Invisible Governance

Invisible Governance PDF Author: John Mathiason
Publisher: Kumarian Press
ISBN: 156549220X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
International public servants and their far-reaching secretariats receive little press attention when nation-states take the spotlight in significant international events, which is why author John Mathiason and others commonly refer to them as invisible. But secretariats’ activities are constantly shaping the course of history with inspectors determining whether uranium enrichment in Iran is for peaceful purposes, maintaining surveillance on a possible bird flu epidemic (the World Health Organization), raising alarms about starvation in Zimbabwe (the World Food Programme), or passing judgment on former heads of state and military officers in the Balkans (the United Nations war crimes tribunal). Having served as a member of the United Nations Secretariat for 25 years, author John Mathiason offers a unique behind-the-scenes view, taking readers through of the life and duties of an international public servant. Through personal accounts and extensive knowledge of a variety of international organizations, Mathiason covers the implications of being an influential, but "invisible" entity. He charts the difficulties in documenting scope and accountability, the issues such as disarmament, human rights, and environmental protection that he encountered while serving at the secretariat and charts the history of these dynamic and expansive entities present in every crucial event of the past century. By looking at the international public sector as an actor in its own right, Invisible Governance provides a new perspective on the workings of the international system and tools and approaches for ensuring that the system works effectively and with accountability.

Invisible Governance

Invisible Governance PDF Author: John Mathiason
Publisher: Kumarian Press
ISBN: 156549220X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Get Book

Book Description
International public servants and their far-reaching secretariats receive little press attention when nation-states take the spotlight in significant international events, which is why author John Mathiason and others commonly refer to them as invisible. But secretariats’ activities are constantly shaping the course of history with inspectors determining whether uranium enrichment in Iran is for peaceful purposes, maintaining surveillance on a possible bird flu epidemic (the World Health Organization), raising alarms about starvation in Zimbabwe (the World Food Programme), or passing judgment on former heads of state and military officers in the Balkans (the United Nations war crimes tribunal). Having served as a member of the United Nations Secretariat for 25 years, author John Mathiason offers a unique behind-the-scenes view, taking readers through of the life and duties of an international public servant. Through personal accounts and extensive knowledge of a variety of international organizations, Mathiason covers the implications of being an influential, but "invisible" entity. He charts the difficulties in documenting scope and accountability, the issues such as disarmament, human rights, and environmental protection that he encountered while serving at the secretariat and charts the history of these dynamic and expansive entities present in every crucial event of the past century. By looking at the international public sector as an actor in its own right, Invisible Governance provides a new perspective on the workings of the international system and tools and approaches for ensuring that the system works effectively and with accountability.

The Submerged State

The Submerged State PDF Author: Suzanne Mettler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226521664
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler’s provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them? The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens. Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.” In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market. As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry. Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality. Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms—student aid, tax relief, and health care—to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them. She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans. The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work—or even whether they benefit from them. Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process.

Mao's Invisible Hand

Mao's Invisible Hand PDF Author: Sebastian Heilmann
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684171164
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
"Observers have been predicting the demise of China’s political system since Mao Zedong’s death over thirty years ago. The Chinese Communist state, however, seems to have become increasingly adept at responding to challenges ranging from leadership succession and popular unrest to administrative reorganization, legal institutionalization, and global economic integration. What political techniques and procedures have Chinese policymakers employed to manage the unsettling impact of the fastest sustained economic expansion in world history?As the authors of these essays demonstrate, China’s political system allows for more diverse and flexible input than would be predicted from its formal structures. Many contemporary methods of governance have their roots in techniques of policy generation and implementation dating to the revolution and early PRC—techniques that emphasize continual experimentation. China’s long revolution had given rise to this guerrilla-style decisionmaking as a way of dealing creatively with pervasive uncertainty. Thus, even in a post-revolutionary PRC, the invisible hand of Chairman Mao—tamed, tweaked, and transformed—plays an important role in China’s adaptive governance."

Kupilikula

Kupilikula PDF Author: Harry G. West
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226894053
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
On the Mueda plateau in northern Mozambique, sorcerers are said to feed on their victims, sometimes "making" lions or transforming into lions to literally devour their flesh. When the ruling FRELIMO party subscribed to socialism, it condemned sorcery beliefs and counter-sorcery practices as false consciousness, but since undertaking neoliberal reform, the party—still in power after three electoral cycles—has "tolerated tradition," leaving villagers to interpret and engage with events in the idiom of sorcery. Now, when the lions prowl plateau villages ,suspected sorcerers are often lynched. In this historical ethnography of sorcery, Harry G. West draws on a decade of fieldwork and combines the perspectives of anthropology and political science to reveal how Muedans expect responsible authorities to monitor the invisible realm of sorcery and to overturn or, as Muedans call it, "kupilikula" sorcerers' destructive attacks by practicing a constructive form of counter-sorcery themselves. Kupilikula argues that, where neoliberal policies have fostered social division rather than security and prosperity, Muedans have, in fact, used sorcery discourse to assess and sometimes overturn reforms, advancing alternative visions of a world transformed.

The Invisible Government

The Invisible Government PDF Author: David Wise
Publisher: London, Cape
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description


Invisible War

Invisible War PDF Author: Joy Gordon
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674035713
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The economic sanctions imposed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 were the most comprehensive and devastating of any established in the name of international governance. In a sharp indictment of U.S. policy, Gordon examines the key role the nation played in shaping the sanctions.

The Invisible Crown

The Invisible Crown PDF Author: David E. Smith
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442669128
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
The Crown is not only Canada’s oldest continuing political institution, but also its most pervasive, affecting the operation of Parliament and the legislatures, the executive, the bureaucracy, the courts, and federalism. However, many consider the Crown to be obscure and anachronistic. David E. Smith’s The Invisible Crown was one of the first books to study the role of the Crown in Canada, and remains a significant resource for the unique perspective it offers on the Crown’s place in politics. The Invisible Crown traces Canada’s distinctive form of federalism, with highly autonomous provinces, to the Crown’s influence. Smith concludes that the Crown has greatly affected the development of Canadian politics due to the country’s societal, geographic, and economic conditions. Praised by the Globe and Mail’s Michael Valpy as “a thoroughly lucid, scholarly explanation of how the Canadian constitutional monarchy works,” it is bolstered by a new foreword by the author speaking to recent events involving the Crown and Canadian politics, notably the prorogation of Parliament in 2008.

Invisible Governance

Invisible Governance PDF Author: David Hecht
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780936756530
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Through 500 years of foreign domination, Africa has assimilated the worlds social, religious, and political waste. This volume of short critical pieces examines contemporary African practices that constitute a new form of political training, one that responds imaginatively and often successfully to the dissolution of the state and the legacies of colonialism.

Public Management and the Metagovernance of Hierarchies, Networks and Markets

Public Management and the Metagovernance of Hierarchies, Networks and Markets PDF Author: Louis Meuleman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3790820547
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Public managers can, to a certain extent, choose between various mana- ment paradigms which are provided by public and business administration scholars and by politicians as well. How do they find their way in this c- fusing supermarket of competing ideas? This book explores how public managers in Western bureaucracies deal with the mutually undermining ideas of hierarchical, network and market governance. Do they possess a specific logic of action, a rationale, when they combine and switch - tween these governance styles? This chapter sets the scene for the book as a whole and presents the - search topic and the research question. 1.1 Problem setting Since the Second World War, Western public administration systems have changed drastically. The hierarchical style of governing of the 1950s to the 1970s was partly replaced by market mechanisms, from the 1980s - wards. In the 1990s, a third style of governing, based on networks, further enriched the range of possible steering, coordination and organisation - terventions. In the new millennium, public sector organisations seem to apply complex and varying mixtures of all three styles of what we will - fine as governance in a broad sense. This development has brought about two problems.

Invisible Women

Invisible Women PDF Author: Caroline Criado Perez
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1683353145
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
#1 International Bestseller Winner of the 2019 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Winner of the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize A landmark, prize-winning, international bestselling examination of how a gender gap in data perpetuates bias and disadvantages women, now in paperback Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development to health care to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this insidious bias, in time, in money, and often with their lives. Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates this shocking root cause of gender inequality in the award-winning, #1 international bestseller Invisible Women. Examining the home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more, Criado Perez unearths a dangerous pattern in data and its consequences on women’s lives. Product designers use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to everything from pianos to cell phones to voice recognition software, when in fact this approach is designed to fit men. Cities prioritize men’s needs when designing public transportation, roads, and even snow removal, neglecting to consider women’s safety or unique responsibilities and travel patterns. And in medical research, women have largely been excluded from studies and textbooks, leaving them chronically misunderstood, mistreated, and misdiagnosed. Built on hundreds of studies in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, highly readable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.