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Preventing War: The United Nations and Macedonia
by Abiodun WilliamsDescribes the role the UN played in Macedonia.
Preventing War and Promoting Peace: A Guide for Health Professionals
by William H. Wiist Shelley K. WhitePreventing War and Promoting Peace: A Guide for Health Professionals is an interdisciplinary study of how pervasive militarism creates a propensity for war through the influence of academia, economic policy, the defense industry, and the news media. Comprising contributions by academics and practitioners from the fields of public health, medicine, nursing, law, sociology, psychology, political science, and peace and conflict studies, as well as representatives from organizations active in war prevention, the book emphasizes the underlying preventable causes of war, particularly militarism, and focuses on the methods health professionals can use to prevent war. Preventing War and Promoting Peace provides hard-hitting facts about the devastating health effects of war and a broad perspective on war and health, presenting a new paradigm for the proactive engagement of health professions in the prevention of war and the promotion of peace.
The Prevention and Intervention of Genocide: An Annotated Bibliography
by Samuel TottenThis volume is comprised of over 2,300 annotations on a wide array of issues and topics germane to the subject of preventing the atrocities of genocide and managing these conflicts when they do arise. Samuel Totten brings together in one comprehensive collection the research and findings in various fields, such as political science, sociology, history, and psychology, to enable specialists in genocide studies, peace studies, and conflict resolution to benefit from the insights of a diverse range of scholars and foster an understanding of how the various components of genocide studies connect. Among the topics included are: key conventions, international treaties, and covenants genocide early warning signals and forecasting risk data bases sanctions peacekeeping missions conflict resolution the International Criminal Court realpolitik vis-à-vis the issue of genocide prevention and intervention key non-governmental agencies key governmental and UN bodies working on these important issues. In addition to the annotations, Totten frames the bibliography with a major essay that introduces the reader to the subject of prevention and intervention of genocide, raising a host of critical issues regarding the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of various approaches germane to issues of managing these conflicts.
The Prevention and Intervention of Genocide: An Annotated Bibliography (Critical Bibliographic Review Ser.)
by Samuel TottenOver the last twenty years the world has witnessed four major genocides. There was the genocide in Iraq (1988), in Rwanda (1994), in Srebrenica (1995), and in Darfur (2003 and continuing). Most observers agree there is an urgent need to assess the international community's efforts to prevent genocide and to intervene (once a genocide is under way) in an effective and timely manner. This volume, the latest in a widely respected series on the subject of genocide, provides an overview of a host of issues germane to this task. The book begins with a cogent discussion of the issues of prevention and intervention during the Cold War years. The second chapter discusses the abject failures and moderate (though, in some cases, highly controversial) successes at prevention and intervention carried out in the 1990s and early 2000s. Further chapters examine latest efforts to develop an effective genocide early warning system and examine the complexity of and barriers to prevention. The pros and cons of sanctions and the problems of enforcement and evaluation their effectiveness are then discussed. Conflicts between state sovereignty and the protection of threatened populations are examined both in historical context and by incorporating the latest thinking. Later chapters treat the issue of intervention; why and how it has met with only limited success. Concentrating on Rwanda and Srebrenica, chapter 8 discusses various peace operations that were abject failures and those that were moderately successful. The concept of an anti-genocide regime is examined in terms of progress in developing such a regime as well as what the international community must do in order to implement it. Chapters discuss key issues related to post-genocidal periods, those that need to be addressed in order to establish stability in a wounded land and populace as well as to prevent future genocides. The final chapter asks whether bringing perpetrators to justice has any impact in breaking impunity, ensuring deterrence, and bringing about reconciliation. The contributors to the volume are all noted scholars, some of whom specialize in the study of genocide, and others who specialize in such areas as early warning, peacekeeping, and sanctions.
The Prevention of Torture: An Ecological Approach
by Danielle CelermajerThere is an urgent need to analyze and assess how we prevent torture, against the background of a rigorous analysis of the factors that condition and sustain it. Drawing on rich empirical material from Sri Lanka and Nepal, The Prevention of Torture: An Ecological Approach interrogates the worlds that produce torture, in order to propose how to bring about systemic institutional and cultural change. Critics have decried human rights approaches' failure to attend to structural factors, but this book seeks to go beyond a 'stance of criticism' to take up the positive project of reimagining human rights theory and practice. It discusses key debates in human rights and political theory, as well as the challenges that advocates face in translating situational analyses into real world interventions. Danielle Celermajer develops a new, ecological framework for mapping the worlds that produce torture, and thereby develops prevention strategies.
Prevention, Pre-emption and the Nuclear Option: From Bush to Obama (Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy)
by Aiden WarrenDespite its portrayal as a bold departure, the Bush Doctrine was not the "new" or "revolutionary" policy instrument that many at the time portended. This work seeks to argue that while it was clear that the Bush Doctrine certainly qualified as a preventive war policy, it is apparent that the adoption of this strategy did not mark a total break with American tradition or earlier Administrations. Warren seeks to dispel arguments pertaining to the supposed "radical" nature of the Bush Doctrine – based on comparisons with previous National Security Strategies and previous Administrations’ penchant for prevention. However, the work also highlights that what was new and bold about the Bush Administration’s National Security Strategy of 2002, was its willingness to embrace reinvigorating a nuclear option that could ultimately be used in the context of preventive war. While Obama has struck bold rhetorical notes and promises in relation to limiting the role of nuclear weapons, he has stopped short of changing the status quo on critical issues that have lingered since the Cold War – such as tactical nuclear weapons and keeping missiles on alert. This book’s final section examines the extent to which Obama has attempted to ‘adjust’ the nuclear option with the recent release of the congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). Offering new insights into the Bush doctrine and providing a comprehensive analysis of the current status of the US nuclear weapons strategy, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and students of American foreign policy, security studies and international relations.
The Prevention Principle in International Environmental Law (Cambridge Studies On Environment, Energy And Natural Resources Governance )
by Duvic-Paoli Leslie-AnnePrevention is recognized as a cornerstone of international environmental law, but this principle remains abstract and elusive in terms of exactly what is required of states to prevent environmental harm. <P><P>In this illuminating work, Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli addresses this issue by offering a systematic, comprehensive assessment in which she clarifies the rationale, content, and scope of the prevention principle while also placing it in a wider legal context. <P>The book offers a detailed analysis of treaty law, custom codification works, and case law before culminating in a conceptualization of prevention based on three definitional traits: 1. Its anticipatory rationale; 2. Its due diligence content; and 3. Its wide spatial scope to protect the environment as a whole. This book should be read by anyone seeking to understand the evolving principle of prevention in international environmental law, and how it increasingly shares common ground with reparation in the arena of compliance control.<P> Provides a systematic and up-to-date treatment of the principle of prevention, widely considered to be the cornerstone of international environmental law.<P> Undertakes a comprehensive review of the manifestations of prevention in conventional law, custom codification works, and case law.<P> Seeks to understand prevention, and its evolution, in the context of general international law trends.
Preventive Diplomacy: Stopping Wars Before They Start
by Kevin M. CahillThe suppression of war has been the primary objective of the United Nations for almost fifty years, and stopping a war before it starts is easier than ending a war already underway. History, however, has shown that military interventions and economic sanctions often do more harm than good. In Preventive Diplomacy, Nobel prize winners, top officials, and revered thinkers tackle these issues and explore the process of conflict prevention from humanitarian, economic, and political perspectives. This cross-disciplinary reader on global politics demonstrates that when new insights and methodologies on public health are applied to the handling of international disasters, the change in policy perspective is intriguing--even hopeful.
Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa
by Okon AkibaThis edited volume focuses on the development and conflict prevention mechanism of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. The contributors discuss complex socio-political and economic issues and use a cross disciplinary approach to treat most of the dominant research questions in the field. The chapters come nicely together in a kaleidoscope of knowledge deriving from scholarly investigative traditions in political science, anthropology, economics, law, and sociology. The book is conceived as a source of reference and for graduate courses in African politics, development, human rights, transnational law, and international public policy.
Preventive Engagement: How America Can Avoid War, Stay Strong, and Keep the Peace (A Council on Foreign Relations Book)
by Paul StaresThe United States faces an increasingly turbulent world. The risk of violent conflict and other threats to international order presents a vexing dilemma: should the United States remain the principal guarantor of global peace and security with all its considerable commitments and potential pitfalls––not least new and costly military entanglements––that over time diminish its capacity and commitment to play this vital role or, alternatively, should it pull back from the world in the interests of conserving U.S. power, but at the possible cost of even greater threats emerging in the future?Paul B. Stares proposes an innovative and timely strategy—“preventive engagement”—to resolve America’s predicament. This approach entails pursuing three complementary courses of action: promoting policies known to lessen the risk of violent conflict over the long term; anticipating and averting those crises likely to lead to costly military commitments in the medium term; and managing ongoing conflicts in the short term before they escalate further and exert pressure on the United States to intervene. In each of these efforts, forging “preventive partnerships” with a variety of international actors, including the United Nations, regional organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and the business community, is essential. The need to think and act ahead that lies at the heart of a preventive engagement strategy requires the United States to become less shortsighted and reactive. Drawing on successful strategies in other areas, Preventive Engagement provides a detailed and comprehensive blueprint for the United States to shape the future and reduce the potential dangers ahead.
Preventive Force: Drones, Targeted Killing, and the Transformation of Contemporary Warfare
by Kerstin Fisk Jennifer M. RamosExamines the recent rise in the United States' use of preventive forceMore so than in the past, the US is now embracing the logic of preventive force: using military force to counter potential threats around the globe before they have fully materialized. While popular with individuals who seek to avoid too many “boots on the ground,” preventive force is controversial because of its potential for unnecessary collateral damage. Who decides what threats are ‘imminent’? Is there an international legal basis to kill or harm individuals who have a connection to that threat? Do the benefits of preventive force justify the costs? And, perhaps most importantly, is the US setting a dangerous international precedent? In Preventive Force, editors Kerstin Fisk and Jennifer Ramos bring together legal scholars, political scientists, international relations scholars, and prominent defense specialists to examine these questions, whether in the context of full-scale preventive war or preventive drone strikes. In particular, the volume highlights preventive drones strikes, as they mark a complete transformation of how the US understands international norms regarding the use of force, and could potentially lead to a ‘slippery slope’ for the US and other nations in terms of engaging in preventive warfare as a matter of course. A comprehensive resource that speaks to the contours of preventive force as a security strategy as well as to the practical, legal, and ethical considerations of its implementation, Preventive Force is a useful guide for political scientists, international relations scholars, and policymakers who seek a thorough and current overview of this essential topic.
Preventive Human Rights Strategies (Global Institutions)
by Bertrand G. RamcharanThe prevention of violations of human rights must become the dominant protection strategy of the twenty-first century, nationally, regionally, and globally. This book clearly identifies the need for preventive human rights strategies, maps what exists by way of such strategies at the present time, and offers policy options to deal with the world of the future. Written by a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the book suggests the future lies in strong national protection systems backed up by regional and international organs and an international criminal justice system. The book explores the future of preventive human rights through a wide range of contemporary issues, including: climate change pandemics mass migration global poverty and pervasive inequality inter-state conflicts terrorism, including WMD terrorism gross violations of human rights the financial and economic crisis We are already in a quite different world in the 21st century, and human rights thinking will need to evolve to meet its needs. This important and contemporary volume calls for the modification of current preventive human rights strategies, and is essential reading for all those concerned with the future of international relations and human rights.
Preventive War and American Democracy
by Scott SilverstoneThis volume explores the preventive war option in American foreign policy, from the early Cold War strategic problems created by the growth of Soviet and Chinese power, to the post-Cold War fears of a nuclear-armed North Korea, Iraq and Iran. For several decades after the Second World War, American politicians and citizens shared the belief that a war launched in the absence of a truly imminent threat or in response to another’s attack was raw aggression. Preventive war was seen as contrary to the American character and its traditions, a violation of deeply held normative beliefs about the conditions that justify the use of military force. This ‘anti-preventive war norm’ had a decisive restraining effect on how the US faced the shifting threat in this period. But by the early 1990s the Clinton administration considered the preventive war option against North Korea and the Bush administration launched a preventive war against Iraq without a trace of the anti-preventive war norm that was central to the security ethos of an earlier era. While avoiding the sharp partisan and ideological tone of much of the recent discussion of preventive war, Preventive War and American Democracy explains this change in beliefs and explores its implications for the future of American foreign policy.
Preventive Warfare: Hegemony, Power, and the Reconceptualization of War
by Vasja BadaličThis book provides a critical and comprehensive analysis of the reconceptualization of preventive warfare in the 21st Century. It discusses how the US launched and fought some wars to prevent future vague threats and how that practice has fundamentally undermined the legal system and the main principles of the use of force, in ways that not only further US dominance but shield powerful actors from accountability. The US redefined key legal concepts to set up a new legal framework for preventive warfare and, consequently, introduced new practices for carrying out preventive military operations. Drawing on a collection of case studies, on the changes in the jus ad bellum and jus in bello, focusing mainly on Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond, the book shows how violations of the law of war were persistently conducted in the 21st century by supposedly democratic countries who claimed to be upholding the law. It explores three types of preventive warfare – that is, preventive national self-defense, preventive on-the-spot reactions, and preventive “security” detention – to show how they blurred the line between civilians and legitimate military targets, and thus increased the risk of causing harm to civilians. The book speaks to students, scholars, and practitioners from the fields of criminology, law, international relations, political science, critical security studies, and critical military studies.
Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights
by Ayaan Hirsi AliWhy are so few people talking about the eruption of sexual violence and harassment in Europe’s cities? No one in a position of power wants to admit that the problem is linked to the arrival of several million migrants—most of them young men—from Muslim-majority countries.In Prey, the best-selling author of Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, presents startling statistics, criminal cases and personal testimony. Among these facts: In 2014, sexual violence in Western Europe surged following a period of stability. In 2018 Germany, “offences against sexual self-determination” rose 36 percent from their 2014 rate; nearly two-fifths of the suspects were non-German. In Austria in 2017, asylum-seekers were suspects in 11 percent of all reported rapes and sexual harassment cases, despite making up less than 1 percent of the total population. This violence isn’t a figment of alt-right propaganda, Hirsi Ali insists, even if neo-Nazis exaggerate it. It’s a real problem that Europe—and the world—cannot continue to ignore. She explains why so many young Muslim men who arrive in Europe engage in sexual harassment and violence, tracing the roots of sexual violence in the Muslim world from institutionalized polygamy to the lack of legal and religious protections for women. A refugee herself, Hirsi Ali is not against immigration. As a child in Somalia, she suffered female genital mutilation; as a young girl in Saudi Arabia, she was made to feel acutely aware of her own vulnerability. Immigration, she argues, requires integration and assimilation. She wants Europeans to reform their broken system—and for Americans to learn from European mistakes. If this doesn’t happen, the calls to exclude new Muslim migrants from Western countries will only grow louder. Deeply researched and featuring fresh and often shocking revelations, Prey uncovers a sexual assault and harassment crisis in Europe that is turning the clock on women’s rights much further back than the #MeToo movement is advancing it.
Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights
by Ayaan Hirsi AliWhy are so few people talking about the eruption of sexual violence and harassment in Europe’s cities? No one in a position of power wants to admit that the problem is linked to the arrival of several million migrants—most of them young men—from Muslim-majority countries.In Prey, the best-selling author of Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, presents startling statistics, criminal cases and personal testimony. Among these facts: In 2014, sexual violence in Western Europe surged following a period of stability. In 2018 Germany, “offences against sexual self-determination” rose 36 percent from their 2014 rate; nearly two-fifths of the suspects were non-German. In Austria in 2017, asylum-seekers were suspects in 11 percent of all reported rapes and sexual harassment cases, despite making up less than 1 percent of the total population. This violence isn’t a figment of alt-right propaganda, Hirsi Ali insists, even if neo-Nazis exaggerate it. It’s a real problem that Europe—and the world—cannot continue to ignore. She explains why so many young Muslim men who arrive in Europe engage in sexual harassment and violence, tracing the roots of sexual violence in the Muslim world from institutionalized polygamy to the lack of legal and religious protections for women. A refugee herself, Hirsi Ali is not against immigration. As a child in Somalia, she suffered female genital mutilation; as a young girl in Saudi Arabia, she was made to feel acutely aware of her own vulnerability. Immigration, she argues, requires integration and assimilation. She wants Europeans to reform their broken system—and for Americans to learn from European mistakes. If this doesn’t happen, the calls to exclude new Muslim migrants from Western countries will only grow louder. Deeply researched and featuring fresh and often shocking revelations, Prey uncovers a sexual assault and harassment crisis in Europe that is turning the clock on women’s rights much further back than the #MeToo movement is advancing it.
Prey: A Gripping Must-Read Thriller
by L.A. LarkinThe author of Devour delivers a gripping, globetrotting thriller “in the vein of a feminised Fleming or the Fox network’s adrenalin-fuelled series 24” (The Sydney Morning Herald).Four murders. Four countries. One terrible secret.Olivia Wolfe is a journalist who travels the world exposing heinous crimes. She has more enemies that most.When her anonymous source is killed, Wolfe must unravel the terrible secret that connects a series of gruesome murders. But powerful people want her stopped.Betrayed and isolated, Wolfe is hunted by a faceless killer. Can she stay alive long enough to expose the shocking truth?Praise for bestselling author L.A. Larkin“In Larkin, Michael Crichton has an heir apparent.” —The Guardian“L.A. Larkin is a world-class thriller writer.” —James Phelan, bestselling author of The Agency“Exciting, original and utterly captivating.” —Literature Works“Larkin’s fast action style is accompanied by impressive research.” —The Times“Action and intrigue in spades.” —Peter James, bestselling author of Left You Dead“Breakneck and exciting.” —Paul Mendelson, author of Apostle Lodge
Preying On The State
by Venelin I. GanevImmediately after 1989, newly emerging polities in Eastern Europe had to contend with an overbearing and dominant legacy: the Soviet model of the state. At that time, the strength of the state looked like a massive obstacle to change; less than a decade later, the state's dominant characteristic was no longer its overweening powerfulness, but rather its utter decrepitude. Consequently, the role of the central state in managing economies, providing social services, and maintaining infrastructure came into question. Focusing on his native Bulgaria, Venelin I. Ganev explores in fine-grained detail the weakening of the central state in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. Ganev starts with the structural characteristics of the Soviet satellites, and in particular the forms of elite agency favored in the socialist party-state. As state socialism collapsed, Ganev demonstrates, its institutional legacy presented functionaries who had become accustomed to power with a matrix of opportunities and constraints. In order to maximize their advantage under such conditions, these elites did not need a robust state apparatus-in fact, all of the incentives under postsocialism pushed them to subvert the infrastructure of governance. Throughout Preying on the State, Ganev argues that the causes of state malfunctioning go much deeper than the policy preferences of "free marketeers" who deliberately dismantled the state. He systematically analyzes the multiple dimensions, implications, and significance of the institutional and social processes that transformed the organizational basis of effective governance.
Price and Financial Stability: Rethinking Financial Markets (Banking, Money and International Finance)
by David HarrisonWhy are financial prices so much more crisis-prone and unstable than real economy prices? Because they are doing different things. Unlike real economy prices, rooted in the real goods and services produced and exchanged, financial prices attempt to value future income flows from financial and capital assets. These valuations fluctuate erratically because expectations of the future fluctuate – and large liquid financial markets can amplify, rather than correct, these effects. The book builds on the insights of economists Frank Knight and John Maynard Keynes, that uncertainty of the future is essential to understand the processes of economic production and capital investment, and adds to this Karl Popper's general explanation of how expectations of an uncertain future are formed and tested through a trial and error process. Rather than relying on fluctuating financial prices to provide a guide to an uncertain future, it suggests a better approach would be to adopt the methods common to other branches of science, and create testable (falsifiable) theories allowing reasonable predictions to be made. In finance, the elements of one such theory could be based on the concept of forecasting yield from capital assets, which is a measurable phenomenon tending towards aggregate and long-term stability, and where there is a plentiful supply of historic data. By methods like this, financial economics could become a branch of science like any other. To buttress this approach, the widely accepted public policy objective of promoting real economy price stability could be widened to include financial price stability.
The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet
by Brett Christophers"Standard theories of the causes of climate breakdown will not survive this book. Readers will be all the wiser."—Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a PipelineWhy the market will never solve the climate crisisWhat if our understanding of capitalism and climate is back to front? What if the problem is not that transitioning to renewables is too expensive, but that saving the planet is not sufficiently profitable?This is Brett Christophers' claim. The global economy is moving too slowly toward sustainability because the return on green investment is too low.Today's consensus is that the key to curbing climate change is to produce green electricity and electrify everything possible. The main economic barrier in that project has seemingly been removed. But while prices of solar and wind power have tumbled, the golden era of renewables has yet to materialize.The problem is that investment is driven by profit, not price, and operating solar and wind farms remains a marginal business, dependent everywhere on the state's financial support.We cannot expect markets and the private sector to solve the climate crisis while the profits that are their lifeblood remain unappetizing. But there is an alternative to providing surrogate green profits through subsidies: to take energy out of the private sector's hands.An essential intervention, The Price Is Wrong is as politically far-reaching as it is factually illuminating.
The Price of Aid: The Economic Cold War in India
by David C. EngermanDebates over foreign aid can seem strangely innocent of history. Economists argue about effectiveness and measurement—how to make aid work. Meanwhile, critics in donor countries bemoan what they see as money wasted on corrupt tycoons or unworthy recipients. What most ignore is the essentially political character of foreign aid. Looking back to the origins and evolution of foreign aid during the Cold War, David C. Engerman invites us to recognize the strategic thinking at the heart of development assistance—as well as the political costs. In The Price of Aid, Engerman argues that superpowers turned to foreign aid as a tool of the Cold War. India, the largest of the ex-colonies, stood at the center of American and Soviet aid competition. Officials of both superpowers saw development aid as an instrument for pursuing geopolitics through economic means. But Indian officials had different ideas, seeking superpower aid to advance their own economic visions, thus bringing external resources into domestic debates about India’s economic future. Drawing on an expansive set of documents, many recently declassified, from seven countries, Engerman reconstructs a story of Indian leaders using Cold War competition to win battles at home, but in the process eroding the Indian state. The Indian case provides an instructive model today. As China spends freely in Africa, the political stakes of foreign aid are rising once again.
The Price of Aid: The Economic Cold War in India
by David C. EngermanThis study of US and Soviet aid efforts in India during the Cold War &“makes a major contribution towards a necessary discussion of the politics of aid&” (Times Higher Education). Debates over foreign aid are often strangely ahistorical. Economists argue about how to make aid work while critics bemoan money wasted on corruption, ignoring the fundamentally political character of aid. The Price of Aid turns the standard debate on its head. By exposing the geopolitical calculus underpinning development assistance, it also exposes its costs. India stood at the center of American and Soviet aid competition throughout the Cold War, as both superpowers saw developmental aid as a way of pursuing their geopolitical goals by economic means. Drawing on recently declassified files from seven countries, David Engerman shows how Indian leaders used Cold War competition to win battles at home, eroding the Indian state in the process. As China spends freely in Africa, the political stakes of foreign aid are rising once again.&“A superb, field-changing book . . . A true classic.&” —Sunil Amrith
The Price of China's Economic Development: Power, Capital, and the Poverty of Rights (Asia In The New Millennium Ser.)
by Zhaohui Hong“This work provides a theoretically sophisticated analysis of major political, social, economic, and cultural trends in China.” —Roger des Forges, author of Chinese Walls in Time and SpaceThe People’s Republic of China has experienced significant transformations since Deng Xiaoping instituted economic reforms in 1978. Subsequent leaders continued and often broadened Deng’s policies, shifting the nation from agrarianism to industrialism, from isolation to internationalism, and from centralized planning to market-based economics. As the world strives to understand the nation’s rapid development, few observers have comprehensively examined the social and cultural price of the economic boom for the majority of the Chinese people.Zhaohui Hong assesses the sociocultural consequences of these reforms in this provocative study. He contends that modern China functions as an oligarchy or plutocracy ruled by an alliance of political power and private capital where the boundaries between the private and public sectors are constantly shifting. This “power-capital institution” based on three millennia of Confucian ideology and decades of Maoist communism exercises monopolistic control of public resources at the expense of civil society and social justice for the majority of citizens.The Price of China’s Economic Development urges policymakers to alter their analytic lens. While industrial and commercial development is quantitatively measured, Hong argues that social progress should be assessed qualitatively, with justice its ultimate goal and fair allocation of resources and opportunity as the main index of success. This sophisticated analysis introduces English speakers to the varied and significant work of contemporary Chinese scholars and substantially enriches the international dialogue.“Presents a new perspective on China’s economic growth and ongoing political problems.” —Xiaobing Li, author of China’s War in Korea
The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State
by Michael B. KatzFor Michael B. Katz, the term "welfare state" describes the intricate web of government programs, employer-provided benefits, and semiprivate organizations intended to promote economic security and to guarantee the basic necessities of life for all citizens: food, shelter, medical care, protection in childhood, and support in old age. In this updated edition of his seminal work The Price of Citizenship, Katz traces the evolution of the welfare state from colonial relief programs through the war on poverty and into our own age, marked by the "end of welfare as we know it." <p><p> Katz argues that in the last decades, three great forces—a ferocious war on dependence, which has singled out the most vulnerable; the devolution of authority within both government and the private sector; and the application of market models to social policy—have permeated all aspects of the social contract. The Price of Citizenship shows how these changes have propelled America toward a future of increased inequality and decreased security as individuals compete for success in an open market with ever fewer protections against misfortune, power, and greed. A new chapter, written for this edition, explains how these trends continue in the post-9/11 era and how the response to Hurricane Katrina exposed the weaknesses of America's social safety net. <p><p> Offering grounds for modest optimism, the new chapter also points to countervailing trends that may modify and even partially reverse the effects of recent welfare history.
The Price of Democracy: How Money Shapes Politics and What to Do about It
by Julia CagéWhy and how systems of political financing and representation in Europe and North America give outsized influence to the wealthy and undermine democracy, and what we can do about it. One person, one vote. In theory, everyone in a democracy has equal power to decide elections. But it’s hardly news that, in reality, political outcomes are heavily determined by the logic of one dollar, one vote. We take the political power of money for granted. But does it have to be this way? In The Price of Democracy, Julia Cagé combines economic and historical analysis with political theory to show how profoundly our systems in North America and Europe, from think tanks and the media to election campaigns, are shaped by money. She proposes fundamental reforms to bring democracy back into line with its egalitarian promise. Cagé shows how different countries have tried to develop legislation to curb the power of private money and to develop public systems to fund campaigns and parties. But these attempts have been incoherent and unsystematic. She demonstrates that it is possible to learn from these experiments in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to design a better system that would increase political participation and trust. This would involve setting a strict cap on private donations and creating a public voucher system to give each voter an equal amount to spend in support of political parties. More radically, Cagé argues that a significant fraction of seats in parliamentary assemblies should be set aside for representatives from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. At a time of widespread political disenchantment, The Price of Democracy is a bracing reminder of the problems we face and an inspirational guide to the potential for reform.