This book evaluates the national implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in ASEAN. Working with country-specific research teams, the contributors compiled detailed case-studies of CRPD implementation in each country in ASEAN. This book presents a detailed overview of the problem, the relevant literature, and the conceptual framework, and then it explores the implementation of the CRPD in each of the ten countries in Southeast Asia. Details include the factors that influenced each country to ratify the CRPD, the focal point structure of implementation, the independent mechanism established to monitor the implementation, and the civil society organizations involved. This book also evaluates the implications of CRPD implementation for human rights and development in ASEAN, including the degree of institutionalized support for persons with disabilities, the development objectives of the CRPD against the strategic objectives of the ASEAN economic community and the broader ASEAN community, and the way these developments compare with those in other countries and regions. Working with country-specific research teams, the editors compiled detailed case-studies of CRPD implementation on each country in ASEAN. This book presents a detailed overview of the problem and the relevant literature. The contributors also offer conclusions on the research and national and ASEAN-level recommendations for moving forward.

Ideology is a ubiquitous, continuously innovating dimension of human experience, but its character and impact are notoriously difficult to pinpoint within political and social life. Political Ideology in Parties, Policy, and Civil Society demonstrates that the reach and significance of political ideology can be most effectively understood by employing a multidisciplinary approach. Offering analyses that are simultaneously empirical and interpretive - in fields as diverse as development assistance policy and game theory - the contributors to this volume reveal ideology's penetration in varied spheres, including government activity, party competition, agricultural and working-class communities, and academic life.

This is the first book-length study of Delta Cooperative Farm (1936-42) and its descendant, Providence Farm (1938-56). The two intentional communities drew on internationalist practices of cooperative communalism and pragmatically challenged Jim Crow segregation and plantation labor. In the winter of 1936, two dozen black and white ex-sharecropping families settled on some two thousand acres in the rural Mississippi Delta, one of the most insular and oppressive regions in the nation. Thus began a twenty-year experiment - across two communities - in interracialism, Christian socialism, cooperative farming, and civil and economic activism. Robert Hunt Ferguson recalls the genesis of Delta and Providence: how they were modeled after cooperative farms in Japan and Soviet Russia and how they rose in reaction to the exploitation of small- scale, dispossessed farmers. Although the staff, volunteers, and residents were very much everyday people - a mix of Christian socialists, political leftists, union organizers, and sharecroppers - the farms had the backing of such leading figures as philanthropist Sherwood Eddy, who purchased the land, and educator Charles Spurgeon Johnson and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who served as trustees. On these farms, residents developed a cooperative economy, operated a desegregated health clinic, held interracial church services and labor union meetings, and managed a credit union. Ferguson tells how a variety of factors related to World War II forced the closing of Delta, while Providence finally succumbed to economic boycotts and outside threats from white racists. Remaking the Rural South shows how a small group of committed people challenged hegemonic social and economic structures by going about their daily routines. Far from living in a closed society, activists at Delta and Providence engaged in a local movement with national and international roots and consequences.

A theoretical examination of the concepts of the citizen, citizenship, and leadership, A Crisis of Leadership and the Role of Citizens in Black America: Leaders of the New School proposes to develop a prototype or model of effective Black leadership. Furthermore, it examines "citizenship habits" of the Black community based on their economic standing, educational attainment, participation in the criminal justice system, and health and family structure. It tracks data in these four categories from 1970 to today, measuring effective leadership by the improvement or decline in the majority of African Americans standing in these four categories. This book concludes that African Americans have negative perceptions of themselves as U.S. citizens, which thus produce "bad citizenship habits." Additionally, ineffective Black leaders since the Civil Rights era have been unwilling to demonstrate the purpose and significance of service, particularly to the poor and disadvantaged members of the Black community. Contemporary Black leaders (post-Civil Rights Era) have focused primarily on self-promotion, careerism, and middle-class interests. A new type of leader is needed, one that stresses unity and reinforces commitment to the group as a whole by establishing new institutions that introduce community-building.

In the digital age, technological solutions are being developed and integrated into every aspect of our everyday lives. The ever-changing scope of research in systems and software advancements allows for further improvements and applications. Systems and Software Development, Modelling, and Analysis: New Perspectives and Methodologies presents diverse, interdisciplinary research on topics pertaining to the management, integration, evaluation, and architecture of modern computational systems and software. Presenting the most up-to-date research in this rapidly evolving field, this title is ideally designed for use by computer engineers, academicians, graduate and post-graduate students, and computer science researchers.

"No state . . . shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." So says the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, a document held dear by Carl Cohen, a professor of philosophy and longtime champion of civil liberties who has devoted most of his adult life to the University of Michigan. So when Cohen discovered, after encountering some resistance, how his school, in its admirable wish to increase minority enrollment, was actually practicing a form of racial discrimination--calling it "affirmative action"--he found himself at odds with his longtime allies and colleagues in an effort to defend the equal treatment of the races at his university. In "A Conflict of Principles" Cohen tells the story of what happened at Michigan, how racial preferences were devised and implemented there, and what was at stake in the heated and divisive controversy that ensued. He gives voice to the judicious and seldom heard liberal argument against affirmative action in college admission policies.

In the early 1970s, as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union, Cohen vigorously supported programs devised to encourage the recruitment of minorities in colleges, and in private employment. But some of these efforts gave deliberate preference to blacks and Hispanics seeking university admission, and this Cohen recognized as a form of racism, however well-meaning. In his book he recounts the fortunes of contested affirmative action programs as they made their way through the legal system to the Supreme Court, beginning with "DeFunis v. Odegaard" (1974) at the University of Washington Law School, then "Bakke v. Regents of the University of California" (1978) at the Medical School on the UC Davis campus, and culminating at the University of Michigan in the landmark cases of "Grutter v. Bollinger" and "Gratz v. Bollinger" (2003). He recounts his role in the initiation of the Michigan cases, explaining the many arguments against racial preferences in college admissions. He presents a principled case for the resultant amendment to the Michigan constitution, of which he was a prominent advocate, which prohibited preference by race in public employment and public contracting, as well as in public education.

An eminently readable personal, consistently fair-minded account of the principles and politics that come into play in the struggles over affirmative action, "A Conflict of Principles" is a deeply thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution to our national conversation about race.

This collection of original essays and commentary considers not merely how history has shaped the continuing struggle for racial equality, but also how backlash and resistance to racial reforms continue to dictate the state of race in America. Informed by a broad historical perspective, this book focuses primarily on the promise of Reconstruction, and the long demise of that promise. It traces the history of struggles for racial justice from the post US Civil War Reconstruction through the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights decades of the 1950s and 1960s to the present day. The book uses psychological, historical and political perspectives to put today?s struggles for justice in historical perspective, considering intersecting dynamics of race and class in inequality and the different ways that different people understand history. Ultimately, the authors question Martin Luther King, Jr.?s contention that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, challenging portrayals of race relations and the realization of civil rights laws as a triumph narrative. Scholars in history, political science and psychology as well as graduate students in these fields can use the issues explored in this book as a foundation for their own work on race, justice and American history. Contributors include: E.L. Ayers, T.J. Brown, S. Fein, C.N. Harold, J.M. Hayter, C.F. Irons, J.P. Thompson, E.R. Varon, K.E. Williams, E.S. Yellin

The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of W. E. B. Du Bois from renowned scholar David Levering Lewis, now in one condensed and updated volume

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois--the premier architect of the civil rights movement in America--was a towering and controversial personality, a fiercely proud individual blessed with the language of the poet and the impatience of the agitator. Now, David Levering Lewis has carved one volume out of his superlative two-volume biography of this monumental figure that set the standard for historical scholarship on this era. In his magisterial prose, Lewis chronicles Du Bois's long and storied career, detailing the momentous contributions to our national character that still echo today.

New media forums have created a unique opportunity for citizens to participate in a variety of social and political contexts. As new social technologies are being utilized in a variety of ways, the public is able to interact more effectively in activities within their communities. The Handbook of Research on Citizen Engagement and Public Participation in the Era of New Media addresses opportunities and challenges in the theory and practice of public involvement in social media. Highlighting various communication modes and best practices being utilized in citizen-involvement activities, this book is a critical reference source for professionals, consultants, university teachers, practitioners, community organizers, government administrators, citizens, and activists.

Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. In recent decades, however, the nation's religious landscape has undergone several seismic shocks. "American Grace "is an authoritative, fascinating examination of what precipitated these changes and the role that religion plays in contemporary American society.
Although there is growing polarization between religious conservatives and secular liberals today, at the same time personal interfaith ties are strengthening. Interfaith marriage has increased, and religious identities have become more fluid. More people than ever are friendly with someone of a different faith or no faith at all. Putnam and Campbell show how this denser web of personal ties brings greater interfaith tolerance, despite the so-called culture wars.
Based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America (and with a new epilogue based on a third survey), "American Grace "is an indispensable book about American religious life, essential for understanding our nation today.

New media forums have created a unique opportunity for citizens to participate in a variety of social and political contexts. The public is able to interact more effectively in activities within their communities as new technologies are being created and utilized. Technology and the New Generation of Active Citizens: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a pivotal reference source for the latest research findings on the use of information and communication technologies for active citizen engagement. Featuring extensive coverage on relevant areas such as digital competence framework, multimedia, and social media, this publication is an ideal resource for professionals, consultants, university teachers, practitioners, community organizers, government administrators, citizens, and activists.

Sarah Dauncey offers the first comprehensive exploration of disability and citizenship in Chinese society and culture from 1949 to the present. Through the analysis of a wide variety of Chinese sources, from film and documentary to literature and life writing, media and state documents, she sheds important new light on the ways in which disability and disabled identities have been represented and negotiated over this time. She exposes the standards against which disabled people have been held as the Chinese state has grappled with expectations of what makes the 'ideal' Chinese citizen. From this, she proposes an exciting new theoretical framework for understanding disabled citizenship in different societies - 'para-citizenship'. A far more dynamic relationship of identity and belonging than previously imagined, her new reading synthesises the often troubling contradictions of citizenship for disabled people - the perils of bodily and mental difference and the potential for personal and group empowerment.

In his lead essay, Tully applies his distinctive philosophy to the global field of citizenship. The second part of the book contains responses from influential interlocutors including Bonnie Honig and Marc Stears, David Owen and Adam Dunn, Aletta Norval, Antony Laden, and Duncan Bell. These provide a commentary not just on the ideas contained in this volume, but on Tully's approach to political philosophy more generally, thus making the book an ideal first source for academics and students wishing to engage with Tully's work. The volume closes with a response from Tully to his interlocutors. This is the opening volume in Bloomsbury's Critical Powers series of dialogues between authors and their critics. It offers a stimulating read for students and scholars of political theory and philosophy, especially those engaged with questions of citizenship. It is an ideal first source for academics and students wishing to engage with Tully's work.