Wirtschaftsgeographie
This comprehensive handbook and textbook of geographical concepts is directed to scholars and students of geography, economics, political science and other social sciences who are interested in the relationship between economy and space. This book systematically discusses classical and new theories in economic geography and related disciplines. Beginning with a critical review of traditional regional science and optimal location approaches, the authors develop a relational conception of economic action in space that enables interdisciplinary analyses of globalization processes. This completely restructured and extended edition adds many new conceptual discussions, such as those on innovation systems, global value chains, clusters and many others. Six new chapters, almost 200 new pages and many new case studies, figures and tables make this a rich sourcebook for those interested in understanding economic action in spatial perspective.
Women, Politics, and Public Policy: The Political Struggles of Canadian Women, Second Edition
The second edition of Women, Politics, and Public Policy incorporates uniquely Canadian perspectives on the intersectionality of feminism, women’s politics, and public policy-making. After outlining historical contexts and the foundations of feminist theory, the text examines topical, practical issues, offering an approach that is well-suited to both novices and advanced learners. Extensively updated and revised, this comprehensive volume is an essential tool for examining and understanding the many aspects of women’s political activity and its relationship to public policy and social change.
Readership : Women, Politics, and Public Policy is aimed at second- and third-year students studying gender and politics, women and politics, and women and politics in Canada out of political science and women’s studies departments at universities nationwide. (Note that because of the multidisciplinary approach taken in the narrative, readers studying sociology, history, law, and social work may also find the text relevant.)
Becoming Multicultural: Immigration and the Politics of Membership in Canada and Germany
In a world of nation-states, international migration raises questions of membership: Should foreigners be admitted to the national space? If so, according to what criteria and for what ends? And should they and their children be granted citizenship? Canada’s and Germany’s responses to these questions during the first half of the twentieth century consisted of discriminatory immigration and citizenship policies aimed at harnessing migration for economic ends while minimizing its costs. Yet, by the end of the century, the admission, settlement, and incorporation of previously excluded groups had transformed both countries into highly diverse multicultural societies.
Becoming Multicultural explains how this remarkable shift came about. Triadafilopoulos argues that world-historical events and epoch-defining processes — including the Holocaust, decolonization, and the emergence of global human rights culture — gave rise to a markedly different normative context after the Second World War. These changes in global norms made the maintenance of established membership regimes difficult to defend, opening the way for the liberalization of Canada’s and Germany’s immigration and citizenship policies.
Combining sophisticated theoretical reflection and careful empirical analysis, this thought-provoking book sheds light on the dynamics of membership politics and policy making in contemporary liberal-democratic countries.
Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights
Why are some international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) more politically salient than others, and why are some NGOs better able to influence the norms of human rights?Internal Affairs shows how the organizational structures of human rights NGOs and their campaigns determine their influence on policy. Drawing on data from seven major international organizations—the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Médecins sans Frontières, Oxfam International, Anti-Slavery International, and the International League of Human Rights—Wendy H. Wong demonstrates that NGOs that choose to centralize agenda-setting and decentralize the implementation of that agenda are more successful in gaining traction in international politics.
Challenging the conventional wisdom that the most successful NGOs are those that find the “right” cause or have the most resources, Wong shows that how NGOs make and implement decisions is critical to their effectiveness in influencing international norms about human rights. Building on the insights of network theory and organizational sociology, Wong traces how power works within NGOs and affects their external authority. The internal coherence of an organization, as reflected in its public statements and actions, goes a long way to assure its influence over the often tumultuous elements of the international human rights landscape.
Prosper or Perish: Credit and Fiscal Systems in Rural China
The official banking institutions for rural China are Rural Credit Cooperatives (RCCs). Although these co-ops are mandated to support agricultural development among farm households, since 1980 half of RCC loans have gone to small and medium-sized industrial enterprises located in, and managed by, townships and villages. These township and village enterprises have experienced highly uneven levels of success, and by the end of the 1990s, half of all RCC loans were in or close to default, forcing China’s central bank to bail out RCCs. In Prosper or Perish, Lynette H. Ong examines the bias in RCC lending patterns, focusing on why the mobilization of rural savings has contributed to successful industrial development in some locales but not in others.
Interweaving insightful and theoretically informed discussions of rural credit, development, governance, and bank bailouts, Ong identifies various sources for China’s uneven development. In the highly decentralized fiscal environment of the People’s Republic, successful industrialization has significant implications for rural governance. Local governments depend on revenue from industrial output to provide public goods and services; unsuccessful enterprises starve local governments of revenue and result in radical cutbacks in services. High peasant burdens, land takings without adequate compensation by local governments, and other poor governance practices tend to be associated with unsuccessful industrialization. In light of the recent liberalization of the rural credit sector in China, Prosper or Perish makes a significant contribution to debates within political science, economic development, and international banking.
Social Forces and States: Poverty and Distributional Outcomes in South Korea, Chile, and Mexico
With the failure of market reform to generate sustained growth in many countries of the Global South, poverty reduction has become an urgent moral and political issue in the last several decades. In practice, considerable research shows that high levels of inequality are likely to produce high levels of criminal and political violence. On the road to development, states cannot but grapple with the challenges posed by poverty and wealth distribution.
Social Forces and States explains the reasons behind distinct distributional and poverty outcomes in three countries: South Korea, Chile, and Mexico. South Korea has successfully reduced poverty and has kept inequality low. Chile has reduced poverty but inequality remains high. Mexico has confronted higher levels of poverty and high inequality than either of the other countries. Judith Teichman takes a comparative historical approach, focusing upon the impact of the interaction between social forces and states. Distinct from approaches that explain social well-being through a comparative examination of social welfare regimes, this book probes more deeply, incorporating a careful consideration of how historical contexts and political struggles shaped very different development trajectories, welfare arrangements, and social possibilities.
Overpromising and Underperforming?: Understanding and Evaluating New Intergovernmental Accountability Regimes
Public reporting has been used experimentally in federal-provincial relations since the mid-1990s as an accountability mechanism to promote policy effectiveness, intergovernmental cooperation, and democratic legitimacy. Our understanding of how well it is working, however, remains limited to very specific policy sectors – even though this information is essential to policy makers in Canada and beyond. Overpromising and Underperforming? offers a deeper analysis of the use of new accountability mechanisms, paying particular attention to areas in which federal spending power is used.
This is the first volume to specifically analyse the accountability features of Canadian intergovernmental agreements and to do so systematically across policy sectors. Drawing on the experiences of other federal systems and multilevel governance structures, the contributors investigate how public reporting has been used in various policy fields and the impact it has had on policy-making and intergovernmental relations.
Political Change in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is a vast and complex region, comprising countries with remarkably diverse histories and cultures. Jacques Bertrand provides a fresh and highly original survey of politics and political change in this area of the world. Against the backdrop of rapid economic development and social transformation in several countries, he explores why some countries have adopted democratic institutions, while others have maintained stable authoritarian systems or accepted communist regimes. Bertrand presents a historically grounded account of capitalist countries and state-socialist countries, delving into the historical experience of individual countries, whilst simultaneously providing a comparative framework with which to draw parallels and foster a better understanding of the political and economic dynamics both within and between the countries. With powerful yet accessible analysis and detailed coverage, this book offers students and scholars a thorough and thought-provoking introduction to the political landscape of Southeast Asia.
Democratization and Ethnic Minorities
Many new democracies are characterized by majority dominance and ethnocentrism. Varying paths or transitions toward democracy create very different outcomes for how ethnic identities, communities and politics are recognized. This book illustrates the varied consequences of democratization, from ethnic violence, new forms of accommodation to improve minorities’ status, or sometimes only minor improvements to life for ethnic minorities. The book treads a nuanced path between conflicting myths of democratization, illustrating that there are a variety of outcomes ranging from violence or stability, to the extension of rights, representation, and new resources for ethnic minorities. Contributors discuss the complex mechanisms that determine the impact of democratization of ethnic minorities through five factors; inherited legacies from the pre-transition period, institutional configurations, elite strategies, societal organization and international influences. Global in scope, this book features a broad range of case studies, both country specific and regional, including chapters on Nigeria, Kenya, Turkey and Taiwan, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Southeast and East Asia. This book provides new insights and makes at important contribution to existing debates. Democratization and Ethnic Minorities will be essential reading for students and scholars of democratization, nationalism, ethnic conflict and ethnic politics, political science, history, and sociology.
Trade Shows in the Globalizing Knowledge Economy
Trade Shows in the Globalizing Knowledge Economy presents a radically innovative view on trade shows as knowledge-rich places, where firms learn through observation and interaction with other economic actors, and as enablers, rather than mere consequences, of globalization. Traditionally seen as marketing tools, trade shows are conceptualised as temporary clusters that facilitate the creation and diffusion of knowledge across geographical distances, even in the age of social media.