Collapsing Structures and Public Mismanagement

Collapsing Structures and Public Mismanagement PDF Author: Wolfgang Seibel
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9783030678173
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
This book is about mismanagement of public agencies as a threat to life and limb. Collapsing bridges and buildings kill people and often leave many more injured. Such disasters do not happen out of the blue nor are they purely technical in nature since construction and maintenance are subject to safety regulation and enforcement by governmental agencies. This book analyses four relevant cases from Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Germany. Arguing that, while preventing disaster through public oversight is essentially easy, the difficult part for public officials and private contractors and consultants alike is to resist incentives that threaten professional skills and standards. Rather than stressing well-known pathologies of bureaucracy as a potential source of disaster, this book argues, learning for the sake of prevention should aim at neutralizing threats to integrity and strengthening a sense of responsibility among public officials.

Collapsing Structures and Public Mismanagement

Collapsing Structures and Public Mismanagement PDF Author: Wolfgang Seibel
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9783030678173
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is about mismanagement of public agencies as a threat to life and limb. Collapsing bridges and buildings kill people and often leave many more injured. Such disasters do not happen out of the blue nor are they purely technical in nature since construction and maintenance are subject to safety regulation and enforcement by governmental agencies. This book analyses four relevant cases from Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Germany. Arguing that, while preventing disaster through public oversight is essentially easy, the difficult part for public officials and private contractors and consultants alike is to resist incentives that threaten professional skills and standards. Rather than stressing well-known pathologies of bureaucracy as a potential source of disaster, this book argues, learning for the sake of prevention should aim at neutralizing threats to integrity and strengthening a sense of responsibility among public officials.

Collapsing Structures and Public Mismanagement

Collapsing Structures and Public Mismanagement PDF Author: Wolfgang Seibel
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030678180
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
This open access book is about mismanagement of public agencies as a threat to life and limb. Collapsing bridges and buildings kill people and often leave many more injured. Such disasters do not happen out of the blue nor are they purely technical in nature since construction and maintenance are subject to safety regulation and enforcement by governmental agencies. This book analyses four relevant cases from Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Germany. Arguing that, while preventing disaster through public oversight is essentially easy, the difficult part for public officials and private contractors and consultants alike is to resist incentives that threaten professional skills and standards. Rather than stressing well-known pathologies of bureaucracy as a potential source of disaster, this book argues, learning for the sake of prevention should aim at neutralizing threats to integrity and strengthening a sense of responsibility among public officials.

Routledge International Handbook of Failure

Routledge International Handbook of Failure PDF Author: Adriana Mica
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000775682
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 668

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Book Description
This Handbook examines the study of failure in social sciences, its manifestations in the contemporary world, and the modalities of dealing with it – both in theory and in practice. It draws together a comprehensive approach to failing, and invisible forms of cancelling out and denial of future perspectives. Underlining critical mechanisms for challenging and reimagining norms of success in contemporary society, it allows readers to understand how contemporary regimes of failure are being formed and institutionalized in relation to policy and economic models, such as neo-liberalism. While capturing the diversity of approaches in framing failure, it assesses the conflations and shifts which have occurred in the study of failure over time. Intended for scholars who research processes of inequality and invisibility, this Handbook aims to formulate a critical manifesto and activism agenda for contemporary society. Presenting an integrated view about failure, the Handbook will be an essential reading for students in sociology, social theory, anthropology, international relations and development research, organization theory, public policy, management studies, queer theory, disability studies, sports, and performance research.

Advances in Structural Integrity and Failure

Advances in Structural Integrity and Failure PDF Author:
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 1837695539
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
The purpose of this book is to expand the knowledge and skills of civil and structural engineers and researchers and help them better understand, design, and analyze civil engineering applications. This book examines advancements in structural integrity and failure and underground construction. It offers profound insights into the mechanisms that can lead to the integrity or failure of structures and result in safe underground construction. It provides details on the fundamental principles, theories, behavior, and performance of different structural elements and underground construction. The book delves into the mechanics, design, and construction of reinforced concrete structures. It explores the design principles applied to reinforced concrete structures and considers critical structural elements like beams, slabs, columns, and foundations. It also demonstrates various advances in reinforced concrete technology, including high-performance concrete, fiber-reinforced concrete, self-compacting concrete, and the use of nanomaterials. It describes methods for the analysis and evaluation of reinforced concrete structures, non-destructive testing methods, structural health monitoring, finite element analysis, and causes of failure. In addition, the book proposes a design model for determining the flexural bearing capacity of reinforced concrete beams having reinforcement steel with reduced modulus of elasticity. Moreover, the book investigates the effects of loading rates on the mechanical properties of structural steel. It also evaluates the formation of welding defects in the process of connecting steel structures, which is inevitable, from the aspect of failure mechanics. In addition, it utilizes an equivalent shell-wire model to propose a simple accurate technique for nonlinear assessment of reinforced concrete shear walls with less computational cost. The book introduces tunnel design theory and method, support structure systems, construction technology, and equipment under complex geological conditions. Furthermore, it highlights procedures to design efficient dewatering systems considering the working conditions, stability, and impacts generated in the vicinity of construction, and to examine the state of retaining walls by using hydrogeological tools. Finally, it outlines the online monitoring and intelligent diagnosis mechanism of key equipment in the subway ventilation system.

Environmental Hazards

Environmental Hazards PDF Author: Keith Smith
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351261622
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 715

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Book Description
The seventh edition of Environmental Hazards provides a much expanded and fully up-to-date overview of all the extreme environmental events that threaten people and what they value in the 21st century globally. It integrates cutting-edge materials to provide an interdisciplinary approach to environmental hazards and their management, illustrating how natural and human systems interact to place communities of all sizes, and at all stages of economic development, at risk. Part 1 defines basic concepts of hazard, risk, vulnerability and disaster and explores the evolution of hazards theory. Part 2 employs a consistent chapter structure to demonstrate how individual hazards occur, their impacts and how the risks can be assessed and managed. This extensively revised edition includes: Fresh perspectives on the reliability of disaster data, disaster risk reduction, risk and disaster perception and communication, and new technologies available to assist with environmental hazard management The addition of several new environmental hazards including landslide and avalanches, cryospheric hazards, karst and subsidence hazards, and hazards of the Anthropocene More boxed sections with a focus on both generic issues and the lessons to be learned from a carefully selected range of up-to-date extreme events An annotated list of key resources, including further reading and relevant websites, for all chapters More colour diagrams and photographs, and more than 1,000 references to some of the most significant and recent published material New exercises to assist teaching in the classroom, or self-learning This carefully structured and balanced textbook captures the complexity and dynamism of environmental hazards and is essential reading for students across many disciplines including geography, environmental science, environmental studies and natural resources.

Crises and Challenges for the European Union

Crises and Challenges for the European Union PDF Author: Mark Rhinard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350342920
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
The crises of the European Union extend beyond the challenges of Covid-19, Brexit, the Eurozone, and mass migration, cutting to the core of the EU itself. Taking a structural rather than event-based approach, this text unpacks all aspects of the EU in crisis and analyses the implications of these crises for the EU and its member states. This edition argues that crises and challenges are no longer unique and discreet events facing the EU, but rather, they are better understood as sustained conditions that have changed the relationships between member states, the functioning of institutions, the nature of public engagement and the prospects for integration. Chapters broach institutional issues as well as specific policy challenges, covering questions of legitimacy and leadership and offering a full chapter on democracy and Euroscepticism. Working within both historical and theoretical frameworks, this is the perfect companion for those studying and researching contemporary challenges facing the EU, European integration, political crisis management and transboundary crises more broadly.

Governing the Pandemic

Governing the Pandemic PDF Author: Arjen Boin
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030726800
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 137

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Book Description
This open access book offers unique insights into how governments and governing systems, particularly in advanced economies, have responded to the immense challenges of managing the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing disease COVID-19. Written by three eminent scholars in the field of the politics and policy of crisis management, it offers a unique ‘bird’s eye’ view of the immense logistical and political challenges of addressing a worst-case scenario that would prove the ultimate stress test for societies, governments, governing institutions and political leaders. It examines how governments and governing systems have (i) made sense of emerging transboundary threats that have spilled across health, economic, political and social systems (ii) mobilised systems of governance and often fearful and sceptical citizens (iii) crafted narratives amid high uncertainty about the virus and its impact and (iv) are working towards closure and a return to ‘normal’ when things can never quite be the same again. The book also offers the building blocks of pathways to future resilience. Succeeding and failing in all these realms is tied in with governance structures, experts, trust, leadership capabilities and political ideologies. The book appeals to anyone seeking to understand ‘what’s going on?’, but particularly academics and students across multiple disciplines, journalists, public officials, politicians, non-governmental organisations and citizen groups.

Patronage Or Partnership

Patronage Or Partnership PDF Author: Ian Smillie
Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 0889369445
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
* A refreshing study of capacity building through various local perspectives* Includes studies from Mozambique, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Haiti, and GuatemalaStrengthening local capacity is more difficult than one might expect; there are significant trade-offs between outsiders providing assistance in the midst of an emergency, and encouraging the building of long-term local skills. By critically examining the dilemma from local perspectives, "Patronage or Partnership" finds genuine hope amidst the prevailing rhetoric and confusion.

The Long War - Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and Collapsing States

The Long War - Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and Collapsing States PDF Author: Mark T. Berger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317990935
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
The rise and fall of the Cold War coincided with the universalization and consolidation of the modern nation-state as the key unit of the wider international system. A key characteristic of the post-Cold War era, in which the US has emerged as the sole superpower, is the growing number of collapsing or collapsed states. A growing number of states are, or have become, mired in conflict or civil war, the antecedents of which are often to be found in the late-colonial and Cold War era. At the same time, US foreign policy (and the actions of other organizations such as the United Nations) may well be compounding state failure in the context of the post-9/11 Global War on Terror (GWOT) or what is also increasingly referred to as the ‘Long War’. The Long War is often represented as a ‘new’ era in warfare and geopolitics. This book acknowledges that the Long War is new in important respects, but it also emphasizes that the Long War bears many similarities to the Cold War. A key similarity is the way in which insurgency and counterinsurgency were and continue to be seen primarily in the context of inter-state rivalry in which the critical local or regional dynamics of revolution and counter-revolution are marginalized or neglected. In this context American policy-makers and their allies have again erroneously applied a ‘grand strategy’ that suits the imperatives of conventional military and geo-political thinking rather than engaging with what are a much more variegated array of problems facing the changing global order. This book provides a collection of well-integrated studies that shed light on the history and future of insurgency, counterinsurgency and collapsing states in the context of the Long War. This book was previously published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

The Passenger: Berlin

The Passenger: Berlin PDF Author: The Passenger
Publisher: Europa Editions
ISBN: 1609456696
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
The best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from and about Berlin—in the series that’s “like a literary vacation” (Publishers Weekly). In 1990s Berlin, the scars of a century of war were still visible everywhere: coal stoves, crumbling buildings, desolate minimarts, not a working buzzer or elevator. To visit the city then was a hallucinatory experience, a simultaneous journey into the past and into the future. The abandoned ruins, the hidden gems found at the flea market, the illegal basement raves are a thing of the past. The era of Berlin as a site of urban archeology is over. Almost all the damaged buildings have been repaired, squatters have been removed, the shops selling East German furniture have closed down. Without its wounds, the landscape of the city is perhaps less striking but more solid, stronger. Even the city’s inhabitants have lost some of their melancholia, their romantic and self-destructive streak: today you can even find people who come to Berlin to actually work, not just to “create” or idle their days away. Yet, Berlin remains a youthful city and retains its aura as “the capital of cool.” Its only sacrosanct principles are an uncompromising multiculturalism and the belief that its future is yet to be written. This volume of the series includes: The Greatest Show in Town: The Resurrection of Potsdamer Platz by Peter Schneider · Berlin Suite by Cees Nooteboom · Tempelhof: A Field of Dreams by Vincenzo Latronico · Plus: the controversial reconstruction of a Prussian castle, Berlin’s most transgressive sex club and its disappearing traditional pubs, a green urban oasis, suburban neo-Nazis, North Vietnamese in the East, South Vietnamese in the West, techno everywhere and much more . . . “These books are so rich and engrossing that it is rewarding to read them even when one is stuck at home.” —The Times Literary Supplement