The Sweet Spot of Legitimacy

The Sweet Spot of Legitimacy

Author: Christian Rosser

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-10-12

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13: 3031151712

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This book provides an overview of legitimacy-related challenges at hybrid organizations and demonstrates legitimacy’s importance for the strategic development of organizations. In a reader-friendly way, it addresses the question of how hybrid organizations can gain legitimacy from the perspectives of key stakeholders. To do so, the book examines legitimacy management in the context of two real-world hybrid organizations – the Swiss Institute for Translational and Entrepreneurial Medicine and the Swiss Center for Design and Health in Bern, Switzerland – from both theoretical and practical perspectives. It shows why the systematic combination of three types of legitimacy has the potential to optimize the level of legitimacy in emerging hybrids, contributing to their success. It also explains how organizational legitimacy can be operationalized using governance legitimacy, purpose-rational legitimacy, and value-rational legitimacy. This book equips managers and executives working at hybrid organizations with useful guidance and hands-on strategic tools to develop legitimacy management strategies. It also offers a source of inspiration for academic research and teaching in this field.


Book Synopsis The Sweet Spot of Legitimacy by : Christian Rosser

Download or read book The Sweet Spot of Legitimacy written by Christian Rosser and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-10-12 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of legitimacy-related challenges at hybrid organizations and demonstrates legitimacy’s importance for the strategic development of organizations. In a reader-friendly way, it addresses the question of how hybrid organizations can gain legitimacy from the perspectives of key stakeholders. To do so, the book examines legitimacy management in the context of two real-world hybrid organizations – the Swiss Institute for Translational and Entrepreneurial Medicine and the Swiss Center for Design and Health in Bern, Switzerland – from both theoretical and practical perspectives. It shows why the systematic combination of three types of legitimacy has the potential to optimize the level of legitimacy in emerging hybrids, contributing to their success. It also explains how organizational legitimacy can be operationalized using governance legitimacy, purpose-rational legitimacy, and value-rational legitimacy. This book equips managers and executives working at hybrid organizations with useful guidance and hands-on strategic tools to develop legitimacy management strategies. It also offers a source of inspiration for academic research and teaching in this field.


The Sweet Spot

The Sweet Spot

Author: Paul Bloom

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-11-02

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0062910582

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“This book will challenge you to rethink your vision of a good life. With sharp insights and lucid prose, Paul Bloom makes a captivating case that pain and suffering are essential to happiness. It’s an exhilarating antidote to toxic positivity.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife One of Behavioral Scientist's "Notable Books of 2021" From the author of Against Empathy, a different kind of happiness book, one that shows us how suffering is an essential source of both pleasure and meaning in our lives Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? Drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, The Sweet Spot shows how the right kind of suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure. Pain can distract us from our anxieties and help us transcend the self. Choosing to suffer can serve social goals; it can display how tough we are or, conversely, can function as a cry for help. Feelings of fear and sadness are part of the pleasure of immersing ourselves in play and fantasy and can provide certain moral satisfactions. And effort, struggle, and difficulty can, in the right contexts, lead to the joys of mastery and flow. But suffering plays a deeper role as well. We are not natural hedonists—a good life involves more than pleasure. People seek lives of meaning and significance; we aspire to rich relationships and satisfying pursuits, and this requires some amount of struggle, anxiety, and loss. Brilliantly argued, witty, and humane, Paul Bloom shows how a life without chosen suffering would be empty—and worse than that, boring.


Book Synopsis The Sweet Spot by : Paul Bloom

Download or read book The Sweet Spot written by Paul Bloom and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This book will challenge you to rethink your vision of a good life. With sharp insights and lucid prose, Paul Bloom makes a captivating case that pain and suffering are essential to happiness. It’s an exhilarating antidote to toxic positivity.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife One of Behavioral Scientist's "Notable Books of 2021" From the author of Against Empathy, a different kind of happiness book, one that shows us how suffering is an essential source of both pleasure and meaning in our lives Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? Drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, The Sweet Spot shows how the right kind of suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure. Pain can distract us from our anxieties and help us transcend the self. Choosing to suffer can serve social goals; it can display how tough we are or, conversely, can function as a cry for help. Feelings of fear and sadness are part of the pleasure of immersing ourselves in play and fantasy and can provide certain moral satisfactions. And effort, struggle, and difficulty can, in the right contexts, lead to the joys of mastery and flow. But suffering plays a deeper role as well. We are not natural hedonists—a good life involves more than pleasure. People seek lives of meaning and significance; we aspire to rich relationships and satisfying pursuits, and this requires some amount of struggle, anxiety, and loss. Brilliantly argued, witty, and humane, Paul Bloom shows how a life without chosen suffering would be empty—and worse than that, boring.


The Sweet Spot

The Sweet Spot

Author: Peter Hartcher

Publisher: Black Inc.

Published: 2014-01-02

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1922231339

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New updated edition This book will change the way you think about your country... Australians now officially have the best living conditions in the world. Our country is both fair and free – and the only developed nation to have avoided a recession in the past twenty years. So how did it happen and why don't we care? In The Sweet Spot Peter Hartcher takes readers on a vastly entertaining and thought-provoking tour through Australian politics and history. He shows how a convict colony could have become a banana republic but didn't, how Australia came through the global financial crisis – it wasn't just the mining boom – and how we could now throw our success away if we don't recognise our strengths and demand true leadership of our politicians. Hartcher argues that Australia's prosperity was not built on dumb luck. In a time when the authoritarian success story of China is strong, Australia offers a better model: a democratic success story. Is it perfect? Of course not. But on some of the most important and apparently intractable problems of the modern world, Australia, believe it or not, is as good as it gets. And the beaches aren't bad either. Winner of the 2012 Ashurst Business Literature Prize. Longlisted for the 2012 Walkley Book Award.


Book Synopsis The Sweet Spot by : Peter Hartcher

Download or read book The Sweet Spot written by Peter Hartcher and published by Black Inc.. This book was released on 2014-01-02 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New updated edition This book will change the way you think about your country... Australians now officially have the best living conditions in the world. Our country is both fair and free – and the only developed nation to have avoided a recession in the past twenty years. So how did it happen and why don't we care? In The Sweet Spot Peter Hartcher takes readers on a vastly entertaining and thought-provoking tour through Australian politics and history. He shows how a convict colony could have become a banana republic but didn't, how Australia came through the global financial crisis – it wasn't just the mining boom – and how we could now throw our success away if we don't recognise our strengths and demand true leadership of our politicians. Hartcher argues that Australia's prosperity was not built on dumb luck. In a time when the authoritarian success story of China is strong, Australia offers a better model: a democratic success story. Is it perfect? Of course not. But on some of the most important and apparently intractable problems of the modern world, Australia, believe it or not, is as good as it gets. And the beaches aren't bad either. Winner of the 2012 Ashurst Business Literature Prize. Longlisted for the 2012 Walkley Book Award.


Understanding and Improving Public Management Reforms

Understanding and Improving Public Management Reforms

Author: Thomas Elston

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2024-04-30

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1447360907

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• Uses powerful concepts to show decision-makers how to understand and improve public management reforms; • Draws on economics, psychology and organizational sociology to provide a rounded framework for analysis and policy design; • A concise and accessible book practitioners with examples, cases and “myth buster” sections.


Book Synopsis Understanding and Improving Public Management Reforms by : Thomas Elston

Download or read book Understanding and Improving Public Management Reforms written by Thomas Elston and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2024-04-30 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • Uses powerful concepts to show decision-makers how to understand and improve public management reforms; • Draws on economics, psychology and organizational sociology to provide a rounded framework for analysis and policy design; • A concise and accessible book practitioners with examples, cases and “myth buster” sections.


Negotiating the Sweet Spot

Negotiating the Sweet Spot

Author: Leigh Thompson

Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership

Published: 2020-07-14

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 140021744X

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Everybody negotiates at various points every day, be it in life or business, and it’s important to get it right. On average, people leave about 20% of potential mutual gains untapped in any negotiation. This is akin to taking 20% of the value in any deal and dumping it into a garbage canister. Finding that hidden 20%, the “sweet spot,” is a skill that takes practice but is also one that anybody can learn. Leigh Thompson offers best practices and tools within this book to use in daily negotiations and conflict situations. She calls these strategies “hacks” because they work but don’t require a lot of investment, training, expense, and time. You don’t have to be a CEO, senior VP, or regional brand manager to learn how to find the sweet spot in life’s negotiations. In Negotiating the Sweet Spot, benefits include learning the following: Understanding where the sweet spot is in the deals you negotiate Adopting a big-picture mind-set when approaching any negotiation Seeing negotiations less as win-lose battles and more as opportunities to use problem-solving skills Utilizing a tool kit of “hacks” that will work in any negotiation and have been proven effective by a top expert in the field Negotiating the Sweet Spot walks people of all skill and experience levels through simple and proven techniques that are sure to result in better outcomes for all parties and that uncover the hidden value that exists in any negotiation.


Book Synopsis Negotiating the Sweet Spot by : Leigh Thompson

Download or read book Negotiating the Sweet Spot written by Leigh Thompson and published by HarperCollins Leadership. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everybody negotiates at various points every day, be it in life or business, and it’s important to get it right. On average, people leave about 20% of potential mutual gains untapped in any negotiation. This is akin to taking 20% of the value in any deal and dumping it into a garbage canister. Finding that hidden 20%, the “sweet spot,” is a skill that takes practice but is also one that anybody can learn. Leigh Thompson offers best practices and tools within this book to use in daily negotiations and conflict situations. She calls these strategies “hacks” because they work but don’t require a lot of investment, training, expense, and time. You don’t have to be a CEO, senior VP, or regional brand manager to learn how to find the sweet spot in life’s negotiations. In Negotiating the Sweet Spot, benefits include learning the following: Understanding where the sweet spot is in the deals you negotiate Adopting a big-picture mind-set when approaching any negotiation Seeing negotiations less as win-lose battles and more as opportunities to use problem-solving skills Utilizing a tool kit of “hacks” that will work in any negotiation and have been proven effective by a top expert in the field Negotiating the Sweet Spot walks people of all skill and experience levels through simple and proven techniques that are sure to result in better outcomes for all parties and that uncover the hidden value that exists in any negotiation.


How to Make Love to a Despot: An Alternative Foreign Policy for the Twenty-First Century

How to Make Love to a Despot: An Alternative Foreign Policy for the Twenty-First Century

Author: Stephen D. Krasner

Publisher: Liveright Publishing

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1631496603

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After generations of foreign policy failures, the United States can finally try to make the world safer—not by relying on utopian goals but by working pragmatically with nondemocracies. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has sunk hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign economies in the hope that its investments would help remake the world in its own image—or, at the very least, make the world “safe for democracy.” So far, the returns have been disappointing, to say the least. Pushing for fair and free elections in undemocratic countries has added to the casualty count, rather than taken away from it, and trying to eliminate corruption entirely has precluded the elimination of some of the worst forms of corruption. In the Middle East, for example, post-9/11 interventionist campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have proved to be long, costly, and, worst of all, ineffective. Witnessing the failure of the utopian vision of a world full of market-oriented democracies, many observers, both on the right and the left, have begun to embrace a dystopian vision in which the United States can do nothing and save no one. Accordingly, calls to halt all assistance in undemocratic countries have grown louder. But, as Stephen D. Krasner explains, this cannot be an option: weak and poorly governed states pose a threat to our stability. In the era of nuclear weapons and biological warfare, ignoring troubled countries puts millions of American lives at risk. “The greatest challenge for the United States now,” Krasner writes, “is to identify a set of policies that lie between the utopian vision that all countries can be like the United States . . . and the dystopian view that nothing can be done.” He prescribes a pragmatic new course of policy. Drawing on decades of research, he makes the case for “good enough governance”—governance that aims for better security, better health, limited economic growth, and some protection of human rights. To this end, Krasner proposes working with despots to promote growth. In a world where a single terrorist can kill thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, the United States does not have the luxury of idealistically ignoring the rest of the world. But it cannot remake the world in its own image either. Instead, it must learn how to make love to despots.


Book Synopsis How to Make Love to a Despot: An Alternative Foreign Policy for the Twenty-First Century by : Stephen D. Krasner

Download or read book How to Make Love to a Despot: An Alternative Foreign Policy for the Twenty-First Century written by Stephen D. Krasner and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After generations of foreign policy failures, the United States can finally try to make the world safer—not by relying on utopian goals but by working pragmatically with nondemocracies. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has sunk hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign economies in the hope that its investments would help remake the world in its own image—or, at the very least, make the world “safe for democracy.” So far, the returns have been disappointing, to say the least. Pushing for fair and free elections in undemocratic countries has added to the casualty count, rather than taken away from it, and trying to eliminate corruption entirely has precluded the elimination of some of the worst forms of corruption. In the Middle East, for example, post-9/11 interventionist campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have proved to be long, costly, and, worst of all, ineffective. Witnessing the failure of the utopian vision of a world full of market-oriented democracies, many observers, both on the right and the left, have begun to embrace a dystopian vision in which the United States can do nothing and save no one. Accordingly, calls to halt all assistance in undemocratic countries have grown louder. But, as Stephen D. Krasner explains, this cannot be an option: weak and poorly governed states pose a threat to our stability. In the era of nuclear weapons and biological warfare, ignoring troubled countries puts millions of American lives at risk. “The greatest challenge for the United States now,” Krasner writes, “is to identify a set of policies that lie between the utopian vision that all countries can be like the United States . . . and the dystopian view that nothing can be done.” He prescribes a pragmatic new course of policy. Drawing on decades of research, he makes the case for “good enough governance”—governance that aims for better security, better health, limited economic growth, and some protection of human rights. To this end, Krasner proposes working with despots to promote growth. In a world where a single terrorist can kill thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, the United States does not have the luxury of idealistically ignoring the rest of the world. But it cannot remake the world in its own image either. Instead, it must learn how to make love to despots.


On the Sweet Spot

On the Sweet Spot

Author: Richard Keefe

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1416584900

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Like most moments of spiritual revelation, this one took place on a landfill in New Jersey. A young man is standing at an unprepossessing driving range, hitting balls toward a distant fence, when something unusual takes place. As he begins his swing, he has the sensation that his club is drawing itself back on its own; when it is ready, it starts downward, makes perfect contact, and the ball soars off in the right-to-left arc he'd imagined, hitting the exact fencepost he'd been aiming at from 250 yards away. He steps back and wonders if he can do it again. He feels like an observer as the swing begins itself and resolves itself after perfect contact with the waiting ball, which again smacks against the distant post. He has, for however brief a time, entered “the zone.” Everyone who plays a sport knows that fleeting, ineffable sensation of everything falling into place: The pitched baseball looks as big as a grapefruit, the basket looks as wide as a trash can, the players around you are moving in slow motion. But as Richard Keefe, the director of the sport psychology program at Duke University, looked deeper into the nature of his experience, he found profound links to the spirit, the brain, perhaps even the soul. Keefe recognized that the feeling golfers and other athletes have of “being in the zone” is basically the same as a meditative state. And as a researcher with experience in brain chemistry, he went one step further: If we can figure out what's happening in the brain at such times, he reasons, we can learn how to get into that “zone” instead of just waiting for it to happen. This is the Holy Grail of sport psychology—teaching the mind to get out of the way so the body can do the things it's capable of doing. Keefe calls it the “effortless present,” when the body is acting of its own accord while the brain has little to do but watch. All religions describe some kind of heightened awareness in their disciplines; Keefe explores whether such mystical experience is a fundamental aspect of our evolution, an integral part of what makes us human and keeps us from despair. And he brings the discussion back to the applications of such knowledge, reflecting on our ability to use these alternate planes to achieve better relationships, better lives, better moments. Keefe's true subject is extraordinary experience—being in the zone, in the realm of effortless action. On the Sweet Spotbuilds from the physical and neurological to the mystical and philosophical, then adds a crucial layer of the practical (how we can capture or recapture these wondrous states). It is a work in the proud tradition of The Sweet Spot in Time, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, and How the Mind Works.


Book Synopsis On the Sweet Spot by : Richard Keefe

Download or read book On the Sweet Spot written by Richard Keefe and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like most moments of spiritual revelation, this one took place on a landfill in New Jersey. A young man is standing at an unprepossessing driving range, hitting balls toward a distant fence, when something unusual takes place. As he begins his swing, he has the sensation that his club is drawing itself back on its own; when it is ready, it starts downward, makes perfect contact, and the ball soars off in the right-to-left arc he'd imagined, hitting the exact fencepost he'd been aiming at from 250 yards away. He steps back and wonders if he can do it again. He feels like an observer as the swing begins itself and resolves itself after perfect contact with the waiting ball, which again smacks against the distant post. He has, for however brief a time, entered “the zone.” Everyone who plays a sport knows that fleeting, ineffable sensation of everything falling into place: The pitched baseball looks as big as a grapefruit, the basket looks as wide as a trash can, the players around you are moving in slow motion. But as Richard Keefe, the director of the sport psychology program at Duke University, looked deeper into the nature of his experience, he found profound links to the spirit, the brain, perhaps even the soul. Keefe recognized that the feeling golfers and other athletes have of “being in the zone” is basically the same as a meditative state. And as a researcher with experience in brain chemistry, he went one step further: If we can figure out what's happening in the brain at such times, he reasons, we can learn how to get into that “zone” instead of just waiting for it to happen. This is the Holy Grail of sport psychology—teaching the mind to get out of the way so the body can do the things it's capable of doing. Keefe calls it the “effortless present,” when the body is acting of its own accord while the brain has little to do but watch. All religions describe some kind of heightened awareness in their disciplines; Keefe explores whether such mystical experience is a fundamental aspect of our evolution, an integral part of what makes us human and keeps us from despair. And he brings the discussion back to the applications of such knowledge, reflecting on our ability to use these alternate planes to achieve better relationships, better lives, better moments. Keefe's true subject is extraordinary experience—being in the zone, in the realm of effortless action. On the Sweet Spotbuilds from the physical and neurological to the mystical and philosophical, then adds a crucial layer of the practical (how we can capture or recapture these wondrous states). It is a work in the proud tradition of The Sweet Spot in Time, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, and How the Mind Works.


High-Quality Knowledge for Climate Adaptation: Revisiting Criteria of Credibility, Legitimacy, Salience, and Usability

High-Quality Knowledge for Climate Adaptation: Revisiting Criteria of Credibility, Legitimacy, Salience, and Usability

Author: Scott Bremer

Publisher: Frontiers Media SA

Published: 2022-08-26

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 2889768090

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Book Synopsis High-Quality Knowledge for Climate Adaptation: Revisiting Criteria of Credibility, Legitimacy, Salience, and Usability by : Scott Bremer

Download or read book High-Quality Knowledge for Climate Adaptation: Revisiting Criteria of Credibility, Legitimacy, Salience, and Usability written by Scott Bremer and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2022-08-26 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:


Research Handbook on Law and Courts

Research Handbook on Law and Courts

Author: Susan M. Sterett

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 1788113209

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The Research Handbook on Law and Courts provides a systematic analysis of new work on courts as governing institutions. Authors consider how courts have taken on regulating fundamental categories of inclusion and exclusion, including citizenship rights. Courts’ centrality to governance is addressed in sections on judicial processes, sub-national courts, and political accountability, all analyzed in multiple legal/political systems. Other chapters turn to analyzing the worldwide push for diversity in staffing courts. Finally, the digitization of records changes both court processes and studying courts. Authors included in the Handbook discuss theoretical, empirical and methodological approaches to studying courts as governing institutions. They also identify promising areas of future research.


Book Synopsis Research Handbook on Law and Courts by : Susan M. Sterett

Download or read book Research Handbook on Law and Courts written by Susan M. Sterett and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Research Handbook on Law and Courts provides a systematic analysis of new work on courts as governing institutions. Authors consider how courts have taken on regulating fundamental categories of inclusion and exclusion, including citizenship rights. Courts’ centrality to governance is addressed in sections on judicial processes, sub-national courts, and political accountability, all analyzed in multiple legal/political systems. Other chapters turn to analyzing the worldwide push for diversity in staffing courts. Finally, the digitization of records changes both court processes and studying courts. Authors included in the Handbook discuss theoretical, empirical and methodological approaches to studying courts as governing institutions. They also identify promising areas of future research.


Militants, Criminals, and Warlords

Militants, Criminals, and Warlords

Author: Vanda Felbab-Brown

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2017-11-28

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0815731906

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" Conventional political theory holds that the sovereign state is the legitimate source of order and provider of public services in any society, whether democratic or not. But Hezbollah and ISIS in the Middle East, pirate clans in Africa, criminal gangs in South America, and militias in Southeast Asia are examples of nonstate actors that control local territory and render public services that the nation-state cannot or will not provide. This fascinating book takes the reader around the world to areas where national governance has broken down—or never really existed. In these places, the vacuum has been filled by local gangs, militias, and warlords, some with ideological or political agendas and others focused primarily on economic gain. Many of these actors have substantial popularity and support among local populations and have developed their own enduring institutions, often undermining the legitimacy of the national state. The authors show that the rest of the world has more than a passing interest in these situations, in part because transborder crime and terrorism often emerge but also because failed states threaten international interests from trade to security. This book also poses, and offers answers for, the question: How should the international community respond to local orders dominated by armed nonstate actors? In many cases outsiders have taken the short-term route—accepting unsavory local actors out of expediency—but at the price of long-term instability or damage to human rights and other considerations. From Africa and the Middle East to Asia and Latin America, the local situations highlighted in this book are, and will remain, high on today's international agenda. The book makes a unique contribution to global understanding of how those situations developed and what can be done about them. This title is part of the Geopolitics in the 21st Century series. "


Book Synopsis Militants, Criminals, and Warlords by : Vanda Felbab-Brown

Download or read book Militants, Criminals, and Warlords written by Vanda Felbab-Brown and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Conventional political theory holds that the sovereign state is the legitimate source of order and provider of public services in any society, whether democratic or not. But Hezbollah and ISIS in the Middle East, pirate clans in Africa, criminal gangs in South America, and militias in Southeast Asia are examples of nonstate actors that control local territory and render public services that the nation-state cannot or will not provide. This fascinating book takes the reader around the world to areas where national governance has broken down—or never really existed. In these places, the vacuum has been filled by local gangs, militias, and warlords, some with ideological or political agendas and others focused primarily on economic gain. Many of these actors have substantial popularity and support among local populations and have developed their own enduring institutions, often undermining the legitimacy of the national state. The authors show that the rest of the world has more than a passing interest in these situations, in part because transborder crime and terrorism often emerge but also because failed states threaten international interests from trade to security. This book also poses, and offers answers for, the question: How should the international community respond to local orders dominated by armed nonstate actors? In many cases outsiders have taken the short-term route—accepting unsavory local actors out of expediency—but at the price of long-term instability or damage to human rights and other considerations. From Africa and the Middle East to Asia and Latin America, the local situations highlighted in this book are, and will remain, high on today's international agenda. The book makes a unique contribution to global understanding of how those situations developed and what can be done about them. This title is part of the Geopolitics in the 21st Century series. "