"This book explores the intellectual history, nature, and consequences of commodification. While many use the term commodification, few realize that it was only introduced in the 1970s by Marxist scholars in Britain and the US. However, while Marxists initially used commodification to challenge...

The EU has long viewed economic and institutional convergence as important goals, but the results thus far have been decidedly mixed, and there remain several open questions: How exactly should convergence be defined? How much convergence is necessary? What steps can be taken to improve...

1. Introduction / Christoph Hermann and Jorg Flecker -- 2. The process of liberalisation, privatisation and marketisation / Christoph Hermann and Koen Verhoest -- 3. Concentration and disintegration : company responses in the electricity sector and consequences for employment / Christoph Hermann...

This book addresses the EU as powerful driver of the wave of privatizations in the network industries and public services since the early 1990s. Based on theoretical arguments and empirical studies it examines the impact of these policies on what is regarded as the normative pillars of the...