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12. Five years after Maidan: Toward a Greater Eurasia?
- Author:
- LSE Ideas
- Publication Date:
- 05-2019
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- LSE IDEAS
- Abstract:
- This report, building on a workshop held at LSE IDEAS in December 2018 and supported by the Horizon 2020 UPTAKE and Global Challenges Research Fund COMPASS projects, brings together some of the UK’s foremost scholars on Russia, the EU and the post-Soviet space to evaluate the challenges and opportunities facing Russia’s 'Greater Eurasia’ foreign policy concept.
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Political Economy, and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
13. Ireland-UK Relations and Northern Ireland after Brexit
- Author:
- LSE Ideas
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- LSE IDEAS
- Abstract:
- This report explores the impact of Brexit from an Irish perspective, explaining Europe’s role in improving Ireland-UK relations since 1970s and outlining the threat posed by Brexit to the political settlement in Northern Ireland. In April 2019, LSE IDEAS produced a second edition of this report, containing a new contribution from Michael Burleigh, important updates from Paul Gillespie and Adrian Guelke, and a refreshed introduction from Michael Cox.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy, International Affairs, and Brexit
- Political Geography:
- Ireland and Global Focus
14. China in the 2020s: a more difficult decade?
- Author:
- George Magnus
- Publication Date:
- 10-2019
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- LSE IDEAS
- Abstract:
- The conventional narrative is that China is, or will, by 2030, be the largest economy in the world. Based on commonly held expectations historically about prewar Germany, the USSR and Japan, greater humility would not go amiss. It is not preordained that past economic trends will continue, especially in view of a much compromised outlook for both China and the rest of the world in the 2020s
- Topic:
- International Political Economy and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- China and Global Focus
15. Refining Britain's Economic Diplomacy
- Author:
- Linda Yueh
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- LSE IDEAS
- Abstract:
- The EU referendum has thrown up many questions around globalisation as well as how to reposition Britain in the world after Brexit. The UK government’s professed intent to leave the European Union and negotiate its own free trade agreements means that Britain would be setting its own trade policies for the first time since 1973, and would need to explicitly set out the aims of British trade and associated foreign investment policies for the first time in four decades. With this in mind, clearly defining the UK’s economic diplomacy is crucial. Current global and domestic conditions are politically challenging. However, this offers an opportunity for the UK to take a lead in setting a helpful direction for the rest of the world, and ensuring that trade and investment policies benefit all in society.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
16. Destabilizing Orders: Understanding the Consequences of Neoliberalism
- Author:
- Jenny Andersson and Olivier Godechot
- Publication Date:
- 06-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo)
- Abstract:
- Throughout the long postwar period, crisis was a conjectural phenomenon and the exception in a normalcy of growth and social progress. Many key concepts of the social sciences – indeed, our understanding of democracy, embedded markets, enlightened electorates, benevolent political elites, and problem-solving progressive alliances – seem inapt for understanding today’s societal upheaval. In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, we have witnessed the breakdown of majority alliances, the return of populism on a grand scale both in the Western world and globally, and the eruption into chaotic and sometimes violent social protests. The forces that underpinned the framework of welfare capitalism seem obsolete in the face of financial and political elites who are paradoxically both disconnected from national territory and sometimes in direct alliance with nationalist and populist movements. Politics of resentment, politics of place, and new politics of class interact in ways that we do not yet understand. Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that neoliberalism has spawned authoritarianism. At the same time, these processes are not at all new, but must be put in the context of the socioeconomic and cultural cleavages produced by the shift to neoliberalism since the 1970s. The paper presents arguments by leading scholars in economic history, economic sociology, and political economy in brief thinknotes that were prepared for the MaxPo Fifth-Anniversary Conference on January 12 and 13, 2018, in Paris.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Political Economy, Financial Crisis, Inequality, Neoliberalism, and Free Market
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
17. There Is an Alternative A Two-Tier European Currency Community
- Author:
- Fritz W Scharpf
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
- Abstract:
- The performance of EMU member economies is shaped by different and structurally entrenched “growth models” whose success depends on specific macro-regimes – restrictive for export-led growth, accommodating for demand-led growth. These two types of models cannot be equally viable under a uniform macro regime, and their divergence threatens the stability of the EMU. The present attempt to enforce structural convergence in the eurozone appears economically ineffective and lacks democratic legitimacy on the national and the European level. Assuming that complete integration in a democratic federal state is presently unattainable, the paper presents the outline of a more flexible European Currency Community that would include a smaller and more coherent EMU and the member states of a revised “Exchange Rate Mechanism II” (ERM) whose currencies are flexibly linked to the euro. It would restore the external economic viability of autonomous domestic policy choices, and it would protect its members against speculative currency fluctuations.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Europe
18. A Small History of the Homeownership Ideal
- Author:
- Sebastian Kohl
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
- Abstract:
- America’s “infatuation with homeownership” has been identified as one cause of the latest financial crisis. Based on codings of 1,809 party manifestos in 19 OECD countries since 1945, this paper addresses the question of where the political ideal to democratize homeownership came from. While conservative parties have defended homeownership across countries and time, center-left parties have oscillated between a pro-homeownership and a pro-rental position. The former occurs in Anglo-Saxon, Northern and Southern European countries, while the latter prevails among German-speaking countries. Beyond partisan effects, once a country has a majority of homeowners and parties defending homeownership, larger parties are more likely to support it. The extent of center-left parties’ support for homeownership is conditionally associated with higher homeownership rates, more encouraging mortgage regimes, and a bigger housing bubble burst after 2007. The ideational origins of the financialization of housing and private Keynesianism are, after all, not only conservative and market-liberal.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy and Domestic Politics
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
19. Government of the People, by the Elite, for the Rich Unequal Responsiveness in an Unlikely Case
- Author:
- Lea Elsässer, Svenja Hense, and Armin Schäfer
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
- Abstract:
- Empirical studies have shown that US politics is heavily tilted in favor of the better-off, as political decisions tend to reflect the preferences of the rich while largely ignoring those of the poor and the middle classes. These findings have prompted a lively debate about potential mechanisms that cause this pattern of unequal responsiveness. Existing studies suggest that specific characteristics of the political system are a major explanatory factor – in particular, private donations and campaign financing. We build on these studies but focus for the first time on an entirely different case. In this paper, we ask whether similar patterns of unequal responsiveness are discernible in Germany, which not only is a more egalitarian country, but also funds election campaigns entirely differently from the US. We analyze an original dataset of more than 800 survey questions posed between 1980 and 2013. The questions deal with specific political decisions debated at the time and cover a broad range of politically relevant topics. Our results show a notable association between political decisions and the opinions of the rich, but none or even a negative association for the poor. Representational inequality in Germany thus resembles the findings for the US case, despite its different institutional setting. Against this background, we conclude by discussing potential mechanisms of unequal responsiveness
- Topic:
- International Political Economy and Hegemony
- Political Geography:
- America
20. Does Pattern Bargaining Explain Wage Restraint in the German Public Sector?
- Author:
- Donato Di Carlo
- Publication Date:
- 04-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
- Abstract:
- German public sector wage restraint has been explained through the presence of a specific type of inter-sectoral wage coordination in the industrial relations system – i.e., export sector-led pattern bargaining. This paper has a twofold ambition. First, as a literature assessing exercise, I review the literature in industrial relations and comparative political economy (CPE) and find that (1) the origins and mechanics of inter-sectoral wage coordination through pattern bargaining have never been laid out clearly; (2) the mechanisms of the pattern bargaining thesis have never been tested empirically; and (3) the CPE literature reveals a limiting export-sector bias. Second, as a theory-testing exercise, I perform hoop tests to verify whether the pattern bargaining hypothesis can really account for wage restraint in the German public sector. I find that Germany cannot be considered a case of export sector-driven pattern bargaining. These findings challenge core tenets of a longstanding scholarship in both CPE and industrial relations. Most importantly, they open a new research agenda for the study of public sector wage-setting that should shift its focus to public sector employment relations, public finance, public administrations, and the politics of fiscal policy
- Topic:
- International Political Economy and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Germany