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.

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.

This book traces the word 'progressive' through modern British history, from the Enlightenment to Brexit. It explores the shifting meanings of this term and the contradictory political projects to which it has been attached. It also places this political language in its cultural context, asking how it relates to ideas about progressive social development, progressive business, and progressive rock music. 'Progressive' is often associated with a centre-left political tradition, but this book shows that this was only ever one use of the term - and one that was heavily contested even from its inception. The power of the term 'progressive' is that it appears to anticipate the future. This can be politically and culturally valuable, but it is also dangerous. The suggestion that there is only one way forward has led to fear and doubt, anger and apathy, even amongst those who would like to consider themselves 'progressive people'.

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.

This comparative work examines the political and social context of interest groups in Malta and Ireland, two small island states at the periphery of an integrated continent. The author explores the impact of the European Union on their civil society's organizations and their gradual transformation at differing speeds and logics of Europeanization.

Taking Members of the Israeli Knesset, MKs, as a case study, this book offers a comparative analysis of the role of Members of Parliament (MPs) in democracies around the world It is based on the author's own experience of working for the Knesset The book offers a comparative perspective on the MP role which will be relevant to parliamentary democracies globally The book is an innovative addition to scholarship on parliamentarism considering the centrality of MPs for a democracy's functioning This book will not only prove useful for scholars of Israeli governance and legislation but will also be of interest to scholars of parliamentarism and comparative legislative politics in general

* The book explores the politics and history of the Fifth Schedule areas in India, which are home to the adivasis or indigenous people * It analyses the theories of primitive accumulation and its relationship with democracy and the protection of rights * It will be of interest to researchers and students of political science, governance, development studies, sociology, minority and indigenous studies, and South Asian studies in the UK and US.

The book is the first systematic and comparative effort to capture political culture in the Baltic countries, including political orientation and support for democracy. Revolving around public opinion data from the 1990s and onwards, including two recent surveys commissioned by the authors, the book takes stock of the political climate prevailing in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania a quarter of a century after reclaiming independence and fifteen years after becoming members of NATO and the EU. These three countries share the same geopolitical fate and many contemporary challenges, and yet each has been marked by their own transitions and struggles between nation building and European integration, Western and post-Soviet orientations, and past experience and future aspirations.

With 30 years having passed since Central Asia and the South Caucasus emerged on the international stage, a new approach to understanding its contemporary dynamics is required. This volume argues for a multidimensional analysis of international, regional, and domestic cooperation and conflicts in the region. The authors analyze foreign policies of great powers such as Russia, China, U.S., EU, Japan, and Iran toward this part of the world. The work looks at regional issues and regionalism, including the Eurasian Union and the Belt and Road Initiative. A series of chapters study domestic processes ranging from clan politics, identity construction, the media, to non-state actors. The publication applies theoretical pluralism and utilizes realism, liberalism, constructivism, and FPA.

This unique collection broadens the focus of public administration to include practical and theoretical insights from the worlds of literature and the arts. By making connections between what are normally seen as disparate arenas, the contributors seek to enrich the theory and practice of public administration. The volume connects administrative and management concepts to both Western and Eastern aesthetic theories; provides insights into administration by surveying literature and film for negative and positive constructs of bureaucracy; examines historical and fictional portrayals of leadership; and points to the influence of literature and film on public policy innovation. This work will be of interest to both scholars and practitioners in public administration.

Lights, Camera, Execution!: Cinematic Portrayals of Capital Punishment fills a prominent void in the existing film studies and death penalty literature. Each chapter focuses on a particular cinematic portrayal of the death penalty in the United States. Some of the analyzed films are well-known Hollywood blockbusters, such as Dead Man Walking (1995); others are more obscure, such as the made-for-television movie Murder in Coweta County (1983). By contrasting different portrayals where appropriate and identifying themes common to many of the studied films – such as the concept of dignity and the role of race (and racial discrimination) – the volume strengthens the reader’s ability to engage in comparative analysis of topics, stories, and cinematic techniques.Written by three professors with extensive experience teaching, and writing about the death penalty, film studies, and criminal justice, Lights, Camera, Execution! is deliberately designed for both classroom use and general readership.

This book casts a spotlight on a vital but poorly understood feature of the political process: the functioning within government of the public law rules that define and constrain it. It fills a gap in the market for a socio-legal study that brings together the analysis of public law and an interpretation of government policy and action. It provides an in-depth account of the complex interactions between administrative law, policy and practice. It is informed by inside access into a local authority and insider understanding. Drawing on rich source material - one local authority's involvement in the epic central/local confrontation over local government spending in 1980s England - this book develops a multifaceted and widely applicable analysis of public law within government as a process of 'sustaining the art of the possible'.

Among the significant repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic is escalating public questioning of the desirability and sustainability of the market economy and the societal role of business. These concerns are linked to merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, with significant disruptive consequences for stakeholder relationships and their management. This book explores these changes, moving away from the traditional focus on the financial and strategic aspects of M&A and its rational, technocratic approach. Viewing M&A activity as economic, political, and social (EPS) processes, Segal provides a dialectic understanding of stakeholder relationships around M&A activity and challenges the view that M&A activity is static, linear, and predictable. He develops a conceptual framework to enable practitioners, researchers and policymakers to identify, understand and address the stakeholder and management implications of M&A activity. This is applied to four case studies that make explicit how complex stakeholder relationships play out around M&A and how these power dynamics were managed with different balances. Useful for academics, researchers, managers, advisors, investors, analysts, and other stakeholders, this book highlights the need to understand the EPS implications and processes involved around M&A.

The past century of labor was definitively captured by theories like Fordism and Taylorism, or scientific managment, but how do we make sense of global production today? This short book takes a panoramic view of the candidates for the most succinct theory of the 21st century division of labor, including post-Fordism, flexible accumulation, McDonaldization, Waltonism, Nikeification, Gatesism and Siliconism, shareholder value, and lean production and Toyotism. Authors Thomas Janoski and Darina Lepadatu argue that lean production in a somewhat expanded version presents three variations: Toyotism (the strongest form), Nikeification (a moderate form with off-shored plants lacking teamwork) and Waltonism (the merchandising form that presses for off-shoring). While all three share strong elements of "just in time" (JIT) production and supply chain management, they differ in how teamwork and long-term philosophies are valued. This critical review of dominant established theories serves to inform subsequent research on the contemporary international division of labor.

This book relies on the conceptual model of Open Government (OG), focusing on transparency and, concretely, in open data initiatives at the local government context with the aim of improving participation and collaboration. Most Open Government models are centered on three pillars: transparency, participation and collaboration. Transparency is a crucial ingredient of OG and, applied to data openness means to ensure that the data are well known, comprehensible, easily accessible and open to all. new governance models based on different open data models have not been proposed up to now. The chapter authors seek to contribute recent research to the discussion on governance models of open data initiatives to support Open Governments with the aim of creating public value. It includes both theoretical and empirical studies on governments models in open data initiatives.