In development, stabilization, and peace building, donors increasingly recognize the importance of being sensitive to the local contexts of their efforts. Yet the use of “blueprints” remains widespread. Even when standard approaches are modified for particular aid partners, there often remains a poor fit between donor efforts and local conditions. When recipients cannot absorb the aid and attention they are offered, the common response is “capacity building.” While it is true that many aid...

This report introduces a new assessment framework for legitimacy and illegitimacy that governments, businesses, and other organizations can use to better understand the sources and dynamics of support or opposition for any entity, policy, or program. It includes an intellectual history of the concept of legitimacy, summarizes the literature, introduces a new conceptualization of illegitimacy, and outlines four types of legitimacy assessments, from a rapid to a comprehensive assessment.

Can the United States prevent or end conflicts and protect its interests without using military force? Do U.S. civilian institutions have the right mix of support, funding, and capabilities to respond to major crises and political transitions? In July 2013, CSIS raised these questions before more than 200 policymakers and experts, with 22 speakers offering perspectives from donors, implementers, and recipients. The demand for civilian power is high. U.S. leaders are under constant pressure...

"In Atlanta Blues, Robert Lamb writes with the authority and sensitivity of (Joseph) Wambaugh at his best. This haunting novel will keep you awake – reading it the first night, thinking about it afterward." ~ Richard Layman, author and publisher"Crackling with narrative energy and hardboiled dialogue, Bob Lamb's new novel is a cat-and-mouse thriller that blows Elmore Leonard out of the water and gives Joseph Wambaugh a tight run for the money." ~ Wade Tabor, author, Miller's Rules ...

Teenage boys chase an elusive ghost in a southern cemetery one night, never dreaming that their lives ahead will be filled with ghosts all too real and none of them elusive.

Most violent conflicts since the turn of this century were in countries that had experienced an earlier violent conflict. How can we tell when a country is likely to remain stuck in a cycle of violence? What factors suggest it might be “ripe” for stabilizing and peace building? The authors studied four cases: Chad is stuck in a cycle of violence, while El Salvador, Laos, and Mozambique have had different results in their transitions from violence to stability to peace. Conflicts without in...

When recipients cannot absorb the aid and attention they are offered, the common response is “capacity building”—as if the source of the problem is the recipient’s implementation capacity. In this report, Robert D. Lamb and Kathryn Mixon present the results of their research on the sources of absorptive capacity. They find that this sort of “blaming the victim” mentality, while common, is not always justified. While it is true that many aid recipients do not have adequate capacity for impl...

Robert Lamb (1812-1872) was an English clergymen, author and journalist. He was born in 1812 at Hay Carr, Lancashire. He attended Oxford University, earned an M.A. in 1840, and entered holy orders. In 1849, he became the rector of St. Paul's Church in Manchester. Lamb contributed articles to Fraser's Magazine as "A Manchester Man" which were collected and published as Free Thoughts on Many Subjects (1866). He wrote a single work of fiction, Yarndale: An Unsensational ...

In order to find the missing sea and put it back where it belongs, a shipwrecked boy and girl and their strange friends undertake a dangerous journey across the empty ocean bed in search of the plug at the bottom of the sea.

Thomas Paine is a legendary Anglo-American political icon: a passionate, plain-speaking, relentlessly controversial, revolutionary campaigner, whose writings captured the zeitgeist of the two most significant political events of the eighteenth century, the American and French Revolutions. Though widely acknowledged by historians as one of the most important and influential pamphleteers, rhetoricians, polemicists and political actors of his age, the philosophical content of his writing has ...

This is a tale of our times. marking the 25th anniversary of Friends of the Earth, Promising the Earth locates the inside story of pioneering campaigns within a broader canvas. No single organization's record can expect to paraphrase the development of environmental consciousness and the growth of grassroots environmental movement, but experiences bear intimate witness to a story that is still unfolding.Enlivened by arresting illustrations and glimpses of colourful personal...

When preachers in a rural Georgia town move to ban some classic American novels from the high school curriculum -- and post the Ten Commandments in every classroom -- only one person stands up to them: English teacher Anne Brady, an "outsider" from Atlanta who champions great literature (and the separation of Church and State). Refusing to "go along to get along," she soon finds herself in a fight to save her job and reputation. For help, she turns to another outsider, lawyer Eugene Shapir...