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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations
This volume is an important contribution to the empirical research on what globalization means in different world regions. "Resistance" here has a double meaning: - Active, intentional resistance to tendencies which are rejected on political or moral grounds by presenting alternative discourses and concepts founded in specific cultural and national traditions. - Resilience with regard to globalization pressures in the sense that traditional patterns of development and politics are resistant to change and transform the impulses originating from globalization processes in a way that their results are very different when compared across regions and are not conducive to globalization. The book points out the possibility that the local, sub-national, national, and regional patterns of politics and development will coexist with globalized structures for quite a while without yielding very much ground and in ways which may turn out to be a serious barrier to further globalization. Case studies presented focus on Venezuela (A. Boeckh), Brazil (J. Faust), the Middle East (M. Beck, S. Hegasy), Iran (H. Furtig), and Russia (A. S. Makarychev, A. Shastitko, N. Zubarevich).
Professor Chan Heng Chee is the Institute of Policy Studies' 7th S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore. This book is an edited collection of her three IPS-Nathan Lectures, delivered between June and July 2020, and includes highlights of her question-and-answer segments with our virtual audience.Professor Chan analyses the uncertain and fast-changing world, and Singapore's place in it. She examines the major fault lines today, wrought by the sudden COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing malfunctioning of democracies and capitalist economies, and the unravelling of the world order. The United States-China rivalry has continued to intensify, with ripple effects on the world order, global trade and technology. Singapore will need to navigate this evolving relationship skilfully, while adapting its governance and economic models to respond to other challenges. But is it all doom and gloom for Singapore? Could our circumstances help us as we approach the new normal that lies ahead of us? The IPS-Nathan Lecture series was launched in 2014 as part of the S R Nathan Fellowship for the Study of Singapore. It seeks to advance public understanding and discussion of issues of critical national interest for Singapore.
Professor Chan Heng Chee is the Institute of Policy Studies' 7th S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore. This book is an edited collection of her three IPS-Nathan Lectures, delivered between June and July 2020, and includes highlights of her question-and-answer segments with our virtual audience.Professor Chan analyses the uncertain and fast-changing world, and Singapore's place in it. She examines the major fault lines today, wrought by the sudden COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing malfunctioning of democracies and capitalist economies, and the unravelling of the world order. The United States-China rivalry has continued to intensify, with ripple effects on the world order, global trade and technology. Singapore will need to navigate this evolving relationship skilfully, while adapting its governance and economic models to respond to other challenges. But is it all doom and gloom for Singapore? Could our circumstances help us as we approach the new normal that lies ahead of us? The IPS-Nathan Lecture series was launched in 2014 as part of the S R Nathan Fellowship for the Study of Singapore. It seeks to advance public understanding and discussion of issues of critical national interest for Singapore.
This book examines novel and nonmainstream aspects of international terrorism in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. It explores issues that are not really explored in the mainstream literature such as the environmental message of terror groups, the issue of female jihadists and the social media strategy of terror groups. Whilst old issues remain and deserves a dissident perspective, like the Iran nuclear deal, newer issues like the impact of the Abrahamic Accord on the Middle East comes to the fore. At the same time, policy-makers need to be bold in responding to terror threat, including pooling sovereignty when confronting a truly global threat. Taken together this study reflects the most up to date volume on recent development in terrorism globally.
Governance and Nationbuilding describes how aid donors have attempted to improve the performance of government in developing countries and countries in crisis. Kate Jenkins and William Plowden review the widespread lack of success, tracing the history of international government intervention, the roles of donors and recipient countries, the ways in which expert advice and support have been provided, and the donors' own evaluation of their work. The authors outline and analyse the many obstacles to success, highlighting how the lack of effective learning from experience has led to repeated failures to improve the quality of government. The authors draw on the donors' own assessments of the issues and on their own experience in the British Government and many other countries. They recommend a new approach to improving government: much less grandiose and more modest expectations on the part of the donors, and a new and enhanced role for recipient countries. This is a hard-hitting analysis of the problems and potential proposals for change by two experts in the field. Both have not only advised governments in many different countries but also have first-hand experience of working at a senior level in British Government. The aid community worldwide, academics and students of international politics, international relations and public policy, along with officials and politicians outside the aid community will all find this fascinating book of great value. It will also appeal to journalists and commentators
The World Bank remains one of the most prominent actors in the field of global development, and one of the foremost international organisations in contemporary global politics. Over its history, its lending for housing has developed by prioritising financial sector expansion over the needs of low-income groups. Through this book, Liam Clegg explores the factors influencing change in the World Bank's operational practices, and the contribution of these operations to state transformations across the global South. The author outlines three main operational phases, in which the Bank prioritised: improving informal settlements, strengthening governments' housing finance programs, and expanding mortgage markets. Constrained experimentalism is identified as the driver of this changing focus, with trial and error-based learning interacting with personnel shifts and borrowers' reform trajectories to shape outcomes. In addition to reviewing relevant institutional dynamics at the World Bank, particular attention is paid to the impact of projects on housing system transformations in Mexico, China, and Tanzania. Overall, the declining focus on the housing needs of lower-income populations leads Clegg to label World Bank lending in this area as an exercise in mortgaging development. This valuable study of the field will be an important resource for researchers, postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students from across the fields of political science and international studies.
This comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of Japanese policy between the two world wars utilizes both English and Japanese sources to present Japan as an independent agent, not a state whose policy was determined by the actions of other countries. Beginning with Japan's disappointment with the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919, Nish examines the roots of Japanese discontent and feelings that ambitions in China were being unreasonably restrained. He explains British and American policies in the region as reactive, but concludes that their responses helped to determine which factions would dominate Japan's political arena. This non-partisan account is even-handed in apportioning responsibility for the events leading to the Second World War. While some Japanese politicians in the 1920s tried to follow the international path, there were others who tended to side with the army in establishing Japan's position, first in Manchuria and later in North and Central China in the 1930s. Conscious of the nation's unpopularity in the western world, Japan allied itself with Germany and Italy in the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 and the Tripartite Alliance of 1940. To pursue its own national objectives, Japan joined her allies in making war on the United States and the colonial empires of Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Its forces succeeded in overrunning many colonial territories; and, with a view to easing the problems of occupying them, Japan liberalized its harsh military policies, granting independence to Burma and the Philippines and welcoming Asian leaders to Tokyo for the Greater East Asian Conference of November 1943.
This book is a critical review of current fiscal and monetary policy in Europe and presents results of both empirical research and a discussion of the theoretical framework behind the policy of the European Central Bank and the Stability and Growth Pact.Macroeconomic policy is often hotly debated within the EU. However, the majority of policy discussions have started from a shared view of how the economy works. This shared neo-classical view is also known as the 'Brussels-Frankfurt consensus'. According to that consensus, European labour markets are too rigid in comparison to the US labour market. Hence, the prevalent view is that the European unemployment problem can be solved by increasing incentives; improving the returns on schooling and redefining the role and the necessity of labour market institutions. In this volume the authors argue that it is not at all clear which institutions cause labour market rigidities and to what extent. They note that the problem of unemployment requires a much broader set of solutions, including active labour market policies, policies concerning schooling and the development of skills. Growth and Cohesion in the European Union also highlights that these microeconomic policies will not in themselves provide the solution to what is essentially a macroeconomic problem. First and foremost the role of aggregate demand in the determination of unemployment has to be placed at the forefront of the debate. The extensive discussion of a broad variety of topics in the field of macroeconomic policy will ensure this book finds a welcome readership amongst researchers and academics of European studies and macroeconomics. Policy advisors will also find much to engage them as the book provides a critical view on the Brussels-Frankfurt consensus, currently so dominant amongst European policymakers.
“A date which will live in infamy.”—US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt Sunday, December 7, 1941, was supposed to be a day of rest for the military personnel at Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor naval base on the island of Oahu. But at 7:55 a.m., Japanese carrier-based planes launched a surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet moored in the harbour. Thousands of lives were lost that day, drawing the United States into World War II and beginning a new phase of the war in East Asia. In Pearl Harbor, our expert author offers a concise photographic guide to this key turning point in World War II. The book is divided into chapters covering the origins and military strength of the naval station; Japanese plans and dispositions; the attack itself; the damage caused; the clean-up operation and aftermath; and the life of the base today. See rare photographs of Japanese airplanes taking off to launch the attack; aerial views of the US naval base before and during the air attack; the destruction wrought; the key figures involved on both sides; and the memorials that have been erected, especially to the sunken battleship USS Arizona. Pearl Harbor provides a photographic exploration of this momentous event and its aftermath in 160 dramatic photos.
In their initial effort to end the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger attempted to lever concessions from Hanoi at the negotiating table with military force and coercive diplomacy. They were not seeking military victory, which they did not believe was feasible. Instead, they backed up their diplomacy toward North Vietnam and the Soviet Union with the Madman Theory of threatening excessive force, which included the specter of nuclear force. They began with verbal threats then bombed North Vietnamese and Viet Cong base areas in Cambodia, signaling that there was more to come. As the bombing expanded, they launched a previously unknown mining ruse against Haiphong, stepped-up their warnings to Hanoi and Moscow, and initiated planning for a massive shock-and-awe military operation referred to within the White House inner circle as DUCK HOOK. Beyond the mining of North Vietnamese ports and selective bombing in and around Hanoi, the initial DUCK HOOK concept included proposals for "tactical" nuclear strikes against logistics targets and U.S. and South Vietnamese ground incursions into the North. In early October 1969, however, Nixon aborted planning for the long-contemplated operation. He had been influenced by Hanoi's defiance in the face of his dire threats and concerned about U.S. public reaction, antiwar protests, and internal administration dissent. In place of DUCK HOOK, Nixon and Kissinger launched a secret global nuclear alert in hopes that it would lend credibility to their prior warnings and perhaps even persuade Moscow to put pressure on Hanoi. It was to be a "special reminder" of how far President Nixon might go. The risky gambit failed to move the Soviets, but it marked a turning point in the administration's strategy for exiting Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger became increasingly resigned to a "long-route" policy of providing Saigon with a "decent chance" of survival for a "decent interval" after a negotiated settlement and U.S. forces left Indochina. Burr and Kimball draw upon extensive research in participant interviews and declassified documents to offer a history that holds important lessons for the present and future about the risks and uncertainties of nuclear threat making.
On July 1, 1997, China took control over Hong Kong, where Britain had begun a process of introducing democracy. Beatty examines the process of democratization in Hong Kong, with the argument that democratic development will continue, despite being under Chinese rule. Through a series of 128 interviews with 89 Hong Kong elites from 1997-2002, including legislators and party leaders as well as participant and direct observation of 15 campaigns for the Legislative Council in 1998, Beatty analyzed political leaders beliefs and commitment towards democratic development and institutions and put them into the context of the post-handover environment. Evidence from the interviews is used to test the proposition that adherence to "Asian values" undermines democracy and Beatty probed Hong Kong elites about their beliefs regarding the rule of law, freedom of the press, civil liberties, and the possible trade-offs between economic development and democratization. A major finding from the in-depth interviews is that while Hong Kong political elites reject the "Sinapore model" and the "Asian Values" argument, many do believe in trade-offs between economic development and democratization. Beatty also offers sharp insight into the thinking of Hong Kong political elites and transcends the particular politics of Hong Kong and delves in the broader subject of elite beliefs and attitudes. An important analysis for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with China, Hong Kong, Asian politics and political values, and political development in general.
This collection of essays demonstrates how chronic state failure and the inability of the international community to provide a solution to the conflict in Somalia has had transnational repercussions. Following the failed humanitarian mission in 1992-93, most countries refrained from any direct involvement in Somalia, but this changed in the 2000s with the growth of piracy and links to international terrorist organizations. The deterritorialization of the conflict quickly became apparent as it became transnational in nature. In part because of it lacked a government and was unable to work with the international community, Somalia came to be seen as a "testing-ground" by many international actors. Globalizing Somalia demonstrates how China, Japan, and the EU, among others, have all used the conflict in Somalia to project power, test the bounds of the national constitution, and test their own military capabilities. Contributed by international scholars and experts, the work examines the impact of globalization on the internal and external dynamics of the conflict, arguing that it is no longer geographically contained. By bringing together the many actors and issues involved, the book fills a gap in the literature as one of the most complete works on the conflict in Somalia to date. It will be an essential text to any student interested in Somalia and the horn of Africa, as well as in terrorism, and conflict processes.
That Indonesia's ongoing occupation of West Papua continues to be largely ignored by world governments is one of the great moral and political failures of our time. West Papuans have struggled for more than fifty years to find a way through the long night of Indonesian colonization. However, united in their pursuit of merdeka (freedom) in its many forms, what holds West Papuans together is greater than what divides them. Today, the Morning Star glimmers on the horizon, the supreme symbol of merdeka and a cherished sign of hope for the imminent arrival of peace and justice to West Papua. Morning Star Rising: The Politics of Decolonization in West Papua is an ethnographically framed account of the long, bitter fight for freedom that challenges the dominant international narrative that West Papuans' quest for political independence is fractured and futile. Camellia Webb-Gannon's extensive interviews with the decolonization movements' original architects and its more recent champions shed light on complex diasporic and inter-generational politics as well as social and cultural resurgence. In foregrounding West Papuans' perspectives, the author shows that it is the body politic's unflagging determination and hope, rather than military might or influential allies, that form the movement's most unifying and powerful force for independence. This book examines the many intertwining strands of decolonization in Melanesia. Differences in cultural performance and political diversity throughout the region are generating new, fruitful trajectories. Simultaneously, Black and Indigenous solidarity and a shared Melanesian identity have forged a transnational grassroots power-base from which the movement is gaining momentum. Relevant beyond its West Papua focus, this book is essential reading for those interested in Pacific studies, Native and Indigenous studies, development studies, activism, and decolonization.
The book is a study of the cooperation of Brazil and India on renewable energy. It is based on a research project on the energy sector of both the countries. It discusses the agreements in the energy sector between the two countries and the renewable energy policies developed in four decades. A scientific and technological mapping, a brief study of competitiveness and a primary research were carried out in order to find out the weaknesses and the opportunities for cooperation in renewable energies. This Publication will undoubtedly provoke the reader to reflect on the importance of cooperation given the growing protectionism not only in terms of energy security, but also in terms of investments in new technologies considering energy transition scenario. For Brazil and India, intensifying the dialogue is more than a strategy of visibility and the search for greater space in worldwide geopolitics.
This book focuses on assessing China's international environment in the Indian Ocean including political, economic and secure environments through examining the characteristics of the international environment in the Indian Ocean. It figures out that there are four new changes and characteristics from the perspective of the current international environment in the Indian Ocean. Firstly, the turmoil in the security situation in the Indian Ocean has not been eased, but also showed signs of deterioration. Secondly, the strategic competition of the major powers in the Indian Ocean region has been exacerbated. Thirdly, the USA will remain the largest contributing variable in the international environment of the Indian Ocean in the future. Fourthly, India, a biggest country in the region, is becoming a major variable affecting the international environmental change in the Indian Ocean. This book also presents a picture of how the changes of great powers' geo-strategic competition in the Indian Ocean affect the development of China's BRI and believes that the Indian Ocean order will be gradually transforming from the American hegemony to the emergence of jointly governance including USA, China and India.
Guatemala emerged from the clash between Spanish invaders and Maya
cultures that began five centuries ago. The conquest of these "rich
and strange lands," as Hernan Cortes called them, and their "many
different peoples" was brutal and prolonged. ""Strange Lands and
Different Peoples"" examines the myriad ramifications of Spanish
intrusion, especially Maya resistance to it and the changes that
took place in native life because of it.
Patrick Riordan takes a different approach to the questions of global ethics by following the direction of questioning initially pioneered by Aristotle. For him the most basic question of ethics is 'What is the Good Life?' So in the context of contemporary global ethics the Aristotelian questioner wonders about the good life on a global scale. "Global Ethics and Global Common Goods" fills a gap caused by the neglect of the topic of the good in global ethics.Beginning by outlining answers to questions such as 'What is Good?' and 'Is there a highest good?', chapters follow on to demonstrate the value of a common good perspective in matters of universal human rights and their institutions and practices, the study of international relations and the construction of global institutions, debates about global justice between cosmopolitanism and nationalism and other forms of particularism, and of course debates about globalisation in economic affairs. Philosophical questions provoked by these debates are identified and pursued, such as the question of a common human nature which seems presupposed by the language of universal rights. The possibilities for politics on a world scale are part of the literature of the relevant disciplines, but the perspective of the common good adds a new and distinctive dimension to those debates. The concerns for global security and the challenges of managing conflict are also shown to benefit from a rereading in terms of the goods in common between participants in global political affairs.
In the last two years, Canadian society has been marked by political and ideological turmoil. How does an increasingly divided country engage a world that is itself divided and tumultuous? Political instability has been reinforced by international uncertainty: the COVID-19 pandemic, populism, Black Lives Matter, and the chaotic final year of the Trump presidency that increased tensions between the West, China and Russia. Even with a Biden presidency, these issues will continue to influence Canada's domestic situation and its ability to engage as an effective global actor. Contributors explore issues that cause or reflect these tensions, such as Canada's willingness to address pressing crises through multilateralism, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Can Canada forge its own path in a turbulent world?
This comprehensive guide captures important trends in international relations (IR) pedagogy, paying particular attention to innovations in active learning and student engagement for the contemporary International Relations (IR) classroom. This book is organized into three parts: IR course structures and goals; techniques and approaches to the classroom; and assessment and effectiveness. It is up-to-date with teaching practices highlighted by leading journals and conferences sponsored by the International Studies Association (ISA) and the American Political Science Association (APSA). Collectively, the chapters contribute to continuing dialogues on pedagogy in the field and serve as a critical resource for faculty in IR, political science, and social science.
This volume explores how the process of European integration has influenced collective memory in the countries of the Western Balkans. In the region, there is still no shared understanding of the causes (and consequences) of the Yugoslav wars. The conflicts of the 1990s but also of WWII and its aftermath have created "ethnically confined" memory cultures. As such, divergent interpretations of history continue to trigger confrontations between neighboring countries and hinder the creation of a joint EU perspective. In this volume, the authors examine how these "memory wars" impact the European dimension - by becoming a tool to either support or oppose Europeanisation. The contributors focus on how and why memory is renegotiated, exhibited, adjusted, or ignored in the Europeanisation process. |
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