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Author: D. Stanley Eitzen
Publisher: Allyn & Bacon
Published: 2007
Total Pages: 164
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis brief reader examines a number of organized movements that have successfully brought about reform and change "from the bottom up."
Author: Charles Koch
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2020-11-17
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 1250200970
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA surprising take on how you can help tackle the really big problems in society–from one of America’s most successful entrepreneurs. People are looking for a better way. Towering barriers are holding millions of people back, and the institutions that should help everyone rise are not doing the job. Crumbling communities. One-size fits all education. Businesses that rig the economy. Public policy that stifles opportunity and emboldens the extremes. As a result, this country is quickly heading toward a two-tiered society. Today’s challenges call for nothing short of a paradigm shift – away from a top-down approach that sees people as problems to be managed, toward bottom-up solutions that empower everyone to realize their potential and foster a more inclusive society. Such a shift starts by asking: What would it mean to truly believe in people? Businessman and philanthropist Charles Koch has devoted his life to answering that question. Learn what he’s discovered during his 60-year career to help you apply the principles of empowerment in your life, in your business, and in society. By learning from the social movements and applying the principles that have enabled social progress throughout history, Koch has achieved more than he dreamed possible – building one of the world’s most successful companies and founding Stand Together, one of America’s most innovative philanthropic communities. Stand Together CEO Brian Hooks and Koch show how the only way to solve the really big problems – from poverty and addiction to harmful business practices and destructive public policy – is for each and every one of us to find and take action in our unique role as part of the solution. Full of compelling examples of what works – including several first-person accounts from individuals whose lives have been transformed – Koch and Hooks’ refreshing approach promotes partnership instead of partisanship and speaks to people from different perspectives and all walks of life. They show that no injustice is too tough to overcome if you share a deep belief in people, are willing to unite with anyone to do right, and work to empower others from the bottom up.
Author: David Colander
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2016-02-16
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 0691169136
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHow ideas in complexity can be used to develop more effective public policy Complexity science—made possible by modern analytical and computational advances—is changing the way we think about social systems and social theory. Unfortunately, economists' policy models have not kept up and are stuck in either a market fundamentalist or government control narrative. While these standard narratives are useful in some cases, they are damaging in others, directing thinking away from creative, innovative policy solutions. Complexity and the Art of Public Policy outlines a new, more flexible policy narrative, which envisions society as a complex evolving system that is uncontrollable but can be influenced. David Colander and Roland Kupers describe how economists and society became locked into the current policy framework, and lay out fresh alternatives for framing policy questions. Offering original solutions to stubborn problems, the complexity narrative builds on broader philosophical traditions, such as those in the work of John Stuart Mill, to suggest initiatives that the authors call "activist laissez-faire" policies. Colander and Kupers develop innovative bottom-up solutions that, through new institutional structures such as for-benefit corporations, channel individuals’ social instincts into solving societal problems, making profits a tool for change rather than a goal. They argue that a central role for government in this complexity framework is to foster an ecostructure within which diverse forms of social entrepreneurship can emerge and blossom.
Author: Richard Holt
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-12-18
Total Pages: 293
ISBN-13: 131747824X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAs the United States continues its slow climb out of the Great Recession, it is important to focus on new directions to improve the standard of living in America. This book explores what is behind a faltering standard of living in the United States since the early 1980s and what can be done to restore it. The book is uniquely valuable in going beyond mainstream thinking about how to restore prosperity. Economics has traditionally equated economic growth (increases in per capita income) with improvements in quality of life and the standard of living. This book questions that assumption. The different chapters in the book show the standard of living as being more than income, to include many non-market aspects such as access to public goods (roads, clean air and water, schools, parks, and museums), intangible aspects of quality of life such as equity and a sense of community, and broadly based economic opportunities. This means that improving the standard of living is a multi-dimensional challenge rather than one of solely increasing aggregate demand, productivity, or GDP. This book embodies a pluralistic approach and draws on the expertise of a wide array of thinkers. The intended audience is for various courses offered in economics, sociology, political science, public policy programs, and in environmental and ecological studies.
Author: Daniel Kruse
Publisher: Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH
Published: 2022-03-14
Total Pages: 214
ISBN-13: 3832554378
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe worldwide increase in societal challenges, such as climate change, political instability, and economic volatility, puts pressure on institutions, organisations, and individuals to develop means to address social problems. Unfortunately, many organisations fail to adequately formulate social problems and even solve the wrong ones, which is due to their inherent complexity. Consequently, this dissertation adopts a ‘complexity lens’ to interpret the intertwined forces driving social problems within organisational and environmental contexts. Problem complexity requires different governance modes, as solutions cannot be developed in the typical linear and hierarchical process that commercial products follow. To this end, this dissertation entails two studies that explore how the complexity of social problems can be managed at the organisational and individual level. In particular, study 1 employs Procedural Action Research and mixed methods together with a humanitarian organisation to qualitatively develop and quantitatively validate a theory-guided bottom-up search process for surfacing solutions to reoccurring floods in Indonesia. In a similar vein, study 2 investigates and compares the individual innovation processes of 20 social entrepreneurs from Ethiopia and Germany.
Author: David S. Wilson
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2016-09-23
Total Pages: 409
ISBN-13: 026233772X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn exploration of how approaches that draw on evolutionary theory and complexity science can advance our understanding of economics. Two widely heralded yet contested approaches to economics have emerged in recent years: one emphasizes evolutionary theory in terms of individuals and institutions; the other views economies as complex adaptive systems. In this book, leading scholars examine these two bodies of theory, exploring their possible impact on economics. Relevant concepts from evolutionary theory drawn on by the contributors include the distinction between proximate and ultimate causation, multilevel selection, cultural change as an evolutionary process, and human psychology as a product of gene-culture coevolution. Applicable ideas from complexity theory include self-organization, fractals, chaos theory, sensitive dependence, basins of attraction, and path dependence. The contributors discuss a synthesis of complexity and evolutionary approaches and the challenges that emerge. Focusing on evolutionary behavioral economics, and the evolution of institutions, they offer practical applications and point to avenues for future research. Contributors Robert Axtell, Jenna Bednar, Eric D. Beinhocker, Adrian V. Bell, Terence C. Burnham, Julia Chelen, David Colander, Iain D. Couzin, Thomas E. Currie, Joshua M. Epstein, Daniel Fricke, Herbert Gintis, Paul W. Glimcher, John Gowdy, Thorsten Hens, Michael E. Hochberg, Alan Kirman, Robert Kurzban, Leonhard Lades, Stephen E. G. Lea, John E. Mayfield, Mariana Mazzucato, Kevin McCabe, John F. Padgett, Scott E. Page, Karthik Panchanathan, Peter J. Richerson, Peter Schuster, Georg Schwesinger, Rajiv Sethi, Enrico Spolaore, Sven Steinmo, Miriam Teschl, Peter Turchin, Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh, Sander E. van der Leeuw, Romain Wacziarg, John J. Wallis, David S. Wilson, Ulrich Witt
Author: D. Stanley Eitzen
Publisher: Allyn & Bacon
Published: 2007
Total Pages: 260
ISBN-13: 9780205468850
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis text/reader focuses on laws and government solutions ("top-down" solutions) in the U.S that have been effective in solving problems. The readings explore specific examples of progressive legislation and social policies, and also examines historical trends and future prospects.
Author: Charles F. Bingman
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2016-10-28
Total Pages: 240
ISBN-13: 1532007981
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPerhaps the most difficult thing that human beings are called upon collectively to do is to run a government. Why do so many fail? There are 196 countries in the world, about 150 of them significant. At least 105 of them, briefly summarized here, are in deep trouble. Deep trouble is defined by wars, insurrections, active internal conflict, serious maldistribution of wealth, deep and widespread poverty, rampant corruption, serious lack of social services and public infrastructure, and an excess of plain old bumbling government incompetence, created and exacerbated by the governments themselves out of greed, viciousness, and an insatiable lust for power. This is the tragic record of government from the top down. It is therefore vital to strengthen the bottom up elements of national activity, and at the same time, people must try to point these stronger elements toward resistance to top-down authority. The new and growing hope is that decent people and organizations all over the world will increasingly rise up in their own defense and bring a new level of moderation and spirit of aid and service from the bottom up to these failing states that are their homes.
Author: Edward Seidman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2013-06-29
Total Pages: 322
ISBN-13: 1489922369
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Vincent N. Parrillo
Publisher: SAGE
Published: 2008-05-22
Total Pages: 1209
ISBN-13: 1412941652
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom terrorism to social inequality and from health care to environmental issues, social problems affect us all. The Encyclopedia will offer an interdisciplinary perspective into these and many other social problems that are a continuing concern in our lives, whether we confront them on a personal, local, regional, national, or global level.
