This book sets out to develop a policy design process that is more inclusive by creating space for emotions and feelings. Rather than focus solely on expert knowledge, it places the fears and hopes of citizens at the heart of policy design, to facilitate meaningful interactions between policymakers and the citizens they serve. Focusing particularly on evidence from Thailand, but drawing on case studies from around the world, the book argues that empathetic policy design is crucial to foster social learning and better-informed policies. It also focuses on how emotions can be incorporated into policy design, and how policymakers of the future might use these design processes to create and implement policies that will benefit all. The book will appeal to all those interested in public policy and policy design.

This volume offers a cross-disciplinary exploration of Alasdair MacIntyre's provocative approach to governance, drawing on insights from philosophy, economics, sociology, business ethics, and organizational studies. The chapters explore how MacIntyre's theory is applied to diverse institutional contexts, including education, medicine, and technology, addressing contemporary challenges in governance and ethical decision-making.

Bringing together well-known scholars from the 16th Annual Conference of the International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry (ISME) at the University of Navarra, this book critically examines the role of governing institutions in shaping practices and traditions. It highlights MacIntyre's distinction between practices and institutions, addressing how these concepts influence ethical governance, leadership, and community-building in today's complex societal landscapes.

Contributors explore key themes such as the development of virtues within institutions, the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence, the moral foundations of education, and the governance of professions like medicine and land management. This volume also engages with contemporary issues, offering practical insights for fostering ethical decision-making and community participation in an increasingly technocratic world.

MacIntyre and the Practice of Governing Institutions is an essential resource for scholars of political philosophy, ethics, and governance, as well as for practitioners looking to navigate the ethical challenges posed by modern institutions. By examining how MacIntyre's thought applies to real-world issues, this book provides both theoretical depth and practical strategies for promoting human flourishing through virtuous governance.

Internationally renowned contributors discuss the definition of democratic competences, the promotion of these competences beyond political engagement, and opportunities for reducing social and ethnic inequalities in civic learning. They address key challenges, including the gap between education policy and practical implementation, and the difficulties of measuring causality. Reflecting on examples from the development of citizenship education in the UK to the cultivation of social trust in China and Japan, this incisive Handbook presents innovative ways to overcome major obstacles to political efficacy, ultimately underscoring the effectiveness of participatory pedagogies in strengthening democratic capabilities.

Students and academics in citizenship education, education policy and politics, and social sciences more broadly will benefit from the novel perspectives presented in this Research Handbook. It is also an invaluable resource for educational professionals and policymakers seeking to use education as a tool for advancing political understanding.

This book examines the history of sociology in India. It delves into the origin, growth, and development of Sociology. It traces its trajectory alongside the nation's social, cultural, and intellectual landscape. The chapters examine the diverse strands of sociological thought, the evolving issues, and emerging trends across different regions and domains of Indian society. The chapters cover topics, such as the debates of colonialism and nationalism to the contemporary challenges of liberalization, globalization, and climate change. It engages with pressing issues from digital sociology, environmental movements, agrarian issues, political sociology, Dalit movement, indigenizing sociology, gerontology, and migration to gender studies and sustainable development from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. With its rich discussions, the book provides a key read for academics, students, policymakers as well as researchers in areas such as sociology, anthropology, gender studies, and development study.

This book provides a systematic understanding of urban river management from the perspective of ecosystem health in the Pearl River Delta region of China, where rapid socio-economic development happens together with exploitation and pollution of the natural environment. Urban rivers, which used to support navigation and provide water resources to humans, now suffer from various kinds of ecosystem degradation and thus create threats to regional sustainability. This book treats the urban river as an ecosystem which closely relates to and interacts with humans and defines urban river ecosystem health as a requirement at three levels: sensorial fitness, living water, and affinity with humans, which emphasizes more on the human-oriented needs. The evolution processes of urban river ecosystem health protection can generally be divided into four phases, demonstrating the relationships between human activities and UREH status as simple balance, uncontrolled imbalance, continuous interlocking, and stable harmony. The relationships between typical urban rivers and humans in the Pearl River Delta region, China, are then analyzed on both regional and local scales and from lateral, time-longitudinal, and spatial dimensions. Intensive human activities, together with the intrinsic complex and high-density river network, result in deteriorating water quality, changing hydrological conditions, and damaging the river ecosystem in this region. From the perspective of political ecology, various actors in urban river management include governmental agencies, business, multilateral institutions, ENGOs, and grassroots actors, whose unequal power relations vary over time and space, causing conflicts as well as coordination. Especially, different governmental agencies are engaged, resulting into overlap and gap among their functions as well as spatial discrepancy. River Chief System, as a new practice of urban river management, has strengthened the collaboration effect and got success in river pollution control. The spatial scale effect of human activities on urban river water quality is examined, implying the necessity of adopting a unified management strategy at the buffer zone scale to protect and restore urban river ecosystem health. The target audience of this book includes postgraduate students and researchers who have research interests in, as well as government officers, whose routine is related to water management.

Entries by leading specialists delve into the history of the animal law movement, the science exploring animal welfare and animal sentience, and ethics, law, and politics. They also examine the relationship between animals and artificial intelligence and discuss how human responsibility for animals manifests economically and socially, including through insurance and civil and criminal liability.

The Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Animal Law is a vital resource for students and scholars in animal studies, criminal law, and law and society, as well as lawyers and policymakers. The contributions are also invaluable to animal advocates and to lawyers working in a variety of contexts, including for government agencies and non-profit organisations.

Key Features:

• Includes 119 doctrinal entries covering a variety of practice and doctrinal areas
• Brings together over 135 experts from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe
• Provides comprehensive and timely coverage of laws governing and affecting animals across the globe

This book examines the moral education policy system in China, discussing the challenges of promoting moral education policy in the country, and proposes relative strategies. It explores the moral education policy in China from various perspectives, including in preschool education, primary education, higher education, vocational type-based higher education, secondary vocational education, English education, music education, classroom teaching, citizenship education, and Chinese language education.
This book serves as a guide for scholars and researchers who are interested, and work in, research on moral education policy in China, administrators, stakeholders in China's education system, and graduate students who major or minor in the field of moral education policy in China.

Connected Heritages: The Inner Life of Penang in the Indian Ocean World opens up the interdisciplinary possibilities of transnational and oceanic historical inquiry paired with granular ethnographic research. Departing from conventional land- and nation-centric approaches, the book situates Penang, Malaysia - and particularly its historic core, George Town - within the fluid realm of lateral networks, revealing the profound influence of the sea on the port city's political, economic, social and cultural landscape.

It does so by integrating ethnographic depth, offering readers an intimate and immersive journey into the lived experiences of George Town's diverse communities, notably its two major Peranakan groups, with a broader historical and transnational understanding of the circulations that have shaped the inner life of the port city.

Through the careful observation and interpretation of everyday practices, habits and stories, this singular study paints a vivid portrait of the port city's complex connections and identities shaped by its maritime connections. In doing so, the book offers an anthropology of the everyday and its utility for developing our understanding of the ways in which people and communities in Penang perceive and interpret their contemporary reality.

Analyzing a breadth of topics, including biodiversity, marine protected areas and maritime zones, the Encyclopedia reflects increased global attention on the polar regions, their resources, environment, and governance. Covering the Antarctic, Arctic and adjacent polar regions, entries identify landmark international legal frameworks, such as the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, and discuss the environmental implications of climate change. Leading specialists in the field address historic legal issues and controversies, and highlight recent developments and conflicts.

The Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Polar Law is an essential resource for students and scholars in environmental law, international law and what is now a distinctive polar law. Its breadth of invaluable insights will also greatly benefit international lawyers and polar officials.

Key Features:

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• Combines legal reviews of historical and contemporary issues
• Over 140 entries from renowned specialists in the field of polar law
• Provides clear and succinct introductions to both established and emerging subtopics in the field
• Covers the legal systems of prominent polar states, including Australia, Canada, Russia and the United States

The Military Balance has been published since 1959. The 2025 edition provides an open-source assessment of the armed forces and equipment inventories of over 170 countries, with accompanying defence economics data. In addition to detailed country data, The Military Balance includes graphics to illustrate defence personnel, equipment and procurement developments. It assesses important defence issues, by region, including Russia's continuing invasion of Ukraine, the diverse range of ballistic and cruise missiles used by the Houthis, and developments in defence industrial production. The accompanying wallchart focuses on China's armed forces, detailing selected unit locations and assessing the status of important aspects of PLA modernisation. The book draws on the breadth of data in the Military Balance+ online database. The Military Balance and Military Balance+ are indispensable sources of information for those involved in defence and security policymaking, analysis and research.

This topical book outlines how civil society has been promoted globally since the 1980s, as NGOs advance development cooperation, democratization, and neoliberal third-sector service production. Salmenkari studies the outcomes of these processes in China, where civil society promotion met strong localizing forces rising from NGO activists' own values, governmental regulation, and local society. Evaluating various forms of Chinese self-organizing, she discusses the social omissions of Chinese environmental NGO agendas, Confucian ties in global translations, gay self-organizing, and the idea and practice of Minjian. The book identifies complexities within Chinese civil society and how it navigates academia, global partnerships, social exclusions and alternative values, analyzing how these conflicting positions influence Chinese politics and society.

Global Ideas, Local Adaptations is an essential guide for students and academics in Asian politics and policy, social policy, globalization and development studies, and political sociology. Its invaluable insights will also greatly benefit NGO practitioners and policymakers in civil society and development.