The revolutionary political upheavals in Africa in the early 1990s continue to have an impact almost two decades later. Drawing on original interviews, this book argues we must look to the defining period of transition, and the workings of the transition governments, to understand how politics in these countries changed since the fall of dictatorial one-party states. Transition governments leave legacies with respect to the relevant political players and their strategies, the institutions of government, and the nature of the political agenda. These legacies are apparent in Benin, which successfully transitioned to democracy, as well as Togo, which failed to democratize.

This is an interdisciplinary study of how power, security, polarity and the primacy of sovereign states play out in an international context that has witnessed the rise of non-state actors. It provides an updated analysis of the complex relationship of anarchy, power and politics by addressing issues of self-defense in a unipolar order.

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.

An understanding of the role of energy-related governance systems and the conditions required for a shift towards renewables in developing countries is urgently needed in order to tap into the global potential of low-carbon development. Although renewable energy sources have become technically feasible and economically viable, social and political factors continue to persist as the most critical obstacles for their dissemination. How Power Shapes Energy Transitions in Southeast Asia conceptualizes power for the field of sustainable energy governance. Based on empirical findings from the Philippines and Indonesia, the book develops an analytical approach that incorporates power theory into a multi-level governance framework. The book begins with a profound background on renewable energy development around the world and presents major trends in development cooperation. A power-based multi-level governance approach is introduced that is rooted in development thinking. Examining how coordination and power relations shape the development and dissemination of renewable energy technologies, the book also shows how decentralization affects low carbon development in emerging economies. Sparking debate on the ways in which energy transitions can be triggered and sustained in developing countries, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of renewable energy development and environmental politics and governance as well as practitioners in development cooperation.

Thirty years after the "Watergate Babies" promised to end corruption in Washington, Julian Zelizer offers the first major history of the demise of the committee-era Congress and the rise of the contemporary legislative branch. Based on research in more than a hundred archival collections, this book tackles one of the most enduring political challenges in America: barring a wholesale revolution, how can we improve our representative democracy so as best to fulfill the promises of the Constitution? Whereas popular accounts suggest that major scandals or legislation can transform government institutions, Zelizer shows that reform is messy, slow, and involves many institutions coming together at the right time. The short period of reform in the 1970s--one that rivaled the Progressive Era--revolved around a coalition that had worked for decades, a slow reconfiguration of the relationship among political institutions, shifts in the national culture, and the ability of reformers to take advantage of scandals and elections. Zelizer presents a new look at the origins of the partisanship and scandal warfare that characterize today's politics. The book also offers a warning to the next generation of reformers by showing how a new political environment can radically transform the political impact of government reforms, as occurred when the conservative movement--during its rise to power in recent decades--took advantage of reforms that had ended the committee era. Julian Zelizer teaches political history at Boston University. His book, Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945-1975 (Cambridge, 1999), was awarded the Organization of American Historian's 1998 D.B. Hardeman Prize.He is the co-editor of The Democratic Experiment (Princeton University Press, 2003) and the editor of The American Congress: The Building of Democracy (Houghton-Mifflin, 2005).

A lively account of the general election of 2008 and of its profound significance for Italy and beyond. It gets to grips with the complexities of Italian politics in an exceptionally clear way. Covering the background to the election, the campaign, the parties, voting and the outcome, it is comprehensive in approach and tells a fascinating "story."

Drawing on a wide range of British and foreign archival sources, this book tackles the role of Parliament in the conduct of eighteenth-century foreign policy, the impact of this policy on parliamentary politics, and the quality of parliamentary debates. It is also an important study for our assessment of eighteenth-century Britain, and also, more generally, for an understanding of the role of contingency in the assessment of political systems. Reflecting over a quarter-century of work on parliamentary sources, the book highlights the influence of Parliament, positive and negative, direct and indirect, on foreign policy and politics. It also has great contemporary relevance as we consider the effectiveness of democratic states when confronting authoritarian rivals, and the rights of representative bodies to be consulted before wars are launched.

While there is overwhelming support for democracy in India and voter turnout is higher than in many Western democracies, there are low levels of trust in political parties and elected representatives. This book is an attempt to look beyond Indian elections, which has increasingly occupied analysts and commentators. It focuses on the Lok Sabha (The House of the People), comprising 543 members directly elected for five years by a potential 800 million plus voters in 2019. The book seeks to answer two questions: Is the Indian Parliament, which has the unenviable task of representing a diverse nation of a billion-plus people, working, if not in an exemplary manner, at least reasonably well, to articulate the diverse demands of the electorate and translate them into legislation and policy? To what extent has the practice of Indian democracy transformed the institution of parliament, which was adopted from the British, and its functioning?

Contributors to this Hansard Society/Palgrave volume consider how British government and politics changed as Tony Blair gave way to Gordon Brown. "Gordon at the Helm" looks at a range of factors under Brown such as public opinion, party and opposition politics, British government and administration, public policy, local government and foreign policy.

This book consists of a study of two important and related pieces of thirteenth-century English legislation--the Provisions of Westminster of 1259 and the Statute of Marlborough of 1267. In establishing the political and legal context of these statutes and examining the process of drafting them, the volume utilizes an exceptionally wide range of manuscript sources. Revealing how the legislation was used and interpreted up to 1307, it is the first major work on any of the statutes in this period of major legislative change.

The enormous growth of the state occurring over much of this century has led the authors of this book to re-examine the proper relationship between the American people and their government. The authors first analyse the case for limiting governmental power and discuss which limits are appropriate, including tax and regulatory limits and electoral, congressional term and constitutional limits. They also examine possible auxiliary sources of state limitation, such as technological and economic limitations, informal order and lessons to be learned from local government. In sum, this book provides a seminal analysis of the necessity of limiting state power in order to preserve human rights. Limiting Leviathan will be a valuable reference point for scholars of public choice and government institutions.

One of the commonly stated virtues of modern constitutional democracies is their capacity to insure reliable and accepted methods of political succession through election. This book focuses on one particular, though not uncommon, complication in the democratic mode of political succession: American vice-presidents who assume office as a result of the death, assassination or resignation of a president. Three basic strategies by "accidental presidents" to establish and enhance their legitimacy are identified and evaluated. While none are reliably successful, each provides a lens to study the nature of presidential power and authority as well as to contribute to a democratic theory of succession.

In this book, Rochlin applies Revolution in Military Affairs theories to explain the various strategic victories and losses for assorted social forces in Colombia and Mexico. These countries form the ideal comparative case study, with Colombia as an example for RMA from above by the state, while Mexico demonstrates RMA from below by civil society.

Former Governor of Illinois, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and twice unsuccessful Democratic candidate for President of the United States, Adlai Stevenson played a key role in American politics through out much of the middle of the twentieth century. This collection of essays from Senator Eugene McCarthy, Senator Adlai Stevenson III, Ambassador George Bunn, Brian Urquhart, Arthur Schlesinger, and others, looks at Stevenson's past and current societal significance.

This book examines the Labour Party's approach to constitutional reforms in historical context, and how these have been pursued more to 'modernize' political institutions, rather that radically transform them. Dorey explains the reasons for this constitutional conservatism, and the debates which specific reform proposals have prompted in the Party.

This book explores the ways in which France's relations with the international community have evolved in a period of accelerating globalization.It is one of the only books in English to focus specifically on modern France's international dimension and on global trends. It addresses core questions in current debates related to the role of the nation state and its capacity for political initiative in a globalized world. It brings together experts from various fields of French studies.This book examines the ways in which France's relations with the international community have evolved in a period of accelerating globalization. It considers the role of the nation state, and its capacity for political initiative, examining French strategies to reinforce French influence on the world stage.

The laws that legislatures adopt provide a crucial opportunity for elected politicians to define public policy. But the ways politicians use laws to shape policy vary considerably across polities. In some cases, legislatures adopt detailed and specific laws in an effort to micromanage policymaking processes. In others, they adopt general and vague laws that leave the executive and bureaucrats substantial discretion to fill in the policy details. What explains these differences across political systems, and how do they matter? The authors address these issues by developing and testing a comparative theory of how laws shape bureaucratic autonomy. Drawing on a range of evidence from advanced parliamentary democracies and the U.S. States, they argue that particular institutional forms--such as the nature of electoral laws, the structure of the legal system, and the professionalism of the legislature--have a systematic and predictable effect on how politicians use laws to shape the policymaking process.

The laws that legislatures adopt provide a crucial opportunity for elected politicians to define public policy. But the ways politicians use laws to shape policy vary considerably across polities. In some cases, legislatures adopt detailed and specific laws in an effort to micromanage policymaking processes. In others, they adopt general and vague laws that leave the executive and bureaucrats substantial discretion to fill in the policy details. What explains these differences across political systems, and how do they matter? The authors address these issues by developing and testing a comparative theory of how laws shape bureaucratic autonomy. Drawing on a range of evidence from advanced parliamentary democracies and the U.S. States, they argue that particular institutional forms--such as the nature of electoral laws, the structure of the legal system, and the professionalism of the legislature--have a systematic and predictable effect on how politicians use laws to shape the policymaking process.

At a time of much despair over the future of liberal democracy, Jill Lepore makes a stirring case for the nation in This America, a follow-up to her much-celebrated history of the United States, These Truths. With dangerous forms of nationalism on the rise, Lepore, a Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, repudiates nationalism here by explaining its long history-and the history of the idea of the nation itself-while calling for a "new Americanism": a generous patriotism that requires an honest reckoning with America's past. Lepore begins her argument with a primer on the origins of nations, explaining how liberalism, the nation-state, and liberal nationalism, developed together. Illiberal nationalism, however, emerged in the United States after the Civil War-resulting in the failure of Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, and the restriction of immigration. Much of American history, Lepore argues, has been a battle between these two forms of nationalism, liberal and illiberal, all the way down to the nation's latest, bitter struggles over immigration. Defending liberalism, as This America demonstrates, requires making the case for the nation. But American historians largely abandoned that defense in the 1960s when they stopped writing national history. By the 1980s they'd stopped studying the nation-state altogether and embraced globalism instead. "When serious historians abandon the study of the nation," Lepore tellingly writes, "nationalism doesn't die. Instead, it eats liberalism." But liberalism is still in there, Lepore affirms, and This America is an attempt to pull it out. "In a world made up of nations, there is no more powerful way to fight the forces of prejudice, intolerance, and injustice than by a dedication to equality, citizenship, and equal rights, as guaranteed by a nation of laws." A manifesto for a better nation, and a call for a "new Americanism," This America reclaims the nation's future by reclaiming its past.

Being the first casualty of the international financial crisis, Iceland was, in many ways, turned into a laboratory when it came to responding to one of the largest corporate failures on record. This edited volume offers the most wide-ranging treatment of the Icelandic financial crisis and its political, economic, social, and constitutional consequences. Interdisciplinary, with contributions from historians, economists, sociologists, legal scholars, political scientists and philosophers, it also compares and contrasts the Icelandic experience with other national and global crises. It examines the economic magnitude of the crisis, the social and political responses, and the unique transitional justice mechanisms used to deal with it. It looks at backward-looking elements, including a societal and legal reckoning - which included the indictment of a Prime Minister and jailing of leading bankers for their part in the financial crisis - and forward-looking features, such as an attempt to rewrite the Icelandic constitution. Throughout, it underscores the contemporary relevance of the Icelandic case. While the Icelandic economic recovery has been much quicker than expected; it shows that public faith in political elites has not been restored. This text will be of key interest to scholars, policy-makers and students of the financial crisis in such fields as European politics, international political economy, comparative politics, sociology, economics, contemporary history, and more broadly the social sciences and humanities.

This is the first comprehensive study of the House of Lords in the reign of Charles II. It examines the House's institutional and political activities, and reveals the vital role played by the peerage in Caroline parliaments. Andrew Swatland also describes the emergence of political parties, reinterpreting the origins of "Toryism" and "Whiggism". This detailed and balanced study is both a major institutional history and an important contribution to the history of Restoration politics and political culture.

The Supreme Court's reapportionment decisions, beginning with Baker v. Carr in 1962, had far more than jurisprudential consequences. They sparked a massive wave of extraordinary redistricting in the mid-1960s. Both state legislative and congressional districts were redrawn more comprehensively--by far--than at any previous time in our nation's history. Moreover, they changed what would legally happen should a state government fail to enact a new districting plan when one was legally required. This book provides the first detailed analysis of how judicial partisanship affected redistricting outcomes in the 1960s, arguing that the reapportionment revolution led indirectly to three fundamental changes in the nature of congressional elections: the abrupt eradication of a 6% pro-Republican bias in the translation of congressional votes into seats outside the south; the abrupt increase in the apparent advantage of incumbents; and the abrupt alteration of the two parties' success in congressional recruitment and elections.

The Supreme Court's reapportionment decisions, beginning with Baker v. Carr in 1962, had far more than jurisprudential consequences. They sparked a massive wave of extraordinary redistricting in the mid-1960s. Both state legislative and congressional districts were redrawn more comprehensively--by far--than at any previous time in our nation's history. Moreover, they changed what would legally happen should a state government fail to enact a new districting plan when one was legally required. This book provides the first detailed analysis of how judicial partisanship affected redistricting outcomes in the 1960s, arguing that the reapportionment revolution led indirectly to three fundamental changes in the nature of congressional elections: the abrupt eradication of a 6% pro-Republican bias in the translation of congressional votes into seats outside the south; the abrupt increase in the apparent advantage of incumbents; and the abrupt alteration of the two parties' success in congressional recruitment and elections.

This theoretically inspired study explores legislative politics in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Instead of beginning with an assumption that these legislatures are either rubber-stamps or obstructionist bodies, the chapters provide new data and a fresh analytical approach to describe and explain the role of these representative bodies in these consolidating democracies. For each country the book provides three chapters dedicated, in turn, to executive-legislative relations, the legislatures' organizational structure, and the policy process.

In responding to the question as to whether Russia has re-emerged as a great power, the authors trace the major lines of foreign and security policy under Vladimir Putin. The authors argue that Putin and his advisors are committed to re-establishing Russia as a great power and that the existence of nuclear weapons and the revival of the Russian economy have provided the foundations for an expanded Russian role in global affairs.