Civil war is the most important and troubling problem in international life today. Aside from the tragic killing and injury of innocent civilians, violent civil conflicts inspire lingering, seemingly intractable ills such as state collapse, corruption, dire poverty, rampant injustice, dislocation, environmental degradation, and disease, all of which may in turn instigate renewed and spreading c...

The paper examines the relation between the realms of privacy and civil society by analyzing the recent history of privacy legislation in general and the developments in Switzerland since the 1970s in particular. It argues that the conceptual distinction between the spheres of privacy, civil society and the state should not entice to ignore the interactions and interdependencies between these s...

social development undoubtedly requires people participation in different domains. it seems without participation, we cannot achieve a people-centered, inclusive and sustainable social development. in the social development process, all citizens with various ethnic and religious interests are able to affect on all the social phenomena and variables, based on their competencies and mental capaci...

This paper examines the functioning of India's institutions of governance, namely, the legislative and executive branches of government, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy. An economist's view of the role of government is adopted, i.e., as a provider of public goods and corrector of externalities. Governance is analyzed along three dimensions: (1) the degree of commitment or durability of laws ...

Environmental engineering education has been the focus of much attention in recent years. In the past, environmental engineering, more commonly known then as sanitary or public-health engineering, was taught as a subject within the civil engineering curriculum. As time progressed, and with it the realisation of the significance of the new field in engineering environmental engineering it began ...

Medieval institutions contain an important strain of spontaneous order, especially from the pre-Christian period. A series of irregular successions after the Norman conquest made royal charters increasingly important in establishing the sovereign’s legitimacy. Henry I’s coronation charter (1100) formed the basis of Henry II’s aggressive program of reform legislation, as well as for Magna Carta ...

The Civil Sphere offers a bold and original thesis about the critically important role that civil societies play in Western democracies. Although I will challenge Alexander’s thesis, it is important to state at the outset that The Civil Sphere is a valuable book packed with rich social histories, lively engagements with ancient and contemporary theories, and novel interpretations. There is much...