In an era of systemic crisis and of global critiques of the unsustainable perpetuation of capitalism, Pervasive Powers: The Politics of Corporate Authority critically questions the conditions for the maintenance and expansion of corporate power. The book explores empirical case studies in the realms of finance, urban policies, automobile safety, environmental risk, agriculture, and food in western democracies. It renews understanding of the power of big business, focusing on how the study of temporalities, of multi-sited influence and of sociotechnical tools is crucial to an analysis of the evolution of corporate authority. Drawing on different literatures, ranging from research on business associations and global governance to that on the social production of ignorance or on corporate crime, this book aims at contributing to existing works on the capacity of corporations to rule the world. Unlike approaches focused on economic elites and on the political activities of firms, it goes beyond analysis of the power of corporations to influence policy-making to depict their unprecedented capacity to transform and shape the social world. Operating in numerous social spaces and mobilizing a wide range of strategies, corporate organizations have acquired the pervasive power to act far beyond mere spaces of regulation and government. Based on contributions from historians, science and technology studies scholars, sociologists and political scientists, this book will be of great interest to researchers, academics and students who wish to understand how corporations exert a pervasive influence on public policies, and to NGOs and regulatory agencies.

Media coverage of scientific issues is a highly complex process. It involves making a specialized field accessible to the general public, without necessarily disseminating the associated scientific terms or knowledge. The terminological interactions between press discourses and scientific knowledge are presented within the field of agroecology. The analysis of textual data focuses on articles in the general press in French and English, devoted to plant protection practices using natural mechanisms (biological control). This book provides a terminological and cognitive overview of the issues involved in popularizing science in a rapidly expanding field, and of the challenges to be met in the constantly evolving environmental communication sector.

Thrips (fhysanoptera) are very small insects, widespread throughout the world with a preponderance of tropical species, many temperate ones, and even a few living in arctic regions. Of the approximately 5,000 species so far identified, only a few hundred are crop pests, causing serious damage or transmitting diseases to growing crops and harvestable produce in most countries. Their fringed wings confer a natural ability to disperse widely, blown by the wind. Their minute size and cryptic behavior make them difficult to detect either in the field or in fresh vegetation transported during international trade of vegetables, fruit and ornamental flowers. Many species have now spread from their original natural habitats and hosts to favorable new environments where they often reproduce rapidly to develop intense damaging infestations that are costly to control. Over the past decade there have been several spectacular examples of this. The western flower thrips has expanded its range from the North American continent to Europe, Australia and South Africa. Thrips palmi has spread from its presumed origin, the island of Sumatra, to the coast of Florida, and threatens to extend its distribution throughout North and South America. Pear thrips, a known orchard pest of Europe and the western United States and Canada has recently become a major defoliator of hardwood trees in Vermont and the neighboring states. Local outbreaks of other species are also becoming problems in field and glasshouse crops as the effectiveness of insecticides against them decline.

Fungicides are a class of pesticides used for killing or inhibiting the growth of fungus. They are extensively used in pharmaceutical industry, agriculture, in protection of seed during storage and in preventing the growth of fungi that produce toxins. Hence, fungicides production is constantly increasing as a result of their great importance to agriculture. Some fungicides affect humans and beneficial microorganisms including insects, birds and fish thus public concern about their effects is increasing day by day. In order to enrich the knowledge on beneficial and adverse effects of fungicides this book encompasses various aspects of the fungicides including fungicide resistance, mode of action, management fungal pathogens and defense mechanisms, ill effects of fungicides interfering the endocrine system, combined application of various fungicides and the need of GRAS (generally recognized as safe) fungicides. This volume will be useful source of information on fungicides for post graduate students, researchers, agriculturists, environmentalists and decision makers.