Results by title

453 books match the query 'Economic policy' and 22 start with p

cover of Perspectives on Trade and Development

Perspectives on Trade and Development

Anne O. Krueger

University of Chicago Press, 1990

Developing countries typically have wage rates that are a small fraction of those in developed countries. Trade theories traditionally attributed this difference to two factors: the relative abundance of the labor supply in the two countries and the relative value of the goods produced. These factors, however, inadequately explain the full differential in almost every comparison of developed and developing countries since the second World War.

Providing an important and original perspective for understanding both the development process and policies aimed at raising the standard of living in poorer nations, Perspectives on Trade and Development gathers sixteen of Anne O. Krueger's most important essays on international trade and development economics. Her essays discuss the relationships between trade strategies and development; the links between factor endowments, developing countries' policies, and trade strategies in terms of their growth; the role of economic policy in development; and the international economic environment in which development efforts are taking place. Her analyses are extended to trade and development policies generally, and account for a substantial part of the residue unexplained by past theories. This insightful contribution by an influential scholar will be essential reading for all scholars of trade and development.
[more]
cover of Plowshares into Swords: Weaponized Knowledge, Liberal Order, and the League of Nations

Plowshares into Swords

Weaponized Knowledge, Liberal Order, and the League of Nations

David Ekbladh

University of Chicago Press, 2022

An in-depth look at how the ideas formulated by the interwar League of Nations shaped American thinking on the modern global order.
 
In Plowshares into Swords, David Ekbladh recaptures the power of knowledge and information developed between World War I and World War II by an international society of institutions and individuals committed to liberal international order and given focus by the League of Nations in Geneva. That information and analysis revolutionized critical debates in a world in crisis. In doing so, Ekbladh transforms conventional understandings of the United States’ postwar hegemony, showing that important elements of it were profoundly influenced by ideas that emerged from international  exchanges. The League’s work was one part of a larger transnational movement that included the United States and which saw the emergence of concepts like national income, gross domestic product, and other attempts to define and improve the standards of living, as well as new approaches to old questions about the role of government. Forged as tools for peace these ideas were beaten into weapons as World War II threatened. Ekbladh recounts how, though the US had never been a member of the organization, vital parts of the League were rescued after the fall of France in 1940 and given asylum at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.  However, this presence in the US is just one reason its already well-regarded economic analyses and example were readily mobilized by influential American and international figures for an Allied “war of ideas,” plans for a postwar world, and even blueprints for the new United Nations. How did this body of information become so valuable? As Ekbladh makes clear, the answer is that information and analysis themselves became crucial currencies in global affairs: to sustain a modern, liberal global order, a steady stream of information about economics, politics, and society was, and remains, indispensable.
[more]
cover of Plowshares into Swords: Weaponized Knowledge, Liberal Order, and the League of Nations

Plowshares into Swords

Weaponized Knowledge, Liberal Order, and the League of Nations

David Ekbladh

University of Chicago Press, 2022

This is an Auto-narrated audiobook version of this book.

An in-depth look at how the ideas formulated by the interwar League of Nations shaped American thinking on the modern global order.
 
In Plowshares into Swords, David Ekbladh recaptures the power of knowledge and information developed between World War I and World War II by an international society of institutions and individuals committed to liberal international order and given focus by the League of Nations in Geneva. That information and analysis revolutionized critical debates in a world in crisis. In doing so, Ekbladh transforms conventional understandings of the United States’ postwar hegemony, showing that important elements of it were profoundly influenced by ideas that emerged from international  exchanges. The League’s work was one part of a larger transnational movement that included the United States and which saw the emergence of concepts like national income, gross domestic product, and other attempts to define and improve the standards of living, as well as new approaches to old questions about the role of government. Forged as tools for peace these ideas were beaten into weapons as World War II threatened. Ekbladh recounts how, though the US had never been a member of the organization, vital parts of the League were rescued after the fall of France in 1940 and given asylum at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.  However, this presence in the US is just one reason its already well-regarded economic analyses and example were readily mobilized by influential American and international figures for an Allied “war of ideas,” plans for a postwar world, and even blueprints for the new United Nations. How did this body of information become so valuable? As Ekbladh makes clear, the answer is that information and analysis themselves became crucial currencies in global affairs: to sustain a modern, liberal global order, a steady stream of information about economics, politics, and society was, and remains, indispensable.

[more]
cover of Poland's New Capitalism

Poland's New Capitalism

Jane Hardy

Pluto Press, 2009

Poland was central to the historic changes that took place across Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War. It is the largest economy in the region, and was at the forefront of opposition to communism, with the rise of Solidarity in the 1980s. This book explores the way that neoliberal policies have formed the basis of transformation, championed by both post-communist and post-Solidarity governments.

Jane Hardy provides a rigorous assessment of the impact of these policies on everyday lives and Poland's place in the European and global economy. These are firmly set in the context of the complex and dynamic political economy of the country. The role of capital in the form of transnational corporations and foreign direct investment is central to the analysis. The revival of trade unions and growth of new social movements are explored as they challenge Poland's new capitalism.

No other book studies Poland's recent history in such depth. This book will be a key text for students of political economy, international relations, social movements and labour studies.

[more]
cover of Policy & Politics Japan

Policy & Politics Japan

T. Pempel

Temple University Press, 1982

"This is a masterful, well-written examination of Japanese politics." --Choice In a comparative framework, Pempel analyzes six major areas of domestic policy-making in Japan--administrative reform, economic policy, labor relations, social welfare, environmental policy, and higher education. Each case is accompanied by selected readings translated from official government documents and the writings of critics of official policy. The book offers an unusually strong point of view, one that is sure to invite debate. Pemple attempts to unravel the intertwined issues of the autonomy of the Japanese bureaucracy and the strength of the conservative coalition. He describes the weaknesses of opposition politics and labor but goes on to suggest how protest movements can be effective and how change can occur in the face of a powerful conservative consensus. The "economic miracle" of Japan, like the other policy areas, is realistically assessed in the context of events in other industrialized countries.
[more]
cover of Policy Politics Canada

Policy Politics Canada

Carolyn J. Tuohy

Temple University Press, 1992

At a time when Canadian political institutions are being fundamentally questioned, this book provides a comparative perspective on the distinctive features of the Canadian policy process hich have enabled conflict to be resolved in the past. In comparison with other Western industrial nations, Canada's policies in some arenas appear as models of workable compromise; in others, they stand out as marked by continuing irresolution. In this first book-length treatment of Canadian public policy in comparative perspective, Carolyn Tuohy focuses on constitutional change, health care delivery, industrial relations and labor market policy, economic development and adjustment, oil and gas policy, and minority language rights.

What distinguishes Canada's characteristic policy process is its quintessential ambivalence: ambivalence about the appropriate role of the state, about definitions of political community, and about individual and collective values and conceptions of rights. Embedded in the country's political institutions, it has deep roots in Canada's relationship to the United States, its history of English-French tensions, and its regional diversity.

Examining in particular the delicate federal-provincial division of power and the legislative-judicial relationship, Tuohy discusses how the constitutional debates of the 1980s and 1990s are testing Canada's institutions to resolve conflict.



In the series Policy and Politics in Industrial States, edited by Douglas E. Ashford, Peter J. Katzenstein, and T.J. Pempel.

[more]
cover of Policy Responses to Tax Competition

Policy Responses to Tax Competition

Edited by David R. Agrawal, James M. Poterba, and Owen M. Zidar

University of Chicago Press, 2025

A critical examination of the effects of tax competition.

Policy Responses to Tax Competition provides an in-depth exploration of how jurisdictions design taxes on mobile economic factors. Tax competition between jurisdictions that seek to attract businesses and residents presents both opportunities and challenges. It can foster government efficiency and provide a counterweight to lobbying for increased spending, but it can also result in inefficiently low tax rates and revenue shortfalls as jurisdictions vie for tax bases. This volume examines the economic drivers and consequences of tax competition and presents empirical evidence on its effects.

Divided into three parts, the book first reviews existing research on the determinants and consequences of tax competition and related policy initiatives such as development incentives. The second section focuses on specific policies, such as the Kansas-Missouri noncompete pact and international measures like the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting initiative, that are designed to limit tax competition. It also considers the economic responses to these policies, the distributional impact of competition-reducing policies, and potential strategic reactions of other governments. The final section presents case studies of the effects of various policies, including inter-municipal cooperation in France and corporate tax equalization in Switzerland.

Altogether, this volume provides new insights into the nature of inter-jurisdictional tax competition and the range of potential responses available to jurisdictions at various levels in federal systems.

[more]
cover of Political Economy of Environmental Protection: Analysis and Evidence

Political Economy of Environmental Protection

Analysis and Evidence

Roger D. Congleton, Editor

University of Michigan Press, 1996

Underlying all the contributions to this volume is the understanding that both political and economic considerations affect environmental outcomes. Political decisions largely determine the feasible uses of natural resources by defining and enforcing fundamental property rights and entitlements over matters with environmental consequences. By determining the rules of the game, political decisions determine the extent to which humanity is empowered to transform the world, the processes used, and the waste products remaining. Environmental policies and thereby environmental outcomes emerge from a complex political process that accommodates a variety of conflicting interests. The essays in this volume examine the links between politics and economic interdependencies, using the modern tools of economics and public choice. Each essay develops a balanced and generally positive analysis of a particular environmental policy area ranging from international treaties on global warming to EPA regulations regarding pesticide usage. Contributors use a variety of mathematical and statistical methods to examine policy formation in such policy areas as global warming, wildlife management, undersea oil rights, and the location of NIMBYs. The volume will be of interest to those who study environmental policy from the perspectives of economics, political science, public policy, and environmental studies.
[more]
cover of Political Economy of U.S. - Taiwan Trade

Political Economy of U.S. - Taiwan Trade

Robert Baldwin, Tain-Jy Chen, and Douglas Nelson, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 1995

Two key features of the remarkable economic growth in the newly industrializing countries of East Asia over the last quarter of a century are the role of exports of manufactured goods as the engine of this growth and the importance of the United States as a market for these exports. Political Economy of U.S.-Taiwan Trade analyzes the nature of the political and economic interactions, both domestic and international, which evolved between Taiwan and the United States in a manner that has enabled this growth to occur. In analyzing the various cooperative and conflicting trade policies pursued by the two countries over the last fifty years, the authors utilize a broad political economy framework. They first describe the nature and evolution of trade between Taiwan and the United States and discuss the major economic and political groups and institutions that shape trade policies in the two countries. In doing so, the role that trade has played both in Taiwan's development policies and in the international economic and political policies of the United States in the post-World War II period is analyzed. The various restrictions imposed by each country on the other's exports are examined, and the efforts to reduce these trade barriers are then discussed in detail. Particular attention is given to the series of bilateral negotiations in which the United States has used its dominant economic and political power to force Taiwan to open a number of its internal markets. The book will be of interest to both economists and political scientists specializing in international economics and international political relations. Area specialists focusing on the Far East will also find the book helpful. Robert E. Baldwin is Hilldale Professor of Economics, University of Wisconsin. Tain-Jy Chen is Research Fellow, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research. Douglas Nelson is Associate Professor of Economics, Tulane University. This title was formally part of the Studies in International Trade Policy Series, now called Studies in International Economics.
[more]
cover of Politics and Economics in the Eighties

Politics and Economics in the Eighties

Edited by Alberto Alesina and Geoffrey Carliner

University of Chicago Press, 1991

Is the federal budget deficit a result of congressional deadlocks, gross miscalculation of economic trends, or a Republican strategy to tie the budgetary hands of future Democratic leadership? To what extend does the partisan split between Congress and the executive branch constrain the president's agenda? In this volume, political scientists and economists tackle these and many other contentious issues, offering a variety of analytical perspectives.
Certain to provoke controversy, this interdisciplinary volume brings together policy experts to provide a coherent analysis of the most important economic policy changes of the 1980s. Through a detailed examination of voting patterns, monetary and fiscal policies, welfare spending, tax reform, minimum wage legislation, the savings and loan collapse, and international trade policy, the authors explore how politics can influence the direction of economic policymaking.
[more]
cover of Politics and Policies in Post-Communist Transition: Primary and Secondary Privatisation in Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union

Politics and Policies in Post-Communist Transition

Primary and Secondary Privatisation in Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union

Károly Attila Soós

Central European University Press, 2011

Discusses the policies, practices and outcomes of privatization in six transition economies: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine, paying particular attention to cross-country differences and to interrelations between the processes of privatisation and the political transition from communism to a new system.The analysis is restricted to the privatisation in those fields where its methods have been strongly different from privatisations in advanced market economies and where differences of privatisation principles and techniques among our six countries were also rather various. This is basically the privatisation of middle-sized and large enterprises, not including banks, non-bank financial companies, natural monopolies and agricultural entities.
[more]
cover of Politics, Markets, and Grand Strategy: Foreign Economic Policies as Strategic Instruments

Politics, Markets, and Grand Strategy

Foreign Economic Policies as Strategic Instruments

Lars S. Skalnes

University of Michigan Press, 2000

Why do states sometimes discriminate in favor of certain states and at other times choose to pursue nondiscriminatory policies? In answering these questions, Lars S. Skålnes stresses the international political importance of foreign economic policy, arguing that trade, foreign investment, and foreign aid policies are strategic instruments great powers use to manage political and military relations with allies and adversaries.
Skålnes explains changes in foreign economic policy in terms of shifting strategic assessments regarding the importance of military support from allies. When states need military support from their allies to meet threats to their security, they will adopt discriminatory foreign economic policies in an attempt to strengthen alliance relations. When states can go it alone without military support, by contrast, they will not pursue foreign economic policies that discriminate in favor of either allies or other countries. Discriminatory policies, Skalnes argues, are important strategic instruments for several reasons. First, they can be used to tie countries to a military alliance. Second, they are useful as signals of intention. Third, discriminatory policies may strengthen an ally militarily by increasing the economic resources available for military purposes.
Skålnes provides detailed accounts of the grand strategies of Germany (1879-1914), France (1887-1914), Great Britain (1919-1939), and the United States (1945-1967).
Politics, Markets, and Grand Strategy will be important reading for scholars and students in the fields of national security studies, international political economy, and economic history, and to economists working on problems associated with foreign investment and trade generally and customs union theory and discriminatory trade agreements specifically.
Lars S. Skålnes is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon.
[more]
cover of Politics, Process, and American Trade Policy

Politics, Process, and American Trade Policy

Sharyn O'Halloran

University of Michigan Press, 1994

Relying on the New Economics of Organizations (NEO), or New Institutionalism, Politics, Process, and American Trade Policy shows why conventional models do not adequately describe the formation of American trade policy. Rejecting both the pressure group model and the presidential-ascendancy model, this study's institution-based approach emphasizes the influence Congress has in setting trade policy, connecting theories of institutional design with the procedural details of regulating trade policy.To reach her conclusions, Sharyn O'Halloran uses time series data and econometric analysis to test a set of propositions concerning trade policy. She examines detailed case studies and provides a comprehensive history of the institutions that govern trade policy making. Unlike most scholars who see trade policy as disparate and ad hoc, O'Halloran is able to explain both early and contemporary American trade policy in a consistent and integrated fashion. She argues that a single set of procedures may lead to apparently different outcomes under differing initial conditions; therefore, the key is to identify the common logic, derived from constitutional imperatives, that underlies all policy outcomes.
[more]
cover of Polycentric Games and Institutions: Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis

Polycentric Games and Institutions

Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis

Michael D. McGinnis, Editor

University of Michigan Press, 2000

Polycentric Games and Institutions summarizes contributions to the analysis of institutions made by scholars associated with the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University.
The readings in this volume illustrate several varieties of institutional analysis. Each reading builds upon the foundation of game theory to address similar sets of questions concerning institutions and self-governance. The chapters in the first section lay out interrelated frameworks for analysis. Section two illustrates the normative component of institutions and their effects on human behavior. Readings in the following two sections detail how these frameworks have been applied to models of specific situations. Section five presents a modeling exercise exploring the functions of monitoring and enforcement, and the sixth section discusses approaches to the problems of complexity that confront individuals playing polycentric games. The final readings provide overviews of experimental research on the behavior of rational individuals.
Contributors include Arun Agrawal, Sue E. S. Crawford, Clark C. Gibson, Roberta Herzberg, Larry L. Kiser, Michael McGinnis, Stuart A. Marks, Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom, James Walker, Franz J. Weissing, John T. Williams, and Rick Wilson.
Michael McGinnis is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Co-Associate Director, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University.
[more]
cover of Polycentric Governance and Development: Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis

Polycentric Governance and Development

Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis

Michael D. McGinnis, Editor

University of Michigan Press, 1999

How do local communities collectively manage those resources that are most important to their own survival or prosperity? Wherever they are located, all communities face similar dilemmas of collective action: how can common goals be realized despite the presence of individual incentives to over-exploit common resources for private gain? The readings collected in Polycentric Governance and Development show the achievements of scholars associated with the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University in understanding how communities have dealt with dilemmas of collective action. Their analyses also have profound implications for broader issues of development.
The central insight of the research collected in the volume is this: much can be learned by a careful examination of the ways in which local communities have organized themselves to solve collective problems, achieve common aspirations, and resolve conflicts. The first two sections deal with efforts to manage water and other common-pool resources on a relatively small scale. Section three moves to the macro-level of analysis, with particular attention given to examples of constitutional order from Africa, while section four demonstrates that local organizations and informal networks can play essential roles in furthering democratization and development. The concluding section addresses issues at the national level, by linking the practical world of resource management and development policy to the abstract world of the policy analyst. This collection of essays is designed to illustrate how all the pieces fit together and to suggest connections among multiple levels and modes of analysis.
Contributors include Paula C. Baker, William Blomquist, Larry L. Kiser, Ronald J. Oakerson, Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom, Roger B. Parks, Stephen L. Percy, Charles M. Tiebout, Martha Vandivort, Robert Warren, Gordon P. Whitaker, and Rick Wilson.
Michael McGinnis is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Co-Associate Director, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University.
[more]
cover of Polycentricity and Local Public Economies: Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis

Polycentricity and Local Public Economies

Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis

Michael D. McGinnis, Editor

University of Michigan Press, 1999

The study of metropolitan political economies in the United States has provided much of the intellectual inspiration for the research of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. The readings collected in Polycentricity and Local Public Economies present an overview of the results of this research program on police services and metropolitan governance as well as enduring lessons for institutional analysis and public policy. Polycentricity and Local Public Economies presents both explorations of broad general concepts and specific empirical analyses. The many interactions between the two modes of analysis provide valuable insights for the reader. Readings in the first section cover basic theoretical concepts and analytical distinctions that apply to the study of institutions generally. The second section includes conceptual pieces specifically addressed to the nature of governance in metropolitan areas, while section three reports on a series of empirical studies of police performance. Section four again broadens the focus to highlight the overall organization of local public economies. The final section discusses conceptual advances that have continuing relevance for research and policy debates.Contributors include William Blomquist, Kathryn Firmin-Sellers, Roy Gardner, Dele Olowu, Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom, Amos Sawyer, Edella Schlager, Shui Yan Tang, Wai Fung Lam, and James S. Wunsch.

[more]
cover of Poverty and Wealth in East Africa: A Conceptual History

Poverty and Wealth in East Africa

A Conceptual History

Rhiannon Stephens

Duke University Press, 2022

In Poverty and Wealth in East Africa Rhiannon Stephens offers a conceptual history of how people living in eastern Uganda have sustained and changed their ways of thinking about wealth and poverty over the past two thousand years. This history serves as a powerful reminder that colonialism and capitalism did not introduce economic thought to this region and demonstrates that even in contexts of relative material equality between households, people invested intellectual energy in creating new ways to talk about the poor and the rich. Stephens uses an interdisciplinary approach to write this history for societies without written records before the nineteenth century. She reconstructs the words people spoke in different eras using the methods of comparative historical linguistics, overlaid with evidence from archaeology, climate science, oral traditions, and ethnography. Demonstrating the dynamism of people’s thinking about poverty and wealth in East Africa long before colonial conquest, Stephens challenges much of the received wisdom about the nature and existence of economic and social inequality in the region’s deeper past.
[more]
cover of Power over Property: The Political Economy of Communist Land Reform in China

Power over Property

The Political Economy of Communist Land Reform in China

Matthew Noellert

University of Michigan Press, 2020

Following the end of World War II in 1945, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spent the next three decades carrying out agrarian reform among nearly one-third of the world’s peasants. This book presents a new perspective on the first step of this reform, when the CCP helped redistribute over 40 million hectares of land to over three hundred million impoverished peasants in the nationwide land reform movement. This land reform, the founding myth of the People’s Republic of China (1949–present) and one of the largest redistributions of wealth and power in history, embodies the idea that an equal distribution of property will lead to social and political equality.
 
Power Over Property argues that in practice, however, the opposite occurred: the redistribution of political power led to a more equal distribution of property. China’s land reform was accomplished not only through the state’s power to define the distribution of resources, but also through village communities prioritizing political entitlements above property rights. Through the systematic analysis of never-before studied micro-level data on practices of land reform in over five hundred villages, Power Over Property demonstrates how land reform primarily involved the removal of former power holders, the mobilization of mass political participation, and the creation of a new social-political hierarchy. Only after accomplishing all of this was it possible to redistribute land. This redistribution, moreover, was determined by political relations to a new structure of power, not just economic relations to the means of production.
 
The experience of China’s land reform complicates our understanding of the relations between economic, social, and political equality. On the one hand, social equality in China was achieved through political, not economic means. On the other hand, the fundamental solution was a more effective hierarchy of fair entitlements, not equal rights. This book ultimately suggests that focusing on economic equality alone may obscure more important social and political dynamics in the development of the modern world.
[more]
cover of Privatization in Eastern Europe: Is the State Withering Away?

Privatization in Eastern Europe

Is the State Withering Away?

Roman Frydman

Central European University Press, 1994

In Eastern Europe privatization is now a mass phenomenon. The authors propose a model of it by means of an illustration from the example of Poland, which envisages the free provision of shares in formerly public undertakings to employees and consumers, and the provision of corporate finance from foreign intermediaries. One danger that emerges is that of bureaucratization. On the broader canvas, mass privatization implies the reform of the whole system, the creation of a suitable economic infrastructure for a market economy and the institutions of corporate governance. The authors point out the need for a delicate balance between evolution - which may be too slow - and design - which brings the risk of more government involvement than it is able to manage. A chapter originating as a European Bank working paper explores the banking implications of setting up a totally new financial sector with interlocking classes of assets. The economic effects merge into politics as the role of the state is investigated. Teachers and graduate students of public/private sector economies, East European affairs; advisers to bankers or commercial companies with Eastern European interests.
[more]
cover of Privileged Minorities: A History of Wealth Concentration in South Africa

Privileged Minorities

A History of Wealth Concentration in South Africa

Mesrob Vartavarian

Ohio University Press, 2026

Explores how anticolonial movements in South Africa enabled enduring inequality through the rise of privileged minorities and exclusive economic advantages

In Privileged Minorities, Mesrob Vartavarian examines a central paradox in South African history: how a nation shaped by anticolonial struggle became fertile ground for wealth concentration and enduring inequality. While these contradictions are not unique to South Africa, its historical trajectory offers broader insights into persistent disparities across African societies.

Vartavarian argues that the rise of privileged minorities—small, exclusive groups that dominate political and economic life—paralleled the development of successful anticolonial movements. These minorities secured exclusive advantages, defined as benefits and protections that enabled material accumulation. Such advantages included land seizures, racialized labor systems, access to coercive institutions, favorable regulatory environments, and targeted state expenditures. Though these mechanisms could foster overall economic growth, they disproportionately benefited select oligarchies and middle classes.

The book traces how distinct sociocultural groups in South Africa navigated and negotiated these advantages from the Dutch colonial era through the rise and decline of African National Congress rule. Rather than dismantling minority privilege, challenges from marginalized groups often served to reshape entrenched advantages by incorporating new actors into existing structures. These dynamics produced composite systems of accumulation that sustained inequality. Through this historical lens, Privileged Minorities offers a compelling framework for understanding how structural advantage persists and evolves, even in the wake of liberation.

[more]
cover of Protest and the Politics of Blame: The Russian Response to Unpaid Wages

Protest and the Politics of Blame

The Russian Response to Unpaid Wages

Debra Javeline

University of Michigan Press, 2003

The wage arrears crisis has been one of the biggest problems facing contemporary Russia. At its peak, it has involved some $10 billion worth of unpaid wages and has affected approximately 70 percent of the workforce. Yet public protest in the country has been rather limited. The relative passivity of most Russians in the face of such desperate circumstances is a puzzle for students of both collective action and Russian politics. In Protest and the Politics of Blame, Debra Javeline shows that to understand the Russian public's reaction to wage delays, one must examine the ease or difficulty of attributing blame for the crisis.
Previous studies have tried to explain the Russian response to economic hardship by focusing on the economic, organizational, psychological, cultural, and other obstacles that prevent Russians from acting collectively. Challenging the conventional wisdom by testing these alternative explanations with data from an original nationwide survey, Javeline finds that many of the alternative explanations come up short. Instead, she focuses on the need to specify blame among the dizzying number of culprits and potential problem solvers in the crisis, including Russia's central authorities, local authorities, and enterprise managers. Javeline shows that understanding causal relationships drives human behavior and that specificity in blame attribution for a problem influences whether people address that problem through protest.
Debra Javeline is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rice University.
[more]
cover of Putting Faith in Partnerships: Welfare-to-Work in Four Cities

Putting Faith in Partnerships

Welfare-to-Work in Four Cities

Stephen V. Monsma

University of Michigan Press, 2004

Putting Faith in Partnerships addresses a major conceptual change in American domestic policy, begun by Reagan and now fully realized by the Bush administration: the shift of responsibility for social services from the federal government to states and communities.

In this groundbreaking study of a politically controversial topic---the debut offering in Alan Wolfe's Contemporary Political and Social Issues series---author Stephen Monsma avoids overheated rhetoric in favor of a careful, critical analysis of the hard evidence on whether public-private partnerships really work.

The book is based on in-depth studies of social service programs in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dallas. By examining public-private partnerships between government offices and nonprofit organizations, Monsma seeks to understand how these partnerships affect the balance between government's efforts to deal with social problems and the rights of individual citizens to control their own lives.

Putting Faith in Partnerships answers many previously unanswered questions in what may be the most controversial public policy debate today: about the feasibility and wisdom of government agencies forming partnerships with private organizations to provide essential public social services.

Stephen V. Monsma is Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University. He has served as director of the Office of Quality Review in Michigan's Department of Social Services and is a widely recognized expert on the role of faith-based organizations in social service programs.



[more]