When Verschuur-Basse, a French sociologist specializing in the family, was invited by the Academy of Social Sciences to Beijing in 1985, she interviewed women from three generations and a variety of professions about their lives as women, wives, mothers, and daughters-in-law. Over a five-year period she conducted in-depth, non-directed interviews with educated women who were able to analyze and interpret their lives in the context of important formative factors such as the Cultural Revolution, the one-child policy, and other social reforms. The difference between urban and rural expectations from women is particularly apparent in the life stories of the 13 women included in this book. The women voice common concerns as wives and mothers who work outside the home and comment on the prevalence of abortion and preference for male children, the increase in divorce rates, and the place of women as decision-makers in the family. Originally published in French as "Paroles de Femmes Chinoises: La Famille Autrement" (Harmattan, 1993), the study received critical acclaim from academy and media as a revealing portrayal of social reality in China.

Valerie O'Regan examines the relationship between female policymakers and policy outputs. Her primary concern is whether female policymakers are associated with the advancement of "women's issues" in the policy realm. Although this question is important in the study of representation theory, there has been surprisingly little research on the topic, and it has tended to provide limited, often contradictory results. O'Regan's research design and analysis utilizes time-series, cross-sectional procedures to examine the effects of the independent variables on the dependent variables over time, across countries. Data from 22 countries during the period of 1960-1994 were analyzed in two separate segments. The first analysis involved three general policy measures that address two types of women's issue policies--employment and social. The second analysis involved two measures for policy comprehensiveness employing equal wage legislation. The findings for the first analysis are positive regarding the relationship between the presence of female policymakers and the presence of women's issue policies. The findings for the second analysis highlight the difficulties of developing valid measures of policy substance. Scholars and other researchers involved with women and politics and legislative behavior will find the study of particular interest.

This truly unique volume brings together theoretical discussions of liberalizations with studies focused on literature, theatre and the visual arts. To the analysis of developments in selected Eastern European regions is added a historical dimension through discussions of the alternation of liberalization and repression in authoritarian European states from the eighteenth century onwards.

This important volume examines the inner dynamics of political parties with the intention of finding out how parties really work. Specialists on Germany, France, New Zealand, Norway, Japan, India, Belgium, Israel, Poland, Britain, and the United States provide analyses of the ways in which power is developed and exercised in those countries--who is trying to do what, within the party and by means of the party, and how successful they are. Political parties are not monoliths, as they have tended to be treated in party system research; rather, they have differentiated internal structures, layers, and levels, and on each of these the motivations and objectives of the participants may be very different. By looking within, these authors provide an understanding of the internal play of party power and why parties function as they do within the broader political arena.

Since the regime of Slobodan Milosevic was spectacularly overthrown on October 5, 2000, little has been written about subsequent political developments in Serbia. The perception of Milosevic as a criminal leader who plunged the former Yugoslavia into bloodshed and used violence to achieve his aims is not widely disputed among Western observers. However, to what extent is this view of Milosevic shared by people in Serbia? Here Janine Clark offers insights into and an understanding of this troubled country. She argues that many Serbs do not regard Milosevic as a criminal leader but rather as a "bad" leader whose greatest crimes were against his own people. This has important implications for how Serbia deals with its past and for reconciliation and peace-building in the former Yugoslavia.

How do state parties react to the challenge of peripheral parties demanding political power to be devolved to their culturally distinct territories? Is devolution the best response to these demands? Why do national governments implement devolution given the high risk that devolution will encourage peripheral parties to demand ever more devolved powers? The aim of this book is to answer these questions through a comparative analysis of devolution in four European countries: Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The author argues that electoral competition between state and peripheral parties pushes some state parties to prefer devolution at some particular point in time. Devolution is an electoral strategy adopted in order to make it more difficult in the long term for peripheral parties to increase their electoral support by claiming the monopoly of representation of the peripheral territory and the people in it. The strategy of devolution is preferred over short-term tactics of convergence towards the peripheral programmatic agenda because the pro-periphery tactics of state parties in unitary centralised states are not credible in the eyes of voters. The price that state parties pay for making their electoral tactics credible is the 'entrenchment' of the devolution programmatic agenda in the electoral arena. The final implication of this argument is that in democratic systems devolution is not a decision to protect the state from the secessionist threat. It is, instead, a decision by state parties to protect their needed electoral majorities. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.

This work provides an overview and analysis of the rise, development, decline, and end of liberal reform movements and their alternation with periods of reaction in the United States from the 1890s through the mid-1980s. Broesamle's volume reassesses the course of U.S. political history over the last century and presents a new theory of American politics that reinterprets the way the system actually produces change. He relates the life cycles of reform movements to the key social, economic, and cultural developments of their eras, investigates commonalities among movements, and assesses the extent to which each movement is individual. No other history of liberalism has propounded the same thesis. The work is ambitious in its intellectual breadth and inclusiveness, and exceptionally comprehensive in both design and execution. "Reform and Reaction" answers the questions: What is the exact nature of the reform-reaction rhythm? What gives rise to it? Is it truly cyclical? Does each crest and trough resemble its prior and succeeding counterpart, or are they distinct? If there is a resemblance, can these political transformations be expected to repeat themselves in the future? The answers to these questions will alter previous perceptions of the relationship between the political realm and society at large and especially with respect to such phenomena as upheavals of youth, the rise and decline of campaigns on behalf of workers and farmers, feminist movements, and changing moral standards.

The study is divided into three major sections: Reform, Resistance, and Reaction, each of which is preceded by a short introductory essay that establishes its fundamental direction. By employing historical examples and resurveying the chronological territory chapter by chapter, the study details the reform movements of the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Kennedy-Johnson period of the 60s as well as the reactionary periods of the 1920s, the 1950s, and the 1970s and 1980s. Broesamle establishes links between political trends on one hand, and social and intellectual trends on the other, that have not been delineated before. Reform and Reaction in Twentieth Century American Politics has a wide appeal to a very broad audience: professors and teachers in the fields of twentieth century U.S. history and political science, practicing political professionals, journalists covering the American political scene, and any informed generalist interested in learning more about historical and contemporary politics in the U.S. The book would be an addition to the reading lists for graduate and upper division classes on virtually any aspect of American political history from the 1890s to the mid-1980s as well as courses on current political affairs.

The theme of this book is the political practices by Zhejiang Government under the guidance of "China Dream" policy. It reviews the political facets of governance, The People's Congress System, the consultative system, grassroots democracy, rule of law, government function, restriction and supervision of power and the united front. These areas are the foundations of Chinese government, and are currently discussed in detail from the point of view of the Zhejiang local administration. As China has its unique political system, this book could help scholars and policy makers around the global better understand the operation of Chinese government and political goals for the future under the guidance of the statecraft.

Based primarily on the authors' personal experiences, this is the first study to reveal the inside story of how arms control decisions were made in the former Soviet Union. Savel'yev and General-Lieutenant Detinov participated directly in the decision-making process from 1969, when the Big Five was established, to the end of 1991, when the USSR was dissolved. They pay special attention to activities of the Politburo Commission for the Supervision of the Negotiations--the Big Five--and its working body, the interagency group known as the Five. They describe the key moments and main changes in the Soviet positions at SALT-I, SALT-II, INF, START, and DST.

The evolution of the relationships among the ANZUS nations--the acronym for the Australia, New Zealand, and U.S. alliance for common security formed in 1951--is examined in this volume's essays. They also look at the implications of changing relationships for the entire Asia-Pacific region. Editor Richard W. Baker, director of the East-West Center's Australia-New Zealand-U.S. relations project, has commissioned experts from academia, government, and other backgrounds from the three countries to research the full range of sociopolitical change in the three nations and the changing perceptions of their national roles and relationships. This study comes at a particularly relevant juncture in world affairs because the defusing of the Cold War has prompted nations worldwide to rethink their national and international security measures and allied priorities.

Throughout the volume's main divisions: Social Dynamics, Political Evolution, Images and Attitudes, and Implications for Relationships, the interdisciplinary team of writers takes a hard look at the long-held assumption, based on common language and cultural roots, of fundamental shared values among the three nations. Each society has evolved in individual and dramatic ways based on changes in demographics, political agendas, and outlooks on their international roles, security situations, and appropriate national policies. Individual chapters zero in on key elements in the national experiences of each country that have influenced the nature and conduct of the relationships among the three partners. Finally, the volume draws a balance between elements of distinctiveness and similarity and projects implications for the future of the relationships. For academics and students of international relations, the book provides a case study of the long-term evolution of alliance relationships and provides instructive comparisons and contrasts with the post-Cold War circumstances of other American alliances. For professionals and others whose interests involve working in or between two or more of these countries, this volume is an invaluable handbook that contains an excellent summary of their recent histories, major social and political developments, and problems, as well as their characteristic world views and the major factors which affect the dynamics of their interrelationships.

The chapters in this volume examine a few facets in the drama of how the beleaguered Jewish people, as a phoenix ascending of ancient legend, achieved national self-determination in the reborn State of Israel within three years of the end of World War II and of the Holocaust. They include the pivotal 1946 World Zionist Congress, the contributions of Jacob Robinson and Clark M. Eichelberger to Israel's sovereign renewal, American Jewry's crusade to save a Jewish state, the effort to create a truce and trusteeship for Palestine, and Judah Magnes's final attempt to create a federated state there. Joining extensive archival research and a lucid prose, Professor Monty Noam Penkower again displays a definitive mastery of his craft.

This book examines the governance arrangements in Northern Ireland through a multi-level lens, particularly in the period since the new institutions established through the 1998 Agreement became more firmly embedded.

The great historian D.C. Moore's masterpiece, long unavailable. It is an essential fulcrum for all attempts to explain the nature of the 19th century English political system, and the great and continuous changes that occurred within that system as a preface to modern English society. Moore shows that the principal factor which changed the Victorian political system were those that derived from its working in the context of the changing economic and social environment in the industrial revolution and its immediate aftermath. The book reflects the premise that the key to the nature of any political system lies in the relationship between the formal political structure and the structure of the effective groups within that society.

France and Germany were among the major powers that abruptly lost that status as a consequence of World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, the governments of both nations sought ways to recover their great-power standing. Each saw the cooperation of the other as crucial for its own foreign policy aspirations and tried repeatedly to engage the other in commitments that would underwrite its own ambitions. But neither succeeded. In the 1970s, France and Germany began to reconcile themselves to the permanent loss of their great-power status. The process of accepting a diminished international role has been underway for more than two decades, and, in Kocs's judgment, is very likely to continue in the future. Far from opening the door to a stronger world military role for Western Europe, the end of the Cold War is likely to serve merely to consolidate the existing situation.

In April of 1975, Lebanon, the tranquil Middle Eastern country called the Switzerland of the Orient, exploded into a violent conflict that lasted almost two decades. This book explores the convoluted politics and forces within Lebanon and the Near East that made the atmosphere in that tiny republic highly charged, thus inhibiting conflict resolution. This comprehensive study describes the strategies, battles, and conferences that kept Lebanon aflame, despite the best efforts of all concerned parties to terminate the bloodshed. Abraham looks at Lebanon from the inside-out, highlighting the conflicting politics of Lebanese leaders, the failure of the democratic left to take over the state, and the underlying problem of the PLO's presence in the country.

The most important book on the Eisenhower presidency in over a decade, Warshaw's edited collection provides extensive new data to support the view of Eisenhower as an activist, hands-on, involved president. The volume focuses on how he used a hidden hand leadership style to direct not only policy development but crisis management. With contributions from both historians and political scientists, the work supports the current trend in revisionist literature on Eisenhower as an activist president.

In an interdisciplinary study, John Theilmann and Al Wilhite examine the role of campaign contributions in the election of blacks and women to the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1980s. The volume provides an historical overview of discrimination and campaign financing, a model of campaign contributions based on rent-seeking paradigm from public choice, and statistical testing of this model.

Using an approach that is in part historical/narrative and in part theoretical/statistical, this book begins with a brief discussion of the political position of women and blacks from the early years of the republic to the 1970s. Chapter two examines the notable political gains made by both groups during the 1970s. Chapter three provides an overview of the impact of political money through history, and focuses on several explanations of the role of money in congressional elections since the passage of FECA. The next four chapters are theoretical explorations of campaign decisions linked with empirical measures of the influence of race and gender on these decisions. Theilmann and Wilhite present a rent-seeking model of the campaign strategy and an examination of both candidate and contributor decisions. The theoretical perspectives derived from these discussions serve as the basis for analysis of political action contributions, party contributions, and individual contributions. Finally, the authors return to the question of blacks and women in Congress during the 1980s, as impacted by campaign funding. Based on their analysis, they engage in some predictions of the future for black and female congressional candidates. These observations will interest academic audiences in the studies of political science, economics, and race relations, as well as anyone with an interest in race/sexual discrimination and congressional campaign finance reform.

This book illuminates modern political technology, examining important technologies, companies, and people; putting recent innovations into historical context; and describing the possible future uses of technology in electoral politics. Despite a decade of political technology's celebrated triumphs-such as online fundraising of the presidential campaigns of McCain in 2000, Dean in 2003, and Obama in 2008; or the web-enabled, socially networked campaign of Obama 2008-the field of e-politics is still at an unsolidified stage. Margin of Victory: How Technologists Help Politicians Win Elections offers an unprecedented insiders' view of the fast-changing role of political technology that explains how innovations in the use of new media, software tools, data, and analytics hold yet untapped potential. Contributions from leading practitioners in this highly specialized field cover everything from political blogs to targeting mobile devices to utilizing software created specifically to manage campaigns. The book documents how political technology is still in an early stage, despite its enormous advances in recent years, and how the strategies that work today will inevitably be superseded as new technologies arrive and potential voters become less receptive to the previous campaign's tactics.

The aim of this book is to demonstrate how environmental factors have caused an evolution in the landscape of national security since the end of the Cold War. Through relevant case studies, the scope of the problem on the national security landscape due to environmental stressors is illuminated, examined, and synthesized with climate-related data. Human variables such as governance, GDP, and vulnerability are taken into account, and are compared against environmental factors to more accurately determine the causative agents of regional conflicts which threaten national security. These case studies comprise the majority of the text, and they show how individual conflicts are uniquely influenced by environmental stress with variations from situation to situation. This book will be of interest to government and military professionals, and may serve as a resource for college courses in the areas of military geography, international affairs, and sustainability studies.

This wide-ranging study, by one of the UK's leading scholars of British politics, presents a fascinating picture of the role of the MP during the last 150 years. It looks at the three major roles of backbench MPs - the partisan role, the constituency role, and the scrutiny role. Rush argues that balance between them has changes significantly and the conflict between the MP as a partisan and as a check on the government creates a dilemma at the heart of parliamentary government.

Joseph Chamberlain's political career was immense, embracing the campaign for state education, municipal reform, opposition to Irish home rule, social reform, foreign and colonial affairs, and imperial preference. He was a formative influence on the development of party politics in late Victorian and Edwardian England. This bibliography provides the most comprehensive survey to date of primary and secondary material relating to this seminal figure.

The bibliographical references listed in the volume cover every stage and aspect of Chamberlain's controversial career. Editorial comments are designed to assist the student and the researcher. The work also cites key articles detailing Chamberlain's relationship with the press and surveys the abundant political ephemera provoked by his career. In addition, the volume includes a chronology, biographical essay, and indexes. The volume seeks to provide a starting point for historians and other researchers interested in Chamberlain, his politics, and the conflicts his career engendered.