As the world economy slides into the worst recession since the 1930s, there is fear that hard times will ignite a backlash against free trade policies and globalization more generally. This book explores the political and economic institutional foundations of the bargain of embedded liberalism and the ways domestic institutions shape how governments redistribute the risks and benefits of economic globalization. The author identifies the Anglo-American democracies, because of their majoritarian polities combined with decentralized, competitive economies, as uniquely vulnerable to the contemporary challenges of globalization and the most susceptible to a backlash against it. "The theoretical presentation is clear, and the empirical evidence presented is quite convincing. [The book] makes important points about the tensions in today's integrated economies, as well as how they may play out politically. Hays's explicit and careful attention to the logical consistency of his arguments, and his focus on very specific economic and political relationships, make his work particularly trenchant."-- Perspectives on Politics "Hays demonstrates persuasively why the two main champions of economic globalization--the United States and United Kingdom--are also the most vulnerable among the industrialized democracies to significant backlash against it: their institutional inability and ideological unwillingness to provide adequate social protection against globalization's most disruptive impacts on workers and communities. This is an extremely timely and important book to which scholars and policymakers alike should pay close attention."--John Gerard Ruggie, Harvard University "This is a brilliant book that forcefully advances the argument that in countries with decentralized labor markets and majoritarian political institutions, globalization raises the demands of citizens for protection from the vagaries of the global economy but also limits the capacity of countries to provide that protection. The book beautifully presents a diverse array of convincing empirical evidence with innumerable insights on how globalization is changing our world and our politics."--Kenneth Scheve, Yale University "Academic and scholarly presses alike have published scores of books praising the benefits of globalization. This, as Jude Hays demonstrates in his prescient book, may be wishful thinking. Combining fresh theoretical insights with sophisticated empirical methods, Hays shows how globalization may be vulnerable to shifting popular sentiments. This would have made for important reading prior to the economic crisis that began in 2007; it is urgent reading today."--David Leblang, the University of Virginia This book explores how domestic institutions shape the ways governments redistribute the risks and benefits of economic globalization. Jude C. Hays is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, and he has published articles in journals such as Comparative Political Studies , Political Analysis , European Union Politics , International Organization , World Politics , International Studies Quarterly , the American Journal of Political Science , and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization .