Ecuadorian society has overcome adversity with great determination over the past few years. Periodic economic crises, external shocks, and even natural disasters tested the country's ability to cope with difficulties. Despite these challenges, the country has maintained a forward looking perspective and has achieved some important goals. Economic stability in the last few years has ushered in a period of sustained economic growth. During this period several development indicators have improved, and several sectors of the economy have demonstrated the dynamism and entrepreneurship that is present in the Ecuadorian culture. Revisiting Ecuador's Economic and Social Agenda in an Evolving Landscape aims to provoke a lively discussion between the World Bank, the new Correa administration, and the entire country, in addressing the unresolved issues that require a thoughtful approach.

How do research students and their supervisors respond in a world of ‘fake news’, the destabilisation of public institutions and the rise of populism? The very foundations of our liberal democracies seem to be under threat, and this implicates social inquiry. Postgraduate research remains one of the few information spaces which are still free of politicisation and committed to validation. This book focuses on democracy in inquiry, and on the role of inquiry in a democracy – how research helps us to deliberate over what counts as of public value. It is a research methods book, but methods shaped by political and ethical purposes, and by the challenge of making judgements about what, in the public sphere, is worthy. We may be looking at a police training program, the siting of a clean energy project, a new school curriculum, maternal health program or an environmental adaptation project – in each case and in others like them we have to negotiate perspectives and claims, forge and justify a consensus, support competing stakeholders with the best information and analyses possible. And we have to make our work defensible – undeniable in the forum of public debate and exchange, examination and accountability. This book, full of examples from contemporary research projects, is designed to help navigate our way through the complexities of social research which focuses on judgements about public action. The book was written with research students and includes examples of their work. It recognises that supervisors often struggle as much as students in meeting the challenges of inquiry that involves some element of evaluative judgement – inquiry that potentially carries consequences. Where there are no quick-and-ready recipes, check-lists or theoretical frameworks – where we confront the particularities of the context in which the research takes place, we are all forced back onto good methodological thinking, and this is the pedagogical framing of the book.

Since the early 1980s Ecuador has experienced a series of events unparalleled in its history. Its “free market” strategies exacerbated the debt crisis, and in response new forms of social movement organizing arose among the country’s poor, including women’s groups. Gendered Paradoxes focuses on women’s participation in the political and economic restructuring process of the past twenty-five years, showing how in their daily struggle for survival Ecuadorian women have both reinforced and embraced the neoliberal model yet also challenged its exclusionary nature. Drawing on her extensive ethnographic fieldwork and employing an approach combining political economy and cultural politics, Amy Lind charts the growth of several strands of women’s activism and identifies how they have helped redefine, often in contradictory ways, the real and imagined boundaries of neoliberal development discourse and practice. In her analysis of this ambivalent and “unfinished” cultural project of modernity in the Andes, she examines state policies and their effects on women of various social sectors; women’s community development initiatives and responses to the debt crisis; and the roles played by feminist “issue networks” in reshaping national and international policy agendas in Ecuador and in developing a transnationally influenced, locally based feminist movement.

Financial crises are traditionally analyzed as purely economic phenomena. The political economy of financial booms and busts remains both under-emphasized and limited to isolated episodes. This paper examines the political economy of financial policy during ten of the most infamous financial booms and busts since the 18th century, and presents consistent evidence of pro-cyclical regulatory policies by governments. Financial booms, and risk-taking during these episodes, were often amplified by political regulatory stimuli, credit subsidies, and an increasing light-touch approach to financial supervision. The regulatory backlash that ensues from financial crises can only be understood in the context of the deep political ramifications of these crises. Post-crisis regulations do not always survive the following boom. The interplay between politics and financial policy over these cycles deserves further attention. History suggests that politics can be the undoing of macro-prudential regulations.

This book presents an overview of the key debates that took place during the Economic and Social Council meetings at the 2007 High-level Segment, at which ECOSOC organized its first biennial Development Cooperation Forum. The discussions also revolved around the theme of the second Annual Ministerial Review, "Implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to sustainable development."--P. 4 of cover.

Economic growth and the creation of wealth have cut global poverty rates, yet vulnerability, inequality, exclusion and violence have escalated within and across societies throughout the world. Unsustainable patterns of economic production and consumption promote global warming, environmental degradation and an upsurge in natural disasters. Moreover, while we have strengthened international human rights frameworks over the past several decades, implementing and protecting these norms remains a challenge.These changes signal the emergence of a new global context for learning that has vital implications for education. Rethinking the purpose of education and the organization of learning has never been more urgent. This book is inspired by a humanistic vision of education and development, based on respect for life and human dignity, equal rights, social justice, cultural diversity, international solidarity and shared responsibility for a sustainable future. It proposes that we consider education and knowledge as global common goods, in order to reconcile the purpose and organization of education as a collective societal endeavour in a complex world.

With the growth of the global economy over the past two decades, foreign direct investment (FDI) laws, at both the national and international levels, have undergone rapid development in order to strengthen the protection standards for foreign investors. In terms of international investment law, a network of international investment agreements has arisen as a way to address FDI growth. FDI backlash, reflective of more restrictive regulation, has also emerged. The Evolving International Investment Regime analyzes the existing challenges to the international investment regime, and addresses these challenges going forward. It also examines the dynamics of the international regime, as well as a broader view of the changing global economic reality both in the United States and in other countries. The content for the book is a compendium of articles by leading thinkers, originating from the International Investment Conference "What's New in International Investment Law and Policy?"