The Politics of Advanced Capitalism

This book takes stock of the major economic and political challenges advanced capitalist democracies face today.

Pablo Beramendi (Edited by), Silja Häusermann (Edited by), Herbert Kitschelt (Edited by), Hanspeter Kriesi (Edited by)

9781107099869, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 April 2015

472 pages, 62 b/w illus. 47 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.86 kg

'An excellent contribution to the important topic of comparing country responses to the economic turbulences of recent times: how models about power resources, path dependence, and power alignments can make senses out of divergence/convergence on inequality, unemployment, growth, mobility, gender, health, and education. Faced with the decline of manufacturing, the globalization of the supply chain, and the shrinking of low-wage manufacturing, countries use their investments in the various institutions of capitalism in differing ways. This book helps us understand this variance and is valuable for faculty and students alike.' Peter Gourevitch, School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego

This book serves as a sequel to two distinguished volumes on capitalism: Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism (Cambridge, 1999) and Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism (1985). Both volumes took stock of major economic challenges advanced industrial democracies faced, as well as the ways political and economic elites dealt with them. However, during the last decades, the structural environment of advanced capitalist democracies has undergone profound changes: sweeping deindustrialization, tertiarization of the employment structure, and demographic developments. This book provides a synthetic view, allowing the reader to grasp the nature of these structural transformations and their consequences in terms of the politics of change, policy outputs, and outcomes. In contrast to functionalist and structuralist approaches, the book advocates and contributes to a 'return of electoral and coalitional politics' to political economy research.

1. Introduction: the politics of advanced capitalism Pablo Beramendi, Silja Häusermann, Herbert Kitschelt and Hanspeter Kriesi
Part I. Structural Transformations: 2. Prosperity and the evolving structure of advanced economies Carles Boix
3. The origins of dualism David Rueda, Erik Wibbels and Melina Altamirano
4. Occupational structure and labor market change in Western Europe since 1990 Daniel Oesch
5. Globalization, labor market risks, and class cleavage Rafaela Dancygier and Stefanie Walter
6. The return of the family Gosta Esping-Andersen
Part II. Politics: 7. Party alignments: change and continuity Herbert Kitschelt and Philipp Rehm
8. What do voters want? Dimensions and configurations in individual-level preferences and party choice Silja Häusermann and Hanspeter Kriesi
9. Trade unions and the future of democratic capitalism Anke Hassel
Part III. Policies: 10. Post-industrial social policy Evelyne Huber and John Stephens
11. The dynamics of social investment: human capital, activation, and care Jane Gingrich and Ben Ansell
12. Stability and change in CMEs: corporate governance and industrial relations in Germany and Denmark Gregory Jackson and Kathleen Thelen
Part IV. Outcomes: 13. Constrained partisanship and economic outcomes Pablo Beramendi
14. Happiness and the welfare state: decommodification and the political economy of subjective wellbeing Christopher J. Anderson and Jason D. Hecht
15. Conclusion: advanced capitalism in crisis Pablo Beramendi, Silja Häusermann, Herbert Kitschelt and Hanspeter Kriesi.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]