Contributors: Nicholas D. J. Baldwin, David Beamish, R. L. Borthwick, Jenny Brock, Gavin Drewry, Elizabeth Flood, Cliff Grantham, David Jones, David Miers, Douglas Millar, David Natzler, Michael Rush, Donald Shell When reform or abolition of the House of Lords is discussed assertions are frequently made about the relative value of its work; yet there has been little scholarly study of what it actually does. This book is the first to offer a systematic and comprehensive analysis of one complete session. Written by a team of senior academics and officers of both Houses of Parliament, it evaluates every aspect of the activity of the House, including its membership, the treatment of legislation, debates and questions, and select committee work, and contains detailed statistics of sittings and divisions. This thorough and authoritative account will be essential reading for all serious students of the British Parliament, and for all who wish to enter the debate about the future of the House of Lords.

Using the way of storytelling, this book examines the petitions of the migrants of a dam in China. With the intensive and thorough analysis of the unique logic behind the petitions, it explores the complex relationship between Chinese peasants and governments, where people may find the key to the mysteries of Chinese society. As the first academic monograph which systematically studies petition, the peculiar Chinese social phenomenon, this book describes the collective action of the rural migrants who had fallen into poverty due to the construction of a dam in China's Three Gorges area. By investigating the ups and downs of the petitions, it reveals the operating mechanism of Chinese counties, the conflicts between the officials and the masses, as well as Chinese political culture, especially the subtle process of the contest of powers. It observes that the peasants' pursuit of justice not only temporarily maintains the balance of interests, but also makes the legitimacy of the party-state been reproduced. With substantial first-hand materials and empirical analyses, this book will be a valuable reference for scholars and students to study Chinese politics and society.

Constitutional Rights after Globalization juxtaposes the globalization of the economy and the worldwide spread of constitutional charters of rights. The shift of political authority to powerful economic actors entailed by neo-liberal globalization challenges the traditional state-centred focus of constitutional law. Contemporary debate has responded to this challenge in normative terms, whether by reinterpreting rights or redirecting their ends, e.g. to reach private actors. However, globalization undermines the liberal legalist epistemology on which these approaches rest, by positing the existence of multiple sites of legal production, (e.g. multinational corporations) beyond the state. This dynamic, between globalization and legal pluralism on one side, and rights constitutionalism on the other, provides the context for addressing the question of rights constitutionalism's counterhegemonic potential. This shows first that the interpretive and instrumental assumptions underlying constitutional adjudication are empirically suspect: constitutional law tends more to disorder than coherence, and frequently is an ineffective tool for social change. Instead, legal pluralism contends that constitutionalism's importance lies in symbolic terms as a legitimating discourse. The competing liberal and 'new' politics of definition (the latter highlighting how neoliberal values and institutions constrain political action) are contrasted to show how each advances different agenda. A comparative survey of constitutionalism's engagement with private power shows that conceiving of constitutions in the predominant liberal, legalist mode has broadly favoured hegemonic interests. It is concluded that counterhegemonic forms of constitutional discourse cannot be effected within, but only by unthinking, the dominant liberal legalist paradigm, in a manner that takes seriously all exercises of political power.

The transnational architecture of global information networks has made territorial borders less significant. Boundaries between spaces are becoming blurred in the evolving information age. But do information and communication technologies networks really lead to a weakening of the nation-state? This volume revisits the 'retreat of the state' thesis and tests its validity in the 21st century. It considers cyberspace as a matter of collective and policy choice, prone to usurpation by governance structures. Governments around the world are already reacting to the information revolution and trying to re-establish their leading role in creating governance regimes for the Information Age. The volume comes at a historical moment when new political dynamics are detected and new conceptual models are sought to categorize the attempts to deal with global/transnational issues. It will intrigue the reader with expert-level analysis of the role of the state in the emerging global/supranational governance structures by providing historical context and conceptualizing trends and social dynamics.

This collection studies the rise of neutral bodies as a challenge to the constitutional paradigm of the nation state. Administrative entities such as commissions, agencies, councils, authorities or 'independent agencies' as they are sometimes known, are relatively autonomous from majoritarian democratic control and by their institutional design fall outside the classical triad of powers or branches of government. They may even fall outside the confines of the nation state itself as with the EU Commission. The book is divided into theoretical-historical and empirical parts. Part I approaches the phenomenon through the rigorous normative conceptual lens of constitutionalism and constitutional law, questioning the implications of political neutrality on inherited normative categories, both at national and supranational level. Part II comprises case-studies reflecting the full spectrum of theoretical frameworks and concerns developed and explored by the theory-oriented chapters in the first part. The work explores a wide range of issues including the balance between autonomy, legitimacy and accountability, the taxonomy of agencies, the role and limits of expertise as a paramount justification for independence, 'agentification' as a result of internationalisation, and 'agentification' as a reflex and consequence of transnational polity-building within the EU.

This book explores China's perspective on sovereignty. The concept of sovereignty is universal, however, the understanding of it varies in different states and due to cultural backgrounds, history or the composition of ethnic groups. In order to comprehend China's current perspective on sovereignty, the author connects Chinese historical ideas with the current international society. She locates misunderstandings of China's past and present which could cause misjudgment of China's perspective on sovereignty. Hence, the author analyzes China's imperial history concerning sovereignty and foreign policies. She surveys the cultural, political, administrative and legal roots of the ancient empires because of their great influence on its current political arrangements. In addition, the study examines the divergence between the European and Chinese understanding on human rights.

Presidents and their advisors consistently seek to improve the management of their foreign policy decision processes. This book analyzes the successes and failures of administrations from Kennedy to Nixon as they sought to strike a balance between the personal style of the president and the need for a strong interagency structure that could systematically evaluate policy options. The narrative focuses on US decision making on China and Taiwan during the crucial era when the US was considering moving from a policy of isolating China to a policy of engagement, culminating in Nixon's historic 1972 trip to China. William Waltman Newmann has created an Evolution-Balancing model, tested with case studies focusing on China policy by Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, showing how the relationships between a president and his advisors change based on the weaknesses or pathologies of the president's management style. The author's research is based on declassified archival material from the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford presidential libraries.

The War on Terror has been going on for over a decade and it shows no signs of winding down in near future, a war which has directly contributed to growing security regimes in frontline states. This book focuses on the legal dimensions of the War on Terror and security in Pakistan. It highlights the growth of the security state in Pakistan, and questions the growing and by-now entrenched legal security regime in the country. The book traces the roots of the present security laws in colonial and post-colonial times. One broader dimension from which the legal security regime of Pakistan is approached in this book is through highlighting specific issues concerning the legal identity of the subject such as the rights of aliens in the background of state power versus liberal constitutionalism, and the rights of terrorism suspects in the background of deploying death sentence as a tactical, psychological tool versus the absolute right to life (of every individual). By critically reflecting on the increasingly institutionalized form of the security apparatus in Pakistan, the book (indirectly) suggests the legal ways to resist the growing legal security regime and derogation from human rights. Offering a theoretically engaged and critically reflective overview of the current state of individual identity, rights and freedoms in face of a burgeoning legal regime of security in Pakistan, this study makes advances in critical legal studies and critical IR. It will be of interest to academics working in the field of security studies, South Asian Studies, particularly Pakistan, and the War on Terror.

No other institution better mirrors the division of American political power than the congressional districts in the U.S. House of Representatives. Understanding the makeup of districts is essential to understanding national politics and power in Washington. CQ Press continues its thirty-year history of illuminating the often-hidden mystery of congressional districts in the long-awaited Congressional Districts in the 2000s: A Portrait of America. Each decade a new national census requires reapportionment changes in the number of seats per state in the House and redistricting redrawing the boundaries for each district in a state. The outcome of this decennial exercise controls the division of power between the parties. Congressional Districts in the 2000s looks at the process and the results in fine detail. Each of the 435 districts that comprise the full House is examined to show demographic composition, economic status, business operations, media, and more. No other single source provides such a full portrait of each state's districts, and thereby the entire nation. The book is your one-stop source for the right information. Here's what you will find: Each state as a self-contained chapter. Profiles of each district in a state, including: Text description of the district, key election returns and population figures Cities and counties in the district and their populations Demographic data such as race and Hispanic origin Universities and colleges, newspapers, television and cable providers Business and other major employers. The 2000 presidential vote reconfigured to fit the new districts, giving a measure of Republican/Democrat strength in the new districts. A state map showing the congressional district lines, county lines, and major cities. Urban maps are included for states with large cities and metropolitan areas. Summary demographic tables from census data for each district showing: voting-age persons by race and age groups Population, education, housing patterns, income and occupation. All of the array of information is quickly accessible through a group of indexes for each major component in the book. Congressional Districts in the 2000s is the authoritative one-stop source of information about the new congressional districts that will be in place for the next decade. Students, scholars, teachers, lobbyists, journalists, interested citizens, and politicians across the ideological spectrum will consult this volume time and again for vital information.

Living Without Domination defends the bold claim that humans can organise themselves to live peacefully and prosperously together in an anarchist utopia. Clark refutes errors about what anarchism is, about utopianism, and about human sociability and its history. He then develops an analysis of natural human social activity which places anarchy in the real landscape of sociability, along with more familiar possibilities including states and slavery. The book is distinctive in bringing the rigour of analytic political philosophy to anarchism, which is all too often dismissed out of hand or skated over in popular history.

This book analyses the relation between state and religion in Indonesia, considering both the philosophical underpinning of government intervention on religious life but also cases and regulations related to religious affairs in Indonesia. Examining state regulation of religious affairs, it focuses on understanding its origin, history and consequences on citizens' religious life in modern Indonesia, arguing that while Indonesian constitutions have preserved religious freedom, they have also tended to construct wide-ranging discretionary powers in the government to control religious life and oversee religious freedom. Over more than four decades, Indonesian governments have constructed a variety of policies on religion based on constitutional legacies interpreted in the light of the norms and values of the existing religious majority group. A cutting edge examination of the tension between religious order and harmony on one hand, and protecting religious freedom for all on the other, this book offers a cutting edge study of how the history of regulating religion has been about the constant negotiation for the boundaries of authority between the state and the religious majority group.

This innovative reader brings together classic theoretical texts and cutting-edge ethnographic analyses of specific state institutions, practices, and processes and outlines an anthropological framework for rethinking future study of "the state."
Focuses on the institutions, spaces, ideas, practices, and representations that constitute the "state."
Promotes cultural and transnational approaches to the subject.
Helps readers to make anthropological sense of the state as a cultural artifact, in the context of a neoliberalizing, transnational world.

In this volume, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Michael Kammen explores the U.S. Constitution's place in the public consciousness and its role as a symbol in American life, from ratification in 1788 to our own time.

As he examines what the Constitution has meant to the American people (perceptions and misperceptions, uses and abuses, knowledge and ignorance), Kammen shows that although there are recurrent declarations of reverence most of us neither know nor fully understand our Constitution. How did this gap between ideal and reality come about? To explain it, Kammen examines the complex and contradictory feelings about the Constitution that emerged during its preparation and that have been with us ever since. He begins with our confusion as to the kind of Union we created, especially with regard to how much sovereignty the states actually surrendered to the central government. This confusion is the source of the constitutional crisis that led to the Civil War and its aftermath. Kammen also describes and analyzes changing perceptions of the differences and similarities between the British and American constitutions; turn-of-the-century debates about states' rights versus national authority; and disagreements about how easy or difficult it ought to be to amend the Constitution. Moving into the twentieth century, he notes the development of a "cult of the Constitution" following World War I, and the conflict over policy issues that persisted despite a shared commitment to the Constitution.

It is widely assumed that internal power-sharing is a viable democratic means of managing inter-communal conflict in divided societies. In principle, this form of government enables communities that have conflicting identities to remedy longstanding patterns of discrimination and to co-exist peacefully. Key arguments in support of this view can be found in the highly influential works of Arend Lijphart and Donald Horowitz. New Challenges for Power-Sharing seeks to explore the unintended consequences of power-sharing for the communities themselves, their individual members, and for others in society. More specifically, it is distinctive in questioning explicitly whether power sharing: perpetuates inter-communal conflict by institutionalising difference at the political level; inhibits conflict resolution by encouraging extremism; stifles internal diversity; and fails to leave sufficient space for individual autonomy. This book not only provides a theoretical exploration and critique of these questions, but comprehensively examines specific test cases where power-sharing institutions have been established, including in Northern Ireland, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Lebanon. It also explores such issues as the role of political leaders, human rights instruments, the position of women, and the prospects for reconciliation within such societies. Furthermore it provides a detailed set of policy recommendations to meet the challenges of transition in deeply-divided societies.

This new volume shows how state sovereignty is more fluid and contested than is usually appreciated within both conventional and constructivist literature. Whereas previous constructivist works have investigated the temporal contingency of state sovereignty, the spatial contingency of this concept has been neglected. This book tackles this situation, showing the reader how the meaning of state sovereignty was constituted differently in the case of the intervention in Kosovo and the case of non-intervention in Algeria in the late 1990s. This essential study clearly and concisely: takes existing constructivist and poststructuralist work on state sovereignty one step further, arguing that state sovereignty not only is open to different constructions over time, but also across space probes further into the conceptual relationships between sovereignty/ intervention, arguing that legitimations of non-intervention also can be analyzed as a practice, which gives meaning and content to the concept of state sovereignty contributes to the emerging debate on the importance of 'methodology' in constructivist studies, turning the philosophical and meta-theoretical assumptions of constructivism and poststructuralism into an informed 'analytical strategy' guiding the book's empirical discourse analysis.

The State and its Critics is an authoritative selection of recent essays in normative political philosophy on the state as a form of political institution, focusing on its role with respect to such values as freedom, justice, well-being, economic efficiency, community, democracy and peace. These essays represent a variety of views about the state, from anarchist to statist and a variety of philosophical orientations, conservative, libertarian, Marxian and liberal.

In 1917, barely into his second term as governor of Texas, James E. Ferguson was impeached, convicted, and removed from office. Impeached provides a new examination of the rise and fall of Ferguson's political fortunes, offering a focused look at how battles over economic class, academic freedom, women's enfranchisement, and concentrated political power came to be directed toward one politician. Jessica Brannon-Wranosky and Bruce A. Glasrud have brought together top scholars to shine a light on this unique chapter in Texas history. An overview by John R. Lundberg offers a comprehensive survey of the impeachment process. Kay Reed Arnold then follows the Ferguson story into the halls of academia at the University of Texas-which Ferguson threatened to close-sparking a fierce response by faculty, alumni, students, and, especially, the Women's Committee for Good Government. Rachel M. Gunter further places the Ferguson impeachment in the context of the suffrage movement. Leah LaGrone Ochoa then explores Ferguson's hot-and-cold relationship with the Texas press, and Mark Stanley examines the impact of the impeachment on Texas politics in the decades that followed. Jessica Brannon-Wranosky concludes with an assessment of the historical memory of Ferguson's impeachment throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Impeached: The Removal of Texas Governor James E. Ferguson, reveals how power ebbed and flowed in twentieth-century Texas and includes several annotated primary documents critical to understanding the Ferguson impeachment.

Recent years have witnessed an explosion of new research on constitution making. Comparative Constitution Making provides an up-to-date overview of this rapidly expanding field. Bringing together leading scholars from political science and comparative public law, this handbook presents a broad historical and geographical perspective, exploring debates on constitutionalism across the world. Contributions provide original, innovative research on central issues related to the process and context of constitution making and identify distinctive elements or models of regional constitutionalism. Insightful and comprehensive, this handbook offers impeccable guidance for students and scholars of constitutional and comparative public law, as well as political science, sociology and history, who are interested in the study of constitution making, democratization and post-conflict reconstruction. Lawyers, civil servants and NGOs in the field of constitutional advising and post-conflict institution building will also benefit from this handbook's unique insight.

Is the nation state under siege? A common answer is that globalization poses two fundamental threats to state sovereignty. The first threat concerns the unleashing of centrifugal and centripetal forces such as increasing market integration and the activities of institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and WTO- that imperil state sovereignty from "outside" the nation state. The second threat emanates from self-determination movements that jeopardize state sovereignty from "inside" the nation state.
This book rigorously analyzes popular hypotheses regarding globalization's effect on state sovereignty from a broad social sciences perspective. Using empirical evidence the authors suggest that globalization's multilevel threats to state sovereignty have been overestimated. In most instances globalization is likely to generate pressure for increased government spending while only one form of market integration - foreign direct investment by multinational enterprises - appears to increase any feeling of economic insecurity.
Also contrary to popular perception, the net effect of IMF conditionality may be positive, limits on state sovereignty by multilateral development banks are not inevitable, and the WTO is not necessarily a threat to state sovereignty. Furthermore, globalization is likely to increase the risk of secessionism only in very specific conditions and while some self-determination movements may find globalization useful, on the whole countries with more open economies appear less likely to house self determination movements and are more likely to implement policies of fiscal centralization.

Using a wide range of legal, administrative and literary sources, this study explores the role of the royal pardon in the exercise and experience of authority in Tudor England. It examines such abstract intangibles as power, legitimacy, and the state by looking at concrete life-and-death decisions of the Tudor monarchs. Drawing upon the historiographies of law and society, political culture, and state formation, mercy is used as a lens through which to examine the nature and limits of participation in the early modern polity.

This book uses a comparative approach to examine and explain the contemporary nature and meaning of federalism and federation. The author provides both a detailed theoretical study and empirical case studies on contemporary federations.
The study of federalism can be problematic and this book seeks to overcome some of the obstacles by distinguishing between federation, a particular kind of state, and federalism, the recommendation and promotion of support for federation. Written in a clear and accessible style, the author:
- Analyzes the conceptual bases of federalism and federation through the evolution of the intellectual debate on federalism; the American Federal experience; the origins of federal states; and the relationship between state-building and national integration.
- Explores comparative federalism and federation, looking at five main pathways into comparative analysis with empirical studies on the US, Canada, Australia, India, Malaysia, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the EU.
- Explores the pathology of federations, looking failures and successes, the impact of globalisation and concludes with an assessment of federal theory.
This book will be of interest to students and researchers of federalism, devolution and comparative politics and government.

In his essay "The end of laissez-faire," Keynes distinguished between the agenda and the non-agenda of government. This book asks how we interpret that distinction today.
A ground-breaking collection concerned with rethinking the contemporary role of the state.
Comprises essays written by leading scholars and politicians.
Looks back at the expansion of the social democratic state in post-war Britain, and at the subsequent challenge to this from neo-liberal ideas and policies.
Discusses new doctrines for managing the state, new conceptions of the state, and new ideas for organising the delivery of public services.
Covers current concepts, such as the enabling state, and topical issues such as public private partnerships.
Goes beyond traditional 'state versus market' arguments.
Opens up new conceptual and practical territory.

The freedoms of speech and religion assumed a sacrosanct space in American notions of civil liberty. But it was not until the twentieth century that these freedoms became prominent in American constitutional law; originally, the first ten amendments applied only to the federal government and not to the states. Murray Dry traces the trajectory of freedom of speech and religion to the center of contemporary debates as few scholars have done, by looking back to the American founding and to the classical texts in political philosophy that shaped the founders' understanding of republican government. By comparing the colonial charters with the new state constitutions and studying the development of the federal Constitution, Dry demonstrates the shift from governmental concern for the salvation of souls to the more limited aim of the securing of rights. For a uniquely rich and nuanced appreciation of this shift Dry explores the political philosophy of Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, and Mill, among others, whose writings helped shaped the Supreme Court's view of religion as separate from philosophy, as a matter of individual faith and not a community practice. Delving into the polyvalent interpretations of such fundamental concepts as truth, faith, and freedom, Civil Peace and the Quest for Truth immeasurably advances the study of American constitutional law and our First Amendment rights.