Books published by Palgrave MacMillan

This book provides an overview of the importance of science, technology, and innovation in the history of economic thought. It charts how science has responded to societal needs and global challenges to highlight the way in which knowledge and technology have been used to benefit society. Particular attention is given to modern concerns, such as climate change, technological unemployment, and social unrest, which are contextualised within the work of the Scottish Enlightenment, Marx, Weber, and Schumpeter. Broader debates, including the relationship between invention and economic development, the alienation of labour, and institutional change, are also considered. This book aims to shed new light on our understanding of science, technology, and innovation by placing them within ideas from the history of economic thought. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in the history of economic thought and the economics of innovation and technology.

Although historically ignored, crime victims are now very firmly on the map. For politicians, newspapers, the media and the public at large, criminal injury and loss are a source of constant concern and anxiety. Criminologists and media analysts have studied much of this concern in recent years but what has not been investigated is how communities experience high profile crimes and the media intrusion that inevitably follows. This book seeks to address this gap by exploring how the communities of Soham and Dunblane, that witnessed high profile crimes, lived with the tragic events at the time and the attention of the world's media afterwards.Based on a two-year qualitative study of these communities, this book looks beneath the surface of the relationships, dilemmas and unexpected triumphs of communities struggling to come to terms with the most harrowing of events, within the glare of the media spotlight. Combining empirical observations with media analysis and social theory, this book offers something new to the criminological audience: the concept of the victim community.

This book investigates the concept of freedom as it has been defined by Søren Kierkegaard and some of existentialism¿s major figures, including Jean-Paul Sartre. In an attempt to delineate an ontology of the human condition, special emphasis is placed on the ideas of choice, responsibility, and transcendence. The second part of the book focuses on existential freedom in what has been its most radical formulation by Sartre. A translation of Il sentimento paralizzante del possibile. La vertigine della libertà in Kierkegaard e Sartre (2022), this book brings cutting-edge contemporary Italian philosophy to English readers.

The book brings together media scholars and practitioners to deliberate on the role and influence of radio broadcasting in South Africa over the past 100 years. The publication will add to the existing body of knowledge on radio in this context by being among one of the few to consider radio broadcasting in South Africa. Essentially, the book will make a distinct contribution by providing the following: a historical account of the development of the sector, an in-depth look at some of the key people and institutions that have shaped the sector, and a critique of the medium¿s role in community-building and culture making among others. While the book will provide relevant theoretical frameworks, it also aims to include the voices of media practitioners who can reflect on the importance of this medium from a more realistic perspective. Volume 1 focuses on South African radio stations and broadcasters in the past and present.

This book envisions the future of resilient finance and the societal value of responsible investment. Capturing the Zeitgeist of our post-pandemic new Renaissance, the book describes the contemporary use of economics to improve environmental conditions, widen access to health care, and foster social justice. The Future of Resilient Finance helps students, research scholars, and interdisciplinary global governance practitioners understand resiliency management through strategic finance and responsible economics as a politics and international relations tool. The new age of resilient finance captures monetary means as a source of politics, diplomacy, and international aid. The current outpouring of rescue and recovery funds is portrayed as new generation of resilient finance aimed at peace and prosperity for humankind. The integration of environmental, social, and governance criteria in portfolio choices is covered to grant sustainable value offinance for society.

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 explains how competing accounts of epistêmê, rational wisdom, and truth dominated classical antiquity. Early Christian and mediaeval thinkers, in contrast, favoured fortitude founded on faith and fear of God over philosophical reasoning left to its own devices. Volume 2 turns to theories of courage from the early modern period to the present. It shows how the twin laws of polis and physis are at the heart of post-medieval thought. Courage is found at the crossroads of love and dread, freedom and fate, happiness and suffering, as well as power and submission to the ruling order. The later influence of evolutionism, existentialism, and the social and natural sciences on moral philosophy is also addressed at some length. The protection of people's best interests, the passions and powers of the human will, and the rule of active energy in all aspects of life supplant courage formerly viewed through the lens of reason or faith, or a combination of the two. These new ideas, paradoxically, herald the end of the ethics of courage. They also undermine the courage of ethical thinking. Courage is no longer an end in itself, nor is it a means to happiness "at the end." Regardless of what Gandhi, Tillich, and Foucault have to say about the topic, late modernity and the global age witness a marked loss of interest in courage as an idea worthy of conceptual investigation. Debates about the moral implications of courage give way to the value-free science of resilience, which studies how people can recover from past trauma and find wellness, primarily in the realm of physis.

This book investigates the compatibility between the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS, hereafter) and divine free action primarily in the works of Avicenna and Anselm with an analytical approach. The book has three main objectives: (1) to thoroughly analyse both philosophers' views on DDS, divine free will, and their compatibility; (2) to put them into the context of the contemporary discourse of the philosophy of religion, by investigating whether it is possible to have freedom without the ability to do otherwise (as proposed by both philosophers for divine free will) with a reference to the prominent contemporary discussions initiated by Harry Frankfurt's counterexamples; and (3) to show the plausibility of the agent-causal view for divine freedom (as defended by Anselm and Avicenna) by briefly sketching an alternative account based on Anselmian intuitions (the meta-awareness account) which can avoid the reasons-explanation objection and the luck objection against the libertarian agent-causal view.

Presents a series of case studies that illustrate how cities, states, nations and regions of differing climates, lifestyles and income-levels have implemented policies to reduce water-energy-food nexus pressures Discusses the components of the food-water-energy nexus and the pressures it faces from rapid economic growth and climate change Provides a review of the various fiscal and non-fiscal tools available for reducing the global demand on the water, energy and food sectors

This Open Access book offers a model of the human subject as complicit in the systems that structure human society and the human psyche which draws together clinical research with theory from both psychology and the humanities to advance a more social just theory and practice. Beginning from the premise that we cannot separate ourselves from the systems that precede and formulate us as subjects, the author argues that, in reckoning with this complicity, a model of subjectivity can be created that moves beyond binaries and identity politics. In doing so, the book examines how we might develop a more socially just psychological theory and practice, which is both systems work and intra-psychological work. In bringing together ways of thinking developed in the humanities with clinical psychotherapeutic practice, this book offers one interdisciplinary take on key questions of social and emotional efficacy in action-oriented psychotherapy work.

This book explores the notion of authenticity in leaders and examines how authentic leadership is supported by emotional intelligence (EI), resiliency, and mindfulness. In identifying mindfulness as a key to developing self-awareness along with sincere and transparent relationships with others, the author argues that mindfulness allows leaders to achieve greater authenticity and moral perspective in their leadership journey. As authentic leadership increases empowerment and inclusion, this work pays particular attention to how mindfulness can help support leaders from hisotrically marginalized communities and women leaders to lead in a way that is more congruent with their identities and values. Understanding the antecedents of authentic leadership in mindfulness and other related psychological constructs will extend research on leadership development. Based on empirical studies, as well as theoretical constructs, this book will appeal to researchers withexpertise in organizational change, diversity and inclusion, strategy, workplace spirituality, and other topics related to leadership.

This wide-ranging book focuses on the economic and political changes that have taken place between the advent of globalization and the COVID-19 pandemic and assesses how this may bring about a profound reconfiguration of the global political system. Sapelli considers a range of developments in different spheres, from international to national politics, military aggressions, and worldwide political trends such as the rise of populism, to illuminate the moment of neoliberal crisis in which we now live. He argues that Europe and its institutions in particular no longer demonstrate a model of diplomacy and statesmanship, with the rise of technocratic structures and elitism reflecting how an ideal of 'global convergence' towards liberalism and democracy no longer holds true. The book then considers how a new international order based on the reason of state can be brought about by global cooperation between the US, Russia and China, along with a return to properly regulated finance and a renewed focus on community in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The book will be of interest to those working in international economics and international relations, as well as academics of economic history and political economy.

What are the impacts of Chinese investment in Africa? Is it transforming economic development on the continent? This book is different from many other studies of this issue, as it unpacks the 'black box' of technological and learning spillover effects from Chinese firms to others. Rather than using econometric tools, which has now become a standard approach and come with their own set of challenges, the authors investigate the interactions between Chinese investors and African firms in terms of the transfer of technology and learning and explain why such interactions are rare. Only by understanding the reasons behind this rarity can approaches be developed to promote spillovers.

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 begins with Homeric poetry and the politics of fearless demi-gods thriving on war. The tales of lion-hearted Heracles, Achilles, and Ulysses, and their tragic fall at the hands of fate, eventually give way to classical views of courage based on competing theories of rational wisdom and truth. Fears of the enemy and anxieties about suffering and death are addressed through the lenses and teachings of medicine, geography, military history, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. For early Christian thinkers, the ethics of fear, fate, and fealty to the Almighty supplant the voice of reason and the wisdom of virtue. Much of Christian doctrine's history is a long journey towards bridging the gap between Greek philosophy and devotion to God and spirits in heaven. Some Church Fathers attempt to dispel the fear of suffering through a joyful craving for martyrdom and the eternal blessings that follow. Others show openness to one or more of the following principles: the abstractions of moral philosophy, the metaphysics of Gnostic enlightenment, the gift of free will and intentionality, the growth of church authority and hegemony, and the intrinsic worth of life on Earth. Augustine, Ambrose, Cassian, and Chrysostom play a central role in revisiting the foundations of Christian fortitude along some or all of these lines. They lay the groundwork for the scholastic adaptations of faith-based rationalism proposed by Peter Lombard, Philip the Chancellor, Albert the Great, and Thomas of Aquinas. The mediaeval period ends with church dissidents and Protestant Reform leaders condemning Rome's corruption and calling for a return to early Christian faith and the courage of godly fear, submission, suffering, and fate.

This book explores the issues around small business and entrepreneurial activities in Africa within the context of frequent collapse of businesses, seizures by governments, lack of access to capital and raw materials as well as the reliance on the informal sector. All these issues, the Editors argue, have been exacerbated by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, entrepreneurship must be at the heart of efforts to transform Africa's economic prospects to ensure sustained economic growth and decent work for all. In looking at the development of entrepreneurship for Africa's growth, contributors to this edited collection take an evolutionary approach by focusing on entrepreneurial intentions (where entrepreneurial ideas are formed), customer management (which is central to all entrepreneurial business success) and by also focusing on local and entrepreneurial business development. The book then ends with a discussion around technological innovations in small business development in Africa. Covering topics such as social entrepreneurship, international joint ventures and the impact of digital platforms, this conceptual path provides rich contemporary insights for students, researchers, and policy makers and contributes to the achievement of SDG 8 targets.

This book is an exploration of the intellectual resources offered by the hybridisation of sociology and cinema: practicing sociology, or other human sciences, through images and sound. In the age of the image, the book invites sociological research, not only through the discipline's approach, but also through the joint learning of techniques (shooting and sound recording, derushing, editing, etc.) and film writing. Using concrete examples, the authors analyse what it means to think through the image, explain the different phases of making a sociological documentary, and question, through sociological film, the representations of reality and, more specifically, what remains invisible in the social world. The result is a reflective look at the theories and practices presented, to better equip the sociologist-filmmaker. Illustrated with numerous photographs that mark the history of documentary photography and film, the book is intended for both teachers-researchers and students in all disciplines of the humanities and social sciences who practice video and photography or wish to discover their uses. Students in documentary and film schools, as well as students on information and communication programs will also benefit from the book.

This book explores how two generations of relatively privileged Australian men have navigated the complex terrain of same-gender friendship across their lives, to offer both empirically unique and theoretically significant insights into the mechanics of social change in masculinities. Applying a feminist poststructuralist lens to data from in-depth interviews with 14 pairs of fathers and sons, it details how masculinist discourses of emotion and intimacy have governed the participants' friendship practices at three chronological timepoints: fathers' early lives and later lives, and sons' early lives. A clear but complicated shift emerges, such that the commitment to stoicism and self-reliance dominant in the fathers' early lives has given way to a growing embrace of intimacy and emotional expression within their and their son's contemporary same-gender friendships. Engaging with key debates in the field of critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM), this book offers an alternative to the conceptualisation of this positive change as either representative of a holistic disintegration of hegemonic structures, or a superficial behavioural shift that is largely inconsequential to the gender order. Rather, it illustrates that the increasing influence of feminist, queer-inclusion and therapeutic discourse has destabilised masculinism in the context of men's friendships, offering men an alternative subject position that allows care, expressiveness and intimacy. This book will be of interest to scholars in Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Masculinity Studies.

This book examines systems and practices of public service education and training in an international context. Focusing especially on Europe, but also with chapters on Australia, the United States and Canada, it provides a comparative analysis of the implementation, functioning and impact of public service training and education from the nineteenth century to the present. In doing so, the book highlights two key influential factors: national political-administrative traditions and administrative tasks imposed by social, political, and economic change. It furthers our knowledge of the role of the state, both as an employer and as the implementer of public policy, and demonstrates how historical analysis can be utilised to inform present debates about public service training, government reform and good governance. This book will appeal to practitioners, as well as all those interested in public administration and its history, governance, public management, bureaucracy, and civil service reform.

The book provides a comprehensive and updated introduction to concept of territory in the study of democratic politics. Territory plays a rather marginal role in the traditional conceptions of democracy that in many ways still prevail today. Democratic politics is often analysed from the point of view of its institutions, citizens and voters, while little is said about the territory through which it is expressed - at most it provides a broader perimeter or context of political and institutional action. The book offers, instead, an introductory theoretically-oriented discussion of crucial issues such as the genesis of state-nation, the transformation of democratic citizenship, the current borders' policies, the rising of territorial populism and the experience of 19-covid pandemic.This is an open access book.

In his book, Andreas Urs Sommer reflects on the question of what it really means when everybody's appealing to values, all the time - the question, fundamentally, of what values actually are. Values explores both of these points, arriving at two intriguing suggestions: Maybe what we call values are just a set of elaborate fictions. And maybe those fictions serve some very important purposes.

Traditionally, philosophers have argued that epistemology is a normative discipline and therefore occupied with an a priori analysis of the necessary and sufficient conditions that a belief must fulfill to be acceptable as knowledge. But such an approach makes sense only if human knowledge has some normative features, which conceptual analysis is able to disclose. As it turns out, philosophers have not been able to find such features unless they are very selective in their choice of examples of knowledge. Much of what we intuitively think functions as knowledge, both in human and non-human animals, does not share these normative features.The purpose of this book is to demonstrate that natural selection has adapted human sense impressions to deliver reliable information without meeting the traditional commitments for having knowledge. In connection with memory, sensory and bodily information provides an animal with experiential knowledge. Experiential knowledge helps an animal to navigate its environment. Moreover, experiential knowledge has different functions depending on whether the deliverance of information stems from the organism's external or internal senses.

This book discusses and analyses global policies and practices aimed at promoting equity in higher education participation and attainment. Although the massification of higher education systems has facilitated the participation of students from deprived backgrounds, socioeconomic inequalities persist in access to the most prestigious institutions and programmes. Privileged students benefit from a number of advantages in the competition for selective and scarce places: access to information, lower aversion to debt, higher expectations, better previous schooling and higher academic achievement. The chapters present a critical analysis of equity policies in different countries - with or without affirmative action policies, within a context of neoliberal policies or within a social democratic model - and the reasons why they have failed to promote equity and fairness, preventing students from achieving their full educational potential.This is an open access book.

This book explores the challenges that multilateralism faces today and questions the idea of a 'crisis' of multilateral cooperation and international organizations. It accounts for the pressures on and power shifts in multilateralism in recent years - such as the war in Syria, the Covid-19 pandemic, challenges for NATO, the erosion of multilateral norms, the transition from Trump to Biden, the rise of China, the post-Brexit European Union, and the mobilization of countries from the South. The authors illustrate the resilience of multilateralism and lessons learned from the WTO, UN Women, International Organizations' Secretariats and global environmental governance. Written in part by members of the Research Group on Multilateral Action (GRAM), this volume argues that 'crisis' should not be considered a pathology but the 'matrix' of multilateralism, which is more resilient than commonly thought. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of International Relations, globalgovernance, and international organizations.

This book proposes a radical reorganization of political and electoral power to address the current political imbalance between urban and rural populations in the United States. Hogan argues that, despite being smaller in population, a "financialist-ruralist coalition" has effectively used the Constitution--especially equal representation in the Senate--to create an anti-urban "vetocracy." This political imbalance protects the interests of the financial elite and rural cultural conservatives, while effectively blocking urban interests, particularly regarding the adoption of a broad range of structural reforms and progressive policy preferences. By re-dividing many of the largest federated states into smaller city-states, the book posits, the United States would reduce the ability of non-urban interests to control the Senate. This would allow an empowered urbanite alliance to pass the forward-looking legislation the nation needs to remain internationally competitive in the coming decades.

How does the dominant understanding(s) of the demo(i)cratic subject in the EU, and of democracy more broadly, shape the EU's democratic innovations on 'citizen participation'? What are the politically and normatively preferable alternatives, both in terms of the conceptualisation of the democratic subject in the EU and in the ensuing political practices? The book addresses these questions combining a political theory with a political sociology perspective, contrasting the 'democracy without politics' approach of the EU in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe with that of ongoing transnational activist processes. In doing so, it develops an agonistic alternative to 'the people(s)' as the political imaginary of democracy in the EU, which is based on the idea of the 'decolonial multitude'. Thus, the book puts forward a diagnosis of current debates on EU democratic legitimacy as well as proposing an alternative.

Engineering Reality offers unprecedented insights into the power of environmental impact assessments in engineering a reality favourable to any investment, focusing on the highly contested environmental study of a large hydroelectric dam project in southern Colombia, El Quimbo. The inclusion of environmental impact assessments to project proposals of environmental influence has been an undeniably important step to environmental governance in many countries around the world. Regarding the science behind these studies as objective and their results as the closest in representing reality, however, is misleading. Many activists and scholars made it their mission to uncover the limitations and work towards filling the gaps. Participation processes are considered key to any successful evaluation, but local knowledges and alternative perspectives are still often disqualified through more widely accepted scientific methods. Engineering Reality systematically walks through andaccounts for the shortcomings and injustices associated with environmental monitoring. It compares the reality as presented in the dam's environmental impact study with first-hand accounts from the local and affected populations and observations gathered through two periods of fieldwork in 2012 (before) and 2016-17 (after the dam started operating). It explores how the knowledge of the study was used politically and to what end. Bringing the findings in conversation with the wider environmental impact assessment literature, the book proposes a new framework to assess energy projects -Energy Data Justice- that regards the environmental impact assessment a strictly political tool aimed at reaching the just energy transition in Colombia and worldwide.

This book examines the history of the French welfare state from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. The French social security system has changed profoundly over the last few decades. The Bismarkian model of governance and social protection inherited from the Second World War has progressively faded away in favor of a reinforcement of the state's capacity to intervene on policies and the implementation of national health insurance coverage. In order to understand this major transformation, this book draws on rich original sources to offer a historical and sociological perspective on elite policymakers and policy change. In doing so, it identifies correlations between the changing social backgrounds and career paths of elites in charge of social insurance policies since the 1940s, and the development of health policy programs. It will appeal to all those interested in public policy, health policy, social studies and French history and politics.

This book explores how our temperamental proclivities interact with our political leanings, shedding light on why people perceive the world differently. Focusing on the Five Factor Model of personality, currently the most popular framework in psychology research, the text unpacks the literature on the association between political orientations and personality traits. While only part of the puzzle, growing evidence suggests personality traits have a significant impact on our political convictions and voting patterns. In some instances, certain traits may even make individuals more prone to holding authoritarian and prejudicial views. Understanding these dynamics can help people better navigate political differences and conflicts, and will be of interest to students of personality psychology and students of political ideologies.

This book discusses state-periphery relations from the view-point of a reindeer husbandry community in the Russian Far North (Murmansk Region). The time is the current period of Putin-led Russia. The analysis is based on the premise that the mode of current top-power governance can be described as selective de-centralization. Below a certain level of state power interests, conflicts get resolved in favour of local communities. That gains support for the supreme leadership, and reproduces a Soviet-like reality. Termed sovkhoism, the latter holds the Soviet state-farm (sovkhoz) as creating an ideal socio-economic environment. When issues are of significant interest to superior power, selection favours cavalier bypassing of people-friendly concerns. At this level, power acts in an authoritarian mode, favouring the interests of state power structures in conjunction with the upper tiers of the loyal oligarchate. It is shown how this governing mode contains significant potential for escalating centre vs. periphery tensions.

This book explores the increasing role of private providers in early childhood education and care (ECEC) as they become a core part of the Nordic welfare model--one that once rejected for-profit involvement in public welfare. Within this context, ECEC has become the key battleground over private providers' role in the welfare system. Chapters compare five Nordic countries: Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, to discuss possible benefits from having different types of providers--public, nonprofit, and for-profit--in the welfare mix. To conclude, the authors also provide a comparative perspective on governance of the ECEC sector and on the development and functions of the Nordic welfare model.

Digital transformation involves the union of technological change and innovative technologies and is about constant innovation, evolution and acceleration. While it is true that technology is an enabler of digital transformation, transformation often involves people, process, and technology. This collected volume addresses organizational challenges and pitfalls experienced during the implementation of, and experimentation with, digital transformation. The collection reveals examples, experiences, and best practices in the business sector where the grounds of digital transformation were set. The contributors provide taxonomies as well as historical points of digital transformation in the business sector, along with their impact on selected corporate entities, as well as including cases and best practices from industry leaders. The interrelation among people, technology needs, and organizational structures are the major themes of this edited book. It will be of great value to students and scholars of digital business, innovation, strategic management and sustainability.