This book presents a set of original and innovative contributions on state, institutions and democracy in the field of political economy. Modern political economy has implied the interaction between politics and economics to understand political, electoral and public issues in different nations, and in this volume a group of leading political economists and political scientists from Europe, America and Asia provides theoretical advances, modelling and case studies on main topics in political economy. The analysis of the role and performance of politics and democracy in diverse nations implies the study of the organization of the state, lobbying, political participation, public policies, electoral politics, public administration and the provision of public services. This book provides advances in the research frontier of these topics and combines historical evidence, institutional analysis, mathematical models and empirical analysis in an interdisciplinary approach. Political and social scientists, economists and those interested in the performance of states, democracy and elections can find new research results in this volume.

Gobeyn presents the first book-length treatment of the declining significance of corporatist governance in advanced capitalism, linking that decline to international political economic forces. He contends that current patterns of conflict within corporatist political bargaining institutions in capitalist states can be traced to attitudinal shifts on the part of capitalists toward corporatist institutional arrangements. Business interests, it is argued, may no longer be viewing traditional practices of national corporatist action as either beneficial or necessary given recent changes in domestic and international economic environments. Recent state modifications to corporatist forms have therefore been initiated.

The development of the welfare state has been accompanied by greater freedom being granted to workers in industrialized capitalist countries. The themes of this probing volume concern how governments, employers, trade unions, and workers have acted to promote economic growth and accountability with active industrial policies and forms of co-determination, worker self-management, and/or employee ownership. The book's essays address the key dimensions of economic, social, and political change in five industrial democracies: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Sweden. A major focus of the volume as a whole is on economic management and workplace reform in a variety of national settings. Managing Modern Capitalism is divided into three sections, covering strategies for industrial renewal, workplace democracy in practice and theory, and future perspectives. In the first section, each of the five countries are compared and contrasted in light of their attempts to stimulate economic growth and reduce unemployment under conditions of international interpendence of capital and markets. Country-by-country profiles highlight the second section, which also examines various forms of employee consultation, participation in managerial decisions, and ownership. The third section and conclusion evaluate prospective economic trends and workplace democracy in the capitalist nations. This book will be of interest to policymakers, scholars, and journalists, as well as to advanced students in political science, economics, history, and sociology.

While economic and other social science expertise is indispensable for successful public policy-making regarding global climate change, social scientists face trade-offs between the scientific credibility, policy-relevance, and legitimacy of their policy advice. From a philosophical perspective, this book systematically addresses these trade-offs and other crucial challenges facing the integrated economic assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Based on John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy and an analysis of the value-laden nature and reliability of climate change economics, the book develops a refined science-policy model and specific guidelines for these assessments of climate policy options. The core idea is to scientifically explore the various practical implications of alternative climate policy pathways in an interdisciplinary manner, together with diverse stakeholders. This could facilitate an iterative, deliberative public learning process concerning disputed policy issues. This volume makes novel contributions to three strands of the literature: (1) the philosophy of (social) science in policy; (2) the philosophy of economics; and (3) debates about the design of scientific assessments, including the continuous IPCC reform debate. This work is thus interesting for philosophers and other scholars reflecting on the science-policy interface, but also for assessment practitioners, climate policy-makers, and economists. The science-policy approach developed in this volume has already influenced the recent socio-economic IPCC assessment.

This book is devoted to the analysis of the three main financial crises that have marked this century: 2001 Argentina's defaulting on its external debt, the American subprime crisis in 2008, and the current European debt crisis in Europe. The book pursues three major objectives: firstly, to accurately portray these three financial crises; secondly, to analyze what went wrong with mainstream economic theory, which was unable to foresee these types of economic turmoil; and thirdly, to review macroeconomic theory, re-evaluating Keynes' original contribution to economic analysis and pointing out the need to rebuild macroeconomics with a view to studying economic illness rather than trying to prove the non-existence of economic problems.

This book discusses the economic, political, and environmental issues surrounding the international exploration and exploitation of conventional and unconventional natural gas. Shale gas development in recent years has changed the energy discussion in the US as existing reserves of natural gas coupled with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing make exploitation of these reserves economically feasible; the discussion is quickly becoming international in scope. The potential expansion of natural gas development impacts many regions of the globe and spans multiple perspectives. In a volatile international climate, one of intense geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West, economic slowdowns in Europe and China, military conflicts in the Middle East and northern Africa, and widening income disparity in the U.S., a relatively inexpensive and plentiful energy source like shale gas could play a key role in mitigating such conflicts. In an energy interdependent global community, however, multiple factors such as oil prices, differing rates of exploration, environmental concerns, strategic initiatives, institutional changes, legal and regulatory issues, and actions of the nations involved all have the potential to influence future outcomes. This book discusses each of these in turn, detailing the issues most prevalent in each geographical area. The first volume to provide a comprehensive global view of the impacts of shale gas development, this book fills a gap in the current research literature, providing vital information for the scholarly community and the public alike. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of economics, energy policy, public administration, and international relations as well as policy makers and residents of the regions that are experiencing shale gas development.

Economists are being asked to provide explanations and prescriptive policy for addressing the questions of chronic poverty and underdevelopment in the world. Answers are needed not only for the questions of how and why these problems arise, but also whether the problems can be prevented and how the problems can be approached. This book is an exposition to the student, the researcher, and the practitioner in the field of economic development giving an approach from the basic rudiments to the advanced level and bridging the gap between the neoclassical models of growth and development and the modern structuralist approaches to the study and analyses of economic development.

Territories of Poverty challenges the conventional North-South geographies through which poverty scholarship is organized. Staging theoretical interventions that traverse social histories of the American welfare state and critical ethnographies of international development regimes, these essays confront how povertyis constituted as a problem. In the process, the book analyzes bureaucracies of poverty, poor people's movements, and global networks of poverty expertise, as well as more intimate modes of poverty action such as volunteerism. From post-Katrina New Orleans to Korean church missions in Africa, this book is fundamentally concerned with how poverty is territorialized. In contrast to studies concerned with locations of poverty, Territories of Poverty engages with spatial technologies of power, be they community development and counterinsurgency during the American 1960s or the unceasing anticipation of war in Beirut. Within this territorial matrix, contributors uncover dissent, rupture, and mobilization. This book helps us understand the regulation of poverty-whether by globally circulating models of fast policy or vast webs of mobile money or philanthrocapitalist foundations-as multiple terrains of struggle for justice and social transformation.

Contributors from diverse disciplinary, ideological, and theoretical perspectives, examine the multiple aspects and dimensions of globalization. By employing a variety of methodological approaches, the authors provide insights into the role of numerous agents in furthering the process and project of present and future globalization(s), as manifested in economic, political and cultural domains. Furthermore, they address the impacts of globalization in nation-states, emancipatory feminist and environmental movements, and migrant communities, as well as identify their participation in and opposition to the phenomena of globalization.

This new volume maps the complex interplay of demographic and socioeconomic changes in the United States, where rapid aging and ethnic diversification are merely the most salient of the many issues with major long-term implications. Drawing on The United States Census Bureau's post-2010 detailed projections, as well as a wealth of data distilled from authoritative sources, the authors tackle many of the urgent policy questions raised by America's changing population. The book explores the ways economic markets are adapting to an older and more diverse customer base, how the projected demographic change will impact public service demand, the growing economic disparities between asset-rich baby boomers and youth struggling for economic security, and how the projected demographic patterns will change the fiscal, economic, education, health, and housing sectors and alter the social structures and processes impacting American households and the diverse array of America's future population. A thorough survey of major demographic patterns in the USA up to 2050 is followed by an assessment of how these will affect socioeconomic, public service, fiscal, economic, and social structures and mechanisms, down to the size and composition of households. The analysis then considers possible variations of outcome predicated on alternative dynamic patterns between demographics and socioeconomics. Cutting through the politics and communal anxieties with hard, cutting-edge data, this study will be a primary source for all those who must use its contents to guide their decisions.

In the early 1990s the Nordic countries were considered to be in a serious situation. The costs of welfare states, generous unemployment benefits, high taxation rates, strong unions, and centralized wage bargaining were thought to be undermining their competitiveness in an age of rapid globalization. By 2005 however, they all ranked at the top of a number of performance indexes on economic competitiveness and sustainability. Citizens in the Nordic countries continue to participate in and benefit from globalization on a much wider scale than in any other similarly highly developed country, and these countries increasingly provide templates within the EU for imitation and social innovation. This book investigates how and why welfare services, active labour market institutions, and public policies were re-combined into enabling and risk-sharing mechanisms to stimulate innovation, and how this made it possible for firms to change their work organization and pursue highly rewarding and distinctive globalization strategies. Through detailed analysis of Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, this book reveals the dynamics and transformations of their national business systems, and the emerging new patterns of interaction between firms, labour markets, and institutions. It will be valuable addition to the literature on social innovation and institutional entrepreneurship.

India is the world's largest democracy, and second-largest developing country. For forty years it has also been one of the most dirigiste and autarkic. The 1980s saw most developing and erstwhile communist countries opt for market economic systems. India belatedly initiated similar reforms in 1991. This book evaluates the progress of those reforms, covering all of the major areas of policy; stabilization, taxation and trade, domestic and external finance, agriculture, industry, the social sectors, and poverty alleviation. Will India realize its great potential by freeing itself from the self-imposed constraints that have hindered its development? This is the important and fascinating question considered by this book.

In the years leading up to the Crash of 2008, Iceland had been triumphed in world business media as an economic miracle. Its new breed of Viking Capitalism had become rock stars of the global finance driven economy, even while it was testing the foundations of Europe's financial system. Eirikur Bergmann applies Postcolonial analysis to explain the paradigmatic case of Iceland's fantastical boom, bust and rapid recovery after the Crash. His critical approach to the claims of the financialization advocates relates the questions of the national economy and globalisation to current trends in Europe and the World.

This book aims to contribute to the literature and aid in developing a theoretical and practical framework in the area of health and wellness tourism. With contributions and research from different countries using a practical approach, this book is an essential source for students, researchers and managers in the health and wellness tourism industry. Recently, there has been an increased interest in health and wellness due to greater life expectancy, aging populations, increasing levels of stress among others. In this context, the concepts of health, wellness, beauty, relaxation, and tourism can be combined to satisfy the needs of people seeking better quality-of-life. This has given rise to health and wellness tourism, a new market segment that contributes to employment and economic growth in the new economy. Health and wellness tourism involves two aspects: therapeutics, which seeks to cure certain diseases; and relaxation and leisure. As an alternative to traditional tourism, health and wellness tourism provides a new means of achieving regional and local development from a demographic, social, environmental and economic point-of-view. It contributes to tourist destinations' economic growth, acting as a pillar to support other complementary activities. In short, health and wellness tourism contributes to employment growth and regional wealth, contributes to tourism seasonality, promotes quality in tourism destinations, helps create new tourist services with high value, promotes establishment of international cooperation networks, and yields a number of additional benefits. Featuring a variety of programs and initiatives from different regions, with an emphasis on thermal and thalassotherapy establishments, this volume sheds light on this emerging market segment and its implications for economic and policy development.

This book provides an innovative approach to sustainable development, one based on insights gleaned from the Industrial Revolution to the present, and which highlights the importance of aligning economic interests with sustainable development considerations. It investigates how a broad-based systematic approach can be used to develop societies sustainably by integrating environmental issues into the capitalist system without value-laden approaches, which produce little more than politics and inaction as we are witnessing today. The proposed approach focuses on realigning the financial markets to providing capital at reasonable cost to fuel innovation towards sustainable development across the entire economy. This requires government policies that level the playing field and also intervene strategically in cases where the playing field is weak or missing . Intended for researchers, policy-makers and graduate students, the book will also benefit non-governmental organizations, economists and the general public.

The World Perspectives series presented short books written by some of the most eminent thinkers of the 20th Century. Each volume discusses the interrelation of the changing religious, scientific, artistic, political, economic and social influences on the human experience. This set reissues 9/10 of the volumes originally published between 1957 and 1965 and presents the thought and belief of its author and discuss: The role of architecture on social well-being and democracy The problems of international cooperation The impact of increased technology on global society The philosophies of logical positivism and materialism The meaning and function of language.

This book is the first comprehensive, full-scale treatment of the politics, law, and economics with regard to the policies and policy instruments for budget stabilization at the local level. It examines budget stabilization in the United States from the 1910s to 2010 (from adoption of public budgeting in this country through the Great Recession). In addition, it provides details on the methods and results of empirical tests of the effects of budget stabilization instruments on government operations, key/basic services provision, and some other aspects of social and economic life at the local level, including full-purpose governments (county, metro city, municipality, township, and village) as well as special (single-) purpose governments (like school districts and transportation districts). This book dissects an important and pressing issue in public financial administration, analyzes a lesson that has been in the learning process, especially in the United States, and identifies theoretical threads for scholarly refinement, which will be put into specific contexts of policy design and implementation. This book will be of interest to scholars in political science, economics, public choice and in public administration, where it will also appeal to policy-makers.

This is the first comprehensive economic history of the Basotho people of Southern Africa (in colonial Basutoland, then Lesotho) and spans from the 1820s to the present day. The book documents what the Basotho have done on their own account, focusing on their systematic exclusion from trade and their political efforts to insert themselves into their country's commerce. Although the colonial and post-colonial periods were unfavourable to the Basotho, they have, before and after colonial rule, launched impressive commercial initiatives of their own, which bring hope for greater development and freedom in their struggle for economic independence.

In 2010 Greece entered a period of extreme austerity measures, but also of intense struggles and protests. Social and political crisis led to tectonic shifts in the political landscape and the rise to power of SYRIZA. However, despite the impressive expression of resistance in the 2015 referendum, the EU-IMF-ECB 'Troika' managed to impose the continuation of the same politics of austerity, privatisations, and neoliberal reforms. This social and political sequence poses important theoretical and analytical questions regarding capitalist crisis, public debt, European integration, political crisis, the new forms of protest and social movements, and the rise of neo-fascist parties. It also brings forward all the open questions regarding radical left-wing strategy today. The contributions in this volume attempt from different perspectives to deal with some of these theoretical and strategic questions using the Greek experience as a case study. Contributors include: George Economakis, Stavros Mavroudeas, Ioannis Zisimopoulos, Alexios Anastasiadis, Maria Markaki, George Androulakis, Despina Paraskeva-Veloudogianni, Eirini Gaitanou, Alexandros Chrysis, Euclid Tsakalotos, Spyros Sakellaropoulos, Panagiotis Sotiris, Giannis Kouzis, Yiorgos Vassalos, Christos Laskos, Angelos Kontogiannis-Mandros.

Making Fiscal Policy in Japan is written for those who want to understand the role and performance of fiscal policy as an integral component of macroeconomic policy, and the attendant effects on economic growth. Ishi traces and analyses the central features of postwar Japanese fiscal policy and considers the institutional framework and policy objectives which shaped the budget process. The overall conclusion is that the Japanese government has been generally passive in guiding the state's economic activities, using fiscal policy to support the private market economy rather than directly to influence the economy through deliberate expenditure and tax policies.

Politics, Subsidies and Competition focuses on the interplay of political, economic and institutional-legal factors in the formation of European competition policy, with particular emphasis on European Union control of national subsidies. This book demonstrates the increasing significance of the EU in the management of European economies. It argues that state subsidization is the only remaining effective form of state intervention because, in the integrated European market, state aid - ranging from investment and export aid to special tax concessions - has become the only instrument that can be used to favour and protect national industries. This makes the control of state subsidization more important than ever, and the European Community's attempts to increase this control since the mid-1970s tell an intriguing story of fierce intergovernmental bargaining, business lobbying and increasingly assertive EC/EU institutions. The argument is supported by evidence of the evolution of European policy and by case studies of sectoral aid regimes and their transformation in interaction with EU policy. This book will be of use to students and scholars of the economics and politics of Western Europe and regional and public policy.

In Formal and Informal Social Safety Nets , Ashraf analyses the role of social safety nets in a time when our global economy threatens our way of life, as entire cities such as Detroit are declared bankrupt.