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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Comparative politics
The advent of the all-volunteer force and the evolving nature of
modern warfare have transformed our military, changing it in
serious if subtle ways that few Americans are aware of. Edited by
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy, this stimulating
volume brings together insights from a remarkable group of
scholars, who shed important new light on the changes effecting
today's armed forces. Beginning with a Foreword by former Secretary
of Defense William J. Perry, the contributors take an historical
approach as they explore the ever-changing strategic, political,
and fiscal contexts in which the armed forces are trained and
deployed, and the constantly shifting objectives that they are
tasked to achieve in the post-9/11 environment. They also offer
strong points of view. Lawrence Freedman, for instance, takes the
leadership to task for uncritically embracing the high-tech
Revolution in Military Affairs when "conventional" warfare seems
increasingly unlikely. And eminent psychiatrist Jonathan Shay warns
that the post-battle effects of what he terms "moral wounds"
currently receive inadequate attention from the military and the
medical profession. Perhaps most troubling, Karl Eikenberry raises
the issue of the "political ownership" of the military in an era of
all-volunteer service, citing the argument that, absent the
political protest common to the draft era, government
decision-makers felt free to carry out military operations in both
Iraq and Afghanistan. Andrew Bacevich goes further, writing that
"it's no longer our army; it hasn't been for years; it's theirs
[the government's] and they intend to keep it." Looking at such
issues as who serves and why, the impact of non-uniformed
"contractors" in the war zone, and the growing role of women in
combat, this volume brings together leading thinkers who illuminate
the American military at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Public Security in Federal Polities is the first systematic and
methodical study to bring together the fields of security studies
and comparative federalism. The volume explores the symbiotic
relationship between public security concerns and institutional
design, public administration, and public policy across nine
federal country case studies: Brazil, Canada, Germany, India,
Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. In
addressing specific national security concerns and aspects of
globalization that are challenging conventional approaches to
global, international, regional, and domestic security, this volume
examines how the constitutional and institutional framework of a
society affects the effectiveness and efficiency of public security
arrangements. Public Security in Federal Polities identifies
differences and similarities, highlights best practices, and draws
out lessons for both particular federations, and for federal
systems in general. This book is essential reading for scholars,
students, practitioners as well as policy- and decision-makers of
security and federalism.
Since the 1920s, Socialist and Communist parties in Europe and
elsewhere have engaged in episodes of both rivalry and cooperation,
with each seeking to dominate the European Left. Enemy Brothers
analyzes how this relationship has developed over the past century,
focusing on France, Italy, and Spain, where Socialists and
Communists have been politically important. Drawing on fieldwork
and interviews in all three nations, W. Rand Smith identifies the
critical junctures that these parties faced and the strategic
choices they made, especially regarding alliance partners. In
explaining the parties' diverse alliance strategies, Enemy Brothers
stresses the impact of institutional arrangements, party culture,
and leadership.
Punishing the Black Body examines the punitive and disciplinary
technologies and ideologies embraced by ruling white elites in
nineteenth-century Barbados and Jamaica. Among studies of the
Caribbean on similar topics, this is the first to look at the
meanings inscribed on the raced, gendered, and classed bodies on
the receiving end of punishment. Dawn P. Harris uses theories of
the body to detail the ways colonial states and their agents
appropriated physicality to debase the black body, assert the
inviolability of the white body, and demarcate the social
boundaries between them.,br> Noting marked demographic and
geographic differences between Jamaica and Barbados, as well as any
number of changes within the separate economic, political, and
social trajectories of each island, Harris still finds that
societal infractions by the subaltern populations of both islands
brought on draconian forms of punishments aimed at maintaining the
socio-racial hierarchy. Her investigation ranges across such topics
as hair-cropping, the 1836 Emigration Act of Barbados and other
punitive legislation, the state reprisals following the 1865 Morant
Bay Rebellion in Jamaica, the use of the whip and the treadmill in
jails and houses of correction, and methods of surveillance,
policing, and limiting free movement. By focusing on meanings
ascribed to the disciplined and punished body, Harris reminds us
that the transitions between slavery, apprenticeship, and
post-emancipation were not just a series of abstract phenomena
signaling shifts in the prevailing order of things. For a large
part of these islands' populations, these times of dramatic change
were physically felt.
Although there has been a lot written about how counter-terrorism
laws impact on human rights and civil liberties, most of this work
has focussed on the most obvious or egregious kinds of human rights
abrogation, such as extended detention, torture, and extraordinary
rendition. Far less has been written about the complex ways in
which Western governments have placed new and far-reaching
limitations on freedom of speech in this context since 9/11. This
book compares three liberal democracies - the United States, the
United Kingdom and Australia, in particular showing the
commonalities and similarities in what has occurred in each
country, and the changes in the appropriate parameters of freedom
of speech in the counter-terrorism context since 9/11, achieved
both in policy change and the justification for that change. In all
three countries much speech has been criminalized in ways that were
considered anachronistic, or inappropriate, in comparable policy
areas prior to 9/11. This is particularly interesting because other
works have suggested that the United States' unique protection of
freedom of speech in the First Amendment has prevented speech being
limited in that country in ways that have been pursued in others.
This book shows that this kind of argument misses the detail of the
policy change that has occurred, and privileges a textual reading
over a more comprehensive policy-based understanding of the changes
that have occurred. The author argues that we are now living a
new-normal for freedom of speech, within which restrictions on
speech that once would have been considered aberrant, overreaching,
and impermissible are now considered ordinary, necessary, and
justified as long as they occur in the counter-terrorism context.
This change is persistent, and it has far reaching implications for
the future of this foundational freedom.
Political Action Committees (PACs) are a prominent and contentious
feature of modern American election campaigns. As organizations
that channel money toward political candidates and causes, their
influence in recent decades has been widely noted and often
decried. Yet, there has been no comprehensive history compiled of
their origins, development, and impact over time. In The Rise of
Political Action Committees, Emily J. Charnock addresses this gap,
telling a story with much deeper roots than contemporary
commentators might expect. Documenting the first wave of PAC
formation from the early 1940s to the mid-1960s, when major
interest groups began creating them, she shows how PACs were
envisaged from the outset as much more than a means of winning
elections, but as tools for effecting ideological change in the two
main parties. In doing so, Charnock not only locates the rise of
PACs within the larger story of interest group electioneering -
which went from something rare and controversial at the beginning
of the 20th Century to ubiquitous today - but also within the
narrative of political polarization. Throughout, she offers a full
picture of PACs as far more than financial vehicles, showing how
they were electoral innovators who pioneered strategies and tactics
that came to pervade modern US campaigns and reshape American
politics. A broad-ranging political history of an understudied
American campaign phenomenon, this book contextualizes the power
and purpose of PACs, while revealing their transformative role
within the American party system - helping to foster the partisan
polarization we see today.
In Looking Forward, Marifeli Perez-Stable and her colleagues
imagine Cuba's future after the "poof moment"-Jorge I. Dominguez's
vivid phrase-when the current regime will no longer exist. Written
in an accessible style that will appeal to all interested readers,
this volume does not try to predict how and when the Castro regime
will end, but instead considers the possible consequences of
change. Each chapter-prepared by an expert in the field-takes up a
basic issue: politics, the military, the legal system, civil
society, gender, race, economic transition strategies, social
policy and social welfare, corruption, the diaspora, memory,
ideology and culture, and U.S.-Cuba relations. The author of each
chapter considers three questions: How have other new democracies
handled the basic issue in question? How might Cuba's unique
conditions affect this area in transition? What are the likely
outcomes and alternatives for a Cuba in transition? Designed with
students, policy-makers, and journalists in mind, this lively and
accessible volume is an essential resource.
Nationalist movements remain a force in contemporary American
politics, regardless of political party. Recently, social issues
have moved to the forefront of American society, and civilian
participation in activism is at an all time high. The nationalism
that the world started to experience pre-2016, but much more
intently post-2016, has impacted international alliances, global
strategies, and threatened the fragile stability that had been
established in the post-September 11th world. Major political
events in more recent times, such as the American election, have
brought social issues into stark focus along with placing a
spotlight on politics and nationalism in general. Thus, there is an
updated need for research on the most current advances and
information on nationalism, social movements, and activism in
modern times. Global Politics, Political Participation, and the
Rise of Nationalism: Emerging Research and Opportunities discusses
the ways in which nationalism and nationalist ideologies have
permeated throughout America and the international community. This
work considers the rise of neo-nationalism stemming from the Tea
Party in the United States, Brexit and the era of the Tory Divorce
from Europe, contemporary electoral politics that are helping in
the spread of nationalist policies and leaders (providing a
normalization of policies that are sometimes anti-democratic), the
2020 resurgence of Black Lives Matter after the deaths of George
Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the role of the coronavirus pandemic
in helping to shape the world order to come. This book will be
ideal for activists, politicians, lawyers, political science
professors and researchers, international relations and comparative
politics professors and students, practitioners, policymakers,
researchers, academicians, and anyone interested in the current
state of global politics, nationalism, and activism in political
participation.
This book theorizes Chinese politics, specifically about China's
"deliberative democracy (xieshang minzhu )". Creating a China-West
comparative framework, the author interrogates China's government's
claims to give representation to citizens, allowing readers to see
how all of these concepts interact within Chinese ideology,
democratic discourse, and governance, and their relationship with
Chinese authoritarianism. Above all, this book represents a
sustained hybridization of political theory, one which is neither a
simple democratic-authoritarian dichotomy, nor a reinterpretation
of the official propaganda. This study will interest scholars of
Chinese politics and statecraft, shedding light on an emergent
discourse of the state - Chinese xieshang minzhu. More importantly,
this book goes beyond a simple rhetorical and linguistic use of
'deliberative democracy' in the Western sense, and rather
emphasizes the very consultative nature of Chinese politics, which
facilitates and reconsolidates Chinese authoritarianism.
This book discusses five cases of hatred politics on the margins of
global capital: Turkey under Erdogan (assumed office in 2003),
Hungary under Orban (assumed office in 2010), India under Modi
(assumed office in 2014); the Philippines under Duterte (assumed
office in 2016) and Brazil under Bolsonaro (assumed office in
2019). How did they come to power? What strategies of legitimation
do they employ? What resistances do they face? Country case studies
lay the foundation for a systematic comparison that illuminates the
key dynamics of this novel political form. Analyses of their
responses to the Covid-19 pandemic further shed light on their
methods in a time of crisis and a chapter that considers the Trump
presidency indicates how we can understand these leaderships given
their pronounced counterpart in the Global North - and vice-versa.
This is not a mere collection of texts commissioned from
specialists, but the result of a two-year-long collective endeavor:
an international taskforce to respond to a global phenomenon.
Contributors are: Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos, Daniel Feldmann,
Agnes Gagyi, Daniel Geary, Tamas Gerocs, Sefika Kumral, Cecilia
Lero, Devika Misra, Ilhan Can Ozen and Aparna Sundar.
After the end of the Cold War, it seemed as if Southeast Asia would
remain a geopolitically stable region within the American imperious
for the foreseeable future. In the last two decades, however, the
re-emergence of China as a major great power has called into
question the geopolitical future of the region and raised the
specter of renewed of great power competition. As the eminent China
scholar David Shambaugh explains in Where Great Powers Meet, the
United States and China are engaged in a broad-gauged and global
competition for power. While this competition ranges across the
entire world, it is centered in Asia, and in this book, Shambaugh
focuses the ten countries that comprise Southeast Asia. The United
States and China constantly vie for position and influence in this
enormously significant region-and the outcome of this contest will
do much to determine whether Asia leaves the American orbit after
seven decades and falls into a new Chinese sphere of influence.
Just as importantly, to the extent that there is a global "power
transition" occurring from the US to China, the fate of Southeast
Asia will be a good indicator. Presently, both powers bring
important assets to bear. The US continues to possess a depth and
breadth of security ties, soft power, and direct investment across
the region that empirically outweigh China's. For its part, China
has more diplomatic influence, much greater trade, and geographic
proximity. In assessing the likelihood of a regional power
transition, Shambaugh at how ASEAN (the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations) and the countries within it maneuver between the
United States and China and the degree to which they align with one
or the other power. Not simply an analysis of the region's place
within an evolving international system, Where Great Powers Meet
provides us with a comprehensive strategy that advances the
American position while exploiting Chinese weaknesses.
Geopolitics and climate change now have immediate consequences for
national and international security interests across the Arctic and
Antarctic. The world's polar regions are contested and
strategically central to geopolitical rivalry. At the same time,
rapid political, social, and environmental change presents
unprecedented challenges for governance, environmental protection,
and maritime operations in the regions.With chapters that raise
awareness, address challenges, and inform policy options, Polar
Cousins reviews the state of strategic thinking and options on
Antarctica and the Southern Oceans in light of experience in the
circumpolar North. Prioritizing strategic issues, it provides an
essential discussion of geostrategic thinking, strategic policy,
and strategy development. Featuring contributions from
international defence experts, scientists, academics, policymakers,
and decisionmakers, Polar Cousins offers key insights into the
challenges unique to the polar regions.
The Impact of Innovation on Globalization is the eighth volume of
the series China in the World. Like other volumes in the series,
this volume includes views of leading Chinese scholars on China's
relations with other countries and regions in the world. In view of
the theme of "globalization" in this volume, the contributors in
this volume pay attention to how the Covid-19 pandemic impacts and
challenges globalization, especially how it affects China, the
United States, and their mutual relations. However, this is not to
say that some issues surrounding globalization-the orientation and
interrelationship of political and economic decision-making in
China and the United States-have emerged only after the outbreak of
the pandemic. The volume focuses on some long-term trends and
innovations, from the past to the future. Chapter 2,
"Globalization, Convergence, and China's Economic Development,"
describes the patterns of globalization. Chapter 3, "The
Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation is Unstoppable," talks about
views on current economic and financial issues. Chapter 4,
"Reconstructing Global Industrial Chains under the Pandemic, and
China's Response," discusses China's pivotal position in global
supply chains. Besides answering these basic questions, the book
investigates other important issues, such as Global Value Chains,
Changes in the International Order, Changes in the International
Economic Landscape, WTO Reform, China's Foreign Economic and Trade
Strategies, Towards a Climate Resilience Society, Identity
Politics, and the AI "Revolution".
Precariousness has become a defining experience in contemporary
society, as an inescapable condition and state of being. Living
with Precariousness presents a spectrum of timely case studies that
explore precarious existences – at individual, collective and
structural levels, and as manifested through space and the body.
These range from the plight of asylum seekers, to the tiny house
movement as a response to affordable housing crises; from the
global impacts of climate change, to the daily challenges of living
with a chronic illness. This multidisciplinary book illustrates the
pervasiveness of precarity, but furthermore shows how those
entanglements with other agents, human or otherwise, that put us at
risk are also the connections that make living with (and through)
precariousness endurable.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was a French political thinker
and historian, and wrote the famous work "Democracy in America" in
two volumes. This work is renowned for characterising the American
Institutions and adding to the understanding of the United States
like no other. He analysed the social standards of people and the
relationship between raising social standards and the free market.
He thereby became one of the founding fathers of sociology and
political science. This book is a seminal text in economic
sociology. Tocqueville has the capacity to stand back from the
object of his study and to reflect deeply and at times with wit,
whilst offering the reader his incisive clarity. This collection
includes both volumes of Democracy in America, in addition it
includes the "Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville" - his
thoughts and observations on the French Revolution, another work
demonstrating his shrewd objective perspective. He identified the
hazards of the course that his country was taking and also the
difficulties of ensuring that there was both equality and freedom.
It is a first-hand account of the upheavals that the country
suffered over the months of the revolution - consequently it is
exhilarating, honest and thrilling to read. Tocqueville's analysis
is relevant for any democracy and consequently this work is
relevant far beyond the borders of France.
Written by one of the premier scholars on the European Union and
hailed as the best undergraduate text on the subject, this book has
been thoroughly revised and updated to include the entry into force
of the Lisbon Treaty. Clear and comprehensive, it 'demystifies' one
of the world's most important and least understood institutions.
Roy H. Ginsberg contextualizes European integration through the
foundation blocks of history, law, economics, and politics. He then
breaks the EU down into its components so that they can be
understood individually and in relation to the whole.
Reconstructing the EU as a single polity, Ginsberg evaluates the
EU's domestic and foreign policies and their effects on Europeans
and non-Europeans alike. The author thus challenges students to see
what the European Union truly represents: a unique experiment in
regional cooperation and a remarkable model of conflict resolution
for the world's troubled regions.
Focussing on his term as Prime Minister from 2001-06, this
scholarly volume provides the first assessment of how the
neo-conservative values attributed to Berlusconi were contested and
resisted by a variety of groups. The continuing influence of the
controversial figure of Silvio Berlusconi on contemporary Italian
life, culture and politics is beyond question. Focussing on his
term as Prime Minister, this volume assesses how the
neo-conservative values attributed to Berlusconi were contested and
resisted by social/minority movements, intellectuals (radical and
moderate) and media practitioners. Edited by members of the Centre
for European Languages and Cultures at the University of
Birmingham, and bringing together academics in Britain, Ireland,
the US and Italy, it has an international perspective. Analysis
investigates how resistance to the new conservative culture has
been articulated, and how this has been expressed and explained by
those involved. This interdisciplinary volume is divided into three
(overlapping) areas: contemporary Italian politics (including the
evolution of left and right, unions vs government; the G8 in Genoa
and the anti-war movement); cultural texts (including films and
documentaries, television programmes, novels and theatre; and
experiences (the voices and practices of those who have opposed
neo-conservative values from within the cultural industries and
identity movements). Wide-ranging, innovative and challenging, this
volume should appeal to all those who have an interest in Italy, in
politics, in culture and cultural studies.
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