The contributors explore the difficulties developed countries are experiencing in coming to terms with environmental limits and the resultant challenges to the democratic polity. They engage with different dimensions of the governance challenge including norms, public attitudes, citizen engagement, political conflict, policy design, and implementation, and with a range of environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity/nature protection, and water management. The book concludes with an essay by William Lafferty that explores the flawed character of the contemporary democratic polity and offers his reflections on possible pathways to reform. Learn More

The authors, renowned experts in the field, explore efforts to develop a mature civil society in Russia, and analyse the policy views of environmental groups, the media, and the scientific community. Three important case studies underpin the study: suspended plans to build an oil pipeline near Lake Baikal; management of Cold War-generated radioactive waste at Chelyabinsk; and public reaction to the introduction of genetically modified foods. The conclusion is that although civil society groups face obstacles in the form of apathy, state-imposed constraints on their activities, and agency reluctance to confer on decisions, there are some successes in reversing decisions due in part to NGO pressures yielding reform. Learn More

Stating the importance of both the local and the broader societal context, the book reports close-up studies from a variety of social ventures. Generic themes include positioning societal entrepreneurship against other images of collective entrepreneurship, critically penetrating its assumptions and practices and proposing ways of promoting societal entrepreneurship more widely. Learn More

Cybercrime is a worldwide problem of rapidly increasing magnitude and, of the countries in the Asia Pacific region, Taiwan and China are suffering most. This timely book discusses the extent and nature of cybercrime in and between Taiwan and China, focussing especially on the prevalence of botnets (collections of computers that have been compromised and used for malicious purposes). Learn More

Knowledge, Desire and Power in Global Politics is the first systematic and deconstructive analysis of contemporary Western representation of China’s rise. Setting itself apart from the mainstream empiricist literature, its critical interpretative approach and unconventional and innovative perspective will not only strongly appeal to academics, students and the broader reading public, but also likely spark debate in the field of Chinese international relations. Learn More

Challenging the traditional view that entrepreneurship is exclusively a private-sector concern, Governpreneurship presents a compelling argument for increased focus on entrepreneurship in public sector organizations. The only book to date to focus specifically on government entrepreneurship, this innovative volume combines Robert D. Hisrich’s vast theoretical knowledge with the practical experience of Amr Al-Dabbagh, who applied entrepreneurship in the Saudi public sector with excellent results. Featuring forewords by former US President Bill Clinton and former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, as well as four case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of government entrepreneurship in action, this fascinating book breaks new ground in a rapidly growing field. Learn More

The author explores the conditions that foster the development of ressentiment, the role of leaders and followers, and the phases of the phenomenon as it encourages destructive behaviors such as murder and suicide. Often considered an incurable disease with destructive social and political repercussions, it is a core motive for acts of terrorism, revolutions, social upheavals and processes of toxic leadership. The author puts forth a model that helps to describe certain historical processes led by ressentiment, like some revolutions and terrorist acts, and to distinguish them from other movements that are usually treated as similar (e.g., independence revolutions). The book then tackles a seemingly impossible question: Can we find a cure for this powerful and destructive impulse? With care and deliberation, the author demonstrates the power of ethical leadership, recognition and redemption as positive unifying forces during human conflicts. Learn More

In this fully revised and updated edition, Christopher Bovis provides a detailed, critical, concise and accessible overview of the public procurement legal framework and its interaction with policies within the European Union and the Member States. Learn More

Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities provides crucial insight into social entrepreneurship from visionaries in the field as well as other experienced practitioners and renowned theorists. While this book focuses on social entrepreneurship as it relates to genocide and other atrocities, the experiences and lessons learned also apply to additional critical social, economic, legal and political problems such as healthcare, development, education and literacy. Learn More

Focusing on the presidents and prime ministers of the G8 – the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan – it explores the complex relationship between weak and ineffective leadership, undemocratic leadership techniques, and bad policies from a broad comparative perspective. What makes leaders weak or bad in different contexts? What are the consequences of their actions and behaviour? And has there been any learning from negative experience? These questions are at the centre of this fascinating joint inquiry that involves a team of truly distinguished leadership scholars. Learn More

This timely book presents a critical examination of the developmental premises of Japan’s high-growth success and its subsequent drift into recession, stagnation and piecemeal reform. The country, which within a few decades of wartime defeat mounted a serious challenge to American hegemony, appeared incapable of fully adjusting to shifting economic circumstance once the impulses of catch-up growth and the good fortune of an accommodating international environment faded. Learn More

In all societies, the quality of government institutions is of the utmost importance for the well-being of its citizens. Problems like high infant mortality, lack of access to safe water, unhappiness and poverty are not primarily caused by a lack of technical equipment, effective medicines or other types of knowledge generated by the natural or engineering sciences. Instead, the critical problem is that the majority of the world’s population live in societies that have dysfunctional government institutions. Central issues discussed in the book include: how can good government be conceptualized and measured, what are the effects of ‘bad government’ and how can the quality of government be improved? Learn More

This insightful book brings together both academics and researchers from a variety of international organizations and aid agencies to explore the complexities of public private partnerships as a resurgent, hybrid mode of educational governance that operates across scales, from the community to the global. Learn More

This timely book explores the complex relationship between the alleviation of poverty and the protection of the environment. There is every reason to believe that these issues are in many ways interdependent. However this book demonstrates that there are situations where alleviation of poverty and the protection of the environment appear to be in a fraught relationship. The contributing authors illustrate that the role played by law in this relationship, whether at the international or national level, will vary depending on the situation and will be more successful at pursuing environmental justice in some cases than in others. Learn More

In this timely book, leading scholars of neoliberalism, together with emerging researchers from a range of intellectual traditions, reflect upon the nature of neoliberalism in light of the recent and ongoing global financial crisis. What emerges is an enlightening picture of the diversity of neoliberalism. The complex relationships between theory and practice are highlighted as the contributors recognize the need to move beyond the commonplace notion that neoliberalism is simply a system of free markets. Topical chapters examine the implications of the current crisis for neoliberalism, the likelihood of alternatives and how these might arise. Learn More

Thomas Marois’ groundbreaking interpretation of banking and development in Mexico and Turkey builds on a Marxian-inspired framework premised on understanding states and banks as social relationships alongside crisis and labor as vital to finance today. The book’s rich historical and empirical content reveals definite institutionalized relationships of power that mainstream political economists often miss. Learn More

The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg is remembered mainly for the promotion of a novel form of global governance: the so-called ‘partnerships for sustainable development’. This book provides a first authoritative assessment of partnerships for sustainable development, ten years after the Johannesburg Summit. Learn More

This important book employs the theory of polycentricity, a system with several centers as an analytical concept to explain the multilayered international environmental governance of river basins. It introduces a new methodological framework to deconstruct and investigate the dynamics of citizens, states and non-state actors in world politics via the context of river basin governance. Learn More

This timely book reveals that the budget deficits and accumulating debts that plague modern democracies reflect a clash between two rationalities of governance: one of private property and one of common property. The clashing of these rationalities at various places in society creates forms of societal tectonics that play out through budgeting. The book demonstrates that while this clash is an inherent feature of democratic political economy, it can nonetheless be limited through embracing once again a constitution of liberty. Learn More