Equality: The Legal Framework by Bob Hepple Hart Publishing Ltd, 2014 (2nd edn), 254 pp., £24.99

• Date: 01 May 2015
• Author: Sean Butt
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12100
• Published date: 01 May 2015

Overall, then, have the editors succeeded in producing the hoped-for definitive

book on comparative employment relations? They are not alone in seeking to bring

together previously distinct approaches to better understand comparative employ-

ment relations. For example, Hauptmeier and Vidal (2014) have produced a contem-

porary and competing contribution that seeks to bring together comparative political

economy with labour process theory, albeit with a less ambitious geographical scope.

This handbook certainly provides useful overviews of countries and regions of the

world often omitted from analysis, and in that sense, it is certainly the more

comprehensive. Overall, though, the chapters are variable with some remaining

largely descriptive or classificatory and others effectively presenting literature reviews

without really delivering on the editors’ opening promise of a book that would deliver

theoretical developments by linking and synthesising various institutional

approaches. Many of the contributions still seem dominated by varieties of capitalism

or a variety of regulation theory. It is a commonplace that the former focuses more on

variety and less on capitalism—an accusation that could be fairly levelled at the

contributions in this book—but these approaches also militate against an adequate

consideration and incorporation of financialisation (see Ashman and Fine, 2013). To

be sure, there are some passing references to financialisation but no developed sense

of the nature of financialisation or its impact on employment relations which is surely

a missed opportunity and a much under-researched area (Thompson, 2013). So,

maybe not a definitive book but it is certainly a useful first point of reference for

students or researchers wanting to familiarise themselves with recent developments in

a particular country or region or with an aspect of the institutional approach.

However, without the hoped-for substantive theoretical innovations, it is a resource

that may date rather quickly.

Gary Slater

University of Leeds, UK

References

Ashman, S. and B. Fine (2013), ‘Neo-Liberalism, Varieties of Capitalism, and the Shifting

Contours of South Africa’s Financial System’, Transformation,81/82, 145–178.

Hauptmeier, M. and M. Vidal (eds) (2014), Comparative Political Economy of Work

(Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan).

Thompson, P. (2013), ‘Financialization and the Workplace: Extending and Applying the

Disconnected Capitalism Thesis’, Work, Employment and Society,27, 3, 472–488.

Equality: The Legal Framework

Bob Hepple

Hart Publishing Ltd, 2014 (2nd edn), 254 pp., £24.99

Equality: The Legal Framework is authored by Sir Bob Hepple, and as such, it is no

surprise that this book demonstrates ‘lawyering’ at its finest.

This book is not a legal practitioners’ or students’ textbook; it is rather a book

aimed at informing anyone with an interest in understanding the development of

257Book reviews

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd