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Browsing Department of Business and Politics (DBP) by Author "Thompson, Grahame"
Now showing items 1-5 of 5
The Political Implications of Limited Liability, Legal Personality and CitizenshipThompson, Grahame (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper investigates the legal and commercial consequences of companies being considered as both an entity and a person in law – hence the notion of 'cyborg' in its title. It concentrates upon legal personhood and relates this particular feature to the issue of corporate citizenship. In turn corporate citizenship provides a link to considering the political role of companies, since in claiming citizenship they are implicitly at least claiming a particular set of political rights consequent upon that status, and announcing a particular politically constrained context associated with their operational characteristics. But what would be involved in granting companies full citizenship rights in the image of natural person citizenship? The paper explores this issue in connection to the differences between corporate social responsibility and an earlier idea of the socially responsible corporation that arose in the debate between Adolph Berle and Edwin Dodd in the 1930s, focussing on the notion of 'enterprise entity analysis' that was posed in that debate, and which has reappeared more recently. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8323
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Thompson, Grahame (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8070
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What Would it Mean to be an Artisan of Finance?Thompson, Grahame (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper confronts the question of what a revitalized financial sector might look like if this were to be reconfigured so as to reproduce first an artisanal like persona for the financial analyst and craft like organizational structure for financial businesses, and secondly if this were to be re-territorialized so that it acted like a partisan rather than, as at present, like a disembedded footloose structure of 'global finance'. Initially the analysis is pitched at a rather abstract and theoretical level – pulling together artisans, nomads and partisans and tracing their intellectual lineages. But the chapter ends with three very concrete illustrations of actual financial relations in practice that meet some of the criteria for being both artisanal and partisanal. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8458
Files in this item: 1Grahame_Thompson.pdf (1.310Mb)
Thompson, Grahame (København, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Many formulations of contemporary globalization suggest that citizenship is being radically transformed by processes of transnationalism. And the business world is reacting to this sense of change by firms claiming to be 'global corporate citizens'. But what exactly does global corporate citizenship mean and what are its implications? In this paper a preliminary response is made to these questions by situating corporate citizenship within the wider framework of constitutional debates about private economic law and the juridicalization of the international sphere more generally. The paper poses the issue of whether there is a quasi-constitutionalization of the international corporate sphere underway and the possible governance consequences of this process. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7379
Files in this item: 1wp cbp 2008-50.pdf (136.0Kb)
An Exploration of its Political ConnectionsThompson, Grahame (Walton Hall, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The notion of 'everyday life' (EDL) has found renewed analytical purchase in recent years and has become a widely used term in explorations of social life, moving all the way from studies of the family to the financial system. But what exactly is EDL and how can we understand it? This paper undertakes a preliminary investigation into how the term has been interpreted in various literatures. There are a wide variety of analytical takes on EDL and the objective is to utilize this preliminary discussion to provide the intellectual resources to deal with its connections to politics and constitutionality in particular. Although the relationship between EDL and constitutionality might at first sight seem remote the argument is that there is an emerging constitutionalization of EDL that is heralding a potentially new form of citizenship amongst those subject to its strictures. Throughout the paper it is relationships operating in the imaginary that are stressed, contrasting this to a more normal emphasis on social relationships in the first instance. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8780
Files in this item: 1Grahame_Thompson_WP130.pdf (591.2Kb)
Now showing items 1-5 of 5


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Though a new media bill was signed into law, the legislation failed to decriminalize insulting the president or alleviate other repressive measures, and had no immediate effect on the climate of press freedom ahead of the November presidential vote. To pave the way for a smooth re-election of Emomali Rahmon to a fourth term in office, authorities continued to gag critical voices by using a set of repressive tactics: intimidation of journalists by security services, denial of accreditation, and exhaustive litigation. The state communications agency ordered Internet service providers to block access to news websites and social networking sites, including Facebook and YouTube. Two independent regional broadcasters accused the authorities of jamming their satellite signal at least three times during the year. In November, Rahmon was declared a winner of another seven-year term in office; his rival quit the race, citing obstruction by the elections commission.
In April, media experts contracted by the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the pan-European human rights and security watchdog, presented their review of the media law that President Rahmon had signed a month earlier. The experts welcomed the new legislation, but said it needed more work.
|Insult of the president should be decriminalized.
|The definition of censorship should be expanded to include the ban on post-production censorship.
|Broadcast media, which is subject to licensing under the new law, should be freed from the required registration process.
|The provision on the protection of journalists' sources should be expanded to include what qualifies as legitimate requirements to reveal the sources.
In February, a district court in the capital, Dushanbe, ordered the independent weekly Imruz News to pay 50,000 somoni (US$10,500) in damages to Rustam Hukumov, the son of a high-ranking government official, who had filed a defamation lawsuit against the paper.
Tajik officials and residents alike continued to exhaust critical news outlets and individual reporters with time-consuming and costly court battles by accusing them of defamation or insult of honor and dignity.
October 2012
|Imruz News publishes an article alleging that Russian authorities freed Hukumov from jail in exchange for Tajikistan's release of two imprisoned Russian pilots. Hukumov was sentenced to nine and a half years on drug trafficking charges in September 2010, but was acquitted on appeal and released a year later.
January 2013
|Hukumov files a defamation lawsuit against Imruz News, seeking 50,000 somoni in damages.
February 2013
|A Dushanbe district court rules against Imruz News and orders the paper to pay the damages.
June 2013
|An appeals court upholds the verdict against the newspaper.
According to the Dushanbe-based National Association of Independent Mass Media, Tajik authorities issued orders to block access to 131 websites in January. At least three news websites as well as the social networking sites YouTube and Facebook were among those blocked. Authorities cited alleged public complaints over insulting online commentaries as a reason for the action.
Internet penetration in Tajikistan has been on the rise in the past five years, as are official attempts to censor the Web.
Print journalists and news websites were not the only ones targeted by the authorities during the year--independent broadcasters also reported getting caught in official crosshairs.
Radio Ozodi
|In January, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that Tajik authorities not only blocked its regional news service Radio Ozodi but also refused to reconsider a June 2012 decision to deny accreditation to a veteran reporter. Radio Ozodi often criticized Tajik authorities for government corruption, human rights abuses, and poor social and economic policies. The block lasted a few days.
|According to news reports, the opposition Kazakh broadcaster K-Plus accused Tajik authorities of blocking its website and jamming satellite signal in late May and early July. Both times, interference with the signal followed the broadcaster's critical coverage of President Rahmon and his personal life.

subset: commoncrawl


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Rollins brings Fall Classic insider's perspective to FOX
Phillies shortstop, veteran of two World Series, working pregame, postgame shows
BOSTON -- A familiar face patrolled the area in front of the Red Sox's dugout hours before first pitch Wednesday, and although he wasn't in uniform, he could probably relate more with the players getting ready for game time than anyone else around him.
While former players often morph into media types post-playing career and are commonplace among the masses that gather to watch a team take batting practice, it's also not unusual to spot a current player or two hired to provide analysis during the playoffs.
Rollins, who just completed his 14th season with the Phillies, is working for FOX and FOX Sports 1 throughout the postseason. He provided analysis and insight during the American League Championship Series and is on site for the World Series, working the pregame and postgame shows for the national broadcast in both Boston and St. Louis.
Rollins was targeted for this gig not only because of his superb communication skills. He also falls into the category of been there, done that, having played in five postseasons and two World Series, winning the whole thing with the Phils in 2008.
"Having the experience of playing in the World Series, losing an LCS, winning an LCS ... just to give a different perspective of current players as opposed to guys that have been out of the game for a while," Rollins said. "Or people that are just professional writers, reporters. I think it gives a different view and definitely a more current view."
The Phillies won five division titles in a row from 2007-11, reaching the World Series in 2008, when they won it, and '09, when they lost to the Yankees. They lost the pennant to the Giants in 2010 and did not advance out of the first round in their last postseason appearance.
The mish-mosh of results over the years has given Rollins an appreciation for what the Red Sox and Cardinals are going through this week, having made it through the stress and anxiety (and yes, a little fun as well) of October to get to the point where there are only two teams still playing.
The World Series, Rollins said, is an entirely different animal.
"It's different than an LCS, because you're no longer qualifying," he said. "You're playing to get the next stage [in the LCS]. Now, you're at the next stage and this is the last week to nine days in baseball, no matter what. You want to be the last team standing."
And often, it's not the best team that wins as much as it is the team having a better week. Superior pitching staffs, flawless defense and timely hitting get a team through the long haul of a season. A bad week in October, however, can nullify everything in an instant.
Rollins has experienced both.
"We lost to the Yankees in 2009 -- I didn't think they were the better team," he said. "They just beat us in a seven-game series. In 2008, we won the World Series and I bet you [the Rays] would say the same thing -- we just beat them in a seven-game series. You just understand the importance of every game, situations, executing ... but you hope your team is hotter than theirs."
Rollins echoed the sentiment heard around baseball a lot since the end of the LCS -- the Red Sox and the Cardinals are truly the best two teams in baseball, having beaten the teams they were supposed to beat to get to this point. Many years, that hasn't been the case, proving Rollins' theory true -- sometimes teams advance because they simply had a better week.
Hours before first pitch of Game 1, Rollins picked the Red Sox to win the Series, although he said the fundamentally sound, deep Cardinals have done plenty so far to make a Boston championship seem less certain.
"I like the way St. Louis has come together at the right time," he said. "But Boston's doing the same thing. They found a way to win with a big swing from Shane [Victorino], a big swing from Big Papi [David Ortiz], without hitting, to win a series.
"Hopefully that changes for Boston, and hopefully St. Louis keeps swinging the bats. No one wants to see a dull World Series. That's a waste of everybody's time. These are the two best baseball teams in Major League Baseball this year. It's going to be fun. But I said Boston from the beginning. I can't change my mind now."


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To anyone bemused by the Olympic opening ceremony, wondering what nurses, blacksmiths and Mr Bean had to do with Great British athletics, here's a slice of sporting heritage from ex-Hefner frontman Darren Hayman. Taking a break from his horny underdog persona, the Essex singer has written a tribute to Britain's open-air swimming pools - lidos - and recorded it without a single vocal. 'If I am known or liked for anything at all in my career then it is for my lyrics… I see words as incisive, accurate tools,' he claimed when he announced the project. It's a triumph then that Lido is so precise and delicious, its instrumentals perfectly evoking warm memories of paddling under blue skies in chlorine water.
With the same homemade production as The Ship's Piano, Lido is an hour of acoustic-electronic pop, each track swathed in nostalgia like Boards of Canada gone busking. Each track has also been influenced by an actual lido, with 'Parliament Hill's violins, beats and bells emerging from the roar of boys' showers - one of several recorded for the album that must've netted Hayman some sort of restraining order. 'Tinside' is exquisite, just banjo and mellow accordions, and features the sound of the caretaker lashing the kids with a cold hose; the lido equivalent of a wave machine. Though obviously drawn from Hayman's Thatcherite childhood, the era he's targeting is a vague one - 'London Fields's plucked guitar and old keyboards could be a Seventies sitcom title.
Lido doesn't just stay in the capital, and features enough musical variation to fulfill Hayman's assurance that you won't miss the lyrics. There are occasions, however, where he commands so much emotion that his reedy vocals would be a bonus: 'Saltdean' and its bittersweet keyboards could easily carry one of his venereal anecdotes, as could the sad shuffling banjo of 'Black Rock Baths' and its obvious verse-verse-chorus pattern. But it's a tiny niggle, and Lido works best in its own quaint spirit, remembering the public pools as the hubs of the community they used to be.
And in some places, still are: 'Stonehaven', named after the Olympic-size heated seawater pool in Scotland, uses stylophone-led electronics from Hayman's short-lived duo The French; one of the most promising projects of his career. It's a bopping five minutes of experimental pop, juggling glitch with folk guitars and cementing the atmosphere Lido's been striving for - people playing in city centres, innocent times that aren't quite yet over. Hayman's channeled this mood into music and the result is a delight, his compositions as sharp as the lyrics he's dispensed with. Later this year he'll release The Violence, an album about seventeenth-century witch trials that'll no doubt feature lines about stakes, gibbets and ducking stools. Until then Lido proves a strange double truth: that a group of people isn't necessarily a mob, and that you can be idiosyncratic without speaking.
8George Bass's Score


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Mysterious products advertised in Denver Post rotogravure sections
Browsing the pages of old Denver Post rotogravure sections is a stroll through history. Advertising was just as important in 1948 as it is now. After all, ads are news, too — fashions, furnishings, features and trends have always been of interest to readers.
But, oh my, times have changed and readers of today might be hard pressed to identify some of the gifts and products on offer 70 years ago. For instance, take the 'rotary printing gadget' at right. Is it a toy? An early mimeograph machine? We yearn for more information, but the caption is cryptic.
Or, below, see the fancy Babee Tenda, apparently designed to keep wriggly toddlers safe and secured while administering food or medicine. Are we right?
It also appears to be a movable play table that can be folded away and stored. Ingenious! But one may be hard to find today…
Hey, what about this handy item called a 'butter conditioner?'
It was a feature of this General Electric whiz of a refrigerator:
But this may be a stumper.
Its name gives away its function, but…
Hmm, presumably houses had no automatic clothes dryers to fluff things. Did they have net curtains that couldn't be flattened any other way? Unfortunately, the advertisement doesn't show structural details, but the curtain-washers of 1948 probably knew more than they wanted to know about stretchers.
Now, kids, you would still have fun with this today. It's musical, gadgety and probably lacks volume controls. Imagine the enjoyable hours of repetitive tunes and lyrics.
Surprisingly, one product has changed not at all in seven decades.
Did your parents have a card table? Do you have a card table? Does it look just like this?
Thought so.