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Political Education in Times of Populism: Towards a Radical Democratic Education
by Edda Sant"In professional and academic contexts nothing is more important than helping people to understand and engage with democratic society. Sant has written an excellent book which helps greatly towards that end. She has developed incisive new arguments about the nature of contemporary politics and education. Using the most recent as well as classic literature, she explores key ideas and issues. Through wide ranging discussions and by referring to her own valuable empirical work she characterizes and creates thoughtful insights and innovative pedagogical approaches. This book achieves the very difficult task of illuminating complex ideas at the same time as helping to determine practical ways to achieve social justice through education. Political education has been neglected for too long. This book is a bold new step in its achievement."—Ian Davies, Emeritus Professor, University of York, UKThis book examines political education in times of democratic crisis, polarisation and uncertainty. Using populism as a diagnostic tool, the book scrutinises current democratic practices and considers alternatives for future social studies and citizenship education. The author examines contemporary events including Brexit, the Catalan referendum for independence and protests in Chile to ask how democratic educators can respond to times of crisis. Centered on themes of knowledge and ideology, the book draws together political philosophy and educational research to map out, critically analyse and offer alternatives to dominant debates on political education. It will be of interest and value to scholars examining the relationship between democracy and educational theory and practice.Edda Sant is Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. A former social studies teacher, her research interests lie in citizenship, political and democratic education. She has published widely in this field, and in 2016 was recognized with a Children’s Identity & Citizenship European Association Award.
Rentier Capitalism and Its Discontents: Power, Morality and Resistance in Central Asia
by Balihar Sanghera Elmira SatybaldievaThis book explains and evaluates today’s economic, political, social and ecological crises through the lens of rentier capitalism and countermovements in Central Asia. Over the last three decades the rich and powerful have increased their wealth and political power to the detriment of social and environmental well-being. But their activities have not gone unchecked. Grassroots activism has resisted the harmful and damaging effects of the neoliberal commodification of things. Providing a much-needed theorisation of the moral economy and politics of rent, this book offers in-depth case studies on finance, real estate and natural resources in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The authors show the mechanisms of rent extraction, their moral justifications and legitimacy, and social struggles against them. This book highlights the importance of class relations, state-countermovement interactions and global capitalism in understanding social and economic dynamics in Central Asia. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in political economy, development studies, sociology, politics and international relations.
The Future of Social Work: What Next for Social Policy?
by Bill JordanThis book is an up-to-date analysis of the issues facing the future of the social work profession in the face of rising political authoritarianism, economic inequality and insecurity, class and racial conflicts, fiscal pressure and the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides an account of how these factors interact, and what their consequences are for policy and practice. Reflecting the author's experiences in Europe and Commonwealth countries, the book is international in its scope and analysis. It is suitable for professionals and students alike, and will also be relevant for social policy academics and researchers.
Toward a Phenomenology of Terrorism: Beyond Who is Killing Whom (Critical Criminological Perspectives)
by David PolizziThis book examines the socio-psychological dynamics and drivers of terrorism from a humanistic perspective. Most interpret terrorism as meaningless, asocial violence but this book argues that it's not just a case of seeing 'who is killing whom' but that defining and understanding terrorism is configured by historical context and immediate experience. The author argues that these acts of terrorist violence can be interpreted as the external expression of repressed feelings and impulses that have been tabooized by mainstream society. Upon release, these terrorists gain a new 'nomos' which generates a sense of meaning and significance for them. This book draws on psycho-analytical theories of repression, Heideggerian existentialism, Berger’s anthropological concept of culture as ‘nomos’, and Roger Griffin’s analysis of terrorist fanaticism, adding to the understanding terrorism and criminality from a new perspective and beyond the usual literature situated in political science, security/war and peace studies. This book seeks to provide: a definition of terrorism, an account of the psychological theory, an explanation of the nomic dimension of terroristic violence, an exploration of the relevance of the new approach to understanding: Salafi jihadism, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, the Taliban, White Supremacism, the rise of the Radical Right, and reflections on this for combating terrorism. It appeals to those interested in terrorism, conflict, terrorist radicalization and motivation, international relations, politics and religious politics, and to counter-terrorism agencies.
Outcomes of Open Adoption from Care: An Australian Contribution to an International Debate
by Harriet Ward Lynne Moggach Susan Tregeagle Helen TrivediThis Open Access book presents unique evidence from the first comprehensive study of the outcomes of open adoption from care in Australia. It contributes to the international debate concerning the advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face post adoption contact with birth families.The chapters assess whether adoption provides a better chance of permanence and more positive outcomes than long-term foster care for abused and neglected children in care who cannot safely return to their birth families. They also explore whether open adoption can avoid some of the detrimental consequences of past policies in which adoption was shrouded in secrecy and children frequently grew up with a conflicted sense of identity. The book will appeal to policy makers, practitioners and students of social policy, social work, the law, psychology and psychiatry. It should also be of interest to adult adoptees and adoptive parents, whose experiences it reflects.
Advances of Footprint Family for Sustainable Energy and Industrial Systems (Green Energy and Technology)
by Jingzheng RenThis book presents various methodologies for determining the ecological footprint, carbon footprint, water footprint, nitrogen footprint, and life cycle environment impacts and illustrates these methodologies through various applications. In particular, it systematically and comprehensively introduces the concepts and tools of the ‘footprint family’ and discusses their applications in energy and industrial systems. The book begins by providing an overview of the effects of the economic growth dynamics on ecological footprint and then presents the definitions, concepts, calculation methods, and applications of the various footprints. The unique characteristic of this book is that it demonstrates the applications of various footprints in different systems including economic system, ecological system, beef production system, cropping system, building, food chain, sugarcane bioproducts, and the Belt and Road Initiative. Providing both background theory and practical advice, the book is of interest to energy and environmental researchers, graduate students, and engineers.
Refugees in Canada: On the Loss of Social and Cultural Capital
by Thomas RicentoThe focus of this book is on the experiences of government-sponsored refugees in the early stages of integrating into Canadian society. Combining data gleaned from a longitudinal study of relatively recently arrived refugees in Calgary, Canada, with a close focus on the case of a physician from Colombia and his family, this volume illustrates how the cultural and social capital of refugees is marginalized and, in some cases, erased by the undervaluing of their education, training, credentials, and other knowledge. The findings presented in the book underscore the importance of addressing the challenge of integrating highly trained professionals into the professions for which they are credentialed.
Discourse and Conflict: Analysing Text and Talk of Conflict, Hate and Peace-building
by Innocent ChiluwaThis edited book analyses the relationship between discourse and conflict, exploring both how language may be used to promote conflict and also how it is possible to avoid or mitigate conflict through tactical use of language. Bringing together contributions from both established scholars and emerging voices in the fields of Discourse Analysis and Conflict Studies, it argues for a discourse approach to making sense of conflict and disagreement in the modern world. ‘Conflict’ is understood here as having a national or global focus and consequences, and includes verbal aggression and hate speech, as well as physical confrontation between political and ethnic groups or states over values, claims to status, power and resources. Themes explored in the volume include the language of conflict, hate speech in online and offline media, and discourse and peace-building, and the chapters examine various national contexts, including Lithuania, Brazil, Belgium, North Macedonia, Sri Lanka, the USA and Afghanistan. The chapters cover conflict-related topics within the fields of Political Science, International Relations, Sociology, Media Studies, and Applied Linguistics, and the book will be of interest to students, researchers and experts in these and related fields, as well as professionals in conflict and peace-building/peace-keeping.
The Rebirth of Italian Communism, 1943–44: Dissidents in German-Occupied Rome
by David BroderDuring the final years of the Second World War, a decisive change took place in the Italian left, as the Italian Communist Party (PCI) rose from clandestinity and recast itself as a mass, patriotic force committed to building a new democracy. This book explains how this new party came into being. Using Rome as its focus, it explains that the rebirth of the PCI required that it subdue other, dissident strands of communist thinking. During the nine-month German occupation of Rome in 1943-44, dissident communists would create the capital’s largest single resistance formation, the Communist Movement of Italy (MCd’I), which galvanised a social revolt in the capital's borgate slums. Exploring this wartime battle to define the rebirth of Italian communism, the author examines the ways in which a militant minority of communists rooted their activity in the everyday lives of the population under occupation. In particular, this study focuses on the role of draft resistance and the revolt against labour conscription in driving recruitment to partisan bands, and how communist militants sought to mould these recruits through an active effort of political education. Studying the political writing of these dissidents, their autodidact Marxism and the social conditions in which it emerged, this book also sheds light on an often-ignored underground culture in the years that preceded the armed resistance that began in September 1943. Revealing an almost unknown history of dissident communism in Italy, outside of more recognisable traditions like Trotskyism or Bordigism, this book provides an innovative perspective on Italian history. It will be of interest to those researching the broad topics of political and social history, but more specifically, resistance in the Second World War and the post-war European left.
Advocacy NGOs and the Neoliberal Pacification of the Demands of the Street
by Juan Francisco Palma CarvajalThis book critically explores the role of two advocacy NGOs actively involved in processes of education policymaking during the recent education reforms carried out in Chile, the country known as the first laboratory of neoliberalism around the world. Based on Foucault’s theoretical work on governmentality the book argues that neoliberalism as a form of governmentality has permeated in Chilean policymaking, generating new forms of domination through freedom by situating NGOs as active and responsible subjects of government. In this way, this volume contests the supposed benefits of NGOs as a force to enhance democracy and foment social participation, arguing instead, that NGOs image as representatives of civil society can be used to pacify social movements demands for radical change and build a political consensus that serves to legitimate government interests in policymaking.
Guicciardini, Geopolitics and Geohistory: Understanding Inter-State Relations (Palgrave Studies in International Relations)
by William MallinsonThis book demonstrates that geohistory is a more effective concept than geopolitics in understanding inter-state relations, at a time of considerable confusion in world affairs, and that Francesco Guicciardini’s thoughts are an efficient medium to demonstrate not only the inadequacies of geopolitics, but that a geohistorical approach can be a more responsible way of understanding international affairs. The book introduces a fresh approach, based on the individual, on which corporate characteristics and behaviour depend, often in the shape of state interests, which are unable on their own to predict actions driven by human behaviour. The book shows how show mainstream international relations theories are stuck in paradigms, inadequate in explaining why world politics is moving in a direction that nobody could predict even a decade ago. It shows how ideology can blur clear understanding. In short, it represents a new and intellectually refreshing approach and method in understanding, and tackling, the vagaries of relations between states.
Silencing a Whistleblower: A Story of Hypocrisy
by Cobus de SwardtThis book examines how insufficient policies can lead to the alleged abuse of power in organisations. When independent ethical structures and processes are missing or weak, practices of abuse, misconduct and cover-ups can easily arise at the leadership level. Even organisations that specialise in good governance are no exception, as illustrated by this case study on arguably the world’s most influential anti-corruption NGO, Transparency International (TI). Written by the former Managing Director of Transparency International, this book chronicles its ethical breakdown over a 5-year period starting in 2015. By comparing TI’s whistleblower policies with its internal whistleblower practices, it demonstrates how the organisation gradually became trapped in a vicious cycle of secrecy, corruption and lies. The author chronologically tracks TI’s practices, drawing on 12 whistleblower complaints filed with TI since 2017, as well as communications with TI, international donor agencies, and other international civil society organisations from 2015 to 2020 to do so. The chronological format aptly reveals the snowball effect that ethical weaknesses can create over time, as well as the emotional warfare that whistleblowers are typically subjected to. The unfolding chronology also shows what it means to be a whistleblower for an organisation that avoids public transparency, reporting on and scrutiny of its own practices.
Universities in the Knowledge Society: The Nexus of National Systems of Innovation and Higher Education (The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective #22)
by Timo Aarrevaara Martin Finkelstein Jisun Jung Glen A. JonesThis book explores the complex, multi-faceted relationships between national research and innovation systems and higher education. The transition towards knowledge societies/economies is repositioning the role of the university and transforming the academic profession. The volume provides a foundational introduction to the concepts of knowledge society and knowledge economy, and these concepts ground the detailed case studies of eighteen systems, located across five continents. Each case study was written by a leading expert in that jurisdiction, and provides a critical analysis of the research and development infrastructure, the role of universities, and the implications for the academic profession. The book describes how nations in various geographic regions and at various stages of economic maturity are restructuring their university systems to adapt to the new imperatives, and provides a cross-case analysis identifying common themes and distinctive features. In telling the story of higher education’s on-going global metamorphosis, the contributing authors place current developments in the context of the university’s historic evolution, survey the changing metrics that national governments are adopting to measure university performance, and describe a new international project, the Academic Profession in the Knowledge-based Society [APiKS] that involved a common survey of academics in more than twenty countries to take the pulse of developments “on the ground” while documenting the challenges confronting knowledge workers in the new economy.
Emergency Remote Learning, Teaching and Leading: Global Perspectives
by Charmaine BissessarThis book exemplifies the challenges and successes of online learning, teaching and leading in times of crises. It helps shed light on the issues facing online and face-to-face practitioners having to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and continue education within the confines of a specific interface. The volume includes new research and information, which can be built upon in the coming months and years depending on how long the pandemic persists. Therefore, it adds a geometric dimension to the current research on online teaching, learning and leading with emphasis on what can be done during a pandemic. The book is beneficial because it is timely and significant based on current happenings in the world. Its findings contribute to expansive research on online learning, teaching and leading but with a focus on emergency education. The information contained in the book is significant to different regions in the world such as the Caribbean, UK, USA, Greece, Mauritius inter alia. The book is of interest to teachers, students, parents, leaders and anyone who wants to adopt online education.
An Introduction to Latin American Economics: Understanding Theory Through History
by Scott McKinneyThis textbook serves as an introduction to the major economic topics and events in Latin America’s history, from the settling of the region by indigenous Americans and then Europeans, Africans and Asians, to the economic consequences of COVID-19. Each chapter concentrates on a particular period—for example, pre-Columbian America, the 1980s debt crisis, the 21st Century decline in income inequality—and introduces the concepts needed to understand the events of that period. These concepts include theories such as Dutch Disease and Dependency Theory, policies such as import-substituting industrialization and neoliberalism, and analytical tools such as the circular flow of income and the foreign exchange market. Descriptive data are used to illustrate these concepts: for example, Latin America’s current account balance during the 1970s and 1980s shows the impact of the debt crisis, while the relationship between money supply growth and inflation in Argentina during the 1980s and 1990s shows the impact of expansionary monetary policy and convertibility.With its focus on Latin American economic history and on the key concepts for understanding that history, this book can serve as the core textbook for an introductory course on Latin American Economics, or as a complementary text for an introductory course in Latin American Studies or a social science course on Latin America.
Bargaining: Current Research and Future Directions
by Emin Karagözoğlu Kyle B. HyndmanThis Edited Collection provides a rigorous and rich overview of current bargaining research in economics and related disciplines, as well as a discussion of future directions. The Editors create cross-disciplinary and cross-methodological synergies by bringing together bargaining researchers from various fields, including game theory, experimental economics, political economy, autonomous negotiations, artificial intelligence, environmental economics and behavioral operations management; as well as using various methods, including the strategic approach, axiomatic approach, empirical research, lab and field experiments, machine learning and decision support systems. Offering insights into the theoretical foundations of bargaining research, traditional applications to bargaining research and topics of growing importance due to new advances in technology and the changing political and physical landscape of the world, this book is a key tool for anyone working on or interested in bargaining.
The European Union as a Global Actor: Trade, Finance and Climate Policy (Springer Texts in Political Science and International Relations)
by Susanne Lütz Tobias Leeg Daniel Otto Vincent Woyames DreherThis book focuses on the European Union as an important actor in international relations and international political economy. The EU negotiates international economic agreements, represents Europe in international organizations, and is a major trading bloc and currency area. To what extent and under what conditions the EU can use its considerable economic power to assert its interests in the international arena is a relevant question for students, researchers and practitioners alike. To explore this question, the textbook introduces the concept of “actorness” and presents an overview of the actorness debate and theories used to explain actorness. In addition, it includes three empirical chapters on trade, finance and climate policy that apply various concepts and theories to study European actorness in the respective policy areas.
Integration and Differentiation in the European Union: Theory and Policies
by Frank Schimmelfennig Dirk Leuffen Berthold RittbergerFar from displaying a uniform pattern, European integration varies significantly across policy areas and individual countries. Why do some member states choose to opt out of specific EU policies? Why are some policies deeply integrated whereas others remain intergovernmental? In this updated second edition, the authors introduce the most important theoretical approaches to European integration and apply these to the trajectories of key EU policy areas. Arguing that no single theory offers a completely convincing explanation of integration and differentiation in the EU, this thought-provoking book provides a new synthesis of integration theory and an original way of thinking about what the EU is and how it works.
Narratives of Statelessness and Political Otherness: Kurdish and Palestinian Experiences (Minorities in West Asia and North Africa)
by Barzoo EliassiThis book argues that citizenship is an inadequate solution to the problem of statelessness based on a critical investigation of the lived experiences of Kurdish and Palestinian diasporas in western Europe. It examines how statelessness affects identity formations, homelessness, belonging, non-belonging, otherness, voices, status, (non)recognition, (dis)respect, (in)visibility and presence in the uneven world of nation-states. It also demonstrates that the undoing of non-sovereign identities’ subjection to structural subalternization and everyday inferiorization requires rights in excess of the mere acquisition of juridical citizenship, which tends to assume national sameness. That assumption in turn involves sovereign practices of denial and assimilation of ethnic alterity. The book therefore highlights the necessity of de-ethnicizing and decolonizing unitary nation-states that are based on the politico-cultural supremacy of a single, “core” ethnicity as the sovereign legislator of the rules and regimes of national belonging and un-belonging. It therefore broaches questions of “majority” and “minority,” mobility, nationalism, home-making, equality, difference and universalism in the context of the nation-state and illustrates how stateless peoples such as Kurds and Palestinians endure and challenge their subordinate position in a hierarchical (geo-)political order and how in so doing remain bound by political otherness.
Applications of the Universal Thermal Climate Index UTCI in Biometeorology: Latest Developments and Case Studies (Biometeorology #4)
by Eduardo L. KrügerThis book introduces the UTCI (Universal Thermal Climate Index) and summarizes progress in this area. The UTCI was developed as part of the European COST Action Program and first announced to the scientific community in 2009. Since then, a decade has followed of applicability tests and research results, as well as knowledge gained from applying the UTCI in human adaptation and thermal perception. These findings are of interest to researchers in the interdisciplinary areas of biometeorology, climatology and urban planning. The book summarizes this progress, discussing the limitations found and provides pointers to future developments. It also discusses UTCI applications in the areas of human biometeorology and urban planning including possibilities of using UTCI and similar indices in climate-responsive urban planning. The book’s message is illustrated with many case studies from the real world.Chapter 10 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Navigating War, Dissent and Empathy in Arab/U.S Relations: Seeing Our Others in Darkened Spaces
by Osman LatiffThis book focuses on American political discourse connected to war, dissent, and empathy. Through interdisciplinary methods of history, politics and media studies, the book examines ways in which American self-identity alters as a consequence of media portrayal of human suffering and of its existential others. It compares representations of the Iraq wars to earlier precedents and looks at the work of American activists, assessing how narratives and images of human suffering in new media iconography generate empathic attitudes towards others. This comparative, multimodal study helps to explain shifting self-identities within the U.S, and relationally through the representation of the Arab other presenting an original and historicised contribution to the media-war field of academic and public debate. The book underscores empathy as a vibrant category of analysis that expands how we think about West-Arab relations, revealing how understanding the cultural aspects of this conflictual interrelationship needs to be broadened.
Journalism and the Future of Democracy
by Denis MullerThis book is about how journalism can contribute to the recovery of democracy from the crisis exemplified by the Trump presidency, the Brexit referendum and the rise of populism across the Western world. It explores the ethical concepts that provide the foundation for journalism in modern democracies: pluralism, liberalism, tolerance, truth, free speech, and impartiality. History has shown that crisis brings opportunity for change on a scale that is unachievable under ordinary political conditions, and this book proposes fundamental ways in which journalism can help democratic societies seize the moment. It traces the development of traditional mass media and social media and explores how the two might work better together to benefit democratic life. The development of press theory is described, and enhanced by a proposed new theory, Democratic Revival.
Future-Proofing Fuel Cells: Critical Raw Material Governance in Sustainable Energy
by Robert Lindner Martin David Stephen M. Lyth George F. HarringtonAs the world accelerates towards a renewable energy transition, the demand for critical raw materials (CRMs) for energy generation, conversion, and storage technologies is seeing a drastic increase. Such materials are not only subject to limited supply and extreme price volatility but can also represent serious burdens to the environment, to human health, and also to socio-political systems. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, this book provides a novel perspective on the discussion about material dependencies of energy technologies. It examines CRMs use in fuel cells, an emerging energy conversion technology, and discusses governance strategies for early-stage fuel cell development to predict and avoid potential issues. This will be an invaluable resource for researchers in energy studies, engineering, sociology and political science as well as those with a general interest in this field looking for an accessible overview.
Can Democracy Survive in the 21st Century?: Oligarchy, tyranny, and ochlocracy in the age of global capitalism
by Ronald M. GlassmanThis book analyzes the many threats to democracy that exist in the 21st century and tries to understand how democracy can survive economic, social and political crises. It focuses on issues of oligarchy, tyranny, totalitarianism, and ochlocracy. It discusses how these forms of governance manifested themselves in ancient and medieval worlds, and how socio-economic transitions in the 21st century have created conditions that increasingly pose similar threats to modern democracy. The author discusses broad transitions in the contemporary world: economic transition to advanced, high technology capitalism; cultural transition from traditional religious and family values to norms focusing on racial equality, gender and transgender equality and liberation, and multiculturalism; also, transition from the traditional religious worldview to rational-scientific worldview, and from religious morality to secular humanist ethics. These taken together undergird the political transition from traditional authority, involving monarchy and aristocracy, to rational-legal authority, involving constitutional law and democratic participation. The book shows, through extensive country discussions, that whenever these transitions become difficult, undemocratic forms of governance may emerge and override democracy. Authored by an expert in the field, this book touches upon an especially topical theme in the contemporary world and is of interest to a wide readership across the social sciences, from researchers and students to discerning laypersons.
Evidence-Based School Development in Changing Demographic Contexts (Studies in Educational Leadership #24)
by Rose M. Ylimaki Lynnette A. BrundermanThis Open Access book features a school development model (Arizona Initiative for Leadership Development and Research – AZiLDR) that offers a roadmap for schools to navigate the complexities of continuous school development. Filled with processes that balance evidence-based values with democratic, culturally responsive values, this book offers strategies to mediate the tensions and to address school culture, context and values, leadership capacity, using data as a source of reflection, curricular and pedagogical activity, and strengths-based approaches to meeting the needs of culturally diverse students. You will find: · - Active, reflective activities · - Case studies illustrating each concept · - The research base supporting each concept · - Descriptions of processes from other contexts (South Carolina, Germany, Australia, Sweden) · - Thoughts about next steps for contextually sensitive and multi-level school development · - Suggestions for cross-national dialogue and research within the Zone of Uncertainty Use this ideal source to guide school leadership teams in creating productive schools that continually grow!