Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy – serie

Economic growth continues to transform the economic and political landscape of Asia. Equally the policies now being adopted to promote private sector participation, re-structure state entities, and reduce the presence of the state in the provision of public goods and services, are tied to fundamental transformations in Asia's state-society relations. The global cast of contributors present a timely analysis of the impact of neo-liberalism on Asia's developmental policies and the organisation of Asian states and markets. Ironically, the "developmental state" that has historically driven Asia's rapid economic transformation is now threatened by an increasingly dominant neoliberal agenda that aims to roll back the state in the name of market fundamentalism.

Escaping the economic and security-centered approaches, prevalent in contemporary U.S. debate the contributors explore political relations between the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).Their inter-disciplinary perspectives touch on domains such as security, comparative integration, human rights, energy.

With Asia as its backdrop, this book investigates the role played by the World Bank Group (WBG) in conceptualising and promoting new mining regimes tailored for resource-rich country clients. It details a particular politics of mining in the Global South characterised by the transplanting, hijacking and contesting of the WBG's mining agenda.

Philippe Zittoun analyses the public policymaking process focusing on how governments relentlessly develop proposals to change public policy to address insoluble problems. Rather than considering this surprising Sisyphean effort as a lack of rationality, the author examines it as a political activity that produces order and stability.

According to the author, rather than alleviating poverty, microfinance financialises poverty. By indebting poor people in the Global South, it drives financial expansion and opens new lands of opportunity for the crisis-ridden global capital markets. This book raises fundamental concerns about this widely-celebrated tool for social development.

Linda Matar examines Syria's failure to promote employment-generating investment prior to the uprising. Tackling the thorny issue of the inapplicability of modern investment theory to a developing country, she situates the analysis of investment in Syria in its historical context and examines the socioeconomic structure and political preconditions that set the course of capital accumulation. Matar argues that the class in charge of development, which oversaw the allocation of resources during the Hafiz and Bashar Assad regimes, precipitated a crisis of capital accumulation. Difficult-to-access data and information compiled from fieldwork reveal how neoliberal reforms failed to build productive capacity and instead enriched a few through short-term speculative and mercantile ventures. Productive investment in Syria prior to the uprising lurched downward, and the key related socio-economic variables followed. These deteriorating conditions contributed to the social explosion in 2011.Exploring the poor quality and quantity of investment, this study probes how the cant of the free market served as a veneer behind which the institutional decisions distorted income distribution in a way that would inevitably lead to collapse.

The contributors investigate policy paradigms and their ability to explain the policy process actors, ideas, discourses and strategies employed to provide readers with a better understanding of public policy and its dynamics.

This edited collection examines various facets of governance - the organization and steering of political processes within society - for a better understanding of the complexities of contemporary policy making.

The world-scale expansion of markets and market relations ranks among the most transformative developments of our times. We can refer to this process by way of a generic if inelegant term – marketization. This book explores how processes of marketization have registered across East Asia’s diverse social landscape and its implications for patterns of welfare and inequality. While there has been great interest in East Asia’s economic rise, treatments of welfare and inequality in the region have been largely relegated to specialist literatures. Proceeding from a synthetic critique of political economy, this book places welfare and inequality at the center of a more encompassing comparative approach to political economy that construes countries as dynamic, globally embedded social orders defined and animated by distinctive social relational and institutional features.

This book offers theoretical and methodological guidelines for researching the complex regulation of local infrastructure, utilities and public services in the context of rapid urbanisation, technological change, and climate change. It examines the interactions between regulators, public officers, infrastructure and utilities firms, public service providers, citizens, and civil society organisations. It contains contributions from academics and practitioners from various disciplinary perspectives and from many regions of the world, illustrated with case studies from several sectors including water, natural gas and electricity distribution, local public transport, district heating, urban waste, and environmental services.

Economic growth continues to transform the economic and political landscape of Asia. Equally the policies now being adopted to promote private sector participation, re-structure state entities, and reduce the presence of the state in the provision of public goods and services, are tied to fundamental transformations in Asia's state-society relations. The global cast of contributors present a timely analysis of the impact of neo-liberalism on Asia's developmental policies and the organisation of Asian states and markets. Ironically, the "developmental state" that has historically driven Asia's rapid economic transformation is now threatened by an increasingly dominant neoliberal agenda that aims to roll back the state in the name of market fundamentalism.

Escaping the economic and security-centered approaches, prevalent in contemporary U.S. debate the contributors explore political relations between the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).Their inter-disciplinary perspectives touch on domains such as security, comparative integration, human rights, energy.

With Asia as its backdrop, this book investigates the role played by the World Bank Group (WBG) in conceptualising and promoting new mining regimes tailored for resource-rich country clients. It details a particular politics of mining in the Global South characterised by the transplanting, hijacking and contesting of the WBG's mining agenda.

Philippe Zittoun analyses the public policymaking process focusing on how governments relentlessly develop proposals to change public policy to address insoluble problems. Rather than considering this surprising Sisyphean effort as a lack of rationality, the author examines it as a political activity that produces order and stability.

This edited collection examines various facets of governance - the organization and steering of political processes within society - for a better understanding of the complexities of contemporary policy making.

Linda Matar examines Syria's failure to promote employment-generating investment prior to the uprising. Tackling the thorny issue of the inapplicability of modern investment theory to a developing country, she situates the analysis of investment in Syria in its historical context and examines the socioeconomic structure and political preconditions that set the course of capital accumulation. Matar argues that the class in charge of development, which oversaw the allocation of resources during the Hafiz and Bashar Assad regimes, precipitated a crisis of capital accumulation. Difficult-to-access data and information compiled from fieldwork reveal how neoliberal reforms failed to build productive capacity and instead enriched a few through short-term speculative and mercantile ventures. Productive investment in Syria prior to the uprising lurched downward, and the key related socio-economic variables followed. These deteriorating conditions contributed to the social explosion in 2011.Exploring the poor quality and quantity of investment, this study probes how the cant of the free market served as a veneer behind which the institutional decisions distorted income distribution in a way that would inevitably lead to collapse.

This book explores new forms of popular organisation that emerged from strikes in India and Brazil between 2011 and 2014. Based on four case studies, the author traces the alliances and relations that strikers developed during their mobilisations with other popular actors such as students, indigenous peoples, and people displaced by dam projects. The study locates the mass strikes in Brazil’s construction industry and India’s automobile industry in a global conjuncture of protest movements, and develops a new theory of strikes that can take account of the manifold ways in which labour unrest is embedded in local communities and regional networks.“Jörg Nowak has written an ambitious, wide-ranging and very important book. Based on extensive empirical research in Brazil and India and a thorough analysis of the secondary literature, Nowak reveals that numerous labour conflicts develop in the absence of trade unions, but with the support of kinship networks, local communities, social movements and other types of associations. This impressive work may well become a major building block for a new interpretation of global workers’ struggles.”—Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, The Netherlands“Nowak’s book meticulously details the trajectory of strikes and its resultant new forms of organisations in India and Brazil. The central focus of this analytically rich and thought provoking book is to search for a new political alternative model of organising workers. A very good deed indeed!”—Nandita Mondal, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India“Jörg Nowak analyses with critical sense forms of popular organization that often remain invisible. It is an indispensable book for all those who are looking for more effective analytical resources to better understand the present situation and the future promises of the workers’ movements.”—Roberto Vérasde Oliveira, Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil“In this timely and important study, Nowak convincingly challenges the dominant Eurocentric approach to labour conflict and calls for a new theory of strikes. He stresses the need to engage in a wider perspective that includes social reproduction, neighbourhood mobilisations, and the specific traditions of struggles in the Global South.”—Edward Webster, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

This book revises the existing account of the first Rudd Government's engagement with China, placing Australian foreign direct investment screening policy at the centre of the story. At the time, the Rudd Government was accused of holding an unnecessarily interventionist approach to Chinese Sovereign-Owned Enterprise investments into the Australian mining sector. This book claims that the Australian Government had a deep and coherent understanding of the problem posed by Chinese investments that went well-beyond any simplistic 'China Inc.' or geopolitical threats. The key policymakers believed that the Chinese state-directed investments threatened the integrity of the liberal governance structures on which the Australian state is founded, and so Australian sovereignty itself. While the response of the Rudd Government was largely ineffectual, the logic underpinning it remains the best framework for guiding Australia's engagement with China into the 2020s, as well as the engagementof other liberal states coming to grips with China's rise.

This book is about the role of agents in policy and institutional change. It draws on cross-country case studies. The focus on ‘agency’ has been an important development, enabling researchers to better reveal the causal mechanisms generating institutional change (i.e., how institutional change actually takes place). However, past research has generally been limited to specific intellectual silos or scholarly domains of inquiry. Policy scholars, for example, have tended to focus on the various mechanisms and levels at which agency operates, drawing on institutionalist perspectives but not always actively contributing to institutionalist theory. Institutionalist perspectives, by contrast, have tended to operate at macro-levels of enquiry, embracing the ontological primacy of institutions in processes of isomorphism but not necessarily contributing to or embracing policy perspectives that engage in more granular analyses of policy making processes, implementation, and the instantiation ofinstitutional and policy change. Despite the obvious complementarities of these two intellectual traditions, it is surprising how little collaborative work, or indeed cross fertilization of theory and analytical design has occurred. The core novelty of this volume is thus its focus on agential actors within institutional settings and processes of entrepreneurship that facilitate isomorphism and policy change. The book’s theoretical framework is grounded in variants of institutional theory, especially historical, sociological and organisational institutionalism and policy entrepreneurship literature. The overall conclusion is that that both institutionalists and public policy scholars have largely overlooked the importance of complex interactions between interdependent structures, institutions, and agents in processes of institutional and policy change.

"This is not only the best collection of essays on the political economy of Southeast Asia, but also, as a singular achievement of the “Murdoch School”, one of the rarest of books that demonstrates how knowledge production travels across generations, institutions and time periods, thereby continually enriching itself. No course on Southeast Asia can afford to miss it as its core text." (Professor Amitav Acharya, American University, USA) "This book – the fourth in a path-breaking series – demonstrates why a critical political economy approach is more crucial than ever for understanding Southeast Asia's transformation. Across a wide range of topics, the book explains how capitalist development and globalisation are reshaping the societies, economies and politics of a diverse group of countries, casting light on the deep sources of economic and social power in the region. This is a book that every student of Southeast Asia needs to read." (Professor Edward Aspinall, Australian National University, Australia) "This book does what a work on political economy should do: challenge existing paradigms in order to gain a deeper understanding of the processes of social transformation. This volume is distinctive in three ways. First, it eschews methodological nationalism and focuses on how the interaction of national, regional, and global forces are shaping and reshaping systems of governance, mass politics, economies, labor-capital relations, migration, and gender relations across the region. Second, it is a bold effort to show how the “Murdoch School,” which focuses on the dynamic synergy of internal class relations and global capitalism, provides a better explanatory framework for understanding social change in Southeast Asia than the rival “developmental state” and “historical institutionalist” approaches. Third, alongside established luminaries in the field, it showcases the younger generation of political economists doing pathbreaking work on different dimensions of the political economy of the region." (Walden Bello, State University of New York at Binghamton, USA, and Former Member of the Philippines’ House of Representatives) "This very timely fourth edition explores Southeast Asia’s political economy within the context of hyperglobalisation and China’s pronounced social-structural impacts on international politics, finance and economics over the past decade and a half. The volume successfully adopts a cross-cutting thematic approach, while also conveying the diversity and divergences among the Southeast Asian states and economies. This will be an important resource for scholars of International Relations and Comparative Politics, who need to take an interest in a dynamic and increasingly significant part of Asia." (Professor Evelyn Goh, Australian National University, Australia) “This ambitious collection takes a consistent theoretical approach and applies it to a thematic, comparative analysis across Southeast Asia. The yield is impressive: the social, political and economic forces constituting the current conjuncture are not simply invoked, they are thoroughly identified and explained. By posing the deceptively simple questions of what is happening and why, the authors demonstrate the reciprocal relation between theory-building and empirical inquiry, providing a model of engaged scholarship with global resonance. Bravo!" (Professor Tania Li, University of Toronto, Canada) "Counteracting the spaceless and flattened geography of much literature on uneven development, this book delivers a forensic examination of the unevenness of geographical development in Southeast Asia and the relations of force shaping capital, state, nature and civil society. This is the most compelling theoretical and empirical political economy book available on Southeast Asia." (Professor Adam David Morton, University of Sydney, Australia) "A vital book for all scholars, students and practitionersconcerned with political economy and development, this volume combines cutting-edge theory with rich and wide-ranging empirical analysis. It is terrific to see the continued success of this book with this fully revised fourth edition." (Professor Nicola Philips, Kings College London, UK) "The Political Economy of Southeast Asia has become a leading reference for students of the region. With its breadth of geographic scope, timely themes, clarity of prose and rigour of analysis, Carroll, Hameiri and Jones have ensured that with this fourth edition the volume will continue its landmark status. The book, which brings together prominent experts in the field, will not only be of immense interest to scholars studying Southeast Asia, but also those seeking to understand the multifaceted nature of the political economy of uneven development in contemporary capitalism." (Professor Susanne Soederberg, Queen’s University, Canada) "The Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University has long produced leading analyses of the social, economic and political developments in Southeast Asia. This volume carries on that wonderful tradition. It brings together top-class scholars to challenge our assumptions about one of the most dynamic parts of the world. This collection is a crucial read for anyone interested in understanding trends in Southeast Asia’s development today and into the future." (Professor Richard Stubbs, McMaster University, Canada) "This fourth volume in a distinguished series provides a welcome and timely update of the Murdoch School’s distinctive approach to understanding the evolving political economy of Southeast Asia. Its theoretical depth and wide empirical scope will be of great value to scholars, students and practitioners seeking a systematic understanding of the political economy dynamics in the Asian region and, more broadly, of states and regions embedded in a complex, unstable global political economy." (Professor Andrew Walter,University of Melbourne) This all-new fourth edition of The Political Economy of Southeast Asia constitutes a state-of-the-art, comprehensive analysis of the political, economic, social and ecological development of one of the world’s most dynamic regions. With contributions from world-leading experts, the volume is unified by a single theoretical approach: the Murdoch School of political economy, which foregrounds struggles over power and resources and the evolving global context of hyperglobalisation. Themes considered include gender, populism, the transformation of the state, regional governance, aid and the environment. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students across multiple disciplines, including political economy, development studies, international relations and area studies. The findings of contributors will also be of value to civil society, policymakers and anyone interested in Southeast Asia and its development.

This book mobilises the theory of uneven and combined development to uncover the geopolitical economic drivers of China’s rise. The purpose is to explain the formation and trajectory of its economic ‘accumulation system’ — which remains a confounding hybrid of statist and neoliberal forms of capitalism — as the outcome of China’s geopolitical engagement of the USA during the late stages of the Cold War, and its participation in manufacturing global production networks (GPNs). Fear of geopolitical catastrophe drove China to open its economy, while GPNs enabled China to generate substantial export surpluses which could be recycled through state-owned banks as cheap credit and subsidies to large, vertically integrated and politically-controlled state-owned enterprises. In this way, a synergy emerged between the ‘neoliberal’ and ‘Keynesian-Fordist’ sectors of the economy, while the national-territorial state retained its form and expanded its functions. The book chronicles how this reliance on export surpluses, however, rendered China extremely vulnerable to external shocks — prompting a dramatic monetary and fiscal stimulus response to the crisis of 2008, even while sustaining the illusion of economic ‘decoupling’ from the global economy. Finally, it examines the growing role of the state in the current crisis-ridden economic model, as well as China’s current geoeconomic and geopolitical expansionism in areas such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the militarisation of the East and South China Seas.

This book mobilises the theory of uneven and combined development to uncover the geopolitical economic drivers of China’s rise. The purpose is to explain the formation and trajectory of its economic ‘accumulation system’ — which remains a confounding hybrid of statist and neoliberal forms of capitalism — as the outcome of China’s geopolitical engagement of the USA during the late stages of the Cold War, and its participation in manufacturing global production networks (GPNs). Fear of geopolitical catastrophe drove China to open its economy, while GPNs enabled China to generate substantial export surpluses which could be recycled through state-owned banks as cheap credit and subsidies to large, vertically integrated and politically-controlled state-owned enterprises. In this way, a synergy emerged between the ‘neoliberal’ and ‘Keynesian-Fordist’ sectors of the economy, while the national-territorial state retained its form and expanded its functions. The book chronicles how this reliance on export surpluses, however, rendered China extremely vulnerable to external shocks — prompting a dramatic monetary and fiscal stimulus response to the crisis of 2008, even while sustaining the illusion of economic ‘decoupling’ from the global economy. Finally, it examines the growing role of the state in the current crisis-ridden economic model, as well as China’s current geoeconomic and geopolitical expansionism in areas such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the militarisation of the East and South China Seas.

This book investigates the increasing circulation and transfer of public policy ideas between the UK, US and Australia since the 1990s. It argues that the upsurge in policy transfer amongst and between these states can be explained by a structural and shared commitment between these states to a distinctive institutional ideology of policy-making. This ideology, it is claimed, is partly a product of the historical proximity of ‘Anglosphere’ states, and in recent years can be traced through the evolution of New Public Management principles through to Third Way communitarianism.

This book investigates the increasing circulation and transfer of public policy ideas between the UK, US and Australia since the 1990s. It argues that the upsurge in policy transfer amongst and between these states can be explained by a structural and shared commitment between these states to a distinctive institutional ideology of policy-making. This ideology, it is claimed, is partly a product of the historical proximity of ‘Anglosphere’ states, and in recent years can be traced through the evolution of New Public Management principles through to Third Way communitarianism.

This book explores new forms of popular organisation that emerged from strikes in India and Brazil between 2011 and 2014. Based on four case studies, the author traces the alliances and relations that strikers developed during their mobilisations with other popular actors such as students, indigenous peoples, and people displaced by dam projects. The study locates the mass strikes in Brazil’s construction industry and India’s automobile industry in a global conjuncture of protest movements, and develops a new theory of strikes that can take account of the manifold ways in which labour unrest is embedded in local communities and regional networks.“Jörg Nowak has written an ambitious, wide-ranging and very important book. Based on extensive empirical research in Brazil and India and a thorough analysis of the secondary literature, Nowak reveals that numerous labour conflicts develop in the absence of trade unions, but with the support of kinship networks, local communities, social movements and other types of associations. This impressive work may well become a major building block for a new interpretation of global workers’ struggles.”—Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, The Netherlands“Nowak’s book meticulously details the trajectory of strikes and its resultant new forms of organisations in India and Brazil. The central focus of this analytically rich and thought provoking book is to search for a new political alternative model of organising workers. A very good deed indeed!”—Nandita Mondal, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India“Jörg Nowak analyses with critical sense forms of popular organization that often remain invisible. It is an indispensable book for all those who are looking for more effective analytical resources to better understand the present situation and the future promises of the workers’ movements.”—Roberto Vérasde Oliveira, Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil“In this timely and important study, Nowak convincingly challenges the dominant Eurocentric approach to labour conflict and calls for a new theory of strikes. He stresses the need to engage in a wider perspective that includes social reproduction, neighbourhood mobilisations, and the specific traditions of struggles in the Global South.”—Edward Webster, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

This book examines language education policy in European migrant-hosting countries. By applying the Multiple Streams Framework to detailed case studies on Austria and Italy, it sheds light on the factors and processes that innovate education policy. The book illustrates an education policy design that values language diversity and inclusion, and compares underlying policymaking processes with less innovative experiences. Combining empirical analysis and qualitative research methods, it assesses the ways in which language is intrinsically linked to identity and political power within societies, and how language policy and migration might become a firmer part of European policy agendas. Sitting at the intersection between policy studies, language education studies and integration studies, the book offers recommendations for how education policy can promote a more inclusive society. It will appeal to scholars, practitioners and students who have an interest in policymaking, education policy and migrant integration.

This book examines language education policy in European migrant-hosting countries. By applying the Multiple Streams Framework to detailed case studies on Austria and Italy, it sheds light on the factors and processes that innovate education policy. The book illustrates an education policy design that values language diversity and inclusion, and compares underlying policymaking processes with less innovative experiences. Combining empirical analysis and qualitative research methods, it assesses the ways in which language is intrinsically linked to identity and political power within societies, and how language policy and migration might become a firmer part of European policy agendas. Sitting at the intersection between policy studies, language education studies and integration studies, the book offers recommendations for how education policy can promote a more inclusive society. It will appeal to scholars, practitioners and students who have an interest in policymaking, education policy and migrant integration.

This book reassesses the Eurozone financial crisis of the 2010s, and critically compares EU strategies for addressing it with those adopted during the Covid-19 and economic crises of the 2020s. Whilst it has been broadly accepted amongst academics and policymakers that the Eurozone turmoil originated in the banking sector and then deterritorialized towards peripheral Economic and Monetary Union countries, the mechanisms implemented for this transformation remain understudied. Using a non-performative reading of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the assemblage, the book analyses the mechanisms used in Greece and the Economic and Monetary Union to transfer the financial and moral responsibility of the crisis from the private to the public sector. Combining insights from political economy, economics and social studies of finance, this investigation critiques the austerity policies imposed by European institutions, and identifies the ‘green and just transformation’ as the best way forward to address the ongoing Eurozone problems. The book will appeal to students and scholars of political economy, public administration, economics, and European politics.

This book examines policy responses to Covid-19 in Uruguay and France, in order to shed light on an important new concept in contemporary political science: political knowledge regimes. This concept considers the link between expertise and policymaking, paying particular attention to the demand for scientific knowledge from politicians and policymakers, and why they choose to accept or reject expert advice.The book begins by assessing the interplay between science, expertise and politics in both countries prior to the pandemic. It then explores if and why the recommendations made by experts during the crisis were translated by politicians into actual policies. Whereas in France policymakers followed the advice of scientists throughout the course of the pandemic, there was much divergence in Uruguay. This was due to several important differences, including political culture and the characteristics of political elites. Together, these created very different political knowledge regimes within the two countries. The book concludes by examining political knowledge regimes in other countries and sets out a future research agenda, making it a vital resource for scholars and students around the world. It will appeal to all those interested in public policy, health policy and comparative politics.