Citation

Tombs S. Pol. Pract. Health Saf. 2005; 3(1): 5-16.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (Great Britain))

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Globalisation discourses continue to proliferate, seeping into political and popular consciousness, and in so doing affecting the relative 'feasibility' of regulatory options, not least with respect to occupational safety. This observation provides the general context for this paper, which begins by setting out some of the key recent findings of a review of what works with respect to improved occupational safety, and then sets these findings alongside government policies which are running directly opposite to the direction indicated by such research, in an increasing shift away from formal enforcement and towards advice and education. This apparent paradox is partly resolved, it is argued, through a focus on the nature and effects of globalisation discourses which, in short, assign political management of economic actors to the margins, while foregrounding the inevitable primacy of state withdrawal from 'interference' in markets. This orthodoxy is then challenged through reference to some of the small but growing body of social scientific work which has examined critically some of the presumed effects of globalisation on nation-state political autonomy - and on this basis the paper argues for an opening up of political agendas regarding what is feasible in terms of the regulation of occupational safety.