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Over the past twenty years there has emerged a compelling new discourse on varieties of capitalism. That discourse has an appealing common sense which challenges the view there is no alternative to free market capitalism. The initial view had a microeconomic focus that made firms the fulcrum of analysis. It distinguished between liberal market and coordinated market economies. Subsequently, there has emerged a second-generation literature which adopts a macroeconomic perspective that emphasizes differences in drivers of growth. This book provides a collection of essays that engage those second-generation concerns and questions.
Pempel contrasts the political economy of Japan during two decades: the 1960s ̧when the nation e¡perienced conservative political dominance and high growth ̧and the early 1990s ̧when the "bubble economy" collapsed and electoral politics changed. The different dynamics of the two periods indicate a regime shift in which the present political economy deviates profoundly from earlier forms. This shift has involved a transformation in socioeconomic alliances ̧political and economic institutions ̧and public policy profile ̧rendering Japanese politics far less predictable than in the past. Pempel weighs the Japanese case against comparative data from the USA ̧Great Britain ̧Sweden and Italy ̧to show how unusual Japan's political economy had been in the 1960s. The te¡t suggests that Japan's present troubles are deeply rooted in the economy's earlier success.
Meticulously researched, Trade Unions and the State not only sheds new light on one of Thatcher's most significant achievements but also tells us a great deal about the role of the state in industrial relations.
In Diminishing Returns, Lucio Baccaro, Mark Blyth, and Jonas Pontusson bring together a list of top contributors in the field to examine capitalist economies in times where economic growth has slowed down considerably. As economic growth is a powerful social stabilizer and contributes to make the characteristic features of capitalism, the key question motivating the volume is: What happens when growth-the main mechanism of capitalist legitimation-is harder to come by and less broadly shared? The volume analyzes the politics of growth and stagnation at the country, regional, and global level through a new theoretical framework: the Growth Model Perspective.
In the face of globalized ecological and economic crises, how do religion, the postsecular, and political theology reconfigure political theory and practice? As the planet warms and the chasm widens between the 1 percent and the global 99, what thinking may yet energize new alliances between religious and irreligious constituencies? This book brings together political theorists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars of religion to open discursive and material spaces in which to shape a vibrant planetary commons. Attentive to the universalizing tendencies of “the common,” the contributors seek to reappropriate the term in response to the corporate logic that asserts itself as a universa...
Why have Latin American countries developed sharply divergent financial systems—and how do these systems shape national growth strategies? While Chile built large capital markets and Brazil expanded long-term credit for firms, Argentina lags behind in both. What explains this variation? This book uncovers the political origins of national financial systems by examining how coalitions of executive-branch officials reconfigure markets through two levers: the governance of the pension system and the deployment of state-owned banks as long-term lenders. In Chile, neoliberal técnicos dismantled the state's capacity as a lender and set up regulation inducing private pension funds to invest in domestic equity and bonds. In Brazil, a developmental coalition expanded BNDES and activated state-owned-enterprise pension funds as institutional investors. By tracing how political struggles inside the state shape markets, the book offers an innovative view of statecraft and marketcraft in Latin America. It speaks to scholars of political economy—and to policy entrepreneurs working on development across the Global South.
This book argues that the lack of adequate theories of contemporary capitalism is due to the increasing separation of the sub-disciplines of Comparative and International Political Economy. Theorizing only takes place in one of the two over-specialized sub-disciplines of Political Economy, thereby leading to a neglect of the interplay between national and international dimensions of capitalism. The author seeks to rectify this gap by developing a theory of Second Image IPE. Based on the “second image” notion developed by Kenneth Waltz, he furthers the classical theoretical approaches as developed by Peter Gourevitch and Peter Katzenstein. For this purpose, he incorporates recent analytical developments in Comparative Capitalism and Growth Model analysis. The book demonstrates the usefulness of Second Image IPE theory by studying the major empirical topics of Global Political Economy, including security, finance, regional integration, trade, production and global order.
"A Century Foundation book".
Reassesses the short life and career of American essayist, critic, and founder of cultural radicalism Bourne (1886-1918), known today mostly for his opposition to US military involvement in Europe and warnings about the military industrial complex. Vaughan (political science, U. of Minnesota-Duluth) argues that his stance from outside establishment perspectives was not a retreat from politics as many have claimed, but a form of political engagement free from the suppositions that impede genuine debate and democratic change. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
"In Democracy, Inequality, and Representation, distinguished political scientists and economists use a set of international databases to examine the political causes and consequences of income inequality. The volume opens with an examination of how differing systems of political representation contribute to cross-national variations in levels of inequality. Torben Iverson and David Soskice calculate that taxes and income transfers help reduce the poverty rate in Sweden by over 80 percent, while the comparable figure for the United States is only 13 percent. Noting that traditional economic models fail to account for this striking discrepancy, the authors show how variations in electoral systems lead to very different outcomes."--BOOK JACKET.