Download or read book Centralization Or Fragmentation written by Andrew Moravcsik and published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.. This book was released on 1998 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors examine the nuts and bolts of EU machinery and present a compelling argument that " ever closer union" will only be possible with greater balance and flexibility among supranational, national, and subnational actors.
Download or read book The Fragmentation of U S Health Care written by Einer Elhauge and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2010 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is the American health care system so fragmented in the care it gives patients? This title approaches this question and more with a highly interdisciplinary approach. The articles included in the work address legal and regulatory issues, including laws that mandate separate payments for each provider.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Local and Regional Democracy in Europe written by John Loughlin and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-11-08 with total page 810 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Local and Regional Democracy in Europe analyses the state of play of democracy at the subnational level in the 27 member states of the EU plus Norway and Switzerland. It places subnational democracy in the context of the distinctive Anglo, the French, the German and Scandinavian state traditions in Europe asking to what extent these are still relevant today. The Handbook adapts Lijphart's theory of democracy and applies it to the subnational levels in all the country chapters. A key theoretical issue is whether subnational (regional and local) democracy is derived from national democracy or whether it is legitimate in its own right. Besides these theoretical concerns it focuses on the practice of democracy: the roles of political parties and interest groups and also how subnational political institutions relate to the ordinary citizen. This can take the form of local referendums or other mechanisms of participation. The Handbook reveals a wide variety of practices across Europe in this regard. Local financial systems also reveal a great variety. Finally, each chapter examines the challenges facing subnational democracy but also the opportunities available to them to enhance their democratic systems. Among the challenges identified are: Europeanization, globalization, but also citizens disaffection and switch-off from politics. Some countries have confronted these challenges more successfully than others but all countries face them. An important aspect of the Handbook is the inclusion of all the countries of East and Central Europe plus Cyprus and Malta, who joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. This is the first time they have been examined alongside the countries of Western Europe from the angle of subnational democracy.
Download or read book Libya s Fragmentation written by Wolfram Lacher and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Conflict Research Society's 2021 Book of the Year Prize Shortlisted for the British-Kuwait Friendship Society 2021 Book Prize After the overthrow of the Qadhafi regime in 2011, Libya witnessed a dramatic breakdown of centralized power. Countless local factions carved up the country into a patchwork of spheres of influence. Almost no nationwide or even regional organizations emerged, and no national institutions survived the turbulent descent into renewed civil war. Only the leader of one armed coalition, Khalifa Haftar, managed to overcome competitors and centralize authority over eastern Libya. But tenacious resistance from armed groups in western Libya blocked Haftar's attempt to seize power in the capital Tripoli. Rarely does political fragmentation occur as radically as in Libya, where it has been the primary obstacle to the re-establishment of central authority. This book analyzes the forces that have shaped the country's trajectory since 2011. Confounding widely held assumptions about the role of Libya's tribes in the revolution, Wolfram Lacher shows how war transformed local communities and explains why Khalifa Haftar has been able to consolidate his sway over the northeast. Based on hundreds of interviews with key actors in the conflict, Lacher advances an approach to the study of civil wars that places the transformation of social ties at the centre of analysis.
Download or read book Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco written by Janine A. Clark and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, authoritarian states in the Middle East and North Africa have faced increasing international pressure to decentralize political power. Decentralization is presented as a panacea that will foster good governance and civil society, helping citizens procure basic services and fight corruption. Two of these states, Jordan and Morocco, are monarchies with elected parliaments and recent experiences of liberalization. Morocco began devolving certain responsibilities to municipal councils decades ago, while Jordan has consistently followed a path of greater centralization. Their experiences test such assumptions about the benefits of localism. Janine A. Clark examines why Morocco decentralized while Jordan did not and evaluates the impact of their divergent paths, ultimately explaining how authoritarian regimes can use decentralization reforms to consolidate power. Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco argues that decentralization is a tactic authoritarian regimes employ based on their coalition strategies to expand their base of support and strengthen patron-client ties. Clark analyzes the opportunities that decentralization presents to local actors to pursue their interests and lays out how municipal-level figures find ways to use reforms to their advantage. In Morocco, decentralization has resulted not in greater political inclusivity or improved services, but rather in the entrenchment of pro-regime elites in power. The main Islamist political party has also taken advantage of these reforms. In Jordan, decentralization would undermine the networks that benefit elites and their supporters. Based on extensive fieldwork, Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco is an important contribution to Middle East studies and political science that challenges our understanding of authoritarian regimes’ survival strategies and resilience.
Download or read book Insurgent Fragmentation in the Horn of Africa written by Michael Woldemariam and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When insurgent organizations factionalize and fragment, it can profoundly shape a civil war: its intensity, outcome, and duration. In this extended treatment of this complex and important phenomenon, Michael Woldemariam examines why rebel organizations fragment through a unique historical analysis of the Horn of Africa's civil wars. Central to his view is that rebel factionalism is conditioned by battlefield developments. While fragmentation is caused by territorial gains and losses, counter-intuitively territorial stalemate tends to promote rebel cohesion and is a critical basis for cooperation in war. As a rare effort to examine these issues in the context of the Horn of Africa region, based upon extensive fieldwork, this book will interest both scholarly and non-scholarly audiences interested in insurgent groups and conflict dynamics.
Download or read book Territorial Interests and Educational Policy written by Paul Peterson and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Two Centuries of Local Autonomy written by Jürgen Backhaus and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-02-02 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the last Prussian Reforms during the Napoleonic Era was the constitution of local autonomy for the cities. Proof of its lasting importance is that it was the cities that carried out the deficit-based employment policies of the early 1930s also had to carry the burden of a democratic reconstitution of Germany in the postwar period. After the crushing defeat at Napoleon’s hands, likewise the reconstitution of Prussia fell to the cities. Today, the same constellation of problems can be found on different stages. Europe, as it is growing together, faces a democracy deficit which ultimately will have to be addressed by the cities. The countries in transition and undergoing transformation likewise will have to find arenas for democratic decision making, which likely will be at the municipal level. Finally, the United States of America also faces a quagmire at the federal level which ultimately will have to be resolved at the state or local level. Contributions to this book examine all of these issues, making it of interest to students in urban studies, public administration, history and political science as well as policy-makers concerned with local government and autonomy.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks written by Ryan Light and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-12-04 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Social networks fundamentally shape our lives. Networks channel the ways that information, emotions, and diseases flow through populations. Networks reflect differences in power and status in settings ranging from small peer groups to international relations across the globe. Network tools even provide insights into the ways that concepts, ideas and other socially generated contents shape culture and meaning. As such, the rich and diverse field of social network analysis has emerged as a central tool across the social sciences. This Handbook provides an overview of the theory, methods, and substantive contributions of this field. The thirty-three chapters move through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically. The Handbook includes chapters on data collection and visualization, theoretical innovations, links between networks and computational social science, and how social network analysis has contributed substantively across numerous fields. As networks are everywhere in social life, the field is inherently interdisciplinary and this Handbook includes contributions from leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science among others"--
Download or read book Handbook of South American Archaeology written by Helaine Silverman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-04-06 with total page 1172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perhaps the contributions of South American archaeology to the larger field of world archaeology have been inadequately recognized. If so, this is probably because there have been relatively few archaeologists working in South America outside of Peru and recent advances in knowledge in other parts of the continent are only beginning to enter larger archaeological discourse. Many ideas of and about South American archaeology held by scholars from outside the area are going to change irrevocably with the appearance of the present volume. Not only does the Handbook of South American Archaeology (HSAA) provide immense and broad information about ancient South America, the volume also showcases the contributions made by South Americans to social theory. Moreover, one of the merits of this volume is that about half the authors (30) are South Americans, and the bibliographies in their chapters will be especially useful guides to Spanish and Portuguese literature as well as to the latest research. It is inevitable that the HSAA will be compared with the multi-volume Handbook of South American Indians (HSAI), with its detailed descriptions of indigenous peoples of South America, that was organized and edited by Julian Steward. Although there are heroic archaeological essays in the HSAI, by the likes of Junius Bird, Gordon Willey, John Rowe, and John Murra, Steward states frankly in his introduction to Volume Two that “arch- ology is included by way of background” to the ethnographic chapters.
Download or read book The One Best System written by David B. Tyack and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1974 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The One Best System presents a major new interpretation of what actually happened in the development of one of America's most influential institutions. At the same time it is a narrative in which the participants themselves speak out: farm children and factory workers, frontier teachers and city superintendents, black parents and elite reformers. And it encompasses both the achievements and the failures of the system: the successful assimilation of immigrants, racism and class bias; the opportunities offered to some, the injustices perpetuated for others. David Tyack has placed his colorful, wide-ranging view of history within a broad new framework drawn from the most recent work in history, sociology, and political science. He looks at the politics and inertia, the ideologies and power struggles that formed the basis of our present educational system. Using a variety of social perspectives and methods of analysis, Tyack illuminates for all readers the change from village to urban ways of thinking and acting over the course of more than one hundred years.
Download or read book International Organization in Time written by Tine Hanrieder and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-06-18 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Organization in Time investigates why reformers often pledge to unify international organizations (IOs), but end up fragmenting them instead. The book reconstructs the institutional history of the World Health Organization (WHO) since its creation in 1946. It theorizes the fragmentation trap, which is both a cause and a consequence of reform failure in the WHO. A comparison between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) illustrates the relevance of path dependence and fragmentation across the United Nations (UN) system. As the UN approaches its 70th anniversary, this book helps to understand the path dependent dynamics that reformers encounter in international organizations.
Download or read book Fiscal Management written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accountability of government to citizens is the foundation for good governance. Unfortunately, many developing countries suffer the results of dysfunctional governance systems that fail to provide even minimal levels of vital public services. The key message of the New Institutional Economics is that incentives matter. In the public sphere, the countries' accountability frameworks rewards, sanctions, and measurement of performance shape public sector performance. This book applies this fundamental insight to fiscal/budgetary analysis and public service delivery, giving the reader tools and around the globe examples of institutional arrangements that help citizens hold government accountable for their performance.
Download or read book Fragmented Democracy written by Jamila Michener and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medicaid is the single largest public health insurer in the United States, covering upwards of 70 million Americans. Crucially, Medicaid is also an intergovernmental program that yokes poverty to federalism: the federal government determines its broad contours, while states have tremendous discretion over how Medicaid is designed and implemented. Where some locales are generous and open handed, others are tight-fisted and punitive. In Fragmented Democracy, Jamila Michener demonstrates the consequences of such disparities for democratic citizenship. Unpacking how federalism transforms Medicaid beneficiaries' interpretations of government and structures their participation in politics, the book examines American democracy from the vantage point(s) of those who are living in or near poverty, (disproportionately) Black or Latino, and reliant on a federated government for vital resources.
Download or read book The Fragmentation of Afghanistan written by Barnett R. Rubin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monumental book examines Afghan society in conflict, from the 1978 communist coup to the fall of Najibullah, the last Soviet-installed president, in 1992. This edition, newly revised by the author, reflects developments since then and includes material on the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. It is a book that now seems remarkably prescient. Drawing on two decades of research, Barnett R. Rubin, a leading expert on Afghanistan, provides a fascinating account of the nature of the old regime, the rise and fall of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and the troubled Mujahidin resistance. He relates all these phenomena to international actors, showing how the interaction of U.S. policy and Pakistani and Saudi Arabian interests has helped to create the challenges of today. Rubin puts into context the continuing turmoil in Afghanistan and offers readers a coherent historical explanation for the country’s social and political fragmentation. Praise for the earlier edition: "This study is theoretically informed, empirically grounded, and gracefully written. Anyone who wants to understand Afghanistan’s troubled history and the reasons for its present distress should read this book.” —Foreign Affairs "This is the book on Afghanistan for the educated public.” —Political Science Quarterly
Download or read book Darkness by Design written by Walter Mattli and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Capital markets have undergone a dramatic transformation in the past two decades. Algorithmic high-speed supercomputing has replaced traditional floor trading and human market makers, while centralized exchanges that once ensured fairness and transparency have fragmented into a dizzying array of competing exchanges and trading platforms. Darkness by Design exposes the unseen perils of market fragmentation and 'dark' markets, some of which are deliberately designed to enable the transfer of wealth from the weak to the powerful. Walter Mattli traces the fall of the traditional exchange model of the NYSE, the world's leading stock market in the twentieth century, showing how it has come to be supplanted by fragmented markets whose governance is frequently set up to allow unscrupulous operators to exploit conflicts of interest at the expense of an unsuspecting public. Market makers have few obligations, market surveillance is neglected or impossible, enforcement is ineffective, and new technologies are not necessarily used to improve oversight but to offer lucrative preferential market access to select clients in ways that are often hidden. Mattli argues that power politics is central in today's fragmented markets. He sheds critical light on how the redistribution of power and influence has created new winners and losers in capital markets and lays the groundwork for sensible reforms to combat shady trading schemes and reclaim these markets for the long-term benefit of everyone. Essential reading for anyone with money in the stock market, Darkness by Design challenges the conventional view of markets and reveals the troubling implications of unchecked market power for the health of the global economy and society as a whole"--
Download or read book After Monte Alb n written by Jeffrey P. Blomster and published by . This book was released on 2008-03-30 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Monte Albán reveals the richness and interregional relevance of Postclassic transformations in the area now known as Oaxaca, which lies between Central Mexico and the Maya area and, as contributors to this volume demonstrate, achieved cultural centrality in pan-Mesoamerican networks. Large nucleated states throughout Oaxaca collapsed after 700 C.E., including the great Zapotec state centered in the Valley of Oaxaca, Monte Albán. Elite culture changed in fundamental ways as small city-states proliferated in Oaxaca, each with a new ruling dynasty required to devise novel strategies of legitimization. The vast majority of the population, though, sustained continuity in lifestyle, religion, and cosmology. Contributors synthesize these regional transformations and continuities in the lower Rio Verde Valley, the Valley of Oaxaca, and the Mixteca Alta. They provide data from material culture, architecture, codices, ethnohistoric documents, and ceramics, including a revised ceramic chronology from the Late Classic to the end of the Postclassic that will be crucial to future investigations. After Monte Albán establishes Postclassic Oaxaca's central place in the study of Mesoamerican antiquity. Contributors include Jeffrey P. Blomster, Bruce E. Byland, Gerardo Gutierrez, Byron Ellsworth Hamann, Arthur A. Joyce, Stacie M. King, Michael D. Lind, Robert Markens, Cira Martínez López, Michel R. Oudijk, and Marcus Winter.
