You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Managing Resource Abundance and Wealth: The Norwegian Experience describes the sundry and significant challenges, both economic and political, facing petroleum-producing countries. The volume outlines the pitfalls that policymakers encounter in the aftermath of a major resource discovery, and what they can do to protect their countries from the most adverse consequences. These lessons are derived from two very different sources: The broader-if still underdeveloped-social science literature that examines the 'Paradox of Plenty' in its disparate forms; and the experience of a country that has successfully managed its natural resources over several decades. As a small country on the margins of ...
In 'Against Global Apartheid', Patrick Bond reveals the extent of the economic and human damage caused by policies implemented by World Bank and the IMF in developing countries, particularly South Africa, and argues that there is another way to more socially just economic development.
For decades, political observers and pundits have characterized the Islamic Republic of Iran as an ideologically rigid state on the verge of collapse, exclusively connected to a narrow social base. In A Social Revolution, Kevan Harris convincingly demonstrates how they are wrong. Previous studies ignore the forceful consequences of three decades of social change following the 1979 revolution. Today, more people in the country are connected to welfare and social policy institutions than to any other form of state organization. In fact, much of Iran’s current political turbulence is the result of the success of these social welfare programs, which have created newly educated and mobilized social classes advocating for change. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Iran between 2006 and 2011, Harris shows how the revolutionary regime endured though the expansion of health, education, and aid programs that have both embedded the state in everyday life and empowered its challengers. This first serious book on the social policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran opens a new line of inquiry into the study of welfare states in countries where they are often overlooked or ignored.
In South Africa-China Relations: Between Aspiration and Reality in a New Global Order, Phiwokuhle Mnyandu analyzes South Africa-China relations in the context of South Africa’s quest to reduce unemployment and transform its economy to ensure lasting social stability. Mnyandu uses trade patterns, analyses of governmental organizations and initiatives, and other socio-economic data to determine the extent to which developmental change or stasis has taken place as relations between South Africa and China have deepened. Tracing South Africa’s changing attitudes and policies towards China’s involvement, the impact of programs involving commodities trades on unemployment, and the prospective outcomes of an endogenous developmental policy, Mnyandu concludes by proposing a quadri-linear model as a tool for more comprehensive analyses of China’s relations not only with South Africa, but other African countries as well to avoid disinformation on Africa-China issues.
An overview of South African politics and economic system, through the lens of the response to COVID-19 Has South Africa ‘done well’ at limiting illness and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic? Academic and political commentator, Steven Friedman, thinks not. While the country’s mainstream media believes it has, in his view the evidence tells another story. South Africa has experienced by far the most cases and deaths in Africa – at one point as many as the rest of the continent combined. One Virus, Two Countries: What Covid-19 tells us about South Africa offers a searing analysis of government and expert scientists’ responses to the pandemic. Friedman argues that South Africa is tw...
This edited volume addresses sustainability efforts in cities and metropolitan regions around the world; focusing on four key areas: environment, economic, sociopolitical, and cultural sustainability. It includes chapters about applications to urban regions focusing on the movement from sustainable development to resilient urban centers.
What is the impact of three decades of neoliberal narratives and policies on communities and individual lives? What are the sources of social resilience? This book offers a sweeping assessment of the effects of neoliberalism, the dominant feature of our times. It analyzes the ideology in unusually wide-ranging terms as a movement that not only opened markets but also introduced new logics into social life, integrating macro-level analyses of the ways in which neoliberal narratives made their way into international policy regimes with micro-level analyses of the ways in which individuals responded to the challenges of the neoliberal era. The product of ten years of collaboration among a distinguished group of scholars, it integrates institutional and cultural analysis in new ways to understand neoliberalism as a syncretic social process and to explore the sources of social resilience across communities in the developed and developing worlds.
In Politics of Precarity: Migrant Conditions, Struggles and Experiences, edited by Carl-Ulrik Schierup and Martin Bak Jørgensen, the contributing authors look into precarity. Precarity has become a buzzword in as well academia as among activist. The book depicts precarity as being both a condition and a mobilizing force for resistance. The volume asks questions that investigate conditions and resistance across diverse cases such as first generation urbanites in China, migrant pensioners and unemployed youth in Sweden and Spain, refugees in Germany, irregular and regular migrants in Southern Europe, Turkey, Russia the United States and South Africa. Contributors are: Susanne Bregnbæk, Ines Calzada, Maribel Casas-Cortés, Anna Gavanas, Gregoris Ioannou, Martin Bak Jørgensen, Irina Kuznetsova-Morenko, Ronaldo Munck, Dimitris Parsanoglou, John Round, Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Peter Schultz Jørgensen, Nazlı Şenses, Vassilis Tsianos, Nicos Trimikliniotis, and Mimi Zou.
The underpinning assumption of public management in the developing world as a process of planned change is increasingly being recognized as unrealistic. In reality, the practice of development management is characterized by processes of mutual adjustment among individuals, agencies, and interest groups that can constrain behaviour, as well as provide incentives for collaborative action. Paradoxes inevitably emerge in policy network practice and design. The ability to manage government departments and operations has become less important than the ability to navigate the complex world of interconnected policy implementation processes. Public sector reform policies and programmes, as a conseque...
"Foreign investments by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the oil and gas sector began a dramatic climb in the late 1990s amid rising oil prices. These investments are widely perceived to be politically driven, raising concerns about resource mercantilism and asymmetric interdependence. The book begins with the premise that the investments are commercial ventures by ambitious SOEs seeking to become global players. Applying the principal agent model, the book argues that the realization of their global ambitions depends on two domestic structural factors. First, democracies can limit investments with questionable viability, as it can be politically costly for elected leaders to endorse SOE decisions that prove unprofitable for the state. Second, bureaucratic structures overseeing the SOEs can help prevent counterproductive behavior, conditional upon a clear line of authority among bureaucratic principals on matters pertaining to SOE operations. The argument differs from previous approaches by exploring a range of institutional alternatives to privatization for solutions to problems of oil sector governance"--