Networks of International Trade and Investment

Understanding globalisation through the lens of network analysis

Edited by Sara Gorgoni, University of Greenwich et al.

June 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-065-0
Availability: In stock
344pp. ¦ $68 £48 €55

In recent decades, the international economy has witnessed fundamental changes in the way manufacturing is organised: products are no longer manufactured in their entirety in a single location. Instead, the production process is often split across a number of stages located in countries that are frequently far apart from each other. By spreading out their manufacturing and supply chain activities globally through international investment and intra-firm trade, Multinational enterprises (MNEs) play a focal role in this reorganisation of production. Our ability to understand the global economy, therefore, requires an understanding of the interdependencies between the entities involved in such fragmented production. Traditional methods and statistical approaches are insufficient to address this challenge. Instead, an approach is required that allows us to account for these interdependencies. The most promising approach so far is network analysis. ‘Networks of International Trade and Investment’ makes a case for the use of network analysis alongside existing techniques in order to investigate pressing issues in international business and economics. The authors put forward a range of well-informed studies that examine compelling topics such as the role of emerging economies in global trade and the evolution of world trade patterns. They look at how network analysis, as both an approach and a methodology, can explain international business and economics phenomena, in particular, in relation to international trade and investment. Providing a comprehensive but accessible explanation of the applications of network analysis and some of the most recent methodological advances in its field, this edited volume is an important contribution to research in international trade and investment.

On the Principles of Social Gravity

How Human Systems Work, From the Family to the United Nations

Tobore Tobore

March 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-396-5
Availability: In stock
222pp. ¦ $58 £48 €55

“On the Principles of Social Gravity” proposes a radical new way of thinking about social systems. It explains that all social systems –institutions created of and for human beings e.g. healthcare system, family, military etc., – are held together or governed by nine principles or rules. Using these principles, it examined the problems facing the US healthcare system, criminal justice system, social security, student debt crisis, tax policies, immigration, the political system, and the United Nations. Then, provided novel and unique solutions to them. It expands on the meaning of social entropy and explains how it affects all social systems. It explains new terms like social gravity, de-entropification, primary and secondary contributors, negative and positive homogeneity, positive and negative homogenous group, homogenization, etc. that many readers will find enlightening and very interesting. It is a book that is likely to spark national and even global discussions about many of the institutions we have created. It’s originality and usefulness makes it very likely that it will find a wide audience and many of its terms may become popular in the wider society. Since anyone could use the same principles developed in this book to understand and solve the problems with any social system, it will be useful for adoption in the university, for researchers and professors in the social sciences.

Essay on Human Reason: On the Principle of Identity and Difference

Nikola Stojkoski

February 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-379-8
Availability: In stock
136pp. [Color] ¦ $55 £42 €48

The nature of human reason is one of the thorniest of mysteries in philosophy. The reason appears in many specific forms within general areas such as cognition, thinking, experiencing beauty, and moral judgment. These forms are “perfectly” known in philosophy, yet an unknown pattern has been noticed which shows us that they are all a variation of the same theme: truth is an identity relation between the “thought” and “reality”; justice is an identity relation between the given and the deserved; beauty is an identity relation as rhyme is an identity relation between the final sounds of words; rhythm is an identity relation between time intervals; symmetry is an identity relation between two halves; proportion is an identity relation between two ratios; anaphora is an identity relation between the initial words. Particular things are identities in themselves and universals are identities between particulars. One idea associates another idea identical to it; an analogy is an identity between relations; induction is an identification between the known and unknown instances; and all the logic rests on the law of identity. What is common for all of them is the nature of reason itself.

Fixed or Flexible Exchange Rates? History and Perspectives

Marin Muzhani, CDI College, Canada

March 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-177-0
Availability: In stock
386pp. ¦ $65 £52 €60

The economy of the industrialized countries in the 21st century has already moved to a new level of mass production and technology never seen before, thanks in part to globalization, advanced technologies, new organization management methods, and innovative supply chain. A relatively large number of mass-produced commodities (characterized as non-premium) and services in Western economies are somehow sold at discounts rather than regular prices at a much higher frequency that was never seen before. This phenomenon has completely changed how we look at the theory of the firm in microeconomics. This book is indented to introduce new ideas and theories by challenging the current modern micro-and-macro economic theories. In a globalized world, the economies of advanced countries have entered a new phase called “economy pricing,” where most of the mass commodities are sold at a low price during certain periods of the year, called ‘sales events’. In addition to low prices, most industrialized countries have had record low inflation, low-interest rates, low growth, and low unemployment rates. This book will contend how the “Economy Pricing System” is about to revolutionize how people look at a real economy’s micro and macro effects.

Ka Osi Sọ Onye: African Philosophy in the Postmodern Era

Edited by Jonathan O. Chimakonam, University of Pretoria, South Africa and Edwin Etieyibo, University of the Witwatersrand

January 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-366-8
Availability: In stock
394pp. ¦ $67 £50 €57

This collection is about composing thought at the level of modernism and decomposing it at the postmodern level where many cocks might crow with African philosophy as a focal point. It has two parts: part one is titled ‘The Journey of Reason in African Philosophy’, and part two is titled ‘African Philosophy and Postmodern Thinking’. There are seven chapters in both parts. Five of the essays are reprinted here as important selections while nine are completely new essays commissioned for this book. As their titles suggest, in part one, African philosophy is unfolded in the manifestation of reason as embedded in modern thought while in part two, it draws the effect of reason as implicated in the postmodern orientation. While part one strikes at what V. Y. Mudimbe calls the “colonising structure” or the Greco-European logo-phallo-euro-centricism in thought, part two bashes the excesses of modernism and partly valorises postmodernism. In some chapters, modernism is presented as an intellectual version of communalism characterised by the cliché: ‘our people say’. Our thinking is that the voice of reason is not the voice of the people but the voice of an individual. The idea of this book is to open new vistas for the discipline of African philosophy. African philosophy is thus presented as a disagreement discourse. Without rivalry of thoughts, Africa will settle for far less. This gives postmodernism an important place, perhaps deservedly more important than history of philosophy allocates to it. It is that philosophical moment that says ‘philosophers must cease speaking like gods in their hegemonic cultural shrines and begin to converse across borders with one another’. In this conversation, the goal for African philosophers must not be to find final answers but to sustain the conversation which alone can extend human reason to its furthermost reaches.