Social Sciences

This book explores the journey of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as it is interpreted and translated from International Human Rights Law into domestic law and policy in different cultural contexts. Beginning with reflections on ‘culture’, ‘disability’ and ‘human rights’ from different disciplinary perspectives, the work is then organised as ‘snapshots’ of the journey of the CRPD from the international level to the domestic; the process of ratification, the process of implementation, and then the process of monitoring the CRPD’s implementation in States Parties cultural contexts. Leading global contributors provide cutting-edge accounts of the interactions between the CRPD and diverse cultures, revealing variations in the way that the concept of ‘culture’ is defined. This collection will appeal to academics and students in Law and Socio-Legal Studies, Disability Studies, Policy Studies and Social Work, Sociology, Anthropology; and those training to be service providers with persons with disabilities.

This volume addresses the rapid growth of China’s cultural industry and its significant cultural and economic impact on the country. It considers what exactly constitutes the cultural industry, defining the basis for discussions on issues as the internal tensions constraining China’s cultural industry development. It examines the place of culture and cultural industry in relation to China’s overall development, and what kinds of strategies, policies and concrete measures are most effective in promoting the industry’s growth, exploring the role of Government in Cultural Industrial Development.

This book focuses on the discourse of de-globalisation in Malaysia by looking at the implications of this process politically, economically, socially, and environmentally.

Since the emergence of this pandemic, Malaysia has been facing not only a change of government but also a rapid decline in its economy, a rise in unemployment and living costs, with the human rights situation deteriorating as the State of Emergency was imposed. All of these add up to a shift toward de-globalisation. Chapters in this book, therefore, engage with this issue from different perspectives, such as conventional warfare, bio-constitutional implications to the right to health, labour, migrants and refugees, digital education, indigenous people and so forth.

This book introduces the ecological, low-carbon, and sustainable concept of ideal cities from different views. With beliefs and practices of scholars in the past in pursuit of ideal cities, it is written with historical events in the development of low-carbon cities. In this way, activities about carbon peaking and carbon neutrality happening worldwide at present can be shown, and efforts variety countries have paid off can be exhibited. Besides, as for the centralized and the distributed space structure in urban evolution, the book discusses their trends and comes up with an ideal model, the distributed city, to realize carbon neutrality based on the distributed structure. Therefore, with a practical example in planning, the feasibility of the distributed city is analyzed in several fields, including space, energy, traffic, water, waste disposal, etc. The book can be used as materials for professionals in city planning and construction, low-carbon development and other fields, as well as a way for ordinary people to learn about the complex city.

This book attempts to develop a novel way of conceptualizing regionalism under hyper-globalization. Until recently, regionalism has been often framed in terms of economic interdependence and security connectivity in which sovereign states are the key navigators within the liberal world order. Under hyper-globalization in the third millennium, hyper-globalization forces us to capture global politics at two more levels of measurement at the state level and both there below and there above. First, how 29 Asian sovereign states join multilateral treaty participation to develop their global quasi-legislative types and how citizens' satisfaction with quality of life in 29 civil societies shapes their societal types. Second, relating these two features above and below sovereign states, the book attempts to measure the features and speculate on the futures of four Asian regionalisms (Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia) and their prospect of the demographically largest continent called Asia in the twenty-first century. Regionalism is measured by the proclivity of 600 multilateral treaty participation in terms of speed (cautious versus agile), angle (global commons versus individual interests) and strategy (aspirational bonding versus mutual binding), whereas quality of life is measured by citizens' satisfaction with 16 domains, aspects and styles of individual daily life in terms of survival (or materialism), social relations (post-materialism) and public policy preponderance. The book opens an innovative vista to better understand tumultuous global politics.

This ambitious volume leverages original survey data on citizen satisfaction and country-level data on treaty accessions to characterize the trajectories of countries in four regions of Asia as they adapt -- or fail to adapt -- to the challenges of globalization in the 21st century and beyond. Readers will learn much about politics from the basic level of the individual citizen to the most comprehensive level of the global system - and about the interactions of politics at all levels.

-- Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University 

A wonderful attempt to link a country’s domestic development and its adaptation to the global politics. It is truly eye-opening and the findings are likely to significantly shape our understanding of life and global politics.

-- Zhengxu Wang, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor, Department of Political Science, Fudan University

This open access book approaches the history of tribes and their role in the formation of the modern states of Kuwait and Qatar by blending historical, political, and sociological perspectives. Traditionally, this subject has been approached from single perspective, often picturing the tribe as a political and social entity that is opposed to the modern state. In the Gulf context, presenting and discussing the case studies of Kuwait and Qatar aims at revealing that the tribe played a salient role in the formation of the modern state in these two countries as well as in nation building, both before the oil era and even after independence. Moreover, the book bridges an important gap that is often overlooked in GCC studies which explains how the tribe suddenly became a controversial factor in Gulf states and societies. The book elaborates on tracing the roots of this transformation and in evaluating the role played by the state as it attempted to manipulate tribes to achieve political and other advantages, only to trigger the rise of tribalism as a social and at times political force that undermines the legitimacy of the state. The book also highlights the impacts of this transformation, not only on the state, but also on society as a whole, with special emphasis on women in Kuwait and Qatar. It is relevant to scholars and advanced students in areas of political sociology, identify and gender, comparative politics, and for social scientists more broadly with a specific interest in the Middle East.