The State We Need


Book Description

At a time when great issues are crying out for resolution - financial and economic stagnation, an increasingly polarised society, global paralysis over climate change, and spiritual emptiness and loss of vision throughout the West - politics is dominated by spin and manipulation. Too many people feel confused, cynical and angry ... and poorly represented by a remote political elite in Westminster. Despite the crash, that elite are still clinging to the same old ideas that have been tried and found wanting; we're still being told that we're not allowed to think outside the box of Thatcher's capitalism. This book opens up a whole new vista - one that is radical but also practical. It presents a different model for business, a restructured banking system, an alternative economic policy, a reconfigured power structure, an industrial policy geared to the revival of manufacturing, a sharply different approach to employment and welfare, as well as inequality in society, and a fundamental reassessment of the handling of climate change. The State We Need answers the cry of the alienated many. It delivers a full analysis of the problems facing the British state, and offers the comprehensive, resonating vision of Britain for which we've all been waiting.




Life After the State


Book Description

In 2006, the comedian Dominic Frisby began to question the advice his financial advisers were giving him and began to look after his own money. He was fascinated by the world of finance. Mad though his friends and family thought him at the time, he put everything he owned into gold, which subsequently appreciated by several hundred per cent. Soon MoneyWeek were asking him to write a weekly column and he began seven years of obsessive reading and study. Life After the State is the culmination of that process. Just as Frisby saw the financial crash of 2008 coming, he now sees another one, even more calamitous, headed our way – only this one has serious political ramifications as well. But not one high-profile politician, economist or journalist seems to 'get it' – because not one of them has correctly identified the cause of the problem. For Frisby, the problem is the State. In every instance where government gets involved in people's lives with a desire to do good, it can always be relied on to make the situation much, much worse. Yet despite this reality, we all seem to imagine that a world without the state would be a wild and terrifying place. With wit and devastating clarity of argument, Frisby shows that human nature proves the opposite to be true. Combining the paradigm-busting wisdom of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan with the readable charm of Freakonomics, Life After the State is a book that will change the way you think about money, education, healthcare and social justice for ever.




The State


Book Description

Debates about the role and nature of the state are at the heart of modern politics. However, the state itself remains notoriously difficult to define, and the term is subject to a range of different interpretations. In this book, distinguished state theorist Bob Jessop provides a critical introduction to the state as both a concept and a reality. He lucidly guides readers through all the major accounts of the state, and examines competing efforts to relate the state to other features of social organization. Essential themes in the analysis of the state are explored in full, including state formation, periodization, the re-scaling of the state and the state's future. Throughout, Jessop clearly defines key terms, from hegemony and coercion to government and governance. He also analyses what we mean when we speak about 'normal' and 'exceptional' states, and states that are 'failed' or 'rogue'. Combining an accessible style with expert sensitivity to the complexities of the state, this short introduction will be core reading for students and scholars of politics and sociology, as well as anyone interested in the changing role of the state in contemporary societies.




Seeing Like a State


Book Description

“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University




Haiti, a Dysfunctional Nation-State: What do we need to do to restart?


Book Description

This book written by Rev. Dr. Wilguymps Charles is a citizen effort aiming to raise awareness among fellow Haitians in order to make them realize that the country can no longer continue to sink into this abyss; to recognize the urgency of divorcing ourselves from the irresponsible and selfish practices of the past that prevent us from progressing, and to seek together everything that can contribute to its recovery and emergence towards sustainable socio-economic development. The author is a family man and Pastor of a church for more than thirty years. He has also written on five other religious topics in French and English, including ten books in total. The author firmly believes as a Haitian citizen Christian with heavenly aspiration, but he still has his feet on the ground that he must get involved in the affairs of his country with the aim of making its contribution to the reconstruction of the nation, since he is concerned and affected like every other fellow Haitians by everything that is happening in Haiti. With this in mind, he offers in this book, "Haiti, a dysfunctional nation-state: What do we need to do to restart?", a reliable alternative to relaunch the country towards the path of progress and change. Through the pages of this book, the author calls on every Haitian to collaborate to face this challenge courageously. May the reading of this book allow everyone to realize Haiti’s potential to develop!




Why We Need a New Welfare State


Book Description

Leading scholars in the field examine the highly topical issue of the future of the welfare state in Europe. They argue that welfare states need to adjust, and examine which kind of welfare architecture will further Europe's stated goal of maximum social inclusion and justice. The volume concentrates on four principal social policy domains; the aged and transition to retirement; the welfare issues related to profound changes in working life; the new risks and needs that arise in households and, especially, in child families; and the challenges of creating gender equality. The volume aims to promote a better understanding of the key welfare issues that will have to be faced in the coming decades. It also warns against the all-too-frequent recourse to patent policy solutions that have all to often characterized contemporary debate. It intends to move the policy debate from it often frustrating vague and generic level towards greater specificity and nuance.




The State and Revolution


Book Description




Why We Need a New Welfare State


Book Description

The volume concentrates on four principal social policy domains; the aged and transition to retirement; the welfare issues related to profound changes in working life; the risks and needs that arise in households and, especially, in child families; and the challenges of creating gender equality. The volume aims to promote a better understanding of the key welfare issues that will have to be faced in the coming decades. It also warns against the all-too-frequent recourse to patent policy solutions that have all to often characterized debate. It intends to move the policy debate from its often frustrating vague and generic level towards greater specificity and nuance.







Gridlock


Book Description

The issues that increasingly dominate the 21st century cannot be solved by any single country acting alone, no matter how powerful. To manage the global economy, prevent runaway environmental destruction, reign in nuclear proliferation, or confront other global challenges, we must cooperate. But at the same time, our tools for global policymaking - chiefly state-to-state negotiations over treaties and international institutions - have broken down. The result is gridlock, which manifests across areas via a number of common mechanisms. The rise of new powers representing a more diverse array of interests makes agreement more difficult. The problems themselves have also grown harder as global policy issues penetrate ever more deeply into core domestic concerns. Existing institutions, created for a different world, also lock-in pathological decision-making procedures and render the field ever more complex. All of these processes - in part a function of previous, successful efforts at cooperation - have led global cooperation to fail us even as we need it most. Ranging over the main areas of global concern, from security to the global economy and the environment, this book examines these mechanisms of gridlock and pathways beyond them. It is written in a highly accessible way, making it relevant not only to students of politics and international relations but also to a wider general readership.