Die tiefe Wirtschaftskrise in Folge der Corona-Pandemie stellt Kubas Sozialismus vor eine ungeahnte Belastungsprobe. Die Regierung in Havanna hat eine grundlegende Reform von Wirtschaft, Institutionengefüge und Sozialsystem auf die Agenda gesetzt. Der Band vereint Beiträge führender internationaler Experten und von der Insel selbst, die aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven die Herausforderungen analysieren, vor denen Kuba heute steht.

Dieses Buch untersucht, wie die Bildungsexpansion, der Trend zur Dienstleistungsgesellschaft sowie die deutsche Wiedervereinigung die Lebensverläufe und das Familienleben ost- und westdeutscher Frauen beeinflussen. Es konzentriert sich auf die Bildungsbeteiligung, das Bildungsniveau, die Erwerbsbeteiligung, die Karriereressourcen, die soziale Herkunft, den Bildungsmatch der Partner sowie die historischen Perioden und untersucht ihre Konsequenzen auf den Eintritt von Frauen in die erste Mutterschaft sowie Partnerschaftsbildungs- und Scheidungsprozesse. Auf Basis der Längsschnittdaten des Nationalen Bildungspanels (NEPS) wurden multivariate Methoden wie z.B. die Ereignisanalyse angewandt. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass der Eintritt der Frauen in Mutterschaft während der Vollzeitausbildung in hohem Maße von Frauenalter, sozialer Herkunft und den politischen Maßnahmen in einem Land abhängig ist.

Flüchtlinge sind in ihrem Leben mit Übergängen konfrontiert: auf individueller, sozialer und kultureller Ebene. Dieses Buch behandelt verschiedene Aspekte dieser Übergänge und ihre Überschneidungen mit Bildungserfahrungen. Studien aus unterschiedlichen Länderkontexten zeigen die komplexen Beziehungen zwischen Individuum, Kultur, Gesellschaft und Institutionen. Die Untersuchung dieser Beziehungen und Erfahrungen während der Übergangsprozesse soll zu einem tieferen Verständnis der verschiedenen Arten von Übergängen im Zusammenhang mit Bildung beitragen, was in der Zukunft zur Verbesserung von Unterstützungsstrukturen genutzt werden kann.

Citizens’ Assemblies (CAs) are flourishing around the world. Quite often composed of randomly selected citizens, CAs, arguably, come as a possible answer to contemporary democratic challenges. Democracies worldwide are indeed confronted with a series of disruptive phenomena such as a widespread perception of distrust and growing polarization as well as low performance. Many actors seek to reinvigorate democracy with citizen participation and deliberation. CAs are expected to have the potential to meet this twofold objective. But, despite deliberative and inclusive qualities of CAs, many questions remain open. The increasing popularity of CAs call for a holistic reflection and evaluation on their origins, current uses and future directions. The De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies showcases the state of the art around the study of CAs and opens novel perspectives informed by multidisciplinary research and renewed thinking about deliberative participatory processes. It discusses the latest theoretical, empirical, and methodological scientific developments on CAs and offers a unique resource for scholars, decision-makers, practitioners, and curious citizens to better understand the qualities, purposes, promises but also pitfalls of CAs.

This book explains deliberative constitution-making with a special focus on the connections between participation, representation and legitimacy and provides a general overview of what the challenges and prospects of deliberative constitution-making are today. It seeks to provide a more complete picture of what is at stake as a political trend in various places in the world, both theoretically and empirically grounded. Distinctively, the book studies not only established democracies and well-known cases of deliberative constitution-making but also such practices in authoritarian and less consolidated democratic settings and departs from a traditional institutional perspective to have a special focus on actors, and in particular underrepresented groups. This book is of key interest to scholars and students of deliberative democracy, constitutional politics, democratization and autocratization studies, citizen participation and more broadly to comparative politics, public administration, social policy and law.

Since the mid-1990s, the term 'foodscapes' has been used. Its reference to landscape opens it up to a wide theoretical variety and numerous methodological approaches. Through the large 'semantic yard' of the concept of landscape it becomes clear that the approach of foodscapes aims less at the description or pure positivistic analysis of the production, distribution and consumption of food, but is rather open to aesthetic approaches, normative questions, aspects of the connection of food and space with meaning. In this respect, research on foodscapes is not simply a part of food geography but reaches beyond it. With this anthology we contribute to the development of the research field on foodscapes and combine diverse perspectives from different disciplines, locations and theoretical as well as methodological backgrounds on the diversity of what foodscapes can be. Our anthology 'Foodscapes - Theory, History, and Current European Examples' is the result of the collaboration of lecturers and students from the universities of Bucharest, Madrid, Rome and Tübingen.

In the evolution of global capitalism and geopolitics, digitalization presents a new and yet unresolved chapter. In the lead up to digitalization, neoliberalism weakened the welfare states of the global North and the developmental states of the global South where they existed. Neoliberalism also disorganized working classes, as Left parties and labor organization declined across the globe. Into this deregulated and unchecked context, digitalization proceeded, and technology companies inserted themselves into multiple sectors, making use of first mover advantage and monopolistic practices to drive out smaller and less advanced firms. We can now characterize a landscape in which states have been weakened, working classes disorganized, and rival firms greatly handicapped, allowing big tech to operate as all-powerful quasi-monopolies. They enjoy unprecedented concentration of wealth, power, and advantage. Worryingly, deregulated technology now penetrates many areas of life with surveillance and control, setting us on a path towards anti-democratic, neo-imperial, and exclusionary futures. Aaron Schneider offers a popular and sovereign alternative, with particular focus on labor and the global South.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

This paper explores some of the key factors behind Rwanda key successes, including unique institution-building that emphasized governance and ownership; aid-fueled and government-led strategic investment in people, infrastructure, and high-yield economic activity;re-establishment and expansion of a domestic tax base; policies to reduce aid dependency by attracting private investment and bolstering exports; and a purposeful strategy to harness the economic power of gender inclusion.