Shortlisted for the Inaugural International Political Economy Group annual book prize, 2006.

Using a critical theory approach to analyze the globalization of the world economy, this provocative and topical new book presents economic globalization not as a recent development, but rather as a familiar process that has occurred throughout history. Michael McKinley argues that it is ultimately a self-serving, arbitrary and destructive imperial project that should be viewed as a religious war.

This book examines the political origins of financial institutions across fifteen developed democracies, with focused case studies on the US, France, Japan, Austria, and Germany.

The institutional arrangements of financial systems are widely seen as a central distinguishing feature of 'varieties of capitalism'. Through a wide-range of case studies, this book contends that political battles between landed interests, labor, and owners of capital have fundamentally shaped modern financial arrangements. Demonstrating how these conflicts have shaped contemporary financial architecture in...

This book illustrates the enduring relevance and vitality of the comparative political economy of development approach promoted among others by a group of social scientists in Oxford in the 1980s and 1990s. Contributors demonstrate the viability of this approach as researchers and academics become more convinced of the inadequacies of orthodox approaches to the understanding of development.

Detailed case material obtained from comparative field research in Africa and South Asia informs analyses of exploitation in agriculture; the dynamics of rural poverty; seasonality; the non farm...

The ubiquity of the commitment to economic growth, which Purdey refers to as the growth paradigm, is extraordinary. National governments around the world are seized of the same objective. Major international institutions such as the UN, the WTO, the World Bank, IMF and OECD, powerful international organizations such as regional trading blocs and multinational corporations - even civil societies of all kinds enthusiastically pursue a larger economic pie.

This book examines the deep origins and rise to prominence of the commitment to economic growth. It explains why, despite the...

This book presents a novel and cutting-edge interpretation of the evolving political economy of the Americas. Through a combination of qualitative research and theory, it considers the reconstruction of American-led hegemony in the Americas since the 1982 debt crisis and presents an examination of the new Pax Americana.

Drawing on the Gramscian concept of hegemony as understood by Robert Cox and Henri Lefebvre, this book argues that since the 1982 debt crisis there has been a reconstruction of American-led hegemony under the signature of neo-liberalism and that it has taken place in the...

This book addresses whether and how multilateral economic regimes can successfully transition from international institutions cooperation among states to global governance cooperation among states and nonstate actors.

The unprecedented era of peace and prosperity since World War II has been underpinned by multilateral economic regimes, yet in recent years the rise of nonstate actors has intensified international conflicts regarding fundamental questions of "how to govern." This book asks whether and how multilateral regimes will be able to adapt. Based on an analysis of multilateral...