Markets, State, and People

Markets, State, and People PDF Author: Diane Coyle
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691189315
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
A textbook that examines how societies reach decisions about the use and allocation of economic resources While economic research emphasizes the importance of governmental institutions for growth and progress, conventional public policy textbooks tend to focus on macroeconomic policies and on tax-and-spend decisions. Markets, State, and People stresses the basics of welfare economics and the interplay between individual and collective choices. It fills a gap by showing how economic theory relates to current policy questions, with a look at incentives, institutions, and efficiency. How should resources in society be allocated for the most economically efficient outcomes, and how does this sit with society’s sense of fairness? Diane Coyle illustrates the ways economic ideas are the product of their historical context, and how events in turn shape economic thought. She includes many real-world examples of policies, both good and bad. Readers will learn that there are no panaceas for policy problems, but there is a practical set of theories and empirical findings that can help policymakers navigate dilemmas and trade-offs. The decisions faced by officials or politicians are never easy, but economic insights can clarify the choices to be made and the evidence that informs those choices. Coyle covers issues such as digital markets and competition policy, environmental policy, regulatory assessments, public-private partnerships, nudge policies, universal basic income, and much more. Markets, State, and People offers a new way of approaching public economics. A focus on markets and institutions Policy ideas in historical context Real-world examples How economic theory helps policymakers tackle dilemmas and choices

Markets, State, and People

Markets, State, and People PDF Author: Diane Coyle
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691189315
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
A textbook that examines how societies reach decisions about the use and allocation of economic resources While economic research emphasizes the importance of governmental institutions for growth and progress, conventional public policy textbooks tend to focus on macroeconomic policies and on tax-and-spend decisions. Markets, State, and People stresses the basics of welfare economics and the interplay between individual and collective choices. It fills a gap by showing how economic theory relates to current policy questions, with a look at incentives, institutions, and efficiency. How should resources in society be allocated for the most economically efficient outcomes, and how does this sit with society’s sense of fairness? Diane Coyle illustrates the ways economic ideas are the product of their historical context, and how events in turn shape economic thought. She includes many real-world examples of policies, both good and bad. Readers will learn that there are no panaceas for policy problems, but there is a practical set of theories and empirical findings that can help policymakers navigate dilemmas and trade-offs. The decisions faced by officials or politicians are never easy, but economic insights can clarify the choices to be made and the evidence that informs those choices. Coyle covers issues such as digital markets and competition policy, environmental policy, regulatory assessments, public-private partnerships, nudge policies, universal basic income, and much more. Markets, State, and People offers a new way of approaching public economics. A focus on markets and institutions Policy ideas in historical context Real-world examples How economic theory helps policymakers tackle dilemmas and choices

The People

The People PDF Author: Margaret Canovan
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745628222
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Political myths surround the figure of the people and help to explain its influence; should the people itself be regarded as fictional? This original and accessible study sheds a fresh light on debates about popular sovereignty, and will be an important resource for students and scholars of political theory.

The People's State

The People's State PDF Author: Mary Fulbrook
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300176384
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
What was life really like for East Germans, effectively imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain? The headline stories of Cold War spies and surveillance by the secret police, of political repression and corruption, do not tell the whole story. After the unification of Germany in 1990 many East Germans remembered their lives as interesting, varied, and full of educational, career, and leisure opportunities: in many ways “perfectly ordinary lives.” Using the rich resources of the newly-opened GDR archives, Mary Fulbrook investigates these conflicting narratives. She explores the transformation of East German society from the ruins of Hitler's Third Reich to a modernizing industrial state. She examines changing conceptions of normality within an authoritarian political system, and provides extraordinary insights into the ways in which individuals perceived their rights and actively sought to shape their own lives. Replacing the simplistic black-and-white concept of “totalitarianism” by the notion of a “participatory dictatorship,” this book seeks to reinstate the East German people as actors in their own history.

Despite The State: Why India Lets Its People Down And How They Cope

Despite The State: Why India Lets Its People Down And How They Cope PDF Author: M. Rajshekhar
Publisher: Westland
ISBN: 9395073411
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
About the Book A LUCID, NECESSARY ACCOUNT OF HOW DRASTICALLY THE INDIAN STATE FAILS ITS CITIZENS The story of democratic failure is usually read at the level of the nation, while the primary bulwarks of democratic functioning—the states—get overlooked. This is a tale of India’s states, of why they build schools but do not staff them with teachers; favour a handful of companies so much that others slip into losses; wage water wars with their neighbours while allowing rampant sand mining and groundwater extraction; harness citizens’ right to vote but brutally crack down on their right to dissent. Reporting from six states over thirty-three months, award-winning investigative journalist M. Rajshekhar delivers a necessary account of a deep crisis that has gone largely unexamined.

States and Power

States and Power PDF Author: Richard Lachmann
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745659012
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
States over the past 500 years have become the dominant institutions on Earth, exercising vast and varied authority over the economic well-being, health, welfare, and very lives of their citizens. This concise and engaging book explains how power became centralized in states at the expense of the myriad of other polities that had battled one another over previous millennia. Richard Lachmann traces the contested and historically contingent struggles by which subjects began to see themselves as citizens of nations and came to associate their interests and identities with states, and explains why the civil rights and benefits they achieved, and the taxes and military service they in turn rendered to their nations, varied so much. Looking forward, Lachmann examines the future in store for states: will they gain or lose strength as they are buffeted by globalization, terrorism, economic crisis and environmental disaster? This stimulating book offers a comprehensive evaluation of the social science literature that addresses these issues and situates the state at the center of the world history of capitalism, nationalism and democracy. It will be essential reading for scholars and students across the social and political sciences.

The Principles of Constitutionalism

The Principles of Constitutionalism PDF Author: N. W. Barber
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192535684
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
In this follow-up volume to the critically acclaimed The Constitutional State, N. W. Barber explores how the principles of constitutionalism structure and influence successful states. Constitutionalism is not exclusively a mechanism to limit state powers. An attractive and satisfying account of constitutionalism, and, by derivation, of the state, can only be reached if the principles of constitutionalism are seen as interlocking parts of a broader doctrine. This holistic study of the relationship between the constitutional state and its central principles - sovereignty; the separation of powers; the rule of law; subsidiarity; democracy; and civil society - casts light on long-standing debates over the meaning and implications of constitutionalism. The book provides a concise introduction to constitutionalism and a detailed account of the nature and implications of each of the principles in question. It concludes with an examination of the importance of constitutional principles to the work of judges, legislators, and others involved in the operation and creation of the constitution. The book is essential reading for those seeking a definitive account of constitutionalism and its benefits.

The People’s Welfare

The People’s Welfare PDF Author: William J. Novak
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807863653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Much of today's political rhetoric decries the welfare state and our maze of government regulations. Critics hark back to a time before the state intervened so directly in citizens' lives. In The People's Welfare, William Novak refutes this vision of a stateless past by documenting America's long history of government regulation in the areas of public safety, political economy, public property, morality, and public health. Challenging the myth of American individualism, Novak recovers a distinctive nineteenth-century commitment to shared obligations and public duties in a well-regulated society. Novak explores the by-laws, ordinances, statutes, and common law restrictions that regulated almost every aspect of America's society and economy, including fire regulations, inspection and licensing rules, fair marketplace laws, the moral policing of prostitution and drunkenness, and health and sanitary codes. Based on a reading of more than one thousand court cases in addition to the leading legal and political texts of the nineteenth century, The People's Welfare demonstrates the deep roots of regulation in America and offers a startling reinterpretation of the history of American governance.

The Submerged State

The Submerged State PDF Author: Suzanne Mettler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226521664
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler’s provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them? The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens. Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.” In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market. As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry. Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality. Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms—student aid, tax relief, and health care—to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them. She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans. The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work—or even whether they benefit from them. Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process.

Bringing the People Back In

Bringing the People Back In PDF Author: Knut Dørum
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000351599
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
The formation of states in early modern Europe has long been an important topic for historical analysis. Traditionally, the political and military struggles of kings and rulers were the favoured object of study for academic historians. This book highlights new historical research from Europe’s northern frontier, bringing ‘the people’ back into the discussion of state politics, presenting alternative views of political and social relations in the Nordic countries before industrialisation. The early modern period was a time that witnessed initiatives from people from many groups formally excluded from political influence, operating outside the structures of central government, and this book returns to the subject of contentious politics and state building from below.

State of Crisis

State of Crisis PDF Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745685293
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no longer trust in the capacity of the state to resolve the crisis and to chart a new way forward. In our increasingly globalized world, states have been stripped of much of their power to shape the course of events. Many of our problems are globally produced but the volume of power at the disposal of individual nation-states is simply not sufficient to cope with the problems they face. This divorce between power and politics produces a new kind of paralysis. It undermines the political agency that is needed to tackle the crisis and it saps citizens’ belief that governments can deliver on their promises. The impotence of governments goes hand in hand with the growing cynicism and distrust of citizens. Hence the current crisis is at once a crisis of agency, a crisis of representative democracy and a crisis of the sovereignty of the state. In this book the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow traveller Carlo Bordoni explore the social and political dimensions of the current crisis. While this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the turmoil following the financial crisis of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the crisis facing Western societies is rooted in a much more profound series of transformations that stretch back further in time and are producing long-lasting effects. This highly original analysis of our current predicament by two of the world’s leading social thinkers will be of interest to a wide readership.