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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2017

        The future of western capitalism?

        Global and local transitions

        by Alberta Andreotti, David Benassi, Yuri Kazepov

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2017

        The future of western capitalism?

        Global and local transitions

        by Alberta Andreotti, David Benassi, Yuri Kazepov

        Since its emergence at the end of the seventeenth century, industrial capitalism as a specific form of social organisation has set recurrent challenges to its own persistence, and until today, it has proved to be successful to develop new ways of accumulation based on its capacity of adaptation. Is this process of transition now accelerating or reaching an end point? This book is a critical exploration of capitalism in transition, bringing together cutting edge, world renowned scholars who reflect from different disciplinary points of view. This collection engages with the primarily Western themes of welfare capitalism and social fragmentation. Structured over three parts, the book analyses; the transformations of welfare societies and capitalism with a focus on South European welfare states and their (in)capacity to tackle poverty; the transformation of work and migration with a special attention to informality and the question of social rights; and the transformation of cities and their urban movements. Economic sociology and critical urban studies are the main disciplinary influences, though the authors and likely readers lie beyond these traditional boundaries.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2017

        The future of western capitalism?

        Global and local transitions

        by Alberta Andreotti, David Benassi, Yuri Kazepov

        Since its emergence at the end of the seventeenth century, industrial capitalism as a specific form of social organisation has set recurrent challenges to its own persistence, and until today, it has proved to be successful to develop new ways of accumulation based on its capacity of adaptation. Is this process of transition now accelerating or reaching an end point? This book is a critical exploration of capitalism in transition, bringing together cutting edge, world renowned scholars who reflect from different disciplinary points of view. This collection engages with the primarily Western themes of welfare capitalism and social fragmentation. Structured over three parts, the book analyses; the transformations of welfare societies and capitalism with a focus on South European welfare states and their (in)capacity to tackle poverty; the transformation of work and migration with a special attention to informality and the question of social rights; and the transformation of cities and their urban movements. Economic sociology and critical urban studies are the main disciplinary influences, though the authors and likely readers lie beyond these traditional boundaries.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2022

        Latin America–European Union relations in the twenty-first century

        by Arantza Gomez Arana, María J. García

        Latin America-European Union relations in the twenty-first century provides a valuable overview of transatlantic trade agreement negotiations and developments in the first decades of the twenty-first century. This edited collection examines key motivations behind trade agreements, traces the evolution of negotiations and explores some of the initial impacts of new generation trade agreements with the EU on South American countries. The book makes an important contribution to our understanding of relations between these regions by contextualising relations and trade agendas, both in terms of domestic political and economic policies and broader global trends. It demonstrates the importance of a shift toward mega-regional trade agreements in the 2010s, particularly under the Obama administration in the United States, in shaping South American and European agendas for trade agreement negotiations and their outcomes. Detailed case studies in the book investigate EU relations and negotiations with countries that have successfully negotiated new generation trade agreements with the EU: Mercosur, the Andean states, Chile and Mexico. Other contributions offer a wider overview of EU-Latin American relations, including parliamentary and civil society relations. The net result is a balanced analysis of contemporary EU relations with South America, useful for students and scholars of foreign policy and political economy in both regions.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2022

        Latin America–European Union relations in the twenty-first century

        by Arantza Gomez Arana, María J. García

        Latin America-European Union relations in the twenty-first century provides a valuable overview of transatlantic trade agreement negotiations and developments in the first decades of the twenty-first century. This edited collection examines key motivations behind trade agreements, traces the evolution of negotiations and explores some of the initial impacts of new generation trade agreements with the EU on South American countries. The book makes an important contribution to our understanding of relations between these regions by contextualising relations and trade agendas, both in terms of domestic political and economic policies and broader global trends. It demonstrates the importance of a shift toward mega-regional trade agreements in the 2010s, particularly under the Obama administration in the United States, in shaping South American and European agendas for trade agreement negotiations and their outcomes. Detailed case studies in the book investigate EU relations and negotiations with countries that have successfully negotiated new generation trade agreements with the EU: Mercosur, the Andean states, Chile and Mexico. Other contributions offer a wider overview of EU-Latin American relations, including parliamentary and civil society relations. The net result is a balanced analysis of contemporary EU relations with South America, useful for students and scholars of foreign policy and political economy in both regions.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2022

        Latin America–European Union relations in the twenty-first century

        by Arantza Gomez Arana, María J. García

        Latin America-European Union relations in the twenty-first century provides a valuable overview of transatlantic trade agreement negotiations and developments in the first decades of the twenty-first century. This edited collection examines key motivations behind trade agreements, traces the evolution of negotiations and explores some of the initial impacts of new generation trade agreements with the EU on South American countries. The book makes an important contribution to our understanding of relations between these regions by contextualising relations and trade agendas, both in terms of domestic political and economic policies and broader global trends. It demonstrates the importance of a shift toward mega-regional trade agreements in the 2010s, particularly under the Obama administration in the United States, in shaping South American and European agendas for trade agreement negotiations and their outcomes. Detailed case studies in the book investigate EU relations and negotiations with countries that have successfully negotiated new generation trade agreements with the EU: Mercosur, the Andean states, Chile and Mexico. Other contributions offer a wider overview of EU-Latin American relations, including parliamentary and civil society relations. The net result is a balanced analysis of contemporary EU relations with South America, useful for students and scholars of foreign policy and political economy in both regions.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        March 2024

        Markets and power in digital capitalism

        by Philipp Staab

        Today's global capitalism runs through digital networks. Its leaders are internet giants such as Google, Apple, Amazon and Tencent. Their technologies are ubiquitous: we carry high-performance computers around in our pockets, manage our lives in the cloud and display them on social media. They have also literally privatised the market, transforming capitalism in the process. Philipp Staab takes us on a virtual tour of modern digital capitalism. He shows how digital surveillance and evaluation practices have proliferated throughout the economy, exacerbating social inequality in the process. What is specific to digital capitalism, Staab argues, is the emergence of 'proprietary markets'. In the past the focus was on producing things and selling them at a profit. Today the meta-platforms extract their profits by owning the market itself.

      • Economics
        January 2020

        The Secrets of the Gas War

        Interests Admission and Rivalries Struggle

        by Gamal Taha

        Day after Day... The importance of natural gas in generating energy increases worldwide. This book highlights the power balance and the future of energy in the region, throughimportant points:- The date of discovery of gas and oil worldwide- The Russian gas and how it is related to Europe, and the Russian control over many political incidents like preventing, supporting, and searching for new ways.- Discovering the Egyptian gas in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Turkish anger over the loss of influence in the region- Qatar, which has the world's largest gas field with Iran, seeks today to reconstruct Syria after financing extremists there because it is the only route of Qatari gas to the Mediterranean.All of this is presented in a simplified and easy way for non-specialists, in order for them to enjoy and benefit from it.

      • Business, Economics & Law

        Corporate Income Taxes Under Pressure

        Why Reform Is Needed and How It Could Be Designed

        by Ruud de Mooij, Alexander Klemm, Victoria Perry

        International tax issues have long been at the core of IMF research and the IMF has provided much advice on this topic. This book showcases research by IMF staff and builds on earlier studies on tax issues. Where appropriate it provides special coverage on developing countries. The book offers a complete assessment of the current international tax framework, suggestions for possible alternative architectures, and adds to the global debate on this important topic while remaining accessible to a relatively broad audience.

      • Business, Economics & Law

        Breaking the Oil Spell

        The Gulf Falcons' Path to Diversification

        by Reda Cherif, Fuad Hasanov, Min Zhu

        Breaking the Oil Spell sheds light on what constitutes true economic diversification and the role of the state in achieving it. Ultimately, this book aims to demonstrate that the great aspirations of the people of the Gulf countries and other oil exporters can become a reality. It distills lessons from the experiences of the Gulf countries today.

      • Business, Economics & Law

        Well Spent

        How Strong Infrastructure Governance Can End Waste in Public Investment

        by Gerd Schwartz, Manal Fouad, Torben Hansen, Geneviève Verdier

        The book covers critical issues such as infrastructure investment and Sustainable Development Goals, controlling corruption, managing fiscal risks, integrating planning and budgeting, and identifying best practices in project appraisal and selection. It also covers emerging areas in infrastructure governance, such as maintaining and managing public infrastructure assets and building resilience against climate change.

      • Politics & government
        July 2015

        The Global Minotaur

        America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy

        by Yanis Varoufakis

        In this remarkable and provocative book, Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece, explodes the myth that financialisation, ineffectual regulation of banks, greed and globalisation were the root causes of both the Eurozone crisis and the global economic crisis. Rather, they are symptoms of a much deeper malaise which can be traced all the way back to the Great Crash of 1929, then on through to the 1970s: the time when a Global Minotaur was born. Today's deepening crisis in Europe is just one of the inevitable symptoms of the weakening Minotaur; of a global system which is now as unsustainable as it is imbalanced. Going beyond this, Varoufakis reveals how we might reintroduce a modicum of reason into what has become a perniciously irrational economic order. An essential account of the socio-economic events and hidden histories that have shaped the world as we now know it

      • Business, Economics & Law
        August 2020

        Beyond Confrontation

        Globalists, Nationalists and Their Discontents

        by Phil Mullan

        Reactions to the Coronavirus pandemic have escalated the pre-existing tensions between the US and China and among different Western nations. Confrontations between political globalists and mercantilist nationalists - between supporters of the rules-based international order and proponents of overt protectionism - are fueling ever-stronger international resentments.    Coupling argumentative rigor with a pragmatic, plainspoken approach, Phil Mullan charts out a novel, democratic way past dangerous and self-defeating confrontations towards a future of open international collaboration based on popular participation within nation states. With its clear-eyed assessment of the opportunities and challenges of a more interconnected world - an assessment in which the economic internationalisation underpinning globalisation theories is neither romanticised nor vilified - Beyond Confrontation sets a judicious tone for the big geopolitical themes of our times.

      • Business, Economics & Law
        November 2020

        Mismeasure of Progress

        Economic Growth and Its Critics

        by Macekura, Stephen J.

        Why do we believe what we do about the concept of “economic growth”? Why has growth traditionally been measured by economic activity rather than by social factors like the well-being of the worst off in a given society? Seemingly arcane choices like these had implications not merely in the twentieth-century West but in the colonial and postcolonial states where economists and others prescribed this prevailing standard of economic success, usually with appalling results. Stephen J. Macekura here investigates how the conventional discourse around growth took shape and how it gained worldwide cultural and political power. His transnational history examines how key intellectuals, policymakers, and activists conceptualized, pursued, and often resisted prevailing notions of economic development. Reformers criticized persistent flaws in the growth discourse, the misplaced faith in economic growth as a panacea for social and political ills, and the reliance on economic indicators as representations of the world’s complexities. Macekura’s cast is vibrant and large, and his story covers the sweeping geography of the cold war and more. By historicizing the terms and concepts that underwrite today’s increasingly inequitable conditions, Macekura opens the door to pursuing more socially aware policies in the future.

      • Business, Economics & Law

        Debt and Entanglements Between the Wars

        by Era Dabla-Norris, Thomas Sargent, Martin Ellison, George Hall, Harold James, Andrew Scott

        This edited volume focuses on the responses to the set of conditions created in the aftermath of World War I. The chapters provide a cross-country comparison of the interwar period from 1914 to 1940 and describes how fiscal policies affected political and economic interests, influenced alliances, defaults, and the unwinding of debts. This period in global economic history offers rich material for studying international monetary and debt policies.

      • International economics
        September 2015

        Playing the Long Game

        How to Save the West from Short-Termism

        by Fitzjohn-Sykes, Laurie, A01

        This book explains how short-termism is damaging our economy and what we can do about it.

      • International law

        Democratizing the Bretton Woods Institutions.

        Problems and Tentative Solutions

        by Susanna Cafaro

        This e-book is the synthesis of years of research and direct observation of the work of the Bretton Woods institutions. It is also the result of many exchanges of views with actors and observers, IMF and World Bank executive directors, civil society representatives, colleagues professors. The interests  at stake are: how to make the Bretton Woods institutions (i) more effective, so that they can successfully face the challenges of development gaps (World Bank) and crisis prevention and management (IMF) and (ii) more democratic and less opaque, so that all their members and stakeholders can have a voice in and be represented, be they large or small, wealthy or not. The two organizations are examined simultaneously, because of the perfect symmetry in their governance structures, of their links (shared memberships, contextual agreements), and of the complementarity of their missions. The focus is on  their governance systems and above all on their decision-making process. The analysis is based on the firm belief that the decision-making process affects the efficiency and also – indirectly – the outcome of the international organizations’ decisions. In other words, their governance systems are bound to influence and shape the results of the actions of the international organizations themselves. The book describes the governance of the Bretton Woods institutions – the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – from a legal-institutional point of view and looks for ways in which they could be changed in order to meet today's global democracy needs. Its main focus is on the decision-making process as it affects the outcome of the international organizations’ activity. As a consequence of the 2008 global financial crisis, wisemen and committees of experts were asked to analyze the flaws and weaknesses of global financial institutions. Their reports, along with papers by think tanks, scholars and civil society representatives, proposed actions and reforms. Systematizing and commenting those hints, a fact crops out: in spite of their seeming diversity, all recommended reforms are marked by significant affinities, evidencing an underlying sharing of the criticalities to be addressed and corrected. The book examines suggestions for global economic governance reform in a plain and accessible language as a contribution to a necessary debate, which can't be confined to elite meetings and expert talks but has to involve all global citizens.

      • International economics
        November 2011

        The Delusions of Economics

        The Misguided Certainties of a Hazardous Science

        by Gilbert Rist

        In The Delusions of Economics, Gilbert Rist presents a radical critique of neoclassical economics from a social and historical perspective. Rather than enter into existing debates between different orthodoxies, Rist instead explores the circumstances that prevailed when economics was 'invented', and the resultant biases that helped forge the construction of economics as a 'science'. In doing so, Rist demonstrates how these various presuppositions are either obsolete or just plain wrong, and that traditional economics is largely based on irrational convictions that are difficult to debunk due to their 'religious' nature. As a result, we are prevented from properly understanding the world around us and dealing with the financial, environmental, and climatic crises that lie ahead. Provocative and original, this essential book provides incontrovertible proof that the construction of a new economic paradigm - pluralistic, ecologically compatible, grounded in reality - has now become a necessity.

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