Böcker utgivna av Palgrave MacMillan

Women presented the first effective challenge to the Islamic regime and the clerical authority in post-revolutionary Iran. Women's activism in support of their legal rights and personal freedom, however, did not develop into a strong movement against the rising fundamentalism. The Iranian socialists did not support women's autonomous organizations. The convergence of the Left's populism with Islamic populism, and the influence of the Iranian/Shiite political culture that promotes male authority and female submission, could not reconcile with women's claims to individual rights, choice, and personal freedom and their struggle for autonomy and self-determination in private or public life.

This open access book examines the interrelations and correlations of the postdigital condition and its relationship to education, with a particular focus on participation. Contributions reflect on how educational institutions are affected by the recent transformations of media technologies and practices, and how at the same time institutions such as schools and universities are supposed to enable people to participate in media practices in an informed and reflective way. How, and under what conditions, can teachers and students participate in contemporary media constellations? The book will be of interest to academics and researchers involved in teacher education, digital pedagogy, educational technology, instructional design, education philosophy and media education.

This book presents an original interpretation of the building history of London in terms of its evolving political economy. Each of the seven ages of the city from the Roman to the modern, are portrayed through their monumental buildings, concentrating in particular on their symbolic purpose as expressions of the status and authority of those who built them. The concluding synthesis explores how these successive layers of building can be seen to be a product of the evolving class structure, the changing distribution of wealth, and the shifting struggle for political power within the city and the nation. Although the focus is on London, the analysis is applicable to any urbanized economy at any stage of development. This book offers unique insight into London as a landscape of power and as a city that has assumed a succession of identities over the last two millennia. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in urban economy, economic history, and thepolitical economy.

This book on entrepreneurship, compiles a series of evidence-based episodes from the lives of the marginalized and the minority-oriented entrepreneurs to comprehend whether entrepreneurship is truly a socio-economic emancipatory strategy. Varying experiences of entrepreneurs, from different geographical territories, origins and gender are examined under a critical lens to deconstruct its emancipatory potential and appreciate its power in generating human freedom, equal opportunities, and in uplifting the oppressed and suppressed classes globally. In specific the book explores entrepreneurs located in two geographically diverse regions across the world. The social entrepreneurs in the contested region of Palestine and the black and ethnic entrepreneurial group based in Georgia, United States. The book is a planned and purposeful compilation of raw [i.e., in terms of emotions and feelings], untold stories of entrepreneurs who have embraced entrepreneurship to eradicate their harsh realities and subsequently emancipate themselves. The book integrates a critical perspective, encompassing a variety of theoretical frameworks such as critical race theory, critical theory, critical realism and different power modalities and philosophies to investigate the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship and justify it as a socio-economic emancipatory strategy. This book ventures into the murky and dark waters of entrepreneurship by exploring this concept within the black and immigrant communities, as a collective social entrepreneurship reform movement, female entrepreneurship, informal entrepreneurship operating under occupation, to provide detailed insights on bricolage and other complexed economic issues.

This open access book illustrates how systemic theory, as both a meta-theory and a relational organic theory, can be a suitable framework for understanding and appreciating the new horizons of systemic practice with children and families in their various contexts. The different chapters shed light on how systemic perspectives, as they are presented in their varying contexts, promote hope by giving room for reflections on uncertainty, change, opportunities, interconnections, and differences. The authors describe and reflect on how systemic approaches can be useful for practitioners and make space for a multiplicity of different perspectives that address the needs of children and those assisting them in their various settings, where children grow and develop in the context of their unique needs and challenges. It covers safeguarding children's rights through parental separation and divorce; families experiencing anticipatory grief; parents struggling with substanceuse problems; gender incongruence; eating disorders; systemic perspectives on psychiatric diagnosis; children with disabilities; and systemic practice in school. The book will be a source of inspiration, as the purpose is to illustrate the systemic field in constant motion, which encourages, maybe even requires a plurality of theories, perspectives and approaches. But, most importantly, it demonstrates how working with children and families is a privilege.

This book offers novel insights into how students can develop a personal growth mindset during their degree programs that allows them to view new challenges as opportunity to grow personally, reflect on the new knowledge and experience, and subsequently improve their skills to critically examine and evaluate information in a journey of personal growth. Based on learning theories drawn from cognitive and social psychology and over 12 years of integrating the 'personal growth mindset' into course design, it offers a novel framework that allows higher education teachers to constructively align learning objectives and assessments with crucial transferable skill development, and fostering a mindset for personal growth among students that focuses on continuously improving and reflecting on feedback. The objective is to empower academics to build courses and degree programs that are 'fit for purpose' by equipping social science students with the skills and mindsets that will benefit them throughout their careers in ever changing and newly emerging jobs. The book will appeal to those who are interested in how individuals learn in educational settings and in the wider workplace.

Why have the economies of some developing countries fallen back while others have advanced? Why have so many stabilization and structural adjustment programs failed to deliver growth dividends? This book shows that there is a common and valid answer: political credibility defined as the predictability of the institutional rules of the game. This case is not only argued theoretically but also found to be confirmed by empirical analysis. Ten case studies pitting Latin American countries against Southeast Asian ones reveal the sources of political credibility. Economic openness is the necessary precondition, long-term reputation or democratic participation the sufficient one. Despite the seemingly superior strength of authoritarian reputation democratic control is the more successful road.

This open access book explores the intersection of gender and climate change, suggests ways in which innovative technologies can accelerate climate relief actions, and offers strategies for integrating climate change initiatives into national policies and planning. By examining the devastating consequences of climate change on women and girls throughout the continent, the authors pose a crucial question: Does gender matter in climate change discussions in Africa? Political and social traditions have burdened women with greater vulnerability to the impacts of climate-related natural disasters, including violence, displacement, poverty, famine and lack of access to clean water. However, women are also key to effective and inclusive climate mitigation, adaptation, and decision-making. The authors provide a compelling discourse that identifies the social and economic benefits for all citizens when gender-inclusive policies shape equitable and targeted action plans, from mitigation to adaptation and funding. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 13 calls for urgent action and commitment to combat climate change. The implementable and action-oriented propositions presented in this book will be of interest to students, educators, practitioners, third-sector actors, and policymakers committed to gender equality, sustainable development and climate action in Africa.

This book examines the ongoing changes initially caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the future prospects of teaching and learning in higher education institutions. It focuses on the impact of online education on issues of learning equity and epistemic justice. The transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to remote learning has exacerbated existing inequalities in epistemological access among higher education students, despite the shortcomings of the former in this regard. The book features essays by African academics who reflect on the challenges of epistemological access during the sudden shift to hybrid, blended and remote teaching and learning. It specifically explores the question of equitable learning in diverse home contexts, drawing on both theoretical and empirical studies conducted by the authors in South African universities and the region. The chapters employ the conceptual framework of epistemic injustice to define and explore various forms of such injustice, providing a basis for analyzing the implications of the transition to online pedagogy.

This book is the first of its kind within the African region to combine scholarly perspectives from the fields of Strategic Communication Management and Communication for Development and Social Change. It draws insights from scholars across the African continent by unravelling the complementary nature of scholarship between the two fields, through the lens of prevailing governance and sustainability challenges facing African countries, today. This edited volume covers issues that have adversely affected the achievement of goals related to humanitarian upliftment, development and social change for all African nations. Consequently, citizen participation, which lies at the heart of these challenges when considering the question of sustainable governance and policy development for social change in an African context is addressed. To this end, a reflection is also made on various case studies that exist where local citizens do not inform sustainable development programmes, while the promotion of bottom-up development and social change is largely replaced by top-down instrumental action approaches and hemispheric communication instead of strategic communication. Themes explored include: ● Communication for social change, bottom-up development and social movements in the local government sphere ● Strategic communication in governance, planning and policy reforms ● The role of multi-stakeholder partnerships in achieving development of objectives geared towards good governance in Africa ● Public participation, protests, and resistance from 'below' ● Public sector health communications and development ● Media relations, accountability and contested development narratives with the Fourth Estate ● Social media and eParticipation in government development programs.

This open access book presents three future consumption trends--technology, sustainability, and wellbeing--and discusses what impact those trends will have on the ways we shop. What will be important to the consumers of the future? And how will their retail experiences look and feel? Will technology, sustainability, and wellbeing trends fundamentally change how we consume? And how should retail managers respond to these trends in order to provide the customer experiences of the future? Blending academic perspectives with reflections from innovative retailers, this book explores all these questions and more. Essential reading for retail managers who want to know how future consumption trends will affect the industry, this book also benefits students and researchers of retail and consumption who want to better understand how these interdependent fields are linked.

At this moment of extreme political polarization in the U.S. which has the potential to threaten the very foundations of the state, Professor Michael DeArmey proposes a revised and updated Constitution. This enriched, reborn Constitution retains much of the current Constitution but also seeks to meliorate and indeed resolve entirely many of the seemingly intractable problems in American democracy. The rights of American citizens are revisited and expanded, and for the first time a wholly new Bill of Goods sets out government's role in assisting in the necessities for life. Also new is a Bill of Citizen Duties and Responsibilities. The book contains a careful defense of the proposed changes, including individual chapters focusing on the most controversial topics. Other chapters explore why a constitution is needed and survey the Federalist papers on Constitutional structure. The book also examines the writings of Aristotle, John Adams' Defence, and the correspondence of Madison and Jefferson.

The purpose of this book is to project diplomacy as an unavoidable instrument for monitoring, prevention and control of health and disaster risks among African countries. The book advocates health cooperation in Africa at a time when pandemics are recurrent. Outside of the WHO, many countries, even within regional groupings have not actively pursued health cooperation. We intend this book to provide the basis for advocating the inclusion of health diplomacy in the curricula of the training of the African diplomat with the hope to stimulate gradual policy shifts in foreign ministries, regional groupings, and the African Union.

This book employs a fiction-based approach to address the revolving door of Black faculty and staff in American colleges and universities as a national crisis that needs to be resolved systematically. Alex-Assensoh coins the acronym SOULS to promote the importance of safety, organizational accountability, unvarnished truth telling, love, and spirituality as the foundational ingredients for reimagining and rebuilding an Academy that harnesses the talents of Black faculty and staff. Chapters feature storytelling to illustrate common cracks in academic structures while interweaving interdisciplinary research to contextualize themes that the fiction-based method reveals. To conclude, the author provides a research-informed call to action within the context of institutional transformation, as well as reflective questions and recommendations for further reading.

Global crises throughout history have shaken humanity and transformed economies and societies. The Eurozone faced two such crises soon after its foundation. This book brings new insights regarding the Eurozone's response to the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic and its effectiveness in dealing with the macroeconomic imbalances in Europe. Is the Eurozone more resilient now? This book is an indispensable addition to the literature on the recent global crises and the Eurozone for both academics and policymakers who are eager to delve deeper into these vital questions.

This edited collection synthesises recent research into smell and taste and relates it to eating behaviour. Olfaction - the sense of smell - together with taste are known as the 'chemical senses' and are the oldest sensory system. It is paradoxical then that our knowledge (especially psychological) about these two systems remains far behind that of vision and audition. Nevertheless, the past twenty years has seen a significant increase in our understanding of these sensory systems and the contributors to this book, many of whom helped to reveal key findings in this research domain, explore theories which attempt to explain appetite control, associative odour learning and multisensory perception, among others. It further brings the reader up to date on the current state of knowledge on disordered eating and olfactory disorders. Finally, it bridges across different academic disciplines to reveal the importance of the chemical senses in indigenous people in Guyana.

The book is the beginning of new interdisciplinary research series at the intersection of international relations, diplomacy, law, economics, and politics on the basis of global digital transformation. Digital international relations form a new mode of interaction between states and in terms of solving the most pressing problems of modernity. Law, economics, diplomacy and education are selected as key areas of human activity that can become the sphere of perspective research of digital international relations. This book will interest diplomats, scholars of international relations, and of international law.

This book ​addresses one of the most profound transformations in international governance: the proliferation of regime complexity. Regime complexes can be found wherever state interests clash. Thus, even in one of the most constitutionalized of institutional environments, the European Union (EU), regime complexity features prominently - especially in European defence cooperation, where states have created competing institutions overlapping in their mandates to organize armaments cooperation or defence planning. The tense relationship between the institutions of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and those of NATO is well-known. Yet inter-institutional conflict is not limited to this dichotomy. It extends to institutions beyond these two frameworks, such as those of the former Western European Union and regional defence cooperation frameworks such as the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO), or OCCAR - a minilateral armaments agency. All these institutions have partially overlapping membership structures and mandates and therefore rival authority claims in the field of European defence. This book uncovers the hidden regularities of the ongoing battle for institutional authority among EU member states.

This ethnographic study explores the lived experiences and challenges felt by Muslim female students in higher education in the greater District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) area. It offers narrative case studies as a form of narrative inquiry based on stories of lived experience as a means of capturing dynamic, didactic, and dialectic understandings to promote and enable needed change in higher education. In centering the voices of Muslim female students, this research goes beyond the narrow statistical representation of predefined categories to examine and present the systematic nature and roots of social prejudice.

This book analyzes seven Latin American thinkers who have contributed to building bridges for reconciliation and peace: Carlos Saavedra Lamas, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Alfonso García Robles, Óscar Arias Sánchez, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Juan Manuel Santos, and Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. Working within an eclectic conceptual approach to systematize the circulation of ideas embraced by each one of the thinkers, the various contributions delve into the current literature of leadership and intellectuals in Politics and Global International Relations (GIR). Overall, the central premises of the analysis are based on three fundamentals of mainstream constructivism: a) change across time and space in the lifetime of each thinker under analysis in this book; b) socialization through changing norms, rules, and language; and c) processes of interaction in which actors make choices in selecting networks and strategies). Coming from different walks of life, the seven thinkers examined in this book haveaccessed the global public square and discussed ideas to reduce conflicts at different scales. In their respective historical times, they circulated their views and ideas beyond the confines of Latin America to influence global political thought and produce change in favor of peace.

This collection intends to fill a long overdue research gap on the praxeological aspects of the relationships between disabilities, accessibility, and digital gaming. It will focus on the question of how Game Studies can profit from a Disability Studies perspective of en-/disabling gaming and issues of disability, (in)accessibility and ableism, and vice versa. Instead of departing from the medical model of disability that informs a wide range of publications on "disabled" gaming and that preconceives users as either "able-bodied," "normal" or as "disabled," "deficit," or "unable to play," our central premise is that dis/ability is not an essential characteristic of the playing subject. We rather intend to analyze the complex infrastructures of playing, i.e., the complex interplay of heterogeneous human and non-human actors, that are en- or disabling.

Is evil evidence against the existence of God? Does divine hiddenness provide an evidential problem for theism? Is our evolutionary history evidence that God doesn't exist? Skeptical theism is the view that humans are cognitively limited in important ways that prevent us from providing affirmative answers to these evidential questions. In this book--the first monograph published on skeptical theism--Perry Hendricks gives careful, novel, and compelling arguments in favor of skeptical theism and provides a comprehensive defense of it, addressing all major objections to skeptical theism on offer. The implications of skeptical theism are teased out: it undermines the most prominent arguments for atheism on offer, which significantly lowers the epistemic status of atheism.

This book provides a comprehensive investigation into the concept of typicality and its significance for physics and the philosophy of science. It identifies typicality as a fundamental way of reasoning, central to how natural laws explain and are tested against phenomena. The book discusses various applications of typicality to foundational questions in physics and beyond.These include: a unified interpretation of objective probabilities in classical mechanics and quantum mechanicsa detailed discussion of Boltzmann's statistical mechanics, entropy, and the second law of thermodynamicsa novel account of the asymmetry of causation and the arrow of time Finally, the book turns to the question: "What are laws of nature"? It argues that typicality extends to a powerful way of reasoning in metaphysics that can and should inform our commitments about the fundamental ontology of the world. On this basis, it develops an argument against theHumean best system account, according to which laws of nature are merely an efficient summary of contingent regularities.

The work reimagines emancipatory possibilities in the face of reified capitalist modernity. The enlightenment resulted in a 'disenchanted' world, stripped of 'anthropomorphised' meaning and purpose. This world, in its capitalistic figuration, alienates us from others, and from nature. To rearticulate emancipatory possibilities requires a non-alienated relation to society and nature. Yet, modernist disenchantment cannot be undone by returning to pre-modern 'enchantment'. Rather, such rearticulation calls for the recovery of 'unalienated life' from within non-reified modernity, by renewing its universalist dimension.

This book explores the major challenges that the long-standing and diversely debated demise of postmodernism signifies for American literature, art, culture, history, and politics, in the present, third decade of the twenty-first century. Its scope comprises a vigorous discussion of all these diverse fields undertaken by distinguished scholars as well as junior researchers, U.S. Americanists and European Americanists alike. Focusing on socio-political and cultural developments in the contemporary U.S., their contributions highlight the interconnectedness of the geopolitical, economic, environmental and technological crises that define the historical present on global scale. Chapter 16 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book examines Lacanian psychoanalysis and Christian mystical theology demonstrating the former's potential for reinvigorating spiritual direction. The author outlines how current methods of spiritual direction become saturated with self-help psycho-pop methodologies, and that desire has therefore been foreclosed in these practices. He suggests that the root of this is a focus on 'positive affective experientialism', which means spiritual direction must focus on emotional wholeness, healing and positivity. Finally, he argues that a new dialogue between John of the Cross (a mystic whose writings on spiritual direction formulate part of the core of the Catholic spiritual tradition) and Jacques Lacan can open the way for a spiritual direction beyond the confines of experientialism. The book concludes that we can only escape the experiential commodification of spiritual direction by critiquing the drive to experience in and of itself. This novel work will appeal in particular to students and scholars of psychoanalysis, religion, philosophy and critical theory.

Military alliances are a constant feature in international politics, and a better understanding of them can directly impact world affairs. This book examines why alliances endure or collapse. As a distinctive feature, it analyses asymmetric alliances focusing on the junior allies' decision to continue or terminate a military agreement. It deepens our knowledge of alliance cohesion and erosion, investigating the relevance of the weaker side's preferences and behavior in alliance politics. The author examines the literature on alliance persistence and termination and puts forward a theoretical model that helps interpret historical and contemporary cases in a way that is useful for expert researchers and non-expert readers alike.

This book considers whether term limits help curb careerism in the US state legislatures. Term limits are popular among the public and have been overwhelmingly successful once on the ballot. Despite this, very little is known about the long-term effects of these institutional rules. If term limits were sold to the public to remove entrenched incumbents from office, how do they alter the careers of legislators and what are the implications? Butcher suggests that term limits do not end careers but instead, lawmakers have become more creative in their pursuits. She finds that the presence of term limits has created a new career system unique to those states that have limits. In each chapter, there is a quantitative analysis, followed by qualitative interviews to better understand the underlying motivations of members.

This book explores the role of nongovernmental mediators in promoting "inclusive peace" to negotiating parties in Myanmar's Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) negotiations from 2011-2015. The influx of NGO mediators directly engaging with the negotiating parties and promoting the inclusivity norm coupled with the salience of discourse around "all-inclusiveness" at the end of the NCA process forms a puzzle around the agency that NGO mediators wield in influencing political outcomes, despite their lack of political and material leverage.The author argues that NGO mediators can effectively promote norms, using mediation processes as a site of norm diffusion. Bespoke international conflict resolution NGOs have become key mediation actors, within the last three decades through creating the niche world of "private diplomacy" and acting as "norm entrepreneurs" at the same time. As informal third parties, these NGO mediators directly engage with politically sensitive actors or convene unofficial peace talks. As NGOs, they are part of an epistemic community of mediation practice, professionalizing the field and producing knowledge on what peace mediation is and what it ought to be. This dual identity as both NGOs and mediators nicely sets them up with a unique agency to promote and diffuse norms. These norms often reflect the liberal peacebuilding paradigm promoted from the Global North, such as inclusion, gender equality and transitional justice, with the view that these norms are not ends in themselves but as necessary ingredients for effective mediation.The book further questions whether NGOs should promote norms in the first place. The outcome of the NCA process presents a critical and cautionary tale of promoting a presumed universal norm into a given locale and expecting a certain outcome without understanding how an external norm interacts with existing normative frameworks. The book illustrates that while NGO mediators do possess the "normative agency" to effectively promote norms to negotiating parties, my empirical research analyses how their promotion of the "inclusivity" norm to the negotiating parties in Myanmar's NCA paradoxically resulted in exclusionary outcomes: only half of the armed groups in the ethnic armed groups' negotiating bloc signed, and civil society was effectively crowded out from meaningful participation despite lofty rhetoric.This is an open access book.