Going beyond the usual state-centric approach to the study of the politics of neoliberal reform, Moisés Arce emphasizes the importance of understanding the interaction between state reformers and collective actors in society. In Market Reform in Society he helpfully focuses our attention on how various societal groups are affected by different types of reform and how their responses in turn affect the state’s subsequent pursuit of reform. As a country characterized by strong state autonomy and widespread disintegration of civil society and representative institutions during the 1990s when Alberto Fujimori was president, Peru serves as an excellent case for examining how collective actors can succeed in influencing the reform process. Arce compares reforms in three areas: taxation, pension privatization, and social-sector programs in poverty alleviation and health decentralization. Differences in the concentration or dispersion of costs and benefits, he shows, affected incentives for groups to form and engage in collective action for supporting, opposing, or modifying the reforms.

This collection offers a critical analytical perspective and fresh empirical data on recent market-orientated social policy reforms in Latin America. The six case studies presented examine labour, education, health and general social development programmes. A particular focus is placed on the ways in which market-enhancing reforms such as demand-based provision, social policy targeting and privatization respond to issues of equity, coverage and the quality of provision.

This book explores the pivotal role of think tanks in the democratization and economic reform movements by evaluating their overall effect on the transformation process in developing and transitional countries around the world. James G. McGann assesses twenty-three think tanks, located in nine countries and four regions of the world: Chile, Peru, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Botswana, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, that have most impacted political and economic transitions in their respective countries. The author examines the role they played in the process of democratization and market reform during the late 80s and 90s and identifies the importance of think tanks in these processes by evaluating their overall effect on the policymaking process. He argues in the early stages of a transition from an authoritarian regime to an open and democratic society the activities of think tanks are especially critical, and they have provided a civil society safety net to support these fragile democracies. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, democratization, development, economic development and civil society.

This book is a groundbreaking exploration of public opinion in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on the Afrobarometer, a survey research project, it reveals what ordinary Africans think about democracy and market reforms, subjects on which almost nothing is otherwise known. The authors find that support for democracy in Africa is wide but shallow and that Afrcns feel trapped between state and market. While Africans are learning about reform on the basis of knowledge, reasoning, and experience, few countries are likely to attain full-fledged democracies and markets anytime soonn.

A flexible labour market is widely regarded as a key factor in encouraging economic growth and prosperity. In recent years some economies have successfully reformed their labour markets, making part-time and flexible hours easier, limiting the restrictive practices of trade unions, encouraging training and the enhancement of the skills of those in the labour market, coping with the changing age profile of the workforce and in other ways. Other economies have been less successful at labour market reform and continue to struggle with outdated structures and practices. This book discusses the key elements of labour market reform, contrasting a country where reforms have been successfully carried through, Australia, with a country where reforms have been less successful, Japan. At the same time, this book challenges the conventional view that Australia is the lucky country for all its workers – given the rising hours worked for those in work and the difficulties for young people entering the labour market. Both countries also face issues in terms of an ageing population, and policy challenges in the design of safety nets and pension provision. The book thereby demonstrates to analysts of labour market reform worldwide the key elements of successful labour market reform, and the consequential effects when the reforms are carried through, or not.

In this volume, leading American health economists provide a critical assessment of the current state of knowledge of insurance market reform that is accessible to both policy-makers and researchers.

This book empirically investigates the changes in labor market structure accompanying the labor market reform in China by focusing on the labor market segmentation problems from the 1980s to 2013. The book also aims to examine the effect of labor policy reforms on individual, household and enterprise behavior, including the causes and consequences of labor market reform in China, particularly the influences of labor policy reforms on labor market performance. Offering valuable insights into the changing structure of the Chinese economy, this book will be of interest to scholars, activists, and economists.

Labour Market Reform in China documents and analyses institutional changes in the Chinese labour market over the last twenty-five years, and argues that further reform is necessary if China is to sustain its high growth rates. The book first assesses the problems associated with the pre-reform labour arrangements. It offers an in-depth analysis of the urban labour market and its impact on individual wage determination, ownership structure, labour compensation and labour demand and of social security reform. In its main chapters, the book investigates the impact of rural economic reform on rural labour market. Detailed consideration is given to the rural agricultural labour market, labour arrangement in the rural non-agricultural sector, and the wage gap between the rural agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Finally, the book examines the phenomenon of rural-urban migration, its impact on rural and urban economic growth, and models its effect on urban employment, unemployment and earnings.

This book takes a powerful new approach to a question central to comparative politics and economics: Why do some leaders of fragile democracies attain political success--culminating in reelection victories--when pursuing drastic, painful economic reforms while others see their political careers implode? Kurt Weyland examines, in particular, the surprising willingness of presidents in four Latin American countries to enact daring reforms and the unexpected resultant popular support. He argues that only with the robust cognitive-psychological insights of prospect theory can one fully account for the twists and turns of politics and economic policy in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela during the 1980s and 1990s. Assessing conventional approaches such as rational choice, Weyland concludes that prospect theory is vital to any systematic attempt to understand the politics of market reform. Under this theory, if actors perceive themselves to be in a losing situation they are inclined toward risks; if they see a winning situation around them, they prefer caution. In Latin America, Weyland finds, where the public faced an open crisis it backed draconian reforms. And where such reforms yielded an apparent economic recovery, many citizens and their leaders perceived prospects of gains. Successful leaders thus won reelection and the new market model achieved political sustainability. Weyland concludes this accessible book by considering when his novel approach can be used to study crises generally and how it might be applied to a wider range of cases from Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

Chinese civil society groups have achieved iconic policy advocacy successes in the areas of environmental protection, women’s rights, poverty alleviation, and public health. This book examines why some groups are successful in policy advocacy within the authoritarian context, while others fail. A mechanism of cultural resonance is introduced as an innovative theoretical framework to systematically compare interactions between Chinese civil society and the government in different movements. It is argued that civil society advocacy results depend largely on whether advocators can achieve cultural resonance with policymakers and the mainstream public through their social performances. The effective performance is the one in which advocators employ symbols embraced by the audience (policymakers and the public) in their actions and framings. While many studies have tried to explain the phenomena of successful policy advocacy in China through institutional or organizational factors, this book not only contains extensive empirical data based on field research, but takes a cultural sociological turn to identify the meaning-making process behind advocacy actions. Civil Society in China will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, political science, social work, and Chinese and Asian studies more broadly.