This book offers a fresh re-evaluation of Yehud in the Persian period, addressing in particular the dynamics of its relationship to the Persian imperial government. Among the variety of social-political reconstructions of Persian-period Yehud, one 'consensus' stands out - one which states that the Jerusalem priesthood enjoyed a prominent level of authority, symbolized in the Jerusalem temple. Unfortunately, this leads easily into conclusions of a theocracy in Yehud. The problem, in part, is due to the immediate association of priests assumed to be authoritative with that of a theocratic governing structure.To address this problem, at least three aspects of Yehud's governing structure(s) require further attention: the social implications of a particular governing structure within a society; the developments of a society leading up to that governing structure; and, a clearly articulated definition of the term and concept of theocracy. Since many scholars appear to depend upon a theocratic 'structure' or 'spirit' at some point in their discussions of Persian-period Yehud, one would usually expect to find a clear definition of theocracy. Instead, a hasty and ill-equipped definition that seems to avoid addressing the social and political complexities is often used.The conclusion is that no power or political vacuum appears to have existed allowing the priesthood to claim power in Yehud. The Persian empire did not allow territories to develop autonomous governing structures (Chapter 2). The social, economic, and political realms of Yehud functioned within the framework of Persian imperial administration (Chapter 3). And the term theocracy, when defined according to social-scientific requirements (Chapter 4), does not accurately describe the social-political context of Yehud during the Persian period (Chapter 5).

Modern criminal justice institutions globally include police, criminal courts, and prisons. Prisons, unlike courts which developed out of an old aristocratic function and unlike police which developed out of an ancient posse or standing army function, are only about 200 years old and are humanitarian inventions. Prisons, defined as modern institutions that deprive the freedom of individuals who violate societies' most basic norms in lieu of corporal or capital punishment, were near universal at the dawn of the 21st century and their use was expanding globally. The US alone spent $60 billion on prisons in 2014. Prison Bureaucracies addresses two fundamental questions. Do prisons in Christian, Hindu, and Muslim societies separated by space and level of socioeconomic development follow a common evolutionary path? Given that differences in prison structure and performance exist, what factors-resources, laws, leadership, historical accident, institutions, culture-account for differences? Based on more than 150 interviews conducted in ten international trips with prison administrators in 15 male state prisons in the US, Mexico, India, and Honduras, Norris provides ethnographic descriptions of prisons bureaucracies that are immediately recognizable as similar institutions, but that nonetheless possessed distinctive forms and developmental trajectories. Economists and political scientists have argued that incentives provided by institutions matter for good or bad public administration, and this is undeniable in the prisons of this study. But institutional incentives were one factor among many affecting the form and function of the prisons and prison systems of this study.

Malawi is among the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa that has witnessed significant improvements in relation to meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. It exhibits some of the main challenges facing African democracies while they attempt to consolidate the benefits of democratisation. Political Transition and Inclusive Development in Malawi critically analyses opportunities and constraints related to the impact of democracy on development in one of the world's poorest countries. The book explores how, and to what extent, processes related to democratic and economic governance can be strengthened in order to make political and administrative authorities more responsive to development needs. It also considers characteristics of successful implementation of public policy and the effective and timely delivery of basic services in local contexts; increased citizen participation and dialogue with local government authorities; factors that enable civil society organisations to hold political and administrative officials to account; and better utilisation of academic research for improved evidence-based policy formulation and implementation. This volume will be of great interest to scholars in development studies, African studies, politics, law and anthropology, as well as policymakers and those interested in democracy, governance, human rights and the implementation of anti-poverty programmes, development administration and decentralisation.

"Referendums and Democratic Government" deals with the role of different forms of referendums in modern representative democracies. It analyzes the referendum from the point of view of social choice theory and various theories of democracy. The institutions of referendums are analyzed in 22 democracies, and referendums in Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland are analyzed as case studies. Different forms of referendums are classified according to how they are initiated and how their agenda is set. It is argued that various types of referendums have been justified by arguments based on different normative theories of democracy as referendum is not a unitary phenomenon.

With each legislative issue, legislators have to decide whether to delegate decision-making to the executive and/or to expert bodies in order to flesh out the details of this legislation, or, alternatively, to spell out all aspects of this decision in legislation proper. The reasons why to delegate have been of prime interest to political science. The debate has concentrated on principal-agent theory to explain why politicians delegate decision-making to bureaucrats, to independent regulatory agencies, and to others actors and how to control these agents. By contrast, Changing Rules of Delegation focuses on these questions: Which actors are empowered by delegation? Are executive actors empowered over legislative actors? How do legislative actors react to the loss of power? What opportunities are there to change the institutional rules governing delegation in order to (re)gain institutional power and, with it influence over policy outcomes? The authors analyze the conditions and processes of change of the rules that delegate decision-making power to the Commission's implementing powers under comitology. Focusing on the role of the European Parliament the authors explain why the Commission, the Council, and increasingly the Parliament, delegated decision-making to the Commission. If they chose delegation, they still have to determine under which institutional rule comitology should operate. These rules, too, distribute power unequally among actors and therefore raise the question of how they came about in the first place and whether and how the "losers" of a rule change seek to alter the rules at a later point in time.

Within the liberal tradition, the physical body has been treated as a focus of rights discussion and a source of economic and democratic value; it needs protection but it is also one's dominion, tool, and property, and thus something over which we should be able to exercise free will. However, the day-to-day reality of how we live in our bodies and how we make choices about them is not something over which we can exercise full control. In this way, embodiment mirrors life in a pluralist body politic: we are interdependent and vulnerable, exposed with and to others while desiring agency. As disability, feminist, and critical race scholars have all suggested, barriers to bodily control are often a problem of public and political will and social and economic structures that render relationality and caring responsibilities private, invisible, and low value. These scholarly traditions firmly maintain the importance of bodily integrity and self-determination, but make clear that autonomy is not a matter of mere non-interference but rather requires extensive material and social support. Autonomy is thus totally intertwined with, not opposed to, vulnerability. Put another way, the pursuit of autonomy requires practices of humility. Given this, what do we learn about agency and self-determination, as well as trust, self-knowledge, dependence, and resistance under such conditions of acute vulnerability? The Virtues of Vulnerability looks at the question of how we navigate "choice" and control over our bodies when it comes to conditions like birth, illness, and death, particularly as they are experienced within mainstream medical institutions operating under the pressures of neoliberal capitalism. There is often a deep disconnect between what people say they want in navigating birth, illness, and death, and what they actually experience through all of these life events. Practices such as informed consent, the birth plan, advanced directives, and the patient satisfaction survey typically offer a thin and unreliable version of self-determination. In reality, "choice" in these instances is encumbered and often determined by our vulnerability at the most critical moments. This book looks at the ways in which we navigate birth, illness, and death in order to think about how vulnerability and humility can inform political will. Overall, the book asks under what conditions vulnerability and interdependence enhance or diminish our sense of ourselves as agents. In exploring this question it aims to produce a new vocabulary for democratic politics, highlighting traits that have profound political implications in terms of how citizens aspire, struggle, relate to, and persevere with each other.

This book offers an innovative, thematic approach to the history of Latin America since independence. It traces continuity and change in colonial legacies that became central political issues following independence: authoritarian governance; a rigid social hierarchy based on race, color, and gender; the powerful Roman Catholic Church; economic dependency; and the large landed estate. Generally, liberals have sought to modify or abolish these legacies in the interest of what they consider progress, while conservatives have attempted to preserve them as much as possible as bastions of their power and privilege. Examining the evolution of these colonial legacies across two centuries reveals the processes that formed the political systems, economies, societies, and religious institutions that characterize Latin America today.

This book examines the construction of the EU's political identity (or identities), variations in its strength, and the nature of its content. Drawing on studies both on European nation-state formation and on the EU's identity, the chapters take a top-down approach and analyse how EU institutions in different major policy domains have themselves sought to create political identity through policy making. The authors define the construction of EU political identity and set out empirically applicable indicators to assess political identity in policy making. They analyse the construction of identity through a process-oriented approach that explicitly includes contestation and the existence of rival political identities. Comparing across policy domains, the contributions suggest that the ability of EU institutions to construct an EU political identity has been limited not only by existing national identities but also by the coexistence of rival EU political identities within policy domains. Hence, it has been difficult for EU institutions to establish a strong identity, with identity being strongest where there are clear external alternatives and limited rival identities within the EU.

Tomaz Aquino de Braganca, a close adviser to former Mozambican president Samora Machel, dedicated his life to the liberation struggles of southern Africa. Before his death in a plane crash (along with President Machel) in 1986, he was a journalist, an academic, a diplomat, and a public intellectual known for his skill in sensitive and discreet political negotiation, most notably his role in Mozambique's revolution and independence from Portugal in 1975. Marco Mondaini and Colin Darch present a selection of Aquino's postindependence writings and interviews, many published here in English for the first time. They also provide a general introduction to Aquino's life and thought and short introductions to the texts. The result is both a compelling glimpse into the inner workings of several liberation movements and a window on the development of Aquino's thinking around issues of independence, nationalism, and the character of the struggles.

This comprehensive book examines the crucial connections between national identity, territory, and scale. Providing a powerful theoretical and organizational framework, the volume identifies four ways in which scale operates dynamically in the formation and maintenance of national identity. Consolidating identities considers the strategies necessary to keep all parts within the fold through educational systems, minority policies, immigration controls, and other forms of traditional state power. Magnifying identities examines the consequences of shifting the scale up and unifying territories that have a sense of a larger, supranational identity. Connecting identities assesses how nations can bridge physical distance, water barriers, or sovereign boundaries. Fragmenting identities looks into the disintegration of national identities and those forces that have the potential to unravel a nation or block its effective formation. Nationalism and national identity remain critical flashpoints in the geopolitical order, as we have seen in the development of a quasi-independent Kurdistan in Northern Iraq, the resurgence of Native American identities in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Chinese crackdown on its minority regions. Offering a rich set of case studies from around the world, this essential book affirms the global importance of national identity and scale.

This comprehensive book examines the crucial connections between national identity, territory, and scale. Providing a powerful theoretical and organizational framework, the volume identifies four ways in which scale operates dynamically in the formation and maintenance of national identity. Consolidating identities considers the strategies necessary to keep all parts within the fold through educational systems, minority policies, immigration controls, and other forms of traditional state power. Magnifying identities examines the consequences of shifting the scale up and unifying territories that have a sense of a larger, supranational identity. Connecting identities assesses how nations can bridge physical distance, water barriers, or sovereign boundaries. Fragmenting identities looks into the disintegration of national identities and those forces that have the potential to unravel a nation or block its effective formation. Nationalism and national identity remain critical flashpoints in the geopolitical order, as we have seen in the development of a quasi-independent Kurdistan in Northern Iraq, the resurgence of Native American identities in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Chinese crackdown on its minority regions. Offering a rich set of case studies from around the world, this essential book affirms the global importance of national identity and scale.

Both Russia and Turkey were pioneering examples of feminism in the early 20th Century, when the Bolshevik and Republican states embraced an ideology of women's equality. Yet now these countries have drifted towards authoritarianism and the concept of gender is being invoked to reinforce tradition, nationalism and to oppose Western culture. Goekten Dogangun's book explores the relationship between the state and gender equality in Russia and Turkey, covering the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the Republican Revolution of 1923 and highlighting the very different gender climates that have emerged under the leaderships of Putin and Erdogan. The research is based on analysis of legal documents, statistical data and reports, as well as in-depth interviews with experts, activists and public officials. Dogangun identifies a climate of 'neo-traditionalism' in contemporary Russia and 'neo-conservatism' in contemporary Turkey and examines how Putin and Erdogan's ambitions to ensure political stability, security and legitimacy are achieved by promoting commonly held 'family values', grounded in religion and tradition. The book reveals what it means to be a woman in Turkey and Russia today and covers key topics such as hostility towards feminism, women's employment, domestic violence, motherhood and abortion. Dogangun provides the first comparative study that seeks to understand the escalation of patriarchy and the decline of democracy which is being witnessed across the world.

This volume explores the governing mechanism employed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the light of state capacity building. It is built on the premise that regime type notwithstanding, boosting state capacity and utilizing it in their political survival is of crucial concern for any political leader. Xi Jinping, who is no exception to this, has called for the necessity to expand state capacity while he aims to centralize the power under the party. This volume stands out as it offers a comprehensive view of Chinese party-state, especially under Xi Jinping.The research presented here is built on the analysis of authentic datasets and materials. It examines the CCP's relations with various state organs in the Chinese political system, mainly, administrative organs, legislature (the people's congresses), judicial branch (the people's court system), as well as the military (the People's Liberation Army) and state-owned enterprises. This volume attempts to bring China closer to the field of comparative politics making it a more comparable case.

Originally published in 1984. At that time many formerly prosperous regions were becoming impoverished and many former "core" areas were being demoted to peripheral status. This book considers this crisis, its nature and manifestations and its implications. It looks in particular at how the regional crisis affects the socialist analysis of capitalism and it analyses how the crisis affects the political outlook and political actions of the working class in afflicted regions. The theories and analysis put forward apply throughout the world in both advanced and less developed countries.

This book examines the perspectives of American liberalism and conservatism in the new millennium-their general political and social philosophy and their positions in leading public issue areas-and evaluates them in light of Catholic social teaching. Before making that evaluation, it sets out the Church's teaching as it has been authoritatively set forth in documents from her Magisterium-especially the social encyclicals. It looks to recognized thinkers, writers, and spokesmen for each of the two ideologies to determine what their general philosophy is in six major, central areas: the role of the state; God, religion, and the natural law as the basis of the political order; the family; the thinking on freedom; the thinking about equality; and international life and ethics. Since American conservatism has been known for having different groupings or schools of thought within it-in the new millennium these are traditionalist conservatism, paleoconservatism, cultural or religious-based conservatism, neoconservatism, libertarian conservatism, and TEA party conservatism-the book examines leading representatives from each grouping and then determines what the consensus conservatism thinking is in each area. Then it looks to a recent platform of the Democratic party that was acknowledged to be especially "liberal" and one of the Republican party that was acknowledged to be especially "conservative" (they were the 2012 platforms of each party) to determine the thinking of each ideology on eight major public issue/policy areas: economics and social welfare policy; energy and the environment; civil rights and civil liberties; education and health care; family policy; immigration policy; human life issues; and foreign policy, defense, and disarmament. It compares each ideology's thinking in these different areas of their general political and social philosophy and their public issue/policy positions and compares them to the basic principles of Catholic social teaching, assessing how well each conforms to that teaching in each area or if each clearly deviates and then coming to an conclusion overall about which is closer to Catholic social teaching.

Prominent media scholars have argued that the dissemination of propaganda is an important function of the news media. Yet, despite public controversies about 'fake news' and 'misinformation', there has been very little discussion on techniques of propaganda. Building on critical theory, most notably Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model, Florian Zollmann's pioneering study brings propaganda back to the forefront of the debate. On the basis of a forensic examination of 1,911 newspaper articles, Zollmann investigates US, UK and German media reporting of the military operations in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Egypt. The book demonstrates how 'humanitarian intervention' and 'R2P' are only evoked in the news media if so called 'enemy' countries of Western states are the perpetrators of human rights violations. Zollmann's work evidences that the news media plays a crucial propaganda role in facilitating a selective process of shaming during the build-up towards military interventions. This process has led to an erosion of internationally agreed norms of non-intervention, as enshrined in the UN Charter.

Social exclusion of minority groups is an intractable problem in many diverse nations. For some minority groups this means going to segregated schools, for others not having access to gainful employment or quality healthcare. But why does social exclusion persist, and what can one do to stop it? This book proposes a theory of how individual behavior contributes to social exclusion, a novel method for measuring that behavior, and solutions to ending it. Based on original fieldwork among Central and Eastern European Roma, the largest ethnic minority in Europe (yet still very understudied), and non-Roma, Ana Bracic develops a theory she calls the exclusion cycle, through which anti-minority culture gives rise to discrimination by members of the majority, and minority members develop survival strategies. Members of the majority resent these strategies, assuming that they are endemic to the minority group rather than an outcome of their own discriminatory behavior. To illustrate her theory, Bracic includes an analysis of a video game she created that simulates interactions between Roma and non-Roma participants, which members of these groups played through avatars (thereby avoiding contentious face-to-face interactions). The results demonstrate that majority members discriminate against minority members even when minority group members behave in ways identical to the majority. It also shows the way in which minority members develop survival mechanisms. Bracic draws on the results of the simulation to offer evidence that this cycle can be broken through NGO-promoted discussion and interaction between groups. She also draws on extant scholarship on interactions between Muslim women in France, African Americans, the Batwa in Uganda, and their respective majority communities.

Featuring a range of experts on the American presidency, this book offers both European and American perspectives on both the successes and failures of President Obama's tenure in the White House. Focusing primarily on domestic policy, these essays explain why Obama's widely anticipated moment of change did not fully materialise.

Africa is well known for the production of national liberation movements (NLMs), stemming from a history of exploitation, colonisation and slavery. NLMs are generally characterised by a struggle carried out by or in the name of suppressed people for political, social, cultural, economic, territorial liberation and decolonisation. Dozens of NLMs have ascended to state power in Africa following a successful violent popular struggle either as an outright military victory or a negotiated settlement. National Liberation Movements as Government in Africa analyses the performance of NLMs after they gain state power. The book tracks the initial promises and guiding principles of NLMs against their actual record in achieving socio-economic development goals such as peace, stability, state building and democratisation. The book explores the various different struggles for liberation, whether against European colonialism, white minority rule, neighbouring countries, or for internal reform or regime change. Bringing together case studies from Somalia, Somaliland, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Algeria, the book builds a comprehensive analysis of the challenges NLMs face when ascending to state power, and why so many ultimately end in failure. This is an ideal resource for scholars, policy makers and students with an interest in African development, politics, and security studies.

The European Union faces a set of inter-related crises that it struggles to contain and address. By exploring how the EU responds to crises and conflict, this volume addresses both its resilience and vulnerability. The EU faces significant challenges: European integration is increasingly politicised; democratic politics within member states are increasingly volatile; challenger parties threaten the status quo; and party systems are shifting throughout Europe. These crises test both the EU and individual states, especially those that had to exchange interdependence in the Union for dependence on the Troika. Despite the tension of hard times, this volume points to patterns of continuity and change as the single market, somewhat side-lined and forgotten in the heat of crises, retains its role as the hard core of the Union and the EU's most significant achievement. This book was originally published as a special issue of West European Politics.

Throughout human history, religion and politics have entertained the most intimate of connections as systems of authority regulating individuals and society. While the two have come apart through the process of secularization, secularism is challenged today by the return of public religion. This cogent analysis unravels the nature of the connection, disconnection, and attempted reconnection between religion and politics in the West. In a comparison of Western Europe and North America, Christianity and Islam, Joppke advances far-reaching theoretical, historical, and comparative-political arguments. With respect to theory, it is argued that only a substantive concept of religion, as pertaining to the existence of supra-human powers, opens up the possibility of a historical-comparative perspective on religion. At the level of history, secularization is shown to be the distinct outcome of Latin Christianity itself. And at the level of comparative politics, the Christian Right in America which has attacked the wall of separation between religion and state and Islam in Europe with the controversial insistence on sharia law and other illiberal claims from some quarters are taken to be counterpart incarnations of public religion and challenges to the secular state. This clearly argued, sweeping book will provide an invaluable framework for approaching an array of critical issues at the intersection of religion, law and politics for advanced students and researchers across the social sciences and legal studies, as well as for the interested public.

How do political regimes respond to the challenges emanating from youth mobilization? This book seeks to understand regime resilience and breakdown by analysing the public meaning of youth, as well as the physical mobilization of young people. Mobilization carried by young people is a key component in understanding the stabilisation of the authoritarian regime structures in contemporary Russia, but the Russian experience makes only sense if placed in its broader historical context.Three comparative cases, the breakdown of the authoritarian Soviet Union, the breakdown of the democratic Weimar Republic, and the crisis of the democratic regime in France around 1968 highlight how regimes which lacked popular support have compensated for their insufficient legitimacy by trying to mobilize youth symbolically and politically. This book illustrates the symbolic significance of youth and its role in regime crisis by analysing a new data set of newspaper articles with a new method of discourse analysis. The combination of qualitative interpretation and quantitative network analysis enables a deeper and more systematic understanding of discursive structures about youth. Through this methodological innovation the book contributes to the way we define the categories of youth, generation, and crisis. It makes the case that our conceptualisation should reflect the way terms are being used - usages that can be captured in a systematic way with new methods of discourse analysis. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

Political science has been described as a jigsaw puzzle with many specializations and subfields that do not talk to one another. This book offers a solution that will advance the field from mid-level theory to engage in cross-fertilization through metatheoretical paradigms. The book begins with a history of political science from the nineteenth century to the present, followed by a paradigmatic history of political science including 6 metatheories in the pre-behavioral era, 12 in the behavioral era, and the 4 major and several minor paradigms being developed today. The book advances the goal of David Easton by proposing a neobehavioral political science including multimethodological innovations, cross-testing of paradigms, and tenets of a new political science that can rise to become a truly theoretical science. Each paradigm is diagramed to demonstrate the key concepts and their causal interconnections. Political Science Revitalized: Filling the Jigsaw Puzzle with Paradigms poses an exciting and provocative argument for the future of the vast field of political science.

The book draws on some of the scholarship in perception studies and "Normative Power Europe" theory. The study of perceptions, although dating back to the mid-1970s, is gaining renewed currency in recent years both in international relations, in general, and in European Union studies, in particular. And yet, despite the significance of external perceptions of the European Union, there is still a lack of theoretical forays into this area as well as an absence of empirical investigations of actual external role conceptions. These lacunae in scholarly work are significant, since how the European Union is perceived outside its borders, and what factors shape these perceptions, are crucial for deepening the theory of "Normative Power Europe." The book analyzes Israeli perceptions towards "Normative Power Europe," the European Union, and NATO through five themes that, the book argues, underscore different dimensions of key Israeli conceptions of "Normative Power Europe" and NATO. The book seeks to contribute to the existing research on the European Union's role as a "normative power," the Union's external representations, and on Israeli-European Union relations more broadly.

This text provides a clear and current overview of the motivations and outcomes of EU Member States regarding their foreign policy-making within and beyond the EU. It provides an in-depth analysis of intra-EU policy-making, and sheds light in an innovative and understandable way on the lesser known aspects of the inter-EU and extra-EU foreign policies of the 27 Member States.

The text has an innovative method of thematic organisation in which case study state profiles emerge via dominant foreign policy themes. The text examines the three main policy challenges currently faced by the 27 Member States.

First, EU Member States must cooperate within the mechanisms of the EU, including the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Intra-EU policy-making sees the states cooperating according to well-practised inter-governmental methods, but along supranational lines for a widening number of areas.

Second, EU Member States continue to construct their own inter-EU foreign policies. In other words, bilateral arrangements between EU Member States but largely independent of the treaties and structures of the EU itself

Third, is the sovereign prerogative exercised by all EU Member States to construct their own foreign policies on everything from trade and defence with the rest of the world However, in directing extra-EU foreign policies, EU Member States directly experience the tension between the practice of Europeanisation and the pull of sovereignty.

This combination of clarity, thematic structure and empirical case studies make this an ideal textbook for all upper-level students of European foreign policy, comparative European politics and European studies.