This ambitious book provides a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative assessment of Jamaica’s ties to the International Monetary Fund, focusing on Jamaica’s historical relationship with the IMF and reflecting on the domestic and international discourse surrounding the evolution of this relationship. Notably, this volume presents a critical analysis of Jamaica’s first engagement with and departure from the IMF and interrogates the political economy of the period. Jamaica’s economic experiences are assessed in the context of major global events, including the food price crises of 2007 and the global economic crises of 2008 and 2009. This book also looks at policy implications, and its well-researched analysis will be of great value to practitioners and policymakers as well as academics.

This book explores Jamaica’s contemporary relationship with the International Monetary Fund since 2010. It looks at Jamaica’s high debt and its inability to access financial support amidst international capital market restrictions, contextualizing harsh socio-economic realities. This book discusses Jamaica’s second return to the IMF and the resulting network of actors, governance and political and socio-economic efforts to re-engender a relationship with a “new’ IMF. Credibility was restored, demonstrated by and leading to the successful implementation of the 2013 Extended Fund Facility and subsequent exit to a Precautionary Stand-By Arrangement in 2016. Clarke and Nelson signal from their analyses lessons learned, discussing the economic prognosis for Jamaica as well as their relationship with the IMF under the shadow of the COVID pandemic.

"'There and Back Again' by Nelson and Clarke Explores the IMF Jamaica relationship, from 2010 traversing the ebb and flow within Jamaica's socio-political economy, as well as the discourse, practice and governance of both. Bridging the political divide, Vision 2030, engenders dimensions of ownership, multipartite partnership, and modalities of social governance within the IMF programme. Completing the IMF lending relationship, Covid-19- as a fly in the proverbial ointment, leaves the jury out, on Jamaica going 'Back again'" - Lloyd George Waller, Ph.D., Waikato, New Zealand. This book explores the IMF: Jamaica, relationship since 2010, examining Jamaica's high debt and inability to access financial support amidst international capital market restrictions, contextualizing harsh socio-economic realities. With Jamaica's second return to the IMF, actor networks of governance amidst political and socio-economic efforts to re-engender a relationship are foregrounded, with a "new' IMF. Credibility is demonstrated and restored, furthering the success of the 2013 Extended Fund Facility and exit to a Precautionary Stand-By Arrangement in 2016. Clarke and Nelson reveal lessons learned, discussing Jamaica's economic prognosis and the IMF relationship under the shadow of the COVID pandemic. Christine Clarke is Lecturer in Public Policy, Development Economics, and Finance and Development at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. She serves on the Board of the Bank of Jamaica, Jamaica's central bank, and has worked at the Planning Institute of Jamaica in various capacities, from Economic Advisor to the Director-General to the Director of Economic Planning and Research. She earned her PhD in Public Finance from Rice University, USA. Carol Nelson is Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Her first book, Social Partnership and Governance Under Crises captures the development of network relations in furthering governance of the public sector under crisis conditions in the Jamaican context. She holds an MSc in International Policy Analysis from Bath University, a PhD in Government as well as a Professional Certificate in Strategic Climate Change Adaptation.

2‘There and Back Again’ by Nelson and Clarke Explores the IMF Jamaica relationship, from 2010 traversing the ebb and flow within Jamaica’s socio-political economy, as well as the discourse, practice and governance of both. Bridging the political divide, Vision 2030, engenders dimensions of ownership, multipartite partnership, and modalities of social governance within the IMF programme. Completing the IMF lending relationship, Covid-19- as a fly in the proverbial ointment, leaves the jury out, on Jamaica going ‘Back again’3 – Lloyd George Waller, Ph.D., Waikato, New Zealand. This book explores the IMF: Jamaica, relationship since 2010, examining Jamaica’s high debt and inability to access financial support amidst international capital market restrictions, contextualizing harsh socio-economic realities. With Jamaica’s second return to the IMF, actor networks of governance amidst political and socio-economic efforts to re-engender a relationship are foregrounded, with a 2new’ IMF. Credibility is demonstrated and restored, furthering the success of the 2013 Extended Fund Facility and exit to a Precautionary Stand-By Arrangement in 2016. Clarke and Nelson reveal lessons learned, discussing Jamaica’s economic prognosis and the IMF relationship under the shadow of the COVID pandemic. Christine Clarke is Lecturer in Public Policy, Development Economics, and Finance and Development at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. She serves on the Board of the Bank of Jamaica, Jamaica’s central bank, and has worked at the Planning Institute of Jamaica in various capacities, from Economic Advisor to the Director-General to the Director of Economic Planning and Research. She earned her PhD in Public Finance from Rice University, USA. Carol Nelson is Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Her first book, Social Partnership and Governance Under Crises captures the development of network relations in furthering governance of the public sector under crisis conditions in the Jamaican context. She holds an MSc in International Policy Analysis from Bath University, a PhD in Government as well as a Professional Certificate in Strategic Climate Change Adaptation.

The Destructive Path of Neoliberalism: An International Examination, a compilation of twelve essays by leading scholars and educators, sheds light on the social, political, economic, and historical forces behind the rise of neoliberalism, the dominant ideological doctrine impacting developments in schools and other social contexts across the globe for over thirty years. Several authors provide rich empirical data from schools across the globe to capture how neoliberal imperatives, discourses, and practices are impacting teachers, students, and communities at today's historical juncture. Finally, several contributors have developed pedagogical initiatives, suggest policy considerations, and convey theoretical insights designed to assist us in the struggle against the corporatization of schooling and social life. An International Examination of Urban Education: The Destructive Path of Neo-liberalism, by Bradley Porfilio and Curry Malott, is an important and provocative text, indeed; not only for its careful and eloquent theoretical and analytical examination of neo-liberalism and "globalization" in urban educational contexts -- and the dystopic and globally catastrophic consequences of these instantiations of late-capitalism -- but also because it is what its name implies, an international study of these phenomena (a study and critique by those most immediately and directly effected by the "manifest destiny" of capitalist imperialism). As neo-liberalism appears to be both in continued ascendancy and immanent collapse, Porfilio and Malott's text is a must read for every serious student of education, political science and sociology. --Marc Pruyn, New Mexico State University (co-editor, most recently, with Luis Huerta-Charles of De la Pedagogia Critica a la Pedagogia Revolucionaria: Ensayos para Comprender a Peter McLaren from Siglo XXI Press in Mexico).

Social justice is a matter of life and death. It affects the way people live, their consequent chance of illness, and their risk of premature death. We watch in wonder as life expectancy and good health continue to increase in parts of the world and in alarm as they fail to improve in others.