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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes > Constitution, government & the state
This title was first published in 2002. The Imperial Republic addresses the enduring relationship that the American constitution has with the concept of empire . Early activists frequently used the word to describe the nation they wished to create through revolution and later reform. The book examines what the Framers of the Constitution meant when they used the term empire and what such self-conscious empire building tells Americans about the underlying goals of their constitutional system. Utilizing the author's extensive research from colonial times to the turn of the twentieth century, the book concludes that imperial ambition has profoundly influenced American constitutional law, theory and politics. It uses several analytical techniques to ascertain the multiple meanings of such fundamental words as empire and republic and demonstrates that such concepts have at least four levels of meaning. Relying on numerous examples, it further concludes that American leaders frequently (even proudly) used the word with some of its most domineering implications.
This book explores how the liberal conception of justice with all its ideological underpinnings is reflected in the framing and working of the Constitution of India, in the adoption of broader socio-economic objectives, in the functioning of judicial and state institutions, and in the formulation and implementation of development strategy. It analyses the dynamics of the relationship between justice, democracy and the state. The book studies the liberal conception of social justice and its sufficiency, and interrogates its performance and adequacy within the structural parameters and cultural conditions of postcolonial India. It provides an analytical exposition of how the borrowed and inadequate conception of liberal justice and democracy inherited from colonial past, and the espousal of the derivative developmental pattern based on modernist and constructivist paradigm, have together failed to achieve the modest target of justice enshrined in the Constitution. Interlinking justice, democracy and state, the book examines their operational dynamics in an integrated framework which has relevance for other Third World countries also because of socio-economic and cultural commonalites.
This title was first published in 2001. Based on a unique set of structured interviews with parliamentarians and additional interviews with party leaders and activists, this significant volume provides an illuminating account of the formation of the new democracies in Czechoslovakia and later, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Examining efforts to construct stable democratic parliamentary regimes in the wake of communist breakdown, it provides a rigorous analysis of parliaments' relations with the electorate and the executive, as well as their internal working. Richly detailed and clearly written, this original study is an invaluable addition to the collection of anyone interested in post-communist Europe or parliamentary studies.
Comparative constitutional change has recently emerged as a distinct field in the study of constitutional law. It is the study of the way constitutions change through formal and informal mechanisms, including amendment, replacement, total and partial revision, adaptation, interpretation, disuse and revolution. The shift of focus from constitution-making to constitutional change makes sense, since amendment power is the means used to refurbish constitutions in established democracies, enhance their adaptation capacity and boost their efficacy. Adversely, constitutional change is also the basic apparatus used to orchestrate constitutional backslide as the erosion of liberal democracies and democratic regression is increasingly affected through legal channels of constitutional change. Routledge Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Change provides a comprehensive reference tool for all those working in the field and a thorough landscape of all theoretical and practical aspects of the topic. Coherence from this aspect does not suggest a common view, as the chapters address different topics, but reinforces the establishment of comparative constitutional change as a distinct field. The book brings together the most respected scholars working in the field, and presents a genuine contribution to comparative constitutional studies, comparative public law, political science and constitutional history.
In Empire Versus Democracy, Carl Boggs traces the authoritarian trajectory of American politics since World War II, with emphasis on the growing concentration of corporate and military power that has accompanied the United States assumption of leading superpower on the world scene. The rise of the U.S. as unchallenged imperial nation has meant the steady expansion of a permanent war economy and security state that, working in tandem with large business interests, has led to proliferation of American armed-forces bases around the world, recurrent military interventions, swollen government bureaucracy, massive public expenditures, heavy reliance on surveillance and secrecy, and diminished resources for social infrastructure and social programs. Boggs shows that, as in the case of the Roman and other previous empires, enlargement of U.S. imperial power has resulted in a decline of civic engagement and local participation along with skewed priorities favoring the war economy and security state. Inevitably, this has meant a weakening of electoral and legislative politics, overwhelmed by the centers of enormous wealth and power. The goal of this new, unique Series is to offer readable, teachable "thinking frames" on today's social problems and social issues by leading scholars, all in short 60 page or shorter formats, and available for view on http: //routledge.customgateway.com/routledge-social-issues.html For instructors teaching a wide range of courses in the social sciences, the Routledge Social Issues Collection now offers the best of both worlds: originally written short texts that provide "overviews" to important social issues as well as teachable excerpts from larger works previously published by Routledge and other presses.
This book sheds light on the changing nature of contemporary Japan by decoding a range of political, economic and social boundaries. With a focus on the period following the inauguration of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, the book grows out of a recognition that, with the Koizumi administration playing a more proactive role internationally and moving ahead with deregulation and the 'structural reform' of the economy domestically, a range of boundaries have been challenged and reinscribed. Here 'boundaries' refers to the ways in which contemporary Japan is shaped as a separate entity by the inscription and reinscription of political, economic and social space creating insiders and outsiders, both internationally and domestically. The central argument of the book is that, in order to achieve the twin goals of greater international proactivity and domestic reform, the government and other actors supporting Koizumi's new direction for Japan needed to take action in order to destabilize and reformulate a range of extant boundaries. While boundaries often remain invisible, the aim of this book is to promote an understanding of their significance by uncovering their pivotal role. Decoding Boundaries in Contemporary Japan brings together contributions from leading and emerging scholars from the UK, Japan and the United States. It will appeal to scholars and students of Japan as well as social scientists with an interest in borders and boundaries, political scientists interested in Asia.
This book examines the Chinese government's policies and practices for relations with the Inner Periphery areas of Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, and the Outer Periphery areas of Hong Kong and Taiwan focusing on themes of political authority, socio-cultural relations, and economic development. China's history may be seen as one of managing the geographic periphery surrounding China proper. Successive imperial, republican, and communist governments have struggled to maintain sovereignty over the regions surrounding the great river valleys of China. The importance of the periphery is no less real today, concerns over national security, access to natural resources, and long-held concerns about relations between Han and other ethnic groups continue to dominate Chinese law, policy and practice regarding governance in the Inner Periphery regions of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet. In the Outer Periphery, Beijing sees engagement with the outside world (particularly the West) as inextricably tied to Chinese sovereignty over former foreign colonies of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Using the case study of national integration to indicate how policies are articulated and implemented through law and political-legal institutions, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of the peripheral regions. It will also appeal to academic and policy communities interested in legal reform in China
"White unites a novelist's knack of dramatization and a historian's sense of significance with a synthesizing skill that grasps the reader by the lapels." --NewsweekThe third book in Theodore H. White's landmark series, The Making of the President 1968 is the compelling account of the turbulent 1968 presidential campaign, the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and election of Richard Nixon. White made history with his groundbreaking The Making of the President 1960, a narrative that won the Pulitzer Prize for revolutionizing the way that presidential campaigns were reported. Now, The Making of the President 1968--back in print, freshly repackaged, and with a new foreword by Chris Matthews--joins Theodore Sorensen's Kennedy, White's The Making of the President 1960, 1964, and 1972, and other classics in the burgeoning Harper Perennial Political Classics series.
Through the essays in this volume, we see how the failure of the state becomes a moment to ruminate on the artificiality of this most modern construct, the failure of nationalism, an opportunity to dream of alternative modes of association, and the failure of sovereignty to consider the threats and possibilities of the realm of foreignness within the nation-state as within the self. The ambition of this volume is not only to complicate standing representations of Pakistan. It is take Pakistan out of the status of exceptionalism that its multiple crises have endowed upon it. By now, many scholars have written of how exile, migrancy, refugeedom, and other modes of displacement constitute modern subjectivities. The arguments made in the book say that Pakistan is no stranger to this condition of human immigrancy and therefore, can be pressed into service in helping us to understand our present condition.
Filled with practical tools and guidelines, this book addresses an essential competence for public managers - incorporating governance and law in public administration. It links democratic constitutional values to administrative decision making and practices by stressing how public law authorizes, informs, and democratically constrains public servants in fulfilling public policies. The author addresses important aspects of governance in chapters that discuss democratic values of the rule of law, constitutional law, legislation and policy, administrative law, judicial practice, contract law, and tort law. The book also considers the practical aspects of public management (such as tax collection, benefits administration, personnel administration, and more), with application guidelines and techniques based on thorough legal grounding.
The years 1990-93 were a critical moment in Russia's political development. This book provides a systematic explanation of outcomes of constitutional bargaining processes in Russia, which radically reshaped the institutions of the Russian state: removing Russia from constitutional subordination to the Soviet Union in 1990; creating a presidency and a constitutional court in 1991; and restructuring the relationship between the central state and its component federal units with the passage of three Federal Treaties in 1992. The book explores the reasons for these outcomes and identifies why there were consistent delays to the passage of a new Russian constitution as well as why negotiations eventually broke down. The book assesses the plausibility of different theoretical approaches to constitutional choice and argues that the role of uncertainty (and politician's strategic responses to uncertainty) in shaping constitutional outcomes has been under-explored by rational choices approaches to constitutional bargaining. Using a rich set of source materials - including roll call votes, parliamentary records, unpublished parliamentary and constitution commission documents, Russian newspapers - the book provides a detailed study of Russian politician's decision making about constitutional choices. It is a valuable resource to those interested in Russia and post-communist politics, the origins of political institutions, comparative government, democratisation and development studies.
First published in 1965, this work studies the House of Lords and the various proposals for its reform, abolition or limitation of its powers which have been made in the light o f prevailing theories of the nature and characteristics of the English government. The work also contains a history of the theory of mixed government that arose in Tudor England and lasted until well after the Reform Act of 1832. This history both illuminates the position of the House of Lords and also provides perspective for the study of Democracy in the movement for parliamentary reform. One of the book's most original features is an extensive account of Charles I's Answer to the Nineteen Propostions, out of which came the startling new theory of the constitution, known as "mixed monarchy."
Federalism has experienced a remarkable renaissance in recent decades - as an alternative way to accommodate ethnic differences; as a tool to combat remote, undemocratic and ineffective central governments; and lastly, as a means to promote economic performance in the developing world through decentralisation. This book seeks to bring different aspects and perspectives of federalism studies closer together, by providing an analytical framework which transcends the sub-fields and encourages contributors to look beyond the comfort zones of their own disciplinary approaches to the topic. The authors seek to achieve this aim by structuring the contributions around four dimensions federalism studies: the development and design of federal institutions; federalism and democratic participation, representation and accountability; federalism and the accommodation of territorially-based ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences; federalism and public policy. With a strong comparative framework, New Directions in Federalism Studies will be of interest to students and scholars of Federalism, Government, Regionalism, and Multi-level Governance. It will also offer insights of relevance to Comparative Politics, Public Policy, Public Administration, Nationalism, and West European Politics.
This book describes, explains, and reflects upon the 1996 presidential and congressional elections, devoting equal coverage to three phases of the political process: the major party nominations, the general election, and the subsequent government organization. In doing so, this study links elections and governance.
The U.S. House of Representatives has been frozen at 435 members for almost a century, and in that time the nation 's population has grown by more than 200 percent. With the number of citizens represented by each House member now dramatically larger, is a major consequence of this historical disparity a diminished quality of representation? Brian Frederick uses empirical data to scrutinize whether representation has been undermined by keeping a ceiling on the number of seats available in the House. He examines the influence of constituency size on several metrics of representation including estimating the effects on electoral competition, policy responsiveness, and citizen contact with and approval of their representatives and argues that now is the time for the House to be increased in order to better represent a rapidly growing country.
The U.S. House of Representatives has been frozen at 435 members for almost a century, and in that time the nationa (TM)s population has grown by more than 200 percent. With the number of citizens represented by each House member now dramatically larger, is a major consequence of this historical disparity a diminished quality of representation? Brian Frederick uses empirical data to scrutinize whether representation has been undermined by keeping a ceiling on the number of seats available in the House. He examines the influence of constituency size on several metrics of representationa "including estimating the effects on electoral competition, policy responsiveness, and citizen contact with and approval of their representativesa "and argues that now is the time for the House to be increased in order to better represent a rapidly growing country.
First published in 2006, this book brings together some of the most innovative and important research on civil rights law and legality, this book draws on narratives of individuals from a variety of contexts to provide a rich and contextualized understanding of what happens when law interacts with other competing systems or forms of social organization. By privileging the real world experiences of those most influenced by rights, the collection moves beyond the traditional polarizing debates and presents a constitutive approach to rights that is not reducible to a simple 'for or against' rights formula. While this complex consciousness approach often contributes to the reproduction of dominant-subordinate social relations, it also allows for spaces of resisting existing hierarchical structures embedded in various law-related sites.
After two terms as president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin handed over to his hand-picked successor Dmitri Medvedev on 7 May 2008, and became prime minister. As president, Putin moved swiftly and effectively to overcome the chaotic legacy of his predecessor, post-Soviet Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin. Focusing on rebuilding the authority of the Russian state, and taking advantage of the rise in world prices of the country's main asset ? oil and natural gas ? Putin won unassailable popularity at home and caused apprehension around the world, particularly in Russia's immediate neighbourhood. His methods of rule caused anxiety among liberals and democrats inside Russia and abroad. The legacy of Putin's presidency poses challenges that demand interpretation. He has not departed from the Russian or the world political scene, and the need to understand and come to terms with Putin's Russia has not diminished. These essays by an international team of authors are based on presentations to a working conference held in Naples, Italy, in May 2008, supplemented by contributions from authors who were not present at the conference, in order to present a wider selection of views and interpretations of the Putin phenomenon. This book was published as a special issue of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.
Upon its adoption in December 1936, Soviet leaders hailed the new so-called Stalin Constitution as the most democratic in the world. Scholars have long scoffed at this claim, noting that the mass repression of 1937-1938 that followed rendered it a hollow document. This study does not address these competing claims, but rather focuses on the six-month long popular discussion of the draft Constitution, which preceded its formal adoption in December 1936. Drawing on rich archival sources, this book uses the discussion of the draft 1936 Constitution to examine discourse between the central state leadership and citizens about the new Soviet social contract, which delineated the roles the state and citizens should play in developing socialism. For the central leadership, mobilizing its citizenry in a variety of state building campaigns was the main goal of the discussion of the draft Constitution. However, the goals of the central leadership at times stood in stark contrast with the people's expressed interpretation of that social contract. Citizens of the USSR focused on securing rights and privileges, often related to improving their daily lives, from the central government. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315194004, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Two decades since the enactment of South Africa's present constitution, the durability and endurance of 'past' inequalities and injustices illustrate that the 'new South Africa' - lauded as a miracle nation with the best constitution in the world - can no longer be regarded as an unqualified success. The legal and constitutional foundations of post-1994 South Africa are in a process of renegotiation that invites new and alternative perspectives and approaches. This comprehensive volume explores this process of renegotiation by engaging political and intellectual contestations circulating in South African academic and public discourse relating to continuities and discontinuities between the colonial-apartheid past and the post-1994 constitutional present. The authors analyse the moral, intellectual and political unravelling of post-1994 South African constitutionalism (as legal text and political culture) and enquire whether it has been able to respond adequately to the fundamental contradictions generated by colonisation and apartheid. They also consider how centring the historical problem of European domination and conquest in Africa - and South Africa in particular - might provide an alternative frame or lens to theorise and understand contemporary South African realities. This book marks out a complex field of contestation - involving competing histories, locations, visions and perspectives - that raises multifaceted questions regarding law, history and politics. It is the outcome of a South African Journal of Human Rights colloquium and was originally published as a special issue of the journal.
We are at a watershed of history. The human race is now so numerous and its technological power so great that we are having an unprecedented impact on the biosphere, the entire planet. The need to control this impact is giving rise to a new kind of politics - the politics of the planet. The most urgent problem we face is that of climate change. This book gives a vigorous and candid account of how governments tentatively felt their way to the first international agreements on climate change and the ozone layer, how these work, and the long-term implications for global governance. It points to the roles that businesses and ordinary citizens can play, and the changes we can expect in our daily lives. This is an area in which politics, technology and economics meet. In this sweeping and energetic book, the author goes on to look at the major planetary issues that confront us now or that are close over the horizon, and the ethical issues of our relationship to our environment that they raise. Amid the dangers, he finds ground for hope. Anyone with an interest in the human condition as we spin further into the new century will find this an enlightening and rewarding book. Originally published in 2000
This selection of articles, published for the 50th anniversary of the author's doctorate at GAttingen, opens with studies on his teacher, Percy Ernst Schramm, and his contribution to the study of the medieval state and continues with examples of state symbology from Central Europe. Questions of legitimization and representation of kings and queens through texts and Herrschaftszeichen as well as the development of 'coronation studies' are addressed in a comparative framework. The second part contains articles on social and political history mainly of the kingdom of Hungary in the fifteenth century, also attempting to place the issues into a wider context. Finally, two pieces present and discuss the 'use' or 'abuse' of the Middle Ages in the political discourse and display of our times.
Law and Administration takes a contextual approach to administrative law, setting law and legal rules in the context of the social, political and economic forces that shape the law, and of the complex constitutional framework in which contemporary administrative law operates. This book contains a full account of judicial review, the traditional heartland of administrative law, and adds to this by taking into account the concerns of government, officials and agencies who operate and shape the law. It also looks at the possible future of administrative law in an increasingly automated and digitalised world. A fully revised and updated new edition, this book includes new case studies of regulatory agencies and government contracting to develop understanding of law in practice. |
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