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By analyzing why English local governments have made extensive use of long-term market loans with embedded derivatives, this paper seeks to contribute to the growing literature on local government financialization. Using an original, large-N panel dataset for the period from 1998 to 2014, we show that the configuration of the local political economy is an important driver of financialization processes: a Labour Party majority as well as fiscal and economic stress make it more likely that councils adopt risky financial instruments. As the use of financial innovations has also diffused geographically, policy diffusion impacts local governments as well. Highlighting the conditional effect of finance sector power, which only increases the use of financial innovations in very large councils, as well as the temporal dimension of fiscal and economic stress, we create ample avenues for further research.

This paper studies state failure and governance in two conflict-states in the Middle East: Iraq and Somalia. Iraq is currently undergoing a social experiment under which a new form of government is being constructed after the passage of autocratic rule. The government envisaged is a consociational democratic state designed a priori as a political mechanism for the redistribution of resources, mainly oil. Somalia represents a stateless society or anarchy. The paper argues that in resource-rich countries such as Iraq, the consociational project leads to an Olson-type rent-seeking confessional behaviour that hampers economic growth and development. The rent-seeking behaviour in Iraq is fuelling the insurgency that perceives the consociational system as a grabbing.

One of the greatest challenges facing China today is the central government's ability to ensure that policies are implemented effectively at the local level, particularly policies that seek to make China's economic growth model more sustainable. These policies face resistance from local authorities and enterprises that benefit from the status quo. This raises a key research question: why do some provinces more fully implement these central policies? We argue the extent of local implementation is best conceptualized as a rational balance between economic and political incentives: localities with regulatory autonomy, low regulatory capacity and alternative interests will not fully implement policies that are at odds with local economic imperatives. By examining a critical case of central policy implementation-industrial energy intensity reduction in the eleventh five-year plan-this article demonstrates that, regardless of industrial makeup or economic development, provinces that have greater regulatory autonomy for noncompliance coupled with alternative economic interests do not, on average, perform as well. Using a nested analysis approach this study illustrates this argument with both quantitative analysis and original case study evidence from fieldwork interviews. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

"This book is the result of a research process of long durée. Entirely original material rubs shoulders with other work that has already seen the light of day in the form of previous versions of articles and chapters in books, normally in languages other than English. Some of the earlier material formed part of a wider research project that was completed in 2017 and for which the author was awarded a Ph.D. in History by the Complutense University of Madrid. However, there were many other incentives for writing the book and it has benefitted from finding numerous allies along the way. It has also had the enormous good fortune to come to fruition in an eminently international framework, under various research projects"--

Striptease and other types of erotic dance increasingly make up a large, lucrative and visible part of the sex industries in the United Kingdom and 'lap dancing' has become the focus of many important contemporary debates about gender, work and sexuality. This new book from Teela Sanders and Kate Hardy moves away from the more traditional focus on the relations between dancers and customers, to a focus on regulation and the working conditions experienced by those working in stripping work. Drawing on interviews, survey data and participant observation with dancers, managers, regulators and oth

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Foreword -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction to the Transaction Edition -- PART I: COMPARATIVE MODELS OF TRANSITION -- Chapter 1 The Collapse of the Stalinist Economic System -- Chapter 2 The Analytical Framework -- Chapter 3 The Cost of Transition -- PART II: CASE STUDIES IN TRANSITION ECONOMIES -- Chapter 4 The Shock Therapy Model of Transition -- Chapter 5 The Neoclassical Gradualist Model of Transition Preventive Therapy -- Chapter 6 The Post Keynesian Model of Transition: Developing a Civilized Society -- Chapter 7 The Pluralistic Market Socialist Model of Transition -- Chapter 8 The Non-Pluralistic Model of Market Socialism: The Chinese Approach -- PART III: CONCLUSIONS -- Chapter 9 Was There an Optimal Model of Transition? -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index

Sustainability - with its promise of economic prosperity, social equity, and environmental integrity - is hardly a controversial goal. This book examines sustainability conceptually and as it actually exists on the ground, with a particular focus on Western European and North American urban contexts.