Zahariadis offers a theory that explains policymaking when "ambiguity" is present—a state in which there are many ways, often irreconcilable, of thinking about an issue. Expanding and extending John Kingdon's influential "multiple streams" model that explains agenda setting, Zahariadis argues that manipulation, the bending of ideas, process, and beliefs to get what you want out of the policy process, is the key to understanding the dynamics of policymaking in conditions of ambiguity. He takes one of the major theories of public policy to the next step in three different ways: he extends it to a different form of government (parliamentary democracies, where Kingdon looked only at what he called the United States's presidential "organized anarchy" form of government); he examines the entire policy formation process, not just agenda setting; and he applies it to foreign as well as domestic policy.

This book combines theory with cases to illuminate policymaking in a variety of modern democracies. The cases cover economic policymaking in Britain, France, and Germany, foreign policymaking in Greece, all compared to the U.S. (where the model was first developed), and an innovative computer simulation of the policy process.

An essential reference of contemporary Arabic terms for successful business communication

Business Arabic: A Comprehensive Vocabulary contains the key terms professionals and learners need for successful business communication. Useful for translating both from Arabic to English and English to Arabic, this book is packed with more than 2,000 expressions and coinages commonly used in the workplace, including 700 new words for this edition and both American and British terms and spellings. Each thematically organized section includes an alphabetical list of the words and phrases you need to comprehend, translate, write, read, and speak modern business Arabic. Topics include data and communications, finance, insurance, law and contracts, research and production, publicity and marketing, and travel. Business Arabic also includes an English index for easy lookup.

At the edge of mortality there is a place where the seriously ill or dying wait—a place where they may often feel vulnerable or alone. For over forty years, bioethicist cum philosopher Richard Zaner has been at the side of many of those people offering his incalculable gift of listening, and helping to lighten their burdens—not only with his considerable skills, but with his humanity as well.

The narratives Richard Zaner shares in Conversations on the Edge are informed by his depth of knowledge in medicine and bioethics, but are never "clinical." A genuine and caring heart beats underneath his compassionate words. Zaner has written several books in which he tells poignant stories of patients and families he has encountered; there is no question that this is his finest.

In Conversations on the Edge, Zaner reveals an authentic empathy that never borders on the sentimental. Among others, he discusses Tom, a dialysis patient who finally reveals that his inability to work—encouraged by his overprotective mother—is the source of his hostility to treatment; Jim and Sue, young parents who must face the nightmare of letting go of their premature twins, one after the other; Mrs. Oland, whose family refuses to recognize her calm acceptance of her own death; and, in the final chapter, the author's mother, whose slow demise continues to haunt Zaner's professional and personal life.

These stories are filled with pain and joy, loneliness and hope. They are about life and death, about what happens in hospital rooms—and that place at the edge—when we confront mortality. It is the rarest of glimpses into the world of patients, their families, healers, and those who struggle, like Zaner, to understand.

Presenting cutting-edge research in syntax and semantics, this important volume furthers theoretical claims in generative linguistics and represents a significant addition to present scholarship in the field. Leading scholars present crosslinguistic studies dealing with clausal architecture, negation, and tense and aspect, and the issue of whether a statistical model can by itself capture the richness of human linguistic abilities. Taken together, these contributions elegantly show how theoretical tools can propel our understanding of language beyond pretheoretical descriptions, especially when combined with the insight and skills of linguists who can analyze difficult and complex data.

Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics covers a range of topics currently at the center of lively debate in the linguistic literature, such as the structure of the left periphery of the clause, the proper treatment of negative polarity items, and the role of statistical learning in building a model of linguistic competence. The ten original contributions offer an excellent balance of novel empirical description and theoretical analysis, applied to a wide range of languages, including Dutch, German, Irish English, Italian, Malagasy, Malay, and a number of medieval Romance languages. Scholars and students of semantics, syntax, and linguistic theory will find it to be a valuable resource for ongoing scholarship and advanced study.

In this original and provocative book, Nahed Artoul Zehr explores the theological underpinnings of al-Qaeda and related Islamic movements such as ISIS. She demonstrates how this marginal narrative transformed al-Qaeda from a relatively hierarchical and regional organization to a globalized, decentralized, and diffuse system of networks. She draws connections between religious ideas and strategy in her translation and analysis of leading theoretical and tactical jihad text, The Global Islamic Resistance Call, by Mustafa abu Mus’ ab al-Suri.

Just as importantly, she questions al-Qaeda’s understanding of the Islamic tradition on the use of force, arguing that it reflects a weak understanding of this tradition. More specifically, it is al-Qaeda’s (and related groups’) break with this tradition that is key to an al-Qaeda defeat.

Simultaneously, Zehr critiques the US military and policy establishment as it attempts to offer counter-narratives to the al-Qaeda phenomenon that emphasizes “good Muslims” versus “bad Muslims” in order to embrace a “moderate” form of Islam. According to Zehr, this approach is misguided: it is beyond the US government’s purview and expertise to make such theological claims about Islam. Better, she argues, to note the counter-narratives that are coming from within the Muslim community and other nongovernment institutions interested in moving this work forward.

By refocusing our attention on al-Qaeda’s narrative and the various ways thatit is being contested, the book provides an alternate lens from which to viewal-Qaeda and the al-Qaeda phenomenon for Islamic and US foreign policy scholars and students.

Shattering the myths about what’s wrong with managed health care, this penetrating introduction to managed care explains its origins and identifies its real achievements and shortcomings.

Walter A. Zelman and Robert A. Berenson argue that many criticisms of managed care tend to idealize the costly and fragmented insurance system it supplanted, without pinpointing the true inadequacies of today’s managed care. In addition to providing reasoned answers to the most alarmist critiques of managed care, the authors maintain that it has not fulfilled its potential to improve the overall quality of care.

The authors propose thirteen concrete recommendations for raising quality in managed care programs, ranging from enacting additional legal protections and increased disclosure to putting the purchasing power in the hands of those who care most about quality — individuals, rather than employers.

With practical solutions for making managed care better, The Managed Care Blues and How to Cure Them is a bold call for greater consumer protection, knowledge, and power in the health care arena.

Working Mandarin for Beginners is designed to enable English-speaking business students and professionals with no prior knowledge of Chinese to develop the basic communication skills necessary for a business trip to China or another work environment in which Mandarin is spoken.

Major features: • Twenty-four lessons, including five review lessons • Clear objectives for acquiring language skills, grammar, and cultural understanding • Lessons cover important basics such as introductions and greetings, counting, reserving a hotel room, taking public transportation, and asking for directions • Lessons cover business tasks such as coordinating and conducting meetings, selling products, and negotiating agreements—all in Chinese • Lessons provide dialogues and vocabulary lists for reading and listening, language points, cultural points, pronunciation drills, grammar, and interactive homework • Course concludes with a special independent project in which the student applies the language to his or her area of business study • Pinyin is used throughout so students can start speaking Mandarin immediately • Includes some basic lessons in the formation of Chinese characters • Course can be combined with affordable online access to self-grading exercises (available through Quia.com, $24.95 per student for 18 months of access)

Student Book • Includes MP3 tracks of dialogues, vocabulary lists, and audio exercises on CD • Lessons are valuable to the classroom student as well as self-directed independent learners

Teacher's Edition • Includes a CD-ROM with all MP3 tracks of dialogues, vocabulary, and audio exercises found on the students' disk • CD-ROM also provides quizzes and exams (including necessary audio), approximately 300 supplementary PowerPoint slides for classroom use, and creative guidance for conversation practice, mini-immersion, and skit

Online teaching features at Quia.com • Instructor-managed class activities and exercises • Monitoring of student progress • Customized grading options online • Students can complete exercises online, submit their answers electronically to their instructor, and receive automatic feedback • Teachers can also use Quia templates to build their own exercises or use exercises developed by other instructors to provide added help for students • Motivated self-directed learners can also access the self-grading online exercises at Quia.com (no instructor feedback will be provided)

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Student's Edition Textbook/MP3 CD (Mac and PC) • CD drive on a computer or conventional CD player with MP3 capability • MP3 player, such as iTunes, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player • Speakers

Teacher's Edition Textbook/CD-ROM Mac and PC • CD drive on a computer • MP3 player, such as iTunes, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player • speakers • Adobe Acrobat Reader (available as a free download from http:///www.adobe.com) PC • Windows XP • Microsoft Office 2000 or higher with Service Pack 3 installed (Word and PowerPoint are needed to view and edit some files) • Or, to view the PowerPoints only, download Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer 2003 or higher (free from http://www.microsoft.com) • Fonts for PowerPoints: Arial Unicode and Simsun, which are included in all editions of Office 2000/XP/2003 Mac • Microsoft Word, version Office 2004 or higher • Microsoft PowerPoint, version Office 2004 or higher (Word and PowerPoint are needed to view and edit some files); or view the PowerPoints as PDFs • Fonts for PowerPoints: Arial and Simsun, which are included in Office 2004 and higher

Interactive Exercises on Quia (Mac and PC) • Computer with Internet access, preferably a high-speed connection • Java-enabled browser: Internet Explorer 5 or higher, or any version of Firefox or Safari • The program QuickTime (available as a free download from http://www.quicktime.com) • Microphone to record answers or responses

People in many African communities live within a series of concentric circles when it comes to language. In a small group, a speaker uses an often unwritten and endangered mother tongue that is rarely used in school. A national indigenous language—written, widespread, sometimes used in school—surrounds it. An international language like French or English, a vestige of colonialism, carries prestige, is used in higher education, and promises mobility—and yet it will not be well known by its users.

The essays in Languages in Africa explore the layers of African multilingualism as they affect language policy and education. Through case studies ranging across the continent, the contributors consider multilingualism in the classroom as well as in domains ranging from music and film to politics and figurative language. The contributors report on the widespread devaluing and even death of indigenous languages. They also investigate how poor teacher training leads to language-related failures in education. At the same time, they demonstrate that education in a mother tongue can work, linguists can use their expertise to provoke changes in language policies, and linguistic creativity thrives in these multilingual communities.