Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Political Economy

Although German unification has had a profound impact on European integration and economic development, very few studies of the East German economy exist. The editors of this volume have therefore brought together specialists in economics and politics who analyze such important issues as privatization, monetary reform and unemployment. The aim is to provide scholars and generally interested readers with a critical understanding of the complex processes of German unification and to identify the general lessons that can be learnt from their analysis for economies and societies that undergo...

"The tale that Mollona tells is not a pleasant one...However, it is an important tale, not least because it reminds us that anthropologists in Britain have a long history, now mostly lost to mind, of research in the heartlands of industrial capitalism. Mollona shows us, once more, that we have worthwhile things to say about the lives, work, and situation of the British working class, and through these the political-economic situation in which they find themselves. One can only hope that other anthropologists will follow his lead." - JRAI

"His narrative of the embodied lives of the...

While unification has undoubtedly had major effects on Germany's political economy, the pattern of current policy-making preferences was established at an earlier stage, in particular, at the beginning of the 'Kohl-era' in 1982. This essentially neo-liberal pattern can be seen to have dominated the modalities chosen to guide Germany through the process of unifi cation and was mirrored in developments in other OECD countries and in particular within the EU. This book demonstrates that the three policy imperatives (neo-liberal structural reform, European monetary integration, and...

The socio-economic transformations of the 1990s have forced many people in Poland into impoverishment. Hunters, Gatherers, and Practitioners of Powerlessness gives a dramatic account of life after this degradation, tracking the experiences of unemployed miners, scrap collectors, and poverty-stricken village residents. Contrary to the images of passivity, resignation, and helplessness that have become powerful tropes in Polish journalism and academic writing, Tomasz Rakowski traces the ways in which people actively reconfigure their lives. As it turns out, the initial sense of...

Political constitutions alone do not guarantee democracy; a degree of economic equality is also essential. Yet contemporary economies, dominated as they are by global finance and political rent-seekers, often block the realization of democracy. The comparative essays and case studies of this volume examine the contradictory relationship between the economy and democracy and highlight the struggles and visions needed to make things more equitable. They explore how our collective aspirations for greater democracy might be informed by serious empirical research on the human economy today. If...

This volume presents an analysis of the problems and solutions of the market mockery of the democratic collective decision-choice system with imperfect information structure composed of defective and deceptive structures using methods of fuzzy rationality.

The book is devoted to the political economy of rent-seeking, rent-protection and rent-harvesting to enhance profits under democratic collective decision-choice systems. The toolbox used in the monograph consists of methods of fuzzy decision, approximate reasoning, negotiation games and fuzzy mathematics. The monograph further...