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In the recent economic history of Latin America no country has yet found the means to combine effectively economic growth with equity. Unavoidable Industrial Restructuring in Latin America compares the development path of Latin America with that of the East Asian newly industrialized countries (NICs), the United States, and Europe in the 1970s and 1980s to show the national policies and international cooperation necessary to set Latin American countries on the road to healthy economies.
Fernando Fajnzylber argues that technological and industrial progress is the driving force of a positive relationship among dynamism, competitiveness, austerity, and equity. Latin America’s failure to master this technological progress underlies its economic difficulties. To overcome the inheritance of past mistakes, the author maintains, Latin America must undergo not only macroeconomic stabilization and a reduction of the debt burden, but also a complete transformation of the production structure. The role of the state and the institutional setup need to be modified and new social and sectoral policies devised. Fajnzylber sees this radical restructuring as an unavoidable step if Latin America is ever to achieve a workable balance between growth and equity.

Unbroken Ties examines the relationship between the state and economic interest groups representing labor, capital, and agriculture in Ukraine. The author argues that the absence of "civil society" helps to explain why, in Ukraine, the much-anticipated transition to democracy and the market has not yet been achieved.
Since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, there has been a spate of books--optimistic at first--highlighting the transitions to democracy in these countries and the leading role of "civil society" in pushing forward political and economic reform. This study explains why this transition did not take place as anticipated. In essence, organized labor in Ukraine is weak and has been co-opted by the state; in the meantime, leading groups of industrialists and agricultural collectives have strong political influence and shape policies in accordance with their interests. This is very similar to the situation in Russia.
In contrast to works that implicitly assume a pluralist model of development for state-society relations, Unbroken Ties employs corporatism as the basic organizing structure for the study of state-interest group relations in post-Soviet Ukraine. Finding that much of the Soviet "residue" still functions in Ukraine, it argues that a form of state corporatism, which envisions a major role for the state in structuring and controlling interest associations, captures much of the post-Soviet Ukrainian reality. Old groups persist and prosper due to a variety of ties with state elites, whereas new and independent groups find themselves marginalized.
This book will appeal to political scientists, economists, and sociologists studying the transformation of post-communist societies, as well as those interested in the broader, more comparative aspects of democratization and economic reform.
Paul Kubicek is Kenneth Boulding Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Underdeveloping the Amazon shows how different extractive economies have periodically enriched various dominant classes but progressively impoverished the entire region by disrupting both the Amazon Basin's ecology and human communities. Contending that traditional models of development based almost exclusively on the European and American experience of industrial production cannot apply to a regional economy founded on extraction, Stephen G. Bunker proposes a new model based on the use and depletion of energy values in natural resources as the key to understanding the disruptive forces at work in the Basin.

Although much has been published about the economic downturn that began in mid-1929, very little has been written about the recovery from this cataclysmic period. Long, tortuous, and uneven as it was, there was indeed a recovery. In this important book, Steindl explores the much-neglected topic of the recovery, concentrating in particular on the macroeconomic developments responsible for the move back to a pre-Depression level economy.
Providing strong evidence for the role of the quantity of money in the revitalization, the author ultimately concludes that the seemingly robust monetary explanation of the recovery is deficient, as is any that relies principally on aggregate demand impulses. An accurate understanding of this phenomenon must account for the inherent tendency of the economy to revert to its long-run high employment trend.
Frank G. Steindl is Regents Professor of Economics and Ardmore Professor of Business Administration, Oklahoma State University.

Undoing the Revolution looks at the way rural underclasses ally with out-of-power elites to overthrow their governments—only to be shut out of power when the new regime assumes control. Vasabjit Banerjee first examines why peasants need to ally with dissenting elites in order to rebel. He then shows how conflict resolution and subsequent bargains to form new state institutions re-empower allied elites and re-marginalize peasants.  

Banerjee evaluates three different agrarian societies during distinct time periods spanning the twentieth century: revolutionary Mexico from 1910 to 1930; late-colonial India from 1920 until 1947; and White-dominated Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) from the mid-1960s to 1980. This comparative approach also allows examination of both the underclass need for elite participation and the variety of causes that elites use to incentivize peasant classes to participate, extending from religious-ethnic identity and common political targets to the peasants’ and elites’ own economic grievances. 

Undoing the Revolution demonstrates that both international and domestic investors in cash crops, natural resources, and finance can ally with peasant rebels; and, after threatened or actual state collapse, they can bargain with each other to select new state institutions.

Extreme inequalities in income,wealth and power lie behind Thailand’s political turmoil. What are the sources of this inequality?  Why does it persist, or even increase when the economy grows? How can it be addressed?


         The contributors to this important study—Thai scholars, reformers and civil servants—shed light on the many dimensions of inequality in Thailand, looking beyond simple income measures to consider land ownership, education, finance, business structures and politics. The contributors propose a series of reforms in taxation, spending and institutional reform that can address growing inequality.


        Inequality is among the biggest threats to social stability in Southeast Asia, and this close study of a key Southeast Asian country will be relevant to regional policy-makers, economists and business decision-makers, as well as students of oligarchy and inequality more generally.  

Despite today's booming economy, secure work and upward mobility remain out of reach for many central-city residents. Urban Inequality presents an authoritative new look at the racial and economic divisions that continue to beset our nation's cities. Drawing upon a landmark survey of employers and households in four U.S. metropolises, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles, the study links both sides of the labor market, inquiring into the job requirements and hiring procedures of employers, as well as the skills, housing situation, and job search strategies of workers. Using this wealth of evidence, the authors discuss the merits of rival explanations of urban inequality. Do racial minorities lack the skills and education demanded by employers in today's global economy? Have the jobs best matched to the skills of inner-city workers moved to outlying suburbs? Or is inequality the result of racial discrimination in hiring, pay, and housing? Each of these explanations may provide part of the story, and the authors shed new light on the links between labor market disadvantage, residential segregation, and exclusionary racial attitudes. In each of the four cities, old industries have declined and new commercial centers have sprung up outside the traditional city limits, while new immigrant groups have entered all levels of the labor market. Despite these transformations, longstanding hostilities and lines of segregation between racial and ethnic communities are still apparent in each city. This book reveals how the disadvantaged position of many minority workers is compounded by racial antipathies and stereotypes that count against them in their search for housing and jobs. Until now, there has been little agreement on the sources of urban disadvantage and no convincing way of adjudicating between rival theories. Urban Inequality aims to advance our understanding of the causes of urban inequality as a first step toward ensuring that the nation's cities can prosper in the future without leaving their minority residents further behind. A Volume in the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality

The contradictions of modernization run through the whole of modern Chinese history. The abundance of manufactured goods being sold in the West attests to China's industrial revolution, but this capitalist vision of 'utopia' sits uneasily with traditional Chinese values. It is also in conflict with the socialism that has been the bedrock of Chinese society since the foundation of the People's Republic in 1949.

Utopia and Modernity in China examines the conflicts inherent in China's attempt to achieve a 'utopia' by advancing production and technology. Through the lenses of literature, arts, law, the press and the environment, the contributors interrogate the contradictions of modernization in Chinese society and its fundamental challenges.

By unpicking both China's vision of utopia and its realities and the increasing tension between traditional Chinese values and those of the West, this book offers a unique insight into the cultural forces that are part of reshaping today's China.