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"The written and spoken forms of Arabic have been traditionally viewed as separate forms of the language that rarely overlap in writing, but this book will examine the recently emerged concept of 'mixed' writing that combines both written and spoken forms. This book takes a close look at different examples of mixed Arabic writing in modern (20-21st century) print and online literature, offering an analysis of this type of mixing alongside a dynamic model for analysing mixed Arabic writing, and the motivations for producing this type of writing. This book further introduces the ground-breaking concept of the seven writing styles for Arabic, ranging from Classical Arabic to ChatSpeak, whilst also offering an overview of early Arabic literacy and children's literature. Primarily aimed at Arabic researchers and teachers in linguistics, sociolinguistics, identity studies, politics and Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language, this book would also be informative for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying Arabic as foreign language, Arabic linguistics, and dialectology"--

The story of South Asian death squads is the story of rampant state terror. From Balochistan in Pakistan to Barisal in Bangladesh, military and paramilitary forces roam the streets under different names and in different formations. However, they carry the same toolbox of abuse: torture, rape, enforced disappearances and cold-blooded executions. These are units which are recognised and protected by the state -- acting as part of regular security forces, shielded by black laws or emergency acts. Khalil argues that the existence of death squads and a politics of extrajudicial executions are symptoms of socio-political conditions. These abuses occur in weak postcolonial states that often lack the consent of the ruled. Militarism remains the dominant doctrine in policymaking and statecraft. And hegemonic foreign sponsorship of the ruling elite impedes the establishment of democratic order. This book sets out to close a gap in the literature on human rights in South Asia, in which socio-political analysis of state terror is hard to come by. Khalil unveils the bloody logic of domination and repression that lies at the very core of statecraft in South Asia

"This book links sectarianism in Iraq to the failure of the modern nation-state to resolve tensions between sectarian identities and concepts of unified statehood and uniform citizenry. After a theoretical excursus that recasts the notion of primordial identity as a socially constructed reality, the author sets out to explain the persistence of sectarian affiliations in Iraq since its creation following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. Despite the adoption of homogenizing state policies, the uneven sectarian composition of the ruling elites nurtured feelings of political exclusion among marginalized sectarian groups, the Shiites before 2003 and the Sunnis in the post-2003 period. The book then examines how communal discourses in the educational curriculum provoked masked forms of resistance that sharpened sectarian consciousness. Tracing how the anti-Persian streak in the nation-state's Pan-Arab ideology, which camouflaged anti-Shiaism, undermined Iraq's national integration project, Sectarianism in Iraq delves into the country's slide from a totalizing Pan-Arab ideology in the pre-2003 period toward the atomistic impulse of the federalist debate in the post-2003 period. Employing extensive fieldwork, this book sheds light on the dynamics of political life in post-Saddam Iraq and is essential reading for Iraqi and Middle East specialists, as well as those interested in understanding the current heightening of sectarian Sunni-Shicite tensions in the Middle East"--

"This book links sectarianism in Iraq to the failure of the modern nation-state to resolve tensions between sectarian identities and concepts of unified statehood and uniform citizenry. After a theoretical excursus that recasts the notion of primordial identity as a socially constructed reality, the author sets out to explain the persistence of sectarian affiliations in Iraq since its creation following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. Despite the adoption of homogenizing state policies, the uneven sectarian composition of the ruling elites nurtured feelings of political exclusion among marginalized sectarian groups, the Shiites before 2003 and the Sunnis in the post-2003 period. The book then examines how communal discourses in the educational curriculum provoked masked forms of resistance that sharpened sectarian consciousness. Tracing how the anti-Persian streak in the nation-state's Pan-Arab ideology, which camouflaged anti-Shiaism, undermined Iraq's national integration project, Sectarianism in Iraq delves into the country's slide from a totalizing Pan-Arab ideology in the pre-2003 period toward the atomistic impulse of the federalist debate in the post-2003 period. Employing extensive fieldwork, this book sheds light on the dynamics of political life in post-Saddam Iraq and is essential reading for Iraqi and Middle East specialists, as well as those interested in understanding the current heightening of sectarian Sunni-Shicite tensions in the Middle East"--

When the information used by a principal to monitor an agent is private, and thus non-verifiable by a third party, the principal has a credibility issue with the agent. The agent should be concerned that the principal could misrepresent the information in order to collect a monetary penalty from him. Restoring credibility may lead to an extreme waste of resources—the so-called burning of money, where the monetary penalty is given away to a third party. We show that a more realistic and efficient outcome is feasible by exploiting the timing of private information. If the private information arrives before the agent has completed his effort, non-monetary tools like rescaling the project become optimal, and no money needs to be burned. We show that rescaling is more effective than pure monetary penalties because effort has different values to different parties, while money is equally valuable to all parties. An alternative way to solve the principal's credibility problem is to certify the private signal and make it public. When collusion between the certifier and the agent is an issue, we uncover interesting similarities between private signals and public (certified) signals vulnerable to collusive manipulation. We show that certification of private information by a third party may not always be in the interest of the principal if this certification raises the specter of collusion.

We examine the power of incentives in bureaucracies by studying contracts offered by a bureaucrat to her agent. The bureaucrat operates under a fixed budget, optimally chosen by a funding authority, and she can engage in policy drift, which we define as inversely related to her intrinsic motivation. Interaction between a fixed budget and policy drift results in low-powered incentives. We discuss how the bureaucrat may benefit from stricter accountability as it leads to larger budgets. Low-powered incentives remain even in an alternative centralized setting, where the funding authority contracts directly with the agent using the bureaucrat to monitor output.