When we take a look back at the way Western states have fought terrorist organizations in the last 20 years, it is difficult not to think that these alternatives to war might have been more ethical than the decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and in 2003. These cases speak for themselves as they have both led to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, which is highly paradoxical in light of the logic that supported these interventions. There is a need to think of alternatives to war that will imply the legitimization of proactive sets of measures that would allow states to effectively prevent terrorist attacks through the use of kinetic force in a limited extent as a way to avoid the terrible and unpredictable effects of wars. Violent Alternatives to War: Justifying Actions Against Contemporary Terrorism engages in a moral discussion of the challenges associated with violent alternatives to war when confronting terrorism and suggests a comprehensive approach to how this form of violence can be legitimized and how it ought to be used against this contemporary threat.

The Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Constitution covers the Founding of the American Republic and the Framers, the drafting of the Constitution, constitutional debates over ratification, and traces key events, Supreme Court chief justices, amendments, and Supreme Court cases regarding the interpretation of the Constitution from 1789-2016. The Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Constitution contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on key figures in the Founding, Supreme Court chief justices, explanations of the Articles and Amendments to the Constitution, and key Supreme Court cases. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the U.S. Constitution.

The corruption of public officials in the United States and its corrosive impact on public policy, political stability and democratic institutions, earns it a spot among the most critical public crises of the last decade. There have been scandals involving elected officials across the political spectrum from local elected officials up to the White House, involving conflicts of interest, campaign fundraising and political elections. At the heart of many scandals is the discretionary power of public officials to make decisions based on personal interest, often leading to corruption. Understanding the nature and etiology of corruption is important to drafting controls on discretion and rules for accountability. While strict regulation and oversight mechanisms have previously been designed to encourage ethical decision-making and punish violators, it is the media and citizens that have increasingly become modern mechanisms of accountability. Corruption of public governance not only undermines the effectiveness of the political system; it also results in corrupt public policymaking on the most pressing issues facing Americans today. This timely and insightful book provides the key elements needed to understand the nature and prevalence of corruption in public governance, as well as the devastating public policy consequences. The chapters explore the implications of public governance corruption on political stability, public trust, and policymaking, as well as recommendations for how to establish controls on discretion and strict regulation to increase accountability and corruption control in public governance.

This volume examines drug policies and the role of cooperation in the Americas. Many current and former politicians have discussed the failures of the war on drugs and the need for alternative approaches. Uruguay as well as Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana. The Organization of American states produced a report in 2013 which discussed alternative policy options to the drug war. This work examines the nature of cooperation and drug policies in the twenty-first century in the Americas, highlighting the major challenges and obstacles. The argument is that one country cannot solve drug trafficking as it is a transnational problem. Therefore, the producing, consuming, and transit countries must work together and cooperate.

Utopia and Dystopia in the Age of Trump treats literature, film, television series and comic books dealing with utopian and dystopian worlds reflecting on or anticipating our current age. From Henry James' dreamlike utopia of "The Great Good Place" to the psychotic world of Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho, from science fiction and recent horror films, television adaptations of books such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and new series such as The Black Mirror, to the repressive Hitleria dystopia of Katherine Burdekin's Swastika Knight, the authors examine the development of scenaarios which either prefigure the rise of individuals such as Donald J. Trump or suggest alternatives to it. Ultimately, one might say of the worlds presented here, viewed from different social and political perspectives: one person's utopia is another one's dystopia. This is the fifth in a series of books edited by Brodman and Doan, and published by Rowman & Littlefied with Fairleigh Dckinson University Press. The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend and Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic (both in 2013) focused on the vampire legend in tradiitonal and modern thought. The Supernatural Revamped: From Timeworn Legends to Twenty-First-Century Chic (2016) examined a range of supernatural beings in literature, film, and other forms of popular culture. Apocalyptic Chic: Visions of the Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse in Literature and Visual Arts (2017) dealt with legends and images of the apocalypse and post-apocalypse in film and graphic arts, literature and lore from early to modern times and from peoples and cultures around the world.

Underlying the research for the purposes of this book were one basic assumption: transposing legal articles to behavioral norms, suitable in given circumstances and capable of resolving a problem, in this case from the realm of criminal law is difficult. This difficulty pertains not only to citizens, who cannot avail themselves of professional tools of interpretation of legal texts, but also to practitioners and academics, arguing over the correct construction of a regulation. It may be that criminal law - all its convoluted structure, overloaded with dogmatic principles - will never be understandable for average citizens. Nonetheless, it seems to be worthwhile to seek a platform for understanding, and a model for reacting to a dynamically changing social reality with its core and less fluid values. The method of finding moral clarity in criminal law is the proconstitutional interpretation. The perception of a constitution, an observation which concerns mainly democratic states, as a source of information about values of fundamental and integrating importance to a policy, led to a method of reconciling criminal law with those values within the constitution. Approaching a constitution as a source of information about values, as a matrix within which there exists a catalog of the most important values, without the need to reach beyond the system of positive law, makes this supposition acceptable also for those practitioners and academics who prefer a systemically imminent approach. The proposed scheme allows authorities responsible for forming and enforcing the law to take into account those values that play a significant role in social life. At the same time, it continues to embrace principles of legal reasoning, a safeguard against going into considerations reaching beyond the legal system. Not only may the method espoused in the book become applicable and, at least to some extent, adopted in Poland, but in other constitutional democracies as well.

Is Bipartisanship Dead? looks beyond (and considers the time before) roll call voting to examine the extent to which bipartisan agreement in the House of Representatives has declined since the 1970s. Despite voting coalitions showing a decline in bipartisan agreement between 1973 and 2004, member's bill cosponsorship coalitions show a more stable level of bipartisanship. The declining bipartisanship over time in roll call voting reflects a shift in how party leaders structure the floor and roll call agendas. Party leaders in the House changed from prioritizing legislation with bipartisan agreement in the 1970s to prioritizing legislation with partisan disagreement by the 1990s. Laurel Harbridge argues that this shift reflects a changing political environment and an effort by leaders to balance members' electoral interests, governance goals, and partisan differentiation. The findings speak to questions of representation and governance. They also shed light on whether partisan conflict is insurmountable and whether bipartisanship in congressional politics is dead.

This book explores how a wide range of countries attempt to cope with the challenges of globalization. While the internalization of globalization proceeds in significantly different ways, there is a broad process of convergence taking place around the politics of neoliberalism and a more market-oriented version of capitalism. The book examines how distinct social structures, political cultures, patterns of party and interest group politics, classes, public policies, liberal democratic and authoritarian institutions, and the discourses that frame them, are being reshaped by political actors. Chapters cover national experiences from Europe and North America to Asia and Latin America (Chile, Mexico, and Peru).

In the 1950s, public relations practitioners tried to garner respectability for their fledgling profession, and one international figure helped in that endeavor. President Dwight D. Eisenhower embraced public relations as a necessary component of American democracy, advancing the profession at a key moment in its history. But he did more than believe in public relations-he practiced it. Eisenhower changed how America campaigns by leveraging television and Madison Avenue advertising. Once in the Oval Office, he maximized the potential of a new medium as the first U.S. president to seek training for television and to broadcast news conferences on television. Additionally, Eisenhower managed the news through his press office, molding the role of the modern presidential press secretary. The first president to adopt a policy of full disclosure on health issues, Eisenhower survived (politically as well as medically) three serious illnesses while in office. The Eisenhower Administration was the most forthcoming on the president's health at the time, even though it did not always live up to its own policy. In short, Eisenhower deserves credit as this nation's most innovative public relations president, because he revolutionized America's political communication process, forever changing the president's relationship with the Fourth Estate, Madison Avenue, public relations, and ultimately, the American people.

This book examines the perspectives of American liberalism and conservatism in the new millennium-their general political and social philosophy and their positions in leading public issue areas-and evaluates them in light of Catholic social teaching. Before making that evaluation, it sets out the Church's teaching as it has been authoritatively set forth in documents from her Magisterium-especially the social encyclicals. It looks to recognized thinkers, writers, and spokesmen for each of the two ideologies to determine what their general philosophy is in six major, central areas: the role of the state; God, religion, and the natural law as the basis of the political order; the family; the thinking on freedom; the thinking about equality; and international life and ethics. Since American conservatism has been known for having different groupings or schools of thought within it-in the new millennium these are traditionalist conservatism, paleoconservatism, cultural or religious-based conservatism, neoconservatism, libertarian conservatism, and TEA party conservatism-the book examines leading representatives from each grouping and then determines what the consensus conservatism thinking is in each area. Then it looks to a recent platform of the Democratic party that was acknowledged to be especially "liberal" and one of the Republican party that was acknowledged to be especially "conservative" (they were the 2012 platforms of each party) to determine the thinking of each ideology on eight major public issue/policy areas: economics and social welfare policy; energy and the environment; civil rights and civil liberties; education and health care; family policy; immigration policy; human life issues; and foreign policy, defense, and disarmament. It compares each ideology's thinking in these different areas of their general political and social philosophy and their public issue/policy positions and compares them to the basic principles of Catholic social teaching, assessing how well each conforms to that teaching in each area or if each clearly deviates and then coming to an conclusion overall about which is closer to Catholic social teaching.

Sergio Fabbrini argues that the European Union (EU) is made up of states pursuing different aims, rather than simply moving in the same direction at different speeds. He describes the alternative perspectives on the EU (an economic community, an intergovernmental union, and a parliamentary union), that led to multiple compromises in its structure and shows how the Euro crisis has called them into question. The book argues that a new European political order is necessary to deal with the consequences of the crisis, based on an institutional differentiation between the EU member states interested only in market co-operation and those advancing towards a genuine economic and monetary union. Such a differentiation would allow the latter group to become a political union, conceptualised as a compound union of states and citizens, while preserving a revised framework of a single market in which both groups of states can participate.

More than thirty years after the collapse of the USSR, the critique of state socialism is still used to deny alternatives to capitalism, irrespective of global capitalist ecological and social devastation. There is seemingly nothing worthwhile salvaging from decades of state socialist experiences. As the climate crisis deepens, Engel-Di Mauro argues that we need to re-evaluate the environmental practices and policies of state socialism, especially as they had more environmentally beneficial than destructive effects. Rather than dismissing state socialism's heritage out of hand, we should reclaim it for contemporary eco-socialist ends. By means of a comparative and multiple-scaled approach, Engel-Di Mauro points to highly diverse and environmentally constructive state socialist experiences. Taking the reader from the USSR to China and Cuba, this is a fiery and contentious look at what worked, what didn't, and how we can move towards an eco-socialist future.

Switching parties is arguably the most important decision a politician will ever make. This book is the first-ever systematic study of the causes and consequences of legislative party switching in the United States. The author argues that re-election alone does not explain party switching. He proposes an ambition-based theory that accounts for multiple goals (including higher office aspirations and the desire for influence in the legislature) with a focus on the electoral costs and the institutional benefits of the decision. The book combines the statistical analysis of electoral data and legislative careers in the US Congress and state legislatures with elite interviews of party switchers, non-switchers, and a party leader. The case study of a party switcher's decision in 'real time' documents the complexity of the decision in a politician's own words prior to and following the switch. The book raises important questions regarding the meaning of a party label.

The 1970s era of rapid change, economic and social, made constant demands on the adaptability of a constitutional system. The work of the State expanded, and the expansion was at several levels, delimited by the requirements of geography. Britain's constitutional system has two aspects: one essentially theoretical, concerning such questions as the nature of sovereignty, prerogative powers, and the rights and duties of citizens; the other concerning the way in which the business of government is carried on: how people who make political decisions are chosen, how their activities are subject to checks and influence by the representatives of public interests, formal and informal. Originally published in 1974, this book deals with the second of these aspects. It identifies the changes in constitutional practice which had taken place in the previous two decades, and the trends which could be discerned at the time. It has four main sections. The first deals with the changing structure of government itself: with the recruitment of ministers, the nature of political responsibility and the changes in government departments. The second section deals with both Houses of Parliament, and particularly with the new forms of parliamentary discussion and criticism. The third deals with the process of election, including the regulation of propaganda and the use of the mass media. The final section deals with the different levels of government, including the local, the regional and the supra-national. All through the main concern is with the dynamic aspects of the political constitution. This was a really up-to-date and realistic book on British government at the time and now can be read in its historical context.

Originally published in 1968, this book set out to give a brief but complete account of the French Parliament as it had worked in practice since the advent of President de Gaulle. A number of different aspects are discussed, from the social background of the members to the debates on five sample bills, and from the strategy of pressure groups to the organisation and character of the Gaullist party (about which very little had been written). While the legal framework within which the new parliament works is comprehensively described, attention is mainly focused on a political situation transformed by the end of the Algerian war and by the speed of social change in France itself at the time. Earlier books on the Fifth Republic naturally concentrated heavily on the spectacular crises of its early years and on the exceptional personality of its president. Remarkably little, therefore, had been written on the recent development of its institutions and politics in the peacetime conditions which France had enjoyed since 1962 for the first time for over twenty years. There was a Gaullist myth that the new regime had reformed the system and, against the obstructive opposition of an Opposition which had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, had won the support of the French people for a strong democratic government on British lines. There was a corresponding Opposition myth that a ruler and party of authoritarian temper had consolidated their power by reducing parliamentary criticism to an impotent farce. Neither interpretation was wholly unfounded; neither does justice to the complex reality which this work tries to explain as fairly as possible.

From the vantage point of the 2016 presidential election and the deepening polarization of American politics in recent decades, it is striking how much more distant the Reagan-Bush era of the 1980s and early 1990s seems compared to the years that have actually passed. Whither the Republican Party of yesteryear? Like reincarnated characters from Samuel Beckett's classic play Waiting for Godot, many disillusioned conservatives in the new millennium continue to search obdurately and in vain for a leader who embodies the acclaimed leadership traits of Ronald Reagan. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Reagan-Bush Era contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, events, institutions, policies, and issues. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this era.

For nearly three decades, scholars and policymakers have placed considerable stock in judicial reform as a panacea for the political and economic turmoil plaguing developing countries. Courts are charged with spurring economic development, safeguarding human rights, and even facilitating transitions to democracy. How realistic are these expectations, and in what political contexts can judicial reforms deliver their expected benefits? This book addresses these issues through an examination of the politics of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court, the most important experiment in constitutionalism in the Arab world. The Egyptian regime established a surprisingly independent constitutional court to address a series of economic and administrative pathologies that lie at the heart of authoritarian political systems. Although the Court helped the regime to institutionalize state functions and attract investment, it simultaneously opened new avenues through which rights advocates and opposition parties could challenge the regime. The book challenges conventional wisdom and provides insights into perennial questions concerning the barriers to institutional development, economic growth, and democracy in the developing world.

From campus protests to the Congress floor, the central feature of contemporary American politics is ideological polarization. In this concise, readable, but comprehensive text, Steven E. Schier and Todd E. Eberly introduce students to this contentious subject through an in-depth look at the ideological foundations of the contemporary American political machine of parties, politicians, the media, and the public. Beginning with a redefinition of contemporary liberalism and conservatism, the authors develop a comprehensive examination of ideology in all branches of American national and state governments. Investigations into ideologies reveal a seeming paradox of a representative political system defined by ever growing divisions and a public that continues to describe itself as politically moderate. The work's breadth makes it a good candidate for a course introducing American politics, while its institutional focus makes it suitable for adoption in more advanced courses on Congress, the Presidency, the courts or political parties.

Debate over the meaning and purpose of the grand experiment called the United States has existed since its inception. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison worked closely together to achieve the ratification of the Constitution, which both considered essential for the survival of the United States. However, within just a few years of the Constitution's ratification, they became bitter political enemies as the pair disagreed about what the United States should be like under the new Constitution, specifically how to interpret the Constitution they both worked to create and support. Defining the Republic: Early Conflicts over the Constitution documents, through presentation of their own words, that these two essential early Americans simply had different expectations all along. Expectations that went unexamined during the frenetic times in which the Constitution was written, debated, and ratified. It is to their differences that Americans today can look in order to better understand the history of the United States, as well as current debates over politics and life in general in the country Hamilton and Madison helped to create.

This book examines electoral politics in the state of Punjab, India as it has evolved since the colonial period. It underlines the emergence of the state as a singular unit for electoral analysis in the last three decades. This book: Charts the common trends and developments that have dominated politics in Punjab, and those that continue to play an important role in the government of the state; Examines state parties and their leadership in the context of party alliances, campaigns and electoral verdicts; Presents a comparative study of the assembly and Lok Sabha elections held in the state after reorganisation in 1966 with the objective of highlighting differences in electoral issues taken up by the parties. An important intervention in the study of state-level politics in India, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of politics, especially comparative politics and political institutions, political sociology and social anthropology, and South Asian studies.

In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson opened the nation's door to an era of reform. To help him, he brought to Washington men imbued with a progressive spirit-and in some, grudges as well! Before work on reforms got underway, two high ranking officials of the Treasury Department attacked a local bank over its banking practices. The bank officers had close ties to Wall Street; the Treasury officials were no friends of Wall Street (with scars to prove it). Aggressive bank examinations, hostile interviews, and accusatory letters ensued, eventually resulting in the bank filing an injunction against the government. But after an acrimonious court hearing, the injunction appeared to have failed. Indeed, a grand jury indicted the bank officers of perjury. In 1916, a three-week criminal trial of the bankers took place in which former Presidents Taft and Roosevelt appeared on behalf of the bankers. It was a cause celebre in the nation's capital and much of the country. When the verdict was reached it was clear "bad blood" had been spilled everywhere-and this nasty, little war had been more than just about reform.