Wiki Government

Wiki Government PDF

Author: Beth Simone Noveck

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2009-08-01

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0815703465

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Collaborative democracy—government with the people—is a new vision of governance in the digital age. Wiki Government explains how to translate the vision into reality. Beth Simone Noveck draws on her experience in creating Peer-to-Patent, the federal government's first social networking initiative, to show how technology can connect the expertise of the many to the power of the few. In the process, she reveals what it takes to innovate in government. Launched in 2007, Peer-to-Patent connects patent examiners to volunteer scientists and technologists via the web. These dedicated but overtaxed officials decide which of the million-plus patent applications currently in the pipeline to approve. Their decisions help determine which start-up pioneers a new industry and which disappears without a trace. Patent examiners have traditionally worked in secret, cut off from essential information and racing against the clock to rule on lengthy, technical claims. Peer-to-Patent broke this mold by creating online networks of self-selecting citizen experts and channeling their knowledge and enthusiasm into forms that patent examiners can easily use. Peer-to-Patent shows how policymakers can improve decisionmaking by harnessing networks to public institutions. By encouraging, coordinating, and structuring citizen participation, technology can make government both more open and more effective at solving today's complex social and economic problems. Wiki Government describes how this model can be applied in a wide variety of settings and offers a fundamental rethinking of effective governance and democratic legitimacy for the twenty-first century.

Whither Space Power?

Whither Space Power? PDF

Author: Simon P. Worden

Publisher:

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 9781410219800

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The influence of space power pervades almost every sphere and level of human existence, from politics to military affairs to commercial activities to cultural mind-sets. Yet there is little to be found today in the way of coherent space power doctrine and strategy, particularly in national security circles. To what extent do our national interests rely on space? How shall we defend our interests in space and how shall we deny our adversaries the benefits of space power in time of conflict? How can we control and exploit the space environment? How can we effectively wield space power against the full spectrum of threats -- from the lone terrorist to global peer competitors? What should be our long-range strategy and objectives if our goal is to achieve and maintain long-term space superiority? The purpose of this paper is two fold: first, to illuminate the historical and ever-increasing importance of space in modern society; and second, to prescribe, in view of this importance, the foundations of a strategy for achieving lasting space superiority and ensuring national and world security.

The United Nations and Changing World Politics

The United Nations and Changing World Politics PDF

Author: Thomas G. Weiss

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-10-22

Total Pages: 573

ISBN-13: 1000028925

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This completely revised and updated eighth edition serves as the definitive text for courses in which the United Nations is either the focus or a central component. Built around three critical themes in international relations (peace and security, human rights and humanitarian affairs, and sustainable human development) the eighth edition of The United Nations and Changing World Politics guides students through the seven turbulent decades of UN politics. This new edition is fully revised to incorporate recent developments on the international stage, including new peace operations in Mali and the Central African Republic; ongoing UN efforts to manage the crises in Libya, Syria, and Iraq; the Iran Nuclear Deal; and the new Sustainable Development Goals. The authors discuss how international law frames the controversies at the UN and guides how the UN responds to violence and insecurity, gross violations of human rights, poverty, underdevelopment, and environmental degradation. Students of all levels will learn that the UN is a complex organization, comprised of three interactive entities that cooperate and also compete with each other to define and advance the UN's principles and purposes.

What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It

What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It PDF

Author: Thomas G. Weiss

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2016-09-01

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1509507477

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Seven decades after its establishment, the United Nations and its system of related organizations and programs are perpetually in crisis. While the twentieth-century’s world wars gave rise to ground-breaking efforts at international organization in 1919 and 1945, today’s UN is ill-equipped to deal with contemporary challenges to world order. Neither the end of the Cold War nor the aftermath of 9/11 has led to the “next generation” of multilateral institutions. But what exactly is wrong with the UN that makes it incapable of confronting contemporary global challenges and, more importantly, can we fix it? In this revised and updated third edition of his popular text, leading scholar of global governance Thomas G. Weiss takes a diagnose-and-cure approach to the world organization’s inherent difficulties. In the first half of the book, he considers: the problems of international leadership and decision making in a world of self-interested states; the diplomatic complications caused by the artificial divisions between the industrialized North and the global South; the structural problems of managing the UN’s many overlapping jurisdictions, agencies, and bodies; and the challenges of bureaucracy and leadership. The second half shows how to mitigate these maladies and points the way to a world in which the UN’s institutional ills might be “cured.” Weiss’s remedies are not based on pious hopes of a miracle cure for the UN, but rather on specific and encouraging examples that could be replicated. With considered optimism and in contrast to received wisdom, he contends that substantial change is both plausible and possible.

Wartime Origins and the Future United Nations

Wartime Origins and the Future United Nations PDF

Author: Dan Plesch

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-01-09

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1134668805

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The creation of the UN system during World War II is a largely unknown or forgotten story among contemporary decision makers, international relations specialists, and policy analysts. This book aims to recover the wartime history of the United Nations and explore how the forgotten past can shed light on a possible and more desirable future. To achieve this, each chapter takes three snapshots: "Then," the imaginative and transnational thinking about solutions to post-war problems demonstrated a realization that victory in WW II required an intergovernmental "system" with enough power and competence to work—that is, the UN was not established as a liberal plaything and public relations ploy but rather as a vital necessity for post-war order and prosperity. "Now," which often seems a pale imitation of wartime thinking that nonetheless reflects a growing and widespread recognition of the fundamental disconnect between the nature of trans-boundary problems and current solutions seen as feasible by 193 UN member states. "Next steps," or the collective wisdom about the range of new thinking and new institutions that, in fact, may well have antecedents in wartime thinking and experimentation and could be labelled blue-prints for a "third generation" of intergovernmental organizations. This work will be essential reading for all students and scholars of the United Nations, International Organizations and Global Governance.

International Bureaucracy

International Bureaucracy PDF

Author: Michael W. Bauer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-10-26

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1349949779

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book applies established analytical concepts such as influence, authority, administrative styles, autonomy, budgeting and multilevel administration to the study of international bureaucracies and their political environment. It reflects on the commonalities and differences between national and international administrations and carefully constructs the impact of international administrative tools on policy making. The book shows how the study of international bureaucracies can fertilize interdisciplinary discourse, in particular between International Relations, Comparative Government and Public Administration. The book makes a forceful argument for Public Administration to take on the challenge of internationalization.