Series Editor's Preface. Introduction by John Breuilly. Acknowledgements. 1. Definitions. State and nation. The nation. 2. Culture in Agrarian Society. Power and culture in the agro-literature society. The varieties of agrarian rulers. 3. Industrial Society. The society of perpetual growth. Social genetics. The age of universal high culture. 4. The Transition to an Age of Nationalism. A note on the weakness of nationalism. Wild and garden culture. 5. What is a Nation. The course of true nationalism never did run smooth. 6. Social Entropy and Equality in Industrial Society. Obstacles to entropy. Fissures and barriers. A diversity of focus. 7. A Typology of Nationalisms. The varieties of nationalist experience. Diaspora nationalism. 8. The Future of Nationalism. Industrial culture - one or many?. 9. Nationalism and Ideology. Who is for Nuremberg?. One nation, one state. 10. Conclusion. What is not being said. Summary. Select bibliography. Bilbliography of Ernest Gellner's writing: Ian Jarvie. Index

Nations and Nationalism

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century Thomas L. Friedman Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005 Thomas Friedman is a widely-acclaimed journalist, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, and author of four best-selling books that include From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989). His eminence as a journalist is clearly demonstrated in the way he prepared for The World is Flat. He traveled throughout the world, interviewing in depth the political and business leaders who have the most direct, hands-on knowledge of the truly incredible developments occurring in the business structures and technology of globalization. Only a journalist who moves freely at the highest levels could interview the likes of Sir John Rose, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce; Nobuyuki Idei, the chairman of Sony; Richard Koo, the chief economist for the Nomura Research Institute; Bill Gates of Microsoft; Wee Theng Tan, the president of Intel China; David Baltimore, president of Caltech; Howard Schultz, founder and chairman of Starbucks; Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys in Bangalore - and many others, each of whom gave him the inside story of how, specifically, the barriers of time and space separating economies, workforces, sources of capital, and technical abilities are crumbling. The result of this unfolding story, already far along but with much farther to go, according to Friedman, is that "the world is flat." With some notable exceptions in sub-Saharan Africa and the Islamic swathe, everything is connected with everything else on a horizontal basis, with distance and erstwhile time-lags no longer mattering. Friedman describes in detail the galloping globalization that has unfolded in even so limited a time as the past five years. Under the impetus of a worldwide network of interconnectivity, the world economy is much-changed from what it was at the turn of the century a mere half-decade ago. Friedman quotes the CEO of India's Infosys: "What happened over the last [few] years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables," while (Friedman paraphrases him) "computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of software - e-mail, search engines like Google, and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore, and one part to Beijing...." Microprocessors today have 410 million transistors compared to the 2800 they had in 1971. And now, "wireless is what will allow you to take everything that has been digitized, made virtual and personal, and do it from anywhere." The effect on productivity is revolutionary: "It now takes Boeing eleven days to build a 737, down from twenty-eight days just a few years ago. Boeing will build the next generation of planes in three days, because all the parts are computer-designed for assembly." The most strikingly informative aspect of this book, however, is not about technology. Most especially, Friedman explores the rapidly evolving global business systems, each constantly regenerating itself to keep ahead of the others. These are systems that span the continents seeking the lowest-cost providers of everything from expert scientific and engineering work to the lowliest grunt work. Friedman points out that India produces 70,000 accounting graduates each year - and that they are willing to start at $100 a month. It is no wonder that Boeing employs 800 Russian scientists and engineers for passenger-plane design when "a U.S. aeronautical engineer costs $120 per design hour, a Russian costs about one-third of that." Friedman describes a call center in India where outbound callers sell "everything from credit cards to phone minutes," while operators taking inbound calls do "everything from tracing lost luggage for U.S. and European airline passengers to solving computer problems for confused American consumers. …

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

As Europe enters a significant phase of re-integration of East and West, it faces an increasing problem with the rise of far-right political parties. Cas Mudde offers the first comprehensive and truly pan-European study of populist radical right parties in Europe. He focuses on the parties themselves, discussing them both as dependent and independent variables. Based upon a wealth of primary and secondary literature, this book offers critical and original insights into three major aspects of European populist radical right parties: concepts and classifications; themes and issues; and explanations for electoral failures and successes. It concludes with a discussion of the impact of radical right parties on European democracies, and vice versa, and offers suggestions for future research.

/pdf/populist-radical-right-parties-in-europe-14f3tjtdrt.pdf

Populist radical right parties in Europe

Actors and institutions in localities and regions across the world are seeking prosperity and well-being amidst tumultuous and disruptive shifts and transitions generated by: an increasingly globalised, knowledge-intensive capitalism; global financial instability, volatility and crisis; concerns about economic, social and ecological sustainability, climate change and resource shortages; new multi-actor and multi-level systems of government and governance and a re-ordering of the international political economy; state austerity and retrenchment; and, new and reformed approaches to intervention, policy and institutions for local and regional development. 
Local and Regional Development provides an accessible, critical and integrated examination of local and regional development theory, institutions and policy in this changing context. Amidst its rising importance, the book addresses the fundamental issues of ‘what kind of local and regional development and for whom?’, its purposes, principles and values, frameworks of understanding, approaches and interventions, and integrated approaches to local and regional development throughout the world. The approach provides a theoretically informed, critical analysis of contemporary local and regional development in an international and multi-disciplinary context, grounded in concrete empirical analysis from experiences in the global North and South. It concludes by identifying what might constitute holistic, inclusive, progressive and sustainable local and regional development, and reflecting upon its limits and political renewal.

Local and Regional Development

(2003). Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 130-130.

Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century

1. The Crisis of Social Democracy 2. Globalization and Social Democracy 3. The Historical and Institutional Context of French Socialism 4. Organisational Change in the Parti Socialiste in the 1990s 5. Ideological Redefinition in the PS 6. The Changing Political Economy of French Socialism - Neo-Keynesianism Resurgent 7. The Policy Profile of the Jospin Government 8. The Political Economy of French Electoral Strategy Conclusion Bibliography.

French Socialism in a Global Era: The Political Economy of the New Social Democracy in France

It is a commonplace of both political and academic argument that the last quarter of the twentieth century saw major diminution of national economic policy autonomy, with increased capital mobility...

/pdf/fiscal-policy-and-capital-mobility-the-construction-of-4cs20new09.pdf

Fiscal policy and capital mobility: the construction of economic policy rectitude in Britain and France

This article analyses the changing political significance of UK balance of payments assessment in the post-war era, seeking to explain its disappearance as a policy issue today. We demonstrate the historically contingent nature of balance of payments performance assessment by comparing its shifting, conjunctural, constructions, rooted in underlying political economic assumptions, across four periods in the 20th and 21st centuries. We argue that the political salience of UK balance of payments assessment is contingent upon structural changes (both ideational and material) within the global political economy and domestic politics. Changes in the prevailing policy paradigm through which balance of payments was interpreted (for example from ‘embedded liberalism’ to neo-liberalism), and redefinitions of balance of payments assessment techniques, both of which happened on numerous occasions in the post-war world, had the effect of reshaping the nature of the external international political economic constraints to which UK governments were subjected.

/pdf/whatever-happened-to-the-balance-of-payments-problem-the-27jtv61qig.pdf

Whatever happened to the balance of payments 'problem'? : the contingent (re)construction of British economic performance assessment

Introduction J.Perraton & B.Clift The US Economy in the 1990s: The 'New Economy' Assessed G.Thompson British National Capitalism Since the War: Declinism, Thatcherism and New Labour A.Gamble Ireland: Social Partnership and the 'Celtic Tiger' Economy R.O'Donnell The German Economic Model: Consensus, Stability, Productivity and the Implications for Reform C.Annesley, G.Pugh & D.Tyrrall The French Model of Capitalism: Still Exceptional? B.Clift Scandinavian Capitalism at the Turn of the Century J.Vartiainen International Restructuring in the Japanese Economy since 1985 K.Matsuura, M.Pollitt, R.Takada & S.Tanaka Developmental States Before and After the Asian Crisis L.Weiss Globalization and 'National Capitalism' in South Korea: Reconfiguring State-Capital-Labour Relations B.Gills & D-S.Gills Comparing National Capitalisms H.Radice So Where Are National Capitalisms Now? J.Perraton & B.Clift Index

Where are national capitalisms now

A full understanding of the development and re-production of IPE is only possible with an appreciation of its disciplinary politics. This institutionalises four aspects of academic inquiry: (a) wha...

Ben Clift

Papers

French Socialism in a Global Era: The Political Economy of the New Social Democracy in France

Fiscal policy and capital mobility: the construction of economic policy rectitude in Britain and France

Whatever happened to the balance of payments 'problem'? : the contingent (re)construction of British economic performance assessment

Where are national capitalisms now

Remembering and forgetting IPE: disciplinary history as boundary work