Bonds of Blood?
The North Caucasus, specifically Chechnya and Ingushetia, is a region that has experienced some of the deadliest and most protracted conflicts in Europe. By examining the relationship between state and society, this book considers how state-building has unfolded in a region with highly complex social structures, a history of colonialism, Soviet authoritarianism, and later post-Soviet wars and trauma. Focusing on a systematic analysis of subnational state-building in post-Soviet Chechnya and Ingushetia, and the role of teips (clans) in this process, this study responds to the widely accepted academic claim that governance and ethnic consolidation in the North Caucasus is shaped by the politics of teips. Through socio-anthropological analysis of the clans and how they function towards political systems, Sokirianskaia shows how the teips lost their organizational structure and roles, becoming incapable of mobilizing for political action. While teip symbolism has remained politically relevant, and the bonds of kinship are highly important, they do not form the basis of politics and subnational statebuilding in Chechnya and Ingushetia. Consequently, subnational authoritarianism is not the result of the pre-existing social composition of the society, but a reflection of the rules of the game imposed by Moscow and political choices of the Kremlin-installed local elites.
The Political Economy of Mobile Telephony in South Africa
Telecommunications are an essential part of the global political economy, and the private telecommunications sector is driving much of the transformation across Africa. Yet the regulatory frameworks governing the relationships between African governments and these corporations remain hazy. Focusing on South Africa's flagship mobile network operators (MNOs), MTN and Vodacom, this open access book provides unique insights into this thin boundary between corporatism and many African states' global relationships. Drawing on rich archival research, company data, and reports from the South African parliament and Department of International Relations and Cooperation, Odilile uncovers how information and communications technology (ICT) companies have taken advantage of epoch-shifting periods in South Africa's history, from the end of the Cold War to the end of Apartheid. In so doing, she sheds new light on the wider issues of the politics of the multinational corporation, of foreign investment, and of state-corporation relations across Africa and beyond. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.
The Politics and Science of Prevision
This book inquires into the use of prediction at the intersection of politics and academia, and reflects upon the implications of future-oriented policymaking across different fields.
Turkiye
"A deeply thoughtful, gripping and scrupulous book told in Sayarer's trademark style from the saddle and the roadside" CAROLINE EDEN By a winner of the Stanford Dolman Award for Travel Writing "The best travelogues should make you question your preconceptions of a place and force you to engage with what the author is saying. T羹rkiye succeeds on both fronts" Cycle Magazine "We need writers who will go all the way for a story, and tell it with fire. Sayarer is a marvellous example" HORATIO CLARE On the eve of its centenary year and elections that will shape the coming generations, Julian Emre Sayarer sets out to cycle across T羹rkiye, from the Aegean coast to the Armenian border. Meeting Turkish farmers and workers, Syrian refugees and Russians avoiding conscription, the journey brings to life a living, breathing, cultural tapestry of the place where Asia, Africa and Europe converge. The result is a love letter to a country and its neighbours - one that offers a clear-eyed view of T羹rkiye and its place in a changing world. Yet the route is also marked by tragedy, as Sayarer cycles along a major fault line just months before one of the most devastating earthquakes in the region's modern history. Always engaged with the big historical and political questions that inform so much of his writing, Sayarer uses his bicycle and the roadside encounters it allows to bring everything back to the human level. At the end of his journey we are left with a deeper understanding of the country, as well as the essential and universal nature of political power, both in T羹rkiye and closer to home. "A persuasive corrective to western views of a place he loves" Guardian
Enhancing East Asian Security Coordination
The war in Ukraine has surpassed the predictions of countless analysts and armchair generals since it began in February 2022. The steadfastness and effectiveness of Ukrainian defense efforts have prompted political leaders and defense planners in East Asia to re-evaluate many assumptions that previously guided their regional policy, especially regarding tensions in the Taiwan Strait. While the threat of armed attack by the People's Republic of China (PRC) had long been seen as a vague possibility, many believed that in the postmodern era, territorial aggression between sovereign countries belonged to the past. Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine exposed the fallacy of this belief. Consequently, plans and preparations for a potential attack on Taiwan by a similarly assertive leader like China's Xi Jinping have now been prioritized and addressed with renewed urgency.Japan, second only to Taiwan in vulnerability, faces significant risks to the geopolitical stability of the region should such an event occur. Given the heightened stakes, analysts and planners in East Asia must take a sober look at the situation and develop innovative strategies to ensure an effective defense -- recognized as the most potent deterrent against potential Taiwan contingencies. This book examines these issues from various angles, emphasizing the critical need for proactive measures.In this compelling analysis, the authors of the chapters delve into the unexpected and prolonged conflict in Ukraine, a war that has reverberated through global geopolitical thought. The resilience of Ukraine's defense forces has necessitated a critical reassessment in East Asia, particularly concerning longstanding tensions in the Taiwan Strait. The stakes are higher than ever, making an effective defense the key to deterring future geopolitical challenges in the region. This book scrutinizes the situation from diverse perspectives, emphasizing the imperative for East Asian analysts and planners to develop innovative solutions to safeguard against potential Taiwan contingencies.
Struggle for Alliance
This book provides a comprehensive study of the complex impacts of the war in Ukraine on Russo-Iranian relations, and the resulting consequences for the international relations of the Middle East. In contrast to dominant academic approaches, which view Russo-Iranian relations through the lens of an anti-hegemonic agenda and confrontation with the US-led international order, this study presents an alternative angle stating that the war in Ukraine has sped up Moscow and Tehran's interdependency, primarily because of the protective benefits that it brings to both states. The book analyzes various debates about the impact of the war on Russo-Iranian relations. From the perspective of the emerging literature on authoritarian regionalism, the book explores how domestic politics and common threat perceptions play a role in these states' decisions to adjust to the systemic changes caused by the war. Chapters address how changes in the strategic environment are affecting Moscow and Tehran's perception of each other, what factors contribute the most to both states' decision to pursue greater cooperation and how they manage the new conflicts of interest raised by the war. The book also queries whether relations continue to be based on tactical partnership, or whether a stronger alliance between Moscow and Tehran is unfolding, and what the consequences of such a struggle for alliance will be for the wider region.
Quasi-Armies and State-Building in Africa
Civil-military relations in the Global South are both important and understudied. In practice, this leads to international programmes repeatedly, erroneously assuming that the only way to restore stability, development and peace in post-conflict and post-crisis societies is to focus on state-building without taking into account the respective political culture in place. The results in the Global South, and particularly in Africa, have been weak and fragile at best. In this open access book, through rich new case studies of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cameroon, and Rwanda, Olaf Bachmann takes an important step in de-Westernizing civil-military relations theory. Focussing on one of the key pillars of the state-the army-and starting from the historically established axiom that there cannot be a state without an army and there cannot be an army without a state, Bachmann demonstrates how and why most African militaries never developed into professional armies. Instead, they have generally remained quasi-armies in the context of the quasi-states that established themselves after independence. Analyzing these events in the context of a wide array of Asian and African sources, Bachmann exposes the Anglo-Eurocentrism at the heart of Samuel Huntington's hugely influential theory of the soldier and the state, and in so doing, he provides a powerful, more globally relevant re-examination of state-formation processes as they relate to the control of violence. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.
Preventive Diplomacy in Non-Traditional Security Issues
As a key part and parcel of sustainable development of ASEAN-China relations, cooperation in non-traditional security issues has become a new growth area for both sides. This book is divided into three parts. The first part takes stock of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in 30 years of ASEAN-China public health cooperation, covering topics such as digital health and personnel training cooperation, global vaccine distribution and PPP in public health in Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The second part explores how to reconnect ASEAN and China, which includes sharing the experiences of member states on vaccine multilateralism and offering proposals for practicable and safer regional standards to institute green lanes, travel bubbles and COVID-19 travel passports to strengthen the regional economy, especially in mass tourism. The third part introduces ASEAN-China cooperation on Nature based solutions (NBS) to environmental issues, including Southeast Asia's vulnerability to climate change and its Low Carbon Pathway, and NBS for climate change adaptation in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.
The New Cold War
An urgent and essential assessment of the global contest between the US and China, and how looking to history will help us to navigate it, from former Director of Chatham House "An illuminating book for the interested citizen as well as for those making policy" - Hillary Rodham Clinton We have entered a new Cold War. The contest between America and China is global and unbridgeable, and it encompasses all major instruments of statecraft - economic, political and military. It has its tinder box: Taiwan. And both protagonists are working hard to draw allies to their side from across the world. We stand at its beginning. But this Cold War is nothing like the conflict between the Soviet Union and the West which defined the second half of the twentieth century. We need new ideas to navigate its risks and avoid a globally devastating hot war. In this urgent and necessary book, Robin Niblett argues that only by looking back can we learn the lessons to guide us through this new reality: he goes through the ten ways in which the New Cold War is different and offers five rules for navigating its onset. How we manage this contest will determine not only whether there is still space for international cooperation to deal with our many global challenges, from the climate emergency to the technological revolution, but also who will lead the twenty-first century and, quite simply, the course of all our futures.
Crude Capitalism
A groundbreaking history of oil and it's importance to US politics, finance, militarism and consumerism from an award-winning author and scholar This expansive history traces the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current climate crisis. Beyond simplistic narratives that frame oil as 'prize' or 'curse', Crude Capitalism uncovers the surprising ways that oil is woven into the fabric of our modern world: the rise of an American-centered global order; the breakdown of Empire and anti-colonial rebellion; contemporary finance and US dollar hegemony; debt and militarism; and the emergence of new forms of synthetic consumption. Much more than an energy source or transport fuel, oil has a foundational place in all aspects of contemporary life - no challenge to the fossil fuel industry can be effective without taking this fact seriously. Crude Capitalism maps the varied geographies of oil, including the rise of OPEC, the importance of revolutionary and Post-Soviet Russia, the crucial role of African upstream reserves, and the new petrochemical circuits that link the Middle East, China, and East Asia. The book provides an original and fine-grained empirical analysis of corporate ownership and control, including refining and petrochemicals. By exposing these structures of power and placing oil in capitalism, the book makes an essential contribution to debates around oil-dependency and the struggle for climate justice.
Decolonizing Emotions in French Algeria
Alongside the diplomatic struggles of the early Cold War, European politicians worked to shape emotions about the postwar order-advocating fear of communism and hope for postwar recovery. In this context, the French Empire in North Africa emerged as one important emotional battleground, where Algerian nationalists and anti-colonial campaigners challenged French narratives about imperial pride and native hysteria. During the Algerian War (1954-1962), emotions thus became a pivotal part of the independence struggle. Accordingly, Decolonizing Emotions tracks affective politics during the revolution, focusing on members of the Front de lib矇ration nationale (FLN), Combattants de la lib矇ration (CDL), and Jeune R矇sistance. Delving into the manifestos, poetry, and personal diaries of anti-colonial activists, the book reveals a rich world of transgressive sentiments, emotional exile, and affective border-crossings. The stories that surface show how Algerians used biopower to combat an affective regime that refused native populations the right to be angry. The book further chronicles how Europeans complicated ideas of humanitarian pity and confronted the French production of political apathy. It is a history that holds modern relevance, speaking to contemporary debates over race relations and national pride, the pathologizing of Muslim emotions, and the contested process of how myths die (demythologization).
Russia's World Order
Russia's World Order explores the ideas underlying the undeclared New Cold War between Russia and the West. The first Cold War was a struggle between capitalism and communism; most Western politicians and policymakers imagine the new one to be a struggle between democracy and autocracy. Russia's World Order explains that in Russian eyes, the conflict is about something very different: it is a fight between two incompatible visions of where history is leading.Russia's World Order describes the civilizational theory that has come to dominate Russian official discourse, andthat has come to dominate Russian official discourse and that is being used by the Russian state to justify its clashes with the West. Whereas the West promotes a vision of history that drives all nations toward convergence on a single social, political, and economic model (that of modern Western liberalism), Russia's political leaders increasingly portray the world as consisting of numerous distinct civilizations, each diverging toward its own unique destination. The Russian state portrays itself as defending the right of all civilizations to chart their own independent path of development and is having some success in using this logic to win allies around the world. Paul Robinson recounts how ideas of inevitable convergence once dominated Russian thought as well but were gradually pushed out by civilizational theories. He outlines where these theories came from, what they propose, and how they became popular. Russia's World Order thereby reveals the true nature of today's New Cold War and the challenge that Russian civilizationism poses to the West.
Nordic Societal Security
This book compares and contrasts publicly espoused security concepts in the Nordic region, and explores the notion of societal security.
Humanity and Ukraine
Humanity and Ukraine: Resistance through Language, Culture, and Taking up of Armsis dedicated to a nation under siege, the Ukrainian heroes, who stood up to fight for the freedom and independence of Ukraine and to resist the Russian occupiers when the rest of the world believed in the embedded myth that the Russian army was the 'second army in the world.' This recounts the legendary courageous fighting and resistance by the Ukrainian military and civilians against the Russian invaders waging war on Ukraine. The book analyses the long history of Ukraine, starting with Kyivan Rus, when the Russian invaders tried to steal and rewrite Ukrainian history, through to the current situation of threat to Ukrainian culture and educational institutions, including museums, archives, and libraries. All of this continue to be under systematic and ruthless enemy fire and are subjected to looting and destruction by the occupiers. Ukrainians continue to act to create archival exhibitions, to resist and above all to fight. The book also analyses the plight of Ukrainian war refugees in host countries, of the Crimean Tatars in Russian occupied Crimea and the prospects for Ukraine as a thriving country within Europe and the world after the Ukrainian victory.
Health, Parenting, and Community Perspectives on Black Fatherhood
From slavery to present day, the narratives of Black fatherhood have been fraught with biases and stereotypes, failing to accurately capture the voices and lived experiences of Black fathers. Contrary to these narratives, Black fathers play an important role in the lives of their children and families. Health, Parenting, and Community Perspectives on Black Fatherhood: Defying Stereotypes and Amplifying Strengths, edited by Tasha L. Alston, Brianna P. Lemmons, and Latrice S. Rollins, celebrates Black fatherhood and highlights the ways Black men defy stereotypes and embrace their role as fathers with unwavering resilience. Drawing on the expertise of well-regarded experts in the field and using a strengths-based perspective, this comprehensive book provides insight into the experiences of Black fathers in three key areas: health, parenting, and community. The contributors explore the salience of the co-parenting relationship for Black fathers, community-based participatory research with Black fathers, the Black father-daughter relationship, the male in-law relationship in Black families, support systems for Black fathers parenting autistic children, and more. This volume is an essential resource for scholars in social work, psychology, sociology, child development, allied health, and similar disciplines and professions.
Reframing the Buffer State in Contemporary International Relations
This book explores buffer states' agency beyond being highly interactive spaces for the competing strategic and security interests of larger powers. Analysing twenty-one political events the author offers a new conceptual framework for the buffer state, which emphasizes strategic utility and agency of the buffer state.
Indigenous Peacebuilding in South Sudan
This book explores the indigenous peace cultures of the major ethnic groups in South Sudan (Dinka, Nuer, Anuak and Acholi) and analyses their contribution to resolving the civil war.
Underground Empire
A Responsible Statecraft best foreign policy book of 2023A deeply researched investigation that reveals how the United States is like a spider at the heart of an international web of surveillance and control, which it weaves in the form of globe-spanning networks such as fiber optic cables and obscure payment systemsAmerica's security state first started to weaponize these channels after 9/11, when they seemed like necessities to combat terrorism--but now they're a matter of course. Multinational companies like AT&T and Citicorp build hubs, which they use to make money, but which the government can also deploy as choke points. Today's headlines about trade wars, sanctions, and technology disputes are merely tremors hinting at far greater seismic shifts beneath the surface. Slowly but surely, Washington has turned the most vital pathways of the world economy into tools of domination over foreign businesses and countries, whether they are rivals or allies, allowing the U.S. to maintain global supremacy. In the process, we have sleepwalked into a new struggle for empire. Using true stories, field-defining findings, and original reporting, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman show how the most ordinary aspects of the post-Cold War economy have become realms of subterfuge and coercion, and what we must do to ensure that this new arms race doesn't spiral out of control.
The Nubian Issue in Egypt
From the perspective of conflict theory, this book offers a comprehensive, multi-causal, and multi-level analysis of the Nubian issue in Egypt. Utilizing qualitative research methods, it delves into the origins and evolving dynamics of the Nubian issue. In doing so, the book explores avenues for peaceful conflict transformation. Beyond providing causal explanations, it achieves a deeper understanding of the historical context and the various levels (group, state, regional, and global) involved in the Nubian issue, as well as the perceptions, strategies, and actions of the conflicting parties.
Political Humour and Zimbabwean Identity on Social Media Platforms
Depoliticising Humanitarian Action
Is it possible to separate humanitarian action from politics? Drawing on the expertise of practitioners and researchers, and balancing theoretical insights with empirical grounding, field examples and policy recommendations, this book is an essential guide to the thorny interplay between what are too often considered as separate worlds.
Performance diplomacy for the D.R. Congo
The book examines the problems of diplomatic governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo.It pinpoints the pitfalls that hamper this diplomacy, notably tribalism, corruption, mediocrity, etc. To get out of the rut, the author proposes meritocracy as a criterion for diplomatic governance. This text is the result of the author's experience after a twenty-year career in this Ministry.
Preparing for Hybrid Threats to Security
This book examines hybrid threats within the broader context of a security crisis in Europe.
Monitoring and Evaluation of Public Policies
The monitoring and evaluation of projects, programs and public policies play a fundamental role in the effective and efficient management of government resources, as well as in promoting social and economic development. Throughout the 20th century, Brazil witnessed a significant evolution in the field of monitoring and evaluation of public policies, reflecting political, social and economic changes in the country.In this context, this book aims to explore the evolution of monitoring and evaluation of projects, programs and public policies in Brazil, analyzing the main historical milestones, concepts, types, uses and a special focus, at the end, on impact evaluation, one of the most relevant in this field. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we aim to offer valuable insights for public managers, researchers, students and others interested in improving governance and promoting sustainable development in the country.
Prioritizing Global Responsibilities
States face multiple ongoing and emerging challenges, from climate change to global disease, mass atrocities to forced displacement, humanitarian crises to entrenched global poverty, and are constrained by material and political limits to the amount of resources that they can devote to these issues. How should states decide which issues to prioritize and which crises to address? Prioritizing Global Responsibilities answers this question by proposing a two-level account of just prioritization that aims to be both philosophically sound and practically relevant. The authors assess several potential prioritization principles, including diversification, culpability, urgency, disadvantage, and national interest, and argue that states should prioritize issues where they can assist most effectively and where they can help those who are most underprivileged.
The International Arbitration of Territorial Disputes
Asaf Siniver provides a systematic and comparative analysis of the role of international arbitration in the settlement of interstate territorial disputes. He engages with International Relations (IR) and International Law (IL) scholarships to locate the unique characteristics of arbitration as a legal method of dispute settlement, distinct from the other legal method of adjudication ('judicial settlement') and diplomatic methods such as negotiation and mediation. A novel framework examines both political and legal dimensions to analyse (i) under what conditions states are more likely to pursue a legal settlement of their territorial dispute via arbitration as opposed to the more popular diplomatic method of mediation, and (ii) what explains compliance with, or defiance of international law in such cases. In so doing, the author sets to reclaim the sui generis nature of arbitration as a unique legal-political method which enables the disputants to maintain the considerable flexibility and autonomy often found in mediation, whilst providing the same final and legally binding solution that adjudication offers. Exploring a wide range of primary sources, including interviews, archival research, and official documents, and employing qualitative research methods, Siniver applies the analytical framework to four contemporary cases of international arbitration: the arbitration over the Rann of Kutch between India and Pakistan (1966-68); the Beagle Channel arbitration between Chile and Argentina (1971-77), the Taba arbitration between Egypt and Israel (1986-88), and the South China Sea arbitration between The Philippines and China (2013-16).
European Political Economy: Theoretical Approaches and Policy Issues
Combining the key theoretical and empirical approaches of political economy and EU scholarship, this textbook is key reading for studying the European political economy. Drawing on theoretical debates and recent policy case studies, a team of expert editors and contributors help students apply theories and methods to real-life issues in European political economy. This textbook offers a clear analysis of some of the most pressing challenges confronting Europe, including the political impact of rising inequality, the functioning and the effects of Economic and Monetary Union, the future of the "European" social model, the ongoing impact of Brexit, Europe's role in a changing global economy, and Europe's response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Digital formats and resources European Political Economy is available for students and institutions to purchase in a variety of formats. The e-Book offers a mobile experience and convenient access along with links to further reading and links that offer extra learning support: www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/ebooks https: //www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/ebooks
Personalism and Personalist Regimes
Personalist leaders, such as Russia's Vladimir Putin, Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko or Venezuela's Nicol獺s Maduro, are increasingly prominent players in the international landscape; their motivations and policies, however, are poorly understood. The regimes they lead are difficult to examine, mostly because of their most defining feature-an inordinate concentration of power in the hands of one single individual. Yet, personalist leaders do not rule alone, even if they do not always govern through institutional channels. How do personalist regimes really work? How do their rulers acquire and maintain personal control? How does contemporary personal rule differ from how it was practised during the Cold War? These are the key questions addressed in Personalism and Personalist Regimes, which offers a systematic examination of the logic of personalism, or personalist rule, tackling comprehensively the study of personalist leaders and personalist regimes. The book is underpinned by a theoretical framework that combines historical and comparative analyses, brought forward through a series of detailed country studies authored by a distinguished group of comparativists and area studies experts. The book also revisits, and builds upon, Sultanistic Regimes, the seminal study by H.E. Chehabi and Juan Linz. In contrast to Sultanistic Regimes that studied sultanism-an extreme form of personalism-Personalism and Personalist Regimes examines personal rule on its full continuum, from Turkey under Erdo?an or Venezuela under Maduro, to Turkmenistan under Berdimuhamedov or Libya under Gaddafi. Because personalism, or personal rule, can be present across all regimes, the book also includes several studies of personalism and institutions in party dictatorships, China or Cuba amongst others.
Security Integration in the Post-Soviet Space and Collective Security Treaty Organization
This book explores the role of the Central Security Council (CSTO) in ensuring regional security, analyzing the evolution of cooperation between post-Soviet states since the Soviet Union's demise. It focuses on the establishment of the CSTO as a regional organization since 2002, with six out of 11 CIS members. The book fills a gap in existing research on the security paradigm in post-Soviet space and the collective security mechanism of CSTO. Many western scholars have not understood the importance of multilateralism and Russia's foreign policy in maintaining security measures in the post-Soviet space. The book is an informative handbook on regional integration, Eurasianism, and CSTO for students, scholars, readers, academicians, and researchers working on this area.
Subversion 2.0
Why are conspiracy theories, extremist rhetoric, and acts of antagonism by fringe elements of society so much more visible today than in years past? The Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021, and the surge of medical skepticism during the global COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the challenge of extreme rhetoric in global society, with increasing attention paid to the enabling role of the Internet. But beyond the ways in which the Internet allows for connection, how do fringe ideas travel into the mainstream to become more significant movements? In Subversion 2.0, Christopher Whyte describes the transformation of societal subversion in the digital age. Whyte makes the case that "leaderlessness"--characterized by an evolving and uneven feedback loop linking fringe spaces to mainstream elite rhetoric and popular discourse--has emerged in recent years as the default format of subversive activity. Through case explorations and novel data, Whyte shows how extreme narratives that originate in conspiratorial, restrictive virtual spaces are rapidly filtered into mainstream settings due to a series of socio-technological conditions present in the Web 2.0 era. As a result, fringe narratives and symbols often become the lens through which social and political elites interpret information that they then spread through public speech, which is projected back to subversive spaces and used to perpetuate fringe narratives. By examining the uneven feedback loop of leaderlessness, Whyte argues that social Internet platforms act as a vehicle for transmitting and amplifying extreme rhetoric but often fail to moderate extremism in turn. He ultimately shows how societal subversion, an activity that is about degrading existing power structures without directly attacking them, has taken on a new, dynamic form in the digital age.
Financial Innovation in the Public Sector
Financial innovation in the public sector is essential for contemporary management, requiring the modernization of administrative and financial practices to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The book "Financial Innovation in the Public Sector: Opportunities and Challenges in Contemporary Management" is a crucial reference for public managers, academics, researchers and students. Logically organized, the book offers a historical overview, explores tools and opportunities such as digital technologies and public-private partnerships, addresses implementation challenges and emphasizes governance and good practices. The final chapter projects the future of financial innovation, discussing trends and offering practical recommendations, with the aim of inspiring new ideas and promoting constructive debate.
Geopolitics, Trade Blocks, and the Fragmentation of World Commerce
The global economic edifice built after World War II is a source of unprecedented prosperity. It cannot function without open and predictable international trade, and the peaceful international relations that are its foundation. The rules that enable trade are under attack. Social divisions and great power rivalry have eroded the political support for open trade. The consequence is fragmentation of world trade, its separation into blocks that advance domestic producers or favored nations nearby. These blocs are themselves often pulled apart by competing agendas. The prospects are for vastly reduced economic efficiency and - most ominously - heightened geopolitical tensions. The questions about why this is happening, how economic fragmentation will evolve, and how to respond to it, are uppermost in the minds of policymakers and businesses across the world. These are the questions that Uri Dadush seeks to answer. Since the uncertainty cannot be dispelled, it must be better managed.
Growing Strong, Growing Apart
Since its establishment, NATO has admitted a variety of new members in several enlargement rounds, even though some of these countries fall short of the organizational expectations of democracy-as stipulated in an elaborate scheme of texts, speeches, and statements. Growing Strong, Growing Apart maintains that this policy results from gradual erosion in the prominence of democratic discourse within the organization, normalizing deviations from previous optimistic expectations that became increasingly unsustainable after the end of the Cold War. Eyal Rubinson's analysis of NATO's conduct in this regard builds on archival research and interviews with NATO officials and senior member states' representatives. He discusses this theme in depth through detailed case studies, each covering a different period, emphasizing the place of cognitive processes in international organizations' decision-making.
Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey
This book offers the first comparative study of the foundations, consolidation and contestation of regime guardianship in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey. For decades, the military in Turkey and the clergy in Iran acted as the guardians of Atat羹rk and Khomeini's ideological legacies. At the turn of the 21st century rising popular actors in both countries started challenging the tutelary control of the state and society. While in Turkey the clash between the Kemalist guardians and their Islamist-led rivals resulted in a victory for the latter, although not for democracy, in Iran, traditionalist guardians were able to thwart popular challenges to their authority at the expense of the regime's democratic legitimacy. How was guardianship established, consolidated and contested in these republics with seemingly inimical founding ideologies? Why did it unravel in Turkey but survive in the Islamic Republic in the early 2010s? And what do these power struggles and their outcomes tell us about political contestation in tutelary hybrid regimes?
I Tried to Warn You
I TRIED TO WARN YOU is a trenchant critique of the march of folly that has characterized the (perhaps terminal) decline of Christendom in the past half century. It is also an invaluable resource of facts, logic, and witticisms with which to explain what is wrong and defend what is right. Former diplomat and policy analyst James George Jatras has spent a lifetime in the swamp of Washington, DC, fighting the good fight from Foggy Bottom, Capitol Hill, and K Street. An insider with an outsider's commonsense and Christian faith, Jatras wields his rapier wit with a buccaneer's sense of humor, engaging all the major issues of our "interesting times." Praise for I TRIED TO WARN YOU "Jim Jatras has been a valued observer of the American scene for decades and I am happy to have worked with him on several projects while I was in Congress and afterward with my Institute for Peace and Prosperity. This collection of his essays reflects both his keen intellect and broad range of interests and expertise." - U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, MD (Retired) "Jim Jatras argued for sanity through many decades of professional service in the messy, uneven and often illogical conduct of US Foreign Policy. It turns out Jatras was right, and things could have been different, better. His story is riveting, sweeping and sobering." - Col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregor, U.S. Army, Author of Margin of Victory (Naval Institute Press, 2016) "Jatras provides a comprehensive overview of the malaise, at home and abroad, with an impressive sureness of touch. It reveals, on the one hand, a seasoned Beltway insider who has retained his sanity, and, on the other, an erudite observer of this country's (and the world's) ever accelerating rush to the Apocalypse. Jatras the diagnostician spares us the faux ray of hope for here and now, but his writing hints at his abiding faith that in the end all will be well." - Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, Foreign Affairs Editor, Chronicles magazine
Foreigners' Rights in Japan
Do foreigners really have 'human rights' in Japan? This book sheds light on the way Japan views foreigners by examining court cases initiated in the wake of the issuance of deportation orders.'Special permission to stay' is issued to foreigners who have been given deportation orders when the state finds special circumstances that should be taken into consideration that merit the granting of residence status. A 'residence status' is required for foreigners to live in Japan, and what foreigners can do in Japan varies greatly depending on which status they have. This is the system through which Japan, as a nation, 'evaluates' foreigners and determines the extent to which it will afford them rights.This book closely observes the court records of various cases involving requests for special permission to stay in Japan, and analyzes the decision-making process made by the government. It examines the logic and ideology applied by the state to define the line between 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' foreigners, shedding light on the structures embedded within Japan that determine who can stay in the country and who cannot.
Wealth, Power, and Authoritarian Institutions
Through an analysis of the recent political history of Tanzania and Uganda, Wealth, Power, and Authoritarian Institutions offers a novel explanation of why authoritarian parties and legislatures vary in strength, and why this variation matters. Michaela Collord elaborates a view of authoritarian political institutions as both reflecting and magnifying elite power dynamics. While there are many sources of elite power, the book centres on material power. It outlines how diverse trajectories of state-led capitalist development engender differing patterns of wealth accumulation and elite contestation across regimes. These differences, in turn, influence institutional landscapes. Where accumulation is more closely controlled by state and party leaders, as was true in Tanzania until economic liberalization in the 1980s, rival factions remain subdued. Ruling parties can then consolidate relatively strong institutional structures, and parliament remains marginal. Conversely, where a class of private wealth accumulators expands, as occurred in Tanzania after the 1980s and in Uganda after the National Resistance Movement took power in 1986, rival factions can more easily form, simultaneously eroding party institutions and encouraging greater legislative strength. Collord uses this analysis to reassess the significance of a stronger legislature. She considers its influence on distributive politics, both regressive and progressive. She also considers its relation to democratization, particularly in a context of broader liberalizing reforms. The book ultimately encourages a closer examination of how would-be democratic institutions interact with an underlying power distribution, shaping in whose interests they operate. Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations is a series for scholars and students working on African politics and International Relations and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on contemporary developments in African political science, political economy, and International Relations, such as electoral politics, democratization, decentralization, gender and political representation, the political impact of natural resources, the dynamics and consequences of conflict, comparative political thought, and the nature of the continent's engagement with the East and West. Comparative and mixed methods work is particularly encouraged. Case studies are welcomed but should demonstrate the broader theoretical and empirical implications of the study and its wider relevance to contemporary debates. The focus of the series is on sub-Saharan Africa, although proposals that explain how the region engages with North Africa and other parts of the world are of interest. General Editors Nic Cheeseman, Peace Medie, and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira.
Civil Society and the Party-State in Zimbabwe
The book utilises Gramsci's concepts of hegemony, counter-hegemony, organic intellectuals, and integral state to interrogate how modes of engagement between the state and civil society have contributed to a polarised polity in Zimbabwe, and in turn how this has impacted democratisation processes. This was achieved by analysing intra-civil society interactions and state-civil society relations, which established deep polarised relationships that can be traced back to the liberation struggle. It also interrogates ideologies that drive these polarised relations, and how, together with material benefits from donors and the party-state, these relations impact ordinary people's modes of existence. One of the arguments that emerge from the book is that political polarisation in Zimbabwe has now morphed into an established political culture that has played a huge role in the retardation of democratic struggles. It uses ideas of entangled modernities and travelling theory to cast doubt on the belief that civil society is the 'missing key' in the democratisation of developing countries.
Operational Energy
Energy is an enabler of - and a constraint on - military power. Operational Energy provides military officers with knowledge and skills to plan effectively for the operational energy needs of their forces. Operational energy is the energy used to train, move, and sustain military forces and weapons platforms for military operations. Energy has always played a role in battlefield outcomes. Over the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries the importance of energy in warfighting has grown. Today, energy is a critical pillar of national defense and a major factor in military power. In modern warfare, attaining energy superiority over one's adversaries is a critical condition for success on the battlefield. Operational energy planning is an integral part of all combat and regular operations. Operational Energy is a valuable and extensive resource for students of US Department of Defense courses in military universities, colleges, and academic training programs; scholars of geopolitics, and researchers on US and global energy security. Operational Energy is to date the only textbook on defense energy planning, analysis, and strategy. It examines in detail fuel types, geopolitical issues, energy supply risks, market economic factors, and technology, presenting topics for future research. It also includes chapter summaries, main points for study, and case studies.
From Jihad to Politics
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The Syrian regime unleashed unprecedented violence to suppress large-scale non-violent protests amid the Arab uprisings. Hundreds of armed groups formed throughout the country to defend the protesters and fight back. However, in contrast to other conflicts previously dominated by al-Qaeda and Islamic State, the two largest Syrian Jihadi groups, Ahrar al-Sham and then Jabhat al-Nusra, rejected global jihad and began to cultivate new ties with the population, other armed opposition groups, and even foreign states. This strategic shift is a response to the Jihadi paradox--a realization that while Jihadis excel at leading insurgencies, they fail to achieve political victories. In From Jihad to Politics, Jerome Drevon offers an examination of the Syrian armed opposition, tracing the emergence of Jihadi groups in the conflict, their dominance, and their political transformation. Drawing upon field research and interviews with Syrian insurgents in northwestern Syria and Turkey, Drevon demonstrates how the context of a local conflict can shape armed groups' behavior in unexpected ways. Further, he marshals unique evidence from the Arab world's most intense conflict to explain why the trajectory of the transnational Jihadi movement has altered course in recent years.
Globalizing Independence Struggles of Lusophone Africa
Lusophone Africa has been neglected in Anglophone historiography. With the exceptions of a narrow set of episodes, figures, and interpretations, all of which appear in a fragmented set of journal articles, its struggles against Portuguese colonialism have remained outside the grand narratives of decolonisation. In this open access book, a group of established and up-and-coming historians of Lusophone Africa bring much-needed coherence to this interconnected set of anti-colonial struggles in order to show how people and ideas from these countries crossed borders around the globe. Its international team of contributors draws on a an underutilized range of source material beyond the usual Western state archives in order to cover a wide geographic scope, from North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia, all while critically examining the consequences of such international connections within the Lusophone states themselves. For its empirically rich, original contributions to the grand narratives of African independence struggles, this book is a must-read for students and scholars interested in African history, decolonization, and the Cold War, and it is of keen interest to anyone interested in alternative histories of decolonization. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.
Libya
First published in 1981, Libya: The Experience of Oil provides a comprehensive overview of Libya' s socio-economic development since the reform of 1961. The book shows that by end of the 1970s there had been a significant redistribution of wealth along with a reorganization of the economy.
Colonial Discourse and the Jesus-fication of King Chaka
Although Chaka is considered an African literary masterpiece, Thomas Mofolo has paradoxically been dismissed by critics as an author naively extolling the virtues of the white man's "civilizing mission" in Africa. Daniel M. Mengara's Colonial Discourse and the Jesus-fication of King Chaka: How Thomas Mofolo's Chaka Turned the Zulu Monarch into a Messiah offers a rereading of Chaka to show that Mofolo in fact astutely deconstructs, and then reconstructs, Zulu king Chaka into a messianic figure whose life trajectory and destiny blasphemously mirror those of Jesus Christ. This volume avoids the pitfalls of the traditional "mission interpretations" of Chaka and provides an interpretative inflection that paints a more nuanced and balanced picture and understanding of Thomas Molofo's fictional account of the mythologized historical figure. Mengara delves into the circumstances and controversies surrounding the publication of the novel and shows how Molofo "Jesus-fied" King Chaka in a sly, yet sacrilegious ploy to subvert the colonial discourse and missionary ethos of his time. This book stands as a reassessment of Thomas Mofolo's often-ignored nationalism and calls for a rediscovery of Mofolo's work in ways that resituate him within the history of the African novel as the undisputed pioneer of engaged African literature.
Arms Control and Technological Innovation
First published in 1977, Arms Control and Technological Innovation is primarily concerned with three subjects: the causes of the arms race; the consequences of the arms race to the world; and the control of the arms race.
Plan Red
"A much needed wake-up call that China assumes that it is open season on Americans."--Victor Davis Hanson"There is a Red Storm rising in the East--and America is already under assault from the Chinese Communist Party."--Lou Dobbs"THE EAST IS RISING AND THE WEST IS DECLINING" --Xi Jinping, 2020Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, chairman of the Central Military Commission and the president of the People's Republic of China, wants to shape the world in China's image, and in his conception of the world there is no place for the United States or even the current international order. Noted China analyst Gordon G. Chang warns that Xi Jinping believes he must destroy America to accomplish his objectives. And that Xi already has a plan to do it!Xi reveres Mao and is marching China back to Maoism. He is reinstituting totalitarian social controls, demanding absolute political obedience from everyone, and cutting foreign links. Closing China off from the world is an essential element of his plan to save the communist system. His isolationism and xenophobia evoke policies from the earliest years of the People's Republic and during the two millennia of imperial rule. And Xi can't stop talking about war. More significantly, he is implementing the largest military buildup since the Second World War, he is trying to sanctions-proof the Chinese regime, he is stockpiling grain and other commodities, he is surveying America for strikes and sabotage, he is mobilizing China's civilians for battle, and he is purging China's military of officers opposed to going to war.While America's elite thinks their country is at peace, China's regime is waging its brand of war. The Chinese regime has deliberately killed Americans in great numbers this century--with disease and in other ways--and it has a plan to destroy America. The communist party-state in fact believes it must eliminate the United States to ensure its own survival. And to accomplish its goals, the regime is now fast mobilizing to go to war. China is preparing to plunge the world into conflict.In PLAN RED: China's Project to Destroy America, Chang argues: China's campaign against America excludes nothing and uses every point of contact with American society to destroy it.China has been attacking America from inside America!China's penetration of American society has been so thorough that the Communist Party has been able to kill Americans with impunityXi turned an in-country epidemic into a once-in-a-century pandemic. This is the first time in history that one nation has attacked all the others.The Communist Party is using all its resources to support criminal activity in America, and Americans are dying as a direct result of those activities.Xi Jinping's China is preparing to go to war. Not just "unrestricted war" or political war but "hot war" or "kinetic war," in other words, war as Americans see it in the movies. And China's regime is planning to kill Americans in even greater numbers. It is marching the country to war.Americans, in the triumphalist mood after the fall of the Soviet Union, thought they should establish contacts with China. Now, the Chinese regime uses every point of contact against America, and at the moment the regime is overwhelming American institutions. The FBI is being overwhelmed, local law enforcement is being overwhelmed, governments at all levels are being overwhelmed, and private organizations are being overwhelmed. After more than three decades of intensive "engagement," it is clear Washington's generous approach has failed. America has not changed China, as everyone now realizes; China has changed America.Chang believes it is time to take a page from Ronald Reagan's playbook and work to bring down the enemy: the Communist Party. The Communist Party often talks about "win-win" solutions, but as its ac
Free Movement of Persons in the Nordic States
Can it be argued that there exists a concept of Nordic citizenship, founded on inter-Nordic cooperation and its relationship with EU law and EEA law? Researchers from all five Nordic States (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) explore the tensions, gaps, and overlaps arising from the interplay of EU citizenship, EEA law, and the Nordic initiatives that aim to facilitate cross-border mobility of persons in the region. The analysis takes a dual approach. Firstly, it tracks the legal development of nationality law in Nordic states. Secondly, it sets out the rights of residence and access to social rights that follow from the three different regimes. It asks if the Nordic States, through their regional cooperation, are 'going beyond' EU free movement law, making naturalisation to a citizenship in a Nordic state particularly attractive. This important new work gives a unique perspective on EU citizenship and free movement law.
#Bidenwon
#BIDENWON: The Art of Recovery depicts the political landscape that shaped the first term of President Joseph R. Biden.With tongue planted firmly in cheek, award-winning author illustrator Cathy Hull wittily writes and scathingly draws her own conclusions as she takes readers image by image through four years of pivotal events and watershed moments during the Biden administration. Depictions include the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and "unprecedented!" "unpresidented" [sic, Trump] impeachments, indictments, trials, and the tsunami of unintended consequences in the wake of the former guy and his MAGA movement.No one escapes scrutiny. Hull targets both sides of the aisle and the Supreme Court. There's an all-inclusive cast of characters--heroes, bullies, and victims alike. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Ted Cruz, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Rudy Giuliani, Lindsay Graham, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. And yes, of course, Donald John Trump. In a nutshell, Donald Trump stands by all the misstatements and threats he has made. Constitution be damned. Joseph Biden is nostalgic about the future and endless possibilities. Still, putting country over ego and personal ambition, President Joseph R. Biden ended his fifty-year plus tale of reversal and resilience, dropped his bid for reelection, passed the torch and enthusiastically endorsed his running mate, Kamala Harris-- the first female, Black and South Asian American to serve as vice president-- to replace him atop the ticket. She's off and running. Intent on finishing the job, Joe remains laser-focused on governing and delivering an ambitious big goal to-do list in his remaining time in office.
#Bidenwon
#BIDENWON: The Art of Recovery depicts the political landscape that shaped the first term of President Joseph R. Biden.With tongue planted firmly in cheek, award-winning author illustrator Cathy Hull wittily writes and scathingly draws her own conclusions as she takes readers image by image through four years of pivotal events and watershed moments during the Biden administration. Depictions include the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and "unprecedented!" "unpresidented" [sic, Trump] impeachments, indictments, trials, and the tsunami of unintended consequences in the wake of the former guy and his MAGA movement.No one escapes scrutiny. Hull targets both sides of the aisle and the Supreme Court. There's an all-inclusive cast of characters--heroes, bullies, and victims alike. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Ted Cruz, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Rudy Giuliani, Lindsay Graham, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. And yes, of course, Donald John Trump. In a nutshell, Donald Trump stands by all the misstatements and threats he has made. Constitution be damned. Joseph Biden is nostalgic about the future and endless possibilities. Still, putting country over ego and personal ambition, President Joseph R. Biden ended his fifty-year plus tale of reversal and resilience, dropped his bid for reelection, passed the torch and enthusiastically endorsed his running mate, Kamala Harris-- the first female, Black and South Asian American to serve as vice president-- to replace him atop the ticket. She's off and running. Intent on finishing the job, Joe remains laser-focused on governing and delivering an ambitious big goal to-do list in his remaining time in office.
