Rudra Sil - Böcker

In the post-World War II era, the emergence of 'area studies' marked a signal development in the social sciences. As the social sciences evolved methodologically, however, many dismissed area studies as favoring narrow description over general theory. Still, area studies continues to plays a key, if unacknowledged, role in bringing new data, new theories, and valuable policy-relevant insights to social sciences. In Comparative Area Studies, three leading figures in the field have gathered an international group of scholars in a volume that promises to be a landmark in a resurgent field. The book upholds two basic convictions: that intensive regional research remains indispensable to the social sciences and that this research needs to employ comparative referents from other regions to demonstrate its broader relevance. Comparative Area Studies (CAS) combines the context-specific insights from traditional area studies and the logic of cross- and inter-regional empirical research. This first book devoted to CAS explores methodological rationales and illustrative applications showing how area-based expertise can link into cutting-edge comparative analytical frameworks.

In the post-World War II era, the emergence of 'area studies' marked a signal development in the social sciences. As the social sciences evolved methodologically, however, many dismissed area studies as favoring narrow description over general theory. Still, area studies continues to plays a key, if unacknowledged, role in bringing new data, new theories, and valuable policy-relevant insights to social sciences. In Comparative Area Studies, three leading figures in the field have gathered an international group of scholars in a volume that promises to be a landmark in a resurgent field. The book upholds two basic convictions: that intensive regional research remains indispensable to the social sciences and that this research needs to employ comparative referents from other regions to demonstrate its broader relevance. Comparative Area Studies (CAS) combines the context-specific insights from traditional area studies and the logic of cross- and inter-regional empirical research. This first book devoted to CAS explores methodological rationales and illustrative applications showing how area-based expertise can link into cutting-edge comparative analytical frameworks.

The book Comparative Area Studies (2018) laid out the distinctive features and value-added of "comparative area studies" (CAS) against the backdrop of ongoing methodological debates in the social sciences. Since that time, the editors of the first volume and other scholars doing comparative research have been exploring the scope and usefulness of the CAS framework in relation to their own work. Others have raised important questions about the epistemological flexibility of CAS and about the institutional pressures that could limit further extensions of CAS, especially given current trends in the academy.This new volume tackles these questions and showcases how CAS can accommodate a wider range of scholarship predicated on more varied methodological and epistemological principles. This includes not only contextualized comparisons of countries from different regions but also interpretive work, comparisons of sub-national units, as well as inter-regional comparisons addressing topics such as global human rights and the rise of regional powers that go beyond comparative politics (the focus of the first volume). This book also offers practical, realistic discussions of how our current institutional architecture can be adapted to support cross-regional comparative research and to better connect different area studies communities--while acknowledging the long-standing value of deep area expertise.

The book Comparative Area Studies (2018) laid out the distinctive features and value-added of "comparative area studies" (CAS) against the backdrop of ongoing methodological debates in the social sciences. Since that time, the editors of the first volume and other scholars doing comparative research have been exploring the scope and usefulness of the CAS framework in relation to their own work. Others have raised important questions about the epistemological flexibility of CAS and about the institutional pressures that could limit further extensions of CAS, especially given current trends in the academy.This new volume tackles these questions and showcases how CAS can accommodate a wider range of scholarship predicated on more varied methodological and epistemological principles. This includes not only contextualized comparisons of countries from different regions but also interpretive work, comparisons of sub-national units, as well as inter-regional comparisons addressing topics such as global human rights and the rise of regional powers that go beyond comparative politics (the focus of the first volume). This book also offers practical, realistic discussions of how our current institutional architecture can be adapted to support cross-regional comparative research and to better connect different area studies communities--while acknowledging the long-standing value of deep area expertise.

The Politics of Labor in a Global Age is one of the first works to analyse and compare recent shifts in patterns of industrial relations across late-industrializing and post-socialist economies. The volume features original and timely essays on labor relations at national, local, and workplace levels, as economic and politicla actors cope with the similar challenges associated with economic adjustment measures and the impact of 'globalization'. The authors reveal that while globalization has threatened the position of organized labor and prompted business and state elites to accommodate greater labor market flexibility, the legacies of past institutions remain evident in destinctive trends in labor politics within and across late-industrializing and post-socialist settings. The comparisons suggest that globalization is best understood not as a source of covergence but as a set of common pressures that are mediated by specific historical inheritances, that spur varied responses on the part of industrial relations actors, and that facilitate quite diverse institutional outcomes.

While paradigm-bound research has generated powerful insights in international relations, it has fostered a tunnel vision that hinders progress and widens the chasm between theory and policy. In this important new book, Sil and Katzenstein draw upon recent scholarship to illustrate the benefits of a more pragmatic and eclectic style of research.

While paradigm-bound research has generated powerful insights in international relations, it has fostered a tunnel vision that hinders progress and widens the chasm between theory and policy. In this important new book, Sil and Katzenstein draw upon recent scholarship to illustrate the benefits of a more pragmatic and eclectic style of research.

World Order after Leninism examines the origins and evolution of world communism and explores how its legacies have shaped the post-Cold War world order. The lessons of Leninism continue to exert a strong influence in contemporary foreign affairs--most visibly in Poland and other post-communist states of the former Soviet Union, but also in China and other newly industrialized states balancing authoritarian impulses against the pressures of globalization, free markets, and democratic possibilities.World Order after Leninism began as a conversation among former students of Ken Jowitt, professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley from 1970-2002 and whose monumental career transformed the fields of political science, Russian studies, and post-communist studies. Using divergent case studies, the essays in this volume document the ways in which Jowitt's exceptionally original work on Leninism's evolution and consolidation remains highly relevant in analyzing contemporary post-communist and post-authoritarian political transformations.

In Managing "Modernity," Rudra Sil examines how institution-builders respond to the competing influences of institutional models and inherited social legacies as they attempt to generate and sustain authority in late-industrializing societies. Through a historical and comparative study of large-scale enterprises in Japan and Russia, the book examines the impact of different institution-building strategies on managerial authority, invoking the experience of postwar Japan to highlight the benefits of a syncretic approach that selectively integrates adaptable features of borrowed institutions with portable norms inherited from preexisting communities.Managing "Modernity" engages a variety of intellectual perspectives in the social sciences. The theoretical approach represents a conscious effort to overcome the contentious debates in political science and sociology among proponents of historical institutionalism, cultural analysis, and rational-choice theory. The substantive argument draws on, and partially integrates, concepts and findings from comparative politics, economic sociology, industrial relations, organization theory, business management, and the political economy of Japan and Russia.In light of ongoing debates over the significance and impact of "globalization," the eclectic and integrative approach in Managing "Modernity" offers a fresh and provocative contribution that will interest scholars and graduate students across a variety of disciplines and subfields. It offers compelling insights to anyone generally concerned with the social forces that facilitate or hinder the diffusion of ideas and institutions across national boundaries.Rudra Sil is Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences, Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania.