Tracing the evolution of social capital since his highly acclaimed contribution of 2001 (Social Capital Versus Social Theory), Ben Fine consolidates his position as the world's leading critic of the concept. Fine forcibly demonstrates how social capital has expanded across the social sciences only by degrading the different disciplines and topics that it touches: a McDonaldisation of social the…
Why do governments in some developing countries implement international standards, while others do not? Focusing on the politics of bank regulation, this book develops a new framework to explain regulatory interdependence between countries in the core and the periphery of the global financial system. Drawing on in-depth analysis of eleven countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, it sho…
The globalization and digitalization of cultural markets presents formidable challenges for local cinema and storytelling. The essays in this collection address some of these challenges from the perspective of a critical political economy of local cinema. Inspiring these contributions is the effort of supporting local cinema as a form of valuable storytelling that is at risk of market-driven ex…
Inequality has emerged as a key development challenge. It holds implications for economic growth and redistribution and translates into power asymmetries that can endanger human rights, create conflict, and embed social exclusion and chronic poverty. For these reasons, it underpins intense public and academic debates and has become a dominant policy concern within many countries and in all mult…
Nowadays, the concept of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) is starting to replace the concept of MDGs (Millennium Developmental Goals). It is a global goal adopted by all United Nations member states. It emphasizes the idea that the development of every country can only be achieved by balancing other factors such as social, economic, and environmental sustainability. It is already clear how …
It is now widely accepted that politics plays a significant role in shaping the possibilities for inclusive development. However, the specific ways in which this happens across different types and forms of development, and in different contexts, remains poorly understood. This collection provides the state of the art review regarding what is currently known about the politics of inclusive devel…
Standards often remain unseen, yet they play a fundamental part in the organisation of contemporary capitalism and society at large. What form of power do they epitomise? Why have they become so prominent? Are they set to be as important for the globalisation of services as for manufactured goods? Graz draws on international political economy and cognate fields to present strong theoretical arg…
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a remarkable role in the creation new transformative technologies, revolutionizing defense with drones and precision-guided munitions, and transforming civilian life with portable GPS receivers, voice-recognition software, self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and, most famously, the ARPANET and its successor, the Inte…
A Short History of Transport in Japan from Ancient Times to the Present is a unique study: the first by a Western scholar to place the long-term development of Japanese infrastructure alongside an analysis of its evolving political economy. Drawing from New Institutional Economics, Black offers an historically informed critique of contemporary planning using the example of Japan’s historical …
This open access book assembles landmark studies on divorce and separation in European countries, and how this affects the life of parents and children. It focuses on four major areas of post-separation lives, namely (1) economic conditions, (2) parent-child relationships, (3) parent and child well-being, and (4) health. Through studies from several European countries, the book showcases how le…
This short open access book investigates the role of renewable energy in East Africa to provide policy-relevant inputs for the achievement of a cost-effective electrification process in the region. For each country, the authors review the current situation in the domestic power sector, adopt a GIS-based approach to plot renewable energy resources potential, and review currently planned projects…
Capital at the Brink reveals the pervasiveness, destructiveness, and dominance of neoliberalism within American society and culture. The contributors to this collection also offer points of resistance to an ideology wherein, to borrow Henry Giroux’s comment, “everything either is for sale or is plundered for profit.” The first step in fighting neoliberalism is to make it visible. By discu…
This open access book explores the most recent trends in the EU in terms of development, progress, and performance. Ten years after the 2008 economic crisis, and amidst a digital revolution that is intensifying the development race, the European Union, and especially Central and Eastern Europe, are ardently searching for their development priorities. Against this background, by relying on a cro…
This aim of this open access book is to launch an international, cross-disciplinary conversation on fatherhood engagement. By integrating perspective from three sectors—Health, Social Policy, and Work in Organizations—the book offers a novel perspective on the benefits of engaged fatherhood for men, for families, and for gender equality. The chapters are crafted to engaged broad audiences, …
"International financial crises have plagued the world in recent decades, including the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, the East Asian crisis of the late twentieth century, and the global financial crisis of 2007-09. One of the basic problems faced during these crises is the lack of adequate preventive mechanisms, as well as insufficient instruments to finance countries in crisis and t…
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Football has undergone a period of transformation over the last thirty years. Despite these global processes, different national leagues have adapted in different ways. After an initial period of success directly after Italia ’90, Italian football has gone thro…
Nowadays, the concept of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) is starting to replace the concept of MDGs (Millennium Developmental Goals). It is a global goal adopted by all United Nations member states. It emphasizes the idea that the development of every country can only be achieved by balancing other factors such as social, economic, and environmental sustainability. It is already clear how …
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Football has undergone a period of transformation over the last thirty years. Despite these global processes, different national leagues have adapted in different ways. After an initial period of success directly after Italia ’90, Italian football has gone thro…