Searching For Stability

In Search of Stability: Explorations in Historical Political Economy ponders the issue of how Western industrial societies overcame major challenges to political and economic stability in the twentieth century. Successive essays ask: what ideological messages did American influence transmit to Europe after World War I, then again after World War II? Did Nazis and Italian fascists share an economic ideology or impose a unique economic system in the interwar period and during World War II? How do their accomplishments stack up comparatively against those of the liberal democracies? After 1945, what was the relationship between concepts of productivity and class division? How have the major experiences of twentieth-century inflation arisen out of class and interest-group rivalry? Most generally, what has been the representation of interests in capitalist political economies?

This book examines international military interventions that have supported stability in four communities in Afghanistan and Nepal, in an attempt to analyse their success and improve this in future. This is the first in-depth village-level assessment of how local populations conceive of stability and stabilisation, and provides a theory and model for how stability can be created in communities during and after conflict. The data was collected during field research from 2010-12. In Afghanistan the conflicts examined include the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1979, the civil war from 1992 and the rise and fall of the Taliban. In Nepal the research examined the origins of the Maoist movement and the start of the People’s War in 1996 to its completion in 2006 and the subsequent Madeshi Andolan in 2007. The book argues that international, particularly Western, notions of stability and stabilisation processes have failed to grasp the importance of local political legitimacy formation, which is a vital aspect of contemporary statebuilding of a ‘non-Westphalian’ nature. The interventions, across defence, diplomatic and defence lines, have also at times undermined one another and in some cases contributed to instability. The work argues that the theories that structure interventions to address threats to international stability in ‘fragile’ states are insufficient to explain or achieve the goal of stability. This book will be of interest to students of stabilisation operations, statebuilding, peacebuilding, counterinsurgency, war and conflict studies and security studies in general. Christian Dennys is lecturer at Cranfield University/UK Defence Academy and has a PhD in International Relations.

In Search of Stability seeks to understand the economics of money through a narrative on the history of the rupee. The period delineated for study is from the time of introduction of the rupee by Sher Shah Suri in 1542 up to 1971, the year which marked the beginning of the end of the Bretton Woods era and a fixed exchange rate regime. The underlying thread that runs through the narrative is the positive economics of money and history of the rupee. This is a book that explains what happened rather than raising normative questions on what ought to have happened or what could have been a more appropriate monetary system for India. The economics of money also draws us into understanding the evolution of monetary instruments through history and their impact on the economy. These instruments cannot be separated from the institutions that develop and are developed by them. A digression into a study of the origins, nature and development of some of the most important monetary institutions in India has therefore been included in this study. While standards of living have risen enormously, money has struggled to maintain its value across place and time, without definitive success. This has brought with it crises and severe hardship to entire societies; a lesson which the history of the Indian rupee unequivocally reveals.

This volume presents the research and analyses of internationally recognized scholars concerning the internal and external dynamics which affect and often determine the policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Following an introduction designed to provide an analytical and contextual backdrop, the volume begins with a detailed look at the Iranian polity, its evolution before and after the revolution, and the role of ideology. The next section addresses Iranian foreign policy with respect to the Arab Gulf states, as a function of domestic dynamics, and as a response to regional and international events and constraints. The third section discusses Iran’s military capabilities and includes reasoned judgments concerning the Islamic Republic’s intentions and aspirations in the military realm. The book concludes with a discussion of the evolving relationship between the GCC states and Iran with particular focus on the security dynamics that attend that relationship for the foreseeable future. This timely and comprehensive work acknowledges Iran’s important and immutable role in Gulf affairs, and particularly in Gulf security affairs. It also acknowledges the important evolution in Iranian foreign policy which has occurred since the revolution of 1979 and, particularly, since the death of the Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Youth are one of the fastest growing segments of the homeless population. Although there has been much research on how youth become homeless and survive on the streets, we know very little about their pathways off the street and the many challenges that present during this process. This book relates the lived experiences of homeless youth as they negotiate the individual, sociocultural, and economic tensions of transitioning out of homeless and street contexts and cultures. Through interviews the authors gained privileged entry into the lives of youth in Toronto and Halifax over a year-long period. Through rich qualitative prose, quantitative elaboration, and comic-book narratives, participants spoke of courage, fortitude, strength, adversity, and at times, simple bad luck. Ultimately this became a story of fragility, complexity, living “on the edge,” and the (re)-building of identity.

First published in 1997, this volume consists of chapters placed before a series of meetings organised by the Rome-based international School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts (ISODARCO) which reviewed the prospects relating to the countries of the Former Soviet Union and of the other members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. The authors include Western experts, as well as distinguished commentators from Russia itself. Among the latter are Georgi Arbatov, Ruslan Khasbulatov and Alexei Arbatov. An earlier volume of chapters deriving from this same series of meetings was still in print at the time of original publication in 1997, namely Rising Tension in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.

In A Nation in Waiting, Adam Schwarz spans a wide variety of issues of concern in today's Indonesia, providing a detailed view of one of the world's most populous, yet least-understood, nations. He chronicles the major economic and political changes recorded during former President Suharto's thirty-one-year tenure, and the present economic and political crisis. In this fully updated second edition, Schwarz analyzes the impact of Suharto's resignation on the political, economic, and social life of Indonesia.

This introductory treatment covers the basic concepts and machinery of stability theory. Lemmas, corollaries, proofs, and notes assist readers in working through and understanding the material and applications. Full of examples, theorems, propositions, and problems, it is suitable for graduate students in logic and mathematics, professional mathematicians, and computer scientists. Chapter 1 introduces the notions of definable type, heir, and coheir. A discussion of stability and order follows, along with definitions of forking that follow the approach of Lascar and Poizat, plus a consideration of forking and the definability of types. Subsequent chapters examine superstability, dividing and ranks, the relation between types and sets of indiscernibles, and further properties of stable theories. The text concludes with proofs of the theorems of Morley and Baldwin-Lachlan and an extension of dimension theory that incorporates orthogonality of types in addition to regular types.

The stability and shelf-life of a food product are critical to its success in the market place, yet companies experience considerable difficulties in defining and understanding the factors that influence stability over a desired storage period. This book is the most comprehensive guide to understanding and controlling the factors that determine the shelf-life of food products.

The right to "pursue happiness" is one of the dominant themes of western culture, and understanding the causes of happiness is one of the primary goals of the positive psychology movement. However, before the causality question can even be considered, a more basic question must be addressed: CAN happiness change? Reasons for skepticism include the notion of a "genetic set point" for happiness, i.e. a stable personal baseline of happiness to which individuals will always return, no matter how much their lives change for the better; the life-span stability of happiness-related traits such as neuroticism and extraversion; and the powerful processes of hedonic adaptation, which erode the positive effects of any fortuitous life change. This book investigates prominent theories on happiness with the research evidence to discuss when and how happiness changes and for how long. Identifies all major theories of happiness Reviews empirical results on happiness longevity/stability Discusses mitigating factors in what influences happiness longevity