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Beginning in the 1970s, the previously dominant US corporate enterprises faced an intensification of competition in both the mass‐production and high‐technology industries. The nature and gravity of the competitive threat varied, partly because of differences in resource allocation governance, yet in both types of industry, fundamental challenges to the technological and economic supremacy of the USA were posed by enterprises in different social environments that developed and utilized broader and deeper skill bases to generate higher‐quality, lower‐cost products. In the case of the Japanese especially, the challenges came from enterprises that integrated into processes of organizational learning not only managerial employees (as the Americans had done), but also shop‐floor employees and employees of subsidiary enterprises that functioned as suppliers and distributors. These competitive challenges demanded a response from US corporate enterprises, but as they struggled with what was going on in the productive sphere, the ground had also shifted in the financial sphere: in particular, with the rise of institutional investors, and the increasing pressures that they placed on corporate enterprises to deliver higher returns on their corporate stocks, the commitment of financial resources to corporate strategies came under considerable pressure. The two main sections of this chapter address these issues: Sect. 5.2 discusses the productive challenges and the rise of the new competition, and Sect. 5.3 discusses the growing pressures for financial liquidity, which manifested themselves in a particularly aggressive form in the 1980s with the rise of a market for corporate control, and when that market collapsed in the late 1980s, in leading institutional investors seeking other levers for influencing corporate resource allocation in a movement that has been characterized as the rise of institutional investor activism.

In recent decades the institutional foundations of organizational control in Germany have proven to be more enduring than those in the USA, but, nevertheless various pressures have built up on the German system of corporate governance that raise questions about its sustainability in its current form. Some of these pressures emanate from sources external to the operation of the domestic corporate economy, such as the processes of European integration and German reunification, but the more powerful pressures reflect financial and productive challenges that are integrally related to the evolving political economy of the German corporate sector. First, pressures for financial liquidity have increased; as Germans have grown wealthier, they have been moving their savings out of bank deposits and into more market‐based instruments, a trend that is likely to lead to increased demands for higher returns on corporate securities; these pressures are discussed in Sect. 8.2. The second formidable challenge to the German system of organizational control, that posed by international competition, especially from Japan, is discussed in Sect. 8.3; the Japanese competitive challenge is fundamentally an organizational one since it confronts the social foundations on which German enterprises have successfully competed in the past even in high‐quality niches in which they have previously been unrivalled. Together, and in combination with forces external to the German economy, these structural changes in the German economy (the one financial, the other productive) may challenge the foundations of the post‐war system of corporate governance; Sect. 8.4 documents some of the political responses to these challenges from key interest groups and, in particular, labour and financial interests in the German economy; Sect. 8.5 concludes by drawing out some of the possible implications of these responses for the future of German corporate governance.

The growing demands for financial liquidity, combined with the productive challenges discussed in the previous chapter, created significant pressures on the stability of the post‐war system of managerial control in the USA. In the 1980s and 1990s, the US corporate economy reacted to these combined pressures in what, in historical perspective, were dramatic ways. The most striking dimension of the general corporate response was the growing propensity of US corporations in that period to downsize their workforces and to distribute corporate revenues to stockholders. The strategy to ‘downsize and distribute’ stands in contrast to the historical norm for these corporations of favouring the retention of corporate revenues for reinvestment in plant, equipment, and personnel. This chapter has two main sections that (1) address the factors that underlay the prevalence and persistence of strategies to downsize and distribute among US corporate enterprises, and (2) assess the implications of the strategies to downsize and distribute.

This chapter discusses the political pressure on the Garda Síochána. It also describes the financial pressure on the Defence Forces, and the Anglo-Irish considerations in Irish national security policy. The most influential literature on the Garda finds that government ministers can, and do, interfere with the operational duties of the force, especially at moments of perceived political crisis. Walsh focuses on the Garda Síochána Act 1924 and Police Forces Amalgamation Act 1925 which provided the force's statutory underpinning. Ireland's overseas profile flattered a ‘bare-minimum’ policy of defence investment. Immigration control is an important area because since 9/11 Irish policy managers have emphasised the risk of terrorist cells emerging from within the State's new migrant community. Over time, Anglo-Irish cooperation on intelligence, policing, immigration and law has steadily improved. The desire to preserve the Common Travel Area helped place immigration at the core of Irish security policy.

This chapter tries to determine the financial pressures being faced by the government. It focuses on the areas that have enjoyed fiscal commitments by successive parties in power. The chapter studies the financial trends present in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and presents an exploratory analysis of the underlying politics of these trends. It looks at the brief history of the public finances in Tamil Nadu, and identifies the two major policy initiatives using the budgetary allocations as an indicator. The first policy initiative is the Noon Meal Scheme (NMS), one of the most famous pro-poor interventions in India. This intervention shows a rising trend of an increasing number of feeding centres across the country, leading to the increasing number of children who benefit from these feeding centres. The second policy initiative is irrigation, which shows an increase in public expenditure in this sector.

This chapter discusses the use of several frameworks by health authorities. It examines the practical responses of health authority decision-makers to the financial pressures imposed upon them and the way in which the courts have developed a legal framework within which their decisions should be made. As the process of resource allocation has become more visible, so the courts have become more willing to demand reasons from health authorities for the difficult decisions they have to make. In this, there is a marked change of attitude. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the courts were entirely deferential to health authority decision-making in this area. Today, however, there is much greater willingness to scrutinise resource allocation decisions and, if needs be, to overturn them and refer them back for reconsideration.

Management of the reaction to the way that the Iraq invasion was authorised, coupled with management of deepening party divisions over domestic policy, provide the major focus of this chapter. Blair gave new indications of change in his leadership style whilst the covert practice of managerial control continued and accountability was constrained. Noted here also as an asset for Blair is the lack of appeal of enforced party regime change involving Brown. The methods of party management were the continuing cause of grievance and led, as shown here, to a new internal party organisation of the unions. That contributed towards the Warwick Agreement with the unions and an apparent change of the Leader’s approach towards the union relationship. Accusations of financial pressure are critically examined in this connection and shown, yet again, to be misconceived.

This chapter examines life on neoliberal welfare in Australia. We first scrutinise the ongoing changes in disability support since the start of the 1990s. The analysis illustrates how eligibility for the disability benefit has tightened and become more conditional over the last two decades. A crucial development is that an increasing number of disabled people who previously qualified for the disability support pension have been forced on to the unemployment benefit (Newstart) which is far less generous than the disability benefit. The second part of the chapter discusses the adequacy problems of the Newstart benefit and ongoing deficiencies in Australia’s welfare-to-work model. The final section examines the lived experience of Newstart recipients in an inner-city neighbourhood in Sydney. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Newstart recipients and survey research, it examines the impacts of having to survive on the extremely low Newstart benefit. The data illustrates that living on Newstart is a life of ‘hard yakka’, one where individuals are constantly faced with severe financial pressures which, in turn, have dire impacts on their living circumstances, social ties, health and capacity to (re)enter the work-force. The chapter highlights that for the growing disabled cohort dependent on Newstart life will be exceptionally difficult.