William J. Bennett, former director of the National Drug Control policy under President George H.W. Bush and bestselling author of The Book of Virtues, and co-author Robert White provide strong societal and scientific arguments against the legalization of marijuana. Marijuana, once considered worthy of condemnation, has in recent years become a "medicine," legalized fully in four states, with others expected to follow. But the dangers are clear. According to Bennett's research, more Americans are admitted to treatment facilities for marijuana use than for any other illegal drug. Studies have shown a link between marijuana use and abnormal brain structure and development. From William Bennett comes a call-to-action for the 46 states that know better than to support full legalization, and a voice of reason for millions who have jumped on the legalization bandwagon because they haven't had access to the facts.

What makes bureaucracy work for the least advantaged? Across the world, countries have adopted policies for universal primary education. Yet, policy implementation is uneven and not well understood. Making Bureaucracy Work investigates when and how public agencies deliver primary education across rural India. Through a multi-level comparative analysis and more than two years of ethnographic field research, Mangla opens the 'black box' of Indian bureaucracy to demonstrate how differences in bureaucratic norms - informal rules that guide public officials and their everyday relations with citizens - generate divergent implementation patterns and outcomes. While some public agencies operate in a legalistic manner and promote compliance with policy rules, others engage in deliberation and encourage flexible problem-solving with local communities, thereby enhancing the quality of education services. This book reveals the complex ways bureaucratic norms interact with socioeconomic inequalities on the ground, illuminating the possibilities and obstacles for bureaucracy to promote inclusive development.

Ever wonder how politics turned into a take-no-prisoners blood sport? The New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled pulls back the curtain on the shady world of opposition research and reveals the dirty tricks those in power use to influence your opinions.

Behind most major political stories in the modern era, there is an agenda; an effort by opposition researchers, spin doctors, and outside interests to destroy an idea or a person. The tactic they use is the Smear. Every day, Americans are influenced by the Smear without knowing it. Paid forces cleverly shape virtually every image you cross. Maybe you read that Donald Trump is a racist misogynist, or saw someone on the news mocking the Bernie Sanders campaign. The trick of the Smear is that it is often based on some shred of truth, but these media-driven "hit pieces" are designed to obscure the truth. Success hinges on the Smear artist’s ability to remain invisible; to make it seem as if their work is neither calculated nor scripted. It must appear to be precisely what it is not.

Veteran journalist Sharyl Attkisson has witnessed this practice firsthand. After years of being pitched hit jobs and puff pieces, she’s an expert at detecting Smear campaigns. Now, the hard-hitting investigative reporter shares her inside knowledge, revealing how the Smear takes shape and who its perpetrators are—including Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal and, most influential of all, "right-wing assassin turned left-wing assassin" (National Review) political operative David Brock and his Media Matters for America empire.

Attkisson exposes the diabolical tactics of Smear artists, and their outrageous access to the biggest names in political media—operatives who are corrupting the political process, and discouraging widespread citizen involvement in our democracy.

'One of the most electrifying writers at work in America today, among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation' OLIVIA LAING What can freedom really mean? In this invigorating, essential book, Maggie Nelson explores how we might think, experience or talk about the concept in ways that are responsive to our divided world. Drawing on pop culture, theory and the intimacies and plain exchanges of daily life, she follows freedom - with all its complexities - through four realms: art, sex, drugs and climate. On Freedom offers a bold new perspective on the challenging times in which we live. 'Tremendously energising' Guardian 'This provocative meditation...shows Nelson at her most original and brilliant' New York Times 'Nelson is such a friend to her reader, such brilliant company... Exhilarating' Literary Review * A New York Times Notable Book * * A Guardian and TLS 'Books of 2021' Pick *

This book reflects on major themes present at the interface between religion and human security in Africa. It probes the extent to which religion is both a threat to and a resource for human security in Africa by examining specific issues occurring across the continent. A team of contributors from across Africa provide valuable reflections on the conceptualisation and applicability of the concept of human security in the context of religion in Africa. Chapters highlight how themes such as knowledge systems, youth, education, race, development, sacred texts, the media, sexual diversity, health and others have implications for individual and group security. In order to bring these themes into perspective, chapters in the first section reflect on the conceptual, historical and contextual factors at play. The chapters that follow demonstrate the theories put forward by means of case studies from countries such as Zimbabwe, Kenya, Botswana and Ghana that look at African religion, Islam and Christianity. This is a detailed and informative volume that provides new insights into the discourse on religion and human security. As such, it will be of significant use to any scholar of Religion and Violence, Religion in Africa and Religious Studies, as well as African and Security Studies more generally.

Accounts of Black Consciousness have tended to place the discourse in a continuum of resistance to white minority rule and to assess its significance in bringing about the downfall of apartheid. While these are valid historical narratives, they have occluded some of the wider resonances and significance of both the movement and the body of ideas. This book takes its cue from Steve Biko’s own injunction to see the evolution of Black Consciousness alongside other political doctrines and movements of resistance in South Africa. It identifies progressive thought and movements, such as radical Christianity and ecumenism, student radicalism, feminism and trade unionism, as valuable interlocutors that nonetheless also competed for the mantle of liberation, espousing different visions of freedom. These progressive movements were open to what Ian Macqueen characterises as the `shockwaves’ that Black Consciousness created. It is only with such a focus that we can fully appreciate the significance of Black Consciousness, both as a movement and as an ideology emanating from South Africa in the late 1960s and 1970s. Black Consciousness and Progressive Movements under Apartheid thus presents an intellectual history of Black Consciousness in South Africa in the comparative perspective that Biko originally called for.

Defining an institution as a public system of rules that sets out positions, rights and duties, this book uses a philosophical argument to analyse the roles that social, economic and political institutions play in conditioning the justification, scope and content of principles of justice. It critically evaluates a number of positions about the role of institutions in generating requirements of distributive justice and considers their implications for the scope - global or otherwise - of justice. It then develops a novel theory about the role political and economic institutions play in determining the content of requirements of distributive justice and, in a cosmopolitan argument against statist positions, shows how they can affect the scope of application of these requirements.

The intention of this book is to provide a better understanding of the mission of public interest lawyers and stimulate thought about ways to energize and build a movement that advances social justice. I could not have succeeded in this effort without the help and support of many individuals and institutions. I wish to express my appreciation for their assistance. I am very grateful to the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Justice for its wisdom in establishing the Alliance and for its continuing support for this book and other important projects. I profited from discussion with many public interest lawyers, activists and foundation officers. These individuals, who are listed in Appendix D, gave generously of their time. A few merit special attention. Charles Halpern and the staff at the Council for Public Interest Law, who wrote Balancing the Scales of Justice: Financing Public Interest Law in America, provided a wonderful model for me to follow.

The unofficial war on the US-Mexico border has turned the southern states into conflict zones, spawned a network of immigrant detention centers, and unleashed an army of ICE agents into every town and city in America. As award-winning journalist John Carlos Frey reveals in this groundbreaking book, this conflict has been escalating for decades. Politicians, defense contractors, and lobbyists laid the groundwork for it in the 1980s and 1990s. After 9/11, while Americans' attention was trained on the Middle East, a War on Terror was ramping up on our own soil. It has been propelled by defense contractors seeking profits in a new theater; congresspeople who rely on racist fear-mongering about immigrants to turn out voters; and governors along the southern border who use the threat of terrorism to increase their budgets. Tens of thousands have casualties of it: economic migrants, refugees, and families who are seeking jobs, opportunity, and freedom, or are fleeing various forms of violence; as well as undocumented people who have lived in the US for years and are now living in fear or are locked in shockingly abusive detention centers. Taking readers to the border patrol outposts, unmarked graves, detention centers, and city streets where these battles are being waged, Sand and Blood is a frightening, essential story about a war we ignore at our peril.

"Absorbing... Ambitious... Indispensable. A genuine gift to social movements everywhere." -Naomi Klein From protests around climate change and immigrant rights, to Occupy, the Arab Spring, and #BlackLivesMatter, a new generation is unleashing strategic nonviolent action to shape public debate and force political change. When mass movements erupt onto our television screens, the media consistently portrays them as being spontaneous and unpredictable. Yet, in this book, Mark and Paul Engler look at the hidden art behind such outbursts of protest, examining core principles that have been used to spark and guide moments of transformative unrest. With incisive insights from contemporary activists, as well as fresh revelations about the work of groundbreaking figures such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Gene Sharp, and Frances Fox Piven, the Englers show how people with few resources and little conventional influence are engineering the upheavals that are reshaping contemporary politics. Nonviolence is usually seen simply as a philosophy or moral code. This Is an Uprising shows how it can instead be deployed as a method of political conflict, disruption, and escalation. It argues that if we are always taken by surprise by dramatic outbreaks of revolt, we pass up the chance to truly understand how social transformation happens.

School of Thought - 101 Great Liberal Thinkers profiles the lives and ideas of some of the leading thinkers on individual liberty - from ancient times to the present day. Award-winning author Eamonn Butler outlines key elements of liberal thought and takes a chronological look at those who shaped it across the centuries. He identifies their common goals - but also highlights their differing views on, for example, the extent of government involvement in our daily lives. For anyone interested in politics, government, social institutions, capitalism, rights, liberty and morality, School of Thought - 101 Great Liberal Thinkers provides a clear and concise introduction to a set of radical ideas - and the thinkers behind them.

Take time to refresh before you report. Respected by some and feared by others, law enforcement officers face daily pressures and dangers uncommon to other professions. Behind the Badge provides daily, spiritual nourishment that will encourage you professionally and personally. Filled with personal stories, relevant Scriptures, and practical prayers, the short devotions focus on themes such as peace, integrity, strength, family, protection, divine direction, preparedness, service, and more. Also included are powerful blessings and declarations that will inspire and strengthen. God has ordained the path you walk today. Let Behind the Badge help equip your steps and be a constant reminder of the permanent backup you have in God as you uphold the law.

What you believe about politics matters. The decades since the Cold War, with new alignments of post-9/11 global politics and the chaos of the late 2010s, are swirling with alternative visions of political life, ranging from ethnic nationalism to individualistic liberalism. Political ideologies are not merely a matter of governmental efficacy, but are intrinsically and inescapably religious: each carries certain assumptions about the nature of reality, individuals and society, as well as a particular vision for the common good. These fundamental beliefs transcend the political sphere, and the astute Christian observer can discern the ways-sometimes subtle, sometimes not-in which ideologies are rooted in idolatrous worldviews. In this freshly updated, comprehensive study, political scientist David Koyzis surveys the key political ideologies of our era, including liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, democracy, and socialism. Koyzis gives each philosophy careful analysis and fair critique, unpacking the worldview issues inherent to each and pointing out essential strengths and weaknesses, as well as revealing the "narrative structure" of each-the stories they tell to make sense of public life and the direction of history. Koyzis concludes by proposing alternative models that flow out of Christianity's historic engagement with the public square, retrieving approaches for both individuals and the global, institutional church that hold promise for the complex political realities of the twenty-first century. Writing with broad international perspective and keen analytical insight, Koyzis is a sane and sensible guide for Christians working in the public square, culture watchers, political pundits, and all students of modern political thought.

From gang- and drug-related shootings to mass shootings in schools, shopping centers, and movie theatres, reports of gun crimes fill the headlines of newspapers and nightly news programs. At the same time, a different kind of headline has captured public attention: a steady surge in pro-gun sentiment among Americans. A Gallup poll conducted just a month after the Newtown school shootings found that 74% of Americans oppose a ban on hand-guns, and at least 11 million people now have licenses to carry concealed weapons as part of their everyday lives. Why do so many Americans not only own guns but also carry them? In Citizen-Protectors, Jennifer Carlson offers a compelling portrait of gun carriers, shedding light on Americans' complex relationship with guns. Delving headlong into the world of gun carriers, Carlson spent time participating in firearms training classes, attending pro-gun events, and carrying a firearm herself. Through these experiences she explores the role guns play in the lives of Americans who carry them and shows how, against a backdrop of economic insecurity and social instability, gun carrying becomes a means of being a good citizen, an idea that not only pervades the NRA's public literature and statements, but its training courses as well. A much-needed counterpoint to the rhetorical battles over gun control, Citizen-Protectors is a captivating and revealing look at gun culture in America, and is a must-read for anyone with a stake in this heated debate.

Killing African Americans examines the pervasive, disproportionate, and persistent police and vigilante killings of African Americans in the United States as a racial control mechanism that sustains the racial control system of systemic racism. Noel A. Cazenave's well-researched and conceptualized historical sociological study is one of the first books to focus exclusively on those killings and to treat them as political violence. Few issues have received as much conventional and social media attention in the United States over the past few years or have, for decades now, sparked so many protests and so often strained race relations to a near breaking point. Because of both its timely and its enduring relevance, Killing African Americans can reach a large audience composed not only of students and scholars, but also of Movement for Black Lives activists, politicians, public policy analysts, concerned police officers and other criminal justice professionals, and anyone else eager to better understand this American nightmare and its solutions from a progressive and informed African American perspective.

How differing forms of repression shape the outcomes of democratic transitions In the wake of the Arab Spring, newly empowered factions in Tunisia and Egypt vowed to work together to establish democracy. In Tunisia, political elites passed a new constitution, held parliamentary elections, and demonstrated the strength of their democracy with a peaceful transfer of power. Yet in Egypt, unity crumbled due to polarization among elites. Presenting a new theory of polarization under authoritarianism, After Repression reveals how polarization and the legacies of repression led to these substantially divergent political outcomes. Drawing on original interviews and a wealth of new historical data, Elizabeth Nugent documents polarization among the opposition in Tunisia and Egypt prior to the Arab Spring, tracing how different kinds of repression influenced the bonds between opposition groups. She demonstrates how widespread repression created shared political identities and decreased polarization-such as in Tunisia-while targeted repression like that carried out against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt led opposition groups to build distinct identities that increased polarization among them. This helps explain why elites in Tunisia were able to compromise, cooperate, and continue on the path to democratic consolidation while deeply polarized elites in Egypt contributed to the rapid reentrenchment of authoritarianism. Providing vital new insights into the ways repression shapes polarization, After Repression helps to explain what happened in the turbulent days following the Arab Spring and illuminates the obstacles to democratic transitions around the world.

With the Obama Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder's direction, Americans are learning what really happens when law-enforcement power is co-opted by politics.
In this eye-popping Broadside, Andrew C. McCarthy shows that the biggest beneficiaries have been jihadists. For the past eight years, a group of lawyers volunteered their services to America's enemies. Now, the Justice Department is rife with some of those same lawyers as it enhances due process for terrorists and feeds the international Left's call for war-crimes charges against President Obama's political adversaries. Just consider how the administration has disclosed national defense secrets during wartime or granted the 9/11 mass murderers a civilian trial. The department, moreover, is working to tighten the Democratic Party's grip on power, ignoring the Constitution and green-lighting election fraud and abuse.

Inform yourself! Inform on your neighbor! Follow Special Agent Christian White on a cheerfully creepy tour of declassified government surveillance documents. White probes the redacted (blacked-out) texts of the FBI's notorious Counterintelligence Programs, searching for the words erased in the name of the Freedom of Information Act. Learn fun techniques for the infiltration of activist groups, how to earn benefits and a pension as an agent provocateur, and how to, in the words of J. Edgar Hoover, "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize" your neighbors! These are our tax dollars at work, folks; we might as well enjoy it. This script has been performed by writer/activist L.M. Bogad in theatres, galleries, labor halls, and community centers for the past twelve years. The pamphlet also includes a preface by Guillermo Gomez-Pena, and a companion essay by Bogad about the history of domestic surveillance/harassment, and a "how to" for would-be performers of the script.

With the thoroughness that this recently spotlighted nation of Kuwait requires, this volume examines Kuwait's internal and external security situation after the turbulent days of the Gulf War and investigates continued Western involvement in its safekeeping. It also examines Kuwait's changing role as an energy exporter.

What should be done after the end of a repressive regime or a civil war? How can bitter divisions be resolved in a way that combines reconciliation with accountability? In this book, Michael Newman accessibly introduces these debates, outlining the key ideas and giving an overview of the vast literature by reference to case studies in such places as South Africa, Cambodia and Sierra Leone. While recognising that every situation is different, he argues that is vital to contend fully with the past and address the fundamental causes of mass human rights abuses. A readable overview for those coming to the subject of transitional justice for the first time, and food for thought for those already familiar with it, this book is invaluable in areas ranging from politics and international relations to peace and conflict studies, law, human rights and philosophy.

Anglo-Indians are a mixed-race, Christian and Anglophone minority community which arose in South Asia during the long period of European colonialism. An often neglected part of the British Raj, their presence complicates the traditional binary through which British imperialism is viewed - of ruler and ruled, coloniser and colonised. The book analyses the processes of ethnic group formation and political organisation, beginning with petitions to the East India Company state, through the Raj's constitutional communalism, to constitution-making for the new India. It details how Anglo-Indians sought to preserve protected areas of state and railway employment amidst the growing demands of Indian nationalism. Anglo-Indians both suffered and benefitted from colonial British prejudices, being expected to loyally serve the colonial state as a result of their ties of kinship and culture to the colonial power, whilst being the victims of racial and social discrimination. This mixed experience was embodied in their intermediate position in the Raj's evolving socio-racial employment hierarchy. The question of why and how a numerically small group, who were privileged relative to the great majority of people in South Asia, were granted nominated representatives and reserved employment in the new Indian Constitution, amidst a general curtailment of minority group rights, is tackled directly. Based on a wide range of source materials from Indian and British archives, including the Anglo-Indian Review and the debates of the Constituent Assembly of India, the book illuminatingly foregrounds the issues facing the smaller minorities during the drawn out process of decolonisation in South Asia. It will be of interest to students and researchers of South Asia, Imperial and Global History, Politics, and Mixed Race Studies.

An engaging and reflective look at how austerity and the billionaire class paved the way for Trump's presidency, the rise of the "alt-right," and the caging of migrants children and adults in detention centers across the country. For all of the energy that the far right has demonstrated-and for all of the support that they receive from institutional conservatives in the GOP and affiliated organizations-the United States is experiencing an upsurge in left-wing social movements unlike any other in the past half-century, with roots not in the Democratic Party but Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. Drawing on his original reporting as well as archival research, O'Connor investigates how the capitalist class and the radical right mobilize racism to defend their interests, while focusing on one of the most pressing issues of our time: immigration.

When Waseem Mahmood's brother broke a confidence and filed a story in the world's highest circulating tabloid, the News of the World, Mahmood feared he'd never work in broadcast media again. History intervened with the events of 9/11, the attack on Afghanistan, and the Taliban's fall. Headed by Mahmood, a group of journalists responded by producing a Kabul-based radio program to disseminate much-needed and, for the first time, uncensored information. What they end up providing is hope for a devastated land and a voice for a people long smothered by oppression. Told with searing honesty, this is a story of struggle, cruelty, and courage populated by ordinary people who risk their lives for freedom.

Although sexual minorities in Africa continue to face harsh penalties for same-sex relationships, strong anti-homophobic resistance exists across the continent. This book systematically charts the emergence and effects of politicized homophobia in Malawi and shows how it has been used as a strategy by political elites to consolidate their moral and political authority, through punishing LGBT people and dividing social movements. Here, Ashley Currier pays particular attention to the impact of politicized homophobia on different social movements, specifically HIV/AIDS, human rights, LGBT rights, and women's rights movements. Her timely account intervenes in Afro-pessimist portrayals of the African continent as a hotbed of homophobia and unravels the tensions and contradictions underlying Western perceptions of Malawi. It shows that, in reality, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people happily call Malawi home, in spite of heightened antigay vitriol that has generated unwanted visibility for them.