The struggle between Russia and Great Britain over Central Asia in the nineteenth century was the original "great game." But in the past quarter century, a new "great game" has emerged, pitting ...America against a newly aggressive Russia and a resource-hungry China, all struggling for influence over one of the volatile areas in the world: the long border region stretching from Iran through Pakistan to Kashmir. In Great Games, Local Rules, Alexander Cooley, one of America's most respected Central Asia experts, explores the dynamics of the new competition over the region since 9/11. All three great powers are pursuing important goals: basing rights for the US, access to natural resources for the Chinese, and increased political influence for the Russians. But Central Asian governments have proven themselves powerful forces in their own right, establishing local rules that serve to fend off foreign involvement, enrich themselves and reinforce their sovereign authority. Cooley's careful and surprising explanation of how small states interact with great powers in this vital region greatly advances our understanding of how world politics actually works in this contemporary era.
This unique work provides the only sustained political history of independent Kyrgyzstan, explaining events in the context of its society and the broader international order. Drawing on three decades ...of personal encounters with ordinary citizens and leading public figures, Eugene Huskey takes readers on a journey through the unlikely birth and tumultuous development of Central Asia’s most open society. Starting with the heady, romantic first days of independence and moving through the popular uprisings and inter-ethnic violence of recent years, he chronicles the struggles of a new state to establish a democratic order and to find its place in the international community, while caught between China, the Middle East, and the Russian world. At the center are the very human stories of leaders and citizens trying to navigate the transition from communism, where identities, property, and the rules of the political game were constantly in dispute. With citizens of independent Kyrgyzstan stripped of their Soviet identity, the book illustrates how alternative loyalties based on kinship, geography, statehood, and religion competed for prominence in ways that often complicated the new country’s political, social, and economic development.
The current conflict in Ukraine has spawned the most serious crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. It has undermined European security, raised questions about NATO's ...future, and put an end to one of the most ambitious projects of U.S. foreign policy -- building a partnership with Russia. It also threatens to undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts on issues ranging from terrorism to nuclear proliferation. And in the absence of direct negotiations, each side is betting that political and economic pressure will force the other to blink first. Caught in this dangerous game of chicken, the West cannot afford to lose sight of the importance of stable relations with Russia.This book puts the conflict in historical perspective by examining the evolution of the crisis and assessing its implications both for the Crimean peninsula and for Russia's relations with the West more generally. Experts in the international relations of post-Soviet states, political scientists Rajan Menon and Eugene Rumer clearly show what is at stake in Ukraine, explaining the key economic, political, and security challenges and prospects for overcoming them. They also discuss historical precedents, sketch likely outcomes, and propose policies for safeguarding U.S.-Russia relations in the future. In doing so, they provide a comprehensive and accessible study of a conflict whose consequences will be felt for many years to come.
Utilising cutting-edge theory and unique data, this book examines the role of power, culture, and practice in Russia's story of post-socialist economic change, and provides a framework for addressing ...general economic change.
No other book places power and culture as centrally as this, and in doing so it provides new insights not only into how Russia came to its present state under Putin, but also how economies operate and change generally. In particular, the importance of remaking authority and culture - creating and contesting new categories and narratives of meaning - is shown as central to Russia's story, and to the story of economies overall.
Power, Culture and Economic Change in Russia is an excellent research tool for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of sociology, political science, economics, area studies, and other related disciplines.
Gender, politics, and society in Ukraine Hankivsky, Olena; Salnykova, Anastasiya
Gender, politics, and society in Ukraine,
c2012, 20121231, 2017, 2012, 2012-12-31, 2013-04-02, 20120101
eBook
Gender, Politics, and Society in Ukraine is particularly innovative in its exploration of both women's and men's experiences and the ways in which gender relations shift over time in societies ...undergoing transitions to democracy.
The last two decades have been marked by momentous changes in forms of governance throughout the post-Soviet region. Ukraine's political system, like those of other formerly socialist states of ...Eastern Europe, has often been characterized as being "in transition," moving from a Soviet system to one more closely aligned with Western models. Anna Fournier challenges this view, investigating what is increasingly recognized as a critical aspect of contemporary global rights discourse: the active involvement of young people living in societies undergoing radical change. Fournier delineates a generation simultaneously embracing various ideological stances in an attempt to make sense of social conditions marked by the disjuncture between democratic ideals and the everyday realities of growing economic inequality. Based on extensive fieldwork in public and private schools in the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv,Forging Rights in a New Democracyexplores high-school-aged students' understanding of rights and justice, and the ways they interpret and appropriate discourses of citizenship and civic values in the educational setting and beyond. Fournier's rich ethnographic account assesses the impact on the making of citizens of both formal and informal pedagogical practices, in schools and on the streets. Chronicling her subjects' encounters with state representatives and "violent entrepreneurs" as well as their involvement in peaceful protests alongside political activists, Fournier demonstrates the extent to which young people both reproduce and challenge the liberal discourse of rights in ways that illuminate the everyday paradoxes of market democracy. By tracking students' active participation in larger contests about the nature of liberty and entitlement in the context of redefined rights, her book provides insight into emergent configurations of citizenship in the New Europe.
A number of large-scale transformations have shaped the economy, polity and society of India over the past quarter century. This book provides a detailed account of three that are of particular ...importance: the advent of liberal economic reform, the ascendance of Hindu cultural nationalism, and the empowerment of historically subordinate classes through popular democratic mobilizations.
Filling a gap in existing literature, the book goes beyond looking at the transformations in isolation, managing to:
Explain the empirical linkages between these three phenomena
Provide an account that integrates the insights of separate disciplinary perspectives
Explain their distinct but possibly related causes and the likely consequences of these central transformations taken together
By seeking to explain the causal relationships between these central transformations through a coordinated conversation across different disciplines, the dynamics of India's new political economy are captured. Chapters focus on the political, economic and social aspects of India in their current and historical context. The contributors use new empirical research to discuss how India's multidimensional story of economic growth, social welfare and democratic deepening is likely to develop. This is an essential text for students and researchers of India's political economy and the growth economies of Asia.
India's New Economic Policy Ahmed, Waquar; Kundu, Amitabh; Peet, Richard
2011, 20101004, 2010, 2010-09-13, 2010-10-04, Letnik:
26
eBook
Conventional interpretations of the New Economic Policy introduced in India in 1991 see this program of economic liberalization as transforming the Indian economy and leading to a substantial ...increase in the rate of India’s economic growth. But in a country like India, growth is not enough. Who benefits from the new growth regime, and can it significantly improve the conditions of livelihood for India’s 800 million people with incomes below $2.00 a day? This edited volume looks at international policy regimes and their national adoption under strategic conditions of economic crisis and coercion, and within longer-term structural changes in the power calculus of global capitalism. The contributors examine long-term growth tendencies, poverty and employment rates at the national level, regional level and local levels in India; the main growth centers; the areas and people left out; the advantages and deficiencies of the existing policy regime, and alternative economic policies for India. Bringing together the leading figures in the discussion on India’s economic policy, this volume is the authoritative critical study of India’s New Economic Policy.
Waquar Ahmed is a visiting assistant professor at the Department of Geography, Mount Holyoke College.
Amitabh Kundu is Professor of Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India..
Richard Peet is Professor of Geography at the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, US.
Introduction Waquar Ahmed, Amitabh Kundu and Richard Peet 1. Neoliberalism, Inequality and Development Richard Peet 2. From Mixed Economy to Neo-liberalism: Class and Caste in India’s Policy Transition Waquar Ahmed 3. Urban System in India: Trends, Economic Base, Governance and a Perspective of Growth under Globalization Amitabh Kundu 4. New Urbanism, Neoliberalism and Urban Restructuring in Mumbai Swapna Banerjee-Guha 5. Economic Liberalization and Urban Governance: Impact on Inclusive Growth Shipra Maitra 6. The Right to Waste: Informal Sector Recyclers and Struggles for Social Justice in Post-Reform Urban India Bharti Chaturvadi and Vinay Gidwani 7. From Red Tape to Red Carpet? Violent Narratives of Neoliberalizing Ahmedabad Ipsita Chatterjee 8. Neoliberalism, Environmentalism and Urban Politics in Delhi Rohit Negi 9. Coping with Challenges to Food Security: Climate Change, Biofuels and GMOs Suman Sahai 10. Imperialism, Resources and Food Security, with Reference to the Indian Experience Utsa Patnaik 11. Special Economic Zones: Space, Law and Dispossession Rupal Oza 12. Thinking Militant Particularisms Politically: Resistances to Neo-liberalism in India Dave Featherstone 13. Radical Peasant Movements and Rural Distress in India: A Study of the Naxalite Movement Raju Das
"...A good read for anyone whose intellectual curiosity is piqued by neo-liberalism and its discontents."
- Sirisha C. Naidu, Economic and Political Weekly
The making of a generation Andres, Lesley; Wyn, Johanna
The making of a generation,
c2010, 20101030, 2010, 2014, 2010-01-01, 2010-10-16, 20100101
eBook
"Secondary school graduates of the late 1980s and early 1990s have found themselves coping with economic insecurity, social change, and workplace restructuring. Drawing on studies that have recorded ...the lives of young people in two countries for over fifteen years, The Making of a Generation offers unique insight into the hopes, dreams, and trajectories of a generation."
"Although children born in the 1970s were more educated than ever before, as adults they entered new labour markets that were de-regulated and precarious. Lesley Andres and Johanna Wyn discuss the consequences of education and labour policies in Canada and Australia, emphasizing their long-term impacts on health, well-being, and family formation. They conclude that these young adults bore the brunt of policies designed to bring about rapid changes in the nature of work. Despite their modest hopes and aspirations for security, those born in the 1970s became a vanguard generation as they negotiated the significant social and economic transformations of the 1990s."--pub. desc.