This book highlights various challenges and opportunities for regional cooperation and development in South Asia. In light of the ongoing globalization process, the contributors investigate how socio-economic developments are changing the spatial organization of production as well as the profile of cities and landscapes, are stimulating the creation of maritime, terrestrial and aerial channels, and are putting increasing pressures on natural and environmental resources. The book is divided into four parts: The first part analyses the increasing intensity of regional trade, migration and investment flows; the second focuses on channels and adapted spaces. The third part addresses sustainability and natural resources, while the fourth highlights institutional issues.

Development researchers face many challenges in producing robust and persuasive analyses, often within a short time-frame. This edited volume tackles these challenges head-on, using examples from other fields to provide practical guidance to research producers and users.

The author investigates the agenda for transformation in contemporary African development studies: policy studies, strategic studies, international relations and economic diplomacy. With a focus on the capacity dimension, he proposes critical policy and action-oriented recommendations on how to overcome present and future emergencies in Africa.

In recent years, sport has been used as an instrument through which wider development objectives are pursued. This includes sport as a means to create awareness about the risks of HIV; sport as a vehicle to counter inter-group hostility; and sport as an environment where children can find respite in the wake of military conflict. The use of sport for the purposes of development is neither simple nor inherently successful. It is therefore regrettable that some of the agents and organisations involved in development programs provide idealistic accounts of their activities, thus suggesting that field work is unproblematic. By contrast, this book provides a critical approach to sport-for-development, acknowledging the potential of this growing field but emphasising challenges, problems and limitations - particularly if programs are not adequately planned, delivered or monitored. The book features both critical theory and reflective praxis, and will thus be useful to both academics and practitioners.

This volume brings emerging research on religion and development into conversation with politics. Deploying innovative conceptual frameworks, and drawing on empirical research from across contemporary Asia, this collection makes an incisive contribution to the analysis of aid and development processes.

In what ways and senses does religion endure? In what ways has development failed Africa? How can we build effective African politics from below? These are some of the questions explored in this volume, which seeks to analyze the shifting and complex sets of relationships that exist between religion, politics and development in Africa. Modernist and secularist thinking has long predicted that religion would be rendered irrelevant, to be sidestepped, ignored or eliminated. However, this is not the case in 21st century Africa. Religion plays an increasingly important role in politics and development. This volume captures the dynamism and power of religion in Africa. In doing so it aims to move beyond narrow conceptualisations of 'politics' and 'development' and public and private spaces in order to uncover the meaning of modern religion in Africa and the many ways it is embedded in millions of Africans' everyday struggles to survive, sustain themselves and make sense of the modern world.

Despite its unusually rich availability of natural resources and ample base of human capital, in the last forty years Argentina suffered a poor growth performance in any cross-country comparison. Chudnovsky and Lopez's analysis includes two episodes of growth in 1964-74 and in 1991-98 that proved to be finally unsustainable, as well as the 2001 crisis, the most severe in the country's history. Since both growth episodes took place under quite different development paradigms, the Post-War Development Consensus and Washington Consensus, lessons about what went right and wrong in Argentina contributes to the debate about the virtues and failures of those paradigms. Following mainly an institutional and historical approach, but also employing rigorous economic analysis, this book offers a timely contribution to one of the big puzzles in the field of development economics.

This book honors the memory of Tony Atkinson, who made significant contributions to the rigorous study of income inequality, poverty, and redistribution. These essays presented, covering a span of over 30 years of research and scholarship, have been at the forefront of distributional analysis, and many of them are of prime importance for contemporary developments in the real-valued measurement of poverty and inequality, with particular reference to the concepts of fuzzy poverty assessment, vulnerability, heterogeneity/multidimensionality, unit consistency, sub-group decomposability, and dominance criteria. While all of these articles have been previously published-singly or with co-authorship-in a number of professional journals or distinguished edited volumes, this book is greatly enriched by a substantial introductions by the authors, which place the contributions in context, highlights their inter-connectedness, and relates them to the work of Tony Atkinson and other scholars. This book is of intrinsic value to welfare analysts, as well as being a tribute to a very great scholar by a fellow economist.

Dimensions peculiar to urban life, such as high population density, proximity to power centers, heterogeneity of residents in terms of class and ethnicity, susceptibility to political action, and tensions between rich and poor, have considerable impact on educational policies. Important studies have been conducted on urban conditions in the developed world, but few studies on education in Third World cities have appeared. This volume looks at urban problems related to education cross-nationally, beginning with a careful definition of what is distinctly urban in educational settings. Chapters on trends and issues, bureaucratic dynamics, disparities and inequities, goals, neighborhood movements, politics, and the experience of women and marginal students round out this internationally contributed volume.

The success or failure of economic assistance programs is a shared responsibility of recipient countries and donors. The negative attitude about aid prevalent today underscores a perception the aid has failed. Critics often blame corrupt regimes, weak governments, or poor economic policies. However, the poor track record of aid is also due to donors' inability to allocate limited funds effectively and poor coordination of their aid efforts. Declining aid budgets have led to fundamental questioning of foreign aid's allocation and utility, while the apparent ineffectiveness of aid has shrunk aid budgets and turned public opinion against providing it. This edited collection containing pieces written by leading development specialists evaluates these emerging questions of allocation and efficiency. Development economists, policy makers, and development specialists will benefit from reading this work.

Chapters examine the optimal and intertemporal allocation of aid, the role and accountability of NGOs in allocation, the importance of untying (a new perspective on low levels of aid), and links between the allocation pattern of donors. Additional chapters deal with the impact of aid on economic growth, democracy, wage inequality between skilled and unskilled labor, and the role of governance and institutional capacity in aid effectiveness. An effective balance between theoretical and empirical models is offered to better illustrate the issues involved.

Robert Weatherley examines the role of nationalism in Chinese thinking on democracy and human rights spanning four successive periods: the late Qing, the Republic, Mao's China and post-Mao China. During this time, many of the debates in China about democracy and rights have been tied to the question of how to make China strong. The trigger is usually a perceived threat from foreign imperialism. Following the outbreak of the First Opium War in 1839, this imperialism took a military form, leading many Chinese reformers to embrace a system of democracy and rights in order to protect China from further foreign encroachments. In more recent years, the perceived threat has come from cultural imperialism, most apparent, Beijing claims, when the West criticises China for its poor record on democracy and human rights. This has led to the evolution of a distinctively Chinese model of democracy and rights that differs significantly from that deriving from the West.

Amidst rising global inequality, migration, climate change, health pandemics, and deepening poverty, it is time to redirect our economy towards more sustainable and socially just processes and outcomes. In Wellbeing Economics Nicky Pouw puts forward a new framework that places human wellbeing at the centre, instead of economic growth. She postulates ten reasons why economics should change to remain a relevant discipline and develops a Wellbeing Economic Matrix (WEM) to implement this approach. In doing so, it is one of the first economics books that 'rethinks the economy' from head to tail. The book includes a foreword by Allister McGregor. Have a look here for the online series of Pakhuis de Zwijger on wellbeing economics, with our author Nicky Pouw.

Human Rights and the Third World: Issues and Discourses deals with the controversial questions on the universalistic notions of human rights. It finds Third World perspectives on human rights and seeks to open up a discursive space in the human rights discourse to address unresolved questions, citing issues and problems from different countries in the Third World: 1. Whether alternative perspectives should be taken as the standard for human rights in the Third World countries? 2. Should there be a universalistic notion of rights for Homo sapiens or are we talking about two diametrically opposite trends and standards of human rights for the same species? 3. How far these Third World perspectives of human rights can ensure the protection of the minorities and the vulnerable sections of population, particularly the women and children within the Third World? 4. Can these alternative perspectives help in fighting the Third World problems like poverty, hunger, corruption, despotism, social exclusion like the caste system in India, communalism, and the like? 5. Can there be reconciliation between the Third World perspectives and the Western perspective of human rights?

This book addresses earthquakes, with a special focus on the Ghorka earthquake, which struck parts of central Nepal in April 2015. Drawing on this disastrous event, it closely examines various aspects of earthquakes in contributions prepared by international experts. The topics covered include: the geological and geophysical background of seismicity; a detailed inventory of the damage done by the earthquake; effective damage prevention through earthquake-safe buildings and settlements; restoration options for world-heritage buildings; strategies for providing technical and medical relief and, lastly, questions associated with public life and economy in a high-risk seismic zone. Combining perspectives from various fields, the book presents the state of the art in all earthquake-related fields and outlines future approaches to risk identification, damage prevention, and disaster management in all parts of society, administration, and politics in Nepal. Beyond the specific disaster in Nepal, the findings presented here will have broader implications for how societies can best deal with disasters.

The need for clean sources of energy has increased dramatically as the realities of climate change have begun to effect life on earth. As a result, the demand for pioneering businesses in the sustainable energy industry will increase. Entrepreneurship and Business Development in the Renewable Energy Sector is a critical scholarly resource that examines the growing industry of clean energy as an opportunity to create and expand enterprises, as well as discusses the need for entrepreneurial thinking in this new and growing market. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as corporate entrepreneurship, business growth cycles, and photovoltaic energy, this book is geared towards academicians, researchers, and professionals seeking current research on the expanding economic market of clean energy.

This collection of essays breaks new ground in the comparative study of ethnic and racial minorities by showing that there is a common ground shared by those in advanced industrial democracies that differentiates them from Third World and communist countries. The study offers a unique synthesis of diverse views by those who have focused on long-established or ethnoregional minorities and those who have studied recent immigrant populations. The analysis of ethnic tolerance, political factors, and conflict resolution considers why ethnic and racial conflict and disadvantage endure, pointing to ways that societies are organized economically and politically and linked into the international political economy. Students and experts in comparative and minority politics, ethnic and Black studies, and sociology will benefit from the observations and conclusions about the operations of economic and political markets and how they heighten ethnic and racial inequality. The general introduction and conclusion offer theoretical overviews and point to social science paradigms concerning the role of ethnic and racial minorities in the advanced industrial democracies. Noted contributors examine immigration policy and ethnic tolerance; minorities, politics, and the state; political consciousness, organization and participation; and conflict resolution and public policy. A lengthy reference list is given. This volume will be of great interest to interdisciplinary audiences in political science, sociology/social problems, and ethnic and black studies.

This book gives a critique of the contemporary global capitalist system and the adverse consequences suffered by the developing countries as a result of their 'integration' into this system. The current neoliberal paradigm of capitalist development as the only or the best alternative for the economic, social and political development of the developing countries is rejected. The authors search for more human and ecologically sustainable alternatives, focusing on Latin America, Asia and women.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the influence of public policy on sex selection. Three Asian countries were chosen for the comparative policy analysis, namely South Korea, India and Vietnam that share in common a historical legacy of son preference, high levels of sex imbalances and active policy response to curbing the growing demographic masculinization of their nations. The research based on the data collected from field work in the three countries shows that despite the adoption of very similar anti-sex selection policies the outcomes have been markedly different for each of the three countries. These unexpected diverse outcomes are explained partly by their different historical and cultural contexts, and partly to the different social, political and economic institutions and dynamics. This monograph offers careful and detailed explanations of both within and across country diversities in policy outcomes, pointing to the importance and the limits of cross-national policy learning and adoption, and raising questions about the efficacy of international organizations' current approaches to global policy and knowledge transfer.

The world's leading experts contribute to our understanding of regional innovation, cluster formation and the factors that influence regional productivity and innovative performance. The text improves our understanding of the reasons why, how and where innovation clusters emerge, as well as the factors that determine their respective success or failure. In doing so, it provides a timely and comprehensive picture on innovation, location, networks and clusters as important means in an environment of intensifying interregional competition. The book is written for professional researchers as well as for students and practitioners in politics, business and consultancy.

Many of the central issues faced by EU Foreign Policy - such as state fragility, illegal migration and environmental degradation - are challenges of global development. For European policymakers the increasing importance of development as an external relations priority will demand the refinement of existing instruments and the testing of new approaches. This book addresses debates on how the EU manages various modes of governance in development policymaking, its engagement with other global actors and the effectiveness of its policy formulation and implementation. Given the restrictions of policymaking in an environment characterised by uncertainty, difficulty and complexity, the contributions to this volume explore decision-making and implementation across a wide range of issue-areas with the objective of highlighting choices that could improve the coherence, and thus the effectiveness, of European policy for global development.

This handbook takes stock of the African Union's Vision 2020 to rid the African continent of wars, civil conflicts, human rights violations, and humanitarian disasters - including violent conflicts and genocide - and provides recommendations on how to address contemporary threats to peace and security in Africa. It explores the continent's current peace and security landscape, including new actors, emerging threats, and the prospects for achieving sustainable peace. With contributions from highly respected experts in the field, both academics and practitioners, the volume unpacks the sources of conflict, instability and the challenges of peace and development, and provides research-based policy advice to guide and inform African governments, policy makers, practitioners, and scholarly audiences on the continent and beyond.

""Etuk has been indefatigable in his profound determination for African revolution as admonished not only in this piece but also in his other works.""
-Adams O. Adah, Founder of Impart Africa, author of Service

As Africa begins her journey into the twenty-fi rst century, the citizens ask: how can we survive? In "Listen Africans A Revolution is Coming," author Emma Samuel Etuk addresses the question of revolution-a fundamental change to the basic fabric of society-and its historical manifestations.

Through thorough research, Etuk presents strong arguments about the need for change in the social, political, economic, and religious life of Africans. He contends that an array of issues has brought the continent to this point, including broken promises by administrators and governments; poverty and widespread hunger; angry youth and unemployment; official corruption, insensitivity, and kleptocracy; tyranny, despotism, and dictatorships; state-sponsored terrorism; infrastructural decay; and environmental pollution. As Etuk uses these examples and makes a call for a revolution, he provides a backdrop by discussing the following:
Origin of revolutions Necessity for an African revolution Theological basis for a revolution Five kinds of revolutions Lessons learned from the six major revolutions of the past Preparation for a revolution

Etuk maintains that change is necessary in life and that it is up to the Africans to decide what kind of revolution they should adopt in order to affect change on their continent.

Since 2000, countries across Africa have maintained over a decade of unprecedented economic expansion in a phenomena known as 'Africa rising'. However, despite pockets of strong economic growth, Africa still faces major development challenges. In this important book the contributors argue that Africa as a continent must work on securing social and political stability and build effective economic governance to ensure the development of a society that is socially, economically and politically inclusive. Looking beyond the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the contributors highlight what they consider to be the 12 major public policy conversations of the continent post-2015, from the legacy of African leadership, to the 'youth bulge' (and resulting unemployment) and climate change. The volume presents policy makers, academics and students with a chance to take a fresh look at urgent emerging challenges in post-MDG African development.

The scholarship of historian and political economist, Robert W Cox, spans some thirty to fifty years. As an outsider to the fields of IR/IPE the inspiration wellspring of his work is often misunderstood and incorrectly represented. This comprehensive overview focuses on the development of his thinking and attempts to set the record straight. The book compares Cox with the critical theory of the Frankfurt school and with scholars who have attempted to incorporate it into IR/IPE theory and finds that they are not the same. A selection of work by those who have been inspired by Coxian Critical Theory has been included to highlight some challenges and opportunities for critical political economists. It is suggested that Cox's tolerance for diversity and his eclecticism can potentially bridge the gap between rationalist and interpretative approaches to political economy by pointing us towards a critical empiricist theory of political economy. It is hoped that the volume will provide a point of entry for younger scholars and that it will refocus the attention of established scholars some 20 years after the publication of Power, Production and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History.

The author focuses on the research-policy nexus in development studies, highlighting reciprocal orientations and interactions between the domains of social research and of policy and politics. He looks at instances where these domains are complementary and geared towards common objectives, but also with others marked by opposing rationales.