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The book provides a comprehensive and updated introduction to concept of territory in the study of democratic politics. Territory plays a rather marginal role in the traditional conceptions of democracy that in many ways still prevail today. Democratic politics is often analysed from the point of view of its institutions, citizens and voters, while little is said about the territory through which it is expressed – at most it provides a broader perimeter or context of political and institutional action. The book offers, instead, an introductory theoretically-oriented discussion of crucial issues such as the genesis of state-nation, the transformation of democratic citizenship, the current borders’ policies, the rising of territorial populism and the experience of 19-covid pandemic. This is an open access book.

This open access book explores the intersection of property law, relocation, and resettlement processes in the United States and among communities that grapple with migration as an adaptation strategy. As communities face the prospect of relocating because of rising seas, policy makers, disaster specialists, and community leaders are scrambling to understand what adaptation pathways are legally possible. While in its ideal application, law functions blindly and without variation, the authors find that legal contradictions come to bear on resettlement processes and place certain communities further in harm’s way. This book will unearth these contradictions in order to understand why successful community-based resettlement has presented such a challenge to communities that are experiencing increasing land deterioration as a result of climate change.

This open access book explores some of the struggles and challenges that researchers and practitioners face when conducting research in the Central Asian research setting. Written for scholars still in the planning stages of their research, it addresses key questions, including: How shall we problematize and reconceptualize the concept of positionality through lenses of local voices from the region? How does practitioners’ and scholars’ positionality contribute to their experiences of inclusion, exclusion, and access to the field? How do scholars navigate issues of personal safety and mental well-being in the more closely monitored societies of Central Asia? The book includes contributors from both Central Asia and Western countries, paying particular attention to the ways researchers’ subjectivity shape how they are received in the region, which, in turn, influences how they write about and disseminate their research. In featuring an even greater variety of voices, this book fills an important gap in the literature on field research and knowledge production in and on Central Asia.

This is an open access book. With the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, European security has been put on high alert. The implications of the Russian military invasion are many and difficult to grasp in full. However, the need for greater European strategic autonomy appears increasingly evident. The book argues that strategic autonomy may be reached—also in the short run—if differentiated integration is seen as an asset rather than a challenge. While the EU (together with NATO) remains the core in such a system, there is a multitude sub-regional integration processes that need to be taken into account to get the full idea of how European strategic autonomy can be achieved.

This book is a collection of essays in Indonesian history and archaeology dealing with different and multiple trajectories, along four broad themes. The first part of the book covers competing or evolving representations of events, customs or traditions, and historical personae in Indonesian official and popular expression, as they are shaped by economic, political, and cultural forces. The second part deals with memories of war and peace, examining transnational conflict and collaboration, the role of political elites and state projects dealing with the aftermath of military aggression, while also focusing on the impact and responses of civilians. The third part focuses on how state and civil societies frame historical figures, in ways that transcend the dichotomy of heroes and victims. The fourth part of the book looks at the way Indonesian museums and museology serve as sites where new kinds of memory work occur, in a post-1998 era. The book is designed with the aim of clearing a space for a plurality of memory works. Discussions in this volume extend from Loloda island in Eastern Indonesia, to Sabang island at the north westernmost end of the archipelago, and to the cosmopolitan centers. Temporally, it covers the colonial, the post-independence and contemporary eras. By juxtaposing diverse works, the book offers a new vista of multiple trajectories of memory being traced out in and about Indonesia. This is an open access book.

This open access book provides in-depth and comparative analyses of how young people in peripheral areas in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania perceive EU citizenship. It also informs the reader about the challenges faced by EU Youth Dialogue projects that aim at promoting active (EU) citizenship in these areas and it offers context-specific recommendations for local, regional, national and European policymakers and people working with young people. The contributions are based on new qualitative data collected within the framework of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at Leipzig University. It will be of interest to practitioners and scholars working on Europe and the EU, citizenship and the promotion of an active EU citizenship beyond urban centres.

This open access book provides insights into the everyday lives of long-term prisoners in Switzerland who are labelled as ‘dangerous’ and are preventatively held in indefinite, probably lifelong, incarceration. It explores prisoners’ manifold ways of inhabiting the prison which can be used to challenge well established notions about the experience of imprisonment, such as ‘adaptation’, ‘coping’, and ‘resistance’. Drawing on ethnographic data generated in two high-security prisons housing male offenders, this book explores how the various spaces of the prison affect prisoners’ sense of self and experience of time, and how, in particular, the indeterminate nature of their imprisonment affects their perceptions of place and space. It sheds light on prisoners’ subjective, emplaced and embodied perceptions of the prisons' various everyday time-spaces in the cell, at work, and during leisure time, and the forms of agency they express. It provides insight into prisoners’ everyday habits, practices, routines, and rhythms as well as the profoundly existential issues that are engendered, (re)arranged, and anchored in these everyday contexts. It also offers insights into the penal policies, norms, and practices developed and followed by prison authorities and staff.

Die Open-Access-Publikation präsentiert umfangreiche empirische Analysen zu Halte- und Bleibeorientierung Geflüchteter und richtet den Blick dabei besonders auf die Situation der ländlichen Regionen Deutschlands. Migrations- und Integrationsforschung in Deutschland war bislang überwiegend auf Großstädte ausgerichtet. Durch den vermehrten Zuzug geflüchteter Menschen seit 2014 sehen sich jedoch auch Kleinstädte und Dörfer in ländlichen Regionen verstärkt mit Aufgaben der Aufnahme und Integration von Geflüchteten konfrontiert. Ziel dieses Buches ist es, empirisch fundiert zu beantworten, unter welchen Voraussetzungen und wie humanitäres Engagement und ländliche Entwicklung erfolgreich verbunden werden können und wie dies von Politik und Zivilgesellschaft positiv beeinflusst werden kann.

Das Handbuch ist vollständig als Open Access Publikation verfügbar. Dieses Handbuch bietet eine umfassende Analyse der Außenpolitik Österreichs in der Zweiten Republik. Es behandelt die Rahmenbedingungen, Akteure und Prozesse der Außenpolitik und erschließt deren Wesen und Wirkung in verschiedenen Politikbereichen sowie gegenüber einzelnen Ländern, Regionen und internationalen Organisationen. Das Handbuch ist ein Referenzwerk für die Forschung, ein Einführungswerk für die Lehre und ein Nachschlagewerk für die Praxis in Politik, Verwaltung und Zivilgesellschaft.

This open access book responds to the need for a specifically African focus on public policy. It outlines the fundamental principles of public policy research, and engages with major issues in the study of public policy from an African perspective, covering essential topics such as the location and centrality of social sciences in relation to public policy, leadership, methodology, institutions, governance, and gender. This book is essential for understanding the various aspects and dimensions of policy making in Africa that underscore quality research and are at the core of excellence in teaching and learning.

Dieses Open-Access-Buch behandelt die Frage, wie und warum es dazu kommt, dass Menschen schwere islamistische Gewalttaten, etwa in Form terroristischer Anschläge oder gewaltsamer Hasskriminalität, in Westeuropa begehen wollen. Das im Rahmen des Buches entwickelte Erklärungsmodell nähert sich der Beantwortung dieser Frage in zwei Schritten: erstens wird erklärt, wie und warum Menschen überhaupt bereit werden, im Namen einer Ideologie zu töten. Die allermeisten Menschen, die sich hin zu einer solchen Gewaltbereitschaft radikalisieren, begehen allerdings keine Gewalttat. Daher wird zweitens dargelegt, unter welchen Bedingungen diese ideologiebasierte Gewaltbereitschaft in einer konkreten Gewalthandlung in Westeuropa gipfelt. Das entwickelte Erklärungsmodell wird im Anschluss empirisch überprüft. Der Fokus richtet sich dabei insbesondere auf die theoretisch formulierten Bedingungen der Tatbegehung. Diese Annahmen werden am Beispiel realisierter oder geplanter islamistischer Gewaltstraftaten in Westeuropa zwischen 2000-2013 getestet.

This open access book provides the theoretical and pedagogical foundations for a promising new approach to civic education: using social media to teach civics. While many measures indicate that youth civic engagement has long been in decline, many of these measures fail to take into account all of the ways that youth can interact with civic life. One of these understudied ways is through social media, including platforms like Twitter, where young people have the opportunity to encounter the news, engage with people in power, and bring attention to the needs in their community. Throughout this volume, Chapman explores how and why teachers can use social media to teach civics, as well as how it might meet the needs of students in ways other approaches do not.

Dieses Open-Access-Buch bringt die Daten des Deutschen Freiwilligensurveys 2019 für einen Vergleich der Bundesländer Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Hessen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein und Thüringen zusammen. Der Freiwilligensurvey wurde 2019 zum fünften Mal im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (BMFSFJ) durchgeführt. Die Ziele der vorliegenden Auswertung sind eine aktuelle Bestandsaufnahme des freiwilligen Engagements und weiterer Formen zivilgesellschaftlichen Handelns in den einzelnen Bundesländern sowie eine Darstellung zentraler Entwicklungen im Zeitverlauf seit 1999. Des Weiteren wurden erstmals landesspezifische Charakteristika und die individuellen Kontexte und Umfeldbedingungen von freiwilligen Engagement analysiert. ; Dieses Open-Access-Buch bringt die Daten des Deutschen Freiwilligensurveys 2019 für einen Vergleich der Bundesländer Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Hessen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein und Thüringen zusammen. Der Freiwilligensurvey wurde 2019 zum fünften Mal im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (BMFSFJ) durchgeführt. Die Ziele der vorliegenden Auswertung sind eine aktuelle Bestandsaufnahme des freiwilligen Engagements und weiterer Formen zivilgesellschaftlichen Handelns in den einzelnen Bundesländern sowie eine Darstellung zentraler Entwicklungen im Zeitverlauf seit 1999. Des Weiteren wurden erstmals landesspezifische Charakteristika und die individuellen Kontexte und Umfeldbedingungen von freiwilligen Engagement analysiert.

This Open-Access-Book covers different aspects of the low-carbon energy transformation in a unique manner, with a particular focus on two regions, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The first part of the book provides useful insights on changes and reforms in the energy sector of Bangladesh, while the second part illustrates the low-carbon energy transformation in South Asia and the third part covers lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa. In all of these regions, the energy sector is undergoing major changes, driven by the four D’s: Decarbonization, decentralization, digitization, and democratization. Major overhauls are taking place at all levels: The country level, where energy mixes are rapidly changing, the corporate level, where large state-owned and private companies are challenged and new actors are emerging, and the local level, where technical and regulatory change has made citizen engagement and community power an option to replace or at least complement centralized supply structures.

This open access book is the product of three years of academic research that has been carried out in the EU-funded Jean Monnet Network on “Post-Truth Politics, Nationalism and the Delegitimation of European Integration” since 2019. Drawing on the multidisciplinary expertise of the network’s members, the book explores the impact of the phenomenon of post-truth politics on European integration and the European Union. It places particular emphasis on how post-truth politics has played out in the public sphere and asks what impact the phenomenon has had on public deliberation, but reflects also on its implications for democracy in a wider sense. This book is primarily written for audiences with an interest in politics and policy making, including academics, policy makers and civil-society actors. Thanks to its accessible style, the book should however also be an asset to wider audiences.

This open access book is a hands-on guide on doing qualitative research in parliaments, exploring achievements and drawbacks for all. From early-career scholars looking for an ‘in’ to start their research to senior academics interested in methodological details, the book offers a novel approach to discussing qualitative methodologies. It presents unique insights based on a large-scale qualitative study in the European Parliament using interview and ethnographic data. Comprehensive yet accessible, the book accounts the step-by-step process of qualitative research in parliaments, offering a reflexive and analytical perspective that moves beyond a textbook or theory-only format.

This Open Access edited collection calls for a greater understanding of ‘the local’ within the ways the arts, culture and creative practices are governed, promoted, regulated, resourced and valued. Cultural policy studies tends to privilege the national (and international) as the primary site at which cultural policy is enacted, and focuses on the ‘local’ as a case study of practice, rather than a site of policy in its own right. While this may make global policy transfer manageable for national policy agencies, it ignores the contingent relationships, diverse geographies and distinct identities of localities. This volume addresses this gap and is structured around three themes: disciplining the local, which examines key concepts from different academic fields of study; managing the local, which identifies policy approaches that engage with the idea of ‘the local’ in different ways; and practising the local, which offers case studies of how ‘local’ cultural policies are being enacted in places of differing scale and geography.

This open access book examines data governance and its implications for policymaking in Africa. Bringing together economists, lawyers, statisticians, and technology experts, it assesses gaps in both the availability and use of existing data across the continent, and argues that data creation, management and governance need to improve if private and public sectors are to reap the benefits of big data and digital technologies. It also considers lessons from across the globe to assess principles, norms and practices that can guide the development of data governance in Africa. The book will appeal to scholars and students of data governance, technology and public policy, as well as practitioners and policy makers.

This open access book provides a comprehensive analysis of the EU's crucial support for the implementation of the Havana Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP. It explores the use of new approaches and instruments that, despite some limitations and criticisms, could go beyond conventional liberal peace and provide useful lessons. Particular attention is paid to three axes: strengthening civil society, protection of human rights and a territorial peace perspective, as a contribution to the "local turn" in peace policies. The book first outlines the background of the conflict, the EU's two-decade defense of a negotiated peace, and the complexities of the peace process. Then, it analyses the development cooperation and political support provided in different areas: the collective reinsertion of ex-guerrillas, women and gender initiatives, the rights of ethnic communities, the sophisticated transitional justice system, as well as activities on reconciliation, victims and protection of human rights defenders.

In diesem Open-Access-Buch werden Prozesse und Dynamiken der Zusammenarbeit zwischen verschiedenen Akteur*innen in Projekten des zivilen Friedensdienstes in Kenia, Sierra Leone und Liberia betrachtet. Das durch lokale und internationale Akteur*innen gemeinsame Bearbeiten von Konflikten und Herausforderungen der Friedenskonsolidierung hat in der deutschen Friedensarbeit eine lange Tradition und wird in einer globalisierten Welt immer wichtiger. Deswegen geht das Buch der sowohl für die Wissenschaft als auch für die Friedenspraxis relevanten Frage nach, inwiefern im Kontext der Zivilen Konfliktbearbeitung eine gleichberechtige Partnerschaft vorliegen kann. Indem sich die Arbeit auf die Chancen und Herausforderungen der Zusammenarbeit konzentriert, gelingt es, den Blick auf die alltäglichen Aktivitäten zu legen, die eigentlichen Prozesse und Reibungspunkte der Friedensarbeit zu analysieren und einen wertvollen Beitrag zur kritischen Friedensforschung und der Diskussion um Hybridität und Friction zu leisten.

This Open access book provides a survey of the economic, health, and somatic progress of Baltic countries during the period 1918–2018, framed by the outline of the historical-sociological theory of modern social restorations, as originally conceived by the Austrian-American comparative historian Robert A. Kann. The author reworks Kann's theory to analyse post-communist transformations in the Baltic region. The book argues that the purpose of modern social restorations is to make restoration societies safe against a recurrence of revolution. There were two waves of modern social restorations: post-Napoleonic and post-communist. Most post-Napoleonic restorations were brief, because they failed to economically and socially outperform the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary systems. It considers Baltic restorations as laboratory cases of second-wave modern social restorations, because they encompass a triple restoration of the nation-state, capitalism, and democracy. The book assesses the performance success of Baltic restorations by comparing economic and social progress of Baltic countries during the periods of original independence (1918–1940), foreign-imposed state socialism (1940–1990), and restored independence (since 1990). It then elaborates the criteria to assess the ultimate performance success of these restorations by 2040, when restored Baltic states may endure longer than their ancestors in 1918–1940 and the complete foreign occupations era (1940–1990). The author, an expert in historical sociology, uses extensive historical-statistical data in cross-time comparisons to develop his analysis and create future projections. This book is of wide interest to sociologists, social demographers, political scientists, and economists studying the Baltic region. This is an open access book.

This open access book offers a compelling account of everyday life, livelihoods, and governance in post-apartheid South Africa among the urban poor and marginalized, anchored in and through a critique of the concept of informality, or living outside of the state, its laws, services, and protection. Using a case study of the Zama Zama, loosely translated from the isiZulu as ‘to hustle, or to strive’ and colloquially used to refer to those working as informal artisanal miners on Johannesburg’s numerous disused and abandoned gold mines, the book documents an ethnography of this community’s everyday lives, struggles, and hopes. It provides an intimate account of a community, its social relations, and its political relationship to the state. The narratives of the Zama Zama are used to raise broader questions about precarity, belonging, and governance in post-apartheid South Africa, and suggest that pervasive informality could risk the country's democratic order.

Der Open-Access-Band stellt die Bedingungen, Verfahrensweisen und Organisationsformen einer gemeinschaftlichen Entwicklung von Gemeinden, Städten und Regionen in den Mittelpunkt einer wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung. Da Kommunen angesichts der Anforderungen aus globalen, nationalen und regionalen Veränderungen die damit verbundenen komplexen Aufgaben nicht mehr alleine lösen können – es fehlen u.a. Ressourcen, Wissen, Ideen –, gehen sie Bündnisse mit Bürger*innen und anderen Akteuren vor Ort ein. Die Bandbreite dieser neuen Allianzen ist groß: Sie reicht von der kommunalen Förderung bürgerschaftlichen Engagements und der Aktivierung „stiller“ Bevölkerungsgruppen über die stärkere Verzahnung der Kommunen mit zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisationen und die Initiierung und Verstetigung von Nachbarschaftsprojekten, die gemeinsam von Kommunen und Zivilgesellschaft getragen werden, bis zur Gründung von Genossenschaften, in denen Kommunen und Bürger*innen gleichberechtigt zusammenarbeiten. Die Herausgebenden Jan Abt ist Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Deutschen Institut für Urbanistik in Berlin. Lutke Blecken ist Projektleiter am Institut Raum & Energie in Wedel. Dr. Stephanie Bock ist Wissenschaftliche Projektleiterin und Teamleiterin „Stadt und Raum“ am Deutschen Institut für Urbanistik in Berlin. Julia Diringer ist Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Deutschen Institut für Urbanistik in Berlin. Katrin Fahrenkrug ist Geschäftsführerin des Instituts Raum & Energie in Wedel.

In this comprehensive open access book, written for readers from any or no religious background, Leena El-Ali does something remarkable. Never before has anyone taken on every last claim relating to Islam and women and countered it not just with Qur’anic evidence to the contrary, but with easy-to-use tools available to all. How can a woman’s testimony be worth half of a man’s? How can men divorce their wives unilaterally by uttering three words? And what’s with the obsession with virgins in Paradise? Find the chapter on any of the seventeen topics in this book, and you will quickly learn a) where the myth came from and b) how to bust it. The methodology pursued is simple. First, the Qur’an is given priority over all other literary or “scriptural” sources. Second, the meaning of its verses in the original Arabic is highlighted, in contrast to English translations and/or widespread misunderstanding or misinterpretation.

This is an Open Access book. The primary objective of this book is to seek out insights into the concept of high-quality growth (HQG). It explores the essential attributes of HQG, such as inclusiveness, sustainability, and resilience, as well as its relationship with transformation, by drawing principally on illustrative cases and instances of international cooperation. The United Nations document on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) states that “We resolve to create conditions for sustainable, inclusive and sustained economic growth, shared prosperity and decent work for all.” As such, the concept of quality growth is inherent in many aspects of the SDGs. A similar approach can be seen in the Development Cooperation Charter announced by the Japanese government in 2015. According to the Charter, one of the most important challenges of development is quality growth and the reduction of poverty achieved through such growth. The approach in the Charter emphasizes inclusiveness, sustainability, and resilience. This volume is a pioneering study on quality growth as well as its relationship with SDGs and transformation. Comprehensive studies on quality growth are very few. The case study approach distinguishes the present volume from some previous literature that discussed quality growth within the framework of general policy. Instead, in this book, concrete cases and experiences provide insights into hands-on “ingredients”. Through the case studies, it can be seen more clearly that transformation and quality growth are phenomena that do not occur automatically but, rather, ones that require specific, properly designed strategies and approaches. Another unique feature of this book is that it aims to make explicit some of the consistent, but implicit, principles of Japan’s international cooperation.

Das Open Access Buch bietet eine aktuelle Bestandsaufnahme zum freiwilligen Engagement in Deutschland. Die Ergebnisse basieren auf dem Deutschen Freiwilligensurvey, der zum fünften Mal im Jahr 2019 durchgeführt wurde und vom Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (BMFSFJ) gefördert wird. Die Autor:innen klären Fragen wie: Wer engagiert sich aus welchen Beweggründen? Wie ist freiwilliges Engagement ausgestaltet und wie hat sich freiwilliges Engagement gewandelt? Wie gestaltet sich der Zusammenhang von politischer Partizipation sowie Einstellungen zur Demokratie mit dem freiwilligen Engagement?

This open access book examines why Japan discontinued its quarter-century history of troop contribution to UN Peacekeeping Operations (1992–2017). Japan had deployed its troops as UN peacekeepers since 1992, albeit under a constitutional limit on weapons use. Japan’s peacekeepers began to focus on engineering work as its strength, while also trying to relax the constraints on weapons use, although to a minimal extent. In 2017, however, Japan suddenly withdrew its engineering corps from South Sudan, and has contributed no troops since then. Why? The book argues that Japan could not match the increasing “robustness” of recent peacekeeping operations and has begun to seek a new direction, such as capacity-building support.

This open access book offers an updated examination of the institutionalisation of political science in sixteen latecomer or peripheral countries in Europe. Its main theme is how political science as a science of democracy is influenced and how it responds to the challenges of the new millennium. The chapters, built upon a common theoretical framework of institutionalisation, are evidence-based and comparative. Overall, the book diagnoses diversity among the country cases due to their take-off points and varied political and economic trajectories.

This book discusses and analyses global policies and practices aimed at promoting equity in higher education participation and attainment. Although the massification of higher education systems has facilitated the participation of students from deprived backgrounds, socioeconomic inequalities persist in access to the most prestigious institutions and programmes. Privileged students benefit from a number of advantages in the competition for selective and scarce places: access to information, lower aversion to debt, higher expectations, better previous schooling and higher academic achievement. The chapters present a critical analysis of equity policies in different countries – with or without affirmative action policies, within a context of neoliberal policies or within a social democratic model – and the reasons why they have failed to promote equity and fairness, preventing students from achieving their full educational potential. This is an open access book.

This open access book brings together scholars in the fields of management, public policy, regional studies, and organization theory around the concept of resilience. The aim is to provide a more holistic understanding of the complex phenomenon of resilience from a multi-sectorial, cross-national, and multidisciplinary perspective. The book facilitates a conversation across diverse disciplinary specializations and empirical domains. The authors contribute both to theory testing and theory development and provide key empirical insights useful for societies, organizations, and individuals experiencing disruptive pressures, not least in the context of a post-COVID-19 world. Diverse chapters are held together by a clear organization of the volume across levels of analysis (resilience in organizations and societies) and by an original perspective on resilience derived from an extended review, by the editors, of the existing literature and knowledge gaps, according to which each of the individual chapter contributions is positioned and connected to.

This open access book focuses on Albanian internal and international female migration and places gender at the heart of postsocialist transformation. It explores the vulnerabilities that arise for female citizens from the contradictory policies produced by the Albanian state. By illuminating the intersection of gender and migration, it shows how Albanian women are likely to embed themselves in complex social relations and migration trajectories. By focusing on various cases – internal, international, return, economic and student female migrants – the book underlines that migration does not follow any kind of evolutionary development, according to which women go from 'traditional’ to ‘modern' gender relations. By providing a compelling account on the complex negotiations and tactics women employ to deal with gender inequalities, this book leads to a better understanding of gender and migration entanglements. It is a useful read to students, academics in migration and gender studies as well as social scientists and policy-makers in European countries.

This aim of this open access book is to launch an international, cross-disciplinary conversation on fatherhood engagement. By integrating perspective from three sectors—Health, Social Policy, and Work in Organizations—the book offers a novel perspective on the benefits of engaged fatherhood for men, for families, and for gender equality. The chapters are crafted to engaged broad audiences, including policy makers and organizational leaders, healthcare practitioners and fellow scholars, as well as families and their loved ones.

Europe’s future is contested between those who want to integrate further, those who prefer things to stay as they are, and those who would retreat into nationalism. These divisions impair the government of the European Union and weaken its ability to shoulder more responsibility for its unstable neighbourhood. This open access book analyses the EU’s evolving constitution, arguing that the lack of effective federal government lies at the heart of its problems. It recommends reforms for each EU institution, including those involving treaty change. It makes the case for a unified executive, a more legitimate legislature, and the introduction of a federal treasury and supreme court. It proposes a fresh category of affiliate membership underpinned by a new European security council that would overcome the historic division between the EU and NATO. The book is essential reading for practitioners and students of European integration.

This open access book consists of essays written by Kishore Mahbubani to explore the challenges and dilemmas faced by the West and Asia in an increasingly interdependent world village and intensifying geopolitical competition. The contents cover four parts: Part One The End of the Era of Western Domination. The major strategic error that the West is now making is to refuse to accept this reality. The West needs to learn how to act strategically in a world where they are no longer the number 1. Part Two The Return of Asia. From the years 1 to 1820, the largest economies in the world were Asian. After 1820 and the rise of the West, however, great Asian civilizations like China and India were dominated and humiliated. The twenty-first century will see the return of Asia to the center of the world stage. Part Three The Peaceful Rise of China. The shift in the balance of power to the East has been most pronounced in the rise of China. While this rise has been peaceful, many in the West have responded with considerable concern over the influence China will have on the world order. Part Four Globalization, Multilateralism and Cooperation. Many of the world’s pressing issues, such as COVID-19 and climate change, are global issues and will require global cooperation to deal with. In short, human beings now live in a global village. States must work with each other, and we need a world order that enables and facilitates cooperation in our global village.

This Open Access book explains ASEAN’s strategic role in managing great power politics in East Asia. Constructing a theory of institutional strategy, this book argues that the regional security institutions in Southeast Asia, ASEAN and ASEAN-led institutions have devised their own institutional strategies vis-à-vis the South China Sea and navigated the great-power politics since the 1990s. ASEAN proliferated new security institutions in the 1990s and 2000s that assumed a different functionality, a different geopolitical scope, and thus a different institutional strategy. In so doing, ASEAN formed a “strategic institutional web” that nurtured a quasi-division of labor among the institutions to maintain relative stability in the South China Sea. Unlike the conventional analysis on ASEAN, this study disaggregates “ASEAN” as a collective regional actor into specific individual institutions—ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, ASEAN Summit, ASEAN-China dialogues, ASEAN Regional Forum, East Asia Summit, and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus—and explains how each of these institutions has devised and/or shifted its institutional strategy to curb great powers’ ambition in dominating the South China Sea while navigating great power competition. The book sheds light on the strategic potential and limitations of ASEAN and ASEAN-led security institutions, offers implications for the future role of ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific region, and provides an alternative understanding of the strategic utilities of regional security institutions.

This open access book presents an actor-centered study on Europeanization, based on the assumption that EU-driven reforms are highly dependent on the behavior and interests of the key domestic actors. Whether or not a state pursues a European and democratic agenda depends on domestic lawmakers. Further, political elites are pre-eminent in deciding on the nature, form and content of any law, and on the extent to which the rule of law is actually enforced. Elites can overcome structural or institutional barriers that stand in the way of achieving their goals. The empirical study on Romania presented here lends this observation a more profound meaning: it shows how, in contexts where high level corruption is the norm rather than the exception, self-serving political elites cannot be expected to genuinely commit to adopting sound anti-corruption reform. The book is an inquiry into the motivations that drive legislators to make particular decisions, but also into the structural characteristics and dynamics of the elite that invite a selfish rather than responsible and responsive behaviour. This publication was supported by funds from the Publication Fund for Open Access Monographs of the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany.

Dieses Open-Access-Buch bietet eine Einführung in den Identitätskonflikt zwischen Verteidigern und Entdeckern. Basierend auf einer Studie mit 5000 Befragten aus vier europäischen Ländern zeigen die Autoren, dass sich Verteidiger und Entdecker im Hinblick auf ihre Zugehörigkeitskonzepte und das Ausmaß wahrgenommener Bedrohung durch Muslime und Geflüchtete unterscheiden. Differenzen zwischen beiden Gruppen lassen sich auch für die jeweils wahrgenommene gesellschaftliche Marginalisierung und politische Repräsentation finden. Die Studie weist zudem nach, dass mit verschiedenen Positionen im Identitätskonflikt auch unterschiedliche Konzepte von Demokratie verbunden werden.

In diesem Open-Access-Buch untersucht L. Constantin Wurthmann die sehr enge Beziehung zwischen Wertorientierungen und Wahlverhalten. Obwohl Wertorientierungen und gesellschaftliche Wertorientierungen im Speziellen zu den zentralsten Konzepten empirischer Sozialforschung gehören, wurde ihre Wirkungsweise im Wahlverhalten bisweilen stiefmütterlich behandelt. Die vorliegende Studie entwickelt einen Vorschlag zur konzeptionellen Erfassung gesellschaftlicher Wertorientierungen und deren Einfluss auf das Wahlverhalten der bundesdeutschen Bevölkerung, welcher anschließend mit Daten der German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) für die Bundestagswahlen 2009, 2013 und 2017 überprüft wird. Dabei lassen sich strukturelle Veränderungen gesellschaftlicher Wertorientierungen in den Wählerschaften deutscher Parteien nachweisen.

This open access book gives insights into feminist methodologies in theory and practice. By foregrounding the experiential and embodied nature of doing feminist research, this book offers valuable tools for feminist research as a continuous praxis. Emerging from a rich collective learning process, the collection offers in-depth reflections on how feminists shape research questions, understand positionality, share research results beyond academe and produce feminist intersectional knowledges. This book reveals how the authors navigate theory and practice, candidly exploring the difficulty of producing knowledge on the edge of academia and activism. From different points of view, places and disciplinary positions, artistic and creative experiments and collaborations, the book provides a multi-layered analysis. This book will be a valuable resource and asset to early career researchers and interdisciplinary feminist students who can learn more about the doing of feminist research from realistic, accessible, and practical methodological tools and knowledge.

The book addresses the compelling questions concerning the ideals of African citizenship, the processes of learning to fulfill these ideals, and possibilities of education in fostering citizenship. Rather than advocating for one particular framework, the authors demonstrate the continuously contested nature of the concept of citizenship as both theoretically discussed by philosophers and practically experienced in daily lives. The monograph combines, in an unconventional way, selected philosophical accounts and everyday experiences from certain locations in Tanzania and Uganda. It provides contributions from philosophical ideas drawing on scholars such as Chantal Mouffe, Rosi Braidotti, Theodor Adorno and Étienne Balibar on one hand, and the conceptions articulated by groups of inhabitants of rural and urban settings in Africa, on the other hand. Therefore, the book offers fresh readings under the lenses of citizenship and learning. This is an open access book.

This open access book provides the first ever authoritative collection of scholarly insights, based upon original research, into the political groups of the EP tackling the fundamental changes since the Lisbon Treaty and the upsurge of radical right parties. It analyses political groups and their importance from multiple perspectives critically assessing their role and significance in EU politics. Each chapter is authored by leading scholars in the field, working on key topics in relation to political groups: political group formation and function, their role in parliamentary and EU policy-making, the way that Eurosceptic MEPs influence (or not) the Parliament, and the nature and form of interactions with external actors. In doing so, each chapter opens hitherto unexplored ‘black boxes’ in the political work of the EP, such as the internal practices of, and power relations within the political groups, and informal arenas of intra-group decision-making.

This Open Access book explains a new type of political order that emerged in Hungary in 2010: a form of authoritarian capitalism with an anti-liberal political and social agenda. Eva Fodor analyzes an important part of this agenda that directly targets gender relations through a set of policies, political practice and discourse—what she calls “carefare.” The book reveals how this is the anti-liberal response to the crisis-of-care problem and establishes how a state carefare regime disciplines women into doing an increasing amount of paid and unpaid work without fair remuneration. Fodor analyzes elements of this regime in depth and contrasts it to other social policy ideal-types, demonstrating how carefare is not only a set of policies targeting women, but an integral element of anti-liberal rule that can be seen emerging globally.

In diesem Open-Access-Buch werden Erfahrungen zur Zusammenarbeit und zum Wissensmanagement verschiedenster staatlicher, gemeinnütziger und privater Akteure in der Flüchtlingslage 2015/16 aufbereitet, mit praxisnahen Beispielen angereichert und um Übungen zur Vorbereitung auf zukünftige Lagen ergänzt. Die damalige Lage stellte die Beteiligten vor große Herausforderungen, sowohl im Hinblick auf Kooperationen als auch den Wissensaustausch mit anderen. Wie die Akteure damit umgingen, welche Erfolge und Misserfolge sich dabei einstellten und was sie daraus gelernt haben wird hier thematisiert.; In diesem Open-Access-Buch werden Erfahrungen zur Zusammenarbeit und zum Wissensmanagement verschiedenster staatlicher, gemeinnütziger und privater Akteure in der Flüchtlingslage 2015/16 aufbereitet, mit praxisnahen Beispielen angereichert und um Übungen zur Vorbereitung auf zukünftige Lagen ergänzt. Die damalige Lage stellte die Beteiligten vor große Herausforderungen, sowohl im Hinblick auf Kooperationen als auch den Wissensaustausch mit anderen. Wie die Akteure damit umgingen, welche Erfolge und Misserfolge sich dabei einstellten und was sie daraus gelernt haben wird hier thematisiert.

Dieses Open-Access-Buch setzt sich zum Ziel, eingebettet in historische Kontexte paralleler Kalter Kriege im globalen und regionalen Rahmen die historische Genese der amerikanisch-iranischen Sonderbeziehungen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und deren Transformation in den drei anschließenden Jahrzehnten zu analysieren. In der Geschichte der Staatenwelt nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg gibt es wohl kaum ein bilaterales Verhältnis, das eine ähnlich tiefgreifende Kehrtwende von engsten, zwischenzeitlich fast „besonderen“ Beziehungen hin zu gegenseitiger Dämonisierung und unüberwindlich erscheinender Feindschaft erfahren hat, wie dasjenige zwischen den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika und Iran. Zentraler Bezugspunkt sind dabei die Entscheidungen und die strukturellen Zwänge, die zur engen Anlehnung der amerikanischen Politik an den Hof und die Person des Schahs führten, was die Entfremdung der oppositionellen Kräfte und die Entstehung des Feindbildes USA während der Revolutionsphase zur Folge hatte. Der Autor Roland Popp ist Politischer Berater/Analyst, wohnhaft in Zürich/Schweiz. Seine Themenschwerpunkte sind der gegenwärtige Nahe und Mittlere Osten und Fragen der internationalen Sicherheitspolitik. Er berät Unternehmen bezüglich politischer Risiken und ist häufiger Gast und Interviewpartner im Schweizer Fernsehen.

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This book is arranged and developed around the theme of “2050 China,” it analyzes the factors and advantages of the Chinese road to socialist modernization, explores and summarizes the development goal and the basic logic of the socialist modernization of China, and further shows the general basis of the primary stage of socialism. According to the report delivered at the 19th Party Congress, and according to the “two-stage” strategic plan, this book looks ahead in detail to the overarching objective and sub-objectives of essentially achieving socialist modernization by 2035, discusses the building of a great modern socialist country in all respects from the perspective of the Party’s six-sphere integrated plan of economic, political, cultural, social, ecological civilization, and national defense construction, and provides policy proposals. This book also analyzes the influence and the effect of the socialist modernization with Chinese characteristics on the world and it further presents the third centenary goal. In conclusion, this book is an elaboration of the work of the Institute for Contemporary China Studies, Tsinghua University. It reflects the intellectual innovation in the authors’ research on contemporary China, as well as the authors’ foresight and predictions about China’s future development.

This open access book examines everyday practices in an asylum administration. Asylum decisions are often criticised as being ‘subjective’ or ‘arbitrary’. Asylum Matters turns this claim on its head. Through the ethnographic study of asylum decision-making in the Swiss Secretariat for Migration, the book shows how regularities in administrative practice and ‘socialised subjectivity’ are produced. It argues that asylum caseworkers acquire an institutional habitus through their socialisation on the job, making them ‘carriers’ of routine practices. The different chapters of the book deal with what it means to methodologically study administrative practice: with how asylum proceedings work in Switzerland and with the role different types of knowledge play in overcoming the uncertainties inherent in refugee status and credibility determination. It sheds light on organisational socialisation processes and on the professional norms and values at the heart of administrative work. By doing so, it shows how disbelief becomes normalised in the office. This book speaks to legal scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, human geographers and political scientists interested in bureaucracy, asylum law, migration studies and socio-legal studies, and to NGOs working in the field of asylum.

This open access book explores one of the most fiercely debated issues in China: if and how China will surpass the middle income trap that has plagued many developing countries for years. This book gives readers a clear picture of China today and acts as a reference for other developing countries. China is facing many setbacks and experiencing an economic slowdown in recent years due to some serious issues, and income inequality is one such issue deferring China’s development potential by creating a middle income trap. This book thoroughly investigates both the unpromising factors and favorable conditions for China to overcome the trap. It illustrates that traps may be encountered at any stage of development and argues that political stability is the prerequisite to creating a favorable environment for economic development and addressing this “middle income trap”. Written by one of China's central planners, this book offers precious insights into the industrial policies that are transforming China and the world and will be of interest to China scholars, economists and political scientists.

This open access book provides an in-depth look into the background of rule of law problems and the open defiance of EU law in East Central European countries. Current illiberal trends and anti-EU politics have the potential to undermine mutual trust between member states and fundamentally change the EU. It is therefore crucial to understand their domestic causes, context conditions, specific processes and consequences. This volume contributes to empirically informed theory-building and includes contributions from researchers from various disciplines and multiple perspectives on illiberal trends and anti-EU politics in the region. The qualitative case studies, comparative works and quantitative analyses provide a comprehensive picture of current societal, political and institutional developments in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Through studying similarities and differences between East Central European and other EU countries, the chapters also explore whether there are regional patterns of democracy- and EU-related problems.

This open access book draws the big picture of how population change interplays with politics across the world from 1990 to 2040. Leading social scientists from a wide range of disciplines discuss, for the first time, all major political and policy aspects of population change as they play out differently in each major world region: North and South America; Sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA region; Western and East Central Europe; Russia, Belarus and Ukraine; East Asia; Southeast Asia; subcontinental India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; Australia and New Zealand. These macro-regional analyses are completed by cross-cutting global analyses of migration, religion and poverty, and age profiles and intra-state conflicts. From all angles, this book shows how strongly contextualized the political management and the political consequences of population change are. While long-term population ageing and short-term migration fluctuations present structural conditions, political actors play a key role in (mis-)managing, manipulating, and (under-)planning population change, which in turn determines how citizens in different groups react.

This open access volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes new strategies. The use and utility of deterrence in today’s strategic environment is a topic of paramount concern to scholars, strategists and policymakers. Ours is a period of considerable strategic turbulence, which in recent years has featured a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons used in defence postures across different theatres; a dramatic growth in the scale of military cyber capabilities and the frequency with which these are used; and rapid technological progress including the proliferation of long-range strike and unmanned systems. These military-strategic developments occur in a polarized international system, where cooperation between leading powers on arms control regimes is breaking down, states widely make use of hybrid conflict strategies, and the number of internationalized intrastate proxy conflicts has quintupled over the past two decades. Contemporary conflict actors exploit a wider gamut of coercive instruments, which they apply across a wider range of domains. The prevalence of multi-domain coercion across but also beyond traditional dimensions of armed conflict raises an important question: what does effective deterrence look like in the 21st century? Answering that question requires a re-appraisal of key theoretical concepts and dominant strategies of Western and non-Western actors in order to assess how they hold up in today’s world. Air Commodore Professor Dr. Frans Osinga is the Chair of the War Studies Department of the Netherlands Defence Academy and the Special Chair in War Studies at the University Leiden. Dr. Tim Sweijs is the Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy in Breda.