This book is the first comparative analysis of the political behaviour of older people, using evidence from 20+ European democracies. In contrast to younger people across European societies, older people do not behave uniformly. For political participation in later life, it matters where and when individuals have grown up and in which country they become old.

The project of European integration now spans Europe, but in becoming bigger and broader the European Union has brought on itself significant criticism. As the EU becomes deeper, wider, and more ambitious, so opposition and scepticism become more prominent for citizens and more problematic for elites. Concerns about a 'democratic deficit' and the distance between European elites and publics have come to be a common feature of European politics. As a consequence Euroscepticism has become a part of the terrain of conflict between political parties across Europe. Opposing Europe? provides the first comprehensive review of party-based Euroscepticism across the breadth of contemporary Europe, and the first in-depth comparative academic study of Euroscepticism. This, the first of two volumes, is made up of chapters that map, describe, and analyse Euroscepticism in the party systems of a range of countries and the European Parliament. Each is written to a common frame of reference that differentiates 'hard' and 'soft' Euroscepticism. The volume looks across Europe and includes EU member states and candidate and non-member states in order to draw out comparative lessons that relate to the nature of political parties, party systems, and the domestic politics of European integration. Opposing Europe? is a groundbreaking, 'state of the art' book that provides a definitive review of a key issue in European politics. It is also one of the few attempts to integrate the fields of EU studies with both West European and East European studies in order to draw lessons about the way in which the EU interacts with domestic politics in both member and non-member states. Examining the way that parties position themselves and compete on the European issue provides powerful lessons for the trajectory of the European integration project more generally and on the prospects for the emergence of a European political system and polity.

Peaceful legal and political 'changing of the guards' is taken for granted in developed democracies, but is not evident everywhere. As a relatively new democracy, marred by long periods of military rule, Bangladesh has been encountering serious problems because of a prevailing culture of mistrust, weak governance institutions, constant election manipulation and a peculiar socio-political history, which between 1990 and 2011 led to a unique form of transitional remedy in the form of an unelected neutral 'caretaker covernment' (CTG) during electoral transitions. This book provides a contextual analysis of the CTG mechanism including its inception, operation, manipulation by the government of the day and abrupt demise. It queries whether this constitutional provision, even if presently abolished after overseeing four acceptable general elections, actually remains a crucial tool to safeguard free and fair elections in Bangladesh. Given the backdrop of the culture of mistrust, the author examines whether holding national elections without a CTG, or an umpire of some kind, can settle the issue of credibility of a given government. The book portrays that even the management of elections is a matter of applying pluralist approaches. Considering the historical legacy and contemporary political trajectory of Bangladesh, the cause of deep-rooted mistrust is examined to better understand the rationale for the requirement, emergence and workings of the CTG structure. The book unveils that it is not only the lack of nation-building measures and governments' wish to remain in power at any cost which lay behind the problems that Bangladesh faces today. Part of the problem is also the flawed logic of nation-building on the foundation of Western democratic norms which may be unsuitable in a South Asian cultural environment. Although democratic transitions, on the crutch of the CTG, have been useful in moments of crisis, its abolition creates the need for a new or revised transitional modality - perhaps akin to the CTG ethos - to oversee electoral governance, which will have to be renegotiated by the polity based on the people's will. The book provides a valuable resource for researchers and academics working in the area of constitutional law, democratic transition, legal pluralism and election law.

This book presents a great deal of new primary research on a wide range of aspects of early modern East Asia. Focusing primarily on maritime connections, the book explores the importance of international trade networks, the implications of technological dissemination, and the often unforeseen consequences of missionary efforts. It demonstrates the benefi ts of a global history approach, outlining the complex interactions between Western traders and Asian states and entrepreneurs. Overall, the book presents much interesting new material on this complicated and understudied period. .

Acclaimed historian, and retired Alec Nove Chair in Russian and East European History at the University of Glasgow, Geoffrey Swain, has written extensively on the history of Russia and Eastern Europe during the twentieth century, in particular on Russia during the Civil War, Latvia during the first years of Soviet rule, and the career of Josip Broz Tito. Esteemed for his pursuit of historical enquiry which went "against the grain" of commonly accepted views of communism in power, significantly, Swain also explored the strength or coherence of some of the alternatives that emerged to the paths actually taken, themes which, in their own way, run through this collection of essays, featuring contributions predominantly from papers delivered at the 7th CRCEES Research Forum in July 2015. Honoring the critical tradition and at times contentious work of Geoffrey Swain, this volume comprises seven original articles offering alternative insights into the complexities of Russian, Yugoslav and Latvian history, which are complemented by three essays reviewing his work, it's context and implications. This book was originally published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.

Sufism is generally perceived as being spiritually focused and about the development of the self. However, Sufi orders have been involved historically as important civic and political actors in the Muslim world, having participated extensively in inter-faith dialogue and political challenges to religious orthodoxy. This book presents a comprehensive overview of the Sufi political tradition, both historically and in its present form. It outlines how Sufi thought has developed, examines how Sufism has been presented both by scholars and by Sufis themselves, and considers Sufis' active political roles. It argues that Sufis - frequently well educated, well travelled and imaginative - have been well placed to engage with other faiths and absorb their ideas into Islam; but that they have also been, because they understand other faiths, well placed to understand the distinctiveness of Islam, and thereby act as the guardians of Islam's core ideas and values.

A combination of economic transformation, political transitions and changes in media have substantially, if incrementally, altered the terrain for political participation globally, particularly in Asia, home to several of the most dramatic such shifts over the past two decades. This book explores political participation in Asia and how democracy and authoritarianism function under neoliberal economic relations. It examines changes that coincide seemingly perversely with a participation explosion: with mass street protests and 'occupations', energetic online contention, movements of students and workers, mobilization for and against democracy and more. Organized thematically in three parts - political participation in a 'post-democratic' context, changes in the scope and character of political space and the policing of that space - this book analyzes economic, regime and media shifts and how they function in tandem and both within and across states. Closely integrated, comparative and theoretically driven, this book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in the fields of civil society, contentious politics or social movements, democratization, political economy/development, media and communications, political geography, sociology, comparative politics and Asian politics.

Shortly after the overwhelming victory of Hamas in the 2006 parliamentary and municipal elections, civil war broke out in the Gaza Strip between members of the two factions, Hamas and Fatah. The EU, along with the US, UN and Russia, not only gave its support to Fatah against Hamas, but also imposed a tough siege on the Hamas government in an attempt to force it to accept the Quartet's political conditions, described by Hamas leaders as unfair and impossible. Many observers are convinced that the EU's behaviour in this matter has been unreasonable and has conflicted with the EU's own democratic beliefs and values. This book sheds light on the EU's policies in Palestine mainly from 2003- 2013, and provides a thorough examination of the inconsistencies and paradoxes in the EU discourse towards Hamas, and the determinants underlying such contradictions. It explores the reasons behind the EU labelling the Hamas a terrorist organization and discusses why the EU has boycotted its democratically elected body since 2006. Significantly, the book looks at whether the EU jeopardized its reputation and contravened its core normative values and objectives (democracy promotion, human rights, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms) by such a categorisation of Hamas. Exploring the EU's policy towards Hamas is vital for understanding how the relationship between the EU and the rest of the Islamists in the Middle East is perceived, as it enables both sides to have a cognitive basis upon which to construct better relations. This book, based upon a vast spread of primary EU documents and interviews, will therefore be a valuable resource for those studying the Arab Israeli conflict, Political Islamic movements, the Middle East Peace Process, and anyone with an interest in European Union Foreign Policy.

Serial verbs are a recently recognized construction in which a string of verbs or verb-like items is used to convey a single meaning within one clause, for example, 'go get your hair cut'. Though the construction is rare in English, it is common in many languages. This book shows what serial verbs are, where they are found (particularly in the Oceanic languages of the Pacific), and how current theory accounts for them. The author argues that their formation is a consequence of contact between different languages.

Are Japanese people religious - and, if so, in what ways? David Lewis addresses this question from the perspective of ordinary Japanese people in the context of their life cycles, and explores why they engage in religious activities. He not only discusses how Japanese people engage in different religious practices as they encounter new events in their lives but also analyses the attitudes and motivations behind their behaviour. Activities such as fortune-telling, religious rites in the workplace, ancestral rites and visits to shrines and temples are actually engaged in by many people who view themselves as 'non- religious' but express their motivations in terms other than the conventional 'religious' ones. This book outlines the religious options available, and assesses why people choose particular religious activities at various times in their lives or in specific circumstances. The author challenges some widespread assumptions about religion in urban and industrial contexts and also shows how some of the underlying motivations behind Japanese behaviour are expressed both in religious and non-religious forms.

This book aims to explore precisely how modern Japanese poetry has remained central to public life in both Japan and its former colony of Taiwan. Though classical Japanese poetry has captivated the imagination of Asian studies scholars, little research has been conducted to explore its role in public life as a discourse influential in defining both the modern Japanese empire and contemporary postcolonial negotiations of identity. This book shows how highly visible poetry in regular newspaper columns and blogs have in various historical situations in Japan and colonial Taiwan contested as well as promoted diverse colonial imaginaries. This poetry reflects both contemporary life and traditional poetics with few counterpoints in Western media. Methodologically, this book offers a defense of the public influence of poetry, each chapter enlisting a wide range of social and media theorists from Japan, Europe, and North America to explore specific historical moments in an original recasting of intertextuality as a vital feature of active inter-evental material engagements. In this book, rather than recite a standard survey of literary movements and key poets, the approach taken is to examine uses of poetry shown not only to support colonialism and imperialism, emerging objectionable forms of exploitation as well as the destruction of ecologies (including old-growth forests in Taiwan and the Fukushima Disaster), but also to present a medium of resistance, a minor literature for registering protest, forming transnational affiliations, and promoting grass-roots democracy. The book is based on years of research and fieldwork partially in conjunction with the production of a documentary film, Horizons of the Rising Sun: Postcolonial Nostalgia and Politics in the Taiwan Tanka Association Today (2017).

Blackness, as a concept, is extremely fluid: it can refer to cultural and ethnic identity, socio-political status, an aesthetic and embodied way of being, a social and political consciousness, or a diasporic kinship. It is used as a description of skin color ranging from the palest cream to the richest chocolate; as a marker of enslavement, marginalization, criminality, filth, or evil; or as a symbol of pride, beauty, elegance, strength, and depth. Despite the fact that it is elusive and difficult to define, blackness serves as one of the most potent and unifying domains of identity. God and Blackness offers an ethnographic study of blackness as it is understood within a specific community--that of the First Afrikan Church, a middle-class Afrocentric congregation in Atlanta, Georgia. Drawing on nearly two years of participant observation and in‑depth interviews, Andrea C. Abrams examines how this community has employed Afrocentrism and Black theology as a means of negotiating the unreconciled natures of thoughts and ideals that are part of being both black and American. Specifically, Abrams examines the ways in which First Afrikan's construction of community is influenced by shared understandings of blackness, and probes the means through which individuals negotiate the tensions created by competing constructions of their black identity. Although Afrocentrism operates as the focal point of this discussion, the book examines questions of political identity, religious expression and gender dynamics through the lens of a unique black church.

Who are the entrepreneurs who have achieved success, wealth, and recognition in their African homelands, and how did they do it? Entrepreneur Dave Fick interviewed several hundred women and men who were willing to assume risks, often spectacular ones, for personal economic gain--but who did it legally, ethically, and who are now giving back to their nations and societies at least as much as they received. They speak openly of their hardships and failures, what they did right and what they did wrong, and their accounts are remarkable. We gain insight into the way business must be done under harsh political and economic circumstances, but we also learn unusual techniques and strategies that others in more favorable milieus can use to accomplish similar feats.

With commentaries from notable scholars and other businesspeople and with Fick's own first-hand onsite observations, the book is a self-educating colloquium, a collection of personal meetings, accounts, letters, emails and telephone calls between Fick, his counterparts in Africa, and others around the world. It is also an attempt to encourage a dialogue that will accelerate the exchange and spread of knowledge and ideas, and a way to help the people of Africa build a peaceful and better society for themselves and the world.

This book contributes to an increasingly important branch of critical security studies that combines insights from critical geopolitics and postcolonial critique by making an argument about the geographies of violence and their differential impact in contemporary security practices, including but not limited to military intervention. The book explores military intervention in Libya through the categories of space and time, to provide a robust ethico-political critique of the intervention. Much of the mainstream international relations scholarship on humanitarian intervention frames the ethical, moral and legal debate over intervention in terms of a binary, between human rights and state sovereignty. In response, O'Sullivan questions the ways in which military violence was produced as a rational and reasonable response to the crisis in Libya, outlining and destabilising this false binary between the human and the state. The book offers methodological tools for questioning the violent institutions at the heart of humanitarian intervention and asking how intervention has been produced as a rational response to crisis. Contributing to the ongoing academic conversation in the critical literature on spatiality, militarism and resistance, the book draws upon postcolonial and poststructural approaches to critical security studies, and will be of great interest to scholars and graduates of critical security studies and international relations.

Economic transformation in traditional development economics refers to the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial one. Based on the practical conditions and the experience since reform and opening up in the late 1970s, the author observes that the path China's economy takes is a dual transformation, namely, developmental transformation from an agricultural society to an industrial economy, and institutional transformation from planned economy to market economy. Centering on property ownership reform which is the supreme reform of the dual transformation, this book discusses land ownership approval, stock-holding system reform and the maintaining ownership of private enterprises, etc. Besides, the book expounds on the urbanization in China, believing that it is not only the outcome of the dual transformation but also the booster that will help China's economy continue to develop at a high speed. Independent innovation and industrial upgrading which is the key to the enhancement of enterprises' competitiveness is also covered. The combination or overlapping of the two types of transformations in China has had no precedent in history, and it has not been discussed in traditional development economics. Scholars and students in China's economic studies and development economics studies will be attracted by this book. In addition, this book will be a valuable reference for other developing countries which are undergoing economic transformation.

In the early 1990s the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the dissolution of the Soviet Union opened Eastern Europe, Russia, and the newly independent states of the former U.S.S.R. to the West. To meet the demand of rising interest, many new English-language publications about this part of the world have appeared over the last decade. This single volume takes a select portion of recent publications and provides useful descriptions and bibliographic information for historians, scholars, researchers, and students. Titles deal with Russia, the independent states from the former Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the states of the former Yugoslavia. Timely and important topics span politics, society, and culture, from the Holocaust to the transition from socialist to market economies and the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.

The collapse of the state-controlled economies of the former Eastern Bloc will certainly change the way the global economy operates. Bringing together scholars from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives, different nations and different empirical research traditions, this title examines the ongoing transition and the implications of market transitions for individual life chances, state economic policy and social stratification systems. The volume includes scholarship that focuses on both single nation and cross-national research, plus research contributions that compare state socialist/former state socialist political economies with conditions elsewhere in the world.

After the Second World War, the international migration regime in Europe took a course different from the global migration regime and the migration regimes in other regions of the world. Cumbersome and arbitrary administrative practices prevailed in the late 1940s in most parts of Europe. The gradual implementation of regulations for the free movement of people within the European Community, European citizenship, and the internal and external dimensions of the Schengen agreements profoundly transformed the European migration regime. These instruments produced a regional regime in Europe with an unparalleled degree of intraregional openness and an unparalleled degree of closure towards migrants from outside Europe. This book relies on national and international archives to explain how German strategies during the Cold War shaped the openness of that original regime. This migration regime helped Germany to create a stable international order in Western Europe after the war, conducive to German Reunification and supported German economic expansion. The book embraces the whole period of development of this regime, from 1947 through 1992. It deals with all types of migrants between and towards European countries: unskilled labourers, skilled professionals, self-employed workers, and migrant workers' family members, examining both their access to economic activity and their social and political rights.

Tsong khapa (14th-century) is arguably the most important and influential philosopher in Tibetan history. An Ocean of Reasoning is the most extensive and perhaps the deepest extant commentary on Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika (Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way), and it can be argued that it is impossible to discuss Nagarjuna's work in an informed way without consulting it. It discusses alternative readings of the text and prior commentaries and provides a detailed exegesis, constituting a systematic presentation of Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy. Despite its central importance, however, of Tsong khapa's three most important texts, only An Ocean of Reasoning remains untranslated, perhaps because it is both philosophically and linguistically challenging, demanding a rare combination of abilities on the part of a translator. Jay Garfield and Ngawang Samten bring the requisite skills to this difficult task, combining between them expertise in Western and Indian philosophy, and fluency in Tibetan, Sanskrit, and English. The resulting translation of this important text will not only be a landmark contribution to the scholarship of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, but will serve as a valuable companion volume to Jay Garfield's highly successful translation of The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way.

What kinds of human individuals, events, things and commodities can best represent China? How have those representative symbols evolved in Chinese history? How have they been highlighted, disseminated and accepted? In this book, a full range of symbols and seemingly discrete social phenomena, hidden in diverse fields of Chinese society, are given lucid explanations based on the interdisciplinary theories of semiotics and communication. It studies the evolution of classic Chinese symbols through history and investigates the root causes for the communication of negative Chinese images in modern times. Besides, this book explicates the pattern of interaction between groups communication and mass communication in the Chinese society by exploring the different paths of transmutation and communication for the symbol of the "APEC Blue." How the image of China is constructed via non-government symbols is also addressed. By pointing out that classic semiotics has been reduced to an embarrassing dilemma of "a severe lack of historical sense," this book seeks to make Western semiotic findings bear closely on Chinese social reality and accomplish an updated contribution to this academic discipline. This book will appeal to scholars and students of semiotics and communication. Readers who are interested in modern Chinese society will also benefit from it.

The issue of Taiwan is the single most difficult factor in the relationship between China and the United States. Any cross-straits conflict between China and Taiwan is likely not only to pit the world's two leading powers against each other, but also to suck in many other countries. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of other countries' foreign policies towards Taiwan. It considers the position of the United States and key regional powers including Japan and South and North Korea, examines the attitude of Russia and other countries which support China on this issue, and discusses the surprising policies of some smaller countries, which have recognised Taiwan's independence. The book also relates the overall picture to various international relations theories.

The first definitive book on researching gay and lesbian market behavior, Untold Millions: The Truth About Gay and Lesbian Consumers in America will help marketers, advertisers, and public relations managers learn how to successfully market and research products for gay and lesbian consumers. Author Grant Lukenbill, a leading consultant on the cultural and motivational aspects of gay and lesbian consumer behavior, provides you with important procedures, research, and guidelines that businesses today are following in order to develop successful marketing strategies to this growing target audience. From this updated and revised edition, you'll receive current methods, new data, and sure-fire strategies that will help your company break into this market segment, satisfy intended customers, and boost company sales.Providing you with statistics and data from the first market research study of its kind, the Yankelovich MONITOR's Gay and Lesbian Perspective, this book gives you suggestions on what things need to be done within your company before planning your marketing strategies. You'll benefit from ideas and suggestions in Untold Millions that will help you create consumer-driven market strategies to gays and lesbians, including: recognizing that there are families and relationships in society that are not heterosexual acknowledging age differences and the needs of particular generations attracting customers by circulating non-discriminatory hiring policies through press releases and company memos, installing domestic partner health care plans, and identifying cultural reference points to which gays and lesbians can relate remembering that many gays and lesbians may look at business with cynicism and doubt and may be quick to interpret actions as victimization referring to the Wall Street project before addressing gay- and lesbian-specific issues focusing on the areas of individuality, a need for association, and the need to allevia

'A people who do not preserve their memory are a people who have forfeited their history.' So argues Wole Soyinka, in his book The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness, and this provides the overarching thematic concept for African pasts as a whole. Colonialism for Africans is not an event encapsulated in the past, but is a history whose repercussions and traumatic consequences are still actively evolving in today's political, historical, cultural and artistic scenes. African pasts examines African literatures in English since the end of colonialism, investigating how they represent African history through the twin matrices of memory and trauma. Inextricably tied up with the historical conditions of Africa's colonisation, charting the emergence of its independence, and scrutinising Africa's contemporary neo-colonial and postcolonial states as a legacy of the colonial past, African literatures are continually preoccupied with exploring modes of representation to 'work through' their different traumatic colonial pasts. Among other issues, this book deals with literature in the era of apartheid, the post-apartheid aftermath, metafictional experiments in African fiction, gender representation in reaction to the trauma of colonialism and 'imprisonment narratives'. African pasts covers a wide range of African literatures (drawn from West, East and Southern Africa) and a cross-section of genres - fiction, poetry, prison-narratives, postcolonial theory - and embraces such well-known writers as Soyinka, Coetzee, Ngugi and Achebe, and more recent writers such as Nuruddin Farah, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Achmat Dangor, Etienne van Heerden, Zakes Mda, Gillian Slovo and Calixthe Beyala.