Najnovšie - Politológia strana 17 z 134

We are living through anera of extraordinary technological progress, political turmoil and socialupheaval. In the face of such change, how can we chart a course to a brighterfuture? How can citizens, business leaders and politicians get ahead at a time ofseemingly perpetual uncertainty? The Future Habit isa practical and provocative guide for building the one capability we all needto stay ahead of the game: a disciplined habit of working with the future. Drawing on cognitive science, applied foresight and decades of strategicexperience, the book introduces an actionable framework for cultivating a 'futureedge' - a repeatable process of anticipating, adapting to and shaping emergingrealities. It offers a methodicalapproach to working with the future in real-world contexts - throughpredictions, pre-mortems, scenario work, narrative exploration and the creativeintegration of AI. Having spent years embedding foresight in companies at theforefront of the tech revolution, the authors ensure that The FutureHabit will make a positive difference to all readers who follow itslessons. But this is not only astrategic playbook: it's a generous and optimistic reassessment of our sharedtomorrow. By prompting us to expand our mental horizons and consider theabundant possibilities of long-term thinking, the book shows that the future isnot something we predict; it's something we practise.

'A must-read' THOMAS PIKETTY'Captivating' DARON ACEMOGLU'Fascinating' FRANCIS FUKUYAMAAn award-winning political scientist shows that a society's path to prosperity, sustainability, and equality depends on who owns the land. For millennia, land has been a symbol of wealth and privilege. But the true power of land ownership is even greater than we might think. In Land Power, political scientist Michael Albertus shows that who owns the land determines whether a society will be equal or unequal, whether it will develop or decline, and whether it will safeguard or sacrifice its environment. Modern history has been defined by land reallocation on a massive scale. From the 1500s on, European colonial powers and new nation-states shifted indigenous lands into the hands of settlers. The 1900s brought new waves of land appropriation, from Soviet and Maoist collectivization to initiatives turning large estates over to family farmers. With the establishment of cooperatives in North Africa, the displacement of Native Americans and divisive inheritance laws of post-partition India, land decisions reverberate to this day as governments vie for power and prosperity by choosing who should get land. Drawing on a career's worth of original research and on-the-ground fieldwork, Albertus shows that choices about who owns the land have locked in poverty, sexism, racism, and climate crisis-and that what we do with the land today can change our collective fate. Global in scope, Land Power argues that saving civilization must begin with the earth under our feet.

The birth of new nations, independent democracies, the defeat of settler colonialism, the unprecedented growth of cities from Lagos to Cairo; the African continent is booming. So why do myths about underdevelopment, unproductive land and unfounded concerns about overpopulation remai? n a groundbreaking new study of Africa''s developmental history, economist Joe Studwell debunks long-held views about the continent''s presumed resistance to growth, charting monumental changes in government, demography and asset management.Considering everything from settler colonialism to soil conditions, mineral extractivism to disease development and eradication, and across case studies from Rwanda to Botswana, Studwell persuasively argues that the seizing back of land, people and states across Africa, has also been the seizure of mass economic development. From slavery to independence and beyond, this is the definitive account of the world''s second largest continent - and an optimistic look to its future.

The Baltic will decide the course of the West in the coming years. These nine borderlands are not only the historical battleground of Russian aggression; they are also a factory of ideas for how to revive Europe. Shaped by the past one hundred years, each Baltic country offers lessons in adaptability, hope and prosperity in an era of instability. Innovation in Estonia, patience in Finland, resilience in Poland, even poetry in Latvia: with their tumultuous pasts and exposed geography, these poorly understood frontline states are reconfiguring the balance of power around the heart of Eurasia. From pioneering environmental initiatives and world-leading innovations in technology to ever-growing economies, from tackling disinformation to tempering the populist right, the Baltic states are now key to understanding how political events might unfold in the coming years. Blending history, politics and reportage, this is the first book to explain why these are some of our most imaginative allies, yet most of us know so little about them. Interviewing prime ministers, presidents, generals, intelligence officers, business leaders and ordinary people, Oliver Moody traces the extraordinary emergence of a new fulcrum of great-power rivalry. But the real reason we need to understand them is that their fate is ours.

A thought-provoking work by a singular voice, this short, sharp essay invites us to critically reconsider power, ideology and the boundaries of free speech. Invisible, invasive and widely taken for granted, censorship is a globalized force as much driven by commercial interests as political agendas. Ai Weiwei – artist, activist and one of the world’s most influential cultural figures – has first-hand experience of its power. In this urgent piece of writing, he makes a rallying cry for free speech in an age shaped by big data, mass surveillance and intrusive new technologies of control. Ai Weiwei examines how censorship persists both in the overt propagandizing and redactions of authoritarian regimes, as well as subtly within democratic frameworks, exploring how international corporations, cultural institutions, social media and so-called ideologies of ‘freedom’ have provided fertile ground for new, more insidious, suppressions.

As the world slides further toward authoritarianism and the prospects for advancing social justice through electoral democracy narrow, the power of communities to prevail against strongman politics and corporate domination becomes increasingly crucial. In Movements That Win, long-time activist Aric McBay urges readers to remain hopeful, connected, vocal, and strong. He champions the creative innovations, bravery, and persistence of those who take risks to organise their communities to confront injustices imposed on them in the name of greed, militarism, and racism. Building on the analysis presented in his two-volume set, Full Spectrum Resistance, McBay showcases a wide range of attainable victories that we can and should emulate through solidarity and direct action. Among the triumphs McBay describes are: Indigenous groups'' successful effort to shut down a pipeline and remove colonial statues; neighbourhoods repelling gentrification and a nuclear waste dump in Australia; residents halting the construction of a parking garage in Boston''s Chinatown; American disability rights activists'' use of direct action to pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act; farmers preventing the construction of a nuclear reactor in rural Germany and multiple neighbourhood networks in the US preventing Wal-Mart from setting up shop in their community. Along the way, McBay provides first-hand insights into the key factors that inspire people to join local movements, how to persevere during backlash and repression, and how to build momentum through small victories.

‘A tale of rapacious colonialism, Cold War spy games, dazzling technical innovation, big business rivalry, big power geopolitics […] an unflinching, landmark work on the nature of extractive capitalism’ Patrick Radden Keefe, bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing ‘Joseph Conrad called colonial ventures in Africa “the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience”. After reading this book you might want to add the words “until now”’ The Times How we became addicted to a supply chain that wreaks havoc across the globe. Epic, shocking, and deeply reported, The Elements of Power tells the story of the war for the global supply of battery metals – essential for the decarbonization of our economies – and the terrible, bloody human cost of this badly misunderstood industry. Congo is rich. Swaths of the war-torn African country lack basic infrastructure, and, after many decades of colonial occupation, its people are officially among the poorest in the world. But hidden beneath the soil are vast quantities of cobalt, lithium, copper, tin, tantalum, tungsten, and other treasures. Recently, this veritable periodic table of resources has become extremely valuable because these metals are essential for the global “energy transition”—the plan for wealthy nations to wean themselves off fossil fuels by shifting to sustainable forms of energy, such as solar and wind. The race to electrify the world’s economy has begun, and China has a considerable head start. From Indonesia to South America to Central Africa, Beijing has invested in mines and infrastructure for decades. But the U.S. has begun fighting back with massive investments of its own, as well as sanctions and disruptive tariffs. In this rush for green energy, the world has become utterly reliant on resources unearthed far away and willfully blind to the terrible political, environmental, and social consequences of their extraction. If the Democratic Republic of the Congo possesses such riches, why are its children routinely descending deep into treacherous mines to dig with the most rudimentary of tools, or in some cases their bare hands? Why are Indonesia’s seas and skies being polluted in a rush for battery metals? Why is the Western Sahara, a source for phosphates, still being treated like a colony? Who must pay the price for progress? With unparalleled, original reporting, Nicolas Niarchos reveals how the scramble to control these metals and their production is overturning the world order, just as the global race to drill for oil shaped the twentieth century. Exploring the advent of the lithium-ion battery and tracing the supply chain for its production, Niarchos tells the story both of the people driving these tectonic changes and those whose lives are being upended. He reveals the true, devastating consequences of our best intentions and helps us prepare for an uncertain future. If you have ever used a smartphone or driven an electric vehicle, you are implicated.

How international organizations can combat populist opposition—and the implications for institutional resilience, legitimacy, and accountabilityPopulist leaders around the world increasingly reject international organizations, decrying them as constraints on state power and rallying followers against the “global elite” who run them. These institutions—painstakingly built through decades of negotiation and multilateral cooperation—are often seen as passive bystanders, unable or unwilling to push back. In Global Governance Under Fire, Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark challenge this view, arguing that international organizations are, in fact, strategic agents with the tools to resist populist pressures. Offering fresh theoretical insights and original empirical analysis, they investigate how these institutions fight back and how their defensive strategies are reshaping global governance. Using a multimethod approach that draws on novel data and qualitative evidence, Carnegie and Clark identify four key strategies that international organizations employ both to appease and to sideline populists and their constituents. They find that while these strategies help fortify global governance against populist opposition, they may also produce unintended consequences, potentially eroding institutional legitimacy and fueling further resistance. A timely and compelling account, the book provides a crucial roadmap for understanding—and safeguarding—the global order.

A provocative book that demystifies China’s great democratic leap backward under Xi Jinping, revealing why the country’s embrace of capitalism has given rise to hard authoritarianism, mass surveillance, and one-man rule instead of democracy as many in the West had hopedWhen China embarked on its transformative journey of modernization in 1979, many believed the country’s turn toward capitalism would put its totalitarian past to rest and mark the birth of a democratic, open society. Instead, China reverted to a neo-totalitarian state, one backed by one of the fastest-growing, most formidable economies on earth. The Broken China Dream pulls back the curtain on the regime of strongman Xi Jinping, revealing why the reforms of the post-Mao era have been reversed on nearly every front—and why the world failed to see it coming. Exposing the truth behind China’s economic ascendency after the Cultural Revolution, Minxin Pei shows how, following Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping strategically deployed the tools of capitalism to preserve the Chinese Communist Party. Deng kept intact the institutional foundations of totalitarianism even as he unleashed private entrepreneurship and courted foreign investment, giving China’s one-party state control of a vast repressive apparatus and the most critical sectors of the economy. Only a fragile balance of power among dueling factions prevented the rise of a totalitarian leader in the two decades after the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989—but this temporary equilibrium collapsed. Essential to understanding today’s China, this meticulously researched book is a sobering account of why the country’s reformers and institutions could not stop a shrewd and ruthless politician like Xi from resurrecting dormant totalitarian practices that, for the foreseeable future, have spelled the end of the dream of a free and prosperous China.

The global market in money - housed in the offshore 'shadow' banking system - holds $217 trillion in financial assets and operates beyond the reach of any nation's taxman. Asset managers, private equity firms, and pension and sovereign wealth funds scoop up the world's savings for investment and manage them as they choose, unaccountable to politicians or the citizens who elect them. In this brilliant, accessible and incisive introduction to the murky world of glo­balized finance, Ann Pettifor links the activities of remote mobile financial markets to both the cost-of-living and climate crises. In an insane global casino, bankers are gambling with our future. When we foot the bill, no one but a few economists understands what has happened. The result is volatile, unpre­dictable and uncontrollable speculation in global commodities, pension, energy, and housing. Pettifor argues that societies and gov­ernments can take back control of the global financial system. We have done it before and can do it again. Indeed, it is imperative that we do so if we are to manage the twin threats of climate breakdown and biosphere collapse.

World Politics: A Critical Introduction to International Relations offers an engaging and accessible exploration of critical theories in international relations. Drawing on a rich array of narratives and perspectives, it provides a systematic introduction to feminist, queer, decolonial, and other critical approaches. The book examines how politics in the 20th and 21st centuries have been instrumental in creating, shaping, and perpetuating global hierarchies of power and status. It critically analyses how the Eurocentrism embedded in the international system is the result of deliberate, often violent, political actions aimed at establishing world order. These actions continue to influence daily lives and shape societies in profound ways. Complete with practical examples, case studies, and vignettes, this textbook is an essential resource for students seeking to decolonise, feminise, and integrate a broader range of critical perspectives into their study of international relations, history and politics.

A clear-eyed look at thinking straight in a world crowded with noise, bias, and misinformation. "Fake news." "Alternative facts." "Post-truth." Misinformation is everywhere, sparking public confusion and polarization. In Truth, best-selling author Michael Shermer cuts through the noise to argue that not only does truth still matter—but also that it's essential to our individual and collective flourishing. This sharp-sighted and accessible book provides a framework for thinking more clearly in an age clouded by doubt and distortion. Shermer, the author of Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational, explores why truth deserves our attention, how falsehoods take hold in the public's imagination, and how we can resist manipulation through reason, evidence, and open inquiry. This book introduces powerful tools for evaluating claims, including the concepts of causality, correlation, and Bayesian reasoning. Beyond these abstract ideas, Shermer also examines how we determine truth in specific domains—such as science, history, and religion—and brings clarity to hot-button topics like UFOs, conspiracy theories, miracles, mystical experiences, consciousness, morality, God, and even existence. With his trademark wit and intellectual rigor, Shermer reveals how even the most intelligent among us fall prey to such pitfalls as "myside bias" and motivated reasoning and how a commitment to universal realism can help push back against tribalism and misinformation. Truth offers a timely antidote to cynicism and confusion. It emphasizes critical thinking and urges readers to rebuild the intellectual foundations of a functioning democracy by embracing the pursuit of truth, however complex or inconvenient it may be.

In civil litigation, dismissal offers the opportunity, early in a controversy, to preemptively dispose of a claim that does not present a legally judiciable case. Everyday talk, of course, is not bound by such procedural rules. Yet in conversation we often engage in a form of discursive dismissal: when faced with discomforting claims, our frequent instinct is not to engage in reasoned deliberation over them, but to brush them aside without considering their merits. How does dismissal fit within a broader ecosystem of deliberation? What is deliberative dismissal? When (if ever) is it justifie? n Deliberation, Dismissal, and Democracy, David Schraub analyzes our tendency toward dismissal and the problems that flow from it. Schraub focuses on dismissal as a social, rather than legal, phenomenon. Drawing on academic work both historical and contemporary, as well as examples drawn from everyday discourse and controversy, he creates a framework explicating why dismissal is a significant problem that defies easy resolution. While a state can be held to an anti-censorship commitment, private actors cannot and should not avoid "discriminating" on basis of viewpoint. What they can do, however, is cultivate certain deliberative virtues--dispositions towards consideration and open-mindedness--that orient them towards deliberating, rather than dismissing, the hard thoughts that any healthy democracy must be willing to tackle.

Největší diktátoři 20. století - Hitler, Stalin a Mao - vládli pomocí brutálních represí. Mnozí z nich také zavedli oficiální ideologii a izolovali své státy od okolního světa. V posledních desetiletích se však tvář diktatury změnila. Nová generace dobře oblečených a mediálně zdatných mocipánů přetváří autoritářskou vládu pro éru globálních vztahů. Namísto výročních průvodů a vězeňských táborů tito vůdci kontrolují své občany pomocí manipulace s informacemi a předstírání demokratických postupů. Stejně jako spin doktoři v demokraciích, i oni překrucují zprávy, aby získali podporu. Kniha sleduje vzestup takových "spin dictators" po celém světě - mužů jako Hugo Chávez ve Venezuele, Vladimir Putin v Rusku a Viktor Orbán v Maďarsku. Ukazuje, jak se tito vládci liší od zbývajících "diktátorů strachu", jako jsou Kim Čong-un a Bašár al-Asad, i od takových mistrů hi-tech represe, jako je Si Ťin-pching. Kniha, založená na důkladném výzkumu, ale napsaná přístupným jazykem, se snaží rozluštit velkou politickou hádanku naší doby: jak mohou diktátoři přežít ve věku prohlubující se modernity. Naznačuje, proč tento nový typ diktatury vzniká, jak funguje, jaké hrozby takové režimy představují a jak se jim Západ může nejlépe bránit.

Networking Putinism explores the internet's impact on political discourse in Russia and the strategies adopted both by Vladimir Putin and his associates to secure and legitimate their authority, as well as by the regime's most determined critics. Michael S. Gorham shows that despite Putin's famously dismissive attitude toward the internet, the Russian leader, his political team, and a motley array of web-savvy sympathizers have been consistently fixated on the medium, deeply invested in its development, and keenly aware of its ability to shape public political discourse. The success of the regime's opponents in leveraging social media to criticize the regime forced Putin and his allies to find ways to more effectively exploit the new medium. In telling the story of these rhetorical online battles, Networking Putinism shows how, even in the most authoritarian of regimes, public language still matters, and digitally mediated communication remains a highly contested instrument of power.

Political Thinkers for Our Time explains the principles that are foundational to the Anglo-American political tradition by looking at leading thinkers and statesmen who wrote about them. In discussing each thinker, William T. Reddinger introduces such principles as the rule of law, property rights, religious liberty, and limited government. Throughout, Reddinger shows how these figures can inform our thinking about important issues in contemporary American political discourse. Following a collection of brief biographies, the remaining chapters treat each individual thinker's views about foundational principles, expositing their best-known writings. The second chapter explores Edmund Burke's understanding of liberty, and the third chapter looks at Alexis de Tocqueville's views on equality. Chapter 4 examines Abraham Lincoln's understanding of republican self-government. Chapter 5 discusses the Federalist Papers and the US Constitution. Chapter 6 focuses on George Washington and his contribution to religious liberty. The seventh and eighth chapters consider how twentieth-century economists Friedrich Hayek and Wilhelm Röpke can inform our thinking about the free market. Political Thinkers for Our Time will help readers better understand the ideals that have been central to the American political order for more than two centuries.

THE HUGE SUNDAY TIMES AND No. 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'Explosive' Guardian'Explosive' The Times'Explosive' Daily Mail'Explosive' Politico'Explosive' New York TimesThe book that revealed one of the greatest cover-ups in modern American history. Joe Biden, his family and his senior aides were convinced that only he could beat Donald Trump in the 2024 Presidential Election. So convinced, in fact, that they lied to themselves, allies and the public about his condition and limitations – all but dooming the Democrats to defeat. Here, two of America’s best-respected political journalists draw on astonishing access to Biden's circle to uncover what really happened in 2024. Hailed as an instant classic of investigative journalism, Original Sin exposed the greatest campaign of denial and gaslighting in modern American history - leading directly to Donald Trump’s return to power, and all that has come since. 'The shocking truth of the last year of Biden's presidency . . . A scathing account of an elderly, egotistical president cocooned from reality.' Guardian'A damning, step-by-step account of how the people closest to a stubborn, aging president enabled his quixotic resolve to run for a second term.' New York Times'How American voters became victims of one of the greatest political cover-ups of modern times . . . It was the gaslighting of a nation.' The Times

We have ignored a fundamental truth at the heart of modern world history – with dramatic consequences for our age of polycrisis.The years we most associate with human progress – the Enlightenment, the birth of democracies, the Industrial Revolution – were at the same time catastrophically destructive.In this trailblazing work of revisionist history, Professor Clifton Crais argues that the growth of global capitalism between 1750 and the early 1900s should be seen not as the Anthropocene, but the Mortecene: the Age of Killing. Killing brought the world together and tore it apart, as profiteering merchant warriors committed mass-scale slaughter of humans and animals across Africa, Asia and the Americas. This new network of global connections and economies killed tens of millions of people and sparked an environmental crisis that remains the most pressing catastrophe facing the world today.Drawing on years of scholarship and a range of new sources, THE KILLING AGE turns our vision of past and present on its head, illuminating the Mortecene in all its horror: how it has shaped who we are, what we value, what we fear, and the precarious present we inhabit today.

Russian spies. Sabotaged pipelines. Undersea communications severed in the dead of night. Tensions are building at the top of the world and the Arctic - the fastest-warming place on Earth - stands at the crossroads of geopolitical ambition and environmental catastrophe. As thawing ice opens up new trade routes, untapped natural resources and long-frozen biological weapons, award-winning commentator Kenneth Rosen draws on first-hand reportage and testimony to document the race to control this strategically crucial territory. Above the Arctic Circle, the world''s superpowers stand on the brink of a new cold war - and every day it grows hotter. Timely and incisive, Polar War is an indispensable account of the interests, landscapes and people that define the world''s most extreme frontier.