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Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Regional geography
This book argues that sustainable energy development represents a new frontier for many transitional economies, including those countries that are well endowed with traditional energy resources, as exemplified by the case of Uzbekistan in Central Asia. The book highlights the challenges and issues faced by the energy sector in countries which are undergoing a transition from government-led economic models to open market economies. Using Uzbekistan as a case study, the book demonstrates these challenges, as well as opportunities of being part of an increasingly interconnected global market, to show how governments can ensure inclusive economic growth and build pathways toward sustainable development by deploying renewable energy sources (RES). By applying the Quadruple Bottom Line strategy as a conceptual framework to evaluate social, economic, and environmental benefits and governance as a key dynamic component, the book includes recommendations for implementing a transition strategy to renewable energy consumption for developing countries and offers insights into ways of dealing with government policy in post-Soviet countries. Presenting a holistic approach to promoting RES deployment in Uzbekistan and elsewhere, this book will be of interest to researchers interested in energy transition in developing countries, development economics, Central Asian politics, and the management of natural resources and climate-change issues.
This edited volume examines the historical development of Chinese-medium schools from the British colonial era to recent decades of divergent development after the 1965 separation of Singapore and Malaysia. Educational institutions have been a crucial state apparatus in shaping the cultural identity and ideology of ethnic Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia. This volume applies various perspectives from education theory to heritage studies in dealing with the cultural legacy and memory of such schools as situated in larger contexts of society. The book offers comprehensive practice-based analysis and reflection about the complex relationships between language acquisition, identity construction, and state formation from socio-political-cultural perspectives. It covers a broad range of aspects from identities of culture, gender, and religion, to the roles played by the state and the community in various aspects of education such as textbooks, cultural activities, and adult education, as well as the representation of culture in Chinese schools through cultural memory and literature. The readership includes academics, students and members of the public interested in the history and society of the Chinese diaspora, especially in South East Asia. This also appeals to scholars interested in a bilingual or multilingual outlook in education as well as diasporic studies.
This book re-examines the origins of modern Mongolian nationalism, discussing nation building as sponsored by the socialist Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party and the Soviet Union and emphasizing in particular the role of the arts and the humanities. It considers the politics and society of the early revolutionary period and assesses the ways in which ideas about nationhood were constructed in a response to Soviet socialism. It goes on to analyze the consequences of socialist cultural and social transformations on pastoral, Kazakh, and other identities and outlines the implications of socialist nation building on post-socialist Mongolian national identity. Overall, Socialist and Post-Socialist Mongolia highlights how Mongolia's population of widely scattered seminomadic pastoralists posed challenges for socialist administrators attempting to create a homogenous mass nation of individual citizens who share a set of cultural beliefs, historical memories, collective symbols, and civic ideas; additionally, the book addresses the changes brought more recently by democratic governance.
This edited volume rethinks the relationship between power and law in the age of China's rise by examining recent developments in the South China Sea (SCS). The contributors explore different interpretations of international law on the legal status of the contested islands and rocks and provide detailed analyses of the contested concepts and provisions, the 2016 ruling by the SCS arbitration tribunal, as well as the environmental, economic, and political impacts of the ruling. This book facilitates a more meaningful and productive dialogue over the intersection, interaction, and interdependence between power and law in the context of the SCS. Assessing the interactions between political, legal, and normative forces, it provides insights into the specific dynamics of the dispute and the shifting security landscape in the region, but also offers a basis for thinking more deeply about the broader rise of China. This book will appeal to both students and scholars of IR, International Law, and Asian Studies and those engaged in research on the SCS disputes, the rise of China, and with a theoretical interest in law and power in international affairs.
This book analyzes the paradox that despite being a national security state, Pakistan has become even more insecure in the post-Cold War era. It provides an in-depth analysis of Pakistan's foreign and security policies and their implications for the overall state and society. The book identifies the immediate security challenges to Pakistan and charts the distinctive evolution of Pakistan's national security state in which the military elite became the dominant actor in the political sphere of government during and after the Cold War period. By examining the national security state, militarization, democracy and security, proxy wars, and the hyper-military-industrial complex, the author illustrates how the vanguard role of the military created considerable structural, sociopolitical, economic, and security problems in Pakistan. Furthermore, the author argues that the mismatch between Pakistan's national security stance and the transformed security environment has been facilitated and sustained by the embedded interests of the country's military-industrial complex. A critical evaluation of the role of the military in the political affairs of the government and how it has created structural problems for Pakistan, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of South Asian Politics and Security, South Asian Foreign and Security Policy, International Relations, Asian Security, and Cold War Studies.
This book reviews the challenges and opportunities in the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) at the regional and national levels in Africa. It contains an analysis of the relevant norms and monitoring mechanisms at the regional level, and case studies from selected African and other developing countries. The WHO has noted that tobacco use or exposure to tobacco is a major health risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This volume highlights the importance of taking measures to control tobacco use in Africa with a view to preventing these risks. With contributions from experts from the Global South, the book provides a critical analysis of the role that human rights can play in mitigating the impact of tobacco use and NCDs, and the implementation of the FCTC. The book contains a systematic and in-depth analysis of how efforts to realise the right to health under international and regional law can help to address the incidence of tobacco use in the developing world. The collection will be an important resource for academics, researchers and policymakers working in the areas of public health law and international human rights.
This book critically analyses the prospects of overhauling the legal framework of climate change regulation of corporations in African state. It adopts the dilute interventionism regulatory framework to tackle the culture of regulatory resistance by corporations in Africa. Over the course of this volume, Kikelomo O. Kila critiques the climate change legal framework in all 53 African states and conducts an in-depth case study of the two largest economies in Africa - Nigeria and South Africa - to highlight the commonality of the problems in Africa and the potential for the dilute interventionism paradigm to significantly address these problems. The book establishes why African states should directly intervene through legislative mechanisms to compel corporations to incorporate climate change mitigation in their business activities. It proposes that this direct intervention should comprise a blend of prescriptive and facilitative mechanisms structured in a dilute interventionism regulatory model. Overall, this volume argues that implementing this model requires the institution of a strong and independent regulator with a veto firewall protection system that guarantees its de facto independence from government and external influences. Corporate Regulation for Climate Change Mitigation in Africa will be of great interest to climate change stakeholders at the international, regional, and domestic levels, policymakers, regulatory practitioners, and legal experts on corporate regulation. It will also be an insightful resource for students and scholars of climate change and environmental law, policy, and governance.
This book contends that the discourses of jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus, and their offshoots in other parts of the Russian Federation, are not just reflections of jihadi ideologies that came from abroad, rather that post-Soviet jihadism is a phenomenon best understood when placed in the broader cultural environment in which it emerged, an environment which comprises the North Caucasus, the whole of Russia, and beyond. It examines how post-Soviet jihadism is also part of global processes, in this case, global jihadism, explores how post-Soviet jihadism bears the imprint of the preceding Soviet context especially in terms of symbols, discursive tools, interpretational frameworks, and dissemination strategies, and discusses how, ironically, Russian-speaking jihadism is an expansionist idea for uniting all Russian regions on a supra-ethnic principle, but an idea that was not born in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Overall, the book demonstrates that Russian-speaking jihadism is a completely new ideology, which nevertheless has its origins in the intellectual and cultural heritage of the Soviet era and in the broader trends of post-Soviet society and culture.
Focusing on the intersection of spatial justice, child rights, and planning policy, this book investigates the challenges of resettlement in East Africa, where half of those displaced are children. The challenges created by displacement and resettlement are often considered from an adult-centric perspective by planners and humanitarian and development experts. The spatial injustice of displacement and resettlement, the agency of children, and the application of tools such as Child Participatory Vulnerability Index (CPVI) is siloed, commonly overlooked, or discounted. This book uses a CPVI and rights-based assessment of land-use policies, to investigate resettlement due to conflict and settlement in northern Uganda, floods due to climate change in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and urban to rural migration of children due to the aids pandemic in Western Kenya. Case studies from over a decade of field research are integrated with examples from applied planning projects and policy development in the East Africa region. This book uses spatial justice theory to show how child-friendly planning approaches can positively promote child rights in the context of resettlement. Providing important insights on how to enact child-friendly planning in informal settlements, refugee camps, and displacement camps, this book will be of interest to planning and development professionals, and researchers across the fields of children's rights, Development Studies, Planning, and African Studies.
This book is a contribution to the global history of the transfer of political ideas, as exemplified by the case of modern Ethiopia. Like many non-European nation-states, Ethiopia adopted a western model of statehood, that is, the nation-state. Unlike the postcolonial polities that have retained the mode of statehood imposed on them by their colonial powers, Ethiopia was never successfully colonized leaving its ruling elite free to select a model of 'modern' (western) statehood. In 1931, via Japan, they adopted the model of unitary, ethnolinguistically homogenous nation-state, in turn copied by Tokyo in 1889 from the German Empire (founded in 1871). Following the Ethiopian Revolution (1974) that overthrew the imperial system, the new revolutionary elite promised to address the 'nationality question' through the marxist-leninist model. The Soviet model of ethnolinguistic federalism (originally derived from Austria-Hungary) was introduced in Ethiopia, first in 1992 and officially with the 1995 Constitution. To this day the politics of modern Ethiopia is marked by the tension between these two opposed models of the essentially central European type of statehood. The late 19th-century 'German-German' quarrel on the 'proper' model of national statehood for Germany - or more broadly, modern central Europe - remains the quarrel of Ethiopian politics nowadays. The book will be useful for scholars of Ethiopian and African history and politics, and also offers a case in comparative studies on the subject of different models of national statehood elsewhere.
This book studies India's foreign policy through the lens of Kautilya's Arthashastra, an ancient Indian treatise on state and statecraft. It assesses the extent of influence of the foundational elements/core beliefs extrapolated from the Arthashastra on the nation's international behaviour to understand the grand strategic preferences of independent India. The volume examines the basic realist and cultural underpinnings of statecraft such as Yogakshema (Political End Goal), Saptanga (Seven Elements of State), Sadgunyas (Six Measures of Foreign Policy), Rajdharma (Duty of a King), Rajamandala (Circle of kings), and Dharma (Order), mooted in the Arthashastra which have withstood the test of time and space. It evaluates the continuity of strategic cultural traits under the themes of nonalignment, bilateral relations with China and Pakistan, and nuclear policy. An important intervention in the study of India's foreign policy, the book will be useful for scholars and researchers of foreign policy, defence policy, international relations, defence and strategic studies, political science, Indian political thought, political philosophy, classical literature, and South Asian studies.
This monograph presents a novel typology of relational and territorial perspectives on legitimacy and identity. This typology is then applied to two different political and historical contexts, namely the trajectories of the metropolitan region Amsterdam in the Netherlands and the metropolitan region Ruhr in Germany. The historical discussion spans 500 years, providing valuable depth to the study. Taken as a whole, the book provides a new perspective within the territorial-relational dichotomy and the geographies of discontent debate. Its key insights are that identity and political legitimacy are embedded in history and that both relational and territorial perspectives on these issues are time and place dependent. This book will be stimulating reading for advanced students, researchers, and policymakers working in political geography, human geography, regional studies, and broader social and political sciences.
This book critically challenges the usual territorial understanding of borders by examining the often messy internal, transborder, ambiguous, and in-between spaces that co-exist with traditional borders. By considering those less visible aspects of borders, the book develops an inclusive understanding of how contemporary borders are structured and how they influence human identity, mobility, and belonging. The introduction and conclusion provide theoretical and contextual framing, while chapters explore topics of global labor and refugees, unrecognized states, ethnic networks, cyberspace, transboundary resource conflicts, and indigenous and religious spaces that rarely register on conventional maps or commonplace understandings of territory. In the end, the volume demonstrates that, despite being "invisible" on most maps, these borders have a very real, material, and tangible presence and consequences for those people who live within, alongside, and across them.
Maatian Ethics in a Communication Context explores the ethical principle of Maat: the guiding principle of harmony and order that permeated classical African political and civil life. The book provides a rigorous, communication-focused account of the ethical wisdom ancient Africans cultivated and is evidenced in the form of recovered written texts, mythology, stelae, prescriptions for just speech, and the hieroglyphic system of writing itself. Moving beyond colonial stereotypes of ancient Africans, the book offers insight into the African value systems that positioned humans as inextricably embedded in nature, and communication theory that anchors good communication in careful listening habits as the foundational moral virtue. Expanding on the work of Maulana Karenga, Molefi Kete Asante and other groundbreaking scholars, the book presents a picture of civilizations with a shared lust for life, a spiritual connection to scientific speech, and the veneration of ancestors as deeply connected to the pursuit of wisdom. Offering an examination of Maat from a specifically communication ethics perspective, this book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Communication Ethics, African philosophy, Rhetorical theory, Africana Studies and Ancient History.
This book explores the development, decline and resurgence of parliaments in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Although the three parliaments formally have a common origin and follow almost similar rules and procedures, substantial variations can be observed in their behavior. By analyzing the nature of memberships, processes of legislation and oversight of the executive, the book assesses the impact of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi parliaments. In addition to identifying the ways in which different institutional actors, particularly the parliament and the judiciary, define their roles and relationships, the book investigates the role of committees and the significance and effect of female legislators. While showing that the parliament in India has had a steady growth since its inception, notwithstanding the allegation that it has declined in recent years, the author also demonstrates the differential performance of the parliaments in Bangladesh and Pakistan. In particular, the parliament in Pakistan is shown to likely be able to upgrade its status from a 'minimal' to at least a 'marginal' legislature, while the Bangladesh parliament risks becoming a 'minimal' legislature. A valuable resource to use when comparing strategies and outcomes of postcolonial developments in the operation of parliaments, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of political and economic development, governance and South Asian Studies.
Drawing upon insights from international socialization theory and social psychology, this book examines China's efforts to multipolarize - and hence potentially de-liberalize - the international system from the local perspective of a non-democratic (yet democratizing) nation and then applies these insights to Beijing's current global agency in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative. Specifically, the book scrutinizes Beijing's normative engagement in Kazakhstan, a nation that evolved from an enthusiastic supporter of the West's normative domination of international affairs into an overt critic - after having institutionalized relations with Beijing through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Tracing and juxtaposing the respective patterns of Kazakhstan's political identity development before the SCO entered the region and after, this book not only yields unexpected conclusions about the quality of post-Soviet democratization outcomes, but also about Beijing's local and global influence potentiality for the time to come - and its limits. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of China's normative power, democratization studies, post-Soviet studies, and International Relations.
This book addresses a critical gap in the effective implementation of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) in post-apartheid South Africa. This book responds to a critical problem whereby a critical mass of historically disadvantaged persons continues to face exclusion by entrenched systems of professional education and training. Focusing on case studies from higher education and build environment studies, it defines the rationale and fundamental principles of an innovative model for the evaluation of RPL which can be adapted and applied across disciplines and professions while promoting high quality standards. RPL is considered as a transformative strategy to oppose the injustices of pedagogic exclusion and upskill a historically disadvantaged population. The book makes a strong case for an alternate system based on the potentiality of transformed legislation and frameworks in post-apartheid South Africa. The book will be of interest to researchers in alternative pedagogies, scholars engaged with epistemologies of the South and alternative knowledge systems, legislative bodies, policy makers and facilitators of professional education.
This book examines the social and legal regulation of domestic violence (DV) within the Kesarwani business community following the enactment of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005. It analyses the existence of the formal law in Kolkata and the relevance of the law in the familial lives of the Kesarwani community. The book offers a new conceptualisation of examining the relationship between formal law and social life. It provides a deep insight into how living with violence becomes a way of living and how the disposition to familial violence exists with social advantage and privilege. Explaining the functioning of the formal DV framework in non-legal terms as it exists on the paper, the book shows the ways in which this one law sought to democratise the family unit and overhaul the legal process in favour of DV victims in India. Most of all it hopes to show through the Kolkata study that caste and class, social structures that regulate and define social life globally, must remain critical to discussions of the social and legal regulation of DV in Kolkata, India or anywhere in the world. The book uses ethnography as a research methodology and traverses different locations in the Kesarwani community, and outside the community in Kolkata, to examine the relevance of the formal law in the lives of Kesarwani women. While the study is in India (and in a non-western context), the theme of the study - the social and legal regulation - remains relevant to contemporary debates on the efficacy of formal law in addressing coercive control in the western world. Notably, the book makes the formal domestic violence law legible for non-legal professionals by explaining the formal legal framework of domestic violence envisaged in the PWDVA. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of law, criminal justice, sociology, anthropology, women's studies, and political science. It will also appeal to social service providers and practitioners working in the area of domestic violence, legal regulation, social control of women, gender, caste, class and family business.
This book examines the controversial 103rd Constitutional Amendment to the Indian Constitution that introduced an income and asset ownership-based new constitutional standard for determining backwardness marking a significant shift in the government's social and public policy. It also analyses state level policies towards backwardness recognition of upper-caste dominant groups through case studies of Maharashtra, Haryana, and Gujarat. It provides an analytical and descriptive account of the proliferation of reservation policy in India and critiques these interventions to assess their implication on constitutional jurisprudence. Further, it assesses the theoretical and empirical challenges such developments pose to the principle of substantive equality and scope of affirmative action policies in Indian constitutional law and general discrimination law theory. The monograph shows how opening up of reservations for dominant upper-caste groups and general category will have implications for the constitutional commitment to addressing deeply entrenched marginalisation emanating from the traditional social hierarchy and the understanding of substantive equality in Indian Constitutional law. Further, it highlights key contradictions, incoherence, and internal tension in the design of the reservations for Economically Weaker Sections Critical, comprehensive, and cogently argued, this book will contribute and shape ongoing constitutional policy and judicial debates. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of law, Indian politics, affirmative action, social policy, and public policy.
Churchill and India. It is a story where much is known but much remains concealed. A brilliant orator and a powerful leader, Winston Churchill stood against the tide of history. But how does postcolonial history view him? This book studies the extraordinary connection he had with India. Beginning with the early years of his career in India when he spent 22 months between 1896 and 1899 as a subaltern with the 4th Hussars, it traces his rise as a politician, his years as the Prime Minister of Great Britain during the Second World War, his profound distrust of the Indian Independence Movement, and his machinations in preserving the British Empire's rule over India. Churchill's failure to understand India and decolonization, and manipulation of events on the subcontinent add a different dimension to the man. His pervasive yet hidden shadow over the Indian subcontinent and his often-veiled role in the actions that led to Partition in 1947 are at the center of this study. Rich in archival sources, this book provides a fresh and holistic perspective on the final phase of the British Empire. It will be an indispensable resource to students and researchers of colonial history, imperialism, modern history, international history, Partition of India, and South Asian studies. It will also appeal to general readers interested in the history of Britain's endgame in India.
Originally published in 1972, this volume contains selected significant documents to illustrate Soviet foreign policy between 1953 and 1970, according to its author, 'in the words of Soviet leaders and Soviet people.' Extracts from speeches by Khrushchev, Mikoyan, Brezhnev and Kosygin are included, together with commentary from other communist leaders, including Hoxha of Albania and Nagy of Hungary. The invasion of the former Czechoslovakia and the Chinese view of Soviet foreign policy are fully covered. A comprehensive and informative introduction traces the course of Soviet foreign policy since 1953. Some general considerations are given in the conclusion, and short explanatory comments elucidate the documents themselves.
The Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions presents critical research, overviews, and case studies on religion in historical South Asia, in the seven nation states of contemporary South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, and in the South Asian diaspora. Chapters by an international set of experts analyse formative developments, roots, changes and transformations, religious practices and ideas, identities, relations, territorialisation, and globalisation in historical and contemporary South Asia. The Handbook is divided into two parts which first analyse historical South Asian religions and their developments and second contemporary South Asia religions that are influenced by both religious pluralism and their close connection to nation states and their ideological power. Contributors argue that religion has been used as a tool for creating nations as well as majorities within those nations in South Asia, despite their enormous diversity, in particular religious diversity. The Handbook explores these diversities and tensions, historical developments, and the present situation across religious traditions by utilising an array of approaches and from the point of view of various academic disciplines. Drawing together a remarkable collection of leading and emerging scholars, this handbook is an invaluable research tool and will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of Asian religion, religion in context, and South Asian religions.
This book looks at the representation and practice of chastity in selective ancient Indian texts. It studies how and when the concept originated and in what ways it was intertwined with the social, cultural, and economic notions of Indian society. Drawing on seminal Indian texts such as the MahaPuranas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Sattasai and the Jatakas, the volume delves into the social and reproductive rights of women through an examination of the norms of chastity, virginity, and Pativratya, which were construed according to a patriarchal hierarchy of the society and implemented as a means of strengthening patriarchal authority. It also examines the interinfluence of various religious traditions that emerged on the very concept of chastity and the ideologies they later gave rise to. A comprehensive study of sexuality and gender in early India, the book will be indispensable to students, teachers, and researchers of gender studies, literature, women's studies, women's rights, feminism, South Asian studies, and social history of Ancient India.
Fills a gap in the literature by providing a comprehensive picture of the dimensions, components and contexts of livelihoods in low- and middle-income countries. An interdisciplinary text that incorporates examples of multiple methods that can be used in data collection and analysis and will draw on experience and research from low- and middle-income countries across the world. This Handbook reflects a diversity of concerns recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals, covering a range of contexts and issues from a livelihoods perspective.
Entangled Fictions: Nonhuman Animals in an Indian World studies the ethical and affective relationships between human and nonhuman animals in Indian fictional worlds. While drawing upon existing theoretical and philosophical texts with nonhumanist underpinnings, Entangled Fictions argues that the corpus is limited epistemologically and politically when it comes to their examinations of the nonhuman in India. Deeply influenced by the political/existential expediencies of our times, the book traverses several genres, shifts from fictional to anecdotal, and transitions from autobiographical to spectra in effort to introduce readers to fictional worlds marked by human-nonhuman fluidity and trans-species contiguity that was imagined and lived much before the telos of human extinction became either a global or local concern. |
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