This title was first published in 2001. Investigating the relations between ethnicity and governance in Asia and Africa and going well beyond traditional and orthodox treatments, this volume is not only a stimulating text, but also an invaluable tool for original and innovative research.
Covid-19 and Governance focuses on the relationship between governance institutions and approaches to Covid-19 and health outcomes. Bringing together analyses of Covid-19 developments in countries and regions across the world with a wide-angle lens on governance, this volume asks: what works, what hasn’t and isn’t, and why? Organized by region, the book is structured to follow the spread of Covid-19 in the course of 2020, through Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, and Africa. The analyses explore a number of key themes, including public health systems, government capability, and trust in government—as well as underlying variables of social cohesion and inequality. This volume combines governance, policies, and politics to bring wide international scope and analytical depth to the study of the Covid-19 pandemic. Together the authors represent a diverse and formidable database of experience and understanding. They include sociologists, anthropologists, scholars of development studies and public administration, as well as MD specialists in public health and epidemiology. Engaged and free of jargon, this book speaks to a wide global public—including scholars, students, and policymakers—on a topic that has profound and broad appeal.
Investigating the relations between ethnicity and governance in Asia and Africa and going well beyond traditional and orthodox treatments, this volume is not only a stimulating text, but also an invaluable tool for original and innovative research.
An exploration of the links between development and governance- that is, between development and accountability (including institutional pluralism and participation) ; openness (including problems such as corruption that result at least partly from lack of openness) ; and predictability, or the rule of law.
Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.
Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in the view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socioeconomically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and malicious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions as to why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africa’s diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africa’s multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continent’s long-standing political and socio-economic dilemmas and setbacks.
Response to financial meltdown is entangled with basic challenges to global governance. Environment, global security and ethnicity and nationalism are all global issues today. Focusing on the political and social dimensions of the crisis, contributors examine changes in relationships between the world’s richer and poorer countries, efforts to strengthen global institutions, and difficulties facing states trying to create stability for their citizens. Contributors include: William Barnes, Rogers Brubaker, Vincent Della Sala, Nils Gilman, David Held, Mary Kaldor, Adrian Pabst, Ravi Sundaram, Vadim Volkov, Michael Watts, and Kevin Young. The Deepening Crisis is the second part of a trilogy comprised of the first three books in the Possible Future series. Volume 1: Business as Usual Volume 2: The Deepening Crisis Volume 3: Aftermath The three volumes are linked by a common introduction and can be purchased individually or as a set.
This book analyzes the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1999. In addition to the issues of financial system restructuring, export-led recovery, crony capitalism, and competitiveness in Asian manufacturing, it examines six key Asian economies--China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. The book makes clear that there is little particularly Asian about the Asian financial crisis. The generic character of the crisis became clear during 1998, when it reached Russia, South Africa, and Brazil. The spread of the crisis reflects the rapid arrival of global capitalism in a world economy not used to the integration of the advanced and developing countries. The book makes recommendations for reform, including the formation of regional monetary bodies, the establishment of an international bankruptcy system, the democratization of international organizations, the infusion of public money to revive the financial and corporate sectors in Pacific Asia, and stronger supervision over financial institutions. The book emphasizes a mismatch in Pacific Asia between investment in physical hardware (e.g., factories and machinery) and in social software (e.g., scientific research centers and administrative and judiciary systems). In a world of growing international competitiveness, concerns over governance will weigh increasingly heavily on unreformed Asian countries. The long-term competitiveness of Asia rests on its getting its institutions right.