伦敦大学亚非学院

This article posits the contradictory relation between capitalist and non-capitalist segments of an economy as a key dimension of the colonial encounter and as a critical and constitutive element in the contemporary process of postcolonial capitalist development. It points to the obfuscation of this contradiction in the prevalent theoretical approaches in development economics, particularly focusing on the discourse on informal economy and the role of identity. It then foregrounds an emerging theoretical framework on postcolonial economic dynamics — and its key methodological tenets — that frames the development process as being marked by this on-going and ever-occurring contradiction. The article, however, highlights a key gap in this framework to grapple with the role of identities in these development dynamics, and points to some critical methodological approaches to identity that may be productively integrated to further develop it. Finally, the article provides empirical illustrations from the Indian context that underscores the constitutive role of caste in shaping both the reproduction of non-capitalist informal enterprises that sustain the working populations excluded from the capitalist segments, as well as the selective inclusion of parts of this population into capitalist segments as informal wage labor — processes that can be generatively interpreted through the above theoretical framework. Through this intervention, the article aims to clear grounds towards formulating a pathway to build a decolonized approach to contemporary processes of economic development.

This paper presents the first long-run estimates of global and regional income polarization covering the period 1960–2020. Using grouped data from the World Income Inequality Database, we reconstruct country income distributions using a flexible parametric model to compute both bipolarization indices and the Duclos–Esteban–Ray (DER) polarization measure, which allows for multiple poles. To address normative considerations, we estimate relative and absolute versions of polarization measures and introduce a parametrization of the DER index that is jointly scale- and translation-invariant. Our results show a pronounced decline in relative global polarization and bipolarization since the 1980s, consistent with a global distribution that shifts from multiple modes in the 1960s–70s toward an increasingly unimodal shape by the 2000s. In contrast, absolute bipolarization has continued to rise markedly since the 1980s, while absolute polarization generally increases for low-to-moderate values of the identification (sensitivity) parameter. Regional patterns are highly heterogeneous: absolute polarization is highest in North America and Europe and Central Asia; it has grown fastest in South Asia despite remaining lowest in level. In contrast, relative polarization peaked in East Asia and the Pacific before declining, while rising steadily in North America. China and India play a pivotal role in shaping trends of global absolute bipolarization. Our results underscore the need to consider both relative and absolute perspectives when assessing the implications of income polarization.

This article traces the shifting relationship between the courts, the public, and the media in England and Wales from the 1925 prohibition on courtroom photography to the contemporary regime of livestreamed and recorded proceedings. It situates the introduction of the ban on courtroom images within the first administrative turn of the judiciary, when mechanised record-keeping and the increasing use of photography by the mass media threatened to destabilise judicial authority, existing class relations, and the courts' control over judicial meaning-making. A century later, the return of cameras to the courtroom is analysed as part of a second administrative turn driven by digitalisation, datafication, and the transparency imperative. Rather than signalling a liberalisation of visual access, the reintroduction of cameras has been contingent on the judiciary's enhanced capacity to produce and control its own 'administrative images'. Today, images of the courtroom operate simultaneously as instruments of surveillance and sources of data within a broader digital infrastructure of governance. The article argues that contemporary open justice, increasingly equated with transparency, no longer rests primarily on public observation of courts but on managed visibility through digital capture, thereby recasting the historic tension between law and images within the logic of algorithmic and data-driven judicial administration.

Over recent decades, we have witnessed the consolidation of securitization as a framework for understanding state-led responses to migratory influxes, in particular focused on border impenetrability and territorial control. However, we have also seen growing tensions and contradictions between migration securitization practices on the ground, migration governance processes, and racialized regimes of capitalist production. This article highlights how the migration securitization literature often homogenizes and universalizes the relationship between security responses and borders, by bringing it into conversation with the literature on racial capitalism. We bridge this theoretical divide via a case study examination of Brazil's "Operation Welcome" since 2018, which has worked to receive and resettle Venezuelan migrants and refugees away from the border state of Roraima to other parts of the country. We present how the militarization of Operation Welcome was carried out through a "bureaucratization of militarization," instead of conventional military tactics seeking to contain migration. And we discuss how access to the national territory and legal employment for Venezuelans in Brazil facilitates their insertion into racial capitalist structures of labor exploitation. Employing extensive fieldwork data, interviews, and participant observations to sustain these claims, we present how migration securitization methods, processes, and outcomes are not simply the result of sovereignty anxieties or a need to reaffirm border security, but rather are also shaped by global and local structures of (racialized) exploitation and dispossession.

This paper examines the differential effects of quantitative easing on the young, middle-aged and pensioners by comparing the periods before and after quantitative easing interventions in the UK. Quantitative easing may have boosted employment opportunities, as suggested by a few studies, but this paper finds that quantitative easing did not increase income and consumption for the working age groups. However, average income and consumption of the pensioners increase for the same period. The income gain may be partly due to the triple lock on pension. Overall, quantitative easing has a pronounced positive impact on wealth across all generations.