Introduction: global knowledge and advocacy networks

As global and regional networks proliferate, one important aspect of their operations has been the exchange of knowledge, information and expertise. ‘Global knowledge networks’ have become important components of the global political economy. Within these networks key knowledge institutions and actors can be development agencies, foundations, think‐tanks, universities, consultancy firms as well as individual experts and academics. A primary mechanism for the spread of their knowledge has been through global and regional networks. The article evaluates first, concepts of networks, especially the epistemic community and transnational issue network frameworks; second, theories about international diffusion of ideas; and third, some of the literature on the links between ideas and politics. Control over knowledge and information is important to policy making. Additionally, the status and prestige associated with scholarly expertise and professional training is politically empowering for individual experts consulted or co‐opted into policy making. Yet, norms and values cannot be divorced from ‘scientific advice’ especially when knowledge gains greater impact through advocacy and alliance with societal forces.     

Research,policy and funding – academic treadmills and the squeeze on intellectual spaces1

In recent years, there has been a great deal of collective rumination about social scientists' role in society. In the post‐1997 UK context, public policy commitments to ‘evidence‐based policy’ and ‘knowledge transfer’ have further stimulated such reflections. More recently, Michael Burawoy's 2004 address to the American Sociological Association, which called for greater engagement with ‘public sociology’ has reverberated throughout the discipline, motivating a series of debates about the purpose of sociological research. To date, most such contributions have been based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. In contrast, this paper responds directly to Burawoy's suggestion that we should ‘apply sociology to ourselves,’ in order that we ‘become more conscious of the global forces’ driving our research ( Burawoy 2005 : 285). Drawing on an empirical research project designed to explore of the relationship between health inequalities research and policy in Scotland and England, in the period from 1997 until 2007, this paper discusses data from interviews with academic researchers. The findings suggest that the growing pressure to produce ‘policy relevant’ research is diminishing the capacity of academia to provide a space in which innovative and transformative ideas can be developed, and is instead promoting the construction of institutionalized and vehicular (chameleon‐like) ideas. Such a claim supports Edward Said's (1994 ) insistence that creative, intellectual spaces within the social sciences are increasingly being squeezed. More specifically, the paper argues we ought to pay far greater attention to how the process of seeking research funding shapes academic research and mediates the interplay between research and policy.     

When David met goliath: Research collaboration in the context of changing political realities

This article examines the dimensions of research collaboration between researchers from EU and Central and East European countries in the post‐communist period. The discussion draws on experience of two initiatives for research co‐operation, COST and EUREKA. Following an analysis of the formal levels of participation of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in COST and EUREKA, the quality of exchange during the collaborative projects and the networks that have been established, some benefits from and barriers to East‐West co‐operation in research and technology are considered. Although the collaborative arrangements have been overall successful the different groups of participants display diverging and even sometimes conflicting expectations and perceptions of benefits. Two extreme positions view the collaborative links in terms of ‘master’ and ‘student’ and as relationships between partners of equal standing. By far the most serious barriers to successful East‐West research co‐operation stem from broad cultural differences and from a tendency to assume that lack of information means lack of development. The benefits from research co‐operation can increase many‐fold, it is suggested, if the relationships are seen as a symmetrical exchange rather than as a meeting between David and Goliath.     

A cross-national and comparative classification of in-country awareness and policy responses to ‘young carers’

The reality for many families where there is chronic illness, mental health problems, disability, alcohol or substance misuse is that children under the age of 18 are involved in caring. Many of these children – known as ‘young carers’ – will be providing regular and significant care, either episodically or over many years, often ‘hidden’ to health, social care and other welfare professionals and services. These children have most often been invisible in social policy and professional practice. What are the reasons why some countries recognize young carers as a priority for social policy while others (most) do not? What are the key factors that influence a country’s awareness and responses to these children? This article provides an original classification and analysis of country-level responses to young carers, drawing on published research, grey literature, policy documents and the authors’ extensive engagement in policy and practice networks for young carers and their families in a wide range of countries. The analysis identifies two of the key factors that influence the extent and nature of these policy responses, focusing on the importance of a reliable in-country research base and the contribution of influential national NGOs and their networks.     

‘Brain circulation’ and transnational knowledge networks: studying long‐term effects of academic mobility to Germany, 1954–2000

‘Brain circulation’ has become a buzzword for describing the increasingly networked character of highly skilled migration. In this article, the concept is linked to academics' work on circular mobility to explore the long‐term effects of their research stays in Germany during the second half of the twentieth century. Based on original survey data on more than 1800 former visiting academics from 93 countries, it is argued that this type of brain circulation launched a cumulative process of subsequent academic mobility and collaboration that contributed significantly to the reintegration of Germany into the international scientific community after the Second World War and enabled the country's rise to the most important source for international co‐authors of US scientists and engineers in the twenty‐first century. In this article I discuss regional and disciplinary specificities in the formation of transnational knowledge networks through circulating academics and suggest that the long‐term effects can be fruitfully conceptualized as accumulation processes in ‘centres of calculation’.     

(Re)politicizing global financial governance: what's ‘new’ about the ‘New International Financial Architecture’?

Abstract This article is a contribution to the (re)politicization of global financial governance currently underway in the interdisciplinary field of international political economy (IPE). Particular reference is made to the economistic and technicist discourse prevalent in the so‐called ‘New International Financial Architecture’ (NIFA) process. It is argued that a (re)politicized reading of global financial governance is enabled by a conceptualization of governance networks that combines the institutional focus of existing IPE research with a concern with the discursive dynamics of authority relations and that situates governance networks in the power relations, contestation, contradictions and reproduction of global finance. Claims to ‘newness’ regarding the NIFA process, made by both the ‘architects’ themselves and left unchallenged by the majority of IPE scholars, are also disputed. The NIFA process is shown to have continued the contested development of an exclusionary transnational neo‐liberal network of governance that first began to emerge in the mid‐1970s.     

Agency and clientship in public encounters: co‐constructing ‘neediness’ and ‘worthiness’ in shelter placement meetings

This article seeks to develop our understanding of the agency of vulnerable groups who at first sight may not seem to have much agency in their lives. It explores the co‐constructed nature of agency in three Danish homeless shelters. Unlike earlier interview‐based studies, our research is based on naturalistic data drawn from 23 video‐recorded placement meetings. Using concepts from Goffman, we examine how versions of the neediness and worthiness of homeless people are negotiated verbally and bodily between staff and clients. We find that homeless people have to juggle two partly contradictory roles when they are given or take the roles of either a (active) citizen or a (passive) client. Clientship is actively negotiated by both parties and demonstrates the agency of homeless people: they can collaborate with (as clients) or challenge (as citizens) the staff’s attempts to formulate solutions to their troubles. We further examine how the professional ideology of client centredness affects the meeting between the two parties. However, we show that, like any discourse, client centredness has no intrinsic meaning and is played out by actors in very different ways. In work with the homeless, the discourse of client centredness is related to discourses of ‘neediness’, ‘worthiness’ and ‘value for money’ that define agency in different ways and make three different client positions available: the resolute client, the acquiescent client and the passive client.     

In search of making a difference: Mexico in the OECD international development co‐operation architecture

A major challenge for Middle‐Income Countries is to ‘make a difference’ in global issues. The article examines Mexico's compromise in this regard within the OECD international development co‐operation architecture. It highlights some of the footprints of Mexican diplomacy since the OECD membership (1994), through the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness, up to the launch of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co‐operation (GPEDC), demonstrating how Mexico gradually increased its profile and responsibilities in specific international negotiation frameworks where its dual nature as donor/recipient is precisely contributing to ‘making a difference’. Suggesting that Mexico could expand its South‐South Co‐operation (SSC) even further, the authors argue that Mexico's quest is constrained by a certain consensus on the predominant development paradigm manifested in the GPEDC.     

Policy Coherence for Sustainable Agricultural Development: Uncovering Prospects and Pretence within the Swedish Policy for Global Development

Within the European Union, promotion of ‘policy coherence’ is intended to improve co‐ordination across sectors and groups of professionals, who make competing claims for agricultural development in low‐income countries. This article examines the prospects for stakeholders in Sweden to implement such a policy, drawing on experiences from the launch of a national multi‐stakeholder platform with the participation of 99 organisations. Its findings demonstrate institutional fragmentation and struggles for legitimacy, with the internationally heralded Swedish Policy for Global Development operated largely as a tokenistic instrument, legitimised by the pretence of stakeholder engagement. It argues for improved institutional support to facilitate cross‐sectoral dialogues to deconstruct social boundaries which are no longer relevant.     

‘Spatializing’ knowledge communities: towards a conceptualization of transnational innovation networks

In this article we seek to move beyond existing conceptualizations of innovation systems in two key respects. First, we identify the need for a shift away from research that focuses on discrete scales as the locus for understanding innovation towards that which places more emphasis on network relationships operating between and across different scales. Second, we illustrate the need for approaches that recognize the significance of innovative networks that extend beyond firms and, in particular, those associated with the movement of knowledgeable individuals. By synthesizing recent insights from three literatures on ‘communities’ of varying kinds — namely communities of practice, knowledge communities and transnational communities — we propose a conceptualization of transnational innovation networks based around three overlapping and mutually constitutive domains. In addition to the much‐studied ‘corporate‐institutional’ domain, we also identify ‘social network’ and ‘hegemonic‐discursive’ domains that may be important components of transnational innovation networks operating across different localities.     

‘To Do Or Not To Do (Gender)’ and Changing the Sex‐Typing of British Theatre

Concepts of doing, and undoing, gender have become increasingly prevalent within studies of sex‐typed work. However, these concepts, as currently figured and applied, contain a significant analytical lacuna: they tend not to register changes in the sex‐typing of work. In this study we engage this research gap by addressing the changing sex‐typing of British theatre — specifically, the shift from female‐dominated amateur to male‐dominated professional theatre work. We draw upon and develop concepts of doing and undoing gender to understand changes in the sex‐typing of work. In so doing, we explain how spatially and temporally differentiated ways of doing ‘male’ and ‘female’ become implicated in how people make sense of, and enact, the changing spaces and times of ‘amateur/female’ ‘professional/male’ work. Our analysis of theatre work suggests that, despite recent criticisms of their wider significance, concepts of un/doing gender are useful to understand broader changes in the sex‐typing of work. Thus, it also appears possible to (un)change such sex‐typings by undoing gender. However, our analysis suggests that such subversive acts remain ineffective, unless those involved in such gendered undoings engage with, rather than renounce, the gendered doings that help enact the changing sex‐typing of work.     

How manufacturing industries connect cities across the world: extending research on ‘multiple globalizations’

In this article, I concentrate on a macro‐level analysis of inter‐urban linkages in a ‘world city network’. Empirical research on the formation of a world city network has mostly concentrated on global service providers. Yet, globally operating manufacturing firms also choose distinct urban regions throughout the world as locational anchoring points. In this article, using social network analysis, I present the first global‐scale analysis of how manufacturing firms connected cities across the world (in 2010). To detect the differing ‘sectoral profiles’ and nodal centralities of cities functioning as geographical hubs of transnational production networks, it is necessary to analyse the network structure of distinct industrial subsectors within the global urban system. The data collected for analysis cover 120 top global firms from three manufacturing subsectors, of which two are analysed in more detail than the third. I then compare the nodal centralities of cities included in these subsectors' global networks with the GaWC research on the producer services sector that has been at the centre of previous analyses of the world city network. The comparison reveals the cities' differing positioning within ‘multiple globalizations’. The aim of the article is to extend research on world city networks.     

Exploring cultural economies of internationalization: the role of ‘iconic individuals’ and ‘brand leaders’ in the globalization of headhunting

Understanding the internationalization of professional services like advertising, architecture, accounting, consulting and legal services continues to attract considerable attention in academic and policy circles. Research in geography and management studies has emphasized the different organizational strategies adopted by firms as they seek to develop and maintain a competitive position within an increasingly global economy. In this article we develop a new strand in this literature by adopting a cultural economy approach to argue that an important, yet comparatively neglected, aspect of the internationalization strategies of transnational professional service firms is the role of certain ‘iconic individuals’ and ‘brand leaders’ in influencing the practice of internationalization. Drawing on empirical research into the burgeoning European executive search (headhunting) industry we identify a cadre of such individuals and brand leaders that act as resources other firms leverage when internationalizing. This highlights the importance of a cultural economy perspective in theories of the internationalization of professional services and its value in moving discussions beyond purely economic analyses of competitive advantage.     

Leveraging symbolic capital: the use of blat networks across transnational spaces

In this article, we contribute to debates on how social networks sustain migrants' entrepreneurial activities. By reporting on 31 interviews with Eastern European migrants in the UK, we provide a critical lens on the tendency to assume that migrants have ready‐made social networks in the host country embedded in co‐ethnic communities. We extend this limited perspective by demonstrating how Eastern European migrants working in the UK transform blat social networks, formulated in the cultural and political contours of Soviet society, in their everyday lived experiences. Our findings highlight not only the monetarization of such networks but also the continuing embedded nature of trust existing within these networks, which cut across transnational spaces. We show how forms of social capital based on Russian language use and legacies of a shared Soviet past, are just as important as the role of ‘co‐ethnics’ and ‘co‐migrants’ in facilitating business development. In doing so, we present a more nuanced understanding of the role that symbolic capital plays in migrant entrepreneurial journeys and its multifaceted nature.     

Meeting the needs of sexually exploited young people: the challenge of conducting policy‐relevant research

This article is concerned with the relationship between research, policy and service development. It outlines some of the findings of a two‐year research study exploring the extent of, and responses to, the service needs of young people at risk of sexual exploitation in London. The study is described as a case study in conducting policy‐relevant research into a ‘hidden’ social problem. Some challenges of such research are identified. In particular, we discuss our utilisation of the Multiple Indicator Method as a means of estimating a ‘hard to count’ population. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Brazil and the Shifting Consensus on Development Co‐operation: Salutary Diversions from the ‘Aid‐effectiveness’ Trail?

Emerging economies emphasise horizontality and mutual opportunity in their relationship with developing countries, promising an alternative to the failings of traditional North‐South co‐operation. This article draws on research on Brazil's technical co‐operation and its health dimension to compare the Brazilian model with established aid‐effectiveness' principles and to discuss the appropriateness of the latter as standards against which to appraise emerging donors' co‐operation. The analysis shows that, despite progress towards greater dialogue between traditional and emerging donors, the ‘aid‐effectiveness’ framework still falls short of capturing the idiosyncrasies of South‐South co‐operation and therefore offers an incomplete international standard on how best to conduct development co‐operation.     

Breast‐Feeding Advocacy,Risk Society and Health Moralism: A Decade’s Scholarship

This article reviews research published this century that engages critically with the mantra ‘Breast is Best’ and the associated expansion of official breast‐feeding promotion programmes. In recent years there has been a marked increase in the number of such studies published. They mostly explore experience in English speaking, industrialised countries (the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain) which are in some social and cultural respects dissimilar, yet where very similar developments and problems are detected in regards to breast‐feeding promotion. We highlight how this exploration of breast‐feeding promotion internationally has developed understanding of wider sociological themes. This scholarship, we suggest, has provided a powerful illustration of the relation between risk society (more particularly a heightened consciousness of risk) and the evolution of a code of conduct that regulates behaviour, that has been termed ‘health moralizm’. The article covers three themes: ‘Science, risk society, authority and choice’; ‘Public health policy and infant feeding’; and ‘Moralization and women’s identity work’. We conclude that the research discussed shows how the sociological imagination continues to shed light on the relation between private troubles and public issues. We also suggest one conclusion that can be drawn from this research is that official discourse and everyday maternal experience appear increasingly distant from each other.     

Understanding the geographical development of social movements: a web‐link analysis of Slow Food

Slow Food (SF) is a global, grassroots movement aimed at enhancing and sustaining local food cultures and traditions worldwide. Since its establishment in the 1980s, Slow Food groups have emerged across the world and embedded in a wide range of different contexts. In this article, we explain how the movement, as a diverse whole, is being shaped by complex dynamics existing between grassroots flexibilities and emerging drives for movement coherence and harmonization. Unlike conventional studies on social movements, our approach helps one to understand transnational social movements as being simultaneously coherent and diverse bodies of collective action. Drawing on work in the fields of relational geography, assemblage theory and webometric research, we develop an analytical strategy that navigates and maps the entire Slow Food movement by exploring its ‘double articulation’ between the material‐connective and ideational‐expressive. Focusing on representations of this connectivity and articulation on the internet, we combine methodologies of computation research (webometrics) with more qualitative forms of (web) discourse analysis to achieve this. Our results point to the significance of particular networks and nodal points that support such double movements, each presenting core logistical channels of the movement's operations as well as points of relay of new ideas and practices. A network‐based analysis of ‘double articulation’ thus shows how the co‐evolution of ideas and material practices cascades into major trends without having to rely on a ‘grand', singular explanation of a movement's development.     

‘Recovery work’ and ‘magic’ among long‐term mental health service‐users

Based on an extended period of qualitative research with mental health service‐users in north‐east England, this article considers the various forms of ‘magical work’ and ‘recovery work’ that emerge in the lives of people living with severe mental health problems. Given the now sizeable body of literature which seeks to problematize traditional conceptual boundaries of work, the article asks to what extent these hidden and unusual work‐forms might also be considered legitimate members of the category. Rather than argue for the expansion of the construct to accommodate these activities, the paper attempts simply to problematize the extent to which so‐called ‘mad’ forms of work are irresolvably different to more conventional forms of occupation. In challenging notions of the psychiatric patient as inevitably inactive, new vocabularies for service‐user work are explored. Concluding remarks are also directed to recent policy debates concerning ‘back‐to‐work’ welfare reform for long‐term out of work service‐users.