In this two-volume set, the editors present seminal articles by leading SSA scholars describing the development of SSA Theory and its wider application. The first volume offers an introduction to SSA theory and covers the historical context, the founding documents of the approach, subsequent theoretical and empirical developments, the relationship between SSA theory and related approaches, and an introduction to the work of Bowles, Gordon and Weisskopf on the rise and demise of the postwar SSA. The second volume examines extensions to the SSA literature: applying SSA analysis to countries outside the United States, placing the history of a wider range of institutions within an SSA framework and current use of SSA analysis.

The editors’ comprehensive original introduction illuminates the state of SSA Theory up to the present and considers its future applications within further historical and theoretical contexts and in analysing and understanding the unfolding economic turmoil which began in 2007-2008.