When Informal Institutions Change


Book Description

Reveals the impact of institutional change on informal practices in three transitional post-Soviet regimes: Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine




The Routledge Companion to European Business


Book Description

International Business is a well-established research field, in which regionalisation has gained prominence in the last decade. Because Europe is a market that shows specific patterns of highly advanced market integration, European Business is a subject in its own right and with its own research momentum. In particular, firms view Europe as a challenging, mostly – yet not entirely- mature market location that is subject to complexities that help reveal strategic corporate strengths and weaknesses. Europe represents a location that undergoes frequent and rapid change due to its geo-economic and geopolitical position This comprehensive reference volume brings together a global team of contibutors to analyze and overview the key issues, themes and phenomena that affect business in Europe. With interdisciplinary perspectives from key disciplines, the book covers a range of vital themes such as culture, entrepreneurship, identity, human rights and climate change. The selection of authors reflects the international scope of this book, and is drawn from institutions located in 17 countries across Europe. A unique resource, this book covers a region undergoing significant geoeconomic and geopolitical change, and provides a comprehensive guide to research students and scholars of business and the social sciences.




Can Russia Modernise?


Book Description

A political ethnography of the inner workings of Putin's sistema, contributing to our understanding Russia's prospects for future modernisation.




Political Patronage in Asian Bureaucracies


Book Description

The book explores how politicians use discretionary powers to appoint individuals to key positions in the public sector. It compares this practice across Asia: Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam.




Corruption, Informality and Entrepreneurship in Romania


Book Description

This book examines the meaning, structure, practices and symbolism of corruption in relationship to European Union structural funding in Romania. It offers a unique account of the complex transformations faced by post-communist societies. Despite the new legislation that effectively re-branded typical economic practices in Romanian society as ‘corruption’, entrepreneurs continue to use them in everyday interactions. The entrepreneurial culture described in the chapters is an ordinary trait of the local work routines. Rather than pursuing the singular logic of corruption, the author explores the concept of informality by focusing on the socio-historical context and the meanings embedded in the society that provides solutions to the problems. The book will appeal to students, scholars and practitioners in the areas of corruption, public policy and EU policy and politics.




Historical Legacies of Communism


Book Description

Reveals how the legacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union affects modern politics, society and economic development in post-Communist Russia.




Strategy for Sustainability Transitions


Book Description

In this innovative work, Kristof Van Assche, Raoul Beunen and Monica Gruezmacher analyse the challenges and possibilities of sustainability transitions, presenting the dilemmas facing the path to sustainable communities and societies, as well as proposing creative solutions. The authors deploy evolutionary governance theory as a conceptual framing for transition strategy, highlighting the importance of understanding governance and community strategy in any potential response to environmental crises.




Cosmologies of Suffering


Book Description

The edited volume elaborates on a range of themes that emerged during a workshop of the 8th biennial of the European Association of Social Anthropologists in Vienna in 2004. Among these themes are: the paradoxical permanence of ‘transition’ in post-communist countries, the accompanying persistence of social suffering and the structural conditions that give rise to it. A final theme focuses on the re­sources that people mobilize to cope with suffering and trauma. Ways of coping manifest a stance towards agency shared by sufferers from diverse post-communist regions, such as ethnically divided Croatia, politically and economically unstable Zimbabwe, relatively more peaceful countries such as Hungary, Poland and Slovenia, and, finally, two religiously unique areas in Siberia, Russia. Ethnographic accounts from these diverse settings testify that agency has often involved relinquishing reliance on one’s self and turning towards a power higher than the self, whether this is conceptualized through the lens of transcendence, religion, or cosmology.




Hidden Power


Book Description

What should we make of the outsized role organized crime plays in conflict and crisis, from drug wars in Mexico to human smuggling in North Africa, from the struggle in Crimea to scandals in Kabul? How can we deal with the convergence of politics and crime in so-called 'mafia states' such as Guinea-Bissau, North Korea or, as some argue, Russia? Drawing on unpublished government documents and mafia memoirs, James Cockayne discovers the strategic logic of organized crime, hidden in a century of forgotten political--criminal collaboration in New York, Sicily and the Caribbean. He reveals states and mafias competing - and collaborating -- in a competition for governmental power. He discovers mafias influencing elections, changing constitutions, organizing domestic insurgencies and transnational terrorism, negotiating peace deals, and forming governmental joint ventures with ruling groups. And he sees mafias working with the US government to spy on American citizens, catch Nazis, try to assassinate Fidel Castro, invade and govern Sicily, and playing unappreciated roles in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis.