Authors: Bill Quain.
Paperback, 108 pages
Publisher: International Network Training Institute, Inc.
Publication Date: 2008-05-06
Edition: Revised

Authors: Sanjeev Khagram.
Paperback, 270 pages
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication Date: 2004-08-15


Reviews :

    Big dams built for irrigation, power, water supply, and other purposes were among the most potent symbols of economic development for much of the twentieth century. Of late they have become a lightning rod for challenges to this vision of development as something planned by elites with scant regard for environmental and social consequences—especially for the populations that are displaced as their homelands are flooded. In this book, Sanjeev Khagram traces changes in our ideas of what constitutes appropriate development through the shifting transnational dynamics of big dam construction.

Khagram tells the story of a growing, but contentious, world society that features novel and increasingly efficacious norms of appropriate behavior in such areas as human rights and environmental protection. The transnational coalitions and networks led by nongovernmental groups that espouse such norms may seem weak in comparison with states, corporations, and such international agencies as the World Bank. Yet they became progressively more effective at altering the policies and practices of these historically more powerful actors and organizations from the 1970s on.

Khagram develops these claims in a detailed ethnographic account of the transnational struggles around the Narmada River Valley Dam Projects, a huge complex of thirty large and more than three thousand small dams. He offers further substantiation through a comparative historical analysis of the political economy of big dam projects in India, Brazil, South Africa, and China as well as by examining the changing behavior of international agencies and global companies. The author concludes with a discussion of the World Commission on Dams, an innovative attempt in the late 1990s to generate new norms among conflicting stakeholders....

Authors: William I. Robinson.
Hardcover, 440 pages
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication Date: 2008-10-22


Reviews :

   

This ambitious volume chronicles and analyzes from a critical globalization perspective the social, economic, and political changes sweeping across Latin America from the 1970s through the present day. Sociologist William I. Robinson summarizes his theory of globalization and discusses how Latin America's political economy has changed as the states integrate into the new global production and financial system, focusing specifically on the rise of nontraditional agricultural exports, the explosion of maquiladoras, transnational tourism, and the export of labor and the import of remittances. He follows with an overview of the clash among global capitalist forces, neoliberalism, and the new left in Latin America, looking closely at the challenges and dilemmas resistance movements face and their prospects for success.

Through three case studies -- the struggles of the region's indigenous peoples, the immigrants rights movement in the United States, and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela -- Robinson documents and explains the causes of regional socio-political tensions, provides a theoretical framework for understanding the present turbulence, and suggests possible outcomes to the conflicts.

Based on years of fieldwork and empirical research, this study elucidates the tensions that globalization has created and shows why Latin America is a battleground for those seeking to shape the twenty-first century's world order.

...

Authors: James A. Caporaso. David P. Levine.
Paperback, 253 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: 1992-08-28


Reviews :

    "Political economy" has been the term used for the past 300 years to express the interrelationship between the political and economic affairs of the state. In Theories of Political Economy, James A. Caporaso and David P. Levine explore some of the more important frameworks for understanding the relation between politics and economics, including the classical, Marxian, Keynesian, neoclassical, state-centered, power-centered, and justice-centered. The book emphasizes understanding both the differences among the overall frameworks of the theories and the issues common to them....

Authors:
Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication Date: 2000-07-11


Reviews :

    How do political institutions help promote prosperity in some countries and poverty in others? What can be done to encourage leaders to govern not for patronage but for economic growth? In this book, such distinguished political economists as Douglass North, Robert Barro, and Stephen Haber answer these questions, providing a solution to one of the most important policy puzzles of the new century: how to govern for prosperity. The authors begin from a premise that political leaders are self-interested politicians rather than benign agents of the people they lead. When leaders depend on only a few backers to stay in power, they dole out privileges to those people, thereby dissipating their country's total resources and national growth potential. On the other hand, leaders who need large coalitions to stay in office implement policies that generally foster growth and political competition over ideas. The result is that those who promote politics that lead to stagnation tend to stay in office for a long time, and those who produce prosperity tend to lose their jobs. Analyzing countries in North and South America and Asia, the authors discuss the range of political regimes that permit or even encourage leaders to rule by mismanaging their nation's resources. And they show that nations must forge institutions that allow all social groups to participate in and benefit from the economy as well as force political leaders to be responsible for policy outcomes....

Authors: Pierre-Richard Agenor. Peter J. Montiel.
Hardcover, 810 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication Date: 2008-08-10
Edition: 3rd

Reviews :

   

Since it was first published in 1995, Development Macroeconomics has remained the definitive textbook on the macroeconomics of developing countries. Now, in this fully revised and updated third edition, Pierre-Richard Agénor and Peter Montiel cover the latest advances in this rapidly changing field, making this the most up-to-date, authoritative, and comprehensive book available on the macroeconomic issues and challenges developing nations confront today.

Agénor and Montiel provide completely new and expanded coverage of fiscal discipline, monetary policy regimes, currency and banking crises, monetary unions, management of capital flows, the choice of an exchange-rate regime, public capital and growth, the political economy of stabilization and adjustment--and much more. They review attempts that have been made to adapt standard macroeconomic analysis to conditions in developing economies, and they use a variety of analytical models to address the macroeconomic policy issues that most concern these countries. Agénor and Montiel systematically examine empirical evidence on behavioral assumptions and on the effects of macroeconomic policies in developing nations. They also provide extensive references to literature in the field.

This new edition of Development Macroeconomics is the ideal introduction for students and an indispensable resource for researchers.

• Fully updated and expanded
• Provides the most comprehensive treatment of the macroeconomics of developing nations
• Features new material on fiscal discipline, monetary policy regimes, currency and banking crises--and much more
• Includes extensive references
• Serves both as a graduate textbook and a resource for researchers

...

Authors: Nicolaus Mills.
Hardcover, 304 pages
Publisher: Wiley
Publication Date: 2008-01-28


Reviews :

    Politicians of every stripe frequently invoke the Marshall Plan in support of programs aimed at using American wealth to extend the nation's power and influence, solve intractable third-world economic problems, and combat world hunger and disease. Do any of these impassioned advocates understand why the Marshall Plan succeeded where so many subsequent aid plans have not? Historian Nicolaus Mills explores the Marshall Plan in all its dimensions to provide valuable lessons from the past about what America can and cannot do as a superpower....

Authors: Alexandra Addison Wrage.
Hardcover, 176 pages
Publisher: Praeger Security International General Interest-Cloth
Publication Date: 2007-09-30


Reviews :

    Bribery plays a significant role in international criminal activity. Terrorists pay bribes. Money-launderers pay bribes. Those who traffic in people, narcotics, and illegal arms pay bribes. People pay immigration officers not to ask, customs officials not to inspect, and police officers not to investigate. At corporate headquarters in the United States, it can be easy to dismiss modest bribes in distant countries as an unfortunate cost of doing business. Bribes follow patterns that are not at all mysterious to the officials, salesmen, and citizens who seek them and pay them. Using a series of international cases, Wrage examines bribery, peeling back the mystique and ambiguity and exposing the very simple transactions that lie beneath. She shows how these seemingly everyday transactions can affect security, democratization, and human aid around the globe. Bribery and Extortion presents a clear picture of the world of bribery and the havoc it can wreak on whole populations. Wrage covers commercial bribery, administrative and service-based bribery, and extortion. She considers bribery and extortion at both high levels of government and lower levels on "the street." Examples from around the world help to illustrate the nature of the problem and efforts at combating it. The book concludes with practical suggestions and an assessment of current efforts to stem the tide of bribery and restore transparency to everyday transactions in all realms....

Authors: Lawrence E. Mitchell.
Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication Date: 2001-11-01


Reviews :

    Corporations are often so focused on making short-term profits for their stockholders that they behave in ways that adversely affect their employees, the environment, consumers, American politics, and even the long-term well-being of the corporation, says Lawrence Mitchell in this provocative book. This is a significant issue not only in the United States but also in the world, for many countries are beginning to emulate the American model of corporate governance. Mitchell criticizes this emphasis on profit maximization and the corporate legal structure that encourages it, and he offers concrete proposals to bring about more socially responsible corporate behavior. Mitchell declares that managers should be freed from the legal and structural constraints that make it difficult for them to exercise ordinary moral judgment and be held accountable for their actions. He suggests, for example, that earnings reports be required annually rather than quarterly, that the capital gains tax be increased on stocks held for fewer than thirty days, and that elections of corporate boards of directors be held every five years rather than every year. Mitchell places the problem of corporate irresponsibility within the broader context of American life and demonstrates the extent to which contemporary corporate behavior represents a corruption of our cherished liberal values of personal freedom and individuality....

Authors: John Ward.
Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: 2004-08-24
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    Latin America provides an introduction to the volatile economic and political history of the region in the last half century. The books is updated throughout to take into account recent historiography, and considers the current situation in Latin America in relation to the wider world, especially the US. Also included are biographies of the leading figures of the period, among them Peron, Castro and Pinochet....