Political economy Books

Book SynopsisPriests of Prosperity explores the unsung revolutionary campaign to transform postcommunist central banks from command-economy cash cows into Western-style monetary guardians. Juliet Johnson conducted more than 160 interviews in seventeen countries with central bankers, international assistance providers, policymakers, and private-sector finance professionals over the course of fifteen years. She argues that a powerful transnational central banking community concentrated in Western Europe and North America integrated postcommunist central bankers into its network, shaped their ideas about the role of central banks, and helped them develop modern tools of central banking. Johnson's detailed comparative studies of central bank development in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan take readers from the birth of the campaign in the late 1980s to the challenges faced by central bankers after the global financial crisis. As the comfortable certainties Trade ReviewThe United States is not the only country in which the consensus on central-bank independence is in trouble: central bankers across the former communist world are facing sustained political challenge as well. The difference in the latter is that central-bank norms, practices and policies never sat that well within regimes in transition, and the consensus spread only weakly beyond the central banks themselves. This is the argument Juliet Johnson makes in her brilliant book on the role that central bankers played in the transformation of the post-communist world. * Survival: Global Politics and Strategy *Investigates how the transnational central banking community actively guided the transformation of postcommunist central banks through transplantation and its stages of choice, transformation, and internalization. Discusses why and how central bankers in advanced industrial democracies formed a cohesive community championing price stability and political independence in the 1900s. * JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE *This book provides insight into an important element of the transition of postcommunist economies. * Choice *How timely is Juliet Johnson's Priests of Prosperity, which highlights not only the intricacies of central bank development and practice but also the role of an international community of banks in shaping this development. The book provides an illuminating comparison of central bank evolution and transformation across a number of postcommunist countries, including Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. * Business History Review *Provides a unique theoretical framework for institutional emulation and a well-developed analysis of the diffusion of central bank independence throughout the postcommunist countries. It will be read and valued by experts and anyone working on the political economy of transition, central bank independence, or institutional emulation worldwide. * Slavic Review *A substantively significant and exciting contribution to the field of comparative political economy and to the understanding of postcommunist societies' transformation. The book is clear and persuasive because of a combination of a carefully developed theory, a deep understanding of postcommunist countries, and a combination of qualitative and quantitative evidence. * Perspectives on Politics *Priests of Prosperity is Juliet Johnson's exhaustively researched account of the adoption of politically independent, inflation-targeting central banking in the post-communist world. * Economic and Political Weekly *Table of ContentsPreface Notes on Nomenclature 1. E Pluribus Unum 2. Transplantation 3. Choosing Independence 4. The Transformation Campaign 5. The Politics of European Integration 6. The Trials of Post-Soviet Central Bankers 7. Paradise Lost

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Book SynopsisIn The Hypocritical Hegemon, Lukas Hakelberg takes a close look at how US domestic politics affects and determines the course of global tax policy. Through an examination of recent international efforts to crack down on offshore tax havens and the role the United States has played, Hakelberg uncovers how a seemingly innocuous technical addition to US law has had enormous impact around the world, particularly for individuals and corporations aiming to avoid and evade taxation.Through bullying and using its overwhelming political power, writes Hakelberg, the United States has imposed rules on the rest of the world while exempting domestic banks for the same reporting requirements. It can do so because no other government wields control over such huge financial and consumer markets. This power imbalance is at the heart of The Hypocritical Hegemon.Thanks to generous funding from COFFERS EU, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes Table of Contents1. Change and Stability in Global Tax Policy 2. Power in International Tax Politics 3. Countering Harmful Tax Practices 4. The Swift Return of Tax Competition 5. The Emergence of Multilateral AEI 6. The BEPS Project: Long Live Arm's Length 7. From Hegemony to Transatlantic Tax Battle?

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Book SynopsisContesting Precarity in Japan details the new forms of workers'' protest and opposition that have developed as Japan''s economy has transformed over the past three decades and highlights their impact upon the country''s policymaking process.Drawing on a new dataset charting protest events from the 1980s to the present, Saori Shibata produces the first systematic study of Japan''s new precarious labour movement. It details the movement''s rise during Japan''s post-bubble economic transformation and highlights the different and innovative forms of dissent that mark the end of the country''s famously non-confrontational industrial relations. In doing so, moreover, she shows how this new pattern of industrial and social tension is reflected within the country''s macroeconomic policymaking, resulting in a new policy dissensus that has consistently failed to offer policy reforms that would produce a return to economic growth. As a result, Shibata argues that the Japanese modTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. From Coordinated to Disorganized Capitalism in Japan 2. Organized Labor and Social Conflict in Japan 3. From Precarity to Contestation 4. Precarious Labor Power and Japan's Neoliberalizing Firms 5. Precarious Labor and the Contestation of Policymaking in Japan 6. Japan's Absent Mode of Regulation: Impeded Neoliberalization Conclusion

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Book SynopsisTo the Brink of Destruction exposes how America''s rating agencies helped generate the global financial crisis of 2007 and beyond, surviving and thriving in the aftermath. Despite widespread scrutiny, rating agencies continued to operate on the same business model and wield extraordinary power, exerting extensive influence over public policy. Timothy J. Sinclair brings the shadowy corners of this story to life by examining congressional testimony, showing how the wheels of accountability turnedand ultimately failedduring the crisis. He asks how and why the agencies risked their lucrative franchise by aligning so closely with a process of financial innovation that came undone during the crisis. What he finds is that key institutions, including the agencies, changed from being judges to being advocates years before the crisis, eliminating a vital safety valve meant to hinder financial excess. Sinclair''s well-researched investigation offers a clear, Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Fixations: The Making and Unmaking of Categories 2. Rehearsal 3. Main Attraction 4. Intermission 5. Sideshow 6. Encore 7. Fictions: The Making and Unmaking of Boundaries Epilogue

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Book SynopsisMediterranean Capitalism Revisited brings together leading experts on the political economies of southern Europespecifically Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugalto closely analyze and explain the primary socioeconomic and institutional features that define Mediterranean capitalism within the wider European context. These economies share a number of features, most notably their difficulties to provide viable answers to the challenge of globalization.By examining and comparing such components as welfare, education and innovation policies, cultural dimensions, and labor market regulation, Mediterranean Capitalism Revisited attends to both commonalities and divergences between the four countries, identifying the main reasons behind the poor performance of their economies and slow recovery from the Great Recession of 20072008. This volume also sheds light on the process of diversification among the four countries and addresses whether it did and still doeTrade ReviewThere is much to like about this fascinating book, revisiting the Mediterranean model of capitalism. The editors put together a stellar cast of scholars to provide an extensive and compelling account of political-economic continuity and change in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.Mediterranean Capitalism Revisited is an intellectually sophisticated and skilfully researched book: a must-read for all comparative political economy scholars. * ETUI *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Which Road to Development? The MediterraneanModel Revisited, by Luigi Burroni, Emmanuele Pavolini, and Marino Regini Part I: Economic Features and Institutional Context of Southern European Countries 1. Is There a "Mediterranean" Growth Model?, by Lucio Baccaro 2. States' Performance, Reforms, and Policy Capacity in Southern European Countries, by Giliberto Capano and Andrea Lippi 3. Which Level of Analysis? Internal versus External Explanations of Eurozone Divergence, by Sofia Perez 4. Following Different Paths of Modernization. The Changing Sociocultural Basis of Southern Europe, by Emmanuele Pavolini and Gemma Scalise Part II: Policies and Processes of Change 5. Labor Market (De)Regulation and Wage-Setting Institutions in Mediterranean Capitalism, by Alexandre Afonso, Lisa Dorigatti, Oscar Molina, and Arianna Tassinari 6. Southern European Welfare Systems in Transition, by Ana M. Guillén, Matteo Jessoula, Manos Matsaganis, Rui Branco, and Emmanuele Pavolini 7. How to Adjust? Italy and Spain at the Test of Financial Integration and Crisis, by Fabio Bulfone and Manuela Moschella 8. Human Capital Formation, Research and Development, and Innovation, by Luigi Burroni, Sabrina Colombo, and Marino Regini Conclusion: Mediterranean Capitalism between Change and Continuityity, by Luigi Burroni, Emmanuele Pavolini, and Marino Regini

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Book SynopsisIn The Banker''s Blacklist, Julia C. Morse demonstrates how the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has enlisted global banks in the effort to keep bad money out of the financial system, in the process drastically altering the domestic policy landscape and transforming banking worldwide.Trillions of dollars flow across borders through the banking system every day. While bank-to-bank transfers facilitate trade and investment, they also provide opportunities for criminals and terrorists to move money around the globe. To address this vulnerability, large economies work together through an international standard-setting body, the FATF, to shift laws and regulations on combating illicit financial flows. Morse examines how this international organization has achieved such impact, arguing that it relies on the power of unofficial market enforcementa process whereby market actors punish countries that fail to meet international standards. The FATF producesTrade ReviewHer detailed research provides a thorough examination of the organization that moves beyond headlines to test out different theories of how this international organization works. * Lawfare *Julia Morse provides groundbreaking research into the FATF that makes the FATF more accessible and serves as a very helpful guide for understanding how unofficial market enforcement can be harnessed to address AML/CFT risks at the country level, both now and into the future. * Lawfare *The bankers' blacklist presents an artful paradox: its insights are greater than the sum of its parts. This is a thought-provoking book[.] * International Affairs *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Cross-Border Banking in a Globalized Era 1. A Primer on International Financial Standards on Illicit Financing 2. A Theory of Unofficial Market Enforcement 3. The FATF's Fight against Illicit Financing 4. How the Noncomplier List Drives FATF Compliance 5. Unofficial Market Enforcement against Listed Countries 6. Fighting Illicit Financing in Southeast Asia Conclusion: The Power and Peril of Markets as Enforcers

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Book SynopsisIn Tea, James R. Fichter reveals that despite the so-called Boston Tea Party in 1773, two large shipments of tea from the East India Company survived and were ultimately drunk in North America. Their survival shaped the politics of the years ahead, impeded efforts to reimburse the company for the tea lost in Boston Harbor, and hinted at the enduring potency of consumerism in revolutionary politics.Tea protests were widespread in 1774, but so were tea advertisements and tea sales, Fichter argues. The protests were noisy and sometimes misleading performances, not clear signs that tea consumption was unpopular. Revolutionaries vilified tea in their propaganda and prohibited the importation and consumption of tea and British goods. Yet merchant ledgers reveal these goods were still widely sold and consumed in 1775. Colonists supported Patriots more than they abided by non-consumption. When Congress ended its prohibition against tea in 1776, it reasoned

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Book SynopsisIn Normalized Financial Wrongdoing, Harland Prechel examines how social structural arrangements that extended corporate property rights and increased managerial control opened the door for misconduct and, ultimately, the 2008 financial crisis. Beginning his analysis with the financialization of the home-mortgage market in the 1930s, Prechel shows how pervasive these arrangements had become by the end of the century, when the bank and energy sectors developed political strategies to participate in financial markets. His account adopts a multilevel approach that considers the political and legal landscapes in which corporations are embedded to answer two questions: how did banks and financial firms transition from being providers of capital to financial market actors? Second, how did new organizational structures cause market participants to engage in high-risk activities? After careful historical analysis, Prechel examines how organizational and political-legal arrangements contribute to current record-high income and wealth inequality, and considers societal preconditions for change.Trade Review"This book offers a theoretically sophisticated, empirically rich explanation of how financialization was politically created in the United States beginning in the 1980s, and how it has increased inequality. Prechel takes us inside corporations to see how financial capitalists leveraged control over organizations to enhance their power or government and thereby enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else including other fractions of capital." -- Richard Lachmann * University at Albany, State University of New York *"A must-read for anyone wishing to understand the foundations of contemporary capitalism. It draws on quantitative analysis, in-depth case studies, and trenchant historical analysis to uncover the class conflicts and structural dynamics that have given rise to the modern financial system, which to so many people's dismay has proven prone to periodic crisis." -- Donald Palmer * University of California, Davis *"This important study looks at changes in corporate–state relations and changes inside the corporation to find the origins of corporate malfeasance. As corporations layered up more complex ownership structures, opportunities opened for behavior that precipitated the Great Financial Crisis. Prechel grounds his analysis in larger changes in U.S. society that have contributed to disastrous social inequality." -- Terrence McDonough * National University of Ireland Galway *

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Book SynopsisJapan grew explosively and consistently for more than a century, from the Meiji Restoration until the collapse of the economic bubble in the early 1990s. Since then, it has been unable to restart its economic engine and respond to globalization. How could the same political–economic system produce such strongly contrasting outcomes? This book identifies the crucial variables as classic Japanese forms of socio-political organization: the "circles of compensation." These cooperative groupings of economic, political, and bureaucratic interests dictate corporate and individual responses to such critical issues as investment and innovation; at the micro level, they explain why individuals can be decidedly cautious on their own, yet prone to risk-taking as a collective. Kent E. Calder examines how these circles operate in seven concrete areas, from food supply to consumer electronics, and deals in special detail with the influence of Japan's changing financial system. The result is a comprehensive overview of Japan's circles of compensation as they stand today, and a road map for broadening them in the future.Trade Review"Kent Calder's Crisis and Compensation is one of the classic works on Japanese politics—and with Circles of Compensation, he's written another seminal book on Japanese political economy. In reading this new book, one learns everything one needs to know about Japan's economic problems. An absolute tour de force." -- Margarita Estévez-Abe * Syracuse University *"Calder is a scholar and intellectual leader with practical and policy experience. His work is leaving a mark on U.S.–Japan relations." -- John V. Roos * Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan *"Circles of Compensation is a beautifully written breakthrough analysis of how to think about one of the world's most important nations. Its conclusions have powerful implications for anyone interested in global economics and politics. Simply too important to pass up." -- Jeffrey Garten * Yale University *"[T]he author develops the first new paradigm for Japan's fluctuating growth patterns and its prospects for recovery. The reading is essential to students and scholars of Japanese political economy, civil society, and East Asian studies in general." -- X. Li * Choice *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Confronting the Paradox chapter abstractThis chapter begins by noting the dual challenge of newly developing nations: achieving economic development as late developers, and assuring order in changing societies. The chapter contends that although leaders of developing nations, such as Sun Yat-sen and Chandra Bose, once manifested substantial interest in the Japanese model, there has been little systematic consideration of that approach. 1Paradox and Japanese Public Policy chapter abstractThis chapter elaborates on the puzzles in Japanese economic performance and public policy that suggest the need for new analytical paradigms. In the sphere of economic performance, it is puzzling that Japanese growth was distinctively rapid for nearly a century from the late Meiji period until around 1990, slowed down sharply, and then failed to recover, despite massive pump priming and technological strength. Policy puzzles include the slow overall profile of Japan's globalization response, cross-sectoral variance in response profiles, and inconsistencies in governmental responses to specific connected and unconnected firms. 2The Circles-of-Compensation Concept chapter abstractThis chapter defines "circles of compensation" as "networks of regular participants . . . in which members have reciprocal benefits and obligations." Such circles have five specific traits: (1) a clearly defined set of members, (2) expansibility, (3) an iterative character, (4) a propensity to allocate resources internally, and (5) a propensity to externalize costs to nonmembers. After specification of the model, the chapter proceeds to illustrate with examples from both Japanese and international experience, including cartels, industry associations, and agricultural cooperatives. The chapter concludes with comments on the geographical distribution of circles, their heuristic value, and methodological comments on case selection, to provide testable hypotheses on the nature of circles of compensation. 3The Political Economy of Connectedness chapter abstractThis chapter explains the progression of the empirical section of the book, which provides concrete examples of circles of compensation in action, and tests the central hypothesis, which is: Circles of compensation systematically internalize reward and externalize risk, introducing a parochial bias into both policy and corporate behavior that enhances in-group solidarity, and reduces incentives to pursue outside initiatives, thus inhibiting both individual and corporate responsiveness to globalization. 4Finance chapter abstractThis chapter describes the key institutions of Japanese domestic and international finance, as well as their transformation over the past three decades. It chronicles, in particular, the decline of the long-term credit banks and the keiretsu, together with the implications of these developments for cooperative capitalism across the Japanese political economy. It shows how these developments have impeded innovation and structural adjustment and contributed to stagnant growth. The revision of Japan's Foreign Exchange and Investment Law in late 1980 also influenced domestic incentive structures in critical ways that are described and analyzed. 5Land and Housing chapter abstractThis chapter shows the central role that the political economy of land has historically played in crowded, high-growth Japan, and how land policy has encouraged expansionary banking behavior and hence high-speed economic growth. It also shows why the same land policies, in interaction with cooperative capitalism in the finance area, have contributed to the rigidity and stagnation of the Japanese political economy. 6Food Supply chapter abstractThis chapter describes agricultural policies and institutions, stressing the central role of public–private cooperation, and also explains the structural relationships among agricultural policy, political stability, and leveraged high-speed economic growth. It notes that the agriculture policy is slowly liberalizing, but related circles of compensation nevertheless remain salient, especially at the local level, due to persistent human networks at the grassroots level. 7Energy chapter abstractThis chapter shows how cooperative capitalism operates in the energy sector to ensure stable price levels and capital investment. The analysis focuses especially on nuclear power and how circles of compensation have promoted nuclear power and worked to assure local acceptance, both before and after the Fukushima nuclear accident of March 2011. 8Transportation chapter abstractThis chapter shows how circles of compensation can impede Japan's globalization by privileging parochial interests (heavily subsidized local airports) at the expense of potentially competitive cosmopolitan interests (Japan's international airlines and largest airports). The result is a situation where neighboring Korea has become the air and sea shipping hub for East Asia, at Japan's expense, due to perverse, inward-looking Japanese transportation policies. 9Communications chapter abstractThis chapter illustrates the mixed implications of circles of compensation in a rapidly globalizing world, in two parallel dimensions—the "hard" side of communications (telecommunications equipment) and the "soft" side (education and mass media). In the telecommunications sector, the circles have produced an industry focusing on increasingly specialized and arcane applications, largely impractical outside of Japan. In education, there has been a comparable parochial drift. In both areas, Japan is gradually adjusting to long-term global trends, but only slowly, due to the cushioning effect of circles of compensation. 10Japan's Domestic Circles and the Broader World chapter abstractThis chapter addresses the impact of domestic circles of compensation on the incentive structure of Japanese firms and policy makers as they confront globalization. It suggests that the circles encourage them to prioritize stability of domestic corporate relationships at the expense of competitive response to international challenge, to the extent that those contrasting pressures come into conflict. The argument is substantiated by evidence from cases of Japanese firms, such as Rakuten and SoftBank, that are not extensively involved with circles of compensation within Japan, yet are proactive and successful abroad. 11Models for the Future chapter abstractThis chapter documents Japan's difficulties in responding to globalization, principally through comparison with three late-developing political economies with broad similarities to Japan in resource endowment and political structure, which have responded much more smoothly to globalization than has Japan. The chapter then explores where these three countries (Germany, South Korea, and Singapore) provide useful reference points for Japanese policy making. Conclusion: Unraveling the Paradox chapter abstractThis chapter returns to the hypothesis that circles of compensation introduce a parochial, stabilizing bias into working-level incentive structures, inhibiting rapid response to globalization. Sector-specific case studies and national-level data generally confirm this hypothesis. Counterfactual foreign and Japanese cases where circles of compensation do not prevail point to a parallel conclusion. The policy implication is that Japan's "third arrow" structural reforms will be difficult to achieve. Given the complexity and possibly perverse macropolitical implications of dismantling embedded circles of compensation, this research suggests broadening the circles through political leadership within Japan and transnational collaboration to enhance innovative capacity. Privatization and "third arrow" Abenomics structural reforms will likely have limited utility, while broadening efforts such as "womanomics" and use of pension-fund investment criteria may be more effective. Another priority should be transnational private-sector, academic, and governmental linkages, with centers of innovation abroad, such as Silicon Valley.

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Book SynopsisNeoliberalism has become a dirty word. In political discourse, it stigmatizes a political opponent as a market fundamentalist; in academia, the concept is also mainly wielded by its critics, while those who might be seen as actual neoliberals deny its very existence. Yet the term remains necessary for understanding the varieties of capitalism across space and time. Arguing that neoliberalism is widely misunderstood when reduced to a doctrine of markets and economics alone, this book shows that it has a political dimension that we can reconstruct and critique. Recognizing the heterogeneities within and between both neoliberal theory and practice, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism looks to distinguish between the two as well as to theorize their relationship. By examining the views of state, democracy, science, and politics in the work of six major figures—Eucken, Röpke, Rüstow, Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan—it offers the first comprehensive account of the varieties of neoliberal political thought. Ordoliberal perspectives, in particular, emerge in a new light. Turning from abstract to concrete, the book also interprets recent neoliberal reforms of the European Union to offer a diagnosis of contemporary capitalism more generally. The latest economic crises hardly brought the neoliberal era to an end. Instead, as Thomas Biebricher shows, we are witnessing an authoritarian liberalism whose reign has only just begun. Trade Review"This book makes a timely and formidable intervention in current political theory, combining a meticulous analysis of the history of neoliberal thought with a compelling critique of elitist, technocratic, and undemocratic modes of economic governance in this age of austerity." -- Yves Winter * McGill University *"A concise, nuanced, and wide-ranging introduction to the leading theorists of neoliberalism and to the role their ideas have played in recent economic crises.Thomas Biebricher looks beyond familiar critiques of neoliberal ideology and its proponents to ask provocative, insightful questions that are rooted in deep engagement." -- Angus Burgin * Johns Hopkins University *"Thomas Biebricher carefully demonstrates that what unites the many varieties of neoliberalism is not a unified 'theory of politics,' but rather that neoliberalisms share a distinctly political theory. A powerful corrective to the existing scholarship, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism shows readers that within the sweeping generalizations so often made about neoliberalism, the devil truly is in the details." -- Andrew Dilts * Loyola Marymount University *"This is a brilliant book—one of the most illuminating I have read in a long time. Biebricher provides an original account of the emergence of neoliberalism, tracing its development from the 1930s into the present. At once deeply scholarly and profoundly relevant, it is a model of what political theory should be." -- Margaret Kohn * University of Toronto *"At once addressing...skeptics and guiding newcomers to the concept, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism provides one of the most perceptive and analytic treatments of neoliberal thought to date....Going beneath and beyond its usual associations with "mere" economic theory and economic policy, Biebricher offers a compelling reading of neoliberalism as a distinct and internally diverse tradition of political thought." -- William Callison * Contemporary Political Theory *

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Book SynopsisCritics of capitalist finance tend to focus on its speculative character. Our financial markets, they lament, encourage irresponsible bets on the future that reflect no real underlying value. Why is it, then, that opportunities for speculative investment continue to proliferate in the wake of major economic crises? To make sense of this, Capital and Time advances an understanding of economy as a process whereby patterns of order emerge out of the interaction of speculative investments. Progressive critics have assumed that the state occupies a neutral, external position from which it can step in to constrain speculative behaviors. On the contrary, Martijn Konings argues, the state has always been deeply implicated in the speculative dynamics of economic life. Through these insights, he offers a new interpretation of both the economic problems that emerged during the 1970s and the way that neoliberalism responded to them. Neoliberalism's strength derives from its intuition that there is no position that transcends the secular logic of risk, and from its insistence that individuals actively engage that logic. Not only is the critique of speculation misleading as a general approach; it is also incapable of recognizing how American capitalism has come to embrace speculation and has thus been able to generate new kinds of order and governance.Trade Review"Critiquing the critique of neoliberalism, Konings argues forcefully that Minsky, not Habermas, provides the needed foundations for a possible social theory of the present world, a "non-essentialist economism" that engages the neoliberal project at its very core."—Perry Mehrling, Barnard College"This remarkable book offers a new perspective on speculation, neo-liberalism, and contemporary finance. Erudite, beautifully written, and original in its arguments about money, value, and risk, it will be of great interests to economists, sociologists, and philosophers concerned with markets and uncertainty."—Arjun Appadurai, New York University"A smart, erudite contribution to the emerging critical literature on speculative value and the complex imbrication of financialization with neoliberalism."—Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley"A must-read for anyone interested in the operation of neoliberal reason following the recent financial crisis, Martijn Konings's timely book develops new ways of thinking about money, finance, and the speculative basis of contemporary capitalism."—Nicholas Gane, University of Warwick"In this profound and sharp-witted study, Martijn Konings leads us through the dead ends of the modern and postmodern critique of capitalism towards a new critical theory that looks our financial economy in the eye."—Joseph Vogl, The Humboldt University"Martijn Konings has given us an elegant, erudite book that points to the centrality of speculation—and a speculative logic of time—in modern political economy." —Jacqueline Best, Finance and Society"Ten years after the apex of the financial crisis, Konings...opens a much-needed debate in critical political economy, the social studies of finance, and related fields of scholarship, exposing a variety of weaknesses in what now appear as ad-hoc accounts developed in the wake of the crash." —Leon Wansleben, Finance and Society"Konings' consideration of the state of the field [is] both enlightening and convincing.....His argument is specific, energetic and organized, and, as in his trenchant The Emotional Logic of Capitalism (2015), he demonstrates a wonderful ability to deconstruct the tautologies and false dichotomies on which so much of what passes for criticism are based." —Leigh Clair La Berge, Finance and Society"Written in the form of a short through perceptive intellectual commentary on a series of contemporary and classical works, Capital and Time indeed begins with a warning about the impasses of a fundamentalist theory of value opens for the critique of finance."—Fabian Muniesa, European Journal of Sociology"Written in the form of a short through perceptive intellectual commentary on a series of contemporary and classical works, Capital and Time indeed begins with a warning about the impasses a fundamentalist theory of value opens for the critique of finance."—Fabian Muniesa, European Journal of Sociology"Finally, a book that refuses to confine finance to the domain of fictitious capital....Konings advances the critique of neoliberalism in ways accounting for its reinvigoration in the wake of the 2007/8 economic crisis."––Brett Nielson, Journal of Australian Political Economy"In this new and fascinating book, Martijin Konings pulls together an impressive range of sociological and philosophical traditions into an original theory of capital (but, more broadly, money) and time under neoliberalism."––Simone Polillo, Contemporary SociologyTable of ContentsIntroduction: Beyond the Critique of Speculation 1. Foundationalism and Self-Referentiality 2. Constructions and Performances 3. Luhmannian Considerations 4. System, Economy, and Governance 5. Foucault beyond the Critique of Economism 6. Time, Investment, and Decision 7. Minsky beyond the Critique of Speculation 8. Practices of (Central) Banking, Imaginaries of Neutrality 9. Lineages of US Financial Governance 10. Hayek and Neoliberal Reason 11. Neoliberal Financial Governance 12. The Critique of Capital in Neoliberal Times

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Book SynopsisChina has undergone dramatic change in its economic institutions in recent years, but surprisingly little change politically. Somehow, the political institutions seem capable of governing a vastly more complex market economy and a rapidly changing labor force. One possible explanation, examined in Zouping Revisited, is that within the old organizational molds there have been subtle but profound changes to the ways these governing bodies actually work. The authors take as a case study the local government of Zouping County and find that it has been able to evolve significantly through ad hoc bureaucratic adaptations and accommodations that drastically change the operation of government institutions. Zouping has long served as a window into local-level Chinese politics, economy, and culture. In this volume, top scholars analyze the most important changes in the county over the last two decades. The picture that emerges is one of institutional agility and creativity as a new form of resilience within an authoritarian regime.Trade Review"A compelling and important book, Zouping Revisited amply demonstrates the political changes that have occurred—and persist—in China's countryside. Grounded in the soil of rural China, this book examines the startling ways old institutional structures are repurposed to perform new functions."—David M. Lampton, Johns Hopkins University"This is an important contribution to the literature on rural politics that highlights a central theme of governance that has creatively adapted to manage the economic and social transformation of Zouping from an agricultural to an industrial and commercial site. The book provides valuable insights into informal bargaining relationships among officials."—Thomas P. Bernstein, Columbia UniversityTable of Contents1. Change Within Continuity: Zouping County Government 2. Zouping in Historical Perspective 3. Creativity and Flexibility in County and Township Economic Governance 4. Directed Improvisation in Administrative Financing 5. The Evolution and Adaption of Business-Government Relations in Zouping 6. Non-Judicial Interpreters of "Legality" and the Development of Law in the Local State 7. The Role of the Organization Department in Political Selection 8. Reforming and Updating Cadre Training in Zouping's Communist Party Schools 9. Institutional Agility and Regime Adaptation

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Book SynopsisCritics of capitalist finance tend to focus on its speculative character. Our financial markets, they lament, encourage irresponsible bets on the future that reflect no real underlying value. Why is it, then, that opportunities for speculative investment continue to proliferate in the wake of major economic crises? To make sense of this, Capital and Time advances an understanding of economy as a process whereby patterns of order emerge out of the interaction of speculative investments. Progressive critics have assumed that the state occupies a neutral, external position from which it can step in to constrain speculative behaviors. On the contrary, Martijn Konings argues, the state has always been deeply implicated in the speculative dynamics of economic life. Through these insights, he offers a new interpretation of both the economic problems that emerged during the 1970s and the way that neoliberalism responded to them. Neoliberalism's strength derives from its intuition that there is no position that transcends the secular logic of risk, and from its insistence that individuals actively engage that logic. Not only is the critique of speculation misleading as a general approach; it is also incapable of recognizing how American capitalism has come to embrace speculation and has thus been able to generate new kinds of order and governance.Trade Review"Critiquing the critique of neoliberalism, Konings argues forcefully that Minsky, not Habermas, provides the needed foundations for a possible social theory of the present world, a "non-essentialist economism" that engages the neoliberal project at its very core."—Perry Mehrling, Barnard College"This remarkable book offers a new perspective on speculation, neo-liberalism, and contemporary finance. Erudite, beautifully written, and original in its arguments about money, value, and risk, it will be of great interests to economists, sociologists, and philosophers concerned with markets and uncertainty."—Arjun Appadurai, New York University"A smart, erudite contribution to the emerging critical literature on speculative value and the complex imbrication of financialization with neoliberalism."—Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley"A must-read for anyone interested in the operation of neoliberal reason following the recent financial crisis, Martijn Konings's timely book develops new ways of thinking about money, finance, and the speculative basis of contemporary capitalism."—Nicholas Gane, University of Warwick"In this profound and sharp-witted study, Martijn Konings leads us through the dead ends of the modern and postmodern critique of capitalism towards a new critical theory that looks our financial economy in the eye."—Joseph Vogl, The Humboldt University"Martijn Konings has given us an elegant, erudite book that points to the centrality of speculation—and a speculative logic of time—in modern political economy." —Jacqueline Best, Finance and Society"Ten years after the apex of the financial crisis, Konings...opens a much-needed debate in critical political economy, the social studies of finance, and related fields of scholarship, exposing a variety of weaknesses in what now appear as ad-hoc accounts developed in the wake of the crash." —Leon Wansleben, Finance and Society"Konings' consideration of the state of the field [is] both enlightening and convincing.....His argument is specific, energetic and organized, and, as in his trenchant The Emotional Logic of Capitalism (2015), he demonstrates a wonderful ability to deconstruct the tautologies and false dichotomies on which so much of what passes for criticism are based." —Leigh Clair La Berge, Finance and Society"Written in the form of a short through perceptive intellectual commentary on a series of contemporary and classical works, Capital and Time indeed begins with a warning about the impasses of a fundamentalist theory of value opens for the critique of finance."—Fabian Muniesa, European Journal of Sociology"Written in the form of a short through perceptive intellectual commentary on a series of contemporary and classical works, Capital and Time indeed begins with a warning about the impasses a fundamentalist theory of value opens for the critique of finance."—Fabian Muniesa, European Journal of Sociology"Finally, a book that refuses to confine finance to the domain of fictitious capital....Konings advances the critique of neoliberalism in ways accounting for its reinvigoration in the wake of the 2007/8 economic crisis."––Brett Nielson, Journal of Australian Political Economy"In this new and fascinating book, Martijin Konings pulls together an impressive range of sociological and philosophical traditions into an original theory of capital (but, more broadly, money) and time under neoliberalism."––Simone Polillo, Contemporary SociologyTable of ContentsIntroduction: Beyond the Critique of Speculation 1. Foundationalism and Self-Referentiality 2. Constructions and Performances 3. Luhmannian Considerations 4. System, Economy, and Governance 5. Foucault beyond the Critique of Economism 6. Time, Investment, and Decision 7. Minsky beyond the Critique of Speculation 8. Practices of (Central) Banking, Imaginaries of Neutrality 9. Lineages of US Financial Governance 10. Hayek and Neoliberal Reason 11. Neoliberal Financial Governance 12. The Critique of Capital in Neoliberal Times

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Book SynopsisThe global race for talent is on, with countries and businesses competing for the best and brightest. Talented individuals migrate much more frequently than the general population, and the United States has received exceptional inflows of human capital. This foreign talent has transformed U.S. science and engineering, reshaped the economy, and influenced society at large. But America is bogged down in thorny debates on immigration policy, and the world around the United States is rapidly catching up, especially China and India. The future is quite uncertain, and the global talent puzzle deserves close examination. To do this, William R. Kerr uniquely combines insights and lessons from business practice, government policy, and individual decision making. Examining popular ideas that have taken hold and synthesizing rigorous research across fields such as entrepreneurship and innovation, regional advantage, and economic policy, Kerr gives voice to data and ideas that should drive the next wave of policy and business practice. The Gift of Global Talent deftly transports readers from joyous celebrations at the Nobel Prize ceremony to angry airport protests against the Trump administration's travel ban. It explores why talented migration drives the knowledge economy, describes how universities and firms govern skilled admissions, explains the controversies of the H-1B visa used by firms like Google and Apple, and discusses the economic inequalities and superstar firms that global talent flows produce. The United States has been the steward of a global gift, and this book explains the huge leadership decision it now faces and how it can become even more competitive for attracting tomorrow's talent. Please visit www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/research/Pages/default.aspx to learn more about the book.Trade Review"This is a clear-eyed exposition of how talent moves around the world and why so much lands in the United States. Chock-full of compelling data, this book shows that the economic stakes in today's over-heated immigration debate couldn't be higher. This is a must-read for policy makers."—Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California, former Secretary of Homeland Security and Governor of Arizona"This book is brilliant, lucid, and timely. William Kerr understands the value of talent, and demonstrates a wealth of it himself in his exploration of why and how smart people migrate and cluster. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand this crucial topic."—Robert Guest, Foreign Editor of The Economist, and author of Borderless Economics"America's small businesses are under pressure when it comes to accessing the skilled workers they need to compete. William Kerr brilliantly illuminates a framework for the critical conversation that we need to have if we want small businesses to continue to drive our nation's economic success."—Karen G. Mills, Former Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration and Cabinet Member under President Obama"If immigration is to provide sizable economic gains to a receiving country, the place to look is high-skill. William Kerr gives a comprehensive and objective summary of what we know about its economic impact. The book is an invaluable resource."—George J. Borjas, Harvard Kennedy School, and author of We Wanted Workers"The Gift of Global Talent offers key insights on how immigrant entrepreneurs spur U.S. economic growth, create American jobs, and help to further technological and scientific advancement in the U.S. It is an important addition to our national dialogue on immigration and should be required reading for policymakers."—Bobby Franklin, President and CEO, National Venture Capital Association"Its explanation of the role of high-skilled immigration and the reforms that are needed to maintain US competitiveness make this one of the most important books on policy of our time. As Kerr explains, knowledge and talent are now the world's most important resources."—Vivek Wadhwa, Carnegie Mellon University, author, The Driver in the Driverless Car"By showing how talent shapes economies and impacts organizations, Kerr has created a compelling, essential book for the C-suite, especially CHROs. In the competitive search for diversity and talent, companies will need to understand talent clusters and flow. This book provides valuable context as they develop their strategies."—Scott Rutherford, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company"The Gift of Global Talent crystalizes how much the American economy benefits from skilled foreign workers. For American innovation to thrive in the 21st century, we must attract the best minds out there, and Kerr's excellent book teaches us how to do just that."—Edward Glaeser, Harvard University and author, Triumph of the City"If you want to understand why Boston and Silicon Valley have created such vibrant ecosystems, read this book! All of the best and brightest don't work in the U.S., and we should do everything we can to attract and keep that talent. This is the fuel for future generations of startups."—Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder and CTO, HubSpot"As advanced technologies and artificial intelligence reshape business and the future of work, access to great and digitally expert talent is critical. Kerr's powerful book describes how leading companies and countries can attract and leverage this highly mobile and connected professional population for the broader benefit of their organizations and societies."—Vittorio Colao, CEO, Vodafone Group"Kerr's pioneering research on talent coalesces in this essential new book. Talent clusters and an openness to them determine the wealth of cities, nations, and the global economy. A must-read for CEOs, policy makers, and mayors, this is the antidote to the populism threatening the world."—Richard Florida, University of Toronto, Editor-at-Large, CityLab, The Atlantic and author of The Rise of the Creative Class"Kerr's work, based on solid empirical evidence and free of political bias, is easily understandable as he navigates economic theory and public policy. Readers interested in business, economics, sociology, or political science will enjoy this balanced perspective on what Kerr calls the 'defining issue for our time.' Highly recommended."––R. Dupont, CHOICE"You've probably heard the idea that data, not oil, is the most valuable resource of the 21st century. If you read The Gift of Global Talent, and I think you should, you might conclude that skills are our most precious resource.As [the book] amply documents, the U.S. continues to put up barriers that prevent the most skilled and educated individuals from working (and studying) in the U.S."—Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed"An especially valuable aspect of [Kerr's] research is the fact that he does indeed effectively connect the academic, analytical approach to the book's subject matter with business- and practice-oriented conclusions, including some very interesting predictions and policy recommendations. In addition, Kerr relies on his family experience (p. 174). He thus has a deep personal knowledge of the subject matter and offers an important human perspective in regard to the issue of brain drain as well as migration in general."—Andrei V. Korobkov, Contemporary SociologyTable of ContentsIntroduction: Why Global Talent Matters to You 1. Talent on the Move 2. The Economics of Talent Clusters 3. Innovation in the United States 4. Points Versus Firms 5. The Education Pathway 6. Talent Clusters to Rule Them All 7. The New HR Challenge 8. Global Diffusion Remade 9. Revenge of the Nerds Conclusions: Fragile U.S. Leadership

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Book SynopsisThe biomedical industry, which includes biopharmaceuticals, genomics and stem cell therapies, and medical devices, is among the fastest growing worldwide. While it has been an economic development target of many national governments, Asia is currently on track to reach the epicenter of this growth. What accounts for the rapid and sustained economic growth of biomedicals in Asia? To answer this question, Kathryn Ibata-Arens integrates global and national data with original fieldwork to present a conceptual framework that considers how national governments have managed key factors, like innovative capacity, government policy, and firm-level strategies. Taking China, India, Japan, and Singapore in turn, she compares each country's underlying competitive advantages. What emerges is an argument that countries pursuing networked technonationalism (NTN) effectively upgrade their capacity for innovation and encourage entrepreneurial activity in targeted industries. In contrast to countries that engage in classic technonationalism—like Japan's developmental state approach—networked technonationalists are global minded to outside markets, while remaining nationalistic within the domestic economy. By bringing together aggregate data at the global and national level with original fieldwork and drawing on rich cases, Ibata-Arens telegraphs implications for innovation policy and entrepreneurship strategy in Asia—and beyond.Trade Review"Kathryn Ibata-Arens, who has excelled in her work on the development of technology in Japan, has here extended her research to consider the development of techno-nationalism in other Asian countries as well: China, Singapore, Japan, and India. She finds that these countries now pursue techno-nationalism by linking up with international developments to keep up with the latest technology in the United States and elsewhere. The book is a creative and original analysis of the changing nature of techno-nationalism." -- Ezra F. Vogel * Harvard University *"Ibata-Arens examines how tacit knowledge enables technology development and how business, academic, and kinship networks foster knowledge creation and transfer. The empirically rich cases treat "networked technonationalist" biotech strategies with Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Singaporean characteristics. Essential reading for industry analysts of global bio-pharma and political economists seeking an alternative to tropes of economic liberalism and statist mercantilism." -- Kenneth A. Oye, Professor of Political Science and Data, Systems, and Society * Massachusetts Institute of Technology *"In Beyond Technonationalism, Ibata-Arens encourages us to look beyond the Asian developmental state model, noting how the model is increasingly unsuited for first-order innovation in the biomedical sector. She situates state policies and strategies in the technonationalist framework and argues that while all economies are technonationalist to some degree, in China, India, Singapore and Japan, the processes by which the innovation-driven state has emerged differ in important ways. Beyond Technonationalism is comparative analysis at its best. That it examines some of the world's most important economies makes it a timely and important read." -- Joseph Wong, Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation Munk School of Global Affairs * University of Toronto *"Kathryn Ibata-Arens masterfully weaves a comparative story of how ambitious states in Asia are promoting their bio-tech industry by cleverly linking domestic efforts with global forces. Empirically rich and analytically insightful, she reveals by creatively eschewing liberalism and selectively using nationalism, states are both promoting entrepreneurship and innovation in their bio-medical industry and meeting social, health, and economic challenges as well." -- Anthony P. D'Costa, Eminent Scholar in Global Studies and Professor of Economics, University of Alabama * Huntsville *"Beyond Technonationalism provides a much-needed global and comparative perspective to understand Asia's foray into the biomedical industry....[An] excellent guide to the field of innovation studies, science and technology policy, and the global history of biotechnology." -- Doogab Yi * Journal of Asian Studies *"Beyond Technonationalism proposes a bold new conceptual framework of networked technonationalism. Leveraging her incisive insights and wellresearched data, IbataArens delves into the policies and economic backgrounds of Japan, China, India, and Singapore....[A] muchneeded update to the politicaleconomic view of national development and innovative entrepreneurship that are increasingly relevant is an increasingly turbulent world." -- Robert Eberhart * Political Science Quarterly *"Ibata-Arens has offered an insightful work that develops greater understanding of the rise in diversity of national innovation policies. It is an important perspective from which to view the shifts that will occur as the power balance in innovation moves to more points around the globe." -- Gerald Hane * The Developing Economies *"Ibata-Arens' book is theoretically novel. Her framework, networked technonationalism, extends existing notions of technonationalism in previously unimagined ways....[A] necessary read for students and scholars desiring to understand better how public policy can spur economic development and national innovation in today's dynamic global landscape." -- Eric Dahlin * Social Forces *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1Introduction chapter abstractThe book discusses the importance of global competition in biomedical and new-technology sectors to understanding international trade and investment in the twenty-first century. It argues that countries that pursue networked technonationalism (NTN) have been the most effective in improving innovation capacity and fostering frontier-industry growth. Technonationalism is state-led strategic investment in new technologies, perceived as key to national security. From the most closed system (Japan's classic technonationalism) to the most open, or technoglobal system (Singapore) technationalism exists on a continuum. A typology of knowledge and network regimes is proposed to explain variations in domestic capacities, institutions, and policy and network practices. Comparisons of human capital development (STEM education), knowledge production (scientific citations and patents), institutions supporting innovation (technology licensing organizations, incubators), and interfirm networks and international openness (inward foreign direct investment, engaging with diaspora, and immigration) elucidate distinctions. 2Theory and Methods chapter abstractThis chapter develops a matrix that plots variations in open/tacit versus closed/codified system architectures supporting or limiting innovation capacity and new-business creation in targeted sectors. Aggregate global- and microlevel data are analyzed to identify concentrations of innovation and firm-level activity. Emerging hubs of knowledge and firm creation in biomedical industries, including biopharmaceuticals, are identified. Aggregate data is supplemented with firm-level case studies and interviews with entrepreneurs, government officials, incubation managers, and investors. The conceptual framework outlined in Chapter 1 and specified in Chapter 2 provides the lens through which innovation and entrepreneurship strategies in China, India, Japan, and Singapore are viewed. The analysis is supplemented with firm-level entrepreneurial case studies. 3Classic Technonationalism in Japan chapter abstractJapan's strengths in intellectual property production have since the 1990s failed to translate into globally competitive new-product and new-business creation. Insular institutions and business practices have created "sticky" networks. These structures, while protecting weak industries from global competition, have trapped nascent entrepreneurs and undermined human-capital development. Yet Japan remains the largest market for biomedical products and services in Asia. Its aging population is driving ever-increasing health care consumption, while the shrinking size of its working population means that growth must be based on productivity gains. These demographics provide opportunities for foreign firms and investors to enter Japan, potentially enriching Japanese networks in the future. The Japanese state has encouraged international science and technology collaborations since 2000, which has led to growth in international copatenting, a potential first step to broader internationalization and open networks. 4New Networked Technonationalism in China chapter abstractFeatures of China's networked technonationalism (NTN) include aggressive science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and entrepreneurship policies. Further, the biomedical industry has been identified by political and economic leaders as a "strategic emerging industry" and has become a focal point of state-led economic development. In contrast to Japan's insular and closed ("sticky") domestic knowledge and business networks, since the 1970s China's expatriate and diaspora returnee communities and active inward FDI have contributed to evolving globally competitive business networks. Over time, China used its growing domestic market as a lure to foreign firms from which technology appropriation can occur. However, China's population size and urban-rural disparities mean that egalitarian redistribution of new wealth has not been guaranteed in this system. Further, introduction of Western chemical pharmaceuticals threaten traditional medicine and therapies. 5From Closed to Open in India chapter abstractDecades ago, led by the technonational rhetoric of self-reliance and improvement in human health, India delayed opening its market. Consequently, India spent decades on import substitution and other exclusionary policies in a classic technonational system architecture like Japan. Later, India invested in generic-drug research and development and production capacity, complemented by advances in information technology. State-led human-capital development—for example, in the semi-independent Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs)—targeted initially information technology and more recently has focused on biomedicine. Expatriate and diaspora returnee networks of Indian professionals, via its networked technonational architecture, since the 1990s have contributed to the development of innovative capacity and new ventures, but at a slower pace than in China. 6Singapore chapter abstractSingapore's developmental model had to be based within its multiethnic Chinese, Indian, and Malay population and from its very inception was global in outlook. Its meritocratic Economic Development Board (EDB) and Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) tied inward FDI to domestic human-capital development and redistribution of internationally derived wealth to its domestic population. Its "guppies to whales" human-capital development programs contributed to productivity gains through attracting the region's best and brightest STEM youth and offering them citizenship. While the Singaporean city-state's small population has proven an impediment to establishing a critical mass of new technology entrepreneurs, open immigration policies have the potential to fast-track future developments. However, indigenous Singaporeans have been displaced in this process. 7Conclusion chapter abstractChapter 7 summarizes the key findings of the book, reflecting on the framework of networked technonationalism and the conceptual typology of knowledge and networks. It compares variations in networked technonationalism as measured by variation in the knowledge and network architecture and governance regimes in China, India, Japan, and Singapore. The book concludes with theory and policy implications of networked technonationalism for Asia and the world economy.

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Book SynopsisIn Discreet Power, Christina Garsten and Adrienne Sörbom undertake an ethnographic study of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Accessing one of the primary agenda-setting organizations of our day, they draw on interviews and participant observation to examine how the WEF wields its influence. They situate the WEF within an emerging system of "discretionary governance," in which actors craft ideas and entice formal authorities and top leaders in order to garner significant sway. Yet in spite of its image as a powerful, exclusive brain trust, the WEF has no formal mandate to implement its positions. It must convince others to advance chosen causes and enact suggestions, rendering its position quite fragile. Garsten and Sörbom argue that the WEF must be viewed relationally as a brokering organization that lives between the market and political spheres and that extends its reach through associated individuals and groups.They place the WEF in the context of a broader shift, arguing that while this type of governance opens up novel ways of dealing with urgent global problems, it challenges core democratic values.Trade Review"Between raw forces of the global economy and disordered world politics lie organizations that are neither political nor economic. The World Economic Forum is central among these structures. Garsten and Sörbom give a most impressive depiction and analysis of its role—responsible but undemocratic—in what is now called global governance."—John W. Meyer, Stanford University"This is an outstanding exemplar of a very difficult genre in the craft of ethnography: working within the highest reaches of elite organization. The challenge lies less in limited access than in not reinforcing our deep-seated stereotypes of what goes on in such groups. This work is distinguished by its observational quality and derived expression of the stakes and issues at hand."—George Marcus, University of California, Irvine"In this informative study, Carsten and Sörbom explore both the inner workings and the communication strategies of the World Economic Forum....[T]he authors conclude that the WEF does perform a useful service, even if it is biased toward elite perceptions."—Richard N. Cooper, Foreign AffairsTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Disentangling Discretionary Governance 2. Liquid Mandate 3. Setting Precedence 4. The Status Machinery 5. Mobilizing for the Future 6. Political Sway Conclusion: A New Narrative for Future Globalization?

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Book SynopsisNeoliberalism has become a dirty word. In political discourse, it stigmatizes a political opponent as a market fundamentalist; in academia, the concept is also mainly wielded by its critics, while those who might be seen as actual neoliberals deny its very existence. Yet the term remains necessary for understanding the varieties of capitalism across space and time. Arguing that neoliberalism is widely misunderstood when reduced to a doctrine of markets and economics alone, this book shows that it has a political dimension that we can reconstruct and critique. Recognizing the heterogeneities within and between both neoliberal theory and practice, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism looks to distinguish between the two as well as to theorize their relationship. By examining the views of state, democracy, science, and politics in the work of six major figures—Eucken, Röpke, Rüstow, Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan—it offers the first comprehensive account of the varieties of neoliberal political thought. Ordoliberal perspectives, in particular, emerge in a new light. Turning from abstract to concrete, the book also interprets recent neoliberal reforms of the European Union to offer a diagnosis of contemporary capitalism more generally. The latest economic crises hardly brought the neoliberal era to an end. Instead, as Thomas Biebricher shows, we are witnessing an authoritarian liberalism whose reign has only just begun. Trade Review"This book makes a timely and formidable intervention in current political theory, combining a meticulous analysis of the history of neoliberal thought with a compelling critique of elitist, technocratic, and undemocratic modes of economic governance in this age of austerity." -- Yves Winter * McGill University *"A concise, nuanced, and wide-ranging introduction to the leading theorists of neoliberalism and to the role their ideas have played in recent economic crises.Thomas Biebricher looks beyond familiar critiques of neoliberal ideology and its proponents to ask provocative, insightful questions that are rooted in deep engagement." -- Angus Burgin * Johns Hopkins University *"Thomas Biebricher carefully demonstrates that what unites the many varieties of neoliberalism is not a unified 'theory of politics,' but rather that neoliberalisms share a distinctly political theory. A powerful corrective to the existing scholarship, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism shows readers that within the sweeping generalizations so often made about neoliberalism, the devil truly is in the details." -- Andrew Dilts * Loyola Marymount University *"This is a brilliant book—one of the most illuminating I have read in a long time. Biebricher provides an original account of the emergence of neoliberalism, tracing its development from the 1930s into the present. At once deeply scholarly and profoundly relevant, it is a model of what political theory should be." -- Margaret Kohn * University of Toronto *"At once addressing...skeptics and guiding newcomers to the concept, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism provides one of the most perceptive and analytic treatments of neoliberal thought to date....Going beneath and beyond its usual associations with "mere" economic theory and economic policy, Biebricher offers a compelling reading of neoliberalism as a distinct and internally diverse tradition of political thought." -- William Callison * Contemporary Political Theory *

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Book SynopsisEgypt has undergone significant economic liberalization under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, USAID, and the European Commission. Yet after more than four decades of economic reform, the Egyptian economy still fails to meet popular expectations for inclusive growth, better standards of living, and high-quality employment. While many analysts point to cronyism and corruption, Amr Adly finds the root causes of this stagnation in the underlying social and political conditions of economic development. Cleft Capitalism offers a new explanation for why market-based development can fail to meet expectations: small businesses in Egypt are not growing into medium and larger businesses. The practical outcome of this missing middle syndrome is the continuous erosion of the economic and social privileges once enjoyed by the middle classes and unionized labor, without creating enough winners from market making. This in turn set the stage for alienation, discontent, and, finally, revolt. With this book, Adly uncovers both an institutional explanation for Egypt's failed market making, and sheds light on the key factors of arrested economic development across the Global South.Trade Review"Cleft Capitalism is a highly original analysis of what Amr Adly calls Egypt's 'successful transition to failed capitalism.' Based on extensive and sound research, it represents an important rethinking of the trajectory of Egypt's political economy since 1974 and a bold challenge to Washington Consensus economic policy orthodoxy." -- Joel Beinin * Stanford University *"Amr Adly elaborates a novel explanation for underperforming economies of the Global South. Richly detailed, theoretically insightful, Cleft Capitalism is essential reading for anyone interested in the Egyptian, Middle Eastern, and other political economies." -- Robert Springborg * Naval Postgraduate School *"Cleft Capitalism offers a lucid, rich, and new understanding of the course of Egyptian economic development. With his sophisticated understanding of Egyptian politics and society and refined economic analysis, Amr Adly not only helps us understand Egypt better, but offers a model of how to approach the contentious terrain of economic change in the developing world." -- Nathan J. Brown * George Washington University *"Adly puts forth compelling arguments and descriptions of Egypt's failed market making....Cleft Capitalism offers new theoretical insights and valuable empirical analysis of the course of Egypt's political economy and the causes of its economic predicaments since 1974." -- Housam Darwisheh * The Developing Economies *"[Cleft Capitalism] is more than an exemplary analysis of the situation of political economy in Egypt. It is also a significant contribution to wider debates on the possibilities and limits of market-based development in the Global South....an essential read to students, researchers, and policy-makers interested in the political economy of Egypt, the limits and potentials of structural adjustment policies, and the insights of economic sociology to the study of political economy." -- Hesham Shafik * Jadaliyya *"Cleft Capitalism is an ambitious book that aims to make broad academic contributions far beyond its specific focus on the contemporary social and political economy of Egypt....[It succeeds] both as an overview of the Egyptian economy and as a critique of the institutional economics orthodoxy. It is one of the best books that I have read about both subjects in recent years, and I recommend it highly." -- Mahmoud A. El-Gamal * Middle East Journal *"[Adly's] novel argument diverges from dominant political economy accounts, which focus on corruption and crony capitalism or the lack of formal property rights and the rule of law. For Adly, the answer lies in the 'missing middle' of small and medium enterprises, which have served an important role in capitalist development by scaling up to become important job creators in more successful developing economies, such as in South Korea. Adly traces the roots of the problem to historically specific institutional arrangements that emerged earlier in the 20th century and during the period of state-led development under Nasser and were consolidated under Sadat and Mubarak's tenures. Adly's book is grounded on impressive qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis and makes important contributions to the study of failed development in Egypt, with comparative implications for other developing countries in and beyond the Middle East and North Africa." -- Committee for the Roger Owen Book Award * sponsored by the Middle East Studies Association *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsOne: Successful Transition to Failed Capitalism chapter abstractOver the course of four decades, the Egyptian economy underwent consistent and comprehensive economic liberalization, privatization of state-owned enterprises, and deregulation. Yet the Egyptian economy today still experiences low growth, declining total investment rates, and high unemployment and underemployment. The private sector has never become globally competitive. The chapter traces this failure to establish an integrated market order. The problem of market integration in Egypt was not the absence of the Weberian spirit for exchange and the profit-making mentality among a majority of economically active people. Rather, it was the hard constraint of accessing capital. The 2011 uprising highlighted that these efforts at transformation failed not only economically but politically as well. Two: Beyond Cronyism chapter abstractStudies of Egypt's lackluster development performance have largely focused on the issue of crony capitalism, particularly the routes through which big business emerged after infitāḥ. It is undeniable that politics has played a significant, if not a central, role in the rise of big business in Egypt since the mid-1970s. This is hardly surprising, let alone unique. This literature on cronyism and rent seeking suffers from a blind spot in assessing the problematic nature of Egypt's capitalist transformation. Where large enterprises came from does not explain the lack of vibrancy and dynamism in the rest of the private sector. The issue with Egypt's private sector, as well as other cases of failed market transformation, seems to lie more with its inability to engender a robust stratum of small and medium-sized enterprises rather than the existence of large enterprises that are politically connected. Three: Egypt's Cleft Capitalism chapter abstractContrary to the expectations of neoclassical institutionalism, the weakness of formal property rights neither impeded the expansion of market exchange nor t deterred thousands of Egyptians from engaging with this expanding market since the mid-1970s. Alternative private economic orders have retained the capacity for sustained market creation and expansion, albeit imperfectly. This market expansion was not conducive to market integration, though. The resultant capitalist order was cleft. In order to grow, private enterprises must have access to inputs and market outlets that go beyond what is immediately available from their direct, private social capital. Throughout Egypt's capitalist transformation, access to capital, in particular, finance and land, remained quite restrained for the vast majority of private market actors. This was due to politico-historical factors that were continually perpetuated, eventually leading to the rise of institutional arrangements that were exclusionary for the broad base of private sector enterprises and entrepreneurs. Four: The Origins of Cleft Capitalism chapter abstractFor a vibrant and integrated capitalist order to emerge, capital should be made accessible to a majority of market actors. However, Egyptian SSEs have faced high administrative and economic barriers to financial and physical capital, a central mechanism through which cleft capitalism has been produced and reproduced over time. The problem of restricted access to capital has institutional and political origins. The rules, norms, and structures—-be they formal, informal, or a mix—that have governed the distribution of opportunities for accessing capital has produced three separate business subsystems—baladi, dandy, and crony—since infitāḥ in 1974. It was the predominance of a coalition of bureaucratic actors that maintained certain institutional arrangements for directly accessing land and bank credit. Five: How Cleft Capitalism Came About chapter abstractThis chapter discusses the historical and political factors that led to the production and reproduction of cleft capitalism since infitāḥ. It addresses the question of where the institutional condition of cleft capitalism came from. It examines the multiple political and economic factors since the mid-1970s that shaped the role of the state amid the process of market making and why they led to the development and perpetuation of cleft capitalism. It was the predominance of a coalition of bureaucratic actors that maintained certain institutional arrangements for directly accessing land and bank credit. However, this was neither uniform nor always strategically pursued, as it did not always result from top-down decisions by leadership of the executive where most formal power resided. Rather, there were many instances when bottom-up forces from within an incoherent and fragmented bureaucracy solidified the same institutional arrangements of a centralized and hierarchical system. Six: Egypt's Banking System: An Exclusive Club chapter abstractDespite waves of market-oriented reforms in Egypt, the overconcentration of credit, mainly extended to the state and a few large private sector firms, has persisted and failed to produce intermediate institutions that could open up channels of credit access for the broad base of SSEs. The chapter shows that the essential investment tool of debt financing has been made systematically unavailable to the broad base of these establishments because of an institutional and organizational framework that has been overly centralized and hierarchical. These institutional traits have ultimately raised the transaction costs for SSEs to an extent that has effectively excluded them from accessing credit, precluding any credible chance of scaling up and thus calcifying the institutional condition of cleft capitalism. Seven: Egypt's Desert Land: Abundant Yet Scarce chapter abstractDespite the virtual abundance of desert land, access to this land for productive uses has been quite restricted for most private sector enterprises. Indeed, entrepreneurs have traditionally underlined access to land, like finance, as a major barrier to growth—a consistent and constant theme since the launch of infitāḥ . Similar to the case of finance, centralized and hierarchical institutions dominated land management that excluded SSEs from accessing the physical capital needed to expand. Taken together, the lack of access to these crucial capital inputs has created and perpetuated the institutional condition of cleft capitalism that has robbed the Egyptian private sector of any ability to follow the paths taken by more successful market transformations. Eight: Baladi Capitalism chapter abstractThis chapter portrays a detailed and vivid picture of Egypt's baladi capitalism through exploring how SSEs function. Informed by extensive field research conducted in mid-2013, the chapter depicts a lively portrayal of how Egypt's private SSEs evolved and the diverse and complex modes of articulation between what is formal and informal and what is economic and social. Social networks, usually composed of family and friends, reduce the asymmetries of information between parties. Such networks are quite prevalent due to the weakness of formal contract enforcement and the high risks associated with impersonal transactions. Socialized and personalized transactions have contributed to the rise and constitution of a market since infitāḥ, defined as the space where price-driven exchange occurs. However, they couldn't substitute for the missing ingredient of access to capital that could have propelled Egypt's baladi capitalist subsystem into a robust and integrated private sector. Nine: Dandy Capitalism chapter abstractDespite economic liberalization and private sector development, designed to serve as the neoclassical solutions to Egypt's economic woes, entrenched levels of social marginalization and exclusion that were derived from earlier attempts at top-down modernization and colonial rule persisted after independence. Throughout most of Egypt's contemporary history, including the social reform eras in the 1950s and 1960s, state institutions maintained ties with only limited segments of society. This implied the absence of complementarity between social evolution that involved the vast majority of the people, on the one hand, and state attempts to deliver development, on the other. This overarching concept can be used to understand the historical lack of complementarity and intermediate institutions between capital-regulating organizations and SSEs, the missing-middle syndrome, rampant economic informality, and finally cleft capitalism as the general condition for underdevelopment throughout the past four decades of attempted market making.

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Book SynopsisPentagon spending has been the target of decades of criticism and reform efforts. Billions of dollars are spent on weapons programs that are later abandoned. State-of-the-art data centers are underutilized and overstaffed. New business systems are built at great expense but fail to meet the needs of their users. Every Secretary of Defense for the last five Administrations has made it a priority to address perceived bloat and inefficiency by making management reform a major priority. The congressional defense committees have been just as active, enacting hundreds of legislative provisions. Yet few of these initiatives produce significant results, and the Pentagon appears to go on, as wasteful as ever. In this book, Peter Levine addresses why, despite a long history of attempted reform, the Pentagon continues to struggle to reduce waste and inefficiency. The heart of Defense Management Reform is three case studies covering civilian personnel, acquisitions, and financial management. Narrated with the insight of an insider, the result is a clear understanding of what went wrong in the past and a set of concrete guidelines to plot a better future.Trade Review"There are a handful of public servants who can legitimately claim to be practitioners of defense reform. Peter Levine is one. Having observed reform efforts that originated on Capitol Hill and managed such efforts in the Department of Defense, Peter is uniquely qualified to identify the political and bureaucratic practices that promote successful defense reform." -- General Norty Schwartz, USAF (Retired), Former Chief of Staff * United States Air Force *"No one know the successes and failures of 'reform' in defense better than Peter Levine, and his own role in many of them made for the successes." -- Ash Carter, Former Secretary of Defense; Director, Harvard's Belfer Center; and Innovation Fellow, Member of the Corporation * MIT *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1Civilian Personnel Reform at the Department of Defense chapter abstractThe National Security Personnel System (NSPS) was initiated at a time of consensus that the old civil service system was overly bureaucratic, inflexible, and in need of reform. It received an unprecedented level of resources, but still failed. The Bush administration helped strengthen opposition by insisting on comprehensive changes to the collective bargaining and employee appeals systems that were largely unrelated to the reform's core purpose of linking pay to performance. The NSPS made changes to parts of the system that needed to be changed, but it also changed parts of the system that were working reasonably well. In the end, it failed because of the controversy generated by parts of the new system that may not have been necessary at all, and this failure dragged down the prospect of constructive reform for at least another decade. 2Lessons from the Never-Ending Search for Acquisition Reform chapter abstractOver the last forty years, the DOD has undertaken at least five cycles of acquisition reform, seeking at various times to centralize control over major defense acquisition programs, to devolve more responsibility to the military services, to reign in acquisition abuses with additional guidance, and to rid the DOD and its contractors of excess regulations. While these reforms were all driven by public outrage about cost growth and acquisition abuses, they had wildly different results. The Packard Commission reforms and the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 were the most successful of the reforms because they identified poor front-end decision making as the most significant source of cost growth in the acquisition of major weapon systems and developed a focused set of solutions for that problem. 3Auditing the Pentagon chapter abstractOver the last three decades, the DOD has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in planning activities, billions of dollars in efforts to compile and reconcile financial data, and tens billions of dollars in new financial systems, but has gotten no closer to an auditable financial statement. In fact, an auditable financial statement provides little value for management purposes and may not even be the right goal. The department's bookkeeping problems are the result of a maze of deficient systems, poor controls, dysfunctional processes, and stovepiped organizations, none of which can be fixed by management fiat. The DOD has made the most progress in addressing these problems when it has taken an incremental approach and settled for improved systems and processes that were less than perfect for audit and accounting purposes.

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Book SynopsisDark Finance offers one of the first ethnographic accounts of financial expansion and its political impacts in Eastern Europe. Following workers, managers, and investors in the Macedonian construction sector, Fabio Mattioli shows how financialization can empower authoritarian regimes—not by making money accessible to everyone, but by allowing a small group of oligarchs to monopolize access to international credit and promote a cascade of exploitative domestic debt relations. The landscape of failed deals and unrealizable dreams that is captured in this book portrays finance not as a singular, technical process. Instead, Mattioli argues that finance is a set of political and economic relations that entangles citizens, Eurocrats, and workers in tense paradoxes. Mattioli traces the origins of illiquidity in the reorganization of the European project and the postsocialist perversion of socialist financial practices—a dangerous mix that hid the Macedonian regime's weakness behind a façade of urban renewal and, for a decade, made it seem omnipresent and invincible. Dark Finance chronicles how, one bad deal at a time, Macedonia's authoritarian regime rode a wave of financial expansion that deepened its reach into Macedonian society, only to discover that its domination, like all speculative bubbles, was teetering on the verge of collapse.Trade Review"As financialization and populism reshape the world, Fabio Mattioli's rich and timely analysis traces the intersection of finance-fueled construction and authoritarian rule in Macedonia. It critically highlights the illiberal politics that drive financialization and urban development, while carefully attending to the everyday lives of construction workers who are building Skopje's new skyline." -- Sohini Kar * London School of Economics and Political Science *"Dark Finance offers fresh insight on contemporary populism in Europe and fine-grained descriptions of how illiquidity functions. This is the most compelling, persuasive, and chilling analysis of North Macedonia's place in the global economy, and the cynical exploitation of a people by their elected government, that I have read in the past decade." -- Keith Brown * Arizona State University *"Dark Finance takes the anthropology of financialization to the next level. From gender relations and exploitation to the volatile politics of popular desires and authoritarianism in North Macedonia in the years after the global financial crisis, Fabio Mattioli's holistic and relational take on the contradictions of global finance in the postsocialist periphery is pathbreaking." -- Don Kalb * University of Bergen and Utrecht University *"Mattioli excels in this respect: documenting the operations and implications of finance and financialization beyond its own narrow social domain—the one of financial markets, institutions, expert knowledge, and so on—and within the life-worlds, relations, and practices of a variety of social actors. This allows him to analyze aspects likely to be missed by other perspectives." -- Marek Mikuš * Journal of Cultural Economy *"Fabio Mattioli has written a vibrant book, mapping the networks sustaining Nikola Gruevski's power and the lived experience of "authoritarian financialization," and offering novel insights into Macedonia's and Europe's political economy. The book combines ethnographic and an almost-poetic sensitivity, rich in its description of economic, urban, and social landscapes. In addition to being a skillfully executed ethnography, Dark Finance: Illiquidity and Authoritarianism at the Margins of Europe is a fascinating case study, a crime story, a political drama, and a political thriller. Highly recommended not only for those seeking to understand Gruevski's regime but anyone interested in illiberal finance." -- Gábor Scheiring * Review of Democracy *"Original, timely, and gorgeously written, Dark Finance makes key theoretical contributions to several fields of inquiry, including economic anthropology, political economy, anthropology of the state, social studies of time and gender, and Europeanization as a cultural and financial process. It represents anthropology at its best and should be read and taught widely." -- Emanuela Grama * American Anthropologist *"Through its analysis, the book unravels the social, political, and gendered relations that mediated financialization and that produced a centralized power apparatus. Mattioli develops an original take on both financialization and what he calls authoritarianism. . .In contrast to these understandings, Mattioli illuminates how capital "flows" and state capture depend on, constitute, and are exercised through social relations.In its acuity and originality,Dark Financeis thus an important example of how research in "the margins of Europe" contributes to our understanding of global political economic processes." -- Jane Cowan * on behalf of the 2021 William A. Douglass Prize Jury *"Dark Finance creatively reimagines the concept of financialization to provide fresh insights into politics and society in Macedonia, with implications for our understanding of the postcommunist region more broadly. Beginning from an eth visible Skopje 2014 construction projects sponsored by the Gruevski government, Mattioli demonstrates the centrality of illiquidity—the prevalence and significance of non-cash transactions—to both the nature of authoritarian politics and the shape of everyday life, with especially compelling attention to gendered politics and identities. Far from a bounded case study, the book's ethnography and analysis extend outward into the European Union and global economy to argue that Macedonia presents an illustrative instance of 'peripheral financialization.' Mattioli's novel conceptual framing, multi-scale range of vision, sensitivity to long-term histories, and captivating writing style combine to showcase an innovative way of studying political economy." * Ed A. Hewett Book Prize committee *"With Dark Finance, Mattioli manages successfully to articulate the global, the local and the intimate in peripheral European contexts... Overall, Dark Finance is a riveting study aided by comprehensive ethnographic observations." -- Tringa Bytyqi * Anthropology Book Forum *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: The Making of Illiquidity in Macedonia chapter abstractFrom stocks to illnesses, financialization is at the core of contemporary life. But what is financialization? How can it be studied ethnographically? And how does it relate to the rise of global authoritarianism? This chapter introduces the book's main arguments and situates them within the debates surrounding financial expansion. Rather than a function of calculative devices or liquid capital, the chapter describes financialization as a multi-scalar political process and offers an example of how to interrogate ethnographically the different relationships that generate financial expansion. 1The Magic of Building chapter abstractUntil 2015, Macedonia's authoritarian regime received international coverage largely in relation to the Skopje 2014 project and the hundreds of new buildings and statues that celebrated a fictional Hellenic and neo-baroque past. Chapter 1 describes how Skopje 2014 constituted a mask—obscuring shady businessmen who colluded with former secret agents, plotted to ruin former socialist companies, and invested in a wealth of real estate developments in Skopje. The chapter describes the financial networks that are at the core of Skopje's construction expansion, their connection to the socialist era's need for foreign currency, and their crucial role in supporting Gruevski's political ambitions. Following the trajectory of these networks through the postsocialist transition, the chapter shows how the built environment has become a magical device through which dirty money is made clean, and ambiguous power relations are recast as a national identity. 2Peripheral Financialization chapter abstractPostsocialist-transition Macedonia is a country with few natural resources, high unemployment, and few value-added industries. Where did the money for Skopje 2014 and other construction-related public investments come from? Chapter 2 details the international conditions that favored and structured the inflow of capital in Macedonia, focusing on two pillars of financial expansion at the periphery: foreign direct investment (FDI) and aid. It describes why international investors and agencies decided to provide funds to the Macedonian government despite the lack of credit that characterized the global economy. The chapter also follows the peregrinations of a group of Italian businessmen who tried to escape global illiquidity by intercepting international investments in Macedonia. Their stories portray the domestic, rent-seeking structures put in place by Gruevski's rule and illustrate how an increasingly unequal and subdivided European Union generates financial peripheries and supports authoritarian regimes. 3Forced Credit and Kompenzacija chapter abstractHow did international loans translate into domestic power for Gruevski's government? Chapter 3 explores the characteristics of Macedonia's domestic financialization, focusing on the reemergence of in-kind exchanges, known as kompenzacija, that followed the global financial crisis. Outlining kompenzacija's postsocialist trajectory and its relation to the Macedonian banking system, the chapter describes how politically disconnected companies receive payments in goods they don't want. These objects, such as apartments or eggs, lose value, thus obligating businesses either to absorb losses or offload these properties on subcontractors and workers. By describing the political coercion and financial dispossession that ensues, the chapter shows that kompenzacija constitutes a form of forced credit fully integrated into global financial flows. At the periphery of the European and global financial systems, the need to convert value across means of payments allows authoritarian regimes to increase their power by reaching deeply into people's social networks. 4Illiquid Times chapter abstractIn a landscape punctuated by illiquidity, production is not constant but is rather subordinated to the rhythms of debt repayment. Chapter 4 focuses on the disruption of daily routines that takes place once illiquidity makes manual work almost irrelevant. Based on a fine-grained description of the actions, rituals, discussions, and pauses that characterize work under illiquidity, this chapter details the strategies used by workers to regain agency and meaning. The chapter narrates the poetic resilience of workers and their capacity to generate spaces for empathy in the interstices of financial uncertainty. Filled with potential for social transformation, the tempo of workers' acts, jokes, and conversations does not remain merely performative. Framed by financial precariousness, their tricky conversations slide toward opportunism and reduce their moral capacity to oppose the Gruevski regime. 5Speculative Masculinity chapter abstractIlliquidity affects not only workers' self-conception but also their collective identity. Chapter 5 shows how Macedonian illiquidity generates gendered paradoxes that dislodge earlier models of work-centered, hegemonic masculinity despite the regime's insistence on aggressive manhood as a fundamental component of Macedonian identity. The chapter follows a group of male Macedonian construction workers as they try to restore patriarchal authority within their company. Unable to provide for their families, challenged by economically ascendant ethnic Albanian males, and dislodged from the nurturing attentions of Macedonian female colleagues, their failures leave them exhausted. Scorn and mockery emerge as hierarchical ways to keep male solidarity alive, forcing workers to consume their energy in containing their microaggression and projecting the regime as their only anchor. 6Finance and the Pirate State chapter abstractIlliquidity is without doubt a process intertwined with Macedonia's socialist and postsocialist history, intrinsically linked to its geopolitical marginality. And yet, it also enlightens some of the social dynamics that fuel authoritarian processes at the global level. This chapter expands on the insights derived from the Macedonian case, highlighting the importance of financial paradoxes and predatory relationships to map out how finance encounters (or emerges from) social life. Suspended between dreams and exploitation, financialization delineates a crucial domain of politics.

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Book SynopsisPentagon spending has been the target of decades of criticism and reform efforts. Billions of dollars are spent on weapons programs that are later abandoned. State-of-the-art data centers are underutilized and overstaffed. New business systems are built at great expense but fail to meet the needs of their users. Every Secretary of Defense for the last five Administrations has made it a priority to address perceived bloat and inefficiency by making management reform a major priority. The congressional defense committees have been just as active, enacting hundreds of legislative provisions. Yet few of these initiatives produce significant results, and the Pentagon appears to go on, as wasteful as ever. In this book, Peter Levine addresses why, despite a long history of attempted reform, the Pentagon continues to struggle to reduce waste and inefficiency. The heart of Defense Management Reform is three case studies covering civilian personnel, acquisitions, and financial management. Narrated with the insight of an insider, the result is a clear understanding of what went wrong in the past and a set of concrete guidelines to plot a better future.Trade Review"There are a handful of public servants who can legitimately claim to be practitioners of defense reform. Peter Levine is one. Having observed reform efforts that originated on Capitol Hill and managed such efforts in the Department of Defense, Peter is uniquely qualified to identify the political and bureaucratic practices that promote successful defense reform." -- General Norty Schwartz, USAF (Retired), Former Chief of Staff * United States Air Force *"No one know the successes and failures of 'reform' in defense better than Peter Levine, and his own role in many of them made for the successes." -- Ash Carter, Former Secretary of Defense; Director, Harvard's Belfer Center; and Innovation Fellow, Member of the Corporation * MIT *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1Civilian Personnel Reform at the Department of Defense chapter abstractThe National Security Personnel System (NSPS) was initiated at a time of consensus that the old civil service system was overly bureaucratic, inflexible, and in need of reform. It received an unprecedented level of resources, but still failed. The Bush administration helped strengthen opposition by insisting on comprehensive changes to the collective bargaining and employee appeals systems that were largely unrelated to the reform's core purpose of linking pay to performance. The NSPS made changes to parts of the system that needed to be changed, but it also changed parts of the system that were working reasonably well. In the end, it failed because of the controversy generated by parts of the new system that may not have been necessary at all, and this failure dragged down the prospect of constructive reform for at least another decade. 2Lessons from the Never-Ending Search for Acquisition Reform chapter abstractOver the last forty years, the DOD has undertaken at least five cycles of acquisition reform, seeking at various times to centralize control over major defense acquisition programs, to devolve more responsibility to the military services, to reign in acquisition abuses with additional guidance, and to rid the DOD and its contractors of excess regulations. While these reforms were all driven by public outrage about cost growth and acquisition abuses, they had wildly different results. The Packard Commission reforms and the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 were the most successful of the reforms because they identified poor front-end decision making as the most significant source of cost growth in the acquisition of major weapon systems and developed a focused set of solutions for that problem. 3Auditing the Pentagon chapter abstractOver the last three decades, the DOD has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in planning activities, billions of dollars in efforts to compile and reconcile financial data, and tens billions of dollars in new financial systems, but has gotten no closer to an auditable financial statement. In fact, an auditable financial statement provides little value for management purposes and may not even be the right goal. The department's bookkeeping problems are the result of a maze of deficient systems, poor controls, dysfunctional processes, and stovepiped organizations, none of which can be fixed by management fiat. The DOD has made the most progress in addressing these problems when it has taken an incremental approach and settled for improved systems and processes that were less than perfect for audit and accounting purposes.

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Book SynopsisEgypt has undergone significant economic liberalization under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, USAID, and the European Commission. Yet after more than four decades of economic reform, the Egyptian economy still fails to meet popular expectations for inclusive growth, better standards of living, and high-quality employment. While many analysts point to cronyism and corruption, Amr Adly finds the root causes of this stagnation in the underlying social and political conditions of economic development. Cleft Capitalism offers a new explanation for why market-based development can fail to meet expectations: small businesses in Egypt are not growing into medium and larger businesses. The practical outcome of this missing middle syndrome is the continuous erosion of the economic and social privileges once enjoyed by the middle classes and unionized labor, without creating enough winners from market making. This in turn set the stage for alienation, discontent, and, finally, revolt. With this book, Adly uncovers both an institutional explanation for Egypt's failed market making, and sheds light on the key factors of arrested economic development across the Global South.Trade Review"Cleft Capitalism is a highly original analysis of what Amr Adly calls Egypt's 'successful transition to failed capitalism.' Based on extensive and sound research, it represents an important rethinking of the trajectory of Egypt's political economy since 1974 and a bold challenge to Washington Consensus economic policy orthodoxy." -- Joel Beinin * Stanford University *"Amr Adly elaborates a novel explanation for underperforming economies of the Global South. Richly detailed, theoretically insightful, Cleft Capitalism is essential reading for anyone interested in the Egyptian, Middle Eastern, and other political economies." -- Robert Springborg * Naval Postgraduate School *"Cleft Capitalism offers a lucid, rich, and new understanding of the course of Egyptian economic development. With his sophisticated understanding of Egyptian politics and society and refined economic analysis, Amr Adly not only helps us understand Egypt better, but offers a model of how to approach the contentious terrain of economic change in the developing world." -- Nathan J. Brown * George Washington University *"Adly puts forth compelling arguments and descriptions of Egypt's failed market making....Cleft Capitalism offers new theoretical insights and valuable empirical analysis of the course of Egypt's political economy and the causes of its economic predicaments since 1974." -- Housam Darwisheh * The Developing Economies *"[Cleft Capitalism] is more than an exemplary analysis of the situation of political economy in Egypt. It is also a significant contribution to wider debates on the possibilities and limits of market-based development in the Global South....an essential read to students, researchers, and policy-makers interested in the political economy of Egypt, the limits and potentials of structural adjustment policies, and the insights of economic sociology to the study of political economy." -- Hesham Shafik * Jadaliyya *"Cleft Capitalism is an ambitious book that aims to make broad academic contributions far beyond its specific focus on the contemporary social and political economy of Egypt....[It succeeds] both as an overview of the Egyptian economy and as a critique of the institutional economics orthodoxy. It is one of the best books that I have read about both subjects in recent years, and I recommend it highly." -- Mahmoud A. El-Gamal * Middle East Journal *"[Adly's] novel argument diverges from dominant political economy accounts, which focus on corruption and crony capitalism or the lack of formal property rights and the rule of law. For Adly, the answer lies in the 'missing middle' of small and medium enterprises, which have served an important role in capitalist development by scaling up to become important job creators in more successful developing economies, such as in South Korea. Adly traces the roots of the problem to historically specific institutional arrangements that emerged earlier in the 20th century and during the period of state-led development under Nasser and were consolidated under Sadat and Mubarak's tenures. Adly's book is grounded on impressive qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis and makes important contributions to the study of failed development in Egypt, with comparative implications for other developing countries in and beyond the Middle East and North Africa." -- Committee for the Roger Owen Book Award * sponsored by the Middle East Studies Association *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsOne: Successful Transition to Failed Capitalism chapter abstractOver the course of four decades, the Egyptian economy underwent consistent and comprehensive economic liberalization, privatization of state-owned enterprises, and deregulation. Yet the Egyptian economy today still experiences low growth, declining total investment rates, and high unemployment and underemployment. The private sector has never become globally competitive. The chapter traces this failure to establish an integrated market order. The problem of market integration in Egypt was not the absence of the Weberian spirit for exchange and the profit-making mentality among a majority of economically active people. Rather, it was the hard constraint of accessing capital. The 2011 uprising highlighted that these efforts at transformation failed not only economically but politically as well. Two: Beyond Cronyism chapter abstractStudies of Egypt's lackluster development performance have largely focused on the issue of crony capitalism, particularly the routes through which big business emerged after infitāḥ. It is undeniable that politics has played a significant, if not a central, role in the rise of big business in Egypt since the mid-1970s. This is hardly surprising, let alone unique. This literature on cronyism and rent seeking suffers from a blind spot in assessing the problematic nature of Egypt's capitalist transformation. Where large enterprises came from does not explain the lack of vibrancy and dynamism in the rest of the private sector. The issue with Egypt's private sector, as well as other cases of failed market transformation, seems to lie more with its inability to engender a robust stratum of small and medium-sized enterprises rather than the existence of large enterprises that are politically connected. Three: Egypt's Cleft Capitalism chapter abstractContrary to the expectations of neoclassical institutionalism, the weakness of formal property rights neither impeded the expansion of market exchange nor t deterred thousands of Egyptians from engaging with this expanding market since the mid-1970s. Alternative private economic orders have retained the capacity for sustained market creation and expansion, albeit imperfectly. This market expansion was not conducive to market integration, though. The resultant capitalist order was cleft. In order to grow, private enterprises must have access to inputs and market outlets that go beyond what is immediately available from their direct, private social capital. Throughout Egypt's capitalist transformation, access to capital, in particular, finance and land, remained quite restrained for the vast majority of private market actors. This was due to politico-historical factors that were continually perpetuated, eventually leading to the rise of institutional arrangements that were exclusionary for the broad base of private sector enterprises and entrepreneurs. Four: The Origins of Cleft Capitalism chapter abstractFor a vibrant and integrated capitalist order to emerge, capital should be made accessible to a majority of market actors. However, Egyptian SSEs have faced high administrative and economic barriers to financial and physical capital, a central mechanism through which cleft capitalism has been produced and reproduced over time. The problem of restricted access to capital has institutional and political origins. The rules, norms, and structures—-be they formal, informal, or a mix—that have governed the distribution of opportunities for accessing capital has produced three separate business subsystems—baladi, dandy, and crony—since infitāḥ in 1974. It was the predominance of a coalition of bureaucratic actors that maintained certain institutional arrangements for directly accessing land and bank credit. Five: How Cleft Capitalism Came About chapter abstractThis chapter discusses the historical and political factors that led to the production and reproduction of cleft capitalism since infitāḥ. It addresses the question of where the institutional condition of cleft capitalism came from. It examines the multiple political and economic factors since the mid-1970s that shaped the role of the state amid the process of market making and why they led to the development and perpetuation of cleft capitalism. It was the predominance of a coalition of bureaucratic actors that maintained certain institutional arrangements for directly accessing land and bank credit. However, this was neither uniform nor always strategically pursued, as it did not always result from top-down decisions by leadership of the executive where most formal power resided. Rather, there were many instances when bottom-up forces from within an incoherent and fragmented bureaucracy solidified the same institutional arrangements of a centralized and hierarchical system. Six: Egypt's Banking System: An Exclusive Club chapter abstractDespite waves of market-oriented reforms in Egypt, the overconcentration of credit, mainly extended to the state and a few large private sector firms, has persisted and failed to produce intermediate institutions that could open up channels of credit access for the broad base of SSEs. The chapter shows that the essential investment tool of debt financing has been made systematically unavailable to the broad base of these establishments because of an institutional and organizational framework that has been overly centralized and hierarchical. These institutional traits have ultimately raised the transaction costs for SSEs to an extent that has effectively excluded them from accessing credit, precluding any credible chance of scaling up and thus calcifying the institutional condition of cleft capitalism. Seven: Egypt's Desert Land: Abundant Yet Scarce chapter abstractDespite the virtual abundance of desert land, access to this land for productive uses has been quite restricted for most private sector enterprises. Indeed, entrepreneurs have traditionally underlined access to land, like finance, as a major barrier to growth—a consistent and constant theme since the launch of infitāḥ . Similar to the case of finance, centralized and hierarchical institutions dominated land management that excluded SSEs from accessing the physical capital needed to expand. Taken together, the lack of access to these crucial capital inputs has created and perpetuated the institutional condition of cleft capitalism that has robbed the Egyptian private sector of any ability to follow the paths taken by more successful market transformations. Eight: Baladi Capitalism chapter abstractThis chapter portrays a detailed and vivid picture of Egypt's baladi capitalism through exploring how SSEs function. Informed by extensive field research conducted in mid-2013, the chapter depicts a lively portrayal of how Egypt's private SSEs evolved and the diverse and complex modes of articulation between what is formal and informal and what is economic and social. Social networks, usually composed of family and friends, reduce the asymmetries of information between parties. Such networks are quite prevalent due to the weakness of formal contract enforcement and the high risks associated with impersonal transactions. Socialized and personalized transactions have contributed to the rise and constitution of a market since infitāḥ, defined as the space where price-driven exchange occurs. However, they couldn't substitute for the missing ingredient of access to capital that could have propelled Egypt's baladi capitalist subsystem into a robust and integrated private sector. Nine: Dandy Capitalism chapter abstractDespite economic liberalization and private sector development, designed to serve as the neoclassical solutions to Egypt's economic woes, entrenched levels of social marginalization and exclusion that were derived from earlier attempts at top-down modernization and colonial rule persisted after independence. Throughout most of Egypt's contemporary history, including the social reform eras in the 1950s and 1960s, state institutions maintained ties with only limited segments of society. This implied the absence of complementarity between social evolution that involved the vast majority of the people, on the one hand, and state attempts to deliver development, on the other. This overarching concept can be used to understand the historical lack of complementarity and intermediate institutions between capital-regulating organizations and SSEs, the missing-middle syndrome, rampant economic informality, and finally cleft capitalism as the general condition for underdevelopment throughout the past four decades of attempted market making.

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Book SynopsisThe backlash against globalization and the rise of cultural anxiety has led to considerable re-thinking among social scientists. This book provides multiple theoretical, historical, and methodological orientations to examine these issues. While addressing the rise of populism worldwide, the volume provides explanations that cover periods of both cultural turbulence and stability. Issues addressed include populism and cultural anxiety, class, religion, arts and cultural diversity, global environment norms, international trade, and soft power. The interdisciplinary scholarship from well-known scholars questions the oft-made assumption in political economy that holds culture "constant," which in practice means marginalizing it in the explanation. The volume conceptualizes culture as a repertoire of values and alternatives. Locating human interests in underlying cultural values does not make political economy's strategic or instrumental calculations of interests redundant: the instrumental logic follows a social context and a distribution of cultural values, while locating forms of decision-making that may not be rational.Trade Review"This book offers a multifaceted approach to problems of social order, inclusion, difference, value, and values. During a time when there is a tendency to simplify complex problems with reductive recipes, slogans, and tweets, Cultural Values in Political Economy is a timely contribution to reviving and rethinking our collective approach to political economy." -- Paolo Quattrone * Alliance Manchester Business School *"Understanding the ever-changing relationship between culture, economy, and politics is among the herculean tasks of the social sciences. With Cultural Values in Political Economy, J.P. Singh has collected excellent essays by leading scholars that revisit this relationship in the context of 21st-century shifts." -- Helmut K. Anheier, Hertie School * Berlin *"This masterful collection illuminates many of the all-important interfaces between culture and economy. Distinguished authors from diverse fields show how economies order cultural values, and how cultural change can reshape economic policies. These insights have never been more important than in these times when cultures and economies are being challenged." -- W. Lance Bennett, University of Washington * Seattle *"Topics include social class dynamics, religious values, cultural anxiety, the humanities and cultural diversity, the global environment and the green revolution, worldwide trade patterns, and the soft power of persuasion as employed by some countries to influence the policies of other nations.The latter is particularly salient in the conduct of relationships by major powers among developing nations in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America, where international education agendas and the development of natural resources are frequently contested... Recommended." -- S. Prisco III * CHOICE *"Understanding the relationship between culture, economy, and politics is an essential future task in the development of the social sciences, and the book edited by J. P. Singh is an important and timely contribution to this challenging research agenda." -- Trine Bille * International Journal of Cultural Policy *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsForeword: Cultural Mediations and Political Economy chapter abstractCulture is often treated as a marginal or residual factor in explanations of economic and political behavior. The foreword argues that to understand the interconnected role of values, interests, and agency in the study of global transactions in political economy, culture needs to be seen as independent, generative, and future oriented. By taking this richer approach to culture, many phenomena that escape the net of rational choice theory become more understandable, especially in a world of new connections, mobilizations, and innovations in the political sphere. 1Introduction: Cultural Values in Political Economy chapter abstractAn intrinsic part of culture is its history. However, at any given time, different cultural values are sifted through this history and mobilized for collective action. This chapter provides a context for understanding the role of cultural values in political economy examined in this book. Conceptually, the book attempts to provide an interdisciplinary and comprehensive understanding of cultural values imbricated in political economy and the way to move from collective to individual interests, and vice versa. These theoretical moorings allow the authors to operationalize culture through a variety of methods including historical, ethnographic, case-study, and quantitative evidence. Part I provides the conceptual foundations that engender the cultural assumptions held implicit or constant in a few analyses and explains the contexts under which cultures transform interests. Part II presents chapters that examine the processes of cultural interactions that flow from underlying values. 2Culture and Preference Formation chapter abstractEconomists take preferences to be comparative evaluations of alternatives that incorporate every factor the agent takes to influence her choices other than beliefs and constraints. Rational choice is determined by rational preferences among the alternatives that agents believe to be feasible and, to a reasonable degree of approximation, the theory of rational choice does double duty as a theory of actual choice. It may seem impossible to employ the economist's model to make sense of the influence of culture or of the mechanisms of cultural change because the economist's model treats norms and ideals as merely different influences on preferences. Yet, as this chapter argues, nothing in the economist's model rules out incorporating additional mechanisms of preference formation and change. Moreover, it argues that doing so is helpful both in understanding the interactions between culture and action and in articulating a more detailed and promising theory of rational choice. 3Value and Values in Economics and Culture chapter abstractIssues of value and valuation are fundamental to any consideration of the relationships between economics and culture. This chapter discusses these relationships at both macro and micro levels. First, we consider the possible connections between the cultural values of different societies and their national economic performance. Then, turning to a functional sense of culture, the chapter argues that in addressing questions of the value of art and culture, it is essential to distinguish between economic value and cultural value, in which the latter refers to aspects of value that are not expressible in monetary terms. Illustrations are drawn from studies of the value of the visual arts, literature, and music. Next, we consider culture in international economic relations, discussing value and valuation in the areas of intercultural dialogue, cultural diversity, and sustainable development. The chapter concludes with a plea for more dialogue at an interdisciplinary level. 4Creating a Culture of Environmental Responsibility chapter abstractThis chapter explores possibilities for creating a new culture of environmental responsibility, drawing mainly on recent work in environmental political theory and philosophy. It begins from the assumption that culture—conceived as a repertoire of shared values—is crucial to understanding the interests that people feel themselves to have and that cultural values can powerfully influence long-term changes in society. If we want to improve environmental outcomes, we will need a new culture of environmental responsibility. Key to establishing this culture is novel ways of thinking about what responsibility means and creating new political and economic practices to support it. 5Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Economy, Culture, and Political Conflict chapter abstractBoth political economy and culture have been marshalled as explanations for parochialism and cosmopolitanism, opposing orientations that influence contemporary politics and foreign policy. Simple models based on international economic position do not adequately explain parochial attitudes on such issues as Brexit or immigration. Cosmopolitan attitudes are linked to a particular, often local, cultural infrastructure (information environment, educational institutions, and transnational experience). In explaining both parochial and cosmopolitan attitudes and action, the effects of globalization on local culture and politics are of central importance. The link from economy to political behavior and outcomes is created by divergent locational effects of globalization and the local cultures they produce: globalized urban environments versus disadvantaged hinterlands that perceive themselves as left behind. International political economy must illuminate this link between economy and culture, which has important public policy implications. 6Crossing Borders: Culture, Identity, and Access to Higher Education chapter abstractThrough the adoption of a semiotic approach to culture, this chapter aims to assist in the development of a cultural explanation of global political culture. A semiotic approach asserts that meaning is assigned by participants to social patterns and behaviors found in society. The experience of boundary spaces offers a laboratory of sorts for revealing the contours of culture and cultural differences, including class differences. It is the experience of stepping out of a comfort zone and into alien space, a place where one does not necessarily know what goes with what, that is most revealing. Habituated roles create the contours of borders and boundaries that come with attendant expectations and customs associated with nation, class, race, gender, and age, among other identities. 7Ideology, Economic Interests, and American Exceptionalism: The Case of Export Credit chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the sources and implications of American exceptionalism in the area of export credit. For virtually all major economies, export credit is an important industrial policy tool to promote economic growth. Remarkably, however, while its rivals are dramatically increasing their use of export credit, the United States has become a major outlier. An ideologically driven campaign led by the Tea Party sharply constrained the operations of the US Export-Import Bank: the bank was shut down entirely for five months in 2015 and subsequently limited to financing only minor transactions for nearly four years. This chapter argues that American exceptionalism on export credit cannot be understood without reference to culture, specifically the market fundamentalist ideology of the Tea Party, which has led to a conception of national economic interests and preferences that departs radically from other states. 8Strangest of Bedfellows: Why the Religious Right Embraced Trump and What That Means for the Movement chapter abstractThis chapter outlines the connection and disconnection between cultural and material factors in the rise of the religious right in the United States. This social movement comprises socially conservative and politically active born-again and evangelical Christians, as well as some ultraconservative Catholics. This movement comes out of a unique subculture that is suspicious of mainstream political and social institutions and that rejects many of the conventional norms of a democratic society. At once, this subculture claims moral superiority in what it considers a corrupted society while pursuing access to levers of power in order to conform the mainstream culture more to its own idealized image of the United States. Religious conservatives were the key to electing Donald J. Trump as president, and this chapter explores linkages of social and cultural issues to the broader economic factors that played a substantial role in religious conservative support for his election. 9Applying the Soft Power Rubric: How Study Abroad Data Reveals International Cultural Relations chapter abstractA country's ability to attract foreign students to its universities is one common way to understand its soft power in the international community. Applying the Soft Power Rubric to empirical data, this chapter reveals the preferences of students who go abroad and uncovers South Africa's and Malaysia's roles as rising regional hubs and France's slowing growth as a global hub, which complicate our understanding of North-South or core-periphery postcolonial relations. The rubric reconceives soft power as when foreigners transform their thinking from "us" and "them" to a collective "we," emphasizing the perspective of the countries at the periphery rather than at the core, unveiling important networks of cultural relations, offering a path forward to bring cultural data into empirical modeling, and pointing to fruitful areas for future work. The chapter also offers a contrast with others in this book that emphasize a reaction against globalization.

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Book SynopsisThis book offers the first critical engagement with the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Challenging conventional wisdom on the origins and contemporary dynamics of capitalism in the region, these cutting-edge essays demonstrate how critical political economy can illuminate both historical and contemporary dynamics of the region and contribute to wider political economy debates from the vantage point of the Middle East. Leading scholars, representing several disciplines, contribute both thematic and country-specific analyses. Their writings critically examine major issues in political economy—notably, the mutual constitution of states, markets, and classes; the co-constitution of class, race, gender, and other forms of identity; varying modes of capital accumulation and the legal, political, and cultural forms of their regulation; relations among local, national, and global forms of capital, class, and culture; technopolitics; the role of war in the constitution of states and classes; and practices and cultures of domination and resistance. Visit politicaleconomyproject.org for additional media and learning resources.Trade Review"A thorough and timely collection of essays by some of the top practitioners of Middle East political economy, this book lays bare the human insecurity that is at the root of much of the discontent in the region."—James Gelvin, University of California, Los Angeles"This new canonical text will open pathways for research and make the job of educators infinitely easier by reasserting the enduring value of political economy. For too long scholarship has been enchanted by the shibboleths of orientalism and modernization theory—now there is a better way. A tour de force synthesis."—Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, California State University, StanislausTable of ContentsIntroduction —Joel Beinin 1. Landed Property, Capital Accumulation, and Polymorphous Capitalism: Egypt —Kristen Alff 2. State, Market, and Class: Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia —Max Ajl, Bassam Haddad, and Zeinab Abul-Magd 3. Ten Propositions on Oil —Timothy Mitchell 4. Regional Militaries and the Global Military-Industrial Complex —Shana Marshall 5. Rethinking Class and State in the Gulf Cooperation Council —Adam Hanieh 6. Capitalism in Egypt, Not Egyptian Capitalism —Aaron Jakes and Ahmad Shokr 7. State, Oil, and War in the Formation of Iraq —Nida Alahmad 8. Colonial Capitalism and Imperial Myth in French North Africa —Muriam Haleh Davis 9. Lebanon Beyond Exceptionalism —Ziad M. Abu-Rish 10. The US-Israeli Alliance —Joel Beinin 11. Repercussions of Colonialism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories —Samia Al-Botmeh

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Book SynopsisIn Normalized Financial Wrongdoing, Harland Prechel examines how social structural arrangements that extended corporate property rights and increased managerial control opened the door for misconduct and, ultimately, the 2008 financial crisis. Beginning his analysis with the financialization of the home-mortgage market in the 1930s, Prechel shows how pervasive these arrangements had become by the end of the century, when the bank and energy sectors developed political strategies to participate in financial markets. His account adopts a multilevel approach that considers the political and legal landscapes in which corporations are embedded to answer two questions: how did banks and financial firms transition from being providers of capital to financial market actors? Second, how did new organizational structures cause market participants to engage in high-risk activities? After careful historical analysis, Prechel examines how organizational and political-legal arrangements contribute to current record-high income and wealth inequality, and considers societal preconditions for change.Trade Review"This book offers a theoretically sophisticated, empirically rich explanation of how financialization was politically created in the United States beginning in the 1980s, and how it has increased inequality. Prechel takes us inside corporations to see how financial capitalists leveraged control over organizations to enhance their power or government and thereby enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else including other fractions of capital." -- Richard Lachmann * University at Albany, State University of New York *"A must-read for anyone wishing to understand the foundations of contemporary capitalism. It draws on quantitative analysis, in-depth case studies, and trenchant historical analysis to uncover the class conflicts and structural dynamics that have given rise to the modern financial system, which to so many people's dismay has proven prone to periodic crisis." -- Donald Palmer * University of California, Davis *"This important study looks at changes in corporate–state relations and changes inside the corporation to find the origins of corporate malfeasance. As corporations layered up more complex ownership structures, opportunities opened for behavior that precipitated the Great Financial Crisis. Prechel grounds his analysis in larger changes in U.S. society that have contributed to disastrous social inequality." -- Terrence McDonough * National University of Ireland Galway *

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Book SynopsisMexico City's public markets were integral to the country's economic development, bolstering the expansion of capitalism from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. These publicly owned and operated markets supplied households with everyday necessities and generated revenue for local authorities. At the same time, they were embedded in a wider network of economic and social relations that gave market vendors an influence far beyond the running of their stalls. As they fed the capital's population, these vendors fought to protect their own livelihoods, shaping the public sphere and broadening the scope of popular politics. Vendors' Capitalism argues for the centrality of Mexico City's public markets to the political economy of the city from the restoration of the Republic in 1867 to the heyday of the Mexican miracle and the PRI in the 1960s. Each day vendors interacted with customers, suppliers, government officials, and politicians, and the multiple conflicts that arose repeatedly tested the institutional capacity of the state. Through a close reading of the archives and an analysis of vendors' intersecting economic and political lives, Ingrid Bleynat explores the dynamics, as well as the limits, of capitalist development in Mexico.Trade Review"This compelling book illuminates Mexico City markets as the nexus of economic and political forces in Mexican history amid the shift from modernizing liberalism to corporatist state capitalism.Vendors' Capitalism is not only the authoritative treatment of Mexican markets; it is also an exciting innovation in economic history." —Robert Weis, University of Northern Colorado"There is no better window into the expansion of capitalism in Latin America than public markets, where the search for modernity confronted the reality of poverty. Ingrid Bleynat's pathbreaking study reveals how vendors and peddlers in Mexico City shaped a century of politics, economics and social struggles. This is an essential book about the historical dimensions of economic informality both as lived experience and discourse." —Aurora Gómez-Galvarriato, El Colegio de México"Non-economic historians would benefit from reading Bleynat's careful study to appreciate these intersections rendered in enjoyable prose.Vendors' Capitalismwill also appeal to scholars and students interested in development, urban, and economic history. In highlighting markets' crucial role in the political economy of Latin America's most populous city, Bleynat's study articulates a need to more closely investigate the experiences and impact of individuals and sectors that do not neatly fit within the capitalist framework.—Molly C. Ball, H-LatAm"Vendors' Capitalism is a fascinating window on the economic, social, and political world of a large segment of Mexican laborers. ... [T]he argument that Vendors' Capitalism presents is of tremendous value to scholars of Mexico and Latin America and to any observer of global capitalism in the era of the gig economy."—Maria-Aparecia Lopes, Hispanic American Historical Review"[T]he expansive time period of the book enables Bleynat to demonstrate the historical and more contemporary centrality of markets as contested spaces and as spaces of subsistence, since selling was a primary means of production for a significant number of Mexico City residents across this time period. Vendors' Capitalism will be essential scholarship for its contributions to Mexican history and comparative urban history of markets and sellers; it should also be read by those interested in the informal economy, internal worker hierarchies, contested public spaces, the politics of union organising, urban planning and urban development."—Christina M. Jiménez, Journal of Latin American StudiesTable of Contents0. Vendors' Developmentalism, 1945–1966 1. Taxes and Compassion, 1867–1880 2. A Cloak of Magnificence over Beggars' Rags, 1880–1903 3. Vendors, Workers, or Pueblo? 1903–1928 4. Political Experimentation in a Time of Crises, 1929–1945 5. Vendors' Developmentalism, 1945–1966

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Book SynopsisMexico City's public markets were integral to the country's economic development, bolstering the expansion of capitalism from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. These publicly owned and operated markets supplied households with everyday necessities and generated revenue for local authorities. At the same time, they were embedded in a wider network of economic and social relations that gave market vendors an influence far beyond the running of their stalls. As they fed the capital's population, these vendors fought to protect their own livelihoods, shaping the public sphere and broadening the scope of popular politics. Vendors' Capitalism argues for the centrality of Mexico City's public markets to the political economy of the city from the restoration of the Republic in 1867 to the heyday of the Mexican miracle and the PRI in the 1960s. Each day vendors interacted with customers, suppliers, government officials, and politicians, and the multiple conflicts that arose repeatedly tested the institutional capacity of the state. Through a close reading of the archives and an analysis of vendors' intersecting economic and political lives, Ingrid Bleynat explores the dynamics, as well as the limits, of capitalist development in Mexico.Trade Review"This compelling book illuminates Mexico City markets as the nexus of economic and political forces in Mexican history amid the shift from modernizing liberalism to corporatist state capitalism.Vendors' Capitalism is not only the authoritative treatment of Mexican markets; it is also an exciting innovation in economic history." —Robert Weis, University of Northern Colorado"There is no better window into the expansion of capitalism in Latin America than public markets, where the search for modernity confronted the reality of poverty. Ingrid Bleynat's pathbreaking study reveals how vendors and peddlers in Mexico City shaped a century of politics, economics and social struggles. This is an essential book about the historical dimensions of economic informality both as lived experience and discourse." —Aurora Gómez-Galvarriato, El Colegio de México"Non-economic historians would benefit from reading Bleynat's careful study to appreciate these intersections rendered in enjoyable prose.Vendors' Capitalismwill also appeal to scholars and students interested in development, urban, and economic history. In highlighting markets' crucial role in the political economy of Latin America's most populous city, Bleynat's study articulates a need to more closely investigate the experiences and impact of individuals and sectors that do not neatly fit within the capitalist framework.—Molly C. Ball, H-LatAm"Vendors' Capitalism is a fascinating window on the economic, social, and political world of a large segment of Mexican laborers. ... [T]he argument that Vendors' Capitalism presents is of tremendous value to scholars of Mexico and Latin America and to any observer of global capitalism in the era of the gig economy."—Maria-Aparecia Lopes, Hispanic American Historical Review"[T]he expansive time period of the book enables Bleynat to demonstrate the historical and more contemporary centrality of markets as contested spaces and as spaces of subsistence, since selling was a primary means of production for a significant number of Mexico City residents across this time period. Vendors' Capitalism will be essential scholarship for its contributions to Mexican history and comparative urban history of markets and sellers; it should also be read by those interested in the informal economy, internal worker hierarchies, contested public spaces, the politics of union organising, urban planning and urban development."—Christina M. Jiménez, Journal of Latin American StudiesTable of Contents0. Vendors' Developmentalism, 1945–1966 1. Taxes and Compassion, 1867–1880 2. A Cloak of Magnificence over Beggars' Rags, 1880–1903 3. Vendors, Workers, or Pueblo? 1903–1928 4. Political Experimentation in a Time of Crises, 1929–1945 5. Vendors' Developmentalism, 1945–1966

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Book SynopsisThe U.S. government's prime enemy in the War on Terror is not a shadowy mastermind dispatching suicide bombers. It is the informed American citizen. With Manufacturing Militarism, Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall detail how military propaganda has targeted Americans since 9/11. From the darkened cinema to the football field to the airport screening line, the U.S. government has purposefully inflated the actual threat of terrorism and the necessity of a proactive military response. This biased, incomplete, and misleading information contributes to a broader culture of fear and militarism that, far from keeping Americans safe, ultimately threatens the foundations of a free society. Applying a political economic approach to the incentives created by a democratic system with a massive national security state, Coyne and Hall delve into case studies from the War on Terror to show how propaganda operates in a democracy. As they vigilantly watch their carry-ons scanned at the airport despite nonexistent threats, or absorb glowing representations of the military from films, Americans are subject to propaganda that, Coyne and Hall argue, erodes government by citizen consent.Trade Review"Immersed in militarism since birth, Americans have a choice: the blue pill of aggression and self-righteousness disguised as fostering democracy and freedom, or the red pill of truth. Coyne and Hall offer us the red pill and a path to freeing ourselves from the military machine. Take it, America, and put a stop to military glorification and endless war."—William J. Astore, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF (Ret.)"Rich with maddening examples, Manufacturing Militarism demonstrates that the US government constantly emits lies and half-truths meant to shore up public support for endless wars against an endless stream of enemies, real and imaginary. And Coyne and Hall show us what to do about it. Read this book: Democracy is hanging in the balance."—Roger Koppl, Syracuse University"This book brilliantly analyzes one of the deepest problems of American democracy: the role of mass media in reinforcing government propaganda that promotes war, intervention and militarism. From Washington to Hollywood, from Iraq to American sports stadiums, the order of the day is inflating threats, inventing enemies, and fanning the flames of fear and xenophobia. Manufacturing Militarism explains why the world that Americans see is so different from the world that actually exists."—Stephen Kinzer, Watson Institute, Brown University, author of Poisoner in Chief"In Manufacturing Militarism Christopher Coyne and Abigail Hall offer both a vital rejoinder to uncritical American exceptionalism and this dirty secret: democracies, too, peddle in propaganda. Blending analyses of recent history, politics, and culture, they chronicle a narrative game long rigged—the U.S. government's ceaseless post-9/11 campaign to sell wars we don't need, that people don't otherwise want. Their disturbing conclusions ring as collective alarm-bells for a republic in its long night of peril."—Maj. (Ret.) Danny Sjursen, Center for International Policy, author of Patriotic Dissent and Ghostriders of Baghdad"Manufacturing Militarism is a timely and far-reaching study of the role state-sponsored propaganda has played and continues to play in 21st-century American life. Coyne and Hall show how, since 9/11, successive administrations held back relevant information and deliberately misled journalists and the public, damaging America's democracy, national security and international reputation."—David C. Unger, Johns Hopkins University SAIS Europe, author of The Emergency State"You can't handle the truth! At least that's what your government thinks. Manufacturing Militarism shows how democratic governments utilize their monopoly on classified information to propagandize their citizens in order to enable government actions that benefit the politically elite at the expense of average citizens. Coyne and Hall superbly illustrate how we have been propagandized by the U.S. government throughout the war."—Benjamin Powell, Free Market Institute, Texas Tech University"In Manufacturing Militarism, Christopher Coyne and Abigail Hall document the pernicious effects of the government's control and dissemination of information. They describe the 'threat inflation' that characterizes government propaganda, facilitating citizen compliance and shifting power away from citizens and to the political elite who control public policy. More than just a tool that enables government policymakers to enact policies they prefer, Coyne and Hall make a persuasive case that government propaganda is a real threat to a free society."—Randall Holcombe, Professor of Economics, Florida State University"Manufacturing Militarism: U.S. Government Propaganda in the War on Terror... should be read by everyone who seeks to more fully understand the extent to which militaristic propaganda has pervaded seemingly every aspect of our society."—Zachary Yost, Mises Wire"In Manufacturing Militarism: U.S. Government Propaganda in the War on Terror,Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall provide an unusual, interesting, broadly persuasive, and welcome approach to explaining the manufacture and deployment of militarism in America.... The book's message is powerful and simple. It is evidence-based and well-reasoned. It is a work of serious scholarship. It condemns concentrated power in a few hands to propagandise and mislead the people to get behind wars of aggression, and pay the costs in blood and treasure. It says the American state is dangerous. It says the people must be vigilant, informed, and courageous."—Inderjeet Parmar, The WireTable of Contents1. "Propaganda: Its Meaning, Operation, and Limits" 2. "The Political Economy of Government Propaganda" 3. "Selling the Invasion of Iraq" 4. "The Post-Invasion Propaganda Pitch" 5. "Paid Patriotism: Propaganda Takes the Field" 6. "Flying the Propagandized Skies" 7. "Propaganda Goes to Hollywood" 8. "The Power of the Propagandized"

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Book SynopsisFor much of American history, large numbers of people claimed that money was a public good and asserted the right to shape money creation practices. If popular knowledge about money creation was once widely shared, how and why did it disappear? In this astute new work, Jakob Feinig shows how the relation between money users and money-issuing governments changed from British colonial North America to today's United States, discussing how popular movements reshaped money-creating institutions, and how their opponents attempted to silence them. He also reveals how monetary and political history unfolds in the tension between "moral economies of money" and "monetary silencing." Offering an introduction to money creation practices since the colonial era, the book enables readers to understand why most people are disconnected from knowledge about money creation today. At the same time, the book also allows readers to situate the recent prominence of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) against a broader historical background. Historians of capitalism, economic and political sociologists, social theorists, anthropologists of money, and anyone seeking to understand monetary activism, will find this book helps to clarify present-day possibilities in light of historical processes.Trade Review"In this book, Feinig sets out to make money visible as a practice. He does that with breath-taking effect. Brilliant, thought-provoking, and illuminating."—Christine Desan, Harvard University"An absorbingly rich history of the struggles over money in the United States from colonial 'moral economies' to its expropriation by capitalist banking."—Geoffrey Ingham, University of Cambridge"In this compelling fusion of sociological insight and historical narrative, Feinig succeeds in clarifying how money politics worked in the past, and why it should be revisited today."—Roy Kreitner, Tel Aviv University"Moral Economies of Money: Politics and the Monetary Constitution of Society, the outstanding new book by the sociologist Jakob Feinig, shows that it doesn't have to be this way: we need not settle for a monetary system that breeds apathy or withdrawal into conspiracy theory. To the contrary—for much of this country's history, the conspicuous entanglement of fiscal and monetary policy encouraged money users to participate in the design, implementation, and governance of systems for issuing and retiring currency."—Aaron Wistar, Jacobin"The sociologist Jakob Feinig challenges the dominant view of money as a scarce commodity. His masterful book Moral Economies of Money: Politics and the Monetary Constitution of Society demonstrates that money is an elastic public good."—Sandeep Vaheesan, UCLA Law Review"To politicize monetary policy is a controversial demand today; to politicize the design of the monetary system can sound positively outlandish. Jakob Feinig's Moral Economies of Money gives us an excellent place to start."—Pierre-Christian Fink, Phenomenal World"The clarity and concision of Moral Economies makes the enigmatic into something knowable, teachable, and politicizeable—the value of which will be immediately clear to those who, from classroom experience, know the phenomenon of monetary silence all too well."—Stephanie L. Mudge, Just Money"One of the hallmarks of good historical sociology is that it leads us to see the periods we think we know in a new light. [The Moral Economies of Money] does that in so many ways, both big and small."—Josh Pacewicz, Just MoneyTable of ContentsIntroduction: Moral Economies of Money and Monetary Silencing 1. Settler Democracy as a Monetary School: Toward Moral Economies of Money 2. Moral Economies of Money 3. Monetary Silencing and the Romance of Unmediated Exchanges 4. Greenback Moral Economies 5. What Kinds of People Should Money Users Be? 6. Monetary Silencing as a New Deal Legacy Conclusion: From New Deal Silencing to a Moral Economy of Money

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Book SynopsisThe Dominican Republic has posted impressive economic growth rates over the past thirty years. Despite this, the generation of new, good jobs has been remarkably weak. How have ordinary and poor Dominicans worked and lived in the shadow of the country's conspicuous growth rates? This book considers this question through an ethnographic exploration of the popular economy in the Dominican capital. Focusing on the city's precarious small businesses, including furniture manufacturers, food stalls, street-corner stores, and savings and credit cooperatives, Krohn-Hansen shows how people make a living, tackle market shifts, and the factors that characterize their relationship to the state and pervasive corruption. Empirically grounded, this book examines the condition of the urban masses in Santo Domingo, offering an original and captivating contribution to the scholarship on popular economic practices, urban changes, and today's Latin America and the Caribbean. This will be essential reading for scholars and policy makers.Trade Review"This book offers a fine-grained ethnography of everyday life and labor, and relations of debt and trust, among informal sector workers in the Dominican Republic, and powerfully illuminates how precarious entrepreneurs have struggled to get by in the context of declining wages notwithstanding the high official national growth rates of the past decades. It offers deeply compassionate portrayals of small business people such as food sellers, furniture makers and corner grocers, their negotiations with creditors and state actors, and how they have valiantly resisted state violence and corruption. The book makes a signal contribution to our understanding of the state of the Dominican urban poor today."—Robin Derby, Professor, Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles"Krohn-Hansen's innovative study of the diverse forms of work that Dominicans pursue in a country in which GDP growth has been accompanied by falling employment offers an inspiring model for the anthropological study of jobless growth that has challenged both neoliberal narratives of economic development and Marxist narratives of proletarianization. Through a fine-grained ethnographic analysis of people's mundane participation in various niches of the Dominican economy, including small furniture workshops, food stalls, petty trade, retail and cooperatives, this book traces the generative relations of family, household, gender and state through which a capitalist economy is produced at the intersection of heterogeneous rhythms of time and labor."—Sylvia Yanagisako, Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies, Stanford University"Krohn-Hansen provides one of the best treatments available of the contemporary Dominican economy, which for decades has been characterized by a type of rapid growth producing relatively few wage-earning jobs and no wage increases. Through powerful interviews and life histories, Jobless Growth in the Dominican Republic shows how the population has turned to more independent means of livelihood with some success – as, for example, shopkeepers, street vendors, food-stall operators, and furniture makers. This important ethnographic work highlights how family, community, and cultural norms have shaped and sustained the country's independent merchant class."—Richard Lee Turits, author of Freedom Roots: Histories from the Caribbean (with Laurent Dubois)"Jobless Growth in the Dominican Republic is an outstanding contribution to the anthropological understanding of capitalism. Based on an ethnography of Dominican Republic urban dwellers, Krohn-Hansen persuasively exposes the plural forms of labor that reproduce capitalist worlds and precarious livelihoods through connections and dislocations in space and time. A powerful account of people's concrete experiences of "growth" that sheds light beyond the Global South."—Susana Narotzky, Universitat de BarcelonaTable of Contents0. Introduction Chapter 1: State against Industry: Time and Labor among Dominican Furniture Makers Chapter 2: Of Violence and Precarity: Gender, Food, Debt Chapter 3: The End of the Colmado? Chapter 4: For Cooperatives: Mutual Aid, Social Enterprises, and Empowerment Chapter 5: Jobless Growth, "No Labor" Futures, and the Investigation of Popular Economies

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Book SynopsisFor some, automation will usher in a labor-free utopia; for others, it signals a disastrous age-to-come. Yet whether seen as dream or nightmare, automation, argues Munn, is ultimately a fable that rests on a set of triple fictions. There is the myth of full autonomy, claiming that machines will take over production and supplant humans. But far from being self-acting, technical solutions are piecemeal; their support and maintenance reveals the immense human labor behind "autonomous" processes. There is the myth of universal automation, with technologies framed as a desituated force sweeping the globe. But this fiction ignores the social, cultural, and geographical forces that shape technologies at a local level. And, there is the myth of automating everyone, the generic figure of "the human" at the heart of automation claims. But labor is socially stratified and so automation's fallout will be highly uneven, falling heavier on some (immigrants, people of color, women) than others. Munn moves from machine minders in China to warehouse pickers in the United States to explore the ways that new technologies do (and don't) reconfigure labor. Combining this rich array of human stories with insights from media and cultural studies, Munn points to a more nuanced, localized, and racialized understanding of the "future of work."Trade Review"Warehouses, factories, fields, supermarkets, smart-homes. These are just some of the material sites that confront myths of automation in Luke Munn's tightly crafted book traversing racial histories, gender politics, contemporary labor regimes, and global logistics. Fantasies of autonomous technologies and visions of freedom, we discover, are almost always accompanied by human endurance and suffering, as well as sparkling acts of collective ingenuity that mess with machines. Munn critically furnishes the bleak, uneven world of automation with alternatives for technology design inspired by activists, artists, and social movements. A perfect handbook for diagnosing the future-present of automated worlds."—Ned Rossiter, author of Software, Infrastructure, Labor"Accessibly written and powerfully argued, Luke Munn's Automation is a Myth carefully demonstrates how the fiction that automation is everywhere and that every aspect of labor and production can or will be automated obscures racialized and gendered power relations and precludes opportunities to shape more radical technologically mediated futures. With wide ranging historical and geopolitical examples of automation fantasies, Munn forcefully demonstrates the importance of contextualizing and de-universalizing conversations about labor, technology and automation."—Neda Atanasoski, author of Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots and the Politics of Technological Futures"An engaging, insightful, and instructive read, this book offers a compelling new perspective on the future of labor-saving technology. More than a myth-buster, Munn is an original voice who offers a vision for a more humane and productive economy."—Frank Pasquale, author of New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI"With Automation Is a Myth, Luke Munn makes an insightful contribution to the growing body of literature that critically investigates current accounts about 'automation.' ... Munn has written a thought-provoking critique of the underlying assumptions of most automation talk today, bringing to bear the insights of an eclectic group of scholars and commentators."—Richard A. Bachmann, H-Sci-Med-Tech"In Automation is a Myth, Luke Munn thoughtfully demands greater specificity of automation discourse. Munn's book is a call to avoid totalizing narratives around automation, and instead to be attentive to the what, when, where, and who of the phenomenon."—Karen Levy, Social Forces"Drawing on scholarship from racial capitalism and gender studies, this excellent book offers much-needed depth and a contrarian viewpoint to the social and political impacts of automation. Highly recommended."—S. J. Chapman Jr., CHOICE"[Automation is a Myth] transcends the silos of media studies to expand our understanding of automation by synthesising literature from sociology, race and gender studies and science and technology studies."—Lutfun Nahar Lata, New Media & SocietyTable of ContentsIntroduction: Automation Is a Myth 1. The Fantasy of Full Automation 2. Spotty Automation and Less-Than-Human Workers 3. Technology in Context, Technology as Culture 4. Automation on the Ground 5. Automation's Racialized Fallout 6. Automation's Gendered Inequality Conclusion: Automation Is Not Our Future

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Book SynopsisThe fourth edition of this classic work provides a systematic, comparative assessment of the efforts of major immigrant-receiving countries and the European Union to manage migration, paying particular attention to the dilemmas of immigration control and immigrant integration. Retaining its comprehensive coverage of nations built by immigrants—the so-called settler societies of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand— the new edition explores how former imperial powers—France, Britain and the Netherlands—struggle to cope with the legacies of colonialism, how social democracies like Germany and the Scandinavian countries balance the costs and benefits of migration while maintaining strong welfare states, and how more recent countries of immigration in Southern Europe—Italy, Spain, and Greece—cope with new found diversity and the pressures of border control in a highly integrated European Union. The fourth edition offers up-to-date analysis of the comparative politics of immigration and citizenship, the rise of reactive populism and a new nativism, and the challenge of managing migration and mobility in an age of pandemic, exploring how countries cope with a surge in asylum seeking and the struggle to integrate large and culturally diverse foreign populations. Trade Review"Comprehensively revised, this classic work is still a must read for anyone involved in migration issues. Addressing the dilemmas of migration control, especially the "liberal paradox," a term first coined by James Hollifield, each chapter skillfully discusses how migration states wrestle with these dilemmas and how societies are transformed by immigration."—Pieter Bevelander, Professor at Malmö University and Director of the Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare"Migration is one of the defining issues of the 21st century. The fourth edition of Controlling Immigration surpasses prior ones in scope and content. The book provides a valuable comparative perspective on immigration policies in both emerging and traditional countries of immigration. A must read for academics and policymakers alike."—Susan Martin, Professor Emerita of International Migration at Georgetown University"Updated in light of a rise of populist nationalisms, a global pandemic, and a surge in forced migrations, the fourth edition of Controlling Immigration is more indispensable than ever. Its distinguished contributors provide comprehensive overviews and vital analyses of immigration issues. As the severe gap between immigration policy goals and achievements continues to deepen, scholars, policymakers, and citizens need the knowledge this volume provides."—Rogers M. Smith, Professor of Political Science at the University of PennsylvaniaTable of Contents1. The Dilemmas of Immigration Control in Liberal Democracies —James F. Hollifield, Philip L. Martin, Pia Orrenius, and François Héran, with commentaries by Leo Lucassen and Christian Joppke 2. The United States: Whither the Nation of Immigrants? —Philip L. Martin and Pia Orrenius, with commentaries by Desmond King and Daniel J. Tichenor 3. Canada: Continuity and Change in Immigration for Nation-Building —Jeffrey G. Reitz with commentary by Antje Ellermann 4. Australia and New Zealand: Classical Migration States? —Alan Gamlen and Henry Sherrell, with commentary by Matthew Gibney 5. Immigration and the Republican Tradition in France —James F. Hollifield and François Héran, with commentaries by Catherine Wihtol de Wenden and Jean Beaman 6. UK Immigration and Nationality Policy: Radical and Radically Uninformed Change —Randall Hansen, with commentary by Desmond King 7. Germany: Managing Migration in the Twenty-first Century —Philip L. Martin and Dietrich Thränhardt, with commentaries by Friedrich Heckmann and Ingrid Tucci 8. The Netherlands: From Consensus to Contention in a Migration State —Willem Maas, with commentaries by Leo Lucassen and Michael Sharpe 9. Governing Immigration in the Scandinavian Welfare States —Grete Brochmann, with commentaries by Kristof Tamas and Lars Trägårdh 10. Immigration and Integration in Switzerland: Shifting Evolutions in a Multicultural Republic —Gianni d'Amato, with commentary by Christian Joppke 11. Italy: Immigration Policy —Ted Perlmutter with commentaries by Giuseppe Sciortino and Camille Schmoll 12. Spain: The Uneasy Transition from Labor Exporter to Labor Importer and the New Challenges Ahead —Miryam Hazàn and Rut Bermejo Casado, with commentary by Blanca Garcés-Macareñas 13. Greece and Turkey: From State-Building and Developmentalism to Immigration and Crisis Management —Fiona Adamson and Gerasimos Tsourapas, with commentaries by Hélène Thiollet and Riva Kastoryano 14. Japan and South Korea —Erin Chung, with commentaries by Midori Okabe and Michael Sharpe 15. The European Union: From Politics to Politicization —Andrew Geddes and Leila Hadj-Abdou, with commentary by Virginie Guiraudon

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Book SynopsisFor some, automation will usher in a labor-free utopia; for others, it signals a disastrous age-to-come. Yet whether seen as dream or nightmare, automation, argues Munn, is ultimately a fable that rests on a set of triple fictions. There is the myth of full autonomy, claiming that machines will take over production and supplant humans. But far from being self-acting, technical solutions are piecemeal; their support and maintenance reveals the immense human labor behind "autonomous" processes. There is the myth of universal automation, with technologies framed as a desituated force sweeping the globe. But this fiction ignores the social, cultural, and geographical forces that shape technologies at a local level. And, there is the myth of automating everyone, the generic figure of "the human" at the heart of automation claims. But labor is socially stratified and so automation's fallout will be highly uneven, falling heavier on some (immigrants, people of color, women) than others. Munn moves from machine minders in China to warehouse pickers in the United States to explore the ways that new technologies do (and don't) reconfigure labor. Combining this rich array of human stories with insights from media and cultural studies, Munn points to a more nuanced, localized, and racialized understanding of the "future of work."Trade Review"Warehouses, factories, fields, supermarkets, smart-homes. These are just some of the material sites that confront myths of automation in Luke Munn's tightly crafted book traversing racial histories, gender politics, contemporary labor regimes, and global logistics. Fantasies of autonomous technologies and visions of freedom, we discover, are almost always accompanied by human endurance and suffering, as well as sparkling acts of collective ingenuity that mess with machines. Munn critically furnishes the bleak, uneven world of automation with alternatives for technology design inspired by activists, artists, and social movements. A perfect handbook for diagnosing the future-present of automated worlds."—Ned Rossiter, author of Software, Infrastructure, Labor"Accessibly written and powerfully argued, Luke Munn's Automation is a Myth carefully demonstrates how the fiction that automation is everywhere and that every aspect of labor and production can or will be automated obscures racialized and gendered power relations and precludes opportunities to shape more radical technologically mediated futures. With wide ranging historical and geopolitical examples of automation fantasies, Munn forcefully demonstrates the importance of contextualizing and de-universalizing conversations about labor, technology and automation."—Neda Atanasoski, author of Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots and the Politics of Technological Futures"An engaging, insightful, and instructive read, this book offers a compelling new perspective on the future of labor-saving technology. More than a myth-buster, Munn is an original voice who offers a vision for a more humane and productive economy."—Frank Pasquale, author of New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI"With Automation Is a Myth, Luke Munn makes an insightful contribution to the growing body of literature that critically investigates current accounts about 'automation.' ... Munn has written a thought-provoking critique of the underlying assumptions of most automation talk today, bringing to bear the insights of an eclectic group of scholars and commentators."—Richard A. Bachmann, H-Sci-Med-Tech"In Automation is a Myth, Luke Munn thoughtfully demands greater specificity of automation discourse. Munn's book is a call to avoid totalizing narratives around automation, and instead to be attentive to the what, when, where, and who of the phenomenon."—Karen Levy, Social Forces"Drawing on scholarship from racial capitalism and gender studies, this excellent book offers much-needed depth and a contrarian viewpoint to the social and political impacts of automation. Highly recommended."—S. J. Chapman Jr., CHOICE"[Automation is a Myth] transcends the silos of media studies to expand our understanding of automation by synthesising literature from sociology, race and gender studies and science and technology studies."—Lutfun Nahar Lata, New Media & SocietyTable of ContentsIntroduction: Automation Is a Myth 1. The Fantasy of Full Automation 2. Spotty Automation and Less-Than-Human Workers 3. Technology in Context, Technology as Culture 4. Automation on the Ground 5. Automation's Racialized Fallout 6. Automation's Gendered Inequality Conclusion: Automation Is Not Our Future

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Book SynopsisWomen, and particularly poor women, have become essential cogs in the wheel of financialized capitalism. Globally, women are responsible for managing household debt, and that debt has exploded over the last decade, reaching an all-time high after the COVID-19 pandemic. Across various categories of loans, including subprime lending, microcredit policies, and consumer loans, as well as rent and utilities, women are overrepresented as clients and managers, and are being enfolded into the system. The Indebted Woman discusses the crucial yet invisible roles poor women play in making and consolidating debt and credit markets. Isabelle Guérin, Santosh Kumar, and G. Venkatasubramanian spent over two decades observing a credit market that specifically targets women in the Indian countryside of east-central Tamil Nadu. They found that paying off debts required labor, frequently involved sexual transactions, and shaped women's bodies and subjectivities. Bringing together ethnography, statistical surveys, and financial diaries, they offer for the first time a comprehensive theory for this sexual division of debt that goes far beyond the Indian case, exposing the ways capitalism transforms womanhood and how this transformation in turn fuels capitalism.Trade Review"This book is pathbreaking in the most literal sense: it opens the way for more studies of women and debt as central features of capitalist economies. It gives insight into the ways in which the reproduction of capital depends on women's reproductive labor as household debt managers, but also into the ways in which they strategically navigate the system."—Joan W. Scott, Princeton University"With gripping evidence and theoretical acumen, Guerin, Kumar, and Venkatubramanian reframe our understandings of the debt economy. By foregrounding the deeply gendered labor of debt, The Indebted Woman launches a new research agenda. A book that transcends disciplinary boundaries and moves forward the analysis of intimate economies."—Viviana A. Zelizer, author of The Purchase of Intimacy and Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy"The Indebted Woman is a compact account of the credit markets in South Arcot, and in particular their disproportionate effect on Dalit women.... Where the book shines is in its conscientious economic research, awakening readers to the lived experiences of Dalit women and their invisible and indispensable role in the South Indian economy."—Annelie Hyatt, Columbia Journal of Literary CriticismTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Intimacies and Measurement 2. Kinship Debt 3. The Sexual Division of Debt 4. Debt Work 5. Bodily Collateral 6. Debt and Love 7. Human Debts 8. What Does the Future Hold?

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Book SynopsisTechnological advancements, expanding education, and unfettered capitalism have encouraged many around the world to aspire to better lives, even as declines in employment and widening inequality are pushing more and more people into insecurity and hardship. In Egypt, a generation of young men desire fulfilling employment, meaningful relationships, and secure family life, yet find few paths to achieve this. The Labor of Hope follows these educated but underemployed men as they struggle to establish careers and build satisfying lives. In so doing, this book reveals the lived contradiction at the heart of capitalist systems—the expansive dreams they encourage and the precarious lives they produce. Harry Pettit follows young men as they engage a booming training, recruitment, and entrepreneurship industry that sells the cruel meritocratic promise that a good life is realizable for all. He considers the various ways individuals cultivate distraction and hope for future mobility: education, migration, consumption, and prayer. These hope-filled practices are a form of emotional labor for young men, placing responsibility on the individual rather than structural issues in Egypt's economy. Illuminating this emotional labor, Pettit shows how the capitalist economy continues to capture the attention of the very people harmed by it.Trade Review"There is no doubt that Harry Pettit has the gift of ethnographic presentation. The Labor of Hope is an important, original, and truly laudable addition to the emerging literature on contemporary labor in Egypt."—Nefissa Naguib, University of Oslo, author of Nurturing Masculinities"The Labor of Hope is an amazing ethnography of capitalist dreams that motivate Egyptians of modest means to strive for success—a success largely denied by inequalities that push people towards precarious service work. Harry Pettit reveals what happens when you're inspired to be the next Steve Jobs, but the labor market wants you for the call center."—Samuli Schielke, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient,author ofMigrant Dreams"The Labor of Hope brings into sharp focus the emotive work undertaken by slipping middle classes as they endure the many indignities and compromised life-trajectories of a polarized labor market. Harry Pettit offers a penetrating analysis of the affective labor that underpins contemporary capitalism marked by steepening inequalities."—Bruce O'Neill, Saint Louis University, author of The Space of BoredomTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Selling Hope 2. The Drugs of Life 3. Without Hope There Is No Life 4. The Labor of Love 5. The Migration of Hope Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWhat unites Google and Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, Siemens and GE, Uber and Airbnb? Across a wide range of sectors, these firms are transforming themselves into platforms: businesses that provide the hardware and software foundation for others to operate on. This transformation signals a major shift in how capitalist firms operate and how they interact with the rest of the economy: the emergence of �platform capitalism�. This book critically examines these new business forms, tracing their genesis from the long downturn of the 1970s to the boom and bust of the 1990s and the aftershocks of the 2008 crisis. It shows how the fundamental foundations of the economy are rapidly being carved up among a small number of monopolistic platforms, and how the platform introduces new tendencies within capitalism that pose significant challenges to any vision of a post-capitalist future. This book will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the most powerful tech companies of our time are transforming the global economy."Trade Review‘Platform Capitalism is a high definition snapshot of the current political economic situation than manages to get a lot of detail into a tight frame. It offers a convincing image of the current stage of capitalist development as a series of variations on the theme of the platform as a means of consolidating or seizing a kind of monopoly leverage over not only distribution but also production. Srnicek gives good reasons for thinking the platform moment in capital accumulation might be less all-conquering than it looks.’McKenzie Wark, author of Telethesia: Communication, Culture and Class"Probe the slithering, creeping collusion between public and private, work and exhaustion, capitalism and death. As cars transform into terrorist devices and public housing explodes into flame through neglectful policies, planning and practices, we require books to understand the loss of agency, the loss of choice and the permanent revolution of fear, confusion and ignorance."Times Higher Education Supplement"…Srnicek builds an illuminating 120-page dissertation on where the platform came from, and where it might take us."Literary Review of Canada"It’s one of those books that so neatly gets to the heart of how modern society in the 21st century functions."PajibaTable of ContentsAcknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1 The Long Downturn 9 2 Platform Capitalism 36 3 Great Platform Wars 93 Notes 130 References 141

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Book SynopsisThe global financial crisis of 2008 ushered in a system of informal decision-making in the grey zone between economics and politics. Legitimized by a rhetoric of emergency, ad hoc bodies have usurped democratically elected governments. In line with the neoliberal credo, the recent crisis has been used to realize the politically impossible and to re-align executive power with the interests of the finance industry. In this important book, Joseph Vogl offers a much longer perspective on these developments, showing how the dynamics of modern finance capitalism have always rested on a complex and constantly evolving relationship between private creditors and the state. Combining historical and theoretical analysis, Vogl argues that over the last three centuries, finance has become a "fourth estate," marked by the systematic interconnection of treasury and finance, of political and private economic interests. Against this historical background, Vogl explores the latest phase in the financialization of government, namely the dramatic transfer of power from states to markets in the latter half of the 20th century. From the liberalization of credit and capital markets to the privatization of social security, he shows how policy has actively enabled a restructuring of the economy around the financial sector. Political systems are "imprisoned" by the regime of finance, while the corporate model suffuses society, enclosing populations in the production of financial capital. The Ascendancy of Finance provides valuable and unsettling insight into the genesis of modern power and where it truly resides.Trade Review"Who is sovereign in the modern state? working like a detective to trace the historical roots of the current financial and budgetary crisis and the interplay between markets and government action, Joseph Vogl gives a politically explosive answer to this question." —Jury, Leipzig Bookfair Prize "A bold and clever treatise on political economy... A lively debate of the issues raised by this book would be greatly welcomed, being in its essence a debate about the image of the West... and how we might live under great fiscal uncertainty." —Suddeutsche Zeitung "With stunning erudition Vogl explores the dark corners of the neoliberal political economy, where states fuse with finance and the public power is simultaneously marketized and de-democratized. Anchored in a concise history of the modern state and its claims to sovereignty, Vogl's analysis focuses on the strangest creation of modern capitalism, money." —Wolfgang Streeck, emeritus director, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne "It is no overstatement to call this book groundbreaking. In The Ascendancy of Finance, Joseph Vogl recasts nearly half a millennia of economic history to argue that the symbiosis of the finance and political spheres is longstanding, and that the informalization of policy-making, as seen most dramatically in 2008, threatens to bypass democracy. Indispensable reading, and, in these tumultuous times, the Ascendancy of Finance is both illuminating and chilling." —Janine Wedel, George Mason University "In elegant historical-institutionalist fashion, Vogl recounts the long story of modern money’s development, tracing the co-evolution of sovereign states and financial markets—each needing the other in defence of its own credit and credibility."—Wolfgang Streeck in New Left Review Table of ContentsPreface Chapter one Functional dedifferentiation Chapter two Economy and government Chapter three Seigniorial power Chapter four Apotheosis of finance Chapter five Fourth power Chapter six Reserves of sovereignty Notes Figure credits Index

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Book SynopsisThe global financial crisis of 2008 ushered in a system of informal decision-making in the grey zone between economics and politics. Legitimized by a rhetoric of emergency, ad hoc bodies have usurped democratically elected governments. In line with the neoliberal credo, the recent crisis has been used to realize the politically impossible and to re-align executive power with the interests of the finance industry. In this important book, Joseph Vogl offers a much longer perspective on these developments, showing how the dynamics of modern finance capitalism have always rested on a complex and constantly evolving relationship between private creditors and the state. Combining historical and theoretical analysis, Vogl argues that over the last three centuries, finance has become a "fourth estate," marked by the systematic interconnection of treasury and finance, of political and private economic interests. Against this historical background, Vogl explores the latest phase in the financialization of government, namely the dramatic transfer of power from states to markets in the latter half of the 20th century. From the liberalization of credit and capital markets to the privatization of social security, he shows how policy has actively enabled a restructuring of the economy around the financial sector. Political systems are "imprisoned" by the regime of finance, while the corporate model suffuses society, enclosing populations in the production of financial capital. The Ascendancy of Finance provides valuable and unsettling insight into the genesis of modern power and where it truly resides.Trade Review"Who is sovereign in the modern state? working like a detective to trace the historical roots of the current financial and budgetary crisis and the interplay between markets and government action, Joseph Vogl gives a politically explosive answer to this question." —Jury, Leipzig Bookfair Prize "A bold and clever treatise on political economy... A lively debate of the issues raised by this book would be greatly welcomed, being in its essence a debate about the image of the West... and how we might live under great fiscal uncertainty." —Suddeutsche Zeitung "With stunning erudition Vogl explores the dark corners of the neoliberal political economy, where states fuse with finance and the public power is simultaneously marketized and de-democratized. Anchored in a concise history of the modern state and its claims to sovereignty, Vogl's analysis focuses on the strangest creation of modern capitalism, money." —Wolfgang Streeck, emeritus director, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne "It is no overstatement to call this book groundbreaking. In The Ascendancy of Finance, Joseph Vogl recasts nearly half a millennia of economic history to argue that the symbiosis of the finance and political spheres is longstanding, and that the informalization of policy-making, as seen most dramatically in 2008, threatens to bypass democracy. Indispensable reading, and, in these tumultuous times, the Ascendancy of Finance is both illuminating and chilling." —Janine Wedel, George Mason University‘In elegant historical-institutionalist fashion, Vogl recounts the long story of modern money’s development, tracing the co-evolution of sovereign states and financial markets—each needing the other in defence of its own credit and credibility.' —New Left ReviewTable of ContentsContents Preface Chapter one Functional dedifferentiation Chapter two Economy and government Chapter three Seigniorial power Chapter four Apotheosis of finance Chapter five Fourth power Chapter six Reserves of sovereignty Notes Figure credits Index

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Book SynopsisSeveral nations in the Global North have turned to austerity policies in an effort to resolve recent financial ills. What many failed to recognize is the longer history and varied pattern of such policies in the Global South over preceding decades – policies which had largely proven to fail. Shefner and Blad trace the 45-year history of austerity and how it became the go-to policy to resolve a host of economic problems. The authors use a variety of international cases to address how austerity has been implemented, who has been hurt, and who has benefited. They argue that the policy has been used to address very different kinds of crises, making states and polities responsible for a variety of errors and misdeeds of private actors. The book answers a number of important questions: why austerity persists as a policy aimed at resolving national crises despite evidence that it often does not work; how the policy has evolved over recent decades; and which powerful people and institutions have helped impose it across the globe. This timely book will appeal to students, researchers, and policymakers interested in globalization, development, political economy, and economic sociology.Trade Review“The aggressive form of capitalism we call neoliberalism has spread across the globe, shoring up profits as earnings are whittled away and government supports are rolled back. This illuminating book helps to explain how this new kind of capitalism has unfolded in societies that are otherwise utterly different. You will want to read it to understand our current troubles.”Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York “This volume takes us on a highly instructive whirlwind tour of austerity on five continents. The result is an indispensable account of what is wrong with the ideas, the rules, and the institutions that govern today’s global economy.”Fred Block, University of California, Davis “Shefner and Blad render us the service of clarifying the roots and the consequences of austerity. Their analysis is worth reading and engaging with.”Alejandro Portes, Princeton University“The analytical dynamics and repertoire of the book are impressive, a fact that is reflected in the way the argument on the persistence of austerity empirically plays out. […] This argument is exceptionally made [as] Shefner and Blad advance the idea of hegemony of austerity without beneficiaries.”American Journal of Sociology“Shefner and Blad maintain that, while austerity has persisted, it is not inevitable. There are genuine progressive alternatives that anti-austerity social movements could fight for to push their countries toward greater national sovereignty for formulating economic policies.”Dollars and SenseTable of ContentsChapter 1. Many Paths to Austerity Chapter 2. From Development to the Lost Decade in Latin America Chapter 3. African Austerity Chapter 4. Austerity in Asia and Oceania Chapter 5. The United States and the Inevitability of Austerity Chapter 6. Austerity Lands in the European Union Chapter 7. Why Austerity Persists Bibliography

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Book SynopsisSeveral nations in the Global North have turned to austerity policies in an effort to resolve recent financial ills. What many failed to recognize is the longer history and varied pattern of such policies in the Global South over preceding decades – policies which had largely proven to fail. Shefner and Blad trace the 45-year history of austerity and how it became the go-to policy to resolve a host of economic problems. The authors use a variety of international cases to address how austerity has been implemented, who has been hurt, and who has benefited. They argue that the policy has been used to address very different kinds of crises, making states and polities responsible for a variety of errors and misdeeds of private actors. The book answers a number of important questions: why austerity persists as a policy aimed at resolving national crises despite evidence that it often does not work; how the policy has evolved over recent decades; and which powerful people and institutions have helped impose it across the globe. This timely book will appeal to students, researchers, and policymakers interested in globalization, development, political economy, and economic sociology.Trade Review“The aggressive form of capitalism we call neoliberalism has spread across the globe, shoring up profits as earnings are whittled away and government supports are rolled back. This illuminating book helps to explain how this new kind of capitalism has unfolded in societies that are otherwise utterly different. You will want to read it to understand our current troubles.”Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York “This volume takes us on a highly instructive whirlwind tour of austerity on five continents. The result is an indispensable account of what is wrong with the ideas, the rules, and the institutions that govern today’s global economy.”Fred Block, University of California, Davis “Shefner and Blad render us the service of clarifying the roots and the consequences of austerity. Their analysis is worth reading and engaging with.”Alejandro Portes, Princeton University“The analytical dynamics and repertoire of the book are impressive, a fact that is reflected in the way the argument on the persistence of austerity empirically plays out. […] This argument is exceptionally made [as] Shefner and Blad advance the idea of hegemony of austerity without beneficiaries.”American Journal of Sociology“Shefner and Blad maintain that, while austerity has persisted, it is not inevitable. There are genuine progressive alternatives that anti-austerity social movements could fight for to push their countries toward greater national sovereignty for formulating economic policies.”Dollars and SenseTable of ContentsChapter 1. Many Paths to Austerity Chapter 2. From Development to the Lost Decade in Latin America Chapter 3. African Austerity Chapter 4. Austerity in Asia and Oceania Chapter 5. The United States and the Inevitability of Austerity Chapter 6. Austerity Lands in the European Union Chapter 7. Why Austerity Persists Bibliography

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Book SynopsisGDP is much more than a simple statistic. It has become the overarching benchmark of success and a powerful ordering principle at the heart of the global economy. But the convergence of major economic, social and environmental crises has exposed the flaws of our economic system which values GDP above all else as a measure of prosperity and growth. In this provocative and inspiring new book, political economist Lorenzo Fioramonti sets out his vision of a world after GDP. Focusing on pioneering research on alternative metrics of progress, governance innovation and institutional change, he makes a compelling case for the profound and positive transformations that could be achieved through a post-GDP system of development. From a new role for small business, households and civil society to a radical evolution of democracy and international relations, Fioramonti sets out a combination of top-down reforms and bottom-up pressures whose impact, he argues, would be unprecedented, making it possible to build a more equitable, sustainable and happy society.Trade Review"Fioramonti's critique of the limitations of GDP is extremely well constructed, highly appropriate and relevant."—Colin Crouch, University of Warwick, UK "What governments don't track today is often far more important than what they do because what we measure changes how we behave – and how we think. And changing what we think is essential if we are to build a more sustainable economic system. Read this fascinating and well-written book – and change the way you think!"—Graeme Maxton, Secretary General of the Club of Rome and bestselling author of The End of Progress "An original, comprehensive and compelling analysis of the problems with GDP and how to make the world better without it."—Robert Costanza, Australian National University and editor-in-chief of Solutions "A well-written and persuasive analysis of how to change the world by moving beyond the current narrow focus on GDP."—Herman Daly, founder of Ecological Economics and Emeritus Professor, University of Maryland "comprehensive, passionate and detailed overview" —Edoardo Campanella, International AffairsTable of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Figures and Tables Introduction Chapter 1 The making of a post-GDP world Chapter 2 The rise and fall of the GDP ideology Chapter 3 Post-GDP economy Chapter 4 Post-GDP politics Chapter 5 Post-GDP world Conclusion References

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Book SynopsisThe ascendance of austerity policies and the protests they have generated have had a deep impact on the shape of contemporary politics. The stunning electoral successes of SYRIZA in Greece, Podemos in Spain and the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in Italy, alongside the quest for a more radical left in countries such as the UK and the US, bear witness to a new wave of parties that draws inspiration and strength from social movements. The rise of movement parties challenges simplistic expectations of a growing separation between institutional and contentious politics and the decline of the left. Their return demands attention as a way of understanding both contemporary socio-political dynamics and the fundamentals of political parties and representation. Bridging social movement and party politics studies, within a broad concern with democratic theories, this volume presents new empirical evidence and conceptual insight into these topical socio-political phenomena, within a cross-national comparative perspective.Trade Review"Austerity policies in Europe have done little to ignite economic growth but have created a firestorm in politics. The volume's expert analysis of the new anti-austerity social movements and political parties makes major theoretical contributions in movement dynamics, as well as illuminating current politics."—Jack A. Goldstone, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University "The relationship between parties and social movements has always been difficult. The recent domination of neoliberalism and austerity have changed that: a marriage of convenience has become a love affair. The future of the Left depends on the permanence and length of this relationship. This definitive study will become the standard reference in the academic literature and will help party members and militants to understand and strengthen links with each other. In this sense, the volume is a first - both as a scientific achievement and as a guide to action." —Costas Douzinas, University of London and Member for Pireas, Hellenic Parliament "The authors develop strong historical and theoretical foundations for empirical comparisons of three important protest parties [...], developing both the cases and larger issues in the study of protest parties. [...] The analysis and comparisons offered […] are well informed and sharp [...]. I am grateful for the provocation to think critically about the development of a dramatic and inspiring campaign against inequality in Europe and around the world."—David S. Meyer, American Journal of Sociology "A clear and focused analysis of contemporary processes of political contention in Southern Europe, illustrating how movement parties were able to channel popular discontent into political realignments. The work makes an immediate contribution to social movement theory and makes suggestive reading in the contemporary political context, where 'populist' challenges from both the right and left are shaking up established political patterns across the world."—Contemporary Sociology "A rich and detailed analysis of three movement parties – Syriza, Podemos and M5S. […] The book's analysis is important for social and political activists. It is also valuable to theorists of radical politics and democracy and relevant for contemporary debates among post-Marxists."—Contemporary Political Theory "This book bridges two subfields (social movements and political parties) that have increasingly distanced themselves from one another. This is perhaps the biggest contribution of the study."—European Political Science "Della Porta et al's study demonstrates well how breaks in political organisation are generated partly by social movements, but also how the trajectories of existing political parties are a crucial element in shaping political developments."—Interface: a journal for and about social movements "[A remarkable study] of political expression in the current neoliberal juncture [...] useful [...] for all students and researchers in the social sciences wishing to understand the current context and the development of protest politics in times of austerity and economic crisis."—Acta SociologicaTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Chapter 1. Movement Parties in Times of (Anti)Austerity: An Introduction Chapter 2. The Genesis of Movement Parties in the Neoliberal Critical Juncture Chapter 3. Organizational Repertoires of Movement Parties Chapter 4. Framing Movement Parties Chapter 5. Comparing Movement Parties’ Success and Failures Chapter 6. Movement Parties: Some Conclusions Appendix: List of Interviews Notes References

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Book SynopsisThe Great Financial Crash had cataclysmic effects on the global economy, and took conventional economists completely by surprise. Many leading commentators declared shortly before the crisis that the magical recipe for eternal stability had been found. Less than a year later, the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression erupted. In this explosive book, Steve Keen, one of the very few economists who anticipated the crash, shows why the self-declared experts were wrong and how ever–rising levels of private debt make another financial crisis almost inevitable unless politicians tackle the real dynamics causing financial instability. He also identifies the economies that have become 'The Walking Dead of Debt', and those that are next in line – including Australia, Belgium, China, Canada and South Korea. A major intervention by a fearlessly iconoclastic figure, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the true nature of the global economic system.Trade Review"No one is more qualified than Steve Keen to answer the question "Can we avoid another financial crisis?" with more than a single word. Read this book!" —Yanis Varoufakis, former Finance Minister of Greece "In this compelling essay, Steve Keen shows that the "Great Moderation" was in fact a great delusion and documents, to brutal effect, the foolish complacency of mainstream macroeconomists." —James K. Galbraith, University of Texas at Austin"Steve Keen explains why the financial crisis it occurred, and why it can't just get better on its own, along its present track. He also explains – in a hilarious and absolutely justified takedown – why mainstream economists have a "trained incapacity" in being unable to understand why the economy has broken down – and hence, why they don't have a real solution. We are still living in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. It’s all about debt. But economists fear they will lose their jobs if they say that debts must be written down. Keen asks what is more important: to save the economy, or to save the jobs for economists whose prestige rests on their not understanding why economies are in trouble today." —Michael Hudson, author of Killing the Host and The Bubble and Beyond"Non-academics interested in economic or financial markets should, if they read ony one book on the topic, absolutely read this one."—International Investment"Mr. Keen is surely right to argue that growth fuelled by the continuing expansion of private debt is highly risky for the overall economy, and that which cannot continue indefinitely will come to a sticky end sooner rather than later. We should heed his advice..."—Globe and MailTable of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Tables and Figures 1. From Triumph to Crisis in Economics 2. Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Complexity 3. The Lull and The Storm 4. The Smoking Gun of Credit 5. The Political Economy of Private Debt 6. A Cynic�s Conclusion Endnotes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe economies of the eurozone countries are plagued by multiple crises, which cast major doubts over the future of the euro. In this engaging new book, leading economist Malcolm Sawyer argues that the entire policy framework of the eurozone was fundamentally flawed from its foundation. He shows how these ‘design faults’ intensified the crisis and are now locking in perpetual self-defeating austerity. Sawyer proposes a bold alternative agenda for reviving the continent’s economic prosperity and saving the euro. He argues, however, that the required solutions are certain to encounter huge obstacles. He therefore concludes that Europe faces a bleak economic future, blighted by low growth, high unemployment and social division. This major contribution to one of the key economic debates of our time will be essential reading for everyone interested in Europe’s future.Trade Review"Malcolm Sawyer, like a safety inspector, examines the design faults of the European Union and highlights measures to make the European system safe. His book will be indispensable after the next financial crisis focuses European minds. I heartily endorse his analysis."Ann Pettifor, City University London "For an open-minded, clear and analytical discussion of the problems of the euro and the eurozone, the reader can do no better than Malcolm Sawyer’s book. Whatever one’s position on the single currency, this is a must-read." John Weeks, University of LondonTable of Contents Contents Preface Chapter 1 - The Euro Crises Chapter 2 - The Shaky Foundations of the Euro Project Chapter 3 - The Failures of the Euro Area Chapter 4 - An Agenda for Prosperity Chapter 5 - Barriers to Progress Endnotes References

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Book SynopsisThe economies of the eurozone countries are plagued by multiple crises, which cast major doubts over the future of the euro. In this engaging new book, leading economist Malcolm Sawyer argues that the entire policy framework of the eurozone was fundamentally flawed from its foundation. He shows how these ‘design faults’ intensified the crisis and are now locking in perpetual self-defeating austerity. Sawyer proposes a bold alternative agenda for reviving the continent’s economic prosperity and saving the euro. He argues, however, that the required solutions are certain to encounter huge obstacles. He therefore concludes that Europe faces a bleak economic future, blighted by low growth, high unemployment and social division. This major contribution to one of the key economic debates of our time will be essential reading for everyone interested in Europe’s future.Trade Review"Malcolm Sawyer, like a safety inspector, examines the design faults of the European Union and highlights measures to make the European system safe. His book will be indispensable after the next financial crisis focuses European minds. I heartily endorse his analysis."Ann Pettifor, City University London "For an open-minded, clear and analytical discussion of the problems of the euro and the eurozone, the reader can do no better than Malcolm Sawyer’s book. Whatever one’s position on the single currency, this is a must-read." John Weeks, University of LondonTable of Contents Contents Preface Chapter 1 - The Euro Crises Chapter 2 - The Shaky Foundations of the Euro Project Chapter 3 - The Failures of the Euro Area Chapter 4 - An Agenda for Prosperity Chapter 5 - Barriers to Progress Endnotes References

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Book SynopsisAlthough economic inequality provokes widespread disquiet, its supposed necessity is rarely questioned. At best, a basic level of inequality is seen as a necessary evil. At worst, it is seen as insufficient to encourage aspiration, hard work and investment – a refrain sometimes used to advocate ever greater inequality. In this original new book, Danny Dorling critically analyses historical trends and contemporary assumptions in order to question the idea that inequality is an inevitability. What if, he asks, widespread economic inequality is actually just a passing phase, a feature of the capitalist transition from a settled rural way of life to our next highly urban steady-state? Is it really likely that we face a Blade Runner-style dystopian future divided between a tiny elite and an impoverished mass? Dorling shows how, amongst much else, a stabilizing population, changing gender relations and rising access to education make a more egalitarian alternative to this nightmare vision not only preferable, but realistic. This bold contribution to one of the most significant debates of our time will be essential reading for anyone interested in our economic, social and political destiny.Trade Review"Provocative as always, Danny Dorling challenges us with encyclopaedic knowledge, damning statistics and original insights. Thoughtfully, he helps us to envision a better society and to believe that we might achieve it."Kate Pickett, University of YorkTable of Contents Contents 1. Bell Curves 2. A history of inequality 3. Why argue for inequality? 4. Who benefits from inequality? 5. Where do the costs of inequality fall? 6. What are the alternatives to inequality? 7. When will the fall in inequality become clear? 8. Reasons for Optimism

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Book SynopsisThroughout the Western world, governments and financial elites responded to the financial crisis of 2008 by trying to restore the conditions of business as usual, but the economic, social and human damage inflicted by the crisis has given rise to a reconsideration of the inevitability of unfettered capitalism as a fact of life. A number of economic practices and organizations emerged in Europe and the United States that embodied alternative values: the value of life over the value of money; the effectiveness of cooperation over cut-throat competition; the social responsibility of corporations and responsible regulation by governments over the short-term speculative strategies that brought the economy to the brink of catastrophe. This book examines the blossoming of innovative new experiments in organizing work and life that emerged in the wake of the financial crisis: cooperatives, barter networks, ethical banking, community currencies, shared time banks, solidarity networks, sharing of goods, non-monetary transactions, etc., experiments that paved the way for the emergence of a sharing economy in all domains of activity oriented toward the satisfaction of human needs. Other innovations included the creation of cryptographic virtual currencies, epitomized by bitcoin, which blended a libertarian, entrepreneurial spirit with information technology to provide an alternative to standard forms of currency. On the basis of a cross-cultural analysis of alternative economic practices, this book develops an important theoretical argument: that the economy, as a human practice, is shaped by culture, and that the diversity of cultures, as revealed in a time of crisis, implies the possibility of different economies depending on the values and power relations that define economic institutions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, economics and the social sciences generally, and to anyone who wishes to understand how our societies and economies are changing today.Trade Review"Manuel Castells and his colleagues have underscored a fundamental truth: that all economics are cultural forms. And just as the financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated the bankruptcy of neoliberal capitalism and the human suffering inflicted by it, so too it spawned countless experiments in alternative ways of organizing economic life based on cultures of sharing and solidarity, some of which are explored in this timely and pathbreaking volume. A must-read." Paul Mason, author of PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future"Fine collection of essays."Times Higher Education SupplementTable of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1 Economy Is Culture, Sarah Banet-Weiser and Manuel Castells Chapter 2 Economics Without Growth, Giorgos Kallis Chapter 3 Analysis of Worldwide Community Economies for Sustainable Local Development, Sviatlana Hlebik Chapter 4 Blockchain Dreams: Imagining Techno-economic Alternatives After Bitcoin, Lana Swartz Chapter 5 Consumer Financial Services in the US: Why Banks May Not Be the Answer, Lisa Servon Chapter 6 Commoning Against the Crisis, Angelos Varvarousis and Giorgos Kallis Chapter 7 Alternative Economic Practices in Barcelona: Surviving the Crisis, Reinventing Life, Manuel Castells and Sviatlana Hlebik Chapter 8 Imagining and Making Alternative Futures: Slow Cities as Sites for Anticipation and Trust, Sarah Pink and Kirsten Seale Conclusion, Manuel Castells

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