This book studies the developments of the Brexit process between June 2016 and June 2017. The British electorate's decision to leave the European Union in June 2016 marks a major point in post war British politics, for it overturns the core policy of all preceding British governments since the early 1960s. The referendum brought down one Prime Minister, David Cameron, and bequeathed to his successor, Theresa May, the considerable challenge of negotiating the UK's departure from the EU. The magnitude of the task is colossal. While the time frame to secure the terms of the exit is short, the exact form of Brexit remains unclear to this day. With this book the author sets the context for the negotiations. He introduces the actors and the negotiating teams and highlights the key issues and considerations of both sides. While some works just focus on the interplay between Brussels and London, neglecting the internal regional dimension and the role and interests of the devolved administrations in the negotiations, the author looks specifically at Northern Ireland, the part of the UK that will be affected most by Brexit - in terms of both its economic and political significance. The book concludes with consideration of the impact of the 2017 general election on the negotiations. It will be of interest to students, scholars, policy makers and the wider reader interested in British politics and the future of the EU.

This book provides a detailed study into whether Ministers in the Council vote the same way as Members of the European Parliament if they are from the same national party. The author explores the voting behavior of national representatives at the EU level, and this analysis is combined with insights from interviews with practitioners to shed light on the influence of national parties in the legislative process of the EU. This influence is found to be limited, as ministers in the Council and Members of the European Parliament submit to the constraints in their respective institutions rather than strictly voting along party lines. The study enhances our knowledge not only with regard to the role of national parties at the EU level, but also concerning the inter- and intra-institutional decision-making processes in the European Union. This book will particularly be of use to scholars and upper-level students interested in EU studies, legislative behaviour, and party politics.

Dealing with the aftermath of civil conflict or the fall of a repressive government continues to trouble countries throughout the world. Whereas much of the 1990s was occupied with debates concerning the relative merits of criminal prosecutions and truth commissions, by the end of the decade a consensus emerged that this either/or approach was inappropriate and unnecessary. A second generation of transitional justice experiences have stressed both truth and justice and recognize that a single method may inadequately serve societies rebuilding after conflict or dictatorship. Based on studies in ten countries, this book analyzes how some combine multiple institutions, others experiment with community-level initiatives that draw on traditional law and culture, whilst others combine internal actions with transnational or international ones. The authors argue that transitional justice efforts must also consider the challenges to legitimacy and local ownership emerging after external military intervention or occupation.

This book explores to what extent China has drawn lessons from Singapore, both in terms of its ruling ideology and through the policy-specific learning process. In so doing, it provides insights into the opportunities but also the challenges of this long-term learning process, focusing attention to how non-democratic regimes deal with modernization. The stellar line-up of international contributors, from China, Singapore, Europe, and the US, offer a variety of perspectives on Singapore as a model of "authoritarian modernism" for China. The book discusses how the small Southeast Asian city-state became a major reference point for China, how mainland observers often misunderstood the nature of Singapore's governance and instrumentalized it to bolster the CCP's legitimacy, and why the Singapore model appears to be in decline under Xi Jinping. The chapters also analyze policy-specific learning processes, including bilateral mechanisms of policy exchange, the Chinese "mayor's class" in Singapore, and joint industrial projects and lessons in social welfare provision. The book will be of interest to academics working on Chinese politics; development in China; state society and economy in the Asia-Pacific; international relations in the Asia-Pacific; and Southeast Asian politics.

This book examines the risks to freedom of expression, particularly in relation to the internet, as a result of regulation introduced in response to terrorist threats. The work explores the challenges of maintaining security in the fight against traditional terrorism while protecting fundamental freedoms, particularly online freedom of expression. The topics discussed include the clash between freedom of speech and national security; the multijurisdictional nature of the internet and the implications for national sovereignty and transnational legal structures; how to determine legitimate and illegitimate association online; and the implications for privacy and data protection. The book presents a theoretical analysis combined with empirical research to demonstrate the difficulty of combatting internet use by terror organizations or individuals and the range of remedies that might be drawn from national and international law. The work will be essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers in the areas of Constitutional law; Criminal Law, European and International law, Information and Technology law and Security Studies.

This book explores the discourses, attitudes and behaviours of professional politicians and ordinary citizens alike characterized by hostility towards the political sphere, political parties and, above all, professional politicians. It furnishes a clear, consistent depiction of the anti-politics phenomenon in general using Italy as a "laboratory" where anti-politics is widespread. After an original reconstruction of the concept of anti-politics, the author charts the rise of Silvio Berlusconi, the success of Umberto Bossi's Northern League, the resounding electoral victories of the Five Star Movement and the League (La Lega), all rooted in the anti-political rhetoric of Italy's leaders and the anti-political sentiment of its population. The author also traces the socio-political profile of the anti-political citizens of the main European democracies. This broad, consistent view of anti-politics will attract academics, journalists and policy makers interested in anti-politics in Italy and elsewhere. Students and scholars of party politics, party leaders, democracy and political participation will also find the volume of great interest.

This volume covers a wide spectrum of governance issues relating to small states in a global context. While different definitions of governance are given in the chapters, most authors associate governance with the setting and implementation of policies aimed at managing a country or territory, and with the related institutional structures and interventions by political actors. Generally, good governance is associated with concepts such as policy effectiveness, accountability, transparency, control of corruption, encouragement of citizens' voice and gender equality-factors which are, in turn, linked with democracy. What emerges from the book is that the societies of small states are being re-shaped by various forces outside their control, including the globalization process and climate change, rendering their governance ever more complex. These problems are not solely faced by small states, but small country size tends to lead to a higher degree of exposure to external factors. The chapters are grouped into four sections broadly covering political, environmental, social and economic governance. Governance is influenced by many, often intertwined, factors; the division of the book into four parts therefore does not detract from the fact that governance is multifaceted, and such division was based on the primary focus of each particular study and its main disciplinary background. The expert authors have, moreover, used a variety of approaches in the studies, the subject of small states being well suited to scholarly work from different disciplines using qualitative, quantitative and mixed approaches to arrive at useful conclusions.

This book analyses efforts of Bangladeshi government and NGOs to strengthen local governance, and identifies the challenges posed by collaboration with NGOs. Presenting a dominantly qualitative study, the analysis explores whether engagement between the Sharique project to strengthen local governance and the Union Parishads has translated into success. In doing so, it argues that evidence points to a positive impact on institutionalising good governance and fiscal autonomy through widening participation in planning and decision-making, reinforcing accountability of functionaries and enhancing tax collection. Furthermore, this book demonstrates that the collaboration has aided the process of development of social capital between officials of councils and NGOs, as well as amongst the community members, encouraging future partnership governance. However, with the phasing out of the project as a propelling force, it also shows that the results fall short of being sustainable and, as such, that statuary support, unequivocal political commitment, and incentivising engagements are required to stabilise outcomes. Bridging a gap in the Development Studies literature, this book presents new findings on the collaboration of NGOs at the local level. It will be of interest to academics working in the field of South Asian Studies, Development Studies, and Asian Politics.

Employing a multiscalar approach to migration outcomes, spanning individual households, local communities, the macroeconomy and global patterns of capital accumulation, this book demonstrates how cumulatively causal processes at structural, institutional and agency levels have forged a precariously remittance-dependent economy in Sri Lanka. This book combines historical-structural analysis with qualitative research to contend that remittance inflows have reinforced patterns of uneven development in Sri Lanka. At the heart of this argument is a bold critique of remittance capital that inverts the migration-development nexus which has come to dominate international policymaking, with implications for Sri Lanka and other 'remittance economies' throughout the Global South. The author contends that temporary labour migration from Sri Lanka is a process of 'migration-underdevelopment', in which remittance inflows - ubiquitously considered a key source of capital for developing economies - are reinforcing of uneven development at multiple scales and produce unsustainable development outcomes. Offering a uniquely systematic critique of remittances as a source of developmental capital for countries of origin, such as Sri Lanka, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of development studies, migration studies and Asian studies.

This book explores the role of intellectuals and governance processes in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Focusing on East Java, the author argues that intellectuals have played an increasingly direct and practical role in the exercise of governance at the local level of Indonesian politics. The book provides insights into how the collaboration between intellectuals and local politico-business elites has shaped good governance and democratic institution-building, validating power structures that continue to obstruct political participation in the country. In addition, the book also delves into the contribution of local intellectuals in resolving the contradictions between technocratic ideas and governance practices, in the interest of local elites. Empirical studies included in the book add to the broader literature on the social role of intellectuals, highlighting their role as not just defined by their capacity to produce and circulate knowledge, but also by their particular position in concrete social and political struggle. The author also explores the manner in which relationships between intellectuals, business and political elites and NGOs in local political and economic practices, intersect with national-level contests over power and resources.

America, it is often argued, emerged from the Enlightenment. It follows that the prevailing elements of politics in the United States are echoes of struggles among what is here referred to as the moderate Enlightenment, the conservative Enlightenment, and the radical Enlightenment. These lead to conflicting political doctrines which variously address the fundamental questions of who should rule, and why, and how. The outcome is a confusing melange of a tri-partite civil war among those who claim the Enlightenment as their own. This is accompanied by a long history of resistance, to the Enlightenment itself, a phenomenon which leads to deeper concerns. Sometimes referred to as the Counter-Enlightenment, this has been largely expressed by the Romantic contentions of an authoritarian nationalism. Indeed, its most dramatic manifestations have been realized in fascism and Nazism. In this manner, they constitute a step back into the historical mist, comprising a major attack on both reason and empiricism as the foundation of a scientific approach. Out of this combination of limitation and possibility emanate the essential power configurations of the epoch, yielding policies that are often perceived to be "democratic," either as threat or achievement. Accordingly, the book explores the actual substance of the democratic argument. On this basis, it contends that a progressive position necessitates a search for the material foundation of a more egalitarian pluralism as the only rational surrogate for majorities within a nation of enormous size, population, and the complexities of concentration that are beyond the reach of democracy in any literal sense. This work is rooted in one of the major traditions that emerged from the Western world of the late eighteenth century. Thus it is informed by the doctrinal contentions of people like Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. As such, it largely opposes a tradition that flows from the writings of Adam Smith, John Adams, and James Madison, and even more so to that associated with Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall. Its focus is on how these ideas play out in a world wherein a generic fascism is also a major theme always looming

This book offers a detailed account of the life and career of William Armstrong, the most influential civil servant in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, and one of the most powerful and significant Whitehall officials in the post-1945 period. He was at the centre of the British government policy-making machine for over 30 years - the very incarnation of the 'permanent government' of the country. He was the indispensable figure at the right hand of successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, and a reforming Head of the Civil Service. His role and power was such that he was controversially dubbed 'deputy prime minister' under Edward Heath. The book also casts light on wider institutional, political and historical issues around the working and reform of the civil service and the government machine, the policy-making process, and the experience in office of Labour and Conservative governments from the 1940s to the 1970s. ;;;;;;;;;;;

This book provides an innovative re-examination of the 'recovery' phase of a disaster by one of the UK's most experienced disaster management specialists. Drawing on two decades' of work, the book develops an ethnography of the residents and responders in one flooded village and applies this to other cases of UK flooding, as well as to post-disaster recovery in New Zealand. The book shows how localised emergency responders find ways to collaborate with residents, and how an informal network uses nationally generated instruments differently to co-produce regeneration within a community. The book considers the plethora of government instruments which have been produced to affect recovery, including checklists, templates and guidance documents, and discusses approaches to community resilience and recovery risk management. The book appeals to students and scholars of Government and Public Policy, Disaster and Emergency Management, Community Resilience, Law, Sociology and Geography.

Common wisdom has it that when presidential political systems coincide with multiparty systems the result is gridlock; parties squabble and presidents are not able to stitch together the majorities they need to move forward with the business of governing. Yet, recent experiences in Latin America suggest otherwise. In roughly the last decade, multiparty presidentialism has emerged as a model form of presidential democracy. Using Brazil as a case study and situating Brazil within a broad comparative context, this book offers the first conceptually rigorous analysis of the political and institutional underpinnings of Brazil's recent rise as the world's six largest economy. Considering key institutional features at federal and sub-national levels, the authors argue that Brazils success stems from the combination of a constitutionally strong president and a robust system of checks and balances that emerges from healthy political competition and power alternation.

What would it mean for the EU to be a legitimate body, and where do our ideas on this question come from? In this award winning book, Claudia Schrag Sternberg explores some of the most significant questions surrounding the legitimacy of the European Union. Specifically, The Struggle for EU Legitimacy traces the history of constructions and contestations of the EU's legitimacy, in discourses of the European institutions and in public debate. Through an interpretive, non-quantitative textual analysis of an eclectic range of sources, it examines both long-term patterns in EU-official discourses and their reception in member-state public spheres, specifically in the German and French debates on the Maastricht and Constitutional Draft Treaties. The story told portrays the history of legitimating the EU as a never-ending contest over the ends and goals of integration, as well as a balancing act - which was inescapable given the nature of the integration project - between 'bringing the people in' and 'keeping them out', and between actively politicising and deliberately de-politicising the stakes of EU politics. Schrag Sternberg suggests that continuous contestation is not only a defining feature of this history, but a source of legitimacy in its own right.

Drawing on a unique interdisciplinary perspective, integrating work from translation studies and linguistics with political science and economics, and applying it to English and French versions of the same documents, this book calls attention to stark ideological differences across versions. This book sheds light on our increasingly globalized world by demonstrating the ways in which globalized discourse undergoes processes of depoliticization and marketization, in turn producing a trickle-down effect on individuals' personal identities.

The presence of women in Congress is at an all-time high - approximately one of every five members is female - and record numbers of women are running for public office for the 2018 midterms. At the same time, Congress is more polarized than ever, and little research exists on how women in Congress view their experiences and contributions to American politics today. Drawing on personal interviews with over three-quarters of the women serving in the 114th Congress (2015-17), the authors analyze how these women navigate today's stark partisan divisions, and whether they feel effective in their jobs. Through first-person perspectives,A Seat at the Tabl looks at what motivates these women's legislative priorities and behavior, details the ways in which women experience service within a male-dominated institution, and highlights why it matters that women sit in the nation's federal legislative chambers. It describes the strategies women employ to overcome any challenges they confront as well as the opportunit es available to them. The book examines how gender interacts with political party, race and ethnicity, seniority, chamber, and district characteristics to shape women's representational influence and behavior, finding that party and race/ethnicity are the two most complicating factors to a singular narrative of women's congressional representation. While congresswomens perspectives, experiences, and influence are neither uniform nor interchangeable, they strongly believe their presence matters in myriad ways, affecting congressional culture, priorities, processes, debates, and outcomes.

Based on mixed-methods research and ethnographic fieldwork at various sites in Italy, this book examines the relationship between expertise and activism in grassroots environmentalism. Presenting interviews with citizens, activists and experts, it considers activism surrounding infrastructure in urban areas, in connection with water management, transport, tour- ism and waste disposal. Through comparisons between different political environments, the author analyses the ways in which citizens, political activists and technical experts participate in using expertise, shedding light on the effects of this on the structure and composition of social movements, as well as the implications for the mechanisms of participation and the formation of alliances. Bridging the sociology of expertise and contentious politics, this study of the relationship between contentious expertise and democratic accountability shows how conflict transforms, rather than inhibits, expertise production into a 'contentious politics by other means'. As such, it will appeal to social scientists with interests in social movements, environmental sociology, science and technology studies, and the sociology of knowledge.

Data has emerged as a key component that determines how interactions across the world are structured, mediated and represented. This book examines these new data publics and the areas in which they become operative, via analysis of politics, geographies, environments and social media platforms. By claiming to offer a mechanism to translate every conceivable occurrence into an abstract code that can be endlessly manipulated, digitally processed data has caused conventional reference systems which hinge on our ability to mark points of origin, to rapidly implode. Authors from a range of disciplines provide insights into such a political economy of data capitalism; the political possibilities of techno-logics beyond data appropriation and data refusal; questions of visual, spatial and geographical organization; emergent ways of life and the environments that sustain them; and the current challenges of data publics, which is explored via case studies of three of the most influential platforms in the social media economy today: Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. Data Publics will be of great interest to academics and students in the fields of computer science, philosophy, sociology, media and communication studies, architecture, visual culture, art and design, and urban and cultural studies.

This book investigates news use patterns among five different generations in a time where digital media create a multi-choice media environment. The book introduces the EPIG Model (Engagement-Participation-Information-Generation) to study how different generational cohorts' exposure to political information is related to their political engagement and participation. The authors build on a multi-method framework to determine direct and indirect media effects across generations. The unique dataset allows for comparison of effects between legacy and social media use and helps to disentangle the influence on citizens' political involvement in nonelection as well as during political campaign times. Bringing the newly of-age Generation Z into the picture, the book presents an in-depth understanding of how a changing media environment presents different challenges and opportunities for political involvement of this, as well as older generations. Bringing the conversation around political engagement and the media up to date for the new generation, this book will be of key importance to scholars and students in the areas of media studies, communication studies, technology, political science and political communication.

This book explores the relevance of conspiracy theories in the modern social and political history of the Nordic countries. The Nordic countries have traditionally imagined themselves as stable, wealthy, egalitarian welfare states. Conspiracy theories, mistrust and disunity, the argument goes, happened elsewhere in Europe (especially Eastern Europe), the Middle East or in the United States. This book paints a different picture by demonstrating that conspiracy theories have always existed in the Nordic region, both as a result of structural tensions between different groups and in the aftermath of traumatic events, but seem to have become more prominent over the last 30 or 40 years. While the book covers events and developments in each of the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland), it is not a comparative country analysis. Rather, the book focuses on conspiracy theories in and about the Nordic region as a region, arguing that similarities in the trajectories of conspiratorial thinking are interesting to examine in cultural, social, and political terms. The book takes a thematic approach, including looking at states and elites; family, gender and sexuality; migration and the outside view on the Nordic region; conspiracy theories about the Nordic countries; and Nordic noir. This book will be of great interest to researchers on extremism, conspiracy theories and the politics of the Nordic countries.

This book analyses the arrival of emerging and traditional information and technology for public and economic use in Latin America. It focuses on the governmental, economic and security issues and the study of the complex relationship between citizens and government. The book is divided into three parts: * 'Digital data and privacy, prospects and barriers' centers on the debates among the right of privacy and the loss of intimacy in the Internet, * 'Homeland security and human rights' focuses on how novel technologies such as drones and autonomous weapons systems reconfigure the strategies of police authorities and organized crime, * 'Labor Markets, digital media and emerging technologies' emphasize the legal, economic and social perils and challenges caused by the increased presence of social media, blockchain-based applications, artificial intelligence and automation technologies in the Latin American economy. This first volume in a two volume set will be important reading for scholars and students of governance in Latin American, the protection of human rights and the use of technology to combat crime and the new advances of digital economy in the region.

Distance, in its traditional sense, connotates "estrangement" and "division". But in the context of modern political studies, it means a controllable resource that can be manipulated to change the relationship between the government and the public. Drawing on this concept from Western political science, the author explores the law and mechanisms of China's political communication. In this volume, the author introduces a creative theoretical framework of distance, which is a dynamic system comprised of physical and psychological distance, ideal distance and real distance, and natural distance and consequent distance. Psychological distance is the core, because it signifies not only whether there is trust between a government and the public, but also whether the political community can maintain a high degree of harmony, stability, unity, and vitality. Events in the past five years in China are used as cases to illustrate the point. Students and scholars who are interested in political science and political communication, especially Chinese politics, would find this title a useful reference.

Originally published in 1986, Politics and Government in African States 1960-1985 deals with the politics of sub-Saharan African states since independence. Each chapter considers the formal structure of government at the time of independence and traces the subsequent changes. Each chapter also describes the development of the state machinery, the civil service, the parastatals, defence and police forces, party structure, the political opposition and trade unions. The economics of African states are dealt with insofar as they affect politics and government.

This book explores the political economy of subnational development in Mexico. Like much of Latin America, Mexico underwent market reforms and democratization in the late 20th century. In addition to transforming national institutions, these changes led to sharp political and economic divergence among Mexican states. The author offers a novel explanation for these uneven results, showing how relations between local governments and organized business gave rise to distinct subnational institutions for managing the economy. The argument is developed through a paired comparison of two states in central Mexico, Puebla and Queretaro. This work will be of interest to students of Latin American and Mexican politics, regional development, and government-business relations.