*** SOPHIE BOUTILLIER, FARIDAH DJELLAL, FAÏZ GALLOUJ, BLANDINE LAPERCHE, DIMITRI UZUNIDIS (Eds.): L'innovation verte. De la théorie aux bonnes pratiques. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 Avenue Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Business & Innovation" series, No. 3. 2012, 401 pp, €46. ISBN 978-90-5201-864-5.
Chroniclers are always wary of back-covers because they rightly try to reel in potential readers. In this case, however, the back-cover is less of an invitation to buy the book than an encouragement for people to open their eyes and properly consider the world around them - more particularly, the world we shall pass on to our children, as you can judge for yourselves: 'As throughout the world, the use of natural resources rises inexorably and the environment deteriorates, economists, managers and politicians focus their concerns on loss of competitiveness for their company or economy. They pay attention to the financial performance of economic systems to the detriment of profoundly considering the urgent changes needed in modes of production, consumption and trade whereby the environmental constraint could be turned into countless opportunities for innovation, and lead to the emergence of a new economy…' As you can see, this book by scientists, which is the fruit of debate at a summer school of the 'Réseau de Recherche sur l'Innovation' held in 2011 at the 'Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale' in Dunkirk, France, is both a hymn and an urgent incantation to act differently.
In their general introduction, the book's editors start by giving an overview of the challenge to be dealt with, a challenge that is 'doubly rare,' namely energy resources, the demand for which is constantly increasing, and, more worrying still because of its potentially lethal nature, the capacity of the biosphere 'to serve as a rubbish dump for greenhouse gas and myriad chemical pollutants.' Clearly, the 'machine for generating wealth' is now standing at a crossroads, as is already shown by certain changes in the behaviour of individuals and enterprises. The authors say the role of the public authorities will be crucial to ensure the emergence of a 'green innovation' society at last, alongside sustainable development and a more virtuous economy. It is for the public authorities to push for the inevitable new world because 'nothing is more stimulating to scientific creativity than the prospect of growing shortages.' Far from being pessimistic, the scientists writing in this book resolutely pave the way for the new world in their analysis of various experiences of eco-innovation and how these fit into the new 'socio-technical paradigm in the making.'
The first section of the book is devoted to a general theoretical backdrop to the notion of green innovation and how taking the environmental problem into account could transform the dominant economic models and/or theories. The authors challenge the persistent domination of the industrial paradigm now that the tertiary sector has become the main engine of the economy in the most developed nations. This is one reason why Sophie Boutillier of 'Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale' and Ingrid Vaileanu-Paun of Université Paris 7 contrast it with the paradigm of an economy of functionalities, arguing that the eco-compatible potential of services can only be achieved if one moves beyond the systematic and outright purchasing of goods to supplying them for a temporary period only. They also argue that the development of new information and communication technology, along with the digital economy, could support the new type of social and economic organisation on the horizon. Noteworthy too is a contribution by Aurore Moroncini and Mouloud Kadri (of Mons University in Belgium) on implementation of the European Union's Eco-Management and Audit Scheme, the case of the waste re-use centre at Thumaide in Belgium providing, they say, proof of how the emergence of voluntary environmental protection approaches can be seen as beneficial by companies. The second part of the book looks at the relationship between entrepreneurial strategies and the promotion of green innovation. Blandine Laperche and Dimitri Uzunidis demonstrate, for example, that it would be difficult for eco-innovation to emerge solely from company strategies, which still focus at present on short-term profits. Nevertheless, they point out that the current crisis could lead some of them to change tack rather faster than one might have expect. Danièle Bénézech confirms the potential of 'short-circuits,' local networks that can reconcile both sides of the market, supply and demand. The third part of the book is devoted to the hypothesis that green innovation could take root more easily if it were part of a strong nexus of geographical, cognitive, organisations, productive and financial proximity. Based on the example of California, an area of the world par excellence for the green revolution, a rather pessimistic conclusion is finally drawn: 'The financial crisis, tightening budgets, pay austerity and so on leave little room for the designing of a new economy.' Perhaps. But a revolution is never launched by the powers-that-be, be they political or economic; revolutions have always been started by dissatisfied citizens. And there are plenty of those around today!
Michel Theys
*** CORNEL MICU: From Peasants to Farmers? Agrarian Reforms and Modernisation in Twentieth Century Romania. A Case Study: Bordei Verde Commune in Braila County. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Publications Universitaires Européennes - European University Studies," No. 1090. 2012, 294 pp, €49-80. ISBN 978-3-631-62247-6.
Romania was subjected to no fewer than four rounds of agrarian reform in the twentieth century, from the granting of farmland in 1921 and 1945 to collectivisation in the 50s and then a return to private land ownership with the collapse of the Ceausescu regime. Nothing did much good and farming obstinately remained the most backward part of the Romanian economy, to such an extent that it was one of the most sensitive areas of Romania's accession negotiations for joining the European Union. In this book, a political scientists and historian lecturing at Danubius University in Galai sheds light on the situation, looking in detail at the work of the three sectors of Romanian society involved in these rounds of reform, namely the country's elite (which decided on the shape of the reforms), the civil service given the job of putting it into practice and the people on the ground who had to bear the consequences. The study reveals that the modernisation of Romanian farming encouraged by the EU has had far greater effect than the previous attempts.
(PBo)
*** JOSEP L. BARONA: From Hunger to Malnutrition. The Political Economy of Scientific Knowledge in Europe, 1918-1960. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (see above). "European Food Issues" series, No. 3. 2012, 372 pp, €46. ISBN 978-90-5201-856-0.
Lecturer in the history of science at Valencia University in Spain, Josep Barona makes a detailed study in this book of the interactions between diet, hunger and health in Europe from the First World War to the 1960s, making use of the archives of the League of Nations, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the Rockfeller Foundation Rockefeller and World Health Organisation to demonstrate how food shortages affected people's health and often gave a boost to scientific research, gradually coming to combine with a new economic policy of scientific knowledge.
(MT)
*** Futuribles. Analyse et prospective. Futuribles Sarl (47 rue de Babylone, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53633770 - Fax: 42226554 - email: revue@futuribles.com - Internet: http://www.futuribles.com ). December 2012, No. 391, 112 pp, €14. Annual subscription: €115. ISBN 978-2-84387-404-8.
The December issue of the biggest review in the French language on future prospects, founded in 1974 by Hugues de Jouvenel, is very rich and eclectic. There is, for example an article by Jean-Michel Huet on the four billion people around the world who have the same needs as the rest of us - to eat, drink, have lighting, etc - but who are of no interest to private companies because of their low incomes. Huet explains with strong backup that private companies are making a strategic error by ignoring 'the people forgotten at the bottom of the pyramid,' as Franklin Roosevelt put it in 1932. Nadine Cattan (CNRS) describes four scenarios for France's place in the world for 2040, while Jean-François Drevet, former European Commission official, provides rather sad answers to the question of whether the European Union can get out of the current impasse, arguing that the nation states have thus far not done enough to ensure the European prevails over the national interest.
(MT)
*** FRANCESCO GARIBALDO, MIRELLA BAGLIONI, CATHERINE CASEY, VOLKER TELLJOHANN (Eds.): Workers, Citizens, Governance. Socio-Cultural Innovation at Work. Peter Lang (see above). "Labour, Education & Society" series, No. 27. 2012, 222 pp, €39-80.
ISBN 978-3-631-61429-7.
In this book, sociologists and economists look at the problems facing democracy in the light of barriers to participatory democracy in companies and the world of work in Europe. They list of the problems connected with the recent rise in rules and systems imposed by the élite, moving on to formulate and imagine alternatives which the social partners could use to boost and rebalance social dialogue. In this way, explain the authors, democracy in general can be given a boost. In the first chapter, industrial sociologist Francesco Garibaldo explains that the current crisis arises from 'neo-liberalised regulatory regimes,' Roland Erne (University College Dublin) says that European trade unions, caught between 'the pre-determined constraints of technocratic decision making at the EU level and the particular demands of national socio-economic processes,' often ignore their mission of economic, social and political emancipation. In the same spirit, Mirella Baglioni, lecturer of socio-economics at Parma University, shows that the role of the social partners differs from one country to the next, their commonality being the fact that they 'do not express shared values leading to socio-cultural innovation in labour relations,' while Richard Hyman urges the trade unions to consider a new strategy of social inclusion to finally give some substance to social Europe. Other authors critically analyse the re-commodification of a series of societal goods, the effectiveness of EU worker information and consultation directives and weaknesses in the institutional resources provided for meeting the EUROPE 2020 objectives, with the final chapter examining ways of improving the gloomy balance sheet in the future.
(PBo)
*** HELEN STALFORD: Children and the European Union. Rights, Welfare and Accountability. Hart Publishing (16 C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 - Fax: 510710 - email: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). "Modern Studies in European Law" series, No. 32. 2012, 252 pp, £27-50. ISBN 978-1-84113-765-0.
There are some 107 million children in the European Union and a total of 5.4 million babies are born each year in the twenty-seven Member States. Helen Stalford should therefore be thanked for carrying out research into how this fifth of the EU's population is treated. Director of the European Children's Rights Unit at the School of Law and Social Justice at Liverpool University, the lawyer cum author makes a detailed and critical analysis of the legal and political framework underlying children's rights in the European Union, covering domains like child protection, family law, education and immigration. Since children's rights are now explicitly mentioned in the Lisbon Treaty and in February 2011, the European Commission launched an Agenda to boost children's rights in practice, this book serves as a reference in this domain. What is the value-added of dealing with children's rights at EU level? What mechanisms does the EU have for better promotion of children's rights? How can one be certain that measures taken by the EU in this domain do not duplicate or, worse, contradict provisions in the Member States or measures recommended by the Council of Europe or the United Nations? To what extent is the EU children's rights agenda dominated by a paternalistic preoccupation with protecting children as opposed to empowering them? Is there sufficient and meaningful EU provision that endorses and supports children as independent actors rather than as merely passive objects of control and care? These are some of the questions to which enlightening answers are given in the book.
(PBo)
*** Handbook on European Non-Discrimination Law. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (11 Schwarzenbergplatz, 1040 Vienna. Tel: (43-1) 58030-60 - Fax: 58030-693 - email: info@fra.europa.eu - Internet: http://www.fra.europa.eu ) and European Court of Human Rights (67075 Strasbourg Cedex. Tel: (33-3) 88412018 - Fax: 88412730 - email: publishing@echr.coe.int - Internet: http://www.echr.coe.int ). 2011, 156 pp. ISBN 978-92-871-9995-2 and 978-92-9192-669-5.
This book and CD-Rom gives a useful description of all European Union and Council of Europe non-discrimination legislation, showing how they merge and sometimes diverge. The impressive body of law drawn up in this field by the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice is also reviewed.
(MT)