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This chapter builds on Susan Okin's deep commitment to gender equality, exploring whether globalization can be “reinvented” in a way that would help to promote gender equality in developing countries. This chapter argues that feminist social movements are wise not to reject globalization but to use the opportunities it provided to promote gender equality. This chapter differentiates among institutions that may be more or less open to change. In particular it argues that the World Bank has shown itself to be more open to change than some other global institutions, and feminists might do well to engage it while at the same time maintaining a healthy critical distance from it.

This chapter examines the specific beliefs and actions of German leaders in the Weltpolitik era to determine whether and how status concerns motivated German decision making during the period. It first provides an overview of the origins and character of Germany's world policy as well as the roots of German status dissatisfaction before testing a number of predictions that status dissatisfaction theory generates for the case of German foreign policy during the Weltpolitik era. It shows that German leaders, driven by the strong belief that they were not accorded the status they deserved, formulated a grand strategy intended to raise their international profile through the instigation of major and minor international crises designed to coerce status concessions from Britain, France, and Russia. The chapter argues that the policies associated with Weltpolitik are designed to coerce other states into ceding status to Germany.

This chapter describes the low-income home-repair policy in Philadelphia from the applicant's point of view and presents in-depth profiles of three homeowners who sought assistance for their respective home repair and maintenance needs. It considers the way that lay perspectives and individual stories can be told in a research project and in a policy arena. It presents the results of the field interviews conducted by social work researchers involved in the Women's Community Revitalization Project (WCRP) with low-income homeowners, advocates, and key informants in the local policy arena and demonstrates how qualitative research can contextualize quantitative data and thus provide a more nuanced and concrete understanding of what the “numbers” mean to people and policymakers. The chapter also explains the WCRP's “everyday world policy analysis” and highlights the richness of the mixed-method research approach.

This chapter discusses the “life” and “earth” dynamic that eventually found a new name in the twentieth century—ecology, a “biological economics” that is preoccupied with studying the interactions between population and environment. Ecology carries the broader strains of holism, as it encompasses shared communities and resources functioning as a whole. Cosmopolitanism is built on the same holism as ecology; and, sensing the political implications described within the domain of ecology, the neo-Malthusians of the twentieth century have begun marrying the economics of ecology with the politics of cosmopolitanism. In the wake of the two World Wars they have found a particularly strong imperative to prevent further conflict, as the question of war is frequently one of population. Within the holistic perspectives engendered in a politicized ecology, the neo-Malthusians had hoped to create a viable world population policy that would minimize waste and maximize the quality of resources.

After the Second World War, slum clearance and redevelopment programmes in France led to the building of large social housing estates on the outskirts of major cities. A policy of rehabilitating older housing was introduced in the 1970s, and the National Housing Agency (ANAH) was created to promote the improvement of older private dwellings. Meanwhile, one view emphasised the heritage value of older housing and its traditional function in the housing market; another wanted to restore the appearance of older buildings, while rehousing their residents elsewhere. The abandonment in the 1970s of the construction of large social housing estates and the focus on poverty in urban areas supported policies for the renewal of older private housing, and of the towers and blocks of the social housing estates; and aimed for less segregation and a better social mix in housing. The implementation of these policies is shown through case studies of two housing renewal areas in Paris: La Goutte d’Or in the 18^th arrondissement, an area of poor quality late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century working-class housing with a large minority ethnic population; and Porte Pouchet in the 17^th arrondissement, a 1950s–60s social housing development of towers and blocks close to the city boundary. The two areas illustrate different approaches to housing renewal and their contrasting outcomes.

This chapter considers Freedman’s contribution to scholarship and the nascent elements of a school of thought relevant to both academic and policy realms, as well as introducing a more skeptical and critical approach to the subject’s scholarship. It considers Freedman’s engagement with the policy world and why this has managed to be both extensive and successful, as well as its outcomes. It also introduces discussion of possible challenges to Freedman’s work, presenting a balancing perspective to positive appreciations of his oeuvre. The chapter concludes by indicating the weaknesses of such challenges and reaffirms the sense of a school of thought informed by a distinctive approach. This is the blend of scripturalism and constructivism, on one side, with realism, on the other, that is the hallmark of the nascent school, and the way in which it is germane in both academic and policy domains.