Jennifer Granholm was the two-term governor of Michigan, a state synonymous with manufacturing during a financial crisis that threatened to put all America's major car companies into bankruptcy. The immediate and knock-on effects were catastrophic. Granholm's grand plans for education reform, economic revitalization, clean energy, and infrastructure development were blitzed by a perfect economic storm.Granholm was a determined and undefeated governor, who enjoyed close access to th...

A team of journalists with unparalleled inside access provides the first full, in-depth account of WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange, and the ethical, legal, and political controversies it has both uncovered and provoked.

Has capitalism failed?Is it fundamentally greedy and immoral, enabling the rich to get richer? Are free markets Darwinian places where the most ruthless crush smaller competitors, where vital products and services are priced beyond the ability of many people to afford them?Capitalism is the world's greatest economic success story. It is the most effective way to provide for the needs of people and foster the democratic and moral values of a free society. Yet ...

Chinese society is plagued by many problems that have a direct impact on its current and future business and political environment-worker rights, product safety, Internet freedom, and the rule of law. Drawing on knowledge gained through personal interviews, documentary sources, and almost two decades of visits to China, Michael A. Santoro offers a clear-eyed view of the various internal forces-such as regionalism, corruption, and growing inequality-that will determine the direction and pac...

This book – based on a research project carried out by the Observatoire Social Européen asbl, with the financial support of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) – looks at the most recent developments in pension policy and politics in Europe and advances our understanding of the field in three respects: firstly, it contributes to improve our knowledge of the most recent reform wave passed in the wake of the recent economic and financial crisis; secondly, it assesses the long-term fina...

Smart people make a smart city. This volume presents a collection of papers on the concept of smartness, smart development and the international practices in the field. There are five key topic areas: the conceptual, smart economy, smart specialisation, smart city and public governance. The concept of a smart social system is grounded on comparative analysis of competing concepts such as intelligence, knowledge driven, digital, learning, networked, innovative, agile and sustainable.

New Jersey has long been a breeding ground for political corruption, and most of it is perfectly legal. Public officials accept favors from lobbyists, give paid positions to relatives, and rig the electoral process to favor their cronies in a system where campaign money is used to buy government results. Such unethical behavior is known as “soft corruption,” and former New Jersey legislator William E. Schluter has been fighting it for the past fifty years.In this searing personal n...

A long history of poverty, discrimination, colonialism and struggle for social justice has provided, over the last fifty years, the context for the development of a vast amount of critical scholarship targeting marginalization in Brazil: Freireian pedagogics, theology of liberation, critical sociology, anthropology and ethnomathematics, critical social psychology and discourse analysis. Most of this scholarship has unfortunately been accessible only to the Portuguese-speaking readership. T...

This book is about why and how central and local governments clash over important national policy decisions. Its empirical focus is on the local politics of Japan which has significantly shaped, and been shaped by, larger developments in national politics. The book argues that since the 1990s, changes in the national political arena, fiscal and administrative decentralization, as well as broader socio-economic developments have led to a decoupling of once closely integrated national and lo...

In December of 1988 I had an eerie dream that I will never forget. The dream consisted of a former best friend from my childhood and an airplane that was in distress. The day of the morning I awoke from this strange dream I learned of the doomed fate of Pan-Am Flight 103 that had blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland. However, I believe the ominous dream I had was a warning of a much larger terrorist attack to come and eventually did 13 years later on September 11, 2001. And by the way, my for...

The essential reference to help federal contractors negotiate and maintain profitable contracts—Now in its third edition!This is the essential reference to help federal contractors negotiate and maintain profitable contracts—and remain in compliance throughout the life of the contract.Government contracting rules and regulations have changed significantly over the past six years. This new third edition addresses these changes and more:New thresholds for certification ...

Developing insights from a number of disciplines and with a details analysis of legislation, case law and academic theory, Product Safety and Liability Law in Japan contributes significantly to the understanding of contemporary Japan, its consumers and its law. It is also of practical use to all professionals exposed to product liability regimes evolving in Japan and other major economies.