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This book is arguably the definitive guide to understanding consumerism as a way of life in the twenty-first century. In his original and accessible introduction to the field, Mark Davis takes the reader on a tour of major theories of consumerism to show how they each offer enlightenment in our dark times of social, economic, and environmental crises. Drawing upon critical thinkers such as Adorno, Baudrillard, Bauman, Marcuse, Ritzer, and Žižek, Davis explores the various ways in which consumer...

First published in 1978, this book gathers an extensive range of documents which illuminate the complex and important process by which the State in Britain has taken on increased responsibility for the health and welfare of its citizens. It uses extracts from a variety of sources, including reports, debates, speeches, articles and reviews, and commentary from leading figures of the period, such as Disraeli, Dickens, Edwin Chadwick and Churchill. The book begins with a discussion of the notion...

Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, patterns of change to the former communist nations of Europe are now discernible in a way that was impossible to see in the initial years. This insightful book focuses on the case of changes in housing based on evidence collected from across the Central and Eastern European region. The volume adopts a conceptual framework and provides cross-regional analysis, amongst which is situated a series of more focused case studies. Issues examined include t...

This book examines how different levels and forms of human collectivity have interacted, voluntarily or coercively, and how these transformed societies and polities. Every size and type of human collective involve co-operation among members and competition with other groups. The two most recent trends in human relations – individualism and economic globalisation – have contributed to authoritarianism in politics and inequality among citizens. This book analyses how collective action might offse...

This book analyzes non-democratic legitimacy during the Arab Spring. During this historic event, monarchs and presidents were forced to defend their rule, whether through Islam, the cultural image of paternalism or the cash flow of welfare. Can Arab leaders still justify apolitical reigns? Are monarchies more respected than republicans or are they too under threat? The author traces the history of apolitical rule in the Arab world, from Islamic roots to the role of Arab leaders in merging religi...

The UK public sector faces an unprecedented long-term challenge. A decade of plenty in the public finances has been followed by a decade and more of austerity. Public services are undergoing long-term annual spending cuts even as demographic changes create soaring demand in health, education and adult care. The challenge for the public sector is how to radically transform and adapt to the new era while avoiding the mistakes of previous reform programmes. In this first comprehensive 'bird's eye'...

Who changed Bob Marley's famous peace-and-love anthem into ""Come to Jamaica and feel all right""? When did the Rastafarian fighting white colonial power become the smiling Rastaman spreading beach towels for American tourists? Drawing on research in social movement theory and protest music, Reggae, Rastafari, and the Rhetoric of Social Control traces the history and rise of reggae and the story of how an island nation commandeered the music to fashion an image and entice tourists. Visitors t...

JungakademikerInnen unterschiedlicher Fachgebiete haben sich mit der Idee, den interdisziplinaren sowie interkulturellen wissenschaftlichen Dialog zu foerdern, ans Werk gemacht und setzen sich in ihren Beitragen mit internationalen Fragen beziehungsweise regionalen Themen auseinander. Um den Dialog auch uber Sprachgrenzen hinweg anzuregen, sind alle Beitrage mit je einem italienischen, deutschen und englischsprachigen Abstract versehen. Der deskriptive Anspruch dieses Sammelwerks besteht darin,...

Ausgangspunkt der Arbeit ist das Sozialkapital-Konzept, das als Zusammenspiel zwischen sozialem Vertrauen, der Geltung von Reziprozitatsnormen und der Einbindung in soziale Netzwerke verstanden wird. Ausgehend von einer systematischen Aufbereitung der empirischen Sozialkapital-Forschung fragt die Studie nach der Bedeutung politisch-institutioneller Bestimmungsfaktoren fur die Sozialkapital-Produktion. Als konzeptioneller Bezugsrahmen dient der Neue Institutionalismus. Mittels bi- und multivariat...

Journalist Elizabeth Nickson was forced to subdivide her small forest on Salt Spring, an island in the Pacific North West. To do so, she needed the Islands Trust to grant her the right to build one more house on her twenty-eight acres. Her long and expensive struggle with the extreme greens who dominate rural life almost everywhere led her to investigate the broader impact of the environmental movement on ordinary men and women in North America and around the world. Nickson explores how the envi...

Das vorliegende Buch enthalt eine Auswahl signifikanter Texte Paul H. Distelbarths (1879-1963), eines der meistgelesenen deutschen Frankreich-Essayisten der ersten Halfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. In den Texten wird erstmals die beeindruckende Intensitat und die Kontinuitat seines Nachdenkens uber Frankreich, die deutsch-franzosischen Beziehungen und die europaische Einigung in den Jahren von 1932 bis 1953 dokumentiert. Distelbarths Verstandigungskonzeption basierte wie keine andere Strategie der de...

According to conventional wisdom, big business wields enormous influence over America's political agenda and is responsible for the relatively limited scale of the country's social policies. In Stuck in Neutral, however, Cathie Jo Martin challenges that view, arguing that big business has limited involvement in social policy and in many instances desires broader social interventions. Combining hundreds of in-depth interviews with careful quantitative analysis, Martin shows that there is strong s...

A cinematic history of the largest act of civil disobedience in US history, in Richard Nixon's Washington. They surged into Washington by the tens of thousands in the spring of 1971. Fiery radicals, flower children, and militant vets gathered for the most audacious act in a years-long movement to end America's war in Vietnam: a blockade of the nation's capital. And the White House, headed by an increasingly paranoid Richard Nixon, was determined to stop it. Longtime Washington journalist Lawre...

This innovative book provides a new, concise perspective on Basic Income - a regular, unconditional payment to every citizen resident in the country. This book has been rigoursly researched and thus will appeal to academics and policy-makers, as well, as to the general reader who is concerned about the current state of social security in the UK.

This book analyzes successive governments' management of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. The book covers the years 1982-2005, using expert thinking regarding public policy making to identify gaps in the public sector's handling of the epidemic. It highlights critical lessons for policy makers and other public health managers.

Drawing together insights from media studies, sociology and science and technology studies, this book offers a novel analysis of the early framing of nanotechnology and makes a fascinating and timely contribution to debates about the public communication of science. 'Nanotechnology, Risk and Communication' is one of the first major studies of media coverage, policy debates and public perceptions about nanotechnology, one of the fastest growing areas of scientific innovation in the 21st Century....