Extensive previous research has investigated environmental conflict management issues in networked settings and the design of policy networks, but the emergence and evolution of self-organizing policy networks are still not fully understood. Especially misunderstood is the problem of how the multiple motivations or incentives of competing policy actors in conflictual situations affect their structures of interaction, as this issue has not been studied systematically. This book aims to address the following research questions: how do policy stakeholders cope strategically with collective action or environmental conflict resolution? How do they utilize or maintain formal and informal policy networks to resolve problems effectively? What motivates them to engage or be involved in collaborative or conflictual networks? What influences their networking or their decisions on partner selection for conflict resolution? This book consists of four studies. The goal of the first study is to examine the form of a policy network by focusing on how policy networks emerge and evolve at the micro-level to solve collective action dilemmas endemic to decentralized and democratized policy decision-making processes, particularly in the environmental conflict resolution arena. The goal of the second study is to examine the main policy actors and structural characteristics of network governance evolution in the dynamic process of environmental conflict resolution. The goal of the third study is to highlight the role of policy tie formality in the evolution of multiplex ties in the environmental conflict resolution process. The goal of the fourth study is to demonstrate the relationships between patterns of interactions among policy actors and their modified and adjusted strategic behaviours within policy networks and across advocacy coalitions.

This book is a study of the centrality of racism in the construction and maintenance of class-based societies in Britain, the United States, and Western Europe. It combines analysis of historical and contemporary material to provide the reader with a better understanding of contemporary forms of racism.

The essays challenge assumptions of both racial superiority and inferiority and of "natural" racial antagonism. The book is intended for those readers concerned with understanding and changing our increasingly unequal and unjust societies as well as for those studying the issues of race relations, social structure, and equality in an academic setting.

America's foreign relations tradition, for all its successes, has not always served the American people well. Utilizing tradition as a framework of analysis of the historic American approach to foreign affairs, this book critically examines the country's international conduct over time, leading to a number of provocative and controversial conclusions. The first section deals with ideas, ideals, and ideology in American history that provide a context and value structure that have long conditioned the American people's conception of the world. The second part critically examines the problematic American national style of interacting with others. The nation's parochial approach to problem-solving is explicated in the third section. The fourth part centers upon the country's historic isolationist-interventionist impulse-a two-sided, often contradictory dynamic. The fifth section is an extended analysis of the country's approach to alliance-building after World War II as a case study of its approach to foreign affairs in the past. The final section proposes that America's traditional values and decision-making style have often been incompatible, and this contradiction has brought forth the exorcising role of violence in American's relationships with others.

In the post-World War II era, the U.S. government's full employment policy led to rapid mechanization of production by reducing the cost of financing investment. The mechanization of production displaced more blacks than whites because blacks were disproportionately unskilled. In addition, the growth in the import of manufactured goods further reduced the demand for unskilled labor. The author argues that the government should fill the gap with government employment and should discourage imports from developing countries.

This volume combines approaches from three disciplines - economics, sociology, and demography - and empirically analyzes the key aspects of the labor market and social demography processes in post-Soviet transitional societies while focusing on the gender perspective. Here, readers will find empirical studies on such countries as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The volume contributes to the literature by addressing the lack of academic empirical research on gender difference issues in the labor markets of post-Soviet countries as well as gender inequalities in fertility preferences, gender disparities among the youth and elderly, the gender pay gap, gender differences in employment, and female voices. The book brings together researchers of different disciplines from a variety of countries, distinguishing this project as international and interdisciplinary. The authors use the quantitative survey micro-data approach as well as the qualitative methods of interview data analysis to provide a comprehensive and detailed overview of the economic and social developments in the region regarding gender differences. The volume consists of three parts tackling the following topics: 1) gender differences and demography (family formation and fertility, youth and elderly employment); 2) gender differences and labor market (gender wage gap, motherhood wage penalty, gender differences among freelancers, and women in STEM science); and 3) gender differences, well-being, and gender equality attitudes (women's voices, women's collective actions, gender equality attitudes, and spending patterns of housewives).

This collection of essays interrogates literary and cultural narratives in the contexts of the incidents following 9/11. The collected essays underscore the new and (re)emerging racial, political, and socio-cultural discourse on identity related to terrorism and identity politics. Specifically, the collection examines South Asian American identities to understand culture, policy making, and the implicit gendered racialization, sexualization, and socio-economic classification of minority identities within the discourse of globalization. The essays included here relocate the discourse of race and cultural studies to an examination of transnational labor diasporas, reopen debate on critical constructions of U.S. racial and cultural formations, and question the reconfiguration of gendered and sexualized discourses of the South Asian diaspora within the context of national security and terrorism. This book provides a multifaceted account of South Asian racialization and belonging by drawing from disciplines across the humanities and the social sciences. The scholars included here employ methods of ethnographic studies as well as literary, culture, film, and feminist analysis to examine a wide range of South Asian cultural sites: novels, short stories, cultural texts, documentaries, and sports. The rich intellectual, theoretical, methodological, and narrative tapestry of South Asians that emerges from this inquiry enables us to trace new patterns of South Asian cultural consumption post-9/11 as well as expand notions and histories of "terror." This volume makes an important contribution to renewing scholarship in the key areas of representations of race, labor, diaspora, class, and culture while implicating that there needs to be a simultaneous and critical dialogue on the scope and reconnections within postcolonial studies.

This open access book aims to consolidate and advance debates on European and global energy poverty by exploring the political and infrastructural drivers and implications of the condition across a variety of spatial scales. It highlights the need for a geographical conceptualization of the different ways in which household-level energy deprivation both influences and is contingent upon disparities occurring at a wider range of spatial scales. There is a strong focus on the relationships among energy transformation, institutional change and place-based factors in determining the nature and location of energy-related injustices. The book also explores how patterns and structures of energy poverty have changed over time, as evidenced by some of the common measures used to describe the condition. In part, this means investigating the makeup of energy poor demographics across various social and spatial cleavages. More broadly, it also argues that energy sector reconfigurations are both reflected in and shaped by various domains of social and political organization, especially in terms of creating poverty-relevant outcomes.

This book explores the overall landscape of compulsory education policy development in China from multiple perspectives to uncover the stages, features, problems and suggestions in Chinese compulsory education system, locally, nationally and internationally. In addition, this book also presents specific historical educational policy shifts for policymakers and stakeholders to investigate the compulsory education strategy over the long term. Specifically, the Chinese compulsory education policy landscape involves investigating changes to the legal environment, management policies, as well as practices for teachers and curriculum and teaching materials. These discussions contribute to the readers' comprehensive and systematic understanding of compulsory education policy development in contemporary China.

This book systematically introduces readers to the framework of China's ETS pilots, exploring their design and operating process, the current state of the carbon market, and various barriers encountered. To do so, it deconstructs the Guangdong ETS, which is the largest and most representative of China's seven ETS pilots. The book subsequently describes and evaluates all seven pilots in terms of their efficiency, macro and micro effects, the method involved in the DEA model, the CGE model, and cost-benefit analysis. In turn, in the assessment section it demonstrates how some ETS pilots have failed to control carbon emissions due to inordinately high emissions quotas issued by the local government etc. Further, it argues that ETS should focus on those industries with large emissions and high mitigating potential for the time being, and then gradually expand the scale of its coverage. As China's national ETS is slated for launch on the basis of the lessons learned from the ETS pilots, the book offers a timely and valuable resource for all those who want to understand and forecast the development of China's ETS. It includes a wealth of descriptions and explanations of Chinese government policies involving carbon emissions control, making it a unique resource.

No modern U.S. president inherited a stronger, safer international position than Bill Clinton. In 1992, the Cold War was over, and the nation was at peace and focused on domestic issues. Despite this temporary tranquility, Clinton would soon be faced with a barrage of crises, including flare-ups of unrest in the Middle East, ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia, uneasy relations with Japan and China, persistent trouble in the Persian Gulf, the dissolution of the USSR, and disastrous situations in Somalia and Haiti.

In this comprehensive and balanced examination of Clinton's foreign policy--the first such book to cover all the global focal points of his administration to date--William G. Hyland brilliantly shows the effects of combining this confusion with Clinton's unique personality characteristics. His first term was marked, in the author's analysis, by murky policy, unrealistic goals, and the mishandling of several crises. By the end of that term he learned some hard lessons, was able to alter his pattern of response, and reversed himself on some major aspects of foreign policy--all to benefit, in the author's view, the country and the world as a whole.

Promoting rural entrepreneurship is a necessary step to limit the negative effects of classical agricultural policy based on a linear process and attracting secondary resources to the economic process. The analysis of agricultural policy and rural development in conjunction to entrepreneurship in terms of production may represent a further step in understanding the role and importance of diversifying the rural potentials in contemporary economies. The Handbook of Research on Agricultural Policy, Rural Development, and Entrepreneurship in Contemporary Economies is an essential publication of academic research that examines agricultural policy and its impact on shaping future resilient economy in rural areas and identifies green business models and new business patterns in rural communities. Covering a range of topics such as entrepreneurship, product management, and marketing, this book is ideal for researchers, policymakers, academicians, economists, agriculture professionals, rural developers, business investors, and students.

This book analyses neo-liberal economic policy in Hong Kong and its relationship to British colonial governance. Using historical, political, and economic examples, the author argues that the growth and stability experienced by Hong Kong in the post-WWII/pre-1997 era was a direct result of policies enacted by the British in an effort to maintain colonial dominance in an era of decolonization rather than the independent workings of the free market. The book works through examples of policies employed by the British in Hong Kong, such as the creation of artificial scarcity in colonial land policy, the construction of large-scale public housing and the Mass Transit Railway System, and education policy that favored competition. Challenging long-accepted narratives, this book draws a direct line between market fundamentalism and direct colonial control. As such, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of economics, political science, history, and those studying the Asia-Pacific region.

The second edition of this acclaimed book offers a critical analysis of the transition from institutional to community care for people with mental health problems. Despite the almost complete abandonment of the old Victorian asylum system, the powerful cultural legacy of segregation remains potent in modern thought. Rogers and Pilgrim analyse the impact of new policies introduced by the Labour government since it came to power in 1997, identifying both the processes and causes of policy change and assessing its value in the context of longer term debates about madness and distress.

Highlighting American cultural and political contexts, this book provides an in-depth assessment of the breadth and magnitude of the United States' errors in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. An Unmitigated Disaster chronicles and explains the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Emergency management expert Robert O. Schneider considers the quality of U.S. pandemic planning and preparedness; the quality and effectiveness of national, state, and local response efforts; and the performance of national leaders during this historic public health crisis. The book culminates in an assessment of how a predictable public health threat became an unprecedented health, economic, and security disaster. Schneider convincingly shows that conscious decisions were made by governmental authorities, beginning with the president, to ignore expert information and security intelligence in pursuit of other objectives. In other words, Schneider argues, if the U.S. was ill-prepared for or slow to respond to the crisis, it was because its leaders consciously chose to be ill-prepared or slow to respond. Readers will be fascinated by this behind-the-scenes expose of a pandemic year. Provides a political analysis and historical documentation of COVID-19 in real time Includes insights from the author's expertise in disaster preparedness, mitigation, and response Demonstrates why the United States stood alone as the only affluent nation to have suffered severe and sustained outbreaks for the entire year in 2020 Explains the nature and the degree of U.S. failure to respond to the pandemic Offers the definitive answer to the question "Was the United States prepared for the pandemic?"

Policy makers--Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative--call for federal intervention to fund emerging high-growth industries, believing they are starved for capital. Congressional hearings, newspapers, industry newsletters, and government reports all assert that capital gaps exist for these firms. But the widely held belief that emerging high-growth firms like those in high technology--so vital to the growth of the U.S. economy--face severe capital gaps, preventing them from starting up or growing to their full potential, is false. This book systematically brings together, for the first time, disparate sources of information from a wide variety of disciplines and synthesizes them into a compelling case against federal intervention.

Scientific studies, conventional wisdom among entrepreneurs and investors, and economic reasoning all fail to support the existence of widespread capital gaps for start-up high-growth firms. Nor does this evidence show capital in short supply in some regions, in industrial sectors including high technology, or for women and minorities. Nor do existing federal programs providing capital to emerging high-growth businesses reveal capital gaps. Rather, they either unnecessarily duplicate private investment or represent poor investment decisions. This study shows that calls for increased federal intervention, using public monies to plug capital gaps, are unjustified.

This expansive reference examines the many types of Family Life Education (FLE) programs being offered around the world, reflecting a myriad of cultures and contexts. Coverage identifies core FLE content areas including parenting education, human sexuality, and interpersonal relationships, and details their programming in various countries over six continents, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Contributors discuss complex challenges of program design, implementation, and evaluation, as well as connections between FLE and family prevention and intervention services. This knowledge is of great theoretical and practical utility across various fields, and is of particular interest to those developing programs for diverse populations. This unique volume: Presents in-depth information on Family Life Education programs from different countries around the world. Discusses how the socio-historic, political, and economic context of a country impacts its families and family services and programs. Covers current topics including poverty, domestic violence, and immigration. Encourages best practices and thorough understanding of the country/region. Offers recommendations for family service providers. Global Perspectives on Family Life Education is a trove of vital knowledge benefitting scholars and researchers as well as professors, postgraduates, graduate and undergraduate students, and practitioners in the family sciences, family life education, family therapy, social work, child and family studies, psychology, sociology, social work, cultural studies, and urban studies.

This book is open access under a CC-BY license. The volume presents papers on vocational education, project-based learning and science didactic approaches, illustrating with sample cases, and with a special focus on Central Asian states. Thematically embedded in the area of Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET), the book examines the following main topics: project-based learning (PBL), specific didactics with a linkage to food technologies and laboratory didactics, media and new technologies in TVET, evaluation of competencies including aspects of measurement, examination issues, and labour market and private sector issues in TVET, and research methods with a focus on empirical research and the role of scientific networks. It presents outcomes from TVET programmes at various universities, colleges, and teacher training institutes in Central Asia.

This book is designed as a basic text for courses that are part of an interdisciplinary program in environmental studies. The intended reader is anyone who expects environmental stewardship to be an important part of his or her life, as a citizen, a policy maker, or an environmental management professional. In addition to discussing major issues in environmental ethics, it invites readers to think about how an ethicist's perspective differs from the perspectives encountered in other environmental studies courses. Additional topics covered include corporate social responsibility, ecological citizenship, property theory, and the concept of stewardship as a vocation.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the role of local governments around the world in the management of the migration, integration and development nexus. Drawing on case studies from the Global North and South, this comparative work fills a lacuna in the existing literature which has focused largely on migration as addressed by European and North American cities. Further, it widens the current debate by confronting northern experiences with attitudes and strategies observed in sending countries; clearly demonstrating that international mobility has become a global issue for cities at both end of the migration spectrum. This innovative work will provide a valuable resource for students and scholars working in the social sciences, public policy and development; in addition to practitioners and policymakers.

A comprehensive assessment of how economic policy is made in Britain at the start of the 21st century and of how the content of taxation, spending, monetary and regulatory policy has evolved since 1945. All of this is set in the context of the impact of globalization and the European Union on the autonomy of domestic policy and an assessment of the debates about British economic performance and British decline.

U.S. and British naval power developed in quite different ways in the early 20th century before the Second World War. This study compares, contrasts, and evaluates both British and American naval power as well as the politics that led to the development of each. Naval power was the single greatest manifestation of national power for both countries. Their armies were small and their air forces only existed for part of the period covered. For Great Britain, naval power was vital to her very existence, and for the U.S., naval power was far and away the most effective tool the country could use to exercise armed influence around the world. Therefore, the decisions made about the relative strengths of the two navies were in many ways the most important strategic choices the British and American governments ever made. An important book for military historians and those interested in the exercise and the extension of power.