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Considering the recent trends of the increasing globalization of the market economy and the diffusion of democracy, the modern world needs to pay closer attention to pro-women and pro-girls policies if gender discrimination is to be challenged. Such policies could mark an era of building greater gender equality across the world by strengthening domains of women’s well-being that have been shown to decline in the initial years of the democratization and globalization of countries.

Women, who have more complex societal roles than men and whose employment is more tenuous, are more vulnerable to the rapid restructuring in macro-political and economic systems and bear more of the costs of systemic changes. My world-scale analyses show that women and men benefit unequally from the growth of democracy and the global economy – men’s well-being improves with the growth of democracy and globalization but women’s well-being declines. According to my follow-up studies, the decline lasts for over a decade (2014). These findings suggest that prior results of research proposing that democracy and the global economy improve people’s well-being are most likely biased when gender and the level of development in countries are not accounted for. To protect women and girls and to avoid gender discrimination, globalizing and democratizing countries should prioritize gender mainstreaming in their policies.

In democratic societies people can impact policy making and in theory can direct societal development. Hence, due to active public participation in the decision-making process, it might be easier to solve societal problems in democratic countries. Nonetheless, democracies are not free from social ills nor are nondemocracies. Though the benefits outweigh the costs of democratic changes, the costs should not be forgotten. Especially when we consider the impact of democracy and development on population health, the costs are significant though limitedly discussed.

The costs in societal health are especially visible among poverty-driven populations of democratic and nondemocratic countries. Poverty, in general, limits access to medical care and modern medical treatment. Poverty is also one of the most influential separators of society separating social strata in terms of their differentiated access to health-care facilities and modern medical treatments. Democracies by being more likely supported by international networks that help to open access to medical care, including international medical services, ease the struggle against poverty and unhealthy living conditions, but democracies are still unable to eliminate them.

There are a number of broad trends across rich democracies that show a growing disconnects between citizens and their respective governments. Similar trends are apparent in democracies in poorer nations as well. Given these similarities, it is plausible that trans-national forces are at work. The chapter develops a theoretical argument to account for these trends.

The focus of the argument is on the rapid increase in societal mobilization and loss of elite control that has accompanied globalization and the rapid worldwide expansion of science and higher education. The argument develops the point that these forces have led to a weakening of support for political institutions as they are currently constituted across democratic societies.

This chapter will explore processes of decommodification of specific local foods in South Italy. The aim is to offer both conceptual and empirical reflections on the topic. On the one side, the attempt will be to show the centrality of the notion of ‘labour’ in theoretically understanding the perspective of decommodification. On the other side, empirical support will be given through the presentation of a case study in South Italy. It clearly emerges that these processes are induced, among other elements, by a return to the land after having had different social and working experiences in urban contexts.

Drawing upon Alfred Sohn-Rethel's work, we argue that, just as capitalism produces abstract labor, it coproduces both abstract mind and abstract life. Abstract mind is the split between mind and nature and between subject/observer and observed object that characterizes scientific epistemology. Abstract mind reflects an abstracted objectified world of nature as a means to be exploited. Biological life is rendered as abstract life by capitalist exploitation and by the reification and technologization of organisms by contemporary technoscience. What Alberto Toscano has called “the culture of abstraction” imposes market rationality onto nature and the living world, disrupting biotic communities and transforming organisms into what Finn Bowring calls “functional bio-machines.”

Much analysis considering the putative political challenges of the European Union (EU) has focussed on the (lack of) participation and identifications of European citizens. But what about the bureaucrats working on their behalf? This contribution will address the issue of representative bureaucracy and identification in the EU, specifically in the European Commission. While the literature on representativeness of public administration has focussed on issues of social class, ethnicity and gender, it is also important to consider geographical representativeness. This is particularly important when region (in this case of the EU nations) is relevant. As the authors point out, this question is all the more relevant given the assumption that individuals who join the Commission will identify with Europe more than their home country. Yet, at a time of ongoing discussions about a crisis of the EU and in the midst of populist governments, such an assumption is at least questionable. While it is difficult to assess the extent to which decision-making may be influenced by nationality, at least understanding patterns of representation can be important for understanding how passive – if not active – representation functions. The formal emphasis on representative bureaucracy within the EU raises several potential conflicts with other important principles of public management. It also creates a conflict with the fundamental commitment to creating transnational personnel who eschew strong attachments to nation states.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the research presented in this edited volume.

This report is based on 17 chapters, which vary in terms of research approach, design, and method, yet aims to present different country perspectives on diversity within diversity management.

The chapters present new insights on how the national and macro-social environment impacts the institutional approaches to diversity management across the world. Findings indicate the need for organizations to focus on deep-level diversity, rather than choosing a tick-box policy on surface-level diversity. Empirical studies reveal that every institution can adopt a diversity-friendly approach in a way that best fits their structure, culture and the mentality of their top management team.

The report summarizes and integrates novel insights on country perspectives and approaches on diversity management.

The disintegration of the SFRY, which had its roots in the late 1970s and 1980s (Delevic, 1998), started with the decision of the Slovenian and Croat governments in 1990 to seek independence from Belgrade. The event triggering the outbreak of war in Slovenia was the takeover of Yugoslav custom houses by the Slovenia government, which prompted the YPA to intervene militarily, pitting a well-armed conventional army against the security forces of a nascent state, largely consisting of milita-style Territorial Defense Units (Lucic & Lynch, 1996, pp. 183–185). The EC and the United States moved quickly to impose an arms embargo against Yugoslavia following the military escalation of the crisis in June 1991. This was followed by resolution 713 of the UNSC (1991) imposing a “general and complete embargo on the delivery of weapons and military equipment to Yugoslavia” on 25 September 1991. During this early stage of the conflict, there was agreement among the key international actors (USA, Russia and the EU) that the conflict in Yugoslavia had to be contained and that the breakup of the federal republic should be avoided at all costs, not least because it would set a dangerous precedent for other parts of Eastern Europe. Some permanent members of the Security Council (such as France, Russia and the United Kingdom) sympathized with the Serbian position vis-à-vis the break-away republics and while the decision to apply the arms embargo on Yugoslavia as a whole was justified by the fact that none of the republics had been recognized as a subject of international law, policymakers must have been aware that they were putting Slovenia and Croatia at a military disadvantage through this decision (Lucic & Lynch, 1996, pp. 295–300).