This open access edited volume introduces the concept of causal mechanisms to explore new ways of explaining the global dynamics of social policy, and shows that a mechanism-based approach provides several advantages over established approaches for studying social policy. The introductory chapter outlines the mechanism-based approach, which stands out by modularisation and a clear focus on actors. The mechanism-based approach then guides the twelve chapters on social policy developments in different Asian, African, European and Latin American countries. Based on these findings, the concluding chapter provides a structured compilation of causal mechanisms and outlines how a mechanism-based approach can further strengthen research on the global development of social policies, especially in a comparative perspective. The edited volume is highly relevant for social policy scholars from a variety of disciplines, as well as for scholars interested in strengthening explanation in the social sciences.

This open access book presents a nuanced and accessible synthesis of the relationship between land tenure security and sustainable development. Contributing authors have collectively worked for decades on land tenure as connected with conservation and development across all major regions of the globe. The first section of this volume is intended as a standalone primer on land tenure security and its connections with sustainable development. The book then explores key thematic challenges that interact directly with land tenure security, followed by a section on strategies for addressing tenure insecurity. The book concludes with a section on new frontiers in research, policy, and action. An invaluable reference for researchers in the field and for practitioners looking for a comprehensive overview of this important topic. This is an open access book.

Investigates the production, trade and consumption of the bouquets sold in European supermarkets and the consequences of this for the globalised economy. From a macro-perspective, it appears that the cut flower industry has changed into a buyer-driven value chain with corporate retailers as the new lead firms. Yet, as this book shows, this is insufficient to explain how new trade relations come into being, and the consequences of this, not only for global economics, but for the producers, climate change and rural livelihoods. As the retailers and wholesalers of the flower industry in the West linked directly to producers in the Global South, trade relations changed fundamentally, and this critical new book explores the complexities of the power asymmetries and the way in which corporate retailers have shaped the market to promote their own interests, as well as the role non-economic actors played. This book examines in detail the situation at Lake Naivasha, Kenya, which has played a central part within this new market order. Since the 1970s, the area has developed into one of the most important production areas for the ready-made bouquets that sell so cheaply in European supermarkets. For the flower growers themselves, however, coping with the new conditions of supply and demand, the new market order has brought financial precariousness. Farms needed to be flexible in the production and marketing of their flowers. Yet while they were able to expand their production and achieve more stable employment conditions, this has not resulted in significantly higher remuneration. The rapidly changing economic situation has also had a profound impact, not only on local stakeholders, but on the environment, where there is intensified competition for resources and new production technologies. Published in association with the Collaborative Research Centre FUTURE RURAL AFRICA, funded by the German Research Council (DFG).

Understanding the challenges in research and practice of participation in the digital era, and the important role of local governance in achieving the sustainable development goals, Community Participation and Civic Engagement in the Digital Era unfolds the complex relationship of community participation, social capital and social networks. Singh presents an in-depth literature review alongside case studies from developing countries, showcasing the role of participation in sustainable development, and explaining how digital development creates technological tools and a virtual space for community engagement - increasing the complexity of community participation and civic engagement, and the potential for implementing the sustainable development goals at a local level. From the historic concept and forms of participation to describing and analysing the environmental and individual factors shaping practice of participation, community development interventions and local governance, the book culminates in a discussion of future work and challenges in the digital world. Delivering a careful review of the theoretical and practical problems of community participation in the digital age and featuring applied theories and cases which appeal to public policy makers and researchers, Community Participation and Civic Engagement in the Digital Era offers a rich theoretical perspective and detailed critical review of social capital and social networks that has profound application in the fields of political science, sociology and development economics.

While technological developments are evolving at a rapid pace, employee workplace skills are falling behind. This rate of change will continue to accelerate, and it is the responsibility of businesses to provide their employees with a solid foundation for keeping pace with the technology surrounding them. Technology-Driven Productivity Improvements and the Future of Work: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides a comprehensive discussion of the latest strategies and methods for creating harmony between the workplace population and their technological environments. Featuring coverage on relevant topics such as STEM skills, economic complexities, and social programs, this is an informative resource for all business owners, professionals, practitioners, and researchers who are interested in discovering new methods that will enable humans and technology to work together.

As the global populace continues to boom, especially in developing countries, it has become essential to find ways to effectively handle this population increase through various urbanization methods. However, these techniques have posed potential issues, as well as opportunities for improvement. Population Growth and Rapid Urbanization in the Developing World emphasizes the trends, challenges, issues, and strategies developing countries evaluate when facing a population upsurge and expeditious development of urban environments. Exploring the use of different governance techniques, trending patterns in urbanization and population growth, as well as tools and the appropriate allocation of resources used to address these issues, this book is a comprehensive reference for academicians, researchers, students, practitioners, professionals, managers, urban planners, technicians, and government officials.

This book provides an in-depth look into key political dynamics that obtain in a democracy without parties, offering a window into political undercurrents increasingly in evidence throughout the Latin American region, where political parties are withering. For the past three decades, Peru has showcased a political universe populated by amateur politicians and the dominance of personalism as the main party-voter linkage form. The study peruses the post-2000 evolution of some of the key Peruvian electoral vehicles and classifies the partisan universe as a party non-system. There are several elements endogenous to personalist electoral vehicles that perpetuate partylessness, contributing to the absence of party building. The book also examines electoral dynamics in partyless settings, centrally shaped by effective electoral supply, personal brands, contingency, and iterated rounds of strategic voting calculi. Given the scarcity of information electoral vehicles provide, as well as the enormously complex political environment Peruvian citizens inhabit, personal brands provide readymade informational shortcuts that simplify the political world. The concept of "negative legitimacy environments" is furnished to capture political settings comprised of supermajorities of floating voters, pervasive negative political identities, and a generic citizen preference for newcomers and political outsiders. Such environments, increasingly present throughout Latin America, produce several deleterious effects, including high political uncertainty, incumbency disadvantage, and political time compression. Peru's "democracy without parties" fails to deliver essential democratic functions including governability, responsiveness, horizontal and vertical accountability, or democratic representation, among others.

Examines how pastoral peoples imagine, or even design, their futures under the pressure of changing environments and large-scale government projects. In East Africa and beyond, pastoral groups find themselves and their livelihoods under increasing threat when dealing with rapid environmental change. On the one hand, they contemplate major upheaval as a result of landscape and climate change on a scale never seen before. At the same time, these often-marginalised groups find themselves subsumed by the wider interests of national political economies prioritising new investment in land as well as encouraging tourism. This book investigates one such group - the nomadic pastoralists in East Pokot in north-west Kenya - and traces their social and ecological transformation over the past two hundred years to show how modern challenges are linked to the past history and also shape the perceptions of pastoral futures. In East Pokot the grass bush savannah upon which the pastoral lifestyle depends has strongly declined over a long period of time, with encroachment of acacia. Though traditionally cattle-rearing, its people have been forced to diversify into raising other browsing animals as well as cattle husbandry. The development efforts of the Kenyan government to use natural resources have also threatened their environment and their way of life. Bringing a long view to the history of human-environmental relations, the author reveals a more complex picture of change that, contrary to earlier assumptions, is not due exclusively to the pastoralists' pasture management, but also to the extinction of wildlife populations in the region, which were hunted heavily in colonial times. Attempts to move beyond Pokot territory, to the regions west of Lake Baringo and to the hard-fought Laikipia Plateau, have often been compromised by violent conflicts. While a younger generation looks to develop new sources of income through the job opportunities created by geothermal energy production, and diversify into other agricultural activities, this has also brought a dynamic social transformation: increasing production and sale of alcohol, decreasingly nomadic lifestyle, growing differences between the older and younger generations, and so on. Contributing to debates on future rural Africa, ecological history and environmental change, the book will appeal to anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, historians and development scholars. Published in association with the Collaborative Research Centre FUTURE RURAL AFRICA, funded by the German Research Council (DFG).

Media outlets play a pivotal role in fostering the positive and beneficial development of countries in modern society. By properly informing citizens of critical national concerns, the media can help to transform society and promote active participation. Exploring Journalism Practice and Perception in Developing Countries is a crucial reference source for the latest scholarly material on the impacts of development journalism on contemporary nations and the media's responsibility to inform citizens of government and non-government activities. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as media regulation, freedom of expression, and new media technology, this book is ideally designed for researchers, academics, professionals, policy makers, and students interested in the role of journalist endeavors in developing nations.

Nepal is associated, in most people's imagination, with Everest (Sagarmatha to the Nepalese), vivid plants and picturesque villages and people. The truth, as always, is other. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, surrounded by big and powerful neighbours. It is immensely diverse, ranging from the great mountains to the north through the trans-Himalaya, a high barren plateau, through the deep valleys, which include the one which contains the ancient cities of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, to the Terai which is an extension of Ganges plain. This atlas describes not only the complexity of the environment, but the people, the languages, the towns and industries, the agriculture, food and land management, the natural resources, the effects of tourism, sources of energy, transport and education policies. Originally published in 1991

The Outcast Majority invites policymakers, practitioners, academics, students, and others to think about three commanding contemporary issues-war, development, and youth-in new ways. The starting point is the following irony: while Africanyouth are demographically dominant, many act as if they are members of an outcast minority. The irony directly informs young people's lives in war-affected Africa, where differences separating the priorities of youth and those of international agencies are especially prominent. Drawing on interviews with development experts and young people, Marc Sommers shines a light on this gap and offers guidance on how to close it. He begins with a comprehensive consideration of forces that shape and propel the lives of African youth today, particularly those experiencing or emerging from war. They are contrasted with forces that influence and constrain the international development aid enterprise. The book concludes with a framework for making development policies and practices significantly more relevant and effective for youth in areas affected by African wars and other places where vast and vibrant youth populations reside.

This book looks at the question of what makes for successful change in developing countries. It focuses on people at every level in six developing countries in Africa and Asia who have helped foster positive change and development, most of which has been successful. Here, in contrast to so much academic writing on development which focuses on leadership alone, the author tries to get beyond that elite focus and highlight the people at all levels who make change possible. He examines the role and significance of these ordinary citizens and groups as well as leaders. Transformation almost always requires action and support at multiple levels from individuals, communities, and local leaders. The project analyses the cases of Afghanistan, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Pakistan, and South Africa.

Now in its 30th edition, the Europa International Foundation Directory 2021 provides an unparalleled guide to the foundations, trusts, charitable and grantmaking NGOs, and other similar not-for-profit organizations of the world. It provides a comprehensive picture of third sector activity on a global scale. Users will find names and contact details for some 2,690 institutions worldwide. This new edition has been revised and expanded to include the most comprehensive and up-to-date information on this growing sector. Indexes allow the reader to find organizations by area of activity (including conservation and the environment, science and technology, education and social welfare) and geographical region of operations (e.g. South America, Central America and the Caribbean, Australasia, Western Europe and North America). Contents include: A comprehensive directory section organized by country or territory; Details of co-ordinating bodies, and of foundations, trusts and non-profit organizations; A full index of organizations, and indexes by main activity and by geographical area of activity.

This book examines the underlying assumptions and implications of how we conceptualise and investigate poverty. The empirical entry point for such inquiry is a series of research initiatives that have used mixed method, combined qualitative and quantitative, or Q-Squared ( Q(2)) approaches, to poverty analysis. The Q(2) literature highlights the vast range of analytical tools within the social sciences that may be used to understand and explain social phenomena, along with interesting research results. This literature serves as a lens to probe issues about knowledge claims made in poverty debates concerning who are the poor (identification analysis) and why they are poor (causal analysis). Implicitly or explicitly, questions are raised about the reasons for emphasising different dimensions of poverty and favouring different units of knowledge, the basis for distinguishing valid and invalid claims, the meaning of causation, and the nature of causal inference, and so forth. Q(2) provides an entry point to address foundational issues about assumptions underlying approaches to poverty, and applied issues about the strengths and limitations of different research methods and the ways they may be fruitfully combined. Together, the strands of this inquiry make a case for methodological pluralism on the grounds that knowledge is partial, empirical adjudication imperfect, social phenomena complex, and mixed methods add value for understanding and explanation. Ultimately, the goals of understanding and explanation are best served if research questions dictate the choice of methodological approach rather than the other way around.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com. Continuation along current development pathways is not sustainable. Available technology and production practices and the consumption patterns of modern societies are leading to global warming and ecological destruction. Business as usual is not an option. There is an urgent need to find a new development paradigm that ensures environmental sustainability while managing to provide, now and in the future, a decent livelihood for all of humankind. In Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development, experts in the area provide a variety of insights about the technical transformation needed for sustainable development. It spells out the behavioural and policy changes that would need to accompany the next technological transformation, taking into account the complexity of inducing technological change in the energy and agricultural sectors. The assessment suggests that this will require major, but doable improvements in national innovation systems and major, but affordable shifts in investment patterns and related macroeconomic adjustments.

Through various international case studies presented by both practitioners and scholars, Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene explores how an environmental justice approach is necessary for reflections on inequality in the Anthropocene and for forging societal transitions toward a more just and sustainable future. Environmental justice is a central component of sustainability politics during the Anthropocene - the current geological age in which human activity is the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Every aspect of sustainability politics requires a close analysis of equity implications, including problematizing the notion that humans as a collective are equally responsible for ushering in this new epoch. Environmental justice provides us with the tools to critically investigate the drivers and characteristics of this era and the debates over the inequitable outcomes of the Anthropocene for historically marginalized peoples. The contributors to this volume focus on a critical approach to power and issues of environmental injustice across time, space, and context, drawing from twelve national contexts: Austria, Bangladesh, Chile, China, India, Nicaragua, Hungary, Mexico, Brazil, Sweden, Tanzania, and the United States. Beyond highlighting injustices, the volume highlights forward-facing efforts at building just transitions, with a goal of identifying practical steps to connect theory and movement and envision an environmentally and ecologically just future. This interdisciplinary work will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners focused on conservation, environmental politics and governance, environmental and earth sciences, environmental sociology, environment and planning, environmental justice, and global sustainability and governance. It will also be of interest to social and environmental justice advocates and activists.

Many hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted by well meaning philanthropists, aid agencies and governments in projects to deploy ICT solutions in developing contexts. The very long list of public Internet access facilities (telecenters, internet cafes, multi-purpose community centers) that were either closed down, or that never got off the ground in the first place, is very troublesome. Yet, there are some cases that seem to be very effective. ICTs for Global Development and Sustainability: Practice and Applications unites the theoretical underpinnings and scientific methodology of an approach of deploying ICT in marginalized communities to bridge the so-called digital divide. This book contains case studies of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean that demonstrate which approaches work and which do not in deploying public access to information sources.

After the final collapse of the Soviet Union, the so-called 'last empire', in 1991, the countries of Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan - and of the Caucasus - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia - became independent nations. These countries, previously production centres under the socialist planning system of the Soviet Union, have made enormous economic adjustments in order to develop - or attempt to develop - along capitalist lines. As this study will show, however, inequality in Central Asia and the Caucasus is widening, as the Soviet systems of healthcare and state provisions disappear. Rejecting the Cold War-era East/West paradigm often used to analyse the development of these nations, this study analyses development along the North-South lines which characterise the migration patterns and poverty levels of much of the rest of the developed world. This opens up new avenues of research, and helps us understand why it is, for instance, that this region is better characterised as a 'new South' - as skilled workers flood out of the territories and into Russia and Western Europe. Development in Central Asia and the Caucasus draws together detailed analyses of the development of migration economics as the region's oil wealth further enhances its strategic and economic importance to Russia, the US, the Middle East and to the EU.

This book provides a nuanced picture of how diverse legal debates on the pursuit of economic development and modernization have played out in Latin America since independence. The opposing concepts of modernization theory and Dependency Theory can be seen to be playing out within the field of legal transformation, as some legal analysts define law as a closed, formal, rational system, and others see law as inseparable from economic, social and political change. Legal experiments have followed these trends, in some cases using legal instruments to guarantee classical, civil and political rights, and in others demanding radical transformation of existing legal structures. This book traces these debates across the key topics of: economic development and foreign investment; property; resource and power distribution in terms of gender and social policy. Drawing on a wide range of literature, the book adds complexity and color to our understanding of these themes in Latin America. This insightful exploration of comparative law within Latin America provides the tools needed to understand legal transformation in the region, and as such will be of interest to researchers within law, political sociology, development and Latin American studies.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com. Attention is increasingly being paid to the conceptualization of the sustainable development agenda that should guide global development efforts beyond 2015. New trends are shaping the international environment, suggesting that the world emerging from the recent economic and financial crisis will probably be very different from the one we have known so far. The emerging issues demand new concerted responses and new international efforts, which will have to be framed by new rules and more democratic and inclusive mechanisms of global governance. Global Governance and Rules for the Post 2015 Era provides a unique assessment of global rules and governance, a reflection of how global rules have been shaping development experiences and outcomes, an identification of the shortcomings of current global governance mechanisms and innovative suggestions for reforming and improving them. The various chapters analyse whether current rules and governance structures enables the building of effective responses against international problems and promote a fair distribution of development opportunities among countries. This book is a timely contribution to the discussions on a new global development agenda undertaken under the leadership of the United Nations. It reflects the outcome of a research programme by a group of independent development experts brought together by the United Nations Committee for Development Policy (CDP), a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council. It will be of interest to policymakers worldwide, experts of international agencies, scholars, students and the wider public.

Economic and Social Development in Qatar analyses and discusses the economic and social development in Qatar since the country's emergence as a soveriegn State in 1971. Qatar is now a member of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the Arab League, the Non-aligned Gropu, the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Organisation of the Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), and as such has a significant role to play in world affairs. The author provides a detailed and lucid introduction to the resources, policies and system of government which have brought about this rapid progress. Qatar has vast reserves of crude oil and natural gas which form the backbone of the economy, providing the main source of foreign exchange earnings which in turn is essential for teh continued importation of capital goods and services. Improvement in living conditions is a dominant feature of the development policy, which expenditure on education, public utilities, health care, improved housing, mass media and cultural facilities taking priority. Industrial development is directed at widening the productive base of the economy through the establishment of natural gase based and other manufacturing industries. This book documents the twin developments of economic and social advancement.