This open access book explores how digital tools and social media technologies can contribute to better participation and involvement of EU citizens in European politics. By analyzing selected representative e-participation projects at the local, national and European governmental levels, it identifies the preconditions, best practices and shortcomings of e-participation practices in connection…
Focusing on the social democratic heartland of Western Europe, In search of social democracy gives the first detailed assessment of how the new social democratic revisionism has fared in government. The book begins by considering the causes of the end of social democracy’s golden age and the magnitude of the challenges faced by social democratic parties after the 1970s. It then examines detai…
Cowinner of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology’s Edward Sapir Book Prize Since the early 1990s hundreds of thousands of Tamil villagers in southern India have participated in literacy lessons and other events designed to transform them into active citizens with access to state power. These efforts are part of a movement known as the Arivoli Iyakkam (the Enlightenment Movement), one of th…
Tracing the evolution of social capital since his highly acclaimed contribution of 2001 (Social Capital Versus Social Theory), Ben Fine consolidates his position as the world's leading critic of the concept. Fine forcibly demonstrates how social capital has expanded across the social sciences only by degrading the different disciplines and topics that it touches: a McDonaldisation of social the…
The second volume of the African Higher Education Dynamics Series brings together the research of an international network of higher education scholars with interest in higher education and student politics in Africa. Most authors are early career academics who teach and conduct research in universities across the continent, and who came together for a research project and related workshops and…
After violent protests all over the country had forced President Suharto to step down in 1998, Indonesia successfully made the transition from an authoritarian state to a democracy. In this book Indonesian scholars attached to Islamic universities and Dutch researchers investigate what happened since and what the consequences are of the growing influence of orthodoxy and radicalism, which alrea…
Over the past decade the Middle East has undergone huge geopolitical shifts, including widespread war and violence, the collapse of numerous regimes, a changing American role, a restored Russian presence, and the emergence of ISIS. In this book Graham Fuller addresses the character of these shifts and how they will shape the future of this tumultuous region as well as the role of major outside …
"Islam exists in global history with its richly variegated cultural and social realities. When these specific cultural contexts are marginalized, Islam is reduced to an ahistorical religion without the ability to contribute to humanity. This limited understanding of Islam has been a contributing factor in many of the violent conflicts in the present day. Reflecting on Islam in Indonesia, the wo…
In this volume Florian Schneider shows how mass media events fit into the political, economic, and cultural developments in China. Through expert interviews and empirical studies of production backgrounds and media contents, Schneider explores the communication strategies that informed the Beijing Olympics, the Shanghai Expo, and the 60th Anniversary of the PRC. The book discusses what the impl…
This book delves into the politics of contemporary archaeology in an increasingly complex international environment. Describing various forms of cosmopolitan engagement, the contributors explore the implications of applying the cosmopolitan ideals of obligation to others and respect for cultural difference to archaeological practice, showing that those ethics increasingly demand the rethinking …