India: Between China, the West, and the Global South, in Great Decisions (guest editor G. John Ikenberry

India is an emerging major power in world affairs, occupying a pivotal position between China, the United States, and the Global South. Its population size, economy, and geopolitical location ensure that it will be an influential voice in debates and political struggles over global order. What are India’s choices and opportunities for regional and global leadership? How will it maneuver between China and the United States, and what is its role as a voice of the Global South? What opportunities exist for Washington to work with India

Ripples of Conflict: Drivers and Resolutions of Water Resources Disputes -A Case Study of Lake Turkana Basin of Kenya

Historically, the semi-arid and dry regions of the Kenyan borders have experienced perennial conflicts that revolve around the scarce water-related resources both on land and in water but spread around Lake Turkana, the largest desert lake in Africa. Lake Turkana, located in the Turkana Basin of Kenya, is a critical resource for the region. Covering an area of approximately 6,405 square kilometres, it is the largest permanent desert lake in the world. Besides, with its unique ecological and socio-economic implications, Lake Turkana has become a central point for studying the dynamics of conflicts resulting from water-related resource scarcity. The study sought to identify specific drivers of water use related resource conflicts in Lake Turkana basin of Kenya. Through a descriptive study design, the research applied a convenience sampling method targeting 90 respondents across all three sites, seeking about 30 participants per region. The study findings demonstrate that drivers of conflicts within the Lake Turkana Basin are not just locally domesticated, but also have external factors and influences including dynamics associated with inflammatory political speeches, economic, as well as environmental factors resulting in harsh climate. This is in addition to water management issues, high illiteracy and cultural pressures, ethnic tensions, historical grievances, scarce critical resources which are only concentrated in few locations, and geopolitical interests of neighbouring countries which contribute to conflicts in the region. The management of these conflicts therefore are best solved if these drivers of conflict are carefully understood as was the case for this study

The Stilwell Affair

This is a critical study of General Stilwell's mission to China (1942-4), during which he served as the Commander of the Chinese Expeditionary Army in Burma, Commander of the Allied China, Burma and India Theatre, and Chiang Kai-shek's Chief of Staff. The mission started off well but his relations with Chiang deteriorated resulting in his recall at Chiang's demand in 1944. Stilwell created a new modern combat effective force for the Chinese Army and put forth a plan to revitalise the Chinese Army. Chiang could not work with Stilwell as he did not understand how the US system worked and consequently thought Stilwell was incompetent and disloyal. The failure of the Stilwell mission had major consequences for China's military capacity post-war and contributed to Chiang's loss of China. By using newly available arichival sources, including Chiang's Diary, this chapter presents an interpretation that challenges most existing literature on the subject

The Gentle Decolonial Civilizer of Nations

Book review of Umut Özsu's Completing Humanit

Ethical Living Through Stories: Encounters with Adab

Literature has for thousands of years served as a space in which people have negotiated the ethics of daily life. In the Islamic tradition, the broad concept of adab spans ethical instruction and literary culture. Literature classified asadab was intended to cultivate readers’ minds and characters. Similarly, the Chinese concept of wen represents the intellectual, cultural, and ethical foundations of society. Adab and wen offer ways to navigate complex social environments with respect and empathy, promoting harmony in multicultural societies. Such concepts remain highly relevant and valuable in today’s global world. In this book, Wen-chin Ouyang shows how our experience of adab stories has the power to transform both our personal relationships and society. She draws on classic Arabic stories from the famous Thousand and One Nights and compares them with tales from the canonical Chinese novels Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West, and Water Margin. The book demonstrates how these stories tell us about ourselves, allowing us to define, test, and refine our ethics of living. More than this, they have the power to help us experience a profound contemplation of our lives on earth, linking us to our shared humanity and showing us how to live meaningfully

Donald Rodney: Art, Race and the Body Politic

Donald Rodney (1961-1998) was one of the most gifted, perceptive, and innovative contemporary British artists of his time.A protagonist from the first generation of Black British-born art students in the early 1980s, Rodney and his peers brought a new dynamic to British art – a hitherto unseen interplay between aesthetics, politics, humour and Black consciousness.Donald Rodney: Art, Race and the Body Politicis the first book-length study of a protean practice which spanned the early 1980s to the late 1990s and included a prodigious output of work across painting, photography, collage, assemblage, sculpture, installation, and new technologies. Across eight meticulously researched chapters, the book examines the social and cultural events which inspired Rodney's artwork and the responses it elicited. From his formative years in the West Midlands as a leading exponent of ‘Black Art’, to a subsequent decade of unbridled visual innovation and social critique, the book ventures new detailed analyses of key works, exhibitions, artistic influences and collaborations. Deploying recurring metaphors of the ‘diseased’, traumatised and ‘raced’ body, Rodney addressed racial and social inequality, legacies of slavery, police brutality, sport, and Black male identity in novel and powerful ways. Attending to the artist’s material dexterity and visual acuity, the book considers how and why Rodney’s innovative practice uniquely challenged delineations between the political and non-political, personal and public, representation and visibility. Over a generation has passed since Rodney’s premature death from the effects of the hereditary blood disorder sickle cell anaemia at aged thirty-six. Despite this, Rodney's work continues to speak to our contemporary moment in a multiplicity of ways. As such, the book provides a much-needed critical perspective and insight to the work and legacy of a nonpareil British artist

In and Against Development: From New to Newest Development Economics, Critical Reconstructions of Political Economy, Volume 5.

The Economics of Everything, or Economics Imperialism, now has a dominant presence in development economics, and an agenda-setting role in development studies, with the World Bank taking a leading, if contested, role. This volume examines how this happened, charting the evolution from the old or classic development economics through the new, newer and newest development economics. Drawing critically upon the Kuhnian notions of paradigm shifts, corresponding changes are contextualised materially, intellectually and policy-wise. Covering key issues such as famine, the developmental state, and trade and industrial policy, detailed attention is paid to the potential for alternatives for economics and economic policies

Trust Matters: The governance of private and public services organizations' external relationships

This chapter focuses on the external relationships of private and public sector organisations and puts trust in the focus of a comparative analysis. It starts with identifying the function of trust and suggests that it is a governance mechanism that ensures cooperation and coordination of expectations in social interactions. Trust is then examined in more detail with regard to how it can fulfil this task, and it is compared to functionally equivalent social mechanisms for governing organisations’ external relationships, such as power and the market principle. Furthermore, this chapter looks at the key actors and their mutual relationships in the private sector and in the context of public service organisations. Thus, the overarching goal is to elucidate what is known about trust in inter-organisational relationships in the private sector and apply it to the relationship between public sector organisations and citizens. It will be argued that accountability plays a central part in how these relationships can be governed and that the latter can only release its full potential when complemented by trust