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Religion and Comparative Development is the first analytical endeavor on religion and government that incorporates microeconomic modeling of democracy and dictatorship as well as empirical linkages between religious norms and the bureaucratic provision of public goods within the framework of survey data analysis and public goods experiments. Moreover, it explores the rising significance of religion in Middle East and post-Soviet politics, as well as in current migration, security and party developments in the United States and Europe alike through these lenses.
This book is the one of the first to address aid effectiveness as a political and comparative economics question. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transition of its republics to market structures and more representative forms of government, the European Commission has recognized the necessity of a closer economic cooperation with Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, the three largest economies of the former Soviet Union. This book suggests that the foreign aid of the European Union provided a set of reform incentives to post-Soviet planners. It created the grounds for the institutional and social transformation of the bureaucracy at both central and regional levels by integrating it...
This book examines why authoritarian governments are willing to address environmental problems that have an international impact, such as CO2 emissions, but are reluctant to address problems that have only a domestic impact. In a case study of Azerbaijani oil politics, it demonstrates how the incumbent Azerbaijani regime has taken important measures trying to address CO2 emissions while ignoring the damage caused by oil pollution on the Caspian coast. The book argues that resource-rich authoritarian governments are eager to join international environmental initiatives to improve their image, but they address domestic environmental issues mainly if they threaten their hold on power. This book...
The original chapters in this book connect the microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches to public debt. Through their thought-provoking views, leading scholars offer insights into the incentives that individuals and governments may have in resorting to public debt, thereby promoting a clearer understanding of its economic consequences.
In this volume, a set of issue and country experts tackle the questions surrounding the challenges of a resurgent Russia for the world order as well as for relations between the European Union and the United States. Following a brief introduction laying out the circumstances of Russia’s rise, the book proceeds in three sections. In the first, Russian scholars tackle the topic of how a newly resurgent Russia sees the world. The second section examines Russia’s role in the contemporary global political economy in terms of trade and financial flows and nuclear energy. The third section looks at American and European responses to Russia, and the conclusion draws together the findings from ea...
Territorial political organisation forms the backbone of western liberal democracies. However, political economists are increasingly aware of how this form of government neglects the preferences of citizens, resulting in dramatic conflicts. The Political Economy of Non-Territorial Exit explores the theoretical possibility of ‘unbundling’ government functions and decentralising territorial governance.
This book is a collective attempt to present a wide-ranging picture of international attitudes towards the events currently ongoing in Ukraine. As some experts have already tended to claim, in 2014 this post-Soviet state lying in the Eastern part of the European continent has become a scene of the most serious geopolitical standoff since the end of the Cold war. It would be in place here to remind a well-known clear-cut maxim, formulated by Zbigniew Brzeziński in late 1990s and concerning Ukraine’s key role in shaping the Russian imperial self-identity: “Without Ukraine Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire”. So what may readers expect to find in this book? It has been divided into two parts, reflecting the perspectives on Ukrainian crisis: first, the perspective of Ukraine’s close neighbours from Central Eastern Europe and Turkey; second, the perspectives of the global players like the EU, the US or China. We hope that such a publication focused on the above-mentioned problems and embedded in the actual reality will be useful both for professionals in the field of political science, as well as for those who have an influence on the shape of the foreign policy.
This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to one of Japan's thorniest public policy issues: why are women increasingly forgoing motherhood? At the heart of the matter lies a paradox: although the overall trend among rich countries is for fertility to decrease as female labor participation increases, gender-friendly countries resist the trend. Conversely, gender-unfriendly countries have lower fertility rates than they would have if they changed their labor markets to encourage the hiring of women—and therein lies Japan's problem. The authors argue that the combination of an inhospitable labor market for women and insufficient support for childcare pushes women toward working harder to promote their careers, to the detriment of childbearing. Controversial and enlightening, this book provides policy recommendations for solving not just Japan's fertility issue but those of other modern democracies facing a similar crisis.
The conflict in Western Sahara has endured for nearly half a century, yet remains little known on the world stage. Drawing on multiple sources, this book presents an expansive history of both the conflict and the region, encompassing the history of the early Moroccan empires, the successive migrations of Arab nomads across the Sahara, the age of European exploration and colonialism, and the postcolonial period, when the conflict erupted out of a complex set of forces that include longstanding regional tensions, North Africa’s colonial legacy, the instability of post-independence Morocco, and diplomatic intrigues on the part of Western powers during the Cold War period. While it does not address the history of the conflict following the UN-mandated ceasefire of 1991, the book provides an overview for readers interested in both the conflict itself and the history of African nationalism in the post-war period.
The twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall saw many reflect on the political, economic and social changes of recent years. The legacy of communism and the economic prospects of post-communist countries are rigorously analysed in this stimulating study of the long term consequences of transition.