Download or read book Failed States written by Noam Chomsky and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2007-04-03 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's foremost critic of U.S. foreign policy exposes the hollow promises of democracy in American actions abroad—and at home The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene against "failed states" around the globe. In this much anticipated sequel to his international bestseller Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky turns the tables, charging the United States with being a "failed state," and thus a danger to its own people and the world. "Failed states" Chomsky writes, are those "that do not protect their citizens from violence and perhaps even destruction, that regard themselves as beyond the reach of domestic or international law, and that suffer from a ‘democratic deficit,' having democratic forms but with limited substance." Exploring recent U.S. foreign and domestic policies, Chomsky assesses Washington's escalation of the nuclear risk; the dangerous consequences of the occupation of Iraq; and America's self-exemption from international law. He also examines an American electoral system that frustrates genuine political alternatives, thus impeding any meaningful democracy. Forceful, lucid, and meticulously documented, Failed States offers a comprehensive analysis of a global superpower that has long claimed the right to reshape other nations while its own democratic institutions are in severe crisis, and its policies and practices have recklessly placed the world on the brink of disaster. Systematically dismantling America's claim to being the world's arbiter of democracy, Failed States is Chomsky's most focused—and urgent—critique to date.

Download or read book Strong NGOs and Weak States written by Milli Lake and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers evidence that opportunity structures created by state weakness can allow NGOs to exert unparalleled influence over local human rights law and practice.

Download or read book Effective Governance Under Anarchy written by Tanja A. Börzel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-08 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic and consolidated states are taken as the model for effective rule-making and service provision. In contrast, this book argues that good governance is possible even without a functioning state.

Download or read book Why Nations Fail written by Daron Acemoglu and published by Currency. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

Download or read book Fragile States written by Lothar Brock and published by Polity. This book was released on 2012-01-10 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "... Explores the connections between fragile statehood and violent conflict, and analyses the limitations of outside intervention from international society."--P. 4 of cover.

Download or read book Failed states written by and published by . This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Crippling Leviathan written by Melissa M. Lee Desfor and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policymakers worry that "ungoverned spaces" pose dangers to security and development. Why do such spaces exist beyond the authority of the state? Earlier scholarship—which addressed this question with a list of domestic failures—overlooked the crucial role that international politics play. In this shrewd book, Melissa M. Lee argues that foreign subversion undermines state authority and promotes ungoverned space. Enemy governments empower insurgents to destabilize the state and create ungoverned territory. This kind of foreign subversion is a powerful instrument of modern statecraft. But though subversion is less visible and less costly than conventional force, it has insidious effects on governance in the target state. To demonstrate the harmful consequences of foreign subversion for state authority, Crippling Leviathan marshals a wealth of evidence and presents in-depth studies of Russia's relations with the post-Soviet states, Malaysian subversion of the Philippines in the 1970s, and Thai subversion of Vietnamese-occupied Cambodia in the 1980s. The evidence presented by Lee is persuasive: foreign subversion weakens the state. She challenges the conventional wisdom on statebuilding, which has long held that conflict promotes the development of strong, territorially consolidated states. Lee argues instead that conflictual international politics prevents state development and degrades state authority. In addition, Crippling Leviathan illuminates the use of subversion as an underappreciated and important feature of modern statecraft. Rather than resort to war, states resort to subversion. Policymakers interested in ameliorating the consequences of ungoverned space must recognize the international roots that sustain weak statehood.

Download or read book Abuse of Power written by Steven Greenhut and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of eminent domain looks at the concept of "public use," the injustice and unfairness inherent in the definition when it is based on tax revenue, and the people who are fighting back to preserve their property rights.

Download or read book Failed States written by Noam Chomsky and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2007-03-29 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States asserts the right to use military force against ‘failed states’ around the globe. But as Noam Chomsky argues in this devastating analysis, America shares features with many of the regimes it insists are failing and constitute a danger to their neighbours. Offering a comprehensive and radical examination of America past and present, Chomsky shows how this lone superpower – which topples foreign governments, invades states that threaten its interests and imposes sanctions on regimes it opposes – has stretched its own democratic institutions to breaking point. And how an America in crisis places the world ever closer to the brink of nuclear and environmental disaster.

Download or read book When States Fail written by Robert I. Rotberg and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-28 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1990, more than 10 million people have been killed in the civil wars of failed states, and hundreds of millions more have been deprived of fundamental rights. The threat of terrorism has only heightened the problem posed by failed states. When States Fail is the first book to examine how and why states decay and what, if anything, can be done to prevent them from collapsing. It defines and categorizes strong, weak, failing, and collapsed nation-states according to political, social, and economic criteria. And it offers a comprehensive recipe for their reconstruction. The book comprises fourteen essays by leading scholars and practitioners who help structure this disparate field of research, provide useful empirical descriptions, and offer policy recommendations. Robert Rotberg's substantial opening chapter sets out a theory and taxonomy of state failure. It is followed by two sets of chapters, the first on the nature and correlates of failure, the second on methods of preventing state failure and reconstructing those states that do fail. Economic jump-starting, legal refurbishing, elections, the demobilizing of ex-combatants, and civil society are among the many topics discussed. All of the essays are previously unpublished. In addition to Rotberg, the contributors include David Carment, Christopher Clapham, Nat J. Colletta, Jeffrey Herbst, Nelson Kasfir, Michael T. Klare, Markus Kostner, Terrence Lyons, Jens Meierhenrich, Daniel N. Posner, Susan Rose-Ackerman, Donald R. Snodgrass, Nicolas van de Walle, Jennifer A. Widner, and Ingo Wiederhofer.

Download or read book New Democracy written by William J. Novak and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The activist state of the New Deal started forming decades before the FDR administration, demonstrating the deep roots of energetic government in America. In the period between the Civil War and the New Deal, American governance was transformed, with momentous implications for social and economic life. A series of legal reforms gradually brought an end to nineteenth-century traditions of local self-government and associative citizenship, replacing them with positive statecraft: governmental activism intended to change how Americans lived and worked through legislation, regulation, and public administration. The last time American public life had been so thoroughly altered was in the late eighteenth century, at the founding and in the years immediately following. William J. Novak shows how Americans translated new conceptions of citizenship, social welfare, and economic democracy into demands for law and policy that delivered public services and vindicated peopleÕs rights. Over the course of decades, Americans progressively discarded earlier understandings of the reach and responsibilities of government and embraced the idea that legislators and administrators in Washington could tackle economic regulation and social-welfare problems. As citizens witnessed the successes of an energetic, interventionist state, they demanded more of the same, calling on politicians and civil servants to address unfair competition and labor exploitation, form public utilities, and reform police power. Arguing against the myth that America was a weak state until the New Deal, New Democracy traces a steadily aggrandizing authority well before the Roosevelt years. The United States was flexing power domestically and intervening on behalf of redistributive goals for far longer than is commonly recognized, putting the lie to libertarian claims that the New Deal was an aberration in American history.

Download or read book Reform and Rebellion in Weak States written by Evgeny Finkel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, reform has provoked rebellion - not just by the losers from reform, but also among its intended beneficiaries. Finkel and Gehlbach emphasize that, especially in weak states, reform often must be implemented by local actors with a stake in the status quo. In this setting, the promise of reform represents an implicit contract against which subsequent implementation is measured: when implementation falls short of this promise, citizens are aggrieved and more likely to rebel. Finkel and Gehlbach explore this argument in the context of Russia's emancipation of the serfs in 1861 - a fundamental reform of Russian state and society that paradoxically encouraged unrest among the peasants who were its prime beneficiaries. They further examine the empirical reach of their theory through narrative analyses of the Tanzimat reforms of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, land reform in ancient Rome, the abolition of feudalism during the French Revolution, and land reform in contemporary Latin America.

Download or read book The State written by Franz Oppenheimer and published by The Floating Press. This book was released on 2017-03-01 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Influential German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer invigorated the intellectual discourse of the early twentieth century with the controversial ideas he sets forth in his masterwork, The State. In it, Oppenheimer rejects the centuries-old notion of the social contract espoused by political philosophers such as John Locke. Instead, he posits that the state is a tool of oppression via which the ruling classes exert their power over less fortunate groups.

Download or read book The Exploitation of a Weak State written by Nicholas J. Hedberg and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yemen is a weak state, as the government does not have the capability to assert effective control over the entirety of its territory. The Yemeni government faces three major challenges today including: the Houthi Rebellion, secessionists, and growing political unrest due to its failing economy and inability to provide basic social services to its people. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has recently made a resurgence in Yemen since its near destruction in 2003. Yemen's weak state characteristics, along with the failure of jihad in Saudi Arabia, and the lack of Yemeni political will to combat the threat of AQAP and their global jihadist agenda have made the state an ideal location for the regional organization. AQAP has been able to exploit Yemen's weaknesses and build strong ties with the Yemeni tribes in the areas of Yemen where the government has little control. The study argues that due to these circumstances, Yemen has the strong possibility of becoming a safe haven for transnational terrorism akin to al-Qaeda's base in Pakistan today. To prevent al-Qaeda from using Yemen as their next base for transnational terrorism, the international community must help Yemen address the factors that have allowed AQAP to exploit the country.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Governance written by David Levi-Faur and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 828 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Oxford Handbook will be the definitive study of governance for years to come. 'Governance' has become one of the most popular terms in contemporary political science; this Handbook explores the full range of meaning and application of the concept and its use in a number of research fields.

Download or read book Inclusive States written by Anis A. Dani and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2008-04-29 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heterogeneity of social structures and cultural identities in many developing countries, together with traditional hierarchies, rivalries, and deep-seated biases, has perpetuated inequities. Inclusive States: Social Policy and Structural Inequalities examines the role of the state and society in addressing structural inequalities and identifies a set of policy recommendations to redress them. This book defines structural inequality as a condition arising from unequal status attributed to a category of people in relation to others, a relationship perpetuated and reinforced by unequal relations in roles, functions, decision rights, and opportunities. Inclusive states are those that direct policies to address the needs of all, that respect the rights of citizens to exercise voice and influence on which services are provided and how they are delivered, and that have an interest in strengthening the social contract with their citizens. A central focus of policy remains a concern for equity, both to level the playing field to encourage social mobility and to ensure equity in the distributional effects of policy reforms and development interventions. This book highlights two key challenges for social policy. First, policy design needs to take into account the weaknesses of basic state functions in many developing countries, since these have important ramifications for social policy outcomes. Second, in most developing countries social structures marked by historically rooted structural inequalities pose significant challenges to the provision of services and require a long-term commitment to address underlying questions and problems. This book describes some of the challenges found in different contexts and some of the ways in which these challenges can be and are being addressed. This book is part of a new series, New Frontiers in Social Policy, which examines issues and approaches to extend the boundaries of social policy beyond conventional social services toward policies and institutions that improve equality of opportunity and social justice in developing countries. Other forthcoming titles in the series include Assets, Livelihoods, and Social Policy, and Institutional Pathways to Equity: Addressing Inequality Traps.

Download or read book Making States Work written by United Nations University and published by United Nations University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The point of departure for this collection of articles is the idea that there is a link between international peace and strong states respectful of human rights and robust civil societies. Presented by Chesterman (New York U. School of Law, US), Ignatieff (Harvard U.'s John F. Kennedy School of Government, US), and Thakur (United Nations Universi