Download or read book The Hell of Good Intentions written by Stephen M. Walt and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative analysis of recent American foreign policy and why it has been plagued by disasters like the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of a long hoped-for era of peace and prosperity, relations with Russia and China have soured, the European Union is wobbling, nationalism and populism are on the rise, and the United States is stuck in costly and pointless wars that have squandered trillions of dollars and undermined its influence around the world. The root of this dismal record, Walt argues, is the American foreign policy establishment’s stubborn commitment to a strategy of “liberal hegemony.” Since the end of the Cold War, Republicans and Democrats alike have tried to use US power to spread democracy, open markets, and other liberal values into every nook and cranny of the planet. This strategy was doomed to fail, but its proponents in the foreign policy elite were never held accountable and kept repeating the same mistakes. Donald Trump’s erratic and impulsive style of governing, combined with a deeply flawed understanding of world politics, made a bad situation worse. The best alternative, Walt argues, is a return to the realist strategy of “offshore balancing,” which eschews regime change, nation-building, and other forms of global social engineering. The American people would surely welcome a more restrained foreign policy, one that allowed greater attention to problems here at home. Clear-eyed, candid, and elegantly written, Stephen M. Walt’s The Hell of Good Intentions offers both a compelling diagnosis of America’s recent foreign policy follies and a proven formula for renewed success. “Thought-provoking . . . This excellent analysis is cogent, accessible, and well-argued.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Download or read book The Politics of Humanitarian Technology written by Katja Lindskov Jacobsen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-05 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a detailed exploration of three examples of humanitarian uses of new technology, employing key theoretical insights from Foucault. We are currently seeing a humanitarian turn to new digital technologies, such as biometrics, remote sensing, and surveillance drones. However, such humanitarian uses of new technology have not always produced beneficial results for those at the receiving end and have sometimes exposed the subjects of assistance to additional risks and insecurities. Engaging with key insights from the work of Foucault combined with selected concepts from the Science and Technology Studies literature, this book produces an analytical framework that opens up the analysis to details of power and control at the level of materiality that are often ignored in liberal histories of war and modernity. Whereas Foucault details the design of prisons, factories, schools, etc., this book is original in its use of his work, in that it uses these key insights about the details of power embedded in material design, but shifts the attention to the technologies and attending forms of power that have been experimented with in the three humanitarian endeavours presented in the book. In doing so, the book provides new information about aspects of liberal humanitarianism that contemporary critical analyses have largely neglected. This book will be of interest to students of humanitarian studies, peace and conflict studies, critical security studies, and IR in general.
Download or read book Intentions in Great Power Politics written by Sebastian Rosato and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why the future of great power politics is likely to resemble its dismal past Can great powers be confident that their peers have benign intentions? States that trust each other can live at peace; those that mistrust each other are doomed to compete for arms and allies and may even go to war. Sebastian Rosato explains that states routinely lack the kind of information they need to be convinced that their rivals mean them no harm. Even in cases that supposedly involved mutual trust—Germany and Russia in the Bismarck era; Britain and the United States during the great rapprochement; France and Germany, and Japan and the United States in the early interwar period; and the Soviet Union and United States at the end of the Cold War—the protagonists mistrusted each other and struggled for advantage. Rosato argues that the ramifications of his argument for U.S.–China relations are profound: the future of great power politics is likely to resemble its dismal past.
Download or read book Good Intentions Bad Outcomes written by Santiago Levy and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite various reform efforts, Mexico has experienced economic stability but little growth. Today more than half of all Mexican workers are employed informally, and one out of every four is poor. Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes argues that incoherent social programs significantly contribute to this state of affairs and it suggests reforms to improve the situation. Over the past decade, Mexico has channeled an increasing number of resources into subsidizing the creation of low-productivity, informal jobs. These social programs have hampered growth, fostered illegality, and provided erratic protection to workers, trapping many in poverty. Informality has boxed Mexico into a dilemma: provide benefits to informal workers at the expense of lower growth and reduced productivity or leave millions of workers without benefits. Former finance official Santiago Levy proposes how to convert the existing system of social security for formal workers into universal social entitlements. He advocates eliminating wage-based social security contributions and raising consumption taxes on higher-income households to simultaneously increase the rate of growth of GDP, reduce inequality, and improve benefits for workers. Go od Intentions, Bad Outcomes considers whether Mexico can build on the success of Progresa-Oportunidades, a targeted poverty alleviation program that originated in Mexico and has been replicated in over 25 countries as well as in New York City. It sets forth a plan to reform social and economic policy, an essential element of a more equitable and sustainable development strategy for Mexico.
Download or read book Beyond Good Intentions written by Doug Bandow and published by Crossway. This book was released on 1988 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique perspective on applying biblical principles to politics. Bandow observes that we must carefully evaluate the effect of policies as well as their intent. Part of the Turning Point series.
Download or read book The Tyranny of Good Intentions written by Paul Craig Roberts and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-03-25 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thousand years of legal protections against tyranny are being stolen right before our eyes. Under the guise of good intentions, personal liberties as old as the Magna Carta have become casualties in the wars being waged on pollution, drugs, white-collar crime, and all of the other real and imagined social ills. The result: innocent people caught up in a bureaucratic web that destroys lives and livelihoods; businesses shuttered because of victimless infractions; a justice system that values coerced pleas over the search for truth; bullying police agencies empowered to confiscate property without due process. "A devastating indictment of our current system of justice." — Milton Friedman In this provocative book, Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton show how the law, which once shielded us from the government, has now become a powerful weapon in the hands of overzealous prosecutors and bureaucrats. Lost is the foundation upon which our freedom rest—the intricate framework of Constitutional limits that protect our property, our liberty, and our lives. Roberts and Stratton convincingly argue that this abuse of government power doesn't have ideological boundaries. Indeed, conservatives and liberals alike use prosecutors, regulators, and courts to chase after their own favorite "devils," to seek punishment over justice and expediency over freedom. The authors present harrowing accounts of people both rich and poor, of CEOs and blue-collar workers who have fallen victim to the tyranny of good intentions, who have lost possessions, careers, loved ones, and sometimes even their lives. This book is a sobering wake-up call to reclaim that which is rightly ours—liberty protected by the rule of law.
Download or read book Good Intentions written by Shepard Forman and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2000 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes statistics.
Download or read book Despite the Best Intentions written by Amanda E. Lewis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers? Through five years' worth of interviews and data-gathering at Riverview, John Diamond and Amanda Lewis have created a rich and disturbing portrait of the achievement gap that persists more than fifty years after the formal dismantling of segregation. As students progress from elementary school to middle school to high school, their level of academic achievement increasingly tracks along racial lines, with white and Asian students maintaining higher GPAs and standardized testing scores, taking more advanced classes, and attaining better college admission results than their black and Latino counterparts. Most research to date has focused on the role of poverty, family stability, and other external influences in explaining poor performance at school, especially in urban contexts. Diamond and Lewis instead situate their research in a suburban school, and look at what factors within the school itself could be causing the disparity. Most crucially, they challenge many common explanations of the 'racial achievement gap,' exploring what race actually means in this situation, and why it matters. An in-depth study with far-reaching consequences, Despite the Best Intentions revolutionizes our understanding of both the knotty problem of academic disparities and the larger question of the color line in American society.
Download or read book Good Intentions written by Bob Zeidman and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Good intentions is about a future United States where the government controls all businesses and controls our lives. Winston Jones, is chosen by the mysterious Fairness for EveryBody Society to be the next president. The book is his reluctant adventure to discover what America is about and the government's role in people's lives. This book is a social satire that is funny and thought-provoking and particularly relevant to today's major political and social issues"--Page 4 of cover.
Download or read book Good Intentions written by Bruce Nussbaum and published by Penguin Mass Market. This book was released on 1991 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A blistering portrait of an ongoing international scandal--with a new afterword that provides a front-line report on the latest developments in the AIDS crisis. Nussbaum tells of vaulting ambition and greed, of vast sums of money filtered through government agencies and into the profit statements of the manufacturer of AZT, Burroughs Wellcome. 16 pages of photographs.
Download or read book Best Intentions written by Erika Raskin and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Best Intentions is that rare novel that grows more gripping and emotionally rich with every turn of the page.” —Carla Buckley Marti Trailor—social worker on hold, mother of three, wife of a successful obstetrician, daughter of a Congressman—is ready to go back to work. She’s thrilled when the perfect opportunity falls in her lap. The catch? The job is at her husband's hospital and he seems not to share her enthusiasm. Undeterred, she takes the position counseling vulnerable young women as they prepare to give birth. Marti quickly begins to feel like she is making a difference in the lives of her clients. Soon, though, she finds herself caught up in the dark side of the medical center—with its long hours, overworked doctors and entrenched practices. When she witnesses something she can't unsee, Marti, who has always done her best to keep a low-profile, finds herself thrust under a dangerous spotlight with all of Richmond, Virginia watching. In her captivating domestic suspense novel Best Intentions, Erika Raskin weaves together high stakes hospital politics, the pressures of family life, and the consequences of trying to do the right thing, particularly in a city with a history as fraught as Richmond's.
Download or read book Good Intentions written by Steven P. Millies and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2018-05-21 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2016 presidential election was unlike any other in American history. Polls tell us that millions of American Catholics who care about moral issues and who descended from immigrants supported Donald Trump. Why didn't Trump's rhetoric on immigration and his promises to close the borders trouble more American Catholics? Steven P. Millies uncovers the history of how and why the so-called "Catholic Vote" went the way it did in 2016 and offers some practical reflections on ways to put Catholic faith to better use in American politics.
Download or read book Making Politics Work for Development written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2016-07-14 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.
Download or read book The Wake Up written by Michelle MiJung Kim and published by Hachette Go. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This informative guide helps allies who want to go beyond rigid Diversity and Inclusion best practices, with real tools to go from good intentions to making meaningful change in any situation or venue. 2022 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARDS GOLD WINNER 2022 NATIONAL ANTIRACIST BOOK FESTIVAL SELECTION 2021 PORCHLIGHT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT & HUMAN BEHAVIOR BOOK OF THE YEAR As we become more aware of various social injustices in the world, many of us want to be part of the movement toward positive change. But sometimes our best intentions cause unintended harm, and we fumble. We might feel afraid to say the wrong thing and feel guilt for not doing or knowing enough. Sometimes we might engage in performative allyship rather than thoughtful solidarity, leaving those already marginalized further burdened and exhausted. The feelings of fear, insecurity, inadequacy are all too common among a wide spectrum of changemakers, and they put many at a crossroads between feeling stuck and giving up, or staying grounded to keep going. So how can we go beyond performative allyship to creating real change in ourselves and in the world, together? In The Wake Up, Michelle MiJung Kim shares foundational principles often missing in today’s mainstream conversations around “diversity and inclusion,” inviting readers to deep dive into the challenging and nuanced work of pursuing equity and justice, while exploring various complexities, contradictions, and conflicts inherent in our imperfect world. With a mix of in-the-trenches narrative and accessible unpacking of hot button issues—from inclusive language to representation to "cancel culture"—Michelle offers sustainable frameworks that guide us how to think, approach, and be in the journey as thoughtfully and powerfully as possible. The Wake Up is divided into four key parts: Grounding: begin by moving beyond good intentions to interrogating our deeper “why” for committing to social justice and uncovering our "hidden stories." Orienting: establish a shared understanding around our historical and current context and issues we are trying to solve, starting with dismantling white supremacy. Showing Up: learn critical principles to approach any situation with clarity and build our capacity to work through complexity, nuance, conflict, and imperfections. Moving Together: remember the core of this work is about human lives, and commit to prioritizing humanity, healing, and community. The Wake Up is an urgent call for us to move together while seeing each other’s full and expansive humanity that is at the core of our movement toward justice, healing, and freedom.
Download or read book The Upside of Inequality written by Edward Conard and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The scourge of America’s economy isn't the success of the 1 percent—quite the opposite. The real problem is the government’s well-meaning but misguided attempt to reduce the payoffs for success. Four years ago, Edward Conard wrote a controversial bestseller, Unintended Consequences, which set the record straight on the financial crisis of 2008 and explained why U.S. growth was accelerating relative to other high-wage economies. He warned that loose monetary policy would produce neither growth nor inflation, that expansionary fiscal policy would have no lasting benefit on growth in the aftermath of the crisis, and that ill-advised attempts to rein in banking based on misplaced blame would slow an already weak recovery. Unfortunately, he was right. Now he’s back with another provocative argument: that our current obsession with income inequality is misguided and will only slow growth further. Using fact-based logic, Conard tracks the implications of an economy now constrained by both its capacity for risk-taking and by a shortage of properly trained talent—rather than by labor or capital, as was the case historically. He uses this fresh perspective to challenge the conclusions of liberal economists like Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz and the myths of “crony capitalism” more broadly. Instead, he argues that the growing wealth of most successful Americans is not to blame for the stagnating incomes of the middle and working classes. If anything, the success of the 1 percent has put upward pressure on employment and wages. Conard argues that high payoffs for success motivate talent to get the training and take the risks that gradually loosen the constraints to growth. Well-meaning attempts to decrease inequality through redistribution dull these incentives, gradually hurting not just the 1 percent but everyone else as well. Conard outlines a plan for growing middle- and working-class wages in an economy with a near infinite supply of labor that is shifting from capital-intensive manufacturing to knowledge-intensive, innovation-driven fields. He urges us to stop blaming the success of the 1 percent for slow wage growth and embrace the upside of inequality: faster growth and greater prosperity for everyone.
Download or read book Good Intentions Are Not Good Enough written by Michelle Garcia Winner and published by . This book was released on 2016-07 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book geared to young adults and adults on why Social Thinking/social skills are important in the workplace, community, and in relationships.
Download or read book Good Intentions written by Nancy Maloney Grimm and published by Boynton/Cook. This book was released on 1999 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing centers cannot resolve the national confusion about literacy, but over time they can contribute to a better understanding and more democratic approaches to literacy education. But to do this, writing centers need to be more fully engaged with the paradox of literacy - the way that literacy both dominates and liberates, both demands submission and offers the promise of agency. Nancy Grimm believes that postmodern theory, which emphasizes the diversity of our society, offers the best opportunities for this engagement. Her book offers a fundamental reconsideration of writing center work - work, she maintains, that must be informed by an understanding of the cultural role of literacy education. Because so many educational practices are based on tacit assumptions about the "normal" way to do things, Grimm argues that both the teaching and tutoring of literacy must be informed by a radical reconsideration of academic fairness. Change will depend on the willingness of comfortably situated people to open themselves to authentic listening and the possibilities of having their world views transformed by writing center students. "Good intentions alone, particularly good intentions grounded in a missionary narrative, are not enough to overcome the potentially oppressive nature of literacy education." Grimm begins by positioning the debate about the function of the writing center in the larger cultural conflict created by postmodern conditions. She locates writing center work within the historical contradictions of literacy, then analyzes the way composition teaching regulates an academic identity. She goes on to show how postmodern theories of subjectivity offer ways to intervene in that regulation. After reconceptualizing the politics of writing center administration, Grimm ultimately argues for a conception of fairness that holds writing center workers responsible for not only granting students membership to the academic literacy club but also for changing the gates of that club when change is necessary. Good Intentions is essential reading for educators involved with writing centers in any capacity - whether they be directors, researchers, professional and undergraduate staff, or simply teachers of students who use writing centers.
