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This paper analyses the stalling of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and its systemic and institutional consequences through a geopolitical economy approach that integrates the French school of international economic relations and Régulation Theory. These approaches put states and their economic roles at the fore, correcting dominant free trade approaches to world trade. The paper also avoids monocausal explanations for trade talk deadlocks and aims to provide a comprehensive approach on the co-evolution of world trade patterns and its institutions. In this approach, the DDA stalemate is traced to an institution-structure mismatch in how states articulate their accumulation strategies and institutions (competition, state regulation, adhesion to international regime) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime occasioned by the emergence of new trade powers. This has given rise to three distinct conflicts in how member states navigate between the main parameters of the multilateral trading system (non-discrimination, reciprocity and balance of power) and their national accumulation strategies: the erosion of non-discrimination and reciprocity; the failure to build an operational compromise between development and ‘globalization’, that is, between multilateral openness and new trade and power balances; and the difficulty in reaching a compromise between historical and emerging capitalisms. The outcome of these conflicts will determine the institutional configuration of the post-Doha WTO agenda.

There have been a number of attempts to develop the Keynesian prescription of demand management to current neo‐liberal economic strategies. The arguments presented by the “French” regulation school and the “American” flexible specialisation scenario are examined to determine whether they are sufficiently coherent and robust to represent a new political economy model to challenge neo‐liberalism. The two models are analysed separately: the main hypotheses and points are outlined and the validity of the main criticisms against each is examined. It is concluded that neither represents a fully fledged political economy model but that some of the ideas developed by either may influence policy on a pragmatic and ad hoc basis.

Institutions underpin the operation of national economies. These differ significantly between countries reflecting varying historical paths, policy choices and national cultures. Moreover, they need to be understood systemically as an ensemble of relations between their component parts: financial systems, corporate governance, industrial relations, patterns of state intervention, etc., have evolved together so that their operation and effects tend to reinforce each other. Different countries faced by common exogenous changes will tend to evolve along different lines rather than converge. National institutions matter: they significantly affect economic performance and distribution.

The Fordist wage compromise may resemble an attempt to macroeconomically establish ethico-political rules governing the conflicting cooperation between capitalists and employees (Aglietta, 1998; Boyer, 1993). The question of the relationship between ethics and economics is, thus, not contemporaneous with the CSR movement. It is particularly misleading to see this recent movement as a fundamental break with the era of relationships between capital and labour, or even, as a definitive and modern break with the old ‘conflicting’ form of productive relations. The Fordist compromise represents a very subtle and substantial means of linking ethics and efficiency, but it is situated at the macro-social level, in contrast to the CSR movement.

This chapter reviews the recent polarisation of debates in agrofood and rural studies, in particular the opposition between network (social relations, actor-network) and political economy analyses. It explores the contributions of different network approaches and draws on the French convention and regulation traditions, which provide alternative guidelines for confronting micro–macro tensions. Networks have similarly assumed analytical centrality in the new institutional economics and subsequent elaborations of the Williamsonian transaction costs paradigm have involved an approximation to some of the central tenets of social network analysis. Alternative traditions of political economy analysis (Global Value Chains (GVC), Global Production Networks) are now making an important contribution to agrofood studies. A distinctive feature of these analysts is their overture to social networks, actor-network, transaction costs and convention theory in the effort to capture the multiple dimensions of economic power and coordination. The possibilities for a fruitful convergence between these apparently conflicting approaches are best captured in the emergence of the concept of the “netchain”. At the same time, the intractability of values to absorption within economic transactions suggests the need to move forward to a focus on the tensions between netchains and social movements and a different type of network, the global policy network.

The aim of the paper is to formally test that physical exhaustion is distinguishable from work exhaustion, and to investigate common as well as differential correlates of each type of exhaustion.

An on‐line survey sample of 1,895 complete‐data massage therapists and body workers (MT & BWs) was used to test the study hypotheses.

Factor analytic support was found for distinguishable measures of work exhaustion and physical exhaustion. In separate regression models common significant correlates for both types of exhaustion included: gender (females higher), higher surface acting, higher accumulated and continuing education occupational costs, and lower job satisfaction. However, job satisfaction had a significantly stronger negative correlation to work exhaustion versus physical exhaustion. Looking at impact on occupational outcomes, physical exhaustion had a stronger positive correlation to being forced to stay in occupation than work exhaustion, but work exhaustion had a stronger positive correlation to intent to leave occupation than physical exhaustion. Unique correlates for work exhaustion included more years in practice and lower education level, while unique correlates for physical exhaustion included: more average days worked/week, higher deep acting, and higher occupational identification.

From a measurement perspective, the three‐item measure of physical exhaustion and five item measure of work exhaustion each had a good reliability. However, ideally more items should be used to measure physical exhaustion, and other work exhaustion scales should be utilized to validate the results. Expanding the job demands‐resources framework to also include occupational‐level variables, such as accumulated costs, seems to hold promise for helping to further understand the antecedents of exhaustion.

Work and physical exhaustion can impact on occupational outcomes and are risks for other samples such as nurses, home health care aides, physical therapists, and athletic trainers. Many MT & BWs work alone and meditation is suggested as an effective method to improve job satisfaction, reduce work exhaustion and decrease occupational intent to leave.

The paper uses a sample of massage therapists and body workers and overall the findings suggest that work exhaustion and physical exhaustion are related but distinct exhaustion components.

This chapter argues that the European Union has been highly effective in creating an economic environment that buffers necessary macroeconomic change while at the same time protecting different domestic economic systems and institutions. Moreover, the EU, through its size and decision-making mechanisms, has prevented “race to the bottom” or “beggar thy neighbor” policies, forcing global companies to compete on the EU's terms. Finally, the chapter argues that the EU has succeeded in shaping aspects of globalization by, for example, making its product standards the international standards and resisting the US's policies on genetically modified organisms or data protection.