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In Thailand, as in many other developing countries, a significant and coherent policy response to the challenges posed by climate change is just beginning to emerge. The initial emphasis was on meeting international reporting obligations and building a better understanding of the issues (OEPP, 2000). Most climate policy attention has focused on mitigation, in particular of the difficulties, and occasionally taking advantage of the opportunities, in decoupling growth in greenhouse gas emissions from social and economic development. While early concerns were expressed about impacts on water resources and agriculture, not much attention has been given to implementing specific adaptation measures.

How water is managed is emerging as one of the core challenges of sustainable development and earth system governance (Pahl-Wostl, Gupta, & Petry, 2008a; Biermann et al., 2009). Floods and droughts already have a huge impact on human development and well-being. Adaptation to existing climate variability to reduce water insecurities is already a pressing need (Pielke, Prins, Rayner, & Sarewitz, 2007). Securing access to safe drinking water, allocating sufficient water to grow food, protecting life and property from floods, as well as maintaining river and floodplain ecosystems as countries develop economically, however, is a complex set of interlocking and dynamic challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how fish farmers manage climate-related risks and explore possible ways to strengthen risk management under current and future climate.

In total, 662 fish farmers in sites across Northern Thailand were interviewed about risks to the profitability of their fish farms and ways such risks were managed. Nonlinear canonical correlation analysis was used to relate risk factors to management practices at farm and river levels. In total, 68 in-depth interviews with farmers and other stakeholders provided additional information on climate risk management practices.

Farmers use a combination of adjustments to rearing practices, cropping calendars and financial and social measures to manage those risks, which they perceive as being manageable. Many risks are season, river and place specific; implying that the risk profiles of individual farms can vary substantially. Individual risks are often addressed through multiple practices and strategies; conversely, a particular management practice can have a bearing on several different risks. Farmers recognize that risks must be managed at farm and higher spatial and administrative scales. Social relations and information play critical roles in managing these complex combinations of risks.

This is one of the first papers to report in detail on how inland fish farmers manage climate-related risks. It underlines the need to consider multiple spatial and temporal scales and that farmers do not manage individual climate-related risks in isolation from other risks.

To critically examine how the post‐tsunami recovery process has affected the livelihoods of small fisher communities in southern Thailand.

This study was carried out as part of on‐going work with small fisher communities in southern Thailand. It was based on direct observations and interviews in fishing communities and following decision‐making processes through attending meetings and reviewing secondary reports.

The Indian Ocean tsunami had immediate devastating and longer‐term debilitating consequences for small fisher communities in southern Thailand. Delays in repairing or replacing boats have had a major impact on well‐being. The tsunami by removing housing and other coastal infrastructure also created opportunities for both social and ecological reorganization. These opportunities were seized upon by powerful interests groups with already strong connections to state through membership in taskforces and other links to power, in particular the tourism and conservation sectors to the detriment of interests of small fishers. A narrow focus on tourism‐led recovery is unlikely to do anything but recover tourism.

As a marginalized and vulnerable group small fishers need to be directly involved in negotiations around disaster recovery programmes and setting priorities for future regional development in southern Thailand.

This study draws attention to persistent problems in the disaster recovery programs in Thailand that have left small fisher communities in a perilous condition.

This paper looks at a resource allocation technique used in the public sector reforms of Indonesia, a developing country, which involves decentralisation of fiscal responsibilities. The decentralisation occurred to quell secessionist aspirations of resource‐rich regions. To enable all regions to participate in regional autonomy, an elaborate system of equalisation grants was introduced to compensate for regional inequities. These grants rest on notions of ‘Western rationalism’ which value the role of calculative apparatus to achieve a sense of objectivity. We demonstrate that the equalisation formula used to determine grants is calculated using a series of estimates, proxies and indices. Hence, the formula, which determines the resource allocation for a region, obfuscates several compounding subjectivities. In this way, the politically contentious resource allocations can be perceived as objective so that the outcomes can be afforded legitimacy and authority necessary to assuage regional disputes.

Persistent change has placed considerable pressure on organizations to keep up or fade into obscurity. Firms that remain viable, or even thrive, are staffed with decision-makers who capably steer organizations toward opportunities and away from threats. Accordingly, leadership development has never been more critical. In this chapter, the authors propose that leader development is an inherently dyadic process initiated to communicate formal and informal expectations. The authors focus on the informal component, in the form of organizational politics, as an element of leadership that is critical to employee and company success. The authors advocate that superiors represent the most salient information source for leader development, especially as it relates to political dynamics embedded in work systems. The authors discuss research associated with our conceptualization of dyadic political leader development (DPLD). Specifically, the authors develop DPLD by exploring its conceptual underpinnings as they relate to sensemaking, identity, and social learning theories. Once established, the authors provide a refined discussion of the construct, illustrating its scholarly mechanisms that better explain leader development processes and outcomes. The authors then expand research in the areas of political skill, political will, political knowledge, and political phronesis by embedding our conceptualization of DPLD into a political leadership model. The authors conclude by discussing methodological issues and avenues of future research stemming from the development of DPLD.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a structural overview about indigenous approaches to learning in South East Asian countries, with a particular reference to education initiatives that have been operating in this region; and especially to investigate information and communication technologies (ICT) systems, in combination with institutional approaches for enhanced knowledge.

Discussed issues have been designed together, through a rights‐based approach that can frame verified access to indigenous cultures under the changing methods concerning ICT, as well as, similarly compare collective challenges for applicable methodologies towards poverty reduction and sustainability.

This research process has followed developmental options already in place from the recent spread of technologies in Asia. A lack of equal distribution patterns due to the presence of multiple actors has been advanced in this study, with the gradual reduction of opportunities in education in rural/remote settings.

Constraining factors about the compatibility of information systems and policy impacts need functional/operational data of information sources for further testing of explicative explorations.

This research focus, oriented to changing implications of IT solutions in Asia, has increased a comparative analytical understanding about the direct transfer of IT methodologies to subjects for learning enhancement.

This study activity has explored grassroots transition in terms of limiting factors for ICTs adaptability and empowerment.

The chapter Technological Advances in Special Education provides information on advances of technology and how such technological advances have influenced students with disabilities and special education across the globe. The chapter presents technological advances that benefited students with disabilities in developed countries as well as potential technologies to support students with disabilities in developing countries. The scant exiting literature on developing countries suggests some universal themes regarding technology for students with disabilities including access and training. Additional attention and research is needed on assistive technology to support students with disabilities in both developed and developing countries, with recognition that what works is developed counties may not work in developing.