Select committees are generally faced by those at the very top of their game: high-flying CEOs, powerful executives and industry experts. Why, then, do the very words send shivers down the spines of even our most senior representatives? Perhaps it is the unblinking eye of the television cameras, the hawkish interrogation of the committee chair or simply the knowledge of those Goliaths who have fallen before. After twenty years of advising big-name clients on how to take on this gruelling ordeal, Scott Colvin argues that it needn't be this way. Based on interviews with those on the front line, he offers a freshperspective on how the process could be improved for committee members and witnesses alike. Steeped in exclusive inside knowledge and expert tips, and with a step-by-step manual on how to prepare for a hearing, this is the essential guide to not only surviving but thriving in the hot seat.

Comparing Political Regimes provides a current and comprehensive empirical assessment of the world's 195 sovereign states. Alan Siaroff analyzes and classifies countries in terms of economic development, political evolution, and state strength, ultimately outlining and contrasting the aspects of four regime types: liberal democracies, electoral democracies, semi-open autocracies, and closed autocracies. The fourth edition explains institutional differences in regime types,, including how regimes evolve in key countries and how this change is incremental. An invaluable resource for students to refer to, this book provides a thorough foundational introduction to the comparative politics of countries and contains several unique figures and tables on the world's sovereign states. This new edition modifies the conceptual focus regarding some features of democracy and democratic party systems, expands on variations in autocracies, and adds a new chapter on the historical evolution of democracy, including key thresholds of representative democracy and levels of participation and competition at various historical junctures for all countries.

The phenomenal growth of penal confinement in the United States in the last quarter of the twentieth century is still a public policy mystery. While there is unanimous condemnation of the practice, there is no consensus on the causes nor any persuasive analysis of what is likely to happen in the coming decades. In The Insidious Momentum of American Mass Incarceration, Franklin E. Zimring seeks a comprehensive understanding of when, how, and why the United States became the world leader in incarceration to further determine how the use of confinement can realistically be reduced. To do this, Zimring first profiles the growth of imprisonment after 1970, emphasizing the important roles of both the federal system and the distribution of power and fiscal responsibility among the levels of government in American states. He also examines the changes in law enforcement, prosecution and criminal sentencing that ignited the 400% increase in rates of imprisonment in the single generation after 1975. Finally, Zimring then proposes a range of strategies that can reduce prison population and promote rational policies of criminal punishment. Arguing that the most powerful enemy to reducing excess incarceration is simply the mundane features of state and local government, such as elections of prosecutors and state support for prison budgets, this book challenges the convential ways we consider the issue of mass incarceration in the United States and how we can combat the rising numbers.

WINNER OF THE W.E.B. DUBOIS DISTINGUISHED BOOK AWARD, GIVEN BY THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK POLITICAL SCIENTISTS A wide-ranging Black feminist interrogation, reaching from the #MeToo movement to the legacy of gender-based violence against Black women From Michelle Obama to Condoleezza Rice, Black women are uniquely scrutinized in the public eye. In Re-Imagining Black Women, Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd explores how Black women-and Blackness more broadly-are understood in our political imagination and often become the subjects of public controversy. Drawing on politics, popular culture, psychoanalysis, and more, Alexander-Floyd examines our conflicting ideas, opinions, and narratives about Black women, showing how they are equally revered and reviled as an embodiment of good and evil, cast either as victims or villains, citizens or outsiders. Ultimately, Alexander-Floyd showcases the complex experiences of Black women as political subjects. At a time of extreme racial tension, Re-Imagining Black Women provides insight into the parts that Black women play, and are expected to play, in politics and popular culture.

With the equality and liberty of the Declaration of Independence as his fighting words, Thomas Jefferson created American democracy. For the two hundred years since then, he has been studied and debated worldwide, but never more intensely than in recent years. His extensive and influential understanding of democracy's foundation in reason and nature continue to make him one of the most examined American founders. Thomas Jefferson and the Politics of Nature is a collection of the very best current scholarship devoted to Thomas Jefferson as politician, writer, philosopher, Christian, and economist. Lead essayist Michael Zuckert presents his comprehensive interpretation of Jefferson's political thought, which Zuckert considers the best theoretical approach to democracy. While Zuckert moderates Jefferson's natural rights philosophy with a Kantian perspective, Jean Yarbrough responds with the argument that Jefferson incorporates the authors of the Scottish Enlightenment and principles from the Republican tradition to achieve the same moderating effect. Garrett Ward Sheldon looks at the broader cultural influences shaping Jefferson's thought and traces his republicanism to his support of Christian ethics and Aristotle. R. Booth Fowler examines why Jefferson, the leading liberal theorist of the nineteenth century, became the hero of the very different liberalism of the twentieth. Robert Dawidoff considers Jefferson as writer and literary figure instead of political thinker and actor, while Joyce Appleby renews an appreciation of Jefferson's statecraft by a famous reexamination of his commercial agrarian policy. Finally, James Ceaser traces Jefferson's belief in racial inferiority to a speculative new natural science prominent among contemporary European thinkers and argues that Jefferson committed a significant error in reducing politics to such conjectural "facts." This compact text is ideal for professors wishing to offer a one-volume collection of current Jeffersonian scholarship to undergraduate students. Professors and students alike will find that the essays contain prompt, focused, substantive discussions on the key issues facing Jeffersonian scholars. This handy collection will be an invaluable classroom tool for those studying not only Jefferson but also history, political philosophy, and science, as well as the history of ideas.

Brian Mawhinney, now Baron Mawhinney of Peterborough, has led an extraordinary life by anyone's standards. Born into a conservative Christian family in Belfast his life and career were continuously informed by the values of the gospel. However, his path was to take him far beyond his simple Belfast background and the legal or medical career his parents envisaged for him, and to the heights of British politics as a Government minister, and then to the heart of football administration as Chairman of the Football League. Written with his ten grandchildren in mind (to help them "understand your grandpa a little better", Mawhinney's memoirs capture at once the history of recent British politics and football, and the essential decency of the author.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is one of the most prominent and controversial figures in contemporary British politics. He is a man who divides opinion in his own party, in Parliament and across the country. An arch-Brexiteer with significant business interests and a large personal fortune, he has long been a vocal critic of the European Union and of Prime Minister Theresa May's attempts to negotiate a Brexit deal. As chairman of the powerful anti-EU organisation the European Research Group, he has also been a thorn in the side of those seeking to dilute Brexit. While many people mock him for his impeccable manners and traditional attitudes - he has been dubbed `the Honourable Member for the eighteenth century' - an equally great number applaud him for his apparent conviction politics. Undoubtedly, Rees-Mogg stands out among the current crop of MPs and his growing influence cannot be ignored. In this wide-ranging unauthorised biography of the Conservative Member of Parliament for North East Somerset, Michael Ashcroft, bestselling author of Call Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography of David Cameron, turns his attention to one of the most intriguing politicians of our time.

Read the report from the Select Committee's investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, with accompanying insights from New York Times reporters who've covered the story from the beginning. This edition from The New York Times and Twelve Books contains: * THE JANUARY 6 REPORT from the Select Committee * Reporting and analysis from The New York Times that puts the committee's findings in context * A timeline of key events * Photos and illustrations, including detailed maps that show the paths insurrectionists took to breach the Capitol * Interviews, transcripts and documents that complement the Committee's investigation * A list of key participants from the Jan. 6 hearings A critical examination of the facts and circumstances surrounding that dark day, The January 6 Report promises to be the definitive account of what happened and provide key recommendations to safeguard the future of American democracy.

Kader Asmal was one of the most respected senior statesmen in South Africa. He lived a rich and varied life, in all the twists and turns of which he has displayed boundless energy, a sharp mind and deep commitment to human rights and democratic values.

Kader Asmal, lawyer and teacher, South African Cabinet minister, and the driving force behind the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, has been called many things – ‘small, bustling, curious, courageous, indefatigable’ (Irish Times) and ‘dapper, combative, witty, cantankerous, sarcastic, urbane, precisely spoken’ (Sunday Times). The son of a small-town shopkeeper from Natal, his life took him as far as exile in the UK, on to a senior position at Trinity College Dublin, and back to a free South Africa, governed by an exemplary Constitution, which he helped devise.

These memoirs are not only Asmal’s personal journey. They are also the story of South Africa’s transition from apartheid to freedom and democracy, in which he played a significant role, as a member of the ANC’s Constitutional Committee and negotiating team and later as an MP and Cabinet minister under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. They provide testimony, too, to Asmal’s lifelong dedication to freedom, equality and justice – ideals enshrined in the country’s Bill of Rights, which he played a major part in writing.

Negotiation, understood simply as "working things out by talking things through," is often anything but simple for Native nations engaged with federal, state, and local governments to solve complex issues, promote economic and community development, and protect and advance their legal and historical rights. Power Balance builds on traditional Native values and peacemaking practices to equip tribes today with additional tools for increasing their negotiating leverage. As cofounder and executive director of the Indian Dispute Resolution Service, author Steven J. Haberfeld has worked with Native tribes for more than forty years to help resolve internal differences and negotiate complex transactions with governmental, political, and private-sector interests. Drawing on that experience, he combines Native ideas and principles with the strategies of "interest-based negotiation" to develop a framework for overcoming the unique structural challenges of dealing with multilevel government agencies. His book offers detailed instructions for mastering six fundamental steps in the negotiating process, ranging from initial planning and preparation to hammering out a comprehensive, written win-win agreement. With real-life examples throughout, Power Balance outlines measures tribes can take to maximize their negotiating power-by leveraging their special legal rights and historical status and by employing political organizing strategies to level the playing field in obtaining their rightful benefits. Haberfeld includes a case study of the precedent-setting negotiation between the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and four federal agencies that resolved disputes over land, water, and other natural resource in Death Valley National Park in California. Bringing together firsthand experience, traditional Native values, and the most up-to-date legal principles and practices, this how-to book will be an invaluable resource for tribal leaders and lawyers seeking to develop and refine their negotiating skills and strategies.