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This chapter focuses on the Maoist insurgency in the 75 districts of Nepal and tries to analyze the insurgency in a comparative perspective. We compare the 75 districts with the aim to address the following questions: Why does an insurgency emerge in certain areas? How is it linked to economic, social, or political factors? Why does an insurgency show a robust presence in some districts but fail to do likewise in others? We attempt to answer these questions by conducting multivariate regressions using longitudinal data to test our primary hypothesis that the onset of an insurgency and the continuation are functions of the same factors. We examine insurgency within one country, Nepal, and test our model in Nepal's 75 districts, in a single country context, using available data on the 10-year-long insurgency. We break down the Nepalese insurgency into two parts: the onset and the continuation. Our findings indicate that regions predominantly polarized by caste are more prone to the onset of insurgency than any other factor. Higher literacy rate, a proxy for government efficacy, renders insurgency less feasible, and difficult terrain has no impact whatsoever. However, after the onset, many of the explanatory variables are no longer significant for the continuation of the insurgency and grievances alone tend to be meaningless.

This study looked at the relationship between good governance and trust in government. We used data on government trust across a sample of 29 European countries over the period 2004–2015, as well as six different aspects of governance as captured by the Worldwide Governance Indicators. We also consider GDP growth and income inequality and their correlation with trust in government. The results showed that voice and accountability, which captures freedom of expression and citizen involvement in the democratic process, was significantly related to government trust, across all specifications of our regression models. None of the other indicators yields significant results, although the coefficient for control of corruption is significant in some specifications. We also found that real GDP growth rates have a significant relationship with trust in government. A comparison of the standardised regression coefficients indicated that voice and accountability is a stronger correlate of trust in government than GDP growth. Therefore, our results suggested that good governance was a key determinant of trust in government, over and above economic considerations. We discussed the implications of these findings in light of declining levels of public trust in government around the world.

Individuals tend to seek out communities and organizations that appeal to their beliefs and values. They gravitate to positions and responsibilities that suit their personal aspirations and ambitions, and in such pursuits they succeed best. In The United States of Ambition: Politicians, Power, and the Pursuit of Office, Alan Ehrenhalt (1992) argues that the political process tends to select for those who most believe in it and make a career of it. He suggests that one advantage held by the Democratic party (over the Republican party) is that the Democratic party is more thoroughly a party of active government, so it better attracts “people who think running for office is worth the considerable sacrifice it entails” (p. 224). Not only does the political process tend to attract those who believe in it, it also tends to prosper believers.

South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world with women substantially less likely to be economically active than men. This chapter draws from the theory of planned behavior to examine the enablers and barriers to entrepreneurship in South Africa. Specifically, we examine how attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norms in the South African collectivist culture, and behavioral controls of resources influence women’s intentions to start a business. Based on interviews with two successful women entrepreneurs in South Africa, we highlight the key role that government, self-efficacy, and technology-based platforms can have in establishing women’s entrepreneurial intentions.

Citizens are demanding better performance from governments and they are increasingly aware of the costs of poor management and corruption. In view of scarce resources and the major transformations already underway in the global economy, identification and awareness of good governance and preventing corrupt practices have become key to ensuring structural reforms and critical investments necessary for encouraging, sustaining, and enhancing economic growth and competitiveness. Political corruption severely undermines government legitimacy and weakens the development of political, economic, social, and environmental structures.

South Africa's struggle against apartheid illustrates a theory of compromised revolution. Compromise is associated with three levels of analysis: the immediate level of bargaining conditions; the structural level of political opportunities; and the societal level of class relations. By the late 1980s in South Africa, all parties were increasingly aware of an emergent military stalemate, and both sides saw negotiation as the only way out of indefinite war. Beyond this proximate level of analysis, shifting class interests and political instability during heightened financial crisis shaped cost assessments and political realignments within the National Party government. Movement and government efficacy fluctuated in response to one another during the 1980s, effecting a shift in the balance of power that increasingly favored the opposition and opened the possibility of negotiations. Attention to the interplay between class relations and political alignments in shaping the “ripe moment” for resolution highlights the usefulness of a multi-dimensional explanation of negotiation, thereby contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the structures and dynamics of conflict and compromise.

The first contribution to this section is by Richard Schmalensee titled “Thoughts on the Chicago school legacy in U.S. antitrust.” It appears the purpose of this essay is to set up a target for the rest of the contributors to shoot at – a target that is emphatically pro-Chicago. In his essay, Schmalensee reviews some of the aspects of U.S. antitrust policy that outraged Chicago school lawyers and economists in the 1970s. He takes a brief look at some of Chicago's subsequent victories that he claims are now generally accepted as positive changes. And finally, he argues that some of Chicago's lost battles also constitute positive aspects of its legacy. His discussion is focused on four broad issues: the objectives of antitrust, the past policy toward “no-fault” concentration, the treatment of productive efficiency, and the evaluation of non-standard business conduct (pp. 11–12).

In the spirit of ‘Europe of the Regions’, local authorities are responsible for responding to the main interests, needs and preferences of the country’s citizens. Regional and local administrative authorities provide citizens with the necessary public goods, which reflect the trend towards ‘glocalisation’ in public administration at the European level, more significantly in the states in which the political system recently became democratic. With this background, the effectiveness of local self-government depends not only on local authorities’ decision-making freedom but also on (financial) support for it through decentralisation, and the member states of the European Union (EU) employ different strategies to achieve the same goal, with varying degrees of success. Within this context, our chapter offers a comparative analysis of the administrative, financial and local self-government decentralisation in member states, which include the southern and eastern regions on the outer edges of the EU. The general goal of our study is to identify the main trends in the present administrations and their challenges, as well as best practices that can offer lessons to other member states which are reforming their administration through decentralisation. In addition to the identified challenges, solutions and best practices, our study reveals a tendency towards consolidation at the level of regional government not only in the terms of legal responsibility but also of administrative budgets, thus generating an assumption of improvement in the general quality of governance in the member states.

The most powerful observation of Keynes is the potential role of prisoners' dilemma setting the forces for an over-arming by individual nations since each individual decision is correctly based on individual rationality, which unfortunately brings the collective disaster of an excessively armed world. The over-arming only hurts us by reducing our economic well-being, which clears the way for a violent conflict. How do we get out of this collective mess? Keynes suggested the role of negotiation, arbitration and coalition formation and application of moral ethics and penalty mechanism to break the tyranny of the prisoners' dilemma – a strategic concept unknown to Keynes.