Power and conflict across the international division of labour

Edited by Marcus Taylor

Although much has been written on the topic of economic globalization, few volumes examine the social foundations of the global economy in a way that puts power and contestation at the forefront of the analysis. This book addresses this gap by emphasizing the contested social processes that underpin global production chains and financial structures. It demonstrates not only how the uneven effects of global economic integration impact upon workers and communities across the globe, but also how the agency of these individual and collective actors have reciprocal effects that reconfigure the terrain of global capitalism.

Multidisciplinary in its approach, the book brings together an international group of social scientists who share a common interest in providing critical examinations of contemporary globalizations. With perspectives from sociologists, political scientists and political economists, it juxtaposes the examination of global trends with the diverse contexts of specific regions and countries. It features a range of case studies from North and Latin America, Europe, Africa, East and South-East Asia and post-communist Russia to explore the issues surrounding:

• global production chains and the international division of labour
• corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investing
• new forms of labour organizing and internationalism.

It will be of interest to students and researchers in international political economy, the sociology of globalization, development studies, economic geography and labour studies.

ISBN: 9780415775489

Published May 09 2008 by Routledge.

Key Texts and Commentary

Edited by Ismail Erturk, Julie Froud, Sukhdev Johal, Adam Leaver, Karel Williams

Crisis with US sub-prime mortgages, paralysis in global credit markets and the run on Northern Rock - all wake-up calls to the growing influence of finance and financial markets on the lives of ordinary people. Social scientists began debating financialization in the late 2000s much as they debated globalizsation in the 1990s, and this important book prepares the way by allowing readers to (re)define financialization for themselves.

The articles are grouped by discourse, covering not only inter-war liberal collectivism and current cultural economy, but also the agency theory of mainstream finance and political economy of various kinds. Helpful commentaries introduce each individual reading while section introductions analyze the assumptions, core propositions, achievements and limits in each distinct literature.

This book will challenge readers to bring a new understanding to the financialization of present day capitalism. It is an invaluable resource for students and researchers from business and management, plus all the social sciences with interests in political and cultural economy.

ISBN: 9780415417303

Published May 09 2008 by Routledge.

Edited by Giorgio Secondi

This book draws together the most authoritative articles on development economics published in the past few years, is aimed at undergraduate level and is suitable for students with little or no background in economics.

The main themes include poverty, foreign aid, agriculture and human capital and amongst those whose work appears can be counted Amartya Sen, Jeffrey Sachs, Jagdish Bhagwati, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Romer, Dani Rodrik, William Easterly, Robert Barro, Kenneth Arrow, Hernando de Soto, Daron Acemoglu, Muhammad Yunus, Anne Krueger, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer and Martin Feldstein.

The reader focuses on the most recent and up-to-date contributions to the field of development economics. Instead of collecting "classic" contributions—which are already available through many sources—the articles chosen reflect recent developments in the discipline (for instance, in the area of geography and development) and include contributions that address recent events (the dramatic resurgence of a debt relief movement).

"The Development Economics Reader" should be an invaluable resource for all students of the discipline.

ISBN: 9780415771566

Published May 01 2008 by Routledge.

Towards Re-peripheralisation in Australia, Canada and Mexico?

Edited by Paul Bowles, Ray Broomhill, Teresa Gutiérrez-Haces, Stephen McBride

International trade must be analysed within the historical context within which it occurs. Behind the statistics on trade flows lie power structures, class interests and international hierarchies. These change over time and how countries respond to them has critical implications for their citizen’s well-being.

In this book, the history of trade in Australia, Canada and Mexico is analysed. Trade agreements are analysed in detail to explore the new forms that dependence and subordination have taken. Arguing that the free trade agreements are significantly biased in favour of the United States, the contributors analyse how each of the three countries are being subject to specific forms of re-peripheralisation and examine possible alternatives for a progressive future based on an integration in the global economy which enhances, rather than limits, democracy and social justice. By providing an historical and critical account of trade policy in the three countries, the book provides a welcome antidote to the ahistorical accounts of free trade supporters.

ISBN: 9780415425391

Published April 30 2008 by Routledge.

Sharing the Oil Wealth: A Study of Petroleum Taxation Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

By Carole Nakhle

Petroleum taxation is the universal instrument through which governments seek to determine the crucial balance between the financial interests of the oil companies and the owners of the resource. This book addresses how governments have and continue to approach this problem, the impacts of different policy choices and how these are being adapted to changing business conditions. Carole Nakhle presents the reader with an illuminating and robust analysis of the entire taxation story, from the basic theoretical considerations through to advanced computations applied to various tax regimes.

Nakhle’s main argument is that petroleum taxation is a subject of complexity, variety and subject to continued evolution, being surrounded and shaped by multifaceted geological, technical and market factors together with unpredictable political influences. The author challenges the assumption that perfect models of petroleum taxation can be designed and applied to countries and circumstances around the world, arguing that an ideal structure exists only in theory but can be nonetheless a useful benchmark against which to test proposed fiscal systems.

ISBN: 9780415433792

Published April 30 2008 by Routledge.

By John Field

The term ‘social capital’ is a way of defining the intangible resources of community, shared values and trust upon which we draw in daily life. It has achieved considerable international currency across the social sciences through the very different work of Pierre Bourdieu in France and James Coleman and Robert Putnam in the United States, and has been widely taken up within politics and sociology as an explanation for the decline in social cohesion and community values in western societies. It has also been adopted by policy makers, particularly in international governmental bodies such as the World Bank.

This fully revised second edition of Social Capital provides a thorough overview of the intense and fast-moving debate surrounding this subject. This clear and comprehensive introduction explains the theoretical underpinning of the subject, the empirical work that has been done to explore its operation, and the influence that it has had on public policy and practice. It includes guides to further reading and a list of the most important websites.

ISBN: 9780415433020

Published April 30 2008 by Routledge.

Edited by Gianni Betti, Achille Lemmi

This impressive collection from some of today’s leading distributional analysts provides an overview a wide range of economic, statistical and sociological relationships that have been opened up for scientific study by the work of two turn-of-the-20th-century economists: C. Gini and M. O. Lorenz.

The authors include such figues as Barry Arnold and Frank Cowell and the resulting book deserves its place on the bookshelf of serious mathematical economists everywhere.

ISBN: 9780415443371

Published April 25 2008 by Routledge.

Uzbekistan under Authoritarianism

By Martin C. Spechler

This book examines the economic reforms and material progress made since the Central Asian republics became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. Without some of the neo-liberal reforms recommended by the "Washington Consensus" and with an authoritarian presidency, Uzbekistan, the largest of these countries, has nevertheless achieved modest economic growth, stability, and a relatively impressive degree of income equality. The country has also preserved its economic and political independence from the great powers — Russia, China, and the USA — who are rivals for influence and energy in Central Asia. Human rights have been poorly enforced, though occasional thaws have also taken place.

In second half of the book features a comparative analysis of four Central Asian states, all super-presidential authoritarianisms but with very different resource endowments and external commitments. A separate chapter deals with the energy resources of the region and the challenges of bringing oil and gas to the world market, and the question of whether Central Asian states will return to the Russian sphere of influence or seek closer ties with Asia or Europe is examined. The book concludes with prospects for future political and economic progress in the key Central Asian states.

ISBN: 9780415775540

Published April 25 2008 by Routledge.

Edited by Saturnino M. Borras Jr, Cristóbal Kay, Edward Lahiff

Three-fourths of the world’s poor are rural poor. Most of the rural poor remain dependent on land-based livelihoods for their incomes and reproduction despite significant livelihood diversification in recent years. Land issue remains critical to any development discourse today. Market-led agrarian reform (MLAR) has gained prominence since the early 1990s as an alternative to state-led land reforms. This neoliberal policy is based on the inversion of what its proponents see as the features of earlier approaches, and calls for redistribution via privatized, decentralized transactions between ‘willing sellers’ and ‘willing buyers’. Its proponents, especially those associated with the World Bank, have claimed success where the policy has been implemented, but such claims have been contested by independent scholars as well as by peasant movements who are struggling to gain access to land.

This book presents three thematic papers and six country studies. The thematic papers address issues of formalisation of property rights, gendered land rights, and neoliberal enclosure. These studies demonstrate the pervasive influence of neoliberal ideas on property rights and rural development debates, well beyond the ‘core’ question of land redistribution. The country cases bring together experiences from Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, Philippines, South Africa and Egypt. Common findings include the success of landowners in minimising the impact of reform, and a lack of post-transfer support, translating into marginal impact on poverty.

The limitations of the market-led approach, and the implications of the studies presented here for the future of agrarian reform, are considered in the editors’ introduction.

This book was a special issue of The Third World Quarterly.

ISBN: 9780415464734

Published April 25 2008 by Routledge.

Edited by Asit K. Biswas, Eglal Rached, Cecilia Tortajada

Access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation is essential for human survival and for maintenance of a decent quality of life. Currently, more than a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and more than two billion people lack proper sanitation. In 1992, the United Nations proclaimed that water should be considered to be a human right. This position, however, has not been accepted by many developed and developing countries.

This book systematically and comprehensively analyzes the legal development of the concept of water as a human right; implications for the national governments, and international and national organizations for the implementation of this concept; progress made in different Middle East and North African countries to provide every individual access to clean water and sanitation, constraints faced to assure universal access to water-related services and how these constraints can be overcome, and an overall research agenda in areas where more knowledge is necessary.

ISBN: 9780415445849

Published April 24 2008 by Routledge.