This book explores the history and global expansion of AB Volvo, one of the hundred largest corporations in the world, through the experiences of its workers in Sweden, Mexico, South Africa, and India. It investigates how neo-liberalisation has transformed the company into a promoter of lean production, at the expense of the workers' needs.
"In a world that has become increasingly interconnected over the past decades - economically, politically, socially, and culturally - new challenges are posed to development. Since the 1980s, development has increasingly become interpreted in terms of increasing integration into the world economy. Export-oriented manufacturing became widely viewed as the surest recipe for realizing economic growth while reducing income inequality, and the role of foreign direct investments became increasingly important in development strategies worldwide. However, not every region, industry and social group managed to become successfully integrated into the world economy. In order to explain why these processes of economic restructuring have had such a differential impact, this study situates developments within a wider historical social and political context to establish how these processes of globalization are mediated at the regional and local level. The main object of study concerns the drastic socioeconomic transformation that has taken place in the state of Coahuila - situated in the northeast of Mexico, bordering the United States - over the past three decades. In particular since the start of NAFTA in 1994, Coahuila has become one of Mexico's most successful export-oriented manufacturing states, most importantly as a result of the large number of foreign direct investments it received. However, the effects of these developments have been unevenly distributed among its sub-regions, while questions must also be raised about its ability to contribute to sustained, long-term growth with equity. The key issue appears to be not whether, but how regions and localities become linked to the world economy."--page 4 of cover
Summarizes the principal outcome of ILO work in the region. Includes listings of technical cooperation projects and of books, reports, CD-ROMs, videos, and CINTERFOR publications issued.
This book explores key metropolitan management issues, presents practical principles of good governance as they apply to the metropolis, and unfolds cases of institutional and programmatic arrangements to tackle such issues.
As economic crises, growing inequality and climate change prompt a global debate on the meaning and trajectory of development, increasing attention is focusing on 'social and solidarity economy' as a distinctive approach to sustainable and rights-based development. While we are beginning to understand what social and solidarity economy is, what it promises and how it differs from 'business as usual', we know far less about whether it can really move beyond its fringe status in many countries and regions. Under what conditions can social and solidarity economy scale up and scale out - that is, expand in terms of the growth of social and solidarity economy organizations and enterprises, or spread horizontally within given territories? Bringing together leading researchers, blending theoretical and empirical analysis, and drawing on experiences and case studies from multiple countries and regions, this volume addresses these questions. In so doing, it aims to inform a broad constituency of development actors, including scholars, practitioners, activists and policy makers.
With a focus predominantly on the two governments of José Maria Aznar between 1996 and 2004, and the José Luis Zapatero government after 2004, this book provides an introduction for students of Spain's history and its contemporary politics.
