This book analyses the contribution of Eugen (Jenő) Varga (1879-1964) on Marxist-Leninist economic theory as well as the influence he exercised on Stalin’s foreign policy and through the Comintern on the international communist movement. During the Hungarian Councils’ Republic of 1919 Varga was one of those chiefly responsible for transforming the economy into one big industrial and agrarian firm under state authority. After the fall of the revolutionary regime that year, Varga joined the ...

By the end of the nineteenth century Belgium was enjoying considerable economic success. However, the economic experience has proved significantly less stable in the twentieth century. In The Belgian Economy in the Twentieth Century Professor Andre Mommen describes and analyzes the changing fortunes of the Belgian economy throughout this century. H

In post-Soviet Russian politics, Boris Nemtsov is one of the most tragic figures—and not only because he was shot dead, at the age of 56, in close vicinity to the Kremlin, the locus of Russia’s power. The “transparency of evil” in this specific case was shocking: Nemtsov’s murder was filmed by a surveillance camera. The video tape confirms the demonstrative and insolent character of the assassination. His death illuminated a core feature of the current regime that tolerates, if not incites...

The book reveals the interconnection between social, cultural and political protest movements and social and economic changes in a post-communist country like Russia still dominated by bureaucratic rulers and "oligarchs" controlling all basic industries and mining activities. Those interests are also dominating Russia’s foreign policy and explain why Russia did not succeed in becoming an integral part of Europe. The latter is, at least, wished by many Russian citizens.

Originally published in 1998. This collection of outstanding essays explores the importance of regionalization and globalization to the world economy. International contributions explore the process of regionalization in the Pacific Area, The Americas, Africa and Europe, and question whether the world economy is characterized by increasing regionalization, rather than globalization. The book is an excellent contribution to debate on development economics. It investigates how the processes ...

Liberalization in the Developing World compares the success of liberalization strategies in Asia, Africa and Latin America over the past decade. Three models emerge, corresponding to the three continents covered, which reflect the degree of state intervention in the economy and the success of the liberalization policies adopted.The conclusions drawn demonstrate that economic and political liberalization do not have to go hand in hand. On the contrary, the case studies prese...

This book critically re-examines the currently dominant paradigm of agricultural development policy from historical and comparative perspectives. Examining the experiences of 11 developed countries in their earlier stages of development and the experiences of 10 developing and transition economies in the last half a century, the book offers an in-depth discussion on a range of public policies for agriculture, some currently in use and others forgotten in the mist of history.After p...

Despite the rhetoric, the people of Sub-Saharan Africa are become poorer. From Tony Blair's Africa Commission and the Make Poverty History campaign to the Hong Kong WTO meeting, Africa's gains have been mainly limited to public relations. The central problems remain exploitative debt and financial relationships with the North, phantom aid, unfair trade, distorted investment and the continent's brain/skills drain. Moreover, capitalism in most African countries has witnessed the emergence of...

This book applies the conceptual framework of Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis and Barry R. Weingast's Violence and Social Orders (Cambridge University Press, 2009) to nine developing countries. The cases show how political control of economic privileges is used to limit violence and coordinate coalitions of powerful organizations. Rather than castigating politicians and elites as simply corrupt, the case studies illustrate why development is so difficult to achieve in societies where...

We live in a time of dynamic, but generally regressive regime change-a period in which major political transformations and a rollback of a half-century of legislation are accelerated under conditions of a prolonged and deepening economic crisis and a worldwide offensive against the citizenry and the working class. Written by two of the world’s leading left-wing thinkers, Imperialism and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century takes the form of a number of analytical probes into some of the ...

The international mobility of people and elites is a main feature of the global economy of today. Immigration augments the labor force in receiving countries and provides many of the bodies and minds that are essential to any vibrant economy. This book is based on a blend of theory, varied country examples, and rich historical material ranging from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. It discusses the conceptual underpinnings of the push and pull factors of current...

To lift and keep millions out of poverty requires that smallholder agriculture be productive and profitable in the developing world. Do we know how to make this happen? Researchers and practitioners still debate how best to do so. The prevailing methodology, which claims causality from measures of statistical significance, is inductive and yields contradictory results. In this book, instead of correlations, Isabelle Tsakok looks for patterns common to cases of successful agricultural trans...