The balance sheet of 50 years of development aid

Over the past 50 years the West has invested over 3000 billion euro in development aid and already tackled many problems. Now more and more countries and organisations present themselves on the development aid scene, including China, India, and foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Companies, trade unions, co-operatives, schools and towns set up their own projects in remote African regions.

But can each and everybody becom...

Imaginations, expectations, and motivations that propel the pursuit of migration

Although contemporary migration in and from Africa can be understood as a continuation of earlier forms of interregional and international migration, current processes of migration seem to have taken on a new quality. This volume argues that one of the main reasons for this is the fact that local worlds are increasingly measured against a set of possibilities whose referents are global, not local. Due to this gl...

An in-depth analysis of Belgium's public finance in the recent past

Prior to the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008 Belgium's fiscal balances and debt ratios seemed to be on a firm consolidation path. Today, however, Belgium is facing a major budgetary challenge, albeit to some extent lesser than that of other European countries. A proper understanding of the current situation and the design of the most appropriate policy response always benefit from an in-depth analysis of the recent p...

The operative role of the photographic media in making and remaking history.History is increasingly made in images, not only because its records are largely photographic but also because our ideas about the past are formed in visual terms. This book offers a discussion of contemporary art practices which question the received notions of historical representations after the pivotal changes of 1989 in Europe. These art practices reveal, in different ways, the operative role of the photographic ...

A panoramic picture of international politics and the formation of the modern State.

The opposition to the omnipotence of the State - as symbolised by Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (1651) - had a significant impact on the political organisation of European society. A liberal strategy intended to provide a protective legal status for individual citizens, whereas a social strategy aimed to strengthen the social fabric to counterbalance the power of the State. Gradually both strategies became interwo...