The Crisis of Growth Politics

The Crisis of Growth Politics PDF Author: Todd Swanstrom
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780877225621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
By demonstrating the political role which investment plays in local politics, this book breaks new ground in the study of community power. Until recently, students of community power ignored growth politics because they saw the economic context of cities as nonpolitical. This study examines the effect of mobile investment on political power and public policy in Cleveland, a dying industrial city with an expanding downtown service sector. Swanstrom shows how a combative young mayor named Dennis Kucinich challenged the conservative logic of growth politics but was unable to put forth a positive agenda to address the inequities of urban development. Also, this book demonstrates how Kucinich's brand of politics resulted in paralyzing conflict with the city council and the myriad interest groups of city politics.Growth politics, very simply, is the effort by local governments to attract mobile wealth into their jurisdictions. Under economic pressure, many older cities have succumbed to the conservative logic of growth politics, a form of trickle-down economics. In order to provide the jobs and tax base necessary for a healthy city, the argument goes, local governments must compete with other cities for capital investment by cutting social expenditures for the poor and providing subsidies for mobile corporate investors. In Cleveland, such practices led to a striking contrast between its booming downtown and declining blue-collar neighborhoods, an uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of growth politics. Elected mayor in 1979, Kucinich refused to sell the municipal light plant, even under pressure from area bankers. This resulted in the city's default, thereby killing an ineffective tax abatement program for downtown.Swanstrom, who served in the administrations of both Kucinich and his more conservative successor, offers a careful study of the background, issues, and events of this highly charged episode of confrontation politics. He sets out to dispel the illusion of growth politics, to expose the politics hidden in economic growth issues, and to explore the unintended effects of reform efforts when collective interests rather than individuals benefit from political influence. Here is a study which demonstrates that growth politics and its hidden evils must be reckoned with and reexamined by those in local power. Author note: Todd Swanstrom is Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs at State University of New York, Albany He has been active in city planning both in Cleveland and in Albany.

The Crisis of Growth Politics

The Crisis of Growth Politics PDF Author: Todd Swanstrom
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780877225621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
By demonstrating the political role which investment plays in local politics, this book breaks new ground in the study of community power. Until recently, students of community power ignored growth politics because they saw the economic context of cities as nonpolitical. This study examines the effect of mobile investment on political power and public policy in Cleveland, a dying industrial city with an expanding downtown service sector. Swanstrom shows how a combative young mayor named Dennis Kucinich challenged the conservative logic of growth politics but was unable to put forth a positive agenda to address the inequities of urban development. Also, this book demonstrates how Kucinich's brand of politics resulted in paralyzing conflict with the city council and the myriad interest groups of city politics.Growth politics, very simply, is the effort by local governments to attract mobile wealth into their jurisdictions. Under economic pressure, many older cities have succumbed to the conservative logic of growth politics, a form of trickle-down economics. In order to provide the jobs and tax base necessary for a healthy city, the argument goes, local governments must compete with other cities for capital investment by cutting social expenditures for the poor and providing subsidies for mobile corporate investors. In Cleveland, such practices led to a striking contrast between its booming downtown and declining blue-collar neighborhoods, an uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of growth politics. Elected mayor in 1979, Kucinich refused to sell the municipal light plant, even under pressure from area bankers. This resulted in the city's default, thereby killing an ineffective tax abatement program for downtown.Swanstrom, who served in the administrations of both Kucinich and his more conservative successor, offers a careful study of the background, issues, and events of this highly charged episode of confrontation politics. He sets out to dispel the illusion of growth politics, to expose the politics hidden in economic growth issues, and to explore the unintended effects of reform efforts when collective interests rather than individuals benefit from political influence. Here is a study which demonstrates that growth politics and its hidden evils must be reckoned with and reexamined by those in local power. Author note: Todd Swanstrom is Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs at State University of New York, Albany He has been active in city planning both in Cleveland and in Albany.

The Crisis of Growth Politics

The Crisis of Growth Politics PDF Author: Todd Swanstrom
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780877223665
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Examines the political economy of urban growth, looks at the urban populist movement, and discusses the political and economic issues in Cleveland, Ohio

China's Crisis of Success

China's Crisis of Success PDF Author: William H. Overholt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108389783
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
China's Crisis of Success provides new perspectives on China's rise to superpower status, showing that China has reached a threshold where success has eliminated the conditions that enabled miraculous growth. Continued success requires re-invention of its economy and politics. The old economic strategy based on exports and infrastructure now piles up debt without producing sustainable economic growth, and Chinese society now resists the disruptive change that enabled earlier reforms. While China's leadership has produced a strategy for successful economic transition, it is struggling to manage the politics of implementing that strategy. After analysing the economics of growth, William H. Overholt explores critical social issues of the transition, notably inequality, corruption, environmental degradation, and globalisation. He argues that Xi Jinping is pursuing the riskiest political strategy of any important national leader. Alternative outcomes include continued impressive growth and political stability, Japanese-style stagnation, and a major political-economic crisis.

Crisis

Crisis PDF Author: Sylvia Walby
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150950320X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations – a focus on ‘austerity’ and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on ‘financial crisis’ and democratic regulation of finance – are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.

Social Structures of Accumulation

Social Structures of Accumulation PDF Author: David M. Kotz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521459044
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
The social structure of accumulation (SSA) approach seeks to explain the long-term fortunes of capitalist economies in terms of the effect of political and economic institutions on growth rates. This book offers an ideal introduction to this powerful tool for understanding capitalist growth, analysing the social and economic differences between countries and the reasons for the successes and failures of institutional reform. The contributors cover a wide range of topics, including the theoretical basis of the SSA approach, the postwar financial system, Marxian and Keynesian theories of economic crisis, labour-management relations, race and gender issues, and the history of institutional innovation. Combining newly written essays with classic articles of the SSA school, the book examines the international economy and the economies of Japan, South Africa, and Puerto Rico, as well as the United States.

Hopelessly Divided

Hopelessly Divided PDF Author: Douglas E. Schoen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442215232
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Analyzes the widening gap between politicians, including lobbyists and consultants, and the American mainstream, and discusses the rise in populist movements that threatens to drive the two-party system to its collapse.

Korean Political and Economic Development

Korean Political and Economic Development PDF Author: Jongryn Mo
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674726741
Category : Korea (South)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Mo and Weingast study three critical turning points in South Korea's remarkable transformation and offer a new view of how Korea was able to maintain pro-development policies with sustained growth by resolving repeated crises in favor of rebalancing and greater political and economic openness"--Provided by publisher.

Crisis as Catalyst

Crisis as Catalyst PDF Author: Andrew J. MacIntyre
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801474606
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
The financial crisis that swept across East Asia during 1997-1998 was devastating not only in its economic impact but also in its social and political effects. The explosive growth and sociopolitical modernization that had powered the region for much of the preceding decade suddenly were dramatically interrupted. East Asia is economically outperforming the rest of the developing world once again and has become a leading force in the global economy. In the wake of the crisis, East Asia changed in important ways. Crisis as Catalyst contains assessments of these changes-both ephemeral and permanent- by a wide range of specialists in Asian economics and politics. The crisis, as the contributors to this volume show, catalyzed changes across political, corporate, and social arenas both in the countries hit hard by the crisis and in others throughout the region. The authors of Crisis as Catalyst examine what has changed (as well as what has not changed) in East Asia since the crisis, explain these variations, and reflect on the long-term significance of these developments.

The Crisis of Expertise

The Crisis of Expertise PDF Author: Gil Eyal
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509538879
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
In recent political debates there has been a significant change in the valence of the word “experts” from a superlative to a near pejorative, typically accompanied by a recitation of experts’ many failures and misdeeds. In topics as varied as Brexit, climate change, and vaccinations there is a palpable mistrust of experts and a tendency to dismiss their advice. Are we witnessing, therefore, the “death of expertise,” or is the handwringing about an “assault on science” merely the hysterical reaction of threatened elites? In this new book, Gil Eyal argues that what needs to be explained is not a one-sided “mistrust of experts” but the two-headed pushmi-pullyu of unprecedented reliance on science and expertise, on the one hand, coupled with increased skepticism and dismissal of scientific findings and expert opinion, on the other. The current mistrust of experts is best understood as one more spiral in an on-going, recursive crisis of legitimacy. The “scientization of politics,” of which critics warned in the 1960s, has brought about a politicization of science, and the two processes reinforce one another in an unstable, crisis-prone mixture. This timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the social sciences and to anyone concerned about the political uses of, and attacks on, scientific knowledge and expertise.

Coping with Crisis

Coping with Crisis PDF Author: Nancy Bermeo
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610447921
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
The financial crisis that erupted on Wall Street in 2008 quickly cascaded throughout much of the advanced industrial world. Facing the specter of another Great Depression, policymakers across the globe responded in sharply different ways to avert an economic collapse. Why did the response to the crisis—and its impact on individual countries—vary so greatly among interdependent economies? How did political factors like public opinion and domestic interest groups shape policymaking in this moment of economic distress? Coping with Crisis offers a rigorous analysis of the choices societies made as a devastating global economic crisis unfolded. With an ambitiously broad range of inquiry, Coping with Crisis examines the interaction between international and domestic politics to shed new light on the inner workings of democratic politics. The volume opens with an engaging overview of the global crisis and the role played by international bodies like the G-20 and the WTO. In his survey of international initiatives in response to the recession, Eric Helleiner emphasizes the limits of multilateral crisis management, finding that domestic pressures were more important in reorienting fiscal policy. He also argues that unilateral decisions by national governments to hold large dollar reserves played the key role in preventing a dollar crisis, which would have considerably worsened the downturn. David R. Cameron discusses the fiscal responses of the European Union and its member states. He suggests that a profound coordination problem involving fiscal and economic policy impeded the E.U.'s ability to respond in a timely and effective manner. The volume also features several case studies and country comparisons. Nolan McCarty assesses the performance of the American political system during the crisis. He argues that the downturn did little to dampen elite polarization in the U.S.; divisions within the Democratic Party—as well as the influence of the financial sector—narrowed the range of policy options available to fight the crisis. Ben W. Ansell examines how fluctuations in housing prices in 30 developed countries affected the policy preferences of both citizens and political parties. His evidence shows that as housing prices increased, homeowners expressed preferences for both lower taxes and a smaller safety net. As more citizens supplement their day-to-day income with assets like stocks and housing, Ansell's research reveals a potentially significant trend in the formation of public opinion. Five years on, the prospects for a prolonged slump in economic activity remain high, and the policy choices going forward are contentious. But the policy changes made between 2007 and 2010 will likely constrain any new initiatives in the future. Coping with Crisis offers unmatched analysis of the decisions made in the developed world during this critical period. It is an essential read for scholars of comparative politics and anyone interested in a comprehensive account of the new international politics of austerity.