This book examines a decade-long period of instability, violence and state decay in Central Africa from 1996, when the war started, to 2006, when elections formally ended the political transition in ...the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A unique combination of circumstances explain the unravelling of the conflicts: the collapsed Zairian/Congolese state; the continuation of the Rwandan civil war across borders; the shifting alliances in the region; the politics of identity in Rwanda, Burundi and eastern DRC; the ineptitude of the international community; and the emergence of privatised and criminalised public spaces and economies. This book seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of concurrent developments in Zaire/DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda in African and international contexts. By adopting a non-chronological approach, it attempts to show the dynamics of the inter-relationships between these realms and offers a toolkit for understanding the past and future of Central Africa.
Even as the evidence of global warming mounts, the international response to this serious threat is coming unraveled. The United States has formally withdrawn from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; other key ...nations are facing difficulty in meeting their Kyoto commitments; and developing countries face no limit on their emissions of the gases that cause global warming. In this clear and cogent book-reissued in paperback with an afterword that comments on recent events--David Victor explains why the Kyoto Protocol was never likely to become an effective legal instrument. He explores how its collapse offers opportunities to establish a more realistic alternative.
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. ...InA 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, Harris shows how the revolutionary regime endured through the expansion of health, education, and aid programs that have both embedded the state in everyday life and empowered its challengers. This focus 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.
The Trouble with the Congo suggests a new explanation for international peacebuilding failures in civil wars. Drawing from more than 330 interviews and a year and a half of field research, it ...develops a case study of the international intervention during the Democratic Republic of the Congo's unsuccessful transition from war to peace and democracy (2003–6). Grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power motivated widespread violence. However, a dominant peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention strategy in a way that precluded action on local conflicts, ultimately dooming the international efforts to end the deadliest conflict since World War II. Most international actors interpreted continued fighting as the consequence of national and regional tensions alone. UN staff and diplomats viewed intervention at the macro levels as their only legitimate responsibility. The dominant culture constructed local peacebuilding as such an unimportant, unfamiliar, and unmanageable task that neither shocking events nor resistance from select individuals could convince international actors to reevaluate their understanding of violence and intervention.
Indonesia is Southeast Asia's largest economy and freest democracy yet vested interests and local politics serve as formidable obstacles to infrastructure reform. In this critical analysis of the ...politics inhibiting infrastructure investment, Jamie S. Davidson utilizes evidence from his research, press reports and rarely used consultancy studies to challenge mainstream explanations for low investment rates and the sluggish adoption of liberalizing reforms. He argues that obstacles have less to do with weak formal institutions and low fiscal capacities of the state than with entrenched, rent-seeking interests, misaligned central-local government relations, and state-society struggles over land. Using a political-sociological approach, Davidson demonstrates that 'getting the politics right' matters as much as getting the prices right or putting the proper institutional safeguards in place for infrastructure development. This innovative account and its conclusions will be of interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asia and policymakers of infrastructure investment and economic growth.
This book is an investigation into the economic policy formulation and practice of neoliberalism in Britain from the 1950s through to the financial crisis and economic downturn that began in 2007-8. ...It demonstrates that influential economists, such as F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, authors at key British think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies, and important political figures of the Thatcher and New Labour governments shared a similar conception of the consumer.
For neoliberals, the idea that consumers were weak in the face of businesses and large corporations was almost offensive. Instead, consumers were imagined to be sovereign agents in the economy, whose consumption decisions played a central role in the construction of their human capital and in the enabling of their aspirations. Consumption, just like production, came to be viewed as an enterprising and entrepreneurial activity. Consequently, from the early 1980s until the present day, it was felt necessary that banks should have the freedom to meet the borrowing needs of consumers. Credit rationing would be a thing of the past. Just like businesses, consumers and households could use debt to expand their stock of personal assets.
By utilizing the method of French philosopher Michel Foucault this book provides an original analysis of the policy ideas and political speeches of key figures in the New Right, in government and at the Bank of England. And it addresses the key question as to why policy-makers both in Britain and the United States did little or nothing to stem rising consumer and household indebtedness, instead always choosing to see increasing house prices and homeownership as a positive to be encouraged.
On the fortieth anniversary of the 1978-79 Iranian revolution, a definitive political picture of the Islamic Republic
When Iranians overthrew their monarchy, rejecting a pro-Western shah in favor of ...an Islamic regime, many observers predicted that revolutionary turmoil would paralyze the country for decades to come. Yet forty years after the 1978-79 revolution, Iran has emerged as a critical player in the Middle East and the wider world, as demonstrated in part by the 2015 international nuclear agreement. InIran Rising, renowned Iran specialist Amin Saikal describes how the country has managed to survive despite ongoing domestic struggles, Western sanctions, and countless other serious challenges.
Saikal explores Iran's recent history, beginning with the revolution, which set in motion a number of developments, including war with Iraq, precarious relations with Arab neighbors, and hostilities with Israel and the United States. He highlights the regime's agility as it navigated a complex relationship with Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, survived the Gulf wars, and handled fallout from the Iraqi and Syrian crises. Such success, Saikal maintains, stems from a distinctive political order, comprising both a supreme Islamic leader and an elected president and national assembly, which can fuse religious and nationalist assertiveness with pragmatic policy actions at home and abroad.
But Iran's accomplishments, including its nuclear development and ability to fight ISIS, have cost its people, who are desperately pressuring the ruling clerics for economic and social reforms-changes that might in turn influence the country's foreign policy. Amid heightened global anxiety over alliances, terrorism, and nuclear threats,Iran Risingoffers essential reading for understanding a country that, more than ever, is a force to watch.
Navigating Contemporary Iran Hooglund, Eric; Stenberg, Leif
MECW: The Middle East in the Contemporary World,
2013, 2012, 20130228, 2013-02-28, 20120101, Letnik:
21
eBook, Book
This detailed examination of contemporary Iran addresses the most important current social, political, and economic issues facing the nation and the way it is perceived by the outside world. The ...volume brings together some of the most important scholars and researchers in the field, working in such diverse disciplines as anthropology, economics, history, international relations, philosophy, political science, and sociology, to offer a broad range of perspectives on the significance of three decades of changes for Iran's current and near-term-future domestic and international politics.
Drawing upon a wealth of original field research, the authors challenge conventional wisdom and simplistic media stereotypes about the Islamic Republic. The chapters reach beyond traditional images of the country to show that, as a consequence of thirty years of economic and social changes, the reality, or 'essence', of contemporary Iran is more complex and nuanced than is often portrayed in the international media. Offering valuable insights into Iran's economic and social policies, as well as its politics, since the Islamic Revolution, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political science, sociology, and Iranian studies.
