Collective Goods

This edited collection explores issues surrounding the provision of collective goods within the context of post-crisis East and Southeast Asia. It includes case studies on Korea, Indonesia, China, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore among others.

This book argues that mainstream social scientists have failed to be useful because of misguided efforts to use objectivist methods employed in the natural sciences — of treating humans as “things”. It argues that the attempt to imitate the objectivism of natural scientists has caused social scientists to both neglect human collective goals and to overlook a virtual gold mine of empirical data which exists because humans can communicate their feelings, beliefs, and personal histories. This wealth of data exists because of the extraordinary amount of information humans possess due to their ability to interpret and remember their own experiences. Part 1 of the book discusses the ways in which objectivism has led to the undue neglect of human social goals across the social sciences. Part 2 deals with objectivist failures by using models where motivation depends equally upon all important social goals. Cooperative efforts are suggested, perhaps by using alternative organizational and institutional arrangements where universities would reorganize the social sciences into single divisions of human sciences. Contents:Methodological Failures:Collective Goods and Economic ScienceRationality and MotivationEmotionThe “Other” Social SciencesThe Evaluation of Collective Goods DeliveryNew Directions:What Can Be Done?Exploring the Human Subject Readership: Social scientists and policy practitioners. Keywords:Reviews: “Herb Kiesling's book challenges some of the basic assumptions and the ingrained habits of economists. He accuses them of scientism, or the inappropriate application of the methods of natural sciences to social science problems, and of neglecting whole categories of evidence derivable from introspection and careful interviewing techniques. The standard methodology of economics is wholly inadequate for dealing with people's valuations of collective goods and, as a result, policy advice coming from economists is biased against some of the collective goals important to us all. This provocative book raises important questions that should be addressed by economists and other social scientists.” Christopher Clague Emeritus Professor of Economics University of Maryland “An exciting and penetrating insight into the very human demand for collective goods and the unfortunate limits of social science and moral philosophy when they fail to offer guidance on how to integrate those human goals into analysis and policy formation.” C Eugene Steuerle Senior Research Associate and Section Chief The Urban Institute “Kiesling bluntly and courageously challenges us to find an integrative way of viewing human decision-making. A must read for anyone concerned with the methodology, reach, and rhetoric of social science and moral philosophy.” William Gorham President The Urban Institute

In this volume, fourteen distinguished specialists in international political economy thoroughly explore the concept of international regimes--the implicit and explicit principles, norms, rules, and procedures that guide international behavior. In the first section, the authors develop several theoretical views of regimes. In the following section, the theories are applied to specific issues in international relations, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and on the still-enduring postwar regimes for money and security.

The economics of public choice.

Handbook for Religion and Social Institutions is written for sociologists who study a variety of sub-disciplines and are interested in recent studies and theoretical approaches that relate religious variables to their particular area of interest. The handbook focuses on several major themes: - Social Institutions such as Politics, Economics, Education, Health and Social Welfare - Family and the Life Cycle - Inequality - Social Control - Culture - Religion as a Social Institution and in a Global Perspective This handbook will be of interest to social scientists including sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and other researchers whose study brings them in contact with the study of religion and its impact on social institutions.

Since World War I, when the movement toward a comprehensive and systematic examination of international relations began, two intensive debates about the nature and methodology of the discipline have helped shape the field. The first was between the realist and the idealist schools; the second, between the traditionalists and the behavioralists. Now, a third debate has emerged, pitting state-centric conceptualizations against the globalist focus on interdependence. At issue is the nature of the international system. Is it still one in which the sovereign nation-state constitutes the dominant actor? Or has a process of global political, economic, and even social integration transformed the world into a "global village"? This text presents seminal works that define and illuminate the third debate, focused by the editors' comments prefacing each chapter and their synthesizing introductory and concluding chapters. It is designed to allow students and scholars to compare and contrast the contending approaches in order to better understand and develop the discipline of international relations. Given the consensus among both realists and globalists that our assumptions about world affairs affect how we construct theories to explain events and that the model we impose on the world directly affects the policies we prescribe, it is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the subject.

What is the impact of lobbying on the policymaking process? And who benefits? This book argues that most research overlooks the lobbying of regulatory agencies even though it accounts for almost half of all lobbying - even though bureaucratic agencies have considerable leeway in how they choose to implement law.