the world oilseed market is developed.

Privatisation of state security and policing in Lithuania

This paper examines the dynamics of the privatisation of state security and policing in post-Soviet Lithuania. Two periods in the evolution of the industry, each with its distinct set of actors, dynamics and types of services offered are defined and analysed. In the early 1990s, the private security industry was characterised by competition, coercion and negotiations among private protection organisations (or criminal rackets) and four different factions of downsized ex-Soviet military, security and the police force personnel. Since the late 1990s, a consolidation and dramatic expansion of the industry has occurred as private security firms, national as well as transnational, emerged as the dominant institutional form of private security provision in the country. The paper argues that the restructuring and growth experienced by the security industry, since the late 1990s, are only indirectly related to a significant increase in crime throughout the region during the post-independence period. Broader socio-economic and regulatory changes are analysed in order to explain the restructuring and exponential growth of the industry. The contribution made by private firms to the security and stability of the country are discussed, alongside the problems associated with a rapid growth of private policing in Lithuania.

Rural Marginalization, Policing, and Crime in Lithuania

The paper analyzes the significant increase in rural crime in post‐independence Lithuania (1991–2004). It is argued that the changes in the crime situation in rural areas are associated with the formation of a stratum of post‐socialist rural poor. Three sub‐divisions of the marginalized rural poor are discernible: (1) pauperized post‐socialist peasantry, (2) poor, impoverished, and culturally estranged urban immigrants to rural areas, and (3) marginalized second‐generation rural youth. Political, socio‐economic, and legal factors contributing to the formation of each of the three sub‐divisions within the rural underclass are analyzed, as well as determinants of their group behavior. It is argued that in order to increase its effectiveness, rural policing needs to be more differentiated to be able to respond effectively to the group behavior typical of each of the three groups of rural poor.

Austerity, Labour Market Segmentation and Emigration: The Case of Lithuania

The so-called ‘Baltic model’ of austerity sometimes receives uncritical praise from advocates of tightened austerity. This model has achieved an almost uncontested vogue among international finance officials and European Union policy makers who portray it as a ‘socially costless’ template for other crisis economies. The article examines the impact of austerity on Baltic Lithuania, a peripheral newer EU member state, and suggests that the harsh austerity measures adopted by its government in order to restore fiscal balance have been far from socially costless. Austerity has accelerated fragmentation of the labour market into a differentially advantaged primary (largely public) sector, and an increasingly informalised secondary (low-skill manufacturing and services) sector, stimulating extraordinarily high levels of emigration as the population, especially younger persons, depart from the country. We describe this here as the formation of a new austeriat.