This book fills a gap in the literature on economic liberalism in France as it strives to resolve a paradox. How do we reconcile the fact that while France has been among the most fertile of soils for the liberal intellectual tradition, the theoretical ideas it has produced has little impact on its own public debate and public policies? Using a wide range of data on public policies, it demonstrates that neo-liberal thought has had far less influence in France than in other European nations during the period from 1974 to 2012. The failure of neo-liberalism to propagate in public policies France is shown to be mainly due to the strong resistance of public opinion towards it. In addition, the structure of French institutions has reinforced the effect of "path dependence" in the making of public policy by valuing state expertise above that of actors likely to question the post-war consensus, such as academics and think tanks. Finally, the book identifies other more incidental factors which contributed to neo-liberalism marginality: the fragmentation and radicalism of neo-liberal advocates, as well as the absence of charismatic political actors to effectively embody these ideas. This book is a useful educational tool for students of economics, sociology, political science, and of French political history. This book is also of interest for journalists, think tank researchers and professionals of politics and administration.

Why centrist politics in France is bound to fail This book analyses the French political crisis, which has entered its most acute phase in more than thirty years with the break-up of traditional left and right social blocs. Governing parties have distanced themselves from the working classes, leaving behind on the one hand, craftsmen, shop owners and small entrepreneurs disappointed by the timidity of the reforms of the neoliberal right and, on the other hand, workers and employees hostile to the neoliberal and pro-European integration orientation of the Socialist Party. The Presidency of François Hollande was less an anomaly than the definitive failure of attempts to reconcile the social base of the left with the so-called "modernisation" of the French model. The project, based on the pursuit of neoliberal reforms, did not die with Hollande's failure; it was taken up and radicalised by his successor, Emmanuel Macron. This project needs a social base, the 'bourgeois bloc", designed to overcome the right/left divide by a new alliance between the middle and upper classes. But this, as we have seen recently on the streets of Paris and elsewhere, is a precarious process.

The Neoliberal Republic traces the corrosive effects of the revolving door between public service and private enrichment on the French state and its ability to govern and regulate the private sector. Casting a piercing light on this circulation of influence among corporate lawyers and others in the French power elite, Antoine Vauchez and Pierre France analyze how this dynamic, a feature of all Western democracies, has developed in concert with the rise of neoliberalism over the past three decades. Based on interviews with dozens of public officials in France and a unique biographical database of more than 200 civil-servants-turned-corporate-lawyers, The Neoliberal Republic explores how the always-blurred boundary between public service and private interests has been critically compromised, enabling the transformation of the regulatory state into either an ineffectual bystander or an active collaborator in the privatization of public welfare. The cumulative effect of these developments, the authors reveal, undermines democratic citizenship and the capacity to imagine the public good.

Anchored in the principles of the free-market economics, 'neoliberalism' has been associated with such different political leaders as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Augusto Pinochet, and Junichiro Koizumi. In its heyday during the late 1990s, neoliberalism emerged as the world's dominant economic paradigm stretching from the Anglo-American heartlands of capitalism to the former communist bloc all the way to the developing regions of the global South. At the dawn of the new century, however, neoliberalism has been discredited as the global economy, built on its principles, has been shaken to its core by a financial calamity not seen since the dark years of the 1930s. So is neoliberalism doomed or will it regain its former glory? Will reform-minded G-20 leaders embark on a genuine new course or try to claw their way back to the neoliberal glory days of the Roaring Nineties? Is there a viable alternative to neoliberalism? Exploring the origins, core claims, and considerable variations of neoliberalism, this Very Short Introduction offers a concise and accessible introduction to one of the most debated 'isms' of our time. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Explains the surprising endurance of neoliberal policymaking over two decades in post-Communist countries, from 1989-2008, and its decline after the financial crash.

Economic inequality has at last taken center stage in political discourse, but little is said to explain or to offer solutions to it. Written by an award-winning academic and policy maker, The Inequality Crisis provides a comprehensive, evenhanded survey of all the available evidence. Fully up to date with the latest developments, from Brexit to Donald Trump's election, this accessible, jargon-free introduction is international in scope and packed with eye-opening facts. In his closing chapters, Roger Brown evaluates whether current UK government policies will actually help reduce inequality and offers practical suggestions relevant the world over, including raising taxes on higher earners, implementing tougher action against tax dodgers, helping people on lower incomes to save, and reducing inequalities in education.

This book examines “the great contraction” of 2007–2010 within the context of the neoliberal globalization that began in the early 1980s. This new phase of capitalism greatly enriched the top 5 percent of Americans, including capitalists and financial managers, but at a significant cost to the country as a whole. Declining domestic investment in manufacturing, unsustainable household debt, rising dependence on imports and financing, and the growth of a fragile and unwieldy global financial structure threaten the strength of the dollar. Unless these trends are reversed, the authors predict, the U.S. economy will face sharp decline.Summarizing a large amount of troubling data, the authors show that manufacturing has declined from 40 percent of GDP to under 10 percent in thirty years. Since consumption drives the American economy and since manufactured goods comprise the largest share of consumer purchases, clearly we will not be able to sustain the accumulating trade deficits.Rather than blame individuals, such as Greenspan or Bernanke, the authors focus on larger forces. Repairing the breach in our economy will require limits on free trade and the free international movement of capital; policies aimed at improving education, research, and infrastructure; reindustrialization; and the taxation of higher incomes.

Michel Foucault's death in 1984 coincided with the fading away of the hopes for social transformation that characterized the postwar period. In the decades following his death, neoliberalism has triumphed and attacks on social rights have become increasingly bold. If Foucault was not a direct witness of these years, his work on neoliberalism is nonetheless prescient: the question of liberalism occupies an important place in his last works. Since his death, Foucault's conceptual apparatus has acquired a central, even dominant position for a substantial segment of the world's intellectual left. However, as the contributions to this volume demonstrate, Foucault's attitude towards neoliberalism was at least equivocal. Far from leading an intellectual struggle against free market orthodoxy, Foucault seems in many ways to endorse it. How is one to understand his radical critique of the welfare state, understood as an instrument of biopower? Or his support for the pandering anti-Marxism of the so-called new philosophers? Is it possible that Foucault was seduced by neoliberalism? This question is not merely of biographical interest: it forces us to confront more generally the mutations of the left since May 1968, the disillusionment of the years that followed and the profound transformations in the French intellectual field over the past thirty years. To understand the 1980s and the neoliberal triumph is to explore the most ambiguous corners of the intellectual left through one of its most important figures.

Macroeconomic research on human capital - the stock of human capabilities and knowledge - has been extensively published but to date the literature has lacked a comprehensive analysis of human capital within the organization. The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital has been designed to fill that gap, providing an authoritative, inter-disciplinary, and up to date survey of relevant concepts, research areas, and applications. Specially commissioned contributions from over 40 authors reveal the importance of human capital for contemporary organizations, exploring its conceptual underpinnings, relevance to theories of the firm, implications for organizational effectiveness, interdependencies with other resources, and role in the future economy. Unlike neoclassical macroeconomic concepts of human capital, human capital in organizations is shown to be dynamic and heterogeneous, requiring new theories and management frameworks. The systemic role of human capital is explored, revealing it as the lynchpin of social, structural and other forms of intangible and tangible capital. Connections between human capital and organizational performance are investigated from HR management, procurement, alignment, value appropriation, and accounting perspectives. Links between micro and macro perspectives are provided through analyses of inter firm human capital mobility, national and regional human capital formation regimes and industry employment relations practices. This Handbook is designed for scholars and graduate students of organization and management theory, strategy, entrepreneurship, knowledge and intellectual capital, accounting, IT, HR, IR, economic sociology and cultural studies. For policy makers and practitioners it should provide an up to date guide to the nature and role of human capital in contemporary organizations and the roles that government, industry and other extra firm institutions can play in facilitating its development.

This stimulating and refreshing study, written by one of the leading commentators in the field, provides novel answers to these crucial questions. "What's Wrong With Ethnography provides a fresh look at the rationale for and distinctiveness of ethnographic research in sociology, education and related fields, and succeeds in slaying a number of currently fashionable sacred cows. Relativism, critical theory, the uniqueness of the case study and the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research are all examined and found wanting as a basis for informed ethnography. The policy and political implications of ethnography are a particular focus of attention. The author compels the reader to reexamine some basic methodological assumptions in an exciting way", Martin Bulmer, London School of Economics.