OAR@UM Collection:
https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/56557
2024-03-28T14:28:28ZBook review : Party–society relations in the Republic of Cyprus : political and societal strategies
https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/49845
Title: Book review : Party–society relations in the Republic of Cyprus : political and societal strategies
Abstract: In contemporary representative democracies, political parties play an important role: this may be why, since the end of the Second World War, they have increasingly attracted the attention of political scientists. Parties mobilise the public debate, form governments alone or in coalition after elections, articulate and channel voters’ demands to the highest platforms of the national political debate, and occupy a generous segment of the public space. However, they also tend to exclude citizens from direct participation in the democratic decision-making process, and trans-party collusion may threaten fundamental democratic values. The argument on the role of political parties is complex, but an understanding of a country’s foreign and domestic politics – which, over the years, have increasingly overlapped – is impossible without a sound knowledge of parties and their relations with society and the organisations of civil society (CSOs).2019-01-01T00:00:00ZBook review : Sinuous objects : revaluing women’s wealth in the contemporary Pacific
https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/49833
Title: Book review : Sinuous objects : revaluing women’s wealth in the contemporary Pacific
Abstract: A collection of chapters sharing ethnographic research of women’s wealth-building activities in the Pacific islands, Sinuous objects measures up to its title. Its editors, Hermkens and Lepani, have woven together a volume of fresh approaches to theorising social value attachment to material objects. The objects considered include those of adornment, art, everyday use items such as bowls, ritual objects and traded goods. An intriguing contribution of the volume is how each of the authors engages a historical approach towards the transformation of the social value of objects produced in the Pacific.2019-01-01T00:00:00ZBook review : Small states in world politics : The story of small state survival
https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/49821
Title: Book review : Small states in world politics : The story of small state survival
Abstract: The study of small states has seen a revival since the end of the Cold War, but despite recent developments in our knowledge and understanding of small state politics, we know comparatively little about the historical context of present conditions and policies. As is the case of the study of politics and international relations in general, the study of small states is dominated by studies of the present and very recent past with little more than symbolic nods towards historical developments upon which present opportunities and challenges are based. In this context, Matthias Maass’s Small states in world politics. The story of small state survival 1648-2016 is a welcome and important contribution. In his highly ambitious book, Maass traces the history of small state survival from the inception of the modern states system by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 up until the present (2016). Defining small states as “units that are individually irrelevant to the states system” (p. 31), Maass draws on Classical and Structural Realism and English School-thinking to compose a broad theoretical framework. This framework allows him to emphasize the continued importance of power politics over the centuries, while detecting how changing norms on war and conquest transform the nature of power politics and therefore the conditions for small state survival.2019-01-01T00:00:00ZBook review : Singapore and Switzerland : Secrets to small state success
https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/49820
Title: Book review : Singapore and Switzerland : Secrets to small state success
Abstract: Few countries around the world are seen as better examples of politico-economic success than Singapore and Switzerland. From Costa Rica, via Rwanda, Georgia and all the way to Fiji, politicians, commentators and ordinary people express a desire or hope for their countries to one day become their respective region’s Singapore or Switzerland.2019-01-01T00:00:00Z