Jeffrey Harrod

Last updated
Jeffrey Harrod
Born16 February 1935
London
Occupation(s)Writer, essayist, journalist, university professor
Known forPublications/media presentations on: global political economy, corporate power, labour relations theory
Website www.jeffreyharrod.eu

Jeffrey Harrod is a writer and essayist on politics and international political economy and known for his work on the power of corporations and the position of labour in international economic relations. [1] [2] [3] He has been critical of global approaches which reduce the importance of nation-states. [4] Working with Robert W. Cox a power dynamics approach to the political economy of work was developed. [5] Harrod's application of this approach to those in low-waged or precarious employment is currently used by researchers in those fields. [6] [7] Since 2012 he has maintained a blog and in 2016 published his first novel, After Man.

Contents

He is professor emeritus from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and visiting professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Biography

Academic

Harrod was born in London, England and started work as an office boy at age 15 and later worked as a London bus conductor. After two years compulsory military service he graduated in international law from University College London, international relations from Lehigh University, Pennsylvania and with a Ph.D. (political science-international relations) from the University of Geneva's Graduate Institute of International Studies, in Switzerland. [8] He has held academic positions at the University of West Indies, Jamaica, University College London, University of Colorado, University of Amsterdam and the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University where he held the chair of International and Comparative Labour Studies and became deputy rector.

International trade unionism

He was a foreign correspondent for international economic affairs for the trade newspapers of Fairchild Publications [9] before joining the United Nations International Labour Organisation as research coordinator at its Institute for Social Studies. Subsequently, Harrod became permanent consultant for research and publications for the International Federation of Chemical, Energy and General Workers' Unions (ICEF) (an international trade union) where he worked with Charles Levinson and Vic Thorpe producing books, annual reports on world social economy and industry bulletins. [10] As ICEM resource person he provided lectures and consultations to unions, movements and political parties in, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, Bulgaria and Pakistan. [11]

Writing and research

Political economy of work and labour

Harrod and Robert Cox worked together on a power dynamics approach to what was conventionally called labour relations or industrial relations. It was launched in the companion volumes by Robert Cox and Harrod – Harrod's Power, Production and the Unprotected Worker (1987) and part 1 of Cox's Production, Power and the Making of World Order (1987). In this approach work and labour are viewed through different patterns of power found in forms of production ranging from peasant to corporate throughout the world. Both Cox and Harrod used this view in their teaching and work in international political economy. [12] Harrod continued to revise and develop the original approach [13] and other researchers expanded its use in the study of world politics. [14] Cox and Harrod have together been criticised for bias for their selective use of Marxian concepts. [15]

Global political economy

Harrod's work in global political economy involves the power interplay between types of labour relations, corporations and non-governmental organisations. [16] His Trade Union Foreign Policy (1972) revealed that foreign trade unions accepted corporate strategies aimed at labour in bauxite mining in Jamaica. Similar corporate strategies were shown in Asbestos: The Politics and Economics of a Lethal Substance (1990) (with Vic Thorpe). Harrod's book on Labour and Third World Debt (1994), which detailed how the policies of international economic agencies and corporations dealing with foreign debt involved labour in the global south, [17] was translated from English into Danish, Spanish and Urdu. He has continued to focus on the social, political and geo-political problems raised by the corporation as an institutional power at both the domestic and international levels. [18] Harrod posted in 2012, under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, a complete online course on Global Political Economy.

Bibliography

Single-authored books

Dual-authored books

Edited books

Selected articles

Selected blog posts and essays

On-line  presentations

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References

  1. ↑ (1992) Labour and Third World Debt ICEF: (2006) "The Global Poor and Global Politics: Neo-Materialism and the Sources of Political Action" in Davis, Matt and Ryner, Magnus (eds) (2006) Poverty and the Production of World Politics: Unprotected Workers in the Global Political Economy New York: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN   978-1-4039-9697-8 pp. 38-61
  2. ↑ (2019) "The Changing Power of the Twenty-First-Century Corporation" in Hofferberth, Matthias (editor) Corporate Actors in Global Governance: Lynne Rienner pp. 225-248 ISBN   978-1-62637-823-0 : (2002) "Multinational Corporations" UNESCO: Encyclopaedia of Life Support Systems: Global Transformations and World Futures: Knowledge Economy and SocietyI – http://www.eolss.net/sample-chapters/c13/E1-24-02-01.pdf
  3. ↑ (2013) video:  "New Dynamics of Power" – discussion Jeffrey Harrod & Herman Schwartz   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI_y1kuT5k0
  4. ↑ (2014) Presentation: "Do States Matter?" Wageningen University   https://www.wur.nl/nl/activiteit/Do-States-Matter-1.htm
  5. ↑ Cox, Robert and Harrod, Jeffrey (1972) Future Industrial Relations: Geneva:  ILO Institute of Social Studies:  this approach used in Cradden, Conor (2017) A New Theory of Industrial Relations: People Markets and Organisations, Routledge, ISBN   978-1-138-12461-5
  6. ↑ for example: - Gore, Ellie and LeBaron, Genevieve  (2019) "Using social Reproduction to understand unfree labour" Capital and Class October  ( doi : 10.1177/0309816819880787): pp 1-20  
  7. ↑ Moore, Phoebe (2019) The Quantified Self in Precarity: Work Technology and What Counts, Routledge, ISBN   978-1-138-67406-6  pp 100-101
  8. ↑ Harrod, Jeffrey, ed. (1972). Trade union foreign policy: the case of British and American unions in Jamaica. London New York: Macmillan Doubleday and Co.
  9. ↑ Harrod, Jeffrey (16 March 1965). "The Fabricsː Kennedy Round Deadlock loosens" Women's Wear Daily. 110. New York.
  10. ↑ (1996) World Social Economy 1995 as reprinted in Power and Counterpower: The Union Response to Global Capital London: Pluto Press ISBN   0-7453-1113-X pbk
  11. ↑ for example, "Third World solve its own uplift strategies" (report of lecture by Jeffrey Harrod)". Dawn (Pakistan). 11 June 1988.
  12. ↑ (2018) Murphy, Craig  (Professor Political Science, Wellesley College, USA) "With Jeffrey Harrod he (Robert Cox), developed his generation's most comprehensive understanding of the global political economy, one rooted in the condition of the least-privileged classes in all parts of the world." http://ppesydney.net/tributes-to-robert-w-cox
  13. ↑ for example (2015) "Work, Power and the Urban Poor" in van der Pijl, Kees (ed) Handbook of International Political Economy of Production, Edward Elgar ISBN   978-1-78347-020-4 pp.283-298
  14. ↑ Davis, Matt and Ryner, Magnus (eds)(2006) Poverty and the Production of World Politics: Unprotected Workers in the Global Political Economy New York: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN   978-1-4039-9697-8
  15. ↑ Brown, Chris (2001). ""Our Side"? Critical Theory and International Relations"". In Jones, Richard Wyn (ed.). Critical Theory & World Politics. Lynne Rienner. p. 195. ISBN   1-55587-802-4.
  16. ↑ for example, de Vie, Kees (23 April 1993). "De tragiek van generaals" (The tragedy for generals). Trouw (Netherlands) (translation of first sentence : "Two American generals have created the framework for labour systems in both Germany and Japan.")
  17. ↑ Muller, Henk (25 September 1998). "Arme landen betalen rijke landen 250 miljard rent" (translation: "Poor Countries pay Rich Countries 250 billion Dutch guilders in interest") Volkskrant (Netherlands).
  18. ↑ (2015) Presentation "Politics of Corporate Investment Trade and Global Governance" (48 slides) https://www.slideshare.net/harrod/politics-of-corporate-investment-trade-and-global-governancebp
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