Showing posts with label international relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label international relations. Show all posts

The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (Cambridge Studies in International Relations) Review

The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (Cambridge Studies in International Relations)
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The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (Cambridge Studies in International Relations) ReviewThe late Susan Strange was a renowned academic and political thinker who took the study of International Relations in a new direction. Her book, The Retreat of the State, takes a theoretical framework developed earlier by Strange and applies it to wide variety of situations in International Relations; situations that are rarely considered by mainstream IR writers, despite their almost daily effects on our lives.
Strange challenges the key assumption of IR and international political economics (`IPE') that it is the state that is the key player in IPE and puts forward a theory outlining how other players, from business to the Mafia, can effect IPE.
The first section of the book starts by outlining Stranges' theoretical assumptions, including that the State is not the key player in international political economics that it is sometimes made out to be. She also sets out the redefine what is traditionally thought of as power in IR relationships, arguing successfully that power should be thought of as more that simply political muscle, using a much broader definition. Power and politics is more than simply military strength.
The second half of the book uses six brief case studies, including the Mafia, Big Six accounting firms and Insurance, telecoms and cartels to test her theoretical assumptions. Using the theoretical base set up in the first half of the book, Strange looks at situations where there is, as she terms in, authority beyond that state. For example, in looking at organised crime, who often have sophisticated paramilitary organisations and governance structures, she suggests that the traditional way of looking at IPE (eg neo-liberal, realist and neo-realist) may be obsolete. The same with the Big Six accounting firms, whose power is derived from the States inability or refusal to create the rules for accounting and who have a disproportionate effect on the global economy. While Strange has not sought to explain in detail each of these cases, she has pointed out potential future research in these areas, using a theoretical framework that explains better than traditional IR theory.
Overall, this book represents an important step in the development of IPE theory and indeed in IR theory in general. By allowing for actors other than the state, Strange has opened up a whole new world of analysis and assisted in solving many of the issues that traditional IR theory has failed to explain.
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Safire's Political Dictionary Review

Safire's Political Dictionary
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Safire's Political Dictionary ReviewYou will love this whopper of a book - all 896pp! William Safire belongs to the delightfully patrician generation of political insiders alongside the likes of radio columnist Alistair Cooke Alistair Cooke's America and Ted Sorenson, speechwriter and adviser to JFK. Safire, who has contributed his own fair share of speeches on the Republican side, (it was he who added alliterative relief to Spiro Agnew's barren verbal landscape through phrases such as "nattering nabobs of negativism") has a keen ear for political language and he rises above partisanship simply because he is fascinated by the provenance and meaning of political language. As he points out, a political dictionary is fascinating because the language has been chosen to either inspire or inflame - it is rich, sometimes explosive emotive fuel.
- This very complete dictionary, fully updated, provides a rich journey and explains where so many of our commonly used and extremely colorful phrases really come from.
- It is comprehensive: reaching back to historic phrases, that go back beyond the original era of pork-barrel politics, and coming right up to the present to include the words of McCain, Clinton and Obama.
- It highlights the hidden agendas behind the language we hear: the phrases designed to make headlines, the sayings that are used to bring a folksiness to our sometimes aloof politicians.
- The dictionary does this with real panache. Safire is part wit, part journalist and part investigator - and he makes great company for the reader. It is a treat to dip into.
And yes, it is election year, so a tour of duty through Safire's fascinating lexical battleground will leave you ready for the speeches to come: your BS detectors set on full alert, your sense of irony and history sharpened. What an excellent book.
Perfect for students of political studies. Ideal for journalists. Essential for voters of all stripes. Democracy may be messy sometimes, but as this book shows - the language of politics is always darned colorful.Safire's Political Dictionary Overview

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Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays Review

Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community: Eight Essays
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Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays ReviewIf you're a content postmodern, don't read this book. It will leave you unsettled. The title essay from Berry's book is worth the price of the whole book. If you were to read only one book this coming year to guide both your thinking and your behavior (aside from the Bible which undergirds Berry's thinking), this would be a great choice. If the following snippet from the title essay resonates with your spirit, you'll want to pick this one up.
"If you destroy the ideal of the "gentle man" and remove from men all expectations of courtesy and consideration toward women and children, you have prepared the way for an epidemic of rape and abuse. If you depreciate the sanctity and solemnity of marriage, not just as a bond between two people, but as a bond between those two people and their forebears, their children, and their neighbors, then you have prepared the way for an epidemic of divorce, child neglect, community ruin, and loneliness. If you destroy the economies of household and community, then you destroy the bonds of mutual usefulness and practical dependence without which the other bonds will not hold."
Why is it that we have our best thinkers like Berry running old family farms, and our worst thinkers running our national government? Sigh.Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays Overview

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Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Third Edition Review

Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Third Edition
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Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Third Edition ReviewHofstede is, of course, the pioneer of culture studies in business and organizations. This book is a simpler and more accessible version of the more comprehensive - but also more difficult, 'Culture's Consequences'.
He begins with an excellent overview of culture and its levels and explains the concept of cultural `dimensions' - aspects of culture that can differentiate and measure differences among different cultural groups. The book then proceeds to present the four dimensions of culture that he identified as a result of a massive survey he conducted on IBM employees in 72 countries in 1968 and again in 1972. Additional data was later collected from other countries and populations, outside IBM, and used to verify and enhance the original results.
However, in this book, Hofstede discusses his four original dimensions of culture: Power Distance; Uncertainty Avoidance; Individualism & Collectivism; and finally Masculinity & Femininity. The fifth dimension which was later added based on results from the Far East and Asia - Long- versus Short-Term Orientation - is not discussed in this book. Despite that, it remains a very valuable and highly readable introduction to the topic from the man who pioneered the field and popularized it among business people, multinationals and business researchers alike.
Hofstede also uses these dimensions of culture to 'classify' organizations to different types according to where they fall on the Power Distance vs. Uncertainty Avoidance grid. The discussion is highly informative and touches on Mintzberg's theories as well typical models of organization in different cultures. In Part Four, he discusses how intercultural encounters are affected by these dimensions and how awareness and acceptance of these differences can yield more effective results.Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Third Edition Overview

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The Strategy of Conflict Review

The Strategy of Conflict
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The Strategy of Conflict ReviewSchelling's major contribution to game theory (and the study of culture) was the concept of focal points. He observed that in real life bargaining each player would rather make a concession than fail to reach any agreement at all. And there are a wide range of outcomes that would be preferable to both of them than no agreement at all. Now without some procedure to select among those acceptable alternatives, people might never come to a satisfactory agreement. This is where the key concept of "focal points" comes into play. Schelling defines focal points as "intuitively perceived mutual expectations, shared appreciations, preoccupations, obsessions, and sensitivities to suggestion." He criticized traditional game theorists for failing to recognize that "players" actually achieve much better coordination and cooperation when they are able to rely upon focal points. Although he does not make this analogy, it seems that focal points represent some sort of a "templat! e" or "blueprint" that helps to unify understanding and coordinate action. However, for Schelling, "focal points" are quite arbitrary-whether and to what degree they serve to coordinate action and expectations is the key question.The Strategy of Conflict Overview

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