scholarly journals Editorial: Austerity and some contemporary challenges for professionalism

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14
Author(s):  
Nigel Malin
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Economic Pressure ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Capitalist Economy ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Free Market Reforms

The early post cold-war consensus - that bourgeois democracy has solved the riddle of history and a global capitalist economy will usher in worldwide prosperity and peace - lies in tatters; but no plausible alternatives of political and economic organization are in sight (Mishra, 2013). Globalisation has everywhere rapidly weakened older forms of authority. ‘Conservatives’ institute revolutionary free-market ‘reforms’; meanwhile technocrats slash employment and welfare benefits, and immiserate entire societies and generations. Both main UK political parties - Conservative and Labour - advocate continued austerity, albeit for the latter it has been defined as ‘austerity-lite’, with a mainstream position arguing for a slower reduction of debt, involving some combinations of spending and tax adjustments that would depend on the growth of the economy and tax revenues. This position however has proved to be not uncomfortable with people becoming very rich – putting the blame for the crash and the economic pressure for a recovery from the crash, on labour rather than the greed, avarice and shady practices of capital.

The uncritical critique of ‘liberal peace’

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (S1) ◽  
pp. 137-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID CHANDLER
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Market Economic ◽  
Liberal Peace ◽  
Conflict Intervention ◽  
Winner Takes All ◽  
International Statebuilding ◽  
Policy Elites

AbstractFor many commentators the lack of success in international statebuilding efforts has been explained through the critical discourse of ‘liberal peace’, where it is assumed that ‘liberal’ Western interests and assumptions have influenced policymaking leading to counterproductive results. At the core of the critique is the assumption that the liberal peace approach has sought to reproduce and impose Western models: the reconstruction of ‘Westphalian’ frameworks of state sovereignty; the liberal framework of individual rights and winner-takes-all elections; and neo-liberal free market economic programmes. This article challenges this view of Western policymaking and suggests that post-Cold War post-conflict intervention and statebuilding can be better understood as a critique of classical liberal assumptions about the autonomous subject – framed in terms of sovereignty, law, democracy and the market. The conflating of discursive forms with their former liberal content creates the danger that critiques of liberal peace can rewrite post-Cold War intervention in ways that exaggerate the liberal nature of the policy frameworks and act as apologia, excusing policy failure on the basis of the self-flattering view of Western policy elites: that non-Western subjects were not ready for ‘Western’ freedoms.

East-Central Europe’s new security concern: foreign land ownership

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn M. Tesser
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Land Ownership ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Land Markets ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Foreign Land ◽  
Security Concern

While foreign land ownership has become a post-Cold War security concern for East-Central Europe, it has been neglected in security studies focused on more traditional topics. This article offers a comparative analysis of: (1) the post-1989 development of policy towards land sales to non-citizens, (2) why foreign land ownership has been the most controversial in Hungary and especially Poland, and (3) why foreign ownership can be a useful tool for nationalists. Mining the land issue ultimately strikes a deeper tension between foreign-driven pressures to liberalize land markets within a pan-European free market and the still-strong belief that states should control land sales for the good of the nation.

scholarly journals Consuming Ethnicity: Loss, Commodities, and Space in Macedonia

Slavic Review ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-881 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rozita Dimova
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The Political ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Class Mobility ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Multiple Actors

In this article, Rozita Dimova examines the rearticulation of class and ethnicity and how class distinctions produced by a free market and neoliberal economy in Macedonia have affected the interaction of Albanians and Macedonians in postsocialist Macedonia. Dimova highlights the ethnic dimensions of changing patterns of consumption by exploring the class mobility of one ethnic group (Albanians) and thus combines class, commodities, and consumption with notions of ethnicity. The process of articulating ethnicity and class is induced by the larger neoliberal context of the post-Cold War world in which the political economy of the "free" market and privatization inform local subjectivities. The domain of consumption, therefore, offers a place from which we can understand the complex interactions of multiple actors in Macedonia and see the various economic, performative, and symbolic significance of consumption in which the social mobility of the nouveaux riches Albanians has contributed to the loss of class privileges experienced by many ethnic Macedonians.

State, Market and Neoliberalism in Post-Transition Argentina: The Menem Experiment

1991 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Washington Consensus ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Consumer Prices ◽  
Economic Collapse ◽  
Free Market Reforms

Argentines Fervently hoped that the transition from authoritarianism to democracy would reverse decades of economic decline and return their country to the path of modernization. Raúl Alfonsín and his Radical party assumed office in December 1983 confident of reconciling democratization with rapid development and social justice. This optimism was soon shattered, the victim of a succession of failed stabilization plans. Finally, a catastrophic economic collapse led to a convincing victory by Peronist Carlos Menem in the May 1989 presidential contest.Carlos Menem assumed the presidency on 8 July 1989 in the midst of raging hyperinflation: from August 1988 through July 1989, consumer prices had risen 3,610% and wholesale prices had skyrocketed 5,062%. Menem responded with neoliberal, “free-market” reforms designed to restructure radically the beleaguered Argentine economy along the lines of the so-called “Washington Consensus.”

Corporatism and Democratic Transition: State and Labor during the Salinas and Zedillo Administrations

2002 ◽  
Vol 44 (04) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G. Samstad
Keyword(s):  
Transition State ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Free Market Reforms ◽  
Ruling Party ◽  
Practical Level ◽  
New System

Abstract A long process of free-market reforms and gradual democratization seems to be dismantling Mexico's corporatist system of labor representation. A thorough analysis of the country's corporatist institutions yields theoretical reasons to believe that Mexico's practice of labor relations is indeed changing. An empirical examination of the nation's labor congress and ruling party during the two previous presidential administrations (1988–2000) demonstrates that corporatism is being transformed at a practical level, although the process of reform has been complex and uneven at best. The continuing strength of an officialist labor sector will complicate the task of establishing a new system of labor representation, a problem that may have important implications for future democratic consolidation.

Tolerating Economic Reform: Popular Support for Transition to a Free Market in the Former Soviet Union

1993 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 590-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond M. Duch
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Market Reform ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Market Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market Reforms

The mass public in the Soviet Union is not enthusiastic about free-market reform. How, then, do citizens in a former communist regime develop an appreciation for free-market reforms? Different explanations for attitudes toward free market reforms are tested using data from a survey of the European USSR conducted in May 1990. First, negative assessments of recent economic performance is a catalyst for popular support for the market economy. Although very underdeveloped, there is a nascent free-market culture in the Soviet Union that makes a modest contribution to support for free-market reforms. The free-market culture that is developing in the former Soviet Union resembles that of social democracy, rather than laissez-faire capitalism. Democratic values and support for free markets are mutually reinforcing, suggesting that support for democracy makes a very important contribution to support for free-market reform.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document