This book provides unique insights into the role of policy capacity in policymaking and policy change, as it is being uncovered at the research frontier in contemporary policy studies.

Economic growth continues to transform the economic and political landscape of Asia. Equally the policies now being adopted to promote private sector participation, re-structure state entities, and reduce the presence of the state in the provision of public goods and services, are tied to fundamental transformations in Asia's state-society relations. The global cast of contributors present a timely analysis of the impact of neo-liberalism on Asia's developmental policies and the organisation of Asian states and markets. Ironically, the "developmental state" that has historically driven Asia's...

Escaping the economic and security-centered approaches, prevalent in contemporary U.S. debate the contributors explore political relations between the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).Their inter-disciplinary perspectives touch on domains such as security, comparative integration, human rights, energy.

This book offers theoretical and methodological guidelines for researching the complex regulation of local infrastructure, utilities and public services in the context of rapid urbanisation, technological change, and climate change.

Philippe Zittoun analyses the public policymaking process focusing on how governments relentlessly develop proposals to change public policy to address insoluble problems. Rather than considering this surprising Sisyphean effort as a lack of rationality, the author examines it as a political activity that produces order and stability.

With Asia as its backdrop, this book investigates the role played by the World Bank Group (WBG) in conceptualising and promoting new mining regimes tailored for resource-rich country clients. It details a particular politics of mining in the Global South characterised by the transplanting, hijacking and contesting of the WBG's mining agenda.

According to the author, rather than alleviating poverty, microfinance financialises poverty. By indebting poor people in the Global South, it drives financial expansion and opens new lands of opportunity for the crisis-ridden global capital markets. This book raises fundamental concerns about this widely-celebrated tool for social development.

This edited collection examines various facets of governance - the organization and steering of political processes within society - for a better understanding of the complexities of contemporary policy making.

The contributors investigate policy paradigms and their ability to explain the policy process actors, ideas, discourses and strategies employed to provide readers with a better understanding of public policy and its dynamics.

In spite of efforts to liberalise the market and introduce incentives to local and foreign investors, investment performance in Syria remained poor, dragging down with it economic and employment growth. The author employs a political economic framework to investigate the failure of investment in Syria prior to the 'Arab Spring'.