Across Britain, old stories speak of figures seen at the edge of the trees.They are known by many names: wild men, woodwose, hairy men, mountain presences, grey giants, forest watchers, and strange human shaped things glimpsed on lonely roads, moors, hillsides, and ancient woodland paths. Long before the word Bigfoot entered modern language, Britain already carried its own tradition of the wild man, a being neither fully animal nor fully human, tied to wilderness, fear, folklore, a...

Management and Engineering of Critical Infrastructures focuses on two important aspects of CIS, management and engineering. The book provides an ontological foundation for the models and methods needed to design a set of systems, networks and assets that are essential for a society's functioning, and for ensuring the security, safety and economy of a nation. Various examples in agriculture, the water supply, public health, transportation, security services, electricity generation, telecomm...

How do legal systems actually operate outside of Western European or North American liberal democracies? To understand law and legal institutions globally, we must go beyond asking if countries comply with idealized, yet under-theorized, rule of law principles to determine how they work in practice. Examining legal regimes across different areas of criminal and civil law in both urban and rural China and Indonesia during distinct periods from 1949 to the present, William Hurst offers a new...

Despite a centralized formal structure, Chinese politics and policy-making have long been marked by substantial degrees of regional and local variation and experimentation. These trends have, if anything, intensified as China’s reform matures. Though often remarked upon, the politicsof policy formation, diffusion, and implementation at the subnational level have not previously been comprehensively described, let alone satisfactorily explained.Based on extensive fieldwork, this book...

Do our ideas about social movements travel successfully beyond the democratic West? Unrest in China, from the dramatic events of 1989 to more recent stirrings, offers a rare opportunity to explore this question and to consider how popular contention unfolds in places where speech and assembly are tightly controlled. The contributors to this volume, all prominent scholars of Chinese politics and society, argue that ideas inspired by social movements elsewhere can help explain popular protes...

While millions in China have been advantaged by three decades of reform, impressive gains have also produced social dislocation. Groups that had been winners under socialism find themselves losers in the new order. Based on field research in nine cities across China, this fascinating study considers the fate of one such group - 35 million workers laid off from the state-owned sector. The book explains why these lay-offs occurred, how workers are coping with unemployment, what actions the s...

We know everything and nothing about China. We know that China is changing so fast that the maps in Shanghai need to be redrawn every two weeks. We know that China has brought 300 million people from agricultural backwardness into modernity in just thirty years, and that its impact on the global economy is growing at unprecedented speed. We have an image of China as a dictatorship; a nationalist empire that threatens its neighbors and global peace.But how many people know about the...

How China's political model could prove to be a viable alternative to Western democracyWesterners tend to divide the political world into "good" democracies and “bad” authoritarian regimes. But the Chinese political model does not fit neatly in either category. Over the past three decades, China has evolved a political system that can best be described as “political meritocracy.” The China Model seeks to understand the ideals and the reality of this unique...

China is huge. China is growing more powerful. Yet China remains a great mystery to most people in the West. This contemporary history, based on the latest scholarly research, offers a balanced perspective of the continuing legacy of Maoism in the lives not only of China's leaders but China's working people. It outlines the ambitious economic reforms taken since the 1980s and shows the complex responses to the consequences of reform in China today.Cheek shows the domestic concerns ...

The fast-developing relationship between China and Europe has become one of the most important in international affairs. China-Europe Relations takes an innovative and insightful look at this phenomenon, examining:the state of Chinese studies in Europe and European studies in Chinathe decision-making behind the EU’s China policy, and what the Chinese perceptions and assessments are of Europe that shape China’s Europe policy

In the 1990s China embarked on a series of political reforms intended to increase, however modestly, political participation to reduce the abuse of power by local officials. Although there was initial progress, these reforms have largely stalled and, in many cases, gone backward. If there were sufficient incentives to inaugurate reform, why wasn't there enough momentum to continue and deepen them? This book approaches this question by looking at a number of promising reforms, understanding...

This comprehensive and authoritative account of the development of the Korean economy combines an historical approach with a substantial treatment of the new economy. Its fresh analysis of the recent transition and systematic treatment of labour issues represent a significant contribution to the scholarship on the politics of development. It is an essential resource for students of comparative political economy and East Asian development.