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Despite the Odds: The Contentious Politics of Education Reform (PDF)
by Merilee S. GrindleDespite the Odds poses an important question: How can we account for successful policy reform initiatives when the political cards are stacked against change? Theories of politics usually predict that reform initiatives will be unsuccessful when powerful groups are opposed to change and institutions are biased against it. This book, however, shows how the strategic choices of reform proponents alter the destinies of policy reforms by reshaping power equations and undermining institutional biases that impede change. In many countries, the political path to reform can be daunting. Antireform interests are powerful and support for change is, at best, lukewarm. Centrally important institutions strongly defend the policy status quo. Despite these political odds, reformers have seized the initiative in promoting reform, weakening and marginalizing opposition groups, and marshaling political patrons and networks to advance their initiatives. Despite the Odds opens the "black box" of decision making in five initiatives designed to enhance the quality of education services in Latin America. The book addresses the strategies used by reformers to manage the political process of change and those adopted by opposition groups and institutions resisting their efforts. Individual chapters consider how leaders set national policy agendas for education, how policy design teams created the content of reform initiatives, how they dealt with the messy and public confrontations that greeted reform proposals when they were announced, and the carryover of political conflict when they were implemented.
Despotism on Demand: How Power Operates in the Flexible Workplace
by Alex J. WoodDespotism on Demand draws attention to the impact of flexible scheduling on managerial power and workplace control. When we understand paid work as a power relationship, argues Alex J. Wood, we see how the spread of precarious scheduling constitutes flexible despotism; a novel regime of control within the workplace.Wood believes that flexible despotism represents a new domain of inequality, in which the postindustrial working class increasingly suffers a scheduling nightmare. By investigating two of the largest retailers in the world he uncovers how control in the contemporary "flexible firm" is achieved through the insidious combination of "flexible discipline" and "schedule gifts." Flexible discipline provides managers with an arbitrary means by which to punish workers, but flexible scheduling also requires workers to actively win favor with managers in order to receive "schedule gifts": more or better hours. Wood concludes that the centrality of precarious scheduling to control means that for those at the bottom of the postindustrial labor market the future of work will increasingly be one of flexible despotism.
The Despot’s Accomplice: How The West Is Aiding And Abetting The Decline Of Democracy
by Brian KlaasThe Despot’s Accomplice: How The West Is Aiding And Abetting The Decline Of Democracy
by Brian Klaas
The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy
by Brian KlaasFor the first time since the end of the Cold War, the world is steadily becoming less democratic. The true culprits are dictators and counterfeit democrats. But, argues Klaas, the West is also an accomplice, inadvertently assaulting pro-democracy forces abroad as governments in Washington, London and Brussels chase pyrrhic short-term economic and security victories. Friendly fire from Western democracies against democracy abroad is too high a price to pay for a myopic foreign policy that is ultimately making the world less prosperous, stable and democratic. The Despot's Accomplice draws on years of extensive interviews on the frontlines of the global struggle for democracy, from a poetry-reading, politician-kidnapping general in Madagascar to Islamist torture victims in Tunisia, Belarusian opposition activists tailed by the KGB, West African rebels, and tea-sipping members of the Thai junta. Cumulatively, their stories weave together a tale of a broken system at the root of democracy's global retreat.
The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy
by Brian KlaasFor the first time since the end of the Cold War, the world is steadily becoming less democratic. The true culprits are dictators and counterfeit democrats. But, argues Klaas, the West is also an accomplice, inadvertently assaulting pro-democracy forces abroad as governments in Washington, London and Brussels chase pyrrhic short-term economic and security victories. Friendly fire from Western democracies against democracy abroad is too high a price to pay for a myopic foreign policy that is ultimately making the world less prosperous, stable and democratic. The Despot's Accomplice draws on years of extensive interviews on the frontlines of the global struggle for democracy, from a poetry-reading, politician-kidnapping general in Madagascar to Islamist torture victims in Tunisia, Belarusian opposition activists tailed by the KGB, West African rebels, and tea-sipping members of the Thai junta. Cumulatively, their stories weave together a tale of a broken system at the root of democracy's global retreat.
Despots, Democrats and the Determinants of International Conflict
by Martin ShermanAn unequivocal endorsement of an assertive and resolute approach to foreign policy by democracies in their dealings with dictatorships. Drawing on the political writings of Kant, the rationale of Churchill's anti-appeasement policy, and the most up-to-date empirical research in international relations, the author forges a rigorous decision-theoretic model to account for the international interactions between despotic and democratic regimes. The model's validity is illustrated across a broad range of historical examples, while its policy-oriented implications, are shown to have far-reaching consequences for conventional perceptions of democratic deterrence posture and the security dilemma.
The Despot's Guide to Wealth Management: On the International Campaign against Grand Corruption
by J. C. SharmanAn unprecedented new international moral and legal rule forbids one state from hosting money stolen by the leaders of another state. The aim is to counter grand corruption or kleptocracy ("rule by thieves"), when leaders of poorer countries—such as Marcos in the Philippines, Mobutu in the Congo, and more recently those overthrown in revolutions in the Arab world and Ukraine—loot billions of dollars at the expense of their own citizens. This money tends to end up hosted in rich countries. These host states now have a duty to block, trace, freeze, and seize these illicit funds and hand them back to the countries from which they were stolen. In The Despot's Guide to Wealth Management, J. C. Sharman asks how this anti-kleptocracy regime came about, how well it is working, and how it could work better. Although there have been some real achievements, the international campaign against grand corruption has run into major obstacles. The vested interests of banks, lawyers, and even law enforcement often favor turning a blind eye to foreign corruption proceeds. Recovering and returning looted assets is a long, complicated, and expensive process.Sharman used a private investigator, participated in and observed anti-corruption policy, and conducted more than a hundred interviews with key players. He also draws on various journalistic exposés, whistle-blower accounts, and government investigations to inform his comparison of the anti-kleptocracy records of the United States, Britain, Switzerland, and Australia. Sharman calls for better policing, preventative measures, and use of gatekeepers like bankers, lawyers, and real estate agents. He also recommends giving nongovernmental organizations and for-profit firms more scope to independently investigate corruption and seize stolen assets.
Destabilising Interventions in Somalia: Sovereignty Transformations and Subversions (African Governance)
by Debora Valentina MalitoThis book is a critical reading of contemporary interventionism, exploring how interventions shape the course of conflicts and reconciliation processes in Somalia. In a critical departure from the state-capacity consensus that has dominated the debate on terrorism and state failure, this book argues that conflict and sovereignty transformations in Somalia cannot be understood as the result of a gap in state-capacity, as multiple interventions have compromised the autonomy of the target state and society to act as sovereign. Destabilising Interventions in Somalia focuses on the humanitarian intervention of the mid-1990s, the Ethiopia–Eritrean regional proxy war in the late 1990s and the Global War on Terror in the 2000s. Examining the politics and mechanisms of multiple interventions, this book shows how interveners complicate and amplify existing conflicts, how they reiterate the international dimension of the conflict itself, and how they orient the target state towards the outsourcing of sovereignty functions. Key to this process has been the violent and exclusionary nature of interventions grounded in the aspiration of transforming existing political orders. Destabilising Interventions in Somalia will be of interest to students of African peace and conflict studies, international intervention and International Relations.
Destabilising Interventions in Somalia: Sovereignty Transformations and Subversions (African Governance)
by Debora Valentina MalitoThis book is a critical reading of contemporary interventionism, exploring how interventions shape the course of conflicts and reconciliation processes in Somalia. In a critical departure from the state-capacity consensus that has dominated the debate on terrorism and state failure, this book argues that conflict and sovereignty transformations in Somalia cannot be understood as the result of a gap in state-capacity, as multiple interventions have compromised the autonomy of the target state and society to act as sovereign. Destabilising Interventions in Somalia focuses on the humanitarian intervention of the mid-1990s, the Ethiopia–Eritrean regional proxy war in the late 1990s and the Global War on Terror in the 2000s. Examining the politics and mechanisms of multiple interventions, this book shows how interveners complicate and amplify existing conflicts, how they reiterate the international dimension of the conflict itself, and how they orient the target state towards the outsourcing of sovereignty functions. Key to this process has been the violent and exclusionary nature of interventions grounded in the aspiration of transforming existing political orders. Destabilising Interventions in Somalia will be of interest to students of African peace and conflict studies, international intervention and International Relations.
Destigmatisation of People Living with HIV/AIDS in China (A Sociological View of AIDS)
by Xiaoping WangAfter reviewing related theories on stigmatisation of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), this book applies social exclusion theory, actor theory and stigma theory to the study of social mechanisms of stigmatisation of PLWHA in China to show the influence and mechanism of stigmatisation on them, and tries to construct the policy framework to tackle stigmatisation from the perspective of welfare pluralism. Qualitative analysis was used and data was obtained during the field interview. Thirty PLWHA and seventeen healthy people (non-infected people and staff of ASO Service Organizations) were selected by using random sampling and snowball sampling for semi-structured depth interviews. The research examines the treatments and living conditions of those PLWHA, aiming to explore the influence of HIV on them in education, employment, medical care, economy, welfare and social relations. The book is intended for graduate students, researchers interested in this field and relevant policymakers.
Destination China: Immigration to China in the Post-Reform Era
by Pauline Leonard Angela LehmannThis book is a compelling account of China’s response to the increasing numbers of ‘foreigners’ in its midst, revealing a contradictory picture of welcoming civility, security anxiety and policy confusion. Over the last forty years, China’s position within the global migration order has been undergoing a remarkable shift. From being a nation most notable for the numbers of its emigrants, China has increasingly become a destination for immigrants from all points of the globe. What attracts international migrants to China and how are they received once they arrive? This timely volume explores this question in depth. Focusing on such diverse migrant communities as African traders in Guangzhou, Japanese call center workers in Dalian, migrant restaurateurs in Shanghai, marriage migrants on the Vietnamese borderlands, South Korean parents in Beijing, Europeans in Xiamen and Western professionals in Hong Kong, as well as the booming expansion of British and North American English language teachers across the nation, the accounts offered here reveal in intimate detail the motivations, experiences, and aspirations of the diversity of international migrants in China.
Destination europe: The Political and Economic Growth of a Continent (PDF)
by Kjell TorbiornThis study interprets and interrelates the major political, economic and security developments in Europe - including transatlantic relations - from the end of World War II up until the present time, and looks ahead to how the continent may evolve politically in the future.
Destination europe: The Political and Economic Growth of a Continent
by Kjell TorbiornThis study interprets and interrelates the major political, economic and security developments in Europe - including transatlantic relations - from the end of World War II up until the present time, and looks ahead to how the continent may evolve politically in the future.
Destination NATO: Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2003–13 (Whitehall Papers)
by Rohan Maxwell John Andreas OlsenDefence reform has been a major component of Bosnia’s stabilisation and nation-building. Though true for many cases of post-conflict transition, it is especially so for Bosnia, which arguably has the most complex state structure in Europe. Ten years on from the start of Bosnia’s defence-reform process, Destination NATO records and reviews the Bosnian experience of defence reform. The monograph offers policy-makers, practitioners and academics knowledge of the specific case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and makes these insights relevant to defence-reform efforts in other contexts. The research is based on original sources and an extensive set of interviews and talks with key individuals including ambassadors, ministers and civil servants, and other senior national and international actors, in addition to discussions with several hundred politicians at local levels, students and NGO representatives. The authors also use their first-hand knowledge and insights to complement the documentation, interviews and discussions.
Destination NATO: Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2003–13 (Whitehall Papers)
by Rohan Maxwell John Andreas OlsenDefence reform has been a major component of Bosnia’s stabilisation and nation-building. Though true for many cases of post-conflict transition, it is especially so for Bosnia, which arguably has the most complex state structure in Europe. Ten years on from the start of Bosnia’s defence-reform process, Destination NATO records and reviews the Bosnian experience of defence reform. The monograph offers policy-makers, practitioners and academics knowledge of the specific case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and makes these insights relevant to defence-reform efforts in other contexts. The research is based on original sources and an extensive set of interviews and talks with key individuals including ambassadors, ministers and civil servants, and other senior national and international actors, in addition to discussions with several hundred politicians at local levels, students and NGO representatives. The authors also use their first-hand knowledge and insights to complement the documentation, interviews and discussions.
Destinationsbildung und Destination Governance: Eine Modellentwicklung am Beispiel des Wassertourismus an Lahn und Aller
by Steffen SpiegelDie Aller, ein Nebenfluss der Weser in Norddeutschland, stellt ein interessantes Ziel für Wassersportler dar. Die Region ist jedoch als touristische Destination bislang nicht positioniert. Der Wassertourismus als wachsendes touristisches Segment könnte Erfolg versprechen. Die Arbeit untersucht, inwiefern sich Destination Governance – neben der in der Literatur diskutierten Funktion zur Steuerung komplexer Einheiten – auch zur Bildung einer neuen Destination eignet. Ausführlich widmet sich der Autor den verschiedenen Sichtweisen auf Destination Governance und erarbeitet eine umfassende eigene Definition. Das Lahntal dient mit seinen touristischen Netzwerken als Best Practice einer Fluss-Destination und als Referenz für die Entwicklung eines Modells der Destinationsbildung aus der Perspektive der Destination Governance. Die Praxistauglichkeit des Modells wird für den Wassertourismus entlang der Aller illustriert. Erstmals werden für diesen Fluss komprimiert Details zu wassertouristischer Infrastruktur, den entsprechenden Netzwerken und der Nachfragesicht präsentiert. Diese bilden die Basis für konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen zur Bildung der Destination Aller.
Destined for Failure: American Prosperity in the Age of Bailouts
by Nicolas Sanchez Christopher F. Jr. Francis SanzariThis book provides a historical background of the American business cycle, challenges the validity of conventional Keynesian ideology, and presents a bold, alternative theory of how production leads to wealth in our modern economy.The United States is mired in the aftermath of booming economic prosperity, resembling the trouble recently experienced by the Japanese economy due partially to similar Keynesian bailouts and subsidies. Now more than two years into the current financial crisis, Americans are starting to wonder if we can ever escape the consequences of past mistakes. If our "recovery" plan continues along the previous paths that generated economic bubbles and unemployment, then we are destined for failure.Destined for Failure: American Prosperity in the Age of Bailouts provides a conceptual framework previously available only to those with formal university training. It explains the effects of government regulation, political interference in the housing and job markets, misallocation of resources in health and education, moral hazard, environmental constraints, and excessive taxation. The authors provide insight into their view of Keynesian economics as an outdated, detrimental ideology, and take the Bush and Obama administrations to task for budget deficits and cronyistic subsidies and bailouts.
Destined for Failure: American Prosperity in the Age of Bailouts
by Nicolás Sánchez Christopher F. Jr. Francis SanzariThis book provides a historical background of the American business cycle, challenges the validity of conventional Keynesian ideology, and presents a bold, alternative theory of how production leads to wealth in our modern economy.The United States is mired in the aftermath of booming economic prosperity, resembling the trouble recently experienced by the Japanese economy due partially to similar Keynesian bailouts and subsidies. Now more than two years into the current financial crisis, Americans are starting to wonder if we can ever escape the consequences of past mistakes. If our "recovery" plan continues along the previous paths that generated economic bubbles and unemployment, then we are destined for failure.Destined for Failure: American Prosperity in the Age of Bailouts provides a conceptual framework previously available only to those with formal university training. It explains the effects of government regulation, political interference in the housing and job markets, misallocation of resources in health and education, moral hazard, environmental constraints, and excessive taxation. The authors provide insight into their view of Keynesian economics as an outdated, detrimental ideology, and take the Bush and Obama administrations to task for budget deficits and cronyistic subsidies and bailouts.
Destined Statecraft: Eurasian Small Power Politics and Strategic Cultures in Geopolitical Shifts
by Pak Nung Wong‘Destined Statecraft enriches our understanding of global affairs by presenting a perspective where small powers are no longer in the periphery, but take up the main narrative. This standpoint is all the more valuable in an age where the proactive decision-making of small powers often goes unobser ved. Professor Wong’s Destined Statecraft offers a fresh lens for discerning world issues, helping to extend the reader’s vision beyond the exterior towards a greater perception of the world we live in.’ —Mr Sungnam Lim, Vice-Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of KoreaThis book considers the post-2010 strategic shifts in the Anglo-American geopolitical approach to Asia as a pivotal new strategy in the U.S. geo- strategic containment plan, which has been reformed to rebalance the rise of China and the Eurasian heartland in the course of the two decades since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. At this critical global-historical juncture, the People’s Republic of China has also devised a new counter-containment endeavor – the ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, which aims to re-connect it with all the countries on the Eurasian landmass, forming a single community. Against this backdrop of the intensifying geopolitical and geo-economic competition between the U.S. and China, this book calls for the revival and reinvigoration of selected Eurasian small powers’ embedded geopolitical, political-economic and strategic-cultural structures. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, the book argues that these self- changing and unceasingly structuring structures do not only constrain and limit, but also enable and galvanize small powers’ strategists and policy- makers to proactively generate creative means-and-ends calculations, conduct prudent security assessments, and devise measured and responsive strategic deployments. In this context, the book proposes that the small powers return to their own religious, cultural and intellectual roots. It also argues for the need to rediscover their own strategic cultures as an essential means of re-inventing and implementing their own unique models of national development. As a substantial contribution to the subfields of small power politics and strategic cultures in international relations, the book marks a paradigm shift in both theory and practice. Exploring historical case studies from such diverse African, Asian and European powers as the Philippines, Liberia, Myanmar, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Russia, the European Union, Ukraine, Poland and the United Kingdom as well as China, the book presents engaging dialogues with a wealth of classical and contemporary Western and non-Western strategic thinkers, including: Thucydides, Sun Tzu, Halford Mackinder, Kautilya, King Solomon, Li Zongwu, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Karl Haushofer, Carl Schmitt and the Malayo-Polynesian datu, as well as John Mearsheimer. In light of the post- 2017 U.S. ‘America First’ foreign policy agenda, this book represents an essential guide for small powers’ strategists, foreign policy-makers, security practitioners and national development planners – introducing them to a broader spectrum of strategic options that will help them not just survive, but thrive in the constantly shifting geopolitical currents of our time.
Destinies Shared: U.S.-Japanese Relations
by Paul Gordon LaurenAs we approach what is often called the Age of the Pacific one fact is clearly before us: The next century will see the United States and Japan standing together at the dynamic center of a new global economic structure. Together, along with the other advanced nations, we will share-even more than we do today-Bearing the responsibility for shaping m
Destinies Shared: U.S.-Japanese Relations
by Paul Gordon LaurenAs we approach what is often called the Age of the Pacific one fact is clearly before us: The next century will see the United States and Japan standing together at the dynamic center of a new global economic structure. Together, along with the other advanced nations, we will share-even more than we do today-Bearing the responsibility for shaping m
Destiny of the Soldiers – Fianna Fáil, Irish Republicanism and the IRA, 1926–1973: The History of Ireland’s Largest and Most Successful Political Party
by Donnacha Ó BeacháinIncisive, engaging and thought-provoking, Destiny of the Soldiers charts Fianna Fáil’s political and ideological evolution from its revolutionary origins through extended periods in office.Fianna Fáil is Ireland’s largest political party and one of the most successful parties in any democracy in the world. Until recent years, it has been almost constantly in government since 1932..This fascinating volume argues that Fianna Fáil’s goals, foremost among them the reunification of the national territory as a republic, became the means to bind its members together, to gain votes, and to legitimise its role in Irish society. But the official ideological goals concealed what became merely a basic desire to rule. The balance sheet, consequently, became one of votes won or lost rather than goals achieved or postponed. Destiny of the Soldiers assesses Fianna Fáil’s changing attitudes towards its parent party, Sinn Féin, and the IRA, and how these changes affected Fianna Fáil’s policies towards Northern Ireland. Never forgetting its republican roots, Fianna Fáil has at times been both troubled and conflicted by them. This was especially the case in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the Northern Ireland Troubles posed a challenge for all rhetorical republicans. At that time, Fianna Fáil found itself the governing party of a state whose legitimacy it had originally rejected: the consequent tensions nearly tore it apart. Destiny of the Soldiers is the first survey of the party’s history which focuses on these unresolved tensions. Destiny of the Soldiers: Table of ContentsLegion of the Rearguard: The revolutionary origins of Fianna Fáil, 1920–23Removing the straitjacket of the Republic, 1923–6Fianna Fáil—the Republican PartyFianna Fáil and the Irish Free State, 1927–31Election Time, 1931–2 Fianna Fáil in power, 1932–8Revolutionary crocodile, 1939–40The showdown, 1940–46A new republican rival, 1946–8Drift, 1948–59Approach to crisis, 1960–69‘The moment of truth’, 1969–71Doomsday, 1971–3Conclusions: The destiny of the Soldiers
Destroyers: An Illustrated History of Their Impact (Weapons and Warfare)
by Eric W. OsborneOn July 4, 1991, the Arleigh Burke class of destroyers, the most powerful surface combatants in naval history, was commissioned. It was the culmination of a century-and-a-half evolution of the destroyer—an evolution captured in this vivid and timely history of the world's most popular warship.Destroyers: An Illustrated History of Their Impact tells the story of one of the most-recent, most-rapidly evolving additions to the world's navies. Coverage ranges from the 1882 launch of the first destroyer, through the nonstop technical and strategic innovations of the world war eras, to the current high watermarks of destroyer design such as the Arleigh Burke class (named for the navy's most-famous destroyer squadron combat commander).With its ship-by-ship analysis, this masterful volume shows how destroyers have continually met the challenge of protecting naval and land operations from ever more dangerous attacks. The book also captures the flavor of shipboard life for officers and crew and looks at the crucial role of the destroyer as a standard-bearing status symbol of naval might and political intention.