Download or read book Stabilization and Its Discontents written by Manuel Pastor and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Primacy and Its Discontents written by Michael E. Brown and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009-01-30 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts consider whether American primacy will endure or if the future holds a multipolar world of several great powers. The unprecedented military, economic, and political power of the United States has led some observers to declare that we live in a unipolar world in which America enjoys primacy or even hegemony. At the same time public opinion polls abroad reveal high levels of anti-Americanism, and many foreign governments criticize U.S. policies. Primacy and Its Discontents explores the sources of American primacy, including the uses of U.S. military power, and the likely duration of unipolarity. It offers theoretical arguments for why the rest of the world will—or will not—align against the United States. Several chapters argue that the United States is not immune to the long-standing tendency of states to balance against power, while others contend that wise U.S. policies, the growing role of international institutions, and the spread of liberal democracy can limit anti-American balancing. The final chapters debate whether countries are already engaging in "soft balancing" against the United States. The contributors offer alternative prescriptions for U.S. foreign policy, ranging from vigorous efforts to maintain American primacy to acceptance of a multipolar world of several great powers. Contributors Gerard Alexander, Stephen Brooks, John G. Ikenberry, Christopher Layne, Keir Lieber, John Owen IV, Robert Pape, T. V. Paul, Barry Posen, Kenneth Waltz, William Wohlforth

Download or read book Decentralization and Its Discontents written by Max R Lane and published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Decentralization is a major trend in Indonesia since the first decades of that nation under Sukarno and Suharto. Max Lane is justly treasured for illuminating those first decades, for example, through his translations of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and his excellent book, Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto. Anyone who seeks insights into the current trend of decentralization, whether in Indonesia or other parts of the world, will find this work cogent." - James L. Peacock, Kenan Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "This book opens up the discussion on the history and political economy of the new populist policies that seem to gain momentum in the face of the Indonesian elections. It also addresses questions pertaining to the problems and options related to popular aspirations within this context-all of which cannot be explained very well by any of the predominant theses on Indonesia, whether as an oligarchy or a democratically liberal but economically predatory country." - Professor Olle Trnquist, University of Oslo

Download or read book Globalization and Its Discontents written by Joseph E. Stiglitz and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2003-04-17 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful, unsettling book gives us a rare glimpse behind the closed doors of global financial institutions by the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. When it was first published, this national bestseller quickly became a touchstone in the globalization debate. Renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz had a ringside seat for most of the major economic events of the last decade, including stints as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank. Particularly concerned with the plight of the developing nations, he became increasingly disillusioned as he saw the International Monetary Fund and other major institutions put the interests of Wall Street and the financial community ahead of the poorer nations. Those seeking to understand why globalization has engendered the hostility of protesters in Seattle and Genoa will find the reasons here. While this book includes no simple formula on how to make globalization work, Stiglitz provides a reform agenda that will provoke debate for years to come. Rarely do we get such an insider's analysis of the major institutions of globalization as in this penetrating book. With a new foreword for this paperback edition.

Download or read book Gene Expression and Its Discontents written by Rodrick Wallace and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-23 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes how epigenetic context, in a large sense, affects gene expression and the development of an organism, using the asymptotic limit theorems of information theory to construct statistical models useful in data analysis. The approach allows deep understanding of how embedding context affects development. We find that epigenetic information sources act as tunable catalysts, directing ontogeny into characteristic pathways, a perspective having important implications for epigenetic epidemiology. In sum, environmental stressors can induce a broad spectrum of developmental dysfunctions, and the book explores a number of pandemic chronic diseases, using U.S. data at different scales and levels of organization. In particular, we find the legacy of slavery has been grossly compounded by accelerating industrial decline and urban decay. Individual chapters are dedicated to obesity and its sequelae, coronary heart disease, cancer, mental disorders, autoimmune dysfunction, Alzheimer’s disease, and other conditions. Developmental disorders are driven by environmental factors channeled by historical trajectory and are unlikely to respond to medical interventions at the population level in the face of persistent individual and community stress. Drugs powerful enough to affect deleterious epigenetic programming will likely have side effects leading to shortened lifespan. Addressing chronic conditions and developmental disorders requires significant large-scale changes in public policy and resource allocation.

Download or read book Reinventing the State written by Carol Wise and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-12-14 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The political economic history of Latin America in the post-World War II era has largely been one of underachievement and opportunities lost. This all changed with the wave of market reforms that were implemented in the 1990s. However, the precise role of these reforms as an agent of change is still hotly debated. This in-depth analysis of the Peruvian case argues for an explanation that treats institutional innovation and state reconstruction as necessary conditions for the apparent success of the market in Latin America. Exploring how state intervention has been both the cause of Latin America's economic downfall in the 1980s and the solution to its recovery, Reinventing the State analyzes three main phases of state intervention: the developmentalism that lasted until 1982, the state in retreat of the 1980s, and the streamlined state of the 1990s. Through a comprehensive examination of the Peruvian experience, the book explains the country's impressive turnaround from the standpoint of institutional modernization and internal state reform. Written for a broad academic audience, the public-policy community, and the private sector, this book is also meant as a quick primer for any journalist, consultant, or private-sector analyst in need of an overview of the region's market-reform effort and how it has played out in Peru. Carol Wise is Associate Professor, School of International Relations, University of Southern California.

Download or read book Yemen and the Search for Stability written by Marie-Christine Heinze and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-14 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The attacks and blockade on Yemen by the Saudi-led multinational coalition have killed thousands and triggered humanitarian disaster. The longstanding conflict in the country between the Huthi rebels and (until December 2017) Salih militias on the one side and those loyal to the internationally recognized government and many other groups fighting for their interests on the other are said to have evolved into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In 2011, however, thousands of Yemenis had taken to the streets to protest for a better future for their country. When President Ali Abdullah Salih signed over power in the aftermath of these protests, there were hopes that this would signal the beginning of a new period of transition. Yemen and the Search for Stability focuses on the aspirations that inspired revolutionary action, and analyzes what went wrong in the years that followed. It examines the different groups involved in the protests - Salih supporters, Muslim Brothers, Salafis, Huthis, secessionists, women, youth, artists and intellectuals- in terms of their competing visions for the country's future as well as their internal struggles. This book traces the impact of the 2011 upheavals on these groups' ideas for a `new Yemen' and on their strategies for self-empowerment. In so doing, Yemen and the Search for Stability examines the mistakes committed in the country's post-2011 transition process but also points towards prospects for stability and positive change.

Download or read book Deficit and Debt in Transition written by István Benczes and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The adjustment problems of public finance in countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are often misunderstood and misinterpreted by western scholars. This book contributes to the bridging of the gap between what is being thought by external observers and what the actual public finance reality is, as described by competent local scholars. Popular political economy research has remained biased towards advanced countries and has neglected developing and transition economies. Publications on CEE countries' public finances seem to be reluctant to apply the conceptual framework of standard political economy to these countries because of the assumption that CEE economies are different from their Western peers. But is this really the case? Are CEE economies so much different that none of the well-known "Western" political economy concepts or models can be applied to the analysis of fiscal performance in the region? Benczes demonstrates that they can be safely applied in the context of CEE economies as well. He sees no need to develop a separate or unique theory designed for the study and understanding of (one-time) transition economies.

Download or read book The Stability Imperative written by Sarah Biddulph and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2015-06-05 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Stability preservation” (weiwen) has long been an imperative of China’s one-party state. At the same time, China has recently embedded a commitment to the protection of human rights in its constitution. This book examines the multiple and shifting ways in which weiwen impinges on the implementation of human rights. Using case studies, Sarah Biddulph methodically examines the state’s response to labour unrest, medical disputes, and forced housing evictions. As she demonstrates, the state’s reaction can vary from taking steps to ameliorate the underlying causes of the citizens’ grievances to the repression of rights-related protests and the punishment of protestors. The Stability Imperative: Human Rights and Law in China reveals how the systematic failure of the legal system to protect rights coupled with an overemphasis on coercive forms of stability preservation is undermining the authority of law in China and could, ultimately, damage the Communist Party’s leadership.

Download or read book The Stability of Laughter written by James Nikopoulos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "sad and corrupt" age, a period of "crisis" and "upheaval"—what T.S. Eliot famously summed up as "the panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history." Modernism has always been characterized by its self-conscious sense of suffering. Why, then, was it so obsessed with laughter? From Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Bergson and Freud to Pirandello, Beckett, Hughes, Barnes, and Joyce, no moment in cultural history has written about laughter this much. James Nikopoulos investigates modernity’s paradoxical relationship with mirth. Why was the gesture we conventionally associate with happiness deemed the only sensible way of responding to a world, as Max Weber wrote, that had been "disenchanted of its gods?" In answering these questions, Nikopoulos also delves into our ongoing relationship with laughter. He looks to contemporary research in emotion and evolutionary theory, as well as to the two-thousand-plus-year history of the philosophy of humor, in order to propose a novel way of understanding laughter, humor, and their complicated relationships with modern life. The Stability of Laughter explores how art unsettles the simplifications we revert to in our attempts to make sense of human history and social interaction.

Download or read book Handbook of Safeguarding Global Financial Stability written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2012-12-31 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political and social forces exert pressure on our globalized economy in many forms, from formal and informal policies to financial theories and technical models. Our efforts to shape and direct these forces to preserve financial stability reveal much about the ways we perceive the financial economy. The Handbook of Safeguarding Global Financial Stability examines our political economy, particularly the ways in which these forces inhabit our institutions, strategies, and tactics. As economies expand and contract, these forces also determine the ways we supervise and regulate. This high-level examination of the global political economy includes articles about specific countries, crises, and international systems as well as broad articles about major concepts and trends. - Substantial articles by top scholars sets this volume apart from other information sources - Diverse international perspectives result in new opportunities for analysis and research - Rapidly developing subjects will interest readers well into the future

Download or read book Authoritarian Stability in the South Caucasus written by Matteo Fumagalli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-18 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, competitive authoritarianism has become an increasingly common form of non-democratic politics. What is the relationship between the demand for particular public policies and a regime’s durability in office in such cases? How does policy-making interact with organizational power, the willingness to resort to coercion and patronage politics in countries home to democratic-looking institutions that none the less fall short of democratic standards? In this book we show that such regimes do more than just survive and collapse. Moreover, we argue that far from being passive pawns in the hands of their leaders voters in competitive authoritarian regimes, do matter are taken seriously. We investigate how regimes and voters interact in the cases of Georgia and Armenia, two post-Soviet countries in the South Caucasus, to identify how voters preferences feed into policy-making and gauge the extent to which the regimes’ adjustment of their policies crucially affects regime stability. To these ends, we draw on a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, including a survey experiment carried out in the two countries. The volume was originally published as a special issue of the journal Caucasus Survey.

Download or read book The Politics of Market Reform in Fragile Democracies written by Kurt Weyland and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a powerful new approach to a question central to comparative politics and economics: Why do some leaders of fragile democracies attain political success--culminating in reelection victories--when pursuing drastic, painful economic reforms while others see their political careers implode? Kurt Weyland examines, in particular, the surprising willingness of presidents in four Latin American countries to enact daring reforms and the unexpected resultant popular support. He argues that only with the robust cognitive-psychological insights of prospect theory can one fully account for the twists and turns of politics and economic policy in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela during the 1980s and 1990s. Assessing conventional approaches such as rational choice, Weyland concludes that prospect theory is vital to any systematic attempt to understand the politics of market reform. Under this theory, if actors perceive themselves to be in a losing situation they are inclined toward risks; if they see a winning situation around them, they prefer caution. In Latin America, Weyland finds, where the public faced an open crisis it backed draconian reforms. And where such reforms yielded an apparent economic recovery, many citizens and their leaders perceived prospects of gains. Successful leaders thus won reelection and the new market model achieved political sustainability. Weyland concludes this accessible book by considering when his novel approach can be used to study crises generally and how it might be applied to a wider range of cases from Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

Download or read book The New Economy and Macroeconomic Stability written by Dario Togati and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past decade has seen many leading economies, especially the US, undergo profound structural transformations. Departing from the standard theories employed to explain this phenomenon, here author Togati provides the first broad analysis of the New Economy. In this book, the first to look at the new economy from a post-Keynesian / post-modern perspective, he focuses on its macroeconomic implications, presenting a more balanced view than that provided by orthodox neoclassical analysis, and studying the interaction of key variables such as: * information technology * globalization * the increasing significance of intangibles and financial markets. This ground-breaking book utilizes a ‘neo-modern’ perspective drawing on complexity theory to advance the study of the stability and dynamic behaviour of economic systems. Togati utilizes the Calvino labels to identify new empirical evidence, and examines the implications for global stability based on New Classical Macroeconomics and Keynsian theory. The analysis developed in this book has important practical and policy implications for the New Economy, making this book essential reading for students, academics and practitioners in this field.

Download or read book The Emergence of Stability in the Industrial City written by Martin Hewitt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rapid eclipse of Chartism, and the relative tranquility of the period 1848-67 has been one of the most enduring puzzles of nineteenth-century British history. This book takes a fresh look at this conundrum, treating the period between the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 as a coherent whole for the first time. It suggests that previous depictions of 1848 as a watershed in British history have both exaggerated the nature of the transitions which occurred at mid-century, and have over-estimated both the collapse of radical attitudes and the fading of working-class resentment. The experiences of the Manchester working class show that poverty, unemployment and hardship persisted through the mid-Victorian boom. While some workers may have taken advantage of economic opportunities and the various movements of social and moral reform promoted by the middle class to acquire respectability, in general, attempts at middle-class ’moral imperialism’ brought only marginal changes to popular culture and attitudes. Instead, it is argued, the roots of the radical collapse and of political stability lie elsewhere: in the initial failure of radical leaders to sustain a firm consensus on effective strategies of reform, and in changes in the political culture of the mid-century city which closed off spaces in which independent working-class politics could continue to function. In the context of the most important industrial city of the era, this study provides a wide-ranging analysis of the complex forces which forged the uneasy compromise on which mid-nineteenth century stability rested.

Download or read book Absolutism and Its Discontents written by Michael S. Kimmel and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 1988 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Money Financial Instability and Stabilization Policy written by L. Randall Wray and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Money, Financial Instability and Stabilization Policy consists of original articles by leading Post Keynesians, Kaleckians and other heterodox economists from the developed and developing world. Post Keynesian literature has long been associated with the study of money, financial markets and financial instability. Indeed, this is perhaps the area to which Post Keynesians have made the greatest contributions. The authors to this volume present an overview of the latest research on monetary theory and policy, financial markets, and financial instability coming out of the Post Keynesian school of thought. They provide an indication of the wide-ranging interests and of the truly international scope of Post Keynesian research. The first half of the volume is theoretical, while the second half includes papers that are either empirical or more focused on specific concerns. This book will find an appreciative audience in economists generally as well as Post Keynesian, other heterodox economists and macroeconomists specifically.