Suchergebnisse

"Kuah explores the centrality of ancestors and ancestor worship of the Chinese in the Diaspora Chinese and China universes. Building on the original work and book on "Rebuilding the Ancestral Village: Singaporeans in China", this book goes beyond the premise of remaking the ancestral home. Ancestor worship and the ancestors, together with selected cultural practices, constitute an important aspect of the broad Chinese culture shared by these two groups of Chinese and leads to the making of a collaborative cultural basin. This book takes the audience on an ancestor worship journey to uncover the complexity of ancestors and ancestral souls crossing transnational spaces, their choices of ancestral soul homes, the significance of the lineage ancestral house and the engagement of women through food offering contesting patriarchy. It also explores the increasing role of the Mainland Chinese state in appropriating ancestor and ancestor worship as a cultural icon and during the Qingming festival as a socio-moral capital and cultural bridge to foster closer ties with the Diaspora Chinese in its attempt to bring them into its "Chinese civilizational polity". The book also takes the audience on a photographic journey to visually experience the various rituals and the vibrancy of the ritual performances conducted during the different stage from pre-communal to communal ancestor worship. An essential read for scholars of Chinese society and religion, Chinese migration and diaspora studies"--

"Winner of the 2020 European Walter Benjamin Prize, The Revolution is the Emergency Break is a rich compilation of Walter Benjamin's lesser-known writings by renowned social scientist Michael Löwy. Translated into several languages but available in English for the very first time, Löwy brings together the philosophical, literary, theological, and cultural aspects of Benjamin's writings, including his relation to figures such as Gershom Scholem and Franz Rosenzweig, his interpretation of historical materialism, surrealism, anti-fascism and anarchism, his contribution to understanding capitalism as a religion, and his relevance for Latin America and ecology today. The concept of revolution in his writings - not only the political ones, but also those that deal with art, literature or theology, run through the work connecting the various chapters. The Revolution is the Emergency Break also features four new chapters this collection. Written in a clear-eyed, accessible language, The Revolution is the Emergency Break is a must-read for researchers, teachers, and students interested in the works of this influential German intellectual"--

"Chronicling and analyzing resistance to the threat that autocracy poses to American liberal democracy, this book provides the definitive account of both Trump's efforts to erode democracy's essential elements and opposition to those efforts. This book is about the threat of autocracy, which antedated Donald Trump and will persist after he leaves the stage. Autocrats blur or breach the separation of powers, use executive orders to bypass the legislature, pack the courts, replace career prosecutors with political appointees, abuse the pardon power, and claim immunity from the law. They seek to hobble opposition from civil society by curtailing speech and assembly, tolerating and even encouraging vigilante violence, and attacking the media. As this book demonstrates, Trump followed the autocrat's playbook in many ways. He was a huckster of hate, aiming his vitriol at women and racial minorities, and making attacks on immigrants the focus of his 2016 campaign, as well as his first years in office. Nevertheless, his rhetoric and policies encountered widespread opposition - from religious leaders, business executives, lawyers and bar associations, and civil servants. His executive orders (on which he relied) were almost all struck down by courts: including the first two "Muslim bans," the detention of children and their separation from parents, the diversion of military funds to build the border wall, the insertion of a citizenship question in the Census, and limits on asylum. Just as Trump sought to weaponize the criminal justice system against his political opponents, so he manipulated it to defend his cronies, derailing some of their prosecutions. Trump also intervened in courts martial and criminal prosecutions of those convicted of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and those accused of desertion and terrorism. Again, however, there was resistance: as some career prosecutors withdrew from cases or resigned when subjected to political pressure and federal courts convicted all of Trump's allies- even though the president went on to use his unreviewable pardon power. This book, then, documents the abuses that are characteristic of autocracy, and assesses the various forms of resistance to them. This definitive account and analysis of Trumpism in action, as well as the resistance to it, will appeal to scholars, students and others with interests in politics, populism and the rule of law; and, more specifically, to those concerned with resisting the threat that autocracy poses to liberal democracy"--

The Way of Bitterness (1931) is a valuable record of life in Soviet Russia in the early days of Bolshevik rule. It details the story of the rescue of Prince Peter Wolkonsky from Soviet Russia by his wife, who had succeeded in escaping Russia in 1919 but returned on foot to Petrograd to secure the release of her husband from a Moscow prison. It recounts her travels and the conditions she found, and their eventual crossing of the border into Estonia.

"The technology evolution in education can no longer be apprehended simply by looking at the use of computers and networks. Technology is not just a supplementary tool to the conventional method of education. Education has to undergo a complete transformation with technological innovations for sustainability of quality education as a system and not in silos. The sustainability in education also necessitates a more workable strategy to realize socially viable educational policies and practices which can emphasize more on personalized learning. Due to various factors like emerging technologies; changing needs of the learners; policy reforms for enhancing employability; and emphasis on uninterrupted education as in the case of current pandemic scenario of COVID 19, there is need to steer a major transition in education system. The education system has to be real and proficient for it to be instrumental to nurture the knowledge-society. The book on advances in technological innovations in higher education is organized, largely, on the diversity of higher education ecosystem that are supported by the technological innovations. Various viewpoints of authors give insights to the full potential of technology as well as its risks in interrelated areas of higher education to work towards sustainability of value-based quality education, globally"--

"Developing countries may not have full-fledged welfare states like those we find in Europe, but certainly they have welfare state systems. For comparative social policy research, the term "welfare state systems" has many advantages, as there are numerous different types/models of welfare state systems around the world. This revised and expanded second edition brings together leading experts to discuss social policy in 32 countries/regions around the world. From the most advanced welfare state systems in Scandinavia and Western Central Europe to the developing powers of Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Russia. Country-specific chapters provide in general a historical overview, discuss major characteristics of the welfare state system, analyse country-specific problems, as well as critical current and future trends for further discussions, while also providing one (additional) major focal point/issue for greater in-depth analysis. Including new country case-studies on Mali, South Africa, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Vietnam, this book is reframed around urgent contemporary issues including migration and rising social inequalities, LGBTQIA+ rights, universal basic income, and transboundary social policy. It will be of great interest to all scholars and students of social policy, social development, development economists and health economists, experts in public policy, health policy (incl. mental health policy), housing policy, education policy, family policy, cis- and trans-gender policy, migration and population policy, sociology, social work, anthropology, as well as social policy and public policy makers and administrators"--

"The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 has traditionally been seen as a limited conflict between French and German forces. This edited volume challenges this view and shows that it was a war of ideas, values and perceptions which transformed the political, diplomatic, and military culture across Europe. This volume will appeal to scholars in the fields of war studies, international relations and diplomacy, and intellectual and cultural history. It will also be a useful addition to undergraduate and postgraduate courses on nineteenth-century European history and cultural studies"--

"Academia is not immune to gender bias, and in many public affairs programs, inequities persist in faculty academic rank, salary, career length, job security, leadership roles, professional recognition, resource allocation, and role stereotypes. Managing Gender Inequity in Academia is the first book to provide an evidence-based guide for university administrators and faculty interested in building all-important gender equity in public affairs and related programs. Drawing on both secondary and primary data, the book offers a comprehensive perspective on public affairs faculty career paths, the obstacles to advancement in the academy, and how the COVID-19 pandemic further contributed to existing inequities. Each chapter of the book presents evidence-based research derived from interviews, surveys, existing statistics, and documents, offering guidance to public affairs programs, departments, and schools on ways to strengthen the recruitment, retention, and promotion of women in the academy. Ultimately, author Gina Scutelnicu Todoran demonstrates the ways in which gender equity can strengthen institutions of higher learning. Managing Gender Inequity in Academia is a guide for building gender equity in public affairs programs for faculty, higher education administrators, and graduate students in public affairs and related disciplines"--

"This book examines the emergence of modern company towns in Iran by delineating the architectural, political, and industrial histories of three distinct resource-based 'company town' projects built in association with the 'Big Three' powers of World War II. The book's narrative builds upon a tripartite research design that chronologically traces the formation and development of the oil, steel, and copper industries, respectively favoured by Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States in this part of the world. By applying three sets of comparative studies, the book provides critical vantage points to three different ideological design paradigms: postcolonial regionalism, socialist universalism, and rationalist modern nation-building. From a global political context, the book contributes to the disclosure of new information about the geopolitical confrontation of these three nations in the Global South to increase their sphere of influence after the second World War. Furthermore, it demonstrates how post-war architectural modernism was adopted by each power and adapted to their ideological mind-frame to fulfil distinct social, cultural, political, and economic targets. This book examines multiple interconnections between architecture, politics, and industrial development by adopting a transdisciplinary approach based on comprehensive fieldwork, site surveys and the analysis of original multilingual documents. As such, it will be of interest to researchers and students of architecture, history, international relations and Middle Eastern studies"--

"This collection examines the difficult task of reforming governments worldwide to meet citizens' needs and aspirations. It advances constructive efforts to enhance public accountability while recognizing the complex ways in which corruption, greed, and state capture undermine the legitimacy and performance of government. The contributors are political scientists, lawyers, and economists who bring a cross-disciplinary approach to their chosen subjects. The first group of chapters deals with public sector performance, development, and public participation. Complementary pieces by a practitioner and a scholar confront the challenges of achieving reform in countries with difficult political environments and extensive poverty and inequality. The second group emphasizes the way corruption and state capture limit the accountability and effectiveness of governments in both developing and wealthy countries. The contributions consider the institutional roots of dysfunctional government and their links to the private sector. Taken together, the volume surveys a wide range of topics with theoretical arguments and empirical findings that provide insights into real-world problems and policymaking dilemmas. Inspired by Susan Rose-Ackerman's fifty-year exploration of public policymaking, public law, and corruption, the collection will be an invaluable resource for researchers, academics and policy makers working in the areas of Public law, Anticorruption, and Political-Economy"--

Public policies are usually carefully designed to address a particular problem, but they are also shaped and influenced by the sociocultural heritage of a particular country. This volume explores the origins of economic and other public policies in Central and Eastern Europe. This region makes for a particularly interesting case because after going through a major system change - transitioning from a command economy into a market economy - many of the key policies were written anew. The contributors to this book look at key policy areas at the intersection of state and private sectors, including industrial, pension, energy, and competition policies. The chapters examine key questions such as: how did these policies evolve from the time of transition to their final form? What were the main drivers of policy conduct and factors influencing major policy choices? How does the historical context impact contemporary policy space? Throughout the volume, an institutional approach is adopted, according to which policies are perceived as the outcome of topdown design, filtered through social institutions inherited from the past. With this approach, this book presents a longrunning assessment, over 30 years, of policymaking in transition economies, which were subject to profound changes throughout the period. This book will be of interest to readers in institutional economics, policy studies, transition economies, and the recent history of Eastern Europe.

The book offers a vivid analysis of the new geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific in terms of big power rivalry between the US-China and country-wise perspectives situating largely within the late 2000s and culminates with the developments of the COVID-19 period. The great power shift, marked by the rise of China and the relative decline of the US, poses a serious challenge to the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region and the world order in general. Ironically, the play of realism in the region is stymied by broad partnerships of key countries that utilise the liberal approaches of cooperation with both rivals - the US and China. The book captures the mosaic of stakeholders - rivals the US and China along with Russia; other QUAD members Australia, India, and Japan; key ASEAN members, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam; vulnerable states in East Asia, viz. Taiwan and South Korea; and groupings including the ASEAN and QUAD - that constitute the new world politics of the Indo-Pacific. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of Indo-Pacific studies, global politics, and international relations.

Building upon the idea that our current "environmental question" arises from the history of metaphysics--which privileged thought about Being (or ontology) over the conditions of life--this book reinterprets Heraclitus's notion of physis as the fundamental, emergent potency of life, as the category to-be-thought by thinkers. In so doing, it deconstructs the interpretation offered by Heidegger and so stresses the struggle between the creative force of life and its subjection to the human Logos or "meaning". Physis, understood as the pre-ontological potentiality of life itself, thus becomes the cornerstone of a materialist philosophy of life. Following engagements with the work of Nietzsche, Foucault, and Janicaud to explore the significance of human intervention into the realm of life via the "will to power", "biopower" and the "power of rationality" respectively, the author explores twentieth-century rearticulations of the concept of physis through a range of developments in biothermodynamics, thus grounding a new philosophy of life and a new bioeconomics in a revisited biothermodynamics centered on the concept of negentropy. An extensive engagement with the history and development of thought about the generative force of life on Earth, Physis, Biopower, Biothermodynamics, and Bioeconomics: The Fire of Life will appeal to scholars of philosophy, social theory, and political theory with interests in environmental thought, political ecology, and questions of sustainability.

"This book provides a comparative analysis of Chinese property law as depicted in the newly enacted Chinese Civil Code. The Chinese Civil Code, the first civil code in the history of the People's Republic China, was enacted as law in May 2020. Reflecting the growing interest in this code and its provisions to scholars of codification and of comparative private law, it has already been translated into English, German, and Italian. Chinese property law has both local and global features, and this comparative study offers a channel through which to understand Chinese property law, by highlighting both its similarities and differences from other systems of property. Broadly speaking, the book brings together two approaches. The first comprises a comprehensive discussion of aspects of Chinese property law, such as ownership, property rights, and secured transactions. The second consists in perspectives from other jurisdictions, and provide an assessment of Chinese property law based on other property systems. Containing contributions by both distinguished as well as young scholars, who are experienced in comparative property law research, the book offers a unique insight into the Chinese Civil Code and, through it, how extra-civilian elements are embodied in a fundamentally civilian legal system. This book will appeal to scholars and students of property law, comparative law, and others with specific interests in law and politics in China"--

This volume examines the global media coverage of the armed conflict in Ukraine, focusing on the marginalization of dissident perspectives in the West and the information quality and diversity on social media. Along with presenting original, empirical studies on how mainstream media in countries as diverse as Israel, the Czech Republic, Ghana, and the Netherlands have covered the conflict between NATO and Russia since 2022, this book sheds light on the role of the state and the media in policing the boundaries of permissible thought on the conflict in the West, as well as in Russia and Ukraine. It also delves into the war's representation on prominent social media platforms. Written by a diverse group of international researchers, this multifaceted volume offers new perspectives and insights on the reporting of the ongoing conflict. It will interest scholars of international communication and media, foreign policy and international politics, war and conflict, content analysis, and journalism.