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Cooperative Security in the Asia-Pacific: The ASEAN Regional Forum (Asian Security Studies)
By Jürgen Haacke. 2010
This book offers the most comprehensive analysis yet of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which remains the foremost dialogue forum…
for the promotion of cooperative security in the Asia-Pacific. Contributors focus on the perspectives and roles of the key players in the ARF – ASEAN, the United States, China, Japan, and Australia – and discuss to what extent these participants have shaped the Forum's institutional development and affected its achievements and prospects against the backdrop of the evolving regional security architecture. They also examine in depth how participants have used the Forum to respond to a range of important transnational security issues and challenges, including terrorism and maritime security, as well as disaster relief. This work also explores how, despite the difficulties in reaching a new consensus regarding the collective pursuit of preventive diplomacy, some activist participants have succeeded in bringing about a notable, albeit incipient, 'practical turn' in the ARF’s security cooperation. This book will appeal to students of South-East Asian Politics, Asian Security Studies and International Relations in general.Managing Terrorism and Insurgency: Regeneration, Recruitment and Attrition (Contemporary Terrorism Studies)
By Cameron I. Crouch. 2010
This book examines how governments can weaken the regenerative capabilities of terrorist and insurgent groups. The exploration of this question…
takes the form of a two-tier examination of three insurgent actors whose capacity to regenerate weakened in the past: the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) of Canada, the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional - Tupamaros (MLN-T) of Uruguay and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) of Northern Ireland during the mid-1970s. At the first level of its examination, the book investigates the extent to which the regenerative capacities of the FLQ, MLN-T, and PIRA weakened because of an increase in attrition and a decrease in recruitment. The primary objectives of this analysis are to uncover whether a declining intake of recruits played a lesser, equal, or greater role than a burgeoning loss of personnel in weakening the capacities to regenerate of the three insurgent actors; and, in turn, to shed greater light on the broader validity of the prevailing view in conflict studies that a decrease in recruitment is more important than an increase in attrition in effecting the corrosion of an insurgent actor's capacity to regenerate. At the second level of its exploration, the book assesses the effectiveness of five of the most prominent policy prescriptions in the literature and insurgent recruitment and attrition: ameliorating grievances, selective repression, discrediting insurgent ideology, improving intelligence collection, and restricting civil liberties This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and counter-terrorism, conflict studies, strategic studies and security studies in general. Cameron Crouch is currently an Analyst at Allen Consulting Group, an Australian economics and public policy consulting firm. He has a PhD from the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University.This book examines in depth the impact of the EU on aspects of the quality of democracy in eight selected…
post-communist countries. Considering both the political and legal aspects of the dynamics among institutions and focussing on inter-institutional accountability, the book analyses how constitutional designs have been effectively implemented to achieve this, and to what extent this was the result of EU action. In order to make a comparative assessment of the EU on democracies, the book features detailed case studies according to their different status vis-à-vis the EU, including older new member states: Poland and Hungary; newer new member states: Romania and Bulgaria; potential candidates: Albania and Serbia; and neighbour and remote neighbour states: Ukraine and Armenia. Each chapter addresses a range of dimensions and most relevant domains of inter-institutional accountability, that is: executive-legislative relationships; constitutional justice; decentralisation and regionalism; and the role of ombudsman or other relevant authorities. Seeking to assess how important the role of the EU has been in influencing the modes and characteristic of democracies and fundamental rights established in these regions, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, EU politics, Post-communist studies and democratization studies.Politics, Planning and Homes in a World City (Housing, Planning and Design Series)
By Duncan Bowie. 2010
This is an insightful study of spatial planning and housing strategy in London, focusing on the period 2000-2008 and the…
Mayoralty of Ken Livingstone. Duncan Bowie presents a detailed analysis of the development of Livingstone’s policies and their consequences. Examining the theory and practice of spatial planning at a metropolitan level, Bowie examines the relationships between: planning, the residential development market and affordable housing environmental, economic and equity objectives national, regional and local planning agencies and their policies. It places Livingstone’s Mayoralty within its historical context and looks forward to the different challenges faced by Livingstone’s successors in a radically changed political and economic climate. Clear and engaging, this critical analysis provides a valuable resource for academics and their students as well as planning, housing and development professionals. It is essential reading for anyone interested in politics and social change in a leading ‘world city’ and provides a base for parallel studies of other major metropolitan regions.This book examines the law reforms of contemporary China in light of the Party-state’s ideological transformation and the political economy…
that shapes these reforms. This involves analysing three interrelated domains: law reform, power and wealth. The contributors to this volume employ a variety of perspectives and analytical techniques in their discussion of key themes including: commercial law reform and its governance of wealth and regulation of economic activity; the influence and authority of the Party-state over China’s economic activity; and the influence of wealth and the wealthy in economic governance and legal reform. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, this book presents analytical perspectives of new work, or new lines of thinking about the new wealth, power and law reforms of China. As such, critical boundaries are explored between legal and financial reforms and what these reforms signify about deeper ideological, economic, social and cultural transformations in China. The book concludes by asking whether there is a ‘China model’ of development which will produce a unique variety of capitalism and indigenous variant of rule of law, and examining the ‘winners and losers’ in the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. Law, Wealth and Power in China will be of interest to students and academics of comparative law, Asian law, Chinese economics and politics, Chinese Studies, as well as professionals in investment banking, finance and government.Italy Today: The Sick Man of Europe
By Andrea Mammone. 2010
Italy Today represents one of the most comprehensive examinations of contemporary Italy. It is a provocative and an innovative collection…
that aims to highlight the current ‘crisis’ of the country through an analysis of several different ‘dark shadows’ of contemporary Italian society. Italy already had a long history of ‘unsolved’ issues, several chronic problems and contradictions that have been ignored for a very long time, during which they have assumed dramatic proportions and gravity. The peninsula has now become the ‘Sick Man of Europe’, a country facing a veritable decline also caused by apparent incapacity and difficulties of the ruling economic, political and social elites. Discussions include: an evaluation of the current predicaments of the political system analysis of emerging mafias, including new powerful crime organizations such as ‘Ndrangheta issues surrounding the ongoing presence of Fascism examination of the recent xenophobic tensions discussion of problems associated with the missed opportunity of the EU funding, and the increasing regional economic gaps outline of the systemic troubles of Italy’s economic and industrial system. Written by leading experts in the field and covering a wide range of topics, this collection is essential reading for all those seeking to understand the issues and problems that are facing contemporary Italy.Internationalisation of Social Sciences in Central and Eastern Europe: The ‘Catching Up’ -- A Myth or a Strategy? (Studies in European Sociology)
By Dagmar Kutsar, Ilona Pálné Kovács. 2010
Internationalisation of Social Sciences in Central and Eastern Europe explores the way in which social sciences, in comparison with other…
sciences in Europe, have been divided by the political orders of West and East. As part of the field of science policies in Europe, this book contributes to the creation of a new understanding of the European academic landscape of social sciences with particular focus on CEE countries. In its investigation of the emergence of social sciences in Central and Eastern Europe following the collapse of the totalitarian systems, this book discusses how the internationalisation of the social sciences and the convergence between Western and Eastern social scientific life is hindered by factors including funding, academic contacts, and curriculum development. The issues addressed within the text serve to prompt the realisation that coherence in European social sciences can be reached only if new academic traditions and cultures are developed, and science policies harmonised. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students of European Integration, CEE or Transitional Studies, and any courses related to science policies. It is also relevant to science administrators and policy makers at national and European level.The Challenge of Labour in China: Strikes and the Changing Labour Regime in Global Factories (China Policy Series)
By Chris King-chi Chan. 2010
China’s economic success has been founded partly on relatively cheap labour, especially in the export industries. In recent years, however,…
there has been growing concern about wages and labour standards in China. This book examines how wages are bargained, fought over and determined in China, by exploring how the pattern of labour conflict has changed over time since the 1970s. It focuses in particular on the city of Shenzhen where labour conflict and workers’ protests have been especially prevalent. This book includes a detailed account of the transformation of labour relations and labour policy in China more broadly during 2004 to 2009, a period when there have been significant changes in the labour market, labour regulation and labour relations. The author argues that these recent developments have brought to the fore the class basis of workers’ protest in China and have thoroughly undermined the post-Marxist analysis of identity politics. The book makes an invaluable contribution to studies on industry and labour, as well as Chinese studies.Gandhi's Spinning Wheel and the Making of India (Routledge Studies in South Asian History)
By Rebecca Brown. 2010
Gandhi’s use of the spinning wheel was one of the most significant unifying elements of the nationalist movement in India.…
Spinning was seen as an economic and political activity that could bring together the diverse population of South Asia, and allow the formerly elite nationalist movement to connect to the broader Indian population. This book looks at the politics of spinning both as a visual symbol and as a symbolic practice. It traces the genealogy of spinning from its early colonial manifestations in Company painting to its appropriation by the anti-colonial movement. This complex of visual imagery and performative ritual had the potential to overcome labour, gender, and religious divisions and thereby produce an accessible and effective symbol for the Gandhian anti-colonial movement. By thoroughly examining all aspects of this symbol’s deployment, this book unpacks the politics of the spinning wheel and provides a model for the analysis of political symbols elsewhere. It also probes the successes of India’s particular anti-colonial movement, making an invaluable contribution to studies in social and cultural history, as well as South Asian Studies.The Second Palestinian Intifada: Civil Resistance (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics)
By Julie M. Norman. 2010
Palestinian civilians engaged in numerous acts of unarmed resistance during the second intifada. However, these attempts in using non-violent strategies…
were frequently overshadowed by the armed tactics of militant groups. Drawing from extensive interviews, surveys, and observations in the West Bank, this book provides an in-depth study of the often-overlooked aspects of popular resistance in Palestine. The book demonstrates how such unarmed tactics have considerable support amongst the local population particularly when they are framed as a strategy rather than just as a moral preference. However, whilst recognizing the successes of many civil-based initiatives, the author examines why a unified popular movement never fully emerged. She argues that obstacles extended beyond occupation policies to include political constraints from the Palestinian Authority, and agenda-setting efforts from sectors of the international community. Nevertheless, many activists continue to work creatively through diverse channels and networks to broaden the space for civil resistance. Combining critical analysis with activist narratives and community case studies, the book provides a comprehensive and compelling look at non-violent activism in the second intifada, offering a fresh perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and illustrating both the challenges and opportunities in mobilizing for popular struggle.This book provides a broad account of the international history of East Asia from 1900 to 1968 - a subject…
that is essential to any understanding of the modern epoch. Whereas much of the scholarship on this subject has focused purely on the immediate origins and consequences of violent events such as wars and revolutions, this book demonstrates the importance of also considering other forces such as ideology, trade and cultural images that have helped shape East Asian international history. It analyses how the development of the region was influenced by ideological competition and ‘orientalism’, by both multilateral and unilateral efforts to instil order, and by the changing nature of international trade. It considers a number of important topics such as the concept of the ‘open door’; the rise and influence of progressive internationalism in the forum of the League of Nations; the development of anti-colonial nationalism and anti-Western internationalism in the shape of pan-Asianism; and the onset of the Cold War. It also includes detailed case studies of subjects including the administration of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service; the international effort to regulate the trade in opium; and the significance of intra-Asian trade. Overall, this book constitutes an impressive account of the international history of East Asia, and is an important contribution to the interpretive study of this crucial period of history.Islam and Political Reform in Saudi Arabia: The Quest for Political Change and Reform (Routledge Studies in Political Islam)
By Mansoor Jassem Alshamsi. 2010
This book examines the link between Islamic thought/jurisprudence on the one hand and political action on the other. It shows…
how reformism is deeply rooted in Islamic tradition and how Sunni scholars have become activists for change in Saudi Arabia.For some time Japan has been under fire for adjusting too slowly to new realities. While this criticism may be…
valid on some levels, Japan has been transforming in tandem with both regional and global forces. However, these changes have been largely overshadowed by the immense changes in Asia; including the rise of China, the 1997 Southeast Asian financial crisis and North Korea's development of nuclear weapons. Has Japan, the world's second largest economy, only been muddling through? In this volume the contributors show that although the challenges faced are great, Japan is changing in areas ranging from political leadership, education policy, official development assistance, peace building and security, to defence production, business associations and innovation policy. The book analyses processes of change, focusing on the dynamics of change - rather than structural change or institutional change per se - from four levels: the individual, domestic, regional and global. Forces from outside Japan, such as a changing world order and changes in power relationships in Asia, have driven change along with pressures emerging within Japan, such as the increasing power of public opinion and competitiveness within markets. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Japanese and Asian Studies, Politics, International Relations, Globalization, Business and Economics.This book analyses collaboration in the Greater Mekong Subregion. It explores inter-state cooperation and the role of subnational units (provincial…
and local governments) and transnational actors (NGOs, firms) in building and maintaining the subregion. It also considers the relationships between actors on the three levels, their influences within the structures of decision-making in the GMS, their policy pronouncements and roles in the GMS. After exploring the historical background of cooperation in the GMS, the author discusses how far cooperation in the GMS has developed from the mere promotion of the national interest of individual states towards an institution as an independent actor able to influence relationships between its member states instead of only being influenced by them. Hensengerth scrutinises the nature of GMS cooperation and the character and capabilities of the institution of the GMS, exemplified by the bilateral relations between China and Vietnam. Here, the study will combine the analysis of subregionalism and institution-building in the GMS with an analysis of China-Vietnam relations by combining theoretical approaches to regional integration in the form of the regime approach with foreign policy analysis This book will appeal to academics within international relations, Southeast Asian regional and China or Vietnam country specialists.Over the last few decades, the field of management enlarged its boundaries, especially in international terms, in a very rapid…
fashion—mainly because of the arrival of the so-called era of globalization. Many renowned scholars have criticized the universal approach given to ‘management’ in the United States and its subsequent automatic conversion into ‘international management,’ but their arguments too can fall into the trap of universalism at times. This book has a more specific concern: to challenge the conversion of ‘management’ into ‘international management’ from a Latin American perspective. This challenge might be taken as a first step toward the construction of a Latin American perspective in International Management and a potential contribution to the development of this field in other parts of the world. Drawing upon such critical standpoint, several authors in the book converge upon the idea that researchers, practitioners and authorities in Latin America should challenge the US dominance in International Management and foster interdisciplinary developments within International Relations. The critical perspective provided in this book challenges the US’s narrow viewpoint on management as it clearly does not fit the governance features of ‘international management’ in Latin America. So far, we have not observed the constitution of sub-areas such as international management of international organizations, international management of transnational institutions, international management of public-private networks, international management of public companies, and international public administration or international public management, all of which would be extremely important in Latin America.Russia and Islam: State, Society and Radicalism (BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies)
By Roland Dannreuther. 2010
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both the Russian state and Russia's Muslim communities have struggled to find a…
new modus vivendi in a rapidly changing domestic and international socio-political context. At the same time as Islamic religious belief and practice have flourished, the state has become increasingly concerned about the security implications of this religious revival, reflecting and responding to a more general international concern over radicalised political Islam. This book examines contemporary developments in Russian politics, how they impact on Russia's Muslim communities, how these communities are helping to shape the Russian state, and what insights this provides to the nature and identity of the Russian state both in its inward and outward projection. The book provides an up-to-date and broad-ranging analysis of the opportunities and challenges confronting contemporary Muslim communities in Russia that is not confined in scope to Chechnya or the North Caucasus, and which goes beyond simplistic characterisations of Muslims as a 'threat'. Instead, it engages with the role of political Islam in Russia in a nuanced way, sensitive to regional and confessional differences, highlighting Islam's impact on domestic and foreign policy and investigating sources of both radicalisation and de-radicalisation.Is the ‘golden age’ of democracy really over due to the pressures of globalisation and the erosion of the nation…
state? Within this book, Heinelt seeks to address the democratic deficit in political systems linked to limited Citizen Participation reflecting on the notion of democracy and participatory governance and how they relate to each other. Exploring democracy beyond the governmental structures and focusing on participatory governance in particular this book demonstrates that common notions of democracy have to be re-conceptualised without neglecting its key ideas. By arguing that it is a political task to turn the inevitability of governance into a participatory form, Heinelt develops a model of different ‘worlds of democratic actions’ which shows that democratic political systems have to be considered as a complex and broad web of various forms of interest articulation and intermediation as well as decision-making. Making an important contribution to the ‘third transformation of democracy’, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of governance, democracy, policymaking & European studies.International Political Economy: Debating the Past, Present and Future
By Nicola Phillips. 2010
The book gathers together a set of lively, provocative essays by leading voices in International Political Economy to debate the…
evolution of the field, its current state and its future directions. Prompted by recent commentaries on the existence of a ‘transatlantic divide’ in IPE between an ‘American school’ and a ‘British school’, the essays provide a wide-ranging discussion of whether it is useful to think of the field in these terms, what the ‘American’ and ‘British’ schools look like, what their achievements and shortcomings are, and what are the desirable future directions for IPE scholarship. The diverse responses to these questions reflect the ongoing vibrancy and diversity of the field of IPE, and open up an imaginative and engaging discussion about where we need to go from here. Featuring contributions from the most influential scholars in the field from North America, Canada and the UK, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the cutting edge debates in contemporary international political economy.The political downfall of the Suharto administration in 1998 marked the end of the "New Order" in Indonesia, a period…
characterized by 32 years of authoritarian rule. It opened the way for democracy, but also for the proliferation of political Islam, which the New Order had discouraged or banned. Many of the issues raised by Muslim groups concerned matters pertaining to gender and the body. They triggered heated debates about women’s rights, female political participation, sexuality, pornography, veiling, and polygamy. The author argues that public debates on Islam and Gender in contemporary Indonesia only partially concern religion, and more often refer to shifting moral conceptions of the masculine and feminine body in its intersection with new class dynamics, national identity, and global consumerism. By approaching the contentious debates from a cultural sociological perspective, the book links the theoretical domains of body politics, the mediated public sphere, and citizenship. Placing the issue of gender and Islam in the context of Indonesia, the biggest Muslim-majority country in the world, this book is an important contribution to the existing literature on the topic. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of anthropology, sociology, and gender studies.Social Democracy and European Integration: The politics of preference formation (Routledge Advances in European Politics)
By Dionyssis G. Dimitrakopoulos. 2010
What kind of Europe do social democratic parties prefer? What is the origin of their preferences? Are they shaped by…
interests, institutions or ideas? If so, how? Why do social democratic political parties respond differently to the crucial question of the future of the European Union? While many social democratic parties initially opposed European integration either in principle or because of the form it took, gradually they came to lend their full, though often critical, support to it. Despite this evolution, important differences between them have remained. This book examines the preferences of social democratic parties in Germany, France, the UK, Sweden and Greece towards European integration, in comparative perspective. Using a variety of sources, including interviews with key party officials, the contributors explore what kind of Europe these parties want, and seek to explain the formation and evolution of these preferences over time. They examine the interplay of national peculiarities and cross-national factors and their impact on preferences on European integration. In addition to highlighting the role of party leaders, they reveal that, far from being united on European integration, these parties disagree with each other in part because they have retreated – to varying degrees – from key social democratic principles. Making an important contribution to the scholarship on preference formation and the research that links the European Union with the nation state, it will be of interest to students and scholars of the EU, comparative politics and political parties.