Tag: State

Free Download Crafting Mexico: Intellectuals, Artisans, and the State after the Revolution By Rick A. López
2010 | 408 Pages | ISBN: 082234694X | PDF | 7 MB
After Mexico’s revolution of 1910-1920, intellectuals sought to forge a unified cultural nation out of the country’s diverse populace. Their efforts resulted in an "ethnicized" interpretation of Mexicanness that intentionally incorporated elements of folk and indigenous culture. In this rich history, Rick A. López explains how thinkers and artists, including the anthropologist Manuel Gamio, the composer Carlos Chávez, the educator Moisés Sáenz, the painter Diego Rivera, and many less-known figures, formulated and promoted a notion of nationhood in which previously denigrated vernacular arts–dance, music, and handicrafts such as textiles, basketry, ceramics, wooden toys, and ritual masks–came to be seen as symbolic of Mexico’s modernity and national distinctiveness. López examines how the nationalist project intersected with transnational intellectual and artistic currents, as well as how it was adapted in rural communities. He provides an in-depth account of artisanal practices in the village of Olinalá, located in the mountainous southern state of Guerrero. Since the 1920s, Olinalá has been renowned for its lacquered boxes and gourds, which have been considered to be among the "most Mexican" of the nation’s arts. Crafting Mexico illuminates the role of cultural politics and visual production in Mexico’s transformation from a regionally and culturally fragmented country into a modern nation-state with an inclusive and compelling national identity.

Free Download The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Power in the Hinterland
English | 2023 | ISBN: 100926110X | 374 Pages | PDF | 6 MB
States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce can have outsize, long-lasting effects on society. The Scarce State reframes our understanding of the political economy of hinterlands through a multi-method study of Northern Ghana alongside shadow cases from other world regions. Drawing on a historical natural experiment, the book shows how the contemporary economic and political elite emerged in Ghana’s hinterland, linking interventions by an ostensibly weak state to new socio-economic inequality and grassroots efforts to reimagine traditional institutions. The book demonstrates how these state-generated societal changes reshaped access to political power, producing dynastic politics, clientelism, and violence. The Scarce State challenges common claims about state-building and state weakness, provides new evidence on the historical origins of inequality, and reconsiders the mechanisms linking historical institutions to contemporary politics.

Free Download The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective By Crawford Young
1997 | 368 Pages | ISBN: 0300068794 | PDF | 20 MB
In this comprehensive and original study, a distinguished specialist and scholar of African affairs argues that the current crisis in African development can be traced directly to European colonial rule, which left the continent with a "singularly difficult legacy" that is unique in modern history.Crawford Young proposes a new conception of the state, weighing the different characteristics of earlier European empires (including those of Holland, Portugal, England, and Venice) and distilling their common qualities. He then presents a concise and wide-ranging history of colonization in Africa, from the era of construction through consolidation and decolonization. Young argues that several qualities combined to make the European colonial experience in Africa distinctive. The high number of nations competing for power around the continent and the necessity to achieve effective occupation swiftly yet make the colonies self-financing drove colonial powers toward policies of "ruthless extractive action." The persistent, virulent racism that established a distance between rulers and subjects was especially central to African colonial history.Young concludes by turning his sights to other regions of the once-colonized world, comparing the fates of former African colonies to their counterparts elsewhere. In tracing both the overarching traits and variations in African colonial states, he makes a strong case that colonialism has played a critical role in shaping the fate of this troubled continent.

Free Download State Politics and Public Policy in Eastern Africa: A Comparative Perspective
English | 2023 | ISBN: 3031134893 | 658 Pages | PDF EPUB (True) | 8.3 MB
This book analyses major themes in twenty-first-century east African politics. Predominantly authored by researchers and academics from the region, it examines recent political developments, public policy and governance across east and southern African countries. The book advocates for a regionally-focused comparative approach across Africa, arguing that it provides a greater level of analysis than a complete continental study. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, it covers numerous topics relating to politics, public policy, state and nation-building in Africa. Filling an important void in current literature, the book will appeal to academics, practitioners, politicians and students of politics, public policy and governance.

Free Download Lucien van der Walt, "Politics at a Distance from the State: Radical and African Perspectives"
English | ISBN: 1629639435 | 2022 | 192 pages | EPUB | 535 KB
For decades, most anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements identified radical change with capturing state power. The collapse of statist projects from the 1970s fostered both neo-liberalism and a global crisis of left and working-class politics. But it also opened space for rediscovering democratic, society-centered and anti-capitalist modes of bottom-up change, operating at a distance from the state. This resurgent alternative has influenced the Zapatistas in Mexico, Rojava in Syria, Occupy, and independent unions and struggles worldwide around austerity, land, and the city. Its lineages include anarchism, syndicalism, autonomist Marxism, philosophers like Alain Badiou, and popular praxis.

Free Download Jacob M. Landau, "Man, State and Society in the Contemporary Middle East "
English | ISBN: 1138192244 | 2016 | 538 pages | EPUB | 2 MB
This work, first published in 1972, is an objective introduction to the social, political, and cultural changes that took place in the Middle East in the years after the Second World War. It includes papers by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field as well as personal accounts by insightful observers living in the area. It includes articles on such topics as Arab socialism and nationalism, religious communities, ethnic minorities, women in Arab society, education, and many more.

Free Download Gender, Violence and the State in Asia By Amy Barrow
2016 | 282 Pages | ISBN: 1138101729 | PDF | 4 MB
While gender-based violence occurs in all societies irrespective of the level of development or cultural setting, whether in conflict or peacetime, the challenges for legal responses to gender-based violence are particularly acute in Asia. This book addresses the lack of academic discourse on gender-based violence in Asia beyond domestic violence, by demonstrating that gendered violence exists within many different contexts and is perpetuated by multiple actors.Bringing together scholars, legal practitioners and human rights advocates, the book examines the intersections between gender, violence and the state in Asian contexts. It considers the role of state institutions in perpetuating and preventing violence based on gender and identity, and thus contributes to growing scholarship around due diligence standards under international law. Analyzing both physical and structural gender-based violence, it scrutinizes how such violence exists within a landscape shaped by distinct cultural norms, laws and policies, and grapples with how to practically translate international human rights standards about state responsibility into these complex domestic environments. Contributors from diverse backgrounds draw on case studies and empirical research to ground this academic scholarship in lived experiences of individuals and their communities in Asia.By bridging the divide between policy, laws and practice to offer a unique insight into both theoretical and practical responses to how gender-based violence is understood within communities and state institutions in Asian countries, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies, Gender Studies and Law.

Free Download Johan Christensen, "The Power of Economists within the State"
English | ISBN: 1503600491 | 2017 | 232 pages | EPUB | 3 MB
The spread of market-oriented reforms has been one of the major political and economic trends of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Governments have, to varying degrees, adopted policies that have led to deregulation: the liberalization of trade; the privatization of state entities; and low-rate, broad-base taxes. Yet some countries embraced these policies more than others.

Free Download Historical Sociology of State Formation in the Horn of Africa: Genesis, Trajectories, Processes, Routes and Consequences by Redie Bereketeab
English | PDF | 2023 | 257 Pages | ISBN : 3031241614 | 3.9 MB
This book analyses the historical sociology of state formation in the Horn of Africa. It examines the genesis, trajectories, processes, routes and consequences of the evolution of state formation. Three analytical and explanatory models explain the process of state formation in the HOA: proto-state, colonial and national liberation. The models, heuristically and innovatively, provide understanding, interpretation and analysis of state formation. While the proto-state model explicates an indigenous historical process of state formation, the colonial model refers to an externally designed and imposed process of state formation. The national liberation model concern state formation conducted under liberation movement and ideology. The distinct significance of these models is that collectively they generate sufficient analysis of state formation. They are also unique in that they have never been employed as aggregate analytical and explicative instruments to address the predicament of state formation in the Horn of Africa.

Free Download Seth Schindler, "The Rise of the Infrastructure State: How US-China Rivalry Shapes Politics and Place Worldwide"
English | ISBN: 1529220777 | 2022 | 334 pages | PDF | 13 MB
Tensions between the US and China have escalated as both powers seek to draw countries into their respective political and economic orbits by financing and constructing infrastructure. Wide-ranging and even-handed, this book offers a fresh interpretation of the territorial logic of US-China rivalry, and explores what it means for countries across Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America. The chapters demonstrate that many countries navigate the global infrastructure boom by articulating novel spatial objectives and implementing political and economic reforms. By focusing on people and places worldwide, this book broadens perspectives on the US-China rivalry beyond bipolarity. It is an essential guide to 21st century politics.