After World War II, communes and cooperative communities became internationally oriented in their membership and networking began to develop. Unlike earlier such enterprises, these groups shared an openness to international relationships. This was evident both in the groups' social composition, and in the extension of networks beyond their own country. Such globalization opened up the possibility of comparative analysis, which has become a trend in research since the 1950s. The dynamism and speed with which voluntary communities have spread throughout the world is impressive. In the 1950s there were only a few hundred such societies, but by the end of the last century there were thousands. These have taken a variety of forms. There are religious and secular communes, intentional communities, ecological communities, co-housing projects, various types of Christian communities, communities of Eastern religions, and spiritual communities inspired by New Age thought. Yaacov Oved shows that such societies maintain a community based on cooperation and expand their influence through newspapers, television, and the Internet. Their chief characteristic is their openness to the outside world, and their search for a way to move beyond a world of individualism and competitiveness. To accomplish this, they embrace all the tools of the modern world. Oved observes that those who predicted the failure of communes and intentional communities failed to appreciate the extent to which people in today's society aspire to communal life. This book answers the doubters and does so with a sense of deep historical understanding.

Since 2006, Venezuela has witnessed an explosion of different forms of popular power and participatory democracy. Over 47,000 grassroots neighborhood-based communal councils and 3,000 communes have been constructed. In Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis, Anderson Bean offers a critical analysis of these experiments in popular and workers' power and their potential for societal transformation within and beyond Venezuela. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, Bean demonstrates how workers and peasants, through networks of popular power, exercise agency over their own development while facing challenges from the capitalist state. Most importantly, this book connects with the far-reaching implications that the communal movement in Venezuela has for building a society responsive more to the needs of ordinary people than to the desires of the elites.

The idea of a better society as associated with the communal idea is investigated from both theoretical perspectives and through contemporary experiences around the world. This idea leaves nobody indifferent. Whatever the hardship that its concretization implies, however, once it does materialize, it cannot, as such avoid new challenges, tensions and unexpected claims. This means, at varying degrees, negations of, and removals from, the “utopian inspiration”. Humans are able to create unprecedented conditions of life under most ambitious inspirations, but are unable to safeguard their achievements from change, alterations and contradictions. In this, however, another aspect of the utopian realizations is that they ultimately leave room for new utopist thinking and enrolment. As far, indeed, the utopian inspiration draws its vitality from potent civilizational codes, its renewal from ashes is as unavoidable as its self-betrayal through materialization. Contributors included: Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Rami Degany, Amitai Etzioni, Maria Fölling-Albers, Yiftah Goldman, Ruth Kark, Yossi Katz, John Lehr, Graham Meltzer, Bill Metcalf, Timothy Miller, Yaacov Oved, Michal Palgi, Donald E. Pitzer, Shulamit Reinharz, Lyman Tower Sargent, György Széll, Menachem Topel, Katherine Trebeck, and Chris Warhurst.

This book provides an in-depth history of three US-based communal societies that operated in the late 1960s and 1970s—Soul City, Stelle and Twin Oaks—with an emphasis on their financing, marketing, and entrepreneurship processes. These communities reflect the diversity of people who were dissatisfied with the direction in which American society was heading—often underpinned by concerns over racism, sexism, the environment, and capitalism—and decided to take the radical step of joining a communal society. A moral economy approach offers a lens on how these communities were prevented from fully realizing their visions due to the confines of capitalism, as embedded in banking practices, zoning laws, and systemic racism.

Despite the Great Recession, slightly different forms of global capitalism are still portrayed as the only game in town by the vast majority of people in power in the world today. Unbridled growth, trade liberalisation, and competition are advocated as the only or best ways of organizing the contemporary world. Unemployment, yawning gaps between rich and poor, political disengagement, and environmental devastation are too often seen as acceptable ‘side effects’ of the dominance of neo-liberalism. But the reality is that capitalism has always been contested and that people have created many other ways of providing for themselves. This book explores economic and organizational possibilities which extend far beyond the narrow imagination of economists and management theorists. Chapters on co-operatives, community currencies, the transition movement, scrounging, co-housing and much more paints a rich picture of the ways in which another word is not only possible, but already taking shape. The aim of this companion is to move beyond complaining about the present and into exploring this diversity of organisational possibilities. Our starting point is a critical analysis of contemporary global capitalism is merely the opening for thinking about organizing as a form of politics by other means, and one that can be driven by the values of solidarity, freedom and responsibility. This comprehensive companion with an international cast of contributors gives voice to forms of organizing which remain unrepresented or marginalised in organizational studies and conventional politics, yet which offer more promising grounds for social and environmental justice. It is a valuable resource for students, activists and researchers interested in alternative approaches to economy and society in a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields.

People around the globe are more connected to each other than ever before. Information and money flow more quickly than ever. Goods and services produced in one part of the world are increasingly available to the rest of the world. International travel is more frequent. International communication is commonplace. This phenomenon has been titled globalisation. The Era of Globalisation is fast becoming the preferred term for describing the current times. Just as the Depression, the Cold War Era, the Space Age, and the Roaring 20's are used to describe particular periods of history, globalisation describes the political, economic, and cultural atmosphere of today. While some people think of globalisation as primarily a synonym for global business, it is much more than that. not exist also allow social activists, labour organisers, journalists, academics, and many others to work on a global stage. This book brings together a wide range of expertise addressing these issues from the perspective of authors from around the world. Contents: Preface; From Westernisation to the Whirl of Globality: Conceptualising Globalisation and its Effects on Local Societies; Globalisation and Competitiveness: A Comparative Analysis of Selected Developing Countries vs. Industrial Countries; Globalisation, Marginalisation and Growth in Emerging Market Economies; Globalisation of Real Estate Markets and Urban Development in Central Europe; The Challenges of Globalisation: The Role of the World Bank; The Meaning and Limitation of Public Life under Global Capitalism; Violence and State (Re)Formation in the African Context: Global and Local Aspects of Crisis and Change; State Ideology, Global Economy and Coping Strategies; Index.

The subnational dimension of infrastructure has emerged as one of the greatest challenges in contemporary public finance policy and management. Ensuring the efficient provision of infrastructure represents a challenge for all countries irrespective of their level of centralization or decentralization. This book proposes an innovative approach for the strengthening of decentralized public investment and infrastructure management. Decentralization and Infrastructure in the Global Economy: From Gaps to Solutions covers the most important aspects of infrastructure investment in a decentralized setting. It discusses infrastructure gaps and the quality of subnational spending; how functional responsibilities, financing and equalization can be designed; sector-specific arrangements in high expenditure areas, such as health, education and roads; key steps of the public investment cycle and management; and analyses the political economy and corruption challenges that typically accompany decentralized infrastructure projects. This book challenges some of the well-accepted principles of intergovernmental fiscal relations and will be useful to researchers and practitioners of public finance policy and management.

Since the late 1960s, individuals rebelling against societal norms have embraced intentional communities as a means to challenge capitalism and manifest their ideals. Combining archival work with an ethnographic approach, this book examines how these communities have implemented the utopias they claim to have in their daily lives. Focusing primarily on intentional communities in the United States who have adopted egalitarian principles of life and work, notably Twin Oaks in Virginia, the author examines the lives and actions of members to further understand these concrete utopias. In doing so, the book demonstrates that intentional communities aren't relics of a bygone era but rather catalysts capable of shaping our future.

This unique and engaging anthology introduces students to the major concepts of globalization within the context of the key debates and disputes. Introduces globalization through its basic concepts, rather than thematically; a distinctive approach that provides students with a better grasp of what social science has to offer on the topic Utilizes concepts from interdisciplinary sources, bringing together work from key figures across a number of fields - from Weber and Marx, to contemporary figures in the field, including Beck, Bauman, Castells, and Homi Bhabha Includes excerpts to illustrate ideas, all at an appropriate level of difficulty for an undergraduate audience Offers all of this in the dynamic context of major debates surrounding the basic concepts and the fundamental realities of globalization Designed so it can be used independently, or alongside Ritzer’s Globalization: A Basic Text for a complete student resource

Global studies is a fresh and dynamic discipline area that promises to reinvigorate undergraduate and postgraduate education in the social sciences and humanities. In the Australian context, the interdisciplinary pedagogy that defines global studies is gaining wider acceptance as a coherent and necessary approach to the study of global change. Through the Global Studies Consortium (GSC), this new discipline is forming around an impressive body of international scholars who define their expertise in global terms. The GSC paves the way for the expansion of global studies programs internationally and for the development of teaching and research collaboration on a global scale. Mark Juergensmeyer and Helmut Anheier’s forthcoming Encyclopaedia of Global Studies with SAGE is evidence of this growing international collaboration, while the work of Professor Manfred Steger exemplifies the flourishing academic literature on globalization. RMIT University’s Global Cities Institute represents a substantial institutional investment in interdisciplinary research into the social and environmental implications of globalization in which it leads the way internationally. Given these developments, the time is right for a book series that draws together diverse scholarship in global studies. This Handbook allows for extended treatment of critical issues that are of major interest to researchers and students in this emerging field. The topics covered speak to an interdisciplinary approach to the study of global issues that reaches well beyond the confines of international relations and political science to encompass sociology, anthropology, history, media and cultural studies, economics and governance, environmental sustainability, international law and criminal justice. Specially commissioned chapters explore diverse subjects from a global vantage point and all deliberately cohere around core "global" concerns of narrative, praxis, space and place. This integrated approach sets the Handbook apart from its competitors and distinguishes Global Studies as the most equipped academic discipline with which to address the scope and pace of global change in the 21st century.