Moving Beyond The Crisis

With the financial meltdown and the economic crisis in their fifth year already no one can any longer be in doubt about their exceptional gravity, their truly global impact and their profound effects hurting vulnerable groups and the very poor especially. As the world looks for an exit from this economic crisis – the worst in eight decades – the focus of attention is naturally on the causes, the factors that account for its wide reach and severity, as well as on strategies that might bring it to a closure. The quest for exit strategies is at the very centre of the issues and concerns explored in the present volume, produced by the IIAS. Like the preceding volumes, but even more emphatically, this volume, representing a collective endeavour of scholars and practitioners from many parts of the globe, finds cause to lay the blame, for our difficult predicament, on the institutional deficit, the policies, the practices and values that have followed in the trail of a highly misleading and erroneous model of governance. The «Market Model of Governance» as it is known, sought to reform, the structures and culture of administration and government in private sector ways. While instrumental values like efficiency and effectiveness were raised and praised profusely, those of democratic governance were discounted by comparison. In particular, integrity, the rule of law and due process, equity, legality and public service professionalism suffered a steep decline, in several parts of the world. Likewise, the invasion and the capture of public space, inevitably led to an unprecedented surge of greed, abuse and corruption that contributed directly to the crisis which is upon us. Looking for exit strategies, as its title aptly suggests, the present volume offers a rich menu of ideas drawn from the current experience of all the world ́s main regions. Not surprisingly, two concepts stand out throughout the book as necessary correctives, as well as pressing remedies to the world ́s ongoing malaise. They call for the recapture of our common administrative space and the reaffirmation of the values and virtues appropriate for democratic governance. To the IIAS, none perhaps are more important than public service professionalism and none other can contribute more effectively to the reform and consolidation of sound institutions for national, sub national, global and regional governance. For these reasons, at this juncture, the new volume like the others should be featured in every public library and become a vademecum of all scholars and practitioners of public administration and politics around the world.

The authors provide grief-recovery-related content on a memorial site called Tributes.com, to which readers submit personal and unique grief-related questions. Collected in this book are a bounty of personal and moving questions and the authors' compelling responses and tips. This book deals with grief from loss of a loved one, a divorce, a sudden downturn in health, the loss of a job, and even the loss of faith.

The book speaks to the widespread quest for concrete alternative ways forward 'beyond capitalism' in the face of the prevailing corporatocracy and a capitalist system in crisis. It examines a number of institutions and practices now being built in the nooks and crannies of present societies and that point beyond capitalism toward a more equal, participatory, and democratic society – institutions such as cooperatives, public banks, the commons, economic democracy. This seminal collection of critical studies draws on academic and activist voices from the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and Argentina, and from a variety of theoretical-political perspectives – Marxism, anarchism, feminism, and Zapatismo.

Today, when it seems like everything has been privatized, when austerity is too often seen as an economic or political problem that can be solved through better policy, and when the idea of moral values has been commandeered by the right, how can we re-imagine the forces used as weapons against community, solidarity, ecology and life itself? In this stirring call to arms, Max Haiven argues that capitalism has colonized how we all imagine and express what is valuable. Looking at the decline of the public sphere, the corporatization of education, the privatization of creativity, and the power of finance capital in opposition to the power of the imagination and the growth of contemporary social movements, Haiven provides a powerful argument for creating an anti-capitalist commons. Capitalism is not in crisis, it is the crisis, and moving beyond it is the only key to survival. Crucial reading for all those questioning the imposition of austerity and hoping for a fairer future beyond it.

In this fully updated Second Edition, three of today’s most respected crisis/risk communication scholars provide the latest theory, practice, and innovative approaches for handling crisis. This acclaimed book presents the discourse of renewal as a theory to manage crises effectively. The book provides 15 in-depth case studies that highlight successes and failures in dealing with core issues of crisis leadership, managing uncertainty, communicating effectively, understanding risk, promoting communication ethics, enabling organizational learning, and producing renewing responses to crisis. Unlike other crisis communication texts, this book answers the question, “What now?” and explains how organizations can and should emerge from crisis.

Essential reading for managers and leaders based on Deming’s famous 14 Points for Management This is the classic and deeply influential work on business management, leadership, problem solving, and quality control, reissued for readers today Translated into 12 languages and continuously in print since its original publication in 1982, this highly influential framework presents the foundations for a completely transformational way to lead and manage people, processes, and resources. According to Deming, American company management’s failure to plan for the future brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to: • stay in business • protect investment • ensure future dividends • provide more jobs through improved product and service In simple, direct language, Deming explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them. This edition includes a foreword by Deming’s grandson, Kevin Edwards Cahill, and Kelly Allan, business consultant and Deming expert. “Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappointment.” —W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

In this fully updated Fifth Edition, three of today’s most respected crisis/risk communication scholars provide the latest theory, practice, and innovative approaches for handling crisis. This acclaimed book presents the discourse of renewal as a theory to manage crises effectively. The book provides in-depth case studies that highlight successes and failures in dealing with core issues of crisis leadership, managing uncertainty, communicating effectively, understanding risk, promoting communication ethics, enabling organizational learning, and producing renewing responses to crisis. Unlike other crisis communication texts, this book answers the question, "What now?" and explains how organizations can and should emerge from crisis. Authors Robert R. Ulmer, Timothy L. Sellnow, and Matthew W. Seeger provide guidelines for taking the many challenges that crises present and turning those challenges into opportunities for overcoming a crisis.

Seen through the lens of the outsider, Pakistan has often been reduced to a caricature. Its diversity and resilience have rarely figured in the single-issue focus of recent literature on the country, be it journalistic or scholarly. This book seeks to present an alternate paradigm and to contribute a deeper understanding of the country's dynamics that may help explain why Pakistan has confounded all the doomsday scenarios. It brings together an extra-ordinary array of leading experts, including Ahmed Rashid, Ayesha Jalal and Zahid Hussain, and practitioners, such as the book's editor, Maleeha Lodhi, Akbar Ahmed and Munir Akram. Together they debate their country's strengths and weaknesses and offer ways out of its current predicament. This book provides a picture of how Pakistanis see themselves and their country's faultlines and spells out ways to overcome these. Pakistan's political, economic, social, foreign policy and governance challenges are assessed in detail. So too is the complex interplay between domestic developments and external factors including great power interests that are so central to the Pakistan story and explain the vicissitudes in its fortunes. Lodhi and her contributors contend that Pakistan and its people have the capacity to transform their country into a stable, modern Muslim state, but bold reforms will be needed to bring about this outcome.