Africa and Europe: a Shared Future
A cura di: Alberto Majocchi
Editore: Peter Lang
Anno di pubblicazione:  2020
ISBN 9782807612952 pb.

 


The contributions collected in this volume are linked by a common thread: the development of Africa is a problem that must be faced and solved by the peoples of the continent, with the aim of consolidating democracy and guaranteeing a future of growth and progressive improvement in the quality of life. However, Europe has a role and a responsibility in this process: after having imposed on Africa the model of the bureaucratic and centralized national state, Europe today can represent a model of integration, on the economic field and, in perspective, on the political terrain. Beyond this, Europe must offer a partnership with the African Union to start a Green New Deal for Europe and Africa together, with the allocation of financial resources, but also technology transfers and infrastructure creation. But in this partnership for growth the initiative must be entrusted to African countries, as was the case for Europe in the case of the Marshall Plan. Europe must impose as a sole condition that their plan be drawn up in common and placed in the perspective of strengthening the process of economic and political integration already started on the Continent.

Albert Einstein from Pacifism to the Idea of World Government
A cura di: Lucio Levi
Editore: Peter Lang
Anno di pubblicazione:  2020
ISBN 9782807612952 pb.

 


Albert Einstein was one of the initiators of the peace movement in Europe in the early twentieth century. He tirelessly denounced the imperfections of society due to the primitive institution of war and devoted his energies to outlawing war. After Hitler’s rise to power, he abandoned pacifism and instead embraced a federalist vision　according to which the root cause of war lies in the division of the world into sovereign states and the vehicle of peace is world government.

 

Keynes’s proposal in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference to found the new international monetary system on a world currency (the "bancor") was rejected and the dollar – convertible into gold – was put at the center of the system. In 1968 the IMF created its own "unit of account" – the SDR – based on a basket of national currencies and, in 1971, president Nixon announced the end of dollar convertibility to gold. In 2008 the financial crisis erupted and in 2016 the renminbi was included in the SDR basket: a new international multi-currency reserve system is emerging. This work offers a synthetic but comprehensive view of the international monetary system’s evolution from an original perspective: the process for reinforcing and stabilizing it through the gradual introduction of a world currency (notably, the SDR).[...]

 This edited book provides a comprehensive and comparative analytical overview of parliamentary bodies and civil society in Africa, both at the regional and national level, and their role in the ongoing regionalisation processes on the African continent. Gathering contributions from African and European experts, the book offers a collection of actual and historical facts and information, critically analyses the evolution, potential and effective place of parliamentary bodies and civil society in the context and development of regional cooperation and integration, and discusses major challenges that still need to be overcome.