Search results

"This book is undertaken by the author who has personally walked the journey of a classroom teacher, middle leader and school principal in the Singapore education system. It is a culmination of two research projects undertaken in two phases — the first is derived from the PhD Thesis entitled The Making of School Principals in Singapore and the second is based on interviews with school principals who have retired from the Singapore education system. Both research projects provide invaluable input to describe the four career phases of school leadership, that is, formation, accession, incumbency, and divestiture. This research describes how the formative years of a school principal have tremendous impact on who the principal is, and how the values and beliefs of an aspiring/potential school leader serve to guide him/her in taking on the principalship post. This well-structured book is both exploratory and descriptive. It provides the necessary background for anyone interested in understanding school leadership as a career. More specifically, it will be of value to educators and stakeholders interested in understanding the nature of school leadership in the Singapore education system."--

"Singapore's progress as an independent nation and the uplifting of its people's livelihood have been made possible by stable social and political conditions. A more important factor in driving these positive changes lies with people-centric leadership. One can contrast the case of Singapore with societies led by self-serving leaders whose lack of honesty and integrity brings about immense social and economic hardships to various communities. When people suffer under undesirable circumstances, they often migrate to seek better future for themselves and their families. This book reveals how Singapore's governance grounded on the principle of asset building facilitates the country's growth and development. Policies being discussed in this volume include multi-culturalism, accessible housing, social mobility for low-income families, water resource management, and national conscription. Highly relevant for students, policy makers and the general public interested in socio-political and economic development issues, this unique piece of work not only gives readers a documentary account of what has been undertaken to empower and assist citizens in the last 50 years or so, but also prompts them to reflect on Singapore's future trajectory."--Publisher's website.

"Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or ""Fake news"" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a ""post-truth"" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives.

Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analysing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment.

The authors argue that longstanding institutional, political, and cultural patterns in American politics interacted with technological change since the 1970s to create a propaganda feedback loop in American conservative media. This dynamic has marginalized centre-right media and politicians, radicalized the right wing ecosystem, and rendered it susceptible to propaganda efforts, foreign and domestic. For readers outside the United States, the book offers a new perspective and methods for diagnosing the sources of, and potential solutions for, the perceived global crisis of democratic politics."

"Five out of the eight South Asian countries have direct access to the Indian ocean, yet research tends to focus instead on the region's landmass. Much less attention is paid to the extensive maritime space that links South Asian countries, provides their populations with vital access to resources, connects their economies to global trade networks and perhaps most importantly, contributes to law and order at sea. At a time when the Indian Ocean has gained great interest and relevance for many global actors, the role and location of South Asia will have critical implications for strategic calculation and alignment. Furthermore, if trade imbalances are to be tackled and economic globalization to regain steam, enhancing South Asia's ability to export and import through the oceans is essential. Finally, climate change is projected to impact South Asia massively. Coping with humanitarian crises and natural disasters will need critical investments in maritime capacities and cooperation. This edited volume brings together multiple perspectives on contemporary maritime governance in South Asia, from practitioners, policy-makers and academics around the world. They examine India's role as South Asia's leading naval and economic power and the capacity of key actors to shape maritime order in the Indian Ocean."--

This work explores global governance, its rules, and institutions at large, and provides analysis on some of the most salient global challenges today.

Through an in-depth analysis of bestselling 'how-to-succeed' books along with popular television shows and well-trafficked 'mommy' blogs, 'The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism' demonstrates how the notion of a happy work-family balance has not only been incorporated into the popular imagination as a progressive feminist ideal but also lies at the heart of a new variant of feminism.

While millions feel politically marginalized, there is evidence that democracy is evolving into a conversation-based, public-centered practice called deliberative democracy. In this new form of democracy, public discussion, conscious reflection, and collective choice drive democratic governance and have the power to override democratic dysfunction. Illustrating this emerging possibility with examples from 28 years of US public engagement on LGBT equality, this book offers a practical model for the growth of deliberative democracy in which everyone can take part. It identifies the necessary social catalysts, the role of social networks and technology, and key pathways to addressing unconscious bias, hidden fears, and identity based polarization as they were overcome in the LGBT case. It demonstrates how each person can gain voice and influence in a deliberative democracy in which people once again become the true source of political power. This book will interest anyone who cares about the future of democracy.

Brazil's quality of democracy remains limited by enduring obstacles including the weakness of parties and underrepresentation of marginalized groups. Party Institutionalization and Women's Representation in Democratic Brazil theorizes the connections across those problems, explaining how weakly institutionalized and male-dominant parties interact to undermine descriptive representation in Brazil. This book draws on an original multilevel database of 27,653 legislative candidacies spanning six election cycles, over 100 interviews, and field observations from throughout Brazil. Wylie demonstrates that more inclusive participation in candidate-centered elections amidst raced-gendered structural inequities relies on institutionalized parties with the capacity to support women, and the will, heralded by party leadership, to do so. The book illustrates how women leaders in Brazil's more institutionalized parties enable white and Afro-descendant female aspirants to navigate the masculinized terrain of formal politics. It enhances our understanding of how parties mediate electoral rules, as well as institutional and party change in the context of weak but robustly gendered institutions.

While much is known about who votes in American elections, much less is known about who donates. In this book, the authors utilize a unique and historically unprecedented data set of donors from the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections to answer longstanding questions: what is the relationship between donors and candidates? How do candidates attract and respond to contributors? How do campaign strategies reflect changing campaign finance laws and the development of the internet? With unprecedented cooperation from the Obama, McCain, and Romney campaigns, the authors investigate presidential campaign donors at all giving levels to produce the most systematic and complete analysis of donors to presidential nominees to date. As elections are decided increasingly by donors' dollars, Who Donates to Campaigns? provides relevant research on the broader trends in partisan polarization and, more generally, on how campaigns can engage more citizens in political participation.

In Resilient Communities, Jana Krause focuses on civilian agency and mobilization 'from below' and explains violence and non-violence in communal wars. Drawing on extensive field research on ethno-religious conflicts in Ambon/Maluku Province in eastern Indonesia and Jos/Plateau State in central Nigeria, this book shows how civilians responded to local conflict dynamics very differently, evading, supporting, or collectively resisting armed groups. Combining evidence collected from more than 200 interviews with residents, community leaders, and former fighters, local scholarly work (in Indonesian), and local newspaper-based event data analysis, this book explains civilian mobilization, militia formation, and conflict escalation. The book's comparison of vulnerable mixed communities and (un)successful prevention efforts demonstrates how under courageous leadership resilient communities can emerge that adapt to changing conflict zones and collectively prevent killings. By developing the concepts of communal war and social resilience, Krause extends our understanding of local violence, (non-)escalation, and implications for prevention.

"Is This the Asian Century? comprises 25 articles which the author has published on the Project Syndicate website since 2012. These articles are grouped into four broad topics: (1) Growth and Structural Adjustment, (2) Economic Integration and Cooperation, (3) Business, Money, and Finance, and (4) Education and Society. Through these selected works, the author explores whether the Asian Century is coming to pass or not and how Asian economies prepare for such century. The author also presents his analyses of Asia's economic transformation as well as social and cultural changes, and suggests the ways that Asian economies can overcome major economic and social challenges to continue their path towards a more balanced and sustainable growth in the 21st century. This book serves as a useful reference text for those who seek to understand the Asian economies, and contributes to ongoing policy debate on Asia's economic future."--Publisher's website.

'Satiric TV in the Americas' focuses on Latin American TV satire in order to understand their critical role in challenging the status quo, traditional journalism, and the prevalent local media culture. It introduces the notion of 'critical metatainment' as negotiated dissent, a key concept for the study of postmodern satire.

Who votes for radical right parties and why? This book argues that the increasing popularity of the radical right in Europe originates in community bonds: strong ties to one's locality motivate support for the radical right. These parties use nostalgic themes and symbolic politicking to idealize community, defend local autonomy, and ultimately draw local identity into the electoral realm. While other explanations of the radical right's popularity typify supporters as victims of macro-economic shifts and strains, the author's account explores people's day-to-day experiences that link local connections to political decisions. The analysis also raises questions about the political implications of different formal authority structures such as the level and nature of power devolved to local units. The localist model of radical right support illuminates the psychological, social, and institutional conditions and processes that render people's feelings about their cities, towns, and villages relevant for politics.

"Anarchism and religion have historically had an uneasy relationship. Indeed, representatives of both sides have regularly insisted on the fundamental incompatibility of anarchist and religious ideas and practices. Yet, ever since the emergence of anarchism as an intellectual and political movement, a considerable number of religious anarchists have insisted that their religious tradition necessarily implies an anarchist political stance.
Reflecting both a rise of interest in anarchist ideas and activism on the one hand, and the revival of religious ideas and movements in the political sphere on the other, this multi-volume collection examines congruities and contestations between the two from a diverse range of academic perspectives.
The second volume of Essays in Anarchism & Religion includes essays covering themes such as Yiddish radicalism, Byzantine theology, First Peter, William Blake, the role of violence in anarchism and in Christian anarchism, Spanish anarchist-themed film, and the Occult features of anarchism.
In a world where political ideas increasingly matter once more, and religion is an increasingly visible aspect of global political life, these essays offer scholarly analysis of overlooked activists, ideas and movements, and as such reveal the possibility of a powerful critique of contemporary global society."

In From Media Systems to Media Cultures: Understanding Socialist Television, Sabina Mihelj and Simon Huxtable delve into the fascinating world of television under communism, using it to test a new framework for comparative media analysis. To understand the societal consequences of mass communication, the authors argue that we need to move beyond the analysis of media systems, and instead focus on the role of the media in shaping cultural ideals and narratives, everyday practices and routines. Drawing on a wealth of original data derived from archival sources, programme and schedule analysis, and oral history interviews, the authors show how communist authorities managed to harness the power of television to shape new habits and rituals, yet failed to inspire a deeper belief in communist ideals. This book and their analysis contains important implications for the understanding of mass communication in non-democratic settings, and provides tools for the analysis of media cultures globally.