South Africans often are deeply polarised in our perspectives of the present and the past. Our ‘ways of seeing’ are fraught with division, and we fail to understand the complexities when we do not see what lies beneath the surface.

There is no denying that the Jacob Zuma presidency took a significant toll on South Africa, exacerbating tensions and exposing the deep fractures that already exist in our society along the lines of race, class and even ethnicity. The Zuma years were marked by cases of corruption and state capture, unprecedented in their brazenness, and increased social protests – many of which were accompanied by violence – aggressive public discourse, lack of respect for reason and an often disturbing resistance to meaningful engagement.

Importantly, those years also placed enormous pressure on our democratic institutions, many of which still bear the scars, and challenged the sovereignty of the Constitution itself.

As an analyst and governance specialist at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) for twelve years, February has had a unique perch. Turning and turning is a snapshot of her IDASA years and the issues tackled, which included work on the arms deal and its corrosive impact on democratic institutions, IDASA’s party-funding campaign, which February helped lead, as well as work on accountability and transparency.

Combining analytical insight with personal observations and experience, February highlights the complex process of building a strong democratic society, and the difficulties of living in a constitutional democracy marked by soaring levels of inequality. There is a need to reflect on and learn from the country’s democratic journey if citizens are to shape our democracy effectively and to fulfill the promise of the Constitution for all South Africans.

The shocking, definitive account of the 2020 election and the first year of the Biden presidency by two New York Times reporters, exposing the deep fissures within both parties as the country approaches a political breaking point.

This is the authoritative account of an eighteen-month crisis in American democracy that will be seared into the country’s political memory for decades to come. With stunning, in-the-room detail, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns show how both our political parties confronted a series of national traumas, including the coronavirus pandemic, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and the political brinksmanship of President Biden’s first year in the White House.

From Donald Trump’s assault on the 2020 election and his ongoing campaign of vengeance against his fellow Republicans, to the behind-the-scenes story of Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate and his bitter struggles to unite the Democratic Party, this book exposes the degree to which the two-party system has been strained to the point of disintegration. More than at any time in recent history, the long-established traditions and institutions of American politics are under siege as a set of aging political leaders struggle to hold together a changing country.

Martin and Burns break news on most every page, drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before-seen documents and recordings from the highest levels of government. The book asks the vitally important (and disturbing) question: can American democracy, as we know it, ever work again?

''When we said [in 2014] the ANC was falling, many people in the ANC thought we were suffering from the worst form of madness. But today those who said so then secretly approach us to ask: “How did you foresee all this?” By “this” they mean all the internal political mess the ANC has brought to itself since we wrote the first edition of this book. Indeed, a lot of “this” has taken place over the past three years. That is why the title of this second edition is The Fall of the ANC Continues." Political governance in South Africa continues to collapse. Scandals of corruption, evidence of nepotism, rampant maladministration in provinces, incompetence in public offices and a general decline in the quality of leadership are there for all to see. In the view of Prince Mashele and Mzukisi Qobo, this state of affairs has its origins in the messiness and collapse of the African National Congress. As helplessness deepens in our society, concerned citizens ask: "What will happen to South Africa?" The Fall of the ANC Continues seeks to answer this question of the fate that awaits the country.

For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios.

Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19. The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected.

A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.

Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in.

In The Great Pretenders: Race and Class under ANC Rule, veteran political analyst Ebrahim Harvey delivers a stinging critique of the ANC. This must-read analysis reveals the complete failure of the ANC to roll back the race and class divide.

Harvey argues that a series of events – including HIV/AIDS denialism, the Marikana shootings, the Nkandla funding scandal, mass student protests, the Esidemeni tragedy, systemic corruption and state capture – are rooted in policy choices made by the ANC during negotiations and in power. This book is not just an evisceration of the ANC, however, as Harvey is able, through many interviews and patient delving into the past and present, to provide an indispensable guide to the future.

The Great Pretenders is fierce, passionate and provocative. It is certain to provoke those in power, stirring debate on not only the pernicious issue of race relations in South Africa, but on how to create the shared society promised us.

There are moments in American history when all eyes are focused on a federal court: when its bench speaks for millions of Americans, and when its decision changes the course of history. More often, the story of the federal judiciary is simply a tale of hard work: of finding order in the chaotic system of state and federal law, local custom, and contentious lawyering. The Federal Courts is a story of all of these courts and the judges and justices who served on them, of the case law they made, and of the acts of Congress and the administrative organs that shaped the courts. But, even more importantly, this is a story of the courts' development and their vital part in America's history. Peter Charles Hoffer, Williamjames Hull Hoffer, and N. E. H. Hull's retelling of that history is framed the three key features that shape the federal courts' narrative: the separation of powers; the federal system, in which both the national and state governments are sovereign; and the widest circle: the democratic-republican framework of American self-government. The federal judiciary is not elective and its principal judges serve during good behavior rather than at the pleasure of Congress, the President, or the electorate. But the independence that lifetime tenure theoretically confers did not and does not isolate the judiciary from political currents, partisan quarrels, and public opinion. Many vital political issues came to the federal courts, and the courts' decisions in turn shaped American politics. The federal courts, while the least democratic branch in theory, have proved in some ways and at various times to be the most democratic: open to ordinary people seeking redress, for example. Litigation in the federal courts reflects the changing aspirations and values of America's many peoples. The Federal Courts is an essential account of the branch that provides what Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Judge Oliver Wendell Homes Jr. called "a magic mirror, wherein we see reflected our own lives."

The era of economic liberalization, spanning 1978 to 2008, is often regarded as a period in which government was simply dismantled. In fact, government was reconstructed to meet the needs of a globalized economy. Central banking, fiscal control, tax collection, regulation, port and airport management, infrastructure development-in all of these areas, radical reforms were made to the architecture of government.
A common philosophy shaped all of these reforms: the logic of discipline. It was premised on deep skepticism about the ability of democratic processes to make sensible policy choices. It sought to impose constraints on elected officials and citizens, often by shifting power to technocrat-guardians who were shielded from political influence. It placed great faith in the power of legal changes--new laws, treaties, and contracts--to produce significant alterations in the performance of governmental systems. Even before the global economic crisis of 2007-2009, the logic of discipline was under assault. Faced with many failed reform projects, advocates of discipline realized that they had underestimated the complexity of governmental change. Opponents of discipline emphasized the damage to democratic values that followed from the empowerment of new groups of technocrat-guardians.
The financial crisis did further damage to the logic of discipline, as governments modified their attitudes about central bank independence and fiscal control, and global financial and trade flows declined. It was the market that now appeared to behave myopically and erratically--and which now insisted that governments should abandon precepts about the role of government that it had once insisted were inviolable.
A sweeping account of neoliberal governmental restructuring across the world, The Logic of Discipline offers a powerful analysis of how this undemocratic model is unraveling in the face of a monumental--and ongoing--failure of the market.

This book presents a new view of American policymaking, focusing on networks of actors responsible for policymaking. Policy change is not easily predictable from election results or public opinion because compromise and coalitions among individual actors make a difference in all three branches of government. The amount of government action, the issue content of policy changes, and the ideological direction of policy all depend on the joint actions of executive officials, legislators, and interest group leaders. The patterns of cooperation among policymakers and activists make each issue area and time period different from the others and undermine attempts to build an unchanging unified model of American policymaking. In Artists of the Possible, Matt Grossman undertakes a rigorous content analysis of 268 books and articles on the history of 14 different major policy areas over 60 years, compiling and integrates these findings to assess the factors that drive policymaking. His findings-which collectively uncover the 790 most significant policy enactments of the federal government and credit 1,306 specific actors for their role in policy change, along with more than 60 circumstantial factors-overturn established theories of policymaking. First, significant policy change does not follow from the issue agenda of the electorate or policymakers. Second, neither changes in public opinion nor the ideology or partisanship of government officials reliably influence the amount or content of policy change. Instead, the patterns of cooperation and compromise among political elites drive the productivity and ideological direction of policymaking. Third, the policymaking roles of public opinion, media coverage, research, and international factors are all limited. Fourth, no typology can explain differences in policymaking across issue areas because the policy process is broadly similar except for a few idiosyncratic differences associated with each issue area.

During the middle and late 1960s, public concern about the environment grew rapidly, as did Congressional interest in addressing environmental problems. Then, in 1970, a dramatic series of bipartisan actions were taken to expand the national government's efforts to control the volume and types of substances that pollute the air, water, and land. In that year, President Richard Nixon signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act, which established for the first time a national policy on the environment and created the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Additionally, President Nixon created, with Congressional support, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and he signed into law the Clean Air Act of 1970, which had overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. The strong bipartisan consensus on the need to protect environmental and human health began to erode, however, during the middle and late 1970s as other domestic and foreign policy problems rose to the top of the public and legislative agendas. Ronald Reagan's election to the Presidency in 1980 marked a dramatic shift in both environmental policymaking and administration. Over the thirty years that followed Reagan's election, environmental politics and administration became increasingly polarized. In this book, James K. Conant and Peter J. Balint examine the trajectory of environmental policy and administration in the United States by looking at the development of the CEQ and EPA. They look at changes in budgetary and staffing resources over time as well as the role of quality of leadership as key indicators of capacity and vitality. As well, they make correlations between the agencies' fortunes and various social, political, and economic variables. Conant and Balint cautiously predict that both agencies are likely to survive over the next twenty years, but that they will both experience continuing volatility as their life histories unfold.

Texas and California are the leaders of Red and Blue America. As the nation has polarized, its most populous and economically powerful states have taken charge of the opposing camps. These states now advance sharply contrasting political and policy agendas and view themselves as competitors for control of the nation's future. Kenneth P. Miller provides a detailed account of the rivalry's emergence, present state, and possible future. First, he explores why, despite their many similarities, the two states have become so deeply divided. As he shows, they experienced critical differences in their origins and in their later demographic, economic, cultural, and political development. Second, he describes how Texas and California have constructed opposing, comprehensive policy models-one conservative, the other progressive. Miller highlights the states' contrasting policies in five areas-tax, labor, energy and environment, poverty, and social issues-and also shows how Texas and California have led the red and blue state blocs in seeking to influence federal policy in these areas. The book concludes by assessing two models' strengths, vulnerabilities, and future prospects. The rivalry between the two states will likely continue for the foreseeable future, because California will surely stay blue and Texas will likely remain red. The challenge for the two states, and for the nation as a whole, is to view the competition in a positive light and turn it to productive ends. Exploring one of the primary rifts in American politics, Texas vs. California sheds light on virtually every aspect of the country's political system.

In this book, Miguel Basanez presents a provocative look at the impact of culture on global development. Drawing on data from governments, NGOs, the World Values Survey and more addressing over one hundred countries, he argues that values, as the "building blocks" of culture, are directly related to the speed with which social, cultural and economic development occurs. Basanez utilizes quantitative survey data to delineate three cultural hyperclusters across the globe: cultures of honor, which prioritize political authority; cultures of achievement, which emphasize economic advancement; and cultures of joy, which focus on social interactions. According to Basanez, these cultures evolved chronologically, mirroring the development of agrarian, industrial and service societies. He argues that a country's developmental path is profoundly influenced by its people's values and culture, as crystallized through its formal and informal governing institutions. Culture is passed down over generations through families, schools, the media, religious institutions, leadership, and the law. Although culture and values are in a permanent state of evolution, leaders and policymakers can also push cultural change in order to promote desirable goals such as economic growth, democratization, and equality. Over the course of the book, Basanez introduces two new measures of development: the Objective Development Index (which blends rubrics such as health, education, income, gender equality, political rights and civil liberties, and economic inequality) and the Subjective Development Index (which uses responses to the World Values Survey to classify countries according to their values).

In Legislating International Organization, Kathryn Lavelle argues against the commonly-held idea that key international organizations are entities unto themselves, immune from the influence and pressures of individual states' domestic policies. Covering the history of the IMF and World Bank from their origins, she shows that domestic political constituencies in advanced industrial states have always been important drivers of international financial institution policy. Lavelle focuses in particular on the U.S. Congress, tracing its long history of involvement with these institutions and showing how it wields significant influence. Drawing from archival research and interviews with members and staff, Lavelle shows that Congress is not particularly hostile to the multilateralism inherent in the IMF and World Bank, and has championed them at several key historical junctures. Congress is not uniformly supportive of these institutions, however. As Lavelle illustrates, it is more defensive of its constitutionally designated powers and more open to competing interest group concerns than legislatures in other advanced industrial states. Legislating International Organization will reshape how we think about how the U.S. Congress interacts with international institutions and more broadly about the relationship of domestic politics to global governance throughout the world. This is especially relevant given the impact of 2008 financial crisis, which has made the issue of multilateralism in American politics more important than ever.

Just as Latin American countries began to transition to democracy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the region also saw gains in social, cultural and economic gender equality. In accordance with modernization theories, women in the region have also made significant inroads into elected office. However, these gains vary a great deal between countries in Latin America. They also vary significantly at different levels of government even within the same country. Inside government arenas, representation is highly gendered with rules and norms that advantage men and disadvantage women, limiting women's access to full political power. While one might expect these variations to map onto socioeconomic and cultural conditions within each country, they don't correlate. This book makes, for the first time, a comprehensive comparison of gender and representation across the region - in seven countries - and at five different levels: the presidency, cabinets, national legislatures, political parties, and subnational governments. Overall, it argues that gender inequality in political representation in Latin America is rooted in democratic institutions and the democratic challenges and political crises facing the region. Institutions and political context not only influence the number of women and men elected to office, but also what they do once in office, the degree of power to which they gain access, and how their presence and actions influence democracy and society, more broadly. Drawing on the expertise of scholars of women, gender, and political institutions, this book is the most comprehensive analysis of women's representation in Latin America to date, and an important resource for research on women's representation worldwide. The causes, consequences, and challenges to women's representation in Latin America are not unique to that region, and the book uses Latin American patterns to draw broad conclusions about gendered representation in other areas of the world.

One of the longest and seemingly most intractable civil wars in Latin America was brought to an end by the signing of the Peace Accords between the Guatemalan government and the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) in December 1996. The essays in this volume evaluate progress made in the implementation of the peace agreements and signal some of the key challenges for future political and institutional reform. The volume opens with a chapter by Gustavo Porras, the government's main negotiator in the peace process. The first section then examines the issue of demilitarization. This is followed by aspects of indigenous rights in the peace process, including conceptual frameworks for rights advancement, the harmonization of state law and customary law, and the challenges of nation-state and citizenship construction. The next section examines issues of truth, justice, and reconciliation, and assesses prospects for the Truth Commission. The volume closes with an analysis of different aspects of political reform in Guatemala and includes comments made on the chapters and developed in the debate which took place at the conference on which it is based. The contributors are Marta Altolaguirre*, Marta Elena Casa?s*, Demetrio Cojt?*, Edgar Guti?rrez*, Frank La Rue, Roger Plant, Gustavo Porras*, Alfonso Portillo*, Jennifer Schirmer, Rachel Sieder, David Stoll, Rosalina Tuyuc*, Anna Vinegrad, Richard Wilson (* chapters in Spanish).

Why do some countries appear to be far more centralized than others? In some countries local government has responsibility for a wide range of public services, while in others these services are delivered by national and other non-local bodies. Moreover national government oversees the operation of local government with varying degrees of stringency. In addition, local politicians in some countries seem to have greater influence over their national counterparts than those in others. The answer to this question can be found in the distinctive patterns of development experienced in southern and northern Europe. Differences in national-local relations also have direct implications for patterns of policy-making at the local level. This book examines the legal and political bases of relationships between national and local government in Britain, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and Spain, and assesses the causes and consequences of differences in such relationships.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Travels with George . . . is quintessential Philbrick-a lively, courageous, and masterful achievement." -The Boston Globe Does George Washington still matter? Bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington's unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through all thirteen former colonies, which were now an unsure nation. Travels with George marks a new first-person voice for Philbrick, weaving history and personal reflection into a single narrative. When George Washington became president in 1789, the United States of America was still a loose and quarrelsome confederation and a tentative political experiment. Washington undertook a tour of the ex-colonies to talk to ordinary citizens about his new government, and to imbue in them the idea of being one thing-Americans. In the fall of 2018, Nathaniel Philbrick embarked on his own journey into what Washington called "the infant woody country" to see for himself what America had become in the 229 years since. Writing in a thoughtful first person about his own adventures with his wife, Melissa, and their dog, Dora, Philbrick follows Washington's presidential excursions: from Mount Vernon to the new capital in New York; a monthlong tour of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island; a venture onto Long Island and eventually across Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The narrative moves smoothly between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries as we see the country through both Washington's and Philbrick's eyes. Written at a moment when America's founding figures are under increasing scrutiny, Travels with George grapples bluntly and honestly with Washington's legacy as a man of the people, a reluctant president, and a plantation owner who held people in slavery. At historic houses and landmarks, Philbrick reports on the reinterpretations at work as he meets reenactors, tour guides, and other keepers of history's flame. He paints a picture of eighteenth-century America as divided and fraught as it is today, and he comes to understand how Washington compelled, enticed, stood up to, and listened to the many different people he met along the way-and how his all-consuming belief in the union helped to forge a nation.

Over the course of its history, the United States Supreme Court has emerged as the most powerful judiciary unit the world has ever seen. Paul D. Moreno's How the Court Became Supreme offers a deep dive into its transformation from an institution paid little notice by the American public to one whose decisions are analyzed and broadcast by major media outlets across the nation. The Court is supreme today not just within the judicial branch of the federal government but also over the legislative and executive branches, effectively possessing the ability to police elections and choose presidents. Before 1987, nearly all nominees to the Court sailed through confirmation hearings, often with little fanfare, but these nominations have now become pivotal moments in the minds of voters. Complaints of judicial primacy range across the modern political spectrum, but little attention is given to what precisely that means or how it happened. What led to the ascendancy of America's highest court? Moreno seeks to answer this question, tracing the long history of the Court's expansion of influence and examining how the Court envisioned by the country's Founders has evolved into an imperial judiciary. The US Constitution contains a multitude of safeguards to prevent judicial overreach, but while those measures remain in place today, most have fallen into disuse. Many observers maintain that the Court exercises legislative or executive power under the guise of judicial review, harming rather than bolstering constitutional democracy. How the Court Became Supreme tells the story of the origin and development of this problem, proposing solutions that might compel the Court to embrace its more traditional role in our constitutional republic.