This book offers an important chronological perspective on the evolution of multilateralism within Europe and beyond. It provides a critical reconstruction of the history of the idea and praxis of peaceful global governance, comparative analysis of regional multilateral organizations and a discussion about concrete trends and perspectives of a new multilateralism against the challenging context of the current multipolar power politics. Focusing on the changing European interplay with multilateralism - from Eurocentric cradle of civilian cooperation among sovereign imperial states, to political dwarf after the two WW and decolonization, and to potential co-leader of a multi-layered and multi-actor cooperation within the current multipolar order, it addresses a theoretical ‘gap’ by fuelling the long-recognised idealism v. realism debate over international cooperation and institutionalisation with both historical and new empirical insights. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European studies, global governance, multilateralism, international organisations and more broadly to international relations.

This book, through an analysis of case studies in Latin America and Southeast Asia, sets out to understand the form and function of contemporary states seeking to guide and cajole markets, hoping to stimulate economic growth and generate robust development outcomes. In the context of contemporary globalization, and the hegemony of a neoliberal mode of capital accumulation, independent state-directed development has moved away from the reach of many emerging markets. Wylde's analysis reveals that, contrary to much of the literature espousing the 'end of the state', the role of the state in the 21st century development process continues to be of pivotal importance.

This book provides a collection of concepts, algorithms, and techniques that effectively harness the power of Spatial Network Big Data. Reading this book is a first step towards understanding the immense challenges and novel applications of SNBD database systems. This book explores these challenges via investigating scalable graph-based query processing strategies and I/O efficient storage and access methods. This book will be of benefit to academics, researchers, engineers with a particular interest in network database models, network query processing, and physical storage models.

The collapse of the financial markets in 2008 and the resulting 'Great Recession' merely accelerated an already worrisome trend: the shift away from an employer-based social welfare system in the United States. Since the end of World War II, a substantial percentage of the costs of social provision--most notably, unemployment insurance and health insurance--has been borne by employers rather than the state. The US has long been unique among advanced economies in this regard, but in recent years, its social contract has become so frayed that is fast becoming unrecognizable. Despite Obama's election, the burdens of social provision are falling increasingly upon individual families, and the situation is worsening because of the unemployment crisis. How can we repair the American social welfare system so that workers and families receive adequate protection and, if necessary, provision from the ravages of the market?
In Shared Responsibility, Shared Risk, Jacob Hacker and Ann O'Leary have gathered a distinguished group of scholars on American social policy to address this most fundamental of problems. Collectively, they analyze how the 'privatization of risk' has increased hardships for American families and increased inequality. They also propose a series of solutions that would distribute the burdens of risks more broadly and expand the social safety net. The range of issues covered is broad: health care, homeownership, social security and aging, unemployment, wealth (as opposed to income) creation, education, and family-friendly policies. The book is also comparative, measuring US social policy against the policies of other advanced nations. Given the current crisis in America social policy and the concomitant paralysis within government, the book has the potential to make an important intervention in the current debate.

What if we could turn back the clock to a time when jobs were plentiful, when tax revenue was high, and when people could look forward to retirement?

E.A. Madden asks these questions and explains where our leaders went wrong and why they abandoned the middle class. His how-to guide provides step-by-step strategies to bring U.S. prosperity back to all its citizens, not just a chosen few.

In a book packed with solutions to today's problems, you'll discover:

a convincing history of events that led to the nation's current political and economic problems;

the economic policies of former presidents;

strategies to restore general prosperity and preeminence in the world;

simple actions to bring jobs back to the nation.

This book is for anyone concerned about his or her job and the future of the country.

Written with nonpartisan candor and a dry wit, this how-to guide provides an assortment of ideas to help the country. It all begins with realizing that "It's the Jobs, Stupid."

itsthejobsstupid.com

In discussions of economics, governance, and society in the Nordic countries, "the welfare state" is a well-worn analytical concept. However, there has been much less scholarly energy devoted to historicizing this idea beyond its postwar emergence. In this volume, specialists from Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland chronicle the historical trajectory of "the welfare state," tracing the variable ways in which it has been interpreted, valued, and challenged over time. Each case study generates valuable historical insights into not only the history of Northern Europe, but also the welfare state itself as both a phenomenon and a concept.

This book explores pain in a number of ways. At the heart of the book is an extension of Melzack's neuromatrix theory of pain into the social, cultural, and economic fields. Specific assemblages involving varied institutions, flows of capital, encounters, and social and economic structures provide a framework for the formation of pain, its perception, experience, meaning, and cultural production. Complementing the extended neuromatrix is a second theory, focussed on the propensity of western market capitalism to seek out new areas of life to subsume to capital. Pain is one such life area that is now ripe for exploitation. Although the book has theory at its heart, it draws extensively on case studies to identify the contradictions and complexities. Case studies are drawn from accounts of drug use in varied contexts such as prescription drugs, methamphetamine use, oxycodone use in North America, and the global rise of the medicinal cannabis marketplace.

The contributions of this book examine contemporary dynamics of migration and mobility in the context of the general societal transformations that have taken place in Europe over the past few decades. The book will help readers to better understand the manifold ways in which migration trends in the region are linked to changing political-economic constellations, orders of power and inequality, and political discourses. It begins with an introduction to a number of theoretical approaches that address the nexus between migration and general societal shifts, including processes of supranationalisation, EU enlargement, postsocialist transformations and rescaling. It then provides a comprehensive overview of the political regulation of migration through border control and immigration policies. The contributions that follow detail the dynamic changes of individual migration patterns and their implications for the agency of mobile individuals. The final part challenges the reader to consider how policies and practices of migration are linked to symbolic struggles over belonging and rights, describing a wide range of expressions of such conflicts, from cosmopolitanism to racism and xenophobia. This book is aimed at researchers in various fields of the social sciences and can be used as course reading for undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses in the areas of international migration, transnational and European studies. It will be a beneficial resource for scholars looking for material on the most current conceptual tools for analysis of the nexus of migration and societal transformation in Europe.

Financial analysis, based on ratio analysis, has been used as a tool for analyzing the financial strength of corporations. Although ratio analysis is generally used as a univariate strategy, the accounting and finance literature has evolved to include multivariate-based models in financial analysis, and these models can be used to explain important economic events and often predict them. Thus, in an exhaustive coverage of the economic events to which they can be applied, Riahi-Belkaoui discusses these models in a way that will have special value to corporate management, financial planners, and to their colleagues in the academic community who specialize in business and economic analysis.

The downhill slide in the global price of crude oil in 2014 had major repercussions across the Middle East. Following the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011, the oil price decline represented a second major shock for the region in the early twenty-first century - one that provides constraints and opportunities. Offering the first comprehensive analysis of the Middle Eastern political economy in response to the 2014 oil price decline, this book connects oil market dynamics with an understanding of socio-political changes. Inspired by rentierism, the contributors present original studies that reveal a large diversity of country-specific policy adjustment strategies: from the migrant workers in the Arab Gulf, who lost out in the post-2014 period, to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who have never been able to benefit from the 2014 oil price decline. With timely contributions on the COVID-19-induced oil price crash in 2020, this collection shows that rentierism still prevails. -- .

The Russian Federation has a history of more than twenty years of transformation to a market economy, but as well to a knowledge society, to look back on. This study takes a look at the knowledge generation, knowledge transmission and knowledge use inside the Federation since the early 1990s. Furthermore, in light of the high dependence of the Russian economy on the oil and gas sectors this study analyzes the impact knowledge related factors have on regional income generation following thereby in the direction of Schumpeterian growth theory. The study combines descriptive with empirical analyses to paint a picture as detailed as possible of the Russian knowledge society and its innovative potential.

India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world. However, high economic growth is accompanied by social stratification and widening economic disparity between states. This book illustrates some important aspects of underdevelopment and the process by which the underclass is left behind by focusing on the country's most neglected regions.

This volume explores the defining features, critical approaches, challenges and opportunities for public policy in the 'Asian Century'. This is the first book to systematically analyse the key institutions and practices that comprise public policy, administration and governance to investigate how they are changing in the context of increasing Asian influence. Its authors argue that the Asian Century holds the potential to generate a paradigm shift equivalent to the impacts of neo-liberalism and the New Public Management of the late 20th century. Divided into three parts, this volume interrogates the theories underpinning contemporary public policy; explores case studies from different policy arenas across the Asian region; and imagines what a future of globalised public policy might look like. It examines the implementation measures necessary to support policy and administration in an era of transnational governance networks, tightly linked economic markets and progressively fluid cultural exchanges. This book provides the concepts and tools necessary to navigate these shifting sands successfully. It is essential reading for scholars of public policy, public management, international relations, and politics and social sciences, as well as for administrators and public servants.

Notwithstanding its many successes since 1945, the project of European integration currently faces major difficulties, from financial crises and mass immigration to the impending departure of the UK from the European Union. At the same time, these challenges have spurred civil society organizations within and across Europe, revealing a shared public sphere in which citizens can mobilize around refugee rights, opposition to austerity policies, and other issues. Europeanization in Sweden assembles new empirical research on how these processes have played out in one of the continent's wealthiest nations, providing insights into whether, and how, the "Swedish model" can guide European integration.

Thisbook considers the ability and capacity of the food supply system in Australia to provide food security for the ever-increasing domestic and international population in the face of growing challenges in production, resource supply and failures within the food system itself. Although Australia is a net food exporting country, domestic food insecurity exists and will increase as food prices rise in the coming decades. An overview of the food supply system highlights the main challenges that are determining the future. Many of these challenges can be resolved by the Australian government, but others are in the hands of global governance to which Australia can only adapt. This booksheds light on the challenges and discusses the prospects for developing more sustainable and resilient future food systems in Australia. In addition, it covers food security and sovereigntyissues under the heading of food equity and access, food production, policy and trade, and impacts of land use planning on agriculture.

The unique features of the book include the following:

Most literature on food security pertains to developing countries. By way of contrast, thisbookexplores food security in a developed nation (Australia) that seemingly should not have food security issues. The topics covered in the book are relevant to other developed nations with growing populations and resource management challenges.

The book chapters are written by specialists to paint a comprehensive picture of the political, social, economic and environmental issues that give rise to food insecurity, and the challenges these issues present to the security of the food system in coming decades. The overall organization of the book uses a theoretically informed and multi-disciplinary approach. This enables a critical and in-depth analysis of food security by outlining the key challenges as well as prospects for the development of more sustainable and resilient agri-food systems.

Thethree principal topics in the book are dealt with by a multi-disciplinary team of authors in a way that teases out diverse points of view illustrating the complexity of food security. Author disciplines include health and nutrition, agriculture, ethics, social science, law, and practitioners managing food aid programs.

The book shows how food security relates to many technical, social and moral issues in society and how it is possible to develop successful programs to improve food security."

Studying the political economy of welfare state reform, this edited collection focuses on the role of public opinion and organized interests in respect to policy change. It highlights that welfare states are hard pressed to reform in order to cope with ongoing socio-economic and demographic challenges. While public opinion is commonly seen to oppose welfare cuts and organized interests such as trade unions have tended to defend acquired social rights, this book shows that there have been emergent tendencies in favour of reform. Welfare State Reforms Seen from Below analyses a wide range of social policies affecting healthcare, pensions and the labour market to demonstrate how social groups and interest organizations differ and interact in their approaches to reform. Comparing Britain and Germany, with its two very different welfare states, it provides a European perspective on the changing approaches to welfare. This book will be of interest to those wanting to learn more about the politics of the welfare state and of relevance to students and academics in the fields of political economy and comparative social policy.

Alexis de Tocqueville's work touched upon an exceptionally broad range of social scientific disciplines, from economics to religion, and from education to international affairs. His work consistently appeals to scholars dismayed by existing disciplinary silos. Tocqueville is also well-regarded for diagnosing both the promise and perils of democratic life. Consideration of his ideas provokes serious consideration of and engagement with contemporary trends as citizens in democratic countries cope with challenges posed by new technological, cultural, and political changes. However, attention to Tocqueville is uneven across disciplines, with political theorists paying him the most heed and economists the least. This volume focuses on political economy, trying to bridge this divide. This book collects essays by emerging scholars from a variety of disciplines-political science, economics, sociology, philosophy, and social thought-to examine Tocqueville's thoughts on political and social economy and its contemporary relevance. The book is divided into two halves. The first half engages with the main currents of research on Tocqueville's own thoughts regarding economic institutions, constitutionalism, liberalism, history, and education. The second half applies Tocqueville's insights to diverse contemporary topics including international relations, citizenship, mass incarceration, and pedagogy. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students interested in Tocqueville, the history of political thought, and a variety of current policy issues.

This book makes original contributions to the literature on clusters, human capital, and regional development by focusing on the link between entrepreneurship and economic growth, aiming for a better understanding of the dynamics of growth determined by the entrepreneur's action in the regional space. The focus is therefore on critical reflection and rethinking the articulation between three levels of analysis of economic systems, namely entrepreneurship, human capital and regional development, which have not so far been perfectly articulated in the literature of reference on endogenous growth. Although there has been significant research so far into the success and failure of clusters, the implications of these multiple research efforts fail to provide political decision-makers and company managers with critical information about which mechanisms lie behind cluster success and also about how clusters survive and prosper. The innovative approaches presented in this book on entrepreneurship, human capital mobility and regional development have considerable potential to create new and original implications for decision-makers and managers. In terms of value added, this book contributes to the literature by seeking answers to the following questions: (i) Is the growth and success of clusters over time due to concentration and transmission of business competences through spin-offs located in a given regional space? (ii) Does increased density of job options outside the workplace contribute to increased mobility of human capital between firms located within clusters, and so improve coordination in the local labor market? (iii) Do spin-offs benefit from hiring workers from successful incumbents, inasmuch as those workers are expected to perform better than other workers from different origins? Integrating theoretical frameworks, empirical research, and regional case studies (from Portugal, Spain, Norway and Turkey), the editors and contributors demonstrate that the regional dynamics of industry growth are strongly influenced by the mobility of employees towards new firms.

Whether post-modern or pre-industrial, the economic development of societies around the world is often influenced by the whims of a capricious international political environment. Globalization and Governance in the International Political Economy investigates the impact of diverse cultures on the development and actualization of global economic entities, exploring advanced methods and best practices for the effective utilization and management of financial organizations within a globalized political context. This essential reference provides readers in both political and economic fields with insights into the challenges and opportunities posed by the political economy.

This book contains the refereed proceedings of the 2nd Advances in Business Research International Conference (ABRIC2016). Chapters in the book address the theme of Advancing Knowledge, Connecting the World, reflecting on the emerging issues in various business management fields and the interconnections of multiple disciplines for creating knowledge advancement. Papers were carefully reviewed and selected and grouped into four main themes: economic and finance, marketing and communications, management, and information technology in business. The book serves as a helpful resource for students and researchers of business management, especially in understanding issues and cases of business in emerging economies and markets.

This book provides a study on the impact of Brexit on international competitiveness and in doing so, presents a theoretical account of regional disintegration. In recent decades, the theory of regional economic integration has expanded following growing integration processes taking place not only in Europe, but in other continents too. The result of the EU Referendum in the United Kingdom on 23 June 2016 revealed that regional integration does not have to be a one-way process as was perceived for many years. Despite well-developed models of economic integration within economic theory, there still lacks an analytical explanation of the mechanics of disintegration. For many years, integration was commonly perceived as a beneficial process, and while disintegration is not desirable, this led to normative bias in the research on regional integration. This book, therefore, makes an important contribution to theoretical and empirical developments of regional economic disintegration.

This book proposes an alternative political economy framework in which to analyse the question of the credibility of international economic agreements, in general, and monetary arrangements in particular. The focus is on European monetary arrangements, from the establishment of the European Monetary System to the crisis of the Euro-zone. The analysis is predicated around the political economy of Italy's access and permanence in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The author argues that the case of Italy, which made a concerted effort to join the EMU in the first wave, is particularly striking. Support for the single currency was widespread when it was introduced, yet something went wrong. Nowadays, its participation to the European monetary integration process cannot be easily taken for granted, especially after the vicissitudes of the Euro-zone crisis.

Society today faces multi-dimensional challenges that are hard to define and even harder to deal with. Social and economic systems throughout the world are becoming more complex and interdependent, and globalization is moving beyond the sphere of economics to engulf other aspects of life, particularly culture and security. Our current theories, strategies, and road maps are fast becoming out-dated and no new ones have emerged to take their place.
Mohamed Rabie re-examines the relevance of major ideas and systems of the recent past, including ideology and its relation to society in "Global Economic and Cultural Transformation." This book is an attempt defines and explains this transitional period and provides a new conception of economic and societal world history, which us understand how we got here and where we are going.

Most of the established theories of economics, particularly of international trade, became obsolete in the new world trade and production architecture. How, in these new circumstances, will host nations organize their economic resources? This book analyzes some prominent countries in the world to examine the issue.

Known as the "economist's economist" for his work on creating a synthetic economic theory, Swedish economist Knut Wicksell was a controversial, but highly influential figure in modern economic thought. His contributions to marginal productivity theory, income distribution and, most notably, his theory of interest would come to have a profound impact upon twentieth century economic theory, not least in the work of John Maynard Keynes. First published in English in 1934 and 1935, this Routledge Revival set is a reissue of Wicksell's two volume work on political economy, first published in Sweden in 1901 and 1906. This work is aimed at both the professional economist and the advanced student alike, as well as all those interested in the theoretical development of political economy. Volume I concerns itself predominantly with issues of theory: specifically the theory of value, the theory of production and distribution and the theory of capital accumulation. Volume II deals with theories relating to money, currency and credit.