Black and (Thin) Blue (Line): Corruption and Other Political Determinants of Police Killings in America

Traditionally Germany has been categorized as the archetypical conservative welfare state, a categorization not systematically questioned in much of the comparative welfare state regime literature. For many scholars Germany was largely stuck and unable to reform its coordinated market economy and welfare state arrangements at the turn of the twenty-first century, due to a large number of veto points and players and the dominance of two ‘welfare state parties’. More recent research has highlighted a widening and deepening of the historically institutionalized social protection dualism, whilst at the same time significant family policy transformations, which can be considered as partially in line with the social investment paradigm, have been emphasized. This chapter sets out to sketch the main policy developments and aims to identify political determinants of social policy change in Germany.

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The Politics of Global Health Inequalities

The Oxford Handbook of Global Health Politics ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190456818.013.15 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 58-84

Author(s):

Yusra Ribhi Shawar ◽

Jennifer Prah Ruger

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Critical Theory ◽

Global Health ◽

Health Inequalities ◽

Health Inequality ◽

The Political ◽

State Of Health ◽

Political Determinants ◽

The Social

Careful investigations of the political determinants of health that include the role of power in health inequalities—systematic differences in health achievements among different population groups—are increasing but remain inadequate. Historically, much of the research examining health inequalities has been influenced by biomedical perspectives and focused, as such, on ‘downstream’ factors. More recently, there has been greater recognition of more ‘distal’ and ‘upstream’ drivers of health inequalities, including the impacts of power as expressed by actors, as well as embedded in societal structures, institutions, and processes. The goal of this chapter is to examine how power has been conceptualised and analysed to date in relation to health inequalities. After reviewing the state of health inequality scholarship and the emerging interest in studying power in global health, the chapter presents varied conceptualisations of power and how they are used in the literature to understand health inequalities. The chapter highlights the particular disciplinary influences in studying power across the social sciences, including anthropology, political science, and sociology, as well as cross-cutting perspectives such as critical theory and health capability. It concludes by highlighting strengths and limitations of the existing research in this area and discussing power conceptualisations and frameworks that so far have been underused in health inequalities research. This includes potential areas for future inquiry and approaches that may expand the study of as well as action on addressing health inequality.

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The Comparative Political Economy of Growth Models: Explaining the Continuity of FDI-Led Growth in Ireland and Hungary

Politics & Society ◽

10.1177/0032329220985723 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 49 (1) ◽

pp. 75-106

Author(s):

Dorothee Bohle ◽

Aidan Regan

Keyword(s):

Capital Investment ◽

Multinational Firms ◽

Growth Models ◽

Case Study Research ◽

Comparative Case Study ◽

Oriented Growth ◽

Political Determinants ◽

Growth Regime ◽

Business Power ◽

Comparative Capitalism

This article argues that the quiet politics of informal business-state interaction explains the political determinants of growth regimes. Building on the business power literature within the study of comparative capitalism, it shows that the noisy politics of elections often leads to changes of government but rarely to fundamental changes in the growth regime. Rather, growth models can be traced to the interactions and interests of dominant corporations within a country and its policymaking elites. The argument is developed through a comparative case study research design, using the case of foreign direct investment–led (FDI-led) growth in Ireland and Hungary. FDI-led growth regimes are a universe of cases that rely on state-led industrial and enterprise policies targeting the capital investment of foreign-owned multinational firms. Despite periods of noisy electoral politics challenging basic tenets of the FDI-led growth model in both Hungary and Ireland, the continuity of FDI-oriented growth is traced to the corporate politics of business-state elite deals.

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