Around the time this book is being written the world is faced with threats of terrorism, random shootings in various public places on a global scale, increased school violence especially in the United States, increased racial, ethnic, and religious tension worldwide as well as global forced displacement of people due to violence and human rights violations. Given this context, this project turns attention to the problematic of the “uprootedness of the modern man� in our age of technological advancement, globalization, and distraction. It introduces an innovative perspective to the study of communication ethics and the larger field of communication studies through an aesthetic ecology framework. The concept of aesthetic ecology refers to an environment that involves material, conceptual, and contemplative elements that are part of the ongoing dialogue between our sensuous and interpretive engagements in/with the world. Each chapter of this book explores an aspect of this aesthetic ecology in facilitating existential rootedness in connection to communication ethics.

Like any goal-oriented procedure, experiment is subject to many kinds of failures. These failures have a variety of features, depending on the particulars of their sources. For the experimenter these pitfalls should be avoided and their effects minimized. For the historian-philosopher of science and the science educator, on the other hand, they are instructive starting points for reflecting on science in general and scientific method and practice in particular. Often more is learned from failure than from confirmation and successful application. The identification of error, its source, its context, and its treatment shed light on both practices and epistemic claims. This book shows that it is fruitful to bring to light forgotten and lost failures, subject them to analysis and learn from their moral. The study of failures, errors, pitfalls and mistakes helps us understand the way knowledge is pursued and indeed generated. The book presents both historical accounts and philosophical analyses of failures in experimental practice. It covers topics such as "error as an object of study," "learning from error," "concepts and dead ends," "instrumental artifacts," and "surprise and puzzlement."

This book will be of interest to historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science as well as to practicing scientists and science educators.

This book examines entrepreneurship and small business in Russia and key countries of Eastern Europe, showing how far small businesses have developed, and discusses how far 'market reforms' and a market mentality have been taken up by ordinary people in the real everyday economy. For each of the countries examined - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Estonia - the book reviews the progress of market reforms within the wider context of social and economic transformation, surveys the development of entrepreneurship and small firms so far, and assesses the role of government in the process, and the strengths and weaknesses of the small business sector.

Globalization, European integration, and social change have devaluated traditional social democratic policy instruments. This book compares and explores how social democratic governments have had to adapt and whether they have successfully managed to uphold old social democratic goals and values in the light of these challenges. This volume examines the policy measures of social democratic parties in government in a comparative framework. The authors focus on traditional social democratic goals and tools, in particular, fiscal, employment, and social policy, in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark. They identify three policy patterns in social democratic governments: traditional, modernized, and liberalized social democracy and provide a comparative account of the explanatory power of the national context for policy adopted by social democratic parties. Finally, the extent to which social democratic parties have been able to use the European Union as a political space for social democratic governance and policy-making is examined. Social Democracy in Power will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, comparative politics, European studies and public policy.

This book offers an introduction to politics in three Southern European countries, providing a comparative case study analysis of why democratization outcomes vary across them.

One of the important questions that social scientists continue to struggle to answer is the question of why some countries manage to convert themselves from authoritarian rule to stable, fully functioning democracies and others do not. The three countries chosen for analysis represent a wide array of democratization experiences: Italy, with its slow, uncertain start at democratizing after the Second World War; Spain with its remarkably speedy conversion from a seemingly stable authoritarian to stable democratic regime; and Turkey with its extremely slow and - as of yet - still incomplete democratic transition. In contrast to the different types of outcomes these regimes have all experienced, they have shared many common features.

Democratization in Southern Europe examines potential variables, including: problems with stateness, previous experience with democracy, the process of creating constitutions and other important rules, and the structure and functioning of institutions within these countries - with a focus on explaining differences in democratic consolidation and providing an analysis of the likely impact of each.

This volume provides the theoretical, methodological, and praxis-driven issues in research on interpretive, critical, and cultural approaches to health communication. It includes an international collection of contributors, and highlights non-traditional (non-Western) perspectives on health communication.

Go beyond traditional approaches to therapy, research, and teaching Psychotherapy works toward change, but has traditionally focused solely on the individual. Today it is understood that discrimination and other adverse social conditions adversely affect the mental health of minority groups. Activism and LGBT Psychology takes note of the influence of social factors and offers examples of how mental health professionals can use their professional skills to empower the LGBT community. Respected leaders in the field of psychotherapy describe theoretical, clinical, community interventions, and personal approaches to changing attitudes toward LGBT people and within LGBT communities. Prejudice against a minority has an undeniable impact on mental health treatment. Recognizing and understanding this dynamic, Activism and LGBT Psychology reveals strategies to lessen societal discrimination, work for positive change, and reinforce LGBT-affirmative mental health practices. This valuable guide shows how to integrate the mental health professional's unique skills into activism for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. Topics in Activism and LGBT Psychology include: integrating activism into clinical practice theoretical alternatives for clinical practice mental health issues as the consequences of social injustice strategies for using liberation psychology in psychotherapy with LGBT clients practical strategies to bring an integrated clinical approach which encourages client empowerment and self-definition how research can be social activism providing training and support to make educational professionals agents of change personal accounts of integrating professional work with an activist role and more! Activism and LGBT Psychology is a positive, insightful guide for change that is valuable for community psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, educators, students, and professionals in the mental health field.

The Munda group of languages of the Austroasiatic family are spoken by so-called 'tribals' in central and eastern India. They are the least well-known and most poorly documented languages of the Indian subcontinent. This work - unprecedented and original - draws together a distinguished group of international experts in the field of Munda language research, presents current assessments of a wide range of typological and comparative-historical issues, and offers agendas for future research. Never before has there been the real possibility of putting together a volume such as this one, for there is now greater interest in the Munda languages than ever before, and good descriptions of almost all of the languages in the family can now be offered, as well as broader studies on such topics as the typology or historical phonology of the Munda language family, and how Munda fits in the greater South Asian linguistic area.
The Munda language family is old in eastern and central India - older than the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages now found in their territory. The ancestor language of Proto-Munda and the cognate Mon-Khmer (Khmer-Nicobar) languages, viz. Proto-Austroasiatic, is at least as ancient as Proto-Indo-European, and is as important culturally and archaeologically for Southeast Asia, South China and eastern India, as Proto-Indo-European is for its part of the world.
The Munda Languages consists of 21 chapters, and Introductory Chapter and a Preface. The book is divided into three parts. Part I presents synchronic descriptions of the eleven main Munda languages. Part II offers a range of sociolinguistic and literary/philological studies of the Munda languages, while Part IIIdiscusses an array of typological, a real, and comparative-historical topics in current Munda linguistics, presenting an assessment of past successes (and failures) in these domains, the status of current work, and suggested paths for future research.

The end of communism and accession to the European Union have had a huge impact on Poland. This book provides an overall assessment of the post-1989 transformation in Poland. It focuses in particular on four key themes: economic transformation and its outcomes; the heritage of the past and national identity; regional development in Poland including the implications of EU accession for regional development; and political developments both before and after EU accession. In addition the book shows how changes in all these areas are related, and emphasises the overall common themes. The book is in memory of George Blazyca, of the University of Paisley, whose work on the political economy of transition in Poland is highly regarded, and who did a great deal to support the work of Polish academic colleagues and to promote the work of young scholars.

Religious procession is a significant dimension of religion in South Asia. Processions are central not only in Hinduism, but also Islam, Christianity, Jainism and Sikhism, which have large procession rituals. The last years have seen an increase in processions and ritualizations of space both in South Asia and in the South Asian Diaspora. Processions are religious display events and the increase in processions are functions of religious pluralism and competition about public space as well as economic prosperity and a revival of religious identities. Processions often bring together religion and politics since they are about public space, domination and contestation. Written by leading specialists on religious processions and ritualization of public space in South Asia and in the Diaspora, this volume presents current research on the interpretations of the role of processions, the recent increase in processions and changes in the procession traditions. South Asian Religions on Display will appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies, anthropology, religion and political science.

With the unleashing of the "War on Terror" in the aftermath of 9/11, Afghanistan has become prominent in the news. However, we need to appreciate that no substantive understanding of contemporary history, politics and society of this country can be achieved without a thorough analysis of the Afghan encounter with cultural and literary modernity and modernization. Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan does just that. The book offers a balanced and interdisciplinary analysis of the rich and admirable contemporary poetry and fiction of a land long tormented by wars and invasions. It sets out to demonstrate that, within the trajectory of the union between modern aesthetic imagination and politics, creativity and production, and representation and history, the modernist intervention enabled many contemporary poets and writers of fiction to resist the overt politicization of the literary field, without evading politics or disavowing the modern state. The interpretative moves and nuanced readings of a series of literary texts make this book a major contribution to a rather neglected area of research and study. Winner of the Iranian World Prize for Book of the Year in Islamics Studies 2009

Despite its recent rapid economic growth, China's political system has remained resolutely authoritarian. However, an increasingly open economy is creating the infrastructure for an open society, with the rise of a non-state sector in which a private economy, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and different forms of social forces are playing an increasingly powerful role in facilitating political change and promoting good governance. This book examines the development of the non-state sector and NGOs in China since the onset of reform in the late 1970s. It explores the major issues facing the non-state sector in China today, assesses the institutional barriers that are faced by its developing civil society, and compares China's example with wider international experience. It shows how the 'get-rich-quick' ethos of the Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin years, that prioritised rapid GDP growth above all else, has given way under the Jiantao Hu regime to a renewed concern with social reforms, in areas such as welfare, medical care, education, and public transportation. It demonstrates how this change has led to encouragement by the Hu government of the development of the non-state sector as a means to perform regulatory functions and to achieve effective provision of public and social services. It explores the tension between the government's desire to keep the NGOs as "helping hands' rather than as autonomous, independent organizations, and their ability to perform these roles successfully.

This book examines the relationship between the Russian Communist Party and the Russian working class between 1920-24, immediately after the civil war and during the first years of the New Economic Policy (NEP).

Based on extensive original research, which casts much new light on this period, both from the perspective of the rank and file as well as the leadership, the book discusses working-class collective action in 1920, workers' responses to the 1921 crisis, including the Kronstadt revolt, and the successes of the non-party workers' movement in the elections of 1921. It shows how during and after the 1921 crisis the working class was politically expropriated by the Bolshevik party, and how democratic forms such as soviets and factory committees were deprived of decision-making power. Simon Pirani examines how during this period the Soviet ruling class began to take shape, preferring in 1922-23 mass mobilization campaigns in which workers remained politically passive, rather than the participatory mass democracy which had flourished in 1917. The Russian Revolution in Retreat, 1920-24 shows how, whilst some people argued that the principles of 1917 had been betrayed, others accepted a social contract under which workers were assured of improvements in living standards in exchange for increased labour discipline and productivity, and a surrender of political power, with political power becoming concentrated in the party, and, increasingly, in the party elite.

Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism explores contemporary UK national and local newspapers at a significant and pivotal moment in their development when some pundits are busily, if mistakenly, announcing their demise. The book offers a detailed examination of features which previous studies have tended to neglect, such as editorial formats (News, Op Ed pages, readers' letters, cartoons, obituaries, advice columns, features and opinion columns), aspects of newspaper design (page layout, photographs, supplements, online editions, headlines, the emergence of the compact and Berliner editions), newspaper contents (sport, sex and Page 3, royalty, crime, moral panics and politics) as well as the content of newspapers which is not generated by in house journalists (advertising, TV listings, horoscopes, agency copy and public relations materials). This innovative and accessibly written collection provides journalism and media students with an invaluable study of newspapers in the digital age.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the contemporary Maghreb. Made up of contributions from leading academics in the field, it highlights specific issues of importance, including international and security affairs.

With profiles of individual countries and regional issues, such as migration, gender, integration, economics, and war in Western Sahara, as well as a section dealing with international relations and the Maghreb, including US and EU foreign policy and security issues, North Africa: Politics, Region, and the Limits of Transformation is a major resource for all students of Middle Eastern Studies and North African Politics.

This volume will mark a new trend in dealing with women's varied experiences of life: individual introductions situate the narrator in a context - and then her voice takes over, with no intervention from the editors (except to provide footnotes wherever necessary). The personal narrative - be it an autobiography, a letter or a diary - has come to be recognised as an acceptable data source in history and social science. Literary critics and students of literature too find considerable use in reading the personal writings of poets, fiction and crime writers. In this book, readings of personal narratives help in painting various images of lives that we can only know at second hand. The melange includes memoirs, published articles, 'portraits from memory', a collection of essays , and an oral interview. In all, the self was the focus. The writings of Sailabala, Li Gotami, and Shakuntala go beyond a recounting of their lives and deal with spiritual and travel experiences. Three of the essays are excerpts from published autobiographies - Sarala Devi Chaudhurani's Jeevaner Jharapata (Life's Fallen Leaves), Kalpana Dutt's Reminiscences and Sailabala Das's A Look Before and After. Vidyagauri Nilkanth's writings are essays and a selection of amazingly candid letters exchanged with her husband. Anasuya Sarabahi's is an interview in Gujarati with niece Gira and Monica's a selection from an unpublished memoir. Li Gotami, whose original name was Rutty Petit, travelled to Manasarovar, and a few of the magazine articles on this amazing journey have been reproduced here. Whichever form a woman chooses, writing about her self, is emancipatory; she may be a person who has so far received little attention from the family or the world. Or she may be one who is a well-known public figure - yet little is known about her childhood. So she writes about many selves - life is not about one coherent self but rather one of many lives and experiences. In other words, the pen gives woman agency - she moves out from under the shroud of victim hood and becomes one who can write about her lives. The volume also has some carefully chosen photographs, gleaned from personal collections, so far a neglected area of use in academic study. These provide an important visual context to the many worlds that the women inhabited.

This is the first examination of how China is currently dealing with environmental problems and challenges, and of its successes, failures and dilemmas. This new book gives special attention to the development of 'environmental governance' in contemporary China, especially on the urban industrial and infrastructure sectors, showing how the rapid economic growth that has transformed China in recent years has major implications for the environment, as well as future economic development. Leading international scholars explore a range of key issues, including: economic growth and the environment the environmental policy process the legal framework for environmental protection the role of environmental NGOs energy policy water issues biotechnology and GMOs the international dimension. This book shows how environmental policy, politics and governance are core issues posed by China's accelerated economic development. At the same time it analyzes, illustrates and argues that major steps are under way in taking up these challenges. In doing so the book provides an in-depth, balanced and comprehensive assessment of contemporary environmental reforms in China. This book was previously published as a special issue of Environmental Governance.

This edited volume sets out to explore the paradox that the European Union (EU) produces policies with strategic qualities, but lacks the institutions and concepts to engage in strategic reasoning and action proper. The book has a two-fold agenda, exploring current EU external policies that are, or seem to be, linked to strategic priorities, and also studying the concept of strategy in the particular context of EU decision- and policymaking. The volume first examines the character of the Union as a strategic actor at this stage of its development. It then explores the ability of the Union to act and otherwise influence both its periphery and the wider world, focusing in particular on how it is perceived by other actors. The final section comprises personal assessments by a group of contributors regarding the character of the union as a strategic actor in the present and future. When these are pieced together, a picture emerges of a European strategy in the making, albeit one that so far is modest and partial. This book will be of interest to students of European Security, European Politics and IR.

Winner of the 2010 Myrdal Prize There is much debate regarding which countries' economies have the best economic systems to encourage economic growth and technological change. This book is a major contribution to this discussion, connecting the fields of corporate governance and finance with the field of innovation and technology and analysing the ways in which countries' systems of corporate governance affect firms' ability to meet the technological challenges of different sectors. Tylecote and Visintin combine incisive analysis with empirical studies systems of corporate governance in the US, Europe, East Asia and China, demonstrating how these systems vary and how the demands on those who control and finance industry are changing. The authors argue that while certain types of system have worked for particular sectors, the technological revolution through which we are passing demands innovation in corporate governance and finance. Indeed, this book goes some way in challenging accepted views of best practise in corporate governance and finance, showing how structures and rules intended to advance 'shareholder value' may undermine it by inhibiting technological change. This book will be very interesting reading for students and researchers engaged with corporate governance and national business systems, as well as those interested in systems of innovation.

On July 1st, 2007, Hong Kong celebrated the 10th anniversary of its return to the People's Republic of China, but the past decade has been a bumpy ride for both the Hong Kong people and the central leaders in China. In fact, in 2003 Beijing had already succumbed to public pressure within the fairly short period of its rule by abruptly replacing its handpicked first Chief Executive with a British-groomed civil servant.

This book examines the origin and evolution of Hong Kong's political system, analyses the current contradictions in the system, and discusses how the system might develop in future. It focuses in particular on the office of Chief Executive in the context of Hong Kong's transformation from a British colony to a Special Administrative Region in China. The dualistic structure of the Chief Executive's office embodies a dilemma between two competing imperatives - Communist China's imperative to retain a colonial political system where executive power is concentrated at the top; alongside the need to accommodate new, increasing demands for democratic representation within the territory.

The Political Future of Hong Kong demonstrates how the British legacy left its imprint on Hong Kong's political system. It analyses the strategies adopted by the Sovereign state as it attempted to cope with demands for representative government in the post-handover years, and the strains placed on Hong Kong's political institutions by the uneasy relationship between central government and local forces of liberal autonomy. Kit Poon examines the possibility of the introduction of universal suffrage for the selection of the Chief Executive, and considers how Hong Kong can secure ademocratic future in the context of broader Beijing-Hong Kong relations.

Contents:
Introduction 1. The Histories of Karelian Space
2. The Structures of Karelian Autonomy, 1920-1928: Borders, Boundaries and Spatial Ambitions
3. 3. The Limits of Karelian Autonomy, 1920-1928: Economy, Population and the Origins of the Gulag
4. The First Five-Year Plan, 1928-1932: Economic Development and Forced Labour on the Periphery
5. The Second Five-Year Plan, 1933-1937: Visions and Realities of Peripheral Developments
6. Production and Terror on the Periphery, 1935-1937
Conclusion

This book tracks the phases of Singapore's economic and political development, arguing that its success was always dependent upon the territories links with the surrounding region and the wider global system, and suggests that managing these links today will be the key to the country's future. Singapore has followed a distinctive historical development trajectory. It was one of a number of cities which provided bases for the expansion of the British empire in the East. But the Pacific War provided local elites with their chance to secure independence. In Singapore the elite disciplined and mobilized their population and built successfully on their colonial inheritance. Today, the city-state prospers in the context of its regional and global networks, and sustaining and nurturing these are the keys to its future. But there are clouds on the elite's horizons; domestically, the population is restive with inequality, migration and surplus-repression causing concern; and internationally, the strategy of constructing a business-hub economy is being widely copied and both Hong Kong and Shanghai are significant competitors. This book discusses these issues and argues that although success is likely to characterize Singapore's future, the elite will have to address these significant domestic and international problems.

This book provides an innovative examination of the European Union as it departs from its path of integration. Indeed so far has it departed that it could be described as having entered a new reality. The original reality was that captured in the evocative phrase in its founding agreement, the Treaty of Rome, that it should be an ever-closer union of peoples. Largely that was the path followed until the 1990s, but by the early twenty-first century there have been signs that it is turning into an ordinary international organization in which there is little overriding sense of purpose.

This book discusses the indications of this development and explains why it happened only a decade or so after a peak of popular enthusiasm in the early 1990s. The question was whether the EU would become less important for the member states, as seemed to be the case for the British, or whether the German pattern, in which the EU remained important, would prevail. This book concludes that the former is more likely in part because of problems with the policies of the European Union and its conduct, but more specifically because of the current prevailing political culture in Western Europe. Paul Taylor warns that the current problems are underestimated and that there is the risk of casually throwing away the considerable achievements of the integration process.

The End of European Integration will be of interest to all those with an interest in European integration, whether for or against. It will also interest students of European studies, European politics, and politics and international relations in general.

An extremely timely translation of a seminal text on the role of women in Muslim society by the early twentieth century thinker al Taher al-Haddad. Considered as one of the first feminist works in Arab literature, this book will be of considerable interest to scholars of an early "feminist" tract coming from a Muslim in Arab society. Awarded the 2008 "World Award of the President of the Republic of Tunisia for Islamic Studies"

Japanese Economic Development presents three distinct approaches to understanding how and why Japan made the transition from a relatively low-income country mainly focused on agriculture to a high-income nation centered on manufacturing and services.

In offering an eclectic account of Japana (TM)s economic development, this book appeals to students in a broad group of disciplines including economics, political science, sociology, geography and history.

The book makes a case for 'over determination' in economic behavior. Because individual, firm level, and governmental behavior is simultaneously determined by the interaction of markets, norms, and structures, change over time is rarely if ever limited to the economy operating in isolation from social norms and structures.