Covid-19 and Human Rights
This timely collection brings together original explorations of the COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-ranging, global effects on human rights.
Understanding the Energy Transition
The transformation of the dominant model of centralized energy production from fossil fuels to renewable energies is at the center of the public and scientific debate, as well as the subject of national and European policies, as it is connected to highly topical issues such as climate change, emissions reduction and natural disasters, security of supply and sustainability of the current economic development model.Up to now this topic has been mainly addressed by the economic and engineering sciences, with a research focus on the hardware rather than on the human and social software.However, energy systems, and the possibilities of change, are not only economic or technological but involve also patterns of social life, representations, organizational models and relational structures. In order to generate the social preconditions for the transition to a low-emission society, focused on a growing production of energy from renewable sources and on a greater sustainabilityof consumption, it is therefore urgent to reaffirm the centrality of a sociological approach to energy.This book focused on three core research areas which are crucial to understand what is at stake with the energy transition: conflicts over the construction and location of renewable energy production plants; collective action on renewable sources that promote a new model of energy system in which consumers are also producers; and the social-territorial impact of energy policies.
China and Great Power Responsibility for Climate Change
This book explores how China's rise to great power status transforms notions of great power responsibility in general and regarding international climate politics in particular.
The Politics of Poverty in Contemporary Russia
This book provides an overview of poverty and well-being in Russia. Increasing poverty rates during the 1990s were followed by greater attention to social policies in the 2000s.What impact did these developments have on the prevalence of poverty in contemporary Russian society?
The Code of ZANKANJO
The term Zankanjo is used to refer to Ninjutsu's "equivalent" to the samurai Code of Bushido. The conventional meaning of zankanjo is, "A letter left on an assassination victim explaining why they were assassinated." The shinobi's code has the same name, presumably because a ninja who violates it-called a nukenin, or renegade ninja-will have sealed his own death sentence. Here, for the first time in English, the tenets by which the historical shinobi lived and died are presented and explained for modern-day ninjutsu practitioners.
The Modesty Blaise Training Journal
The CLANDESTINE OPERATORS SERIES is a collection of journals based on your favorite Clandestine Operators, Secret Agents, Spies, and Assassins from popular literature and film. Use your favorite journal to track and record how your own daily activities parallel or compare with the actions of your favorite covert operative. You can also use your journal to- - Itemize the skills you already have - List your ongoing Missions, Objectives, and Goals - Document the progress in your accomplishments - Chart the improvements in your daily training The Clandestine Operator's journal will serve as a repository of the Intelligence fundamentals we currently practice, and the basics we must periodically come back to if we are to move forward. It provides a record of what we have been taught, and of what we have done. It reminds us of our failures, our successes, and of how yesterday's failures inform tomorrow's successes.
Provincial Policy Laboratories
Canada's federal system, composed of ten provincial governments and three territories, all with varying economies and political cultures, is often blamed for the country's failure to develop coordinated policy responses to key issues. But in other federal and multi-level governance systems, the ability of multiple governments to test a variety of policy responses has been lauded as an effective way to build local and national policy.Despite high-profile examples of policy diffusion in Canada, there has been surprisingly little academic study of policy learning and diffusion among provinces. Featuring cutting-edge research, Provincial Policy Laboratories explores the cross-jurisdictional movement of policies among governments in Canada's federal system. The book comprises case studies from a range of emerging policy areas, including parentage rights, hydraulic fracturing regulations, species at risk legislation, sales and aviation taxation, and marijuana regulation. Throughout, the contributors aim to increase knowledge about this understudied aspect of Canadian federalism and contribute to the practice of intergovernmental policymaking across the country.
The Coming Tyranny
The Coming Tyranny: How Socialism Will Lead to Civil War in America is a step-by-step prediction of how socialism in America will develop by nefarious and corrupt Democrats whose concerns are not the interests and well-being of the American people, but are concerns about redistributing wealth, attaining power, control, and enriching themselves. After the 2020 suspected fraudulent election, Democrats practically control the Federal government. Their Utopian socialist dream consists of taking substantial wealth from the rich through oppressive taxes and redistributing this wealth for government assistance to illegal migrants, for black reparations, to bail out poorly managed Democrat states disguised as COVID-19 relief, for infrastructure, for green energy, for government-run healthcare, for COVID-19 vaccines, to support the UN, the Paris Peace Accord climate deal, the World Health Organization, and for Palestinian aid. The Chinese-born COVID-19 pandemic has enabled the worse election fraud in US history to occur, in a concerted effort to steal the 2020 election by election computer fraud, ballot counters, state elected officials in key states, mail carriers, and election officials. Incredulously, key state supreme courts and the US Supreme Court, all refused to listen to any evidence or witnesses available in the worst election fraud in US history. Examples of Democrat socialist presidential candidates and their leftist views are presented to show how far left socialists want to take America. Examples are given as to how corrupt leaders, such as Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, not only tried to rig the 2016 election, but sought to influence the election of Benjamin Netanyahu, forced Pope Benedict to resign and be replaced by a liberal Pope, and how the Obama Administration and others, were involved with the Vatican and Pope Francis to try to align abortion and homosexuality morality in Catholic doctrine with leftist political morality to be gaslighted as acceptable moral behavior in the US by Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine in preparation for the 2016 election. The Biden Administration signed a slew of executive orders and tax policies that mandated culture change and triggered oppression of Americans. Step-by-step predictions are made how Democrats will change election laws so that they will always remain in power. Socialist policies are predicted to cause economic chaos, failure, and instability. Many Americans will lose their jobs and suffer. Crime, poverty, and homelessness will increase. Police departments and the military will be politicized to support and enforce tyrannical laws passed by the socialist Federal US government to deprive Americans of their freedoms. Conservatives will react, as tyranny and oppression intensify. A secession of states will likely occur, leading to a 2nd American Civil War. Unfortunately, the war will not fare well for freedom-loving Americans for reasons stated. Only a miracle from God can save the USA. Leftist policies and reconstruction efforts will further weaken the US. As Muslim immigrants grow exponentially in the US and Muslim population centers in states increase over time, this book predicts that a 3rd Civil War will occur between Muslims and non-Muslims. In the end, the old US will become divided into Muslim and non-Muslim countries, never to return to the greatest country on earth that it was.
The Coming Tyranny
The Coming Tyranny: How Socialism Will Lead to Civil War in America is a step-by-step prediction of how socialism in America will develop by nefarious and corrupt Democrats whose concerns are not the interests and well-being of the American people, but are concerns about redistributing wealth, attaining power, control, and enriching themselves. After the 2020 suspected fraudulent election, Democrats practically control the Federal government. Their Utopian socialist dream consists of taking substantial wealth from the rich through oppressive taxes and redistributing this wealth for government assistance to illegal migrants, for black reparations, to bail out poorly managed Democrat states disguised as COVID-19 relief, for infrastructure, for green energy, for government-run healthcare, for COVID-19 vaccines, to support the UN, the Paris Peace Accord climate deal, the World Health Organization, and for Palestinian aid. The Chinese-born COVID-19 pandemic has enabled the worse election fraud in US history to occur, in a concerted effort to steal the 2020 election by election computer fraud, ballot counters, state elected officials in key states, mail carriers, and election officials. Incredulously, key state supreme courts and the US Supreme Court, all refused to listen to any evidence or witnesses available in the worst election fraud in US history. Examples of Democrat socialist presidential candidates and their leftist views are presented to show how far left socialists want to take America. Examples are given as to how corrupt leaders, such as Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, not only tried to rig the 2016 election, but sought to influence the election of Benjamin Netanyahu, forced Pope Benedict to resign and be replaced by a liberal Pope, and how the Obama Administration and others, were involved with the Vatican and Pope Francis to try to align abortion and homosexuality morality in Catholic doctrine with leftist political morality to be gaslighted as acceptable moral behavior in the US by Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine in preparation for the 2016 election. The Biden Administration signed a slew of executive orders and tax policies that mandated culture change and triggered oppression of Americans. Step-by-step predictions are made how Democrats will change election laws so that they will always remain in power. Socialist policies are predicted to cause economic chaos, failure, and instability. Many Americans will lose their jobs and suffer. Crime, poverty, and homelessness will increase. Police departments and the military will be politicized to support and enforce tyrannical laws passed by the socialist Federal US government to deprive Americans of their freedoms. Conservatives will react, as tyranny and oppression intensify. A secession of states will likely occur, leading to a 2nd American Civil War. Unfortunately, the war will not fare well for freedom-loving Americans for reasons stated. Only a miracle from God can save the USA. Leftist policies and reconstruction efforts will further weaken the US. As Muslim immigrants grow exponentially in the US and Muslim population centers in states increase over time, this book predicts that a 3rd Civil War will occur between Muslims and non-Muslims. In the end, the old US will become divided into Muslim and non-Muslim countries, never to return to the greatest country on earth that it was.
Protecting the Workforce
This book showcases the inequalities experienced between the Global North and the Global South by exploring the production and distribution model of goods and services worldwide through an analysis of why the structure, framework, and interconnectedness of global supply chains increases the persistence of worker rights' violations. The narrative explains the power relationships between multinational corporations, their subcontractors, governments, non-governmental organizations, labor unions, and workers. The text focuses primarily on competition between workers in the Global South and the Global North who are compelled to work in global supply chains for their survival and takes a macro-look at how global supply chains operate, how they are governed, who invests and why, and who wins and who loses. From the workers' perspective, the text highlights the millions of low-wage workers who suffer exploitation and abuse at the hands of greedy multi-national corporations who are able to distance themselves from any liability for workers' welfare through an institutional system created by national/state governments, trade agreements, and tax and investment strategies which protect property rights over workers' rights. The fragile plight of workers crescendos through examples of exploitation and abuse in the fishing, mining, apparel, electronic and manufacturing industries, focusing events of workplace disasters, and slave-like working conditions, then climaxes by providing strategies to help strengthen workers through legislative and policy initiatives, collective action, and social and public pressure.
Heroes or Villains?
Tony Blair was the political colossus in Britain for thirteen years, winning three elections in a row for New Labour, two of them by huge majorities. However, since leaving office he has been disowned by many in his own party, with the term 'Blairite' becoming an insult. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader in 2015 seemed to be, if not an equal, at least an opposite reaction to Blair's long dominance of the centre and left of British politics. Drawing on new contributions from most of the main players in the Blair government, including Tony Blair himself, Jon Davis and John Rentoul reconsider the history and common view of New Labour against its record of delivering moderate social democracy. They show how New Labour was not one party but two, and how it essentially governed as a coalition, much like the government that followed it. This book tells the inside story of how Tony Blair worked out, late in the day, his ideas for improving the NHS and school reform; how he groped towards, and was eventually defined by, a foreign policy of liberal interventionism; how he managed a difficult relationship with his Chancellor for ten years; and how Gordon Brown finally took over just as the boom went bust and the New Labour era came to an end. Rentoul and Davis reveal how the governing tribes dealt with each other in the New Labour years: not simply the 'Blairites' and the 'Brownites', but the 'temporary' ministers and the 'permanent', under-reported civil servants who worked alongside them. Many of the arguments that raged within and around the Blair government of 1997-2007 remain very much alive: reform of public services; the right course for the divided Labour Party; and the Iraq war. The Blair Government Reconsidered aims at a balanced account of how decisions were made, to allow the reader to make up their own mind about controversies that still dominate politics today.
Presidents, Unified Government and Legislative Control
This book aims to explain why some presidents are more successful than others in winning the support of legislators during periods of unified government. This book covers five presidential and semi-presidential systems such as France, Indonesia, Mexico, Taiwan, and the U.S. with a wide variety of institutional arrangements and political dynamics. This book elaborates on explaining how institutional factors such as confidence vote, electoral system, candidate nomination and presidential unilateral power influence the ability of presidents to pass their legislative agendas through comparisons across presidential and semi-presidential systems.
Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America
The first decades of the new millennium have been marked by major political changes. Although The West has wished to revisit internal and international politics concerning migration policies, refugee status, integration, secularism, and the dismantling of communitarianism, events like the Syrian refugee crisis, the terrorist attacks in France in 2015-2016, and the economic crisis of 2008 have resurrected concepts such as national identity, integration, citizenship and re-shaping state policies in many developed countries. In France and Canada, more recent public elections have brought complex democratic political figures like Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau to the public eye. Both leaders were elected based on their promising political agendas that aimed at bringing their countries into the new millennium; Trudeau promotes multiculturalism, while Macron touts the diverse nation and the inclusion of diverse ethnic communities to the national model. This edited collection aims to establish a dialogue between these two countries and across disciplines in search of such discursive illustrations and opposing discourses. Analyzing the cultural and political tensions between minority groups and the state in light of political events that question ideas of citizenship and belonging to a multicultural nation, the chapters in this volume serve as a testimonial to the multiple views on the political and public perception of multicultural practices and their national and international applicability to our current geopolitical context.
Marketization in Local Government
Marketization is one of the most powerful reform doctrines reshaping the organization of public service delivery throughout the last four decades. This book revisits conventional ideas and models of marketization and compares how these have diffused and evolved across municipalities in England and Scandinavia. The book highlights the paths and impacts of marketization as diverse and dynamic and asks us to reconsider what and how we think about marketization. The content of the book is co-authored by researchers from four countries and builds upon comparable surveys and case-studies from two longstanding 'spearhead' services - parks and roads - for the implementation of marketization. The book appeals to scholars and policy makers with interests in discussions about the history and future of marketization in an international perspective.
Single Payer Healthcare Reform
The recent rise of "Medicare for All" in American political discourse was many years in the making. Behind this rise is a movement composed of grassroots activists and organizations that have been working for more than three decades to achieve the goal of establishing a single-payer healthcare system in the United States. In the past decade, the Single Payer Movement has grown and garnered more public and political support than ever before. This relative success cannot be attributed to any one political figure or political era. The story of how this happened, and how it is tied to a turn against establishment politics on both the left and right, as well as the rise of outsider politicians such as Senator Bernie Sanders, takes place during the Clinton, G.W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations. During each of these eras, activists experienced shifting opportunities that they interpreted through the telling of stories. These narratives of opportunity encouraged participationin particular forms of grassroots mobilization, which then affected the outcome of each era. This has had lasting effects on the development of healthcare policy in the United States. In this book, Hern conducts a political ethnographic analysis in which she uses historical records, interviews, and participant observation to tell the story of the Single Payer Movement, establish the lessons that can be learned from this history, and develop a framework--the Environment of Opportunity Model--that involves a holistic understanding of social movement activity through the analysis of narrative practice.
Scripture and Resistance
Resistance against unjust (wicked) cultures and imperial powers is at the heart of scripture. In many cases, the resistance is waged against external systems or the misappropriation of scriptural texts and traditions. In some cases, however, scripture resists oppressive cultures and powers that it also requires, certifies and protects. At other times, and in different settings, the minders of scripture speak against the abusive cultures and power systems that they inherited and whose benefits they milk. Scripture and Resistance contains reflections by authors from East, West, South, and North -- on resistance and the Christian scriptures regarding a rainbow of concerns: the colonial legacies of the Bible; the people (especially native and indigenous people) who were subjugated and minoritized for the sake of the Bible; the courage for resistance among ordinary and normal people, and the opportunities that arise from their realities and struggles; the imperializing tendencies that lurk behind so-called traditional biblical scholarship; the strategies of and energies in post- and de-colonial criticisms; the Bible as a profitable product, and a site of struggle; and the multiple views or perspectives in the Bible about empire and resistance. In other words, the contributors, as a collective, affirm that the Bible contains (pun intended) resistance.
The Metropolitan Revolution
Unacceptably high rates of stress, anxiety, sleeplessness, and divorce have plagued the law enforcement profession for decades. Ask most police officers, firefighters, paramedics, prison guards, and anyone associated with police wellness and they will tell you "everything is fine." Yet the rate of police suicide continues to climb because of the profession's stigma against seeking help. Officers embrace their responsibility "to preserve and protect" by taking care of others ... but who is taking care of them? Through interviews with some of the most renowned professionals in their fields, author and speaker Dr. Ron Rufo, a highly decorated, 22-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, puts a spotlight on the importance of seeking mental health intervention before a minor issue becomes a major crisis. In Breaking the Barrier, Rufo's fourth book and his second on police wellness, he explains why emotional wellness is as essential as officers' tactical training. He and dozens of supportive professionals-from the fields of psychology, sleep medicine, religion, leadership management, epidemiology and environmental health, holistic medicine, exercise physiology, and alternative medicine-offer strategies to achieve and maintain emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual wellness throughout an officer's career. Ron Rufo is on a crusade to rid the law enforcement profession of its constant and relentless shadow of despair. After describing the history of the police culture that contributes to today's physical and mental health issues, he presents a cornucopia of tools for intervention and support to help all law enforcement officers achieve a work/life balance that will lead to a long, healthy, and well-deserved retirement.
The Way Forward
First published in 1997. 1997 marked the fifth anniversary of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development - the celebrated 'Earth Summit' in Rio de Janeiro which represented the high-water mark of intergovernmental action for sustainable development. Whilst some were tempted to dismiss the Conference as a gesture of concern by the participating governments, the list of resolutions which arose from the Summit is formidable, and the key text to emerge from the conference process, Agenda 21, had proven to be crucial to efforts to disseminate and implement the principles of globally sustainable development. The Way Forward outlines the successes and failures of those first five years. Calling on a list of eminent experts, it provides an unparalleled analysis of the agreements that were reached, and the stakeholders who were charged with implementing them. It reviews the progress that was made at the intergovernmental, national and grassroots levels, and offers a cogent summary of the major issues that needed to be addressed for the future. Lucid, compact and authoritative, this is the essential guide to 'Rio plus five'.
South-South Solidarity and the Latin American Left
Transnational solidarity movements often play an important role in reshaping structures of global power. However, there remains a significant gap in the historical literature on collaboration between parties located in the Global South. Facing increasing repression, the Latin American left in the 1960s and 1970s found connection in transnational exchange, organizing with distant activists in Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. By exploring the particularities of South-South solidarity, this volume begins new conversations about what makes these movements unique, how they shaped political identities, and their lasting influence. Jessica Stites Mor looks at four in-depth case studies: the use of legal reform to accomplish the goals of solidarity embedded in Mexico's revolutionary constitution, visual and print media circulated by Cuba and its influence on the agenda of the Afro-Asian block at the United Nations, organizing on behalf of Palestinian nationalism in reshaping Argentina's socialist left, and the role of Latin American Catholic activists in challenging the South African apartheid state. These examples serve as a much-needed road map to navigate our current political climate and show us how solidarity movements might approach future struggles.
No Longer Outsiders
With the rise of Black Lives Matter and immigrant rights protests, critics have questioned whether mainstream black and Latino civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and UnidosUS are in touch with the needs of minorities-especially from younger generations. Though these mainstream groups have relied on insider political tactics, such as lobbying and congressional testimony, to advocate for minority interests, Michael D. Minta argues that these strategies are still effective tools for advocating for progressive changes. In No Longer Outsiders, Minta provides a comprehensive account of the effectiveness of minority civil rights organizations and their legislative allies. He finds that the organizations' legislative priorities are consistent with black and Latino preferences for stronger enforcement of civil rights policy and immigration reform. Although these groups focus mainly on civil rights for blacks and immigration issues for Latinos, their policy agendas extend into other significant areas. Minta concludes with an examination of how diversity in Congress helps groups gain greater influence and policy success despite many limits placed upon them.
Reforming Local Government
This book is a bold prescription for local government reform that moves well beyond the old arguments regarding consolidations (also referred to as amalgamations) and co-operation (sometimes referred to as shared services) to paint a picture of an efficient, effective tier of government that strikes a balance between the right of persons to pursue their existential ends and the need to promote the common good. The book presents a system of local government that balances human dignity with the common good, restrains Leviathan, provides a voice for the disenfranchised (and even the disinterested), and delivers goods and services efficiently and effectively. Ironically, what is often argued to be the weakness of local government in many jurisdictions - the fact that it is merely a creature of statute - is also the best hope we have of making the oft cited rhetoric about how 'local government is the closest to the people that serves the people best' become reality.
Shifting Solidarities
Shifting Solidarities offers a comprehensive analysis of solidarity at a time when major social transformations have penetrated the heart of European societies, disrupting markets and labour relations, transforming social practices, and affecting the moral infrastructure of European welfare states. Factors such as the economic crisis, migration, digitalisation, and climate change all contribute to a sense of emergency. This volume considers how, in times of crisis, there are calls for solidarity by various new social and political actors and movements. The contributions present a broad array of empirical work and critical scholarship, zooming in on shifting solidarities in various domains of social life, including work, social policy, health care, religion, family, gender and migration. This compelling volume provides a unique resource for understanding solidarity in contemporary Europe, and will be a vital text for students and scholars across sociology, social policy, cultural studies, employment/labour markets and organisation studies, migration studies and European studies.
Barry Goldwater, Distrust in Media, and Conservative Identity
The perception that the news media in the United States have a liberal bias is a phenomenon that animates conservatives and affects the ways in which they consider both media content and political discourse. Despite professional standards that have been put in place to prevent deliberate bias, conservatives would argue that the news media tilt deliberately to the left. Barry Goldwater, Distrust in Media, and Conservative Identity: The Perception of Liberal Bias in the News explores the origins of this perception of a liberal bias--while managing to avoid the highly subjective quagmire of attempting to measure bias--by instead positing a social identity explanation for the perception. Rich Shumate posits that conservatives' need to foster and maintain social identity as conservatives led them to perceive content from elite news media outlets as biased when it did not validate the way they saw the world, deeming it hostile and, by extension, "liberal". Shumate explores the formation of this perception during the period from 1960-1964, a critical juncture in the American political sphere when conservatives organized to elect Barry Goldwater as president and ultimately came away from the experience bitter with the belief that the news media had stacked the deck against their candidate of choice. Scholars of communication, media studies, journalism, political science, and American history will find this book particularly useful.
An Economic Approach to the Plagiarism of Music
This book is an economic analysis of plagiarism in music, focusing on social efficiency and questions of inequity in the revenue of authors/artists. The organisation into central chapters on the traditional literary aspect of composition and the technocratic problem of 'sampling' will help clarify disputes about social efficiency and equity. It will also be extremely helpful as an expository method where the text is used in courses on the music business.These issues have been explored to a great extent in other areas of musical content-notably piracy, copying and streaming. Therefore it is extremely helpful to exclude consumer use of musical content from the discussion to focus solely on the production side. This book also looks at the policy options in terms of the welfare economics of policy analysis.
Crowdsourcing the Law
While the general public may feel uncomfortable discussing sexual assault and violence with neighbors or coworkers, the popularity of Twitter, Snapchat, and a host of other social media platforms suggests that we are not shy about expressing our opinions online. Debates that just a few years ago would have taken place in real life have been relocated online; allowing eager commenters to share their thoughts on guilt or innocence with legions of virtual strangers. Crowdsourcing the Law explores how everyday participants interpret and apply law in the influential online court of public opinion. Engaging a multidisciplinary, case study approach, the book analyzes social media comments about public figures such as Bill Cosby, Brock Turner, and Harvey Weinstein to address ambitious questions like: How are rape myths being challenged, reinforced, and reinvented on social media? What is the promise and peril of the #MeToo movement for transforming the law? And can due process be afforded in the face of an increasingly powerful virtual jury?
Cycling Diplomacy
Due to the financial situation in the professional road peloton, many cycling teams struggle to find their sponsors. This situation is an opportunity for undemocratic politicians to promote their countries via cycling. Thus, some of them decided to create and support their own cycling teams. Generally, four WorldTour teams supported by undemocratic regimes and their governments have existed in professional cycling history. This book focuses on all of them; it reflects the existence of the Kazakh Astana Pro Team, the Russian Team Katusha (supported by the Russian government until the end of the 2015 season), the Bahrain Victorious (formerly called Bahrain Merida and Bahrain McLaren) or the UAE Team Emirates and the way they are/were used as sports diplomacy instruments.
Placemaking Sandbox
Placemaking Sandbox offers a valuable collection of placemaking case studies, designed for teachers and students to build expertise in shaping and creating thriving public places. Each chapter outlines the latest research and practice underpinning placemaking pedagogical approaches, with specialist authors developing and interrogating methodological techniques and reflecting on current teaching and research. By taking a hands-on and experimental look at emergent practices, pedagogies and methods in placemaking across different contexts, this book will help deepen understandings on how to wrestle with complex conditions generated by place. In Placemaking Sandbox contributors skillfully tackle a little researched topic on the pedagogy of place and placemaking, and in the process offer a distinctive bridge between academia and practice.
Wind and Solar Energy Transition in China
This book explores the mobilisation of China's wind and solar industries and examines the benefits and disadvantages of this development to energy production, innovation and governance.
Hostages and Human Rights
Hostage-taking has increased in recent years and has become a problem of worldwide concern. Terrorists and pirates have used hostages in a rising number of incidents and the violence used has escalated alarmingly. Sofia Galani examines the taking of hostages from a victim's perspective, arguing that the international community has failed to protect them. By evaluating various international law concepts and frameworks, including jurisdiction in international law, state responsibility and international human rights law, Galani explains why we are still far from recognizing hostages as victims of human rights violations. She then addresses the question of what can be done to safeguard the human rights of hostages both in theory and practice. Being the first comprehensive study of the human rights of hostages, this book fills a critical gap in the literature for human rights lawyers and researchers in the field.
Sovereign Forces
Sovereignty is a significant force regarding the ownership, use, protection and management of natural resources. By placing an emphasis on the complex intertwined relationship between natural resources and diverse claims to resource sovereignty, this book reveals the backstory of contemporary resource contestations in Latin America and their positioning within a more extensive history of extraction in the region.
German Rule, African Subjects
Although it lasted only thirty years, German colonial rule dramatically transformed South West Africa. The colonial government not only committed the first genocide of the twentieth century against the Herero and Nama, but in their efforts to establish a "model colony" and "racial state," they brought about even more destructive and long-lasting consequences. In this now-classic study-available here for the first time in English-the author provides an indispensable account of Germany's colonial utopia in what is present-day Namibia, showing how the highly rationalized planning of Wilhelmine authorities ultimately failed even as it added to the profound immiseration of the African population.
Democratization and Struggles Against Injustice
In specialized literature as well as in the eyes of regular citizens, social movements are often considered to be actors of democratization. Among other things, social movements criticize existing deficits in democratic systems; they promote practices of deliberation and enact non-hierarchical structures that challenge existing democratic institutions. Very often, these challenges emerge from the context of struggle against unjust situations involving social exclusion, economic inequalities or the violation of fundamental rights. Democratization and Struggles Against Injustice draws on the insights of one of the greatest American philosophers, John Dewey, as well as on some central intuitions of Frankfurt School Critical Theory to account for the connection between the democratic potential of social movements and their capacity to articulate injustice and promote just social relations. Particularly, it develops the idea that this double capacity can be explained by introduction of the pragmatist notion of experimental inquiry into the analysis of the epistemic practices of the mobilized. By introducing pragmatist epistemology to the study of social movements, Democratization and Struggles Against Injustice broadens the possibilities for their emancipatory potential.
OECD Urban Studies Housing Affordability in Cities in the Czech Republic
While the full effects of the COVID-19 crisis on housing affordability in cities in the Czech Republic remain to be seen, the pandemic has reinforced the urgency of tackling pre-existing challenges, such as a consistent shortage of housing supply in cities and structural obstacles for urban households to access affordable housing.
Change of Plans
Change of Plans raises questions that are not commonly posed, suggests new avenues for thought in city planning, and contributes to the growing literature on sustainability by merging it with a feminist approach. The book provides a concrete example of a team of academics, planners, and architects that has struggled to combine an environmental with a non-sexist perspective.
The Ethics of Policing
Top scholars provide a critical analysis of the current ethical challenges facing police officers, police departments, and the criminal justice system From George Floyd to Breonna Taylor, the brutal deaths of Black citizens at the hands of law enforcement have brought race and policing to the forefront of national debate in the United States. In The Ethics of Policing, Ben Jones and Eduardo Mendieta bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars across the social sciences and humanities to reevaluate the role of the police and the ethical principles that guide their work. With contributors such as Tracey Meares, Michael Walzer, and Franklin Zimring, this volume covers timely topics including race and policing, the use of aggressive tactics and deadly force, police abolitionism, and the use of new technologies like drones, body cameras, and predictive analytics, providing different perspectives on the past, present, and future of policing, with particular attention to discriminatory practices that have historically targeted Black and Brown communities. This volume offers cutting-edge insight into the ethical challenges facing the police and the institutions that oversee them. As high-profile cases of police brutality spark protests around the country, The Ethics of Policing raises questions about the proper role of law enforcement in a democratic society.
Electing a Mega-Mayor
Electing a Mega-Mayor represents the first-ever comprehensive, survey-based examination of a Canadian mayoral race and provides a unique, detailed account of the 2014 mayoral election in Toronto. After making the case that local elections deserve more attention from scholars of political behaviour, this book offers readers an understanding of Toronto politics at the time of the 2014 election and presents relevant background on the major candidates. It considers the importance that Torontonians attached to policy concerns and identifies the bases of support for the outgoing, scandal-ridden mayor, Rob Ford, and his brother Doug.In the penultimate chapter, the authors examine how Torontonians viewed their elected officials, and the city's performance, two years after the election. McGregor, Moore, and Stephenson conclude with a reflection on what the analysis of the Toronto 2014 election says about voters in large cities in general and provide a short epilogue addressing the 2018 election results. Written in an accessible style, this is the first book on the politics of Toronto during the Ford era that focuses on the perspective of the voter.
Institutional Reforms, Governance, and Services Delivery in the Global South
This edited book explores the link between institutional reforms, governance and services delivery in the Global South, mapping how and to what extent resource-poor governments deliver public services to their citizens. The book concludes that delivery of public services responsibly and efficiently remains largely unachievable because of weaker institutions and poor quality of governance in the Global South countries. Reforms to governance and institutions are generally considered fitting measures to overcome public service delivery challenges.
New Cohesion Policy of the European Union in Poland
The main objective of the book is to identify and evaluate the major changes in the Cohesion Policy of the European Union and their effects on Polish regions for the period of 2014 - 2020. The reader will learn how these changes result from the successful agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework and implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy. Based on these aspects, the authors describe the main change in the Cohesion Policy of the EU, which is the renewed focus on competitiveness and skills to compete within the EU internal and the global market. The territorial approach taken by the EU with respect to entrepreneurial competitiveness is directly linked to the location attractiveness of regions. The authors argue that the new paradigm of the EU' s Cohesion Policy will strengthen the focus on location attractiveness. To illustrate this case, they analyze Poland as one of the most appropriate and relevant Member States to evaluate the new rules underlying EU policies for 2014 - 2020, as Poland is the largest net-beneficiary of the EU budget.
Housing in 21st-Century Australia
The studies presented in this text provide a unique insight into a range of housing production, consumption and policy issues that, while based in Australia, have implications that go beyond this national context. For instance how do suburban-based societies adjust to the realities of aging populations, anthropogenic climate change and the signific
Public Science in Liberal Democracy
Regardless of whether science is practised in industry, the academy, or government, its conduct inescapably shapes and is shaped by democratic institutions. Moreover, the involvement of science with public policy formation and democracy has dramatically increased over the centuries and, by all accounts, will continue to do so. In order to understand the functioning of science and democracy, it is necessary to acknowledge the complex relationship between them. Public Science in Liberal Democracy aims to do this from an interdisciplinary perspective, presenting an array of substantively different positions on the issues that it explores.The volume focuses on three major questions: Can science retain independence and objectivity in the face of demands to meet commercial and public policy objectives? In what ways is scientific discourse privileged in the formation of public policy? How can scientific knowledge and methodology be made compatible with the interdisciplinarity and integration required of public policy formation and discourse? Representing a wide range of viewpoints, the contributors to Public Science in Liberal Democracy come from Canada, Europe, the United States, and Australia, and include practising scientists as well as scholars working in the humanities and social sciences. This timely and thought-provoking collection makes an important contribution to the literature and will appeal to anyone interested in scientific research and its political and philosophical ramifications in democratic society.
Terrorist Rehabilitation and Community Engagement in Malaysia and Southeast Asia
With an emphasis on the particular contexts within which they operate, this book examines the factors that determine the relative successes and failure of a wide range of community initiatives in integrating terrorists back into society in Malaysia, and other countries in Southeast Asia. .
Genocide Never Sleeps
Accounts of international criminal courts have tended to consist of reflections on abstract legal texts, on judgements and trial transcripts. Genocide Never Sleeps, based on ethnographic research at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), provides an alternative account, describing a messy, flawed human process in which legal practitioners faced with novel challenges sought to reconfigure long-standing habits and opinions while maintaining a commitment to 'justice'. From the challenges of simultaneous translation to collaborating with colleagues from different legal traditions, legal practitioners were forced to scrutinise that which normally remains assumed in domestic law. By providing an account of this process, Genocide Never Sleeps not only provides a unique insight into the exceptional nature of the ad hoc, improvised ICTR and the day-to-day practice of international criminal justice, but also holds up for fresh inspection much that is naturalised and assumed in unexceptional, domestic legal processes.
Social Security and Economic Globalization
Economic globalization is a complex phenomenon where the links between social security expenditures and globalization are not well understood so far. This study summarizes new key findings and highlights new theoretical insights in the field of social security systems, labor standards, taxation and economic globalization. Moreover, new thoughts on the links between social security systems and migration as well as between free trade areas and social market economy development are presented. The book analyzes the role of a changing age dependency using a Branson model and it derives implications for the stock market price index, the exchange rate and the interest rate. Economic globalization needs to be politically managed and through the Transatlantic Banking Crisis and the Euro Crisis the need to more carefully draw the rules of the game for financial globalization has been highlighted. Unstable financial markets have a large potential to undermine social market economies and socialsecurity systems. The rising income inequalities within countries raise more policy challenges for Europe than for the US.
Systemic Ethics and Non-Anthropocentric Stewardship
This book makes a case for rights and responsibilities to be expressed through a cosmopolitan praxis based on developing strong cosmopolitan approaches. This developed approach respects a form of cultural or national identity that is not at the expense of others, the environment or future generations. This new stoicism is based on a sense of responsibility for others. The book also explores systemic ethical praxis in response to the vexed challenge of how to bridge the false dualism of pitting the environment versus profit. Systemic Ethics and Non-Anthropocentric Stewardship: Implications for Transdisciplinarity and Cosmopolitan Politics is organized into seven chapters. The book begins by providing readers with an understanding of the way in which cosmopolitanism (like all social concepts) is shaped by diverse definitions and applied differently by theorists and those that engage in transformative praxis. It also develops an argument based on considering the empirical consequences of social, economic and environmental decisions on the quality of life of current and future generations. The next chapter critiques anthropocentricism and explores how policy makers develop agreements on what constitutes and supports the wellbeing of the planet rather than the GDP. The book then explores the options for social democracy and ways to enhance an ethical approach to post national governance and argues for participatory democracy and governance to respond to diversity within and across national boundaries. The following chapters reflect upon the author's own participatory action research process and examines the transformations that can arise through critical systemic thinking and practice. Next the book makes the case for systemic ethical governance that is able to manage consumption, before concluding with a final look at the book's approach, based on critical heuristics.
Victim Healing and Truth Commissions
​This book intends to contribute to the growing body of transitional justice literature by providing insight into how truth commissions may be beneficial to victims of mass violence, based on data collected in Timor-Leste and on the Solomon Islands. Drawing on literature in the fields of victim psychology, procedural justice, and transitional justice, this study is guided by the puzzle of why truth-telling in post-conflict settings has been found to be both helpful and harmful to victims of mass violence. Existing studies have identified a range of positive benefits and negative consequences of truth-telling for victims; however, the reasons why some victims experience a sense of healing while others do not after participating in post-conflict truth commission processes continues to remain unclear. Hence, to address one piece of this complex puzzle, this book seeks to begin clarifying how truth-telling may be beneficial for victims by investigating the question: What pathways lead from truth-telling to victim healing in post-conflict settings? Building on the proposition that having voice--a key component of procedural justice--can help individuals to overcome the disempowerment and marginalisation of victimisation, this book investigates voice- as a causal mechanism that can create pathways toward healing within truth commission public hearings. Comparative, empirical studies that investigate how truth-telling contributes to victim healing in post-conflict settings are scarce in the field of transitional justice. This book begins to fill an important gap in the existing body of literature. From a practical standpoint, by enhancing understanding of how truth commissions can promote healing, the findings and arguments in this volume provide insight into how the design of transitional justice processes may be improved in the future to better respond to the needs of victims of mass violence.
Towards Resilient Organizations and Societies
This open access book brings together scholars in the fields of management, public policy, regional studies, and organization theory around the concept of resilience. The aim is to provide a more holistic understanding of the complex phenomenon of resilience from a multi-sectorial, cross-national, and multidisciplinary perspective. The book facilitates a conversation across diverse disciplinary specializations and empirical domains. The authors contribute both to theory testing and theory development and provide key empirical insights useful for societies, organizations, and individuals experiencing disruptive pressures, not least in the context of a post-COVID-19 world. Diverse chapters are held together by a clear organization of the volume across levels of analysis (resilience in organizations and societies) and by an original perspective on resilience derived from an extended review, by the editors, of the existing literature and knowledge gaps, according to which each of the individual chapter contributions is positioned and connected to.
Towards Resilient Organizations and Societies
This open access book brings together scholars in the fields of management, public policy, regional studies, and organization theory around the concept of resilience. The aim is to provide a more holistic understanding of the complex phenomenon of resilience from a multi-sectorial, cross-national, and multidisciplinary perspective. The book facilitates a conversation across diverse disciplinary specializations and empirical domains. The authors contribute both to theory testing and theory development and provide key empirical insights useful for societies, organizations, and individuals experiencing disruptive pressures, not least in the context of a post-COVID-19 world. Diverse chapters are held together by a clear organization of the volume across levels of analysis (resilience in organizations and societies) and by an original perspective on resilience derived from an extended review, by the editors, of the existing literature and knowledge gaps, according to which each of the individual chapter contributions is positioned and connected to.
Recentralisation in Colombia
This book tackles the question of how to characterise and account for recentralisation in Colombia between central and lower levels of government across a 26-year period. Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has once again put the distribution of responsibilities, resources, and authority between different levels of government at the heart of political debate. This book brings this issue to light as a topic central to the study of public administration.Drawing on extensive fi eldwork with more than a hundred interviews with former presidents, ministers, members of congress, governors, local mayors and subnational public offi cials, as well as documentary sources, it begins with a historical account of recentralisation processes in the world. It then proposes a theoretical framework to explain these processes, before tracing and carefully comparing recentralisation episodes in Colombia using theory-guided process tracing.
