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By defining political economy and war in the broadest sense, this
unique Handbook brings together a wide range of interdisciplinary
scholars from economics, political science, sociology, and policy
studies to address a multitude of important topics. These include
an analysis of why wars begin, how wars are waged, what happens
after war has ceased, and the various alternatives to war. Other
sections explore civil war and revolution, the arms trade, economic
and political systems, and post-conflict reconstruction and nation
building. Policymakers as well as academics and students of
political science, economics, public policy and sociology will find
this volume to be an engaging and enlightening read. -- Publisher
description.
By defining political economy and war in the broadest sense, this
unique Handbook brings together a wide range of interdisciplinary
scholars from economics, political science, sociology, and policy
studies to address a multitude of important topics. These include
an analysis of why wars begin, how wars are waged, what happens
after war has ceased, and the various alternatives to war. Other
sections explore civil war and revolution, the arms trade, economic
and political systems, and post-conflict reconstruction and nation
building. Policymakers as well as academics and students of
political science, economics, public policy and sociology will find
this volume to be an engaging and enlightening read. -- Publisher
description.
Media, Development, and Institutional Change investigates mass
media's profound ability to affect institutional change and
economic development. The authors use the tools of economics to
illuminate the media's role in enabling and inhibiting
political-economic reforms that promote development. The book
explores how media can constrain government, how governments
manipulate media to entrench their power, and how private and
public media ownership affects a country's ability to prosper. The
authors identify specific media-related policies governments of
underdeveloped countries should adopt if they want to grow. They
illustrate why media freedom is a critical ingredient in the recipe
of economic development and why even the best-intentioned state
involvement in media is more likely to slow prosperity than to
enhance it. Scholars and students of economics, political science
and sociology; policy-makers, analysts and others in the
development community; and academics in media studies will find
this book insightful and provocative.
The theme of this volume is 'New Thinking in Austrian Political
Economy'. It includes original research by scholars working within
Austrian political economy. The contributors draw on insights from
Austrian economics that shed new light on a range of relevant
topics including: the role of culture in economic action, the
political economy of post-disaster recovery, class structure,
decentralized political orders, drones, institutional change,
macroeconomics, and superstition and norms. Each chapter discusses
the relevance of Austrian political economy for understanding the
topic under analysis and discusses areas for future exploration and
research. The volume captures the relevance of Austrian political
economy for scholarship on a wide array of topics and its potential
as an active and open-ended research program. Scholars working in
the areas of Austrian economics, heterodox economics,
constitutional political economy, cultural studies, political
science, public choice, sociology, and public policy will find the
volume of interest.
In 2010, Haiti was ravaged by a brutal earthquake that affected the
lives of millions. The call to assist those in need was heard
around the globe. Yet two years later humanitarian efforts led by
governments and NGOs have largely failed. Resources are not
reaching the needy due to bureaucratic red tape, and many assets
have been squandered. How can efforts intended to help the
suffering fail so badly? In this timely and provocative book,
Christopher J. Coyne uses the economic way of thinking to explain
why this and other humanitarian efforts that intend to do good end
up doing nothing or causing harm.
In addition to Haiti, Coyne considers a wide range of
interventions. He explains why the U.S. government was ineffective
following Hurricane Katrina, why the international humanitarian
push to remove Muammar Gaddafi in Libya may very well end up
causing more problems than prosperity, and why decades of efforts
to respond to crises and foster development around the world have
resulted in repeated failures.
In place of the dominant approach to state-led humanitarian action,
this book offers a bold alternative, focused on establishing an
environment of economic freedom. If we are willing to experiment
with aid--asking questions about how to foster development as a
process of societal discovery, or how else we might engage the
private sector, for instance--we increase the range of alternatives
to help people and empower them to improve their communities.
Anyone concerned with and dedicated to alleviating human suffering
in the short term or for the long haul, from policymakers and
activists to scholars, will find this book to be an insightful and
provocative reframing of humanitarian action.
Many Americans believe that foreign military intervention is
central to protecting our domestic freedoms. But Christopher J.
Coyne and Abigail R. Hall urge engaged citizens to think again.
Overseas, our government takes actions in the name of defense that
would not be permissible within national borders. Emboldened by the
relative weakness of governance abroad, the U.S. government is able
to experiment with a broader range of social controls. Under
certain conditions, these policies, tactics, and technologies are
then re-imported to America, changing the national landscape and
increasing the extent to which we live in a police state. Coyne and
Hall examine this pattern-which they dub "the boomerang
effect"-considering a variety of rich cases that include the rise
of state surveillance, the militarization of domestic law
enforcement, the expanding use of drones, and torture in U.S.
prisons. Synthesizing research and applying an economic lens, they
develop a generalizable theory to predict and explain a startling
trend. Tyranny Comes Home unveils a new aspect of the symbiotic
relationship between foreign interventions and domestic politics.
It gives us alarming insight into incidents like the shooting in
Ferguson, Missouri and the Snowden case-which tell a common story
about contemporary foreign policy and its impact on our civil
liberties.
In 2010, Haiti was ravaged by a brutal earthquake that affected the
lives of millions. The call to assist those in need was heard
around the globe. Yet two years later humanitarian efforts led by
governments and NGOs have largely failed. Resources are not
reaching the needy due to bureaucratic red tape, and many assets
have been squandered. How can efforts intended to help the
suffering fail so badly? In this timely and provocative book,
Christopher J. Coyne uses the economic way of thinking to explain
why this and other humanitarian efforts that intend to do good end
up doing nothing or causing harm.
In addition to Haiti, Coyne considers a wide range of
interventions. He explains why the U.S. government was ineffective
following Hurricane Katrina, why the international humanitarian
push to remove Muammar Gaddafi in Libya may very well end up
causing more problems than prosperity, and why decades of efforts
to respond to crises and foster development around the world have
resulted in repeated failures.
In place of the dominant approach to state-led humanitarian action,
this book offers a bold alternative, focused on establishing an
environment of economic freedom. If we are willing to experiment
with aidOCoasking questions about how to foster development as a
process of societal discovery, or how else we might engage the
private sector, for instanceOCowe increase the range of
alternatives to help people and empower them to improve their
communities. Anyone concerned with and dedicated to alleviating
human suffering in the short term or for the long haul, from
policymakers and activists to scholars, will find this book to be
an insightful and provocative reframing of humanitarian action.
Why does liberal democracy take hold in some countries but not in
others? Why do we observe such different outcomes in military
interventions, from Germany and Japan to Afghanistan and Iraq? Do
efforts to export democracy help as much as they hurt? These are
some of the most enduring questions of our time.
Historically, the United States has attempted to generate change in
foreign countries by exporting liberal democratic institutions
through military occupation and reconstruction. Despite these
efforts, the record of U.S.-led reconstructions has been mixed, at
best. For every West Germany or Japan, there is a Cuba, Haiti,
Somalia, or Vietnam.
"After War" seeks to answer these critical foreign policy questions
by bringing an economic mindset to a topic that has been
traditionally tackled by historians, policymakers, and political
scientists. Economics focuses on how incentives influence human
action. Therefore, within an economic context, a successful
reconstruction entails finding and establishing a set of incentives
that makes citizens prefer a liberal democratic order. Coyne
examines the mechanisms and institutions that contribute to the
success of reconstruction programs by creating incentives for
sustained cooperation.
Coyne emphasizes that the main threat to Western nations in the
post-Cold War period will not come from a superpower, but rather
from weak, failed, and conflict-torn states--and rogue groups
within them. It is also critical to recognize that the dynamics at
work--cultural, historical, and social--in these modern states are
fundamentally different from those that the United States faced in
the reconstructions of West Germany and Japan. As such,
thesehistorical cases of successful reconstruction are poor models
for todays challenges. In Coynes view, policymakers and occupiers
face an array of internal and external constraints in dealing with
rogue states. These constraints are often greatest in the countries
most in need of the political, economic, and social change. The
irony is that these projects are least likely to succeed precisely
where they are most needed.
Coyne offers two bold alternatives to reconstruction programs that
could serve as catalysts for social change: principled
non-intervention and unilateral free trade. Coyne points to major
differences in these preferred approaches; whereas reconstruction
projects involve a period of coerced military occupation, free
trade-led reforms are voluntary. The book goes on to highlight the
economic and cultural benefits of free trade.
While Coyne contends that a commitment to non-intervention and free
trade may not lead to Western-style liberal democracies in
conflict-torn countries, such a strategy could lay the groundwork
for global peace.
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Is Social Justice Just?
Robert M. Whaples, Michael C. Munger, Christopher J. Coyne; Jordan B Peterson, Nicholas Rescher
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R865
Discovery Miles 8 650
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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“Anyone concerned with social justice will find this book makes
him question his assumptions, rethink his premises, and think!"
—Andrew P. Morriss, professor, Bush School of Government and
Public Service, School of Law, Texas A&M University What is
social justice? In these pages, twenty-one accomplished academics
seek to do justice to “social justice.” Inequality exists and
it obviously causes rifts in societies. But it’s not obvious how
the government should address those rifts, or if it should address
them at all. Have we forgotten the perhaps more efficient power of
personal choice—and the corollary obligation: to serve our
neighbors—to make our society more humane? Beginning with the
first political philosophers in ancient Athens, and continuing
right through Marx into our post-modern era, men have wrestled with
the question of justice; and the answers have been as earnest as
they have been varied. Today, our “expert” class also claim to
have answers—updated answers, more “equitable” answers, more
technological answers ... in short, answers that are simply better
suited to our times. But are those answers in any way correct? Do
they work? Are they—just? In these elegant, nuanced essays, the
authors use the wisdom of ancient and modern philosophers to shed
light on these important questions—and the answers are revealing.
Armed with ample evidence from real-world experiences, lessons from
history, the wisdom of the classics, modern philosophers, and even
the teachings of the world religions, the contributors of Is Social
Justice Just? Illuminate the central role of the individual in
achieving justice in all its aspects. Read Is Social Justice Just?
And discover: how to do social justice wrong with the poison of
resentment, envy, and ignorance; how to do social justice right
with the insights of philosophers and theologians; how to respect
people’s rights and liberties without sacrificing true equality;
and how to reform flawed public policies that just make everything
worse. In a world of partisanship, hysteria, maliciousness, and
good intentions attached to hellish outcomes, this landmark book
enters the public discourse at a critical time. With a foreword by
Jordan B. Peterson, a preface by Nicholas Rescher, and a collection
of essays by some of the best and brightest scholars of our time,
Is Social Justice Just? is a timely and urgent work. Read it, and
you will begin to think about “social justice,” and justice, in
some surprising new ways.
The U.S. government's prime enemy in the War on Terror is not a
shadowy mastermind dispatching suicide bombers. It is the informed
American citizen. With Manufacturing Militarism, Christopher J.
Coyne and Abigail R. Hall detail how military propaganda has
targeted Americans since 9/11. From the darkened cinema to the
football field to the airport screening line, the U.S. government
has purposefully inflated the actual threat of terrorism and the
necessity of a proactive military response. This biased,
incomplete, and misleading information contributes to a broader
culture of fear and militarism that, far from keeping Americans
safe, ultimately threatens the foundations of a free society.
Applying a political economic approach to the incentives created by
a democratic system with a massive national security state, Coyne
and Hall delve into case studies from the War on Terror to show how
propaganda operates in a democracy. As they vigilantly watch their
carry-ons scanned at the airport despite nonexistent threats, or
absorb glowing representations of the military from films,
Americans are subject to propaganda that, Coyne and Hall argue,
erodes government by citizen consent.
This Element explores the topics of terrorism, counterterrorism,
and the US government's war on terror following the September 11,
2001 terror attacks. It draw on insights from Austrian and public
choice economics. First, the foundations of the economics of
terrorism are discussed emphasizing that the behaviors of
terrorists and counter-terrorists are purposeful and goal-oriented.
Then, the economics of counterterrorism policies and the importance
of institutional change is considered. Next, the three dilemmas
facing liberal societies as it relates to counterterrorism efforts
is focused on. The Element then provides an assessment of the US
government's war on terror. It discusses the origins of the war,
discuss whether it can be judged a success or failure, and consider
some of the main effects both abroad and within the United States.
The final chapter concludes with a discussion of several areas for
future research.
Why does liberal democracy take hold in some countries but not in
others? Why do we observe such different outcomes in military
interventions, from Germany and Japan to Afghanistan and Iraq? Do
efforts to export democracy help as much as they hurt? These are
some of the most enduring questions of our time.
Historically, the United States has attempted to generate change in
foreign countries by exporting liberal democratic institutions
through military occupation and reconstruction. Despite these
efforts, the record of U.S.-led reconstructions has been mixed, at
best. For every West Germany or Japan, there is a Cuba, Haiti,
Somalia, or Vietnam.
"After War" seeks to answer these critical foreign policy questions
by bringing an economic mindset to a topic that has been
traditionally tackled by historians, policymakers, and political
scientists. Economics focuses on how incentives influence human
action. Therefore, within an economic context, a successful
reconstruction entails finding and establishing a set of incentives
that makes citizens prefer a liberal democratic order. Coyne
examines the mechanisms and institutions that contribute to the
success of reconstruction programs by creating incentives for
sustained cooperation.
Coyne emphasizes that the main threat to Western nations in the
post-Cold War period will not come from a superpower, but rather
from weak, failed, and conflict-torn states--and rogue groups
within them. It is also critical to recognize that the dynamics at
work--cultural, historical, and social--in these modern states are
fundamentally different from those that the United States faced in
the reconstructions of West Germany and Japan. As such,
thesehistorical cases of successful reconstruction are poor models
for todays challenges. In Coynes view, policymakers and occupiers
face an array of internal and external constraints in dealing with
rogue states. These constraints are often greatest in the countries
most in need of the political, economic, and social change. The
irony is that these projects are least likely to succeed precisely
where they are most needed.
Coyne offers two bold alternatives to reconstruction programs that
could serve as catalysts for social change: principled
non-intervention and unilateral free trade. Coyne points to major
differences in these preferred approaches; whereas reconstruction
projects involve a period of coerced military occupation, free
trade-led reforms are voluntary. The book goes on to highlight the
economic and cultural benefits of free trade.
While Coyne contends that a commitment to non-intervention and free
trade may not lead to Western-style liberal democracies in
conflict-torn countries, such a strategy could lay the groundwork
for global peace.
Many Americans believe that foreign military intervention is
central to protecting our domestic freedoms. But Christopher J.
Coyne and Abigail R. Hall urge engaged citizens to think again.
Overseas, our government takes actions in the name of defense that
would not be permissible within national borders. Emboldened by the
relative weakness of governance abroad, the U.S. government is able
to experiment with a broader range of social controls. Under
certain conditions, these policies, tactics, and technologies are
then re-imported to America, changing the national landscape and
increasing the extent to which we live in a police state. Coyne and
Hall examine this pattern—which they dub "the boomerang
effect"—considering a variety of rich cases that include the rise
of state surveillance, the militarization of domestic law
enforcement, the expanding use of drones, and torture in U.S.
prisons. Synthesizing research and applying an economic lens, they
develop a generalizable theory to predict and explain a startling
trend. Tyranny Comes Home unveils a new aspect of the symbiotic
relationship between foreign interventions and domestic politics.
It gives us alarming insight into incidents like the shooting in
Ferguson, Missouri and the Snowden case—which tell a common story
about contemporary foreign policy and its impact on our civil
liberties.
The U.S. government's prime enemy in the War on Terror is not a
shadowy mastermind dispatching suicide bombers. It is the informed
American citizen. With Manufacturing Militarism, Christopher J.
Coyne and Abigail R. Hall detail how military propaganda has
targeted Americans since 9/11. From the darkened cinema to the
football field to the airport screening line, the U.S. government
has purposefully inflated the actual threat of terrorism and the
necessity of a proactive military response. This biased,
incomplete, and misleading information contributes to a broader
culture of fear and militarism that, far from keeping Americans
safe, ultimately threatens the foundations of a free society.
Applying a political economic approach to the incentives created by
a democratic system with a massive national security state, Coyne
and Hall delve into case studies from the War on Terror to show how
propaganda operates in a democracy. As they vigilantly watch their
carry-ons scanned at the airport despite nonexistent threats, or
absorb glowing representations of the military from films,
Americans are subject to propaganda that, Coyne and Hall argue,
erodes government by citizen consent.
The attempt by the United States since 9/11 to establish liberal
political regimes in the Middle East and in the mountains of
Afghanistan was doomed to fail-and for one simple reason.
Imperialism and militarism build empires, not liberalism. And if we
do not absorb this truth, the rest of the twenty-first century will
be a repeat of its bloodstained beginning. So says Christopher
Coyne, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and professor of
economics at George Mason University, in this eye-opening,
must-read book on America's recent foreign policy failures. Since
the 19th century, the US government has used its immense power to
promote liberal values and create a global liberal empire to
"protect" them.
This volume explores and engages the key thinkers and ideas of the
Austrian School of political economy to better understand various
aspects of the market process, or the way that individuals
coordinate their separate interests in a peaceful and productive
manner by unintentionally forming not only market prices but also
rules, customs, cultural norms and other institutional arrangements
that allow specialization and trade. Together, these dynamics
generate a market order by ameliorating the potential for social
conflict, and in turn, facilitating the conditions for social
cooperation and specialization under the division of labor.
Scholars in this tradition focus on how individuals, however
imperfect they may be in their decision-making, are nevertheless
guided by private property, prices, and profit and loss signals,
which emerge out of human action, but not necessarily human design.
The diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of
interest to readers in a variety of fields, including anthropology,
economics, entrepreneurship, history, philosophy, political
science, and public policy.
Written for an audience of students, general readers, and
economists alike, this Element is a primer on the field of the
economics of conflict and peace. It offers a reasonably
comprehensive, systematic, and detailed overview - even if in broad
strokes - of the field's orthodox and heterodox history of thought
and current theories and evidence. The authors view this Element as
a baseline account on which to build a future, separate and more
fully developed, work on the economics of peace, economic growth,
and human development. Altogether, the Element contextualizes the
field of conflict and peace economics, outlines its history of
thought, highlights examples of current theoretical and empirical
scholarship in the field, and maps trajectories for further
research.
This Element surveys the field of defense, peace, and war economics
with particular emphasis on the contributions made by Austrian
economists. I first review treatments of defense, peace, and war by
the classical economists. I then discuss the rise of a distinct and
systematic defense, peace, and war economics field of study
starting in the 1960s. Next, I consider the contributions by
Austrian economists to the field. This includes the economic
analysis of the nature of the war economy, problems with the public
good justification for the state-provision of defense, the seen and
unseen costs of war, the idea of the liberal peace, and the
realities and limitations of foreign intervention. I conclude with
a discussion of some open areas for future research.
James M. Buchanan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986,
was a pioneer of public choice and constitutional political
economy, as well as contributing to many fields of study, including
philosophy, political science, and public finance. Each chapter in
this volume seeks to explore, critique, and emphasize the
continuing relevance of the vast contributions of Buchanan to our
understanding of political economy and social philosophy. The
diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of interest
to readers in a variety of fields, and accessible to scholars from
a variety of backgrounds providing the opportunity to further a
cross-disciplinary exploration and discussion on market process
theory.
Market process theory is crucial to our knowledge and expectations
of actors working toward economic coordination and cooperation. In
the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, there has been a renewed
interested in using new applications of market process theory to
better understand the global political economy. This volume brings
together original research from the Austrian, Virginia, and
Bloomington schools of political economy to analyse central
elements of market process and market order. These include economic
calculation, entrepreneurship, institutions and learning. Edited by
three of the leading scholars in this field, the collection offers
a multitude of new interdisciplinary understandings by engaging
with scholars working in anthropology, economics, entrepreneurship,
history, political science, public policy, and sociology.
Market process theory is crucial to our knowledge and expectations
of actors working toward economic coordination and cooperation. In
the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, there has been a renewed
interested in using new applications of market process theory to
better understand the global political economy. This volume brings
together original research from the Austrian, Virginia, and
Bloomington schools of political economy to analyse central
elements of market process and market order. These include economic
calculation, entrepreneurship, institutions and learning. Edited by
three of the leading scholars in this field, the collection offers
a multitude of new interdisciplinary understandings by engaging
with scholars working in anthropology, economics, entrepreneurship,
history, political science, public policy, and sociology.
The political process focuses on the ways that people come together
to engage in collective decision making in a variety of contexts.
The central elements of the political process include: the
formation of rules, the subsequent interactions that take place
within those rules, and the evolution of rules over time. Scholars
working in the area of Virginia political economy-e.g., James
Buchanan and Gordon Tullock-emphasize the importance of applying
the tools of economics to non-market settings, including politics.
Scholars in this tradition focus on both politics and economics to
understand the formation of political rules-constitutional
political economy-as well as the subsequent play within those
rules-public choice. Scholars in the Bloomington School-most
notably, Elinor and Vincent Ostrom-have emphasized three important
aspects of the political process and political order. The first is
the distinction between "rules in form" and "rules in use." The
rules in form refer to codified rules while the rules in use refer
to the rules that people actually follow in their daily lives.
Together, these dynamics generate the political order. The chapters
in this volume explore and engage the key thinkers and ideas of the
Virginia and Bloomington schools of political economy. The
diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of interest
to readers in a variety of fields, including economics,
entrepreneurship, history, political science, and public policy.
James M. Buchanan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986,
was a pioneer of public choice and constitutional political
economy, as well as contributing to many fields of study, including
philosophy, political science, and public finance. Each chapter in
this volume seeks to explore, critique, and emphasize the
continuing relevance of the vast contributions of Buchanan to our
understanding of political economy and social philosophy. The
diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of interest
to readers in a variety of fields, and accessible to scholars from
a variety of backgrounds providing the opportunity to further a
cross-disciplinary exploration and discussion on market process
theory.
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