In the 1830s, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that 'insufferable despotism' would prevail if America ever acquired a national administrative state. Today's Tea Partiers evidently believe that, after a great wrong turn in the early twentieth century, Tocqueville's nightmare has come true. In those years, it seems, a group of radicals, seduced by alien ideologies, created vast bureaucracies that continue to trample on individual freedom. Tocqueville's Nightmare, shows, to the contrary, that the nation's best corporate lawyers were among the creators of 'commission government,' that supporters were more interested in purging government of corruption than creating a socialist utopia, and that the principles of individual rights, limited government, and due process were designed into the administrative state. Far from following 'un-American' models, American statebuilders rejected the leading European scheme for constraining government, the Rechtsstaat, a state of rules. Instead, they looked to an Anglo-American tradition that equated the rule of law with the rule of courts and counted on judges to review the bases for administrators' decisions aggressively. Soon, however, even judges realized that strict judicial review shifted to generalist courts decisions best left to experts. The most masterful judges, including Charles Evans Hughes, Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941, ultimately decided that a 'day in court' was unnecessary if individuals had already had a 'day in commission' where the fundamentals of due process and fair play prevailed. Not only did this procedural notion of the rule of law solve the judges' puzzle of reconciling bureaucracy and freedom; it also assured lawyers that their expertise in the ways of the courts would remain valuable and professional politicians that presidents would not use administratively distributed largess as an independent source of political power.

In the 1990s many Latin American countries decided upon full or partial pension privatisation, and a similar wave of reforms is currently taking place in Eastern Europe. Privatising Old-Age Security aims to examine what may account for this paradigm change in an area previously considered difficult to reform. Attempting to explore and explain the similarities and differences in pension policy both intra- and inter-regionally, this book analyses the political economy of radical pension reform in using case studies from Argentina, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Peru, Poland and Uruguay. By shedding light on the political viability of market-oriented reforms the book is a valuable and unique contribution to the understanding of the political economy of policy reform. With its unprecedented selection of case studies and application of theoretical insights, this book will appeal to researchers and academics of economics, public finance, social policy administration and transition studies. Moreover, policymakers will be intrigued by the up-to-date analysis of recent pension reforms.

Identity in the Age of the New Economy is a multi-faceted view of contemporary employment and identity that questions a number of the myths related to the so-called new economy, knowledge society or network society. It argues that one of the most striking things about much contemporary theorizing on work and identity is the epochalist terms in which it is framed: changing forms of identity and subjectivity are assumed to be consequences of a shift to an entirely new economic, social and cultural era, signalled by concepts such as postmodernity, risk society, network society or new economy. The book deviates from the epochalist claim and follows the path of recent years' sociological/social-psychological analyses of identities, presenting detailed empirical studies of relational identities in scattered and temporary work practices. The authors demonstrate how identities are endogenous variables, focus on highly educated contingent employees and direct the analyses from the politics of interests to the politics of identities. Exploring the nexus between identity and the organization of work life, this wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary book will be of great interest to both academics and practitioners in the fields of human resource management, industrial relations and psychology. It will also appeal to those with an interest in organization theory.

This book deals with the nature of contemporary globalisation. Maurice Mullard aims to show that globalisation is not an inescapable, unstoppable process somehow beyond human control, rather that it represents, and is being shaped by, a series of deliberate policy choices and policy decisions. The emphasis of this fascinating work is on how these policy choices are creating new forms of economic inequalities and also political elites that distort the democratic process.The mapping of winners and losers goes beyond the usual analysis of the rich North versus the poor South, by including an examination of the widening inequalities in the North and the emergence of new elites in the South. Policies of privatisation and liberalisation of water and electricity create new political elites. The author reveals the shift in the North towards multi national corporations with their emphasis on profits and stock market prices, while at the same time incomes for most employees have either stagnated or actually declined. The standard discourse on globalisation and market flexibility often blurs the issues of declining trade union influence and corporations moving to countries offering lower labour costs. Maurice Mullard herein attempts to rectify this imbalance. The Politics of Globalisation and Polarisation is interdisciplinary and will therefore be relevant for academics and researchers of politics, social policy, public policy and economics. Scholars involved in globalisation will find this book to be a major contribution to the ongoing debate.

This volume has its origins in an international seminar where eighteen scholars representing a number of academic fields were invited to consider the eighteenth-century colonial enterprise from a more global and interdisciplinary perspective. Among the issues that arose then, and that are more fully elaborated here, are: the nature and goals of the many colonial expeditions that were undertaken at the time; the manners and means in which these were carried out; the differences between them; and the similarities that they shared. Relying on a variety of sources that include historical archives, literary texts, travel journals, visual and material artefacts and critical studies, the authors explore eighteenth-century colonialism as it was practised and manifested around the world: Europe, Africa, the Americas, the South Pacific, and Asia. What emerges from their essays is the image of a Eurocentric practice with global implications whose themes, despite the diversity existing among the preponderant colonial powers, were oft repeated. As a result, the essays presented here are grouped into four sub-headings - Representations, Mercantilism, Religion and ideology, and Slavery - each of which is integral to an understanding of colonial and post-colonial theories and of their respective consequences and interpretations. The motives of colonisers, as well as their critics, were both multiple and shared during the eighteenth century. These engendered complex sets of arguments - philosophical, political, economic, and social - which the contributors to this volume examine in detail in such disparate geo-political areas as Mexico and Thailand, Senegal and China.

This book examines the ability of the EU and European actor networks to coherently and effectively navigate, manage, and influence debates and policy on the international stage. It also questions whether increasing complexity across a range of critical global issues and networks has affected this ability. Engaging with the growing theoretical and conceptual literature on networks and complexity, the book provides a deeper understanding of how the European Union and European actors navigate within global networks and complex regimes across a range of regulatory, policy cooperation, and foreign and security policy issue areas. It sheds light on how far they are able to respond to and shape solutions to some of the most pressing challenges on the global agenda in the 21st century. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of EU/European and global networks and more broadly to European and EU studies, Global Governance, International Relations, International Political Economy, and Foreign Policy and Security Studies.

This book suggests that the scope and breadth of regulatory reforms since the mid-1980s and particularly during the 1990s, are so striking that they necessitate a reappraisal of current approaches to the study of the politics of regulation. The authors call for the adoption of different and fresh perspectives to examine this area. The contributors to this volume analyse how regulatory regimes that were once peculiar to the US and a few industries have, in recent years, come to define the best practice of governance over the world capitalist economy and over numerous social and economic sectors. They go on to suggest various explanations for the expansion of regulatory institutions, addressing some of the most critical problems and offering new methodological techniques to enable further study. The contributions also provide distinct cross-national and cross-sectoral comparative approaches, and emphasise the changes in the economic and social context of regulation and the implications of these developments on the rise of the regulatory state. These changes, together with the general advance in the study of regulation, undoubtedly demand a re-evaluation of the theory of regulation, its methodologies and scope of application. This book is a perceptive investigation of recent evolutions in the manner and extent of governance through regulation. Scholars and students of comparative politics, public policy, regulation theory, institutional economics and political sociology will find it to be essential reading. It will also prove a valuable source of reference for those working or dealing with regulatory authorities and for business managers in private industries and services operating under a regulatory framework.

Despite deep divisions on the issue of immigration, this book shows that immigration promotes economic innovation, expands the job market, and contributes to diversity and creativity in the United States. Immigration, as a conduit for bringing new talent, ideas, and inventions into the United States, is essential to the success and vitality of our economy and society. In this timely book, researched and written by the Immigration Book Project Team at Penn State University, immigration is approached from historical, economic, business, and sociological perspectives in order to argue that treatment of immigrants must reflect and applaud their critical roles in supporting and leading the economic, social, cultural, and political institutions of civil society. Approaching immigration as both a socioeconomic phenomenon and a matter of public policy, The Danger of Devaluing Immigrants offers demographics and statistics on workforce participation and job creation along with stories of individual immigrants' contributions to the economy and society. It supports the idea that, when immigration is challenged in the political sphere, we must not lose sight of the valuable contributions that immigrants have made-and will continue to make-to our democracy. Approaches immigration from many perspectives: economic, business, historical, and sociological Investigates the substantial roles of immigrants in critical industries and sectors across the U.S. economy Emphasizes the bimodal nature of attitudes toward immigrants depending on their education and skill level and abilities Includes personal stories and case studies from immigrants Draws on the expertise of a team from the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University

This book analyses actual and potential normative (whether legislative or contractual) conflicts and complex transnational disputes related to state-controlled enterprises (SCEs) operations and how they are interwoven with the problem of foreign direct investment. Moreover, SCEs also fall within the remit of international political economy, international economics and other SCE-related fields that go beyond purely legal or regulatory matters. In this connection, research on such economic and political determinants of SCE's operations greatly informs and supplements the state of knowledge on how to best regulate cross-border aspects of SCE's and is also be covered in this book. The book also aims to analyse the "SCE phenomenon" which includes a wide panoply of entities that have various structures with different degrees of control by states at the central or regional level, and that critically discuss the above-mentioned overlapping legal economic and political systems which can emerge under various shades of shadows casted by governmental umbrellas (i.e., the control can be exercised through ownership, right to appoint the management, and special-voting-rights). The chapters in this book are grouped, so as to address cross-border investment by and in SCE, into four coherent major parts, namely --- (i) the regulatory framework of state capitalism: laws, treaties, and contracts; (ii) economic and institutional expansion of state capitalism; (iii) the accountability of state capitalism: exploring the forms of liabilities; and (iv) regional and country perspectives. Contributions address the core theme from a broad range of SCE and international economic regulations, including but not limited to competition law, WTO law, investment law, and financial/monetary law. They also cover the new emerging generation of Free Trade Agreements (EU-Vietnam FTA, EU China investment treaty, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership; and the coordination between treaty systems). The book is a valuable addition and companion for courses, such as international trade law, international law of foreign investment, transnational law, international and economic development, world politics, law of preferential trade agreements, international economics, and economics of development.

Economics can be inspiring - often taking a stand against convention, achieving challenging results, discussing unorthodox viewpoints and suggesting new policies. Bruno S. Frey illustrates what he perceives to be the inspirational quality of economics and how this differs from the type of economics studied in many academic institutions. He introduces insights into economics from a psychological perspective, dealing with issues such as transformation of anomalies, identification in democracy and crowding effects, and focuses on intrinsic motivation and how it is undermined. Inspiring Economics also looks at the integration of economics and politics, covering topics including popular initiatives and referenda, authoritarian nations and foreign aid, and the way in which the cost of war is reflected on the capital market. This groundbreaking empirical study of human motivation and behaviour will be a fascinating read for those interested in economics and economic theory.

Although the full extent of the potential damages from global warming remain unknown, scientists have long argued that action should be taken now to mitigate any possible adverse consequences. However, in making such policy recommendations, economic arguments need to be considered as much as scientific ones. This volume examines the appropriate economic incentives for implementing policy to mitigate climate change and then exposes the flaws in current international agreements. The book begins by providing the economic foundations for understanding climate change. It examines how Kyoto's flexibility mechanism departs from more efficient and less-costly approaches for reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide, and highlights the problems that terrestrial carbon credits pose for emissions trading. Unique case studies of Canada, Japan and The Netherlands indicate that most countries will be unable to meet their own Kyoto obligations. The author then uses an economic analysis of the potential damages to show that even though some countries will experience a detrimental effect from climate change, the majority will actually benefit. In this way, he clearly demonstrates that not only will current policies do little to avert global warming, most countries will also have less incentive to sign up to any future international agreements. Academics, economists and policymakers involved in the climate change debate will find this succinct yet comprehensive analysis of the economic instruments available for mitigating climate change to be essential reading.

Recent years have seen the development of new theories of market failure based on asymmetric information and network effects. According to the new paradigm, we can expect substantial failure in the markets for labor, credit, insurance, software, new technologies and even used cars, to give but a few examples. This volume brings together the key papers on the subject, including classic papers by Joseph Stiglitz, George Akerlof and Paul David.The book provides powerful theoretical and empirical rebuttals challenging the assumptions of these new models and questioning the usual policy conclusions. It goes on to demonstrate how an examination of real markets and careful experimental studies are unable to verify the new theories. New frontiers for research are also suggested. The first systematic analysis of these important new theories, Market Failure or Success is required reading for all who seek to better understand one of the most exciting debates in economics today.

In the age of globalisation, goods, services, labour and capital are crossing international borders on a scale never before known. They are creating a nationless market. Governed by both the invisible hand of business and interest and the visible hand of authority and direction, a world market can be a free-for-all, but it can also be constrained by the national interest of countries that differ greatly in their social institutions and material circumstances. This book provides a lucid and comprehensive account of contemporary international political economy. Beginning with the ideological underpinnings, it examines the globalisation of trade in goods and services and labour and capital. It relates the free economic market to social consensus and political regulation, both within sovereign countries and at the supra-national level. The book is comprehensive and interdisciplinary, incorporating philosophical, political, social and economic insights on an international scale and applying them directly to the ongoing phenomenon of globalisation. Topical and non-nation specific, it covers the WTO, EU, the transfer of technology, the multinational corporation, the exchange rate, free versus regulated trade, the status of agreements and blocs, as well as contemporary issues such as populism, xenophobia and rapid economic growth in both rich and poor nations. Accessible to specialists, students and the informed reader alike, State and Trade offers wide-ranging analysis of the politics of trade in goods and services, international investment and the migration of labour across the globe.

The question of economic transformation is an immediate and practical one for the English-speaking Caribbean. In the postindependence period, Caribbean governments seemed blissfully unaware that the inability to transform their economies was leading to serious unemployment problems. The statistics are quite stark. Unemployment rates in the Caribbean range from 6% in the more prosperous states to 23% in the less prosperous ones. This use of economic transformation and job creation continues to be a major challenge in the first decade of the twenty-first Century. This is the subject that is treated with impressive urgency in this volume entitled Economic Transformation and Job Creation: The Caribbean Experience.

What are the political motivations behind firms' decisions to adopt policies that self-regulate their behavior in a manner that is beyond compliance with state, federal and local law? Public Forces and Private Politics in American Big Business advances a new understanding of the firm as a political actor that expands beyond the limited conceptualizations offered by economists and organization theorists. Timothy Werner develops a general theory of private politics that is tested using three case studies: the environment, gay rights and executive compensation. Using the conclusions of these case studies and an analysis of interviews with executives at 'Fortune 500' firms, Werner finds that politics can contribute significantly to our understanding of corporate decision-making on private policies and corporate social responsibility in the United States.

Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Plan 2020 are governmental initiatives to diversify Saudi Arabia's economy and implement nationwide social changes. Media and scholarly attention often describe the success or failure of these ambitious visions. This book shifts the focus to instead examine and evaluate the actual processes of domestic policymaking and governance that are being mapped out to achieve them. The book is unique in its breadth, with case studies from across different sectors including labour markets, defence, health, youth, energy and the environment. Each analyses the challenges that the country's leading institutions face in making, shaping and implementing the tailored policies that are being designed to change the country's future. In doing so, they reveal the factors that either currently facilitate or constrain effective and viable domestic policymaking and governance in the Kingdom. The study offers new and ground-breaking research based on the first-hand experiences of academics, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners who have privileged access to Saudi Arabia. At a time when analysis and reportage on Saudi Arabia usually highlights the 'high politics' of foreign policy, this book sheds light on the 'low politics' to show the extent to which Saudi policy, society, economics and culture is changing.

Political Entrepreneurship explores the role of political entrepreneurs in regional growth and entrepreneurial diversity. The authors define a political entrepreneur as a politician, bureaucrat or officer within the publicly funded sector who encourages entrepreneurship for growth and employment using innovative approaches. This book aims to enrich the established research on entrepreneurship with in-depth knowledge of the conditions conducive for political entrepreneurship in Sweden. Political entrepreneurs have the potential to be innovative and encourage entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial diversity by fundamentally challenging the prevailing formal and informal institutions. It is argued that, in times of economic stress, political entrepreneurship is essential to find new ways of promoting growth, employment and welfare. By using social science and economics perspectives, this study complements the dominant business administration research on entrepreneurship by increasing our knowledge of the economic and political contexts in which entrepreneurship and private enterprise is conducted. This book is essential reading for students, researchers and policymakers interested in politics, economics and entrepreneurship, as well as for those working in the public sector. Contributors include: D.E. Andersson, S. Andersson, A.E. Andersson, P. Assmo, C. Berggren, T. Bromander, C. Karlsson, M. Nilsson, C. Silander, D. Silander, P. Stroemblad, M.-L. von Bergmann-Winberg, Y. von Friedrichs, E. Wihlborg

Korea has been at the centre of intense debate concerning the role of government in economic development. Taking an in-depth approach, this book analyses the path of Korea's industrial technology development. In contrast to many previous studies on Korea, the author argues that the role of foreign multinational enterprises has been significant while the government's was surprisingly limited in scope. The author addresses three main questions: * How was Korea able to develop so effectively despite the low inflow of foreign technologies and capital? * What is the role of multinational enterprises in 'teaching' technology to the firms from developing countries? * What has been the influence of public policy on Korea's technology development? The author demonstrates that the key to the Korean electronics industry's spectacular growth has been through its participation in and learning from an inter-firm arrangement called 'original equipment manufacturing' (OEM) arrangement, and a number of firm-level case studies support this argument. This book will be of special interest to scholars of industrial and development economics, innovation and Asian studies. It will also be of use to policymakers responsible for industrial policy development.

Economic Institutions and Democratic Reform rigorously and systematically explores the political effects and consequences of economic reform in more than 20 post-communist countries. By using primary quantitative data and stringent statistical analyses, Ole Norgaard demonstrates that there is no universally applicable economic reform strategy and that popular democracy is often the foundation of a successful economy, rather than a powerful executive or president, as is popularly asserted. The book also shows that generalised models are not productive when studying the complexity of post-communist transformation. The author argues that the danger to democracy comes from the alienation of citizens and the collapse of public service and education systems instigated by individuals who, with few democratic credentials, capture the political playing field. These leaders have often been encouraged by Western governments who believe democracy can only be imposed on reluctant societies by newborn capitalist elites. This book will be essential and challenging reading for political scientists and economists as well as policymakers in NGOs, such as aid agencies and the institutions of the EU.

The essays contained herein span over a decade and reflect David Prychitko's thinking about the role of the market system, and its relation to planning and democratic processes. The collection consists of previously published and unpublished articles written not only for economists but also for an interdisciplinary audience. Prychitko extends the Austrian School's criticism of central planning to include the decentralized, self-managed and democratic models of socialism - those that were supposed to distinguish Yugoslav-style socialism from Soviet socialism. He critically evaluates the socialist and market-socialist proposals of contemporary advocates including Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, Ted Burczak, Branko Horvat, and Joseph Stiglitz. A younger Austrian economist, Prychitko has also emerged as an internal critic within that tradition. He questions the Austrian School's claims that the unhampered market maximizes social welfare, that any actions of the state necessarily reduce welfare, and that anarcho-capitalism is viable and desirable. At the same time, he carefully discusses the viability of worker-managed enterprise from a market-process perspective, and offers a qualified defense. Scholars, particularly those with an interest in Austrian economic thought, comparative political economy and free market libertarianism will find this collection a valuable resource.

In this book, the authors outline how policymakers in advanced countries have moved away from exclusive reliance on the public sector in social service delivery, towards a more multi-faceted approach that seeks to combine the strengths of public agencies, private firms and voluntary organizations. This development raises interesting and complex questions concerning the comparative advantages of these respective groups in the delivery of goods and services. The Political Economy of the Voluntary Sector adopts a comparative institutions approach to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the government, market and voluntary sectors as alternative instruments for implementing social and economic policies. The authors examine existing market failure, government failure and supply-side models of non-profit organizations before proposing a new leadership theory of the voluntary sector. They then explore the interface between the voluntary sector and the development of social capital. The book culminates in an investigation of appropriate public policy approaches towards the voluntary sector. This book will be warmly welcomed by academics, students, and researchers working on alternative methods of public policy program delivery, primarily from the disciplines of economics, political science and public administration. Practitioners drawn from the public and voluntary sectors, as well as public policymakers in governments from around the world, will also find this accessible book of great interest.

Over the past few decades, economists have witnessed with growing uneasiness their failure to explain the ballooning of public debt in most countries. Using methodological individualism and micro-economics, this book overcomes flaws inherent in the standard macro approach, according to which governments manipulate public debt to promote systemic stability. This unique analysis is grounded in the writings of Antonio de Viti de Marco, injecting current analytical contributions and formulations into the framework to offer a forthright insight into public debt and political economy. Public Debt provides an alternative orientation that explains why concepts of public debt that are relevant for authoritarian regimes are not relevant for democratic regimes. It examines public debt in cooperative and monopolistic democracies as well as the corrupting quality of public debt in democracy. Including topics such as macro guidance within a Machiavellian approach, public debt as systemic lying and as a shell game, economy as an ecology vs. economy as an engine, individual vs. group action and cooperative state as ideal type, this book is a unique and refreshing approach to the material. This comprehensive and cohesive sourcebook will serve as a critical resource for academics interested in public debt and political economy.