-PDF Download- Transnational Capitalism In East Central Europes Heavy Industry EBOOK

Transnational Capitalism in East Central Europe's Heavy Industry

Author: Aleksandra Sznajder Lee

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2016-05-18

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 047212191X

Focusing on the steel industry during the post-communist transition from 1989 through 2009, Aleksandra Sznajder Lee traces the transformation of flagship state enterprises in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia into the subsidiaries of large, international corporations. By analyzing this transformation at the three levels of enterprise, sector, and national-international nexus, she identifies the players—from international investors and European Union members to national labor unions and local industry managers—in the political economy of reform. Even in the midst of the transition to a capitalist, democratic system, Sznajder Lee finds, the state plays a key role in mediating between domestic vested interests and external pressures from international financial markets and institutions, on the one hand, and regional institutions on the other. Whereas state power may be employed to require domestic firms to operate as capitalists in the international market, it may also be used to shield enterprises from market pressures in order to promote the political and personal preferences of the elite. This book has broad implications for the political economy of reform because it illuminates the political determinants of privatization and the resources used to resist it. In addition, Sznajder Lee sheds new light on why some countries are more likely than others to be subject to external constraints, such as IMF conditionality, and how some allegedly pro-market reformers manage to maintain public ownership over certain industry sectors.

Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery

Author: Dorothee Bohle

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2012-08-15

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0801465222

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

With the collapse of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in 1991, the Eastern European nations of the former socialist bloc had to figure out their newly capitalist future. Capitalism, they found, was not a single set of political-economic relations. Rather, they each had to decide what sort of capitalist nation to become. In Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery, Dorothee Bohle and Béla Geskovits trace the form that capitalism took in each country, the assets and liabilities left behind by socialism, the transformational strategies embraced by political and technocratic elites, and the influence of transnational actors and institutions. They also evaluate the impact of three regional shocks: the recession of the early 1990s, the rolling global financial crisis that started in July 1997, and the political shocks that attended EU enlargement in 2004.Bohle and Greskovits show that the postsocialist states have established three basic variants of capitalist political economy: neoliberal, embedded neoliberal, and neocorporatist. The Baltic states followed a neoliberal prescription: low controls on capital, open markets, reduced provisions for social welfare. The larger states of central and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak republics) have used foreign investment to stimulate export industries but retained social welfare regimes and substantial government power to enforce industrial policy. Slovenia has proved to be an outlier, successfully mixing competitive industries and neocorporatist social inclusion. Bohle and Greskovits also describe the political contention over such arrangements in Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia. A highly original and theoretically sophisticated typology of capitalism in postsocialist Europe, this book is unique in the breadth and depth of its conceptually coherent and empirically rich comparative analysis.

Globalization and the State in Central and Eastern Europe

Author: Jan Drahokoupil

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0415466032

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book examines the transformation of the state in Central and Eastern Europe since the end of communism and adoption of market oriented reform in the early 1990s, exploring the impact of globalization and economic liberalization on the region’s states, societies and political economy. It compares the different policies and national strategies adopted by key Central and Eastern European states, including the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, showing how initial internally oriented strategies of market reform, privileging domestic sources of investment, had by the late 1990s given way to externally oriented strategies emphasising the promotion of competitiveness by attracting foreign investment. It explores the reasons behind this convergence, considering the influence of internal and external forces, and the roles of interests, institutions and ideas. It argues that internationalization of the state is forged in the processes through which domestic groups linked to transnational capital attain domestic influence necessary to shape state policy and strategy. These groups — the comprador service sector in particular — constitute and organize political, social and institutional support of the competition state in the region. Overall, this book not only provides a detailed account of the political economy of post-communist transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, but also the processes by which states adapt to the forces of globalization.

Neither German nor Pole

Author: James Bjork

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2009-12-21

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0472025295

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"This is a fascinating local story with major implications for studies of nationalism and regional identities throughout Europe more generally." ---Dennis Sweeney, University of Alberta "James Bjork has produced a finely crafted, insightful, indeed, pathbreaking study of the interplay between religious and national identity in late nineteenth-century Central Europe." ---Anthony Steinhoff, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Neither German nor Pole examines how the inhabitants of one of Europe's most densely populated industrial districts managed to defy clear-cut national categorization, even in the heyday of nationalizing pressures at the turn of the twentieth century. As James E. Bjork argues, the "civic national" project of turning inhabitants of Upper Silesia into Germans and the "ethnic national" project of awakening them as Poles both enjoyed successes, but these often canceled one another out, exacerbating rather than eliminating doubts about people's national allegiances. In this deadlock, it was a different kind of identification---religion---that provided both the ideological framework and the social space for Upper Silesia to navigate between German and Polish orientations. A fine-grained, microhistorical study of how confessional politics and the daily rhythms of bilingual Roman Catholic religious practice subverted national identification, Neither German nor Pole moves beyond local history to address broad questions about the relationship between nationalism, religion, and modernity.

Rebuilding Capitalism

Author: Andrés Solimano

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 9780472105205

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The book considers the historical origins of the current wave of market-oriented reform, reviews existing controversies on the design of economic reforms, and offers alternative criteria to evaluate policy performance. In particular it focuses on issues of macroeconomic adjustment and stabilization, liberalization policies, reform of the state, and interactions between economic and political transformation during the course of systemic transformation.

Transnational Capitalism and the Struggle over European Integration

Author: Bastiaan van Apeldoorn

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-08-27

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1134521618

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book presents an analysis of the transnational social forces in the making of a new European socio-economic order that emerged out of the European integration process during the 1980s and 1990s. Arguing that the political economy of European integration must be put within the context of a changing global capitalism, Van Apeldoorn examines how European change is linked to global change and how transnational actors mediate these changes.

The Transnational Capitalist Class

Author: Leslie Sklair

Publisher: Blackwell Publishing

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 9780631224624

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

While most of the popular and academic debates explore ideas of globalization, The Transnational Capitalist Class goes one step further and provides theoretically informed empirical research to explain and deconstruct the process of globalization as seen by the corporations themselves. Using personal interviews with executives and managers from over eighty Fortune Global 500 corporations, as well as already published sources, Sklair demonstrates how globalization works from the perspective of those who control and oppose the major globalizing corporations and their allies in government and the media. The book explores two major crises of globalization - class polarization and ecological sustainability - and shows how the transnational capitalist class attempts to resolve these crises and evaluates its own success and failure. Sklair's unique approach brings a fresh perspective to what has become a key debate of our time.

Varieties of Capitalism

Author: Peter A. Hall

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 557

ISBN-13: 0199247749

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Applying the new economics of organisation and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross-national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterise the 'varieties of capitalism' worldwide.

State and Society in Post-Socialist Economies

Author: John Pickles

Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan

Published: 2008-01-17

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

State and Society in Post-Socialist Economies provides detailed examinations of a range of state-society relations in post-socialism. It examines ways that the state regulates or sets the parameters for regulating capitalist practices and the ways in which the state interacts with social groups focused on changing state policy. The cases cover the full range of post-socialist countries, from the Central European new members of the EU, to those in Eastern Europe, as well as a range of countries of the former Soviet Union, including a "progressive" country (Lithuania) and a "reform resister" (Belarus).

Global Trends 2040

Author: National Intelligence Council

Publisher: Cosimo Reports

Published: 2021-03

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 9781646794973

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.