This book looks at how to build more resilience into socio-economic networks within local communities. Understanding the relationships between attachment to place, complex systems and patterns of knowledge creation is not straightforward, but these relationships are emerging as the challenges that we face in bridging the gap between the social worlds that we inhabit and an emerging digital world. These issues have been brought into even sharper focus through changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, forced familiarity with communication technologies is driving globalisation forwards, whilst on the other, the crisis has created awareness of dependencies and heightened desires for more local solutions. Plenty of books have been written about the rise of digital networks and the decline of local communities. This book takes a radical approach by identifying how these trends fit together and provides examples of how digital networks can be made to work for the local as well as the global economy. Using a case study approach, the book offers a clear-sighted view of the role of relational capital in specific places and organisations and shows the transformational impact that they can have at a micro level. The book deliberately seeks to shake up preconceived ideas and is ideal for strategy practitioners and policy makers within governments and NGOs involved in connecting local to wider network economies.

In an era of post-globalization, the global political economy needs restructuring. This textbook examines the challenges facing the world economy as a result of climate change and social and economic inequality, and provides future-oriented solutions to them. Andersson presents and explains key concepts from Global Political Economy to show how to design and analyse potential reconstructions of the economic system. With a comprehensive exploration of the different ideological pathways that change might take, and taking account of gender, race and class, the author expertly guides the reader through thematic chapters, including: • the political economy of everyday life; • the regulation of global trade; • post-development; • the production of global value chains; • financial markets. This book will help readers see that global economic change is possible and support clear thinking about a global future that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable.

The upheavals of recent decades show us that traditional models of understanding processes of social and economic change are failing to capture real-world risk and volatility. This has resulted in flawed policy that seeks to capture change in terms of the rise or decline of regimes or regions. In order to comprehend current events, understand future risks and decide how to prepare for them, we need to consider economies and social orders as open, complex networks. This highly original work uses the tools of network analysis to understand great transitions in history, particularly those concerning economic development and globalisation. Hilton L. Root shifts attention away from particular agents – whether individuals, groups, nations or policy interventions – and toward their dynamic interactions. Applying insights from complexity science to often overlooked variables across European and Chinese history, he explores the implications of China's unique trajectory and ascendency, as a competitor and counterexample to the West.

The institutional shortcomings of the World Trade Organization (WTO) became apparent during the Doha Round of Trade negotiations that began in 2001 and which aimed to improve the success of developing countries' trading by lowering trade barriers and adjusting other trade rules. This "development agenda" meant different things to rich and poor countries. In addition, many of the circumstances that supported success in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations of 1947 were no longer present after the WTO was founded in 1995. In Reconstructing the World Trade Organization for the 21st Century, Kent Jones examines the difficulties of the WTO in completing multilateral trade negotiations and possible ways to restore its ability to do so. The problem lies in the institutional structure it inherited from the GATT, which was designed for a more limited scope of trade negotiations among a relatively small number of wealthier, industrialized countries. Jones presents an institutional model of the GATT/WTO system, which describes why such an organization exists and how it is supposed to accomplish its goals. Institutional reforms will be necessary to restore the WTO's ability to complete global trade agreements, including a more flexible application of the consensus rule, a common understanding among all members about the limits of domestic policy space that is subject to negotiation, and clearer rules on reciprocity obligations. The popularity of bilateral and regional trade agreements, which have emerged as the alternative to WTO agreements, presents a threat to the WTO's relevance in trade negotiations, but also an opportunity to "multilateralize" new and deeper trade integration in future WTO agreements. Aid for trade may also play an instrumental role in bringing more developing countries into WTO disciplines. Above all, WTO members must develop new ways to find common ground in order to negotiate for mutual gains from trade.

Introduction : Economic transitions in surprising places -- What's wrong with what we've got? Rising tides, trickle down, and other economic myths -- Renewing households and communities : from consumptive dependence to productive resilience -- Unleashing local living economies : from trickle-down problems to bottom-up solutions -- Building broadly based and durable prosperity : from concentrated wealth and widespread insecurity to worker ownership and community capital -- Taking sustainability to scale : from a thousand flickers of light to networks of learning, doing, and change -- Rebuilding a meaningful public debate : from debilitating corporate media to energizing civic conversations -- Transforming politics from the bottom up : unleashing a community-based politics of engagement to overcome the lobbyists and moneyed elites -- Conclusion : Creating a new story, from the bottom up.

The definitive text on globalization, this book provides an accessible, jargon-free analysis of how the world economy works and its effects on people and places. Peter Dicken synthesizes the latest ideas and empirical data to blaze a clear path through the thicket of globalization processes and debates. The book highlights the dynamic interactions among transnational corporations, nations, and other key players, and their role in shaping the uneven contours of development. Mapping the changing centers of gravity of the global economy, Dicken presents in-depth case studies of six major industries. Now in full color throughout, the text features 228 figures. Companion websites for students and instructors offer extensive supplemental resources, including author videos, applied case studies with questions, lecture notes with PowerPoint slides, discipline-specific suggested further reading for each chapter, and interactive flashcards. ÿ ÿ New to This Edition: *Every chapter thoroughly revised and updated. *All 228 figures (now in color) are new or redesigned. *Addresses the ongoing fallout from the recent global financial crisis. *Discussions of timely topics: tax avoidance and corporate social responsibility; global problems of unemployment, poverty, and inequality; environmental degradation; the Eurozone crisis; and more. *Enhanced online resources for instructors and students.

Neoclassical economics, the intellectual bedrock of modern capitalism, faces growing criticisms, as many of its key assumptions and policy prescriptions are systematically challenged. Yet, there remains one field of economics where these limitations continue virtually unchallenged: the study of cities and regions in built-environment economics. In this book, Franklin Obeng-Odoom draws on institutional, Georgist and Marxist economics to clearly but comprehensively show what the key issues are today in thinking about urban economics. In doing so, he demonstrates the widespread tensions and contradictions in the status quo, showing how to reconstruct urban economics in order to create a more just society and environment.