Health Insurance Today: A Practical Approach

Many analysts initially believed that the process of Soviet disintegration would inevitably open a Pandora's box of ethnic nationalism and regional self-determination. But, despite obvious setbacks such as Chechnya, the developments of the last decade have shown that while forces of disintegration remain a very real threat, the fifteen successor states have managed to stay largely intact. One explanation for this somewhat unexpected success is the varied strategies of center-periphery relations adopted by the post-Soviet states, tailored to meet the unique of circumstances faced by each former republic of the Soviet Union. The contributors to this up-to-date volume examine the specific cases of success and failure in center-periphery relations in the former USSR, and offer some provocative overall conclusions about the progress made and the impact on the process of democratization.The cases examined in this volume are drawn from Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, among others. These case studies demonstrate that realtions between national and local governments have been evolving differently in each of the successor states in the but in each case there has been a conscious attempt to create stacble center-periphery relations, which give a degree of autonomy to minority groups while still providing for a stable state and democratic development. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of the former Soviet Union and those interested in federalization and center-periphery.

Unity or Separation: Center-Periphery Relations in the Former Soviet Union

Politics & Social Sciences

Clark, Terry D.

Kempton, Daniel R.

Social Sciences

Praeger

On December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin stepped down as president of the Russian Federation, marking the end of an era. While scholars and observers alike continue to debate the degree to which Russia succeeded in establishing democracy or a free market economy, the enormity of the social transformation that occurred during the Yeltsin era is far less disputable. For the social stratification that emerged changed the very face of Russian society.
Much criticism has been leveled at the political corruption that marred the Yeltsin era. However, the economic and political reforms enacted under Yeltsin also permitted the opening of new channels of social mobility, particularly in the larger cities. Those who benefited most from the reforms became its strongest supporters, allowing the creation of a nascent middle class. The book's focus on this socioeconomic group is unique, as most analyses of the Yeltsin era largely ignore it.

Changing Attitudes Toward Economic Reform During the Yeltsin Era

Business & Money

Goss, Ernest

Kosova, Larisa

Economics

Application of Fuzzy Logic to Social Choice Theory (Monographs and Research Notes in Mathematics)

Fuzzy social choice theory is useful for modeling the uncertainty and imprecision prevalent in social life yet it has been scarcely applied and studied in the social sciences. Filling this gap, Application of Fuzzy Logic to Social Choice Theoryprovides a comprehensive study of fuzzy social choice theory. The book explains the concept of a fuzzy maximal subset of a set of alternatives, fuzzy choice functions, the factorization of a fuzzy preference relation into the "union" (conorm) of a strict fuzzy relation and an indifference operator, fuzzy non-Arrowian results, fuzzy versions of Arrow's theorem, and Black's median voter theorem for fuzzy preferences. It examines how unambiguous and exact choices are generated by fuzzy preferences and whether exact choices induced by fuzzy preferences satisfy certain plausible rationality relations. The authors also extend known Arrowian results involving fuzzy set theory to results involving intuitionistic fuzzy sets as well as the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem to the case of fuzzy weak preference relations. The final chapter discusses Georgescu's degree of similarity of two fuzzy choice functions.

Computers & Technology

Mordeson, John N.

Malik, Davender S.

Computer Science

Chapman and Hall/CRC

Beyond Post-communist Studies

This book makes the case that several East Central European countries have emerged as fully consolidated democracies. As such, they may be integrated into the mainstream of political science research, and not consigned forever to a transitional category encompassing countries that are now fully democracies as well as some that are not democratic at all. The author outlines the steps of another transition - from post-communist studies to political science research. He demonstrates how institutionalist, or rational choice, theories can be applied to the analysis of political processes in the successfully democratized countries, and proposes a new research agenda for political scientists studying the region. The results of this work can enrich political science as well as our understanding of both democracy and the polities of contemporary Eastern Europe.

Beyond Post-communist Studies: Political Science and the New Democracies of Europe

History

Americas

Routledge

Fuzzy social choice theory is useful for modeling the uncertainty and imprecision prevalent in social life yet it has been scarcely applied and studied in the social sciences. Filling this gap, Application of Fuzzy Logic to Social Choice Theory provides a comprehensive study of fuzzy social choice theory.
 The book explains the concept of a fuzzy maximal subset of a set of alternatives, fuzzy choice functions, the factorization of a fuzzy preference relation into the "union" (conorm) of a strict fuzzy relation and an indifference operator, fuzzy non-Arrowian results, fuzzy versions of Arrow’s theorem, and Black’s median voter theorem for fuzzy preferences. It examines how unambiguous and exact choices are generated by fuzzy preferences and whether exact choices induced by fuzzy preferences satisfy certain plausible rationality relations. The authors also extend known Arrowian results involving fuzzy set theory to results involving intuitionistic fuzzy sets as well as the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem to the case of fuzzy weak preference relations. The final chapter discusses Georgescu’s degree of similarity of two fuzzy choice functions.

This book explores the intersection of fuzzy mathematics and the spatial modeling of preferences in political science. Beginning with a critique of conventional modeling approaches predicated on Cantor set theoretical assumptions, the authors outline the potential benefits of a fuzzy approach to the study of ambiguous or uncertain preference profiles. This is a good text for a graduate seminar in formal modeling. It is also suitable as an introductory text in fuzzy mathematics.

Applying Fuzzy Mathematics to Formal Models in Comparative Politics (Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing)

Larson, Jennifer M.

Potter, Joshua D.

Wierman, Mark J.

Springer

Applying Fuzzy Mathematics to Formal Models in Comparative Politics (Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing, 225)

Linear Models in the Mathematics of Uncertainty (Studies in Computational Intelligence, 463)

The purpose of this book is to present new mathematical techniques for modeling global issues. These mathematical techniques are used to determine linear equations between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables in cases where standard techniques such as linear regression are not suitable. 
In this book, we examine cases where the number of data points is small (effects of nuclear warfare), where the experiment is not repeatable (the breakup of the former Soviet Union), and where the data is derived from expert opinion (how conservative is a political party). In all these cases the data is difficult to measure and an assumption of randomness and/or statistical validity is questionable. 
We apply our methods to real world issues in international relations such as nuclear deterrence, smart power, and cooperative threat reduction. We next apply our methods to issues in comparative politics such as successful democratization, quality of life, economic freedom, political stability, and failed states. Finally, issues involving deaf and hard of hearing children are explored.

Jones, Carol

Pham, Alex

Redmond, Michael A.

The purpose of this book is to present new mathematical techniques for modeling global issues. These mathematical techniques are used to determine linear equations between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables in cases where standard techniques such as linear regression are not suitable. In this book, we examine cases where the number of data points issmall (effects of nuclear warfare), where the experiment is not repeatable (the breakup of the former Soviet Union), and where the data is derived from expert opinion (how conservative is a political party). In all these cases the data  is difficult to measure and an assumption of randomness and/or statistical validity is questionable.  We apply our methods to real world issues in international relations such as  nuclear deterrence, smart power, and cooperative threat reduction. We next apply our methods to issues in comparative politics such as successful democratization, quality of life, economic freedom, political stability, and failed states. Finally, issues involving deaf and hard of hearing children are explored.  

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