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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Central government > General
This study seeks to resolve differences between various types of political leaders and to link broad historical patterns with the idiosyncratic circumstances of individual lives and careers--to integrate the micro and the macro levels of understanding in the field of leadership studies. To accomplish this task, a vast array of previous scholarship and primary documents has been assembled and drawn into new combinations. Equivalent data on all U.S. presidents enable an unprecedented internal comparison within this select group. Comparison with parallel data, developed for other types of leaders, permits U.S. presidents to be analyzed in comparative perspective for the first time. Against this background, the study creates a unique collection of medical and psychological profiles for the entire set of presidents--a body of data that allows us to discover new combinations and patterns of presidential traits. American presidents emerged from this study looking very much like other political leaders in terms of social background and preparation for a political career. But contrary to myth, the authors found U.S. presidents to be puzzingly unexceptional--even average--in their personal and career characteristics. For other types of leaders, the authors had found distinctive combinations of traits and experiences that seemed to account for their political leadership roles. For the presidents, such combinations seemed elusive, even confounding. They did conclude, however, that presidential leadership is firmly anchored in the cultural, sociological, and historical contexts from which it emerges.
Government publishing reflects nearly every aspect of life in America, and this wealth of information is easily available if one knows how and where to obtain it. The third edition of this standard reference work contains a profusion of titles covering the period of June 1989 to January 1993. Some previous publications-parts of long-standing series or those of continuing topical interest-are included. Many entries (e.g. AIDS, women, Iran-Contra, and space exploration) reflect the profound changes in our society since the last edition was published. Arrangement is by subject; each entry includes bibliographic description, issuing agency, SuDocs number, GPO stock number and price, and an annotation.
Few would have imagined the developments and the extent of reforms that occurred under Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero between 2004 and 2008. Under Zapatero, Spain rapidly withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq, held a very public political debate on the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, passed very progressive social legislation that included gay marriage and adoption as well as a sweeping gender equality act, and expanded autonomy in six of Spain's 17 regions. It has become quite common to refer to some or all of these developments as a 'second transition' that alters or revisits policies, institutional arrangements and political strategies that were established during Spain's transition to democracy. This book analyzes the patterns of continuity and change and provides a nuanced, critical evaluation of the concept of a 'second transition'. Three broad questions are addressed. First, to what degree do the developments under Zapatero's Socialist government represent a departure from prior patterns of Spanish politics? Second, what accounts for the continuities and departures? Finally, the project begins to assess the implications of these developments. Are there lasting effects, for example, on political participation, electoral alignments, interparty and inter-regional relations more broadly? This book was published as a special issue of South European Society & Politics.
Which Asian presidents are 'stronger' in terms of their constitutional and partisan authorities? How do they use these authorities to advance their policy agendas vis-a-vis the assemblies? This book answers these questions and is one of the first and most comprehensive analyses of Asia's presidential and semi-presidential democracies. To develop a baseline, it measures the 'strength' of the Asian presidents with regards to their constitutional and partisan powers. Using this two-dimensional strength measure as a common framework, country study chapters on Afghanistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan analyze how their constitutional and partisan powers are used in actual policy-making processes. The book situates the Asian presidential/semi-presidential democracies in a comparative perspective, and at the same time offers in-depth analyses about how the executive and the legislature interact in practice in countries under study. The book should be of interest to scholars of Asian politics, as well as comparativists who study political institutions, presidentialism, party systems, and constitutions.
Love her or hate her Edwina Currie falls comfortably into that category of celebrity you simply cannot ignore. The first edition of her diaries explosively revealed her affair with former Prime Minister John Major. This second volume, which begins in 1992 with her refusal to serve in Major's Cabinet, is no less revelatory about her colleagues, encounters with others in the public eye, and, of course, her extraordinary love life. It covers her life in Parliament up to the election of Blair's Labour government, but more importantly sees its subject's emergence as a mainstay in the public imagination, first as a bestselling author, then as a commentator, broadcaster, presenter and performer - most recently on the BBC's flagship entertainment show Strictly Come Dancing. Shot through with her trademark effervescence and sense of fun, Edwina Currie Diaries: Volume II documents one of the biggest characters in British public life at her saucy, scathing best. 'Frank and funny, you can't put her down' Time Out 'Few women can lay claim to the word "magnificent", but Currie is now surely one of them' Daily Telegraph
This straightforward and practical guide outlines a strategic approach to public involvement in government decision making. Prepares public managers for the difficult task of involving citizens more fully in the affairs of government while maintaining effectiveness and efficiency. Written in easy-to-understand terms, Public Participation in Public Decisions presents the Effective Decision Model of Public Involvement that managers will find to be an invaluable asset when making decisions about when and how to involve the public.
Worldwide, the urge is being felt to pave the way towards the introduction of an electronic government. Many countries recognise the potential of digital aids in providing information and services to citizens, organisations and companies. Recent developments have put pressure on the legislature to provide an adequate legal framework for electronic administrative communication. Thus, various countries have started to draft provisions in their administrative law in order to remove legal impediments that hamper electronic services from public administrations. Written by specialists from different countries, E-Government and its Implications for Administrative Law provides an overview and analysis of such legislative developments in France, Germany, Norway and the United States. What approach has been taken in these countries? What specific provisions have been formulated to facilitate electronic administrative communication and at what level? What requirements are introduced to gain sufficient trust in electronic service delivery? In providing an in-depth analysis of the legislative projects in the various countries, this book gives a glance at the differences in policy making as well as the lessons that can be learned for future regulatory projects to amend administrative law for the digital era. This is Volume 1 in the Information Technology and Law (IT&Law) Series
Filled with new insights and fresh interpretations, this is the richest study yet published on the presidency of James Monroe, the last Revolutionary War hero to ascend to that august office. Noble Cunningham's history of the fifth presidency (1817-25) shows a young nation beset by growing pains and led by a cautious politician who had neither the learning nor the intellect of Jefferson or Madison, but whose actions strengthened both the United States and the presidency itself. Cunningham makes clear that the mislabelled "era of good feelings" had more than its share of crises, including those resulting from revolutions in Latin America, Spanish possession of Florida, the depression of 1819, and the controversy over slavery in Missouri. Monroe, he shows, successfully defused these potentially explosive situations, most notably by negotiating the 1820 Missouri Compromise and announcing in 1823 what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, a document that still guides American policy in the western hemisphere. Cunningham effectively places these actions within the context of Monroe's life and times and sheds new light on the inner workings of his cabinet and his relations with Congress. In addition, he features the prominent roles of two future presidents: John Quincy Adams as secretary of state and Andrew Jackson as the controversial general whose actions in the Seminole War created a headache for the administration. Though substantially informed by previous scholarship, Cunningham writes largely from the abundant primary source materials of the era to provide an illuminating new look at a president and a nation on the brink of greatness.
This reference history describes and analyzes the State Department and Foreign Service of the United States. It also outlines the history of three major State Department functions, namely, the treatymaking process and record, representation in international conferences, and participation in international organizations and other agencies. The volume covers more than two centuries--from the genesis of American diplomacy to the 1990s. Unlike other works, this volume deals with such matters as departmental organization and management; personnel and staffing; administrative practices, reform, and reorganization; and the Department's operations, functions, principal and other officers, and problems. The volume consists of eight chapters, extensively footnoted, each of which focuses on successive periods grouped in four major historical eras. Tables are designed to serve as further reference for long-range historical analysis and exploration. The book is supplemented with three appendixes and a comprehensive bibliography. A complete and up-to-date major reference, this will be an asset to the reference collections of both academic and public libraries.
The U.S. Attorney General is forever caught between competing demands: on one side, his political duties as cabinet appointee and adviser to the president; on the other, his quasi-judicial responsibilities as chief law officer of the nation. In theory the two sets of responsibilities coexist peacefully. In reality they often clash. "In Conflicting Loyalties," political scientist Nancy Baker provides the first comprehensive analysis of the history and structure of the office of the U.S. Attorney General, an office that legal scholars have described as "schizophrenic." Her study documents how they have differed in their responses, seeing themselves either as advocates of the president or as neutral expounders of the law. Combining historical analysis with legal and political theory, Baker shows how this implicit conflict has evolved from the earliest days of the Republic, when the attorney general was primarily an adviser, to the present day, when he administers the huge bureaucracy of the Department of Justice. Using both archival materials and personal interviews, Baker analyzes how the seventy-five men who have held the post of attorney general have managed the conflict of loyalties. In particular, she focuses on Robert Kennedy, Edwin Meese, Elliot Richardson, Griffin Bell, Robert Jackson, Edward Levi, A. Mitchell Palmer, and Roger Taney. She also examines how the office has been affected by scandals in various administrations, including the Red scare of 1919-20, Teapot Dome, Watergate, and Iran-Contra. The book concludes with an exploration of arguments for reforming the office.
Ambassador Finger provides an insider's view of significant events in American diplomacy since World War II. Also included are insightful appraisals of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Bush, Lodge, Stevenson, and Goldberg. He goes on to portray dramatic changes in the American Foreign Service which has become a merit service of outstanding men and women of varied ethnic backgrounds, chosen from all parts of the country on the basis of highly competitive entrance examinations. Finger also dispels the canard that a diplomat is someone sent abroad to lie for his country. He argues that, on the contrary, a reputation for integrity is essential for effective diplomacy. This is particularly true at the United Nations. Finger spent 15 years there and relates from experience salient situations where diplomatic skill, effective advocacy, and the cultivation of friendship and trust have contributed to the maintenance of peace and the establishment of significant development programs. He further demonstrates how permanent representatives who were close to the president were able to have crucial influence on major American policies. This insightful guide to contemporary American foreign policy and the workings of both the Foreign Service and the United Nations will be of interest to scholars and students of American diplomacy as well as candidates for the Foreign Service.
Why do America's public schools seem unable to meet today's social challenges? As competing interest groups vie over issues like funding and curricula, we seem to have lost sight of the democratic purposes originally intended for public education. Public schools were envisioned by the Founders as democratically run institutions for instilling civic values, but today's education system seems more concerned with producing good employees than good citizens. Meanwhile, our country's diversity has eroded consensus about citizenship, and the professionalization of educators has diminished public involvement in schools. This volume seeks to demonstrate that the democratic purposes of education are not outmoded ideas but can continue to be driving forces in public education. Nine original articles by some of today's leading education theorists cut a broad swath across the political spectrum to examine how those democratic purposes might be redefined and revived. It both establishes the intellectual foundation for revitalizing American schools and offers concrete ideas for how the educational process can be made more democratic. The authors make a case for better empirical research about the politics of education in order to both reconnect schools to their communities and help educators instill citizenship. An initial series of articles reexamines the original premise of American education as articulated by important thinkers like Jefferson and Dewey. A second group identifies flaws in how schools are currently governed and offers models for change. A final section analyzes the value conflicts posed by the twin strands of democratic socialization and governance, and their implications for education policy. Spanning philosophy, history, sociology, and political science,
this book brings together the best current thinking about the
specifics of education policy--vouchers, charter schools, national
testing--and about the role of deliberation in a democracy. It
offers a cogent alternative to the exchange paradigm and shows how
much more needs to be understood about an issue so vital to
America's future.
The four dragons of Asia - Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea - have achieved remarkable progress over the past decades. These newly industrialising countries (NICs) have emerged as major actors on the world economic scene. Their success can be attributed to a number of factors related to historical background, relationship with China, pattern of governance and performance of administrative, political and economic institutions. This book examines the role of public administration in the accomplishments of the NICs and identifies potential areas of challenge for the dragons.
Few would have imagined the developments and the extent of reforms that occurred under Spanish Prime Minister Jos? Luis Rodr?guez Zapatero between 2004 and 2008. Under Zapatero, Spain rapidly withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq, held a very public political debate on the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, passed very progressive social legislation that included gay marriage and adoption as well as a sweeping gender equality act, and expanded autonomy in six of Spain's 17 regions. It has become quite common to refer to some or all of these developments as a ?second transition? that alters or revisits policies, institutional arrangements and political strategies that were established during Spain's transition to democracy. This book analyzes the patterns of continuity and change and provides a nuanced, critical evaluation of the concept of a ?second transition?. Three broad questions are addressed. First, to what degree do the developments under Zapatero's Socialist government represent a departure from prior patterns of Spanish politics? Second, what accounts for the continuities and departures? Finally, the project begins to assess the implications of these developments. Are there lasting effects, for example, on political participation, electoral alignments, interparty and inter-regional relations more broadly? This book was published as a special issue of South European Society & Politics.
Henry Giroux continues his critique of the US political and popular culture 's influence on the lives of our children.
Despite unprecedented levels of global interconnectedness, little academic attention has been paid to how governments actively deal with the challenges globalization poses for national identity. This book investigates the Singapore Government's approach to the construction of national identity and the shifting ways in which Singapore has been imagined in official discourses. The hallmarks of Singapore's nation-building project have been the state's efforts to manage ethnic differences and ensure the economic well-being of its citizenry. Unlike other global cities which are embedded in a larger nation-state, Singapore is both a global city and a nation-state. Singapore embodies a curious contradiction: while global cities are often theorized as transient spaces, contradictorily, the nation-state needs to be bounded in order to remain viable. This book focuses on the global/national nexus: the tensions between the necessity to embrace the global to ensure economic survival, yet needing a committed population to support the perpetuation of the nation-state and its economic success. It critically explores how the government has been responding to the challenges of globalization through policy initiatives and official rhetoric to create a "space" for affective identification with the Singaporean nation-state and how Singaporeans relate to and articulate their sense of identity and belonging to Singapore within the context of globalization.
This volume analyses the interaction of business lobbyists, consumer critics, and government officials for the first time in 20 years. It offers important new insights and revisionist views about the impact of consumer issue networks in the making of public policy in Congress during the 1980s and 1990s. It shows how consumer groups lobby Congressional committees and their leaders and staffers to reform legislation in areas of critical concern. This text for undergraduate and graduate courses in American politics, business and government, lobbying and interest group behavior, and political sociology covers the expanding range and activities of consumer lobbyists in recent years and gives a short history of their role in Congressional decisionmaking from the Progressive and New Deal eras to the present. The study details their activities in terms of civic outcomes (campaign finance, intervenor funding, freedom of information); consumer protection (impure food, unsafe drugs, autos, toys, and household appliances); economic regulation and deregulation (airlines, financing services, trucking, and telecommunications); and highly politicized pocketbook issues (health care, tax, energy, income, and trade policies). Journalists, activists, and students of politics, business administration, and sociology will find the conclusions about consumers, businesses, and Congressional decisionmaking and the arguments for government and citizen activism arresting.
This is the first book length assessment of the executive agency revolution in UK central government, part of the New Public Management, with 65 percent of civil servants now working in agencies. The "Next Steps" reformers' public interest view suggested value for money improvements. However, original analysis of budgets, performance data, documents and interviews reveals some support for an alternative "bureau-shaping" perspective from rational choice, with officials using the reform to protect their welfare and substantial performance problems, especially in "joining-up" government.
This book, originally published in 1983 examines how effectively in Britain central government is equipped to secure efficiency and responsiveness and argues that as a result of shifts in the balance of power between the executive arm of government in Whitehall and the legislature in Parliament, the British system of government is neither as efficient, nor as responsive to popular will, as a strong democracy requires. The book considers which reforms are most likely to improve the efficiency of the government and to prove acceptable to British political and historical traditions. It reviews the way in which public debate is informed by government release of information and by the press and raises the question of how good a guide to the popular will referenda and public opinion polls are.
The main theme of this book is the complex relationship between government servants and the world around them and this is explored in a number of ways. The essays include studies of the people who played an important part in the development of 19th century government: there is a chapter on the transmission of Benthamite ideas, an ccount of John Stuart Mill and his views on utilitarianism and bureaucracy, and of the work of Charles Trevelyan on the Northcote-Trevelyan Report. The Treasury, the Colonial and Foreign Offices, the Labour Department of the Board of Trade are also examined in relation to government growth in the period.
Inside the Pentagon Papers addresses legal and moral issues that resonate today as debates continue over government secrecy and democracy's requisite demand for truthfully informed citizens. In the process, it also shows how a closer study of this signal event can illuminate questions of government responsibility in any era. When Daniel Ellsberg leaked a secret government study about the Vietnam War to the press in 1971, he set off a chain of events that culminated in one of the most important First Amendment decisions in American legal history. That affair is now part of history, but the story behind the case has much to tell us about government secrecy and the public's right to know. Commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, "the Pentagon Papers" were assembled by a team of analysts who investigated every aspect of the war. Ellsberg, a member of the team, was horrified by the government's public lies about the war-discrepancies with reality that were revealed by the report's secret findings. His leak of the report to the New York Times and Washington Post triggered the Nixon administration's heavy-handed attempt to halt publication of their stories, which in turn led to the Supreme Court's ruling that Nixon's actions violated the Constitution's free speech guarantees. "Inside the Pentagon Papers" reexamines what happened, why it mattered, and why it still has relevance today. Focusing on the "back story" of the Pentagon Papers and the resulting court cases, it draws upon a wealth of oral history and previously classified documents to show the consequences of leak and litigation both for the Vietnam War and for American history. Included here for the first time are transcripts of previously
secret White House telephone tapes revealing the Nixon
administration's repressive strategies, as well as the government's
formal charges against the newspapers presented by Solicitor
General Erwin Griswold to the Supreme Court. Coeditor John Prados's
point-by-point analysis of these charges demonstrates just how weak
the government's case was-and how they reflected Nixon's paranoia
more than legitimate national security issues. |
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