The Contested World Economy

The rapid growth of the field of international political economy since the 1970s has revived an older tradition of thought from the pre-1945 era. The Contested World Economy provides the first book-length analysis of these deep intellectual roots of the field, revealing how earlier debates about the world economy were more global and wide-ranging than usually recognized. Helleiner shows how pre-1945 pioneers of international political economy included thinkers from all parts of the world rather than just those from Europe and the United States featured in most textbooks. Their discussions also went beyond the much-studied debate between economic liberals, neomercantilists, and Marxists, and addressed wider topics, including many with contemporary relevance, such as environmental degradation, gender inequality, racial discrimination, religious worldviews, civilizational values, national self-sufficiency, and varieties of economic regionalism. This fascinating history of ideas sheds new light on current debates and the need for a global understanding of their antecedents.

Contesting Globalization makes an innovative and original addition to the literature on globalization examining the challenges faced by those wishing to develop progressive visions of transparent global governance and civil society. This new study closely traces the history and development of the institutions of global governance (The World Bank, IMF, WTO etc.) as well as the emergence of the anti-globalization movement. The author argues that we are at a unique moment where social forces have moved from national and international struggles to a global struggle and intervention in the world economy. A series of case studies examine the ways in which cities have become contested sites for global struggles from the London dockworkers strikes of the nineteenth century to the recent demonstrations against the international financial institutions in Genoa, Seattle and Washington.

Emphasizes the social processes that underpin the global economy. This title demonstrates how the uneven effects of global economic integration impact upon actors. It also underlines the reciprocal effects that reconfigure the terrain of global accumulation.

An analytical account of the current crisis of global capitalism. Kolko examines what the global capitalist system means today--for the United States, Japan, and Western Europe, for the less developed nations, and for the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe, Russia, and China. The author's analysis moves from changes in banking and the service sector to the new technology industries; the dilemmas of world debt, efforts to restructure world trade, and the nature of monetary relations. Kolko describes the various strategies to restructure the global economy and maintains that reform on a national scale cannot begin to cope with the crisis. She shows how and why the diverse efforts to restructure the global order reflect the character of the current crisis. ISBN 0-394-55920-7: $24.95.

The rapid growth of the field of international political economy since the 1970s has revived an older tradition of thought from the pre-1945 era. The Contested World Economy provides the first book-length analysis of these deep intellectual roots of the field, revealing how earlier debates about the world economy were more global and wide-ranging than usually recognized. Helleiner shows how pre-1945 pioneers of international political economy included thinkers from all parts of the world rather than just those from Europe and the United States featured in most textbooks. Their discussions also went beyond the much-studied debate between economic liberals, neomercantilists, and Marxists, and addressed wider topics, including many with contemporary relevance, such as environmental degradation, gender inequality, racial discrimination, religious worldviews, civilizational values, national self-sufficiency, and varieties of economic regionalism. This fascinating history of ideas sheds new light on current debates and the need for a global understanding of their antecedents.

Essay from the year 2007 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 1,8, University of Warwick (University of Warwick, UK, Dep. of Economics), course: Making of Economic Policy, 12 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: “We don’t know what globalization is, but we have to act.” This sentence, from a peasant activist in North East Thailand interviewed in Bangkok on 10 June 2002, makes clear why ‘globalization’ is still one of the most contested concepts in recent international political economy. Global media has raised people’s awareness of the fact that ‘the world is moving faster than ever’. Reduced formal barriers to commerce (e.g. import tariffs) have helped world trade to grow faster than output and foreign direct investments faster than trade . Multi-national corporations with a global target market have entailed the threat of off-shoring and outsourcing, which exerts a constant downward pressure on wages in developed countries. The information and communication technology revolution as well as the decreased transportation costs due to the airplane and containerization have accelerated a new division of labour. Moreover non-economic issues as the change of the nation-state role and the growing importance of transnational institutions are feeding the talks about globalization. Yet, just as the interviewed peasant above, nobody really knows what the exact topic is.

This exciting book, available in paperback for the first time, provides an illuminating account of contemporary globalisation that is grounded in actual transformations in the areas of production and the workplace. It reveals the social and political contests that give 'global' its meaning, by examining the contested nature of globalisation as it is expressed in the restructuring of work.Rejecting conventional explanations of globalisation as a process that automatically leads to transformations in working lives, or as a project that is strategically designed to bring about lean and flexible forms of production, this book advances an understanding of the social practices that constitute global change. Through case studies that span from the labour flexibility debates in Britain and Germany, to the strategies and tactics of corporations and workers, the author examines how globalisation is interpreted and experienced in everyday life. Contestation, she argues, is about more than just direct protests and resistances. It has become a central feature of the practices that enable or confound global restructuring.This book offers students and scholars of international political economy, sociology and industrial relations an innovative framework for the analysis of globalisation and the restructuring of work.

Global Crossroads: Rethinking Dominant Orders in Our Contested World is an edited collection of papers mostly presented at the 2019 DEN International Student Conference. This publication is one of the many annual projects conducted under the umbrella of the Democratic Education Network (DEN) which came to existence in 2016 at the then Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster. Today DEN has expanded across multiple departments within the University’s School of Social Sciences, aiming to inspire engagement with communities and involvement in student-led projects. DEN aspires to be a platform for empowering students, offering them opportunities for personal, intellectual and professional development, and enhancing students’ engagement and experience. This book is an articulation of the students’ research and analytical work on some of the most pressing global issues of our times. It is, further, a product of their hard work and skills, developed through DEN, in editing and compiling academic publications — a testimony to DEN’s ability to encourage and empower students to work together and achieve remarkable results.