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El rastro de los cuerpos: Una novela
by José Miguel TomasenaCon maestría y un claro juego de espejos, José Miguel Tomasena hace un retrato de la impunidad y la violencia desde el punto de vista de las víctimas. Cuando el diario en el que trabajaba entra en crisis, la periodista Tania Vázquez decide filmar por su cuenta un documental sobre los desaparecidos. Así conoce, entre muchas personas, a Doña Gaby, cuya hija Marilyn fue secuestrada previo pago de un rescate de cien mil pesos, y a Magdalena Chávez, que perdió a sus tres hijos y que decide embarcarse en una aventura para conocer su paradero. Estas dos madres, más todos aquellos padres que buscan a sus seres queridos en morgues, cuarteles, hospitales y fosas clandestinas, serán los personajes que iremos construyendo a través de mirar las grabaciones y de la voz del novio de Tania; sin embargo, documentar la lucha de estas mujeres tendrá consecuencias que jamás habrían podido prever... Con maestría y un claro juego de espejos, José Miguel Tomasena hace un retrato de la impunidad y la violencia desde el punto de vista de las víctimas, sean residentes en las regiones asoladas por el narcotráfico que sufren de la persecución cotidiana, o los periodistas acosados por los caciques locales para que no investiguen sobre desapariciones que prefieren dejar en el olvido; pero también es una novela sobre el amor a los hijos, sobre la esperanza de poder hacer un cambio y los deseos de justicia. «¿Dónde están los desaparecidos?, se preguntan los que se quedan, los sobrevivientes, pero sobre todo se atormentan pensando qué pudieron haber hecho, en qué fallaron, si es que hubo alguna posibilidad de salvación, de que la historia fuera distinta. El rastro de los cuerpos es el relato descarnado de estas pérdidas, una exploración ética y moral sobre la culpa y la responsabilidad, sobre el sentido del heroísmo y su peligrosa vecindad con la temeridad. Una magnífica novela que ojalá algún día podamos leer como un thriller, como una estupenda novela policiaca o de suspenso, en un futuro de paz, cuando hayamos superado la epidemia de violencia que asola al país». Juan Pablo Villalobos, autor de Fiesta en la madriguera
The Rataban Betrayal: A Novel
by Stephen AlterOn India's frontier with Tibet, peace is just a façade and security a myth.The sleepy Himalayan hill station of Mussoorie, near India's border with Tibet, is home to an eclectic mix of residents including Tibetan refugees and former guerrilla fighters, foreign missionaries, Indian military, tourists, and spies. Here, in a top-secret facility facing the snow-clad Himalayas, India’s legendary spymaster, Colonel Imtiaz Afridi, keeps a watchful eye on sensitive high-altitude borders. Having been a mountaineer in his youth, Afridi once climbed many of these peaks, including Rataban, a mountain with a treacherous history. When an American agent is shot dead in Mussoorie, both the CIA and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), dispatch undercover agents to investigate. The American's death is quickly linked to the slayings of two Indo-Tibetan Border Police guards, suggesting possible Chinese infiltration. Working with Afridi is the brilliant junior analyst, Annapurna "Anna” Tagore, who helps him unravel these clues and other disturbing signs that something dangerous is brewing.When more violent acts shatter Mussoorie's calm, the CIA and RAW have no choice but to team up. Soon Afridi and the young Indian and American agents are piecing together a bloody conspiracy of revenge and murder that could shake the very foundations of world peace.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction-novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Rated Agency: Investee Politics in a Speculative Age
by Michel FeherThe hegemony of finance compels a new orientation for everyone and everything: companies care more about the moods of their shareholders than about longstanding commercial success; governments subordinate citizen welfare to appeasing creditors; and individuals are concerned less with immediate income from labor than appreciation of their capital goods, skills, connections, and reputations.That firms, states, and people depend more on their ratings than on the product of their activities also changes how capitalism is resisted. For activists, the focus of grievances shifts from the extraction of profit to the conditions under which financial institutions allocate credit. While the exploitation of employees by their employers has hardly been curbed, the power of investors to select investees — to decide who and what is deemed creditworthy — has become a new site of social struggle.In clear and compelling prose, Michel Feher explains the extraordinary shift in conduct and orientation generated by financialization. Above all, he articulates the new political resistances and aspirations that investees draw from their rated agency.
Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy
by David DaleyThe explosive account of how Republican legislators and political operatives fundamentally rigged our American democracy through redistricting. With Barack Obama's historic election in 2008, pundits proclaimed the Republicans as dead as the Whigs of yesteryear. Yet even as Democrats swooned, a small cadre of Republican operatives, including Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, and Chris Jankowski began plotting their comeback with a simple yet ingenious plan. These men had devised a way to take a tradition of dirty tricks--known to political insiders as "ratf**king"--to a whole new, unprecedented level. Flooding state races with a gold rush of dark money made possible by Citizens United, the Republicans reshaped state legislatures, where the power to redistrict is held. Reconstructing this never- told-before story, David Daley examines the far-reaching effects of this so-called REDMAP program, which has radically altered America's electoral map and created a firewall in the House, insulating the party and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. Ratf**ked pulls back the curtain on one of the greatest heists in American political history.
Rather Dumb
by Mike WalkerUsing Rather as a touchstone, Mike Walker rips into the arrogance and presumption of the news media-the elitist, agenda-driven mentality that allows its journalists and editors to ignore basic rules of journalism. Walker uses this short, blisteringly humorous book to personally kick Rather in the shins and also, more importantly, explain how real news is properly gathered and vetted, how it's properly written and reported, and why some journalists and editors think they're above such things. For years the mainstream media has stared down its collective nose at publications like the National Enquirer, but as Walker shows in scorching detail and irreverent humor, it is the gatekeepers and news elitists who need a trip to the woodshed, starting with Dan Rather.
A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory
by Corey WrennApplying critical sociological theory, this book explores the shortcomings of popular tactics in animal liberation efforts. Building a case for a scientifically-grounded grassroots approach, it is argued that professionalized advocacy that works in the service of theistic, capitalist, patriarchal institutions will find difficulty achieving success.
Rational Choice and Criminal Behavior: Recent Research and Future Challenges (Current Issues In Criminal Justice Ser. #32)
by Alex R. Piquero Stephen G. TibbettsRational Choice and Criminal Behavior" is a collection of essays by experts in the field of criminal justice examines various aspects of the rational choice framework, which deals with the degree to which criminal behavior represents a rational choice. The editors also include essays that cover specific policy approaches that stem from this framewo
Rational Choice and Democratic Government: A Sociological Approach (Routledge Studies in Political Sociology)
by Tibor RutarDrawing on a range of data from across disciplines, this book explores a series of fundamental questions surrounding the nature, working and effects of democracy, considering the reasons for the emergence and spread of democratic government, the conditions under which it endures or collapses – and the role of wealth in this process – and the peaceful nature of dealings between democracies. With emphasis on the ‘ordinary’ voter, the author employs rational choice theory to examine the motivations of voters and their levels of political knowledge and rationality, as well as the special interests, incentives and corruption of politicians. A theoretically informed and empirically illustrated study of the birth and downfall of democracies, the extent of voters’ political knowledge and ignorance, the logic of political behaviour in both open and closed regimes, and the international effects of democratic rule, Rational Choice and Democratic Government: A Sociological Approach will appeal to scholars with interests in political sociology, political psychology, economics and political science.
Rational Choice and Political Power
by Keith DowdingFeaturing a substantial new introduction and two new chapters in the Postscript, this new edition makes one of the most significant works on power available in paperback and online for the first time. The author extensively engages with a body of new literature to elucidate and expand upon the original work, using rational choice theory to provide: • An examination of how, due to the collective action problem, groups can be powerless despite not facing any resistance • Timely engagement with feminist accounts of power • An explanation of the relationship of structure and agency and how to measure power comparatively across societies This book’s unique interaction with both classical and contemporary debates makes it an essential resource for anyone teaching or studying power in the disciplines of sociology, philosophy, politics or international relations.
Rational Decision (Nomos Ser. #No. 7)
by Carl J. FriedrichTo a historian the most interesting thing about decisions is the fact that everyone talks about them. No one interested in social ideas can fail to notice how large a part the word "decision" has come to play in the vocabulary of moral and political discourse. It meets one on every page. Inevitably one asks, "Why?" Why is there so much talk of decisions and of those who are said to make them? Are there any ideological reasons for it?
Rational Empires: Institutional Incentives and Imperial Expansion
by Blanken Leo J.The nineteenth century marked the high point of imperialism, when tsarist Russia expanded to the Pacific and the sun was said never to set on the British Empire. Imperialism remains a perennial issue in international relations today, and nowhere is this more evident than in the intensifying competition for global resources. Leo J. Blanken explains imperialism through an analysis of the institutions of both the expanding state and its targets of conquest. While democratic states favoring free trade generally resort to imperialism only to preempt aggressive rivals--or when they have reason to believe another state's political institutions will not hold up when making bargains--authoritarian states tend toward imperialism because they don't stand to benefit from free trade. The result is three distinct strategies toward imperialism: actors fighting over territory, actors peaceably dividing territory among themselves, and actors refraining from seizing territory altogether. Blanken examines these dynamics through three case studies: the scramble for Africa, the unequal treaties imposed on Qing Dynasty China, and the evolution of Britain's imperial policy in India. By separating out the different types of imperialism, Blanken provides insight into its sources, as well as the potential implications of increased competition in the current international arena.
The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam
by Samuel L. PopkinPopkin develops a model of rational peasant behavior and shows how village procedures result from the self-interested interactions of peasants. This political economy view of peasant behavior stands in contrast to the model of a distinctive peasant moral economy in which the village community is primarily responsible for ensuring the welfare of its members.
The Rational Politician: Exploiting the Media in New Democracies (Routledge Revivals)
by Andrew MiltonThis title was first published in 2000: An examination of the way in which post-communist political actors have persisted in exploiting, controlling and manipulating the media, in spite of rhetorical commitments to freer and more independent media.
Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge
by Michael Suk-Young ChweWhy do Internet, financial service, and beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why does repetition characterize anthems and ritual speech? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge. Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form "common knowledge." Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, knowledge of the knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. Michael Chwe applies this insight, with striking erudition, to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. He shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. For instance, people watching the Super Bowl know that many others are seeing precisely what they see and that those people know in turn that many others are also watching. This creates common knowledge, and advertisers selling products that depend on consensus are willing to pay large sums to gain access to it. Remarkably, a great variety of rituals and ceremonies, such as formal inaugurations, work in much the same way. By using a rational-choice argument to explain diverse cultural practices, Chwe argues for a close reciprocal relationship between the perspectives of rationality and culture. He illustrates how game theory can be applied to an unexpectedly broad spectrum of problems, while showing in an admirably clear way what game theory might hold for scholars in the social sciences and humanities who are not yet acquainted with it. In a new afterword, Chwe delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age.
Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation
by Charles L. GlaserWithin the realist school of international relations, a prevailing view holds that the anarchic structure of the international system invariably forces the great powers to seek security at one another's expense, dooming even peaceful nations to an unrelenting struggle for power and dominance. Rational Theory of International Politics offers a more nuanced alternative to this view, one that provides answers to the most fundamental and pressing questions of international relations. Why do states sometimes compete and wage war while at other times they cooperate and pursue peace? Does competition reflect pressures generated by the anarchic international system or rather states' own expansionist goals? Are the United States and China on a collision course to war, or is continued coexistence possible? Is peace in the Middle East even feasible? Charles Glaser puts forward a major new theory of international politics that identifies three kinds of variables that influence a state's strategy: the state's motives, specifically whether it is motivated by security concerns or "greed"; material variables, which determine its military capabilities; and information variables, most importantly what the state knows about its adversary's motives. Rational Theory of International Politics demonstrates that variation in motives can be key to the choice of strategy; that the international environment sometimes favors cooperation over competition; and that information variables can be as important as material variables in determining the strategy a state should choose.
Rational Woman: A Feminist Critique of Dichotomy (Routledge Innovations in Political Theory)
by Raia ProkhovnikTo feminists and some postmodernists reason/emotion and man/woman represent two fundamental polarities, fixed deep within Western philosophy and reflected in the structures of our languages, and two sets of hierarchical power relations in patriarchal society. Raia Prokhovnik challenges the tradition of dualism and argues that rational woman need no longer be a contradiction in terms. Prokhovnik examines in turn: · the nature of dichotomy, its problems and an alternative · the reason/emotion dichotomy · dichotomies central to the man/woman dualism, such as sex/gender and the heterosexual/ist norm
Rationale for Child Care Services: Programs vs. Politics
by James A Rivaldo Ph.D. Stevanne Auerbach Walter F. MondaleRationale for Child Care Services presents a cogent introduction to the history, needs, and major concerns in childcare, and suggests the basic and essential components of a comprehensive program including planning, organizing and funding. Foreword by Senator Walter M. Mondale, Vice President, Senator, and Ambassador to Japan. Contributors include Mary D. Keyserling, Therese W. Lansburgh, Dr. Dorothy Hewes, Jeanada Nolan, Gertrude Hoffman, Jule M Sugarman, William L. Pierce, Glen P. Nimnicht, Elizabeth Haas, and Dr. Stevanne Auerbach.
Rationalism in Politics
by Peter J. SteinbergerArguing against emergent and even dominant tendencies of recent political thought that emphasize the so-called primacy of affect, Peter Steinberger challenges political theorists to take account of important themes in philosophy on the topic of human rationality. He engages with major proponents of post-Kantian thought, analytic and continental alike, to show how political judgment and political action, properly understood, are deeply and definitively grounded in considerations of human reason. Focusing especially on influential arguments in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of action, he seeks to rediscover and reanimate the close connection between systematic philosophical speculation on the one hand and the theory and practice of politics on the other. The result is a neo-rationalist conception of judgment and action that promises to offer a substantial and compelling account of political enterprise as it plays out in the real world of public affairs.
Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays
by Michael OakeshottRationalism in Politics, first published in 1962, has established the late Michael Oakeshott as the leading conservative political theorist in modern Britain. This expanded collection of essays astutely points out the limits of "reason" in rationalist politics. Oakeshott criticizes ideological schemes to reform society according to supposedly "scientific" or rationalistic principles that ignore the wealth and variety of human experience. "Rationalism in politics," says Oakeshott, "involves a misconception with regard to the nature of human knowledge. " History has shown that it produces unexpected, often disastrous results. "Having cut himself off from the traditional knowledge of his society, and denied the value of any education more extensive than a training in a technique of analysis," the Rationalist succeeds only in undermining the institutions that hold civilized society together. In this regard, rationalism in politics is "a corruption of the mind. "
Rationalities of Planning: Development Versus Environment in Planning for Housing
by Jonathan Murdoch Simone AbramWhat are the key rationalities that underpin planning policy discourses and how do they 'frame' seemingly irreconcilable conflicts around development and environmental protection? Providing a thorough assessment of these important questions, this stimulating book reviews planning policy in the UK and the rationality of 'sustainable development'. Supported by a wealth of empirical material collected over the past ten years, the study examines the national, regional and local tiers of planning for housing. It analyzes whether the rationality of planning for 'sustainable development' allows a new spatial sensibility to inform planning policy, and whether it still responds to the social demands that were previously incorporated within the developmental method. The overriding concern, which the authors respond to and expand upon, is whether planning for sustainable development can provide a satisfactory basis upon which to re-establish contemporary planning.
The Rationality and Justification of Legislation: Essays in Legisprudence
by Luc J. Wintgens A. Daniel Oliver-LalanaThe essays collected in this book address legislation from the viewpoint of legal theory and provide an overview of current research in legisprudence as a new scholarly approach to lawmaking. The overall focus of the volume is on the justification of legislation, with a special emphasis on the intricate notion of legislative rationality. With the rational justification of legislation as their central theme, the essays elaborate on the foundations and bounds of legislation and the search for a more principled lawmaking, discuss the role of legislation within the framework of democratic constitutionalism, analyze legislation as implementation of constitutional law, and explore how legislative argumentation in parliament can be construed as a source of justification of laws.
Rationality and Operators
by Susumu CatoThis unique book develops an operational approach to preference and rationality as the author employs operators over binary relations to capture the concept of rationality. A preference is a basis of individual behavior and social judgment and is mathematically regarded as a binary relation on the set of alternatives. Traditionally, an individual/social preference is assumed to satisfy completeness and transitivity. However, each of the two conditions is often considered to be too demanding; and then, weaker rationality conditions are introduced by researchers. This book argues that the preference rationality conditions can be captured mathematically by "operators," which are mappings from the set of operators to itself. This operational approach nests traditional concepts in individual/social decision theory and clarifies the underlying formal structure of preference rationality. The author also applies his approach to welfare economics. The core problem of 'new welfare economics,' developed by Kaldor, Hicks, and Samuelson, is the rationality of social preference. In this book the author translates the social criteria proposed by those three economists into operational forms, which provide new insights into welfare economics extending beyond 'new welfare economics. '
Rationality and the Environment: Decision-making in Environmental Politics and Assessment
by Bo EllingEnvironmental assessment and management involve the production of scientific knowledge and its use in decision-making processes. The result is that within these essentially rational, political assessment frameworks, experts are creating and applying scientific knowledge for decision and management purposes that actually have strong ethical and aesthetic dimensions. Yet these rational political frameworks lack the tools to provide guidance on ethical and aesthetic issues that affect the wider public. This revolutionary work argues that ethical and aesthetic dimensions can only be brought into environmental politics and policies by citizens actively taking a stand on the specific matters in question. The author draws on Habermas? trisection of rationality as cognitive-instrumental, moral-practical and aesthetic-expressive, to suggest that truly effective environmental policy needs to activate all three approaches and not favour only the rational. To achieve this objective, the author argues that public participation in environmental policy and assessment is necessary to counteract the dictatorship of technical and economic instrumentality in environmental policy - the failure to take ethical and aesthetic rationalities into account - and, more importantly, how such policy is applied on the ground to shape our natural and material world.
Rationality, Democracy, and Justice
by Claudio López-Guerra Julia MaskivkerThis volume advances the research agenda of one of the most remarkable political thinkers of our time: Jon Elster. With an impressive list of contributors, it features studies in five topics in political and social theory: rationality and collective action, political and social norms, democracy and constitution making, transitional justice, and the explanation of social behavior. Additionally, this volume includes chapters on the development of Elster's thinking over the past decades. Like Elster's own writings, the essays in this collection are problem-driven, nonideal inquiries of practical relevance. This volume closes with lucid comments by Jon Elster.
Rationality in Politics and its Limits
by Terry NardinThe word ‘rationality’ and its cognates, like ‘reason’, have multiple contexts and connotations. Rational calculation can be contrasted with rational interpretation. There is the rationality of proof and of persuasion, of tradition and of the criticism of tradition. Rationalism (and rationalists) can be reasonable or unreasonable. Reason is sometimes distinguished from revelation, superstition, convention, prejudice, emotion, and chance, but all of these also involve reasoning. In politics, three views of rationality – economic, moral, and historical – have been especially important, often defining approaches to politics and political theory such as utilitarianism and rational choice theory. These approaches privilege positive or natural law, responsibilities, or human rights, and emphasize the importance of culture and tradition, and therefore meaning and context. This book explores the understanding of rationality in politics and the relations between different approaches to rationality. Among the topics considered are the limits of rationality, the role of imagination and emotion in politics, the meaning of political realism, the nature of political judgment, and the relationship between theory and practice. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Discourse.