Publisher's Synopsis
This text introduces the study of international economic and political structures with a social and collective learning approach.;Focusing on major international economic organizations, it examines how managers in public and private sectors cope with international change in the 20th century. Isaak stresses the tactics available to weak and emergent new patterns of international behaviour that may improve equality, standards of life and the enduring structural barriers to their adoption.;Features of the book are illustrations of how collective learning takes place by introducing different levels of analysis, comparisons of different schools of international political economy including Liberalism, Marxism and Structuralism (and how they each interpret issues such as money, trade, investment and economic development). The text also includes a comparative focus on educational, management and political economic systems such as the US, Japan, USSR, China, Hungary, Kenya, Sweden and Mexico. It stresses successful economic breakthroughs and strategies in various organizations and states and includes useful information on current issues such as perestroika, Chinese economic reform and subsequent repression, East European revolution and the rise of Japanese and German competitiveness. There is a description of key international organizations such as the IMF, World Bank, GATT, UNCTAD, OPEC, EC and MNG's. Each chapter is organized into three functional sections - origins, interpretations and implications.
