You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
'The world has entered the urban millennium. Nearly half the world's people are now city dwellers, and the rapid increase in urban population is expected to continue, mainly in developing countries. This historic transition is being further propelled by the powerful forces of globalization. The central challenge for the international community is clear: to make both urbanization and globalization work for all people, instead of leaving billions behind or on the margins. Cities in a Globalizing World: Global Report on Human Settlements is a comprehensive review of conditions in the world's cities and the prospects for making them better, safer places to live in an age of globalization. I hope...
This book reassesses performance legitimacy in the context of statebuilding and identifies the paradox between state institution building and state legitimacy by looking at the interplay between state legitimacy and leaders’ legitimacy The author reviews the significant weaknesses associated with the current measures of state legitimacy and uses this to demonstrate the incompatibility of these measurements with the reality faced by conflict and post-conflict countries. The author uses the Performance Legitimacy Theory of Transition framework to demonstrate the potential legitimacy paths that post-conflict countries can embark on and proposes a new approach for building state legitimacy in post-conflict countries. The author also introduces new indicators to measure performance legitimacy that also reflect its non-exclusive nature. Essential reading for students and researchers of Peace and Conflict Studies and especially of post-conflict development, peacebuilding, statebuilding, intervention, and democracy promotion. Also accessible to policy makers.
It is widely assumed that the relationship between governance capacity and decentralization determines the success in governance, but how does this relationship function is largely contested. Does decentralization lead to an improvement in governance capacities, or are certain capacities preconditioned in order for decentralization to lead better governance? Relying on an empirical study of Turkish provincial municipalities, the book argues success in decentralization is strongly influenced by the socioeconomic conditions in the province and to a lesser extent by the local government’s capacity. The book provides a novel approach to capacity building practices and decentralization reforms by suggesting that the relationship between decentralization and governance capacity should be addressed not only on the organizational but also on the developmental level. In this way, the book proposes asymmetrical decentralization according to socio-economic development at subnational level for better governance outcomes.
A pioneering approach to social theory that rectifies overreliance on Western historical experience of development and modernization. In this pioneering volume, leading international scholars argue for the development of a new approach to social theory that draws on regional studies for the conduct of comparative analysis in the global age. Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age moves beyond facile generalizations based on the historical experience of modernization in the West by highlighting differences rather than similarities and contrasts rather than commonalities, and by examining civilizational processes and culturally specific developmental patterns distinctive of differ...
The first in-depth study of the impact of economic and political decentralization on planning practice in developing economies, this innovative volume, using original case study research by leading experts drawn from diverse fields of inquiry, from planning to urban studies, geography and economics, explores the dramatic transformation that decentralization implies in responsibilities of the local planning and governance structures. It examines a range of key issues, including: public and private finance local leadership and electoral issues planning in post-conflict societies. Offering unique insights into how planning has changed in specific countries, paying particular attention to South East Asian economies, India and South Africa, this excellent volume is an invaluable resource for researchers, graduate students and planners interested in urban planning in its international political and economic context.
This volume, the first of its kind in the English language, examines the law and politics of federalism and decentralization in the Middle East and North Africa. Comprised of eleven case studies examining the experience across the region, together with essays by leading scholars providing comparative and theoretical perspectives and a synthetic conclusion by the co-editors, the volume offers a textured portrait of the dilemmas of decentralization during a period of sweeping transition in the region. The collection addresses an important gap in the comparative decentralization literature, which has largely neglected the MENA region. Both retrospective and forward-looking in orientation, the book is a valuable resource not only for scholars of comparative politics, constitutional design, and Middle East studies, but also for policy makers evaluating the feasibility and efficacy of decentralization as a vehicle for improving governance and responding to identity conflict in any part of the world.
None
This is one of the first books to explore the nexus between civil society, religion, and global governance, their impact on human security and well-being, and significance for current debates in international politics. The contributors examine salient aspects of the secular state whose monopoly on, and control of, institutional violence has reified its use of power to such an extent that the modernistic separation of church and state is being called into question, as institutional limits are sought to the abuse of that power. The volume is clearly divided into six key sections: human security and human rights the politics of civil religion the ethics of civil development civil society and gl...
This volume analyzes how enduring democracy amid longstanding inequality engendered inclusionary reform in contemporary Latin America.
This innovative book examines how the privatization and reregulation of the telecommunications sectors in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s provoked the rise of new consumer protest movements in Latin America. Sybil Rhodes looks at how hasty privatization of state-owned telephone companies led to short-term economic windfalls for multinational corporations but long-term instability due to consumer movements or the threat of them. Eventually these governments implemented consumer-friendly regulation as a belated form of damage control. In contrast, governments that privatized through more gradual, democratic processes were able to make credible commitments to their citizens as well as to their multinational investors by including regulatory regimes with consumer protection mechanisms built in. Rhodes illustrates how consumers—previously unacknowledged actors in studies of social movements, market reforms, and democratizations in and beyond Latin America—are indispensable to understanding the political and social implications of these broad global trends.