Revival: State-Society Relations in Mexico (2001)

Revival: State-Society Relations in Mexico (2001)
Author: Kenneth Edward Mitchell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2017-07-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351751859

This title was first published in 2001. This detailed empirical study illustrates the different sources of political and economic pressure that combine to produce a process of incremental innovation in Mexican state-society relations. Invaluable to political economists who have a specific focus on Latin America, Mexican politics and public sector reform.

Global Trends 2040

Global Trends 2040
Author: National Intelligence Council
Publisher: Cosimo Reports
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2021-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781646794973

"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.

Re-Thinking Science

Re-Thinking Science
Author: Helga Nowotny
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2013-04-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745657079

Re-Thinking Science presents an account of the dynamic relationship between society and science. Despite the mounting evidence of a much closer, interactive relationship between society and science, current debate still seems to turn on the need to maintain a 'line' to demarcate them. The view persists that there is a one-way communication flow from science to society - with scant attention given to the ways in which society communicates with science. The authors argue that changes in society now make such communications both more likely and more numerous, and that this is transforming science not only in its research practices and the institutions that support it but also deep in its epistemological core. To explain these changes, Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons have developed an open, dynamic framework for re-thinking science. The authors conclude that the line which formerly demarcated society from science is regularly transgressed and that the resulting closer interaction of science and society signals the emergence of a new kind of science: contextualized or context-sensitive science. The co-evolution between society and science requires a more or less complete re-thinking of the basis on which a new social contract between science and society might be constructed. In their discussion the authors present some of the elements that would comprise this new social contract.

Pesos or Plastic?

Pesos or Plastic?
Author: Ken Mitchell
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 102
Release: 2019-03-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030148769

The book covers financial inclusion in the southern cone (Argentina, Brazil, and Chile) and its impact on public finance. Possible negative consequences of greater financial inclusion are identified, but the book argues potential benefits outweigh costs. Financial inclusion has many definitions, but in this book, we interpret it as bank account ownership and the use of banking services. Financial inclusion in this context proffers advantages in the area of tax collection, perhaps the southern cone’s gravest economic obstacle given its future debt servicing commitments and its socioeconomic development challenges. Households with a bank account – or, the bank participation rate – began increasing significantly around 2002, and this increase has coincided with an unexpected rise in tax collection (especially value-added taxes (VAT)) spanning periods of macroeconomic growth (2003-2009) and stagnation (2010-2015). Correlation does not imply causation, yet using empirical methods this book shows financial inclusion contributes to better tax collection by encouraging more formal market transactions via the use of bank-provided credit and debit cards. Consumption represents the largest component of most economies and consumption taxes contribute more to public revenue in the southern cone than other taxes, hence more formal consumption enhances overall tax collection. ​

Building Local States

Building Local States
Author: Elizabeth Remick
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1684173973

" This book examines two eras of Chinese history that have commonly been viewed as periods of state disintegration or retreat. And they were--at the central level. When re-examined at the local level, however, both are revealed as periods of state building. In both the Nanjing decade of Guomindang rule (1927-1937) and the early post-Mao reform era (1980-1992), both national and local factors shaped local state building and created variations in local state structures and practices. This book focuses on one key area of the state, taxation and public finance, to trace the processes of local state building in these two eras. Using the records of local tax and finance offices in the Tianjin area and in Guangdong province, the author maps the process by which these county-level offices grew. This book highlights variation in local state structures and practices between localities and between the central and local governments. As the author shows, this variation is important because it results in regional differences in state-society relations and affects central state capacity in terms of the local state’s ability to implement central state policies as well as its own. "

To See with Two Eyes

To See with Two Eyes
Author: Shannan L. Mattiace
Publisher: UNM Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780826323156

Shannan Matiace looks at political consciousness amongst Indians of the Chiapas in Mexico, tracing how it has developed from the founding of peasants' associations in the 1930s to the recent Zapatista uprising.

Crisis

Crisis
Author: Sylvia Walby
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2015-10-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 150950320X

We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations – a focus on ‘austerity’ and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on ‘financial crisis’ and democratic regulation of finance – are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.

The Art of Solidarity

The Art of Solidarity
Author: Jessica Stites Mor
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2018-10-17
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1477316396

The Cold War claimed many lives and inflicted tremendous psychological pain throughout the Americas. The extreme polarization that resulted from pitting capitalism against communism held most of the creative and productive energy of the twentieth century captive. Many artists responded to Cold War struggles by engaging in activist art practice, using creative expression to mobilize social change. The Art of Solidarity examines how these creative practices in the arts and culture contributed to transnational solidarity campaigns that connected people across the Americas from the early twentieth century through the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. This collection of original essays is divided into four chronological sections: cultural and artistic production in the pre–Cold War era that set the stage for transnational solidarity organizing; early artistic responses to the rise of Cold War polarization and state repression; the centrality of cultural and artistic production in social movements of solidarity; and solidarity activism beyond movements. Essay topics range widely across regions and social groups, from the work of lesbian activists in Mexico City in the late 1970s and 1980s, to the exchanges and transmissions of folk-music practices from Cuba to the United States, to the uses of Chilean arpilleras to oppose and protest the military dictatorship. While previous studies have focused on politically engaged artists or examined how artist communities have created solidarity movements, this book is one of the first to merge both perspectives.

Religion in World Conflict

Religion in World Conflict
Author: Jonathan Fox
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317983777

This new book tackles two crucial questions: First, how does religion in its various forms and manifestations influence world politics? Second, how will adding religion to the discourse on international relations modify our theoretical understanding? Each of these leading authors addresses different aspects of these questions in different contexts providing a diverse and multifaceted view of the topic. Susanna Pearce and Tanja Ellingsen examine the religious causes of conflict on the macro-level. Several of the contributors focus on specific conflicts. The Gaurav Ghose and Patrick James examine the Kashmir conflict from the Pakistani perspective and Carolyn James and Ozgur. Ozdamar examine it from the Indian perspective. Similarly Hillel Frisch examines the Palestinian-ISraeli conflict from the Palestinian perspective and Jonathan Rynhold examines it from the Israeli perspective. Finally, two of the authors examine other important issues. Stuart Cohen examines the evolution of the religious view of war in the Jewish tradition and Yehudit Auerbach examines whether can play a role in conflict resolution and reconciliation. These assessments deliver fascinating conclusions. This book was previously published as a Special Issue of Terrorism and Violence.