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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes > General
This is a comprehensive analysis of the Third World based on three historical currents: independence, liberation, and revolution. The author puts forth the philosophy that the struggle of the Third World for a new international economic, information, and communication order is interrelated with and parallel to the struggles in the capitlist and socialist worlds. It is primarily a book on communication--what takes place between peoples and their political, economic and cultural environments. From an historical viewpoit, the volume seeks to provide a link within seemingly disconnected world events.
The economic performance of African countries south of the Sahara generally has been poor during the past two decades. External factors such as high oil prices, deteriorating terms of trade, and wars, and formidable internal factors such as corruption, chauvinism, authoritarianism, and violence have continued to plague the region. Whereas in the 1980s the Subsahara was overwhelmed by drought, devaluation, and debt, the 1990s have brought the paradox of civil strife and a complex transition to democracy. This volume surveys the major political, economic, social, ecological, and gender related aspects of Subsaharan Africa's struggle toward democracy. Its essays pose two fundamental sets of ideas: that the internal equilibrium can be restored only through institutional changes with these countries; and that the political and economic dilemmas in the region are closely related to issues of gender and the environment. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, developmental economics, and African studies.
King seeks to understand how the transition from state-socialism to capitalism was accomplished in Eastern Europe. The purpose of studying the process of transition is uo understand the end-point of the transition; that is, the structure of the postcommunist economy results from the different ways that private property was made by enterprise level actors. King identifies strategies of transition employed by postcommunist economic elites to transform property and acquire various property rights discusses, the conditions under which different strategies are likely to be selected, lists and, the resources used by actors to implement these strategies. As King illustrates through his case studies, when aggregated, these strategies are primarily responsible for the structuring of the postcommunist capitalist systems. This is done through the creation of different types of property (such as multinationals or management buy-outs) and integrating mechanisms (such as markets or state redistribution). The resulting property forms and integrative mechanisms that emerge from this process are assessed for their possible effect on economic performance and long-term development. Differences that exist among the various postcommunist economies are explained by the institutional legacies from the reform period of communism. This book is of particular interest to scholars, students, and researchers involved with East European studies, political and economic sociology, and international political economy.
In 1787, the new United States of America formulated a Constitution, which for more than two hundred years has remained the greatest single advance in the long evolution of democracy and freedom. The authors of the Constitution, fearing the religious intolerance and persecution that was typical of many European governments, deliberately avoided a church-state union and limited the federal government to purely secular matters. The First Amendment explicitly stated, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ..". In the debate over the separation between church and state, attention is often focussed solely on the national Constitution. The fact is sometimes overlooked that the state constitutions, some of which were written before the federal Constitution, include explicit protections of religious liberty and church-state separation, some even more comprehensive and specific in their guarantees and prohibitions than the U.S. Constitution. All of the state constitutions deal with religious freedom and all support the church-state separation principle. Forty-six states explicitly protect freedom of worship or conscience, while thirty-five states prohibit establishment of any state religion. Interestingly, five states still have provisions requiring that office holders believe in a Supreme Being, despite the fact that the Supreme Court declared these requirements to be unconstitutional in 1961. This comprehensive volume brings together all of the religious-liberty and church-state provisions of the fifty state constitutions. The only work of its kind, Religious Liberty and State Constitutions will serve as a useful referencework for people in the fields of education, law, and religion.
Through a long public life and short presidency, Herbert Hoover carefully cultivated reporters and media owners as he rose from a relief administrator to president of the United States. During his service to government, he held the conviction that journalists were to be manipulated and mistrusted. When the nation fell into economic disaster, Hoover's misconceptions about the press and press relations exacerbated a national calamity. This book traces the entire history of Hoover's relationship with magazines, newspapers, newsreel organizations, and radio, and demonstrates how an attitude toward the U.S. press can help or hinder a public figure throughout his career. The book draws upon diaries of Hoover aides, oral histories from journalists and other media figures, newspaper and magazine clippings, radio broadcasts, newsreels, public documents, archival manuscripts, and a plethora of published secondary books and articles. This may be the most complete and best-documented study of a single president and the media.
The volume offers a rich synthesis of political science research on Latin America over the past 30 years and offers a wealth of information to anyone interested in the area--from the beginning student to the area specialist. . . . The volume is an impressive achievement and will not outdate soon. "Library Journal" (starred review) This handbook offers the reader a rich synthesis of the political science research on the Latin American region over the past thirty years. It reviews published books, articles, and government documents in addition to a few select doctoral dissertations. Sixteen contributors participated in the making of this volume, all of whom have lived and done field work in Latin America and the Caribbean and have studied and taught about Latin America. The starting date of 1960 was chosen because that year coincided with the rapid growth of research on Latin America, spurred by the Cuban Revolution and the Alliance for Progress. The handbook is divided into two main sections: comparative politics and international relations. Within each section are chapters on specific countries of interest or on general topics or areas. Appendixes (which include a selected bibliography and a listing of major research centers in Latin America and the Caribbean) and indexes follow the main body of the book. This book should be of great value to anyone interested in the history and methodology of political science research on Latin America and the Caribbean. Specialists from other areas of study will also find this volume's information invaluable. Beginning students of Latin American history and politics will find this work a comprehensive review of the field over the past three decades.
Gender quotas are a growing worldwide phenomenon, yet their variable implementation remains under-researched. Using the prominent case study of France, this book approaches quotas from the perspective of the key actors responsible for them - political parties.
The Kingfish and the Constitution is an in-depth analysis of the poisonous relationship that evolved between Huey "Kingfish" Long, legendary governor of Louisiana, and the state's daily newspapers. Long's political battle over the newspaper tax in the Louisiana legislature in 1934 and the subsequent battle over the constitutionality of his attempt at censorship by taxation culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Grosjean v. American Press Co. in 1936, a landmark decision that laid the basis for the protection of modern freedom of the press in America. This fascinating study will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, constitutional law, and American history.
Twenty years on from South Africa’s first democratic election, the post-apartheid political order is more fractured, and more fractious, than ever before. Police violence seems the order of the day – whether in response to a protest in Ficksburg or a public meeting outside a mine in Marikana. For many, this has signalled the end of the South African dream. Politics, they declare, is the preserve of the corrupt, the self-interested, the incompetent and the violent. They are wrong. In South Africa’s insurgent citizens, Julian Brown argues that a new kind of politics can be seen on the streets and in the courtrooms of the country. This politics is made by a new kind of citizen – one that is neither respectful nor passive, but instead insurgent. The collapse of the dream of a consensus politics is not a cause for despair. South Africa’s political order is fractured, and in its cracks new forms of activity, new leaders and new movements are emerging.
This book presents case-studies in accountable government and the management of public funds, with particular reference to the multi-party political systems of Botswana, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Zambia under the Third Republic. Criteria for judging accountability are set out, and the role and influence of political leadership, elections, parties, parliaments, interest groups, the media and external donors are explored. Conclusions take account of the comparisons which are drawn with the experience of single-party regimes in Africa and Asia.
Exploring the transition of celebrities into institutional-electoral politics, the book argues that many insights developed by genre theorists could be highly instrumental to understand the celebrity politics phenomenon. It analyzes the historical and cultural specificity of celebrity politics as it evolved through different countries and cultures.
Political parties and democratic politics go hand in hand. Since parties matter, it matters too when elected politicians change party affiliation. This book shows why, when, and to what effects politicians switch parties in pursuit of their goals, as constrained by institutions and in response to their environments.
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.
"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.
The eruption of Mount Pinatuba represented more than the smothering of America's Clark Air Force Base and many of President Corazon Aquino's development plans. It also served as a metaphor both for the collapse of Philippine-American base negotiations, presaging an end to nearly a century of strategic relations, and for Aquino's unsuccessful attempt to undo the colossal damage of the Marcos era and construct coherent development programmes. The story of the Aquino era is one of failing efforts to use the vast economic aid which poured into the country, and more successful efforts to put the lid on the communist insurgency in four-fifths of the nation's provinces. The reason for the success was that the unity of the security struggle went unmatched in the economic one, where it was every person for himself or herself. Even the presidential family had its fingers in the economic pie. This book explores the connections between two central functions of Third World governments - development and security - in an analysis of Corazon Aquino's six crisis-filled years as President of the Philippines. Information in the book is updated to reflect recent events, including the change of leaders
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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