2009 Best Book, International Political Economy Group of the British International Studies Association This ambitious volume chronicles and analyzes from a critical globalization perspective the social, economic, and political changes sweeping across Latin America from the 1970s through the present day. Sociologist William I. Robinson summarizes his theory of globalization and discusses how Latin America’s political economy has changed as the states integrate into the new global production and financial system, focusing specifically on the rise of nontraditional agricultural exports, the explosion of maquiladoras, transnational tourism, and the export of labor and the import of remittances. He follows with an overview of the clash among global capitalist forces, neoliberalism, and the new left in Latin America, looking closely at the challenges and dilemmas resistance movements face and their prospects for success. Through three case studies—the struggles of the region's indigenous peoples, the immigrants rights movement in the United States, and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela—Robinson documents and explains the causes of regional socio-political tensions, provides a theoretical framework for understanding the present turbulence, and suggests possible outcomes to the conflicts. Based on years of fieldwork and empirical research, this study elucidates the tensions that globalization has created and shows why Latin America is a battleground for those seeking to shape the twenty-first century’s world order.

The all-encompassing embrace of world capitalism at the beginning of the twenty-first century was generally attributed to the superiority of competitive markets. Globalization had appeared to be the natural outcome of this unstoppable process. But today, with global markets roiling and increasingly reliant on state intervention to stay afloat, it has become clear that markets and states aren't straightforwardly opposing forces. In this groundbreaking work, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin demonstrate the intimate relationship between modern capitalism and the American state. The Making of Global Capitalism identifies the centrality of the social conflicts that occur within states rather than between them. These emerging fault lines hold out the possibility of new political movements that might transcend global markets.

This wide-ranging book makes a critical contribution to understanding the times in which we live and possible solutions to the increasingly acute crisis of global capitalism. Harris critiques with great perspicacity the ideology and destructive practices of hegemonic neo-liberalism as well as the failure of 20th century socialism to provide a viable alternative and the limitations of anarchism. All three ideologies are found wanting in the quest for human liberation. In this new globalized information age our emancipatory potential, he suggests, lies in freeing democracy from the constraints of capitalism through a more balanced relationship between the state, market and civil society.

Through the lens of global capitalism theory, William Avilés examines democratization and civil-military relations in Colombia to explain how social and international forces led to the ostensibly contradictory outcome of democratic and economic reform coinciding with political repression. Focusing on the administrations in power from 1990 to the present, Avilés argues that the reduction in the institutional powers of the military within the state reflected changes in the structure of the global economy, the emergence of globalizing technocrats and politicians, and shifts in U.S. foreign policy strategies toward "democracy promotion." These same factors explain Colombia's establishment of a low-intensity democracy—a structure of elite rule in which the strategies of coercion (state and para-state repression) and consensus (competitive elections, civilian control over the military) maintain control and legitimacy. In the age of capitalist globalization, a low-intensity democracy is most concomitant with neoliberalism, establishing the political and economic environment most suitable to the investments of transnational corporations.

In Global Capitalism (originally published in 1991), Richard Peet surveys the various approaches made by social theory towards seeing history in terms of its regional dynamics. He reviews environmental determinism, modernization, dependency, and world systems theories, and argues that the most capacious and dynamic model continues to be historical materialism. The volume presents a broad outline of global development through time, analysing primitive communism, lineage societies and the various kinds of tributary modes, and providing a closer examination of capitalism in terms of the phases and forms of its past and present. The author defends the centrality of structural Marxism to theories of global development and argues that its ideas can be furthered by the partial synthesis of other perspectives, such as the feminist critique. This book assumes no previous knowledge of the theories surveyed. It introduces complex material in an understandable form and will be valuable both to development professionals and to anyone interested in societal change.

The essays in this volume were published across the 1984-2011 period, and range across a variety of topics and approaches to investigate the changing nature of global capitalism as a social order. As such, they are a valuable and instructive account of the evolution of global capitalism and of the debates which sought to make sense of this; moreover, they enable us to understand more clearly how capitalism may change and evolve in the coming years and decades. The introduction provides a brief historical account of how global capitalism has changed since the 1960s, before summarising each of the essays, situating them more immediately in the context in which they were written. After sketching the evolution of his views over the period, the author concludes by discussing some important dimensions of global capitalism that need further study. The twelve essays are presented in four sections, dealing with the overarching theme of globalisation; the case of Britain; the developing regions of the global South and the former Soviet bloc; and the crisis that has gripped global capitalism since 2008. Presenting an interdisciplinary approach that corresponds with the emergence of international political economy as a distinct field of scholarship, this book will prove to be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of international political economy, politics, economics, international relations, development studies, human geography, critical sociology and business studies.

Sure to stir controversy and debate, A Theory of Global Capitalism will be of interest to sociologists and economists alike.

Through a study of the port district of Rio de Janeiro and its history, from its emergence as a major slave market to its modern-day incarnation as a hub of tourism, real estate and financial speculation, this book examines the different dimensions of the manner in which capitalism expands its global process of accumulation to incorporate spaces not yet integrated into chains of value production. As such, it sheds new light on the use of explicit non-economic violence on the part of capitalist expansion, in the form of colonial or imperial policies, plundering or legal forms of expropriation. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, historians, economists, legal scholars and political theorists with interests in capitalism and inequalities.

This book provides an essential historical framework for understanding global business. The author shows how entrepreneurs built a global economy in the nineteenth century by creating firms that pursued resources and markets across borders. It demonstrates how firms shifted strategies as the first global economy disintegrated in the political and economic chaos between the two world wars, and how they have driven the creation of the contemporary global economy. Many of the issues of the global economy have been encountered in the past. This book reveals how entrepreneurs and managers met the political, ethical, cultural, and organizational challenges of operating across borders at different times and in different environments. The role of multinationals is placed within their wider political and economic context. There are chapters on the impact of multinationals, and on relations with governments. The focus on the shifting roles of firms and industries over time provides compelling evidence on the diversity and discontinuities of the globalization process. The book explores the history of multinationals across a wide spectrum of manufacturing, service and natural resource industries. By providing an accessible survey of the history of international business worldwide, this book will be key reading for students taking courses in International Business, Business History, and Entrepreneurship; and of interest to academics and researchers working in these areas.

This exciting new study provides an original and provocative exposé of the crisis of global capitalism in its multiple dimensions - economic, political, social, ecological, military, and cultural. Building on his earlier works on globalization, William I. Robinson discusses the nature of the new global capitalism, the rise of a globalized production and financial system, a transnational capitalist class, and a transnational state and warns of the rise of a global police state to contain the explosive contradictions of a global capitalist system that is crisis-ridden and out of control. Robinson concludes with an exploration of how diverse social and political forces are responding to the crisis and alternative scenarios for the future.