"An unequivocally excellent work of scholarship that makes significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of 'globalization' and the working of contemporary neo-liberal capitalism. Hart is especially innovative in placing the study of Taiwanese industrialists in South Africa in relation to both the agrarian history of Taiwan and China, and the way that Taiwanese overseas firms have operated in places other than South Africa. It is a very rare combination of talents and knowledge that makes such a study possible."--James Ferguson, author of Expectations of Modernity
Presenting the first systematic empirical research on the global justice movement, Globalization from Below analyzes a movement from the viewpoints of the activists, organizers, and demonstrators themselves. The authors traveled to Genoa with anti-G8 protesters and collected data from more than 800 participants. They examine the interactions between challengers and elites, and discuss how new models of activism fit into current social movement work.
This powerful, unsettling book gives us a rare glimpse behind the closed doors of global financial institutions by the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. When it was first published, this national bestseller quickly became a touchstone in the globalization debate. Renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz had a ringside seat for most of the major economic events of the last decade, including stints as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank. Particularly concerned with the plight of the developing nations, he became increasingly disillusioned as he saw the International Monetary Fund and other major institutions put the interests of Wall Street and the financial community ahead of the poorer nations. Those seeking to understand why globalization has engendered the hostility of protesters in Seattle and Genoa will find the reasons here. While this book includes no simple formula on how to make globalization work, Stiglitz provides a reform agenda that will provoke debate for years to come. Rarely do we get such an insider's analysis of the major institutions of globalization as in this penetrating book. With a new foreword for this paperback edition.
At its best Disability Studies is an arena of critical debate addressing controversial issues concerning, not just the meaning of disability, but the nature of society, dominant values, quality of life, and even the right to live. Indeed, Disability Studies is itself the subject of controversy, in terms of its theoretical basis and who controls courses and research and whether it should be shaped and controlled by disabled academics or grassroots activists. Within these debates, generated by the social model of disability, are fundamental challenges to policy, provision and professional practice that are directly relevant to all who work with disabled people, whether in the field of social work, health or education. Controversial Issues in a Disabling Society has been written specifically to raise questions and stimulate debate. It has been designed for use with students in group discussion, and to support in-depth study on a variety of professional courses. It covers a wide range of specific, substantive issues within Disability Studies in a series of succinct chapters. Each chapter sets a question for debate, places the key issues in context and presents a particular argument. This is an accessible and engaging book which challenges dominant positions and ideologies from a social model viewpoint of disability.
Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.
The impact of globalization of financial markets is a highly debated topic, particularly in recent months when the issue of globalization and contagion of financial distress has become a focus of intense policy debate. The papers in this volume provide an up-to-date overview of the key issues in this debate. While most of the contributions were prepared after the initial outbreak of the current global turmoil and financial crisis, they identify the relative strengths of the risk diversification and risk transmission processes and examine the empirical evidence to date. The book considers the relative roles of banks, nonbank financial institutions and capital markets in both risk diversification and risk transmission. It then evaluates the current status of crisis resolution in a global context, and speculates where to go from here in terms of understanding, resolution, prevention and public policy.
`The strengths of this text are many. It has breadth and diversity in its content yet is presented in bite-size chapters. For those wishing to know more, it offers signposts to the relevant literature. The contributors have been carefully selected for their specific perspective yet these have been skilfully inter-related by the editors. It is now some 11 years since the first edition of this text was published. In my view, this second edition was worth the wait' - SCOLAG Journal `This has been a ground-breaking book...and I whole-heartedly welcome a new edition'- Professor Len Barton, School of Education, The University of Sheffield `It is a really well-structured book which has been very popular and widely used by students...Its great qualities are accessibility and diversity of contributors' - Jenny Corbett, Institute of Education, University of London `This book would be a valuable resource to students of disability studies and to health and social care staff and other professionals who work with disabled people'- Disability and Rehabilitation The Second Edition of this landmark text has been revised to provide an up-to-date accessible introductory text to the field of disability studies. In addition to analysing the barriers that disabled people encounter in education, housing, leisure and employment, the revised edition has new chapters on: · international issues · diversity among disabled people · sexuality · bioethics. Written by disabled people who are leading academics in the field, the text comprises 45 short and engaging chapters, to provide a broad-ranging and accessible introduction to disability issues. Disabling Barriers, Enabling Environments is an invaluable resource for both students and practitioners alike. It is an ideal text for undergraduates and postgraduates taking courses in disability studies, as well as disability courses in social work, education, health studies, sociology and social policy.
Following World War II the American government and philanthropic foundations fundamentally remade American universities into sites for producing knowledge about the world as a collection of distinct nation-states. As neoliberal reforms took hold in the 1980s, visions of the world made popular within area studies and international studies found themselves challenged by ideas and educational policies that originated in business schools and international financial institutions. Academics within these institutions reimagined the world instead as a single global market and higher education as a commodity to be bought and sold. By the 1990s, American universities embraced this language of globalization, and globalization eventually became the organizing logic of higher education. In Making the World Global Isaac A. Kamola examines how the relationships among universities, the American state, philanthropic organizations, and international financial institutions created the conditions that made it possible to imagine the world as global. Examining the Center for International Studies, Harvard Business School, the World Bank, the Social Science Research Council, and NYU, Kamola demonstrates that how we imagine the world is always symptomatic of the material relations within which knowledge is produced.
The overall context of this book is set by the decline of the globalization paradigm’s ability to grasp the complexity and uncertainty of the current era. It takes a new approach based on the frame of "transformation" viewed as a catalyst to understand the complex interconnected nature of the world around us from a concrete, grounded perspective. Labour or work is still what makes the world go round, and Latin America offers a unique laboratory of social transformation since the "pink tide" of the 2000s. The left it refers to is a new non-dogmatic version that does not just recycle old debates but, rather, opens up new perspectives. The book is at once global in its ambition while grounded in labour and Latin American realities. Theoretically based and empirically robust, it will enthuse the reader to pursue their own research on matters covered here. Part I deals with several key debates around labour including the emergence of a precariat, from a standpoint that foregrounds labour agency but also the view from the South, that is, the majority world. Part II takes up various debates around contemporary Latin America from a cultural political economy perspective with an emphasis on the dynamics of social transformation. Part III explores the contributions from the broadly defined left towards an understanding of the current challenges faced by those seeking an alternative to the status quo in Latin America and beyond. Providing a theoretically sophisticated yet readable text on key contemporary issues, this fully interdisciplinary book will find a broad audience among researchers, scholars, and advanced students of labour, Latin American and development studies, economics, sociology, and politics.
