This is the first book to provide a broad overview of the ways in which Buddhist ideas have influenced political thinking and politics in Myanmar. Matthew J. Walton draws extensively on Burmese language sources from the last 150 years to describe the 'moral universe' of contemporary Theravada Buddhism that has anchored most political thought in Myanmar. In explaining multiple Burmese understandings of notions such as 'democracy' and 'political participation', the book provides readers with a conceptual framework for understanding some of the key dynamics of Myanmar's ongoing political transition. Some of these ideas help to shed light on restrictive or exclusionary political impulses, such as anti-Muslim Buddhist nationalism or scepticism towards the ability of the masses to participate in politics. Walton provides an analytical framework for understanding Buddhist influences on politics that will be accessible to a wide range of readers and will generate future research and debate.

This edited volume explores the relationship between constitutionalism and populism in the Italian context. Italian populism is of interest to comparative lawyers for many reasons. Firstly, the country has a long-lasting tradition of anti-parliamentarism over the course of its history as a unitary state. After the 2018 general election, it has turned into the first European country in which two self-styled populist parties formed a coalition government. Although it collapsed in August 2019, many issues that it had raised remain. Secondly, as Italy is a founding member of the European Communities, the constitutional implications of populist politics have to be considered not only within the national framework but also in a wider context. This book argues that the relationship between populism and constitutionalism should not be seen in terms of mutual exclusion and perfect opposition. Indeed, populism frequently relies on concepts and categories belonging to the language of constitutionalism (majority, democracy, people), offering a kind of constitutional counter-narrative.

In 2015, South Africa celebrated its 21st anniversary as a democratic state. This anniversary was in part boosted by the largely successful rolling out of a fifth free and fair election process in the previous year, albeit with minor hiccups - among others, a vibrant and at times boisterous political party scene; re-energised civil society participation, and a critical reflection of the Chapter 9 institutions, with some under constant scrutiny. However, South Africa's coming-of-age story has also been peppered with signs of increased dissatisfaction with governmental decision making and leadership style, protests around the delivery of services, continuous development and poverty issues as well as concerns about the republic's international conduct and its image and reputation in Africa and the world. Government and politics in South Africa provides an up-to-date introductory narrative on the contemporary political environment in South Africa. Government and politics in South Africa examines and evaluates the processes and policies in place that drive South Africa every day. While most chapters continue to reflect on the first two decades of post-settlement South African politics and governments, particular emphasis is placed upon the Jacob Zuma-led government's first term of office (2009-2014), also touching on the initial months of this head of state's second tenure as president. It examines the current political sphere, the local, provincial and national government, the policy footprint related to these governments, voting behaviour and party politics, foreign policy and the global political economy. Government and politics in South Africa is aimed at both undergraduate and post-graduate students, and other interested observers to the complexities of South African politics and the governmental machinery that operates the country. Chris Landsberg (editor-in-chief) is SARChI chair of African diplomacy and foreign policy at the University of Johannesburg. Suzanne Graham (co-editor) is senior lecturer and doctor of politics at the University of Johannesburg.

Since 2015, Poland's populist Law and Justice Party (PiS) has been dismantling the major checks and balances of the Polish state and subordinating the courts, the civil service, and the media to the will of the executive. Political rights have been radically restricted, and the Party has captured the entire state apparatus. The speed and depth of these antidemocratic movements took many observers by surprise: until now, Poland was widely regarded as an example of a successful transitional democracy. Poland's anti-constitutional breakdown poses three questions that this book sets out to answer: What, exactly, has happened since 2015? Why did it happen? And what are the prospects for a return to liberal democracy? These answers are formulated against a backdrop of current worldwide trends towards populism, authoritarianism, and what is sometimes called 'illiberal democracy'. As this book argues, the Polish variant of 'illiberal democracy' is an oxymoron. By undermining the separation of powers, the PiS concentrates all power in its own hands, rendering any democratic accountability illusory. There is, however, no inevitability in these anti-democratic trends: this book considers a number of possible remedies and sources of hope, including intervention by the European Union.

Three of John Locke's finest works, which expound political and religious ideas revolutionary in their time, are presented together in this printing. When Dutch monarch William of Orange ascended to the English throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, burning questions over the best form of governance for England were prominent among the intelligentsia of the era. It was a time when England grappled with incremental transition from monarchy to early forms of democracy and voting. In the first treatise of government Locke proceeds to attack and dissect his prominent contemporary Robert Filmer, who was broadly in favour of absolute monarchy under the principle of divine right. The allusions to the Biblical Adam, wherein the monarch can be intimated as a continuation of the first man ever created, are debunked by Locke who asserts that God never asserted that one man had province to rule over all other human beings.

The conventional wisdom of economic voting theory argues that a nation's economic performance drives electoral outcomes. Therefore, voters will hold an administration accountable for its economic stewardship. Austin Hart challenges the simplicity of this notion, drawing on cognitive-psychological research on priming to demonstrate that the intensity of voters' exposure to economic campaign messages systematically conditions the strength of the economic vote. However, this study goes further than simply saying 'campaigns matter'. Here, we learn that candidates who control the campaign narrative can capitalize on favorable economic conditions or - contrary to the predictions of conventional theory - overcome unfavorable conditions. Although the aim is not to dismiss the importance of structural variables in the study of elections, Hart shows that the choices candidates make about what to say and how often shape election outcomes in ways that cannot be explained by contextual or institutional forces alone.

Disinformation is as old as humanity. When Satan told Eve nothing would happen if she bit the apple, that was disinformation. But the rise of social media has made disinformation even more pervasive and pernicious in our current era. In a disturbing turn of events, governments are increasingly using disinformation to create their own false narratives, and democracies are proving not to be very good at fighting it. During the final three years of the Obama administration, Richard Stengel, the former editor of Time and an Under Secretary of State, was on the front lines of this new global information war. At the time, he was the single person in government tasked with unpacking, disproving, and combating both ISIS's messaging and Russian disinformation. Then, in 2016, as the presidential election unfolded, Stengel watched as Donald Trump used disinformation himself, weaponizing the grievances of Americans who felt left out by modernism. In fact, Stengel quickly came to see how all three players had used the same playbook: ISIS sought to make Islam great again; Putin tried to make Russia great again; and we all know about Trump. In a narrative that is by turns dramatic and eye-opening, Information Wars walks readers through of this often frustrating battle. Stengel moves through Russia and Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and introduces characters from Putin to Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Mohamed bin Salman to show how disinformation is impacting our global society. He illustrates how ISIS terrorized the world using social media, and how the Russians launched a tsunami of disinformation around the annexation of Crimea - a scheme that became the model for their interference with the 2016 presidential election. An urgent book for our times, Information Wars stresses that we must find a way to combat this ever growing threat to democracy.

A new reading of The Prince, arguing that the classic text is neither a scientific treatise on politics nor a patriotic tract but rather an artful, elaborated critique of the dominant religion of his time The leading interpretations of The Prince focus on Machiavelli's historical context, but they give little attention to the source on which the moral and political thought of Machiavelli's sixteenth century was based, the Christian Bible. In this study of The Prince, William Parsons plumbs Machiavelli's allusions to the Bible, along with his statements on the Church, and shows that Machiavelli was a careful reader of the Bible and an astute observer of the Church. On this basis Parsons contends that Machiavelli's teaching in The Prince is instructively compared with that of the Church's teacher, Jesus Christ. Parsons thus undertakes what recent interpreters of The Prince have not done: contrast Machiavelli's advice with the teaching of Christ. The result is a new reading of The Prince, revealing in Machiavelli's political thought a systematic critique of the NewTestament and its model for human life, Christ. In this commentary on one of the greatest works on politics ever written, Parsons not only challenges the most recent interpretations of The Prince but also sheds new light onthe classic interpretation that Machiavelli was a teacher of immorality. William Parsons is associate professor of political science at Carroll College.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of how constitutionalism and diversity can be friends and foes alike in contemporary multinational democracies. By focusing mainly on the dynamics between Quebec and Canada and comparing these with ongoing issues in Catalonia and Spain, Flanders and Belgium, and South Tyrol and Italy, the authors offer new insights into the public management of national diversity. In doing so, they sought to unpack the numerous challenges divided societies are facing. The pieces that together form the title of this book are not merely of symbolic significance. Constitutionalism v Diversity: Essays on Federal Democracy echoes the four underlying principles of the Canadian Constitution that the Supreme Court of Canada identified in its famous 1998 Reference re Secession of Quebec. These are (1) federalism, (2) democracy, (3) constitutionalism and the rule of law, and (4) protection of minorities. While these four concepts are at the very core of both authors' argument and approach, the Supreme Court of Canada's Secession Reference is guiding them through the book by providing a robust and meaningful theoretical and analytical framework. These principles appear as universal normative parameters societies should see as ideals to pursue and translate - while adapting their content to the specific context - into concrete institutions and practices. Even more today this book shows the great analytical value of these four principles to critically appraise of the way multinational liberal democracies in general and federal systems in particular are evolving.

During the late years of the 20th century, the issue of Native American influence on the formation of the U.S. government has become a hotly debated topic as well as a central point of difference in trenchant arguments over multiculturalism and political correctness. While conservative political commentators dismiss the idea out of hand, debate over the subject is prominent in many academic fields, including law, American history, women's studies, political science, and anthropology as well as Native American studies. Johansen's earlier bibliography cited roughly 500 titles on this debate. This volume adds another 500 titles with annotations, including books, articles from scholarly journals, newspapers, trade magazines, and World Wide Web sites.

In addition to new titles published since the first bibliography, this volume also includes older works omitted from the first book, some of them dating back to the 1850s. An increasing number of the citations stem from the work of Sally Roesch Wagner, whose research connects Iroquois political structures to the development of 19th century feminist thought by such women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Prepared by a scholar who has written five books on the issue, this bibliography, together with the earlier volume, provides a useful guide to sources on the debate.

As the current political climate becomes increasingly contentious, the United States' founding document receives added attention. Donald C. Dahlin re-examines the US Constitution, challenging students to form educated opinions on important contemporary discussions. Presenting a limited number of landmark Supreme Court decisions, We the People provides support for multiple sides of a single debate. Each case is carefully contextualized and selections from the justices' rulings are held up for scrutiny. Rich fodder for classroom debate, this volume is both necessary and accessible.

Three decades after 1989, historical materials are now available for understanding the Tiananmen protests in a new light. In a play-by-play account of the elite politics that led to the military crackdown, Yang Su addresses the repression of the protest in the context of political leadership succession. He challenges conventional views that see the military intervention as a necessary measure against a revolutionary mobilization. Beneath the political drama, Deadly Decision in Beijing explores the authoritarian regime's perpetual crisis of leadership transition and its impact on popular movements.

The political and economic crisis of EU integration has made it increasingly apparent how challenging it is to bring together different sovereign cultures, languages and regions into a single political system. Switzerland - being one of the three classic federations in the world - can provide insights, particularly in relation to the accommodation of cultural, linguistic, religious and regional diversity, which can help tackle contemporary challenges. This book describes and analyses the characteristics, institutions, and processes of Swiss federalism, along with its combination of stability and change. It presents a comprehensive study of the federal system of Switzerland, where it comes from, how it operates, and the way it has changed of late. This will allow readers to appreciate the specific and current answers the Swiss case offers to the main questions raised by wider federal research. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students in federalism and territorial politics, political institutions, local and regional government studies, multi-level governance and more broadly to European and comparative politics.

How did England, once a minor regional power, become a global hegemon between 1689 and 1815? Why, over the same period, did she become the world's first industrial nation? Gary W. Cox addresses these questions in Marketing Sovereign Promises. The book examines two central issues: the origins of the great taxing power of the modern state and how that power is made compatible with economic growth. Part I considers England's rise after the revolution of 1689, highlighting the establishment of annual budgets with shutdown reversions. This core reform effected a great increase in per capita tax extraction. Part II investigates the regional and global spread of British budgeting ideas. Cox argues that states grew only if they addressed a central credibility problem afflicting the Ancien Regime - that rulers were legally entitled to spend public revenue however they deemed fit.

Dynastic politics, usually presumed to be the antithesis of democracy, is a routine aspect of politics in many modern democracies. This book introduces a new theoretical perspective on dynasticism in democracies, using original data on twenty-first-century Indian parliaments. It argues that the roots of dynastic politics lie at least in part in modern democratic institutions - states and parties - which give political families a leg-up in the electoral process. It also proposes a rethinking of the view that dynastic politics is a violation of democracy, showing that it can also reinforce some aspects of democracy while violating others. Finally, this book suggests that both reinforcement and violation are the products, not of some property intrinsic to political dynasties, but of the institutional environment from which those dynasties emerge.

Charting the turbulent history of US-North Korean affairs from the 1960s through to 2010, Rival Reputations explores how past incidents and crises can be relied upon to help determine threat credibility and the willingness of an adversary to resort to violence. Using reputation as the framework, this book answers some of the most vexing questions regarding both US and North Korean foreign policy. These include how they have managed to evade war, why North Korea - a much weaker power - has not been deterred by superior American military power from repeated violent provocations against the United States and South Korea, and why US officials in every administration have rarely taken North Korean threats seriously. Van Jackson urges us to jettison the conventional view of North Korean threats and violence as part of a 'cycle' of provocation and instead to recognize them as part of a pattern of rivalry inherent in North Korea's foreign relations.

Since the global financial crisis of 2008-9, central-level, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China have extended their reach into the Chinese economy. Some have interpreted this development as a turning point in Chinese economic development; a decision for state capitalism and a stand against slow but steady marketization. In The Advance of the State in Contemporary China, Sarah Eaton suggests that the shift is a much slower-moving process and that this particular aspect of state sector reform can be seen to predate the financial crisis. She argues that the 'advance of the State' has in fact developed incrementally from an eclectic set of ideas regarding the political and economic significance of large and profitable state-controlled enterprise groups. Drawing from case studies of China's telecommunication services and airline reforms, this fascinating study offers illuminating insight into China's much-vaunted, but poorly understood, brand of state capitalism.

When a person is not recognised as a citizen anywhere, they are typically referred to as 'stateless'. This can give rise to challenges both for individuals and for the institutions that try to govern them. Statelessness, governance, and the problem of citizenship breaks from tradition by relocating the 'problem' to be addressed from one of statelessness to one of citizenship. It problematises the governance of citizenship - and the use of citizenship as a governance tool - and traces the 'problem of citizenship' from global and regional governance mechanisms to national and even individual levels. With contributions from activists, affected persons, artists, lawyers, academics, and national and international policy experts, this volume rejects the idea that statelessness and stateless persons are a problem. It argues that the reality of statelessness helps to uncover a more fundamental challenge: the problem of citizenship. -- .

Multidimensional Democracy examines political representation from the supply (legislator) and demand (constituent) perspectives. Focusing on four dimensions - policy, service, allocation, and descriptive representation - it documents systematic variation in what people want from legislators and what legislators choose to emphasize while in office. It has important implications for the study of representation, as well as normative questions about political inequality in America. The demand-side results show that constituents who are economically advantaged tend to prefer policy-based representation while the disadvantaged place relatively more importance in constituent service and/or allocation. Suggestive results from the legislator data complement this finding; legislators in wealthy, white districts tend to focus more on policy while those representing economically disadvantaged and racially diverse districts may place more emphasis on service and/or allocation. A likely consequence is that the policy choices made by representatives reflect the policy preferences of the economically advantaged because policy representation is what those citizens want.

This book analyses royal education in nineteenth-century, constitutional Spain. Its main subjects are Isabel II (1830- 1904), Alfonso XII (1857-1885) and Alfonso XIII (1886-1941) during their time as monarchs-in-waiting. Their upbringing was considered an opportunity to shape the future of Spain, reflected the political struggles that emerged during the construction of a liberal state, and allowed for the modernisation of the monarchy. The education of heirs to the throne was taken seriously by contemporaries and assumed wider political, social and cultural significance. This volume is structured around three powerful groups which showed an active interest, influenced, and significantly shaped royal education: the court, the military, and the public. It throws new light on the position of the Spanish monarchy in the constitutional state, its ability to adapt to social, political, and cultural change, and its varied sources of legitimacy, power, and attraction.

This book aims to extend the current research and debate in constitutional economics by using a positive economics approach. Born out of discontent with the current state in constitutional economics, this book presents an inquiry in the possibilities of a positive constitutional economics, and how societies choose their constitutional rules.Drawing on economics, the book examines the emergence of constitutions and how and why they change over time. The author proposes that model constitutions are based on, and backed by institutions which have developed spontaneously. He presents some predictions on the scope of constitutional change under various constitutional settings and factors which cause constitutional change. Stefan Voigt concludes that constitutional change is reconceptualized as the outcome of a bargaining game, in which changes reflect the altered bargaining power of the actors. This book will be welcomed by academics working in the fields of political economy, law and economics as well as those from the public choice and new institutional schools of thought.

Latin American Constitutions provides a comprehensive historical study of constitutionalism in Latin America from the independence period to the present, focusing on the Constitution of Cadiz, a foundational document in Latin American constitutionalism. Although drafted in Spain, it was applied in many regions of Latin America, and deputies from America formed a significant part of the drafting body. The politicization of constitutionalism reflected in Latin America's first moments proved to be a lasting legacy evident in the legal and constitutional world of the region today: many of Latin America's present challenges to establishing effective constitutionalism can be traced to the debates, ideas, structures, and assumptions of this text. This book explores the region's attempts to create effective constitutional texts and regimes in light of an established practice of linking constitutions to political goals and places important constitutional thinkers and regional constitutions, such as the Mexican Constitution of 1917, into their legal and historical context.

Beginning with an account of Namibia's struggle for self-determination that serves to put the Namibian Constitution in context, this volume moves on to consider the principal features of the Constitution, the organs of state and the fundamental principles that provide the framework for the effective functioning of a democratic State. It goes on to examine the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and freedoms protected by the Declaration of Rights, analyzing the relevant jurisprudence of the Namibian courts in the light of international human rights law.

For many Americans, hearing the words, "United States of America" brings stirring emotions. It is the concept of e pluribus unum-"out of many, one"-that summarizes the sense of national unity that Americans feel, and one that author Martin Street seeks to convey in "Taking the Pulse of America."

This compendium of 110 essays offers a snapshot of American life today. Street offers opinions and suggestions for many of the most contentious issues of our time. From hot button issues like abortion, illegal immigration, and waterboarding to the justice system, education reform, and government affairs, Street doesn't mince words.

Often, Street's commentary is just as contentious as his subjects. Even so, he provides an honest, authentic voice to these conversations that have become part of our national lexicon. Whether he discusses unions, our throwaway society, or professional athletes, Street gives his straightforward, often politically incorrect opinions.

A call to action for Americans to restore the United States of America to her former glory, "Taking the Pulse of America" is essential reading for every citizen.