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The Politics of Capitalist Transformation: Brazilian Informatics Policy, Regime Change, and State Autonomy (Routledge Studies in Latin American Politics)
by Jeff SewardThe Politics of Capitalist Transformation is the only book-length study of the highly protectionist Brazilian informatics policy from its origins in the early 1970s to the collapse of the market reserve in the early 1990s and its impact in subsequent decades. Jeff Seward provides a sophisticated political analysis of how state activists constructed high levels of state autonomy to try to shift Brazil to a new variety of capitalism by eclipsing the multinational companies (especially IBM) that dominated the Brazilian computer sector and replacing them with local companies with 100 percent Brazilian technology and ownership. This ambitious policy required repeated shifts of political strategy and policymaking institutions to respond to a constantly changing economic and political environment as Brazil made a dramatic transition from military dictatorship to democracy. The innovative framework to analyze state autonomy and the sophisticated political analysis of the policymaking process will be of interest to scholars and students of Brazilian and Latin American political economy, varieties of capitalism theory, state theory, democratic transition theory, and high technology policymaking in developing countries.
The Politics of Climate Change: A European Perspective
by Tim O’Riordan and Jill JägerThe Politics of Climate Change provides a critical analysis of the political, moral and legal response to climate change in the midst of significant socio-economic policy shifts. Evolving from original EC commissioned research, this book examines how climate change was put on the policy agenda, with the evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention and subsequent Conference of Parties.The international team of contributors devote in-depth chapters to: * climate change policies of different nations* reductions of greenhouse gas emmissions * legal aspects of external competence and moral obligatons* the political significance of the European experience within the wider global perspectives of America and Asia.
The Politics of Dialogic Imagination: Power and Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan (Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning)
by Katsuya HiranoIna"The Politics of Dialogic Imagination," Katsuya Hirano seeks to understand why, with its seemingly unrivaled power, the Tokugawa shogunate of early modern Japan tried so hard to regulate the ostensibly unimportant popular culture of Edo (present-day Tokyo)OCoincluding fashion, leisure activities, prints, and theater. He does so by examining the works of writers and artists who depicted and celebrated the culture of play and pleasure associated with EdoOCOs street entertainers, vagrants, actors, and prostitutes, whom Tokugawa authorities condemned to be detrimental to public mores, social order, and political economy. Hirano uncovers a logic of politics within EdoOCOs cultural works that was extremely potent in exposing contradictions between the formal structure of the Tokugawa world and its rapidly changing realities. He goes on to look at the effects of this logic, examining policies enacted during the next eraOCothe Meiji periodOCothat mark a drastic reconfiguration of power and a new politics toward ordinary people under modernizing Japan. Deftly navigating JapanOCOs history and culture, a"The Politics of Dialogic Imagination"provides a sophisticated account of a country in the process of radical transformationOCoand of the intensely creative culture that came out of it. "
The Politics of Environmental Reform: Controlling Kentucky Strip Mining (Routledge Revivals)
by Marc Karnis LandyThe Politics of Environmental Reform demonstrates how environmental laws affect local governments with Kentucky strip mining as its core example. Originally published in 1976, Landy’s research into environmental legislation in a state whose economy relies on the coal industry can easily be applied to all forms of government shedding light on issues such as policy initiation, federal-state relations and regulatory performance. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies and professionals.
The Politics of Evidence-Based Policy Making
by Paul CairneyThe Politicsof Evidence Based Policymaking identifies how to workwith policymakers to maximize the use of scientific evidence. Policymakers cannotconsider all evidence relevant to policy problems. They use two shortcuts:'rational' ways to gather enough evidence, and 'irrational' decision-making,drawing on emotions, beliefs, and habits. Most scientific studies focus on the former. They identify uncertainty when policymakers have incomplete evidence, and tryto solve it by improving the supply of information. They do not respond toambiguity, or the potential for policymakers to understand problems in verydifferent ways. A good strategy requires advocates to be persuasive: formingcoalitions with like-minded actors, and accompanying evidence with simple storiesto exploit the emotional or ideological biases of policymakers.
The Politics of Evolution
by David F. PrindleThe controversy over teaching evolution or creationism in American public schools offers a policy paradox. Two sets of values—science and democracy—are in conflict when it comes to the question of what to teach in public school biology classes. Prindle illuminates this tension between American public opinion, which clearly prefers that creationism be taught in public school biology classes, versus the ideal that science, and only science, be taught in those classes. An elite consisting of scientists, professional educators, judges, and business leaders by and large are determined to ignore public preferences and teach only science in science classes despite the majority opinion to the contrary. So how have the political process and the Constitutional law establishment managed to thwart the people’s will in this self-proclaimed democracy? Drawing on a vast body of work across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, Prindle explores the rhetoric of the evolution issue, explores its history, examines the nature of the public opinion that causes it, evaluates the Constitutional jurisprudence that upholds it, and explains the political dynamic that keeps it going. This incisive analysis is a must-read in a wide range of disciplines and for anyone who wants to understand the politics of biology.
The Politics of Food Provisioning in Colombia: Agrarian Movements and Negotiations with the State (Earthscan Food and Agriculture)
by Felipe Roa-ClavijoThis book explores food provisioning in Colombia by examining the role and impact of the agrarian negotiations which took place in the aftermath of the 2013–2014 national strikes. Most of the research in the field of agrarian studies in Colombia has focused on inequalities in land distribution, the impacts of violent conflict, and most recently, the first phase of the peace agreement implementation. This book links and complements these literatures by critically engaging with an original framework that uncovers the conflicts and politics of food provisioning: who produces what and where, and with what socio-economic effects. This analytical lens is used to explain the re-emergence of national agrarian movements, their contestation of the dominant development narratives and their engagement in discussions about food sovereignty with the state. The analysis incorporates a wide range of voices from high-level government representatives and leaders from national agrarian movements. Their narratives of food provisioning and the broader role of the food industry are reviewed and the key findings show an underlying conflict within food provisioning based on the struggle of marginalised smallholders to develop alternative agri-food systems that can be included in the local and domestic food markets in the context of a state dominated by an export and import approach. Overall, the book argues that the battle ground of agrarian conflicts has moved to the fi eld of food provisioning and using this approach has the potential to reframe the debate about the future of food and agriculture in Colombia and beyond. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of food and agriculture, rural development, peasant studies, and Latin American Studies.
The Politics of GM Crops in India: Public Policy Discourse
by Asheesh NavneetThis book discusses the conflicting discourse around GM crops in India. It brings together concerns related to food production, farming, environment, health, ownership and policymaking on the use of genetically modified crops in India. The volume analyses apprehensions around GM technology from the perspective of the various stakeholders involved in the debate. Through field surveys and interviews with scientists, economists, environmentalists, civil society activists as well as cotton growing farmers from the states of Telangana and Maharashtra, it highlights the vulnerabilities and questions related to the short-term and long term impacts of using GM technology on farmers, food production, health, the agricultural economy and the environment. The book proposes ways for the use of GM technology which takes stock of economic and farming limitations and accordingly brings in reforms and policies to reconcile the conflicting arguments of stakeholders. This volume will be of great interest to researchers and students of development studies, political science, sociology, agricultural studies and sciences and biotechnology. It will also be useful for policymakers, think tanks and NGOs working with farmers or agriculture collectives on policy issues.
The Politics of Invisibility: Public Knowledge about Radiation Health Effects after Chernobyl (Infrastructures)
by Olga KuchinskayaLessons from the massive Chernobyl nuclear accident about how we deal with modern hazards that are largely imperceptible.Before Fukushima, the most notorious large-scale nuclear accident the world had seen was Chernobyl in 1986. The fallout from Chernobyl covered vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Europe. Belarus, at the time a Soviet republic, suffered heavily: nearly a quarter of its territory was covered with long-lasting radionuclides. Yet the damage from the massive fallout was largely imperceptible; contaminated communities looked exactly like noncontaminated ones. It could be known only through constructed representations of it. In The Politics of Invisibility, Olga Kuchinskaya explores how we know what we know about Chernobyl, describing how the consequences of a nuclear accident were made invisible. Her analysis sheds valuable light on how we deal with other modern hazards—toxins or global warming—that are largely imperceptible to the human senses.Kuchinskaya describes the production of invisibility of Chernobyl's consequences in Belarus—practices that limit public attention to radiation and make its health effects impossible to observe. Just as mitigating radiological contamination requires infrastructural solutions, she argues, the production and propagation of invisibility also involves infrastructural efforts, from redefining the scope and nature of the accident's consequences to reshaping research and protection practices. Kuchinskaya finds vast fluctuations in recognition, tracing varyingly successful efforts to conceal or reveal Chernobyl's consequences at different levels—among affected populations, scientists, government, media, and international organizations. The production of invisibility, she argues, is a function of power relations.
The Politics of Invisibility
by Olga KuchinskayaBefore Fukushima, the most notorious large-scale nuclear accident the world had seenwas Chernobyl in 1986. The fallout from Chernobyl covered vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere,especially in Europe. Belarus, at the time a Soviet republic, suffered heavily: nearly a quarter ofits territory was covered with long-lasting radionuclides. Yet the damage from the massive falloutwas largely imperceptible; contaminated communities looked exactly like noncontaminated ones. Itcould be known only through constructed representations of it. In The Politics ofInvisibility, Olga Kuchinskaya explores how we know what we know about Chernobyl,describing how the consequences of a nuclear accident were made invisible. Her analysis shedsvaluable light on how we deal with other modern hazards -- toxins or global warming -- that arelargely imperceptible to the human senses. Kuchinskaya describes the production ofinvisibility of Chernobyl's consequences in Belarus -- practices that limit public attention toradiation and make its health effects impossible to observe. Just as mitigating radiologicalcontamination requires infrastructural solutions, she argues, the production and propagation ofinvisibility also involves infrastructural efforts, from redefining the scope and nature of theaccident's consequences to reshaping research and protection practices. Kuchinskaya finds vast fluctuations in recognition, tracing varyingly successfulefforts to conceal or reveal Chernobyl's consequences at different levels -- among affectedpopulations, scientists, government, media, and international organizations. The production ofinvisibility, she argues, is a function of power relations.
The Politics of Knowledge in Inclusive Development and Innovation (Pathways to Sustainability)
by David Ludwig, Birgit Boogaard, Phil Macnaghten, and Cees LeeuwisThis book develops an integrated perspective on the practices and politics of making knowledge work in inclusive development and innovation. While debates about development and innovation commonly appeal to the authority of academic researchers, many current approaches emphasise the plurality of actors with relevant expertise for addressing livelihood challenges. Adopting an action-oriented and reflexive approach, this volume explores the variety of ways in which knowledge works, paying particular attention to dilemmas and controversies. The six parts of the book address the complex interplay of knowledge and politics, starting with the need for knowledge integration in the first part and decolonial perspectives on the politics of knowledge integration in the second part. The following three parts focus on the practices of inclusive development and innovation through three major themes of learning for transformative change, evidence, and digitisation. The final part of the book addresses the governance of knowledge and innovation in the light of political struggles about inclusivity. Exploring conceptual and practical themes through case studies from the Global North and South, this book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners researching and working in development studies, epistemology, innovation studies, science and technology studies, and sustainability studies more broadly.
The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century (In-Formation)
by Nikolas RoseFor centuries, medicine aimed to treat abnormalities. But today normality itself is open to medical modification. Equipped with a new molecular understanding of bodies and minds, and new techniques for manipulating basic life processes at the level of molecules, cells, and genes, medicine now seeks to manage human vital processes. The Politics of Life Itself offers a much-needed examination of recent developments in the life sciences and biomedicine that have led to the widespread politicization of medicine, human life, and biotechnology. Avoiding the hype of popular science and the pessimism of most social science, Nikolas Rose analyzes contemporary molecular biopolitics, examining developments in genomics, neuroscience, pharmacology, and psychopharmacology and the ways they have affected racial politics, crime control, and psychiatry. Rose analyzes the transformation of biomedicine from the practice of healing to the government of life; the new emphasis on treating disease susceptibilities rather than disease; the shift in our understanding of the patient; the emergence of new forms of medical activism; the rise of biocapital; and the mutations in biopower. He concludes that these developments have profound consequences for who we think we are, and who we want to be.
The Politics of Low-Carbon Innovation: The EU Strategic Energy Technology Plan
by Per Ove Eikeland Jon Birger Skjærseth"Although technological innovation is undoubtedly crucial for addressing climate change, low-carbon innovation policies and politics have hardly been studied. This book clearly reveals the promises and pitfalls of European efforts in this field – recommended reading!"—Sebastian Oberthür, Institute for European Studies, Belguim"This compact volume effectively addresses a surprisingly unknown territory in an otherwise well-explored landscape. In doing so, it will provide a useful resource to all who follow the uneven progress of climate and energy policy in the EU context, as well as those who are interested in policies to stimulate technology development more broadly."—Tim Rayner, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, UKThe EU Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) was aimed at accelerating low-carbon innovation by raising, coordinating and concentrating resources to certain low-carbon technologies. At the ten-year anniversary of the SET-Plan, this book examines why it was adopted and what it has achieved. Using an analytical framework developed to capture the ‘politics of innovation’, the authors trace the history of the Plan from initiation to implementation, and then explain its development as seen from the perspectives of the EU institutions, member-states, industry, the research community and international technology markets. The concluding chapter discusses lessons and prospects for European low-carbon innovation towards 2030 and beyond. This new work fills a void in the literature on EU climate and energy policies, and will appeal to scholars, students and practitioners in these fields.
The Politics of Military Coalitions
by Scott WolfordMilitary coalitions are ubiquitous. The United States builds them regularly, yet they are associated with the largest, most destructive, and consequential wars in history. When do states build them, and what partners do they choose? Are coalitions a recipe for war, or can they facilitate peace? Finally, when do coalitions affect the expansion of conflict beyond its original participants? The Politics of Military Coalitions introduces newly collected data designed to answer these very questions, showing that coalitions - expensive to build but attractive from a military standpoint - are very often more (if sometimes less) than the sum of their parts, at times encouraging war while discouraging it at others, at times touching off wider wars while at others keeping their targets isolated. The combination of new data, new formal theories, and new quantitative analysis will be of interest to scholars, students, and policymakers alike
The Politics of Moderation in Modern European History (Palgrave Studies in Political History)
by Ido De Haan Matthijs LokThis book charts the varieties of political moderation in modern European history from the French Revolution to the present day. It explores the attempts to find a middle way between ideological extremes, from the nineteenth-century Juste Milieu and balance of power, via the Third Ways between capitalism and socialism, to the current calls for moderation beyond populism and religious radicalism. The essays in this volume are inspired by the widely-recognized need for a more nuanced political discourse. The contributors demonstrate how the history of modern politics offers a range of experiences and examples of the search for a middle way that can help us to navigate the tensions of the current political climate. At the same time, the volume offers a diagnosis of the problems and pitfalls of Third Ways, of finding the middle between extremes, and of the weaknesses of the moderate point of view.
Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy
by Bruno Latour Catherine PorterA major work by one of the more innovative thinkers of our time, Politics of Nature does nothing less than establish the conceptual context for political ecology--transplanting the terms of ecology into more fertile philosophical soil than its proponents have thus far envisioned. Bruno Latour announces his project dramatically: "Political ecology has nothing whatsoever to do with nature, this jumble of Greek philosophy, French Cartesianism and American parks. " Nature, he asserts, far from being an obvious domain of reality, is a way of assembling political order without due process. Thus, his book proposes an end to the old dichotomy between nature and society--and the constitution, in its place, of a collective, a community incorporating humans and nonhumans and building on the experiences of the sciences as they are actually practiced. In a critique of the distinction between fact and value, Latour suggests a redescription of the type of political philosophy implicated in such a "commonsense" division--which here reveals itself as distinctly uncommonsensical and in fact fatal to democracy and to a healthy development of the sciences. Moving beyond the modernist institutions of "mononaturalism" and "multiculturalism," Latour develops the idea of "multinaturalism," a complex collectivity determined not by outside experts claiming absolute reason but by "diplomats" who are flexible and open to experimentation.
The Politics of Pain Medicine: A Rhetorical-Ontological Inquiry
by S. Scott GrahamChronic pain is a medical mystery, debilitating to patients and a source of frustration for practitioners. It often eludes both cause and cure and serves as a reminder of how much further we have to go in unlocking the secrets of the body. A new field of pain medicine has evolved from this landscape, one that intersects with dozens of disciplines and subspecialties ranging from psychology and physiology to anesthesia and chiropractic medicine. Over the past three decades, researchers, policy makers, and practitioners have struggled to define this complex and often contentious field as they work to establish standards while navigating some of the most challenging philosophical issues of Western science. In The Politics of Pain Medicine: A Rhetorical-Ontological Inquiry, S. Scott Graham offers a rich and detailed exploration of the medical rhetoric surrounding pain medicine. Graham chronicles the work of interdisciplinary pain management specialists to found a new science of pain and a new approach to pain medicine grounded in a more comprehensive biospychosocial model. His insightful analysis demonstrates how these materials ultimately shape the healthcare community's understanding of what pain medicine is, how the medicine should be practiced and regulated, and how practitioner-patient relationships are best managed. It is a fascinating, novel examination of one of the most vexing issues in contemporary medicine.
The Politics of Partnerships: A Critical Examination of Nonprofit-Business Partnerships
by Maria May SeitanidiThe widespread partnering phenomenon in the US and the UK spurred a significant amount of literature focusing on its strategic use. The Politics of Partnerships diverges by examining if partnerships can deliver benefits that extend beyond the organisational to the societal level resulting from the intentional combined efforts of the partners.
The Politics of Scale: A History of Rangeland Science
by Nathan F. SayreRangelands are vast, making up one quarter of the United States and forty percent of the Earth’s ice-free land. And while contemporary science has revealed a great deal about the environmental impacts associated with intensive livestock production—from greenhouse gas emissions to land and water degradation—far less is known about the historic role science has played in rangeland management and politics. Steeped in US soil, this first history of rangeland science looks to the origins of rangeland ecology in the late nineteenth-century American West, exploring the larger political and economic forces that—together with scientific study—produced legacies focused on immediate economic success rather than long-term ecological well being. During the late 1880s and early 1890s, a variety of forces—from the Homestead Act of 1862 to the extermination of bison, foreign investment, and lack of government regulation—promoted free-for-all access to and development of the western range, with disastrous environmental consequences. To address the crisis, government agencies turned to scientists, but as Nathan F. Sayre shows, range science grew in a politically fraught landscape. Neither the scientists nor the public agencies could escape the influences of bureaucrats and ranchers who demanded results, and the ideas that became scientific orthodoxy—from fire suppression and predator control to fencing and carrying capacities—contained flaws and blind spots that plague public debates about rangelands to this day. Looking at the global history of rangeland science through the Cold War and beyond, The Politics of Scale identifies the sources of past conflicts and mistakes and helps us to see a more promising path forward, one in which rangeland science is guided less by capital and the state and more by communities working in collaboration with scientists.
The Politics of Shale Gas in Eastern Europe: Energy Security, Contested Technologies and the Social License to Frack (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Public Policy)
by Andreas GoldthauFracking is a novel but contested energy technology – so what makes some countries embrace it while others reject it? This book argues that the reason for policy divergence lies in procedures and processes, stakeholder inclusion and whether a strong narrative underpins governmental policies. Based on a large set of primary data gathered in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, it explores shale gas policies in Central Eastern Europe (a region strongly dependent on Russian gas imports) to unveil the importance of policy regimes for creating a ‘social licence’ for fracking. Its findings suggest that technology transfer does not happen in a vacuum, but is subject to close mutual interaction with political, economic and social forces; and that national energy policy is a matter not of ‘objective’ policy imperatives, such as Russian import dependence, but of complex domestic dynamics pertaining to institutional procedures and processes, and winners and losers.
The Politics of Space Security
by James Clay MoltzMoltz (national security affairs, US Naval Postgraduate School) traces military space developments from 1957 to the present--including weapons tests and deployments, arms control treaties, and less formal cooperative agreements--in order to understand underlying causes and possible future developments relevant to the policy debate over military uses of space and defense of space-based assets by the United States. After discussing the historical and conceptual background, he focuses on how competition between the Soviet Union and the United States grew more limited following an initially hostile, open-ended, and military-led space programs as both sides accepted mutual constraints on deployable weapons in return for safe access to space for other uses. He next examines the period between the collapse of the Soviet Union and 2001, noting that the US generally maintained self-restraint and cooperative space relations even in the face of the decline of Russian space capabilities. Finally, he looks at the very different dynamics under the Bush administrations and analyzes the underlying factors for the change and concludes with a discussion of possible space futures, ranging from atomized and state-centric to highly integrated and transnational. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
The Politics of Technological Progress: Parties, Time Horizons and Long-term Economic Development
by Joel W. Simmons"Why are some countries richer than others and why do some economies grow more rapidly? The Politics of Technological Progress answers these vital questions by highlighting the importance of technological progress for sustained economic development. The author also explains why some countries exhibit faster technological progress than others. Armed with a wealth of cross-national empirical evidence, Professor Simmons stresses the importance of properly constructed political parties for establishing an environment conducive to technological progress. 'Well-institutionalized' ruling parties are essential for technological progress, he argues, because only in such parties are time horizons long enough for governments to accept the deferred returns that are an inherent feature of government efforts to encourage innovation and technology adoption in the economy"--
Politics of the Environment: A Survey
by Chukwumerije OkerekeThe environment is increasingly seen at the forefront of many political agendas. Covering important topics, such as the Kyoto protocol and deforestation, this book provides extensive coverage of all aspects of environmental politics. Essays of around 6,000 words in length make up the bulk of the book. Written by notable experts in the field of environmental politics, these essays each examine a different aspect of the subject.
The Politics of the Final Hundred Years of Humanity (2030-2130)
by Ian CookThis book is the first book that looks at both the politics of maintaining the trajectory toward humanity’s final hundred years and the politics of those final hundred years. It is the first book to take up theoretical and practical aspects with respect to both the movement toward and events during these final hundred years. As a result, it is the first book that attempts to provide a more complete picture of the politics of catastrophic human-caused environment change.The fact that the book provides a way into the variety of policy problems that catastrophic human-caused environment change is creating means that it is also important to those in Public Policy. The book also raises a series of philosophical and ethical questions associated with human rights, which are significant to those who study Political Philosophy (and some of those who study Law), international action to mitigate the effects of climate change, the nature of science and the limitations of political institutions.
The Politics of the Olympics: A Survey
by Alan BairnerWith the ever increasing global significance of the Olympic Games, it has never been more topical to address the political issues that surround, influence and emanate from this quadrennial sporting mega event. In terms of the most recent evidence of the politics of the Olympics, the 2008 Beijing Games were riddled with political messages and content from the outset, and provided a global stage for protesters with numerous agendas. These included, to name but a few, proposed boycotts, potential terrorist attacks, the question of open media access, protests against China’s political practices and attempts to interrupt the ‘traditional’ torch rally. Essays in this collection focus on numerous political aspects of the Olympics from a variety of different perspectives, with a Glossary that contains a range of politically relevant entries relating to famous and infamous Olympic athletes, Olympic movement personnel and events and broader political issues and developments which have affected the modern Games. The purpose of this anthology is not to perpetuate hatred towards the concept and practices of Olympism or to regurgitate a ‘celebratory party line’. Instead, in addition to being informative, the book offers critical engagement with the Olympics by raising awareness of the movement’s political significance. Consequently, the essays in this anthology illustrate the strong but changing links between the modern Olympic Games and politics, in general, and address and discuss the key political aspects and issues with regard to the Games themselves, to national and international sport organisations and to specific countries’ attitudes to (ab)using the idea/ideal of the Olympics for their own political ends.