Is the process of state building a unilateral, national venture, or is it something more collaborative, taking place in the interstices between adjoining countries? To answer this question, Asymmetrical Neighbors takes a comparative look at the state building process along China, Myanmar, and Thailand's common borderland area. It shows that the variations in state building among these neighboring countries are the result of an interactive process that occurs across national boundaries. Departing from existing approaches that look at such processes from the angle of singular, bounded territorial states, the book argues that a more fruitful method is to examine how state and nation building in one country can influence, and be influenced by, the same processes across borders. It argues that the success or failure of one country's state building is a process that extends beyond domestic factors such as war preparation, political institutions, and geographic and demographic variables. Rather, it shows that we should conceptualize state building as an interactive process heavily influenced by a "neighborhood effect." Furthermore, the book moves beyond the academic boundaries that divide arbitrarily China studies and Southeast Asian studies by providing an analysis that ties the state and nation building processes in China with those of Southeast Asia.

As most Americans know, conflicts of interest riddle the US health care system. They result from physicians practicing medicine as entrepreneurs, from physicians' ties to pharma, and from investor-owned firms and insurers' influence over physicians' medial choices. These conflicts raise questions about physicians' loyalty to their patients and their professional and economic independence. The consequences of such conflicts of interest are often devastating for the patients--and society--stuck in the middle.
In Conflicts of Interest and the Future of Medicine, Marc Rodwin examines the development of these conflicts in the US, France, and Japan. He shows that national differences in the organization of medical practice and the interplay of organized medicine, the market, and the state give rise to variations in the type and prevalence of such conflicts. He then analyzes the strategies that each nation employs to cope with them.
Unfortunately, many proposals to address physicians' conflicts of interest do not offer solutions that stick. But drawing on the experiences of these three nations, Rodwin demonstrates that we can mitigate these problems with carefully planned reform and regulation. He examines a range of measures that can be taken in the private and public sector to preserve medical professionalism--and concludes that there just might be more than one prescription to this seemingly incurable malady.

In its first seven years, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tripled trade and quintupled foreign investment among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, increasing its share of the world economy. In 2001, however, North America peaked. Trade slowed among the three, manufacturing jobs shrunk, and illegal migration and drug-related violence soared. Europe caught up, and China leaped ahead. In The North American Idea , eminent scholar and policy-maker Robert A. Pastor explains that NAFTA's mandate was too limited to address the new North American agenda. Instead of offering bold initiatives like a customs union to expand trade, the three leaders thought small. Interest groups stalemated the small ideas as they inhibited the bolder proposals, and the governments accomplished almost nothing. To overcome this resistance and re-invigorate the continent, the leaders need to start with an idea based on a principle of interdependence. If one country fails, all three are harmed, and if one grows, they all benefit. Drawing on first-hand experience as a policy-maker and analyst, Pastor shows how this idea-once woven into the national consciousness of the three countries-could mobilize public support for continental solutions to problems that have confounded each nation working on its own. To stimulate trade and reduce illegal migration, for example, the three countries could set up a fund to invest in the continent's infrastructure. Such a fund would be impossible without leadership and an idea of the continent's current importance and its future promise. Providing essential historical context and challenging readers to view the continent in a new way, Robert Pastor offers an expansive vision and a detailed blueprint for a more integrated, dynamic, and equitable North America.

Beyond Bias offers the first scholarly study of contemporary right-wing documentary film and video. Drawing from contemporary work in political theory and psychoanalytic theory, the book identifies what author Scott Krzych describes as the hysterical discourse prolific in conservative documentary in particular, and right-wing media more generally. In its hysterical mode, conservative media emphasizes form over content, relies on the spectacle of debate to avoid substantive dialogue, mimics the aesthetic devices of its opponents, reduces complex political issues to moral dichotomies, and relies on excessive displays of opinion to produce so much mediated "noise" as to drown out alternative perspectives or viewpoints. Though often derided for its reliance on nonsense or hyperbole, conservative media marshals incoherence as its prized aesthetic and rhetorical weapon, a means to bolster the political status quo precisely by confusing those audiences who come into its orbit. As a work of documentary studies, Beyond Bias also places conservative non-fiction films in conversation with their more conventional counterparts, drawing insight from the manner by which conservative media hystericizes such issues as the archive, observational methods, directorial participation, and the often moral imperatives by which documentary filmmakers attempt to offer insight into their subjects.

In response to the recent surge in extractive natural resource investments in Africa, this insightful book explores how relations between investors, ruling elites, and local populations develop when large-scale investments in gas, minerals, and agriculture expand. Advancing a multi-level approach that encompasses rigorous theoretical analysis, fieldwork, and literature review, expert contributors examine the implementation of natural resource investments and the extent to which they respect procedural rights of local populations. Chapters draw together understudied bodies of literature on land-grabbing debates, the resource curse controversy and corporate social responsibility (CSR), demonstrating how the chances of large-scale investments in natural resources are at their greatest when characterised by 'reciprocal exchange deals' between investors and local populations, 'compatible interests' between ruling elites and investors, and 'mutual recognition' between local populations and ruling elites. Through a careful examination of case studies in Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda, the book ultimately highlights the complexity of the political economy of natural resource investments. Providing valuable theoretical and empirical insights, this book will be an invigorating read for scholars and students of political economy, political geography, sustainability, CSR, and business studies. Its valuable insights on how natural resource investments might accelerate economic growth and consolidate links between local and global economies will also be of interest to development practitioners and investors.

Although nearly every country in the world today holds multiparty elections, these contests are often blatantly unfair. For governments, electoral misconduct is a tempting but also a risky practice, because it represents a violation of Although nearly every country in the world today holds multiparty elections, these contests are often blatantly unfair. For governments, electoral misconduct is a tempting but also a risky practice, because it represents a violation of international standards for free and fair elections. In Defending Democratic Norms, Daniela Donno examines how international actors respond to these norm violations. Which governments are punished for manipulating elections? Does international norm enforcement make a difference? Donno shows that although enforcement is selective and relatively rare, when international actors do employ tools of conditionality, diplomacy, mediation and shaming in response to electoral misconduct, they can have transformative effects on both the quality and outcome of elections. Specifically, enforcement works by empowering the domestic opposition and increasing the government's incentives to reform institutions of electoral management and oversight. These effects depend, however, on the presence of a viable opposition movement, as well as on the strength and credibility of the enforcement effort itself. The book shows that regional international organizations possess unique sources of leverage and legitimacy that make them the most consistently effective norm defenders, even compared to more materially powerful actors like the United States.
Drawing on an original dataset from almost 700 elections and incorporating case studies from the Dominican Republic, Serbia, Armenia, Kenya and Cambodia, Defending Democratic Norms is a bold new theory of international norm enforcement that demonstrates the importance of active international intervention in domestic politics.

Since the mid-2000s, India has been beset by widespread farmer protests against land dispossession. Dispossession Without Development demonstrates that beneath these conflicts lay a profound shift in regimes of dispossession. While the postcolonial Indian state dispossessed land mostly for public-sector industry and infrastructure, since the 1990s state governments have become land brokers for private real estate capital. Using the case of a village in Rajasthan that was dispossessed for a private Special Economic Zone, the book ethnographically illustrates the exclusionary trajectory of capitalism driving dispossession in contemporary India. Taking us into the lives of diverse villagers in "Rajpura," the book meticulously documents the destruction of agricultural livelihoods, the marginalization of rural labor, the spatial uneveness of infrastructure provision, and the dramatic consequences of real estate speculation for social inequality and village politics. Illuminating the structural underpinnings of land struggles in contemporary India, this book will resonate in any place where "land grabs" have fueled conflict in recent years.

In The Political Power of Bad Ideas, Mark Schrad uses one of the greatest oddities of modern history--the broad diffusion throughout the Western world of alcohol-control legislation in the early twentieth century--to make a powerful argument about how bad policy ideas achieve international success. His could an idea that was widely recognized by experts as bad before adoption, and which ultimately failed everywhere, come to be adopted throughout the world? To answer the question, Schrad utilizes an institutionalist approach and focuses in particular on the United States, Sweden, and Russia/the USSR.
Conventional wisdom, based largely on the U.S. experience, blames evangelical zealots for the success of the temperance movement. Yet as Schrad shows, ten countries, along with numerous colonial possessions, enacted prohibition laws. In virtually every case, the consequences were disastrous, and in every country the law was ultimately repealed. Schrad concentrates on the dynamic interaction of ideas and political institutions, tracing the process through which concepts of dubious merit gain momentum and achieve credibility as they wend their way through institutional structures. He also shows that national policy and institutional environments count: the policy may have been broadly adopted, but countries dealt with the issue in different ways.
While The Political Power of Bad Ideas focuses on one legendary episode, its argument about how and why bad policies achieve legitimacy applies far more broadly. It also extends beyond the simplistic notion that "ideas matter" to show how they influence institutional contexts and interact with a nation's political actors, institutions, and policy dynamics.

This Handbook brings together a collection of leading international authors to reflect on the influence of central contributions, or classics, that have shaped the development of the field of public policy and administration. The Handbook reflects on a wide range of key contributions to the field, selected on the basis of their international and wider disciplinary impact. Focusing on classics that contributed significantly to the field over the second half of the 20th century, it offers insights into works that have explored aspects of the policy process, of particular features of bureaucracy, and of administrative and policy reforms. Each classic is discussed by a leading international scholars. They offer unique insights into the ways in which individual classics have been received in scholarly debates and disciplines, how classics have shaped evolving research agendas, and how the individual classics continue to shape contemporary scholarly debates. In doing so, this volume offers a novel approach towards considering the various central contributions to the field. The Handbook offers students of public policy and administration state-of-the-art insights into the enduring impact of key contributions to the field.

This enlightening book scrutinizes the shifting and overlapping governance paradigms that inform public administration reforms. Exploring the models that shape and reshape the daily operation of public organizations, it explains the core features of public bureaucracy and professional rule in the modern day. From the rise to supremacy of New Public Management to the growing preference for alternatives, such as Digital Era Governance, Public Value Management and New Public Governance, four world-renowned authors launch a powerful and systematic comparison of the competing and co-existing paradigms. Advancing the 'public governance diamond' as a critical tool for comparing the core features of governance paradigms, this insightful book discusses the underlying behavioural assumptions of these models and the challenges faced by leaders when managing in a public sector. Informed by both key theory and empirical analysis, this book will be crucial reading for students and researchers seeking an authoritative voice on competing and co-existing modes of governance. Public leaders and managers, as well as public employees, will also benefit from its insights into the varying and multifaceted dynamics of public governance.

Presidential campaigns in recent years have shifted their strategy to focus increasingly on base partisans, a shift that has had significant consequences for democracy in America. Over the past few decades, political campaign strategy in US elections has experienced a fundamental shift. Campaigns conducted by both Republicans and Democrats have gradually refocused their attention increasingly toward their respective partisan bases. In Bases Loaded, Costas Panagopoulos documents this shift toward base mobilization and away from voter persuasion in presidential elections between 1956 and 2016. His analyses show that this phenomenon is linked to several developments, including advances in campaign technology and voter targeting capabilities as well as insights from behavioral social science focusing on voter mobilization. Demonstrating the broader implications of the shift toward base mobilization, he links the phenomenon to growing turnout rates among strong partisans and rising partisan polarization. A novel, data-rich account of how presidential campaigns have evolved in the past quarter century, Bases Loaded argues that what campaigns do matters—not only for election outcomes, but also for political processes in the US and for American democracy.

Mass attachment to religion is rapidly declining in most of the world; Why, and What comes next? The world is becoming less religious. Since 2007, there has been a pervasive decline in religious belief and most of the world's people now say that God is less important in their lives than they said He was in the quarter century before 2007. The American public showed the most dramatic shift of all. The United States, which for many years stood as a highly religious outlier among the world's high-income countries, now ranks as the 12th least religious country for which data are available. Many factors contributed to this dramatic worldwide shift, but as Inglehart shows, certain ones stand out. For centuries, virtually all major religions encouraged women to stay home and produce as many children as possible; and they sternly discouraged divorce, abortion, homosexuality, contraception, and any other form of sexual behavior not linked with reproduction. These norms were necessary for societies to survive when facing high infant mortality and low life expectancy: societies that didn't instill them tended to die out. Recent technological advances have greatly increased life expectancy and cut infant mortality to a tiny fraction of its historic levels, making these norms no longer necessary for societal survival. These norms require repressing strong natural urges, but, since they present traditional norms as absolute values, most religions strongly resist change. The resulting tension, together with the fact that rising existential security has made people less dependent on religion, opened the way for an exodus from religion. Utilizing a massive global data base, Inglehart analyzes the conditions under which religiosity collapses, and explores its implications for the future.

The Impact of Gender Quotas is a theory-building and comparative exercise in elaborating concepts commonly used to analyze the broad impacts of gender quotas. The book begins with the argument that the means by which women enter politics may influence how, why and to what extent their presence affects political representation. Following a preface by Drude Dahlerup, one of the pioneers of gender quota research, the editors introduce the book with a conceptual framework for analyzing the impact of quotas, based upon descriptive, substantive and symbolic dimensions of representation. The book is subsequently organized into three sections, each devoted to analyzing one of the dimensions of representation, and each of these sections contains a chapter case study from one of four regions of the world (Western Europe, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia). Each of the chapters follows a basic format instituted by the editors, with the goal of facilitating cross-case comparisons and broad theory-building. The editors conclude the book by summarizing the main themes and implications for future research on gender quotas.

Identifying a crisis for representative democracy in Western European party systems, this essential book studies the widening gap between political parties' ideological economic Left-Right rhetoric and their increasing convergence on policymaking. Addressing whether these ideologies are converging or diverging, it answers whether these changes are initiated by the parties themselves, aligned with voter demand, or forced by economic globalization. The crisis of representative democracy in Western Europe is a prevalent issue in comparative politics. This comprehensive study assesses the problems faced by representative democracy by analysing ideological polarization and inter-party conflict in relation to the changing linkage between citizens, parties, and public policies, and the implications this has for representative democracy. Considering both supply-side and demand-side theories, it analyses five major theoretical themes central to the ideological convergence and polarization within party systems, including the cartel party thesis, the median voter theorem, realignment theory, consensus democracy theory, and globalization theory. Going beyond theory, chapters use five decades of empirical research to present new and unique longitudinal and comparative data sets covering eight party systems, ultimately providing a more accurate diagnosis of the vitality of representative democracy in contemporary Western Europe. Combining in-depth theoretical analysis with empirical research, this comprehensive book will prove invaluable to students and scholars of politics and political science, and policymakers concerned with party systems.

Transportation and the State explores the role of the emerging national state in the 19th century as an organiser of territory and a governor of infrastructure. It offers a comparative historical analysis of eight industrialising nation-states and discusses their role in the democratisation and economic development of the industrialising world since the post-Napoleonic era. Hans Keman and Jaap J. Woldendorp provide a comprehensive analysis of how nation-states have regulated the economy and society from the 19th century to the present day, with particular focus on the development and operation of railway systems. They demonstrate how states define and direct infrastructure and railway systems as part of the public domain. By exploring the impact of the railways on the evolution of the national state, Keman and Woldendorp reveal the complex interactions between the state, society and the economy, and how these are situated within their historical context. Taking a diachronic empirical approach, they challenge common misinterpretations around the role of the state and argue for a revision and reformulation of its current format and capacities. Drawing together the academic fields of political science, economics and economic history in an innovative way, this book will be of particular interest to scholars and students looking to expand their understanding of the ways these disciplines interlink. It will also be a helpful read for policy-makers working on improving transport infrastructure in different nations.

At a time of global climate crisis, this crucial book examines the prospects for implementing low-carbon policies in the two global superpowers of China and Russia, focusing on the role of informal institutions in achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Chapters shed light on how informal institutions function and work in practice, how and why they take shape and how they influence formal low-carbon policies. Forensically examining five critical cases relating to Chinese and Russian institutions, this book demonstrates how informal institutions can both support and obstruct the achievement of formal policy goals. Through comparisons within and between each country, it shows how these dynamics differ and offers key hypotheses on the role of these institutions in policy implementation. Comprehensive and incisive, this book will be important reading for scholars researching public policy in China and Russia, particularly those specialising in environmental science and politics. The practical insights derived from new case studies will also be useful for policymakers working on climate mitigation policy.

As the European Union continues to struggle to establish a common agenda on tackling social problems, this compelling book presents a set of comparative sociological studies in southern European countries from leading scholars working in the region. While political and sociological discussion is frequently focused on northern EU member states, this book widens the debate by looking at a series of specific social problems of southern Europe. Contributors examine pressing social issues, such as social unrest, Islamophobia, childhood and educational needs, deindustrialization, unemployment and environmental degradation, addressing not only the implications of these issues but also their societal perception and their impact on national and regional identities. Chapters highlight shared trends and critical regional disparities that may improve our understanding of social problems in Mediterranean welfare states. Featuring key research from leading academics in the field, this book is crucial reading for scholars of sociology and social policy working in the field of social problems, particularly those focused on southern Europe. It will also be beneficial to policymakers working in the region who are in need of fresh empirical insights into the social fabric of southern European societies. Contributors include: T. Alvarez Lorente, H. Baldan, A. Barros Cardoso, F. Barros Rodriguez, J.F. Bejarano Bella, I. Benali Tahiri, S. Bertolini, F.J. Canton Correa, P. Cardon, F.F. Castano, E. Dominguez, R. Duque-Calvache, F. Entrena-Duran, M. do Nascimento Esteves Mateus, R. Fajardo Fernandez, C. Fuentes-Lara, N. Fuster, P. Galindo Calvo, J.M. Garcia Moreno, A. Gentile, S.M.A. Gozzo, J. Iglesias de Ussel, E. Igorra Canillas, B. Jimenez Roger, J. Lopez Doblas, L.F. Lopez Garcia, B. Mahmud, R. Manzanera Ruiz, C. Marciano, A. Martinez Lopez, R. Martinez Martin, I. Palomares-Linares, L. Pellizzoni, T.T. Rodriguez Molina, F. Sadio Ramos, M. Sanchez Martinez, M.J. Santiago Segura, R.M. Soriano Miras, J.L. Sousa Soares de Oliveira Braga, J. Susino, J.M. Torrado, A. Torres Rodriguez, A. Trinidad Requena, J.M. Valdera-Gil

In both Europe and America, the landscape of social policies has undergone fundamental changes in recent decades, especially in endeavors to develop new welfare arrangements. How does this affect citizenship-at-large as defined by the Marshallian triad of personal, democratic, and social rights?
Taking nine European countries as case studies, the contributions analyze the ways that citizenship has changed in key areas such as social security, labor market policies, and social services. Other chapters concentrate on the theoretical and conceptual challenges that result from the interrelation of changing social policies with different notions of citizenship. Trends in welfare reform have become harder to interpret. They are no longer about simple reductions in social services and entitlements, or a decline in social citizenship; the terms of debate have shifted. In a postindustrial world, individuals are afforded more mobility, autonomy, and responsibility. Security is being reexamined in light of the new risks stemming from a worldwide knowledge-based economy.
Behind the diversity of changes there is a unified agenda taking shape, characterized with concepts like activation, social investments, concerns with inclusion, and the strengthening of links between rights and responsibilities. The contributions in this volume represent an insightful look at the debate between the determination to curb social spending and a new model of an activist state ready to make social investments.

In this synthetic, interdisciplinary work, Neil Brenner develops a new interpretation of the transformation of statehood under contemporary globalizing capitalism. Whereas most analysts of the emergent, post-Westphalian world order have focused on supranational and national institutional realignments, 'New State Spaces' shows that strategic subnational spaces, such as cities and city-regions, represent essential arenas in which states are being transformed. Brenner traces the transformation of urban governance in western Europe during the last four decades and, on this basis, argues that inherited geographies of state power are being fundamentally rescaled. Through a combination of theory construction, historical analysis and cross-national case studies of urban policy change, 'New State Spaces' provides an innovative analysis of the new formations of state power that are currently emerging. This is a mature and sophisticated analysis by a major young scholar

Bringing together transnational perspectives on urban narration, this innovative book analyses how a combination of tales, images and discourses are used to brand, market and (re-)make cities, focusing on the actors behind this and the conflicts of power that arise in defining and governing city futures. Reflecting theoretically on the role of storytelling in urban contexts, an international range of leading scholars analyse how the re-making of cities is governed. Undertaking detailed empirical case studies across France, Hong Kong, the UK and the US, chapters provide comparative perspectives on a broad range of urban narratives, including alternative narratives within and across cities. Cases examined include the smart city of Hong Kong, the multi-city economy of England's Northern Powerhouse, and resistance and resilience in Lyon and Pittsburgh. Ultimately, this insightful book underlines the importance of urban narratives in the government and governance of cities. With global scope, this book will prove a valuable resource for students and scholars of urban affairs, politics, geography and public administration who are interested in narrative approaches, alongside various stakeholders and policy makers working in city governance.