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Recent years have seen a growing role for private military contractors in national and international security. To understand the reasons for this, Elke Krahmann examines changing models of the state, the citizen and the soldier in the UK, the US and Germany. She focuses on both the national differences with regard to the outsourcing of military services to private companies and their specific consequences for the democratic control over the legitimate use of armed force. Tracing developments and debates from the late eighteenth century to the present, she explains the transition from the centralized warfare state of the Cold War era to the privatized and fragmented security governance, and the different national attitudes to the privatization of force.

\"City-Regions in Prospect? Exploring the Meeting Points Between Place and Practice is a collection of essays and case studies that explore the \"city-region\" as both an evolving concept and a growing area of experiential knowledge. At the book's most basic level, it explores the \"city-region\" as a concept that captures the growing relevance and importance of cities in a rapidly urbanizing world. Looking more specifically at cities in Canada, the US, and England (Ottawa, Calgary, Manchester, Sheffield, for example), Jones et al outline how the city constructs and governs itself to respond to global needs, the logic behind this development, and the consequences involved in such aspirations. It sketches out new pathways for thinking about and acting upon municipal growth and governmental expansion to the effect of providing a better understanding of both the relationship between concepts and practice, and the actual interplay between the \"city-region\" and the global arena.\"-- Provided by publisher.

This book lays out the reasons why we should study cognitive development in adulthood, and presents the history, latest data, and results from the Seattle Longitudinal Study (SLS), which now extends to over forty-five years. The SLS is organized around five questions: does intelligence change uniformly throughout adulthood, or are there different life-course-ability patterns? At what age and at what magnitude can decrement in ability be reliably detected? What are the patterns and magnitude of generational differences? What accounts for individual differences in age-related change in adulthood? Can the intellectual decline that increases with age be reversed by educational intervention? Based on work on the SLS, this book presents a conceptual model. The model represents this book's author's view on the factors that influence cognitive development throughout the human lifespan, and provides a rationale for the various influences that have been investigated — genetic factors, early and current family environment, life styles, the experience of chronic disease, and various personality attributes. The data in this volume include the 1998 longitudinal cycle of the SLS. In light of both new data and revised analyses, psychometric and neuropsychological assessments have been linked in long-term data to aid in the early identification of risk for dementia in later life. The book also presents new data and concludes on the impact of personality on cognition. It includes correlation matrices and web-access information for select data sets.

Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing--and recovering--their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, \"this time is different\"--claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary spikes--from medieval currency debasements to today's subprime catastrophe. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, leading economists whose work has been influential in the policy debate concerning the current financial crisis, provocatively argue that financial combustions are universal rites of passage for emerging and established market nations. The authors draw important lessons from history to show us how much--or how little--we have learned.

\"From the stratospheric success of Jeff Bezos to the secret genius of Satoshi Nakamoto, 21st Century Business Icons uncovers the fascinating success stories behind some of the world's most innovative business leaders.Behind every success is the unique story of an individual who has transformed their ambition into reality. They have overcome their competition through innovation, determination and confidence. This book uncovers the stories behind these figures - while they may be divisive, controversial or polarizing - each of them offers fascinating insights into business and society.Stretching from California to Tokyo and covering sectors such as tech, retail, banking and social media, this book uncovers the secrets behind success on a global scale. Discover how Whitney Wolfe Herd reinvented the dating industry and how Jimmy Donaldson built a YouTube business empire. 21st Century Business Icons is a fascinating exploration of the entrepreneurs, influencers and pioneers who have redefined the 21st century\"-- Provided by publisher.

The labor movement sees coalitions as a key tool for union revitalization and social change, but there is little analysis of what makes them successful or the factors that make them fail. Amanda Tattersall-an organizer and labor scholar-addresses this gap in the first internationally comparative study of coalitions between unions and community organizations. She argues that coalition success must be measured by two criteria: whether campaigns produce social change and whether they sustain organizational strength over time. The book contributes new, practical frameworks and insights that will help guide union and community organizers across the globe. The book throws down the gauntlet to industrial relations scholars and labor organizers, making a compelling case for unions to build coalitions that wield \"power with\" community organizations. Tattersall presents three detailed case studies: the public education coalition in Sydney, the Ontario Health Coalition in Toronto, and the living wage campaign run by the Grassroots Collaborative in Chicago. Together they enable Tattersall to explore when and how coalition unionism is the best and most appropriate strategy for social change, organizational development, and union renewal.Power in Coalition presents clear lessons. She suggests that \"less is more,\" because it is often easier to build stronger coalitions with fewer organizations making decisions and sharing resources. The role of the individual, she finds, is traditionally underestimated, even though a coalition's success depends on a leader's ability to broker relationships between organizations while developing the campaign's strategy. The crafting of goals that combine organizational interest and the public interest and take into account electoral politics are crucial elements of coalition success. The labor movement sees coalitions as a key tool for union revitalization and social change, but there is little analysis of what makes them successful or the factors that make them fail. Amanda Tattersall-an organizer and labor scholar-addresses this gap in the first internationally comparative study of coalitions between unions and community organizations. Tattersall argues that coalition success must be measured by two criteria: whether campaigns produce social change and whether they sustain organizational strength over time. The book contributes new, practical frameworks and insights that will help guide union and community organizers across the globe. The book throws down the gauntlet to industrial relations scholars and labor organizers, making a compelling case for unions to build coalitions that wield \"power with\" community organizations. The book centers on three detailed case studies: the public education coalition in Sydney, the Ontario Health Coalition in Toronto, and the living wage campaign run by the Grassroots Collaborative in Chicago. Together they enable Tattersall to explore when and how coalition unionism is the best and most appropriate strategy for social change, organizational development, and union renewal. Power in Coalition presents clear lessons. Tattersall suggests that \"less is more,\" because it is often easier to build stronger coalitions with fewer organizations making decisions and sharing resources. She finds the role of the individual is traditionally underestimated, even though a coalition's success depends on a leader's ability to broker relationships between organizations while developing the campaign's strategy. The crafting of goals that combine organizational interest and the public interest and take into account electoral politics are crucial elements of coalition success. For more about Power in Coalition, visit the author's wesbite: http://powerincoalition.com.

\"Competitive authoritarian regimes - in which autocrats submit to meaningful multiparty elections but engage in serious democratic abuse - proliferated in the post-Cold War era. Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized\"-- Provided by publisher.

Over the last several decades, employers have increasingly replaced permanent employees with temporary workers and independent contractors to cut labor costs and enhance flexibility. Although commentators have focused largely on low-wage temporary work, the use of skilled contractors has also grown exponentially, especially in high-technology areas. Yet almost nothing is known about contracting or about the people who do it. This book seeks to break the silence. Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies tells the story of how the market for temporary professionals operates from the perspective of the contractors who do the work, the managers who employ them, the permanent employees who work beside them, and the staffing agencies who broker deals. Based on a year of field work in three staffing agencies, life histories with over seventy contractors and studies of workers in some of America's best known firms, the book dismantles the myths of temporary employment and offers instead a grounded description of how contracting works. Engagingly written, it goes beyond rhetoric to examine why contractors leave permanent employment, why managers hire them, and how staffing agencies operate. Barley and Kunda paint a richly layered portrait of contract professionals. Readers learn how contractors find jobs, how agents negotiate, and what it is like to shoulder the risks of managing one's own \"employability.\" The authors illustrate how the reality of flexibility often differs substantially from its promise. Viewing the knowledge economy in terms of organizations and markets is not enough, Barley and Kunda conclude. Rather, occupational communities and networks of skilled experts are what grease the skids of the high-tech, \"matrix economy\" where firms become way stations in the flow of expertise.