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This book will spark a debate concerning the need for democracy and accountability in the governance of trillions of dollars of plan members' pension plan assets and the legitimacy of the present, mostly unaccountable, corporate governance decisions made by these plans. The author analyzes the reasons for this passivity, pointing to conflicts of interest with respect to corporate governance activity in pension plans and also to limitations in corporate, securities, and pension law. He argues that plan members should be given a voice in pension plan governance and the plans made accountable, and he outlines the legal reforms necessary.
Examining the reform process of the old age pension system in Russia, from its Soviet origins to the Putin era, Shocking Mother Russia adds significantly to the growing body of literature on comparative social policy and the political challenges of pension reform. Andrea Chandler explains why Russia's old-age pension system went into decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, even though it was a prominent issue in the political arena at the outset of the post-communist transition. While tracing the roots of the system's difficulties to the Soviet Union's first efforts to establish a national social welfare system after 1917, Chandler nonetheless devotes the bulk of her study to the period from 1990 to 2001. While political factors impeded reform for much of this eleven-year period, ultimately Russia's striking policy reversals provide a case study for developing nations. In 1990, a new Russian pension law was adopted during the Soviet reform process of perestroika. The system was again significantly altered in 2001 when a market-reform-oriented package of pension legislation was passed. Shocking Mother Russia places the Russian experience in comparative perspective, and suggests lessons for pension reform derived from analysis of the Russian case.
Within a decade, private capital surpassed aid as the primary capital source for developing countries. This book explores how the increase of private funds, in particular portfolio capital, effects democratization in developing countries. A probe into institutional investors' coordination, asset concentration, political preferences, and activism, provides a framework for understanding the politics of international financial constraints. Highlighting the dilemma presented by international finance's simultaneous emphasis on austerity and stability, the question of whether this public-to-private shift might facilitate an anti-democratic strain is examined.
What if our financial system were organized to the benefit of the many rather than simply empowering the few? Robert Hockett and Fred Block argue that an entirely different financial system is both desirable and possible. They outline concrete steps that could get us there. Financial systems move the worlds savings from investment to investment, chasing the highest rates of return. They run on profit. But what if investment went to the enterprises or institutions that provided things that the majority of people would prioritize? Democratizing Finance includes six responses that seek to amend, elaborate, and challenge the arguments developed by Hockett and Block. Some of the core arguments put forward by other contributors include calls for the rapid elimination of private financial entities, the dilemmas of the politics associated with financial reforms, and the fate of parallel proposals advanced in the US in the 1930s.
From award-winning economic historian Sanford M. Jacoby, a fascinating and important study of the labor movement and shareholder capitalism Since the 1970s, American unions have shrunk dramatically, as has their economic clout. Labor in the Age of Finance traces the search for new sources of power, showing how unions turned financialization to their advantage. Sanford Jacoby catalogs the array of allies and finance-based tactics labor deployed to stanch membership losses in the private sector. By leveraging pension capital, unions restructured corporate governance around issues like executive pay and accountability. In Congress, they drew on their political influence to press for corporate reforms in the wake of business scandals and the financial crisis. The effort restrained imperial CEOs but could not bridge the divide between workers and owners. Wages lagged behind investor returns, feeding the inequality identified by Occupy Wall Street. And labor’s slide continued. A compelling blend of history, economics, and politics, Labor in the Age of Finance explores the paradox of capital bestowing power to labor in the tumultuous era of Enron, Lehman Brothers, and Dodd-Frank.
Originally published in 2005. Domestic and foreign economic and political policies in the rich capitalist nations in the North and in the poor countries in the South are geared towards globalization and democratization. Indeed the dominant view held by countries in the North is that globalization leads to democracy and vice versa, and that in turn economic development will result from that process. Thus many scarce resources are allocated to bring about globalization and democracy. Exploring the dynamics of change that allow for the persistence of authoritarian states in the Third World, this illuminating book highlights certain aspects of democratization that have not been investigated fully. Anyone interested in development politics and political sociology will draw a plethora of important theoretical insights into globalization, authoritarianism and transition/democratization from this original study.
This book examines the emergence of authoritarian populist regimes, analyzing Brazil as a case study. The authors explain how the tactics employed by the Bolsonaro administration to dismantle bureaucracy and public policies, especially labour and social policies, find expression in the fiscal austerity measures recently inscribed in the Federal Constitution: a counter-democratic device employed by technical and financial elites to systemically derail the social protection system. Through this in-depth case study, the book presents new theoretical arguments and concepts that can be useful to understand the dynamics of such new regimes, and discussing similar cases in other contexts. Democratic governments in Brazil, driven by social movements and political actors, have strengthened social protection through a distinctive institutional architecture that combines the strengthening of public bureaucracies, the creation of intergovernmental networks, and the democratic instances of social participation and agreement. The contributions throughout this volume analyze these transformations in different sectors of public policy, such as labour, employment, pensions, food and nutrition security, health, and social assistance. Each contribution discusses the recent trajectory through a political analysis of the main actors and institutions, reform processes and policy changes, and the results achieved. Finally, the existing weaknesses in each of these social protection sectors are identified in the context of the literature on policy dismantling, revealing the strategies used to take advantage of these political and institutional weaknesses. This book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of political science and public policy, interested in a better understanding of de-democratization by social policy dismantling.
This wide-ranging overview of the processes of democratization in post-Communist Europe, places the transitions in East-Central Europe within a broad European and global context. The authors begin with a introduction to the concept and theories of democracy and then examine the emerging politics of the new democracies to set the post-Communist transitions in longer-term comparative perspective with earlier and existing processes of democratization in Southern Europe, Latin America, and East and Southeast Asia. Finally the politics of EU accession are introduced to place the transitions within the wider context of European integration. Concluding with a summary of recent critiques of modern democracy and looking toward future theories, this text provides a comprehensive introduction to what will remain the key contemporary issue for all students of political science.