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This chapter discusses the emergence of downgraded and informal sectors of European labour markets staffed by socially marginal migrants and ethnic minorities. These parts of the economy and the labour market seem to represent a ‘pre-modern’ regression in terms of organization and management. Yet the processes through which this occurs are part and parcel of advanced capitalist strategies of deregulation for the enhancement of ‘flexibility’ in terms of a networked economy and society and a fragmented labour market. This point is illustrated by case studies of industrial restructuring from Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. These examples exhibit advanced corporate strategies heading the ongoing restructuring of the political economy and European societies, and reflect processes typical for different economic sectors. The cases also demonstrate the impact of the different national institutional contexts and welfare regimes in which these strategies of restructuring are embedded.

The chapter examines the question of whether there is a relationship between women's poor access to productive resources such as land, property, income, employment, technology, credit, and education, and their likelihood of experiencing gender-based violence and abuse. It begins with a discussion of the feminist political economy method, which seeks to comprehend broader, global political-economic structures that underpin gender inequality and women's vulnerability to violence. It then illustrates with specific examples how the feminist political economy method might be used to analyse violence against women in four strategic sites: (i) neo-liberal economic restructuring and men's reaction to the loss of secure employment; (ii) economic destabilisation and transition; (iii) the growth of a sex trade around the creation of free trade zones; and (iv) the transnational migration of women workers.

Argentina experienced a number of economic crises during the last two decades, however, these crises were followed by transformations of its economy. These crises and transformations have clearly affected the living standards of the different levels of its society and the labour employment. In Argentina, it was shown that a people who have fixed income have less risk of mortality compared to those who were not employed. Another observation was that females are more likely to die than males if socioeconomic indicators are included. Psychosocial stress is still attributed as one of the contributors in the mortality rate, but this time, in Argentina. Furthermore, it must be noted that in Buenos Aires there was a notable increase in divorce and separations which contributed to change in the economic function of a person, which in turn may affect mortality rate.

The economic restructuring of metropolitan areas has had disparate impacts on neighborhoods populated by minority groups. This chapter examines the impacts of the restructuring of the US economy in the 1980s and 1990s on metropolitan neighborhoods occupied by African Americans and compares this to white communities. It examines the determinants of changing poverty rates, the role played by economic restructuring, the disparate racial neighborhood impacts, and the causes of such impacts. The analysis shows that economic restructuring caused significant increases in poverty rates in black communities relative to predominant white communities.

This chapter examines the problems encountered by France, Germany, and Italy as they each embarked on economic restructuring after World War I. A new bourgeois equilibrium seemed attainable in each country during the period; it rested on a consensus that united elites and middle classes against militant working-class claims. Capitalism and bourgeois hierarchies proved more resilient than either defenders or attackers had assumed. Furthermore, the movement of restoration was wider than the three societies. Across the Atlantic, “red scare” and recession were ushering in the era of normalcy. The chapter considers the evolution of leftist objectives in France, Germany, and Italy that accompanied the transition from the turmoil of 1918–1919 to the bourgeois recovery of 1920–1921. It also discusses the strategies of bourgeois defense and the failure of socialization in the German coal industry.

Despite Mexico’s economic restructuring to a market-based model and its transition to democracy, two processes that should have yielded changes in labor legislation and the practice of labor relations, neither significant flexibilization of the labor code nor democratization of labor relations occurred between 1988 and 2012. Analysis of Mexico during this period indicates that this high degree of continuity is mainly attributable to the specific configuration taken by the country’s neoliberal economic model. This configuration generated a structure of incentives for political and labor elites to favor the persistence of non-democratic patterns of labor relations and to leave the country’s labor legislation essentially untouched.

Reforming the old system, rather than adopting an Anglo-American model, is essential to make it better suited and more flexible in adjusting to the new realities of the region and the rest of the world. Although the Asian crisis provided a strong impetus for structural transformation, the internal and external developments that have slowed or impeded the reform process are examined.

This chapter examines three different perspectives on economic restructuring as a civic or public problem for local democracy. These models view economic restructuring as either a problem for government decision-makers, a problem of public–private partnership, or a problem of cultivating innovative ideas, perspectives which also help in identifying problems that need to be solved by public, private, and nongovernmental sectors in the process of restructuring. The barriers and decisions faced by different stakeholders while mobilizing resources for the transformation of a local economy are also discussed. The chapter emphasizes that partnerships and cooperative networks are needed for transforming a local economy, as the problems and challenges associated with this kind of economic restructuring are complex and serious.

This chapter discusses the role of a political party, the Workers' Party, in creating an open society and economy in Brazil by using participatory democracy as a problem-solving tool. It also examines efforts of activists and entrepreneurial local governments in reviving and redirecting Brazil's industrial hub around São Paulo, known as the Greater ABC region. The Greater ABC case highlights the importance of public participation, transparent government, sustainable development, and practices of deliberation and democratic bargaining on the part of local government led by the Workers' Party. The chapter also emphasizes the use of civic capacity in economic restructuring in the region. The competitive challenges being faced by many developing countries, including Brazil, in a globalized economy and the importance of resource mobilization and institution-building in countering these challenges are also discussed.

This chapter discusses how city-regions (enormous expanses of metropolitan areas, which are often focused on a central metropolis area) and world cities/global cities are produced, and how they contribute to globalization and the regionalism of economies. It begins by explaining globalization and the emergence of regional centers, especially during the post-war years. It also explains how after much technological change and economic restructuring, these types of areas are formed. It describes how economic foundations are formed, and how these transformations in city living spread globally. It also reveals how political organizations are established in these city-regions.

This chapter examines barriers, opportunities, and choices encountered by actors during the economic restructuring in greater Pittsburgh, a major industrial American city, and also discusses the efforts made by interest groups and organizations in the formation and implementation of an effective and widely supported agenda: Economic restructuring. It highlights the inadequacies of a public–private cooperation mechanism with an increase in the functional and spatial demands of restructuring toward the end of the twentieth century. An analysis of how the Allegheny Conference played an important role in cleaning up the environment, rebuilding downtown, and reorganizing land use is also presented.

This book addresses the economic development issues central to neighbourhood renewal. It analyses the economic nature of the problems of deprived neighbourhoods and the policy responses that have developed in response to this within Britain. The analysis centres upon understanding contemporary economic change and the post-1997 period of the New Labour government, but it is also placed within a wider context of longer-term processes of economic restructuring and a history of policy intervention that dates back for well over 40 years. The book focuses on three elements that have dominated policy development and implementation in relation to tackling concentrated deprivation in recent years, i.e., work, enterprise and governance. The other major aspect that is associated with economic development of deprived areas — the physical redevelopment of such areas — is considered in relation to the wider policy agenda and the issues of work, enterprise and governance, but is not pursued as a separate theme.

After the communist regime collapsed, the education system in Romania had to cope with several problems. The system was designed to provide skilled workers for an industrialised country, and, during the 1990s, the entire industry underwent a difficult and painful restructuring process. The Romanian labour market suffered from the economic restructuring process. Unemployment rates were moderate, but participation rates were quite low and a high share of people were engaged in the agricultural sector. These rates reveal that the Romanian labour market did not provide sufficient employment opportunities despite its strong economic growth in the new millennium. Unlike other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, Romania did not embark on retrenchment in the area of social policies until the mid-to late-1990s. Unemployment benefit constituted the central policy measure for dealing with the rising number of unemployed in the course of restructuring.

This chapter examines the shift in several Asian countries away from import substitution toward a greater emphasis on export-oriented industrialization (EOI). The shift to EOI occurred initially in Asia's four newly industrializing countries during the 1960s and 1970s, in part in response to new external opportunities created by growing Japanese international subcontracting and direct investment, by expanding world markets, and by increased demand for logistics and supplies on the part of the U.S. military in its prosecution of the Vietnam War. This new strategy, and the dramatic economic transformations and growth with which it was often associated, led many scholars and policymakers to believe that East Asia's open export-led growth offers a new model of outward-oriented market-led industrial development. This chapter first provides an overview of EOI in Asia before discussing state enterprise reform as a strand of economic restructuring and its impact on Asian employment.

This chapter describes the ethnoburb, a new type of suburb that expresses a set of contemporary ethnic relations involving interethnic group and intraethnic class tension or cooperation in a unique spatial form and internal socioeconomic structure. After providing an overview of the conceptual model of the ethnoburb and linking it to the framework of ethnicity and space, the chapter explains how the ethnoburb is formed as an alternative ethnic settlement. It then discusses a framework of connections between global and national economic restructuring trends as well as possible sites of ethnoburbs, along with other factors that contribute to the formation of ethnoburbs, including geopolitics, U.S. immigration policy, and locality conditions. It also examines the ethnoburb's position in the contemporary socioeconomic and political fabric, as well as how it engages with different kinds of social and economic relationships. Finally, it explores how the ethnoburb differs from ghettos and ethnic enclaves and outlines some theoretical considerations regarding ethnoburbs.