Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> World - General

Public concern about inequitable economic globalization has revealed the demand for citizen participation in global decision making. Civil society organizations have taken up the challenge, holding governments and corporations accountable for their decisions and actions, and developing collaborative solutions to the dominant problems of our time. Critical Mass: The Emergence of Global Civil Society offers a unique mixture of experience and analysis by the leaders of some of the most influential global civil society organizations and respected academics who specialize in this field...

Since January 2004, a violent separatist insurgency has raged in southern Thailand, resulting in more than three thousand deaths. Though largely unnoticed outside Southeast Asia, the rebellion in Pattani and neighboring provinces and the Thai government's harsh crackdown have resulted in a full-scale crisis. Tearing Apart the Land by Duncan McCargo, one of the world's leading scholars of contemporary Thai politics, is the first fieldwork-based book about this conflict. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of the region, hundreds of interviews conducted during a year's research in...

Although stereotypically homogenized and hostile to immigrants, Japan has experienced an influx of foreigners from Asia and Latin America in recent decades. In Fighting for Foreigners, Apichai W. Shipper details how, in response, Japanese citizens have established a variety of local advocacy groups some faith based, some secular to help immigrants secure access to social services, economic equity, and political rights.

Drawing on his years of ethnographic fieldwork and a pragmatic account of political motivation he calls associative activism, Shipper asserts that...

One common explanation for the failure of democracy to take root in Russia more quickly and more thoroughly than it has points to inherited cultural values that predispose Russian citizens to favor an autocratic type of governance. Ellen Carnaghan takes aim at this cultural-determinist thesis in her study of Russian attitudes, based on intensive interviews with more than sixty citizens from all walks of life and a variety of political orientations.

What she finds is that, rather than being influenced by an antidemocratic and anticapitalist ideology, these ordinary citizens view the...

Mexico finally shed its authoritarian past with the victory of the PAN candidate Vicente Fox in the 2000 election. But the consolidation and growth of democracy in Mexico have been complicated by the institutional residues of the past. Steven Wuhs's investigation of the PAN and PRD begins by depicting how the PRI functioned and then, in successive chapters, compares how PAN and PRD leaders reacted to the PRI's institutions in choosing rules for selecting candidates to run for office, organizing their party's bureaucracy, and linking to groups in civil society. What he shows is that "savage...

This is the first examination of how China is currently dealing with environmental problems and challenges, and of its successes, failures and dilemmas.

This new book gives special attention to the development of 'environmental governance' in contemporary China, especially on the urban industrial and infrastructure sectors, showing how the rapid economic growth that has transformed China in recent years has major implications for the environment, as well as future economic development.

Leading international scholars explore a range of key issues, including:

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Owing to the changing nature of Japan and its role within the world, more needs to be known of the dynamics of Japanese politics. This timely set brings together key articles on the most crucial issues facing Japanese politics today, and the relationship between Japanese politics and the main institutions including big business, the bureaucracy and the media. This is an area that has been studied by leading academics for a number of decades, but whose work has yet to be given sufficient notice or credit. With more and more students enrolling at universities to study Japan, there is a...

Since January 2004, a violent separatist insurgency has raged in southern Thailand, resulting in more than three thousand deaths. Though largely unnoticed outside Southeast Asia, the rebellion in Pattani and neighboring provinces and the Thai government's harsh crackdown have resulted in a full-scale crisis. Tearing Apart the Land by Duncan McCargo, one of the world's leading scholars of contemporary Thai politics, is the first fieldwork-based book about this conflict. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of the region, hundreds of interviews conducted during a year's research in...