This comprehensive study explores all aspects of the English business community as it developed between 1590 and 1720. Drawing on largely untapped records of private firms as well as on institutional archives, Richard Grassby describes and explains the economic and technical structure of business in a pre-industrial economy and examines the ways in which social values, demographic factors, the family, the state and religion distributed talent, trained and motivated businessmen and determined their life style. The important conclusion which emerges from his study is that individual initiative and a fluid social structure largely account for differences in response to economic opportunities between England and other pre-industrial societies. His book offers an empirically based analysis of why men entered business, how they lived and worked and what they achieved, and it will appeal to all who wish to understand the dynamics of pre-industrial growth and the interaction between business a
Policy discussions play an important role in labour law, and labour lawyers draw on a wide range of disciplines and approaches in order to construct their arguments. This overview of the basic principles of labour law and the related policy arguments introduces two of the main perspectives used in the analysis of labour law today – human rights and economics. It offers a brief history of the influence of human rights and economics on labour law since the 1950s, explains neoclassical and new institutional economics and summarises the historical development of international human rights law. The insights of rights theorists and economists are then applied to a selection of topics in labour law, including anti-discrimination law, dismissal, working time, pay, consultation and collective bargaining, trade union membership and industrial action, in order to demonstrate the interplay between the two perspectives.
Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is one of the best-known and most enduring texts of classical sociology, continually inspirational and widely read by both scholars and students. In an insightful interpretation, Jack Barbalet discloses that Weber's work is not simply about the cultural origins of capitalism but an allegory concerning the Germany of his day. Situating The Protestant Ethic in the development of Weber's prior and subsequent writing, Barbalet traces changes in his understanding of key concepts including 'calling' and 'rationality'. In a close analysis of the ethical underpinnings of the capitalist spirit and of the institutional structure of capitalism, Barbalet identifies continuities between Weber and the eighteenth-century founder of economic science, Adam Smith, as well as Weber's contemporary, the American firebrand Thorstein Veblen. Finally, by considering Weber's investigation of Judaism and capitalism, important aspects of his account o
Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa assesses the transitional processes under way since the early 1990s to create a stable and just society. Change in South Africa is often credited to the efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), but the work of this institution forms but a facet of a much broader picture. This book looks at the steps which accompanied and followed the TRC's activities, such as land restitution, institutional reforms and social and cultural initiatives. Thematically, it interlinks the TRC's concerns over truth and reconciliation with an analysis of the concepts of justice, accountability, harm and reconciliation and with competing perceptions of what these notions entail in the South African context. Bringing together international and South African scholars whose work has focused on these themes, the contributions provide a cohesive and inspiring analysis of South Africa's response to its unjust past.
For the first time since Mao, a Chinese leader may serve a life-time tenure. Xi Jinping may well replicate Mao's successful strategy to maintain power. If so, what are the institutional and policy implications for China? Victor C. Shih investigates how leaders of one-party autocracies seek to dominate the elite and achieve true dictatorship, governing without fear of internal challenge or resistance to major policy changes. Through an in-depth look of late-Mao politics informed by thousands of historical documents and data analysis, Coalitions of the Weak uncovers Mao's strategy of replacing seasoned, densely networked senior officials with either politically tainted or inexperienced officials. The book further documents how a decentralized version of this strategy led to two generations of weak leadership in the Chinese Communist Party, creating the conditions for Xi's rapid consolidation of power after 2012.
In this book, Itai Sened examines the political institution of property and other individual rights. His argument is that the foundation of such rights is to be found in the political and economic institutions which grant and enforce them and not in any set of moral principles or 'nature'. The book further argues that individual rights are instituted through a political process, and not by any hidden market forces. The origin of rights is placed in a social contract that evolves as a political process in which governments grant and protect property and other individual rights to constituents, in return for economic and political support. Extending neo-institutional theory to the subject, and using a positive game theoretic approach in its analysis, this book is an original contribution to scholarship on the evolution of rights.
This major study advances an interpretation of criminal justification defences that views them as an integral component of the structure of the criminal law. Criminal law is defined here as the institutional representation of the underlying principles of political morality in a liberal society. The book extends the traditional scope of the legal and philosophical discussion of justification defences. It integrates philosophical analysis with a consideration of contemporary applications, it shows how these defences are key components of criminal law, and it explores the relationship between legal and moral justification.
Through an analysis of UN operations including international territorial administration, refugee camps, peacekeeping, the implementation of sanctions and the provision of humanitarian aid, this book shows that the powers exercised by the UN carry a serious risk of human rights abuse. The International Law Commission has codified and developed the law of institutional responsibility, but, while indispensable, these principles and rules cannot on their own ensure compliance and accountability. The 'liberty deficit' of the UN and of other international organisations thus remains an urgent legal and political problem. Some solutions may be available; indeed, recent state and institutional practice offers interesting examples in this respect. But at a fundamental level we need to ask ourselves whether, judged on the basis of the principle of liberty, the power shift from states to international organisations is always beneficial.
Labour Market Reform in China documents and analyses institutional changes in the Chinese labour market over the last twenty-five years, and argues that further reform is necessary if China is to sustain its high growth rates. The book first assesses the problems associated with the pre-reform labour arrangements. It offers an in-depth analysis of the urban labour market and its impact on individual wage determination, ownership structure, labour compensation and labour demand and of social security reform. In its main chapters, the book investigates the impact of rural economic reform on rural labour market. Detailed consideration is given to the rural agricultural labour market, labour arrangement in the rural non-agricultural sector, and the wage gap between the rural agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Finally, the book examines the phenomenon of rural-urban migration, its impact on rural and urban economic growth, and models its effect on urban employment, unemployment and
Political economy scholarship suggests that private sector investment, and thus economic growth, is more likely to occur when formal institutions allow states to provide investors with credible commitments to protect property rights. This book argues that this maxim does not hold for infrastructure privatization programs. Rather, differences in firm organizational structure better explain the viability of privatization contracts in weak institutional environments. Domestic investors - or, if contracts are granted subnationally, domestic investors with diverse holdings in their contract jurisdiction - work most effectively in the volatile economic and political environments of the developing world. They are able to negotiate mutually beneficial adaptations to their contracts with host governments because cross-sector diversification provides them with informal contractual supports. The book finds strong empirical support for this argument through an analysis of fourteen water and sanita
This analysis of collective security covers its institutional, operational and legal parameters along with the United Nations system, presenting it as a global public order institution for maintaining peace. The authors study its constitutional premises as they are shaped by the forces of law and politics. After an historical account of initiatives and projects for global peace, the authors explain the morphology of collective security as a global public order institution and outline its triggers, institutions, actors, components and tools. They go on to analyse its legal properties and the processes of political, legal and criminal accountability. The analysis and assessment are informed throughout by practice drawn from examples including Korea, Iraq and Libya, and by a wealth of cases from national and international jurisdictions.
Why is there such a large gap between the declarations that countries make about human rights and their imperfect implementation of them? Why do states that have enacted laws and signed treaties about human rights choose to not enforce these laws in daily life? Why have activists failed to achieve the goals of ensuring human rights domestically and internationally? This book examines the issue of human rights in the Israeli domestic arena by analyzing the politics and strategies of defending human rights. To do so, it integrates the tools of social choice theory with a unique institutionalist perspective that looks at both formal and informal, and local and international factors. The book offers an analysis explaining the processes through which Israel is struggling to promote human rights within a specific institutional environment, thus determining the future of Israeli democracy and its attitude toward human rights.
Political economy scholarship suggests that private sector investment, and thus economic growth, is more likely to occur when formal institutions allow states to provide investors with credible commitments to protect property rights. This book argues that this maxim does not hold for infrastructure privatization programs. Rather, differences in firm organizational structure better explain the viability of privatization contracts in weak institutional environments. Domestic investors - or, if contracts are granted subnationally, domestic investors with diverse holdings in their contract jurisdiction - work most effectively in the volatile economic and political environments of the developing world. They are able to negotiate mutually beneficial adaptations to their contracts with host governments because cross-sector diversification provides them with informal contractual supports. The book finds strong empirical support for this argument through an analysis of fourteen water and sanita
The work of mid-twentieth century art theorist Anton Ehrenzweig is explored in this original and timely study. An analysis of the dynamic and invigorating intellectual influences, institutional framew
Cultures invest great efforts into creating a long-term memory on the basis of oral transmission, media technology and institutional frameworks. This book provides an introduction to the concept of cultural memory, focusing on the 'arts' of its construction, particularly various media such as writing, images, bodily practices, places and monuments. Examining the period from the European Renaissance to the present, Aleida Assmann reveals the close association between cultural memory and the arts, arguing that the artists who have supplemented, criticized, transformed and opposed it are its most lucid theorists and acute observers. Her analysis also addresses the interaction of cultural memory with individual memory and the ways in which cultural memory supports or subverts social and political identity constructions. Ultimately, this book offers a comprehensive overview of the history, forms and functions of cultural memory, which has become a central analytical tool for scholars across
"In one slim volume, Feldman has managed to combine a history of U.S. water policy, two in-depth case studies on the politics of water, an analysis of the institutional biases affecting U.S. water pol
The International group of contributors of this volume provides, collectively, a multi-layered analysis of the emerging East Asian media culture, using the Korean TV drama as its analytic vehicle. By closely examining the political economy of TV industry, audiences of the regional media flows in terms of gender subjectivity constructions, perceptions of colonial-postcolonial relationships, and nationalist responses to trans-national media culture exchanges, this volume highlights the multiple connectivities and implications of popular cultural flows and exchanges in East Asia. In spite of the obvious flows and exchanges that constitute pan-East Asian Pop Culture as a relatively coherent unit, the academic research community is far behind the cultural industry producers who have long factored the regional consumer market into their production and marketing. This volume is motivated by the need to find both the conceptual and institutional site(s) for the constitution of an East Asian P
Are social practices actions, or institutional frameworks of interaction structured by common rules? How do social practices such as signing a cheque differ from international practices such as signing a peace treaty? Traversing the fields of international relations (IR) and philosophy, this book defends an institutionalist conception of practices as part of a general practice theory indebted to Oakeshott, Wittgenstein and Hegel. The proposed practice theory has two core aspects: practice internalism and normative descriptivism. In developing a philosophical analysis of social practices that has a special relevance for international relations, Silviya Lechner and Mervyn Frost depart from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of practice that dominates the current 'practice turn' in IR. The authors show that the contemporary global realm is constituted by two distinct macro practices - the practice of sovereign states and that of global rights.
This ambitious book presents the first sustained analysis of the evolving representation of Cuthbert, the premier saint of northern England. The study spans both major and neglected texts across eight centuries, from his earliest depictions in anonymous and Bedan vitae, through twelfth-century ecclesiastical histories and miracle collections produced at Durham, to his late medieval appearances in Latin meditations, legendaries, and vernacular verse. Whitehead reveals the coherence of these texts as one tradition, exploring the way that ideologies and literary strategies persist across generations. An innovative addition to the literature of insular spirituality and hagiography, The Afterlife of St Cuthbert emphasises the related categories of place and asceticism. It charts Cuthbert's conceptual alignment with a range of institutional, masculine, northern, and national spaces, and examines the distinctive characteristics and changing value of his ascetic lifestyle and environment - fre
Take the number of seats in a representative assembly and the number of seats in districts through which this assembly is elected. From just these two numbers, the authors of Votes from Seats show that it is possible to deduce the number of parties in the assembly and in the electorate, as well as the size of the largest party. Inside parties, the vote distributions of individual candidates likewise follow predictable patterns. Four laws of party seats and votes are constructed by logic and tested, using scientific approaches rare in social sciences. Both complex and simple electoral systems are covered, and the book offers a set of 'best practices' for electoral system design. The ability to predict so much from so little, and to apply to countries worldwide, is an advance in the systematic analysis of a core institutional feature found in any democracy, and points the way towards making social sciences more predictive.
