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How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare
Par Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Ali Vaez. 2024
Sanctions have enormous consequences. Especially when imposed by a country with the economic influence of the United States, sanctions induce…
clear shockwaves in both the economy and political culture of the targeted state, and in the everyday lives of citizens. But do economic sanctions induce the behavioral changes intended? Do sanctions work in the way they should? To answer these questions, the authors of How Sanctions Work highlight Iran, the most sanctioned country in the world. Comprehensive sanctions are meant to induce uprisings or pressures to change the behavior of the ruling establishment, or to weaken its hold on power. But, after four decades, the case of Iran shows the opposite to be true: sanctions strengthened the Iranian state, impoverished its population, increased state repression, and escalated Iran's military posture toward the U.S. and its allies in the region. Instead of offering an 'alternative to war,' sanctions have become a cause of war. Consequently, How Sanctions Work reveals how necessary it is to understand how sanctions really work.Agents of Apocalypse: Epidemic Disease in the Colonial Philippines
Par Ken De Bevoise. 1995
As waves of epidemic disease swept the Philippines in the late nineteenth century, some colonial physicians began to fear that…
the indigenous population would be wiped out. Many Filipinos interpreted the contagions as a harbinger of the Biblical Apocalypse. Though the direct forebodings went unfulfilled, Philippine morbidity and mortality rates were the world's highest during the period 1883-1903. In Agents of Apocalypse, Ken De Bevoise shows that those "mourning years" resulted from a conjunction of demographic, economic, technological, cultural, and political processes that had been building for centuries. The story is one of unintended consequences, fraught with tragic irony.De Bevoise uses the Philippine case study to explore the extent to which humans participate in creating their epidemics. Interpreting the archival record with conceptual guidance from the health sciences, he sets tropical disease in a historical framework that views people as interacting with, rather than acting within, their total environment. The complexity of cause-effect and agency-structure relationships is thereby highlighted. Readers from fields as diverse as Spanish, American, and Philippine history, medical anthropology, colonialism, international relations, Asian studies, and ecology will benefit from De Bevoise's insights into the interdynamics of historical processes that connect humans and their diseases.Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring
Par Frances Rosenbluth, Michael F. Thies. 2010
With little domestic fanfare and even less attention internationally, Japan has been reinventing itself since the 1990s, dramatically changing its…
political economy, from one managed by regulations to one with a neoliberal orientation. Rebuilding from the economic misfortunes of its recent past, the country retains a formidable economy and its political system is healthier than at any time in its history. Japan Transformed explores the historical, political, and economic forces that led to the country's recent evolution, and looks at the consequences for Japan's citizens and global neighbors. The book examines Japanese history, illustrating the country's multiple transformations over the centuries, and then focuses on the critical and inexorable advance of economic globalization. It describes how global economic integration and urbanization destabilized Japan's postwar policy coalition, undercut the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's ability to buy votes, and paved the way for new electoral rules that emphasized competing visions of the public good. In contrast to the previous system that pitted candidates from the same party against each other, the new rules tether policymaking to the vast swath of voters in the middle of the political spectrum. Regardless of ruling party, Japan's politics, economics, and foreign policy are on a neoliberal path. Japan Transformed combines broad context and comparative analysis to provide an accurate understanding of Japan's past, present, and future.In brute-force struggles for survival, such as the two World Wars, disorganization and divisions within an enemy alliance are to…
one's own advantage. However, most international security politics involve coercive diplomacy and negotiations short of all-out war. Worse Than a Monolith demonstrates that when states are engaged in coercive diplomacy--combining threats and assurances to influence the behavior of real or potential adversaries--divisions, rivalries, and lack of coordination within the opposing camp often make it more difficult to prevent the onset of conflict, to prevent existing conflicts from escalating, and to negotiate the end to those conflicts promptly. Focusing on relations between the Communist and anti-Communist alliances in Asia during the Cold War, Thomas Christensen explores how internal divisions and lack of cohesion in the two alliances complicated and undercut coercive diplomacy by sending confusing signals about strength, resolve, and intent. In the case of the Communist camp, internal mistrust and rivalries catalyzed the movement's aggressiveness in ways that we would not have expected from a more cohesive movement under Moscow's clear control. Reviewing newly available archival material, Christensen examines the instability in relations across the Asian Cold War divide, and sheds new light on the Korean and Vietnam wars. While recognizing clear differences between the Cold War and post-Cold War environments, he investigates how efforts to adjust burden-sharing roles among the United States and its Asian security partners have complicated U.S.-China security relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union.The contemporary world is increasingly defined by dizzying flows of people and ideas. But while Western travel is associated with…
a pioneering spirit of discovery, the dominant image of Muslim mobility is the jihadi who travels not to learn but to destroy. Journeys to the Other Shore challenges these stereotypes by charting the common ways in which Muslim and Western travelers negotiate the dislocation of travel to unfamiliar and strange worlds. In Roxanne Euben's groundbreaking excursion across cultures, geography, history, genre, and genders, travel signifies not only a physical movement across lands and cultures, but also an imaginative journey in which wonder about those who live differently makes it possible to see the world differently. In the book we meet not only Herodotus but also Ibn Battuta, the fourteenth-century Moroccan traveler. Tocqueville's journeys are set against a five-year sojourn in nineteenth-century Paris by the Egyptian writer and translator Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawi, and Montesquieu's novel Persian Letters meets with the memoir of an East African princess, Sayyida Salme. This extraordinary book shows that curiosity about the unknown, the quest to understand foreign cultures, critical distance from one's own world, and the desire to remake the foreign into the familiar are not the monopoly of any single civilization or epoch. Euben demonstrates that the fluidity of identities, cultures, and borders associated with our postcolonial, globalized world has a long history--one shaped not only by Western power but also by an Islamic ethos of travel in search of knowledge.After Colonialism offers a fresh look at the history of colonialism and the changes in knowledge, disciplines, and identities produced…
by the imperial experience. Ranging across disciplines--from history to anthropology to literary studies--and across regions--from India to Palestine to Latin America to Europe--the essays in this volume reexamine colonialism and its aftermath. Leading literary scholars, historians, and anthropologists engage with recent theories and perspectives in their specific studies, showing the centrality of colonialism in the making of the modern world and offering postcolonial reflections on the effects and experience of empire. The contributions cross historical analysis of texts with textual examination of historical records and situate metropolitan cultural practices in engagements with non-metropolitan locations. Interdisciplinarity here means exploring and realigning disciplinary boundaries. Contributors to After Colonialism include Edward Said, Steven Feierman, Joan Dayan, Ruth Phillips, Anthony Pagden, Leonard Blussé, Gauri Viswanathan, Zachary Lockman, Jorge Klor de Alva, Irene Silverblatt, Emily Apter, and Homi Bhabha.From seaweed-wrapped maki rolls to tuna-topped nigiri, dive into this celebration of one of the world's favourite delicaciesThere are few…
foods more recognizble than sushi. Originating in Japan, the iconic fluffy white rice that's topped, wrapped or rolled with beautifully prepared fish and vegetables is an art form as much as it is a meal.This handy pocket guide will give you a taste of the following and much more: Find food for thought with the history of sushi Learn about different kinds of sushi, from the traditional to the modern, and how to eat it Whet your appetite with delicate bites of trivia Discover mouth-watering recipes, allowing you to bring Japan to your very own kitchen Whether you are a curious beginner or a seasoned connoisseur, The Little Book of Sushi will be your handy guide to the bite-sized delicacy which has found favour all over the world.Partnership and Profit in Medieval Islam
Par Abraham L. Udovitch. 1970
From the point of view of economic history, the ideal way to study any institution of commercial law would be…
to compare the information contained in legal codes and treatises with the material relating to its application in economic life as manifested by actual contracts, letters, and business records found in archives and other repositories. In the case of the early centuries of the Islamic period, available sources unfortunately preclude such a procedure. Theoretical legal texts exist in abundance, but any corresponding documentary material is for all practical purposes non-extant. In order to determine if the framework in which the trade and commerce of the early Islamic period was carried on--a trade known to have been active and important--we must of necessity rely on legal treatises for most of our information, which trying wherever possible to call upon whatever meager help other literary sources may provide.In the absence of documentary and similar sources, the possibility of investigating the quantitative aspects of trade is all but eliminated. However, in those areas of trade which have been described as qualitative, such as the variety of goods exchanged, the specialization of the merchant class, and the complexity of business methods, legal and other literary sources provide a great deal of valuable information. It is with the institutions of partnership and commenda in the early Islamic period, two of the qualitative components of trade, that Abraham L. Udovitch makes his primary focus in Partnership and Profit in Medieval Islam.China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society
Par Daniel A. Bell. 2010
What is it like to be a Westerner teaching political philosophy in an officially Marxist state? Why do Chinese sex…
workers sing karaoke with their customers? And why do some Communist Party cadres get promoted if they care for their elderly parents? In this entertaining and illuminating book, one of the few Westerners to teach at a Chinese university draws on his personal experiences to paint an unexpected portrait of a society undergoing faster and more sweeping changes than anywhere else on earth. With a storyteller's eye for detail, Daniel Bell observes the rituals, routines, and tensions of daily life in China. China's New Confucianism makes the case that as the nation retreats from communism, it is embracing a new Confucianism that offers a compelling alternative to Western liberalism. Bell provides an insider's account of Chinese culture and, along the way, debunks a variety of stereotypes. He presents the startling argument that Confucian social hierarchy can actually contribute to economic equality in China. He covers such diverse social topics as sex, sports, and the treatment of domestic workers. He considers the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, wondering whether Chinese overcompetitiveness might be tempered by Confucian civility. And he looks at education in China, showing the ways Confucianism impacts his role as a political theorist and teacher. By examining the challenges that arise as China adapts ancient values to contemporary society, China's New Confucianism enriches the dialogue of possibilities available to this rapidly evolving nation. In a new preface, Bell discusses the challenges of promoting Confucianism in China and the West.The War for Afghanistan: From Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton Shorts #9)
Par Thomas J. Barfield. 2012
When it invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the United States sought to do something previous foreign powers had never attempted: to…
create an Afghani state where none existed. More than a decade on, the new regime in Kabul remains plagued by illegitimacy and ineffectiveness. What happened? As Thomas Barfield shows, the history of previous efforts to build governments in Afghanistan does much to explain the difficulties besetting this newest experiment. Princeton Shorts are brief selections taken from influential Princeton University Press books and produced exclusively in ebook format. Providing unmatched insight into important contemporary issues or timeless passages from classic works of the past, Princeton Shorts enable you to be an instant expert in a world where information is everywhere but quality is at a premium.What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building
Par Noah Feldman. 2004
What do we owe Iraq? America is up to its neck in nation building--but the public debate, focused on getting…
the troops home, devotes little attention to why we are building a new Iraqi nation, what success would look like, or what principles should guide us. What We Owe Iraq sets out to shift the terms of the debate, acknowledging that we are nation building to protect ourselves while demanding that we put the interests of the people being governed--whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, or elsewhere--ahead of our own when we exercise power over them. Noah Feldman argues that to prevent nation building from turning into a paternalistic, colonialist charade, we urgently need a new, humbler approach. Nation builders should focus on providing security, without arrogantly claiming any special expertise in how successful nation-states should be made. Drawing on his personal experiences in Iraq as a constitutional adviser, Feldman offers enduring insights into the power dynamics between the American occupiers and the Iraqis, and tackles issues such as Iraqi elections, the prospect of successful democratization, and the way home. Elections do not end the occupier's responsibility. Unless asked to leave, we must resist the temptation of a military pullout before a legitimately elected government can maintain order and govern effectively. But elections that create a legitimate democracy are also the only way a nation builder can put itself out of business and--eventually--send its troops home. Feldman's new afterword brings the Iraq story up-to-date since the book's original publication in 2004, and asks whether the United States has acted ethically in pushing the political process in Iraq while failing to control the security situation; it also revisits the question of when, and how, to withdraw.As China emerges as an international economic and military power, the world waits to see how the nation will assert…
itself globally. Yet, as M. Taylor Fravel shows in Strong Borders, Secure Nation, concerns that China might be prone to violent conflict over territory are overstated. The first comprehensive study of China's territorial disputes, Strong Borders, Secure Nation contends that China over the past sixty years has been more likely to compromise in these conflicts with its Asian neighbors and less likely to use force than many scholars or analysts might expect. By developing theories of cooperation and escalation in territorial disputes, Fravel explains China's willingness to either compromise or use force. When faced with internal threats to regime security, especially ethnic rebellion, China has been willing to offer concessions in exchange for assistance that strengthens the state's control over its territory and people. By contrast, China has used force to halt or reverse decline in its bargaining power in disputes with its militarily most powerful neighbors or in disputes where it has controlled none of the land being contested. Drawing on a rich array of previously unexamined Chinese language sources, Strong Borders, Secure Nation offers a compelling account of China's foreign policy on one of the most volatile issues in international relations.Iraq: A Political History
Par Adeed Dawisha. 2013
With each day that passed after the 2003 invasion, the United States seemed to sink deeper in the treacherous quicksand…
of Iraq's social discord, floundering in the face of deep ethno-sectarian divisions that have impeded the creation of a viable state and the molding of a unified Iraqi identity. Yet as Adeed Dawisha shows in this superb political history, the story of a fragile and socially fractured Iraq did not begin with the American-led invasion--it is as old as Iraq itself. Dawisha traces the history of the Iraqi state from its inception in 1921 following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and up to the present day. He demonstrates how from the very beginning Iraq's ruling elites sought to unify this ethnically diverse and politically explosive society by developing state governance, fostering democratic institutions, and forging a national identity. Dawisha, who was born and raised in Iraq, gives rare insight into this culturally rich but chronically divided nation, drawing on a wealth of Arabic and Western sources to describe the fortunes and calamities of a state that was assembled by the British in the wake of World War I and which today faces what may be the most serious threat to survival that it has ever known. Featuring Dawisha's insightful new afterword on recent political developments, Iraq is required reading for anyone seeking to make sense of what's going on in Iraq today, and why it has been so difficult to create a viable government there.Turkey has leapt to international prominence as an economic and political powerhouse under its elected Muslim government, and is looked…
on by many as a model for other Muslim countries in the wake of the Arab Spring. In this book, Jenny White reveals how Turkish national identity and the meanings of Islam and secularism have undergone radical changes in today's Turkey, and asks whether the Turkish model should be viewed as a success story or a cautionary tale. This provocative book traces how Muslim nationalists blur the line between the secular and the Islamic, supporting globalization and political liberalism, yet remaining mired in authoritarianism, intolerance, and cultural norms hostile to minorities and women.In a new afterword, White analyzes the latest political developments, particularly the mass protests surrounding Gezi Park, their impact on Turkish political culture, and what they mean for the future.The Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and India
Par Peter van der Veer. 2014
A comparative look at religion and spirituality in postcolonial China and IndiaThe Modern Spirit of Asia challenges the notion that…
modernity in China and India are derivative imitations of the West, arguing that these societies have transformed their ancient traditions in unique and distinctive ways. Peter van der Veer begins with nineteenth-century imperial history, exploring how Western concepts of spirituality, secularity, religion, and magic were used to translate the traditions of India and China. He traces how modern Western notions of religion and magic were incorporated into the respective nation-building projects of Chinese and Indian nationalist intellectuals, yet how modernity in China and India is by no means uniform. While religion is a centerpiece of Indian nationalism, it is viewed in China as an obstacle to progress that must be marginalized and controlled.The Modern Spirit of Asia moves deftly from Kandinsky's understanding of spirituality in art to Indian yoga and Chinese qi gong, from modern theories of secularism to histories of Christian conversion, from Orientalist constructions of religion to Chinese campaigns against magic and superstition, and from Muslim Kashmir to Muslim Xinjiang. Van der Veer, an outspoken proponent of the importance of comparative studies of religion and society, eloquently makes his case in this groundbreaking examination of the spiritual and the secular in China and India.An Economist Biggest Book of the YearHow commerce determines whether America preserves the peace or goes to warWhen the Cold…
War ended, many believed that expanding trade would usher in an era of peace. Yet today the United States finds itself confronting not just Russia in Europe but China in the Indo-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America. Shedding new light on how trade both reduces and increases the risks of international crisis, A World Safe for Commerce traces how, since the nation&’s founding, the United States has consistently moved from peace to conflict when the commerce needed for national security is under threat.Dale Copeland shows how commerce pushes the United States and its rivals to expand their spheres of influence for access to goods even as they worry about provoking a breakdown in trade relations that could spiral into military conflict. Taking readers from the wars with Britain in 1776 and 1812 to World War II and the Cold War, he describes how America&’s leaders have grappled with this inherent tension, and why they have shifted, sometimes dramatically, from peaceful, mutually beneficial policies to coercion and force in order to increase control over vital trade and prevent economic decline.A World Safe for Commerce reveals how trade competition could lead the United States and China into full-scale confrontation. But it also offers hope that both sides can work to improve their overall trade expectations and foster the confidence needed for long-term peace and stability.Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context
Par Daniel A. Bell. 2006
Is liberal democracy appropriate for East Asia? In this provocative book, Daniel Bell argues for morally legitimate alternatives to Western-style…
liberal democracy in the region. Beyond Liberal Democracy, which continues the author's influential earlier work, is divided into three parts that correspond to the three main hallmarks of liberal democracy--human rights, democracy, and capitalism. These features have been modified substantially during their transmission to East Asian societies that have been shaped by nonliberal practices and values. Bell points to the dangers of implementing Western-style models and proposes alternative justifications and practices that may be more appropriate for East Asian societies. If human rights, democracy, and capitalism are to take root and produce beneficial outcomes in East Asia, Bell argues, they must be adjusted to contemporary East Asian political and economic realities and to the values of nonliberal East Asian political traditions such as Confucianism and Legalism. Local knowledge is therefore essential for realistic and morally informed contributions to debates on political reform in the region, as well as for mutual learning and enrichment of political theories. Beyond Liberal Democracy is indispensable reading for students and scholars of political theory, Asian studies, and human rights, as well as anyone concerned about China's political and economic future and how Western governments and organizations should engage with China.Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China
Par Mary Elizabeth Gallagher. 2005
One of the core assumptions of recent American foreign policy is that China's post-1978 policy of "reform and openness" will…
lead to political liberalization. This book challenges that assumption and the general relationship between economic liberalization and democratization. Moreover, it analyzes the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization on Chinese labor politics. Market reforms and increased integration with the global economy have brought about unprecedented economic growth and social change in China during the last quarter of a century. Contagious Capitalism contends that FDI liberalization played several roles in the process of China's reforms. First, it placed competitive pressure on the state sector to produce more efficiently, thus necessitating new labor practices. Second, it allowed difficult and politically sensitive labor reforms to be extended to other parts of the economy. Third, it caused a reformulation of one of the key ideological debates of reforming socialism: the relative importance of public industry. China's growing integration with the global economy through FDI led to a new focus of debate--away from the public vs. private industry dichotomy and toward a nationalist concern for the fate of Chinese industry. In comparing China with other Eastern European and Asian economies, two important considerations come into play, the book argues: China's pattern of ownership diversification and China's mode of integration into the global economy. This book relates these two factors to the success of economic change without political liberalization and addresses the way FDI liberalization has affected relations between workers and the ruling Communist Party. Its conclusion: reform and openness in this context resulted in a strengthened Chinese state, a weakened civil society (especially labor), and a delay in political liberalization.The English East India Company was one of the most powerful and enduring organizations in history. Between Monopoly and Free…
Trade locates the source of that success in the innovative policy by which the Company's Court of Directors granted employees the right to pursue their own commercial interests while in the firm’s employ. Exploring trade network dynamics, decision-making processes, and ports and organizational context, Emily Erikson demonstrates why the English East India Company was a dominant force in the expansion of trade between Europe and Asia, and she sheds light on the related problems of why England experienced rapid economic development and how the relationship between Europe and Asia shifted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Though the Company held a monopoly on English overseas trade to Asia, the Court of Directors extended the right to trade in Asia to their employees, creating an unusual situation in which employees worked both for themselves and for the Company as overseas merchants. Building on the organizational infrastructure of the Company and the sophisticated commercial institutions of the markets of the East, employees constructed a cohesive internal network of peer communications that directed English trading ships during their voyages. This network integrated Company operations, encouraged innovation, and increased the Company’s flexibility, adaptability, and responsiveness to local circumstance.Between Monopoly and Free Trade highlights the dynamic potential of social networks in the early modern era.Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice
Par Michael Bonner. 2006
What is jihad? Does it mean violence, as many non-Muslims assume? Or does it mean peace, as some Muslims insist?…
Because jihad is closely associated with the early spread of Islam, today's debate about the origin and meaning of jihad is nothing less than a struggle over Islam itself. In Jihad in Islamic History, Michael Bonner provides the first study in English that focuses on the early history of jihad, shedding much-needed light on the most recent controversies over jihad. To some, jihad is the essence of radical Islamist ideology, a synonym for terrorism, and even proof of Islam's innate violence. To others, jihad means a peaceful, individual, and internal spiritual striving. Bonner, however, shows that those who argue that jihad means only violence or only peace are both wrong. Jihad is a complex set of doctrines and practices that have changed over time and continue to evolve today. The Quran's messages about fighting and jihad are inseparable from its requirements of generosity and care for the poor. Jihad has often been a constructive and creative force, the key to building new Islamic societies and states. Jihad has regulated relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, in peace as well as in war. And while today's "jihadists" are in some ways following the "classical" jihad tradition, they have in other ways completely broken with it. Written for general readers who want to understand jihad and its controversies, Jihad in Islamic History will also interest specialists because of its original arguments.