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Using new research on higher education in the UK, Canada, Chile and Italy, this rigorous comparative study investigates key episodes of student protests against neoliberal policies and practices in today’s universities. As well as examining origins and outcomes of higher education reforms, the authors set these waves of demonstrations in the wider contexts of student movements, political activism and social issues, including inequality and civil rights. Offering sophisticated new theoretical arguments based on fascinating empirical work, the insights and conclusions revealed in this original study are of value to anyone with an interest in social, political and related studies.
This book explores the movement of self-managed social centres, also known as squatting movement. It studies why this movement has been more active and stronger in certain cities, focusing on the relationship between environments and their different trajectories. Through a comparative analysis, the book studies the conditions under which left-wing activists, associated with urban and housing movements, local artists and the young, created this sui generis social movement in a well-defined group of cities in Western Europe. Thus, it offers the first systematic comparison of the movement of self-managed social centres in Western Europe. The book centres its attention on the larger social, political and urban contexts across the different periods that it covers, paying attention to the ways in which various aspects of these contexts helped this movement to settle down and thrive.
This book inquires into the global wave of student mobilizations that have arisen in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2008, accounting for their historical and sociological significance. More specifically, its eleven chapters explore the role of students as political actors: their ability to build effective organizations, to make political alliances with other actors, and to win public consensus, as well as their impact on cultural, political, and policy outcomes. To do so, the volume examines case studies in England, Chile, South Africa, Quebec, and Hong Kong, covering Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and Latin America. Grouped into two major sections, the collection covers the organizational structures of student movements and their alliances and outcomes. Ultimately, this volume examines the understudied political aspects of student unrest, exploring how student mobilizations—driven by indebtedness, precariousness, the corporatization of the university, and other issues—correspond to larger processes of change with wider implications in society.
This book is an urgent and compelling account of the Occupy movements: from the M15 movement in Spain, to the wave of Occupations flooding across cities in American, Europe and Australia, to the harsh reality of evictions as corporations and governments attempted to reassert exclusive control over public space. Across a vast range of international examples over twenty authors analyse, explain and helps us understand the movement. These movements were a novel and noisy intervention into the recent capitalist crisis in developed economies, developing an exceptionally broad identity through a call to arms addressed to ‘the 99%’, and emphasizing the importance of public space in the creation...
Understanding the politics of Higher Education is becoming more important as the sector is increasingly recognised as a vital source of innovation, skills, economic prosperity, and personal wellbeing. Yet key political differences remain over such issues as who should pay for higher education, how should it be accountable, and how we measure its quality and productivity. Particularly, are states or markets the key in helping to address such matters. The Handbook provides framing perspectives and perspectives, chapters on funding, governance and regulation, and pieces on the political economy of higher education and on the increased role of external stakeholders and indicators.
This collection of essays includes papers presented at the 21st annual Eugene Scassa Mock OAS Conference, an inter-collegiate competition and prestigious academic conference focused on inter-American political systems and the politics, history, and culture of the Americas. The volume includes papers on US-Mexico and Mexico-Spain business relations written by experts from universities in Mexico; Organisation of American States intervention in Cuba and Venezuela; social histories of Mexico involving women’s rights, civil rights of immigrants in the American Southwest, and the history and nuance of LGBT groups in Mexico; quantitative analysis of protest movements in Chile; religious history as pertaining to politics in the early United States; and a series of three short papers on the importance and legacy of sugar in the Caribbean. Written by recognized authorities in their fields and by promising new scholars alike, the collection presents a wide assortment of viewpoints and research backgrounds to portray the Americas and its vast and diverse cultural fabric.
Comparative Approaches to Informal Housing Around the Globe brings together historians, anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, urban planners and political activists to break new ground in the globalisation of knowledge about informal housing. Providing both methodological reflections and practical examples, they compare informal settlements, unauthorised occupation of flats, illegal housing construction and political squatting in different regions of the world. Subjects covered include squatter settlements in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, squatting activism in Brazil and Spain, right-wing squatting in Germany, planning laws and informality across countries in the Global North, and squatting in post-Second World War UK and Australia.
Identifying academic freedom as a major casualty of rapid and extensive reforms to the governance and practices of academic institutions worldwide, this timely Handbook considers the meaning of academic freedom, the threats it faces, the consequences of its loss, and its relation to rights of critical expression, public accountability and the democratic health of open societies.
Recently, important new research has emerged to explain the large intergenerational cleavages in values and political preferences in many contemporary societies. In most established democracies (and many newer democracies), young people are more likely to possess progressive values and are much more cosmopolitan in their outlook (socially liberal, accepting of cultural diversity and outward looking) than older generations. They tend to reject mainstream electoral politics and authoritarian-nationalist forms of populism in favour of alternative, progressive political parties and movements. Indeed, there is burgeoning evidence of a global tendency towards young people’s support for, and part...
Globalisation, regionalisation, new technology, demography, voters’ expectations and re-structuring of societies are expected to influence welfare state development for years to come. This handbook analyses how different welfare state models and regimes will be able to cope with contemporary and future challenges, providing a variety of evidence based tools that make it essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers alike.