Download or read book Economic Adjustment and Political Transformation in Small States written by Erik Jones and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-05-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The smaller countries of Western Europe have a reputation for being more successful than their larger neighbours. They are wealthier per capita, they are more stable politically, and they are more flexible economically. The secret to this success lies in their consensual style of politics and their corporatist style of decision-making. Unfortunately, however, that may be about to change. A political transformation underway in small states is undermining the politics of consensus and breakdown the effectiveness of corporatist institutions. Small countries are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of world markets as a result. Belgium and the Netherlands offer clear examples of the problem at hand. The political societies of both countries were tightly organized to avoid conflict and to promote consensus. Over time, however, this tight organization has broken down, politicians have opted for conflict over consensus, and elections have become more volatile as a result. In turn, this political transformation of Belgium and the Netherlands has undermined their traditional approach to economic policymaking and economic adjustment. Belgium and the Netherlands are now more vulnerable to world market forces than at any time since the end of the 1970s. Their relative economic and political success can no longer be taken for granted. The relative success of other small states should be brought into question as well.
Download or read book Economic Adjustment and Political Transformation in Small States written by Erik Jones and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work offers a provocative argument about the impact of political change on the economic strategies of small states, focusing on Belgium and the Netherlands. It argues that a transformation in the style of politics from consensus to competition has constrained the traditional formulae for economic policymaking.
Download or read book Small States in World Markets written by Peter J. Katzenstein and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the early 1980s the average American had a lower standard of living than the average Norwegian or Dane. Standards of living in the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria also rivaled those in the United States. How have seven small democracies achieved economic success and what can they teach America? In Small States in World Markets, Peter Katzenstein examines the successes of these economically vulnerable nations of Western Europe, showing that they have managed to stay economically competitive while at the same time preserving their political institutions. Too dependent on world trade to impose protection, and lacking the resources to transform their domestic industries, they have found a third solution. Their rapid and flexible response to market opportunity stems from what Katzenstein calls "democratic corporatism," a mixture of ideological consensus, centralized politics, and complex bargains among politicians, merest groups, and bureaucrats. Democratic corporatism is the solution these nations have developed in response to the economic crises of the 1930s and 1940s, the liberal international economy established after World War II, and the volatile markets of more recent years. Katzenstein maintains that democratic corporatism is an effective way of coping with a rapidly changing world, a more effective way than the United States and several other large industrial countries have yet managed to discover.
Download or read book Small States in International Relations written by Christine Ingebritsen and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smaller nations have a special place in the international system, with a striking capacity to defy the expectations of most observers and many prominent theories of international relations. This volume of classic essays highlights the ability of small states to counter power with superior commitment, to rely on tightly knit domestic institutions with a shared "ideology of social partnership," and to set agendas as "norm entrepreneurs." The volume is organized around themes such as how and why small states defy expectations of realist approaches to the study of power; the agenda-setting capacity of smaller powers in international society and in regional governance structures such as the European Union; and how small states and representatives from these societies play the role of norm entrepreneurs in world politics -- from the promotion of sustainable solutions to innovative humanitarian programs and policies..
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Transformations of the State written by Stephan Leibfried and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-06-11 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook offers a comprehensive treatment of transformations of the state, from its origins in different parts of the world and different time periods to its transformations since World War II in the advanced industrial countries, the post-Communist world, and the Global South. Leading experts in their fields, from Europe and North America, discuss conceptualizations and theories of the state and the transformations of the state in its engagement with a changing international environment as well as with changing domestic economic, social, and political challenges. The Handbook covers different types of states in the Global South (from failed to predatory, rentier and developmental), in different kinds of advanced industrial political economies (corporatist, statist, liberal, import substitution industrialization), and in various post-Communist countries (Russia, China, successor states to the USSR, and Eastern Europe). It also addresses crucial challenges in different areas of state intervention, from security to financial regulation, migration, welfare states, democratization and quality of democracy, ethno-nationalism, and human development. The volume makes a compelling case that far from losing its relevance in the face of globalization, the state remains a key actor in all areas of social and economic life, changing its areas of intervention, its modes of operation, and its structures in adaption to new international and domestic challenges.
Download or read book Our Continent Our Future written by P. Thandika Mkandawire and published by IDRC. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.
Download or read book Small States in Europe written by Robert Steinmetz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The effects of recent institutional change within the European Union on small states have often been overlooked. This book offers an accessible, coherent and informative analysis of contemporary and future foreign policy challenges facing small states in Europe. Leading experts analyze the experiences of a number of small states including the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Iceland, Austria and Switzerland. Each account, written to a common template, explores the challenges and opportunities faced by each state as a consequence of EU integration, and how their behaviour regarding EU integration has been characterized. In particular, the contributors emphasize the importance of power politics, institutional dynamics and lessons of the past. Innovative and sophisticated, the study draws on the relational understanding of small states to emphasize the implications of institutional change at the European level for the smaller states and to explain how the foreign and European policies of small states in the region are affected by the European Union.
Download or read book Structural Adjustment and Socio economic Change in Sub Saharan Africa written by Peter Gibbon and published by Nordic Africa Institute. This book was released on 1996 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report summarises the results of work at the Nordiska Afrikainstitutet/Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) on the impact of structural adjustment implementation on the economies, states and societies of sub-Saharan Africa. It consists of two essays and an appendix listing research projects which have been/are being carried out under the auspices of NAI. The first essay raises a series of conceptual and methodological questions in the context of a presentation of some of the main empirical results obtained from extended field work carried out during the course of 1992 and 1993 in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The second essay presents the three main themes - private trading networks and structures, the changing political economy of land, and popular forms of social provisioning - that constitute the core of the second phase of NAI's structural adjustment research and, in so doing, provides a review of aspects of the adjustment literature. This report is, therefore, an attempt both at stock-taking and agenda-building as part of a wider quest for deepening our understanding of the structures and processes of socio-economic change associated with the crisis and adjustment years in contemporary Africa
Download or read book Ireland Small Open Economies and European Integration written by D. Begg and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Begg examines how four small open economies- Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland- have managed the stresses and strains of Europeanisation since the single market came into being, and as fault lines begin to appear within the European integration project. In particular, he drills down into the Irish Polity to see how its institutions have engaged with Europe and how decisions on critical issues like integration, EMU and Social Partnership were reached. He finds that both Ireland and Europe are at a critical juncture for different but interconnected reasons, and identifies the options that are available to them.
Download or read book Culture and Consensus in European Varieties of Capitalism written by I. Bruff and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-09-11 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using two milestones in the Dutch and German political economies - Wassenaar and Alliance for Jobs respectively - this book argues that Antonio Gramsci's 'common sense' provides us with the conceptual apparatus necessary for analysing the integral role played by culture and consensus in the trajectories of national capitalisms in Europe.
Download or read book European Integration and Consensus Politics in the Low Countries written by Hans Vollaard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-13 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg are well-known cases of consensus politics. Decision-making in the Low Countries has been characterized by broad involvement, power sharing and making compromises. These countries were also founding member states of the European Union (EU) and its predecessors. However, the relationship between European integration and the tradition of domestic consensus politics remains unclear. In order to explore this relationship this book offers in-depth studies of a wide variety of political actors such as governments, parliaments, political parties, courts, ministries and interest groups as well as key policy issues such as the ratification of EU treaties and migration policy. The authors focus not only on Europeanization, but also analyse whether European integration may gradually undermine the fundamental characteristics of consensus politics in the Low Countries. Drawing on consociationalism and Europeanization research, this volume provides a comprehensive overview of Europeanization in these three EU member states as well as a better understanding of the varieties of consensus politics across and within these countries. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European studies, European integration, European law, political science, European political economy and comparative politics.
Download or read book In the Red written by Zsofia Barta and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do rich countries flirt with fiscal disaster? Between the 1970s and the 2000s, during times of peace and prosperity, affluent countries—like Belgium, Greece, Italy, and Japan—accumulated so much debt that they became vulnerable and exposed themselves to the risk of default. In the past three decades, an extensive scholarly consensus emerged that these problems were created by fiscal indiscipline, the lack of sufficient concern for budgetary constraints from policy makers as they try to please voters. This approach formed the foundation for the fiscal surveillance system that attempted to bring borrowing in European countries under control via a set of fiscal rules. In the Red demonstrates that the problem of sustained, large-scale debt accumulation is an adjustment issue rather than a governance failure. Irrespective of whether the original impetus for borrowing arose from exogenous changes or irresponsible decision making, policy makers invariably initiate spending cuts and/or tax increases when debt grows at an alarming rate for several years in a row. Zsófia Barta argues that explaining why some countries accumulate substantial amounts of debt for decades hinges on understanding the conditions required to allow policy makers to successfully put into place painful adjustment measures.
Download or read book Free Markets and Food Riots written by John K. Walton and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes and explains the extraordinary wave of popular protest that swept across the so-called Third World and the countries of the former socialist bloc during the period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, in response to the mounting debt crisis and the austerity measures widely adopted as part of economic "reform" and "adjustment". Explores this general proposition in a cross-national study of the austerity protests, or the 'IMF Riots' that have affected so many debtor nations since the mid-1970s Argues that modern austerity protests, like the classical "bread riots" in eighteenth-century Europe are political acts aimed at injustice, but acts that are an integral part of the process of international economic and political restructuring Evaluates how modern food riots are most important for what they reveal about global economic transformation and its social, and political, consequences Provides a general framework (drawing on comparative and historical material) and then trace the cycle of uneven development, debt, neo-liberal reform, and protest in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe Focusses on the role of women in structural adjustment and protest politics and the features of seemingly anomalous cases which qualify the general argument
Download or read book The Welfare State as Crisis Manager written by P. Starke and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an in-depth analysis of social policy reactions to international economic shocks in four different welfare states, over a 40-year period. It reveals how expansion and retrenchment are shaped by domestic politics and existing welfare state institutions.
Download or read book Social Policy in the Smaller European Union States written by Gary B. Cohen and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Europe and around the world, social policies and welfare services have faced increasing pressure in recent years as a result of political, economic, and social changes. Just as Europe was a leader in the development of the welfare state and the supportive structures of corporatist politics from the 1920s onward, Europe in particular has experienced stresses from globalization and striking innovation in welfare policies. While debates in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France often attract wide international attention, smaller European countries—Belgium, Denmark, Austria, or Finland—are often overlooked. This volume seeks to correct this unfortunate oversight as these smaller countries serve as models for reform, undertaking experiments that only later gain the attention of stymied reformers in the larger countries.
Download or read book The Paradox of Vulnerability written by John L. Campbell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are small and culturally homogeneous nation-states in the advanced capitalist world so prosperous? Examining how Denmark, Ireland, and Switzerland managed the 2008 financial crisis, The Paradox of Vulnerability shows that this is not an accident. John Campbell and John Hall argue that a prolonged sense of vulnerability within both the state and the nation encourages the development of institutions that enable decision makers to act together quickly in order to survive, especially during a crisis. Blending insights from studies of comparative political economy and nationalism and drawing on both extensive interviews and secondary data, Campbell and Hall support their claim by focusing on the three states historically and, more important, in their different responses to the 2008 crisis. The authors also devote attention to the difficulties faced by Greece and Iceland. The implications of their argument are profound. First, they show that there is a positive side to nationalism: social solidarity can enhance national prosperity. Second, because globalization now requires all states to become more adaptable, there are lessons here for other states, large and small. Lastly, the formula for prosperity presented here is under threat: highly homogeneous societies face challenges in dealing with immigration, with some responding in ways that threaten their success. The Paradox of Vulnerability demonstrates how the size and culture of a nation contribute in significant ways to its ability to handle political and economic pressures and challenges.
Download or read book The World of States written by John L. Campbell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-10 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping account of modern state forms analyzes what makes states effective, how contemporary states differ, and the interactions between them.
