Lawrence P. Markowitz draws on his extensive fieldwork in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to advance a theory of state failure focused on unlootable resources, rent seeking, and unruly elites.

Stephen J. Silvia examines the oscillations of the German economy across the entire postwar period through one of its most important components: the industrial relations system.

This book offers that closer look at the evolution of public finance in Belgium over the decade 2000–2010.

Although economic explanations for the Great Recession have proliferated, the political causes and consequences of the crisis have received less systematic attention. This is the first book to focus on it as a political rather than an economic crisis.

Developing a framework to study "what makes a region," Amitav Acharya investigates the origins and evolution of Southeast Asian regionalism and international relations.

"The State of Working America remains unrivaled as the most-trusted source for a comprehensive understanding of how working Americans and their families are faring in today's economy."—Robert B. Reich

Gerald M. Easter shows how the cumulative result of multiple big and small battles between state coercion and societal capital gave rise to postcommunism's variant political and economic institutions.

Prosper or Perish describes a massive ongoing problem for China's economic dvelopment: the difficulty of administering loans to Rural Credit Cooperatives in a way that assists rural households.

Dorothee Bohle and Bela Geskovits trace the fundamental decisions made by postsocialist countries that have joined the European Union since 2004 or are candidates to do so.