Incorporating original fieldwork carried out over a period of more than ten years, combined with innovative theoretical argument, Globalization, Culture and Society in Laos presents one of the first sociological investigations into modern Laos. Boike Rehbein gives a fascinating overview of contemporary Lao culture and society, whilst linking local and national phenomena to tendencies of globali…
Structured in four parts, with detailed chapter summaries, Virtual States presents a compact and accessible theoretical and historical introduction to the Internet, its relationship to the developing world, the Internet in relation to the developed world, and the Internet and society. The book also covers issues such as war, censorship and the philosophical implications of hypertext, which is a…
The contents of this book: Part 1: Concepts of Global Civil Society Part 2: Issues in Global Civil Society Part 3: Infrastructure of Global Civil Society Part 4: Records of Global Civil Society
How did the Netherlands become a byword for welfare state and the "poldermodel"? What explains the fabulous political and cultural success of the Dutch Golden Age? What is the place of the Queen in a modern parliamentary democracy? Renowned Dutch scholars elucidate the complicated question of the Dutch national identity by addressing the essential themes in the country's culture, history and so…
Despite the high visibility of the United Nations in various peacekeeping operations, the enormous role that it plays in the global arena goes largely unnoticed. This new book focuses on that larger role, bringing to life the evolutionary process of multilateral interaction that is the foundation of the organization, the sometimes heated politics behind its operations, and the key personalities…
The Arab world is not one shaped by Islam, nor one simply explained by reference to the sectarian conflicts of a "mosaic" society. Instead, Barakat reveals a society that is highly complex, with many and various contending polarities. It is a society in a state of becoming and change, one whose social contradictions are at the root of the struggle to transcend dehumanizing conditions. Arguing f…
The ever-shrinking, globalizing world presents challenges environmental limits, new epidemics, humanitarian crises, accelerating gaps between rich and poor-that exceed the mandates and capacities of existing institutions. Civil society organizations are emerging as increasingly critical sources of innovative ideas and new resources to fill these breaches. Often solutions require generating new …
Success in multilateral disarmament and arms control negotiations has been scarce in recent years. There is need for new approaches―to “think outside the box”―in order to make them work better because continued failure has real human costs. This volume offers new practical tools and perspectives to inform and help the ongoing efforts of multilateral disarmament practitioners, drawing fr…
This is an assessment of the transformation that took place in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The book addresses two central questions: how is the state socialist system of party monopoly and centralized planning dissolving? And how do these societies recreate the communist opposite - civil society and free markets? The contributors attribute the collapse of state socialism to ideological…
Book Megatrends (1982) sold more than 8 million copies world wide and remained at the top of the bestseller lists for two years. That book, and Megatrends 2000, established John Naisbitt as one of the world's foremost forecasters of social, economic, political and cultural trends. In those books, he accurately predicted trends ranging from the globalisation of the econo- my to the surging Impac…