Alternatives To Neoliberalism

In this collection, innovative and eminent social and policy analysts, including Colin Crouch, Anna Coote, Grahame Thompson and Ted Benton, challenge the failing but still dominant ideology and policies of neo-liberalism. The editors synthesise contributors’ ideas into a revised framework for social democracy; rooted in feminism, environmentalism, democratic equality and market accountability to civil society. This constructive and stimulating collection will be invaluable for those teaching, studying and campaigning for transformative political, economic and social policies.

Andres Solimano examines the growing divide between rich elites and everyone else, the fragmentation of the middle class under global capitalism, the economy's tendencies to experience frequent financial crises, the limits of austerity policies, and the internationalization of elites, migrant diaspora, and social movements.

This text presents a devastating critique of the currently fashionable idea of globalisation. Using comprehensive and non-technical language this book looks at the world's cultural and value diversity, and questions whether it is possible to impose a global policy, given these differences. Topics covered include: * theories of distribution and welfare * what leads to a good economic outcome? * Egalitarian theories of welfarism * global neoliberalism and the free market culture.

In recent times, policy makers, scientists, academics and commentators have become increasingly nervous about the US economic downturn. Discussions have centred around the range and magnitude of the country’s socio-economic problems, its vexing production decline and its unsatisfactory macroeconomic performance, which give rise to the following questions: what are the sources of this recent downfall? And can this situation be reversed by pursuing the same orthodox and neoliberal policies? This new edited volume, from a top international set of contributors, seeks to answer these questions and to offer alternative, realistic and feasible strategies and policy recommendations towards reversing this situation. In particular, the volume seeks to challenge US neoliberalism on theoretical and political grounds, and to offer alternative strategies and policies towards addressing the country’s recent challenges and multi-dimensional problems. The volume is structured around three main themes: The return of government: Philosophical issues and ethics Economic policies for sustainable growth and prosperity Financial fragility and alternative monetary policy proposals This unique and highly topical, multidisciplinary volume, will be of great interest to students and researchers in the areas of economics, political economy and contemporary US politics.

Presenting an ethnographic account of the emergence and application of critical political alternatives in the Global South, this book analyses the opportunities and challenges of decolonizing and transforming a modern, hierarchical and globally-immersed nation-state on the basis of indigenous terminologies. Alternative development paradigms that represent values including justice, pluralism, democracy and a sustainable relationship to nature tend to emerge in response to – and often opposed to – the neoliberal globalization. Through a focus on the empirical case of the notion of Vivir Bien (‘Living Well’) as a critical cultural and ecological paradigm, Ranta demonstrates how indigeneity – indigenous peoples’ discourses, cultural ideas and worldviews – has become such a denominator in the construction of local political and policy alternatives. More widely, the author seeks to map conditions for, and the challenges of, radical political projects that aim to counteract neoliberal globalization and Western hegemony in defining development. This book will appeal to critical academic scholars, development practitioners and social activists aiming to come to grips with the complexity of processes of progressive social change in our contemporary global world.

This book critically interrogates the neoliberal peacebuilding and statebuilding model and proposes a popular progressive model centred around the lived realities of African societies. The neoliberal interventionist model assumed prominence and universal hegemony following the demise of state socialism at the end of the Cold War. However, this book argues that it is a primarily short-term, top-down approach that imposes Western norms and values on conflict and post-conflict societies. By contrast, the popular progressive model espoused by this book is based on stringent examination and analysis of the reality of the socio-economic development, structures, institutions, politics and cultures of developing societies. In doing so, it combines bottom-up and top-down, popular and elite, and long-term evolutionary processes of societal construction as a requisite for enduring peacebuilding and statebuilding. By comparing and contrasting the dominant neoliberal peacebuilding and statebuilding model with a popular progressive model, the book seeks to empower locals (both elites and masses) to sit in the driver’s seat and construct their own societies. As such, it is an important contribution to scholars, activists, policymakers, civil society organisations, NGOs and all those who are concerned with peace, stability and development across Africa and other developing countries.