Imagine a nation with the highest proportion of women legislators in the world. Imagine a country where a democratically elected president is committed to gender equality and poverty reduction, where urban and rural schools are being wired to the Internet, and where the government is committed to becoming a middle-income country by 2020. Imagine that this country is located in the heart of sub-Saharan Africa and that this progress comes in the wake of one of the 20th century's worst genoci...

An expert on developing nations offers "accessible and very sensible analysis" of America's promotion of democracy abroad—and why it often fails ( Publishers Weekly).Oxford economist Paul Collier gives an eye-opening assessment of the corruption and political violence that plague developing nations across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. While many of these governments meet America's standards for democracy, Collier shows that they lack the essential infras...

From Wisconsin to Washington, DC, the claims are made: unions are responsible for budget deficits, and their members are overpaid and enjoy cushy benefits. The only way to save the American economy, pundits claim, is to weaken the labor movement, strip workers of collective bargaining rights, and champion private industry. In "They're Bankrupting Us!": And 20 Other Myths about Unions, labor leader Bill Fletcher Jr. makes sense of this debate as he unpacks the twenty-one myths most...

"A competent, thorough assessment from a veteran expert in the field." — Kirkus ReviewsIncome disparities in our wealthy nation are wider than at any point since the Great Depression. The structure of today's economy has stultified wage growth for half of America's workers—with even worse results at the bottom and for people of color—while bestowing billions on the few at the very top.In this "accessible and inspiring analysis", lifelong ...

How can the poorer countries of the world be helped to help themselves through freer, fairer trade? In this challenging and controversial book Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and his co-author Andrew Charlton address one of the key issues facing world leaders today. They put forward a radical and realistic new model for managing trading relationships between the richest and the poorest countries. Their approach is designed to open up markets in the interests of all and not...

Food aid has become a contentious issue in recent decades, with sharp disagreements over genetically modified crops, agricultural subsidies, and ways of guaranteeing food security in the face of successive global food crises. In Hunger in the Balance, Jennifer Clapp provides a timely and comprehensive account of the contemporary politics of food aid, explaining the origins and outcomes of recent clashes between donor nations—and between donors and recipients....

A vision—and detailed road map to power—for a new party that will champion America’s rational center.From debt ceiling standoffs to single-digit Congress approval ratings, America’s political system has never been more polarized—or paralyzed—than it is today. As best-selling author and public policy expert Charles Wheelan writes, now is the time for a pragmatic Centrist party that will identify and embrace the best Democratic and Republican ideals, moving us forward on the most urg...

In the second edition of his essential book—which incorporates vital new information and new material on immigration, race, gender, and the social crisis following 2008—Michael Zweig warns that by allowing the working class to disappear into categories of "middle class" or "consumers," we also allow those with the dominant power, capitalists, to vanish among the rich. Economic relations then appear as comparisons of income or lifestyle rather than as what they truly are—co...

Africa is poor. If we send it money it will be less poor. It seems perfectly logical, doesn't it? Millions of people in the rich world, moved by images on television and appalled by the miserable conditions endured by so many in other countries, have joined campaigns to persuade their governments to double aid to Africa and help put an end to such shameful inequality.It seems simple. But it isn't. In this book, Jonathan Glennie argues that, along with its many benefits, government ...

Only a dramatic, imaginatively crafted intervention - a massive redistribution programme managed by the private sector, far-reaching policy changes in schooling, housing and health, and better, disciplined governance - will deliver the genuine liberation South Africa's still-poor millions expected from the 1994 settlement. Without it, without the real promise of a free, meritocratic society, South Africa will flounder and fail as corruption, crime, social decay, hopelessness and anger engu...

World trade is recovering from its sharpest decline since the Great Depression. Europe remains the world’s leading trading entity, despite the crisis. The authors of this paper assert that the EU should not retreat to protectionism, but should rise to the post-crisis challenge. The paper assesses how Europe can do this through strengthening the single market, proposes various objectives for external trade policy and examines the need for greater political advocacy regarding the benefits of...

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is scarcely ten years old, but even in these early years of its existence it has generated debate, controversy and even outrage. Rulings on beef hormones and tuna-dolphin cases provide graphic examples of how the organization regulates and intrudes into areas of individual consumer choice, ethical preferences, and cultural habits. This deep and far-ranging impact of the WTO on peoples' everyday lives means that it is not just an institution of interest to...