An exploration of how so-called ordinary people can disrupt violent conflict and forge peace. In this pathbreaking book, Roger Mac Ginty explores everyday peace-or how individuals and small groups can eke out spaces of tolerance and conciliation in conflict-ridden societies. Drawing on original material from the Everyday Peace Indicators project, he blends theory and concept-building together with contemporary and comparative examples. Unusual for the disciplines of peace and conflict studies as well as international relations, Everyday Peace also utilizes personal diaries and memoirs from World Wars One and Two. The book unpacks the core components of everyday peace and argues that it is constructed from a mix of sociality, reciprocity, and solidarity. This exploration of bottom-up and community-level approaches to peace challenges the usual concentration on top-down approaches to peace advanced by governments and international organizations. Indeed, the book goes to the lowest level of social organization - individuals, families and small groups of friends and colleagues - and looks at everyday interaction in workplaces, the stairwells of apartment buildings, and the queue for public transport. Mac Ginty sees peace and conflict as being embodied, lived, and experienced - and constructs a multi-layered definition of peace. Importantly, he applies his evidentiary base of micro-acts that constitute everyday peace to societies that have emerged out of conflict and have not experienced recidivism on a large scale. Unlike most who focus on top-down processes, he demonstrates that what matters is the interaction between top-down and bottom-up peace and how, in an ideal scenario, they can have a symbiotic relationship. By focusing on how the small-scale can have big and lasting effects, Everyday Peace will reshape our understanding of how peace comes about.

This book shows how the introduction of intermediation is relevant in studying political and public policy processes, as they are increasingly accompanied by grey spaces in public and non-public arenas that cannot be categorized as purely representative or purely participative. Instead, 'hybrid' mechanisms are developing in the policy-making process, which bring in new actors who either are unelected while being required to represent or advocate for the common good of others or are directly elected but challenged by identity/rights-based issues of the people they are required to act in the best interest of. By proposing a conceptual frame on intermediation and addressing five different Latin American countries and a wide range of case studies -from human rights, labour relations, neighbourhood management, municipal bureaucracies, social accountability, to complex national systems of citizen participation-this volume shows the versatility and validity of a tridimensional frame, the "cube of political intermediation" (CPI) as a tool for analysing public policy and understanding contemporary democratic innovation in Latin America.

An informed and sophisticated look at the current debate between gun laws and gun rights in America. Contemporary gun controversies are deeply rooted in our history, yet much of that history is unknown, ignored, or distorted. This is all the more important because a new gun rights movement is pressing to expand the definition of gun rights well beyond the standard set by the Supreme Court in its landmark, controversial Heller ruling from 2008. These activists' efforts have found a receptive audience among a new generation of very conservative federal judges cultivated in part for their professed adherence to the doctrine of constitutional Originalism and fealty to an expansive reading of gun rights. In The Gun Dilemma, Robert J. Spitzer examines this "gun rights 2.0" movement in the light of a host of gun controversies: assault weapons, ammunition magazines, silencers, public gun brandishing and display, and the emergent Second Amendment sanctuary movement. Given the importance of actual gun law history to this debate, Spitzer draws from the historical record to illuminate several contemporary and emergent gun controversies that may well make their way to the Supreme Court. Revealing and illuminating as that history is, he argues that we should not be straitjacketed by that history, but rather informed by it as the nation struggles with how to frame its gun policies. By utilizing novel information sources to explore both gun law history and current debates, The Gun Dilemma provides an informed and sophisticated challenge to the ascendant originalists who appear to be set on enshrining in law a radical libertarian vision of gun rights.

In retrospect, NATO and EU enlargements can be viewed as easy; they admitted states that wanted to be involved and were lavishly rewarded. In contrast, this study explores the harder politics waged by the much larger regional organizations, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). These organizations lack material incentives or instruments of coercion, instead having to work on the basis of shared values. They also face a variety of threats from recalcitrant members. In this book, Fawn uniquely uses internal conditionality to explain how these organizations have cleverly and subtly responded to such difficulties.Drawing on interviews in a range of post-communist countries and with practitioners inside and outside the organizations, the diverse case studies in this book examine issues of conflict, democratization, the death penalty, rewarding high office and retaining institutional membership. Fawn explores how international organizations which lack powers of compulsion can respond to threatening member-states and offers practical lessons for the international promotion of norms.This book will appeal to those interested in how international underdogs work and win in tough circumstances, as well as scholars of International Relations, Central and Eastern European Studies, Post-Soviet Studies and European Security.

It has been over twenty years since the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland voted for devolution. Over that time, the devolved legislatures have established themselves and matured their approach to governance. At different times and for different reasons, each has put wellbeing at the heart of their approach - codifying their values and goals within wellbeing frameworks. This open access book explores, for the first time, why each set their goal as improving wellbeing and how they balance the core elements of societal wellbeing (economic, social and environmental outcomes). Do the frameworks represent a genuine attempt to think differently about how devolved government can plan and organise public services? And if so, what early indications are there of the impact is this having on people's lives?

Europe is becoming increasingly anxious about issues of immigration and immigrant integration. Bans on the construction of minarets in Switzerland, prohibition of the wearing of face-covering veils in Belgium and crackdowns on Roma migrants in France and Italy are all signs of the growing prominence of the issue. Apart from these headline-grabbing policies, many European countries have also been imposing civic integration policies on migrants and restricting their rights to participate in public life. What is driving such policies at the national level? And where does the EU fit into this picture? This book provides a comparative analysis of the impact of the EU, if any, on the policies and politics of immigrant integration in its member states. It investigates whether the EU can be a force for good in a policy area until now thought to be at the discretion of member states.

In this book, Ferdi De Ville and Mattias Vermeiren examine the linkages between the economic crisis in the euro area and the rise of Brazil, India and China (BICs) in the global monetary and trading system. Drawing on the insights of the comparative capitalism literature, the authors show that the latter development has been a key source of the escalation of trade imbalances in the euro area, which are widely seen as an important cause of the financial and economic crisis in the region. By pointing to the external source of these imbalances and the divergent institutional capacity of the euro area countries to deal with the intensified competition associated with the rise of the BICs, De Ville and Vermeiren go beyond the focus on the divergence in unit labor costs as the driving force of these imbalances. As such, this book provides a comprehensive policy critique of the EU's export-led growth strategy based on declining unit labor costs.

In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penalty was constitutional if it complied with certain specific provisions designed to ensure that it was reserved for the 'worst of the worst.' The same court had rejected the death penalty just four years before in the Furman decision because it found that the penalty had been applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner. The 1976 decision ushered in the 'modern' period of the US death penalty, setting the country on a course to execute over 1,400 inmates in the ensuing years, with over 8,000 individuals currently sentenced to die. Now, forty years after the decision, the eminent political scientist Frank Baumgartner along with a team of younger scholars (Marty Davidson, Kaneesha Johnson, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Colin Wilson) have collaborated to assess the empirical record and provide a definitive account of how the death penalty has been implemented. Each chapter addresses a precise empirical question and provides evidence, not opinion, about whether how the modern death penalty has functioned. They decided to write the book after Justice Breyer issued a dissent in a 2015 death penalty case in which he asked for a full briefing on the constitutionality of the death penalty. In particular, they assess the extent to which the modern death penalty has met the aspirations of Gregg or continues to suffer from the flaws that caused its rejection in Furman. To answer this question, they provide the most comprehensive statistical account yet of the workings of the capital punishment system. Authoritative and pithy, the book is intended for both students in a wide variety of fields, researchers studying the topic, and-not least-the Supreme Court itself.

This is the first comparative volume available on multinational federations, bringing together an international range of experts on federalism. Multinational federations are federal states intended to provide a framework that can accommodate, manage and resolve some of the most intractable political conflicts of our time that emerge from identity politics: those that stem from competing national visions, whether within or between established states. Featuring key experts in the field such as Michael Burgess, Alain Gagnon and Ronald Watts, this unique book draws on a wide geographical range of country studies including Belgium, Canada, India, Malaysia, Spain, Russia, Cyprus, India, Switzerland and the EU in order to illustrate the pivotal relationship between federalism and nationalism. In so doing, it addresses the practical relevance of federalism to the new political recognition of difference and diversity in the specific form of national minoritarianism. Multinational Federations will be of strong interest to students and researchers of federalism, democracy and nationalism.

This book contributes to the discourse on post-colonial and globalization theories, focusing on Nigeria's transition to a federal system of government. The project analyzes 10 years of civil rule in Nigeria, between 1999 and 2009, and its constitutional arrangements while also engaging in comparative studies of other socio-political developments in Sub-Saharan Africa. The collective influences of the judiciary on the polity was improved and strengthened through globalization. In addition, organized pressure groups, non-governmental organizations, as well as the Civil Society Organization, have played significant roles as vehicles of socio-political change and transformation. They continue to act as buffers for the sustenance of democratic rule, well beyond the period in question.

In Social Movements and Radical Populism in the Andes: Ecuador and Bolivia in Comparative Perspective, Jennifer N. Collins examines why the new left took the form of radical populism in Ecuador and Bolivia and how social movements were impacted by this development. Using a Laclauian approach, Collins argues that anti-neoliberal social movements provided the groundwork for populist identity formation. This book also offers a nuanced and insightful explanation for the decline of Ecuador's indigenous movement, examining the role of state resurgence in the fragmentation of social movements. Collins's analysis provides key insights into the life cycles of social movements in the Andes from development to decline.

This book chronicles Japan's rice farmers who live in mainly rural areas in the west and south of Japan through original interviews conducted in Japanese. It argues that current agricultural policy as well as the tightening relationship between the US and Japan is a death sentence for a traditional lifestyle that is vital to Japan's notion of national identity. The project covers recent agricultural policies, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and its potential consequences on Japan's food sovereignty and documents the effect of these policies on rice farmers. This volume is ideal for those interested in Japan's agricultural policies and rural and traditional Japanese lifestyle.

It is the condition of modernity that an institution cannot depend on a god, tradition, or any other transcendental source to secure its foundations, which thereby come to rest upon - or rather in, and through - its subjects. Never wholly separated from its subjects, and yet never identical with them: this contradictory condition provides a way of seeing how modern law gives form to life, and how law takes form, enlivened by its subjects. By driving Theodor Adorno's dialectical philosophy into the concept of law, the book shows how this contradictory condition enables law to become instituted in ways that are hostile to its subjects, but also how law remains open to its subjects, and thus disposed towards transformation. To flesh out an understanding of this contradiction, the book examines the making and remaking of "Liberia", from its conception as an idea of liberty at the beginning of the nineteenth century to its reconstruction at the beginning of the twenty-first with the assistance of an international intervention to "establish a state based on the rule of law". In so doing, the book shows how law is at the epicentre of a colonising power in Liberia that renders subjects as mere objects; but at the same time, the book exposes the instability of this power, by showing how law is also enlivened by its subjects as it takes form in and through their lives and interactions. It is this fundamentally contradictory condition of law that ultimately denies power any absolute hold, leaving law open to the self-expression of its subjects.

The aim of the book is to present the issues of central importance to the Islamic World. This diverse area faces a lot of difficulties and challenges regarding ethnic and religious conflicts as well as political and economic instability. The authors of the book address the topic from the perspectives of international security, foreign policy, economy, energy policy and regional studies and aim to depict the most suitable examples of crucial dilemmas of the Islamic World in the 21st century. The authors represent the variety of academic institutions and scientific disciplines including political science, international relations, economics and sociology. They apply a wide-selection of qualitative and quantitative methods to perform their research. As a result of this work, this book contributes to the research on the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa.

The task of building more energy-efficient, climate-friendly and sustainable societies is the defining challenge of the 21st century. Striving to become the world's first major renewable energy economy by 2050, Germany is a global front runner in environmental policy and practice. Requiring massive investments in green technologies and infrastructure, Germany's ambitious shift from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewables requires nothing less than an 'energy revolution.' How and why did Europe's largest economy embrace a challenge that has been compared to the first landing on the moon? What does this transition entail? Is the German experience transferable to other industrialized nations such as the United States? Experts from business, academia, governmental agencies and non-profit think tanks offer multi-disciplinary perspectives on the experiences behind and the challenges ahead. They open up new viewpoints and avenues for shared insight on environmental governance, energy security, technological innovation, green landscape and urban design, as well as on the possibilities for transatlantic partnership and cooperation.

This book analyzes how international organizations and the European Union engage with civil society to pursue their policy goals. Multi-stakeholder initiatives, private-public partnership, sub-contracting, political alliances, hybrid coalitions, multi-sectoral networks, pluralist co-governance, and indeed foreign policy by proxy are all considered. Bringing together the most advanced scholarship, the book examines trade, environment, development, security, and human rights with reference to both EU and global institutional settings such as the WTO, UN Climate Summits, FAO, IFAD, ICC, UNHRC, UNSC, and at the EU level the DG FISMA, TRADE, CLIMA, DEVCO, HOME and ECHO. The book also studies the use of NGOs in the foreign policy of the EU, USA, and Russia. This changing politics and the polarized debate it has generated are explored in detail.

Drawing on comparative politics and social network analysis, this book examines how the domestic institutional and organizational settings, as well as the network governance patterns, determine variation in administrative responses to EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in two European Union (EU) member states, Denmark and Greece. These two small member states represent the North and South dimensions of the EU. The north-south dimension in relation to administrative structures, respond differently to EU common policies and to Common Agricultural Policy, specifically which has not been studied in the Europeanization literature. Even though, the study of administrative responses to EU common policies is important as it has been especially noticeable during the current financial crisis. Europeanisation studies concentrate on either large Western European states (France, Germany and UK) or small Western Northern states. These studies produced detailed knowledge on specific countries and policy areas but they ignored the agricultural policy area and the importance of small Southern member states. By comparing a small Southern with a small Northern state since the accession to the EU, this book aims to fill this gap in the literature. Moreover, by linking the findings of the two cases to the member states that joined the EU in the 2004 fifth enlargement, and in other policy areas, it allows a better understanding of similar responses, either adaptation or inertia."This book represents an important contribution to the theoretical and empirical literature on Europeanisation and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It systematically tackles an under studied question: does Europeanisation of policies lead to administrative change and convergence among the member states? The domestic administration of the EU CAP has remained domestically designed and monitored, resulting in divergence among the member states and gaps and imbalances in the performance of EU CAP decisions. The CAP is of more general interest because it combines regulatory and market intervention policy instruments. The analysis proceeds through in depth comparative historical case studies of Denmark and Greece which uses a sophisticated combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The authoritative and informative analysis is structured by a focus on three key domestic factors. There is differentiated administration of common policies and while administration succeeds and adapts in one state, it does not necessarily do so in others, leading to differences in implementation performance. This book should provide a stimulus for further research." Wyn Grant, University of Warwick The last 40 years have been crucial for the European agriculture. The Common Agricultural Policy fulfilled its primary objective, which led Europeans to shift its objectives and cope with the shortcomings created by the success of the Policy itself manage surpluses and narrow the gap between farmers, due to price mechanism as well as, adapt the policy following the successive enlargements and follow the developments in the global economy, in which we live nowadays. Dr. Chatzopoulou gives us a very accurate image on how differently actors of the agricultural economy, farmers, cooperatives and the administrations both in Greece and Denmark, behave. But also, how different is the structure of the sector in these two countries: in Denmark, almost everything is based upon a consensus, where there does not exist a law on cooperatives, and where the administration and the sector work together to adapt or to influence the decisions to take at European level. On the other hand, in Greece, farmers struggle to make their voice heard in the absence of professional organizations, the cooperatives are bound to work in the framework of a specific and strict law and the administration was not shown very cooperative with the sector. These two realities are very well illustrated by the author and many lessons are to be learnt through this study. But, above all, the author gives us a fair idea of how complex is the process of Europeanisation in a Europe Union composed of sovereign member-States with different history, culture, social organization and different legal systems. Vaggelis Divaris, Former European Commission principal administrator (DG Agriculture and Rural Development)

Policymakers prepare society for the future and this book provides a practical toolkit for preparing pro-active, future-proof scientific policy advice for them. It explains how to make scientific advisory strategies holistic. It also explains how and where biases, which interfere with the proper functioning of the entire science-policy ecosystem, arise and investigates how emotions and other biases affect the understanding and assessment of scientific evidence. The book advocates explorative foresight, systems thinking, interdisciplinarity, bias awareness and the anticipation of undesirable impacts in policy advising, and it offers practical guidance for them. Written in an accessible style, the book offers provocative reflections on how scientific policy advice should be sensitive to more than scientific evidence. It is both an appealing introductory text for everyone interested in science-based policy and a valuable guide for the experienced scientific adviser and policy scholar. "This book is a valuable read for all stakeholders in the scientific advisory ecosystem. Lieve Van Woensel offers concrete methods to bridge the gap between scientific advice and policy making, to assess the possible societal impacts of complex scientific and technological developments, and to support decision-makers' more strategic understanding of the issues they have to make decisions about. I was privileged to see them proove their value as I worked with Lieve on the pilot project of the Scientific Foresight unit for The European Parliament's STOA panel." - Kristel Van der Elst, CEO, The Global Foresight Group; Executive Head, Policy Horizons Canada "A must-read for not only scientific policy advisers, but also those interested in the ethics of scientific advisory processes. Lieve Van Woensel walks readers through a well-structured practical toolkit that bases policy advice on more than scientific evidence by taking into account policies' potential effects on society and the environment." - Dr Paul Rubig, Former Member of the European Parliament and former Chair of the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology

Over the last few decades, politics in India has moved steadily in a pro-business direction. This shift has important implications for both government and citizens. In Business and Politics in India, leading scholars of Indian politics have gathered to offer an analytical synthesis of this vast topic. Collectively, they cover the many strategies that businesses have used to exert their newfound power in recent times and organize the book around a few central concerns. They first analyze the nature of business power and how it shapes political change in India. Second, they look at the consequences of business' growing power on some important issue areas-labor, land, urban governance, and the media. Finally, they take account of regional variation and analyze state-business relations. This definitive account offers significant insights into how and why corporations have increased their power in contemporary Indian politics.

In this book, the author examines the media coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict by six Polish media outlets in 2014 and 2015. Using content analysis and in-depth interviews, the author explores how cultural and historical factors, as well as the national security threat to Poland, affected the media image of the conflict. Despite differences in editorial line, level of political parallelism and type of medium, the Polish media largely spoke with one voice. Interviews with journalists uncover how they view their role in reporting on the conflict, and how national prejudices had an impact on their work. The military and economic threat to Poland, resulting from Russia's actions, was the dominant tool of domestication used by the media to bring the dispute closer to the public.

This book assesses the quality of democracy through the study of organized interests in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) since the collapse of communism in 1989 up to 2017. It offers a much-needed comprehensive look into formal interest representation in CEE countries and compares this with the model in Western democracies. Drawing on democratic theory and comparative analysis, the authors explore the effects of a legal framework, political as well as social contexts. The volume contributes to debates on the performance of young democracies in CEE, where scholars argue that there is a 'democratic crisis' and democratic fatigue while the interest group system is often labelled as weak and, in some cases, underdeveloped. Although great efforts have been made to deepen our understanding of interest organization and lobbying tools, the current literature fails to provide a comprehensive answer on the influence of unsupportive environments on population ecology. The case of CEE countries shows significant effects of political and social contexts on interest representation, stimulating a debate about the quality of democratic institutions following the collapse of communism.

Politics at the Centre is a comparative study of the rules, norms and behaviour surrounding political party leadership. The primary analysis includes 25 parties in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom from 1965 onwards. The topics covered include methods of leadership selection and removal and the nature of leadership politics. The themes of the book include intra party democracy, with an emphasis on the relative roles of the parliamentary and extra parliamentary groups, and the causes of organizational reform within parties. Particular attention is paid to change over time and to differences among parties with explanations offered for both. Considerable attention is paid to the trend of expanding the leadership selectorate including consideration of why many parties are adopting this reform while others resist it. Data, collected from more than 200 leadership elections, are analyzed to consider issues such as the competitiveness of leadership contests, the types of individuals who win the contests and the longevity of leaders. The influence of different methods of selection and removal on these issues is also examined. Much of the analysis is based on in-country interviews conducted with active politicians, former and current party leaders, political journalists and officials of the extra parliamentary parties. Extensive use is also made of a comprehensive review of party documents related to leadership selection. Many real-life examples from all five countries are used to illustrate the central concepts and themes. A separate chapter considers the applicability of the findings from the Westminster systems to parties in other parliamentary and presidential systems. The concluding chapter makes a normative argument for a particular version of leadership selection and removal. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr. The Comparative Politics Series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.

Recently there has been a convergence of party funding regimes across many states of Western Europe. The driving force behind this process has been the introduction of state funding to political parties. This book subsequently asks why state funding to political parties has been introduced in ever more countries and yet there still remain some places where it has only been introduced to a decidedly limited degree? It argues that a consensus of the relevant parties is a prerequisite for the introduction of state funding, thereby assuming a nexus between particular forms of party competition and the outcome of party funding reforms. The author shows how the introduction of state funding is more likely to occur in countries where parties have a high number of institutional veto points at their disposal, where both policy- and office-seeking play a more important role in parties' strategic preferences than vote-seeking, and where the discourse on political corruption identifies state funding as a remedy against corrupt practices. These assumptions are confirmed for four cases: Germany, Sweden, the UK, and France. He argues that two constellations of independent variables facilitate the introduction or reform of state subsidies. On the one hand, in political systems that provide parties with a considerable number of veto points, vote-seeking generally plays a minor role in decisions about party funding. On the other hand parties can reach a consensus independently of the institutional environment and their strategic preferences by engaging in the discourse on political corruption. Decreasing levels of ideological polarisation prior to the introduction of state funding imply that causal mechanisms similar to the ones identified in the four case studies are at work in established democracies in Western Europe more generally. Thus, the book represents a first step towards a theory which explains differences and similarities in party funding regimes.

The Americas face many security challenges, including drug trafficking, organized crime, guerrilla movements, terrorism, and environmental challenges. Experts have long debated whether some countries in the region can be classified as failed states. While various states in the Americas have been labeled as failed states, calling a country a failed state is quite controversial and requires a precise definition of what constitutes a failed state. This book instead discusses fragile states in the Americas. Fragile states are weak states that are fertile grounds for organized crime groups and illegal actors as such groups are able to infiltrate the state apparatus through corruption. The goal of this book is to examine fragile states in the region and the major security challenges that these states face. The cause of state fragility is different for various states. Theoretically, the work will conceptualize the meaning of fragility as it relates to state survival and autonomy. Empirically, the book focuses on contemporary threats to the survival of fragile states in the Americas. The book explains and analyzes the main political, security, and economic challenges of these states. It employs a wide array of cases that delve into the security and economic threats and priorities of states in the Americas.

The book analyses contemporary relations between two biggest states in East-Central Europe: Poland and Ukraine. This topic is of interest for three reasons: difficult history of the two countries, different models of development adopted after the end of communism and the common challenge of aggressive Russian policy. The timeframe of the work is from 1989-2018, with an emphasis on the period after 2014, when the Russian-Ukrainian war began. The book is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the history and determinants of Polish-Ukrainian relations. The second one presents political, economic, social and military relations between the two states. The last part focuses on more specific issues such as historical memory, the Polish-Ukrainian border and relations with the EU.