This book offers an inside look at the principal decision makers and the major legal and constitutional decisions made in the Department of Justice under Attorney General Edwin Meese. This unique perspective is offered by Douglas Kmiec, former assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). His story is a fascinating chronicle and analysis of the significant issues addressed during and since the Reagan years. These important issues include: the controversy over methods of constitutional interpretation; the legitimacy of independent counsels; efforts by the president to control executive agencies and to keep Congress in check; family issues, including abortion, AIDS, limitations on pornography, and school choice; the protection of property and economic liberty; the declining role of state and local governments; quotas, affirmative action, and civil rights; the continuing saga of Iran-Contra; and contemporary calls for ethics reform.

Important as a historical and legal analysis of the Reagan years, this work will be of interest to scholars and readers concerned with contemporary social and constitutional issues, the ramifications of the Reagan presidency, and how things have changed under George Bush. It is also the first revealing look at constitutional decisionmaking within OLC, an office that counts among its alumni the present Attorney General and two members of the Supreme Court.

Government experts provide the first reference history of the Executive Office of the President from its establishment in 1939 through the Bush Administration. Eleven chapters analyze the concept behind the office, its organization and reorganization, and how it developed over the last 55 years in terms of the broad functions that it serves. Chapters offer a careful, dispassionate survey of the office in terms of budget, management, and personnel; economics; national security; science and technology; exigency and emergency; resources development; domestic policy planning; the office of the Vice-President; and reorganizations, presidential style, and staffing matters. This reference is enriched also by biographical profiles of important staff members in the office during the last half-century, descriptions of different agencies, a chronology, and a bibliography. Designed for political scientists, public administrators, and historians, this study is invaluable for students and scholars, policymakers and public administrators, governmental and non-governmental professionals. Government experts provide a thorough and detailed overview of the development of the Executive Office and its components, with related research references. Part I consists of nine authored chapters which explore the creation of the Executive Office, its organization and reorganization, and, within broad functional areas-including budgeting, management and personnel, economics, national security, science and technology, exigency and emergency, resources development, and domestic policy and planning-its primary agencies. Two additional chapters are devoted respectively to the White House Office and the Office of the Vice-President. Throughout these accounts, ample references provide guidance to relevant source materials and authorities. Part II includes profiles of the principal units of the Executive Office and biographical sketches of a large representative sample of the leaders of those units as well as the senior staff of the White House Office. A chronology of Executive Office organizational developments and statistical data, together with a comprehensive bibliography, further enrich this sourcebook, designed to assist the conduct of studies and research by interested readers in the fields of government and history.

Vallance gives a current picture of the American drug problem and the ideological base that maintains it. The author analyzes economic and social costs of the drug problem, including the costs incurred by the recent war on drugs. Reporting the most recent economic cost data on the drug problem, the book states criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of current U.S. drug policy and then discusses its successes and failures. A search for alternatives and options leads to an analysis of values and desirable goals for a new policy orientation, followed by a set of recommendations on how policy change might be wrought. Appendices show reform-oriented organizations, summarize over a dozen commission reports on drug issues, and list major current laws that guide official policy.

The collective message of this compendium is caution: don't put excessive pressure on African institutions. Sayre Schatz, Ravi Gulhati and Satya Yalamanchili, and Raymond Hopkins, in particular, argue that laissez-faire won't work in Africa; that reforms must be carefully sequenced; and that evidence on the relationship between food subsidies and declining agricultural productivity is scanty. Foreign Affairs This collection of essays was assembled to address the problems of Africa from a variety of perspectives. The contributors have attempted to ask some basic but up-to-now unaddressed questions and to reframe many of the issues. The overall approach is intentionally interdisciplinary. Although recognizing that Africa's economic decline has resulted from poorly designed policy, the contributors also attempt to place that policy in its historical and cultural context. Similarly, they establish a comparative perspective for Africa's economic performance, and point to outside forces that have been overlooked. Finally, the contributors investigate some key issues in agricultural policy, such as decentralization, the role of women, and food subsidies.

This study examines the administrative tools and techniques that U.S. presidents have used to influence environmental policy. A major portion of the book assesses current techniques and recent administrations, particularly Reagan, Carter, and Bush strategies. Experts, students, policymakers, and activists concerned with public policy and environmental issues will find this unique study invaluable for understanding the administrative procedures, the powers, and the limitations of the administrative presidency. Robert Shanley opens with a brief overview of how presidents have affected conservation policy in the first part of the century and then discusses the more complex environmental policymaking in recent administrations. Focusing on the Reagan administration, he shows how it controlled the flow of agency information and the gathering of statistical data to curb agency policy and enforcement, and then traces the reaction of Congress and the Federal Courts to these initiatives. He demonstrates how presidential executive orders may significantly affect environmental policy and then contrasts different perspectives of the Carter and Reagan administrations on risk assessment and on various agency programs. Shanley goes on to discuss Bush's record and his efforts to work out compromises between environmental and economic interests. Finally, Shanley posits that administrative procedures are often counter-productive in the long term. The book concludes with an overview of the resources at the disposal of presidents today and the problems confronting national leaders in initiating and shaping environmental policy.

This book consists of notes of conversations by one of America's leading Latin Americanists, as well as his correspondence with more than two dozen presidents of the Central American republics, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. In some cases, there are numerous conversations and letters with individual chief executives; in other instances, there are only individual conversations or notes on talks which the author heard. Each entry reflects the thinking of the person involved at the time of the interview or letter and many shed light on the activities of the individual presidents. Before the items dealing with each particular country, Alexander provides introductory notes, giving information on the individuals dealt with in that country as well as the circumstances of the letters and conversations. These materials, together with those contained in earlier volumes dealing with South America, provide students of 20th-century Latin America unique insight into its political leadership and its history from the 1940s onward.

This comprehensive volume examines the historic and contemporary role of the state legislatures and assemblies of all 50 states, offering insight into important details of how each of these legislative bodies functions. The Legislative Branch of State Government: People, Process, and Politics is one of three titles in ABC-CLIO's About State Government set, offering comprehensive coverage of contemporary American politics at the state level. Each of the three volumes focuses on a specific governmental branch, providing both general information and comparative details on how that branch operates in each state. Ranging from colonial times to the present, this volume takes a broad look at how the nation's state legislative institutions have evolved and operate. Combined with the other two volumes in the set, a clear overview of state government emerges. The Legislative Branch of State Government covers the historical, constitutional, and political environment in which state legislatures exist, then focuses on their functions and processes, the people who serve in them, and their interaction with other key political institutions. A concluding chapter looks at characteristics that make each of the 50 state legislative bodies fascinating and unique. A narrative chronology of the development of state legislatures in America from the colonial era to the present, including remarkable stories and traditions of the nation's legislative bodies Easy-to-follow graphics depicting, for example, how a bill becomes a law and how the separation of powers and the principle of checks and balances define the relationship among the branches of government

The Supreme Court has final authority in determining what the Constitution means. The Court's findings have not, however, always been final. Lively focuses on several landmark dissenting opinions--resisted initially--later redefining the meaning of the Constitution. Each opinion arises from a rich historical context and involves constitutional issues of pointed significance. Vivid descriptions of some of the colorful personalities behind the opinions add appeal. Lively conveys the evolutionary and dynamic nature of the law demonstrating the relationship between present and past understanding of the Constitution. He describes the competitive nature of constitutional development and identifies the relevance of factors including subjective preference, values, vying theories, and ideologies.

The role of the Court, is addressed as are the federal government's relationship to the states and their citizens; slavery; property rights; substantive due process; freedom of speech; and the right to be left alone. This is a clearly presented and highly instructive consideration of how the Constitution's interpretation has been fashioned over time with important insights relevant to today's Court and contemporary cases.

The Latin American narcotics trade is an important national security issue for the United States because it is destabilizing important Latin American allies and creating serious social problems within the United States. Frustration with the inability to block the flow of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin from Latin America prompted passage of major national anti-drug laws in 1986 and 1988. Throughout the decade, United States narcotics policy has created serious friction between the United States and Latin America yet, according to Mabry, it essentially has failed in its goals. Nine experts on this subject deal with the major issues of United States narcotics policy and offer recommendations for future action. The history of the United States narcotics policy, the nature of the trade, the debate over the use of the United States military in interdiction efforts, the role of Congress in making policy, and the origin and implementation of narcotics policy, be it directed against a specific nation or against the entire region, are presented. In addition, the book also contains a List of Tables covering: Consumption of Drugs, and Columbian Trafficker's Investment Preferences. An extensive bibliography is included designed to give other scholars and those interested in this issue an excellent start for further research.

The debut of a brand-new civics series for high school seniors and college freshmen that clearly, concisely, and cleverly explains how the United States elects its president.

Policing, environmental protection, and tax administration have much more in common than practitioners in these areas often recognize. Their cultures and traditions have, for the past few decades, incorporated a classic enforcement mentality, based on the underlying assumption that a ruthless and efficient investigative and enforcement capability would produce compliance through the mechanisms of deterrence. In these fields, and perhaps in many other enforcement or compliance oriented professions, Sparrow believes the traditional enforcement approach is under stress. There are too many violators, too many laws to be enforced, and not enough resources to get the job done.

In this book, Sparrow draws out remarkable parallels in the ways these professions are adapting to meet their current challenges, as they reject their traditional reliance on retrospective, case-by-case, after-the-fact enforcement. Rather than perpetuating their dependence on processes, procedures, and coverage, these professions are each developing new capacities for analyzing important patterns of noncompliance, prioritizing risks, and designing intelligent interventions using a much broader range of tools. Sparrow extracts the essence of the transformations underway, explores the critical implications for information management, and lays out the issues that need resolution before the emerging compliance strategies can reach maturity. This book is required reading for all those concerned with either the theory or the practice of the compliance side of government.

Examining affirmative action and its history through these 400 documents that trace its roots and development, this work is an invaluable reference resource. Race, gender, and disability, as they pertaing to affirmative action, are also explored. By providing a thorough presentation of the arguments both for and against, this reference encourages critical thinking as it details the ins and outs of the debate.

From government reports to cartoons, high school and college students will find multiple perspectives on affirmative action. They can view the issue through the eyes of law-makers, judges, presidents, activists, the media, social scientists, those who have benefited from it, and those who have been threatened by it. They can also discover its application in a myriad of disciplines from sports to education to business to the arts. An explanatory introduction precedes each document to aid readers in understanding the various arguments that have been put forth in this debate, providing the researcher with accessible references to all sides of the subject.

Due to the demand for flexible working hours and employees who are available around the clock, the time patterns of childcare and schooling have increasingly become a political issue. Comparing the development of different 'time policies' of half-day and all-day provisions in a variety of Eastern and Western European countries since the end of World War II, this innovative volume brings together internationally known experts from the fields of comparative education, history, and the social and political sciences, and makes a significant contribution to this new interdisciplinary field of comparative study.

In this new fifth edition, there is a strong focus on the increasing concern over infrastructure resilience from the threat of serious storms, human activity, and population growth. The new edition also looks technologies that urban transportation planners are increasingly focused on, such as vehicle to vehicle communications and driver-less cars, which have the potential to radically improve transportation. This book also investigates the effects of transportation on the health of travelers and the general public, and the ways in which these concerns have become additional factors in the transportation and infrastructure planning and policy process. The development of U.S. urban transportation policy over the past half-century illustrates the changing relationships among federal, state, and local governments. This comprehensive text examines the evolution of urban transportation planning from early developments in highway planning in the 1930s to today's concerns over sustainable development, security, and pollution control. Highlighting major national events, the book examines the influence of legislation, regulations, conferences, federal programs, and advances in planning procedures and technology. The volume provides in-depth coverage of the most significant event in transportation planning, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962, which created a federal mandate for a comprehensive urban transportation planning process, carried out cooperatively by states and local governments with federal funding. Claiming that urban transportation planning is more sophisticated, costly, and complex than its highway and transit planning predecessors, the book demonstrates how urban transportation planning evolved in response to changes in such factors as the environment, energy, development patterns, intergovernmental coordination, and federal transit programs. This new edition includes analyses of the growing threats to infrastructure, new projects in infrastructure resilience, the promise of new technologies to improve urban transportation, and the recent shifts in U.S. transportation policy. This book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in transportation legislation and policy, eco-justice, and regional and urban planning.

A volume in Educational Policy and Law Series Editors: Kevin G. Welner and Wendy C. Chi, University of Colorado at Boulder Educational policy controversies in the United States invariably implicate legal issues. Policy debates about testing and school choice, for example, cannot be disentangled from legal rights and mandates. The same is true for issues such as funding, campus safety, speech and religion rights, as well as the teaching of immigrant students. Written for a general audience, this new twelve-chapter book explores these compelling educational policy issues through that legal lens, building an understanding of both law and policy. The book's editors are Kevin Welner, associate professor of educational policy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Wendy Chi, a doctoral candidate at Boulder. Both Welner and Chi are lawyers as well as educational scholars.

This expertly prepared policy issues handbook surveys the changing workplace and the failures of America's public health and education systems to prepare the future work force to compete at home and abroad. Carl Stenberg and William Colman analyze the key issues; review a mass of information, ideas, and insights about policy options that are available; and assess their pros and cons. Students, teachers, administrators, policymakers, and concerned citizens will find a wealth of clearly presented data along with careful analyses of the major proposals for reform. Figures, tables, short summaries, appendices, bibliographical aids, and a full index make this one-volume landmark reference accessible to researchers and readers at different levels and for varied use.

American politics is in a state of crisis but it is not clear why. Nor do we know what to do about it. Reinhold Niebuhr helps us understand what is wrong with our politics and research into the workings of the brain confirms his analysis. Call it sin or motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, the bottom line is that all of us are what Niebuhr calls "Children of Light." We are all vain and self-righteous about our beliefs and values, and far too quick to reject any information that goes against them. The unprecedented rise of talk radio and cable news helps to account for why things are so bad. We all want to hear that our group is smarter and more moral than others. To restore a democracy that functions, we need to understand ourselves better and develop the humility that such knowledge should engender.

This new work offers a substantive political theory approach to organizational theory. It differs significantly from most organizational perspectives in that it applies political theory to four prevalent organizational models found in administration today. Most such models fall within the province of government or corporate management and fail to deal with the democratic and public dimensions of organization. In this study, Davis examines various organizational theories' prospects to generate authentic public organization. He also suggests alternative considerations by which to facilitate more genuine public organization. An important contribution to the literature in organizational theory and public administration, this work will be of interest to scholars and students in these and related fields.

This unique study focuses upon a specific component of American presidential rhetoric--how presidents depict the office--and relates that rhetorical tactic to broader questions of politics, public opinion, political symbolism, and presidential power. The work analyzes this specific rhetorical component longitudinally, examining a president's depiction of the office during the presidential campaign, throughout his term in office, and after leaving office. By presenting and analyzing generous examples of presidential rhetoric--from Lyndon Johnson through Bill Clinton--Zernicke offers a revealing look at the symbolic power of the presidency and the use of that power in political terms.

After leading a regional office in Africa that studied ticks and tick-borne diseases, Rupert Pegram received a call in 1994 that changed his life. His higher ups wanted him to lead a new program in the Caribbean. The Caribbean Amblyomma Program, known as the CAP, sought to eliminate the Amblyomma tick from the Caribbean region. The stakes were high because ticks transmit terrible diseases. Today, the tropical pest introduced from Africa threatens to invade large areas of the south and central parts of North America. By learning about the progress, setbacks, political and financial constraints, and final heartbreak of failure in the Caribbean, the rest of world can discover how to fight the growing problem. Learn why the CAP program failed and how the Caribbean farmers who were let down by the program suffered. This history and analysis conveys the need to re-establish vigorous research to eradicate tick-borne illnesses. Ticks are invading the larger world, and there are serious implications. They found much of their strength during Thirteen Years of Hell in Paradise.