Contemporary Economic Sociology
Globalization, Production, Inequality
Contemporary Economic Sociology closely examines critical and contemporary issues in the sociology of economic life. Bringing together a range of theoretical perspectives, Fran Tonkiss examines major shifts in the organization of economy and society - from the politics of globalization to the cultural economy, social exclusion and the 'end' of class. This new volume is organized around three core themes (globalization, production and inequality) and answers the questions: how are transnational processes re-making contemporary economies? can capitalist globalization be governed or resisted? do class relations still shape people’s social identities? how can we think about inequality in national and international contexts? Key changes in each of these domains raise new challenges for analyzing social and economic relations, power, agency and identity. Setting these changes in a transnational context, this book examines how these issues are being re-shaped in contemporary societies, and explores competing frameworks for understanding such changes. Drawing on arguments from economic sociology, politics and policy studies, political economy and critical geography, the text focuses on both conceptual approaches to the social study of the economy, and trans-national processes of social and economic restructuring. The arguments provide a critical overview of current concerns for economic sociology, and extend the boundaries of the discipline to a new set of questions. The text is particularly relevant to undergraduate and graduate students and scholars in the fields of economic and political sociology, politics and government, geography, economics and international relations.

Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
Organisation of the book
Part I
Economic globalisation
1 Capitalism and globalisation
Economic globalisation
The capitalist world economy
The ‘new imperialism’: accumulation by dispossession
Globalisation as the new imperialism?
Conclusion
2 A new global economy?
The globalisation ‘myth’
Modes of global integration
The economy of signs, flows and networks
Global ‘scapes’
The network economy: Castells
Conclusion
3 The politics of economic globalisation: governance and resistance
Globalisation and the question of governance
The ‘crisis’ of the nation state
International economic governance
Civil society and economic governance
Anti-globalisation movements
Conclusion
Part II
Production
4 Fordism and after
Fordism
The crisis of Fordism
After Fordism
Post-Fordist problems
Conclusion
5 Knowledge, information, signs
Post-industrial society: the economic role of knowledge
Information society
The ‘economy of signs’
From non-material products to ‘nothings’
Culture and economy
Summary of key changes
Part III
Social identities and economic divisions
6 Class
Neo-Marxist accounts
Weberian analysis: market position and status
Changing formations of class and work
Class in a global context
Conclusion
7 Inequality
Inequality ‘after’ class
Structures of inequality
Global inequalities
Poverty, inequality, insecurity: challenges for human development
Conclusion
Bibliography