This book explores the political games of the Moroccan democratization process in the period from independence in 1956 until 2006. By combining a great degree of political theory with empirical material on Morocco, it analyzes the strategies and actions of the various political actors and evaluates the level of democracy present in the country after the adoption of new constitutions in 1962, 1970, 1972, 1980, 1992 and 1996.

Lise Storm demonstrates that in at least some instances, democratization has been more than simply a survival strategy - every so often, key figures within the political elite have taken the democratization process further than strictly needed for them to stay in power. In the case of Morocco, it has been the monarch who on more than one occasion has moved the country further towards the democratic ideal than he necessarily had to, and that sometimes even against the wishes of one or more of the established political parties. This book illustrates how the Moroccan political parties, like so many of their counterparts in the region, have become the main obstacle to further democratization as most of them have never honoured - or appear to have abandoned - the key function of political parties: popular representation.

Democratization in Morocco will be a very valuable contribution to students and researchers interested in the dynamics behind the Moroccan democratization and the role of electoral politics in North African and Middle Eastern politics.

Since the late nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of Chinese have moved to Russia and Eastern Europe. However, until now, very little research has been done about the initial migrants in the nineteenth century, the presence of the Chinese in Europe and Russia in the twentieth century before the collapse of the 'socialist' regimes or about the great wave of Chinese migration to Eastern Europe and Russia which occurred after 1989.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Chinese in Russia and Eastern Europe from the nineteenth century to the present day. Particularly important is the movement of entrepreneurs in the early 1990s, who took advantage of unmet demand, inadequate retail networks and largely unregulated markets to become suppliers of cheap consumer goods to low-income Eastern Europeans. In some villages, Chinese merchants now occupy a position not unlike that of Jewish shopkeepers before the Second World War. Although their interactions with local society are numerous, the degree of social integration and acceptance is often low. At the same time, they maintain close economic, social, and political ties to China.

Empirical in focus, and full of rich ethnographic data, Pal Nyiri has produced a book that will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese studies, international migration, diaspora and transnationalism.

This is an introduction to the best available scholarship within Irish politics, featuring the most influential and significant articles which have been published on Irish politics during the past twenty years. Each article is accompanied by a new commentary by another leading scholar which addresses the impact and contribution of the article and discusses how its themes remain crucial today. The book covers all the most important topics within Irish politics including political culture and traditions, political institutions and parties and the peace process. The combination of the best original scholarship and contemporary commentaries on the core political issues makes Irish Political Studies Reader an invaluable resource for all students and scholars of Irish politics.

In the absence of democratic state institutions, eastern European countries were considered to possess only myths of democracy. Working on the premise that democracy is not only an institutional arrangement but also a civilisational project, this book argues that mythical narratives help understanding the emergence of democracy without 'democrats'. Examining different national traditions as well as pre-communist and communist narratives, myths are seen as politically fabricated 'programmes of truth' that form and sustain the political imagination. Appearing as cultural, literary, or historical resources, myths amount to ideology in narrative form, which actors use in political struggles for the sake of achieving social compliance and loyalty with the authority of new political forms. Drawing on a wide range of case studies including Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, this book argues that narratives about the past are not simply 'legacies' of former regimes but have actively shaped representations and meanings of democracy in the region. Taking different theoretical and methodological approaches, the power of myth is explored for issues such as leadership, collective identity-formation, literary representation of heroic figures, cultural symbolism in performative art as well as on the constitution of legitimacy and civic identity in post-communist democracies.

The fast-developing relationship between China and Europe has become one of the most important in international affairs. China-Europe Relations takes an innovative and insightful look at this phenomenon, examining: the state of Chinese studies in Europe and European studies in China the decision-making behind the EU's China policy, and what the Chinese perceptions and assessments are of Europe that shape China's Europe policy the recent rapid growth of bilateral commercial and technological relations the global context of the bilateral Sino-European relationship, in particular the interaction of China, the EU, and the United States prospects for the future evolution of these relationships. The most systematic and comprehensive study on the subject to date, written by a stellar team of international contributors from China, Europe and the US, China-Europe Relations will appeal to students, academics and policy makers alike who are interested in international relations, comparative foreign policy and Chinese and European politics.

The balance between individual independence and social interdependence is a perennial debate in Japan. A series of educational reforms since 1990, including the implementation of a new curriculum in 2002, has been a source of fierce controversy. This book, based on an extended, detailed study of two primary schools in the Kinki district of Japan, discusses these debates, shows how reforms have been implemented at the school level, and explores how the balance between individuality and social interdependence is managed in practice. It discusses these complex issues in relation to personal identity within the class and within the school, in relation to gender issues, and in relation to the teaching of specific subjects, including language, literature and mathematics. The book concludes that, although recent reforms have tended to stress individuality and independence, teachers in primary schools continue to balance the encouragement of individuality and self-direction with the development of interdependence and empathy.

The fast-developing relationship between China and Europe has become one of the most important in international affairs. China-Europe Relations takes an innovative and insightful look at this phenomenon, examining: the state of Chinese studies in Europe and European Studies in China, the decision-making behind the EU's China policy, and what the Chinese perceptions and assessments are of Europe that shape China's Europe policy, the recent rapid growth of bilateral commercial and technological relations the global context of the bilateral Sino-European relationship, in particular the interaction of China, the EU, and the United States prospects for the future evolution of these relationships.The most systematic and comprehensive study on the subject to date, written by a stellar team of international contributors from China, Europe and the US, China-Europe Relations will appeal to students, academics and policy makers alike who are interested in international relations, comparative foreign policy and Chinese and European politics.

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.

Featuring contributions from leading scholars of Iranian studies and / or comparative literature, this edited comprehensive and critical edited collection provides detailed scholarly analysis of Hedayat's life and work using a variety of methodological and conceptual approaches. Hedayat is the author of The Blind Owl, the most famous Persian novel both in Iran and in Europe and America. Many of his short stories are in a critical realist style and are regarded as among some of the best written in twentieth century Iran. But his most original contribution was the use of modernist, more often surrealist, techniques in Persian fiction. Thus, he was not only a great writer, but also the founder of modernism in Persian fiction. Yet both Hedayat's life and his death came to symbolize much more than leading writers would normally claim. He still towers over modern Persian fiction and will remain a highly controversial figure so long as the clash of the modern and the traditional, the Persian and the European, and the religious and the secular, has not led to a synthesis and a consensus.

This book dispels the widely-held view that paganism survived in Russia alongside Orthodox Christianity, demonstrating that 'double belief', dvoeverie, is in fact an academic myth.

Scholars, citing the medieval origins of the term, have often portrayed Russian Christianity as uniquely muddied by paganism, with 'double-believing' Christians consciously or unconsciously preserving pagan traditions even into the twentieth century. This volume shows how the concept of dvoeverie arose with nineteenth-century scholars obsessed with the Russian 'folk' and was perpetuated as a propaganda tool in the Soviet period, colouring our perception of both popular faith in Russian and medieval Russian culture for over a century. It surveys the wide variety of uses of the term from the eleventh to the seventeenth century, and contrasts them to its use in modern historiography, concluding that our modern interpretation of dvoeverie would not have been recognized by medieval clerics, and that 'double-belief' is a modern academic construct. Furthermore, it offers a brief foray into medieval Orthodoxy via the mind of the believer, through the language and literature of the period.

Kazakhstan is emerging as the most dynamic economic and political actor in Central Asia. It is the second largest country of the former Soviet Union, after the Russian Federation, and has rich natural resources, particularly oil, which is being exploited through massive US investment. Kazakhstan has an impressive record of economic growth under the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbaev, and has ambitions to project itself as a modern, wealthy civic state, with a developed market economy. At the same time, Kazakhstan is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the region, with very substantial non-Kazakh and non-Muslim minorities. Its political regime has used elements of political clientelism and neo-traditional practices to bolster its rule. Drawing from extensive ethnographic research, interviews, and archival materials this book traces the development of national identity and statehood in Kazakhstan, focusing in particular on the attempts to build a national state. It argues that Russification and Sovietization were not simply 'top-down' processes, that they provide considerable scope for local initiatives, and that Soviet ethnically-based affirmative action policies have had a lasting impact on ethnic elite formation and the rise of a distinct brand of national consciousness.

Structured into sub-sector by sub-sector analyses, this book provides a clear and accessible examination of industrial development, without over-generalizing or being weighed down by historical details. Written by an authority in the area of development economics it explores the companies and the individuals that have pushed Japan's economy forwards. Kohama situates the 'miraculous growth' of the Japanese economy in the 1960s in the trade liberalization policy of 1960 and the income doubling plan that commenced in 1961, yet also analyzes the pre-war structures that were in place to facilitate such a 'miracle.' Combining policy analysis with empirical industry-specific analysis, he argues that private dynamism was the real driver of change, rather than policy alone. Reviewing the macroeconomic development of the economy but focusing on the development of the industrial sub-sectors that dominated Japan's industrial scene at various stages of development and structural changes that happened in the process of industrial development, this book is ideal reading for graduate students taking courses on economic development.

Providing a broad ranging and unique comparative study of the development of English, Persian and Arabic literature, this book looks at their interrelations with specific reference to modernity, nationalism and social value. It gives a strong theoretical underpinning to the development of Middle Eastern literature in the modern period.

China's recent growth has called attention to the power-transition theory, which contends that the danger of a major war is the greatest when a rising dissatisfied challenger threatens to overtake a declining satisfied hegemon. Steve Chan questions this prevailing view by analyzing the extent of ongoing power shifts among the leading powers, exploring the portents for their future growth, and seeking indicators of their relative commitment to the existing international order. To better understand the strategic motivations of ascending and declining states, insights are drawn from prospect theory and past episodes of peaceful and violent transition (such as the end of the Cold War and the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars). He concludes that China is unlikely to instigate a confrontation with the US, and that whilst military conflict over the Taiwan Strait is possible, this is more likely to be due to China's inability to prevent US involvement than its willingness to provoke the US. This book places China in a comparative and historical context, in which inquiry is informed by the experiences of other major powers and pertinent theories in international relations, such as those on extended deterrence, preventive war, and democratic peace. Its comparative and theoretical orientation and its contrarian perspective will be of great interest not only to students and scholars of international relations and Chinese politics, but also to policy makers and professionals.

China's recent growth has called attention to the power-transition theory, which contends that the danger of a major war is the greatest when a rising dissatisfied challenger threatens to overtake a declining satisfied hegemon. Steve Chan questions this prevailing view by analyzing the extent of ongoing power shifts among the leading powers, exploring the portents for their future growth, and seeking indicators of their relative commitment to the existing international order. To better understand the strategic motivations of ascending and declining states, insights are drawn from prospect theory and past episodes of peaceful and violent transition (such as the end of the Cold War and the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars). He concludes that China is unlikely to instigate a confrontation with the US, and that whilst military conflict over the Taiwan Strait is possible, this is more likely to be due to China's inability to prevent US involvement than its willingness to provoke the US. This book places China in a comparative and historical context, in which inquiry is informed by the experiences of other major powers and pertinent theories in international relations, such as those on extended deterrence, preventive war, and democratic peace. Its comparative and theoretical orientation and its contrarian perspective will be of great interest not only to students and scholars of international relations and Chinese politics, but also to policy makers and professionals.

This book challenges the perception of Japan as a 'copying culture' through a series of detailed ethnographic and historical case studies. It addresses a question about why the West has had such a fascination for the adeptness with which the Japanese apparently assimilate all things foreign and at the same time such a fear of their skill at artificially remaking and automating the world around them. Countering the idea of a Japan that deviously or ingenuously copies others, it elucidates the history of creative exchanges with the outside world and the particular myths, philosophies and concepts which are emblematic of the origins and originality of copying in Japan. The volume demonstrates the diversity and creativity of copying in the Japanese context through the translation of a series of otherwise loosely related ideas and concepts into objects, images, texts and practices of reproduction, which include: shamanic theatre, puppetry, tea utensils, Kyoto town houses, architectural models, genres of painting, calligraphy, and poetry, 'sample' food displays, and the fashion and car industries.

This edited volume represents the first collaborative effort to explicitly view China's rapid international ascent as associated with the same process that catapulted Great Britain, the United States, Germany, and Japan to international prominence - the emergence of a capitalist political economy. Each chapter therefore applies the capitalist lens to analyze aspects of China's monumental social, economic, and political transition. Topics addressed range from examinations of China's industrial capitalism and its new multinational corporations to studies of China's changing polity, state-media relations, and foreign policy. With contributors writing from highly varied backgrounds each chapter approaches the subject from a slightly different perspective, but the underlying findings show considerable common ground. China is developing a unique form of capitalism by combining elements rooted in Chinese history, such as the prevalence of networked forms of capital and the continued dominance of the state, with the growing influence of global capital, including the rapid adaptation of recent organizational and technological innovations. Concluding chapters draw out what capitalism in the dragon's lair implies for our 21st century world, cautioning that China's rise is likely to challenge the present world order along both political and economic dimensions.

This book traces the emergence of the modern Chinese press from its origins in the western Christian missionary press in the late nineteenth century.

It shows how the western missionaries and their evangelical/educational newspapers changed the long-standing traditional practices, styles, content, print culture and printing technology of Chinese newspapers and, in the process, introduced some of the key ideas of western modernity which were to have a profound effect on Chinese society. Xiantao Zhang demonstrates how missionary publications reshaped print journalism, rather indirectly, from a centuries-long monopoly by the state - the Imperial press - into a pluralized, modernizing and frequently radical public journalism. She focuses in particular on the relationship between the missionaries and the class of 'gentry scholars' - literati and civil servants, educated via the traditional state examination system in the Confucian classics, who were the prime target readers of the missionarypublications. This key group and the independent press they established at the end of the nineteenth century played a crucial role in shaping the ongoing struggle for a modern democratic media culture in China.

This book is an indispensable resource for students and researchers wishing to develop a deeper understanding of one of the world's oldest and most multifaceted religious traditions.

Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby, leading scholars in the field, have brought together a rich variety of perspectives which reflect the current lively state of the field. Studying Hinduism is the result of cooperative work by accomplished specialists in several fields that include anthropology, art, comparative literature, history, philosophy, religious studies, and sociology. Through these complementary and exciting approaches, students will gain a greater understanding of India's culture and traditions, to which Hinduism is integral. The book uses key critical terms and topics as points of entry into the subject, revealing that although Hinduism can be interpreted in sharply contrasting ways and set in widely varying contexts, it is endlessly fascinating and intriguing.

In this timely and important study Martin Montgomery unpicks the inside workings of what must still be considered the dominant news medium: broadcast news. Drawing principally on linguistics, but multidisciplinary in its scope, The Discourse of Broadcast News demonstrates that news programmes are as much about showing as telling, as much about ordinary bystanders as about experts, and as much about personal testimony as calling politicians to account. Using close analysis of the discourse of television and radio news, the book reveals how important conventions for presenting news are changing, with significant consequences for the ways audiences understand its truthfulness. Fully illustrated with examples and including detailed examination of the high profile case of ex-BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan, The Discourse of Broadcast News provides a comprehensive study which will challenge our current assumptions about the news. The Discourse of Broadcast News will be a key resource for anyone researching the news, whether they be students of language and linguistics, media studies or communication studies.

Outsourcing is an increasingly popular strategy deployed by a variety of institutions, including banks, multinational companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This book examines outsourcing in Japan, Europe and the United States from a broad standpoint, with particular emphasis on the role of human resource management - that goes beyond the traditional view of outsourcing as simply a cost-saving exercise.

Including detailed comparative case studies, explaining the role of outsourcing in Poland, the South Korean IT industry, and the Japanese and Chinese/British automotive sectors, this book:

• considers how outsourcing can best be made to work
• explores the human side of outsourcing
• offers practical advice for improving organizational relationships and performance
• looks at important practices such as insourcing
• provides much needed analysis of the risk and insurance issues involved in outsourcing.

This book introduces Western readers to some of the most significant novels written in Arabic since 1979. Despite their contribution to the development of contemporary Arabic fiction, these authors remain largely unknown to non-Arab readers. Fabio Caiani examines the work of the Moroccan Muhammad Barrada; the Egyptian Idwar al-Kharrat; the Lebanese Ilyas Khuri and the Iraqi Fu'ad al-Takarli. Their most significant novels were published between 1979 and 2002, a period during which their work reached literary maturity. They all represent pioneering literary trends compared to the novelistic form canonized in the influential early works of Naguib Mahfouz. Until now, some of their most innovative works have not been analyzed in detail - this book fills that gap. Relying on literary theory and referring to comparative examples from other literatures, this study places its findings within a wider framework, defining what is meant by innovation in the Arabic novel, and the particular socio-political context in which it appears. This book will significantly enrich the existing critical literature in English on the contemporary Arabic novel.

The Caspian Basin region has boomed since the late 1990s due to new oil discoveries, new pipelines that have diversified countries' transport options and world oil prices that have risen from below $10 in 1998 to $70 in 2006. This book analyzes the experience of the Caspian countries during the oil boom. It is founded on empirical studies, using either macroeconomic tools or an analysis of public budgets, or microeconometric analysis of household survey data or fieldwork in oil-producing regions. Moving from aggregated to disaggregated analysis and, in-keeping with its emphasis on rigorous empirical analysis to the greatest extent possible, several chapters are written by specialists on the Caspian region. Whilst there is an emphasis on the economic consequences of the oil boom, the interdisciplinary aspects of the phenomenon are also recognized. Overall, the analysis is firmly rooted in the region, yet the empirical studies also provide a basis for drawing broader lessons about the effects of an oil boom.

The Baha'i community of Iran is the country's largest non-Muslim religious minority. This collection of essays presents a comprehensive study of the social and historical development of the Baha'i community, and its role in shaping modern Iran. Central to this study is the pioneering character of the Baha'i community in the late 19th and early 20th century, with chapters examining the role of women in the Baha'i community; the impact of Baha'i-run schools on Iranian society, Baha'i contributions to public health initiatives; and the influence of Baha'i thought and the actions of individual Baha'is on the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911. Conversion to the Baha'i Faith is another important theme, as contributors investigate the phenomenon of large scale conversion to the Baha'i Faith from the Jewish and Zoroastrian communities. Finally, although persecution of the Baha'is has drawn the attention of the Western media, until now few scholars working in the field of Iranian studies have chosen to write on the history or details of this persecution. Here, five prominent figures in the field redress this balance and look at different aspects of this persecution, including its historical background, the attitude of secular Iranians, persecution before and after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and human rights perspectives. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Iranian studies, Middle Eastern studies and comparative religion, and with many chapters authored by leading academics in Iranian studies, The Baha'is of Iran addresses both a gap in academic literature on the Baha'i Faith, and in the study of modern Iran in general.

Environmental Ethics in Buddhism presents a logical and thorough examination of the metaphysical and ethical dimensions of early Buddhist literature. The author determines the meaning of nature in the early Buddhist context from general Buddhist teachings on dhamma, paticcasamuppada, samsara and the cosmogony of the Agganna Sutta. Consequently, the author shows that early Buddhism can be understood as an environmental virtue ethics. To illustrate this dimension, the Jatakas are used as a source. These are a collection of over five hundred folk tales, which also belong to early Buddhist literature. This work gives an innovative approach to the subject, which puts forward a distinctly Buddhist environmental ethics that is in harmony with traditional teachings as well as adaptable and flexible in addressing environmental problems.