Social Security Handbook 2023
This Handbook provides information on topics such as how Social Security programs are administered, who is and isn't covered under the insurance programs, how claims are processed, what benefits are included, and how to obtain more information about Social Security policies.
Social Security Handbook 2023
This Handbook provides information on topics such as how Social Security programs are administered, who is and isn't covered under the insurance programs, how claims are processed, what benefits are included, and how to obtain more information about Social Security policies.
The White Savior Complex in International Development
Given the growing interest in understanding the meaning, manifestations, analyses and implications of racism in North/South relations, White Saviorism in International Development seeks to remedy the shortcomings of the development studies literature on the prevalence of White Saviorism in Western development initiatives in the Global South. The volume comprises theoretical chapters, testimonies, stories and lived experiences from 19 contributors from across the Global South. With sensitivity and intelligence, these practitioners and academics create a tapestry that unveils the implicit and explicit forms of White Saviorism in international development.
Jihadist Tendencies in West Africa
This book presents the menace posed by Boko Haram in Nigeria. National responses have varied from soft and heavy hand approach, in spite the devastating humanitarian crisis and the destruction imputed by Boko Haram. This work highlights issues necessary in addressing the root causes of violent extremism in West Africa, thereby analyzing terrorist financing, in order to prevent further militancy. It also examines some strategies necessary to ensure security at the local level, and ahead of impending election in Nigeria.Nigerian security forces have undertaken numerous counter terrorism attacks on Boko Haram at the national level, though her response is not clear, following the split within Boko Haram and their modus operandi. Cameroon, which is the second most affected country by Boko Haram, has involved the mobilization of security actors at all levels, in order to shape military tactical and operational response. Military cooperation within the region and with other states is quite fruitful. The development of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) plays a strategic role in terms of coordinating military action, though some challenges are still evident, at the level of joint military operations around the borders.
Collaboration and Public Policy
Collaboration is a ubiquitous yet contested feature of contemporary public policy. This book offers a new account of collaboration's appeal to human actors drawing on empirical examples across time and space. It provides a novel and comprehensive framework for analysing collaboration, that will be of use to those interested in understanding what happens when human actors collaborate for public purpose.
Stop the Road
Stop the Road is an up-close-and-personal account of Baltimore's 40-year battle over expressway plans. Meet the unsung heroes, a ragtag band of neighborhood activists, preservationists, and environmentalists who saved Baltimore from its own leadership, thereby protecting Baltimore's historic waterfront communities of Federal Hill, Fell's Point, and Canton. But that glorious and unlikely win must be tempered with the equally compelling but inglorious story behind the disastrous Highway to Nowhere. This is Baltimore unmasked and laid threadbare for the most momentous decisions since the building of the B&O Railroad.
Bee Club Basics
What does a coffee pot have to do with beekeeping?Are you a beekeeper who wants to join forces with others? Are you a "newbee" who wants to learn more about beekeeping? Or maybe you want to learn how to set up a non-profit club?In this guide you will find everything from: How to set up a simple club charter How to get volunteers to pitch inHow to find funds for your clubSuggested monthly club programsPlus much more! This guide is approved for use with Great Plains Master Beekeeping Program Journeyman level classes on starting, and running, a bee club.
Patterns of Exploitation
Numbering an estimated 164 million globally, migrant workers are an essential component of contemporary businesses. Despite their number and indispensability in the global economy, migrant workers frequently lack the legal protections enjoyed by other workers. They work in sectors where jobs are isolated, and they lack advocates and trade union representation. They may also be undocumented, further eroding their capacity to advance their rights. Migrant workers suffer workplace violations that range from underpayment of wages and unsafe work conditions to sexual assault and industrial manslaughter. How much does this exploitation vary across different countries? What explains differences and similarities among migrant worker destinations? In Patterns of Exploitation, Anna K. Boucher answers these questions by looking at workplace violations across four major immigration countries: the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Incorporating interviews, the Migrant Worker Rights Database, and in-depth analysis of court cases, Boucher uses legal storytelling to document individual migrant experiences and assess the patterns of exploitation that emerge in case narratives. Migrant experiences vary across ethnicity, gender, occupational sector, visa status, trade union membership, and enforcement policy, as well as the industrial relations systems within a destination country. Boucher lays out the kinds of exploitation to which migrants are subjected, the patterns discernible within migrant workers' experiences, and the solutions that can best protect migrants against workplace violations. This unique mixed-methods approach provides a novel understanding of migrant workplace violations across a variety of immigration contexts.
Reproduction Reborn
A cutting-edge analysis of the global issues surrounding modern reproductive technologies Advances in assisted reproductive technologies have sparked global policy debates since the birth of the first so-called "test tube baby" in 1978. Today, mitochondrial replacement therapies represent the most recent advancement in assisted reproductive technologies, allowing some women with mitochondrial diseases to birth babies without those diseases. In the past decade, mitochondrial replacement therapies have captured public sentiment, reigniting debates around social views of reproductive rights and the appropriate legal and political response. Reproduction Reborn guides readers through the history and science of mitochondrial replacement therapies and the various attempts to control them. Leading experts from medicine, genetics, ethics, law, and policy explore the influence of public debate on the evolving shape of these technologies and their subsequent regulation. They highlight case studies from both developed and developing countries across the globe, including recent legislation in Australia and China. They further identify the ethical, legal, and societal norms that need to be addressed by policymakers and communities as more and more people seek to gain access to these treatments. Given the importance of reproduction in family life and cultural identity, clinicians and policymakers must understand how regulatory regimes around mitochondrial replacement therapies have evolved to illuminate the processes and challenges of governing reproduction in a fast-moving world. Informative and global in scope, Reproduction Reborn explores how advancements in assisted reproductive technologies challenge core values surrounding the rights and responsibilities of modern-day family units.
Still a Hollow Hope
The U.S. Supreme Court increasingly matters in American political life when those across the political spectrum look at the Court for relief from policies they oppose and as another venue for advancing their own policy agendas. However, the evidence is mounting, to include this book in a big way, that courts are more of a sideshow to the culture war. While court decisions, especially Supreme Court decisions, do have importance, the decisions emanating from the Court reflect social, cultural, and political change that occurred long prior to their decision ever being made. This book tests how much political and social change has been made primarily through Gerald Rosenberg's framework from his seminal work, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change, but it also utilizes Daniel Elazar's Political Culture Theory to explain state level variations in political and social change. The findings indicate that while courts are not powerless institutions, reformers will not have success unless supported by the public and the elected branches, and most specifically, that preexisting state culture is a determining factor in the amount of change courts make. In short, federalism still matters.
Handling of Unyielding Complaints in China
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Fieldwork and Methodology.- Chapter 3. A Theoretical Framework of Protest Handling.- Chapter 4. Selective Implementation in the Offline Petition System.- Chapter 5. Institutional Absorption in the Online Petition System.- Chapter 6. The Handling of Nail-like Petitions.- Chapter 7. The Handling of Nail-like Residents.- Chapter 8. The Life Course of Nail-like Persons and Their Contention.- Chapter 9. The Hidden Rules Constraining Resistance.- Chapter 10. The Strength and Limits of China's Eclectic State.
Politics and the People
This book reappraises Scottish politics in the decades after 1945, augmenting existing accounts of this period by foregrounding the importance of ideology and language. Founded upon original archival research, the book recovers the central role played within modern Scottish politics by an individualist, anti-bureaucratic critique of central government. Deployed initially by those on the political right to attack the programme of nationalisation implemented by the post-war Labour government, by the 1960s this rhetoric was being exploited by advocates of constitutional change. As liberty came to be framed in constitutional rather than economic terms, understandings of political representation also changed: crucially, the arrival of the referendum in British politics granted credibility to the belief that there existed a distinctive Scottish tradition of popular sovereignty.
Hypocrisy and Human Rights
Hypocrisy and Human Rights examines what human rights pressure does when it does not work. Repressive states with absolutely no intention of complying with their human rights obligations often change course dramatically in response to international pressure. They create toothless commissions, permit but then obstruct international observers' visits, and pass showpiece legislation while simultaneously bolstering their repressive capacity. Covering debates over transitional justice in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other countries, Kate Cronin-Furman investigates the diverse ways in which repressive states respond to calls for justice from human rights advocates, UN officials, and Western governments who add their voices to the victims of mass atrocities to demand accountability. She argues that although international pressure cannot elicit compliance in the absence of domestic motivations to comply, the complexity of the international system means that there are multiple audiences for both human rights behavior and advocacy and that pressure can produce valuable results through indirect paths.
Hypocrisy and Human Rights
Hypocrisy and Human Rights examines what human rights pressure does when it does not work. Repressive states with absolutely no intention of complying with their human rights obligations often change course dramatically in response to international pressure. They create toothless commissions, permit but then obstruct international observers' visits, and pass showpiece legislation while simultaneously bolstering their repressive capacity. Covering debates over transitional justice in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other countries, Kate Cronin-Furman investigates the diverse ways in which repressive states respond to calls for justice from human rights advocates, UN officials, and Western governments who add their voices to the victims of mass atrocities to demand accountability. She argues that although international pressure cannot elicit compliance in the absence of domestic motivations to comply, the complexity of the international system means that there are multiple audiences for both human rights behavior and advocacy and that pressure can produce valuable results through indirect paths.
Understanding Urban Warfare
No environment is more challenging for militaries than a city. No form of combat is more inherently destructive than urban warfare. And yet too often, militaries are both unprepared for the challenges of cities and unable to avoid being pulled into brutal urban fights. In an increasingly urban world, the future character of conflict will also be increasingly urban. This book sets out to understand that future.
Jihadist Tendencies in West Africa
This book presents the menace posed by Boko Haram in Nigeria. National responses have varied from soft and heavy hand approach, in spite the devastating humanitarian crisis and the destruction imputed by Boko Haram. This work highlights issues necessary in addressing the root causes of violent extremism in West Africa, thereby analyzing terrorist financing, in order to prevent further militancy. It also examines some strategies necessary to ensure security at the local level, and ahead of impending election in Nigeria.Nigerian security forces have undertaken numerous counter terrorism attacks on Boko Haram at the national level, though her response is not clear, following the split within Boko Haram and their modus operandi. Cameroon, which is the second most affected country by Boko Haram, has involved the mobilization of security actors at all levels, in order to shape military tactical and operational response. Military cooperation within the region and with other states is quite fruitful. The development of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) plays a strategic role in terms of coordinating military action, though some challenges are still evident, at the level of joint military operations around the borders.
Free Speech, Scholarly Critique and the Limits of Expression in Islam
This book is an important contribution to the assiduous Muslim contention that human rights, freedom of conscience and expression are integral to Islam. Such claims have come under increased scrutiny and debate especially after the Salman Rushdie controversy in 1989 and also in light of fatwas issues by various Muslim scholars against those deemed to apostates and blasphemers. The papers presented in this volume challenge the sources, hermeneutics and methodologies often used to constrain or limit freedom of expression and the critique of religious beliefs and attitudes.
Bootstrap Justice
Since 2006, more than 85,000 people have disappeared in Mexico. These disappearances remain largely unsolved: disappeared people are rarely found, and the Mexican state almost never investigates or prosecutes those responsible. Despite this, people not only continue to report disappearances, but many devote their lives to answering the question, "where are they?" Given the risks and institutional barriers, why and how do people mobilize for justice in states with rampant impunity and weak rule of law? In Bootstrap Justice, Janice Gallagher leverages over a decade of ethnographic research to explain what enables the sustained mobilization of family members of the disappeared and analyze how configurations of political power between state and criminal actors shape what is possible for them to achieve. She follows three families from before the disappearance of their loved ones through their transformations into sophisticated and strategic victim advocates and activists. Gallagher supplements these individual narratives with an analysis of the evolving political opportunities for mobilization within Mexico. By centering the perspectives of people whose lives have been upended by the disappearance of their loved ones, Bootstrap Justice offers a unique window into how citizens respond to weak and corrupt institutions. Gallagher focuses on the overlooked role of informal relationships and dynamics in shaping substantive legal and human rights outcomes and highlights how pioneering independent and creative work-arounds can compensate for state inaction. While top-down efforts, such as judicial reforms, technical assistance, and changes in political leadership are important parts of addressing impunity, policymakers and scholars alike have much to learn from the bottom-up--and by following the path that citizens themselves have worn within the labyrinth of state judicial bureaucracies.
A Racial Reckoning in Industrial Relations
Traditional industrial relations theories of organizing, employment relations, and economic democracy are cloaked in the language of color-blindness, with conceptualizations of justice and class identity viewed through the lens of dominant social identity groups. This has led to theoretical distortions and incomplete notions of worker justice--consistent with systemic biases that reinforce and perpetuate discrimination.This research volume takes a different approach. Through the counternarratives of our contributors--artists, activists, union organizers, and scholars with academic and lived expertise within the world of work--we bring forth a racial reckoning in industrial relations theory and praxis. Specifically, the collection of voices presented here embrace the traditions and tenets of critical race theory and intersectionality (CRT/I) to acknowledge and deconstruct the false realities that thrive in traditional identity-neutral approaches to understanding industrial relations systems and the greater social systems that govern the relationships between actors.Consisting of traditional chapters, commentary pieces, dialogues between practitioners and scholar-activists, and art and graphic illustrations, this volume challenges the traditional hierarchies of knowledge production in academia. It uplifts the diversity of voices and possibilities for storytelling and issues concrete calls to action to the industrial relations academic and movement power brokers (gatekeepers). At a time of historic racial uprising, innovative labor contestations, and global crises amplified by structural oppressions, it offers a path forward with crucial implications for the future of work and worker mobilization.Contributors: Vicko Alverez, independent author; Valery Alzaga, Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum; Nicole Burrowes, Rutgers University, Department of History; J. Mijin Cha, Cornell University, Occidental College/Worker Institute; Sheri Davis-Faulkner, Rutgers University, Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) and Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations; Harmony Goldberg, Grassroots Policy ProjectHaven Media, Inc.; Tamara L. Lee, Rutgers University, Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations; Austin McCoy, Auburn University, Department of History; Javier Morillo, Rutgers University, Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) Fellow; Kasi Perreira, Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO; Danielle T. Phillips-Cunningham, Texas Woman's University, Multicultural Women's and Gender Studies; Sanjay Pinto, Cornell University, The Worker Institute; Salil Sapre, Michigan State University, School of Human Resources and Labor Relations; Erica Smiley, Jobs With JusticeMaite Tapia, Michigan State University, School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, WILL Empower; Naomi R Williams, Rutgers University, Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations; Larry Williams, Jr., UnionBase.org
Rural Unrest in Nepal
David Seddon was formerly Professor of Sociology & Politics in the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia; he is now Director of Critical Faculty, an international research & consultancy group. He has written widely on popular struggles and on rural unrest, and having lived and worked in Nepal for many decades, he has is author and co-author of a number of books on Nepal, including Nepal in Crisis, Peasants and Workers in Nepal, The Struggle for Basic Needs in Nepal, The Peoples War in Nepal: left perspectives and In Hope and in Fear: living through the People's War in Nepal. He has also lived and worked in Morocco and is the author of Moroccan Peasants. He is currently working with two colleagues on a book in honour of Eric Wolf, author of Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century.
Acting on Cultural Policy
This book investigates the role of arts practitioners in cultural policy-making, challenging the perception that arts practitioners have little or no involvement in policy and seeking to discover the extent and form of their engagement. Examining the subject through a case-study of playwriting policy in England since 1945, and paying particular attention to playwrights' organisations and their history of self-directed activity, the book explores practitioners' participation in cultural policy-making, encompassing both "invited" and "uninvited" interventions that also weave together policy activity and creative practice. It discusses why their involvement matters, and argues that arts practitioners and their organisations can be understood as participants in civil society whose policy activity contributes to the maintenance and enlargement of democratic practices and values.
Indian Politics
Bhartiya Vidya Bhavans, Bhavans College Andheri West has got autonomous status in 2020_21 .As a result, necessary changes in the syllabus of First Year Bachelor of Arts ( i.e.) courses were made in last academic year. In continue with the change, the Board of Studies in Political Science, Bhavans College has revised the syllabus of FYBA which will be effective from academic year 2021-22. The revised syllabus of Indian Politics is divided in two parts- four units of semester l and four units of semester ll. In the present syllabus, Indian Foreign Policy and International Relations has been included to give students a wider spectrum of India's core political concepts. The semester l gives a general Idea of Indian Constitution and semester ll gives introduction to India's Foreign Policy, War, Challenges to National Security, Military preparedness, China - India standoff, Doklam issue and Kargil war.. Interesting discussion/ debates related to topics can be initiated in the classroom as part of your learning experience. There can be a vast variety of projects/ assignments thought about due to the wide range of topics covered. I appeal to students and teachers to enjoy studies about Indian Politics. As many of you are thinking about appearing in a variety of competitive exams, this book will help you to get more interesting subject matter and brain food. I am happy to present the Indian Politics paper l and paper ll text book for BA semester l and ll students and teachers. If you want to add something to the current book, pls free to share it with me, we will incorporate it in future additions. I thank my kids Anirudh and Indira for keeping patience with their mom's busy schedule.. I thank my present Principal Dr Zarin Bathena for encouraging me to take up this as an assignment. I thank Dr Rajesh Kharat, Dean, Humanities, University of Mumbai and Dr Deepak Pawar, Director, Maharashtra Adhyan Kendra, University of Mumbai..without brainstorming sessions with these two scholars, I would not focus on my work.
Gender Equality and Policy Implementation in the Corporate World
Gender Equality and Policy Implementation in the Corporate World takes a unique approach to the issue of gender equality in corporations in the 21st century. It examines the implementation of specific policies that seek to promote women's presence on corporate boards in 15 democracies in Western and Central Eastern Europe, North America, and Australasia through the lens of the Gender Equality Policy in Practice Approach. The thirteen empirically rich country chapters by leading country experts and two separate comparative chapter answer core questions. How were policies adopted and implemented? Did they achieve any degree of success that would allow for real and lasting equality? What were the politics of the pursuit of corporate gender equality across the 15 countries? What worked and did not work and why? What are the lessons to be drawn from these experiences? The findings of the book show that policy implementation does matter, but that in this last bastion of male domination, policies have had more success in increasing women's numbers over challenging gender-biased norms that block women of all cultural and socio-economic backgrounds from gaining real power on boards. The path-breaking study shows that the reasons for this slow change are highly complex and case specific, in the details of each policy mix. While progress has been slow in coming, it has still been made even in these challenging times. Future policy success, the book concludes, is in the hands of men and women willing to come forward to overcome these well entrenched obstacles.
Regional Integration and South Sudan Accession to the East African Community
This book is a ground-breaking work for regional integration and the Accession of South Sudan to the East African Community (EAC). It details the 'nitty-gritty' of regional integration, its theoretical and philosophical ethos. The book argues that South Sudan's Accession to the EAC was process-driven as the technical teams drawn from various governmental departments negotiated the accession. However, the book argues that after the country's admission to the EAC, the Government of the Republic of South Sudan failed to seize the opportunity of implementing the protocols, programmes, and projects of the EAC for the benefits of its citizens. The book further argues that while Accession to the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) is the right decision for any state and its citizens, regional economic communities or blocs don't tangibly assist countries in the transformation of their socio-economic and political situations if their internal conditions are wanting. Although South Sudan was given a stay of application after her admission to the EAC in October 2016, the stay expired in October 2019 and thus, the nascent state risked being de-admitted to EAC if it didn't implement the three community protocols and pay its accumulated annual membership fees at once.
Political Power and Environmental Sustainability in Gulf Monarchies
This book offers a new perspective about the Gulf Arab states entering a post-oil era by looking at the political factors behind the green transformation. It discusses the recent 'environmental enthusiasm' in the oil- and gas-rich Gulf monarchies by asking how political power can be constituted through advocating environmental sustainability. While hydrocarbon-wealthy Gulf monarchies have been viewed as the globe's 'hydrocarbon powerhouse' with an immense ecological footprint, efforts towards sustainability and environmental protection measures are increasingly monitored. Climate Change, environmental, degradation and the global pressure towards a low-carbon development are threatening the very basis of economic and political power of the oil- and gas-exporting Gulf monarchies. So far, discussions about this fundamental transformation have barely elaborated how it affects and reorganizes political power games in the region. This book attempts to overcome thedominant focus of techno economic drivers of change and uncovers how environmental sustainability impacts state-society and state-elite relationships as well as shaping regional and even global geopolitics.
Economic Agglomeration and the Development of Cities in China
The book conducts a comprehensive study on urbanization and the development of cities in China. It provides detailed and systematic evidence on agglomeration effects on the urban labor market and industrial development. It studies the impact of economic agglomeration on the urban labor market and industrial development. It concludes that agglomeration will not only promote employment and incomes for workers, but also accelerate the growth of manufacturing and service industries. This book emphasizes the importance of increasing economic agglomeration and encouraging the free flow of production factors across regions in achieving coordinated development among regions. This book also provides policy implications to other developing countries in its conclusion.
Living in Fear in California
California was once a national leader in enacting tough-on-crime public safety protections such as Three Strikes and 10-20-Life. While controversial, these laws ensured justice for victims and safety for California's diverse communities.Years of prison overcrowding, followed by the appointment of a court-ordered prison receiver, led to a radical shift in policy in 2011 with the adoption of public safety realignment. Due to several questionable policy decisions in the Legislature and at the ballot box, many serious and repeat criminals now no longer serve time in state prison. Some receive a mere "slap on the wrist."In Living in Fear in California, Kerry Jackson explores California's current crime problem. Using government data and real-life anecdotes, he paints a portrait of California's crime problem in major cities, rural areas, schools, and communities where gangs openly operate.Jackson reviews the massive policy changes that have resulted in many Californians living in fear in their own homes. He also outlines several common-sense reforms to fix the major problems brought about by the state's public safety policy upheaval.
Architecture and Politics in Africa
Honourable Mention - 2023 ASR Prize for Best Africa-focused Anthology or Edited Collection Innovative study of state politics, identity and buildings that sheds new light on the links between the material and the ideational realms of contemporary life in Africa. Buildings shape politics in the ways they define communities, enable economic activity, reflect political ideas, and impact state-society relations. They are materially and symbolically interwoven with the everyday lives of elites and citizens, as well global flows of money, goods, and contracts. Yet, to date, there has been no research that explicitly connects debates about Africa's domestic and international politics with the study of architecture. This innovative book fills this gap, providing a new and compelling reading of the politics of identity in sub-Saharan Africa through an examination of some of its most significant buildings. Using case studies from nine countries across sub-Saharan Africa, this volume reveals how they are commissioned and built, how they enable elites to project power, and how they form a basis for popular conceptions of the state. Exploring a diverse range of buildings including parliaments, airports, prisons, ministries, regional institutions, libraries, universities, shopping malls, public housing, cathedrals and palaces, the contributors suggest a innovative perspective on African politics, identity and urban development. This book will be a compelling reference for scholars and students of African politics, development studies and city life in its elaboration of and challenges to established concepts and arguments about the relationship between material objects and political ideas. This book is available as an Open Access ebook under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-NC-ND.
The Covid Con
"If two weeks to flatten the curve and a handful of closures didn't appease the model gods, surely a month of lockdowns and closing almost everything would work, wouldn't it?" Like many Canadians, Brady Willett watched in astonishment as his typically freedom-loving country adopted some of the most oppressive pandemic policies in the world. The Covid Con examines and exposes how this unbelievable but true story transpired, and fearlessly asks the question - was it all just a con? In the book's first part, the author describes how he went from an average family man to a passionate protestor. The tone is comedic and at times dark, and Canadians suffering under Justin Trudeau's policies are sure to relate. The middle of the book covers the author's most outrageous pandemic experiences and breaks down how Trudeau became a great pandemic dictator. The shocking tale of tyranny and woe culminates with the almost magical arrival of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, and Canada taking the global lead in the march for freedom. The latter half of the book illustrates China's ominous role in the global pandemic response and shines the spotlight on the special interests and power dynamic that helped make the COVID-19 narrative possible. As the author playfully ranks the Top 10 Pandemic Dictators the sober question of whether covid was simply a con is answered.
Citizen Participation in the Information Society
This open access book examines how digital technologies are used to promote citizen participation in democratic urban development. It assesses the emergence, use, applicability and functions of digital modes of citizen participation in multiple cities around the world, where political regimes invite ordinary citizens to partake in policy processes through information technologies. The book also explores these initiatives alongside issues of democracy, social justice and power. It is an essential reference for practitioners, policymakers and academics interested in the relationship between citizen participation, technology and urban governance.
Chinese Refugee Law and Policy
This book is the first to systematically examine Chinese refugee law and policy. It provides in-depth legal and policy analysis and makes recommendations to relevant stakeholders, drawing upon not only existing legal and policy scholarships but also empirical information acquired through field visits and interviews with refugees, former refugees, and staff of governmental and non-governmental organisations working with displaced population. It is a timely response to rapidly growing international interest in and demand for information about Chinese and Asian approaches to refugee protection in academia and the policy sector.
Diminishing Returns
A set of state of the art empirical analyses at the country, regional, and global level that work from a new theoretical framework that analyzes the politics of growth and stagnation. As highlighted by the recent debate on 'secular stagnation, ' economic growth has slowed down considerably, and this has given rise to a host of new problems, from financial instability to the collapse of mainstream parties. What happens when growth--the main mechanism of capitalist legitimation--is harder to come by and less broadly shared? And how should we think about capitalist diversity in the context of global stagnation? In Diminishing Returns, Lucio Baccaro, Mark Blyth, and Jonas Pontusson address these questions by bringing together a number of comparative and international political economists with expertise across many different countries and regions. Going beyond the methodological nationalism common in most comparative research, each author departs from a common theoretical framework, the Growth Model Perspective, and contributes to develop it further. The outcome is a new theoretical framework to help social scientists, policymakers, and opinion makers, understand the politics of growth and stagnation, which offers state of the art empirical analyses at the country, regional, and global level.
Who Cares
The first comprehensive map of the social safety net, public and private, in the United States. Societies are often judged by how they treat their most vulnerable members: the poor and near poor. In the United States, this responsibility belongs not only to governments, but also to charities, businesses, individuals, and family members. Their combined efforts generate a social safety net. In Who Cares, Christopher Howard offers the first comprehensive map of the US social safety net. He chronicles how different parts of American society talk about poverty-related needs. And he shows what Americans do to provide basic levels of income, food, housing, medical care, and daily care. Although the US social safety net is extensive, major gaps remain, particularly impacting Blacks, Hispanics, and individuals who are not employed full-time. Drawing heavily upon evidence from the years right before the Covid-19 pandemic, Howard demonstrates that these problems persist even when the economy seems healthy. Who Cares concludes with an initial assessment of how the social safety net performed during the pandemic.
The Last 10 Per Cent
Criticism that the development sector has not delivered in terms of eliminating extreme poverty, fast-tracking growth and preventing conflict, is neither new nor surprising. In fact, it may be the one thing that scholars, donors and practitioners agree on. While many of these concerns are valid, this book makes a case that the sector is closer to unlocking the gates to more effective and efficient development outcomes than is popularly believed. Specifically, it argues that by overturning a few myths, making better use of evidence and employing some different rules, practitioners, policy specialists and donors can foster the changes in the development architecture that are needed to reach the 10 percent of the world's population still living in extreme poverty.Engaging, provocative and clear sighted, the book provides insight into interventions around democratic governance, refugee response, counterterrorism, gender mainstreaming, environmental protection and private sector engagement. It is instructive reading for professionals across the development sector, think tanks and NGOs.
The Republican Evolution
The Republican Party was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and its spread to new territories and states. Today, under the sway of Donald Trump, it is hardly recognizable as the party of Lincoln or even the party of Eisenhower. How and why has the Republican Party changed so drastically? Kenneth Janda sheds new light on the Republican Party's transformations, drawing on a wide range of quantitative and qualitative evidence. He examines nearly three thousand planks from every Republican platform since 1856 as well as candidate statements and historical sources, tracing the evolution of the party's positions on topics such as states' rights, trade, taxation, regulation, law and order, immigration, environmental protection, and voting rights. Janda argues that the GOP has gone through three main phases over the course of its history, transforming from a party committed to governance to one vehemently opposed to government. In its first several decades, the Republican Party emphasized national authority and economic development. By the late 1920s, Republicans had begun downplaying the role of government in favor of a new philosophy steeped in free markets. The nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964 marked a key turning point. Since then, the party has endorsed states' rights, opposed civil rights, and become increasingly ethnocentric. Richly documented with scores of figures and tables, The Republican Evolution offers new perspective on how the GOP became an antigovernment party--and whether it can step back from the brink of authoritarianism.
Trafficking Data
Bronze Award, Axiom Business Book AwardsGold Medalist in Finance/Investing/Economics, Ippy Awards From TikTok and Fortnite to Grindr and Facebook, Aynne Kokas delivers an urgent look into the technology firms that gather our data, and how the Chinese government is capitalizing on this data flow for political gain.On August 6, 2020, the Trump Administration issued a ban on TikTok in the United States, requiring that the owner, Beijing-based Bytedance, sell the company to American investors or shut it down. Legions of TikTokers were devastated at the possible loss of their beloved platform, and for what: a political grudge with China? American suitors like Walmart and Oracle tried to make a deal with Bytedance to keep the platform operating in the US. But then something curious happened. The Chinese government refused to let Bytedance sell TikTok on national security grounds. As it turns out, the pandemic era platform for dance challenges is a Chinese government asset. As digital technologies and social media have evolved into organizing forces for the way in which we conduct our work and social lives, the business logic that undergirds these digital platforms has become clear: we are their product. We give these businesses information about everything--from where we live and work to what we like to do for entertainment, what we consume, where we travel, what we think politically, and with whom we are friends and acquaintances. We do this willingly, but often without a full understanding of how this information is stored or used, or what happens to it when it crosses international boundaries. As Aynne Kokas argues, both corporations and governments "traffic" much of this data without our consent--and sometimes illegally--for political and financial gain. In Trafficking Data, Aynne Kokas looks at how technology firms in the two largest economies in the world, the United States and China, have exploited government policy (and the lack thereof) to gather information on citizens, putting US national security at risk. Kokas argues that US government leadership failures, Silicon Valley's disruption fetish, and Wall Street's addiction to growth have fuelled China's technological goldrush. In turn, American complacency yields an unprecedented opportunity for Chinese firms to gather data in the United States and quietly send it back to China, and by extension, to the Chinese government. Drawing on years of fieldwork in the US and China and a large trove of corporate and policy documents, Trafficking Data explains how China is fast becoming the global leader in internet governance and policy, and thus of the data that defines our public and private lives.
Non-Democratic Legitimacy During the Arab Spring
This book analyzes non-democratic legitimacy during the Arab Spring. During this historic event, monarchs and presidents were forced to defend their rule, whether through Islam, the cultural image of paternalism or the cash flow of welfare. Can Arab leaders still justify apolitical reigns? Are monarchies more respected than republicans or are they too under threat? The author traces the history of apolitical rule in the Arab world, from Islamic roots to the role of Arab leaders in merging religion with socio-economic benefits and cosmetic liberalization. Finally, analysis of speeches given by leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain in response to the Arab Spring are considered. When protesters took to the streets with their slogans, the regimes talked back. This work discusses the weight of their words and why some leaders survived unrest while others were overthrown. To engage with the author and book further, you can find their presentation discussing their experience publishing with Palgrave Macmillan here: https: //youtu.be/NfKETFx4sok; and their presentation discussing the book itself here: https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJU6_3M3xyo
Supply and Demand Management in Ride-Sourcing Markets
Supply and Demand Management in Ride-Sourcing Markets offers a fundamental modeling framework for characterizing ride-sourcing markets by spelling out the complex relationships among key endogenous and exogenous variables in the markets. This book establishes several economic models that can approximate matching frictions between drivers and passengers, describes the equilibrium state of ride-sourcing markets, and more. Based on these models, the book develops an optimum strategy (in terms of trip fare, wage and/or matching) that maximizes platform profit. While the best social optimum solution (for maximizing the social welfare) is generally unsustainable, this book provides options governments can use to encourage second-best solutions. In addition, the book's authors establish models to analyze ride-pooling services, with traffic congestion externalities incorporated into models to see how both new platforms and government designs can optimize operating strategies in response to the level of traffic congestion.
Terrorism Awareness
Terrorism Awareness is a helpful guide to provide anyone working or traveling in the United States or overseas-particularly in potentially volatile places subject to terrorism or civil unrest-the tools they need to recognize potential threats and to keep themselves, and those they are with, safe.
Local Self-Governance and Varieties of Statehood
The debate on governance originates in the OECD world. At the latest since the postcolonial debate, we know that we need to "test" our assumptions under radically different conditions. This book offers an extended perspective of local self-governance by examining cases from South Asia, Africa, and Latin America, together with a study of militias in the USA. The chapters present a wide variety of local actors who pursue different notions of order legitimized by local traditions based on hierarchy or deeply rooted communalism, Islamic theology, or grassroots democracy. Some local actors claim a state-like authority and challenge the territorial state. In such cases, there is no longer "a shadow hierarchy" but opposition to the state. Different violent actors fight for supremacy, and the state is just one actor among others. The empirical studies presented in this book show how different kinds of local self-governance are combined with varieties of statehood, and thus contribute to an understanding of the notion of governance in a fundamental sense that goes beyond the special case of the OECD world.
Stop the Road
Stop the Road is an up-close-and-personal account of Baltimore's 40-year battle over expressway plans. Meet the unsung heroes, a ragtag band of neighborhood activists, preservationists, and environmentalists who saved Baltimore from its own leadership, thereby protecting Baltimore's historic waterfront communities of Federal Hill, Fell's Point, and Canton. But that glorious and unlikely win must be tempered with the equally compelling but inglorious story behind the disastrous Highway to Nowhere. This is Baltimore unmasked and laid threadbare for the most momentous decisions since the building of the B&O Railroad.
The Architecture of Rights
What is a right? What, if anything, makes rights different from other features of the normative world, such as duties, standards, rules, or principles? Do all rights serve some ultimate purpose? In addition to raising these questions, philosophers and jurists have long been aware that different senses of 'a right' abound. To help make sense of this diversity, and to address the above questions, they developed two types of accounts of rights: models and theories. This book explicates rights modelling and theorising and scrutinises their methodological underpinnings. It then challenges this framework by showing why the theories ought to be abandoned. In addition to exploring structural concerns, the book also addresses the various ways that rights can be used. It clarifies important differences between rights exercise, enforcement, remedying, and vindication, and identifies forms of legal rights-claiming and rights-invoking outside of institutional contexts.
Derek Walcott's Poetry Deconstructed, Its Political and Sociological Discourse Revealed
This is a deconstruction of the published books of poetry of Derek Walcott from 1961 to 1981 to unearth, expose and analyze the discourse and worldview of Walcott of miscegenated being, the Caribbean dystopia and the existential condition of the African and Indian Diasporas in the Caribbean dystopia. Walcott segregates himself from the Caribbean dystopia as he excoriates the African and Indian Diasporas blaming them for constructing the dystopia, they are trapped in. Walcott exempts white supremacist colonial and neo-colonial imperial power relations which condemns us to dependency and underdevelopment at the level of the idea. Which he must do for Walcott insists that what separates him from the Dystopia and enables his freedom from the dystopia, his flight to the North Atlantic is his white grandfather's legacy bequeathed to him by his miscegenated father. At the level of his genome Walcott is special, exceptional in the realm of the Dystopia compelled to prove and affirm this state of being in the North Atlantic. Walcott then frames his poetry on the foundation of the binary, Manichean duality of white North Atlantic discourse. I had a white grandfather and father which makes this deconstruction a personal conversation between two conflicting discourses of miscegenated being and our place in the world.
Helping the Good Do Better
How to effect positive social change by the top progressive white hat lobbyist in Washington. HELPING THE GOOD DO BETTER pulls back the curtain on the corridors of power in Washington to reveal how social change really happens. This book offers lessons from the trenches on how some of this generation's most defining social issues-AIDS, disabilities, global poverty, cancer, human trafficking, national service, early childhood education, and social entrepreneurship -- engendered landmark federal policies. Each chapter tells the story of how a particular issue was shaped by the movements and legislation at the center of public debate. Each case provides powerful lessons about how coalitions are built, strategies crafted, and powerful interests challenged in high-stakes, no-holds-barred political battles. Doing good requires more than just providing programs and services. It requires coordination, organization, and a new, stronger emphasis on and dedication to advocacy. Participating in advocacy is no longer a luxury -- it is a necessity. Visionaries and activists together with "white hat" lobbyists -- people who understand the power of politics and who are able to put it to work to serve the public interest -- have won some of the most transformative policy fights in recent times. The culmination of those experiences, of fighting and winning on behalf of public interest causes, is presented here in a new theory for social change. Successful campaigns and movements must possess a lobbyist's combined approach to policy, politics, and press. Leveraging these 3 Ps, with true passion and discipline, can create results that are nothing short of awe-inspiring. An insightful first-person guide to advocacy by a white-hat lobbyist who was in the rooms where historic social changes were made, HELPING THE GOOD DO BETTER is a direct and honest look at government in action and the behind-the-scenes players who help make progress a reality.
Self Defense
A brilliant study of violent self-defense in the struggle for liberation by an award-winning philosopher Is violent self-defense ethical? In the history of colonialism, racism, sexism, capitalism, there has long been a dividing line between bodies "worthy of defending" and those who have been disarmed and rendered defenseless. In 1685, for example, France's infamous "Code Noir" forbade slaves from carrying weapons, under penalty of the whip. In nineteenth-century Algeria, the colonial state outlawed the use of arms by Algerians, but granted French settlers the right to bear arms. Today, some lives are seen to be worth so little that Black teenagers can be shot in the back for appearing "threatening" while their killers are understood, by the state, to be justified. That those subject to the most violence have been forcibly made defenseless raises, for any movement of liberation, the question of using violence in the interest of self-defense. Here, philosopher Elsa Dorlin looks across the global history of the left - from slave revolts to the knitting women of the French Revolution and British suffragists' training in ju-jitsu, from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to the Black Panther Party, from queer neighborhood patrols to Black Lives Matter, to trace the politics, philosophy, and ethics of self defense. In this history she finds a "martial ethics of the self" a practice in which violent self defense is the only means for the oppressed to ensure survival and to build a liveable future. In this sparkling and provocative book, drawing on theorists from Thomas Hobbes to Fred Hampton, Frantz Fanon to Judith Butler, Michel Foucault to June Jordan, Dorlin has reworked the very idea of modern governance and political subjectivity. Translated from the French by Kieran Aarons.
Back from Dystopia
Cities throughout the West face rising crime, soaring housingcosts, a sprawling homelessness crisis and devastateddowntown areas following two years of COVID restrictions andthe aftermath of destructive protests. Policymakers typicallyaddress these and other urban problems in a piecemealfashion. They fail to understand what makes great cities thrive.The Free Cities Center is Pacific Research Institute's effortto foster serious thinking about urban policy. PRI hopes toincubate good ideas that will improve our cities. It will featureincisive reporting and opinionating on our new web page, andin a series of webinars, research papers and books. If youlove cities and are brokenhearted by their current state, helpis on the way!
Social Capital and Collective Action in Pakistani Rural Development
This book distinguishes conceptually between indigenous and constructed social capital and the associated spontaneous and induced collective action for rural development and natural resource preservation. While some of the case studies in this book show that induced collective action can lead to cost-effective, community-centric and empirically grounded rural development initiatives, other case studies show that spontaneous collective action, based on indigenous social capital, can result in resource preservation, positive development outcomes, and resistance to the excesses engendered by conventional development. The authors also explore a hybrid form whereby spontaneous collective action is given a more effective and sustainable shape by an outside organization with experience of induced collective action. Exploring alternative community-centric paths to development, especially those attuned with sustainability imperatives, is part of a global search for solutions. While the volume draws on the Pakistani case, the problem with conventional development approaches and the need for complementary alternatives is not unique to only this country; and the volume has broader relevance to students and researchers across the fields of social policy and development.
