Stellar group of trans-disciplinary experts Addresses major questions for the future of social science research Topical coverage of issues such as artificial intelligence, political polarization and global financial systems

Co-operatives in post-apartheid South Africa have featured in the Reconstruction and Development Programme, legislation, vertical and horizontal state policy and various discourses from Black Economic Empowerment, `two economies' and `radical economic transformation'. In practice, the big push by government through quantitative growth, seed capital and top-down movement building has not yielded viable, member-driven and values-centred co-operatives leading systemic change.

Government looks to the experience of Afrikaner nationalism for keys to success, while some co-operative development programmes are breaking new ground in co-operative banking and community public works programmes. Yet, government co-operative pathways are facing serious limits. At the same time, solidarity economy practitioners have been fostering pathways from below, both actual and potential, within various co-operative experiences. Solidarity economy practice is not seeking government validation nor demanding recognition through adoption. Instead, solidarity economy forces are seeking to work with, against and beyond the state to build institutionalised and decolonised solidarity relations in a society increasingly grounded in market values of individualism, competition and greed.

This volume builds on a previous collection, The Solidarity Economy Alternative: Emerging Theory and Practice (2014), and inaugurates a debate between leading government co-operative development practitioners and its critics, many of whom are working to advance bottom-up solidarity economy pathways.

The Future of the Euro is an attempt by political economists to analyze the fundamental causes of the euro crisis, determine how it can be fixed, and consider what likely futures lie ahead for the currency. The book makes three interrelated arguments that emphasize the primacy of political over economic factors. First, the 'euro problem' is discussed as the result of the single currency's fundamental lack of institutional embeddedness, insofar as its original design omitted three 'forgotten unions' alongside of monetary union: a financial and banking union, mutually supporting institutions of fiscal union and economic government, and a political union holding similar legitimacy to the nation-state. Second, the 'euro experience' shows how the euro's unfinished design led to economic divergence - quietly altering the existing distribution of economic and political power within Europe prior to the crisis - which in turn determined the EU's crisis response. The book highlights how the euro's four most important members - Germany, France, Italy and Spain - each changed once they adopted the euro, why the crisis affected them so differently, and how each has since struggled to live with the commitments the euro necessitates. Third, the book examines three possible 'euro futures' through the lens of the politics of its reluctant leader Germany; through the lens of the EU's capacity to 'move forward' through crises; and through the geopolitical lens of the international monetary system. The book concludes that any successful long-term solution to the euro's predicament needs to start with the political foundations of markets.

This book presents a new approach to studying the European Union's regional and global relevance. It recasts into a dynamic perspective the three most significant systemic processes that define the EU as a regionalist project: its enlargement, neighborhood, and mega-regional policies. The book argues that these processes collectively demonstrate a dynamic shift of the core tenets of European regionalism from an inward-looking process of region building to an open, selective system of global interactions.

In this addition to the award-winning Church and Postmodern Culture series, respected theologian Daniel Bell compares and contrasts capitalism and Christianity, showing how Christianity provides resources for faithfully navigating the postmodern global economy.
Bell approaches capitalism and Christianity as alternative visions of humanity, God, and the good life. Considering faith and economics in terms of how desire is shaped, he casts the conflict as one between different disciplines of desire. He engages the work of two important postmodern philosophers, Deleuze and Foucault, to illuminate the nature of the postmodern world that the church currently inhabits. Bell then considers how the global economy deforms desire in a manner that distorts human relations with God and one another. In contrast, he presents Christianity and the tradition of the works of mercy as a way beyond capitalism and socialism, beyond philanthropy and welfare. Christianity heals desire, renewing human relations and enabling communion with God.

This text is part of a series of five volumes which offers a comprehensive overview of the regulation approach to capitalism and its crisis-tendencies. Edited by a major British contributor to the approach, the volumes contain not only key theoretical and empirical works from French regulationists but also representative work from other regulation schools and scholars. They also feature major critiques of the approach. Topics covered throughout the series include regulationist approaches to the labour process, accumulation regimes (especially Fordism and post-Fordism), modes of social regulation, forms of state intervention, and the crisis tendencies of capitalism. Contributions cover different periods and different countries as well as different sectors and the changing global economy as a whole. The set includes both pioneer works and theoretical innovations and also explores the links between regulationism and other approaches, such as institutionalism, radical geography, critical discourse analysis, and feminism. The contributors include M. Aglietta, R. Boyer, R. Brenner, J. Jenson and L. McDowell.

As more companies shift their operations between countries to take advantage of lower costs and greater profit, the global market continues to change rapidly, resulting in global hypercompetition that can be detrimental to a business. Firms must remain updated with the latest research as they navigate cultural differences, communication challenges, and inconsistent standards in order to thrive. The Handbook of Research on Global Industry Transitions and Opportunities is an essential, comprehensive reference book that explores the current global business environment and the challenges that have arisen due to contemporary globalization and the resulting global hypercompetition. With a broad scope, the book covers the implications of industry transitions from small and medium-sized companies to multinational businesses and large enterprises and discusses opportunities for both born global and born-again global firms. Featuring topics that deal with innovation, digitalization, disruptive technologies, and international collaboration, this is an ideal source for executives, managers, entrepreneurs, global businesses and businesses looking to transition to the global market, academicians, researchers, and students.

The strategies and practical approaches for socio-economic development are undergoing systemic changes under the influence of new developments in global economic systems and markets. The most significant factors influencing such changes are connected to the start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), which is impacting all economic systems to a greater or lesser extent. The creation of the digital economy and transition to Industry 4.0 particularly increases the significance of hi-tech for socio-economic development. Secondly, there is now a transition underway from a period of unlimited globalization and comprehensive integration to more limited globalization and selective economic integration. The growing importance of regionalization on the global economic system is manifested in the formation and rapid development of new integration unions at the regional or country level (e.g., the EU and the EAEU), and company level (e.g., regional sectoral economic clusters, special economic areas, technological parks, and innovative networks). Thirdly, there's an urgent need for faster innovation, which leads to the formation of more innovative economies. The global financial crisis drew attention to the problems of managing sustainability and achieving balance in socio-economic development. The formation and exponential growth of the information society, based on digital technologies, is now stimulating the growth and significance of corporate social and environmental responsibility as a prerequisite for entrepreneurial success. Thus, the paradigm of socio-economic development is changing from absolute rationality (economic effectiveness) and stability - which has historically been associated with problems of stagnation - to responsibility (limited and socially-oriented rationality) and dynamism (quick innovative development based on leading technologies). This book aims to provide a scientific substantiation for this new paradigm.

Contemporary societies have more vibrant markets than past ones. Yet they are more heavily populated by private and public regulators. This book explores the features of such a regulatory capitalism, its tendencies to be cyclically crisis-ridden, ritualistic and governed through networks. New ways of thinking about resultant policy challenges are developed. At the heart of this latest work by John Braithwaite lies the insight by David Levi-Faur and Jacint Jordana that the welfare state was succeeded in the 1970s by regulatory capitalism. The book argues that this has produced stronger markets, public regulation, private regulation and hybrid private/public regulation as well as new challenges such as a more cyclical quality to crises of market and governance failure, regulatory ritualism and markets in vice. However, regulatory capitalism also creates opportunities for better design of markets in virtue such as markets in continuous improvement, privatized enforcement of regulation, open source business models, regulatory pyramids with networked escalation and meta-governance of justice. Regulatory Capitalism will be warmly welcomed by regulatory scholars in political science, sociology, history, economics, business schools and law schools as well as regulatory bureaucrats, policy thinkers in government and law and society scholars.

Hancock and Logue, along with their contributors, seek to explicate the achievements, problems, and prospects of simultaneous processes of economic and political transitions from communism to contrasting forms of market economies and democracy in Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and eastern Germany. Contributors include 14 American and European scholars with intimate professional and personal familiarity with the various case studies.

The contributors draw on process analysis and transition theory to explore different national approaches to privatization. This includes individual voucher schemes, the use of investment funds, the direct sale of former state owned enterprises, employee buy outs, direct foreign investments and their consequences for parallel processes of marketization and democratization. A quarter of the volume is devoted to comparative analyses of contrasting modes of privatization, the role of public opinion and law in the transition process, and the international economic and political context of postcommunist transformation. An important analysis for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with postcommunist economic and political change.

This is a comprehensive study of the special pattern of China's industrialization and economic development through the analysis of approximately one hundred policies, covering the historical period of new China since 1949. Issues examined include how China dealt with the five principal conflicts in rural industrialization, those between rural and state-owned industry, rural industry and agriculture, rural collective and private industry, rural and urban population, and rural and urban economy. Looking to the policies implemented, this volume addresses what Chinese characteristics are, why rural people in China are so poor and why the 'miracle' of China's rural industry occurred.

This book discusses theories of monetary and financial innovation and applies them to key monetary and financial innovations in history - starting with the use of silver bars in Mesopotamia and ending with the emergence of the Eurodollar market in London. The key monetary innovations are coinage (Asia minor, China, India), the payment of interest on loans, the bill of exchange and deposit banking (Venice, Antwerp, Amsterdam, London). The main financial innovation is the emergence of bond markets (also starting in Venice). Episodes of innovation are contrasted with relatively stagnant environments (the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Spanish Empire). The comparisons suggest that small, open and competing jurisdictions have been more innovative than large empires - as has been suggested by David Hume in 1742.

Addressing the unprecedented international interest in China's high-speed railways, this book adopts a global perspective to examine the success of the system and probes into its going-global strategy in the context of the "Belt and Road" initiative, providing readers around the world a better understanding of infrastructure construction under the "Belt and Road" plan, as well as the global vision of communication and mutual exchange and prosperity among the countries along the Belt and Road route. The previous American President, Barack Obama, once told President Xi Jinping that there were two things about China that he particularly admired: the high-speed railway system, and the mathematics education. "The Belt and Road, and the Global Strategy of China's High-speed Rail" provides scholarly researchers and those generally interested in China's High-speed rail excellent insight into this impressive and rapid development.

The contributors investigate how the large scale structures of capitalism and the local social relations of workplaces and organizations shape each other. They argue for a new integration of political economy and the sociology of work and organizations.

This book aims to theoretically and empirically enrich the GVC accounting framework with statistical physics and complex network theory from the perspective of econophysics, thus adding up to the existing theories. Besides, it also aims at capturing the essences of network models such as topological complexity, hierarchy, transmissibility, interaction, and causality and reflecting the objective interrelations among economies or between economies and economic systems on the GVC, so as to reveal the inherent evolution of the cross-regional and even global economic systems.

The problems of today's Europe can be traced directly to the rewriting of the "rules of the economic game" that has taken place over several decades under the strong influence of neoliberalism. If Europe is to return to the innovative and dynamic economy it once had-and if there is to be shared prosperity, social solidarity and justice across Europe-the rules must be rewritten once again. With the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), Joseph E. Stiglitz lays out comprehensive programmes and policies designed to relieve the suffering of Europeans and restore a prosperous and equitable European Union.

At the beginning of the transition process, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe faced the task of creating a functioning financial system where none had existed before. A decade later, high-level practitioners and well-known experts take stock of banking and monetary policy in the region, centering on: the governance of banks; the spread of financial crisis; and, perspectives for monetary policy and banking sector development.

A provocative and timely look at the current state of global economics, particularly how the state-owned companies of Russia, China, Latin America, and other emerging markets are influencing how people work, how they consume, and how they prosper. The global economy is changing: experts are noting slow growth in the advanced economies, greater volatility in international markets, and the emergence of state-owned companies in the competitive marketplace. This forward-looking reference explores the role that state capitalism plays within the political structures of countries throughout the world. The text begins with an introduction to state capitalism, moves into an in-depth examination of several countries and regions, and concludes with a discussion on the future of state capitalism in the next decade. Coauthors Scott B. MacDonald and Jonathan Lemco examine the challenges that state-owned companies face in the global economy, including a weak legal and commercial infrastructure, a conflict of interest between politics and business, and massive corruption in local and regional governments. A close review of the perils of state capitalism based on meritocracy devolving into crony capitalism invites debate on the longevity of this economic system versus a free market economy. Considers the factors that will impede future economic growth in China, Russia, Argentina, and Venezuela Defines the role of the state in the economy and the accompanying political system Features chapters on the economic outlook of Egypt, the Middle East, Eurasia, and Latin America Discusses the future of capitalism in the 21st century Includes a look at alternative economic scenarios in the year 2025

The COVID-19 pandemic is a Rorschach test for society: everyone sees something different in it, and the range of political and economic responses to the crisis can leave us feeling overwhelmed. This book cuts through the confusion, dissecting the new post-coronavirus capitalism into several policy areas and spheres of action to inform academic, policy and public discourse. Covering all the major aspects of contemporary capitalism that have been affected by the pandemic, Andreas Noelke deftly analyses the impacts of the crisis on our socio-economic and political systems. Signposting a new era for global capitalism, he offers alternatives for future economic development in the wake of COVID-19.

This edited volume analyses the channels through which EU membership contributed to the convergence process of member countries in the Baltics, Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. These channels include trade, investment, finance, labour, and laws and institutions. Global integration has certainly played an important role. A large part of FDI flows and financial integration in the world have been persistent features of globalization. Have these countries experienced more intensive integration through these channels because of EU membership, with its much tighter institutional and political anchorage, than their fundamentals and global trends would suggest? Contributions by lead researchers of the area address different aspects of this question. .

Over the last decade, political economists and other macro-oriented scholars have increasingly focused on the comparative specificities of distinct capitalist systems. Mostly, these systems are studied as national systems.
Such models of capitalism are often studied with reference to various institutional dimensions: financial systems, labour relations, welfare state institutions, corporate governance, economic policy making, etc.
This volume brings innovative and synthetic contributions combining as many as these institutional dimensions as possible.
The issue contains papers by Robert Boyer, A. Tylecote & F. Visintin, Chris McNally & William Lazonick. It also contains a special section based on a contribution by Michael Shalev, "Limits and alternatives to multiple regression in comparative political economy," which adresses techniques of analysing the variety of political-economic constellations in a methdological way.
Shalevs views are critically scrutinized by a number of leading scholars, including Charles Ragin, Ro Rothstein, Gsta Esping-Andersen, Jonas Pontusson and others.

Comparative Social Research is now available online at ScienceDirect full-text online of volumes 19 onwards.
*Examines the multidimensional aspects of capitalist systems
*Online availability via ScienceDirect

Recent years have witnessed a revolution in the way economies work. The world has moved away from centralized governments and economies, toward decentralized governments and market-driven economies. A pragmatic, non-ideological approach to mixed economic systems is becoming the order of the day, blurring the lines between public and private, and referred to here as the economy without walls. The purpose of Hamlin and Lyons' new work is to synthesize an understanding of the economy without walls, distill the implications of this economy for local communities, and apply knowledge of those implications to guiding communities' development. The book assumes that the use of intersectoral partnerships is an important part of any urban or regional development strategy. It systematically describes such partnerships, including the philosophical foundations of this approach and the financial and non-financial activities used to implement it. The work then discusses trends in the theory and practice of local community management that result from this economic restructuring. The implications of the economy without walls cannot be ignored if urban planners and related professionals are to be effective in the new worldwide environment. This book will be a must-read for scholars, students, and practitioners in urban planning, economic development, and public administration.