Böcker utgivna av Palgrave MacMillan

This book provides both practice-oriented and academic insights into the disruptive power of fintech for the banking industry. It explores (1) whether and how the banking industry can use newly emerging technologies in the financial sphere to its advantage while managing any associated risks, (2) how these technologies affect traditional banking service formats as well as the pricing of these services, and (3) whether the emergence of fintech in the banking industry calls for a rethinking of existing banking regulations such as the Basel Accords as well as country-specific regulations. Prior publications in this area typically examine both current applications of fintech in the banking industry, as well as its future prospects, by analyzing actual cases or exploring the impact of a single emerging technology on the banking industry. They often ignore the interdependence between emerging technologies and overlook the connection between fintech as a whole and the future of the banking industry. This book addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of various fintech applications and by analyzing what they mean for the future of banking. Given the potentially disruptive power of fintech, the book will focus on the challenges banking supervisors are likely to encounter as a result of fintech's continual ascent. It will thus encourage readers to think about and explore how to find a balance between the beneficial aspects of fintech and the challenges it creates in terms of supervision, regulation, and risk management.

This book investigates the phenomenon of overbalancing through an analysis of Japan's foreign policy during the interbellum. In the mid-1930s, Japan withdrew from a naval arms control framework that had restrained military buildup on both sides of the Pacific Ocean since the early 1920s. By doing so, Japan not only triggered a naval arms race with the United States that exhausted its economy, it also destroyed the last institutionalized structure regulating the relationship between the two Pacific powers. Japan and the United States became caught in a spiral of tensions that culminated with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Puzzling is the fact that the international environment in the Asia-Pacific was relatively stable in the mid-1930s, while Washington was pursuing a policy of accommodation toward Tokyo. By rejecting arms control and engaging in unfettered naval expansion, Japan overbalanced against the United States and began its rush to the Pacific War.The book explains Japan's overbalancing with a neoclassical realist model that combines the literatures on threat perception and civil-military relations. Amid the Manchurian crisis of 1931-1933, as the Japanese government collaborated with the military institution to address the situation in China, military influence on the formulation of foreign policy surged. The perceptual and policy biases of the military, which include the tendency to distrust other countries' intentions, to adopt worst-case analyses of international dynamics and to strive to maximize military power, gradually penetrated the decision-making process. Dysfunctions in the preexisting structure of Japanese civil-military relations, engendered by an over-depoliticization of the military institution, allowed the navy to convince policymakers that the United States was inherently hostile to Japan, hence the necessity to prepare for war. The government was brainstormed, adopting the biased military perspective on international affairs. Japan overbalanced in a myopic but conscious way.

This edited book examines the social realities of migrant traders in the informal economy in South Africa. It draws on original research conducted with migrant traders in order to understand their lived experiences in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. With chapters on the diverse types of informal trading, urban versus rural settings, migrant women, xenophobia, crime, poverty, well-being and policy responses, the book will be a valuable resource for researchers, scholars, policymakers and development practitioners whose work relates to SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).

This book provides a broad, interdisciplinary analysis of events impacting on North Macedonia since its independence, particularly during the last decade. In the past thirty years, the country has gone through deep political, social and economic transition, along with a name change from 'Macedonia' to the 'Republic of North Macedonia' following the Prespa Agreement signed with Greece. The contributors consider Macedonia's challenges, its multi-ethnic make-up and its ambition to enter the European mainstream through the auspices of the European Union and NATO. The volume includes chapters on international politics and North Macedonia's place in the region's security architecture as well as the difficulties of the privatisation of socially owned enterprises, political corruption, state capture and backsliding. The book also covers the controversial 'Skopje 2014' project in addition to the impact of migration along the 'Balkan Route' and the current wranglings with Bulgaria over identitypolitics.

Every society aspires to be prosperous. It also endeavors to minimize the side effects of economic growth. This book entitled The Economics of Optimal Growth Pathways addresses numerous trade-offs faced by society to achieve prosperity and explores the best possible growth pathways. The theories explored in this book serve as a springboard to better understand key challenges and aspects of the economy, including food security, land use, forest and resource management, capital markets and interest rates, oil and gas extraction, fish and marine resources, saving and investment, and climate change.This book elucidates the concept of optimal economic growth pathways while addressing the challenges faced in natural resources and life on the planet. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in resource and environmental economics.

This book explores Eastern European consumer cultures in the twentieth century, taking a comparative perspective and conceptualizing the peculiarities of consumption in the region. Contributions cover lifestyles and marketing strategies in imperial contexts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; urban consumer cultures in the Interwar Period; and consumer and advertising cultures in the Soviet Union and its satellite republics. It traces the development of marketing throughout the century, and the changes in society brought about by democratization and the 'Americanization' of consumption. Taken together, the essays gathered here make a valuable contribution to our understanding of consumption and advertising in the region.

This book explores the convergence of urban radio with digital media technologies in Africa, focusing on how youth are riding on the rapid (though uneven) internet rollout on the continent to participate and drive the production and consumption of urban radio. With thirteen original chapters, the book sheds new light on the changing landscape of radio in a diverse set of African countries, illustrated with rich case studies from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Eswatini, Nigeria and Kenya. This book covers the following themes: youth agency and cultural power; civic engagement and political participation; youth, identity and belonging; youth cultural expressions as well as the impact of capitalist imperatives on commercial radio programing in Africa. Vibrant and innovative, Converged Radio, Youth and Urbanity in Africa reveals the creation of a new public sphere, through which African youth project their voices and identities, participating in and shaping national discourse. ​

This book offers a critical analysis of hate crime law using Italy as a case study. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, it develops an international framework for mapping hate crime laws onto the phenomenon of hate crime itself, allowing for better legislation to be drafted. It shows how this analytical tool may be used in practice by applying it to legislation in Italy, where Parliament recently dismissed a legislative proposal to extend hate crime law to sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability. The framework allows readers to critique the rationale behind hate crime laws and the effect of, or potential effect of, their implementation. This book ultimately seeks to answer to the question of how and whether States can legitimately introduce a harsher sentence for bias motivated crimes. It bridges interdisciplinary hate studies and more traditional legal analysis. It speaks to an international audience as well asto an audience with a specific interest in the Italian context.

This book uses critical metaphor analysis to show from a cognitive perspective how climate change is conceptualized in the USA. The author enriches his linguistic analysis with cognitive aspects such as source-target domain mapping and metaphor opposition to explain how metaphor works in terms of framing this issue, drawing on a Critical Discourse Analysis-informed framework to demonstrate how politicians represent the climate crisis in their attempts to trigger social change. Using a data set of speeches given by US-based politicians, governors and mayors speaking in the context of the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, the book categorizes metaphors on different conceptions such as war, construction, unfairness, journey, and cleanliness to bridge the gap between ecolinguistics and critical metaphor analysis. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in fields including applied linguistics, political communication, ecolinguistics, and cognitive linguistics and psychology.

This book draws upon diverse approaches and understandings of sustainability transformations, social transitions and environmental accountabilities. It presents case studies that highlight real-world consequences of changing ideas about how best to achieve effective and durable sustainability transformations and examines how environmental accountabilities and social transitions influence sustainability transformations. Each chapter provides insights regarding how new knowledge and perspectives matter for whether, when, and how people, governments, corporations and international organisations seek and pursue solutions to social-ecological challenges and sustainability dilemmas. It pays sustained attention to whether and how understandings and applications of accountability can improve international sustainability transformations. The chapters presented in this book consider some pressing questions concerning social transitions and environmental accountabilities: how can they contribute to sustainability transformations, how do they influence the scalability of sustainability transformations, and, how can such sustainability transformations become durable?

This book is a reappraisal of Anglican Church redundancy from a cultural perspective. It challenges long-held perceptions about the rationale for church redundancy, particularly secularisation. It argues that redundancy brought to the surface far-reaching social and cultural tensions that remain unresolved to this day, and which the pandemic closure of buildings has reignited.

This volume interrogates global health and especially the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the role that science has played in mitigating the human experiences of pandemics and health over the centuries. Science, and the scientific method, has always been at the forefront of the human attempt at undermining the virulent consequences of sicknesses and diseases. However, the scientific image of humans in the world is founded on the presumption of possessing the complete understanding about humans and their physiological and psychological frameworks. This volume challenges this scientific assumption. Global health denotes the complex and cumulative health profile of humanity that involves not only the framework of scientific researches and practices that investigates and seeks to improve the health of all people on the globe, but also the range of humanistic issues - economic, cultural, social, ideological - that constitute the sources of inequities and threat to the achievement of apositive global health profile. This volume balances the argument that diseases and pandemics are human problems that demand both scientific and humanistic interventions.

This Handbook aims to provide a unique and convenient one-volume reference work, exhibiting the latest interdisciplinary explorations in this urgently burgeoning field of intellectual and practical importance. Due to its immense range and diversity, environmental politics and theory necessarily encompasses: empirical, normative, policy, political, organizational, and activist discussions unfolding across many disciplines. It is a challenge for its practitioners, let alone newcomers, to keep informed about the ongoing developments in this fast-changing area of study and to comprehend all of their implications. Through the planned volume's extensive scope of contributions emphasizing environmental policy issues, normative prescriptions, and implementation strategies, the next generation of thinkers and activists will have very useful profiles of the theories, concepts, organizations, and movements central to environmental politics and theory. It is the editors' aspiration that this volume will become a go-to resource on the myriad perspectives relevant to studying and improving the environment for advanced researchers as well as an introduction to new students seeking to understand the basic foundations and recommended resolutions to many of our environmental challenges. Environmental politics is more than theory alone, so the Handbook also considers theory-action connections by highlighting the past and current: thinkers, activists, social organizations, and movements that have worked to guide contemporary societies toward a more environmentally sustainable and just global order. Chapter "Eco-Anxiety and the Responses of Ecological Citizenship and Mindfulness" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Zimbabwean social media has been awash with images of a woman character, spirit, or concept called Chihera. Traditionally, a woman descending from the Mhofu (Eland) lineage/totem is known as Chihera. In the cumulative tradition of the Shona (a Zimbabwean ethnic group), Chihera is a fiercely independent, assertive, free spirited, and no nonsense woman. This volume seeks to deepen reflections on the Chihera phenomenon in the context of the search for gender justice in Zimbabwe and Africa. The authors reflect on how this radical indigenous feminist ethic circulating on social media can animate the quest for Zimbabwean and African women's full liberation from patriarchy and all oppressive forces. They grapple with the issue of generating culturally sensitive theories and approaches to galvanize the struggle for African women's liberation in post-colonial settings. Second, they locate the Chihera mystique in the context of the practical struggle for women's empowerment. Third, the volume illustrates how the Chihera phenomenon could be utilized for gender justice in Zimbabwe and beyond.

This book provides a comprehensive comparison of municipally owned corporations in Europe. Municipal corporatisation is the act of delivering public services at arm's length from local government through municipally owned corporations. Although it has become an increasing trend in recent years, we still know little about cross-country differences in what these municipally owned corporations look like, what legislation applies to them, and how they are governed. This book seeks to fill this gap. Each chapter outlines the legal provisions that enable or hinder the formation of municipally owned corporations in a particular country, the trends around corporatisation, and the structure of the corporations that exist. Going beyond the national context, the book provides an overview of what unites countries in terms of the trend towards municipally owned corporations, and what differentiates them. It offers a critical comparison that will make finding regional and global trends easier for researchers, and will help practitioners to better understand the differences between countries to allow for greater collaborative policy learning.

Mainstream philosophy of religion has persistently failed to engage seriously or critically with animist beliefs and practices. The field that is now called "philosophy of religion" could quite easily be renamed "philosophy of theism" with few lecturers on the subject having to change their lecture notes. It is the aim of this volume to rectify that failure and to present animism as a live option among the plethora of religious worldviews. The volume addresses four major questions: 1. What is this thing called "animism"? 2. Are there any arguments for or against animist belief and practice? 3. What is the relationship between animism, naturalism, and the sciences? And 4. Should we take animism seriously? Animism and Philosophy of Religion is intended to be the first authoritative scholarly volume on the issue of animism and its place in the philosophy of religion. Ambitiously, it aims to act as the cornerstone volume for future work on the subject and as a key text for courses engaging with the subject.

This book introduces a standpoint approach to phenomenology and reconceives the phenomenological project as not an individual but a communal endeavor--one that, importantly, requires insight from across the spectrum of human experience and especially experiences of those who have traditionally been absent from the discipline. To develop this approach, the book draws on the feminist tradition of standpoint epistemology. The book borrows two of standpoint epistemology's key theses--that of situated knowledge (what we know is shaped and often limited by our social location) and inverted privilege (epistemological advantage can in some contexts be inversely related to one's social location). In standpoint phenomenology, these develop into the thesis of situated phenomenology and inverted phenomenological privilege respectively. This book presents three specific methodologies that support the standpoint approach to phenomenology: the methodologies of breakdown, sign, and wonder. All have their origins in the classical phenomenological work of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Though these methods are used by these phenomenologists, they are not explicitly articulated or explained in any detail. The book lays out how and why these methodologies can be used to reveal the conditions supporting human existence and then highlights the role each might play in a standpoint approach to phenomenology.

This book explores the writing of church history during the early Byzantine period, reconsidering the evidence for the nature and authorship of a hypothetical 'Arian' source for many surviving medieval histories of the fourth century. It considers surviving ecclesiastical histories written between the fifth and early thirteenth centuries to draw out commonalities apparently owed to this 'lost' source and discusses attempts by modern historians to reconstruct it. In doing so, it convincingly argues that this 'Arian' material likely belongs not to one work, but three: two chronicles and a martyrology. This book therefore provides a vital reassessment of fourth-century Christian historiography, as well as important insights on chronicle writing in the Middle Ages.

The term "othering" refers to a persistent Us and Them dynamic between museums and their participating public. To reframe this historically paternalistic subject-positioning, over the last decade or so many museums have made firm attempts to address this by attempting to move from being "providers" of engagements to facilitating access to cultural right by embedding co-curatorial techniques and participation. Through the analysis of three co-curated participatory case studies, this book examines how power performs in co-curatorial museum practice. It discusses how it is not just how the participatory process is enacted that is necessary to create this shift to a more socially just profile, but systemic pressures of vulnerability and responsibility found in the political economy of the museum and its participants. This book will chart how this dynamic performs in museums when working with different groups of people, such as volunteers, community participants, and professional artists, presented with differing levels of co-curatorial decision making. The book further investigates whether performances of power are relational to who the participants are, how the processes of participation are constructed, and where the participation takes place, what language is used when conducting these relationships and what the funded institutional responsibilities do to the co-curators (the community and museum staff) when traditional co-curation and co-curation in transition to non-selective curation is applied. Grounding this discussion is the development of this test method of non-selective curation which further illuminates some of these challenges and aims to successfully mitigate them through a radically open and inclusive approach to co-curation.

Drawing on extensive research from a 14-month ethnographic study, this book delves into the intricate lives of married women in a rural Sinhala village in Sri Lanka. It explores their efforts to uphold community expectations while employing innovative and strategic approaches to navigate ruptures within their marital journeys. The chapters progress by dissecting the pivotal gender roles assumed by women in building happy marriages, establishing stable households, cultivating harmonious homes, and achieving effective household management. At the heart of this narrative is the concept of 'homemaking, ' which symbolises not only family life but also social stature. The text discusses how the categorisation of homes as 'good' or 'bad' relies on women's conscientious adherence to gender norms. Notably, the author also looks at the unique practice of married women resorting to sorcery as a means to mitigate the challenges stemming from marital disruptions while remaining aligned with societal gender expectations. Throughout, chapters systematically investigate the spectrum of opportunities available to these women, alongside the constraints they encounter, as they endeavour to cultivate successful marriages. Overall, the book provides profound insights into the complex interplay of married life, spotlighting women's astute negotiations of their roles and adept management of ruptures within the framework of established gender norms.This book will be of interest to scholars in Gender Studies, Anthropology, Family Studies, and South Asian Studies.

This open-access book provides fresh and much-needed insights into the interconnections between law, society and governance in Central Asia. By taking the interdisciplinary perspective of law and society, the book explores the social life of law and legal institutions in Central Asia in broader terms, encompassing not only the state legal system and institutions but also various informal (non-legal) forms of normative ordering. The topics covered within this book will be of interest to many scholars considering various theoretical and methodological challenges in studying law, governance, and informality in authoritarian regime contexts such as Central Asia. Considering interdisciplinary approaches taken within the volume, we aim to reach out to the students and scholars within the following disciplines and fields of study.- Central Asian Studies- Communist and post-communist studies- Anthropology: Economic Anthropology, Legal Anthropology, Anthropology of Law- Business sciences- Socio-legal studies- Transnational Politics and Governance - Law and economics

This book presents a set of texts that reflect different approaches to the relationship between mind and technology. In today's increasingly technological world, a myriad of different and dizzying challenges face humanity: the ever-closer relationship between man and machine, the exponential development of Artificial Intelligence, man's relationship with virtual worlds, the relationship with new realities such as the neuro potentiation of his capacities, the appearance of robots in everyday life, and so on. In this volume, renowned world specialists explore these concerns, and discuss limitations and possible problems surrounding the interaction of man and machine. The book provides a well-researched, thought-provoking analysis of the need to rethink the theory of the mind, proposing relevant answers to pressing questions and raising new questions that need to be considered.

How to Build a Human Brain takes a developmental approach to understanding brain structure and function. It guides readers through the evolution of the human brain, from its cellular building blocks, up to hind brain structures and functions, and through to neocortex and associated functions. In doing so, it enables students to develop a comprehensive knowledge of the relationship between brain networks and functions, neural underpinnings of functional problems seen after neuropathology, and neuroanatomy.Written in an engaging style, each chapter follows a blueprint format with subsections on issues like 'damage and repair' and 'faulty wiring' as the brain is 'built' across the course of the book. The author includes illustrative case studies and entertaining fast fact boxes to highlight the real-word relevance of each brain structure being examined. This textbook offers an accessible reference for students of neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, and biological psychology.

This open access book explores the synergy between AI and education, highlighting its potential impact on pedagogical practices. It navigates the evolving landscape of AI-powered educational technologies and suggests practical ways to personalise instruction, nurture human-AI co-creativity, and transform the learning experience. Spanning from primary to higher education, this short and engaging volume proposes concrete examples of how educational stakeholders can be empowered in their AI literacy to foster creativity, inspire critical thinking, and promote problem-solving by embracing AI as a tool for expansive learning. Structured in three parts, the book starts developing the creative engagement perspective for learning and teaching to then present practical applications of AI in K-12 and higher education, covering different fields (teacher education, professional education, business education) as well as different types of AI supported tools (games, chatbots and AI assisted assessment). It also delves into the ethical considerations, policy implications, and the central role educators play in harnessing the power of an AI informed educational experience.

Essays on Music, Adolescence, and Identity: The Adolescentia Project explores music consumption, self-discovery, media culture, and memory through autoethnographic essays on albums we loved during adolescence covering three decades (1980-2010) as the music industry and socio-cultural identity landscapes in the United States significantly changed. The collection advances our understanding of music culture, identity, and adolescence in three ways. First, by expanding our knowledge of the shifting relationship between music and identity by using historical methods to examine changes in music culture and socio-cultural landscapes from 1980 to 2010. Second, by interrogating the role of musical memory and the act of cultural remembering by including autoethnographic reflective essays charting contributors' experiences of understanding and performing self through a particularly formative album of their adolescence. And third, by critiquing the act of music consumption in relation to identity construction and cultural remembering. By examining these influential albums, we can better understand the role of popular culture in identity construction and the long-term impact of these formative musical experiences.

The onset of the pandemic has placed a greater emphasis on mental health, with many organizations making it a business imperative to ensure that employees are fully supported. Research on mental health in the workplace continues to grow, though there is a dearth of scholarly writings taking a micro approach to understanding the impact of negative work environments. This three-book series explores issues related to personality disorders and work-related suicides and the effect on employees and leaders. This volume focuses on the harmful effects of psychopathy in the workplace. The book is divided into three sections: defining psychopathy, identifying it through its effects on workplace productivity and performance, and understanding how that knowledge can limit its effect. With chapter contributions from authors around the world, this collection offers global perspectives on the harmful role that psychopathy can play in the workplace. Tackling topics such as abusive supervision and workplace bullying, this book will advance scholarship related to employee well-being, employee engagement, and counterproductive workplace behaviors.

This book offers a comprehensive economic history of emerging market economies post-WWII and identifies a complex web of sustainability problems that face the EMEs going forward. It seeks to present a truly global perspective on the development of EMEs and the long-term trends that have brought EMEs to a critical economic juncture. The first section of the book charts how EMEs became tightly integrated into the global economy at rapid pace, analysing economic achievements as well as imbalances and sustainability issues that have been generated over time. It considers how EMEs have withstood episodes of complex structural transitions and financial shocks, and offers comparative perspectives on patterns of dispersion within the EME landscape from the end of WWII to the present. The second part of the book seeks to understand how EMEs might cope with the volatility brought about by a new 'age of disruption' defined by major structural challenges to the neo-liberal economic order. It considers which EMEs are best positioned to respond to issues of economic inequality, financial excess, technological disruption and climate change, what a global historical understanding of the EMEs can offer to policymakers, and the impact on the EME investment landscape. This book will be of interest to a broad audience including researchers of economic history and political economy, as well as policymakers, investment professionals, and the general reader interested in global economic development.

This book is the first comprehensive study of Westermarckian sociology and social anthropology, which flourished in Finland for half a century, until the Second World War. Edward Westermarck (1862-1939) was not only the founder of Finnish sociology but also Britain's first professor of sociology, influencing and contributing to teaching and research at LSE for nearly three decades. In Finland, a group of disciples shared his Darwinian interest in the human mind and the comparative study of the origins of social phenomena. Like Westermarck, they also conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork beyond Europe. Many of them became internationally renowned scholars who published their works through leading British publishers. The book traces his influence on British sociology and social anthropology more broadly also by considering his work and students at LSE, who emphasised their debt to Westermarck. Drawing on both published writings and unpublished archival material, the book offersa reinterpretation of 'origin' as the Westermarckian school's core concept.

This creative writing textbook introduces students to ecofiction: narrative writing that focuses on the environment. Also known as 'climate fiction' or 'cli-fi', an increasing number of short story writers, novelists and pioneers of emerging forms such as interactive fiction are taking up the call to develop their own creative responses to the climate crisis. This guide explores a cross-section of genres and ways of writing about our world, as well as the ethical and technical challenges involved. It offers a discussion of classic and contemporary texts, literary criticism and creative writing exercises. The book covers a broad range of themes and styles of writing, from works that engage with nature and landscape writing to those that take a more activist approach to climate change. With an awareness of the Global South and the subaltern, the framing of the Anthropocene, wilderness and nature writing is challenged. Each chapter offers a new perspective on ecofiction for the creative writer, with reading suggestions and connections to other writers and texts, and writing activities. Designed for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate writing modules on the environment, the book is also suitable for independent writers looking to expand their skillset.

Stanley Rice, born in London in 1905, began his autobiography by stating that his life was 'an ordinary average life with all its ups and downs'. Stanley may have described his life as ordinary, and yet he lived through a period of rapid social change, including two world wars. Despite this, Stanley assumed that his life story would be of little interest to most readers, as he had not achieved great fame or any notable accolades. This book argues that this is exactly why historians should focus on such life stories, as there is much to be gained by focusing on memories of 'ordinary average lives', as they can expand our knowledge of the past, often revealing firsthand experiences that have been excluded from the historical record. This book does not intend to be a general social history of the working class. Rather, it is a work of memory, drawing upon a microhistory methodology to examine how a sample of one hundred working-class autobiographers remembered and wrote about living through years that were punctuated by two worldwide conflicts and a global economic depression.