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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Central government
This book focuses mainly on strategic decision making at a global
level, which is rarely considered in approaches to sustainability.
This book makes a unique contribution as the work looks at global
consequences of mineral exhaustion and steps that can be taken to
alleviate the impending problems. This book highlights how
sustainability has become one of the most important issues for
businesses, governments and society at large. This book explores
the topic of sustainability as one that is under much debate as to
what it actually is and how it can be achieved, but it is
completely evident that the resources of the planet are fixed in
quantity, and once used, cannot be reused except through being
reused in one form or another. This is particularly true of the
mineral resources of the planet. These are finite in quantity, and
once fully extracted, extra quantities are no longer available for
future use. This book argues and presents evidence that the
remaining mineral resources are diminishing significantly and
heading towards exhaustion. Once mined and consumed, they are no
longer available for future use other than what can be recycled and
reused. This book demonstrates that future scarcity means that best
use must be made of what exists, as sustainability depends upon
this, and best use is defined as utility rather than economic
value, which must be considered at a global level rather than a
national level. Moreover, sustainability depends upon both
availability in the present and in the future, so the use of
resources requires attention to the future as well as to the
present. This book investigates the alternative methods of
achieving the global distribution of these mineral resources and
proposes an optimum solution. This book adds to the discourse
through the understanding of the importance of the depletion and
finiteness of raw materials and their use for the present and the
future, in order to achieve and maintain sustainability.
The statesman and reformer James Oglethorpe was a significant
figure in the philosophical and political landscape of
eighteenth-century British America. His social contributions--all
informed by Enlightenment ideals--included prison reform, the
founding of the Georgia colony on behalf of the "worthy poor," and
stirring the founders of the abolitionist movement. He also
developed the famous ward design for the city of Savannah, a design
that became one of the most important planning innovations in
American history. Multilayered and connecting the urban core to
peripheral garden and farm lots, the Oglethorpe Plan was intended
by its author to both exhibit and foster his utopian ideas of
agrarian equality.
In his new book, the professional planner Thomas D. Wilson
reconsiders the Oglethorpe Plan, revealing that Oglethorpe was a
more dynamic force in urban planning than has generally been
supposed. In essence, claims Wilson, the Oglethorpe Plan offers a
portrait of the Enlightenment, and embodies all of the major themes
of that era, including science, humanism, and secularism. The
vibrancy of the ideas behind its conception invites an exploration
of the plan's enduring qualities. In addition to surveying
historical context and intellectual origins, this book aims to
rescue Oglethorpe's work from its relegation to the status of a
living museum in a revered historic district, and to demonstrate
instead how modern-day town planners might employ its principles.
Unique in its exclusive focus on the topic and written in a clear
and readable style, "The Oglethorpe Plan "explores this design as a
bridge between New Urbanism and other more naturally evolving and
socially engaged modes of urban development.
This book provides a critical approach to research on the social
acceptance of renewable energy infrastructures and on energy
transitions in general by questioning prevalent principles and
proposing specific research pathways and lines of inquiry that look
beyond depoliticised, business-as-usual discourses and research
agendas on green growth and sustainability. It brings together
authors from different socio-geographical and disciplinary
backgrounds within the social sciences to reflect upon, discuss and
advance what we propose to be five cornerstones of a critical
approach: overcoming individualism and socio-cognitivism;
repoliticisations - recognising and articulating power relations;
for interdisciplinarity; interventions - praxis and political
engagement with research; and overcoming localism and spatial
determinism: As such, this book offers academics, students and
practitioners alike a comprehensive perspective of what it means to
be critical when inquiring into the social acceptance of renewable
energy and associated infrastructures.
Events have spiralled since the first edition of How to Dismantle
the NHS in 10 Easy Steps. The junior doctors' strike, the
Conservative victory in the 2015 general election, the Corbyn
phenomenon, the unexpected Brexit vote and the arguably even more
unexpected loss of the Conservative majority in 2017. Further,
since writing the first edition, Dr. Youssef El-Gingihy found
himself stricken with a life-threatening illness and the NHS doctor
became the NHS patient. The fight to save the NHS transformed into
a fight for his own life. Now, fully recovered, Dr. Youssef
El-Gingihy returns to his 10 Easy Steps in order to strengthen his
original argument and continue what Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn,
deems 'one of the most fundamental battles we face in a struggle
for a British society that works for the many'. In the year of the
70th anniversary of the NHS, Dr El-Gingihy's insights have never
been more vital as our national health service continues to be hit
by the privatisation of public services. New expanded second
edition with chapters on junior doctor's strikes and plans for
US-style healthcare.
National service and volunteerism enjoy a rich history in the
United States and an emergent future in other parts of the world.
However, there remains relatively scant evidence of overall impact
of national service programs and volunteer effectiveness. This
condition continues to threaten national service and volunteer
programs with the risk of defunding and/or the risk of not
investing sufficiently from the start. This book brings together a
selection of diverse chapters written by a combination of
academicians, students, and practitioners from three countries and
across multiple states in the United States. Each chapter
approaches its topic uniquely but links with all others in
identifying the impacts of service and volunteerism for volunteers,
for beneficiaries of service, for the institution of volunteering,
and/or for whole communities. The book is divided in five sections:
(1) developing volunteer initiatives to achieve impact, (2) impact
for and by youth volunteers, (3) impact in social or policy areas,
specifically economy and financial success, education, and
emergency response, (4) international perspectives with focus on
Chile, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and the post-communist states
of Lithuania and Romania, and (5) conclusion with summary and
suggestions for future research and practice.
On September 10, 2001, the United States was the most open
country in the world. But in the aftermath of the worst terrorist
attacks on American soil, the U.S. government began to close its
borders in an effort to fight terrorism. The Bush administration's
goal was to build new lines of defense without stifling the flow of
people and ideas from abroad that has helped build the world's most
dynamic economy. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way.
Based on extensive interviews with the administration officials
who were charged with securing the border after 9/11, and with many
innocent people whose lives have been upended by the new security
regulations, "The Closing of the American Border" is a striking and
compelling assessment of the dangers faced by a nation that cuts
itself off from the rest of the world.
This is the first book length study of performance activism. While
Performance Studies recognizes the universality of human
performance in daily life, what is specifically under investigation
here is performance as an activity intentionally entered into as a
means of engaging social issues and conflicts, that is, as an
ensemble activity by which we re-construct/transform social
reality. Performance Activism: Precursors and Contemporary Pioneers
provides a global overview of the growing interface of performance
with education, therapy, conflict resolution, civic engagement,
community development and social justice activism. It combines an
historical study of the processes by which, over the course of the
20th Century, performance has been loosened from the institutional
constraints of the theatre with a mosaic-like overview of the
diverse work/play of contemporary performance activists around the
world. Performance Activism will be of interest to theatre and
cultural historians, performance practitioners and researchers,
psychologists and sociologists, educators and youth workers,
community organizers and political activists.
Indonesia has long been hailed as a rare case of democratic
transition and persistence in an era of global democratic setbacks.
But as the country enters its third decade of democracy, such
laudatory assessments have become increasingly untenable. The
stagnation that characterized Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's second
presidential term has given way to a more far-reaching pattern of
democratic regression under his successor, Joko Widodo. This volume
is the first comprehensive study of Indonesia's contemporary
democratic decline. Its contributors identify, explain and debate
the signs of regression, including arbitrary state crackdowns on
freedom of speech and organization, the rise of vigilantism,
deepening political polarization, populist mobilization, the
dysfunction of key democratic institutions, and the erosion of
checks and balances on executive power. They ask why Indonesia,
until recently considered a beacon of democratic exceptionalism,
increasingly conforms to the global pattern of democracy in
retreat.
This book addresses one of the enduring questions of democratic
government: why do governments choose some public policies but not
others? Political executives focus on a range of policy issues,
such as the economy, social policy, and foreign policy, but they
shift their priorities over time. Despite an extensive literature,
it has proven surprisingly hard to explain policy prioritisation.
To remedy this gap, this book offers a new approach called public
policy investment: governments enhance their chances of getting
re-elected by managing a portfolio of public policies and paying
attention to the risks involved. In this way, government is like an
investor making choices about risk to yield returns on its
investments of political capital. The public provides signals about
expected political capital returns for government policies, or
policy assets, that can be captured through expressed opinion in
public polls. Governments can anticipate these signals in the
choices they make. Statecraft is the ability political leaders have
to consider risk and return in their policy portfolios and do so
amidst uncertainty in the public's policy valuation. Such actions
represent the public's views conditionally because not every
opinion change is a price signal. It then outlines a quantitative
method for measuring risk and return, applying it to the case of
Britain between 1971 and 2000 and offers case studies illustrating
statecraft by prime ministers, such as Edward Heath or Margaret
Thatcher. The book challenges comparative scholars to apply public
policy investment to countries that have separation of powers,
multiparty government, and decentralization.
This volume provides an extensive overview of the Ethics of
Artificial Intelligence for the Sustainable Development Goals. The
authors are experts contributing with perspectives from different
fields. The comprehensive collection of chapters illustrates the
pressing governance problems related to using AI for the SDGs, and
case studies describing how AI is advancing and can advance the
achievement of the Goals. Students, scholars, and practitioners
working on AI for SDGs, the ethical governance of AI,
sustainability, and the fourth revolution can find this book a
helpful reference.
Who has access, and who is denied access, to food, and why? What
are the consequences of food insecurity? What would it take for the
food system to be just? Just Food: Philosophy, Justice and Food
presents thirteen new philosophical essays that explore the causes
and consequences of the inequities of our contemporary food system.
It examines why 842 million people globally are unable to meet
their dietary needs, and why food insecurity is not simply a matter
of insufficient supply. The book looks at how food insecurity
tracks other social injustices, covering topics such as race,
gender and property, as well as food sovereignty, food deserts, and
locavorism. The essays in this volume make an important and timely
contribution to the wider philosophical debate around food
distribution and justice.
The development of a green and sustainable economy continues to
grow in awareness and popularity due to its promotion of a more
comprehensive way of achieving economic development through social
and environmental efficiency. Sustainable Technologies, Policies,
and Constraints in the Green Economy carefully investigates the
complex issues which surround the wide array of concepts, policies,
and measures that come into play when promoting this somewhat new
ideology. This publication covers over 50 years of research in the
field in order to provide the best theoretical frameworks and
empirical research to its readers. Professors, researchers,
practitioners, and students will all benefit from the relevant
discussions and diverse conclusions which are revealed in these
chapters.
Despite deep divisions on the issue of immigration, this book shows
that immigration promotes economic innovation, expands the job
market, and contributes to diversity and creativity in the United
States. Immigration, as a conduit for bringing new talent, ideas,
and inventions into the United States, is essential to the success
and vitality of our economy and society. In this timely book,
researched and written by the Immigration Book Project Team at Penn
State University, immigration is approached from historical,
economic, business, and sociological perspectives in order to argue
that treatment of immigrants must reflect and applaud their
critical roles in supporting and leading the economic, social,
cultural, and political institutions of civil society. Approaching
immigration as both a socioeconomic phenomenon and a matter of
public policy, The Danger of Devaluing Immigrants offers
demographics and statistics on workforce participation and job
creation along with stories of individual immigrants' contributions
to the economy and society. It supports the idea that, when
immigration is challenged in the political sphere, we must not lose
sight of the valuable contributions that immigrants have made-and
will continue to make-to our democracy. Approaches immigration from
many perspectives: economic, business, historical, and sociological
Investigates the substantial roles of immigrants in critical
industries and sectors across the U.S. economy Emphasizes the
bimodal nature of attitudes toward immigrants depending on their
education and skill level and abilities Includes personal stories
and case studies from immigrants Draws on the expertise of a team
from the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University
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