Download or read book Between Power and Irrelevance written by George E. Mitchell and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Geopolitical shifts, increasing demands for accountability, and growing competition have been driving the need for change within the TNGO sector. Additionally, TNGOs have been embracing more transformative strategies aimed at the root causes, not just the symptoms, of societal problems. As the world has changed and TNGOs' ambitions have expanded, the roles of TNGOs have begun to shift and their work has become more complex. To remain effective, legitimate, and relevant in the future necessitates organizational changes and investments in new capabilities. However, many organizations have been slow to adapt. As a result, TNGOs' rhetoric of sustainable impact and transformative change has far outpaced the reality of their limited abilities to deliver on their promises. This book frankly explores why this gap between rhetoric and reality exists and what TNGOs can do individually and collectively to close it. In short, TNGOs need to change the fundamental conditions under which they themselves operate by bringing their own 'forms and norms' into better alignment with their contemporary ambitions and strategies"--

Download or read book Between Power and Irrelevance written by George E. Mitchell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geopolitical shifts, increasing demands for accountability, and growing competition have been driving the need for change within transnational nongovernmental organizations (TNGOs). As the world has changed and TNGOs' ambitions have expanded, the roles of TNGOs have shifted and their work has become more complex. To remain effective, legitimate, and relevant in the future necessitates organizational changes, but many TNGOs have been slow to adapt. As a result, the sector's rhetoric of sustainable impact and social transformation has far outpaced the reality of TNGOs' more limited abilities to deliver on their promises. Between Power and Irrelevance openly explores why this gap between rhetoric and reality exists and what TNGOs can do individually and collectively to close it. George E. Mitchell, Hans Peter Schmitz, and Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken argue that TNGOs need to change the fundamental conditions under which they operate by bringing their own "forms and norms" into better alignment with their ambitions and strategies. This book offers accessible, future-oriented analyses and lessons-learned to assist practitioners and other stakeholders in formulating and implementing organizational changes. Drawing upon a variety of perspectives, including hundreds of interviews with TNGO leaders, firsthand involvement in major organizational change processes in leading TNGOs, and numerous workshops, training institutes, consultancies, and research projects, the book examines how to adapt TNGOs for the future.

Download or read book Between Power and Irrelevance written by George E. Mitchell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geopolitical shifts, increasing demands for accountability, and growing competition have been driving the need for change within transnational nongovernmental organizations (TNGOs). As the world has changed and TNGOs' ambitions have expanded, the roles of TNGOs have shifted and their work has become more complex. To remain effective, legitimate, and relevant in the future necessitates organizational changes, but many TNGOs have been slow to adapt. As a result, the sector's rhetoric of sustainable impact and social transformation has far outpaced the reality of TNGOs' more limited abilities to deliver on their promises. Between Power and Irrelevance openly explores why this gap between rhetoric and reality exists and what TNGOs can do individually and collectively to close it. George E. Mitchell, Hans Peter Schmitz, and Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken argue that TNGOs need to change the fundamental conditions under which they operate by bringing their own "forms and norms" into better alignment with their ambitions and strategies. This book offers accessible, future-oriented analyses and lessons-learned to assist practitioners and other stakeholders in formulating and implementing organizational changes. Drawing upon a variety of perspectives, including hundreds of interviews with TNGO leaders, firsthand involvement in major organizational change processes in leading TNGOs, and numerous workshops, training institutes, consultancies, and research projects, the book examines how to adapt TNGOs for the future.

Download or read book The American Vice Presidency written by Jules Witcover and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An all-inclusive examination of the vice presidency over the course of American history. Witcover chronicles each of the forty-seven vice presidents during their tenures, and explores how the roles and responsibilities were first subject to the whims of the presidents under whom they served, but came to be expanded to a de facto assistant presidency.

Download or read book Apropos of Something written by Elisa Tamarkin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-07-27 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the idea of “relevance” since the nineteenth century in art, criticism, philosophy, logic, and social thought. Before 1800 nothing was irrelevant. So argues Elisa Tamarkin’s sweeping meditation on a key shift in consciousness: the arrival of relevance as the means to grasp how something that was once disregarded, unvalued, or lost to us becomes interesting and important. When so much makes claims to our attention every day, how do we decide what is most valuable right now? Relevance, Tamarkin shows, was an Anglo-American concept, derived from a word meaning “to raise or to lift up again,” and also “to give relief.” It engaged major intellectual figures, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and pragmatists and philosophers—William James, Alain Locke, John Dewey, and Alfred North Whitehead—as well as a range of critics, phenomenologists, linguists, and sociologists. Relevance is a struggle for recognition, especially in the worlds of literature, art, and criticism. Poems and paintings in the nineteenth century could now be seen as pragmatic works that make relevance and make interest—that reveal versions of events that feel apropos of our lives the moment we turn to them. Vividly illustrated with paintings by Winslow Homer, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and others, Apropos of Something is a searching philosophical and poetic study of relevance—a concept calling for shifts in both attention and perceptions of importance with enormous social stakes. It remains an invitation for the humanities and for all of us who feel tasked every day with finding the point.

Download or read book Cult of the Irrelevant written by Michael Desch and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How professionalization and scholarly “rigor” made social scientists increasingly irrelevant to US national security policy To mobilize America’s intellectual resources to meet the security challenges of the post–9/11 world, US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates observed that “we must again embrace eggheads and ideas.” But the gap between national security policymakers and international relations scholars has become a chasm. In Cult of the Irrelevant, Michael Desch traces the history of the relationship between the Beltway and the Ivory Tower from World War I to the present day. Recounting key Golden Age academic strategists such as Thomas Schelling and Walt Rostow, Desch’s narrative shows that social science research became most oriented toward practical problem-solving during times of war and that scholars returned to less relevant work during peacetime. Social science disciplines like political science rewarded work that was methodologically sophisticated over scholarship that engaged with the messy realities of national security policy, and academic culture increasingly turned away from the job of solving real-world problems. In the name of scientific objectivity, academics today frequently engage only in basic research that they hope will somehow trickle down to policymakers. Drawing on the lessons of this history as well as a unique survey of current and former national security policymakers, Desch offers concrete recommendations for scholars who want to shape government work. The result is a rich intellectual history and an essential wake-up call to a field that has lost its way.

Download or read book Power Shift written by Richard Falk and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book depicts the challenges associated with the emergence of a new global order in which patterns of conflict and the role of traditional military power are in the process of radical flux. Our ideas about global order have yet to catch up with these new behavioral trends, including the rise of non-state transnational political actors in the context of neoliberal globalization. In this historical setting the modern territorial sovereign state is confronted by multiple challenges ranging from climate change to mass migration to transnational political extremism. The existing global order seems currently overwhelmed by these challenges, resulting in widespread stress and chaos that is transforming global security in ways that endanger democratic governance. The future will be determined by whether the peoples of the world make their weight felt in support of sustainable global justice and overcome the impact of oppressive and exploitative patterns of corporate and state behavior. It is this problematic set of circumstances that Power Shift addresses.

Download or read book Hidden in Plain Sight written by Eviatar Zerubavel and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While examining its neuro-cognitive hardware, psychology usually ignores the socio-cognitive software underlying human attention. Yet although it is nature that equips us with our sense organs, it is nevertheless society that shapes the way we actually use them. The book explores the social underpinnings of attention, the way in which we focus our attention (and thereby notice and ignore things) not just as individuals and as humans but also as social beings, members of particular communities with specific traditions and conventions of attending to certain parts of reality while ignoring others.

Download or read book The Irrelevant You written by Ashok K. Sharma and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both nature and the human life follow a cyclic pattern where nothing seems to last forever. The pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, birth and death, honor and dishonor, prosperity and poverty, spring and fall, all follow a cyclic pattern. If you have one today, you shall have the other tomorrow. That is the reality of life. No one can escape it. The Irrelevant You is a guide on how to deal with difficult situations in life, how to avoid divorce; how to handle isolation at home and in the office, how to live with less and excesses, and how to face life and death with dignity and lead a happy life even under painful conditions. Always remember, there is no one like you in the entire universe, and you can remain relevant, all through your life, if you follow some simple rules of life. The most important: Accept imperfections as the natural traits of human life and conduct yourself in a selfless manner. The book explores the various faculties of our minds and how one can harness the abundant energy available within us and solve even the most complex problems of life.

Download or read book Faith in the Halls of Power written by D. Michael Lindsay and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-29 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evangelicals, once at the periphery of American life, now wield power in the White House and on Wall Street, at Harvard and in Hollywood. How have they reached the pinnacles of power in such a short time? And what does this mean for evangelicals--and for America? Drawing on personal interviews with an astonishing array of prominent Americans--including two former Presidents, dozens of political and government leaders, more than 100 top business executives, plus Hollywood moguls, intellectuals, athletes, and other powerful figures--D. Michael Lindsay shows first-hand how they are bringing their vision of moral leadership into the public square. This riveting volume tells us who the real evangelical power brokers are, how they rose to prominence, and what they're doing with their clout. Lindsay reveals that evangelicals are now at home in the executive suite and on the studio lot, and from those lofty perches they have used their influence, money, and ideas to build up the evangelical movement and introduce it to wider American society. They are leaders of powerful institutions and their goals are ambitious--to bring Christian principles to bear on virtually every aspect of American life. Along the way, the book is packed with fascinating stories and striking insights. Lindsay shows how evangelicals became a force in American foreign policy, how Fortune 500 companies are becoming faith-friendly, and how the new generation of the faithful is led by "cosmopolitan evangelicals." These are well-educated men and women who read both The New York Times and Christianity Today, and who are wary of the evangelical masses' penchant for polarizing rhetoric, apocalyptic pot-boilers, and bad Christian rock. Perhaps most startling is the importance of personal relationships between leaders--a quiet conversation after Bible study can have more impact than thousands of people marching in the streets. Faith in the Halls of Power takes us inside the rarified world of the evangelical elite--beyond the hysterical panic and chest-thumping pride--to give us the real story behind the evangelical ascendancy in America. "This important work should be required reading for anyone who wants to opine publicly on what American evangelicals are really up to." --Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "For people wanting an understanding of how evangelicals have acquired so much power, money, and influence in the past 30 years, this is the ultimate insider's book." --Sojourners Magazine "Anybody who wants to understand the nexus between God and power in modern America should start here." --The Economist "Fascinating." --John Schmalzbauer, Wall Street Journal

Download or read book Who Owns the Future written by Jaron Lanier and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evaluates the negative impact of digital network technologies on the economy and particularly the middle class, citing challenges to employment and personal wealth while exploring the potential of a new information economy.

Download or read book Can NGOs Make a Difference written by Anthony J. Bebbington and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can non-governmental organisations contribute to more socially just, alternative forms of development? Or are they destined to work at the margins of dominant development models determined by others? Addressing this question, this book brings together leading international voices from academia, NGOs and the social movements. It provides a comprehensive update to the NGO literature and a range of critical new directions to thinking and acting around the challenge of development alternatives. The book's originality comes from the wide-range of new case-study material it presents, the conceptual approaches it offers for thinking about development alternatives, and the practical suggestions for NGOs. At the heart of this book is the argument that NGOs can and must re-engage with the project of seeking alternative development futures for the world's poorest and more marginal. This will require clearer analysis of the contemporary problems of uneven development, and a clear understanding of the types of alliances NGOs need to construct with other actors in civil society if they are to mount a credible challenge to disempowering processes of economic, social and political development.

Download or read book The Power of Law in a Transnational World written by Franz von Benda-Beckmann and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How is law mobilized and who has the power and authority to construct its meaning? This important volume examines this question as well as how law is constituted and reconfigured through social processes that frame both its continuity and transformation over time. The volume highlights how power is deployed under conditions of legal pluralism, exploring its effects on livelihoods and on social institutions, including the state. Such an approach not only demonstrates how the state, through its various development programs and organizational structures, attempts to control territory and people, but also relates the mechanisms of state control to other legal modes of control and regulation at both local and supranational levels.

Download or read book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century written by Yuval Noah Harari and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today’s most pressing issues. “Fascinating . . . a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the twenty-first century.”—Bill Gates, The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES AND PAMELA PAUL, KQED How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive. In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis? Harari’s unique ability to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. Here he invites us to consider values, meaning, and personal engagement in a world full of noise and uncertainty. When we are deluged with irrelevant information, clarity is power. Presenting complex contemporary challenges clearly and accessibly, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is essential reading. “If there were such a thing as a required instruction manual for politicians and thought leaders, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century would deserve serious consideration. In this collection of provocative essays, Harari . . . tackles a daunting array of issues, endeavoring to answer a persistent question: ‘What is happening in the world today, and what is the deep meaning of these events?’”—BookPage (top pick)

Download or read book Healing a Broken World written by Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2002-08-08 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moe-Lobeda shows how the advent of globalization places a new horizon on the spiritual quest for religious experience. "Healing a Broken World" places spirituality and contemplative experience in relation to today's most-pressing problems.

Download or read book The Three Signs of a Miserable Job written by Patrick M. Lencioni and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-06-03 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bestselling author and business guru tells how to improve your job satisfaction and performance. In his sixth fable, bestselling author Patrick Lencioni takes on a topic that almost everyone can relate to: the causes of a miserable job. Millions of workers, even those who have carefully chosen careers based on true passions and interests, dread going to work, suffering each day as they trudge to jobs that make them cynical, weary, and frustrated. It is a simple fact of business life that any job, from investment banker to dishwasher, can become miserable. Through the story of a CEO turned pizzeria manager, Lencioni reveals the three elements that make work miserable -- irrelevance, immeasurability, and anonymity -- and gives managers and their employees the keys to make any job more fulfilling. As with all of Lencioni?s books, this one is filled with actionable advice you can put into effect immediately. In addition to the fable, the book includes a detailed model examining the three signs of job misery and how they can be remedied. It covers the benefits of managing for job fulfillment within organizations -- increased productivity, greater retention, and competitive advantage -- and offers examples of how managers can use the applications in the book to deal with specific jobs and situations. Patrick Lencioni (San Francisco, CA) is President of The Table Group, a management consulting firm specializing in executive team development and organizational health. As a consultant and keynote speaker, he has worked with thousands of senior executives and executive teams in organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to high-tech startups to universities and nonprofits. His clients include AT&T, Bechtel, Boeing, Cisco, Sam?s Club, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Allstate, Visa, FedEx, New York Life, Sprint, Novell, Sybase, The Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Lencioni is the author of six bestselling books, including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. He previously worked for Oracle, Sybase, and the management consulting firm Bain & Company.

Download or read book Transnational Organized Crime written by Emilio Viano and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent changes in the global economy and in international political alignments have greatly benefited the criminal underworld. There is no question that modern organized crime, adroitly exploiting trends and changes in the global economy is acquiring transnational capabilities and conducting transnational operations. What has been learned about terrorism since the September 11, 2001 events confirms the ability of international criminal networks to operate across borders with relative ease. The enormous wealth generated by organized international crime has also encouraged corruption, money-laundering, and the development of all types of violence, from intimidation to terrorism. This volume examines the unfolding of transnational organized crime in different parts of the world and analyzes the major elements that will contribute to an understanding of this situation which will become more acute as the events of September 11, 2001 and subsequent ones have amply demonstrated. The problem of organized crime and terrorism must be confronted not only in social and economic contexts, but also from local, regional, cultural, religious, and international points of view. Only then can we begin to evaluate their impact on society. It is within this framework that the international authors of the different chapters consider the implications of and the possible answers to the following pressing questions: Does international organized crime constitute a threat to the national security of democratic countries? On the international scene, is this the phenomenon that has emerged to replace communism as enemy number one in the Western world and actually worldwide? With the globalization of the economy, has transnational criminal activity now become one of the new methods of accumulating wealth? Is this wealth then used to fund terrorist activities worldwide? Are certain militant factions now using criminal means to destabilize already underprivileged countries and undermine democratic principles in general, while ostensibly claiming to defend certain political or religious-based ideologies? Is the phenomenon of international crime spreading because it has its roots in specific forms of social protest, or because it offers a means of survival for those on the fringes of society, or because different mafias are increasingly penetrating the highest levels of political and economic power? Does the obvious inefficiency of the methods, policies, and strategies that are being used in the international fight against organized crime stem from a fundamental misunderstanding and incorrect appraisal of the very complexity of such situation? This volume will contribute to the growing literature on transnational organized crime and terrorism and serve as a valued source of information and analysis for policy formulation at the international level.