State (polity)

Abstract: Few discussions in modern social science have occupied as much attention as the changing nature of welfare states in Western societies. Gosta Esping-Andersen, one of the foremost contributors to current debates on this issue, here provides a new analysis of the character and role of welfare states in the functioning of contemporary advanced Western societies. Esping-Andersen distinguishes three major types of welfare state, connecting these with variations in the historical development of different Western countries. He argues that current economic processes, such as those moving toward a postindustrial order, are shaped not by autonomous market forces but by the nature of states and state differences. Fully informed by comparative materials, this book will have great appeal to all those working on issues of economic development and postindustrialism. Its audience will include students of sociology, economics, and politics."

Abstract: The state has lost its position of centrality in contemporary political theory ideas of moral individualism and an emphasis on bargaining among conflicting interest have usurped ideas that embedded morality in institutions, such as the legal system and the corporation, as foundations for political identity. The authors propose a new theory of political behavior that re-invigorates the role of institutions - from laws and bureaucracy to rituals, symbols and ceremonies - as essential to understanding the modern political and economic systems that guide contemporary life.

Abstract: From the Publisher: In recent years, debate on the state's economic role has too often devolved into diatribes against intervention. Peter Evans questions such simplistic views, offering a new vision of why state involvement works in some cases and produces disasters in others. To illustrate, he looks at how state agencies, local entrepreneurs, and transnational corporations shaped the emergence of computer industries in Brazil, India, and Korea during the seventies and eighties. Evans starts with the idea that states vary in the way they are organized and tied to society. In some nations, like Zaire, the state is predatory, ruthlessly extracting and providing nothing of value in return. In others, like Korea, it is developmental, promoting industrial transformation. In still others, like Brazil and India, it is in-between, sometimes helping, sometimes hindering. Evans's years of comparative research on the successes and failures of state involvement in the process of industrialization have here been crafted into a persuasive and entertaining work, which demonstrates that successful state action requires an understanding of its own limits, a realistic relationship to the global economy, and the combination of coherent internal organization and close links to society that Evans calls "embedded autonomy."

Abstract: Preface Introduction 1. Bringing the state back in: strategies of analysis in current research Theda Skocpol Part I. States as Promoters of Economic Development and Social Redistribution: 2. The state and economic transformation: toward an analysis of the conditions underlying effective intervention Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Peter B. Evans 3. The state and Taiwan's economic development Alice H. Amsden 4. State structures and the possibilities for 'Keynesian' responses to the great depression in Sweden, Britain and the United States Margaret Weir and Theda Skocpol Part II. States and Transnational Relations: 5. War making and state making as organized crime Charles Tilly 6. Transnational linkages and the economic role of the state: an analysis of developing and industrialized nations in the post-World War II period Peter B. Evans 7. Small nations in an open international economy: the converging balance of state and society in Switzerland and Austria Peter Katzenstein Part III. States and the Patterning of Social Conflicts: 8. Working-class formation and the state: nineteenth-century England in American perspective Ira Katznelson 9. Hegemony and religious conflict: british imperial control and political cleavages in Yorubaland David D. Laitin 10. State power and the strength of civil society in the southern cone of Latin America Alfred Stepan Conclusion 11. On the road toward a more adequate understanding of the state Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol Index.

Abstract: Since September 11th, we frequently hear that political differences should be put aside: the real struggle is between good and evil. What does this mean for political and social life? Is there a 'Third Way' beyond left and right, and if so, should we fear or welcome it? This thought-provoking book by Chantal Mouffe, a globally recognized political author, presents a timely account of the current state of democracy, affording readers the most relevant and up-to-date information. Arguing that liberal 'third way thinking' ignores fundamental, conflicting aspects of human nature, Mouffe states that, far from expanding democracy, globalization is undermining the combative and radical heart of democratic life. Going back first to Aristotle, she identifies the historical origins of the political and reflects on the Enlightenment, and the social contract, arguing that in spite of its good intentions, it levelled the radical core of political life. Contemporary examples, including the Iraq war, racism and the rise of the far right, are used to illustrate and support her theory that far from combating extremism, the quest for consensus politics undermines the ability to challenge it. These case studies are also highly effective points of reference for student revision. On the Political is a stimulating argument about the future of politics and addresses the most fundamental aspects of democracy that will aid further study.