In the early 1980s, many observers, argued that powerful organized economic interests and social democratic parties created successful mixed economies promoting economic growth, full employment, and a modicum of social equality. The present book assembles scholars with formidable expertise in the study of advanced capitalist politics and political economy to reexamine this account from the vantage point of the second half of the 1990s. The authors find that the conventional wisdom no longer adequately reflects the political and economic realities. Advanced democracies have responded in path-dependent fashion to such novel challenges as technological change, intensifying international competition, new social conflict, and the erosion of established patterns of political mobilization. The book rejects, however, the currently widespread expectation that 'internationalization' makes all democracies converge on similar political and economic institutions and power relations. Diversity among capitalist democracies persists, though in a different fashion than in the 'Golden Age' of rapid economic growth after World War II.
• An overview of cutting-edge research in many areas of international and comparative political economy and comparative politics • Contributors are well known authorities in their areas • Book lends itself to course adoption in graduate survey classes in the comparative politics of advanced industrial countries
Contents
Preface; Introduction; Part I. The International Setting for Political Economic Strategies: 1. The global economy, 'post-Fordism,' and trade policy in advanced capitalist states Timothy McKeown; 2. The internationalization of capital Beth Simmons; 3. The making of a polity: the struggle over European integration Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks; Part II.The Dynamics of Domestic Political Economies: 4. Divergent production regimes: coordinated and uncoordinated market economies in the 1980s and 1990s David Soskice; 5. The political economy of Europe in an era of interdependence Peter A. Hall; 6. The welfare state in hard times Evelyne Huber, and Leonard Ray; 7. Trade Union Organization and industrial relations in the postwar era in twelve countries Miriam Golden, Michael Wallerstein, and Peter Lange; 8. Social democratic labor market institutions: a retrospective analysis Karl Ove Moene and Michael Wallerstein; 9. The declining significance of male workers: Trade Union responses to changing labor markets Jytte Klausen; Part III. Political Economy and Democratic Competition: 10. Politics without class: postindustrial cleavages in Europe and America Gøsta Epsing-Andersen; 11. European social democracy between electoral competition and political economy Herbert Kitschelt; 12. Contemporary Christian democracy and the demise of the politics of mediation Kees van Kersbergen; 13. The political economy of neoliberalism: Britain and the United States in the 1980s Desmond King and Stewart Wood; 14. Movements of the left, movements of the right: putting the mobilization of social movements into political context Hans Peter Kriesi; Conclusion: 15. Convergence and divergence in advanced capitalist democracies Herbert Kitschelt, Peter Lange, Gary Marks, and John D. Stephens.
Review
'This book is a significant contribution to political economy and will be useful for students of comparative politics.' The Times Higher Education Supplement
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