Post-conflict reconstruction is one of the most pressing political issues today. This book uses economics to analyze critically the incentives and constraints faced by various actors involved in reconstruction efforts. Through this analysis, the book will aid in understanding why some reconstructions are more successful than others.
Anyone concerned with social justice will find this book makes him question his assumptions, rethink his premises, and think!" —Andrew P. Morriss, professor, Bush School of Government and Public Service, School of Law, Texas A&M University What is social justice? In these pages, twenty-one accomplished academics seek to do justice to "social justice." Inequality exists and it obviously causes rifts in societies. But it's not obvious how the government should address those rifts, or if it should address them at all. Have we forgotten the perhaps more efficient power of personal choice—and the corollary obligation: to serve our neighbors—to make our society more humane? Beginning with the first political philosophers in ancient Athens, and continuing right through Marx into our post-modern era, men have wrestled with the question of justice; and the answers have been as earnest as they have been varied. Today, our "expert" class also claim to have answers—updated answers, more "equitable" answers, more technological answers ... in short, answers that are simply better suited to our times. But are those answers in any way correct? Do they work? Are they—just? In these elegant, nuanced essays, the authors use the wisdom of ancient and modern philosophers to shed light on these important questions—and the answers are revealing. Armed with ample evidence from real-world experiences, lessons from history, the wisdom of the classics, modern philosophers, and even the teachings of the world religions, the contributors of Is Social Justice Just? Illuminate the central role of the individual in achieving justice in all its aspects. Read Is Social Justice Just? And discover: how to do social justice wrong with the poison of resentment, envy, and ignorance; how to do social justice right with the insights of philosophers and theologians; how to respect people's rights and liberties without sacrificing true equality; and how to reform flawed public policies that just make everything worse. In a world of partisanship, hysteria, maliciousness, and good intentions attached to hellish outcomes, this landmark book enters the public discourse at a critical time. With a foreword by Jordan B. Peterson, a preface by Nicholas Rescher, and a collection of essays by some of the best and brightest scholars of our time, Is Social Justice Just? is a timely and urgent work. Read it, and you will begin to think about "social justice," and justice, in some surprising new ways.
The U.S. government's prime enemy in the War on Terror is not a shadowy mastermind dispatching suicide bombers. It is the informed American citizen. With Manufacturing Militarism, Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall detail how military propaganda has targeted Americans since 9/11. From the darkened cinema to the football field to the airport screening line, the U.S. government has purposefully inflated the actual threat of terrorism and the necessity of a proactive military response. This biased, incomplete, and misleading information contributes to a broader culture of fear and militarism that, far from keeping Americans safe, ultimately threatens the foundations of a free society. Applying a political economic approach to the incentives created by a democratic system with a massive national security state, Coyne and Hall delve into case studies from the War on Terror to show how propaganda operates in a democracy. As they vigilantly watch their carry-ons scanned at the airport despite nonexistent threats, or absorb glowing representations of the military from films, Americans are subject to propaganda that, Coyne and Hall argue, erodes government by citizen consent.
With In Search of Monsters to Destroy, Christopher Coyne offers readers a crisp, concise, and devastating indictment of American imperialism. His provocative proposal for a nonviolent 'polycentric' approach to national security comes as a welcome bonus." —Andrew J. Bacevich, President and Chairman of the Board, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft; Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History, Boston University Imperialism and militarism build empires, not liberalism. So says Christopher Coyne, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, in this eye-opening, must-read book on America's recent foreign policy failures. After 9/11, the United States tried to establish liberal political regimes in the Middle East and in the mountains of Afghanistan—but the effort, according to Coyne, was doomed to fail. And his logic is simple. Illiberal means, such as: industrial-scale violence the destruction of international norms and partnerships with brutal, oppressive regimes can lead only to illiberal ends. What else are the hundreds of thousands of dead and mutilated civilians the US left behind in the Middle East and Central Asia? What else are the destroyed ancient cultures and nearly obliterated nation-states? Coyne also points out that the illiberal perpetrators can end up nearly bankrupt and humiliated in the process—and profoundly less secure. Sound familiar? Coyne insists that, if we do not absorb these truths, the rest of the 21st-century will be a repeat of its bloodstained, unstable beginning. But Coyne is no isolationist. He insists there are workable, proven alternatives to imperialism, militarism, and empire—ones that preserve freedom, promote security, and foster mutually enriching friendship among the nations of the earth. These alternatives stand in stark and admirable opposition to our current militaristic culture, proving that nonviolent approaches to domestic and international conflicts not only minimize violence, but also promote cultures of peace throughout the world. Read In Search of Monsters to Destroy, and you'll never look at the nation state or international relations the same again.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is one avenue for offering assistance to developing countries in their efforts to grow. Small countries typically have limited resources to direct toward investment attraction programs, so the ability to segment the market (of Multinational Corporations looking to invest) is a crucial skill. This book develops and employs an investment preference analysis model to give evidence that homogenous groups of investors can be identified. Once these groups are identified, their needs - specific preference requirements for laws, regulations, incentives, and general conditions - can be more efficiently addressed.
Media, Development, and Institutional Change investigates mass media s profound ability to affect institutional change and economic development. The authors use the tools of economics to illuminate the media s role in enabling and inhibiting political economic reforms that promote development. The book explores how media can constrain government, how governments manipulate media to entrench their power, and how private and public media ownership affects a country s ability to prosper. The authors identify specific media-related policies governments of underdeveloped countries should adopt if they want to grow. They illustrate why media freedom is a critical ingredient in the recipe of economic development and why even the best-intentioned state involvement in media is more likely to slow prosperity than to enhance it. Scholars and students of economics, political science and sociology; policy-makers, analysts and others in the development community; and academics in media studies will find this book insightful and provocative.
An economics-focused analysis of why humanitarian relief efforts fail and how they can be remedied. In 2010, Haiti was ravaged by a brutal earthquake that affected the lives of millions. The call to assist those in need was heard around the globe. Yet two years later humanitarian efforts led by governments and NGOs have largely failed. Resources are not reaching the needy due to bureaucratic red tape, and many assets have been squandered. How can efforts intended to help the suffering fail so badly? In this timely and provocative book, Christopher J. Coyne uses the economic way of thinking to explain why this and other humanitarian efforts that intend to do good end up doing nothing or causing harm. In addition to Haiti, Coyne considers a wide range of interventions. He explains why the US government was ineffective following Hurricane Katrina, why the international humanitarian push to remove Muammar Gaddafi in Libya may very well end up causing more problems than prosperity, and why decades of efforts to respond to crises and foster development around the world have resulted in repeated failures. In place of the dominant approach to state-led humanitarian action, this book offers a bold alternative, focused on establishing an environment of economic freedom. If we are willing to experiment with aid—asking questions about how to foster development as a process of societal discovery, or how else we might engage the private sector, for instance—we increase the range of alternatives to help people and empower them to improve their communities. Anyone concerned with and dedicated to alleviating human suffering in the short term or for the long haul, from policymakers and activists to scholars, will find this book to be an insightful and provocative reframing of humanitarian action. Praise for Doing Bad by Doing Good “Coyne is to be congratulated for a book that strongly calls into question the conventional wisdom that we must look first to government to accomplish humanitarian ends.” —George Leef, Regulation Magazine “Coyne attempts to explain why conventional approaches to humanitarian aid and longer-term economic development have failed miserably . . . . Recommended.” —M. Q. Dao, Choice “Coyne offers a classic neo-liberal economic analysis to explain why the humanitarian project in its current state is doomed.” —Zoe Cormack, Times Literary Supplement
Many Americans believe that foreign military intervention is central to protecting our domestic freedoms. But Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall urge engaged citizens to think again. Overseas, our government takes actions in the name of defense that would not be permissible within national borders. Emboldened by the relative weakness of governance abroad, the U.S. government is able to experiment with a broader range of social controls. Under certain conditions, these policies, tactics, and technologies are then re-imported to America, changing the national landscape and increasing the extent to which we live in a police state. Coyne and Hall examine this pattern—which they dub "the boomerang effect"—considering a variety of rich cases that include the rise of state surveillance, the militarization of domestic law enforcement, the expanding use of drones, and torture in U.S. prisons. Synthesizing research and applying an economic lens, they develop a generalizable theory to predict and explain a startling trend. Tyranny Comes Home unveils a new aspect of the symbiotic relationship between foreign interventions and domestic politics. It gives us alarming insight into incidents like the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri and the Snowden case—which tell a common story about contemporary foreign policy and its impact on our civil liberties.
Context Matters: Institutions and Entrepreneurship analyzes the connection between entrepreneurship and institutions. The goal is to provide a discussion of the literature on institutions in economics, develop the argument on the relationship between institutions and entrepreneurship and apply this logic to a variety of entrepreneurial settings - private for-profit, private non-profit and political. In addition to exploring entrepreneurship within several institutional settings, the authors also consider entrepreneurship on institutional arrangements. Context Matters: Institutions and Entrepreneurship develops the notion of institutions and provide insight into what this concept entails. The authors show how institutions matter for entrepreneurship and economic development. This if followed by a consideration of 'social entrepreneurship', 'political entrepreneurship', and the role of 'institutional entrepreneurs' and their impact on the formation and evolution of institutions. The authors end with a discussion of the implications for future research.
Written for the Exercise Physiologist, Clinical Exercise Electrocardiography address the needs of Exercise Physiologists working in a clinical setting and addresses static interpretation of rhythm strips and 12-leads. It concentrates on the physiology and etiology of arrhythmia, as well as the treatment of arrhythmia. It includes not only the traditional basic ECG, arrhythmia, myocardial infarction and pacemaker chapters but goes on to provide easy to read chapters on Cardiac Pathophysiology, Cardiovascular testing procedures, Cardiac Pharmacology and Structural Health Disease, and Inflammatory Processes. The authors explore differences in ECG interpretation in women, children, and athletes, and look at the use of ECG’s in exercise stress testing situations.
Written for an audience of students, general readers, and economists alike, this Element is a primer on the field of the economics of conflict and peace. It offers a reasonably comprehensive, systematic, and detailed overview - even if in broad strokes - of the field's orthodox and heterodox history of thought and current theories and evidence. The authors view this Element as a baseline account on which to build a future, separate and more fully developed, work on the economics of peace, economic growth, and human development. Altogether, the Element contextualizes the field of conflict and peace economics, outlines its history of thought, highlights examples of current theoretical and empirical scholarship in the field, and maps trajectories for further research.
This Element explores the topics of terrorism, counterterrorism, and the US government's war on terror following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. It draw on insights from Austrian and public choice economics. First, the foundations of the economics of terrorism are discussed emphasizing that the behaviors of terrorists and counter-terrorists are purposeful and goal-oriented. Then, the economics of counterterrorism policies and the importance of institutional change is considered. Next, the three dilemmas facing liberal societies as it relates to counterterrorism efforts is focused on. The Element then provides an assessment of the US government's war on terror. It discusses the origins of the war, discuss whether it can be judged a success or failure, and consider some of the main effects both abroad and within the United States. The final chapter concludes with a discussion of several areas for future research.
This book presents a challenge to feminist perspectives that see the glass ceiling as the exclusive domain of women's careers and work life. The authors address existing debates and extend them to include original empirical evidence from several US and UK comparative studies that look at the effect of caring for dependents (including care for children and elder care) upon the careers and aspirations of both men and women.
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