Balancing on an Alp
Author: Robert McC. Netting
Publisher: CUP Archive
Published: 1981-10-30
Total Pages: 308
ISBN-13: 9780521237437
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Lanterna Rally
eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Upland Communities
Author: Pier Paolo Viazzo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1989-02-16
Total Pages: 345
ISBN-13: 0521306639
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book follows the social, economic and demographic transformations of the Alpine area from the late Middle Ages. Its aim is to reassess the image of the upland community which emerges from the work of historians, geographers and social anthropologists. The book therefore deals at length with such problems as the causes and consequences of emigration and patterns of marriage and inheritance in favouring or hampering the adjustments of local populations to changing economic or ecological circumstances, and tackles the vexed question of the relative importance of cultural and environmental factors in shaping family forms and community structures. Although its foundation lies in a long period of anthropological fieldwork conducted in an Alpine community, Upland Communities relies on the methods and conceptual tools of historical demography. Combined with a long-term historical perspective, its broad comparative approach unveils an unexpected diversity in regional and spatial demographic patterns and questions a number of deep-rooted but ultimately misleading notions concerning mountain society and its alleged backwardness in the past.
Democratic Justice and the Social Contract
Author: Albert Weale
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2013-08-15
Total Pages: 325
ISBN-13: 0191507555
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book offers a theory of democratic justice. According to the theory, justice emerges from collective agreement among political associates who enjoy approximate equality of power. Such situations can be seen as social contracts, and we find an empirical model for social contracts in the examples of successful common property resource regimes. In these regimes, participants craft collective rules of access to the means of production on an equal basis and producers are entitled to the full fruits of their labour. To interpret this theoretically an account of practical rationality in terms of individual and public deliberation is required. In tracing the move from small scale to large scale societies, three important transformations become apparent: in political institutions; in the economy; and in the functions of the household. All are relevant to the understanding of justice. In great societies representative parties making policy and law in shifting coalitions in parliaments elected by proportional representation exemplify political equality and so instance one form of democratic justice. In the economy corporate hierarchies modify the full fruits principles, not always in the direction of justice. Redistribution is justified as a means of smoothing income across the life-cycle, rather than by appeal to economies of scale or a simple principle of need. The sense of democratic justice requires commitment to the maintenance of those institutions that protect common interests, whilst acknowledging where there are differences of interest. This sense of democratic justice needs to be upheld by effective governance.
The Commons in History
Author: Derek Wall
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2017-09-08
Total Pages: 184
ISBN-13: 0262534703
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →An argument that the commons is neither tragedy nor paradise but can be a way to understand environmental sustainability. The history of the commons—jointly owned land or other resources such as fisheries or forests set aside for public use—provides a useful context for current debates over sustainability and how we can act as “good ancestors.” In this book, Derek Wall considers the commons from antiquity to the present day, as an idea, an ecological space, an economic abstraction, and a management practice. He argues that the commons should be viewed neither as a “tragedy” of mismanagement (as the biologist Garrett Hardin wrote in 1968) nor as a panacea for solving environmental problems. Instead, Walls sees the commons as a particular form of property ownership, arguing that property rights are essential to understanding sustainability. How we use the land and its resources offers insights into how we value the environment. After defining the commons and describing the arguments of Hardin's influential article and Elinor Ostrom's more recent work on the commons, Wall offers historical case studies from the United States, England, India, and Mongolia. He examines the power of cultural norms to maintain the commons; political conflicts over the commons; and how commons have protected, or failed to protect ecosystems. Combining intellectual and material histories with an eye on contemporary debates, Wall offers an applied history that will interest academics, activists, and policy makers.
Modern Social Contract Theory
Author: Albert Weale
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-06-11
Total Pages: 480
ISBN-13: 0192594982
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Modern Social Contract Theory provides an exposition and evaluation of major work in social contract theory from 1950 to the present. It locates the central themes of that theory in the intellectual legacy of utilitarianism, particularly the problems of defining principles of justice and of showing the grounds of moral obligation. It demonstrates how theorists responded in a novel way to the dilemmas articulated in utilitarianism, developing in their different approaches a constructivist method in ethics, a method that aimed to vindicate a liberal, democratic and just political order. A distinctive feature of the book is its comparative approach. By placing the works of Barry, Buchanan and Tullock, Harsanyi, Gauthier, Grice, Rawls, and Scanlon alongside one another, similarities and differences are brought out, most notably in the way in which principles are derived by each author from the contractual construction as well as the extent to which the obligation to adopt those principles can be rationally grounded. Each theory is placed in its particular intellectual context. Special attention is paid to the contrasting theories of rationality adopted by the different authors, whether that be utility theory or a deliberative conception of rationality, with the intention of assessing how far the principles advanced can be justified by reference to the hypothetical choices of rational contracting agents. The book concludes with a discussion of some principal objections to the enterprise of contract theory, and offers its own programme for the future of that theory taking the form of the empirical method.
Biographical Memoirs
Author: National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 1997-05-23
Total Pages: 392
ISBN-13: 0309057388
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Biographic Memoirs: Volume 71 contains the biographies of deceased members of the National Academy of Sciences and bibliographies of their published works. Each biographical essay was written by a member of the Academy familiar with the professional career of the deceased. For historical and bibliographical purposes, these volumes are worth returning to time and again.
The Carpathians, the Hutsuls, and Ukraine
Author: Anthony J. Amato
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2020-12-02
Total Pages: 485
ISBN-13: 1793608369
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book examines the relationship between Ukraine’s Galician Hutsuls and the Carpathian landscape between 1848 and 1939. The author analyzes the intersections of ecology and culture in the history of the Carpathian Mountains, with a focus on the region’s economy and biodiversity.
Himalayan Households
Author: Thomas Earl Fricke
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 1994
Total Pages: 268
ISBN-13: 9780231100076
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Reprint of the UMI Research Press work originally published in 1986 in the series Studies in Cultural Anthropology. Contains a new (5pp.) introduction. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Balancing the Commons in Switzerland
Author: Tobias Haller
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-03-28
Total Pages: 323
ISBN-13: 1000367177
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Balancing the Commons in Switzerland outlines continuity and change in the management of common-pool resources such as pastures and forests in Switzerland. The book focuses on the differences and similarities between local institutions (rules and regulations) and forms of commoners’ organisations (corporations of citizens and corporations) which have managed common property for several centuries and have shaped the cultural landscapes of Switzerland. At the core of the book are five case studies from the German, French and Italian speaking regions of Switzerland. Beginning in the Late Middle Ages and focusing on the transformative periods in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it traces the internal and external political, economic and societal changes and examines what impact these changes had on commoners. It goes beyond the work of Robert Netting and Elinor Ostrom, who discussed Swiss commons as a unique case of robustness, by analysing how local commoners reacted to, but also shaped, changes by adapting and transforming common property institutions. Thus, the volume highlights how institutional changes in the management of the commons at the local level are embedded in the public policies of the respective cantons, and the state, which generates a high heterogeneity and an actual laboratory situation. It shows the power relations and very different routes that local collective organisations and their members have followed in order to cope with the loss of value of the commons and the increased workload for maintaining common property management. Providing insightful case studies of commons management, this volume delivers theoretical contributions and lessons to be learned for the commons worldwide. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the commons, natural resource management and agricultural development.
Village Viability In Contemporary Society
Author: Priscilla Copeland Reining
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-09-18
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 1000011364
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book on the important question of village viability arose from several organizational innovations. It presents the important experience of intensive village studies conducted by anthropologists and sociologists and describes it with the views of development economists and administrators.
