The Global Crisis and Transformative Social Change

by Utting, Peter; Razavi, Shahra; Varghese Buchholz, Rebecca

• ISBN13: 9780230297821
• ISBN10: 023029782X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-04-10
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Global crises not only deeply impact the economy and people's livelihoods, they also unsettle basic ideas and assumptions about the meaning and drivers of development. This collection of theoretical and empirical studies explores the substance and politics of policy change following the 2007/8 crisis from the perspective of developing countries.

Author Biography

Peter Utting is Deputy Director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). His recent publications include 'The implications of civil society innovations for good governance in China: exemplification of a voluntary charity-oriented sphere', in Zhenglai Deng and Sujian Guo (eds), China's Search for good Governance (2011), Business, politics and public policy: Implications for Inclusive Development and Corporate Social Responsibility and Regulatory Governance: Towards Inclusive Development?, both co-edited with Jos Carlos Marques (2010): and the edited volume Reclaiming Development Agendas: Knowledge, Power and International policy Making (2006). Shahra Razavi is Research Co-ordinator at UNRISD, specializing in gender dimensions of social development. Her recent publications include Underpaid and Overworked: A Cross- National Perspective on Care Workers, co-edited with Silke Staab, Special Issue of International Labour Review (Vol. 149, No.4, 2010); The Unhappy Marriage of Religion and Politics: Problems and Pitfalls for Gender Equality, co-edited with Anne Jenichen, Special issue of Third World Quarterly (Vol.31,No.6,2010): and the edited volume The Gendered Impacts of Liberlization: Towards 'Embedded Liberalism'?Re (2009). Rebecca Varghese Buchholz is Trade Policy Adviser at Traidcraft, UK. Previousy, she was Research Analyst at UNRISD, working in the Markets' Business and Regulation Research programme.

Table of Contents

"This important collection opens up questions ignored by mainstream debates about international economic policy. It goes beyond the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on developing countries and on poor people to examine the politics that generate transformative change in policy thinking, and whether these developments have begun to challenge the legitimacy of neoliberal economic policy." – Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Professor of International Affairs, The New School,USA"This is a definitive contribution to the literature on the 2008 financial crisis. Covering an impressive range of critical issues - from the structural changes triggered by the crisis to shifts in discourse on the unstable nature of capitalist economies and the scope for policy responses - we will find ourselves returning to it time and again to clarify our thinking on the crisis and its far-reaching consequences." – James Heintz, Associate Director, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, USA "Offering a varied set of analyses, assessing both actual policy responses to the 2008 financial crisis in the Global South and the breadth of debates stimulated by the crisis, this volume provides a sober, well-grounded and constructive alternative to current austerity-obsessed policy debates." – Peter Brandt Evans, Professor of Sociology, University of California, USA