Download or read book Financial Crisis Management and Democracy written by Bettina De Souza Guilherme and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-09 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book discusses financial crisis management and policy in Europe and Latin America, with a special focus on equity and democracy. Based on a three-year research project by the Jean Monnet Network, this volume takes an interdisciplinary, comparative approach, analyzing both the role and impact of the EU and regional organizations in Latin America on crisis management as well as the consequences of crisis on the process of European integration and on Latin America’s regionalism. The book begins with a theoretical introduction, exploring the effects of the paradigm change on economic policies in Europe and in Latin America and analyzing key systemic aspects of the unsustainability of the present economic system explaining the global crises and their interconnections. The following chapters are divided into sections. The second section explores aspects of regional governance and how the economic and financial crises were managed on a macro level in Europe and Latin America. The third and fourth sections use case studies to drill down to the impact of the crises at the national and regional levels, including the emergence of political polarization and rise in populism in both areas. The last section presents proposals for reform, including the transition from finance capitalism to a sustainable real capitalism in both regions and at the inter-regional level of EU-LAC relations.The volume concludes with an epilogue on financial crises, regionalism, and domestic adjustment by Loukas Tsoukalis, President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). Written by an international network of academics, practitioners and policy advisors, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students interested in macroeconomics, comparative regionalism, democracy, and financial crisis management as well as politicians, policy advisors, and members of national and regional organizations in the EU and Latin America.

Download or read book Political Bubbles written by Nolan McCarty and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Behind every financial crisis lurks a "political bubble"--policy biases that foster market behaviors leading to financial instability. Rather than tilting against risky behavior, political bubbles--arising from a potent combination of beliefs, institutions, and interests--aid, abet, and amplify risk. Demonstrating how political bubbles helped create the real estate-generated financial bubble and the 2008 financial crisis, this book argues that similar government oversights in the aftermath of the crisis undermined Washington's response to the "popped" financial bubble, and shows how such patterns have occurred repeatedly throughout US history. The authors show that just as financial bubbles are an unfortunate mix of mistaken beliefs, market imperfections, and greed, political bubbles are the product of rigid ideologies, unresponsive and ineffective government institutions, and special interests. Financial market innovations--including adjustable-rate mortgages, mortgage-backed securities, and credit default swaps--become subject to legislated leniency and regulatory failure, increasing hazardous practices. The authors shed important light on the politics that blinds regulators to the economic weaknesses that create the conditions for economic bubbles and recommend simple, focused rules that should help avoid such crises in the future. The first full accounting of how politics produces financial ruptures, Political Bubbles offers timely lessons that all sectors would do well to heed.

Download or read book Democracy Under Stress written by Ursula Van Beek and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DEMOCRACY UNDER STRESS focuses on the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and its implications for democracy. Why and how did the crisis come about? Are there any instructive lessons to be drawn from comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s? What are the democratic response mechanisms to cope with serious crises? Do they work? Is China a new trend setter? Do values matter? Are global democratic rules a possibility? These are some of the key questions addressed in the volume.

Download or read book Unchecked and Unbalanced written by Arnold Kling and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009-11-16 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Unchecked and Unbalanced, Arnold Kling provides a blueprint for those who are skeptical of political and financial elitism. At the heart of Kling's argument is the growing discrepancy between two phenomena: knowledge is becoming more diffuse, while political power is becoming more concentrated. Kling sees this knowledge/power discrepancy at the heart of the financial crisis of 2008. Financial industry executives and regulatory officials lacked the ability to fathom the complexity of the system that had emerged. And, in response, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, said that they required still more power, including $700 billion to purchase 'toxic assets' from banks. Kling warns that increased concentration of power is a problem, not a panacea, for our modern world and suggests reforms designed to curb the growth of government and allow citizens greater control over the allocation of public goods. Published in cooperation with the Hoover Institution

Download or read book Trust and Crisis Management in the European Union written by Dóra Győrffy and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-03 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses and explains the divergent economic and political outcomes of the financial crisis in the eight European Union member states which needed a bailout program: Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal, Romania and Spain. Looking at crisis management as a series of relationships where cooperation is essential, this book focuses on the essential role of trust during the process. It argues that the presence or absence of trust during the negotiation and implementation of the bailout program leads to self-reinforcing cycles of success and failure. The analysis of these eight countries also explores the institutional sources of trust – it shows that a commitment to limited government is associated with both economic success and resistance to populism. The final chapter considers the implications for the future of the EU and calls attention to the importance of strengthening domestic institutions in order to bridge the gap between concerns over moral hazard and expectations of solidarity.

Download or read book Crisis Communication Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability written by Majia Nadesan and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-05-18 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy, and Ecological Sustainability provides a detailed and empirical analysis of the institutions, governing logics, risk-management practices, and crisis communication strategies involved in the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the 2010 BP oil crisis, and the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis. These human-engineered crises threaten sustainability through resource depletion, environmental degradation, and the growth of geo-political conflicts. Yet, the corporations responsible have returned to profitability by externalizing risks to communities and governments. In response to this pattern of crisis management, Nadesan argues that contemporary financial and energy complexes pose significant threats to liberal democracy and ecological sustainability. This book will be of interest to scholars of communication studies, cultural studies, sociology, political science, anthropology, and economics.

Download or read book The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy written by Richard A. Posner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-31 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following his timely and well-received A Failure of Capitalism, Richard Posner steps back to take a longer view of the continuing crisis of democratic capitalism as the American and world economies crawl gradually back from the depths to which they had fallen in the autumn of 2008 and the winter of 2009. By means of a lucid narrative of the crisis and a series of analytical chapters pinpointing critical issues of economic collapse and gradual recovery, Posner helps non-technical readers understand business-cycle and financial economics, and financial and governmental institutions, practices, and transactions, while maintaining a neutrality impossible for persons professionally committed to one theory or another. He calls for fresh thinking about the business cycle that would build on the original ideas of Keynes. Central to these ideas is that of uncertainty as opposed to risk. Risk can be quantified and measured. Uncertainty cannot, and in this lies the inherent instability of a capitalist economy. As we emerge from the financial earthquake, a deficit aftershock rumbles. It is in reference to that potential aftershock, as well as to the government’s stumbling efforts at financial regulatory reform, that Posner raises the question of the adequacy of our democratic institutions to the economic challenges heightened by the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis and the government’s energetic response to it have enormously increased the national debt at the same time that structural defects in the American political system may make it impossible to pay down the debt by any means other than inflation or devaluation.

Download or read book Democracy Under Stress written by Ursula Van Beek and published by Barbara Budrich. This book was released on 2012 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributions in this book focus on the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and its implications for democracy. Why and how did the crisis come about? Are there any instructive lessons to be drawn from comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s? What are the democratic response mechanisms to cope with serious crises? Do they work? Is China a new trend setter? Do values matter? Are global democratic rules a possibility? These are some of the key questions addressed in this volume.

Download or read book Crisis written by Sylvia Walby and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations – a focus on ‘austerity’ and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on ‘financial crisis’ and democratic regulation of finance – are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.

Download or read book Moments of Truth written by Francisco Panizza and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current financial and sovereign debt crisis of the European Union and the United States can be regarded as the most recent of a wave of financial and sovereign debt crises that have affected different regions of the world over the past quarter century. While there is a large and growing body of literature on the economic aspects of financial crises, its political elements remain surprisingly under-studied. Moments of Truth: The Politics of Financial Crises in Comparative Perspective fills this gap in the literature by looking at the political repercussions and policy implications of financial crises in comparative perspective, using case studies in Latin America, Korea, and Russia, as well as the contemporary crises in the US and in key European countries. Contributors to this volume look at the crises as critical junctures that generate high levels of uncertainty while calling for decisive action. The chapters emphasize structural or agency based explanations and give relevance to the role of ideas, interests, and institutions in explaining different outcomes. The questions addressed by the case studies include: how the crises were defined by key actors, the range of political and policy options available to deal with their impact, the role of ideas in policy shifts, how political and economic actors redefine their interests in contexts of uncertainty, how political institutions mediate reactions to the crises, what explains the choice of a certain option over other alternatives, and whether the crisis has (so far) resulted in significant political and policy changes or in incremental adjustments to the status quo. The first book to comparatively analyze the political dimensions of financial crises across different global regions, Moments of Truth will be highly significant for any scholars interested in the contemporary debate on financial crises.

Download or read book The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report written by Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.

Download or read book Democracy and Crisis written by B. Isakhan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent years have seen constant reports on the failures of governance and the crisis of democracy. By examining cases like Global Financial Crisis, the Arab Revolutions and Wikileaks this volume highlights tensions between governance and democracy during times of crisis and examines the prospects of democratising governance in the 21st Century.

Download or read book Crashed written by Adam Tooze and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK "An intelligent explanation of the mechanisms that produced the crisis and the response to it...One of the great strengths of Tooze's book is to demonstrate the deeply intertwined nature of the European and American financial systems."--The New York Times Book Review From the prizewinning economic historian and author of Shutdown and The Deluge, an eye-opening reinterpretation of the 2008 economic crisis (and its ten-year aftermath) as a global event that directly led to the shockwaves being felt around the world today. We live in a world where dramatic shifts in the domestic and global economy command the headlines, from rollbacks in US banking regulations to tariffs that may ignite international trade wars. But current events have deep roots, and the key to navigating today’s roiling policies lies in the events that started it all—the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath. Despite initial attempts to downplay the crisis as a local incident, what happened on Wall Street beginning in 2008 was, in fact, a dramatic caesura of global significance that spiraled around the world, from the financial markets of the UK and Europe to the factories and dockyards of Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, forcing a rearrangement of global governance. With a historian’s eye for detail, connection, and consequence, Adam Tooze brings the story right up to today’s negotiations, actions, and threats—a much-needed perspective on a global catastrophe and its long-term consequences.

Download or read book A Permanent Crisis written by Marc Chesney and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-01 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This short book describes the role big banks played in the financial crisis of 2008 while denouncing the financial oligarchy’s seizing of power and the dangers it represents for democracy today. There have been many books since the financial crisis that have considered historical events leading up to the crisis but few that consider a solution. Ten years after the great financial crash, this book synthesises the historical developments and introduces a proposal aimed at rebalancing the economy and society at large. The author presents a novel solution that would change current tax systems in the developed world, in their entirety. This book will be of interest to students, practitioners and researchers, as well as the wider informed audience.

Download or read book Curbing Bailouts written by Guillermo Rosas and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-09-08 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Rosas's compelling theory and wide-ranging empirical evidence yield a persuasive but surprising conclusion in light of the financial meltdown of 2008–9. In the event of banking crises, not only do elected governments treat taxpayers better and force bankers and their creditors to pay more for their mistakes, but bankers in democracies are more prudent as a consequence . . . essential reading for all interested in the political economy of crisis and in the future of banking regulation." ---Philip Keefer, Lead Economist, Development Research Group, The World Bank "Rosas convincingly demonstrates how democratic accountability affects the incidence and resolution of banking crises. Combining formal models, case studies, and cutting-edge quantitative methods, Rosas's book represents a model for political economy research." ---William Bernhard, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Illinois "When the financial crises of the 1990s hit Asia, Russia, and Latin America, the U.S. scolded them about the moral hazard problems of bailing out the banks. Now, the shoe is on the other foot, with the U.S. struggling to manage an imploding financial sector. Rosas's study of bank bailouts could not be more timely, providing us with both a framework for thinking about the issue and some sobering history of how things go both right and badly wrong. Democratic accountability proves the crucial factor in making sure bailouts are fair, a point that is as relevant for U.S. policy as for an understanding of the emerging markets." ---Stephan Haggard, Krause Professor, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego Banking crises threaten the stability and growth of economies around the world. In response, politicians restore banks to solvency by redistributing losses from bank shareholders and depositors to taxpayers, and the burden the citizenry must bear varies from case to case. Whereas some governments stay close to the prescriptions espoused by Sir Walter Bagehot in the nineteenth century that limit the costs shouldered by taxpayers, others engage in generous bank bailouts at great cost to society. What factors determine a government's response? In this comparative analysis of late-twentieth-century banking crises, Guillermo Rosas identifies political regime type as the determining factor. During a crisis, powerful financial players demand protection of their assets. Rosas maintains that in authoritarian regimes, government officials have little to shield them from such demands and little incentive for rebuffing them, while in democratic regimes, elected officials must weigh these demands against the interests of the voters---that is, the taxpayers. As a result, compared with authoritarian regimes, democratic regimes show a lower propensity toward dramatic, costly bailouts. Guillermo Rosas is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Fellow at the Center in Political Economy at Washington University in St. Louis.

Download or read book Economic and Political Change after Crisis written by Stephen H. Balch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Government’s accumulated national debt and unfunded liabilities in social security and Medicare could be pushing the country towards a fiscal crisis. How could such a crisis be avoided? If a crisis does strike, how might it be dealt with? What might be the long term ramifications of experiencing a crisis? The contributors to Economic and Political Change After Crisis explore all of these questions and more. The book begins by exploring how past crises have permanently increased the size and scope of government and how well the rule of law has been maintained during these crises. Chapters explore how these relationships might change in a future crisis and examine how the structure of the U.S. government contributes to a tendency towards fiscal imbalance. In a provocative contribution, the authors predict a U.S. government default on its debt. The book concludes by considering how a fiscal crisis might precipitate or interact with other forms of crises. Social scientists from a variety of disciplines, public policy makers, and concerned members of the general public would all benefit from the contributions contained in this book. If the U.S. is going to avoid a future crisis, or do as well as possible if a crisis occurs, the arguments in these chapters should be given serious consideration.

Download or read book Redefining the Market State Relationship written by Ioannis Glinavos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an interdisciplinary overview of the role of law in modern capitalism in the context of financial crisis. In this work, the reader will find a discussion of key issues relevant to the crisis that have occupied the pages of the financial press since 2007 including an assessment of the meltdown of the sub-prime mortgage market, the credit crunch, the European debt crisis and the turmoil in Greece, plus a series of theoretical contributions that are aimed to challenge perceptions of the market-state relationship and the place of law within it. The book includes a methodological defence of the state-market dichotomy, a critique of the tenets of neoclassical economics, and an evaluation of what the financial crisis heralds for the future of the political economy of western democracies. Ioannis Glinavos argues that it is a mistake to associate markets with freedom and states with oppression, and suggests that more choice for consumers can -and does- mean less choice for citizens. The book suggests that a new social contract is needed to ensure the survival of both capitalism and democracy. In contributing a unique, legal perspective to the underlying dynamics of the financial crisis, this book will be valuable to scholars and students of regulation, financial markets and economic development.