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Analysts of modern-day sub-Saharan Africa have argued that its “neopatrimonial regimes,” descending from pre-colonial polities, translate badly to the scale of the nation-state and hinder democratic accountability. In this paper, I argue by contrast that the problem with today’s failed or failing states is that they are not patrimonial enough, if we understand patrimonialism in classic Weberian terms as a system based on traditions of reciprocal interdependence between rulers and citizens, and characterized by personal but malleable ruling networks. I make this argument by showing how the Asante Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries shifted from a working model, incorporating both patrimonial and bureaucratic forms of authority, to an exploitative one that reneged on its traditional commitments to the wider public. The cause of this shift was the expansion of exchange with European nations as a rival avenue to power and wealth. This problem continues today, where African rulers are incentivized by the demands of global banks, the United Nations, and G20 governments rather than internal authority traditions, thus limiting their ability to establish locally effective and publically accountable hybrids of patrimonial and bureaucratic governance.

This study aims to investigate, by means of a balance sheet analysis, the equilibrium and capital, financial, economic and income dynamics of Italian wine producers, during and after the international economic crisis (2008-2017). Therefore, three research questions arise: What was the evolution of the main financial indicators and margins? Did the companies that survived the crisis increased their profitability? Have these companies changed their financial and economic balance sheets?

It was analyzed the balance sheets of a medium–large companies sample. The study describes the evolution of three income indices (return on equity compared to the average interest rate on government bonds, return on investment compared to the average rate on loans, return on sales), three asset margins (structural margin, net working capital and treasury margin) and four financial ratios (acid ratio, current ratio, leverage and index of financial dependence). The results were graphically represented, also with the use of interpolation curves.

After the crisis, the sector shows increasing profitability. However, from the balance sheet analysis and the trend of the financial indices, there is a strong imbalance and excessive levels of stocks. Furthermore, the debt situation is excessive: the predominant presence of third-party financing would require enormous recapitalizations and probably an increase in self-financing, which is possible thanks to the constantly growing profitability.

The study takes into consideration only the companies that survived the crisis, therefore, presumably the stronger ones. Moreover, more ratios should be considered to have a more complete picture. It is a uniquely quantitative study based exclusively on the balance sheets data that neglect other important economic factors.

Public policies could use this study for better intervention decisions in support of agricultural and agro-industrial activities. Credit policy above all should consider the results of this research, requesting urgent consideration of possible capitalization warranting the access to regulated financial markets. Besides, internal management may compare company outcomes with average sector outcomes to identify improvement prospects. These kinds of studies are advisable for education and training.

The careful economic and financial analysis of the sector favors the relaunching strategies of the Italian wineries in which many employees work. Supporting companies favors employment, constant incomes for workers’ families along the entire supply chain, from the production of grapes to consumption. A solid sector guarantees development and social and economic well-being.

The study contributes to the literature by providing a quantitative method of analysis of the sector, through the comparative information taken from the balance sheets. Therefore, it expands managerial and accounting knowledge on an important sector for the Italian and world economy.

Until the end of 1997, governmental accounting in Portugal was characterised as essentially cash-based budgetary accounting, using singleentry as the bookkeeping method. The only compulsory accounting system was Budgetary Accounting. As many countries all over the world, nowadays Portugal is implementing a reform of the whole governmental accounting, which has as most important innovations the use of double-entry within a system compulsorily integrating accrual-based Financial and Cost Accounting along with Budgetary Accounting (still essentially cash-based). The main purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the reform and current situation of governmental accounting in Portugal, especially discussing the accrual basis implementation. In particular, it shows that not only governmental accounting reform in Portugal has been going towards international harmonization, but also problems that have arisen are common to others faced by several countries. Perspectives of future evolution are also presented.

An important feature of the political economy of 18th century Bengal was a system of land revenue administration characterized by a complex set of patrimonial arrangements that had developed out of hundreds of years’ experience with a series of foreign and indigenous rulers. The East India Company’s (EIC) administration of this fiscal system during the 18th and 19th centuries shows one path toward the development of modern capitalism in the imperial context. In an effort to extract resources and consolidate political power, the EIC bureaucratized elements of Bengal’s patrimonial order. The EIC carried out this process in part through the creation of property rights and contract enforcement institutions in the fiscal system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between accounting and the early roots of the nation‐state in mid nineteenth‐century Siam/Thailand.

First, the paper examines the theoretical inter‐relationship between accounting and nationalism. Second, it relates this theoretical understanding to a study of the changing concepts, methods and structures of indigenous Siamese accounting at a time of transition when foreign mercantile influence was beginning to have an impact on the mid nineteenth^‐century Siamese economy. Third, the paper analyses how these accounting structures and practices came to constitute a socio‐political instrument, which contributed to the administrative development of a Siamese dynastic state by the mid nineteenth‐century. Finally, the paper studies the ways in which this dynastic state began to promote national characteristics through the use of its accounts to create a sense of Siamese cultural identity.

The findings emphasise the important role of accounting in the construction of political and national identity.

This inter‐disciplinary paper highlights a general neglect in the accounting literature of the instrumental role of accounting in nation‐state formation as well as offering a re‐interpretation of Thai historiography from an accounting viewpoint. Moreover as an example of alternative accounting practice, this paper provides an analysis of indigenous accounting methods and structures in mid nineteenth‐century Siam/Thailand at the point when they were becoming increasingly influenced by foreign mercantilism.

In Weberian scholarship, conventional wisdom views the corruption of the modern rational-legal bureaucratic state by local patrimonialisms as an endemic feature in non-Western postcolonial state formation. The resultant neopatrimonial state is often blamed for the social, political, and economic ills plaguing these societies. This essay challenges conventional wisdom and argues that neopatrimonialism is a process of hybrid state formation that has its origins in the cultural politics of colonial state building. This is achieved by drawing on a comparative study of British Malaya and the American Philippines, which offers contrastive trajectories of colonialism and state formation in Southeast Asia.

Because of the precariousness of state power due to local resistance and class conflicts, colonial state building involved the deepening of patron–client relations for political control and of rational-legal bureaucracy for social development. In the process, local political relations were marked and displaced as traditional patrimonialisms distinguished from the new modern center. Through native elite collaborators and paternal-populist discourses, new patron–client relations were institutionalized to connect the colonial state to the native periphery. However, colonial officials with different political beliefs and ethnographic world views in the center competed over native policy and generated cyclical crises between patron-clientelist excess and bureaucratic entrepreneurship.

Instead of the prevailing view that postcolonial states are condemned to their colonial design, and that authoritarian rule favors economic development, my study shows that non-Western state formation is non-linear and follows a cyclical pattern between predation and developmentalism, the excesses of which could be moderated.

To demonstrate how awareness of Neo-Marxist critical theory and Neo-Weberian comparative–historical sociology would have been beneficial to U.S. policy planners and decision-makers, especially Presidents.

This study employs qualitative analysis of available sources rather than quantitative data analysis.

Based on its practical application to a specific historical instance, the heuristic value of Max Weber’s ideal-type model of traditional authority (Herrschaft [domination]) is confirmed, as it is apparent that Henry Kissinger’s interpretation of the meaning of Realpolitik harmed U.S. foreign policy.

There is an imminent need to be critical of claims to expertise by advisors of major decision-makers. The practical relevance of possessing an adequate grasp of a given situation as the context in which actors must make choices is evident, as applies with regard to the current crises facing the world, which must be approached and addressed as scrupulously as possible.

Prevailing critiques of Kissinger and American foreign policy have tended to accept the premise that Kissinger was well-informed and giving good advice based on extensive and appropriate scholarship. That was not the case in Vietnam, in Indonesia, or in other regions. There are no available studies that examine Kissinger’s Eurocentric and limited perspective in light of critical theory and comparative–historical sociology.

In this paper, the authors aim to analyze the impact of International Financial Reporting Standards' (IFRS) mandatory adoption on the financial statements of Spanish listed companies.

The authors estimate a panel data model by generalized least squares' within-between in order to contrast the possible structural breaks in the relations between income statement items and balance sheet items, using data from the 35 largest listed companies.

The results show significant changes on these relations, but with different signs and degrees of intensity depending on the balance sheet item analyzed.

The data choice introduces a size bias that could be taken into account in the generalization of the results to other listed companies.

This work is developed using a mandatory, local, accounting and panel data framework for first time using Spanish listed companies in order to measure the impact of the IFRS adoption.

Democratic renewal in Sri Lanka as well as a cross the Global South depends on strengthening democratic social movements within varieties of patrimonial capitalism. Patrimonial capitalism, emphasising patron–client relations, coincide with weakening democratic institutional cultures and practices. The dominant corruption/anti-corruption narrative is bracketed with elite class strategies aimed at negotiating a ‘managed corruption’. The realm of representative politics creating consent for patrimonial capitalism is shaped by: ethnic and class relations; the weakening of working-class parties; patriarchal cultures within parties; links with criminal networks; opaque finances and the integration of mainstream media with party patronage.

Democratising the realm of representative politics points towards democratic social movements. The internal dynamics of social movements, their relationships with political parties and collective learning are significant factors that shapes the strategic orientation of social movements. State repression of social movements highlights the need for demilitarisation and the abolition of prisons. The global sense of this local struggle relates to transforming financial markets and platform economies towards notions of financial and digital commons. The integration of different realms of politics, such as representative, movement, life and emancipatory politics, is vital for reinforcing solidarity as the basis for counter-hegemonic struggles.