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In the years following World War II the health and well-being of the nation was of primary concern to the British government. The essays in this collection examine the relationship between health and stress in post-war Britain through a series of carefully connected case studies.
Climate change can reasonably be expected to increase the frequency and intensity of a variety of potentially disruptive environmental events-slowly at first, but then more quickly. It is prudent to expect to be surprised by the way in which these events may cascade, or have far-reaching effects. During the coming decade, certain climate-related events will produce consequences that exceed the capacity of the affected societies or global systems to manage; these may have global security implications. Although focused on events outside the United States, Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis recommends a range of research and policy actions to create a whole-of-government approach to increasing understanding of complex and contingent connections between climate and security, and to inform choices about adapting to and reducing vulnerability to climate change.
Anxious Politics argues that political anxiety affects the news we consume, who we trust, and what public policies we support.
In System under Stress, The Challenge to 21st Century Democracy, Third Edition, Donald F. Kettl looks at the latest stress to hit the system—the financial crisis of 2008. In his brief, gripping narrative, Kettl assesses how well the U.S. political system responds under extraordinary pressure—from 9/11, to Hurricane Katrina, to the Great Recession— and asks if the government is ready to face that next challenge. A well-known scholar, commentator, and writer in the areas of federalism and governance, Kettl asks the hard questions, makes a credible and persuasive argument, and crafts a readable case study that is fascinating and thought-provoking.
This volume is the first work to emerge from a major international comparative research project exploring the political economy of globalization. This inter-disciplinary team of scholars is focusing on the semi-periphery of world power. Whether defined in social, cultural, economic or simply spatial terms, 'semi-peripheral' countries share two qualities: they are conscious of their subordination to the hegemonic powers at the centre of the global system - the United States and the European Union; they are also strong enough to have some ability to resist their domination. The structural position of these middle powers in global capitalism is unlike those countries at the centre that do not experience domination, and different from those Third World countries on the periphery that have no means to achieve more cultural and political autonomy, more distinctive and diversified development, or greater social equity and better income redistribution. Four countries in North America, Central America, Europe and the Antipodes - namely Canada, Mexico, Norway and Australia - have been selected in order to explore the complexities of globalization from the perspective of the semi-periphery. Opening chapters examine the international institutions, including the North America Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization and the European Union, which now amount to a quasi-constitutional conditioning framework for middle powers under globalization. In the second part, contributors detail the pressures with which these countries have to cope and consider their ability to pursue policies appropriate to the needs and democratically defined goals of each. And in the concluding part, after discussing the new economic, political and social issues of 'governing under stress', they appraise the possibilities for middle powers to chart distinctive national courses in the face of globalization's constraining challenge.
New York Times Bestseller Washington Post Bestseller Los Angeles Times Bestseller Stress Test is the story of Tim Geithner’s education in financial crises. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then as President Barack Obama’s secretary of the Treasury, Timothy F. Geithner helped the United States navigate the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, from boom to bust to rescue to recovery. In a candid, riveting, and historically illuminating memoir, he takes readers behind the scenes of the crisis, explaining the hard choices and politically unpalatable decisions he made to repair a broken financial system and prevent the collapse of the Main Street economy. This is the inside story of how a small group of policy makers—in a thick fog of uncertainty, with unimaginably high stakes—helped avoid a second depression but lost the American people doing it. Stress Test is also a valuable guide to how governments can better manage financial crises, because this one won’t be the last. Stress Test reveals a side of Secretary Geithner the public has never seen, starting with his childhood as an American abroad. He recounts his early days as a young Treasury official helping to fight the international financial crises of the 1990s, then describes what he saw, what he did, and what he missed at the New York Fed before the Wall Street boom went bust. He takes readers inside the room as the crisis began, intensified, and burned out of control, discussing the most controversial episodes of his tenures at the New York Fed and the Treasury, including the rescue of Bear Stearns; the harrowing weekend when Lehman Brothers failed; the searing crucible of the AIG rescue as well as the furor over the firm’s lavish bonuses; the battles inside the Obama administration over his widely criticized but ultimately successful plan to end the crisis; and the bracing fight for the most sweeping financial reforms in more than seventy years. Secretary Geithner also describes the aftershocks of the crisis, including the administration’s efforts to address high unemployment, a series of brutal political battles over deficits and debt, and the drama over Europe’s repeated flirtations with the economic abyss. Secretary Geithner is not a politician, but he has things to say about politics—the silliness, the nastiness, the toll it took on his family. But in the end, Stress Test is a hopeful story about public service. In this revealing memoir, Tim Geithner explains how America withstood the ultimate stress test of its political and financial systems.
The brain is the most complex organ in our body. Indeed, it is perhaps the most complex structure we have ever encountered in nature. Both structurally and functionally, there are many peculiarities that differentiate the brain from all other organs. The brain is our connection to the world around us and by governing nervous system and higher function, any disturbance induces severe neurological and psychiatric disorders that can have a devastating effect on quality of life. Our understanding of the physiology and biochemistry of the brain has improved dramatically in the last two decades. In particular, the critical role of cations, including magnesium, has become evident, even if incompletely understood at a mechanistic level. The exact role and regulation of magnesium, in particular, remains elusive, largely because intracellular levels are so difficult to routinely quantify. Nonetheless, the importance of magnesium to normal central nervous system activity is self-evident given the complicated homeostatic mechanisms that maintain the concentration of this cation within strict limits essential for normal physiology and metabolism. There is also considerable accumulating evidence to suggest alterations to some brain functions in both normal and pathological conditions may be linked to alterations in local magnesium concentration. This book, containing chapters written by some of the foremost experts in the field of magnesium research, brings together the latest in experimental and clinical magnesium research as it relates to the central nervous system. It offers a complete and updated view of magnesiums involvement in central nervous system function and in so doing, brings together two main pillars of contemporary neuroscience research, namely providing an explanation for the molecular mechanisms involved in brain function, and emphasizing the connections between the molecular changes and behavior. It is the untiring efforts of those magnesium researchers who have dedicated their lives to unraveling the mysteries of magnesiums role in biological systems that has inspired the collation of this volume of work.
As the population of older Americans grows, it is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Differences in health by racial and ethnic status could be increasingly consequential for health policy and programs. Such differences are not simply a matter of education or ability to pay for health care. For instance, Asian Americans and Hispanics appear to be in better health, on a number of indicators, than White Americans, despite, on average, lower socioeconomic status. The reasons are complex, including possible roles for such factors as selective migration, risk behaviors, exposure to various stressors, patient attitudes, and geographic variation in health care. This volume, produced by a multidisciplinary panel, considers such possible explanations for racial and ethnic health differentials within an integrated framework. It provides a concise summary of available research and lays out a research agenda to address the many uncertainties in current knowledge. It recommends, for instance, looking at health differentials across the life course and deciphering the links between factors presumably producing differentials and biopsychosocial mechanisms that lead to impaired health.
Prize-winning author Martha Derthick draws on the recent experience of the Social Security Administration to examine the quality of policymaker's guidance and the feasibility of their policies. Derthick concludes that many structural features of American government hinder good administration, that policymakers lack concern for administration, and that they often miscalculate the administrative consequences of their policy choices. To illustrate this argument, Agency Under Stress analyzes two much-publicized cases of poor performance by one of the biggest and best established of U.S. government agencies, the Social Security Administration. The first case is that of the supplemental security income program to support needy blind, aged and disabled persons. Given responsibility of administering the program in 1974, the Social Security Administration was unequal to the task: many payments were made in error; many eligible persons were not paid; computer systems were not ready; field employees worked millions of hours of overtime; and other agency programs suffered. The second case is that of an eligibility review that Congress ordered the Social Security Administration to conduct for disability insurance recipients in the 1980s. The results were similarly traumatic: of over 1.2 million cases examined, 495,000 had benefits terminated, and, flooded with appeals, the courts ruled overwhelmingly against the agency. Derthick's analysis and conclusions have far-reaching implications for how the government can effectively serve its clients.