The central aim of this book is to investigate and develop frameworks to aid effective maintenance management of municipal buildings in the education sector of developing economies. Using the South African education sector as a case study, this book provides readers with two major practical insights. Firstly, it focuses on the theoretical underpinnings of maintenance management research and introduces a maintenance management model through the development of a conceptual framework. This framework aids in explaining the factors underpinning the maintenance of municipal buildings but can also be used in the assessment and management of other public buildings. Secondly, the book highlights and addresses theoretical gaps in existing studies essential for the maintenance management of buildings in developing economies, providing a stimulus for future research.

The book will be of interest to researchers in construction management, building technology, estate management, civil engineering, architecture, and urban and regional planning. It is an essential manual for policymakers in the education sector, built environment, construction industry, facility maintenance, facility management and consultants at government ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) charged with maintenance management of public infrastructures and assets.

As businesses, consumers, and investors make key financial decisions amid Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU), there is the danger that many might freeze investment projects and hiring, leading to contractions of the economy. These are evident in the Indian economy as a whole and specifically in Indian stock markets indices such as the BSE Sensex and Nifty 50, import and export figures, T-bills, FDI, FPI, and GDP.

In this important and timely work, Ghosh and Bagchi examine variables and phenomenon from April 2003 to January 2022, encompassing:

* The global financial recession period (December 2007 to June 2009)

* The pre-recession period (April 2003 to November 2007)

* The post-recession along with pre-COVID-19 period (July 2009 to February 2020)

* The COVID-19 period (March 2020 to January 2022)

* The Russia-Ukraine Conflict Period (September 2021 to July 2022)

This is essential reading for scholars and practitioners dealing with Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) in the Indian context, and in macro-economics at large.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the nagging issue of the Global South's debt back into the spotlight. With declining export earnings and tax revenues, many countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia have found themselves objectively unable to service their foreign currency debt. This situation, reminiscent of the international debt crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, is the backdrop of the 38^th volume of the Research in Political Economy series edited by Ndongo Samba Sylla.

In Imperialism and the Political Economy of Global South's Debt, expert contributions connect the history of this issue with a range of factors including class dynamics, the changing landscape of sovereign debt markets, the global liquidity cycle, the enduring constraints of commodity dependence, ecological sustainability and the limitations of the current ad hoc sovereign debt restructuring procedures. In contrast to orthodox accounts that view debt crises in the Global South as a cyclical problem or as consequences of 'mismanagement' or 'fiscal irresponsibility'. Imperialism and the Political Economy of Global South's Debt recognises the systemic nature of the Global South's external debt, revealed only further by the economic uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the need to analyse it in relation to existing imperialist structures.

This book analyses the paradoxes of Pakistan's economy, meritocratic domestic policy, and the role of the state and the civil society. It argues that the transition in the county's foreign policy from geo-politics to geo-economic depends on a fundamental domestic policy transition from kleptocracy to meritocracy.

Civil Society and Pakistan's Economy discusses how the prevalence of rent-seeking practices has undermined merit-based practices by increasing the cost of doing business and converting public loss into private profit by awarding inappropriate subsidies and imposing regressive taxes. The analyses are supported by describing the instruments and mechanisms used for rent-seeking practices and the creation of public awareness of options available to change these practices through citizen's action and civil society engagement. The book also shows the path of transformation and the role of participation and argues that aspiring for and capturing power is not the only way to transform Pakistan.

A novel analysis depicting macro-micro linkages of encroachment of socio-economic space by the power elites and effective strategies used for its reappropriation by the people, the book will be of interest to academics researching South Asian Studies, in particular South Asian economics and politics.

The devastating effect of Covid19 on the Indian economy is by now well-known. The growth rate of the economy slumped to a negative figure in the year 2020-21. What is less talked about, however, is the fact that growth slowdown in India had started several years before the pandemic struck. The two questions that naturally arise are: what explains the long economic slowdown and what can be done about it. This book is an in-depth analysis of the economic slowdown in India in recent years and the reasons behind the persistent slowdown in the growth rate of the Indian economy in the 2010s, especially in the latter half of the decade. While discussing both macro- and microeconomic policies, the volume examines how the perspective on economic policy has evolved over time in consonance with experience by investigating major instances of such slowdowns in the past. Three global slowdowns (viz. the Great Depression of 1929, the stagflation induced by the oil crisis of the 1970s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007) and the industrial deceleration in India in the late 1960s and early 1970s are discussed.

The author also probes into the problems of inequality, poverty, inflation in the Indian economy pre- and post- pandemic and policies targeted towards development, manufacturing, and distribution of vaccines. The book further discusses possible economic impacts of the Ukraine War and the long-term problem of global warming.

Concise and thoroughly researched, this book will be of interest to beginners, scholars, research students and teachers interested in economics, policy making and development studies.

Why is it so hard for international development organizations-even ones as well-resourced and influential as the World Bank-to generate and sustain change in the way things are done in those countries where they work? Despite what, in many cases, is decades of investment and effort, why do partner governments continue to engage in those traditional patterns and styles of public service management that international development organizations have sought to supplant with methods that are supposedly more accountable, efficient, and effective? This book provides an answer to these questions. However, rather than pathologizing partner governments as the source of the problem-that is, rather than maintaining the distinction between doctor (international development organizations) and patient (partner governments), wherein the patient is seen as unwilling to take their medicine (enacting "good governance" practices)-this book instead reframes the relationship.

The central argument is, first, that the programs and projects of international organizations are introduced into and are constrained by multiple layers of ritual governance, that is, performative acts and cultural logics that intersect with and reinforce the political, economic, and social structures in and through which they operate. As is shown, the contextual factors that guide governance practices are largely beyond the reach of the international development organizations; the relevant logics have their roots in state ideology but also extend back to the colonial logics that continue to operate at the heart of the state apparatus.

The second the central argument is that international aid organizations and the governments with which they work are engaged in a "ritual aid dance" where each actor plays a part but does not (and cannot) acknowledge the ways that it depends on the other for its own gain. This relationship can be considered a dance because each participant responds to and needs the other, and because both sides do so in ways that are carefully choreographed, with the overall trajectory or contours of the dance being more or less known to the participants.

These arguments are based on research on the World Bank's efforts over the course of several decades to encourage, through its financing, projects, and technical assistance, the implementation of social sector reform in Indonesia related to decentralization, community participation, and school-based management.

This book is an in-depth analysis of the educational development of tribals in India. Education as Development: Deprivation, Poverty, Dispossession is a significant new addition for understanding educational and economic setbacks experienced by the marginalized in India.

The volume:

• Focuses on how the social, economic, and education systems have evolved over time in India and identifies the scope of development in these areas
• Provides a rational structure for readers to understand how the Adivasi in India can be made to fit in the modern-designed education system
• Highlights the problems of the marginalized - such as income inequality, education, health, housing, governance, civil society environment and infrastructure, and others which hamper their overall growth

This book will be of great interest to students, researchers, and policy makers in the fields of education, minority studies, indigenous studies, sociology of education, and South Asian studies.

This book scrutinizes the role of Hong Kong in the expansive, and contested, vision of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

In two main parts, it first discusses the defining features of the BRI and the evolving expectations of the role of Hong Kong in the BRI from the perspectives of policy makers and the professional sectors of accountancy-finance and the law. The second part contemplates the potential opportunities for Hong Kong from the perspectives of recipient countries-Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. Utilizing an action research approach and engaging the views of a broad spectrum of actors, the authors observe the critical role of agency and innovations in a context of institutional contradictions, the impact of BRI governance structure for the deficits in international participation, gaps between grand state visions and commercial interests, and the salience of effective communication in navigating complex policy initiatives. Taking these together unpacks the complex processes shaping Hong Kong's participation and role in the BRI.

This book will appeal to students and researchers interested in the BRI and Hong Kong, in the contexts of institutional contradictions, agency innovations, and political dynamics, as well as sustainable development.

This is the first historical biography in English to be published on Egyptian scholar-diplomat, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the most intellectually accomplished of the nine UN secretaries-general. The first African and first Arab to occupy the post, Boutros-Ghali held the office in the momentous five post-Cold War years (1992-1996), massively expanding UN peacekeeping and leading intellectual debates on development, democratisation, and human rights. He had earlier been a key architect of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty as Egypt's minister of state for foreign affairs, a major figure in Third World diplomacy, and a Professor of International Law and International Relations. This accessible biography sets Boutros-Ghali's career within the political, social, and cultural contexts from which he emerged.

Please note: T&F does not sell or distribute the print version in Sub-Saharan Africa.

An eye-opening account of the British terror attacks you've never heard of-because the perpetrators were caught in time.

Since 2017, the UK has seen fifteen terrible terrorist attacks. But the atrocities on our evening news are the tip of a vast iceberg. Security services are striving to contain a staggering 3,000 jihadists, far-right extremists and other potential threats. We are in a new age of terror, with self-radicalising, hard-to-categorise individuals planning violence-but each one caught by the British state tells us something about British society.

For every successful plot in the six years since Westminster Bridge, more than twice as many have been foiled. Some were thwarted by nerve-wracking undercover operations; others were narrowly averted by heroic citizens, or ruined by the absurd mistakes of would-be attackers. Invariably, the all-too-human stories of these failed terrorists reveal the true picture of UK extremism.

Through interviews with senior counter-terror figures and astonishing court testimony, Plotters unpacks how and why British terror attacks happen-and don't. From dating websites and prison cells to Telegram networks and Tesco knives, Lizzie Dearden's deep dive offers one disturbing certainty: the plotters will keep coming. To confront them, we need to understand them.

This book systematically investigates the strategy and practice of comprehensive land consolidation in China by assessing the objective of the program and its implementation.

In the first part of the book, the authors first review the development and historical policy of land consolidation and land rehabilitation, with a focus on initiatives inaugurated in China since the 1980s. The following three chapters analyze different modes, approaches, and measures of land consolidation. The second part focuses on planning patterns designed and implemented in different territorial and geographical regions in China, including urban and rural areas, ecological function zones, mining areas, and coastal regions and islands. It also looks into the institutional basis, supportive measures, and mechanisms for the coordinated regional implementation of land consolidation at the macro, medium, and micro levels. Based on their findings, the authors advance ten actionable policy suggestions on the promotion of China's land consolidation.

The title will appeal to scholars, students, and policy makers interested in economic management, land planning, and natural resources management.

This volume is unique because of its focus on small states. There are many studies on civil society and social movements, but none that specifically deal with this category of countries. As is well known, small states have particular characteristics, including a limited ability to reap the benefits of economies of scale, a high degree of exposure to forces outside their control, and the proximity of politicians to the voters, often leading to clientelistic relationships and patronage networks. The small island developing states have the additional problem of high environmental vulnerability, with some also dealing with disproportionate ecological footprints. These factors have a bearing on the organization and performance of civil society organizations and social movements, as explained in several chapters of this book.

The volume is organized in three parts, dealing with aspects of civil society and social moments in small states in the political, social and environmental spheres, respectively. Various definitions of civil society are proposed in the chapters, but most authors associate the term with organized groups, operating in the interest of citizens, independently of government and commercial business, including various forms of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Civil society also encompasses social movements, which are considered to be loosely organized collective campaigns in pursuit of social goals. These two terms are sometimes used interchangeably; however, some authors argue that social movements tend to engage in 'contentious politics' including protests, while NGOs engage through more organized and institutional routes.

This book presents a study of the figure of the stranger in US Latinx literary and cultural forms, ranging from contemporary novels through essays to film and transborder art activism. The focus on this abject figure is twofold: first, to explore its potential to expose the processes of othering to which Latinxs are subjected; and, second, to foreground its epistemic response to neocolonial structures and beliefs. Thus, this book draws on relevant sociological literature on the stranger to unveil the political and social processes behind the recognition of Latinxs as 'out of place.' On the other hand, and most importantly, this volume follows the path of neo-cosmopolitan approaches to bring to the fore processes of interrelatedness, interaction, and conviviality that run counter to criminalizing discourses around Latinxs. Through an engagement with these theoretical tenets, the goal of this book is to showcase the role of the Latinx stranger as a cosmopolitan mediator that transforms walls into bridges.

A compelling story of how ordinary Ukrainians saved their nation.

With Russian shells raining on Kyiv and tanks closing in, American forces prepared to evacuate Ukraine's leader. Just three years earlier, his apparent main qualification had been playing a president on TV. But Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly retorted, 'I need ammunition, not a ride.' Ukrainian forces won the battle for Kyiv, ensuring their country's independence even as a longer war began for the southeast.

You cannot understand the historic events of 2022 without understanding Zelensky. But the Zelensky effect is less about the man himself than about the civic nation he embodies: what makes Zelensky most extraordinary in war is his very ordinariness as a Ukrainian.

The Zelensky Effect explains this paradox, exploring Ukraine's national history to show how its now-iconic president reflects the hopes and frustrations of the country's first 'independence generation'. Interweaving social and political background with compelling episodes from Zelensky's life and career, this is the story of Ukraine told through the journey of one man who has come to symbolise his country.