This case study seeks to explain how organizations grow and the limits to that growth when an organization engaged in policy implementation lacks the resources necessary to achieve policy goals. The discussion of the basis of conflict that emerges from this study is of lasting significance. For years, studies of this issue have pointed to various models of factionalism, stressing the informal character of the groups involved. In Professor Ostrov's study, however, conflict is shown to have a supra-Cultural Revolutionary institutional basis in this and other key units.
What causes war? How can military conflicts best be prevented? In this book, Stephen Van Evera frames five conditions that increase the risk of interstate war: false optimism about the likely outcome of a war, a first-strike advantage, fluctuation in the relative power of states, circumstances that allow nations to parlay one conquest into another, and circumstances that make conquest easy. According to Van Evera, all but one of these conditions-false optimism-rarely occur today, but policymakers often erroneously believe in their existence. He argues that these misperceptions are responsible for many modern wars, and explores both World Wars, the Korean War, and the 1967 Mideast War as test cases. Finally, he assesses the possibility of nuclear war by applying all five hypotheses to its potential onset. Van Evera's book demonstrates that ideas from the Realist paradigm can offer strong explanations for international conflict and valuable prescriptions for its control.
Put your course online now, without sacrificing pedagogical quality Conquering the Content: A Blueprint for Online Course Design and Development, Second Edition is a highly practical guide to creating online courses. With guidance on incorporating learning theory into online course content, as well as a host of templates, learning guides, and sample files, this book furnishes instructors and instructional designers with the information and tools they need to design and develop their course content to better serve online students. This second edition introduces relevance statements and time-saving tips as well as content maps which provide a scaffold for content organization and help students anchor the topics in their memories for retrieval. Readers will gain expert insight and best practices for designing within the rapidly changing online learning environment and learn to incorporate recent advances that can improve student outcomes. Because the book is designed to focus on online teaching pedagogy, it won't go out of date as specific tools change. Nearly one-third of all students in higher education are taking at least one online class, and online hybrid classes are becoming more widespread. Distance learning is becoming the norm, but creating an online class is more complex than just posting course content on a website. Conquering the Content demonstrates how instructors can best revamp their course content to suit the online learning environment, and provides the tools and resources instructors need to transfer their effectiveness from the classroom to the online environment. Learn how to: Create student-friendly navigation structures that support what is known about the brain and learning Organize content based on priority, flow, and easy navigation Create assessments that work within the parameters of an online course "Chunk" information to facilitate better processing Time is of the essence in getting a course online, but it's important that pedagogy not get lost in the crush of new content. Course design is just as critical as course content when it comes to distance learning outcomes, and Conquering the Content provides a holistic and practical approach to effective online course development.
'The Jevons Paradox', which was first expressed in 1865 by William Stanley Jevons in relation to use of coal, states that an increase in efficiency in using a resource leads to increased use of that resource rather than to a reduction. This has subsequently been proved to apply not just to fossil fuels, but other resource use scenarios. For example, doubling the efficiency of food production per hectare over the last 50 years (due to the Green Revolution) did not solve the problem of hunger. The increase in efficiency increased production and worsened hunger because of the resulting increase in population. The implications of this in today's world are substantial. Many scientists and policymakers argue that future technological innovations will reduce consumption of resources; the Jevons Paradox explains why this may be a false hope. This is the first book to provide a historical overview of the Jevons Paradox, provide evidence for its existence and apply it to complex systems. Written and edited by world experts in the fields of economics, ecological economics, technology and the environment, it explains the myth of efficiency and explores its implications for resource usage (particularly oil). It is a must-read for policymakers, natural resource managers, academics and students concerned with the effects of efficiency on resource use.
Conquering Nature provides the only book-length analysis of the environmental situation in Cuba after four decades of socialist rule, based on extensive examination of secondary sources, informed by the study of development and environmental trends in former socialist countries as well as in the developing world. It approaches the issue comprehensively and from interdisciplinary, comparative, and historical perspectives. Based on the Cuban example, Diaz-Briquets and Perez-L—pez challenge the concept that environmental disruption was not supposed to occur under socialism since it was alleged that guided by scientific policies, socialism could only beget environmentally benign economic development. In reality, the socialist environmental record proved to be far different from the utopian view. Between the early 1960s and the late 1980s the environmental situation worsened despite Cuba's achieving one of the lowest population growth rates in the world and having eliminated extreme living standard differentials in rural areas, two of the primary reasons often blamed for environmental deterioration in developing countries. The government's approach was to "conquer nature" and under its central planning approach, it did not take local circumstances into consideration. This disregard for the environmental consequences of development projects continues to this day despite official allegations to the contrary—as the country pursues an economic survival strategy based on the crash development of the tourist sector and exploitation of natural resources. An underlying conclusion of the book is that the environmental legacy of socialism will present serious challenges to future Cuban generations. Conquering Nature provides, for the first time, a relevant analysis of socialist environmental policies of a developing country. It will be of interest to students and scholars of Cuba and those interested in environmental issues in developing countries.
Since the early 1980s, a prominent and consistent conclusion drawn from research on China's defense-industrial complex has been that China's defense-production capabilities are rife with weaknesses and limitations. This study argues for an alternative approach: From the vantage point of 2005, it is time to shift the focus of current research to the gradual improvements in and the future potential of China's defense-industrial complex. The study found that China's defense sectors are designing and producing a wide range of increasingly advanced weapons that, in the short term, are relevant to a possible conflict over Taiwan but also to China's long-term military presence in Asia. Part of a larger RAND Project AIR FORCE study on Chinese military modernization, this study examines the current and future capabilities of China's defense industry. The goals of this study are to 1.
The startling economic and political answers behind Europe's historical dominance Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe establish global dominance, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations—such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution—fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if certain variables had been different, Europe would have been eclipsed, and another power could have become master of the world. Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development, military rivalry, and war. This resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy.
