Afghanistan's Troubled Transition

Afghanistan's Troubled Transition PDF

Author: Scott Seward Smith

Publisher: First Forum Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9781935049364

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Painstaking attempts to build democratic institutions in Afghanistan are reviewed with focus on the presidential election of 2004, the first democratic election ever held in the country.

Troubled Transition

Troubled Transition PDF

Author: Choe Sang-hun

Publisher: Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781931368285

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Kim Jong-il once declared he would transform North Korea into a great and powerful country by 2012, apparently believing that nuclear weapons would compel the international community to engage on his terms. With no such prospect in sight and Kim himself now in failing health, his regime faces a multitude of intractable problems. Kim has apparently chosen his twenty-something third son as his successor, but will North Koreans accept this inexperienced young man as their leader, and will he embrace new thinking to solve the country's problems? Why do North Korean leaders resist reform of an economic system that impoverishes the people? Can a country so dependent on outside help continue to defy the international community? In Troubled Transition, leading international experts examine these dilemmas, offering new insights into how a troubled North Korea may evolve in light of the ways other command economies and totalitarian states--from the Soviet Union and East Germany to Vietnam and China--have transitioned.

Democratic Transitions

Democratic Transitions PDF

Author: Sergio Bitar

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2015-09-15

Total Pages: 487

ISBN-13: 142141760X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Thirteen former presidents and prime ministers discuss how they helped their countries end authoritarian rule and achieve democracy. National leaders who played key roles in transitions to democratic governance reveal how these were accomplished in Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, and Spain. Commissioned by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), these interviews shed fascinating light on how repressive regimes were ended and democracy took hold. In probing conversations with Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Patricio Aylwin, Ricardo Lagos, John Kufuor, Jerry Rawlings, B. J. Habibie, Ernesto Zedillo, Fidel V. Ramos, Aleksander Kwasniewski, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, F. W. de Klerk, Thabo Mbeki, and Felipe González, editors Sergio Bitar and Abraham F. Lowenthal focused on each leader’s principal challenges and goals as well as their strategies to end authoritarian rule and construct democratic governance. Context-setting introductions by country experts highlight each nation’s unique experience as well as recurrent challenges all transitions faced. A chapter by Georgina Waylen analyzes the role of women leaders, often underestimated. A foreword by Tunisia’s former president, Mohamed Moncef Marzouki, underlines the book’s relevance in North Africa, West Asia, and beyond. The editors’ conclusion distills lessons about how democratic transitions have been and can be carried out in a changing world, emphasizing the importance of political leadership. This unique book should be valuable for political leaders, civil society activists, journalists, scholars, and all who want to support democratic transitions.

US Labor in Trouble and Transition

US Labor in Trouble and Transition PDF

Author: Kim Moody

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The finest historian of the contemporary labor movement uncovers the secrets of its collapse and revival. "U. S. Labor in Trouble and Transition" tells the story of union decline in America and of the split in the labor movement it led to, following the dismal tale of union mergers and management partnerships that accompanied the retreat from militancy since the 1980s. Looking to the future, Moody shows how the rise of immigrant labor and its efforts at self-organization can re-energize the unions from below. "U.S. Labor in Trouble and Transition" breaks new ground in the on-going debate within the U.S. labor movement.

Thinking Through Transition

Thinking Through Transition PDF

Author: Michal Kope?ek

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2015-11-10

Total Pages: 611

ISBN-13: 9633860857

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book is the first concentrated effort to explore the most recent chapter of East Central European past from the perspective of intellectual history. Post-socialism can be understood both as a period of scarcity and preponderance of ideas, the dramatic eclipsing of the dissident legacy?as well as the older political traditions?and the rise of technocratic and post-political governance. This book, grounded in empirical research sensitive to local contexts, proposes instead a history of adaptations, entanglements, and unintended consequences. In order to enable and invite comparison, the volume is structured around major domains of political thought, some of them generic (liberalism, conservatism, the Left), others (populism and politics of history) deemed typical for post-socialism. However, as shown by the authors, the generic often turns out to be heavily dependent on its immediate setting, and the typical resonates with processes that are anything but vernacular.

Theorizing Transition

Theorizing Transition PDF

Author: John Pickles

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-08-31

Total Pages: 552

ISBN-13: 1134715641

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Theorizing Transition provides a comprehensive examination of the economic, political, social and cultural transformations in post-Communist countries and an important critique of transition theory and policy. The authors create the basis of a theoretical understanding of transition in terms of a political economy of capitalist development. The diversity of forms and complexities of transition are examined through a wide range of examples from post-Soviet countries and comparative studies from countries such as Vietnam and China. Theorizing Transition challenges many of the comfortable assumptions unleashed by the euphoria of democratisation and the triumphalism of market capitalism in the early 1990s and shows transition to be much more complex than mainstream theory suggests.

Lost in Transition

Lost in Transition PDF

Author: Kristen Ghodsee

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2011-09-14

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0822351021

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Through ethnographic essays and short stories based on her experiences in Eastern Europe between 1989 and 2009, Kristen Ghodsee explains why many Eastern Europeans are nostalgic for the communist past.

Transition in Afghanistan

Transition in Afghanistan PDF

Author: William Maley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-04-17

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1351389769

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book, by one of the most experienced authorities on the subject, presents a deep analysis of the very difficult current situation in Afghanistan. Covering a wide range of important subjects including state-building, democracy, war, the rule of law, and international relations, the book draws out two overarching key factors: the way in which the prevailing neopatrimonial political order has become entrenched, making it very difficult for any other political order to take root; and the hostile region in which Afghanistan is located, especially the way in which an ongoing ‘creeping invasion’ from Pakistani territory has compromised the aspirations of both the Afghan government and its international backers to move the country to a more stable position.