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This book challenges the notion that there is a single, global process of economic restructuring to which cities must submit. The studies in this volume compare urban development in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan, demonstrating that there is significant variety in urban economic restructuring. The contributors emphasize that the economic forces transforming cities from industrial concentrations to postindustrial service centers do not exist apart from politics: all nation-states are heavily involved in the restructuring process.

Contributors: Pierre Clavel, Susan Fainstein, Richard Child Hill, Nancy Kleniewski, Harvey L. Molotch, Michael Parkinson, Edmond Preteceille, Saskia Sassen, H. V. Savitch, John Walton, and the editors.

In the series Conflicts in Urban and Regional Development, edited by John R. Logan and Todd Swanstrom.

Goedele A. M. De Clerck presents cross-cultural comparative research that examines and documents where deaf flourishing occurs and how it can be advanced. She spotlights collective and dynamic resources of knowledge and learning; the coexistence of lived differences; social, linguistic, cultural, and psychological capital; and human potential and creativity.
       Deaf Epistemologies, Identity, and Learning argues for an inclusive approach to the intrinsic human diversity in society, education, and scholarship, and shows how emotions of hope, frustration, and humiliation contribute to the construction of identity and community. De Clerck also considers global to local dynamics in deaf identity, deaf culture, deaf education, and deaf empowerment. She presents empirical research through case studies of the emancipation processes for deaf people in Flanders (a region of Belgium), the United States (specifically, at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC), and the West African nation of Cameroon. These three settings illuminate different phases of emancipation in different contexts, and the research findings are integrated into a broader literature review and subjected to theoretical reflection.
       De Clerck’s anthropology of deaf flourishing draws from her critical application of the empowerment paradigm in settings of daily life, research, leadership, and community work, as she explores identity and well-being through an interdisciplinary lens. This work is centered around practices of signed storytelling and posits learning as the primary access and pathway to culture, identity, values, and change. Change driven by the learning process is considered an awakening—and through this awakening, the deaf community can gain hope, empowerment, and full citizenship. In this way, deaf people are allowed to shape their histories, and the result is the elevation of all aspects of deaf lives around the world.

The gap between the richest and poorest Americans has grown steadily over the last thirty years, and economic inequality is on the rise in many other industrialized democracies as well. But the magnitude and pace of the increase differs dramatically across nations. A country's political system and its institutions play a critical role in determining levels of inequality in a society. Democracy, Inequality, and Representation argues that the reverse is also true—inequality itself shapes political systems and institutions in powerful and often overlooked ways. In Democracy, Inequality, and Representation, distinguished political scientists and economists use a set of international databases to examine the political causes and consequences of income inequality. The volume opens with an examination of how differing systems of political representation contribute to cross-national variations in levels of inequality. Torben Iverson and David Soskice calculate that taxes and income transfers help reduce the poverty rate in Sweden by over 80 percent, while the comparable figure for the United States is only 13 percent. Noting that traditional economic models fail to account for this striking discrepancy, the authors show how variations in electoral systems lead to very different outcomes. But political causes of disparity are only one part of the equation. The contributors also examine how inequality shapes the democratic process. Pablo Beramendi and Christopher Anderson show how disparity mutes political voices: at the individual level, citizens with the lowest incomes are the least likely to vote, while high levels of inequality in a society result in diminished electoral participation overall. Thomas Cusack, Iverson, and Philipp Rehm demonstrate that uncertainty in the economy changes voters' attitudes; the mere risk of losing one's job generates increased popular demand for income support policies almost as much as actual unemployment does. Ronald Rogowski and Duncan McRae illustrate how changes in levels of inequality can drive reforms in political institutions themselves. Increased demand for female labor participation during World War II led to greater equality between men and women, which in turn encouraged many European countries to extend voting rights to women for the first time. The contributors to this important new volume skillfully disentangle a series of complex relationships between economics and politics to show how inequality both shapes and is shaped by policy. Democracy, Inequality, and Representation provides deeply nuanced insight into why some democracies are able to curtail inequality—while others continue to witness a division that grows ever deeper.

In this pioneering study of democratization in Argentina, Leslie Anderson challenges Robert Putnam’s thesis that democracy requires high levels of social capital. She demonstrates in Democratization by Institutions that formal institutions (e.g., the executive, the legislature, the courts) can serve not only as operational parts within democracy but as the driving force toward democracy.

As Anderson astutely observes, the American founders debated the merits of the institutions they were creating. Examining how, and how well, Argentina’s American-style institutional structure functions, she considers the advantages and risks of the separation of powers, checks and balances, legislative policymaking, and strong presidential power. During the democratic transition, the Argentinian state has used institutions to address immediate policy challenges in ways responsive to citizens and thereby to provide a supportive environment in which social capital can develop.

By highlighting the role that institutions can play in leading a nation out of authoritarianism, even when social capital is low, Anderson begins a new conversation about the possibilities of democratization. Democratization by Institutions has much to say not only to Latin Americanists and scholars of democratization but also to those interested in the U.S. constitutional structure and its application in other parts of the world.
 

Since 1991, Ethiopia has gone further than any other country in using ethnicity as the fundamental organizing principle of a federal system of government. And yet this pioneering experiment in “ethnic federalism” has been largely ignored in the growing literature on democratization and ethnicity in Africa and on the accommodation of ethnic diversity in democratic states. Ethnic Federalism brings a much-needed comparative dimension to the discussion of this experiment in Ethiopia.

Ethnic Federalism closely examines aspects of the Ethiopean case and asks why the use of territorial decentralism to accommodate ethnic differences has been generally unpopular in Africa, while it is growing in popularity in the West.

The book includes case studies of Nigerian and Indian federalism and suggests how Ethiopia might learn from both the failures and successes of these older federations. In the light of these broader issues and cases, it identifies the main challenges facing Ethiopia in the next few years, as it struggles to bring political practice into line with constitutional theory and thereby achieve a genuinely federal division of powers.

In this book, Mauro F. Guillén explores differing historical patterns in the adoption of the three major models of organizational management: scientific management, human relations, and structural analysis. Moving beyond Reinhard Bendix's classic Work and Authority, Models of Management takes a fresh look at how managers have used these models in four countries during the twentieth century.

Guillén's study of two liberal-democratic societies (the United States and Great Britain) and two corporatist societies (Germany and Spain) reveals significant differences in the way managerial elites and firms have adopted the three models. His data show that ideas themselves—independent of material interests and technology—can cause organizational change. Throughout the book, contrasts between modernist-technocratic and liberal-humanist mentalities, as well as between Protestant and Catholic religious backgrounds, emerge as decisive factors in determining managerial ideology and practice.

In addition to analyzing management methods in organizations, Guillén explores larger issues: the interaction among managerial, government, and labor elites; the impact of the state and the professions on managerial behavior; and the role that managers play in modern societies.

In 1691, a Livonian peasant known as Old Thiess boldly announced before a district court that he was a werewolf. Yet far from being a diabolical monster, he insisted, he was one of the “hounds of God,” fierce guardians who battled sorcerers, witches, and even Satan to protect the fields, flocks, and humanity—a baffling claim that attracted the notice of the judges then and still commands attention from historians today.

In this book, eminent scholars Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln offer a uniquely comparative look at the trial and startling testimony of Old Thiess. They present the first English translation of the trial transcript, in which the man’s own voice can be heard, before turning to subsequent analyses of the event, which range from efforts to connect Old Thiess to shamanistic practices to the argument that he was reacting against cruel stereotypes of the “Livonian werewolf” a Germanic elite used to justify their rule over the Baltic peasantry. As Ginzburg and Lincoln debate their own and others’ perspectives, they also reflect on broader issues of historical theory, method, and politics. Part source text of the trial, part discussion of historians’ thoughts on the case, and part dialogue over the merits and perils of their different methodological approaches, Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf opens up fresh insight into a remarkable historical occurrence and, through it, the very discipline of history itself.

For those who assume that increased regulation of political spending is inevitable in democratic nations, recent developments in U.S. campaign finance law appear puzzling. Is deregulation, exemplified by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, a harbinger of things to come elsewhere or further evidence that the United States remains an anomaly?

In this volume, experts on the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, Sweden, France, and several other European nations explore what deregulation means in the context of political campaigns and demonstrate how such comparisons can inform the study of campaign finance in the U.S. Whereas the contributors do not settle on any single theory of change in campaign finance law or any single perspective on the relationship between changes seen in the U.S. and those in other nations over the past decade, they do concur that the U.S. is rapidly retreating from the types of regulations that defined campaign finance law in most democratic nations during the latter decades of the twentieth century. By tracing and analyzing the recent history of regulation, the contributors shed light on many pressing topics, including the relationship between public opinion and campaign finance law, the role of scandals in inspiring reform, and the changing incentives of political parties, interest groups, and the courts.

It is well known that the scope of individual rights has expanded dramatically in the United States over the last half-century. Less well known is that other countries have experienced "rights revolutions" as well. Charles R. Epp argues that, far from being the fruit of an activist judiciary, the ascendancy of civil rights and liberties has rested on the democratization of access to the courts—the influence of advocacy groups, the establishment of governmental enforcement agencies, the growth of financial and legal resources for ordinary citizens, and the strategic planning of grass roots organizations. In other words, the shift in the rights of individuals is best understood as a "bottom up," rather than a "top down," phenomenon.

The Rights Revolution is the first comprehensive and comparative analysis of the growth of civil rights, examining the high courts of the United States, Britain, Canada, and India within their specific constitutional and cultural contexts. It brilliantly revises our understanding of the relationship between courts and social change.

The belief that with hard work and determination, all children have the opportunity to succeed in life is a cherished part of the American Dream. Yet, increased inequality in America has made that dream more difficult for many to obtain. In Too Many Children Left Behind, an international team of social scientists assesses how social mobility varies in the United States compared with Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Bruce Bradbury, Miles Corak, Jane Waldfogel, and Elizabeth Washbrook show that the academic achievement gap between disadvantaged American children and their more advantaged peers is far greater than in other wealthy countries, with serious consequences for their future life outcomes. With education the key to expanding opportunities for those born into low socioeconomic status families, Too Many Children Left Behind helps us better understand educational disparities and how to reduce them.

Analyzing data on 8,000 school children in the United States, the authors demonstrate that disadvantages that begin early in life have long lasting effects on academic performance. The social inequalities that children experience before they start school contribute to a large gap in test scores between low- and high-SES students later in life. Many children from low-SES backgrounds lack critical resources, including books, high-quality child care, and other goods and services that foster the stimulating environment necessary for cognitive development. The authors find that not only is a child’s academic success deeply tied to his or her family background, but that this class-based achievement gap does not narrow as the child proceeds through school.

The authors compare test score gaps from the United States with those from three other countries and find smaller achievement gaps and greater social mobility in all three, particularly in Canada. The wider availability of public resources for disadvantaged children in those countries facilitates the early child development that is fundamental for academic success. All three countries provide stronger social services than the United States, including universal health insurance, universal preschool, paid parental leave, and other supports. The authors conclude that the United States could narrow its achievement gap by adopting public policies that expand support for children in the form of tax credits, parenting programs, and pre-K.

With economic inequalities limiting the futures of millions of children, Too Many Children Left Behind is a timely study that uses global evidence to show how the United States can do more to level the playing field.

Since the growth of social media, human communication has become much more visual. This book presents a scholarly analysis of the images people post on a regular basis to Facebook. By including hundreds of examples, readers can see for themselves the differences between postings from a village north of London, and those from a small town in Trinidad. Why do women respond so differently to becoming a mother in England from the way they do in Trinidad? How are values such as carnival and suburbia expressed visually? Based on an examination of over 20,000 images, the authors argue that phenomena such as selfies and memes must be analysed in their local context. The book aims to highlight the importance of visual images today in patrolling and controlling the moral values of populations, and explores the changing role of photography from that of recording and representation, to that of communication, where an image not only documents an experience but also enhances it, making the moment itself more exciting.