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Balancing Nature and Civilization - Alternative Sustainability Perspectives from Philosophy to Practice (SpringerBriefs in Environment, Security, Development and Peace #32)
by Yoshitsugu Hayashi Masafumi Morisugi Sho-Ichi IwamatsuThis book is an outcome of an international symposium: Sustainability –Can We Design the Future of Human Life and the Environment? which was held as a satellite event of the “Love the Earth”-Expo 2005 (Aichi, Japan). Each chapter is based on the lecture given by the following eminent researchers: Yoshinori Ishii, Hans-Peter Dürr, Yoshinori Yasuda, Minoru Kawada, Yasunobu Iwasaka, Werner Rothengatter, Hisae Nakanishi, Yang Dongyuan, Lee Schipper, Itsuo Kodama, and Yoshitsugu Hayashi.In the Part I titled “A Sustainable Relationship between Nature and Humans”, we discuss what will become of fossil fuels and petroleum, and what kind of indicators should be used to monitor the energy expended by human society. We then discuss environmental impacts caused by different civilizations and values on Nature and ethics, based on the perspective of environmental archaeology and on the discussions by Kunio Yanagita, the father of Japanese folklore study.The Part II is titled and shows “International Conflict Concerning Environmental Damage and Its Causes”. The Asian dust (Kosa) is a typical example of transboundary conflicts between nations. Another example can be found in the EU’s attempt to put in place a common motorway toll system across EU countries having different geographical and economic conditions. Finally, Part III covers the opinions and further debates on sustainable future earth based on the lectures in Parts I and II.We hope that great insights in this book will come across to readers, and be of help in steering the world towards a sustainable society in harmony with biosystems on earth.
Balancing the Budget is a Progressive Priority (SpringerBriefs in Political Science #7)
by Donald H. Taylor, Jr. Progressives need a balanced federal budget more than Conservatives, because they believe that government has an important role to play in modern life. Lack of a long term plan to move toward a sustainable budget crowds out short term Progressive priorities: infrastructure spending, green technology, education and needed governmental interventions in the short term to support and improve our weak economy. The federal budget is unsustainable. For all the bluster of the debt ceiling debate, the plan passed so far does not address the changes most obviously needed if we are to ever have a balanced budget again: an increase in taxes and the next steps on health reform to address the biggest driver of our long term budget deficit, health care costs. Slowing the rate at which health care costs are growing is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition to developing a long range balanced budget. You should ask any politician saying they think a balanced budget is a priority one question: what is your health reform plan? Without one, they have no hope of achieving their goal. This book offers progressives solutions to health care reform and a balanced budget, and will be of interest to academics, students and educated readers interested in politics, public policy and government finance.
Balancing the Commons in Switzerland: Institutional Transformations and Sustainable Innovations (Earthscan Studies in Natural Resource Management)
by Tobias Haller Karina Liechti Martin Stuber François-Xavier Viallon Rahel WunderliBalancing the Commons in Switzerland outlines continuity and change in the management of common-pool resources such as pastures and forests in Switzerland. The book focusses on the differences and similarities between local institutions (rules and regulations) and forms of commoners’ organisations (civic communities and corporations) which have managed common property for several centuries and have shaped the cultural landscapes of Switzerland. At the core of the book are five case studies from the German, French and Italian speaking regions of Switzerland. Beginning in the late medieval ages and focussing on the transformative periods in the 19th and 20th Century, it traces the internal and external political, economic and societal changes and examines what impact these changes had on commoners. It goes beyond the work of Robert Netting and Elinor Ostrom, who discussed Swiss commons as a unique case of robustness, by analysing how local commoners reacted to, but also shaped changes by adapting and transforming common property institutions. Thus, the volume highlights how institutional changes in the management of the commons on the local level are embedded in the public policies of the respective cantons, and the state, which generates a high heterogeneity and an actual laboratory situation. It shows the very different ways that local collective organisations and their members have followed in order to cope with the loss of value of the commons and the increased workload for maintaining common property management. Providing insightful case studies of commons management, this volume delivers theoretical contributions and lessons to be learned for the commons worldwide. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the commons, natural resource management and agricultural development.
Balancing the Commons in Switzerland: Institutional Transformations and Sustainable Innovations (Earthscan Studies in Natural Resource Management)
by Tobias Haller, Karina Liechti, Martin Stuber, François-Xavier Viallon and Rahel WunderliBalancing the Commons in Switzerland outlines continuity and change in the management of common-pool resources such as pastures and forests in Switzerland. The book focusses on the differences and similarities between local institutions (rules and regulations) and forms of commoners’ organisations (civic communities and corporations) which have managed common property for several centuries and have shaped the cultural landscapes of Switzerland. At the core of the book are five case studies from the German, French and Italian speaking regions of Switzerland. Beginning in the late medieval ages and focussing on the transformative periods in the 19th and 20th Century, it traces the internal and external political, economic and societal changes and examines what impact these changes had on commoners. It goes beyond the work of Robert Netting and Elinor Ostrom, who discussed Swiss commons as a unique case of robustness, by analysing how local commoners reacted to, but also shaped changes by adapting and transforming common property institutions. Thus, the volume highlights how institutional changes in the management of the commons on the local level are embedded in the public policies of the respective cantons, and the state, which generates a high heterogeneity and an actual laboratory situation. It shows the very different ways that local collective organisations and their members have followed in order to cope with the loss of value of the commons and the increased workload for maintaining common property management. Providing insightful case studies of commons management, this volume delivers theoretical contributions and lessons to be learned for the commons worldwide. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the commons, natural resource management and agricultural development.
Balancing the skills equation: Key issues and challenges for policy and practice
by Geoff Hayward Susan JamesGovernments worldwide assume that national competitiveness can be improved by developing workforce skills. This book critically examines this 'high skills' vision at both policy and practice levels. It challenges an oversimplified policy rhetoric that underestimates the complexity of the processes involved in developing a skilled workforce. The book focuses on key issues relating to the high skills agenda: skills and political economy; different investment strategies for producing skills; qualification systems and learning. A multidisciplinary team of authors from a range of disciplines, including economics, management and education, provides the cross-cutting international and comparative analysis. Editorial comment links their explorations to wider questions of skill formation processes and overarching questions are addressed through in-depth analysis of the roles of higher education, apprenticeship and formal school learning in skill formation.
Balancing the Socio-political and Medico-ethical Dimensions of HIV: A Social Public Health Approach (SpringerBriefs in Public Health)
by Amos LaarResponding to public health challenges at the global and local levels can give rise to an array of tensions. To assure sustainable public health, these tensions need to be meaningfully balanced. Using empirical evidence and lived experiences relating to HIV from the global south, this book enunciates the many dimensions of national-level responses to HIV/AIDS including conceptual, philosophical, and methodological perspectives from public health, public policy, bioethics, and social sciences. Calling out glaring neglects, the book makes a bold recommendation for the destabilization of the naturalness with which national HIV/AIDS responses ignore the socio-political and medico-ethical dimensions of HIV. The case made is grounded in the philosophy of social public health. Such a critical perspective is not unique to Ghana’s response to HIV/AIDS but serves as emblematic voice for similarly situated settings of the global south. The book is also timely. It is written at a time when public health actors are repositioning themselves to be competent users of not only pharmaceutic vaccines, but also social vaccines. Topics explored in the chapters include:Public health approaches to HIV and AIDSAccess to life-saving public health goods by persons infected or affected by HIV“They are criminals”: AIDS, the law, harm reduction, and the socially excludedDeveloping socially and ethically responsive National AIDS policiesBalancing the Socio-political and Medico-ethical Dimensions of HIV: A Social Public Health Approach is compelling reading for a broad spectrum of readers. The book will appeal to professionals, scholars, and students in public health, public policy, bioethics, and social sciences, as well as medical anthropologists, sociologists, and global health scholars. Public health economists, lay politicians, and civil society organizations advocating for health equity will find the book useful as well.
Balancing Unity and Diversity in EU Legislation
Presenting cutting-edge insights into the current state of EU legislation, this book addresses the profound changes that the EU’s legislature has undergone in recent years and how these shape EU law. At the heart of this inquiry is how the strive for uniform EU legislation is balanced with the necessity to leave a certain degree of autonomy to member states, and how such tension between unity and diversity is reflected in the design of EU legislation.Featuring sectoral and cross-sectoral contributions from a diverse array of distinguished academics, the book examines how the tension between EU unity and national autonomy has evolved over time. In particular it considers the response to significant new developments in the EU constitutional and law-making framework. The chapters explore the legislative strategies that have been adopted across various fields of EU law and policy to shape unity and diversity, and the practical, conceptual, and constitutional issues that these engender. Case studies from different EU fields and member states are critically analysed alongside key concepts including harmonization, derogations, proportionality, and effectiveness.Both incisive and authoritative, this book will prove indispensable to academics, researchers and students with an interest in constitutional and administrative law, law and politics, and European law, politics and policy. Legal practitioners and policymakers wanting a better understanding of EU legislation and its impact on national legal orders will similarly benefit from the analysis and recommendations this important book makes.
Baldwin
by Roy JenkinsFirst published in 1984, this is the first biography of Stanley Baldwin for more than ten years, although there had been four in the preceding decade. This is strange, for Baldwin has recently begun to swim back into fashion. In part this is a function of growing nostalgia for his period of power, the 1920s and 1930s. Still more, however, it is " because Mrs Thatcher's brand of Conservative leadership has made him an object of contrasting interest in a way that Harold Macmillan's or Edward Heath's never did. When a new exponent of an alternative style temporarily achieves notice, it is now frequently suggested that he might be a new Baldwin. This reappraisal is therefore appropriately timed. It is written by a skilled political biographer, from a non-Conservative, although not personally unsympathetic, standpoint.Baldwin was born in 1867, the son of a rich Worcestershire ironmaster, and educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He then worked in the family business for twenty years. Although the most self-conscious countryman amongst British Prime Ministers of the past hundred years or more, he was not a country squire and never owned more than a few acres of land. He did not enter the House of Commons until he was forty, and was not even a junior minister until the threshold of fifty. Less than six years later, in 1923, he became Prime Minister and dominated British politics for the next fifteen years - the only man of this century to hold the highest office three times.
Balibar and the Citizen Subject (Critical Connections)
by Warren Montag Hanan ElsayedExplores the core of Balibar’s work since 1980This collection explores Balibar’s rethinking of the connections between subjection and subjectivity by tracing the genealogies of these concepts in their discursive history. The 12 essays provide an overview of Balibar’s work after his collaboration with Althusser. They explain and expand his framework; in particular, by restoring Arabic and Islamic thought to the conversation on the citizen subject. The collection includes two previously untranslated essays by Balibar himself on Carl Schmitt and Thomas Hobbes. Key FeaturesThe first English-language edited collection to focus on BalibarPresents and explains Balibar’s key contributions to political theory and the history of political philosophyIncludes two essays by Balibar himself on Carl Schmitt and Thomas Hobbes: 'Schmitt’s Hobbes, Hobbes’s Schmitt' and 'The Mortal God and his Faithful Subjects: Hobbes, Schmitt and the Antinomies of Secularism'Contributors include Étienne Balibar, Nancy Armstrong, Giorgos Fourtounis, Mohamed Moulfi
Balibar and the Citizen Subject (Critical Connections)
by Warren Montag Hanan ElsayedExplores the core of Balibar’s work since 1980This collection explores Balibar’s rethinking of the connections between subjection and subjectivity by tracing the genealogies of these concepts in their discursive history. The 12 essays provide an overview of Balibar’s work after his collaboration with Althusser. They explain and expand his framework; in particular, by restoring Arabic and Islamic thought to the conversation on the citizen subject. The collection includes two previously untranslated essays by Balibar himself on Carl Schmitt and Thomas Hobbes. Key FeaturesThe first English-language edited collection to focus on BalibarPresents and explains Balibar’s key contributions to political theory and the history of political philosophyIncludes two essays by Balibar himself on Carl Schmitt and Thomas Hobbes: 'Schmitt’s Hobbes, Hobbes’s Schmitt' and 'The Mortal God and his Faithful Subjects: Hobbes, Schmitt and the Antinomies of Secularism'Contributors include Étienne Balibar, Nancy Armstrong, Giorgos Fourtounis, Mohamed Moulfi
Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The Fall Of Milosevic, Fourth Edition
by Sabrina Petra RametThe fourth edition of this critically acclaimed work includes a new chapter, a new epilogue, and revisions throughout the book. Sabrina Ramet, a veteran observer of the Yugoslav scene, traces the steady deterioration of Yugoslavia's political and social fabric in the years since 1980, arguing that, while the federal system and multiethnic fabric laid down fault lines, the final crisis was sown in the failure to resolve the legitimacy question, triggered by economic deterioration, and pushed forward toward war by Serbian politicians bent on power - either within a centralized Yugoslavia or within an 'ethnically cleansed' Greater Serbia. With her detailed knowledge of the area and extensive fieldwork, Ramet paints a strikingly original picture of Yugoslavia's demise and the emergence of the Yugoslav successor states.
Balkan Babel: The Disintegration Of Yugoslavia From The Death Of Tito To The Fall Of Milosevic, Fourth Edition
by Sabrina Petra RametThe fourth edition of this critically acclaimed work includes a new chapter, a new epilogue, and revisions throughout the book. Sabrina Ramet, a veteran observer of the Yugoslav scene, traces the steady deterioration of Yugoslavia's political and social fabric in the years since 1980, arguing that, while the federal system and multiethnic fabric laid down fault lines, the final crisis was sown in the failure to resolve the legitimacy question, triggered by economic deterioration, and pushed forward toward war by Serbian politicians bent on power - either within a centralized Yugoslavia or within an 'ethnically cleansed' Greater Serbia. With her detailed knowledge of the area and extensive fieldwork, Ramet paints a strikingly original picture of Yugoslavia's demise and the emergence of the Yugoslav successor states.
Balkan Contextual Theology: An Introduction (Routledge Studies in Religion)
by Stipe OdakThis book opens a new research field in Balkan contextual theology. By embracing culturally rich traditions of the Western Balkans as its starting point, it explores their existential and theological bearings. Placed at the crossroads of civilizations and religions, this region has witnessed some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. At the same time, it has produced unique textures of inter-cultural life. The volume addresses some of the most poignant phenomena endemic to the region, such as sevdalinka music, intimate forms of neighborhood, archetypes of ‘sacred warriors,’ the experience of democratic jet lag, collective melancholy, and intergenerational trauma. As the first book of this nature, it aims to encourage further development of contextual theological thinking in the region and promote its international reception.
Balkan Contextual Theology: An Introduction (Routledge Studies in Religion)
by Stipe Odak Zoran GrozdanovThis book opens a new research field in Balkan contextual theology. By embracing culturally rich traditions of the Western Balkans as its starting point, it explores their existential and theological bearings. Placed at the crossroads of civilizations and religions, this region has witnessed some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. At the same time, it has produced unique textures of inter-cultural life. The volume addresses some of the most poignant phenomena endemic to the region, such as sevdalinka music, intimate forms of neighborhood, archetypes of ‘sacred warriors,’ the experience of democratic jet lag, collective melancholy, and intergenerational trauma. As the first book of this nature, it aims to encourage further development of contextual theological thinking in the region and promote its international reception.
Balkan Fighters in the Syrian War (Southeast European Studies)
by Tanja Dramac JiriesThis book analyses the process of the recruitment of foreign fighters from the Western Balkans, specifically Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, to Syria and Iraq from 2012 to 2015. Utilizing in-depth, semi-structured interviews with foreign fighters and their families, as well as a number of relevant stakeholders it answers the question of what were the processes and circumstances leading up to the departure of foreign fighters from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and what informed their agency? The author draws on the theories of social movement approaches, more specifically, contentious politics literature and utilizes the specific concepts of triggering mechanisms, which refer to the enabling circumstances that make the radicalization and departure possible, and pleasure in agency, to elaborate on individual motivation. The book also shows how a wider state- fragility within the context of the post-Yugoslav wars and the transitional period that never ended, aided radicalization and how an incomplete process of post-war transition can fuel the process of political and religious radicalization creating a wider enabling web for recruitment. It will be of interest to students and scholars of Southeast European politics and foreign policy, post-war democratic transition, security policy and radicalization more broadly.
Balkan Fighters in the Syrian War (Southeast European Studies)
by Tanja Dramac JiriesThis book analyses the process of the recruitment of foreign fighters from the Western Balkans, specifically Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, to Syria and Iraq from 2012 to 2015. Utilizing in-depth, semi-structured interviews with foreign fighters and their families, as well as a number of relevant stakeholders it answers the question of what were the processes and circumstances leading up to the departure of foreign fighters from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and what informed their agency? The author draws on the theories of social movement approaches, more specifically, contentious politics literature and utilizes the specific concepts of triggering mechanisms, which refer to the enabling circumstances that make the radicalization and departure possible, and pleasure in agency, to elaborate on individual motivation. The book also shows how a wider state- fragility within the context of the post-Yugoslav wars and the transitional period that never ended, aided radicalization and how an incomplete process of post-war transition can fuel the process of political and religious radicalization creating a wider enabling web for recruitment. It will be of interest to students and scholars of Southeast European politics and foreign policy, post-war democratic transition, security policy and radicalization more broadly.
Balkan holocausts?: Serbian And Croatian Victim Centered Propaganda And The War In Yugoslavia (New Approaches to Conflict Analysis)
by David Bruce MacDonaldComparing and contrasting Serbian and Croatian propaganda from 1986 to 1999, this text analyses each group's contemporary interpretations of history and current events, offering a discussion of holocaust imagery and the history of victim-centred writing in nationalist theory.
Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States (Religion and Global Politics)
by Vjekoslav PericaReporting from the heartland of Yugoslavia in the 1970s, Washington Post correspondent Dusko Doder described "a landscape of Gothic spires, Islamic mosques, and Byzantine domes." A quarter century later, this landscape lay in ruins. In addition to claiming tens of thousands of lives, the former Yugoslavia's four wars ravaged over a thousand religious buildings, many purposefully destroyed by Serbs, Albanians, and Croats alike, providing an apt architectural metaphor for the region's recent history. Rarely has the human impulse toward monocausality--the need for a single explanation--been in greater evidence than in Western attempts to make sense of the country's bloody dissolution. From Robert Kaplan's controversial Balkan Ghosts, which identified entrenched ethnic hatreds as the driving force behind Yugoslavia's demise to NATO's dogged pursuit and arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, the quest for easy answers has frequently served to obscure the Balkans' complex history. Perhaps most surprisingly, no book has focused explicitly on the role religion has played in the conflicts that continue to torment southeastern Europe. Based on a wide range of South Slav sources and previously unpublished, often confidential documents from communist state archives, as well as on the author's own on-the-ground experience, Balkan Idols explores the political role and influence of Serbian Orthodox, Croatian Catholic, and Yugoslav Muslim religious organizations over the course of the last century. Vjekoslav Perica emphatically rejects the notion that a "clash of civilizations" has played a central role in fomenting aggression. He finds no compelling evidence of an upsurge in religious fervor among the general population. Rather, he concludes, the primary religious players in the conflicts have been activist clergy. This activism, Perica argues, allowed the clergy to assume political power without the accountablity faced by democratically-elected officials. What emerges from Perica's account is a deeply nuanced understanding of the history and troubled future of one of Europes most volatile regions.
Balkan Imbroglio: Politics And Security In Southeastern Europe
by Daniel N NelsonAs Europe underwent extraordinary changes in 1989-1990, the continent's south-eastern region - the Balkans - began once again to draw attention for its ethnic rivalries, its political turmoil and its interstate disputes. Continuing tensions and instability have fostered images of a Balkan imbroglio where regional instability could affect all of Europe. This study offers country-specific and comparative assessments of political trends during this transitional era, placing emphasis on matters of international security, socioeconomic policy and political leadership. Also considered are the requisite conditions for democracy in the role of the military in a civil society, and the manner in which security can be achieved without overarching, hegemonic alliances.
Balkan Imbroglio: Politics And Security In Southeastern Europe
by Daniel N NelsonAs Europe underwent extraordinary changes in 1989-1990, the continent's south-eastern region - the Balkans - began once again to draw attention for its ethnic rivalries, its political turmoil and its interstate disputes. Continuing tensions and instability have fostered images of a Balkan imbroglio where regional instability could affect all of Europe. This study offers country-specific and comparative assessments of political trends during this transitional era, placing emphasis on matters of international security, socioeconomic policy and political leadership. Also considered are the requisite conditions for democracy in the role of the military in a civil society, and the manner in which security can be achieved without overarching, hegemonic alliances.
Balkan Reconstruction
by Daniel Daianu Thanos VeremisFocusing scholarly attention on a little known area of Europe, the book brings together analysts with an insider's view to examine the short and long-term challenges facing the region, the intricate relationship between politics and economics and the irrelevance of quick fixes in the postwar reform of Southeast Europe.
Balkan Reconstruction
by Thanos Veremis Daniel DaianuFocusing scholarly attention on a little known area of Europe, the book brings together analysts with an insider's view to examine the short and long-term challenges facing the region, the intricate relationship between politics and economics and the irrelevance of quick fixes in the postwar reform of Southeast Europe.
The Balkan Route: Hope, Migration and Europeanisation in Liminal Spaces (Southeast European Studies)
by Robert RydzewskiThis book is an ethnography of the people migrating through the Balkan route and the reaction of the local communities who witnessed their struggle to reach the European Union. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in North Macedonia and Serbia, it pays special attention to the "refugee crisis", that gave birth to a new border regime based on a permanent suspension of laws, normalisation of violence, and the entrapment of migrants stranded in a liminal space at the gates to the EU, neither able to go further nor back. The book will appeal to an international audience of academics of migration studies, social and political science, and the wider public interested in migration and social and political changes in Southeast Europe.
The Balkan Route: Hope, Migration and Europeanisation in Liminal Spaces (Southeast European Studies)
by Robert RydzewskiThis book is an ethnography of the people migrating through the Balkan route and the reaction of the local communities who witnessed their struggle to reach the European Union. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in North Macedonia and Serbia, it pays special attention to the "refugee crisis", that gave birth to a new border regime based on a permanent suspension of laws, normalisation of violence, and the entrapment of migrants stranded in a liminal space at the gates to the EU, neither able to go further nor back. The book will appeal to an international audience of academics of migration studies, social and political science, and the wider public interested in migration and social and political changes in Southeast Europe.
Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe
by Traian StoianovichEncompassing the period from the Neolithic era to the troubled present, this book studies the peoples, societies and cultures of the area situated between the Adriatic Sea in the west and the Black Sea in the east, between the Alpine region and Danube basin in the north and the Aegean Sea in the south. This is not a conventional history of the Balkans. Drawing upon archaeology, anthropology, economics, psychology and linguistics as well as history, the author has attempted a "total history" that integrates as many as possible of the avenues and categories of the Balkan experience.