Political scientists, sociologists, and economists have all sought to analyze the spread of economic and political liberalism across countries in recent decades. This article documents this diffusion of liberal policies and politics and proposes four distinct theories to explain how the prior...

The diffusion of markets and democracy around the world was a defining feature of the late twentieth century. Many social scientists view this economic and political liberalization as the product of independent choices by national governments. This book argues that policy and political changes...

The worldwide spread of economic and political liberalism was one of the defining features of the late twentieth century. Free-market oriented economic reforms – macroeconomic stabilization, liberalization of foreign economic policies, privatization, and deregulation – took root in many...

The worldwide spread of economic and political liberalism was the defining feature of the late twentieth century. Free-market-oriented economic reforms -- macroeconomic stabilization, liberalization of foreign economic policies, privatization, and deregulation -- took root in many parts of the...

Social scientists have sketched four distinct theories to explain a phenomenon that appears to have ramped up in recent years, the diffusion of policies across countries. Constructivists trace policy norms to expert epistemic communities and international organizations, who define economic...

Regulating discrimination: the paradox of a weak state -- Washington outlaws discrimination with a broad brush -- The end of Jim Crow: the personnel arsenal put to new purposes -- Washington means business: personnel experts fashion a system of compliance -- Fighting bias with bureaucracy -- The...

Economic sociology is a rapidly expanding field, applying sociology's core insight--that individuals behave according to scripts that are tied to social roles--to economic behavior. It places homo economicus (that tried-and-true fictive actor who is completely rational, acts only out of...