Global Trade: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Political Issues
The long history of trade is one of intercultural contact, competing theoretical paradigms, and controversy over the place of trade in national economic development strategies. Any theory of trade is necessarily a narrative about competition and the ways that humans have sought to exploit weaknesses in rivals, ameliorate the advantages of competitors and use the rewards gained by trade to realize the ambitions of elites. However, the dominant intellectual tradition that goes back as far as Adam Smith and David Ricardo holds that at least in theory, trade can benefit all parties involved if it is organized on a transparent and equitable basis. Controversies over what constitutes advantage and disadvantage in the governance of trade highlight the challenges that beset the global trading system today. The WTO remains mired in age old problems that arise when the strong bargain with the weak, and new problems that beset a governance system operating within a complex and incomplete system of international law.
Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century
International trade at unprecedented levels, millions of people migrating yearly in search of jobs, the world's economies more open to one another than ever before...Such was the global economy in 1900. Then as now, many people considered globalisation to be inevitable and irreversible. Yet, the entire edifice collapsed in a few months in 1914. Globalisation is a choice, not a fact. It is a result of policy decisions and the politics that shape them. In this insightful history of the economic and political events that have shaped our time, Jeffry A. Frieden explores the golden age of globalisation during the early years of the twentieth century, its swift collapse in the crises of 1914-45, the divisions of the Cold War world, and the turn again towards global integration at the end of the century. Full of character and event, as entertaining as it is enlightening, "Global Capitalism" deepens our understanding of the century just past and sheds light on our current situation.
To Devolve or Not To Devolve? Welfare Reform in the States
This article analyzes variation in the degree to which states have responded to the devolution of welfare at the federal level by devolving authority over welfare policy to local government. I find that to the extent that states have devolved authority to lower levels of government, they tend to be states that already had a high degree of involvement of local government in welfare provision. In states without this record of local government involvement, the devolution that has occurred has not generated greater involvement of local government, but rather responsibility has been devolved to regional entities with ties to workforce development and with a substantial degree of business involvement. As states gain increasing authority over a redistributive policy, they may begin to treat it as a subset of a larger developmental policy—workforce development.