Books on the topic 'Leadership-led change'

In this final chapter, we conclude by recapitulating our argument and evidence. One goal of this work has been to improve our understanding of the patterns underlying the evolution of world politics over the past one thousand years. How did we get to where we are now? Where and when did the “modern” world begin? How did we shift from a primarily agrarian economy to a primarily industrial one? How did these changes shape world politics? A related goal was to examine more closely the factors that led to the most serious attempts by states to break free of agrarian constraints. We developed an interactive model of the factors that we thought were most likely to be significant. Finally, a third goal was to examine the linkages between the systemic leadership that emerged from these historical processes and the global warming crisis of the twenty-first century. Climate change means that the traditional energy platforms for system leadership—coal, petroleum, and natural gas—have become counterproductive. The ultimate irony is that we thought that the harnessing of carbon fuels made us invulnerable to climate fluctuations, while the exact opposite turns out to be true. The more carbon fuels are consumed, the greater the damage done to the atmosphere. In many respects, the competition for systemic leadership generated this problem. Yet it is unclear whether systemic leadership will be up to the task of resolving it.

This final chapter contextualizes woman-led prayer within broader discussions of authority, tradition, and change. It first analyzes Islamic feminist discourse on woman-led prayer, female leadership, and androcentric ritual norms, emphasizing theological and social assumptions. It then engages with Christian feminist approaches from Delores S. Williams, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Traci C. West that grapple with notions of community, male imagery of God, tradition, and ritual. The chapter concludes with Muslima theology and argues for the necessity of embodied egalitarian ritual, a dynamic view of tradition, and reassertion of the transformative space between ideal and real community (umma).

No two system leaders were identical in their claims to being the most innovative states in their respective zones, eras, and periods of leadership. Nonetheless, three general categories emerge: maritime commercial leadership, a pushing of agrarian boundaries, and sustained industrial economic growth. Those that made breakthroughs in the latter category, of course, redefined the modern world. Frontiers were critically important in all four cases of system leadership (China, the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States), but not exactly in the same way. Major improvements in transportation/communication facilitated economic growth by making interactions more feasible and less expensive, although the importance of trade varied considerably. Expanding populations were a hallmark of all four cases, even if the scale of increase varied. Population growth and urbanization forced agriculture to become more efficient and provided labor for nonagricultural pursuits. Urban demands stimulated regional specialization, technological innovation, and energy intensification, expanding the size of domestic markets and contributing to scalar increases in production. Just how large those scalar increases were depended on the interactions among technological innovation, power-driven machinery, and energy transition. Yet no single change led automatically to technological leadership. While lead status was never gained by default, it helped to have few rivals. As more serious rivals emerged, technological leaderships became harder to maintain.

Most accounts of health and healthcare in Africa are written by foreigners. African Health Leaders: Making Change and Claiming the Future redresses the balance. Written by Africans, who have themselves led improvements in their own countries, this online resource discusses the creativity, innovation and leadership that has been involved tackling everything from HIV/AIDs, to maternal, and child mortality and neglected tropical diseases. It celebrates their achievements and shows how, over three generations, African health leaders are creating a distinctively African vision of health and health systems. It covers how African Health Leaders are claiming the future - in Africa, but also by sharing their insights and knowledge globally and contributing fully to improving health throughout the world, and illustrates how African leadership can enable foreign agencies and individuals working in Africa to avoid all those misunderstandings and misinterpretations of culture and context which lead to wasted efforts and frustrated hopes. It also addresses the need to tackle weak governance, corrupt systems and low expectations and sets out what Africa needs from the rest of the world in the spirit of global solidarity - not primarily in aid, but through investment, collaboration, partnership and co-development.

The global governance system developed in the 1990s as a result of a path-dependent sequence that started with the choice of embedded liberalism in the 1940s. The post-Second World War constellation provided a critical juncture that led to institutionalized embedded liberalism and collective security under American leadership. Afterwards, self-reinforcing mechanisms strengthened this institutional design. This whole dynamic was accelerated by an external push when the Soviet empire faltered and functional differentiation could develop its full potential. Together, these developments created a new critical juncture. As a result of the decisions taken in this situation, a global governance system emerged. It consists of loosely coupled spheres of both political and epistemic authority. Overall, the authority of IOs has increased remarkably. As a consequence, this global governance system co-produces reactive sequences. It contains serious deficits undermining its acceptance and sustainability leading to resistance and demands for change.

This edited volume compares the political systems of the United States and Canada, focusing on the effects of political institutions, and their interaction with political values and other factors, in policymaking. It explores the differences between the American presidential (or separation-of-powers) system and the Canadian parliamentary system. It also considers institutional differences such as federalism, bureaucratic leadership, and judicial definitions of citizens’ rights. It deals mainly with the period from the mid-20th century to the present but also discusses recent developments—especially the Trump presidency. The first section addresses political culture and institutions and considers political values, party and electoral systems, executive leadership and the legislative process, bureaucracy and civil service influence, and federalism. The second section addresses policymaking and outcomes, including economic policy, environmental policy, morality issues, social policy, managing diversity, and selected societal outcomes. The conclusion discusses prospects and challenges for both political systems and finds that policy differences between the two countries have diverse causes—from geography and demography, to political values, to institutional structures. The effects of institutions are often crucial, but they depend heavily on interactions with other political circumstances. Even modest, incremental change in the electoral strength or ideological tendencies of the political parties can transform institutional performance. Thus, Canada’s historic center-left moderation may be on the brink of giving way to wider ideological fluctuation and the U.S. political system was increasingly dysfunctional, even before the election of Donald Trump as president led to chaos in policymaking and the threat of severe constitutional crisis.

The European Union (EU) has sought to establish itself as a global environmental leader. However, from 2007–8 onwards, the combined effects of the economic and financial crisis led some to question whether the EU would continue to adopt ambitious environmental policy. This volume brings together leading scholars from across Europe to analyse the impacts of the crisis upon environmental policy in the EU and its member states. The authors analyse policy decisions in fourteen countries to determine whether environmental policy has been dismantled, expanded, or has stayed the same. If policy has been dismantled, contributors identify the kind of dismantling strategy adopted, and at what levels change has occurred. A new measurement approach, the Index of Policy Activity (IPA) is applied systematically across the cases, offering a comprehensive reference framework for both quantitative and qualitative analysis. A wide range of policy areas, from climate change to biodiversity, are examined and non-European cases are also included to provide a counterpoint for comparison. The book finds that, while the EU has not actively dismantled environmental policy, its economic policies have had negative effects upon some Member States, prompting policy dismantling in places. Climate and energy policies have seen some policy expansion, but there are examples, most notably the UK, where there has also been active policy dismantling. The main trend is one of stasis— environmental policy in Europe has plateaued, calling into question Europe’s much-vaunted environmental leadership. The book contributes to scholarship on environmental policy and public administration, combining empirical and methodological insights to give an up-to-date perspective on the impact of crisis upon European environmental policy.

Our Brains at War: The Neuroscience of Conflict and Peacebuilding suggests that we need radical change in how we think about war, leadership, and politics. Most of us, including most political scientists, fail to appreciate that the main factors in today’s identity wars and politics arise not from logic but from instincts and emotions, against which reason often has little sway. Many of our physiological and genetic tendencies, of which we are mostly unaware, can easily fuel our antipathy toward other groups, make us choose supposedly “strong” leaders over more mindful leaders, facilitate the recruitment of fighters for both legal and illegal militia groups, and enable even the most seemingly gentle of us to inflict horrific violence on others. Unfortunately, in today’s world, such instincts and emotions also increase our susceptibility to being easily led toward hateful activities by social media. Without understanding the genetic, neural, and hormonal tendencies that facilitate such predispositions, it will be extremely difficult to achieve sustainably peaceful societies. Drawing on the latest research from newer sciences such as social biopsychology, behavioral genetics, political psychology, and social and cognitive neuroscience, this book identifies the sources and the consequences of such instincts and emotions. It also suggests that we need new and radical ways of dealing with societal and global conflicts by openly addressing the biological factors that help create them and by taking them into account in our plans for more constructive politics and more effective peacebuilding in our increasingly fracturing world.

Mutiny is often associated with the occasional mis-leadership of the masses by politically inspired hotheads or a spontaneous and unusually romantic gesture of defiance against a uniquely overbearing military superior. In reality it is seldom either, and usually it has far more mundane roots, not in the absolute poverty of the subordinates but in the relative poverty of the relationships between leaders and led in a military situation. Using contemporary leadership theory to cast a critical light on an array of mutinies across time and space, this book suggests we consider mutiny as a permanent possibility that is further encouraged or discouraged by particular contexts. What turns discontent into mutiny, however, lies in the leadership skills of a small number of leaders, and what transforms that into a constructive dialogue or a catastrophic disaster depends on how the leaders of both sides mobilize their supporters and their networks. From mutinies in ancient Roman and Greek armies through those that were generated by uncaring European monarchs and those that toppled the German and Russian states—and those that forced governments to face their own disastrous policies and changed them forever—this book covers an array of cases across land, sea, and air that still pose a threat to military establishments today.

Ten years after the global financial crisis of 2008/9 there is widespread scepticism about the ability to curb volatile financial markets and international cooperation in general. Changes in the global rules of finance discussed in the G20 during the last ten years remain limited, and it is doubtful whether they are suitable to help mitigate and manage future crisis to come. This book argues that this failure is not simply the result of bad leadership and clash of national egoisms but rather the result of a much more fundamental competition of capitalisms. US finance-led, EU integration-led, and East Asian state-led capitalism complement each other globally, but at the same time they have conflicting preferences on how to complement their distinct domestic regulations at the international level. This interdependence of capitalist models is both relatively stable but also prone to crisis caused by volatile financial flows, global economic imbalances, and ‘currency wars’. This book shows that regulating international finance is not a technocratic exercise of finetuning the machinery of international institutions but a political process depending on the dynamic of domestic institutions and power relations. If we want to understand international economic cooperation, we need to understand the diversity of domestic dynamics of the different models of capitalism, not just concerning financial markets but also in connected areas such as corporate structure, labour markets, and welfare regimes. Ultimately, international cooperation is both desirable and possible, but needs to go hand in hand with fundamental changes at the domestic level.

This chapter reviews the period 2004–6, opening with a description of the problems Nokia was facing due to a boycott of its products by operators. However, the problems ran deeper than this, as Nokia was losing its agility and entrepreneurialism, and focusing on scale rather than speed, so its products were constantly late to market. It goes on to analyze the implications of a reorganization into a matrix structure in 2004, which led to wide-ranging top management changes over the following two years and a subsequent deterioration of strategic thinking and strategic leadership. We also see a growing bureaucratization and loss of agility during this period, along with increasing internal competition and difficulties as Nokia grappled with the challenges of shifting from a “hardware-first” to “software-first” approach.

Much has changed in the choral rehearsal room over the past two generations, particularly in regard to the role the choral conductor assumes—or commands—in the rehearsal process. This chapter discusses the ever-evolving stereotypical roles of the conductor, while examining alternatives to traditional leadership models with particular emphasis on the encouragement of student engagement and peer-based learning. In addition to the facilitation of collaborative learning exercises, the chapter outlines a specific process of written interaction with the choral ensemble. This section is inspired by the renowned “Dear People” letters of Robert Shaw. Finally, in response to the recently revised National Standards for Music Education in the United States, the author discusses possible implementation of the Standards in a performance-based classroom. In the shadow of the relatively recent phenomena of collegiate a cappella groups, these student ensembles have created a new paradigm for peer-led instruction.

This book celebrates the 2017 centenary of women's right to full suffrage in New York State. The book highlights the activism of rural, urban, African American, Jewish, immigrant, and European American women, as well as male suffragists, both upstate and downstate, that led to the positive outcome of the 1917 referendum. The book argues that the popular nature of the women's suffrage movement in New York State and the resounding success of the referendum at the polls relaunched suffrage as a national issue. If women had failed to gain the vote in New York, the book claims, there is good reason to believe that the passage and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment would have been delayed. This book makes clear how actions of New York's patchwork of suffrage advocates heralded a gigantic political, social, and legal shift in the United States. Readers will discover that although these groups did not always collaborate, by working in their own ways toward the goal of enfranchising women they essentially formed a coalition. Together, they created a diverse social and political movement that did not rely solely on the motivating force of white elites and a leadership based in New York City. The book convincingly argues that the agitation and organization that led to New York women's victory in 1917 changed the course of American history.

In the late summer and fall of 1777, after two years of indecisive fighting on both sides, the outcome of the American War of Independence hung in the balance. Having successfully expelled the Americans from Canada in 1776, the British were determined to end the rebellion the following year and devised what they believed a war-winning strategy, sending General John Burgoyne south to rout the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of 1777, it looked as if it were a matter of time before they would break the rebellion in the North. Less than three and a half months later, however, a combination of the Continental Army and militia forces, commanded by Major General Horatio Gates and inspired by the heroics of Benedict Arnold, forced Burgoyne to surrender his entire army. The American victory stunned the world and changed the course of the war. In the end, British plans were undone by a combination of faulty strategy, distance, geography, logistics, and an underestimation of American leadership and fighting ability. Taking Ticonderoga had misled Burgoyne and his army into thinking victory was assured. The campaign’s outcome forced the British to rethink their strategy, inflamed public opinion in England against the war, boosted Patriot morale, and, perhaps most critical of all, led directly to the Franco-American alliance. Weddle unravels the web of contingencies and the play of personalities that ultimately led to what one American general called “the Compleat Victory.”

We live in a period of uncertainty about the fate of American global leadership and the future of international order. The 2016 election of Donald Trump led many to pronounce the death, or at least terminal decline, of liberal international order—the system of institutions, rules, and values associated with the American-dominated international system. But the truth is that the unraveling of American global order began over a decade earlier. Exit from Hegemony develops an integrated approach to understanding the rise and decline of hegemonic orders. It calls attention to three drivers of transformation in contemporary order. First, great powers, most notably Russia and China, contest existing norms and values while simultaneously building new spheres of international order through regional institutions. Second, the loss of the “patronage monopoly” once enjoyed by the United States and its allies allows weaker states to seek alternative providers of economic and military goods—providers who do not condition their support on compliance with liberal economic and political principles. Third, transnational counter-order movements, usually in the form of illiberal and right-wing nationalists, undermine support for liberal order and the American international system, including within the United States itself. Exit from Hegemony demonstrates that these broad sources of transformation—from above, below, and within—have transformed past international orders and undermine prior hegemonic powers. It provides evidence that all three are, in the present, mutually reinforcing one another and, therefore, that the texture of world politics may be facing major changes.

In Armies of Arabia—the first book to comprehensively analyze the Gulf monarchies’ militaries—Zoltan Barany explains the conspicuous ineffectiveness of these forces with a combination of political-structural and sociocultural factors. Based on over 150 personal interviews and meticulous multidisciplinary research, he offers a fascinating account of Arabia’s armies starting with Ibn Saud’s conquest of much of the peninsula and ending with the ongoing war in Yemen. He explores the ruling families’ role overseeing their militaries to ensure their loyalty and examines the backgrounds and career trajectories of soldiers and officers. Barany argues that Arabia’s armies remain ineffective because they are characterized by an absence of meritocracy, the domination of personal connections over institutional norms, disregard for personal responsibility, half-hearted leadership, casual work ethic, and training lacking intensity, frequency, and up-to-date settings. Massive expenditures on armaments are primarily payoffs to the United States for protecting them and have resulted in bloated arsenals and large-scale corruption. The setbacks of the Saudi-led coalition’s disastrous war in Yemen starkly illustrate the Gulf armies’ humiliating combat record. The book concludes with thoughts on waste (of human potential, resources, institutions) as a dominant theme of Gulf military affairs, considers likely changes in response to long-term weakening demand for oil, and suggests ways in which the effectiveness of Arabia’s armies could be raised. Chock-full of insights and stories from the field and written with a general audience in mind, Armies of Arabia is essential reading for anyone interested in military affairs and Middle Eastern politics, society, and international relations.

This GSoD In Focus Special Brief provides an overview of the state of democracy in Asia and the Pacific at the end of 2019, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, and assesses some of the preliminary impacts that the pandemic has had on democracy in the region in 2020. Key fact and findings include: • Prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries across Asia and the Pacific faced a range of democratic challenges. Chief among these were continuing political fragility, violent conflict, recurrent military interference in the political sphere, enduring hybridity, deepening autocratization, creeping ethnonationalism, advancing populist leadership, democratic backsliding, shrinking civic space, the spread of disinformation, and weakened checks and balances. The crisis conditions engendered by the pandemic risk further entrenching and/or intensifying the negative democratic trends observable in the region prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. • Across the region, governments have been using the conditions created by the pandemic to expand executive power and restrict individual rights. Aspects of democratic practice that have been significantly impacted by anti-pandemic measures include the exercise of fundamental rights (notably freedom of assembly and free speech). Some countries have also seen deepened religious polarization and discrimination. Women, vulnerable groups, and ethnic and religious minorities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and discriminated against in the enforcement of lockdowns. There have been disruptions of electoral processes, increased state surveillance in some countries, and increased influence of the military. This is particularly concerning in new, fragile or backsliding democracies, which risk further eroding their already fragile democratic bases. • As in other regions, however, the pandemic has also led to a range of innovations and changes in the way democratic actors, such as parliaments, political parties, electoral commissions, civil society organizations and courts, conduct their work. In a number of countries, for example, government ministries, electoral commissions, legislators, health officials and civil society have developed innovative new online tools for keeping the public informed about national efforts to combat the pandemic. And some legislatures are figuring out new ways to hold government to account in the absence of real-time parliamentary meetings. • The consideration of political regime type in debates around ways of containing the pandemic also assumes particular relevance in Asia and the Pacific, a region that houses high-performing democracies, such as New Zealand and the Republic of Korea (South Korea), a mid-range performer (Taiwan), and also non-democratic regimes, such as China, Singapore and Viet Nam—all of which have, as of December 2020, among the lowest per capita deaths from COVID-19 in the world. While these countries have all so far managed to contain the virus with fewer fatalities than in the rest of the world, the authoritarian regimes have done so at a high human rights cost, whereas the democracies have done so while adhering to democratic principles, proving that the pandemic can effectively be fought through democratic means and does not necessarily require a trade off between public health and democracy. • The massive disruption induced by the pandemic can be an unparalleled opportunity for democratic learning, change and renovation in the region. Strengthening democratic institutions and processes across the region needs to go hand in hand with curbing the pandemic. Rebuilding societies and economic structures in its aftermath will likewise require strong, sustainable and healthy democracies, capable of tackling the gargantuan challenges ahead. The review of the state of democracy during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 uses qualitative analysis and data of events and trends in the region collected through International IDEA’s Global Monitor of COVID-19’s Impact on Democracy and Human Rights, an initiative co-funded by the European Union.