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92. David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order
- Author:
- Willem Oosterveld
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- David Ekbladh's first book, The Great American Mission, deals with the role of development policy in American foreign relations during the Cold War. More specifically, it discusses modernization as a developmental approach, tracing its rise and fall over a period of about forty years. In Ekbladh's view, modernization theory fused political, ideological and strategic objectives at a time when the United States waged what was, in essence, a global struggle over ideas.
- Topic:
- Cold War and Development
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
93. Hobbes and the Law of Nature
- Author:
- Ester Bertrand
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- Hobbes and the Law of Nature constitutes the final monograph by the late historian Perez Zagorin, who was a specialist in the field of early modern European and English political thought. Zagorin died in April 2009 at the age of 88 and in this last work he presents his assessment of Thomas Hobbes as a political and moral philosopher. Zagorin's analysis is based on Hobbes' three major political works - The Elements of Law (1640), De cive (1641), and Leviathan (1651) – which were written during the English Civil War that resulted in the temporary defeat of the British monarchy. As is explained in the preface, Zagorin's twofold intention is to analyse Hobbes' concept of natural law within its historical context, and to demonstrate his significance “as a humane moral philosopher and theorist of natural law'”(p.x). For this purpose Zagorin repeatedly contradicts scholars who place a one-sided focus on the role of selfpreservation, calculation, and unbridled absolutism, while instead he presents an image of 'Hobbes the moral philosopher'
- Topic:
- Cold War
- Political Geography:
- Europe
94. The Internet and Democratic Citizenship: Theory, Practice and Policy
- Author:
- Stithorn Thananithichot
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- Most of the previous studies tend to understand the Internet democracy relationship through theory, observation or prescription. Moving beyond those studies, Stephen Coleman and Jay G. Blumler's book examines the relationship between the Internet and democratic citizenship from three of theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives. In other words, the authors aim to explore how the contemporary notion of e-democracy could be theorised, investigated, and implemented. In order to explain e-democracy more clearly, Coleman and Blumler, in the first three chapters, discuss three major approaches that give meaning to the concept of e-democracy: democratic deliberation; public communication; and direct democracy. Supported by empirical findings which demonstrate widespread public disengagement due to the lack of communicative connections of today's liberal democracies, they argue that there is a requirement for “a more deliberative democracy” which would be done by utilizing new media technologies to create a more effective and direct form of democratic interaction.
95. When Brute Force Fails. How to have Less Crime and Less Punishment
- Author:
- Nicoleta Adelina Stanescu
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- With a rate of about 1 percent incarceration per capita (i.e. the highest in the world) and damage from crime reaching 10 percent of GDP, the US allocates large budget resources to tackle this issue and faces serious deadlocks in the crime control domain. Starting from these facts, Mark Kleiman's “When Brute Force Fails” raises awareness of the need to alleviate both the damages caused by crime and the burden that its control exercises on taxpayers. The analysis is based on the US experiences with crime and crime control, and that is neither a disadvantage, nor a weakness, but an almost exhaustive presentation of the evolution of crime rate, incarceration and public costs.
- Topic:
- Crime
- Political Geography:
- United States
96. Stable Outside, Fragile Inside? PostSoviet Statehood in Central Asia
- Author:
- Arolda Elbasani
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- Stable Outside, Fragile Inside is one of the newest books in search of the distinctive development, erratic trends and widely perceived failure of Central Asian republics to make a successful transition to democracy after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The volume seeks to explain the region's specific trajectory to independent statehood, focusing on processes of socialization with competing external norms, emanating not only the main protagonists of the Cold War, Russia and US, but also an increasingly influential EU, a myriad of international organizations and European countries, as well as regional powers such as Turkey, China, Iran, and Pakistan. At the same time, the book draws attention to the specific domestic context of awkward statehood of Central Asian polities – a set of authority structures and state society relations as well as unpredictable international behavior – which makes it difficult for the conventional frameworks to capture the current state of affairs. Opting for a flexible and comprehensive analysis of practices of statehood, the analysis claims to go beyond mainstream understanding of compliance and delve into intricate processes of 'localization', which unfold at the intersection of local conditions and the larger world system.
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Russia, United States, China, Europe, Iran, Central Asia, Turkey, and Soviet Union
97. Multinational Enterprise and International Finance in the History of Light and Power 1878-2007
- Author:
- Simone Selva
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- Global Electrification pulls together a cohort of leading experts in the fields of industrial and financial history of power and light enterprises to offer a global history of electric utility companies since the early steps in the last quarter of the nineteenth century through the late twentieth century from the vantage point of international business history and transnational financial history. The authors do investigate the early beginnings and evolution of the electric utility industry in the background of both the rise to globalism of multinational corporations and the worldwide spread of international investments to crisscross private-sector activities and government-run initiatives, national and transnational concerns and capital flows. They adopt a two-fold research perspective: foreign portfolio investments and foreign direct investments are brought into focus alongside to pinpoint the changing balance between the level of internationalization and the degree of domestication – to borrow from the book's vocabulary – featuring the history of the electricity industry since the early technological innovations, down into the recent attempts over the last twenty years to revive the role of multinational corporations after half a century trend toward either private-sector or state-owned national control.
- Topic:
- Government
98. Transborder Mobility, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries along the Albanian-Greek Frontier
- Author:
- Oana-Elena Brânda
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- Vassilis Nitsiakos' book is part of the Balkan Border Crossings' series, a larger research project concerning the evolution of the Greek and Albanian minorities after the fall of Communism in the 1990's and this volume focuses more on the Albanians living next to the border with Greece.
- Political Geography:
- Greece and Albania
99. Volunteering in Japan and Germany: How moral citizenship strengthens society and the state
- Author:
- Patrick Hein
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- For many years the prevailing image of Japan and Germany was one of “strong state, weak civil society”. The market and the state dominated public life. This article traces the role of the state in the civil society traditions of Japan and Germany and questions the “state versus civil society” institutional approach. First, it proposes a normative theoretical framework that overcomes the state/civil society dichotomy by highlighting the impact of political culture on institutional patterns of governance. Second, it contends that modern volunteering is agent based and driven by concerns for “moral citizenship” going beyond mere advocacy and traditional political activism. Third, it argues that libertarian value changes represent a shift towards greater autonomy and self-assertiveness among citizens. The article concludes that selfless volunteering has been incremental in shaping a more legitimate state and a more self responsible society in both countries.
- Political Geography:
- Japan and Germany
100. Changing games and evolving contexts: Political bargaining in European energy disputes
- Author:
- Fabio Franch
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- Game theory fails to adequately account for an evolving context which can affect the preferences of disputing actors, an issue which the author find to be likely to systematically produce inaccurate explanations and predictions. Empirical evidence is presented that supports the claim that the start of recent natural gas crises has damaged the GDP growth of 9 external European countries. A Pooled Panel Nonlinear Auto Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasti city (PP-NARCH) model and Box-Tiao intervention models are selected to support the validity of what is defined as a 'Fully-Fuzzy' (FF) game. The findings presented here are then enriched with a summary of the most relevant statements, agreements, and partnerships which are likely to have exerted pressure on Russia and the other negotiating country.
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Europe