...John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "An unnecessary war," Foreign Policy, Jan/Feb 2003 In the full-court press for war with Iraq, the Bush administration deems Saddam Hussein reckless, ruthless, and not fully rational. Such a man, when mixed with nuclear weapons, is too unpredictable to be prevented from threatening the United States, the hawks say. But scrutiny of his past dealings with the world shows that Saddam, though cruel and calculating, is eminently deferrable. Should the United States invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein? If the United States is already at war with Iraq when this article is published, the immediate cause is likely to be Saddam's failure to comply with the new U.N. inspections regime to the Bush administration's satisfaction. But this failure is not the real reason Saddam and the united States have been on a collision course over the past year. The deeper root of the conflict is the U.S. position that Saddam must be toppled because he cannot be deterred from using weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Advocates of preventive war use numerous arguments to make their case, but their trump card is the charge that Saddam's past behavior proves he is too reckless, relentless, and aggressive to be allowed to possess WMD, especially nuclear weapons. They sometimes admit that war against Iraq might be costly, might lead to a lengthy U.S. occupation, and might complicate U.S. relations with other countries. But these concerns are eclipsed by the belief...
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...The Great Depression was the worst collapse in the history of American capitalism. Throughout the 1930s, neither the free market nor the federal government was able to get the country working again. The American people endured a full decade of almost unbelievable economic misery. While a much-feared revolution of either Communist or fascist persuasion, thankfully never materialized, Americans flirted with a number of radical alternatives to the status quo. Some of those radical alternatives faded into memory, while others were incorporated into the New Deal, where a few remain with us even today. The Great Depression plunged the American people into an economic crisis unlike any endured in this country before or since. The worst and longest downturn in our economic history threw millions of hardworking individuals into poverty, and for more than a decade neither the free market nor the federal government was able to restore prosperity. The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in 1930 and lasted until the late 1930s or middle 1940s. It was the longest, most widespread, and deepest depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the world's economy can decline. The depression originated in the U.S., after the fall in stock prices that began around September...
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...The Future of Energy: Rooftop Solar Panels Coal fired energy plants have long been recognized as extremely damaging to the environment. The role of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, in precipitating climate change is well documented. Carbon-dioxide emissions have increased manifold since the Industrial Revolution and have led to an increase in the Earth’s temperature in the past 50 years, worsening forest fires, drought and coastal flooding among other disastrous side effects of climate change, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. (NOAA National Climatic Data Center). In Kentucky where 91% of its power is generated from coal (Department for Energy Development and Independence; Kentucky Coal Association), there is a great impetus for utilities to cut down on carbon emissions. Unfortunately current efforts to reduce carbon emissions are largely insufficient because they do not attempt to reduce America’s and Kentucky’s overreliance on fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. Rather, currently adopted technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) and natural gas-fired plants that halve carbon emissions merely seek to reduce the environmental impact while still relying on fossil fuels for energy. (Nijhuis) (Breeze) For a solution to be viable in the long run, it must propose an alternative energy source to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels for energy which is the root cause of excessive carbon emissions. Investing in renewable energy like solar power is...
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...The Development Intelligence Gazette The Development Intelligence Gazette is a news journal that summarizes the most significant political and economic stories related to sustainable economic and democratic development in the world. Comments and questions can be addressed to Joseph Merton at merton.stratintsol@gmail.com. Inside This Week’s Issue United States and the European Union Mild eurozone recession likely in 2012: economists………......................................................................................4 Euro declines in its longest losing streak since 2010..............................................................................................5 Head of Russian Church Urges Action on Vote Fraud Allegation….…………….……………………………..……………….…..…6 Tribute to Václav Havel attracts thousands…………………………………………………………….……………………………….……….7 Middle East Islamists' chance to lead change ............................................................................................................................ 8 Why Islamism Is Winning ....................................................................................................................................... 9 Kenyan troops join AU Somalia mission .............................................................................................................. 10 Asia WH calls for stable transition in North Korea . ..............................................................................................
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...Review of Review of Economics and Institutions ISSN 2038-1379 DOI10.5202/rei.v1i2.1 ECONOMICS and INSTITUTIONS Vol. 1 – No. 2, Fall 2010 – Article 1 www.rei.unipg.it The Role of Institutions in Growth and Development Massachusetts Institute of Technology Daron Acemoglu Harvard University and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs James Robinson Abstract: In this paper we argue that the main determinant of differences in prosperity across countries are differences in economic institutions. To solve the problem of development will entail reforming these institutions. Unfortunately, this is difficult because economic institutions are collective choices that are the outcome of a political process. The economic institutions of a society depend on the nature of political institutions and the distribution of political power in society. As yet, we only have a highly preliminary understanding of the factors that lead a society into a political equilibrium which supports good economic institutions. However, it is clear that it is the political nature of an institutional equilibrium that makes it very difficult to reform economic institutions. We illustrate this with a series of pitfalls of institutional reforms. Our analysis reveals challenges for those who would wish to solve the problem of development and poverty. That such challenges exist is hardly surprising and we believe that the main reason for such challenges is the forces we have outlined...
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...The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in 1930 and lasted until the late 1930s or middle 1940s. It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the world's economy can decline. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by approximately 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as cash cropping, mining and logging suffered the most. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. In many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until after the end of World War II. Start Economic historians usually attribute the start of the Great Depression to the sudden devastating collapse of US stock market prices on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday; some dispute this conclusion, and see the stock crash as a symptom, rather than a cause, of the Great Depression. Even after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, optimism persisted for some time; John D. Rockefeller said that "These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come and...
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...African American History Introduction In the essay “On the Evolution of Scholarship in Afro- American History” the eminent historian John Hope Franklin declared “Every generation has the opportunity to write its own history, and indeed it is obliged to do so.”1 The social and political revolutions of 1960s have made fulfilling such a responsibility less daunting than ever. Invaluable references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The African American Odyssey...
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...REPORT ON “EUROPE – CULTURE, HISTORY & ECONOMICS” “Based on Seminar delivered by Prof. Dr. De Meuter” Submitted To: Submitted By: PROF. DR. DE MEUTER GROUP 7 NIDHI SHARMA RICHARD SUMAN HIMANSHU SAHNI MAHESH DILIP REDDY European culture & history LESSONS OF HISTORY: * Historical truth & historical books doesn’t always actually say or what it meant in the books. * They books are changed from time to time according to the situations and conditions. Example of Christopher Columbus who discovered America has been discussed in the class, where the actual evil intentions of Columbus were discussed who started his journey in search of India and discovered America. Here the myth is said as a history but the factual reality is left behind. Perennial philosophy: The perennial philosophy says about the whole world’s religious traditions as sharing a single, universal truth on which the foundation of all religious knowledge and doctrine has grown. In the perennial philosophy the several representations of different countries such as kundalini of India where the seven chakras represents seven energies present around the spine, Greece and the Caduceus / Homer and the Odyssey, Egypt and the Uraeus-Cobra & vulture, South America’s the oroburos, Chinese Dragon and the European alchemy which representation has different meaning has been discussed. Europe and Christianity: ...
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...THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYMENT: HOW SUSCEPTIBLE ARE JOBS TO COMPUTERISATION?∗ Carl Benedikt Frey† and Michael A. Osborne‡ September 17, 2013 . Abstract We examine how susceptible jobs are to computerisation. To assess this, we begin by implementing a novel methodology to estimate the probability of computerisation for 702 detailed occupations, using a Gaussian process classifier. Based on these estimates, we examine expected impacts of future computerisation on US labour market outcomes, with the primary objective of analysing the number of jobs at risk and the relationship between an occupation’s probability of computerisation, wages and educational attainment. According to our estimates, about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk. We further provide evidence that wages and educational attainment exhibit a strong negative relationship with an occupation’s probability of computerisation. Keywords: Occupational Choice, Technological Change, Wage Inequality, Employment, Skill Demand JEL Classification: E24, J24, J31, J62, O33. We thank the Oxford University Engineering Sciences Department and the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology for hosting the “Machines and Employment” Workshop. We are indebted to Stuart Armstrong, Nick Bostrom, Eris Chinellato, Mark Cummins, Daniel Dewey, David Dorn, Alex Flint, Claudia Goldin, John Muellbauer, Vincent Mueller, Paul Newman, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Anders Sandberg, Murray Shanahan, and Keith ...
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...American Political Science Review Vol. 106, No. 2 May 2012 doi:10.1017/S0003055412000093 The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy ROBERT D. WOODBERRY National University of Singapore T his article demonstrates historically and statistically that conversionary Protestants (CPs) heavily influenced the rise and spread of stable democracy around the world. It argues that CPs were a crucial catalyst initiating the development and spread of religious liberty, mass education, mass printing, newspapers, voluntary organizations, and colonial reforms, thereby creating the conditions that made stable democracy more likely. Statistically, the historic prevalence of Protestant missionaries explains about half the variation in democracy in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania and removes the impact of most variables that dominate current statistical research about democracy. The association between Protestant missions and democracy is consistent in different continents and subsamples, and it is robust to more than 50 controls and to instrumental variable analyses. ocial scientists tend to ignore religion in the processes of post-Enlightenment modernization. In individual cases and events, the role of religious actors is clear—especially in the primary documents. Yet in broad histories and comparative analyses, religious groups are pushed to the periphery, only to pop out like a jack-in-the-box from time to time to surprise and scare people and then shrink...
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...THE CAUSES OF AMERICAN BUSINESS CYCLES: AN ESSAY IN ECONOMIC HISTORIOGRAPHY Peter Temin* This paper surveys American business cycles over the past century. Its task is to identify the causes of these cycles; other papers in this collection address the nature of policy responses to these causes. This paper can be seen as a test to discriminate between two views of the American economy. The first is expressed in a characteristically vivid statement by Dornbusch, who proclaimed recently: “None of the U.S. expansions of the past 40 years died in bed of old age; every one was murdered by the Federal Reserve” (Dornbusch 1997). This stark view can be contrasted with its opposite in the recent literature: “[N]one of the popular candidates for observable shocks robustly accounts for the bulk of business-cycle fluctuations in output” (Cochrane 1994, p. 358). I expand the time period to consider the past century, but it is easy to distinguish the past 40 years, that is, the period since World War II. A survey of business cycle causes over an entire century runs into several problems, of which three seem noteworthy. First, it is not at all clear what “cause” means in this context. Second, the Great Depression was such a large cycle that it cannot be seen as just another data point. Third, the survey relies on the existing literature on business cycles, which is why I have entitled it an essay in economic historiography. The paper proceeds by discussing each of these problems in turn, then...
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...Social Change and Modernity Edited By Hans Haferkamp and Neil J. Smelser UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles Oxford © 1992 The Regents of the University of California INTRODUCTION Hans Haferkamp and Neil J. Smelser Haferkamp is grateful to Angelika Schade for her fruitful comments and her helpful assistance in editing this volume and to Geoff Hunter for translating the first German version of parts of the Introduction; Smelser has profited from the research assistance and critical analyses given by Joppke. 1. Social Change and Modernity Those who organized the conference on which this volume is based—including the editors— decided to use the terms "social change" and "modernity" as the organizing concepts for this project. Because these terms enjoy wide usage in contemporary sociology and are general and inclusive, they seem preferable to more specific terms such as "evolution" "progress," "differentiation," or even "development," many of which evoke more specific mechanisms, processes, and directions of change. Likewise, we have excluded historically specific terms such as "late capitalism" and "industrial society" even though these concepts figure prominently in many of the contributions to this volume. The conference strategy called for a general statement of a metaframework for the study of social change within which a variety of more specific theories could be identified. 2. Theories of Social Change Change is such an evident feature of...
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...UNRISD U NITED N ATIONS R ESEARCH I NSTITUTE FOR S OCIAL D EVELOPMENT Religion, Fundamentalism and Ethnicity A Global Perspective Jeff Haynes UNRISD Discussion Paper 65 May 1995 UNRISD Discussion Papers are preliminary documents circulated in a limited number of copies to stimulate discussion and critical comment. The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) is an autonomous agency engaging in multidisciplinary research on the social dimensions of contemporary problems affecting development. Its work is guided by the conviction that, for effective development policies to be formulated, an understanding of the social and political context is crucial. The Institute attempts to provide governments, development agencies, grassroots organizations and scholars with a better understanding of how development policies and processes of economic, social and environmental change affect different social groups. Working through an extensive network of national research centres, UNRISD aims to promote original research and strengthen research capacity in developing countries. Current research themes include: Crisis, Adjustment and Social Change; Socio-Economic and Political Consequences of the International Trade in Illicit Drugs; Environment, Sustainable Development and Social Change; Integrating Gender into Development Policy; Participation and Changes in Property Relations in Communist and Post-Communist Societies; and Political Violence and Social...
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...brilliant ... I hope vast numbers will read Toffler's book." Betty Friedan: "Brilliant and true ... Should be read by anyone with the responsibility of leading or participating in movements for change in America today." Marshall McLuhan: "FUTURE SHOCK ... is 'where it's at.'" Robert Rimmer, author of The Harrad Experiment: "A magnificent job ... Must reading." John Diebold: "For those who want to understand the social and psychological implications of the technological revolution, this is an incomparable book." WALL STREET JOURNAL: "Explosive ... Brilliantly formulated." LONDON DAILY EXPRESS: "Alvin Toffler has sent something of a shock-wave through Western society." LE FIGARO: "The best study of our times that I know ... Of all the books that I have read in the last 20 years, it is by far the one that has taught me the most." THE TIMES OF INDIA: "To the elite ... who often get committed to age-old institutions or material goals alone, let Toffler's FUTURE SHOCK be a lesson and a warning." MANCHESTER GUARDIAN: "An American book that will ... reshape our thinking even more radically than Galbraith's did in the 1950s ... The book is more than a book, and it will do more than send reviewers raving ... It is a spectacular outcrop of a formidable, organized intellectual effort ... For the first time in history scientists are marrying the insights of artists, poets, dramatists, and novelists to statistical analysis and operational research. The two cultures have met and are being merged....
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...Unit I Foreign Policy What is Foreign Policy? Foreign policy has many exegesis as there are internationalist who attempt to define this most intriguing subject of international relations. Initially, it has been define as a “ statement of national goals limited both absolutely and relatively by national power”. The Foreign Service Institute of the Philippines prefers to allude to it as “ set of guidelines articulated by the government to a country in order to promote its national interest through the conduct of its relations with other countries” The Foreign Service Institute of the Philippines has likewise quoted a dictum ascribed to President Ferdinand E. Marcos that: The foreign policy of a nation is the articulation of its fondest needs and aspiration, and in international affairs, it is its sole weapon for the promotion of national interest. Foreign Policy is a “part of the general program of government. It is furthermore an extension of its domestic policy”. The term “system” when used in the context of an organization, implies an entity composed of a set of parts and created to accomplish certain, objectives. The aim of the system is the coordination of human efforts and material resources to produce desired results in a dynamic organization. An organization, as social system, has certain inherent characteristics: 1) it has subsystem and, is part of a suprasystem in continual interaction with one another 2) It has define objectives...
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