Download or read book Fallen heroes in global capitalism written by V. Trappman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the prism of 'Nowa Huta', a landmark of socialist industrialization, Trappmann challenges the one-sided account of Poland as a successful transition case and reveals the ambivalent role of the European Union in economic restructuring. An exemplary, suggestive case of multi-level analysis research.

Download or read book Against the Dead Hand written by Brink Lindsey and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2002-04-08 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A refreshing, insightful look into the political and economicdynamics driving globalization today Globalization: it's earlier than you think. That's the provocativemessage of Against the Dead Hand, which traces the rise and fall ofthe century-long dream of central planning and top-down control andits impact on globalization-revealing the extent to which the "deadhand" of the old collectivist dream still shapes the contours oftoday's world economy. Mixing historical narrative,thought-provoking arguments, and on-the-scene reporting andinterviews, Brink Lindsey shows how the economy has grown up amidstthe wreckage of the old regime-detailing how that wreckageconstrains the present and obscures the future. He conveys aclearer picture of globalization's current state than the currentconventional wisdom, providing a framework for anticipating thefuture direction of the world economy.

Download or read book Industry and Work in Contemporary Capitalism written by Victoria Goddard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-01-30 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history and in every geographical location, the rise and fall of industry, which impact the fate of large populations, are tied to the development and cultural entanglement of particular models that are articulated with political power. Models are understood as knowledge devices – expert, theoretical, practical and commonsense – that are embedded in cultural and social environments and designed through struggles at various scales. This book results from the collaboration of an interdisciplinary team bringing together specialists in anthropology, geography, sociology, economics, political science, mathematics and engineering around the theme of ‘Models and their Effects on Development Paths’. Based on empirical research conducted on the heavy industries, Industry and Work in Contemporary Capitalism addresses how models that inform the organization of work and production and are created by powerful actors may diverge from, overlap with, or contradict the models articulated by less powerful actors on the ground, and how they are connected across material and cultural spaces. Careful observation of industrial work and production as they unfold in and across specific localities and affects people’s livelihoods is complemented by analysis of how models circulate, through which channels of power, which institutional entities, which political connections. This volume explores an extensive theoretical terrain and a number of empirical cases that show, from different perspectives, how ideas about the economy, about work and industry, materialize in specific practices and interventions that affect people’s livelihoods.

Download or read book Business Leaders and New Varieties of Capitalism in Post Communist Europe written by Katharina Bluhm and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Business leaders exert extraordinary influence on institution building in market economies but they think and act within institutional settings. This book combines both an elite approach with a varieties-of-capitalism approach. Comparing Poland, Hungary and East and West Germany, we perceive the transformations in East Central Europe and in Germany after 1989 as being intertwined. Based on a joint survey, this book seeks to measure the level of the convergence of ideas among European business leaders, assuming it to be more extensive than the institutional convergence expected under the dominance of neoliberal discourse. Analyzing the institutional framework, organizational features like size, ownership and labour relations, and subjective characteristics like age, social origin, career patterns and attitudes of the recent business elites, we found significant differences between countries and the types of organization. The growing importance of economic degrees and internationalization shows astonishingly little explanatory power on the views of business leaders. The idea of a coordinated market economy is still relatively widespread among Germans, while their Hungarian and Polish counterparts are more likely to display a minimalist view of corporate responsibility to society and adverse attitudes towards employee representation. However, their attitudes frequently tend to be inconsistent, which mirrors the mixed type of capitalism in East Central Europe.

Download or read book The Capitalist Transformation of State Socialism written by David Lane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-20 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Lane outlines succinctly yet comprehensively the development and transformation of state socialism. While focussing on Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe, he also engages in a discussion of the Chinese path. In response to the changing social structure and external demands, he outlines different scenarios of reform. He contends that European state socialism did not collapse but was consciously dismantled. He brings out the West’s decisive support of the reform process and Gorbachev’s significant role in tipping the balance of political forces in favour of an emergent ascendant class. In the post-socialist period, he details developments in the economy and politics. He distinguishes different political and economic trajectories of countries of the former USSR, the New Member States of the European Union, and China; and he notes the attempts to promote further change through ‘coloured’ revolutions. The book provides a detailed account not only of the unequal impact of transformation on social inequality which has given rise to a privileged business and political class, but also how far the changes have fulfilled the promise of democracy promotion, wealth creation and human development. Finally, in the context of globalisation, the author considers possible future political and economic developments for Russia and China. Throughout the author, a leading expert in the field, brings to bear his deep knowledge of socialist countries, draws on his research on the former Soviet Union, and visits to nearly all the former state socialist countries, including China.

Download or read book Bingo Capitalism written by Kate Bedford and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-26 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Casinos are often used by political economists, and popular commentators, to think critically about capitalism. Bingo - an equal chance numbers game played in many parts of the world - is overlooked in these conversations about gambling and political economy. Bingo Capitalism challenges that omission by asking what bingo in England and Wales can teach us about capitalism and the regulation of everyday gambling economies. The book draws on official records of parliamentary debate, case law, regulations and in-depth interviews with both bingo players and workers to offer the first socio-legal account of this globally significant and immensely popular pastime. It explores the legal and political history of bingo and how gender shapes, and is shaped by, diverse state rules on gambling. It also sheds light on the regulation of workers, players, products, places, and technologies. In so doing it adds a vital new dimension to accounts of UK gambling law and regulation. Through Bingo Capitalism, Bedford makes a key theoretical contribution to our understanding of the relationship between gambling and political economy, showing the role of the state in supporting and then eclipsing environments where gambling played a key role as mutual aid. In centring the regulatory entanglement between vernacular play forms, self-organised membership activity, and corporate leisure experiences, she offers a fresh vision of gambling law from the everyday perspective of bingo.

Download or read book Transnational Capitalism in East Central Europe s Heavy Industry written by Aleksandra Sznajder Lee and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2016-05-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the steel industry during the post-communist transition from 1989 through 2009, Aleksandra Sznajder Lee traces the transformation of flagship state enterprises in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia into the subsidiaries of large, international corporations. By analyzing this transformation at the three levels of enterprise, sector, and national-international nexus, she identifies the players—from international investors and European Union members to national labor unions and local industry managers—in the political economy of reform. Even in the midst of the transition to a capitalist, democratic system, Sznajder Lee finds, the state plays a key role in mediating between domestic vested interests and external pressures from international financial markets and institutions, on the one hand, and regional institutions on the other. Whereas state power may be employed to require domestic firms to operate as capitalists in the international market, it may also be used to shield enterprises from market pressures in order to promote the political and personal preferences of the elite. This book has broad implications for the political economy of reform because it illuminates the political determinants of privatization and the resources used to resist it. In addition, Sznajder Lee sheds new light on why some countries are more likely than others to be subject to external constraints, such as IMF conditionality, and how some allegedly pro-market reformers manage to maintain public ownership over certain industry sectors.

Download or read book Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism written by Chris Hann and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-03-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together ethnographic case studies of industrial labor from different parts of the world, Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism explores the increasing casualization of workforces and the weakening power of organized labor. This division owes much to state policies and is reflected in local understandings of class. By exploring this relationship, these essays question the claim that neoliberal ideology has become the new ‘commonsense’ of our times and suggest various propositions about the conditions that create employment regimes based on flexible labor.

Download or read book Global Capitalism and Transnational Class Formation written by Jason Struna and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-17 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global capitalism perspective is a unique research program focused on understanding relatively recent developments in worldwide social, economic, and political practices related to globalization. At its core, it seeks to contextualize the rearticulation of nation-states and broad geographic regions into highly interdependent networks of production and distribution, and in so doing explain consequent changes in social relations within and between countries in the contemporary era. The present volume contributes to this effort by focusing on social class formation across borders via the processes and actors that make globalized capitalism possible. The essays presented here offer a wide range of emphases in terms of the particular lenses and evidence they use. They cover such topics as the emergence of a transnational capitalist class-based fascist regime responding to the structural crises of global capitalism as well as the links between global class formation and the US racial project as it relates to electoral politics and demographic changes in the US South. This book was published as a special issue of Globalizations.

Download or read book In Defense of Global Capitalism written by Johan Norberg and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2003 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marshalling facts and the latest research findings, the author systematically refutes the adversaries of globalization, markets, and progress. This book will change the debate on globalization in this country and make believers of skeptics.

Download or read book European Union Enlargement and Integration Capacity written by Tanja Börzel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The effects of the Eastern enlargement, the biggest so far, are still felt across the European Union (EU). Many warned the EU was about to overreach the limits of its integration capacity. More than a decade later, this book presents a broad-based and systematic evaluation of the 2004–2007’s enlargement and its impact on the EU. In contrast to widespread scepticism, our results show that the EU’s integration capacity has been strong. Credible accession conditionality and pre-accession assistance have had a positive impact on democracy, governance capacity, and economic transformation, at least before accession. After accession, EU institutions have proven resilient. Eastern enlargement has not affected negatively the legislative capacity of the EU. It has not led to a deterioration of compliance and implementation of EU law either; initial differentiated integration has quickly returned to normal levels. This generally positive assessment stands in stark contrast with increasing public opposition to future EU enlargements. We identify some less known sources of such opposition: the lack of communication and political debate about enlargement between EU leaders and their citizens. Public opposition undermines the credibility of EU conditionality, which is crucial for having a positive impact on neighbouring countries in the future. The chapters in this book originally appeared in a special issue in the Journal of European Public Policy.

Download or read book Institutional Barriers in the Transition to Market written by C. Hartwell and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the institutional developments in 28 transition economies over the past two decades and concludes that, contrary to popular belief, institutions were not neglected; while personalities mattered as much as policies for outcomes, getting the basic institutions right was the most important aspect of a successful transition.

Download or read book Interest Representation and Europeanization of Trade Unions from EU Member States of the Eastern Enlargement written by Heiko Landgraf, Christin Pleines and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the integration of major trade unions from the six biggest countries of EU's Eastern enlargement into EU governance structures. Based on extensive empirical research, including more than 150 in-depth interviews, statistical data collection, document research, and eight detailed case studies, the contributions describe the activities and perceptions of the trade unions under investigation and the different levels of engagement, including European umbrella organizations, interregional cooperation, and European Works Councils. The book thus contributes to political science research on interest representation and Europeanization as well as sociological research on labor relations.

Download or read book Work and Livelihoods written by Susana Narotzky and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Society for the Anthropology of Work book prize 2017 This volume presents a global range of ethnographic case studies to explore the ways in which - in the context of the restructuring of industrial work, the ongoing financial crisis, and the surge in unemployment and precarious employment - local and global actors engage with complex social processes and devise ideological, political, and economic responses to them. It shows how the reorganization and re-signification of work, notably shifts in the perception and valorization of work, affect domestic and community arrangements and shape the conditions of life of workers and their families.

Download or read book Foreign investment in eastern and southern Europe after 2008 written by Béla Galgóczi and published by ETUI. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the role that foreign direct investment (FDI) in central-eastern and southern Europe has played in the post-crisis period, comparing patterns across countries and sectors. An overarching objective of this publication is to assess the extent to which FDI can still be seen as a key driver of economic development, modernisation and convergence for Europe’s low- and middle-income economies, taking into account also the risks and limiting factors associated with FDI.

Download or read book The Technological Role of Inward Foreign Direct Investment in Central East Europe written by J. Stephan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-09-27 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreign direct investment (FDI) assumed a prominent role in Central East Europe (CEE) early on in the transition process. Foreign investors were assigned the task of restructuring markets, providing capital and knowledge for investment in technologically outdated and financially ailing firms.

Download or read book Market Expansion and Social Dumping in Europe written by Magdalena Bernaciak and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-05 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term ‘social dumping’ regularly appears in public debates and in policymaking circles. However, due to its ambiguity it is used in a manner that is convenient for individual discourse participants, thus opening the door for misconceptions and ill-grounded accusations. This book systematically examines social dumping in the context of the European integration process. It defines social dumping as the practice, undertaken by self-interested market participants, of undermining or evading existing social regulations with the aim of gaining a competitive advantage. It also shows how the two major EU integration projects the creation of the Internal Market, and EU enlargement to the east and to the south have provided market actors with new incentives and opportunities to contest existing social ‘constraints’. The empirical chapters examine social dumping practices accompanying labour migration, employee posting and cross-border investment distribution. In addition, they outline the process of formation of social standards and trace initiatives at EU and national levels that contribute to the spread of social dumping in Europe. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of employment relations, EU studies, international political economy, globalisation studies, welfare studies, social policy and migration studies.