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Understand the Middle East: Teach Yourself (Teach Yourself)
by Stewart RossUnderstand the Middle East (since 1945)is an essential guide to one of the world's most turbulent regions. It examines the origins and development of the events which have dominated the headlines for the last six decades. Covering everything from religion and politics in the aftermath of the Second World War to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, war in Iraq and the terrorism of the present day it will change the way you think about the region.NOT GOT MUCH TIME?One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started.AUTHOR INSIGHTSLots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience.EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGEExtra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding.THINGS TO REMEMBERQuick refreshers to help you remember the key facts.
Corruption in the Public Construction Sector: A Holistic View
by Ming Shan Yun Le Albert P.C. Chan Yi HuThis book is committed to provide a holistic view of corruption in the public construction sector, a sector that has been perceived as the most corrupt in the world. Relying on the new findings achieved from a series of qualitative and quantitative studies, this book unveils the specific forms of corruption, the principal causes of corruption, and the prevailing anti-corruption strategies that are used by the current practice. Furthermore, this book provides two metrics that can assess the potential of corruption and the risk of collusion in given public construction projects, respectively. This book will enhance industry and research communities’ understandings of corruption in the public construction sector. It is also informative to policy-makers and can help them come up with some more effective strategies to eliminate corruption in the public construction sector.
Learning to Embed Sustainability in Teacher Education (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Jo-Anne Ferreira Neus (Snowy) Evans Julie M. Davis Robert (Bob) StevensonThis book offers an accessible guide to understanding the importance of a systems approach to embedding sustainability into teacher education practice, providing a practical resource for teacher education academics and others with an interest in organisational change. It draws principally on the findings of a 12-year research project in Australia, working directly with academics and their teacher education institutions to ensure that sustainability and education for sustainability are embedded in teacher education courses. Illustrating the need for change in teacher education in the context of education for sustainability, the book discusses the theory underpinning and practical application of a system-based change model. It also offers examples of how the model has been used in practice and shows education academics how to implement change within their own organizations and use the ideas and tools presented to advance sustainability in their discipline areas.
Changing Ethnicity: Contemporary Ethno-Politics in China
by Zhitian GuoThis book investigates the changes in ethnicity in contemporary China by examining the Yi in Liangshan. With a particular focus on cadres, a seemingly highly politicized group, this book tries to contribute to the discussion of ethnopolitics in China and the politicization of ethnicity. This study categorizes cadres into three generations and discovers that for the veteran echelon ethnicity is related to an emotional expression, for the second generation it is more about a political discourse and competitions, and for the third generation it takes the form of symbolic ethnicity that resonates in everyday life. Changing ethnicity of Yi is a miniature portrayal of the social development in China and demonstrates the interplay between ethnicity and ethnopolitics and how these interactions are expressed in people’s everyday life. The valuable context offered in this book for discussions about ethnicity in contemporary China will be of interest to China scholars, ethnologists, and political scientists.
Islamist Party Mobilization: Tunisia’s Ennahda and Algeria’s HMS Compared, 1989–2014
by Chuchu ZhangThis book aims to explore how Islamist parties mobilize debates, discourses, and environments in electoral authoritarian systems. Interrelating three theoretical schools, Electoral Authoritarianism Theory, Protest Voting Theory, and Political Process Theory, it adopts and expands on a demand-and-supply framework to approach the subject in a novel way, and adapts them to address North Africa, a region in which such theoretical scholarship has until now not been conducted. In-depth case studies focus on two Islamist parties in North Africa, Tunisia’s Ennahda and Algeria’s HMS, both of which adopted the Muslim Brotherhood model, had charismatic leaders, and were active in the political scene from 1989-2014, the period between their first electoral trial and their electoral participation after taking part in governance. The chapters proceed chronologically, providing a historical treatment of the evolution of Ennahda and the HMS since their inception and addressing their development in two and a half decades.
China’s Reform to Overleap the Middle-Income Trap
by Yining Li Zhiqiang ChengThis book addresses how China could avoid the middle-income trap. Professor Li Yining proposed the framework and wrote the first article. Under Li’s guidance, other articles were written by researchers at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. It is well known that China's reform has been highly successful, but there are still many unsolved institutional problems. The book’s authors suggest that the middle-income trap is composed of three traps. Firstly, there is the “development system trap”. Secondly, the “social crisis trap ” and finally, the “technology trap”. In order to avoid these traps, it is important for China to intensify its economic reform, to lessen the gap between the rich and poor, and to enhance innovations in technology as well as the capital market.This book uses both theoretical and case studies to discuss agricultural modernization, new urbanization, the urban-rural gap, income growth, community management, pastoral areas of medicine and the newly-industrializing economy, etc.
The Belt and Road Initiative: Key Concepts
by Huping ShangThis book introduces the “Belt and Road” in its entirety, including what it is, what it aims to do, what it can do and how. This book can serve as a helpful resource for the general public, it can improve their understanding about the “Belt and Road” and its relative economics, policy, culture and so on. Also, this book is good reading for academics, as well as students of public management, politics, finance and economics. The “Belt and Road” advances a whole complementary set of new ideas on international cooperation. Conforming to the principles of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit, it stipulates policy coordination, facilitates connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people bonds as the five major contents, and promotes practical cooperation in all fields. It also works to build an open and win-win regional community featuring mutual political trust, economic integration and cultural inclusiveness.
Recently Acceded Members of the World Trade Organization: Membership, the Doha Development Agenda, and Dispute Settlement
by Kenji TakamiyaThe book sheds light on trade policies of developing economies that joined the multilateral trading system after establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, once known as the recently acceded members (RAMs). Its detailed case studies on Georgia, the People’s Republic of China, Viet Nam and Ecuador examine their engagement in accession and Doha Round negotiations and, where relevant, dispute settlement at the WTO. Using the economic theories of trade agreements and negotiations as a guide for intellectual inquiries, this book assesses motivations accounting for the RAMs’ evolving behaviors in the multilateral trading system. The first two chapters present background and overview, followed by four chapters on country-specific case studies. The book is concluded with the last chapter that provides one possible explanation of why the Doha Round has been faced with deadlocks while accession and dispute settlement have been working effectively.
China’s Emergency Management: Theory, Practice and Policy (Research Series on the Chinese Dream and China’s Development Path)
by Xing Tong Haibo ZhangIn this timely book about the current state of research and practice of emergency management in China, the authors take as their basic premises that we now live in a risk society and that our collective ability to deal with disasters and their aftermath is more important than ever. Set within a multi-disciplinary framework that places risk, disaster and crisis, the three phases of emergency management, on an analytical continuum, and drawing on empirical data obtained through surveys, observations, and interviews, the study not only provides a thorough overview of recent progress in our theoretical understanding of the subject but also offers insights on how scientifically informed policies can improve the way emergency management is done in China.
Livability and Sustainability of Urbanism: An Interdisciplinary Study on History and Theory of Urban Settlement
by Bagoes WiryomartonoThis book is a fascinating, wide-reaching interdisciplinary examination of urbanism in the context of humanities and social sciences research, comprising cutting-edge theoretical and empirical investigations of urban livability and sustainability. Urban livability is explored as a phenomenon of happenings that gather people, things, and domains in the specific spatiotemporal context of the city; this context is the life-world of urbanism. Meanwhile, sustainability is conceived of as the capacity of urbanism that enables people to cultivate their sociocultural and economic existence and development without the depletion of their current resources in the future. In this study, phenomenology is uniquely incorporated as a way of seeing things according to their presence in space and time.
E-Governance in India: The Progress Status
by Sunil K. Muttoo Rajan Gupta Saibal K. PalThe book discusses the concepts of E-Governance from the understanding of a naïve user. While providing introduction to the concept, it shows the status of E-Governance in India through various measures, and its progress through different case studies. The historical development of E-Governance around the world and its rise in few developed and developing nations have also been discussed. The book also elaborates the establishment of E-Governance in India in detail and then compares the progress in Indian states through different measures and metrics. The structure of the E-Governance in India has been explained, including the explanation of the details related to National E-Governance Plan. The book is a combination of theoretical and practical concepts defined over various aspects of E-Governance in India. This book serves as the first stage reading material for any individual working in the Indian region on E-Governance.
Transnational Immigrants: Redefining Identity and Citizenship
by Uma SarmisthaThis book provides a detailed account of transnational practices undertaken by Indian ‘high-tech’ workers living in the United States. It describes the complexities and challenges of adapting to a new culture while clinging to tradition. Asian-Indians represent a significant part of the professional and ‘high-tech’ workforce in the United States, and the majority are temporary workers, working on contractual jobs (H1-B and L1 work visa category). Further, it is not unusual for Indian immigrant workers to marry and have children while working in the U.S. Gradually, they learn to negotiate the U.S. cultural terrain in both their place of work and at home in the U.S. As such there is the potential that they will become transnational, developing new identities and engaging in cultural and social practices from two different nations: India and the U.S. Against this background, the book describes the nature and extent of transnational practices adopted by high-tech Indian workers employed in the United States on temporary work visas.The study reveals that the temporary stay of these professionals and their families in the U.S. necessitates day-to-day balancing of two cultures in terms of food, clothing, recreation, and daily activities, creating a transnational lifestyle for these young professionals. Transnational activities at the workplace, which are forced by the work culture of the MNCs that employ them, can be considered as ‘transnationalism from above.’ Simultaneously, being bi-lingual at home, cooking and eating Indian and Western food, socializing with Indian and American friends outside work, and all the cultural activities they perform on a day-to-day basis, indicates ‘transnationalism from below’. The book is of interest to researchers and academics working on issues relating to culture, social change, migration and development.
Ethnography and Education Policy: A Critical Analysis of Normalcy and Difference in Schools (Education Policy & Social Inequality #3)
by Claudia MatusThis book addresses the relationship between the production of social problems in educational policy, the research practices required to inform policy, and the daily production of normalcies and differences in school contexts. It reports on the opportunities and consequences for policy, research, and practice when normalcy is stigmatized at the same level as difference. The book employs a critical analysis combining queer, feminist, and post-representational theories to understand the implications of dominant ways of understanding the division between normal and different subjectivities and how they reiterate structures of inequality in schools.
China’s Achilles’ Heel: The Belt and Road Initiative and Its Indian Discontents
by Srikanth ThaliyakkattilThis book analyses Chinese discourse on Indian attitudes towards the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), and argues that the Indian discourse is becoming one of the biggest hurdles to China creating its own narrative about China’s rise in Asia and beyond. In doing so, it spans across the themes of the power struggle between China and US, China and India, the Chinese perception of India, China-South Asia relations, the China-US- India strategic triangle and the success and failures of BRI. The first part of the book focuses on the Chinese thinking behind the launch of the BRI and addresses questions related to the purpose of this initiative and ways in which it will facilitate China’s rise as a superpower. Subsequently the book addresses how effective or ineffective India’s challenge is and how it is negatively affecting China’s BRI.
Climate Change and Future Rice Production in India: A Cross Country Study of Major Rice Growing States of India (India Studies in Business and Economics)
by K. Palanisami Krishna Reddy Kakumanu Udaya Sekhar Nagothu C. R. RanganathanThis book explains in depth the issues and challenges faced by rice farmers in India in relation to production and productivity, and the possible adaptation strategies to climate change. Based on five years of groundbreaking research on emerging trends in cultivation in major rice growing regions in India, it begins by describing production and yield trends across different rice growing regions. It then offers a comprehensive review of relevant literature and the quantification methodologies and approaches used to analyze the impact of climate change. The book also analyzes climate change impacts on rice productivity and production, applying field-tested quantification methods, such as the Just-Pope production function where time series and cross-section data are simultaneously used for all regions. The results are presented for five geographical regions of India – northern, eastern, western, central and southern – for better comparison and readability. The analyses cover scenarios for both mid-century (2021–2050) and end-century (2071–2100), and in the context of climate change, they also incorporate both medium and high carbon emission scenarios. Thus the future rice production and productivity trends are clearly projected for making necessary interventions. Lastly, the book outlines the essentials of an enabling environment policy and discusses the institutional and policy options necessary to ensure sustainable rice production in India. It also makes the case for introducing appropriate and affordable adaptation strategies to support farmers in different rice-growing regions. The cost–benefit analysis of strategies presented in this book provides an invaluable tool for officials at agriculture departments planning up-scaling of agricultural productivity. The projections are also useful for policy makers and planners developing future investment plans to support rice production in their country. Overall, this book is of interest to a wide audience, including professionals and business enterprises dealing with rice, as well as to academic researchers and students.
The Far-Right in Contemporary Australia
by Mario Peucker Debra SmithThis book is the first to elaborate on radical and extreme right movements in contemporary Australia. It brings together leading scholars to present cutting edge research on various facets and manifestations of Australia’s diverse far-right, which has gained unprecedented public presence and visibility since the mid-2010s. The thematic breadth of the chapters in this volume reflects the complexity of the far-right in Australia, ranging from the attitudes of far-right populist party voters and the role of far-right groups in anti-mosque protests, to online messaging and rhetoric of radical and extreme right-wing movements. The contributions are theoretically grounded and come from a range of disciplines, including media and cultural studies, sociology, politics, and urban studies, exploring issue of far-right activism on the micro and macro level, with both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Food Security in Small Island States
by John Connell Kristen LowittThis book provides a contemporary overview of the social-ecological and economic vulnerabilities that produce food and nutrition insecurity in various small island contexts, including both high islands and atolls, from the Pacific to the Caribbean. It examines the historical and contemporary circumstances that have accompanied the shift from subsistence production to the consumption of imported, processed foods and drinks, and the impact of this transition on nutrition and the rise of non-communicable diseases. It also assesses the challenges involved in reversing this trend, and how more effective social and economic policies, agricultural and fisheries strategies, and governance arrangements could promote more resilient and sustainable small island food systems. It offers both theoretical and practical perspectives, and brings together a broad range of policy areas, e.g. agriculture, food, commerce, health, planning and socio-economic policy.Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for a range of disciplines in a number of regional contexts, and for the growing number of scholars and practitioners working on and in small island states. It will be of particular value as the first book to examine the diversity and commonalities of island states around the globe as they confront issues of food security.
Law and Economics in Japanese Competition Policy
by Koki AraiThis book demonstrates how economics is used in cases of competition in Japan. Competition between firms is usually the most effective way of allocating economic resources and achieving consumer and producer welfare. At the same time, a balance must be struck; firms must not be over-regulated, but neither must they be completely free to create a monopoly or oligopoly. Therefore, the role of competition policy is to maintain a balance by using the collaborative economics of industrial organization. The book uses economic analysis to evaluate case studies on Japanese anti-monopoly law, the Act Concerning Prohibition of Private Monopolization and Maintenance of Fair Trade (AMA), and enforcement in e.g. cartel cases, private monopolization cases, and merger cases. The Japan Fair Trade Commission implements a competition policy, primarily through the enforcement of the AMA, which promotes ingenuity and innovation in business by guaranteeing and enhancing fair and free competition, thereby ensuring economic vitality and consumer benefit. This book is the first authoritative and compact work on competition policy in Japan, which has a more-than-70-year history and is based on solid legal principles. In addition, the book seeks to promote law enforcement based on economic analysis, and includes studies describing the enforcement mechanisms used. It provides comprehensive yet concise information on the structure of the AMA, recent cases, and economic analysis. It also explains the circumstances regarding recent cases and analyzes how the economic policy has been applied to actual cases.
20 Years of G20: From Global Cooperation to Building Consensus
by Rajat Kathuria Prateek KukrejaThe book discusses contemporary issues such as global financial architecture and regulatory practices, trade, investment and the multilateral process, the future of work, the role of technology for adaptation and mitigation of climate change, and financing infrastructure for sustainable development. With increasing global connectivity, events in one part of the world immediately affect or spread to the other parts. In this context, G20 has proved to be an effective forum, particularly after the Asian financial crises. Furthermore, over recent decades, G20 has been instrumental in managing financial crises and international conflicts by deploying global cooperation as a functional tool. As a body responding to crises, the G20 has played a central role in providing the political momentum for the strong international cooperation that ensured greater policy coherence and helped ease situations that could otherwise have been decidedly worse. The G20’s agendas have encompassed short-term but critical issues of economic recovery, the sovereign crisis of Europe, high unemployment and financial sector regulation. But since moderate stabilization in the global economic environment, the focus of the group has also embraced long-term areas of governance and development. For emerging economies, such as India, the G20 has been an important platform framework to promote an inclusive global economic architecture that seeks to achieve equitable outcomes. This book reviews the past 20 years of the G20, since it was conceptualized as a replacement for the G-7. While issues such as global financial order have been a constant area of discussion, one of the failures has been not recognizing and acknowledging the importance of issues like trade, climate change and future of work. Featuring academic papers by experts in the area, this book provides a platform for the necessary discourse on these issues.
Arts-Based Methods in Refugee Research: Creating Sanctuary
by Caroline LenetteDrawn from a decade of refugee studies, this book offers a wealth of insights on arts-based methodologies. It explores exciting new prospects for participatory and culturally safe research, and will be a reference resource for researchers of all levels and community practitioners.The book tackles questions of meaningful research practice: How do people with lived experiences of forced migration—Knowledge Holders—lead the way? Can arts-based methods bring about policy and social change? And what of ethical issues?By reflecting on the strengths and limitations of four research methods (digital storytelling, photography, community music, and participatory video), readers are invited to craft their own approach to arts-based projects.
Leadership in Regional Community-Building: Comparing ASEAN and the European Union
by Siti Darwinda Mohamed PeroThis book examines the role of political leadership as a driver in the process of regional community-building in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU). It considers under which conditions political leadership constitutes a driver of regional community-building and reconceptualises the very idea of political leadership in order to examine its role in a regional context. The book concludes that a comprehensive approach that incorporates political will, the capacity of individual leaders, state capacity, legitimacy, and summitry yields a deeper understanding of political leadership in regional bodies.
Voting in a Hybrid Regime: Explaining the 2018 Bangladeshi Election (Politics of South Asia)
by Ali RiazThis Pivot explores the mechanism of election manipulation in ostensibly democratic but essentially authoritarian systems called the hybrid regime, using the 2018 parliamentary elections in Bangladesh as an example. The 2018 election has delivered an unprecedented victory to the incumbent Bangladesh Awami League. Elections pose serious dilemmas for the leaders of hybrid regimes. While contested elections bolster their claims of democracy and augment their legitimacy, they can also threaten the status quo. Faced with the challenge, the incumbents tend to hold stage-managed elections. This book offers incisive examination of Bangladesh’s political environment, rigorous scrutiny of the roles of state institutions including the law enforcing agencies, and meticulous analysis of election results. It also fills in a gap in the extant hybrid regime literature which seldom explores the strategies of engineered elections.
Entering the Global Arena: Emerging States, Soft Power Strategies and Sports Mega-Events (Mega Event Planning)
by Jonathan Grix Paul Michael Brannagan Donna LeeSet against a backdrop of concerns about the potential break-up or radical change to the global world order, this volume sets out to investigate the use of sports mega-events by a number of emerging states.Sports mega-events, it is argued, can be understood as a key component in states’ ‘soft power’ strategies, that is, their attempts to showcase their nations on the international stage, increase their power relative to others via non-coercive means and to increase trade and tourism. Many studies on soft power simply cite the concept’s founder (Joseph Nye) and make little attempt at unpicking the mechanisms behind its creation. This volume does this by shining a light on emerging economies and by putting forward a soft power ‘ideal type’ to aid researchers in understanding the strategies employed by states in advancing their interests.
Deprivation, Inequality and Polarization: Essays in Honour of Satya Ranjan Chakravarty (Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion and Well-Being)
by Indraneel Dasgupta Manipushpak MitraThis book offers a collection of original, state-of-the-art essays addressing various aspects of the economic analysis of inequality, deprivation, poverty measurement and social polarization, at both the theoretical and empirical level. Written by leading authorities in the fields of distributional analysis and normative economics, the respective chapters present detailed overviews of cutting-edge literature, as well as stand-alone research. Compiled as a tribute to Satya Ranjan Chakravarty’s lifetime contributions in the fields of normative economics and distributional analysis, it represents an indispensable resource for researchers, policymakers and doctoral students working on issues pertaining to income/wealth distribution, social inclusion and poverty reduction.
Decarbonising the Built Environment: Charting the Transition
by Peter Newton Deo Prasad Alistair Sproul Stephen WhiteThis book focuses on the challenge that Australia faces in transitioning to renewable energy and regenerating its cities via a transformation of its built environment. Both are necessary conditions for low carbon living in the 21st century. This is a global challenge represented by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and the IPCC’s Climate Change program and its focus on mitigation and adaptation. All nations must make significant contributions to this transformation. This book highlights the new knowledge and innovation that has emerged from research projects undertaken in the Co-operative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living between 2012 and 2019 – an initiative of the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science and Technology that is tasked with responding to the UN challenges. Four principal transition pathways were central to the CRC and provide the thematic structure to this volume. They focus on technology, buildings, precinct and city design, and human behaviour – and their interactions.