'Remarkable. A thoughtful and perceptive book.' - Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer The world is currently experiencing the lowest levels of democracy we have seen in over thirty years. Autocracy is on the rise, and while the cost of autocracy seems evident, it nevertheless remains an attractive option to many. While leaders like Viktor Orban disrupt democratic foundations from within, autocrats like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin do so from abroad, eroding democratic institutions and values and imperilling democracies that appear increasingly fragile. There are even those who, disillusioned with the current institutions in place, increasingly think authoritarianism can deliver them a better life than democracy has or could. They're wrong. Autocracy is not the solution - better democracy is. But we have to make the case for it. We have to combat institutional rot by learning from one another, and, at times, from our rivals. And we have to get our own houses in order. Only then can we effectively stand up for democratic values around the world and defeat the dictators.

Innovative forums that integrate citizen deliberation into policy making are revitalizing democracy in many places around the world. Yet controversy abounds over whether these forums ought to be seen as authentic sources of public opinion and how they should fit with existing political institutions. How can civic forums include less powerful citizens and ensure that their perspectives are heard on equal terms with more privileged citizens, officials, and policy experts? How can these fragile institutions communicate citizens' policy preferences effectively and legitimately to the rest of the political system? Deliberation, Democracy, and Civic Forums proposes creative solutions for improving equality and publicity, which are grounded in new theories about democratic deliberation, a careful review of research and practice in the field, and several original studies. This book speaks to scholars, practitioners, and sponsors of civic engagement, public management and consultation, and deliberative and participatory democracy.

These classic essays from the international socialist tradition make a powerful and convincing case for building revolutionary socialist organizations in the fight for liberation.

A preoccupation with the subject of freedom became a core issue in the construction of all modern political ideologies. Here, Wael Abu-'Uksa examines the development of the concept of freedom (hurriyya) in nineteenth-century Arab political thought, its ideological offshoots, their modes, and their substance as they developed the dynamics of the Arabic language. Abu-'Uksa traces the transition of the idea of freedom from a term used in a predominantly non-political way, through to its popularity and near ubiquity at the dawn of the twentieth century. Through this, he also analyzes the importance of associated concepts such as liberalism, socialism, progress, rationalism, secularism, and citizenship. He employs a close analysis of the development of the language, whilst at the same time examining the wider historical context within which these semantic shifts occurred: the rise of nationalism, the power of the Ottoman court, and the state of relations with Europe.

From the beginning of their rise to power, the National Socialist regime began carefully laying the groundwork for a systematic overhaul of Germany's literature. Strongly believing the key to a successful Third Reich was to secure the unwavering loyalty and belief of the youth, they began to monitor their exposure to literature. The author exposes how, and to what extent, the National Socialist's primary ideology was reflected in the children's literature produced between 1933 and 1945. This work uncovers many surprising insights into the reception of openly xenophobic and anti-Semitic literature produced for children under the National Socialist regime. This is supported by rare finds in the form of articles and women's magazines, which clearly demonstrate that not all children's books were in line with the State's subtle approach to ideologically educating the youth.

"Researched with unusual sensitivity, original in approach, illuminating beyond its immediate geographical and theoretical referents, and written in a style that is both carefully crafted and eminently accessible...this is the work of a remarkably talented observer and scholar."--Jane Guyer, editor of "Money Matters: Instability, Values and Social Payments in the Modern History of West African Communities, former president of the African Studies Association

"The world is currently quite aware of Sierra Leone and its predicament, and it needs this well-informed and beautifully written account of what makes the country so wonderful despite its woes. Ferme's work is truly transcendent, capturing magnificently well some of the most important aspects of an otherwise "difficult" ethnographic case. It is a truthful and honest piece of work, based on a deep grasp of the ethnographer's craft. "--Paul Richards, author of "Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone

Ferme is a true master in the magic of "things." She gives the study of secrecy new impetus by examining its history, relating that history not only to discourse but also to material conditions. She brilliantly shows how, for Sierra Leone societies, the celebration of ambiguity has been a way to live with permanent danger-from the long history of slavery through the present civil war. --Peter Geschiere, author of "The Modernity of Witchcraft, Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa

"The Underneath of Things is a model of patience, detailed observation, and elegant writing: a theoretically creative study that is keen to track and to disentangle the webs and flows of everyday life.--Achille Mbembe,author of "On the Postcolony

Movements like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and the Tea Party embody some of our deepest intuitions about popular politics and 'the power of the people'. They also expose tensions and shortcomings in our understanding of these ideals. We typically see 'the people' as having a special, sovereign power. Despite the centrality of this idea in our thinking, we have little understanding of why it has such importance. Imagined Sovereignties probes the considerable force that 'the people' exercises on our thought and practice. Like the imagined communities described by Benedict Anderson, popular politics is formed around shared, imaginary constructs rooted in our collective imagination. This book investigates these 'imagined sovereignties' in a genealogy traversing the French Enlightenment, the Haitian Revolution, and nineteenth-century Haitian constitutionalism. It problematizes taken-for-granted ideas about popular politics and provokes new ways of imagining the power of the people.

Street-Level Sovereignty: The Intersection of Space and Law is a collection of scholarship that considers the experience of law that is subject to social interpretation for its meaning and importance within the constitutive legal framework of race, deviance, property, and the communal investiture in health and happiness. This book examines the intersection of spatiality and law, through the construction of place, and how law is materially framed.

The police force is one of the most distrusted institutions in Pakistan, notorious for its corruption and brutality. In both colonial and postcolonial contexts, directives to confront security threats have empowered law enforcement agents, while the lack of adequate reform has upheld institutional weaknesses. This exploration of policing in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and financial capital, reveals many colonial continuities. Both civilian and military regimes continue to ensure the suppression of the policed via this institution, itself established to militarily subjugate and exploit in the interests of the ruling class. However, contemporary policing practice is not a simple product of its colonial heritage: it has also evolved to confront new challenges and political realities. Based on extensive fieldwork and around 200 interviews, this ethnographic study reveals a distinctly 'postcolonial condition of policing'. Mutually reinforcing phenomena of militarisation and informality have been exacerbated by an insecure state that routinely conflates combatting crime, maintaining public order and ensuring national security. This is evident not only in spectacular displays of violence and malpractice, but also in police officers' routine work. Caught in the middle of the country's armed conflicts, their encounters with both state and society are a story of insecurity and uncertainty.

In Disobedience and Democracy, the inimitable leftist thinker Howard Zinn lays out a clear and dynamic case for civil disobedience and protest as legitimate vehicles for social change. Zinn challenges the dominant arguments against forms of protest that challenge the status quo. He solidifies his argument, exploring the politics of direct action, nonviolent civil disobedience and strikes, while also offering lessons for protestors of the present and future generations. This book is a passionate, humanist argument for group-led change.

Renewed authoritarianism, national disintegration, sectarian violence, and the increasing radicalization of Jihadi-Salafism since the Arab uprisings have significantly blurred visions for constructive religion-state-society relations in the MENA region. The dissolution of the 'Arab Spring' seems to have revived the questionable notion of Islamic exceptionalism. In sharp contrast, this book seeks to invalidate the supposed incompatibility of Islam and secular democracy. It outlines a complex Islamic political theology that undermines the religious basis of the unification of religion and state, offering religious justification for their separation. Naser Ghobadzadeh coins the seemingly oxymoronic notion 'religious secularity' to encapsulate the Islamic quest to emancipate religion from state. In simultaneous opposition to both the politicisation of Islam and authoritarian secularism, religious secularity employs Islamic sources such as the Quran and Hadiths to articulate a robust religious rationale for state secularism. Whereas mainstream literature frequently presents being secular as 'antithetical to being religious', religious secularity blurs the boundaries between the 'religious' and the 'secular'. This book suggests that the rift between the religious and the secular is no more pronounced than the relationship between the two understood in dualistic terms, as evinced by Islamic history. Thus, religious secularity supports a theoretical shift away from the religious-secular dichotomy.

No topic is more polarizing than guns and gun control. From a gun culture that took root early in American history to the mass shootings that repeatedly bring the public discussion of gun control to a fever pitch, the topic has preoccupied citizens, public officials, and special interest groups for decades. In this thoroughly revised second edition of The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know (R) noted economist Philip J. Cook and political scientist Kristin A. Goss delve into the issues that Americans debate when they talk about guns. With a balanced and broad-ranging approach, the authors thoroughly cover the latest research, data, and developments on gun ownership, gun violence, the firearms industry, and the regulation of firearms. The authors also tackle sensitive issues such as the impact of gun violence on quality of life, the influence of exposure to gun violence on mental health, home production of guns, arming teachers, the effect of concealed weapons on crime rates, and the ability of authorities to disarm people who aren't allowed to have a gun. No discussion of guns in the U.S. would be complete without consideration of the history, culture, and politics that drive the passion behind the debate. Cook and Goss deftly explore the origins of the American gun culture and the makeup of both the gun rights and gun control movements. Written in question-and-answer format, this updated edition brings the debate up-to-date for the current political climate under Trump and will help readers make sense of the ideologically driven statistics and slogans that characterize our national conversation on firearms. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in getting a clear view of the issues surrounding guns and gun policy in America.

This book, part of the Companions series, provides succinct yet robust definitions and explanations of core concepts and themes in relation to state power, liberties and human rights. Laid out in a user-friendly A-Z format, it includes entries from expert contributors with clear direction to related entries and further reading. It will be suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students on a variety of courses such as Criminology, Criminal Justice, International Relations, Politics, Social Policy, Policing Studies, and Law as well as other researchers in these areas.

The deeply moving account of the extraordinary teenage survivors of the Parkland shooting. Emma Gonzalez called BS. David Hogg called out Adult America. Cameron Kasky recruited a colorful band of teenagers. Four days after escaping Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, they announced the audacious March for Our Lives. A month later, it was the fourth largest protest in American history. Dave Cullen takes us on the students' odyssey. With unrivaled access to their friends and families, meetings, homes and tour bus through gun country, he reveals the quirky, playful organizers that have taken the United States by storm. We see the students cope with shattered friendships and PTSD, along with the normal struggles of exams and college acceptances. We see victims refusing victimhood. This spell-binding book is a testament to change and an examination of a pivotal moment in American culture, a generational struggle to save every kids of every color from the ravages of gun violence. Parkland is a story of staggering empowerment and hope, told through the wildly creative and wickedly funny voices of a group of remarkable campaigners.

In April of 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization's computer servers. In the days and weeks that followed, they discovered that the cyber thieves had helped themselves to everything: sensitive documents, emails, donor information, even voice mails. It was the modern-day equivalent of the Watergate scandal, but this time, the culprit was Russia's spy service, and their method was a new hybrid cyber warfare: Kompromat. But why would Vladimir Putin want to tip the scales of an American election?

New York Times bestseller Malcolm Nance follows the curious real life spy story through a labyrinth of cyber espionage, the history of Russia's spy services, and Vladimir Putin's rise through the KGB from junior officer to Spy-in-Chief. He also details Donald Trump's many disturbing personal associations with Putin and Russia's oligarchy and Trump's loose affiliation of advisors nicknamed the Kremlin Crew.

We also learn how technicians discovered that Russia's spy agency was responsible for the hack; how the Russians have devastated individuals, political groups, and entire nations with their cyber crimes; and how they may have cultivated Donald Trump as an unwitting asset to facilitate their ultimate foreign policy goals: disband NATO, dominate eastern Europe, and replace America as the world s superpower.

Although episodes of resistance and contention in authoritarian and authoritarian-like regimes constitute the majority of mass political movements worldwide, the theories and models of popular contention have been developed on liberal-democratic assumptions. Prompted by the recent revolutionary waves in the Middle East and North Africa, Popular Contention, Regime, and Transition offers a deeper understanding of the complex and indeterminate linkages between popular protest, regime type, and transitions in democratic and authoritarian regimes alike. Through a diverse array of case studies from countries around the world, this volume places the Arab Spring uprisings in comparative perspective, demonstrating the similarities and parallels between contentious events in democratic and authoritarian-like regimes. Leading scholars in the fields of political science, sociologoy, and international studies discuss topics such as the set of initial conditions involved in the protest, prospects of contention, and forms of protest, as well as the role of historical legacies, regime responses, the military, social polarization, and external factors in the divergent outcomes of protest. By situating the study of contention in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes in comparative perspective, Popular Contention, Regime, and Transition generates powerful insights into the impetus, dynamics, and consequences of contention in all contexts.

This collection of essays by feminist scholar-activists addresses the crucial problem of human security in a world of heavily armed, militarized states. It describes the gendered aspects of human security excluded from the realist militarism that dominates current security policy in most nation states. The book deepens and broadens current security discourses, encouraging serious consideration of alternatives to the present global security system that functions to advantage state security over human security, a system the contributors perceive to be rooted in the patriarchal nature of the nation state. This second edition will be of interest to academics and students of gender studies, women's studies, international studies, development studies, human rights, security studies, peace studies and peace education.

This book argues that a tribe of the primitive society is formed because of kinship, while a state of the civilized society is formed because of language. When humans communicate using language, they extend the distance and the reaches of communication. They expand their communities. States replace tribes. Language underlies the formation of the state. Then, accordingly, language also underlies the organization of the state as men create language solutions in the organization of the state such as constitution, election and representation. The extension of linguistic communication distance also underlies the formation of three juxtaposing branches of government administrative, legislative and judicial body. It also enables men to create various forms of civilization such as history, philosophy, literature, art, religion and law which play a role in the construction of men's spirit that guides the operation of the state. Language presets the whole process of the progress of civilization.

Members of Congress from racial minority groups often find themselves in a unique predicament. For one thing, they tend to represent constituencies that are more economically disadvantaged than those of their white colleagues. Moreover, they themselves experience marginalization during the process of policy formulation on Capitol Hill. In Twists of Fate, Vanessa C. Tyson illuminates the experiences of racial minority members of the House of Representatives as they endeavor to provide much-needed resources for their districts. In doing so, she devises a framework for understanding the federal legislative behavior of House members representing marginalized communities. She points to the unique ways in which they conceive of political influence as well as the strategies they have adopted for success. Black, Hispanic, and Asian Pacific American Caucuses, among other minority groups, have built cross-racial coalitions that reflect their linked political fate. This strategy differs considerably from competitive approaches often espoused at the local level and from the more atomized interactions of representatives at the federal level of the policy process. Tyson draws on two years of personal experience observing and interacting with members of the House of Representatives in session, in their home districts, at functions sponsored by racial minority caucuses, and at White House events to illustrate her argument. Despite variation of experience and ideology within and amongst racial minority groups, she shows that representatives of minority coalitions have repeatedly and successfully worked together as they advocate for equality and social justice. She also points to a willingness among these coalitions to champion a non-discrimination agenda that extends beyond "traditional" issues of race and ethnicity to issues of class, gender and orientation. Twists of Fate provides a compelling model for understanding how diverse groups can work together to forge hopeful political futures.

Originally published in 1937, this book presents a discussion of the meaning of freedom in its relationship with British religious, political, social and economic institutions. Notable for its accessibility, the text was based upon the content of a series of talks delivered on the radio for the BBC. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in British history, politics and the concept of freedom.

This book responds to the often loud debates about the place of Muslims in Western Europe by proposing an analysis based in institutions, including schools, courts, hospitals, the military, electoral politics, the labor market, and civic education courses. The contributors consider the way people draw on practical schemas regarding others in their midst who are often categorized as Muslims. Chapters based on fieldwork and policy analysis across several countries examine how people interact in their everyday work lives, where they construct moral boundaries, and how they formulate policies concerning tolerable diversity, immigration, discrimination, and political representation. Rather than assuming that each country has its own national ideology that explains such interactions, contributors trace diverse pathways along which institutions complicate or disrupt allegedly consistent national ideologies. These studies shed light on how Muslims encounter particular faces and facets of the state as they go about their lives, seeking help and legitimacy as new citizens of a fast-changing Europe.

This study demonstrates how the emergence of private property and a market economy after the Soviet Union's collapse enabled a degree of freedom while simultaneously supporting authoritarianism. Based on case studies, Vladimir Shlapentokh and Anna Arutunyan analyze how private property and free markets spawn feudal elements in society. These elements are so strong in post-Communist Russia that they prevent the formation of a true democratic society, while making it impossible to return to totalitarianism. The authors describe the resulting Russian society as having three types of social organization: authoritarian, feudal and liberal. The authors examine the adaptation of Soviet-era institutions like security forces, the police and the army to free market conditions and how they generated corruption; the belief that the KGB was relatively free from corruption; how large property holdings merge with power and necessitate repression; and how property relations affect government management and suppression.

El proposito de manual de entrenamiento para Guardias de Seguridad, tiene como meta principal preparar y ensenarles a estos servidores, cuales son sus deberes y responsabilidades. Con este entrenamiento, el Guardia de Seguridad se prepara para su proximo paso como Oficial de Seguridad. El Oficial de Seguridad, es aquel que se ha entrenado completamente en todas sus facetas en este campo de la seguridad. Un Oficial de Seguridad debe conocer cuando esta ante una emergencia real. Debe saber que hacer ante esa emergencia y cuando aplicar sus conocimientos para salvar vidas y/o proteger la propiedad. Debe tener los conocimientos, para poder llevar a cabo una buena investigacion relacionado con su area de trabajo. Con este entrenamiento, el Oficial de Seguridad se sentira mas confiado y les podra hacer la vida mas facil a otros, en especial a aquellas empresas para la cual trabajan Este manual de entrenamiento tambien ayuda, para que los encargados de la seguridad o sus gerentes de las empresas, tengan una idea mas clara al momento de confeccionar un " Plan de Contingencia " para su empresa. El " Plan de Contingencia," te ayuda a estar preparado para en caso de una emergencia real.

Astrid Bothmann examines historical, political and socioeconomic factors that explain the absence of transitional justice in Nicaragua from 1990 to 2012. The author provides the first systematic analysis of the reasons for the lack of transitional justice in Nicaragua after the end of the Sandinista regime and the civil war (1990). Contrary to other Latin American states of the third wave of democratization, which put the perpetrators of past crimes on trial, established truth commissions, purged political and military officials, and made reparations to the victims, Nicaragua's first post-war government opted for a policy of national reconciliation that was based on amnesty and oblivion. Subsequent governments followed this course so that the past has not been dealt with until today.

A groundbreaking and surprising look at contemporary censorship in China As authoritarian governments around the world develop sophisticated technologies for controlling information, many observers have predicted that these controls would be ineffective because they are easily thwarted and evaded by savvy Internet users. In Censored, Margaret Roberts demonstrates that even censorship that is easy to circumvent can still be enormously effective. Taking advantage of digital data harvested from the Chinese Internet and leaks from China's Propaganda Department, this important book sheds light on how and when censorship influences the Chinese public. Roberts finds that much of censorship in China works not by making information impossible to access but by requiring those seeking information to spend extra time and money for access. By inconveniencing users, censorship diverts the attention of citizens and powerfully shapes the spread of information. When Internet users notice blatant censorship, they are willing to compensate for better access. But subtler censorship, such as burying search results or introducing distracting information on the web, is more effective because users are less aware of it. Roberts challenges the conventional wisdom that online censorship is undermined when it is incomplete and shows instead how censorship's porous nature is used strategically to divide the public. Drawing parallels between censorship in China and the way information is manipulated in the United States and other democracies, Roberts reveals how Internet users are susceptible to control even in the most open societies. Demonstrating how censorship travels across countries and technologies, Censored gives an unprecedented view of how governments encroach on the media consumption of citizens.