Beyond State Crisis

The contributors not only study state breakdown but compare the consequences of post-communism with those of post-colonialism.

Seen through the lens of the outsider, Pakistan has often been reduced to a caricature. Its diversity and resilience have rarely figured in the single-issue focus of recent literature on the country, be it journalistic or scholarly. This book seeks to present an alternate paradigm and to contribute a deeper understanding of the country's dynamics that may help explain why Pakistan has confounded all the doomsday scenarios. It brings together an extra-ordinary array of leading experts, including Ahmed Rashid, Ayesha Jalal and Zahid Hussain, and practitioners, such as the book's editor, Maleeha Lodhi, Akbar Ahmed and Munir Akram. Together they debate their country's strengths and weaknesses and offer ways out of its current predicament. This book provides a picture of how Pakistanis see themselves and their country's faultlines and spells out ways to overcome these. Pakistan's political, economic, social, foreign policy and governance challenges are assessed in detail. So too is the complex interplay between domestic developments and external factors including great power interests that are so central to the Pakistan story and explain the vicissitudes in its fortunes. Lodhi and her contributors contend that Pakistan and its people have the capacity to transform their country into a stable, modern Muslim state, but bold reforms will be needed to bring about this outcome.

Through the essays in this volume, we see how the failure of the state becomes a moment to ruminate on the artificiality of this most modern construct, the failure of nationalism, an opportunity to dream of alternative modes of association, and the failure of sovereignty to consider the threats and possibilities of the realm of foreignness within the nation-state as within the self. The ambition of this volume is not only to complicate standing representations of Pakistan. It is take Pakistan out of the status of exceptionalism that its multiple crises have endowed upon it. By now, many scholars have written of how exile, migrancy, refugeedom, and other modes of displacement constitute modern subjectivities. The arguments made in the book say that Pakistan is no stranger to this condition of human immigrancy and therefore, can be pressed into service in helping us to understand our present condition.

ÔThis outstanding book examines whether and how the finance-led growth model can be transformed. The authorsÕ insightful analyses make significant contributions to our understanding of the global economic crisis since 2008 and the search for possible new paths beyond the crisis.Õ Ð Stein Kuhnle, University of Bergen, Norway and Hertie School of Governance, Germany ÔThis book sheds a powerful light on the current uncertainty of the world economy. Indispensable reading for understanding the roots of the crisis and the possible ways out.Õ Ð Carlota Perez, Technological University of Tallinn, Estonia and London School of Economics, UK This timely and far-reaching book addresses the long-term impact of the recent global economic crisis. New light is shed on the crisis and its historical roots, and resolutions for a more robust, resilient future socio-economic model are prescribed. Leading experts across a range of field including macroeconomics, politics, economic history, social policy, linguistics and global economic relations address key issues emerging from the crisis. They consider whether a new era in interactions between state, society and markets is actually dawning, and whether the finance-led economic growth model will be transformed into a new and more stable model. The role of the crisis in economy, polity and society, in shaking up existing institutional regimes and in paving the way for new ones is also discussed. Post-crisis combinations of state-society-economy relations are identified, and the question of whether the crisis has led to the reconsideration of economic relations and their institutional embeddedness is explored. This challenging book will provide a thought provoking read for academics, students and researchers focusing on economics, political science and sociology. Policymakers in the fields of economic, industrial and social policy will also find this book to be an informative point of reference.

First published in 1991, Beyond the Welfare State? has been thoroughly revised and updated for this new edition, which draws on the latest theoretical developments and empirical evidence. It remains the most comprehensive and sophisticated guide to the condition of the welfare state in a time of rapid and sometimes bewildering change. The opening chapters offer a scholarly but accessible review of competing interpretations of the historical and contemporary roles of the welfare state. This evaluation, based on the most recent empirical research, gives full weight to feminist, ecological, and "anti-racist" critiques and also develops a clear account of globalization and its contested impact upon existing welfare regimes. The book constructs a distinctive history of the international growth of welfare states and offers a comprehensive account of recent developments from "crisis" to "structural adjustment." The final chapters bring the story right up to date with an assessment of the important changes effected in the 1990s and the prospects for welfare states in the new millennium.

This book mounts a forceful critique of fashionable thinking on the possibility of a post-work, post-capitalist society achieved through automation, a basic income and the reduction of working hours to zero, suggesting this popular utopia is nothing of the sort.

In the face of complex, interwoven, planet-scale problems, many cite the need for more integrated knowledge—especially across the natural and social sciences. Excessive specialization, they argue, gets in the way of knowing what we know, much less being able to use it to address urgent socio-environmental crises. These concerns, it turns out, go back centuries. This book picks up where most leave off, exploring the history of how we got here and proposing a way forward. Along the way, readers find that the synthesis long called for depends on theoretical advancements in social science. Fortunately, the author argues, we have everything we need to achieve those advancements, thanks largely to the contributions of Norbert Elias. Integrating his insights with history, science, sociological theory, and more, this book neatly packages the upgraded paradigm we need to be able to meaningfully address complex socio-environmental problems and more intentionally shape humanity’s collective future.

Internationally recognized experts from the academic and think-tank communities in the United States, Mexico, and Canada consider the origins of the current crisis in Mexico, and the nature and effectiveness of the Calderón government's response, through the lens of Joel Migdal's concept of "the state in society."