The concept of individualism has gone through a fundamental change, according to distinguished political theorist Nadia Urbinati. In the nineteenth century, individualism was a philosophical and ethical perspective that permitted each person to respect and cooperate with others as equals in rights and dignity for the betterment of the community as a whole. Today, the individualist is a more self-interested entity whose maxim might best be expressed as "I don't give a damn." This contemporary form of individualism is possessive and conformist, litigious and docile, all too prone to manipulate norms and to submit to the tyrannical sway of private interests. As such, Urbinati believes, it represents the most radical risk that modern democracy currently faces. This well-reasoned and thought-provoking polemic is an attempt to detect the "tyranny of the moderns," with the ultimate aim of recovering the role of the individual citizen as a free and equal agent of democratic society. It explores the concept of communitarianism as a form of individualism applied to the group itself, and advances the idea that the rescue of true individualism from the current ideology is a basic condition for the defense of democratic citizenship.

Formerly one of the largest and most militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, Egypt's al-Gama'ah al-Islamiyah is believed to have played an instrumental role in numerous acts of global terrorism, including the assassination of President Anwar Sadat and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In later years, however, the organization issued a surprising renunciation of violence, repudiating its former ideology and replacing it with a shari'a-based understanding and assessment of the purpose and proper application of jihad.
This key manifesto of modern Islamist thought is now available to an English-speaking audience in an eminently readable translation by noted Islamic scholar Sherman A. Jackson. Unlike other Western and Muslim critiques of violent extremism, this important work emerges from within the movement of Middle Eastern Islamic activism, both challenging and enriching prevailing notions about the role of Islamists in fighting the scourge of extremist politics, blind anti-Westernism and, alas, wayward jihad.

This study considers the multidimensional nature of the construction of the active civil society in the post-totalitarian reality of Central and Eastern Europe, covering the period of systemic transformations in the region in 1989 to the EU accession of 2004. The analysis was carried out using a multidisciplinary research perspective which incorporates historical, sociological, and legal insights, as well as those from political science. The volume illustrates the dynamic character of the process of constructing an active civil society process in a broader comparative perspective against the background of post-totalitarian societies, Germany and Italy, which underwent the process of democratic transformation in 1945 and went on to actively forge the European Community in the 1950s.

Environmental and developmental matters have long proved key to North Korea's "revolutionary" industrial and economic strategies. They have equally been important to Pyongyang's diplomatic and geo-political efforts both during the Warsaw Pact period and in our contemporary era following the collapse of its supportive and collaborative partners. However, while environmental issues have been very important to North Korea, academic analysis and commentary addressing this field of governmental and institutional functionality has been almost entirely lacking. This book fills this analytical void. Taking a narrative view of developmental approach throughout the political and ideological history of North Korea, Winstanley-Chesters first considers its impact on its landscapes and topographies in general throughout the era of the Kim dynasty. Second, in light of recent academic analysis suggesting North Korea as a space of Charismatic politics, the book focuses on the specificity of individual developmental sectors and projects, such as those addressing forestry and hydrology, seeking to trace general trends into these more particular environmental fields.

Approaches focusing on ideological and cognitive factors to analyse public policy have moved to centre-stage in political science. This book presents the great variety of theoretical and empirical research on the role of ideas which has emerged in recent years.How can you quantify ideas? Ideas are objective entities, not conducive to empirical research. The appeal of this book lies in the juxtaposition of a careful exploration and discussion of the theories behind the role of ideas in policy making and policy areas, and their detailed contextualisation. Through carefully researched contemporary examples offering single country studies, comparative studies and examples from the European Union, these 'ideas' show themselves to be a double-edged sword. Ideas are revealed as both a societal and political resource, crucial to both promoting and inhibiting policy change. A clear understanding of the impact and influences of ideas on the crucial process of policy is essential to all political scientists and analysts of public policy, as well as individuals interested in the effects on policy decisions.

The Robust Federation offers a comprehensive approach to the study of federalism. Jenna Bednar demonstrates how complementary institutions maintain and adjust the distribution of authority between national and state governments. These authority boundaries matter - for defense, economic growth, and adequate political representation - and must be defended from opportunistic transgression. From Montesquieu to Madison, the legacy of early institutional analysis focuses attention on the value of competition between institutions, such as the policy moderation produced through separated powers. Bednar offers a reciprocal theory: in an effective constitutional system, institutions complement one another; each makes the others more powerful. Diverse but complementary safeguards - including the courts, political parties, and the people - cover different transgressions, punish to different extents, and fail under different circumstances. The analysis moves beyond equilibrium conceptions and explains how the rules that allocate authority are not fixed but shift gradually. Bednar's rich theoretical characterization of complementary institutions provides the first holistic account of federal robustness.

This book is aimed at presenting fresh views, interpretations, and reinterpretations of some already researched issues relating to the Yugoslav foreign policy and international relations up to year 1991. Yugoslavia positioned itself as a communist state that was not under the heel of the Soviet diplomacy and policy and as such was perceived by the West as an acceptable partner and useful tool in counteracting the Soviet influence.

An urgent, thrilling, and original look at the future of democracy that illuminates one of the most important battles of our time: the future of freedom and how to contain and defeat the autocrats mushrooming around the world.

In his bestselling book The End of Power, Moisés Naím examined power-diluting forces. In The Revenge of Power, Naím turns to the trends, conditions, technologies and behaviors that are contributing to the concentration of power, and to the clash between those forces that weaken power and those that strengthen it. He concentrates on the three “P”s―populism, polarization, and post-truths. All of which are as old as time, but are combined by today’s autocrats to undermine democratic life in new and frightening ways. Power has not changed. But the way people go about gaining it and using it has been transformed.

The Revenge of Power is packed with alluring characters, riveting stories about power grabs and losses, and vivid examples of the tricks and tactics used by autocrats to counter the forces that are weakening their power. It connects the dots between global events and political tactics that, when taken together, show a profound and often stealthy transformation in power and politics worldwide. Using the best available data and insights taken from recent research in the social sciences, Naím reveals how, on close examination, the same set of strategies to consolidate power pop up again and again in places with vastly different political, economic, and social circumstances, and offers insights about what can be done to ensure that freedom and democracy prevail.

The outcomes of these battles for power will determine if our future will be more autocratic or more democratic. Naím addresses the questions at the heart of the matter: Why is power concentrating in some places while in others it is fragmenting and degrading? And the big question: What is the future of freedom?

This work deals with the political transition in Spain from authoritarianism to democracy and its impact on business. It addresses the fundamental questions of how business was affected by the transition and how business, in turn, influenced the course of democratization, through collective action, and how it influenced the marketplace through the aggregate of individual business decisions. The work has a strong empirical base. Data was collected from the chief executive officers of 260 Spanish companies and the managing directors of over one hundred affiliates of the top-ranked business association, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (the "CEOE"). The work is particularly timely in light of the transitions occurring in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Unlike many earlier political transitions to more open systems, in Latin America and Southern Europe, the dynamics of economic change concurrent with political change is getting much greater attention in the East European transitions. The East European systems are attempting simultaneous political transitions with movement from command to market economies. Some East Europeans have studied the Spanish experience to garner lessons for their own efforts.

As racist undercurrents in many western societies become manifestly entrenched, the prevalence of Islamophobia - and the need to understand what perpetuates it - has never been greater. Critiquing the arguments found in notionally left accounts and addressing the limitations of existing responses, What is Islamophobia? demonstrates that Islamophobia is not simply a product of abstract, or discursive, ideological processes, but of concrete social, political and cultural actions undertaken in the pursuit of certain interests. The book centres on what the editors refer to as the 'five pillars of Islamophobia': the institutions and machinery of the state; the far right, incorporating the counterjihad movement; the neoconservative movement; the transnational Zionist movement; and assorted liberal groupings including the pro-war left, and the new atheist movement. The book concludes with reflections on existing strategies for tackling Islamophobia, considering what their distinctive approaches mean for fighting back.

This new volume on Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification brings together several of the most prominent social and political psychologists who are responsible for the resurgence of interest in the study of ideology, broadly defined. Leading scientists and scholars from several related disciplines, including psychology, sociology, political science, law, and organizational behavior present their cutting-edge theorizing and research. Topics include the social, personality, cognitive and motivational antecedents and consequences of adopting liberal versus conservative ideologies, the social and psychological functions served by political and religious ideologies, and the myriad ways in which people defend, bolster, and justify the social systems they inhabit. This book is the first of its kind, bringing together formerly independent lines of research on ideology and system justification.

This book examines contemporary jihad as a cult of violence and power. All jihadi groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or not, are characterized by a similar bloodlust. Murawiec characterizes this belief structure as identical to that of Europe's medieval millenarians and apocalyptics, arguing that both jihadis and their European cousins shared in a Gnostic ideology: a God-given mission endowed the Elect with supernatural powers and placed them above the common law of mankind. Although the ideology of jihad is essentially Islamic, Murawiec traces the political technologies used by modern jihad to the Bolsheviks. Their doctrines of terror as a system of rule were appropriated by radical Islam through multiple lines of communication. This book brings history, anthropology, and theology to bear to understand the mind of jihad that has declared war on the West and the world.

Define and rule focuses on the turn in late nineteenth-century colonial statecraft when Britain abandoned the attempt to eradicate difference between conqueror and conquered and introduced a new idea of governance, as the definition and management of difference. Mahmood Mamdani explores how lines were drawn between settler and native as distinct political identities, and between natives according to tribe. Out of that colonial experience issued a modern language of pluralism and difference. A mid-nineteenth-century crisis of empire attracted the attention of British intellectuals and led to a reconception of the colonial mission, and to reforms in India, British Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. The new politics, inspired by Sir Henry Maine, established that natives were bound by geography and custom, rather than history and law, and made this the basis of administrative practice. Maine's theories were later translated into "native administration" in the African colonies. Mamdani takes the case of Sudan to demonstrate how colonial law established tribal identity as the basis for determining access to land and political power, and follows this law's legacy to contemporary Darfur. He considers the intellectualand political dimensions of African movements toward decolonization by focusing on two key fi gures: the Nigerian historian Yusuf Bala Usman, who argued for an alternative to colonial historiography, and Tanzania's first president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who realized that colonialism's political logic was legal and administrative, not military, and could be dismantled through nonviolent reforms.

This is the first book to examine the changes that have influenced republican identity since the beginning of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland.Using a combination of empirical research and literature, the book addresses Northern Irish republican identity from three aspects: Catholicism, paramilitarism, and political transformation. It examines how they have shaped modern republicanism and how identity has shifted and adapted in relation to these specific areas of influence.The personal interviews conducted by the author with many republicans, including senior paramilitary and political figures make clear that Catholicism has helped shape republican paramilitary and political outlooks. This is a factor that is hardly discussed in republican literature, even though it strongly contributed to the development of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). Thus this is the first book of its kind to trace the religious-paramilitary-political linkage, providing a context for rethinking republicanism.A unique work, "From Armed Struggle to Political Struggle "is essential for students and researchers in Irish politics, conflict resolution, and security studies.

The 2014 Ukrainian crisis has highlighted the pro-Russia stances of some European countries, such as Hungary and Greece, and of some European parties, mostly on the far-right of the political spectrum. They see themselves as victims of the EU "technocracy" and liberal moral values, and look for new allies to denounce the current "mainstream" and its austerity measures. These groups found new and unexpected allies in Russia. As seen from the Kremlin, those who denounce Brussels and its submission to U.S. interests are potential allies of a newly re-assertive Russia that sees itself as the torchbearer of conservative values. Predating the Kremlin's networks, the European connections of Alexander Dugin, the fascist geopolitician and proponent of neo-Eurasianism, paved the way for a new pan-European illiberal ideology based on an updated reinterpretation of fascism. Although Dugin and the European far-right belong to the same ideological world and can be seen as two sides of the same coin, the alliance between Putin's regime and the European far-right is more a marriage of convenience than one of true love. This unique book examines the European far-right's connections with Russia and untangles this puzzle by tracing the ideological origins and individual paths that have materialized in this permanent dialogue between Russia and Europe.

There was no representative fascist movement during interwar Europe and there is much to be learned from where fascism 'failed', relatively speaking. So Nathaniel D. B. Kunkeler skilfully argues in Making Fascism in Sweden and the Netherlands, the first in-depth analysis of Swedish and Dutch fascism in the English language. Focusing on two peripheral - and therefore often overlooked - fascist movements (the Swedish National Socialist Workers' Party and the Dutch National Socialist Movement), this sophisticated study de-centres contemporary fascism studies by showing how smaller movements gained political foothold in liberal, democratic regimes. From charismatic leaders and the rallies they held to propaganda apparatus and mythopoeic props seized by ordinary people, Making Fascism in Sweden and the Netherlands analyses the constructs and perceptions of fascism to highlight the variegated nature of the movement in Europe and shine a spotlight on its performative process. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and using a highly innovative methodology, Kunkeler provides a nuanced analysis of European fascism which allows readers to rediscover the experimental character of far-right politics in interwar Europe.

When the Islamic Republic of Iran launched its fully-articulated political agenda in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, it merged the concept of political Islam with the previously secular readings of the republican doctrine of state. This book provides an analysis of the constitutional and institutional structure of public power in the most emblematic instance of a theocratic republic to date: the Islamic Republic of Iran, using the methods of political science. Nearly four decades after the 1979 revolution, a thorough evaluation of Iran's prevalently anti-modernist political discourse and concurrent claims of republican popular sovereignty is here carried out and their theoretical coherence and applied success investigated. Vahid Nick Pay surveys the major republican schools of political philosophy on the one hand, and the principal narratives of the prevailing Shi'a political theology on the other, to provide a pioneering evaluation of the republican credentials of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It will be essential reading for scholars of political science and modern Iranian politics and history.

The new edition of this classic text provides a comprehensive introduction to the concept of legitimacy as applied to political systems. Now addressing the issue of legitimacy beyond the state, the book also includes a new introduction and two major additional chapters which update the argument in the light of developments and debates.

This detailed analysis examines the role of race and racism in American politics since the 1980s, and contends that-despite the election of Barack Obama-the effects of white supremacy still divide American society and affect voter behavior today. How have the increasing diversity of our people and the election of the first black president influenced American politics? This book investigates every aspect of race and politics from voter ID laws to redistricting to the use of racially divisive issues in campaigns. Each of the seven chapters explores a specific political issue from its historical origin to its legacy in present-day politics, and the book features some of the most controversial topics on the subject, including disguised racism and the myth of a post-racial America. The Color of Politics: Racism in the American Political Arena Today considers a wide spectrum of political issues as it relates to minority populations. The author asserts that from the Bradley effect of the 1980s to the discourse used by the Tea Party, racism has left a lasting imprint on contemporary politics over the last 30 years.