The Crisis of Democracy? Chances, Risks and Challenges in Japan (Asia) and Germany (Europe)
The Crisis of Democracy? Chances, Risks and Challenges in Japan (Asia) and Germany (Europe)

Author: Ralf Kleinfeld

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2019-10-29

Total Pages: 499

ISBN-13: 1527542416

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“Is democracy in crisis?” Against the background of a visible loss of trust in political, economic, religious and other institutions in Japan and Germany, this question is being posed with increasing urgency. This volume brings together contributions from political sciences, sociology, economics, psychology, history, law, and educational science to shed light on the future of our democracies, economies, educational systems, party politics, national policies, and social-structural changes, as well as socialization in the family and school, and related value changes. By focusing on Japan and Germany, and including examples from Western Europe and East Asia, this publication will determine transnational tendencies and provide an understanding of the different consequences of development from country to country against the background of different historical-cultural traditions and institutional realities.

International Handbook on Education Development in the Asia-Pacific
International Handbook on Education Development in the Asia-Pacific

Author: Wing On Lee

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-11-20

Total Pages: 2588

ISBN-13: 981196887X

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The Springer International Handbook of Educational Development in Asia Pacific breaks new ground with a comprehensive, fine-grained and diverse perspective on research and education development throughout the Asia Pacific region. In 13 sections and 127 chapters, the Handbook delves into a wide spectrum of contemporary topics including educational equity and quality, language education, learning and human development, workplace learning, teacher education and professionalization, higher education organisations, citizenship and moral education, and high performing education systems. The Handbook is grounded in specific Asia Pacific contexts and scholarly traditions, using unique country-specific narratives, for example, Vietnam and Melanesia, and socio-cultural investigations through lenses such as language identity or colonisation, while offering parallel academic discourse and analyses framed by broader policy commentary from around the world.

Cultural Diversity in Cross-Cultural Settings
Cultural Diversity in Cross-Cultural Settings

Author: Tamilla Mammadova

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2021-09-20

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1527574962

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The 21st century is marked by the intensive movement of people across international borders. While languages are used as a means of interaction across the globe, the nuances of communication vary from culture to culture. This book explores how the misperception of cultural values and norms may result in misapprehension and communication breakdowns in various settings.

Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism and Global Culture
Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism and Global Culture

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-11-11

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 9004411488

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Gathering scholars from five continents, this edited book displaces the elitist image of cosmopolitan as well as the blame addressed to aesthetic cosmopolitanism often considered as merely cosmetic. By considering aesthetic cosmopolitanism as a tool to understand how individuals and social groups appropriate the sphere of culture in a global world, the authors are concerned with its operationalization on two strongly interwoven levels, macro and micro, structural and individual. Based on the discussion of theoretical perspectives and empirically grounded research (qualitative and quantitative, conducted in many countries), this volume unveils new insights, on tourism and food, architecture and museums, TV series and movies, rock, K-pop and samba, by providing resources for making sense of aesthetic preferences in a global perspective. Contributors are: Felicia Chan, Vincenzo Cicchelli, Talitha Alessandra Ferreira, Paula Iadevito, Sukhmani Khorana, Anne Krebs, Antoinette Kujilaars, Franck Mermier, Sylvie Octobre, Joana Pellerano, Rosario Radakovich, Motti Regev, Viviane Riegel, Clara Rodriguez, Leslie Sklair, Yi-Ping Eva Shi, Claire Thoumelin and Dario Verderame.

Values – Politics – Religion: The European Values Study
Values – Politics – Religion: The European Values Study

Author: Regina Polak

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-07-18

Total Pages: 536

ISBN-13: 303131364X

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This open access book analyses the international data of the European Values Study (EVS 1990 - 2017), with a focus on the impact of religious on political values from empirical as well as theoretical perspectives, i.e. sociology, political and cultural studies, philosophy, ethics, theology and the law. It interprets results from interdisciplinary perspectives, including the viewpoints of social ethics, sociology and cultural studies, law and practical theology. In the political and public as well as media debates of the European Union, the recourse to (above all "European" and also "Christian") values has played a central and controversial role in the field of politics and religion for several decades. This collection is a contribution to a qualified discourse on values in Europe by providing empirical, hermeneutical and ethical criteria for a responsible use of the concept of values. In addition to a comparison of political value systems in Western and Eastern Europe and the possible role of religion in this context, the book also deals with topics such as, f.i., solidarity, economics and values, value formation, and law and values. Additionally, specific population groups such as the socio-culturally marginalized strata are examined more closely. Besides current scientific analyses and interpretations of interest to researchers from various disciplines, this book also offers valuable impulses and suggestions for various multipliers in political, civil society and religious organisations, as well as a sound overview for graduate students.

Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons
Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons

Author: Dr. Jeffrey Record

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 105

ISBN-13: 1786252961

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Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo’s decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan’s decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and that both sides suffered from cultural ignorance and racial arrogance. Record finds that the Americans underestimated the role of fear and honor in Japanese calculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decision-makers.

Upheaval
Upheaval

Author: Jared Diamond

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 0316409154

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A "riveting and illuminating" Bill Gates Summer Reading pick about how and why some nations recover from trauma and others don't (Yuval Noah Harari), by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the landmark bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel. In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes -- a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises. Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals -- ranging from the forced opening of Japan by U.S. Commodore Perry's fleet, to the Soviet Union's attack on Finland, to a murderous coup or countercoup in Chile and Indonesia, to the transformations of Germany and Austria after World War Two. Because Diamond has lived and spoken the language in five of these six countries, he can present gut-wrenching histories experienced firsthand. These nations coped, to varying degrees, through mechanisms such as acknowledgment of responsibility, painfully honest self-appraisal, and learning from models of other nations. Looking to the future, Diamond examines whether the United States, Japan, and the whole world are successfully coping with the grave crises they currently face. Can we learn from lessons of the past? Adding a psychological dimension to the in-depth history, geography, biology, and anthropology that mark all of Diamond's books, Upheaval reveals factors influencing how both whole nations and individual people can respond to big challenges. The result is a book epic in scope, but also his most personal yet.

Global Trends 2040
Global Trends 2040

Author: National Intelligence Council

Publisher: Cosimo Reports

Published: 2021-03

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 9781646794973

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"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

A World of Regions
A World of Regions

Author: Peter J. Katzenstein

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2015-05-01

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1501700383

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Observing the dramatic shift in world politics since the end of the Cold War, Peter J. Katzenstein argues that regions have become critical to contemporary world politics. This view is in stark contrast to those who focus on the purportedly stubborn persistence of the nation-state or the inevitable march of globalization. In detailed studies of technology and foreign investment, domestic and international security, and cultural diplomacy and popular culture, Katzenstein examines the changing regional dynamics of Europe and Asia, which are linked to the United States through Germany and Japan. Regions, Katzenstein contends, are interacting closely with an American imperium that combines territorial and non-territorial powers. Katzenstein argues that globalization and internationalization create open or porous regions. Regions may provide solutions to the contradictions between states and markets, security and insecurity, nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Embedded in the American imperium, regions are now central to world politics.