The Political Economy and the Natural Monopoly of the Postal Service: the Swedish case

2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-248
Author(s):  
Mats Bladh
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Natural Monopoly ◽  
The Political ◽  
Postal Service

The postal service is a neglected business in academic historiography. Today’s postal service confronts two challenges: information technology and deregulation. This study deals mostly with deregulatory issues in a historical perspective. Comparisons between different periods in Swedish postal history in regard to competition, cross-subsidisation and bases for a natural monopoly is presented, and also the long-term development of mail volume. It will be argued that there has been quite different attitudes towards competition; that different forms of cross-subsidisation has existed; that the postal service has been a natural monopoly, but for reasons related to change; that mail composition has been transformed from correspondence to mass mail; and that mail volume has increased despite the rise of new modes of communication.

Beyond Weimar: The Long Crisis of Liberalism, the Political Economy of the Interwar Conjuncture and the Foundations of Neo-liberalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 44-72
Author(s):  
Michael A. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Weimar Germany ◽  
The Social ◽  
Hans Kelsen ◽  
Crisis Of Liberalism

<Online Only>This chapter examines authoritarian liberalism as a more general phenomenon ‘beyond Weimar’. It looks outside Weimar Germany and takes a longer historical perspective, revealing deeper tensions in liberalism itself, specifically its inability to respond to the issue of socio-economic inequality in a mass democracy. The major Weimar constitutional theorists—Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt, and Hermann Heller—had no answer to the social question as a matter of constitutional self-defence. The chapter then discusses the political economy of the various crises across Europe—in Italy, France, and Austria—revealing a similar quandary. As Karl Polanyi argued, in these contexts, the turn to authoritarian liberalism fatally weakened political democracy and left it disarmed when faced with the fascist countermovement. Later in the interwar period, proposals for neo-liberalism would be introduced, symbolized by the organization of the Walter Lippman Colloquium in 1938.</Online Only>

Many Happy Returns? Investment Governance and the Political Economy of Time in UK Pensions Provision

2021 ◽  
pp. 209-246
Author(s):  
Craig Berry
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Pension Funds ◽  
The Political ◽  
Private Pensions ◽  
Pension Schemes ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Uk

We are increasingly conscious that private pension schemes in the UK are primarily financial institutions. UK private pensions provision has always been highly financialized, but the individualization of provision means this dynamic matters more than ever to retirement incomes. Furthermore, individualization has occurred at a time when the UK economy’s capacity to support a long-term approach to capital investment, upon which pensions depend, has declined. The chapter argues that pensions provision essentially involves managing the failure of the future to resemble the present, or more specifically present forecasts of the future. As our ability to manipulate the value of the future has increased, our ability to tolerate forecast failure has declined. The chapter details how pension funds invest, and how this has changed, and provides an original understanding of several recent attempts to shape pensions investment, ultimately demonstrating the limitations of pensions policy in shaping how provision functions in practice.

scholarly journals The power of place-makers and merchants: Papal and Marian items in the political economy of pilgrimage

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Mariano Barbato
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Purchase Decisions ◽  
Pope Benedict Xvi ◽  
Benedict Xvi ◽  
Long Term Performance ◽  
Term Performance

Based on two field studies on the micro level of items which place-makers and merchants display at holy sites, an argument about the supply side of the political economy of pilgrimage is proposed. Place-makers and merchants rely on the established pilgrims’ traditions but differ concerning innovations. Place-makers are the principals of the sites and invest in innovations in order to secure the site’s long-term performance. Merchants rely on short-term purchase decisions of the pilgrims. They prefer tried and tested products and look for novelties which fits in the pattern of success. While the resilience of placemakers demonstrate the power of the supply side, the cautiousness of the merchants hints to its limits. Rome during Francis’Jubilee of Mercy and the Bavarian Marian shrine Altötting in the years after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI are the case studies to illustrate these claims in the perspective of Marian and papal pilgrimage.

scholarly journals Excedente e território: uma leitura das ferrovias brasileiras a partir do cruzamento entre direito econômico e geografia crítica

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (38) ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Marquezan Augusto
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Uneven Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Critical Geography ◽  
Porto Alegre ◽  
Economic Law

Excedente e território: uma leitura das ferrovias brasileiras a partir do cruzamento entre direito econômico e geografia crítica Surplus and territory: an understanding of brazilian railways from the interplay between economic law and critical geographyWalter Marquezan Augusto*  REFERÊNCIA AUGUSTO, Walter Marquezan. Excedente e território: uma leitura das ferrovias brasileiras a partir do cruzamento entre direito econômico e geografia crítica. Revista da Faculdade de Direito da UFRGS, Porto Alegre, n. 38, p. 199-219, ago. 2018. RESUMOABSTRACTO presente artigo busca construir uma linha interpretativa para pesquisas em direito econômico da infraestrutura a partir do cruzamento interdisciplinar com a geografia crítica. Considerando a complexidade envolvida na constituição do objeto de pesquisa em direito econômico, questiona-se quais pressupostos teóricos permitiriam uma abertura interdisciplinar aos fundamentos do próprio direito econômico. A hipótese aponta para as zonas conceituais comuns identificadas nos tópicos do excedente e do território. Apoiado nessa construção, propõe-se experimentalmente uma leitura sobre o setor ferroviário brasileiro. Partindo de referências historiográficas sobre o tema, o trabalho analisa a economia política da forma jurídica que aparece traduzida em determinados momentos de transformação das ferrovias brasileiras, na longa duração, sob o prisma do fluxo de excedente sobre os fixos e o desenvolvimento desigual do território dentro do campo da infraestrutura. This paper aims to build an interpretation for researches on infrastructure law from an interdisciplinary view with critical geography. Considering the complexity of the constitution of a research object in economic law, the article questions the theorical premises that could assume an interdisciplinary opening for the own economic law basis. The hypothesis indicates to mutual concepts of surplus and territory. Based on this, the work proposes an experimental interpretation of Brazilian railway sector. Emerging from historiographical references on this theme, this work analyzes the political economy of the juridical form that appears translated in certain moments of the Brazilian railroads transformation, in the long-term, under the prism of surplus flow over fixes and the uneven development of territory inside infrastructure field. PALAVRAS-CHAVEKEYWORDSDireito econômico da infraestrutura. Geografia crítica. Excedente. Território. Ferrovias.Infrastructure economic law. Critical geography. Surplus. Territory. Railways.* Doutorando na área de Direito Econômico e Economia Política do Programa de Pós-Graduação da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de São Paulo (USP).

Discursive strategies and change

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-290
Author(s):  
Julia Lux
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Comparative Capitalism ◽  
Empirical Argument ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract In times of crisis, comparative capitalism analysis has difficulties differentiating crisis symptoms and effects from trends that may be more long-term. In this paper, I propose that by looking at the discursive strategies of central actors within the political economy, we may improve our understanding of capitalist trajectories. Drawing on Regulation Theory and Gramsci, the main empirical argument is that the French accumulation regime and its regulation are changing to a more explicitly export-oriented and financialised capitalism. This is underscored by the political project of capital-friendly austerity corresponding to a shift in the relationship of forces, the establishment of a neoliberal understanding of competitiveness, and the fading-out of purchasing power. The theoretical contribution of the paper is to integrate more closely critical discourse analysis with a critical political economy perspective.

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