Caleb Goods

Labour in global production networks: Workers and unions in mining engineering work:

Understanding the role of labour, underplayed in global production networks (GPN) theory, has guided this research on the mining engineering services sector. During the project, the global mining industry entered a downturn. Asking how mining and engineering firms responded to that downturn is a specific variant of wider questions about the place of labour in GPNs and whether labour can shape the GPNs of which it is part. Based on interviews with union officials, workers and management in Australia, the authors show that cost-cutting by global mining companies impacted heavily on the mining engineering sector, pressuring global and local firms. Labour – be it the work process or workers themselves – was central to how firms reacted. The agency of workers and their union was deeply constrained because of the power of companies in GPNs and the nature of the national state and local economies, areas in need of further theoretical development.

Ecological modernisation, industry policy and the Australian automotive industry, 2007–13

Ecological modernisation (EM), in theory and practice, has increasingly become central to contemporary state environmental reform agendas. EMs allure lies in its central tenet that the contemporary institutions of capitalism can be ecologically adapted to achieve ‘win–win’ economic and environmental outcomes. How government policy can best accomplish this aim is contested, however, with weak and strong EM approaches advocating different roles for the state in facilitating ecological restructuring. The latter approaches argue that for EM processes to be successful, state intervention via ecological industrial policy is required. This article makes a unique contribution to the industry policy and EM debate by assessing the manner in which EM was conceptualised and implemented within the Australian governments automotive industry policy between 2007 and 2013. This analysis raises issues about the institutional capacity of states to pursue either weak or strong forms of EM. 生态现代化在理论上和实践上日益成为当代国家环境改革的中心议题。环境现代化所以诱人在于其核心原则：当代资本主义体制生态上可以取得经济、环境的双赢结果。不过政府政策如何实现这一目标确是挑战，生态现代化有强、弱二途，政府在促进生态重构时扮演不同的角色。按强势思路，要想生态现代化成功，需要国家通过生态产业政策进行干预。本文对2007至2013年澳大利亚政府的汽车产业政策形成和实施的方式做了评估，希望以此对产业政策以及生态现代化的辩论有所助益。本文还提出了国家实施强、弱生态现代化的体制能力的问题。