Following the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, it appears that the 'high degree of autonomy' promised to Hong Kong is limited in many ways. China's reservations about the development of democracy in Hong Kong lies at the heart of the problem. The conceptual inadequacies set out in the Basic Law, Hong Kong's mini-constitution, show a correlation between a lack of democracy and a loss of autonomy. This book argues that genuine autonomy from the central government in Beijing is impossible without a democratic system in Hong Kong. Developments since the handover have, however, demonstrated that democratic trends have been halted and even reversed and that democracy is not likely to be established in Hong Kong in the near future.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203401921

A useful examination of the degree to which a new 'Cold Divide' separates Europe, this book places NATO/Russian relations within a wider analysis of post-Cold War political, social and economic divisions in Europe. It compares and contrasts the interests and perceptions of Western Europe, East Central Europe and Russia in the New European Order. It analyses the role of the European Union, NATO, the OSCE and the WEU in mediating conflict and responding to the challenge of the new European security agenda.

This book discusses in detail the great historical and social significance of the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It consists of seven chapters, each focusing on a specific issue related to AI, such as ethical principles, legal regulations, education, employment and security. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, it appeals to wide readership, ranging from experts and government officials to the general public.

This book investigates the major internal and external pressures and constraints facing China as it enters the new century. It is widely recognised that in its capacity as a nuclear power and as a member of the UN's Security Council, China plays a major role in world politics. China is also a growing economic power, which according to some economists is projected to overtake the US 20 years from now. China has clearly emerged as the major power in the East Asian region and the major issues of contention in the region such as the tension on the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan issue and the conflicting territorial claims in the South China seas cannot be resolved without China's active participation.

"Governance of Public Sector Organizations a"nalyzes recent changes in government administration by focusing on organizational forms and their effects. Contributors to this edited volume demonstrate how generations of reform result in increased complexity of government organizations, and explain this layering process with multiple theories.

The book describes the alliance, since the mid-1980s, of the entrepreneurs of the Chinese diaspora with the new locally based industrialisation that reform in China has allowed to flourish in its townships and villages. The synergy between these two derives from the ability of small non-bureaucratic actors on both sides to establish networks based on personal trust and reciprocity, producing a new kind of transformative development-from-below in which established Western and Japanese multinationals have little role.

The collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991 removed a decades-long system of successful control of potential ethnic and regional conflict . The result was the eruption of numerous conflicts over state-building, some of which degenerated into violence and some of which were resolved or prevented by strategies of accommodation. This volume explores the common trends and differences in the responses of the new post-Soviet states to the problems of state-building in ethnically and regionally divided societies, focusing on the impact of ethnic and regional conflicts on post-communist transition and institutional development. The book will be essential reading for specialists and students alike who are interested in conflict regulation and post-Soviet politics.

This is the first book on the U.S. presidential election system to analyze the basic principles underlying the design of the existing system and those at the heart of competing proposals for improving the system. The book discusses how the use of some election rules embedded in the U.S. Constitution and in the Presidential Succession Act may cause skewed or weird election outcomes and election stalemates. The book argues that the act may not cover some rare though possible situations which the Twentieth Amendment authorizes Congress to address. Also, the book questions the constitutionality of the National Popular Vote Plan to introduce a direct popular presidential election "de facto," without amending the Constitution, and addresses the plan's "Achilles' Heel." In particular, the book shows that the plan may violate the Equal Protection Clause from the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Numerical examples are provided to show that the counterintuitive claims of the NPV originators and proponents that the plan will encourage presidential candidates to "chase" every vote in every state do not have any grounds. Finally, the book proposes a plan for improving the election system by combining at the national level the "one state, one vote" principle - embedded in the Constitution - and the "one person, one vote" principle. Under this plan no state loses its current Electoral College benefits while all the states gain more attention of presidential candidates.

This title assembles leading theorists of a new paradigm of political theory, 'State Crimes Against Democracy', undertaking judicious and devoted hacking exposing the elusive nodes and circuitry that propagate elite dominance in world affairs, and what can be done to restore the demos to democracy.

An important contribution to the debate on forms of civil society in Africa and elsewhere, and to the global literature on dissent. In Humor, Silence, and Civil Society in Nigeria, Ebenezer Obadare offers an innovative perspective on the idea and reality of civil society. Mobilizing a wide range of concepts and insights from political science, African studies, sociology, cultural studies, media studies, anthropology, communications theory, and international development, Obadare develops a notion of civil society that radically departs from the literature's axiomatic focus on voluntary civic associations and focuses instead on more informal strategies of resistance, such as humor and silence. Compellingly argued, Humor, Silence, and Civil Society in Nigeria raises provocative questions on a topic of keen importance for students, scholars, and policymakers. Ebenezer Obadare is professor of sociology at the University of Kansas. He is coeditor of Civic Agency in Africa: Arts of Resistance in the 21st Century(James Currey, 2014).

This book provides the first in-depth study of healthcare reforms in post-communist Eastern Europe. Combining insights from comparative politics and public policy analysis, it examines health reforms in Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Poland between 1989 and 2019. The book argues that the post-communist transformation of healthcare policy has entailed a process of policy learning, and that the countries' reform pathways were shaped by a series of initiatives aimed at applying market-oriented policy ideas in healthcare. The success of these initiatives has been influenced by three factors: policy legacies, political competition, and institutional configurations. The book offers a novel comparison of health reform in the region and policy changes more generally. It will appeal to scholars and students of public policy, health policy, and European politics.

"Research in Micropolitics: Political Decision Making, Deliberation and Participation" is the sixth in a series dating back to 1989 and third under the editorship of Delli Carpini, Huddy and Shapiro. The purpose of this series is to publish original essays on a variety of substantive, conceptual and methodological issues of relevance to political psychology, with particular emphasis on promising new areas of theory and research. The essays contained in this latest volume address three important and interrelated themes in the theory and practice of democratic politics: the use of information short cuts in political decision making; the role of deliberation in citizens' attitude and opinion formation; and, the pathways to civic and political participation.Drawing on well-established theory and findings from both political science and psychology (as well, on occasion, on the author's own original research) each essay provides an interpretative review of recent and important research. Taken together, the essays offer a valuable contribution to our understanding of the complex and context-dependent dynamics of mass politics today, pointing out questions that remain unanswered and promising ways to answer these questions in future research.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This timely study analyzes the inner workings of the political and military control system used by the USSR and former communist regimes in Eastern Europe to rule the region until recent times. It then shows how these controls collapsed and were swept away by the revolutions in 1989. This up-to-date work describes current problems in East European security and points to future needs. This appraisal of the use of military and political power in the area is written for political scientists, military historians and analysts, for students and experts in East European studies and in international organization. Certain coercive and socializing mechanisms define the Soviet/Communist control system which was the key to the effectiveness of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and to the reliability of East European armed forces. The history covers the period from the end of World War II to the present. The work describes the disintegration of the system of controls during the 1980s and its collapse and the end of the WTO and previous military arrangements in 1989. The study analyzes the 1989 revolutions and points to new problems and uncertainties facing East European states as they depoliticize their armed forces and renationalize their foreign security policies.

When 170 000 black farmers occupied 4 000 white farms in Zimbabwe in 2000, it caused world-wide shockwaves. A decade later, Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land finds that the new farmers are doing relatively well, improving their lives and becoming increasingly productive, especially since the US dollar became the local currency. While not minimising the depredations of the Mugabe government, and accepting that many of President Mugabe's supporters benefited from the ruler's largesse, the book counters the dominant media narratives of oppression and economic stagnation in Zimbabwe. The book is based on a detailed study of what is actually happening on the ground, drawing on the authors' own fieldwork and extensive other research. Hanlon, Manjengwa, and Smart show how, despite political violence and mind-boggling hyperinflation, "ordinary" Zimbabweans took charge of their destinies in creative and unacknowledged ways. This raises important questions for the upcoming elections, and also presents new issues for the international community, because United States and European Union sanctions are not just against a corrupt and dictatorial elite, but also against 170 000 ordinary farmers who now use more of the land than the white farmers they displaced and are already producing nearly as much as those white farmers. With stories and pictures, real farmers tell of their own experiences of setting up the farms and building up production. Fanuel Mutandiro tells how he built up his farm and the 70 trips to Mbare Market in Harare with a tractor and trailer full of tomatoes before he could afford a truck. Esther Makwara shows off her maize field with 8 tonnes per hectare - better than nearly all white farmers. And Mrs Chibanda shows off with pride her new tobacco barn where she cures the tobacco from her 1.5 hectare. But these stories are backed up by data - from the authors' own fieldwork and extensive other research.

The book is devoted to the subject of Venezuela's politics and the different dimensions of its longstanding crisis, with various researchers exchanging ideas on the current problems affecting the country. It is the first comprehensive overview on the dimensions of Venezuela's current crisis written in English, thus filling an important research gap. Especially the participation of international, well-known scholars make it a global enterprise. The book covers historical and theoretical facts surrounding the case of Venezuela and also focuses on the parties and actors that play decisive roles in the conflict. Subjects include the military, public administration, ideology, the opposition, the party landscape along with its crisis and Venezuela's oil policy. Furthermore the book touches upon international and regional aspects: Venezuela's diplomatic relations with the EU, the USA, Cuba and Colombia, respectively. The volume addresses a wider audience, such as scholars on Latin American and especially Venezuelan Politics, International Relations, as well as an interested public, including journalists and politicians.

This work provides an introduction to the major issues that face Ukraine today and explains how they were shaped. Contrasting the generally bleak picture that international media reports present, it suggests that Ukraine has actually accomplished a great deal in a short time. In seven years, from 1991 to 1998, Ukraine went from being a little-known nation within a non-democratic state to an internationally recognized independent country. It established a political identity for itself separate from Russia and made steps towards creating a democratic political system including adopting a new Constitution. All this was done without the shedding of blood. The book looks at these and other issues. The first chapter provides a broad historical background and explains why history is important in the region today. Chapter 2 describes Ukraine's starting point in 1991. It explains the legacies left behind by the Soviet Union: what Ukraine had and what it lacked when it declared independence. The remaining chapters provide an overview of the main political, economic, social, cultural and foreign policy issues in Ukraine. A separate chapter is devoted to Ukrainian-Russian relations.

The debate on governance originates in the OECD world. At the latest since the postcolonial debate, we know that we need to "test" our assumptions under radically different conditions. This book offers an extended perspective of local self-governance by examining cases from South Asia, Africa, and Latin America, together with a study of militias in the USA. The chapters present a wide variety of local actors who pursue different notions of order legitimized by local traditions based on hierarchy or deeply rooted communalism, Islamic theology, or grassroots democracy. Some local actors claim a state-like authority and challenge the territorial state. In such cases, there is no longer "a shadow hierarchy" but opposition to the state. Different violent actors fight for supremacy, and the state is just one actor among others. The empirical studies presented in this book show how different kinds of local self-governance are combined with varieties of statehood, and thus contribute to an understanding of the notion of governance in a fundamental sense that goes beyond the special case of the OECD world.

Traditional forms of top-down government are being challenged by the growing complexity and fragmentation of social and political life and the need to mobilize and activate the knowledge, ideas, and resources of private stakeholders. In response to this important challenge there has been a persistent proliferation of interactive forms of public governance that bring together a plethora of public and private actors in collaborative policy arenas. This book explores how these new forms of interactive governance are working in practice and analyses their role and impact on public policy making in different policy areas and in different countries. The need for facilitating, managing and giving direction to interactive policy arenas is also addressed through empirical analyses of different forms of metagovernance that aim to govern interactive forms of governance without reverting to traditional forms of hierarchical command and control. Finally, the normative implications of interactive policy making are assessed through studies of the democratic problems and merits associated with interactive policy making.

This volume, largely the work of Spanish scholars, looks at the functioning of Spain since the introduction of democracy and more particularly since the Constitution of 1978.
Contents: The Franco Legacy in Perspective: Juan Carlos and the Emergence of Democracy Paul Preston. Collective memory and the transition to democracy: on the peculiarity of the Basque Country in Spanish context Paloma Aguilar Fernandez. Reflections on the Struggle Against Franco Elias Diaz. Decentralisation in Spain: weakly institutionalized pluralism Joseph M. Colomer. Elections, parties and democratic consolidation in Spain Jose Ramon Montero. Political Scandals in Democratic Spain Fernando Jimenez Sanchez. Power Diffusion or concentration: in search of the Policy Process Paul Heywood. Pressure Groups and the Articulation of Interests Joaquim M Molins and Alex Casademunt. Judicial Review and Political Empowerment: Abortion in Spain Belen Barreiro Perez-Pardo.

This volume examines the process through which climate change is transforming global governance, as both an increasingly central issue on the international stage and an increasingly structured policy domain with its specific modes of governing, networks of actors, discourses, and knowledge practices. Collectively, the contributions aim to assess how and why climate change is becoming a dominant frame in international politics. In doing so, they also contribute to understanding the dynamics and drivers of climatization.As global warming progresses and efforts to mitigate and adapt intensify, living under a changing climate-or in a 'new climate regime' (Latour 2015)-increasingly appears as a central feature of 'our' new, and highly unequal, human condition in the Anthropocene. In other words, we firmly believe that climatization is here to stay. It is thus crucial to better understand this process, recognizing its problems and ambiguities, but also examining its transformative potential and identifying the conditions under which such potentials can be harnessed with a view to building a more effective and equitable climate politics. We think that the chapters in this book contribute to this endeavour.

Combining international and internal perspectives, Professor Karpat analyses the transformation of the Ottoman Empire over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He views privatization of state lands and the increase of domestic and foreign trade as key factors in the rise of a Muslim middle class, which, increasingly aware of its economic interests and communal roots, then attempted to reshape the government to reflect its ideals. Based on a wealth of original archival documents, records, memoirs, and published sources, this is likely to become an indispensable reference for students of Islam, modern Turkey, and the Middle East, as well as for students of modernism and of encounters between civilizations.

This book covers critical issues in Nigeria's external relations since 1960. As an independent nation, Nigeria has stood out as the most populous black country in the world and contributed immensely to the search for solutions to pressing international issues, notably in Africa affairs. Nigeria has also participated actively in global affairs and used the platform of international organisation to advance her national interests, cognisant also of its regional and global obligations and responsibilities. Contributors to this thought-provoking book make a strong case for Nigeria to press for a foreign policy that puts Nigerian people at the centre. One of the strong points also emanating from the contributors of this book is the imperative for Nigeria to address domestic challenges that continue to impinge on the country's external image.