All human beings develop a certain view on the world. Inhabitants of the same country are likely to develop similar worldviews. The common part of these views constitutes the country’s national culture. Consequently, academic economists, policymakers, and the population at large are consistently exposed to the same opinions on the preferred way of organizing an economy. This book explores the economic impacts of these shared cultural values, focusing on the economies of the United States of America, Germany, and France. These three countries broadly represent three different types of economic organization and their corresponding economic ideologies: a free market economy, a coordinated market economy, and a hierarchical market economy. The contributors to this edited volume have examined the extent to which the shared worldviews between academic economists, policymakers, and the wider population impact these economies. In particular, the chapters investigate the consequences for the design of the labor market, the financial system, competition policy, and monetary policy. The work also explores the extent to which the shared views on national culture and economic systems and policies in these countries contribute to the population’s well-being overall. This book makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on comparative economics, economic policy, well-being and cultural economics.

Since sociologists returned to the study of culture in the past several decades, a pursuit all but anathema for a generation, cultural sociology has emerged as a vibrant field. Edited by three leading cultural sociologists, The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology presents the full theoretical and methodological vitality of this critically significant new area.The Handbook gathers together works by authors confronting the crucial choices all cultural sociologists face today: about analytic priorities, methods, topics, epistemologies, ideologies, and even modes of writing. It is a vital collection of preeminent thinkers studying the ways in which culture, society, politics, and economy interact in the world.Organized by empirical areas of study rather than particular theories or competing intellectual strands, the Handbook addresses power, politics, and states; economics and organization; mass media; social movements; religion; aesthetics; knowledge; and health. Allowing the reader to observe tensions as well as convergences, the collection displays the value of cultural sociology not as a niche discipline but as a way to view and understand the many facets of contemporary society. The first of its kind, The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology offers comprehensive and immediate access to the real developments and disagreements taking place in the field, and deftly exemplifies how cultural sociology provides a new way of seeing and modeling social facts.

Sarah Owen Vandersluis critically examines approaches to cultural policy within the global economy. This study taps into the growing debate on ethical theory and International Political Economy. It challenges the normative positions of nationalists and welfare economists, before developing an alternative communitarian ethics for cultural policy in a global economy. The study concludes with an examination of the practical implications of this ethics in several case studies.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1964.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER To get ahead today, you have to be a jerk, right? Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against American, creating a “culture of contempt”—the habit of seeing people who disagree with us not as merely incorrect, but as worthless and defective. Maybe, like more than nine out of ten Americans, you dislike it. But hey, either you play along, or you’ll be left behind, right? Wrong. In Love Your Enemies, social scientist and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller From Strength to Strength Arthur C. Brooks shows that abuse and outrage are not the right formula for lasting success. Brooks blends cutting-edge behavioral research, ancient wisdom, and a decade of experience leading one of America’s top policy think tanks in a work that offers a better way to lead based on bridging divides and mending relationships. Brooks’ prescriptions are unconventional. To bring America together, we shouldn’t try to agree more. There is no need for mushy moderation, because disagreement is the secret to excellence. Civility and tolerance shouldn’t be our goals, because they are hopelessly low standards. And our feelings toward our foes are irrelevant; what matters is how we choose to act. Love Your Enemies offers a clear strategy for victory for a new generation of leaders. It is a rallying cry for people hoping for a new era of American progress. Most of all, it is a roadmap to arrive at the happiness that comes when we choose to love one another, despite our differences.

Drawing on Kaleckian and Kaldorian approaches, Political Economy of Contemporary Italy: The Economic Crisis and State Intervention explores the reasons behind the stagnation of the Italian economy from the 1970s and suggests policy solutions to ease the crisis. The central thesis of the book is that from the early 1990s Italy experienced a constant reduction of both private and public investment which, combined with increasing labour precariousness and wage moderation, contributed to the decline of both labour productivity and economic growth. It is argued that lack of industrial policies amplified the problem of the poor macroeconomic performance, since Italian firms – small-sized and non-innovating – were incapable of staying competitive on the global scene. Net exports did not compensate for the decline of public spending, private investment and consumption. It is also shown that, in these respects, Italy presents an interesting case study with wider ramifications for it was involved in the global process of intensifying the neoliberal agenda but at a faster rate than other OECD countries. The book concludes with a call for an alternative economic policy in order to promote innovation, reduce unemployment and stimulate economic growth. This book marks a significant contribution to the literature on the recent history of the European economy, Italian studies and the history of economic thought.

The past two decades have witnessed far-reaching socioeconomic and political changes in Asia, such as the growing intraregional flows of capital, goods, people, and knowledge, the rise of China as the world’s second largest economy, and its increasing influence in Southeast Asia, intensified US–China confrontations in the global arena, and the onslaught of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Focusing on multidimensional interactions (including geopolitical and economic relationships, diaspora engagement, and knowledge exchange) between China and Southeast Asia, this book argues that an interwoven perspective of the political economy, transnational governance, and regional networks serves as an effective analytical framework for deciphering these transformations as well as their global and theoretical implications. Drawing upon a wide range of primary data and engaging with the latest interdisciplinary scholarship on contemporary Asia, this book’s thought-provoking and nuanced analyses will appeal to scholars and students in Chinese and Southeast Asian studies, international political economy, international relationships, ethnic and migration studies, and public governance.

Although the internationalization of the Chinese renminbi is an important international political event, most of the studies of it place their analytical focuses largely just on China itself, the issuer of the currency. In contrast, this book addresses the question of how foreign states have responded to the renminbi’s internationalization, during its initial phase through the 2010s, and thereby breaks new ground in exploring the international politics of currency internationalization. It builds a theoretical framework for analyzing a state’s policy toward renminbi internationalization, developing the key concept of reactive currency statecraft. It then applies this framework to the four select cases of the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and the United States. This book reveals that all four of these countries have deliberately utilized their policies related to renminbi internationalization as means of achieving their own foreign policy goals associated with China, goals that have been principally economic in some cases but political in others. Remarkably, the predominant mode of response to the renminbi’s internationalization has been accommodative. Even the United States and Japan—China’s chief geopolitical and also international currency rivals—have never attempted to actively suppress it. This study provides new insights to anyone concerned with the transformation of the world monetary order, while also contributing a valuable analysis of the international politics surrounding the rise of China.