Corporatism has brought Mexico unparalleled stability among Latin American countries. However, Mexico's increasing linkage to international markets has unleashed liberalizing forces at home that undermine the corporatists' regime. MEXICO: CORPORATISM TO PLURALISM begins by defining corporatism and then moves to discuss and analyze the affects of the PRI and its corporate and trade policies on Mexican government and society.
Many of the basic issues of political science have been addressed by pluralist theory, which focuses on the competing interests of a democratic polity, their organization, and their influence on policy. Andrew McFarland shows that this approach still provides a promising foundation for understanding the American political process.
Examining 36 democracies from 1945 to 2010, this text arrives at conclusions about what type of democracy works best. It demonstrates that consensual systems stimulate economic growth, control inflation and unemployment, and limit budget deficits.
This book offers a systematic and basic introduction to corporatism in the context of liberal democracies. Corporatism has been heralded as one of the most important concepts to have emerged recently in the social sciences. It has led to both theoretical or definitional work on the corporatist model, and to the application of the model to empirical studies. The literature on corporatism is extensive, diverse and complex, reflecting the wide-ranging importance of the model. In this introductory text, Peter Williamson draws together the central issues in corporatism and provides a critical guide to the theories and findings of work within the corporatist approach. Individual topics are linked to the wider concerns of representation, democracy, conflict and stability, and state and market in liberal democracies. Corporatist theory is explained and diversities of approach examined. It is contrasted with the pluralist model, and the methodological and theoretical issues of dispute between corporatists and pluralists are explored. Corporatism in Perspective is written for students in government and politics, political sociology, political economy, public policy and administration, and social policy and administration.
Corporatism is the third great ideolgy of modern social and political organization and it is one of the main organizing concepts used in comparative political analysis. This study traces corporatism in history, analyzes its modern practice and shows the rise of corporatism in the US.
The chapters in this volume reconsider fundamental premises about state and society in advanced capitalist countries. That social scientists in different disciplines of varying methodological and political persuasions should have found it useful to collaborate in such an undertaking is testimony to the profound social, economic and political shocks experienced by all advanced capitalist nations since to late 1960s. The energy crisis, the end of rapid economic growth, inflation, high unemployment and rising social conflict challenge conventional conceptions about the functioning of industrial societies and their future course. Social science theories have been unable to illuminate these realities.
This reissued work, originally published in 1985, is a uniquely broad and original survey of theories and beliefs about the growth, behaviour, performance and reform of the governments of modern Western democracies. After analysing the external pressures which have shaped modern governments, the author examines four different schools of political thought which seek to explain the behaviour and performance of governments, and which offer different remedies for the pluralism, corporatism and bureaucracy. To examine and test these general theories, the author looks closely at how governments actually work. The book is illustrated with examples drawn from various Western societies. The final chapters present the author’s own conclusion about the future role of government, the limits of market philosophy, the future of politics, and the principles and problems of institutional reform.
The Great Recession, institutional dysfunction, a growing divide between urban and rural prospects, and failed efforts to effectively address immigration have paved the way for a populist backlash that disrupts the postwar bargain between political elites and citizens. Whether today’s populism represents a corrective to unfair and obsolete policies or a threat to liberal democracy itself remains up for debate. Yet this much is clear: these challenges indict the triumphalism that accompanied liberal democratic consolidation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. To respond to today’s crisis, good leaders must strive for inclusive economic growth while addressing fraught social and cultural issues, including demographic anxiety, with frank attention. Although reforms may stem the populist tide, liberal democratic life will always leave some citizens unsatisfied. This is a permanent source of vulnerability, but liberal democracy will endure so long as citizens believe it is worth fighting for.
