The recent financial crisis has demonstrated that governments continuously seek to steer their economies rather than leaving them to free markets. Despite the ambitions of international economic cooperation, such interventionism is decidedly local. Some politicians even proudly evoke "economic patriotism" to justify their choices.

This volume links such populism to a specific set of tensions the paradox of neo-liberal democracy and argues that the phenomenon is ubiquitous. The mandate of politicians is to defend the economic interests of their constituents under conditions where large...