All is not well with the evaluation of government programs and projects. Resources available to any society are limited. If governments are to increase the well-being of their citizens, they must be able to select and implement the socially most beneficial projects and policies. But many government agencies lack the expertise to carry out a cost-benefit analysis, or even to commission one…
Fishing for Fairness develops an explicitly cultural perspective on environmental politics in the Philippines by analysing the responses of fishers to marine resource regulations. In the resource frontier of the Calamianes Islands, fishing, conservation and tourism provide the context where competing visions of how to engage with marine resources are played out. The book draws on data from ethn…
The Porgera gold mine in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea is technically one of the most sophisticated and successful mines of recent times. In its second year of operations (1992) it was the third largest gold producing mine in the world. Socially, though, the mine has brought a range of massive changes for the local Ipili community-both positive and negative. Dilemmas of Development is a …
Since the time of decolonisation in Fiji, women’s organisations have navigated a complex political terrain. While they have stayed true to the aim of advancing women’s status, their work has been buffeted by national political upheavals and changing global and regional directions in development policy-making. This book documents how women activists have understood and responded to these cha…
This book aims to provide a broad overview of various topics of Internet of Things (IoT), ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies, nanoelectronics, cyber-physical systems, architecture, interoperability and industrial applications. All this is happening in a global context, building towards intelligent, interconnected decision making as an essential…
In this collection of essays, we reflect on what it means to practise the social sciences in the twenty-first century. The book brings together leading social scientists from the Asia-Pacific region. We argue for the benefit of dialogue between the diverse theories and methods of social sciences in the region, the role of the social sciences in addressing real-world problems, the need to transc…
This Open Access book’s main focus is agriculture and natural resource management, disaster risk reduction, and human resource development in the countries of East and Southeast Asia and Japan. Asia is one of the regions which is the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. More than sixty percent of the world’s people live in the region, making it the growth center of the world. A…
The growth and health of our digital economies and societies depend on the core protocols and infrastructure of the Internet. This technical and logical substructure of our digital existence is now in need of protection against unwarranted interference in order to sustain the growth and the integrity of the global Internet. The Internet's key protocols and infrastructure can be considered a glo…
Latin America is considered the most unequal continent in the world. Paradoxically, the development of resource-intensive social systems has done little to change the social imbalance. The author traces this paradox using Argentina as an example, uncovering the underlying conflicts of power and interests, and identifying successful strategies for implementing inclusive policies. As the first st…
This is the first volume to offer an in-depth look at (lethal) violence in the Balkans. The Balkans Homicide Study analyses 3,000 (attempted) homicide cases from Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia. Shedding light on a region long neglected in terms of empirical violence research, the study at hand asks: - What types of homicides occur in the Balkans? - Who are the perpe…
This Book Series is devoted to examining and solving the major methodological problems social sciences are facing. Take for example the gap between empirical and theoretical research, the explanatory power of models, the relevance of multilevel analysis, the weakness of cumulative knowledge, the role of ordinary knowledge in the research process, or the place which should be reserved to “…
This open access handbook, Ten Crises systematically traces the economic history of China from 1949 to 2020, unravelling the complex domestic and global factors leading to the cyclical crises identified by WEN and his research team, and examining the corresponding counteracting policies and measures by the government to resolve or defer the crises. The book offers profound insights into China…
This open access book seeks to create a forum for discussing key questions regarding theories on teaching: Which theories of teaching do we have? What are their attributes? What do they contain? How are they generated? How context-sensitive and content-specific do they need to be? Is it possible or even desirable to develop a comprehensive theory of teaching? The book identifies areas of conver…
Innovation is generally viewed as something inherently good, a source of progress and prosperity in our society. But innovation can also have negative, unintended, and wasteful effects, if policies are misdirected and organizations pursue innovation to look good and convey a message, rather than to actually achieve improvements of technologies, services, and products. This book makes the case t…
This book analyzes heroin users and the drug subculture on the Shetland Islands, an area known for its geographical remoteness, rural character and relative wealth. It fills the scientific gap created by the conventional research in heroin research, which is usually conducted in urban areas and relies on treatment and prison populations. Based on qualitative, in-depth interviews with twenty-fou…
Conflict over information has become a central part of modern politics and culture. The sites of struggle are numerous, the actors beyond count. Currents of liberation and exploitation course through the debates about Edward Snowden and surveillance, Anonymous, search engines and social media. In Information Politics, Tim Jordan identifies all these issues in relation to a general understanding…
This open access book provides an enriched understanding of historical, collective, cultural, and identity-related trauma, emphasising the social and political location of human subjects. It therefore presents a socio-ecological perspective on trauma, rather than viewing displaced individuals as traumatised “passive victims”. The vastness of the phenomenon of trauma among displaced populati…
This open access book features various studies on democratization, transformation, socio-economic development, and security issues in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) geographical region and beyond. Written by experts and scholars working in the field of human dimension, security, transformation and development in Europe and Asia, particularly in post-soviet and co…
What does it mean to take actions of one’s own to learn? How do human beings create meaning for themselves and with others? How can learners’ active efforts to build knowledge be encouraged and supported? In this edited compilation, scholars from a diverse range of academic and professional backgrounds address these questions, grounded in the conviction that the ability to take effective ac…
The central theme of this book is the intercultural development of technology in a globalising world. Migration, tourism, information and communication technology and international trade stimulate tfhe encounter between cultures, leading to a totally new social configuration on a worldwide scale.
This book addresses the rapidly changing citizen roles in innovation, technology adoption, intermediation, market creation, and legitimacy building for low-carbon solutions. It links research in innovation studies, sustainability transitions, and science and technology studies, and builds a new approach for the study of user contributions to innovation and sociotechnical change. Citizen Activit…
This book argues that using social capital to eradicate poverty is less likely to succeed because the mainstream neoinstitutional approach mistakenly assumes that social capital necessarily benefits poor people. This inadequacy calls for a re-assessment of human motivations, institutional dynamics and structural complexity in social capital building. Using ethnographic and participatory methods…
This book explores the ways in which social relations are profoundly changing modern society, arguing that, constituting a reality of their own, social relations will ultimately lead to a new form of society: an aftermodern or relational society. Drawing on the thought of Simmel, it extends the idea that society consists essentially of social relations, in order to make sense of the operation o…
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. What is the purpose of social science? How can social science make itself relevant to the intractable problems facing humanity in the twenty-first century? The social sciences are under threat from two main sources. One is external, reflected in a global universi…
This book aims to reflect on the experiential side of writing political lives in the Pacific region. The collection touches on aspects of the life writing art that are particularly pertinent to political figures: public perception and ideology; identifying important political successes and policy initiatives; grappling with issues like corruption and age-old political science questions about le…
The book is a critical examination of affirmative action, a form of preferential development often used to address the situation of disadvantaged groups. It uses a trans-global approach, as opposed to the comparative approach, to examine the relationship between affirmative action, ethnic conflict and the role of the state in Fiji, Malaysia and South Africa. While affirmative action has noble g…
Throughout the fifth edition of the International Forum of Agricultural Robots (FIRA) in December 2020, more than 1,500 farmers, manufacturers, advanced technology suppliers, innovators, investors, journalists and experts from 71 countries around the world gathered to ask questions, share stories and exchange ideas about agricultural robots. This book is a journey into the state of the art of t…
An examination of young people's everyday new media practices—including video-game playing, text-messaging, digital media production, and social media use.Conventional wisdom about young people's use of digital technology often equates generational identity with technology identity: today's teens seem constantly plugged in to video games, social networking sites, and text messaging. Yet there…
In The Social Significance of the Neighbourhood the negative image of the social quality of poor urban districts is critically examined based on research in two districts of The Hague. This investigation focuses on the extent to which living in a certain quarter could constitute as an obstacle to social mobility and what role social relations play between local residents therein. Based on inter…
Indigenous policy is a complex domain motivated by a range of social, cultural, political and economic issues. The Council of Australian Governments ‘closing the gaps’ agenda for addressing Indigenous disadvantage in Australia now includes six targets with well defined and measurable outcomes for policy action. In this context there is a continuing and pressing need for robust debate to und…
Vietnam as if… follows five young people who have moved from the countryside to the city. Their dramatic everyday lives illuminate some of the most pressing issues in Vietnam today: ‘The Sticky Rice Seller’ explores gender roles; ‘The Ball Boy’ is all about the struggles of sexual and ethnic minorities; ‘The Professional’ examines relations between rich and poor; ‘The Goalkeeper…
The Repoliticization of the Welfare State grapples with the evolving nature of political conflict over social spending after the Great Recession. While the severity of the economic crisis encouraged strong social spending responses to protect millions of individuals, governments have faced growing pressure to reduce budgets and make deep cuts to the welfare state. Whereas conservative parties h…
Economic behavior is governed by two major sets of boundary conditions: environmental and technological factors on the one hand, and conditions of social organization on the other hand. Indeed, social scientists are often particularly interested in the framework of exchange relationships: exchange of goods, services, personnel, and information. Economic exchanges lend concrete manifestations to…
This open access book examines a particular factor in the enduring international success of German companies. Beyond industrial specialization, peaceful labor relations, local financial markets and the “miracle of the Mittelstand”, it focuses on a characteristic aspect of governance within the German economy: The Chambers of commerce and industry. Important characteristics of the Chamber sy…
Volume pertama dari proyek editorial dibagi menjadi dua karya: ini didedikasikan untuk hubungan antara dimensi metodologis-didaktik, teknologi dan organisasi dalam proses inovasi sekolah; yang kedua didedikasikan untuk guru pendidikan inklusif dan peran teknologi dalam layanan penilaian keterampilan dan bimbingan karir. Tujuan dari kedua karya tersebut sama: mengumpulkan refleksi dan mendukung …
This open access book provides an updated and fully revised 4th edition of this authoritative analysis of Swiss democracy. It particularly explains the institutions of federalism and consensus government through political power sharing. In this new edition, the authors also address several important changes and challenges that have affected Swiss democracy, including the country's relationship …
Landlock: Paralysing Dispute over Minerals on Adivasi Land in India explores the ways in which political controversy over a bauxite mining and refining project on constitutionally protected tribal lands in Andhra Pradesh descended into a state of paralysis where no productive outcome was possible. Long-running support for Adivasi (or tribal) land rights motivated a wide range of actors to block…
The relationship between customary land tenure and ‘modern’ forms of landed property has been a major political issue in the ‘Spearhead’ states of Melanesia since the late colonial period, and is even more pressing today, as the region is subject to its own version of what is described in the international literature as a new ‘land rush’ or ‘land grab’ in developing countries. T…
Traditional knowledge systems are also innovation systems. This book analyses the relationship between intellectual property and indigenous innovation. The contributors come from different disciplinary backgrounds including law, ethnobotany and science. Drawing on examples from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, each of the contributors explores the possibilities and limits of inte…
The diversification and politicisation of the mass media within itself and also societal pressure created by the mass media at a social level have caused changes to our social structure. The first change began with the contextual changes to the mass media, and this change led to visible changes in societies. That transformation has almost erased the distinction between the private and the publi…
Why is social media in southeast Italy so predictable when it is used by such a range of different people? This book describes the impact of social media on the population of a town in the southern region of Puglia, Italy. Razvan Nicolescu spent 15 months living among the town’s residents, exploring what it means to be an individual on social media. Why do people from this region conform on p…
Drawing on 15 months of ethnographic research in one of the most under-developed regions in the Caribbean island of Trinidad, this book describes the uses and consequences of social media for its residents. Jolynna Sinanan argues that this semi-urban town is a place in-between: somewhere city dwellers look down on and villagers look up to. The complex identity of the town is expressed through u…
This open access book aims to present the experiences and visions of several world university leaders, providing strategies and methods used to find various income sources for their institutions. The expansion of a university system requires a corresponding increase in funding. Consequently, university administrators all over the world are in a constant search for additional funds. If higher-le…
In a period of increasing geopolitical insecurity and economic instability this title provides an authoritative yet accessible commentary on debates on capitalism and globalization in the wake of the financial crisis.
This collection of essays arose from a workshop held in Canberra in 2013 under the auspices of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia to consider the impact of the encroachment of the market on public universities. While the UK tripled fees in 2013 and determined that the teaching of the social sciences and the humanities would no longer be publicly funded, it was feared that Australia wou…
During the last two decades, we have witnessed the spreading of shared spaces of work and production in different urban contexts, attracting attention from both policymakers and scholars in economic geography and urban studies. In particular, Fablabs are considered open workshops for grassroots innovation, which is enabled by the availability of shared digital fabrication machines and by the po…
Securing Village Life: Development in Late Colonial Papua New Guinea examines the significance for post-World War II Australian colonial policy of the modern idea of development. Australian officials emphasised the importance of bringing development for both the colony of Papua and the United Nations Trust Territory of New Guinea. The principal form that development took involved securing small…
Last December the Chief Financial Officer of the leading Chinese telecommunication company Huawei was travelling from Hong Kong to Mexico when she was arrested while changing flights at Vancouver Airport by the Canadian authorities acting on an extradition request from the United States. Meng’s arrest and detention are a significant development in China-US relations, marking a dramatic ch…