Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja

Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja
Author: Pasuk Phongpaichit
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 1998
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Gambling, prostitution, drugs, arms trading, oil smuggling, and trafficking in people -- these six illegal businesses are large and getting larger. They distort the economy and victimize people. They are increasingly linked together through networks of protection and organized crime. They help to fund Thailand's corrosive 'money politics' and to sustain corruption in the police. In this sequel to Corruption and Democracy in Thailand, the authors argue that control of the illegal economy, especially through reform of the police, is vital for the development of a modern economy and functioning democracy.

Yakuza

Yakuza
Author: David E. Kaplan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2012-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520274903

Yakuza tells the story of Japan's remarkable crime syndicates, from their feudal start as bands of medieval outlaws to their emergence as billion-dollar investors in real estate, big business, art, and more. This 25th Anniversary edition has an updated preface from the authors and remains the definitive study of Japan's crime syndicates.

Gambling, the State and Society in Thailand, c.1800-1945

Gambling, the State and Society in Thailand, c.1800-1945
Author: James A. Warren
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2013-07-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135909008

During the nineteenth century there was a huge increase in the level and types of gambling in Thailand. Taxes on gambling became a major source of state revenue, with the government establishing state-run lotteries and casinos in the first half of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, over the same period, a strong anti-gambling discourse emerged within the Thai elite, which sought to regulate gambling through a series of increasingly restrictive and punitive laws. By the mid-twentieth century, most forms of gambling had been made illegal, a situation that persists until today. This historical study, based on a wide variety of Thai- and English-language archival sources including government reports, legal cases and newspapers, places the criminalization of gambling in Thailand in the broader context of the country’s socio-economic transformation and the modernization of the Thai state. Particular attention is paid to how state institutions, such as the police and judiciary, and different sections of Thai society shaped and subverted the law to advance their own interests. Finally, the book compares the Thai government’s policies on gambling with those on opium use and prostitution, placing the latter in the context of an international clampdown on vice in the early twentieth century.

The Fix

The Fix
Author: Declan Hill
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2010-04-13
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1551992493

The Fix is the most explosive story of sports corruption in a generation. Intriguing, riveting, and compelling, it tells the story of an investigative journalist who sets out to examine the world of match-fixing in professional soccer. From the Introduction Understand how gambling fixers work to corrupt a soccer game and you will understand how they move into a basketball league, a cricket tournament, or a tennis match (all places, by the way, that criminal fixers have moved into). My views on soccer have changed. I still love the Saturday-morning game between amateurs: the camaraderie and the fresh smell of grass. But the professional game leaves me cold. I hope you will understand why after reading the book. I think you may never look at sport in the same way again.

Remade in America

Remade in America
Author: Jim Rohwer
Publisher: Currency
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2001-03-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0609504126

In a stunning rebuke to a large group of naysayers, Jim Rohwer convincingly argues that the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 was not a turn for the worse; rather it was short-lived and helped rid Asian markets of many of the problems that were holding it back. Now, while most analysts go wild over the American economy, Rohwer provides the key insights into why America is due for a slowdown while Asia is poised for tremendous growth and opportunity. Jim Rohwer has long experience in Asia as both a journalist and a business executive. The highly informed account in Remade in America comes from his own on-the-ground observation and analysis, as well as knowing all the major players in business, government, and the media in both America and Asia. Telling, in-depth interviews with people ranging from Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, and Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, result in deep insights into Asia's great potential. The future of Asia is as much about the United States as it is about Asia, for the forces that revolutionized the American economy in the last twenty years provide the clues for what is to come in Asia. The key to Asian growth is understanding how Asian companies have learned from the strengths of both American and Asian business models. Remade in America clearly charts how Asian industries have started managing themselves based on American standards of corporate, technological, and economic performance that began to be adopted in the late 1990s, while incorporating their own strengths of cooperative corporate and social organization. Asia is ideally suited to take advantage of the Internet revolution, and we are only now starting to see its enormous potential in this area. Rohwer's insightful analysis of Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia shows how, as these countries start to combine the ruthlessly efficient market democracy and accountability that America pioneered with the Asian domination of dispersed manufacturing and assembly of components, there will be major opportunities both for American corporations and for investors. In addition, technology will not only enable Asian economies to improve on their traditional strengths, it will also help Asia greatly improve its traditional poor performance in services and distribution. Remade in America is a provocative and useful book, not only for those with direct business interests in Asia but also for readers who want an informed look at this dynamic and important part of the world. There will be a new Asia, Inc., one in which such matters as finance and technology will be handled in an American way while people will be managed along Asian lines in their interactions -- a powerful combination that we ignore at our peril.

Policing and Contemporary Governance

Policing and Contemporary Governance
Author: William Garriott
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2013-06-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137309679

What is it that police and policing actually do? What are the effects? How are these effects mediated and experienced by different people at different times and in different contexts? This volume draws attention to the centrality of police and policing to the project of governance and the experience of being human in the contemporary world.