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Inequality is one of the most burning issues of our time, affecting young people in particular. What causes inequality? And how can actors at the local level combat the causes, not only the symptoms? By seeking to answer these questions, the book will contribute to this growing and transdisciplinary subject area by using mainly qualitative research and a perspective that integrates theory in every phase of the analysis. Drawing on cultural political economy, based on critical realism, the author claims that the most important causes of inequality are the ones inherent as potentials in capitalism and the capitalist type of state. Compared with the first post-war decades, these potential cause...
Financialization, the increasing influence of financial markets, actors, practices and measurements in political, economic and social life, continues to draw attention from scholars from diverse academic fields. Contributing to the literatures on household financialization, financial market institutionalization and the financialization of nature, this dissertation explores the underlying factors that enabled and facilitated the financialization of Sweden’s growth model. Drawing from the Regulation Approach and heterodox economics, it analyzes how covered bonds, an overlooked topic in financialization studies, have contributed to “de-risking” European financial markets, decelerated the ...
This book describes experiments in innovation, design, and democracy, undertaken largely by grassroots organizations, non-governmental organizations, and multi-ethnic working-class neighborhoods. These stories challenge the dominant perception of what constitutes successful innovations. They recount efforts at social innovation, opening the production process, challenging the creative class, and expanding the public sphere. The cases considered include a collective of immigrant women who perform collaborative services, the development of an open-hardware movement, grassroots journalism, and hip-hop performances on city buses. They point to the possibility of democratized innovation that goes beyond solo entrepreneurship and crowdsourcing in the service of corporations to include multiple futures imagined and made locally by often-marginalized publics.
Libraries and Identity summarizes the role of institutional identity in the emergence of new types of libraries such as joint-use libraries and digital libraries. Professional and institutional identity has shown to be one of the most problematic, yet overlooked issues to deal with when traditional libraries such as public libraries and academic libraries develop into new shapes. The author clearly outlines the importance of identity in making change and innovation in libraries understandable. Based on original research the book comprehensively explores the role of identity as a trigger for change and development in libraries. - Based on original research which has already attracted international claim - Focuses on aspects of library development which are mostly overlooked - Focus on the change from traditional library types such as public and academic libraries to new ones such as joint use libraries and digital libraries
What is a border? This seemingly simple question is here answered via a multidisciplinary study of the cultural, geographic and historic existence of borders, and the ways that they have shaped our world. Using the Danish-Swedish border to illustrate the actions of groups and individuals engaged in bordering since the 1600s, this richly theoretical discussion highlights the complexities of political and cultural identity processes. Comparative perspectives are brought together to produce a thoughtful analysis of how such processes function, and of how borders work on both an imagined nationhood and experiential personal level. The author also examines how throughout history people have lived with and influenced or been influenced by borders, why some borders remain uncontested while others repeatedly provoke cross-border conflicts, and how today's bordering processes may be deliberately manipulated.
This first volume in a new series comprises nine contributions originally presented at a workshop supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin in August, 1994. Topics range from right-wing violence in North America to the development, patterns, and causes of violence against fore
This volume brings together the world’s leading experts on urban and transport planning, environmental exposures, physical activity, health and health impact assessment to discuss challenges and solutions in cities. The book provides a conceptual framework and work program for actions and outlines future research needs. It presents the current evidence-base, the benefits of and numerous case studies on integrating health and the environment into urban development and transport planning. Within cities there is a considerable variation in the levels of environmental exposures such as ambient air pollution, noise, and temperature, green space availability and physical activity. Many of these ...
For more than a decade, organizations such as the IMF, OECD, and the ILO have issued concerns about the trend of increased inequality in rich welfare states, while influential thinkers and think tanks have come to agree on at least one central point: globalization and technological progress have exacerbated the existing inequities in social market economies. Across Europe, despite high social spending and work-related welfare reforms, poverty remains a largely intractable problem for policymakers and the persistent reality for citizens.In Decent Incomes for All, the authors shed new light on recent poverty trends in the European Union and the corresponding responses by European welfare state...
How workers fought for municipal socialism to make cities around the globe livable and democratic - and what the lessons are for today Winner of the International Labor History Association (ILHA) 2023 Book of the Year Award for labor history For more than a century, municipal socialism has fired the imaginations of workers fighting to make cities livable and democratic. At every turn propertied elites challenged their right to govern. Prominent US labor historian, Shelton Stromquist, offers the first global account of the origins of this new trans-local socialist politics. He explains how and why cities after 1890 became crucibles for municipal socialism. Drawing on the colorful stories of l...