Citizens Vs Markets

After an apparent temporary relief, the financial crisis is back full steam. The double dip has turned into a full-blown meltdown of financial markets, public budgets and, by and large, democratic accountability. This global crisis is a fundamental wake-up call: a signal that our conventional political economy and, perhaps, the very foundations of our societies need a serious rethink. Currently, the spotlight is on the role of political elites and economic agents (especially the investors included in the vague notion of markets) and their strategies to stabilize or destabilize countries, from North America to the Eurozone. Regrettably, the actual and potential role of civil society is hardly mentioned in public debate. Yet, it is exactly within civil society that important responses to the crisis may emerge. It is within civil society that an alternative paradigm and a fundamental rethinking of conventional wisdom may be fostered. Citizens vs. Markets is the first book to unpack the transformative role of civil society in a sector in which it has traditionally been less proactive, in order to reflect on possible forms of social transformation that are not merely remedial but also constructive in nature. This is the most important struggle of our times.This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Civil Society.

East Asia is one of the most dynamic areas of political change in the world today-what role do citizens play in these processes of change? Drawing upon a unique set of coordinated public opinion surveys conducted by the World Values Survey, this book provides a dramatically new image of the political cultures of East Asia. Most East Asian citizens have strong democratic aspirations, even in still autocratic nations. Most East Asians support liberal market reforms, even in nations where state socialism has been dominant. The books findings thus provide a new perspective on the political values of Asian publics. We demonstrate that the dramatic socioeconomic changes of the past several decades have transformed public opinion, altering many of the social norms traditionally identified with Asian values, and creating public support for further political and economic modernization of the region. Political culture in East Asia is not an impediment to change, but creates the potential for even greater democratization and marketization. Comparative Politics is a series for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. The General Editors are Max Kaase, Professor of Political Science, Vice President and Dean, School of Humanities and Social Science, International University Bremen, Germany; and Kenneth Newton, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Southampton. The series is produced in association with the European Consortium for Political Research.

Examining the altered roles of courts, politics, and markets over the last two decades, this book explores the evolving concept of the citizen in Canada at the beginning of this century.

As the neo-liberal marketization of citizenship and the resulting processes of individualization proceed, debates on citizenship tend to flounder in outmoded ideological oppositions. By examining concrete cases and processes that accompany contemporary practices of citizenship, this volume brings analytical clarity to contemporary debates about citizenship. The state, the market and the forum are analysed as competing fields of citizenship practice, and it is their complex relationship which helps us to understand the role and function not only of the debate on citizenship, but of the institutions and practices of citizenship itself in the contemporary world.

This book presents a re-examination of classical issues in the relationship between different forms of democratization, civil, political and social, and examines Chile's transition to democracy during the 1990s as a typical case of the modern sequence. It highlights the lasting institutional limits to social democratization in countries that are democratizing in the context of radical market reforms and provides an account of the politics of limiting social deepening in the crucial early years of Chile's transition, including a detailed examination of the influence of local union history and labour relations.

Social policy is about citizens choosing the kind of society they want to live in. The mid-20th century Keynesian welfare state can be seen as a citizenship package which included acceptance of intervention by the state to maintain economic growth and social stability. This meant the inclusion of many previously excluded groups in the social policy process and the institutionalization of a collective responsibility for individual welfare. But, with the ascendancy of neo-liberalism, the politics of citizenship is being replaced by a notion of citizens as consumers, whose medium of social interaction and source of economic and social security is the capitalist market. This book is concerned with social welfare problems and the need for citizen participation in addressing those problems. While all of the authors are critical of the current neo-liberal orthodoxy, none advocates a return to the status quo ante of the post-Second World War welfare state.

Good Government? Good Citizens? explores the evolving concept of the citizen in Canada at the beginning of this century. Three forces are at work in reconstituting the citizen in this society: courts, politics, and markets. Many see these forces as intersecting and colliding in ways that are fundamentally reshaping the relationship of individuals to the state and to each other. How has Canadian society actually been transformed? Is the state truly in retreat? Do individuals, in fact, have a fundamentally altered sense of their relationship to government and to each other? Have courts and markets supplanted representative politics regarding the expression of basic values? Must judicialized protection of human rights and minority interests necessarily mean a diminished concern for the common good on the part of representative politics? To what extent should markets and representative politics maintain a role in the protection of human rights and minority interests? Will representative politics ever hold the public trust again? Good Government? Good Citizens? responds to these questions. It does so by examining the altered roles of courts, politics, and markets over the last two decades. It then examines a number of areas to gauge the extent of the evidence regarding transformations that have occurred because of these changing roles. There are chapters on the First Peoples, cyberspace, education, and on an ageing Canada. The book concludes with reflections on the “good citizen” at the dawning of the new century. Of particular interest to professors and students of law and political science, Good Government? Good Citizens? will appeal to anyone interested in the changing face of Canada and its citizens.

During this conference, it became clear that socio-economic problems and problems related to the functioning of democracy are inextricably linked and that consideration needs to ge given to interaction between them if we are to develop coherent solutions. It is in the light of these discussions and of the study of concrete experiments carried out by NGOs, co-operatives and more generally the third sector, that the conference analysed the role of public authorities and civil society and put forward proposals which will be submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.