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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes > General
In For the People: Left Populism in Spain and the US Jorge Tamames offers a stimulating comparative study of Spain's Podemos and the Bernie Sanders movement in the US. Left populism emerges as a potential powerful antidote to rising inequality in both Europe and America. Recent years have witnessed dramatic challenges to established politics across Europe and America. Opposition to business-as-usual has not been limited to the radical right: left populist movements with transformative agendas offer a very different - if equally radical - response to the status quo. Focusing on left populist movements in the contrasting political landscapes of Spain and the US, For the People brings together insights from Karl Polanyi, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to offer a bold new explanatory framework for today's left populism. The book will be a key text for activists, students of politics, and anyone interested in the current political landscape of Europe and America. It grounds its insights in a careful excavation of recent political history in the two countries, tracing the emergence and advance of left parties and movements from the early days of neoliberalism in the 1970s, through the political landslides that followed the 2008 financial crisis and the post2011 protest cycle, up to the present day. In the age of Trump and Brexit, For the People offers an indispensable mix of theoretical, historical and practical insights for all those interested in and inspired by the radical potentials of left populism.
This text proposes and applies an analytical framework to study the institutional continuity and changes in China. More specifically, this study examines and explains the premodernity and the modernization process of China. On the track of a state-led modernization, China is found to be institutionally entering the nets of the market economy. An inquiry of China's labour allocation patterns and their changes serves as an indicator for the institutional analysis.
This book provides a unique perspective, at once scholarly and fully engaged, on the political violence in South Africa during 'The Time of the Comrades' in the mid-1980s. The work of a group of social scientists and professionals, whose own work and thinking have been profoundly affected by the political crisis of that time, it provides an in-depth research and analysis as well as critical reflections on the difficult political and theoretical issues raised by political violence and the struggle in South Africa.
How are the Germans coming to terms with reunification? Four issues are at the heart of this process and form the basis of this study. First, the question of the new German identity second, the role of nationalism in the new republic third, the role of inherited ideologies and finally, the role of Germany in Europe and the wider world. These issues are examined in terms of transformations in the political culture in eastern Germany, metamorphoses in the political ideology and philosophy of the former West Germany and relations with the political discourse of the West in general.
This important library and classroom tool will make it easy for students to research and debate the core political ideas and issues of the founding period. The profound arguments regarding republicanism, federalism, constitutionalism, and individual rights come to life here, contextualized with introductory explanations to stimulate analysis and appraisal of the positions. Unique to this collection are documents relating to the establishment of constitutional governments in the original 13 states, debate over the Bill of Rights, and documents reflecting a variety of alternative voices, including letters and petitions from women and African-American and Native-American leaders. This presents a broader picture of the issues that confronted those who framed our government than has ever before been available. An advisory board of distinguished historians and teachers assisted Patrick with the selection of documents. This collection shows how the founding fathers arrived at consensus from the many conflicting viewpoints that characterized the debate on founding our extraordinary constitutional republic. The political debates on independence and original state constitutions are connected systematically to the subsequent debates on the ratification of the Federal Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Political grievances of dispossessed groups such as women, African Americans, and Native Americans, are connected to core ideas of the founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence. Letters, petitions, sermons, court proceedings, Thomas Jefferson's notes, a selection of Federalist and anti-Federalist papers, even the Northwest Ordinance, are among the documents included. The work is organized topically into seven parts, each which is prefaced by an introductory essay which presents the main theme, ideas, and issues, and establishes a context for the documents that follow. Each document is preceded by an explanatory headnote, which includes questions to guide the reader's analysis and appraisal of the primary source. Each part ends with a select bibliography. A chronology of major events concludes the work. This collection is a basic research and debate tool that will be invaluable to school and public libraries and secondary school classrooms.
How is a local level democratic organization cultivated so that members, who were previously disenfranchised, are empowered to oppose an oppressive central authority and participate in a revolutionary reconstruction of society? Having spent many years researching this question, Johannes P. Van Vugt applies a model of democratic organization for social change to his findings regarding the way literacy campaigns and Christian Base communities were organized in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Brazil. His study is valuable as an example of a scientific methodology for studying and cultivating democratic organization for social change, and as a clarification of the controversy over the role of specific campaigns and organizations. Van Vugt approaches his study from an interdisciplinary perspective using a methodology that is qualitative, historical, and comparative. He blends the cultural insights of ethnography with the structural understanding of how ideologies and organizations motivate and mobilize people. His research is based on field studies in Nicaragua; other studies of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Brazil; and theories of democratic organization and social change.
Argues that autonomous agencies are not the result of a systematic design, but are produced by the interactions of political and bureaucratic forces. The case studies illustrate how political struggles between politicians and bureaucrats can create a muddle of agencies that lack coherence and are subject to conflicting levels of political control.
In this important work, Russian scholar Kremenyuk examines the state of political affairs in the former Soviet Union. As Russia moves fitfully toward democracy and away from its totalitarian past, sharp divisions--contemporary and historical--have appeared, within and around the new nation-state. These conflicts have already blocked some of the movement toward democracy. And as the contending parties, the president, and the parliament in the present Russian government struggle for power, that political struggle increases the likelihood of authoritarian solutions.
"Palgrave Advances in European Union Studies" breaks new ground in
offering advanced readers an insight into the state of the art in
EU studies. It comprises theoretical and empirical essays which
deal with how the European Union has been and continues to be
studied, providing an invaluable tool for academics, post-graduate
students, and advanced undergraduates who are keen to understand
this increasingly diverse field of study.
This major book presents an objective and penetrating economic analysis of stabilization and reform in Eastern Europe, combined with a compassionate plea for individual rights and solidarity. Janos Kornai - one of the most famous Hungarian economists of his generation - focuses on two main issues: first, the problems of stabilization and adjustment, which are painful but necessary conditions of sustainable growth and second, the reform of the 'premature welfare state' of Eastern European countries, which is disproportionately large in relation to the resources available and which was hitherto managed in a highly centralized, bureaucratic and paternalistic way. Struggle and Hope goes beyond most other books on the transition process by placing considerable emphasis on the understanding of the ethical implications and the historical roots of each problem, and also the political conditions and consequences of change. Although economic efficiency is extremely important, it is not the exclusive criterion; ethical principles of individual sovereignty and solidarity must also receive particular attention. Professor Kornai's insightful analysis will become required reading for all those concerned with the process of post-socialist transition.
In 21st century Britain, a 'perfect storm' seems to have engulfed many of its institutions. This book is the first wholesale consideration of the crisis of legitimacy that has taken root in Britain's key institutions and explores the crisis across them to determine if a set of shared underlying pathologies exist to create this collective crisis.
This text examines change in post-1989 Poland by linking it analytically to the continuity of Poland's past. It argues that the first reality of objective institutional change is underpinned by the continuity of second realities. Based on an interdisciplinary analysis of the Polish case, this study proposes a new conceptual framework for the study of transitional societies and revises standard assumptions in transitology and democratization studies.
This is a readable and objective summary of the views of Chief Justice Rehnquist and an enlightening treatise on the future of church/state relations in America.
In Soviet literature, this theoretical study of the evolution of Third World countries represents one of the first efforts to deviate from dogmatic Stalinist methodology in analyzing Eastern and Western societies. Nodari Simonia compares two Western models of capitalist development and describes a third model in the developing countries when analyzing the processes of socio-economic and state-political development of countries in Asia and North Africa. Simonia also provides case studies of the third model--of parliamentary authoritarianism in India and Malaysia; of controlled democracy in Indonesia, Pakistan, and Egypt; and absolutist regimes in Saudi Arabia and Iran under the Shah. This unusual synthesis by a senior Soviet scholar should provoke considerable interest among academics and professionals engaged in Soviet, political theory, and social and economic development studies. This initial study in Greenwood's new Series on Soviet and American Studies on the Third World first defines the major characteristics of countries in Western Europe where the birth of capitalism was a spontaneous process, and then points to other countries where capitalism arrived later and transitional and catch up processes were needed. The first part of the book gives a historical explanation for much of what is happening in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe today. The second part discusses the emergence and development of capitalism in Eastern or Oriental countries and how capitalism was introduced and developed under external military-political pressures. Simonia also shows how colonialism was an objectively inevitable process. The author counters traditional Soviet views and also argues against some Western and Oriental scholars on questions concerning the synthesis of traditional and modern characteristics in Asia and North Africa. The third part of the book examines different versions of synthesis in these states. A short bibliography and index complete the book.
Globalization and technology have altered public fears and changed expectations of how government should make people safer. This book analyzes how Europeans and Americans perceive and regulate risk. The authors show how public fears about risk are filtered through political systems and subjective lenses of perception to pressure governments to insure against risk. Globalization and federalism are two forces that promote convergence between Europe and America, while culture and politics often push governments down different roads. This tension is explored in case studies dealing with four cutting-edge risk frontiers: immigration, flood control, food safety and voting technology.
Sicker provides a synthesis from a wide range of sources that have not previously been integrated to present an unromanticized recapitulation of the events and personalities that led to the troubled birth of modern Israel. Much historical writing on modern Israel, Sicker asserts, is apologetic and editorially filtered in conformity with a traditional Zionist historiography that tends to obscure as much as it reveals. As a result, the emergence of modern Israel is shrouded in a mythology that has little or no place for inconvenient facts or dissonant voices. Sicker examines the nature of the struggles within the Zionist community over the national idea and its implications, and the evolving interactions of that community with the external political environment. This leads him to assign a far more significant role to the so- called right-wing movements than is usually allotted to them in the traditional left-oriented historiography and a more critical assessment of the Zionist leadership. He shows that virtually every major problem faced by contemporary Israel, a half-century after it came into existence, was foreshadowed by the events and circumstances that precipitated and conditioned its emergence. Sicker examines the seemingly irreconcilable differences between the left and right extremes of the political spectrum; between the religious community and the secular; and between the Zionists and the anti-Zionists. Today, a half-century later, these same issues are causing an increasing polarization of Israeli society, with uncertain ramifications for the future.
Well-traveled throughout China and well-published on its political, cultural, and business aspects, the editors of this unusual new book and their contributing authors give a systematic analysis of public sector management--as it is now and as it is emerging--in a country of massive size, now in retreat from a centrally planned economy. Many features of the new reforms parallel the movement toward new public management in the West. Functions have been transferred away from China's public sector, including the government, and into the private sector, and many of the managerial tools common in the private sector have been introduced into the public sector. The book thus analyzes the logic, mechanisms, and designs of new public management in China. It examines context-bound issues, in the light of the legacies of massive state intervention, the transition away from centralized planning, the structure of the Leninist party-state, and Chinese bureaucratic culture. Finally it discusses and illustrates events in a variety of policy areas, and in doing so, draws upon unique interviews and field studies developed personally by each contributor. The result is an important insight into China and how its public sector operates, one that will have special value for professionals in international development, finance, banking, government, economics, politics, and for their academic colleagues as well.
Responding to increasing interest in the movement of policies between places, sites and settings, this timely book presents a critical alternative to approaches centred on ideas of policy transfer, dissemination or learning. Written by key people in the field, it argues that treating policy's movement as an active process of 'translation', in which policies are interpreted, inflected and re-worked as they change location, is of critical importance for studying policy. The book provides an exciting and accessible analytical and methodological foundation for examining policy in this way and will be a valuable resource for those studying policy processes at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels. Mixing collectively written chapters with individual case studies of policies and practices, the book provides a powerful and productive introduction to rethinking policy studies through translation. It ends with a commitment to the possibilities of thinking and doing 'policy otherwise'.
This is a revision and update of Gertzog's successful 1984 study of women in the United States Congress. Now, 10 years later, the congressional roster is far different: Women have made major in-roads in numbers and prominence in the House of Representatives. Based upon interviews with 45 members of the 103rd Congress, this study examines the rise in the number of women elected, the circumstances leading to their success, and their integration into the workings of the institution, in both legislative and political terms.
"The New Progressive Dilemma" documents the international diffusion, ideological meaning and long-term political implications of the 'ideas' that informed the late twentieth-century revolution in thinking inside the British Labour Party - a revolution that had important antecedents in Australia.
The rationale of most contemporary change scan be traced back to economics; creativity and economics have combined for effecting most changes in the world. The drive for resource optimisation is no different; a welcome by product is environment protection. In the context of the military, economics relates not only to costs but also the prospect of operational gains. Therefore, this book, while exhorting the military hierarchy to realise their potential as environmental leaders, has demonstrated how resource optimisation is conducive for increasing operational effectiveness. While the military organisations are in focus here, the lessons of resource optimisation covered in the book are easily applied to any large industry set-up. It is the race to control natural resources that would define global hot spots of the future. The country that reduces its dependence on these resources would not expose its flank to the adversary. Reducing consumption levels is also desirable for preventing environmental degradation. This convergence of interests is a win-win situation that only requires a will and innovative approach towards organisational functioning, from procurement, technology transfers, energy consumption, training, etc., to auditing the implementation of the optimisation process. These aspects have been explained in the book mostly with case studies to make it interesting even for the environment sceptics. It is hoped that this book would provide ideas to readers on ways of conserving resources in their daily lives - at home and at work. The importance of publicising organisational efforts in the social domain finds special mention as this does not yet seem to be in the ethos of the Indian military. The overarching connect between social and military matters is implicit in contemporary society. This book would, thus, appeal equally to the military and the corporate leaders.
The hidden federal features of the European Union help explain the challenges of legitimacy, democracy and freedom that face an unfinished political community. Ideas about federalism and the reality of existing federal states cannot be sharply divided in an analysis of the EU's multilevel political order, but so far, both scholars and major decision makers have shown interest only in the normal functioning of federal systems: ignoring the dilemma of the federation's legitimate authority has resulted in an existential crisis for the EU which has become ever more manifest over recent years. This book employs a combination of political philosophy and political science, of federal philosophic ideas and their traces in real federal institutions, in order to achieve the task of understanding the federal features of the EU governance system. The first part of the work focuses on building an appropriate theoretical framework to explain the new meanings attached to familiar notions of democracy, legitimacy and citizenship in the context of a political community like the EU. In the second part the federal features of the EU's political system are examined in comparison to other current and historical federal perspectives like the US, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Germany. Through an analysis of the hidden federal aspects of the EU and the links between hidden federalism and the EU's legitimacy crisis, this book reveals the patterns that should be avoided and gives us guidelines that should be followed if the EU is to become democratic and politically united without jeopardising the state character of its members. |
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