In The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi problematised the commodity status of labour. He described it as ‘fictitious’ and asserted the human aspect of labour necessitates ‘protection’. In bringing Polanyi’s mature works to bear on these claims, this article uses the ‘fictitious commodity’ concept to highlight the tension in neoclassical theory between concrete reality and its idealist construction of the economy. This contradiction directly challenges the veracity of the self-regulating market. The article develops two related themes. The first is Polanyi’s critique of the neoclassical conception of ‘the economy’ as an ideal (market) construct which gave rise to the notion that labour could be regulated by the forces of supply and demand. The second is the lack of logic in the notion of a ‘self regulating’ market and Polanyi’s appreciation of the concrete tendencies of capitalist economies to develop institutional arrangements that ensure the economy is always, and necessarily, more than ‘the market’.

What are the conditions underlying successful implementation of participatory security mechanisms? Drawing on the case of Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl and from the notion of social embeddedness, we argue that participatory security reforms that aim to include citizens in defining security priorities allow for better adoption of reforms in practice. Local level reforms are not implemented in a social vacuum but rather in pre-existing social networks that are key to their adoption in practice by citizens. However, not all social networks are equal, nor do they operate in the same manner. In ‘Neza’, it is through existing clientelistic networks and socially embedded local brokers that the redes vecinales were implemented and adopted by citizens, leading to varied reform adoption patterns at the very local level.

The purpose of this study is to identify the determinants of suppliers' intensity of participation in the European Union school fruit scheme (SFS) based on the example of the SFS in the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2013/14, approximately 100 suppliers including many agricultural enterprises or farm shops took part in a telephone survey. The data were processed by a factor analysis. Multivariate regression and ordered logit analyses were used to examine the determinants of intensity of participation. The results indicate that economic as well as non-economic factors determine suppliers' intensity of participation in such programs, though the financial aspect was determined as the most influential single factor for participation. In addition, the feel-good factor from helping to improve children's dietary habits and supporting the local community has been identified as an important motive.