Political Economy and Global Capitalism

This volume brings together original and timely writings by internationally renowned scholars that reflect on the current trajectories of global capitalism and, in the light of these, consider likely, possible or desirable futures. Essays focus to varying degrees on developing distinctive theoretical frameworks and using them to clarify both the history of the present political economy and how progressive political economic trends might be extended from the present into the future. A distinctive feature of the collection is its effort to develop new mediations between theory and history, a deeply problematic relationship in the social sciences. These contributions offer original perspectives both to theory construction and to the use of theory in historical analysis. In short, this volume provides theory-informed writing that contextualizes empirical research on current world-historic events and trends with an eye towards realizing a future of human, social and economic betterment.

Robert Jessop is Professor of Sociology at the University of Lancaster. He has published extensively on a wide range of sociological and economic topics. His past works include The Regulation Approach and Beyond: Putting Capitalist Economies in their Place (Edward Elgar, 2006) and The Future of the Capitalist State (Polity, 2005). Robert Albritton is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Political Science at York University. His many publications include New Dialectics and Political Economy, edited with John Simoulidis, (Palgrave, 2003) and A Japanese Approach to Stages of Capitalist Development, (Macmillan, 1991) which has also been translated into Japanese. He also teaches American and comparative politics at the University of Mississippi. Richard Westra is Assistant Professor of the Division of International and Area Studies at Pukyong National University, South Korea. His many publications include Sustaining Life On Earth: Environmental and Human Health Through Global Governance, co-edited with Colin Soskolne, Laura Westra, Brendan Mackey, William Rees and Louis Kotze (Lexington Books, 2006), Phases of Capitalist Development: Booms, Crises and Globalizations, co-edited with Robert Albritton, Makoto Itoh, and Alan Zuege (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2001) and Marxist Perspectives on South Korea in the Global Economy, edited with Martin Hart-Landsberg and Seongjin Jeong (Ashgate, 2007).