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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > General
Civil-Military Relations in Southeast Asia reviews the historical origins, contemporary patterns, and emerging changes in civil-military relations in Southeast Asia from colonial times until today. It analyzes what types of military organizations emerged in the late colonial period and the impact of colonial legacies and the Japanese occupation in World War II on the formation of national armies and their role in processes of achieving independence. It analyzes the long term trajectories and recent changes of professional, revolutionary, praetorian and neo-patrimonial civil-military relations in the region. Finally, it analyzes military roles in state- and nation-building; political domination; revolutions and regime transitions; and military entrepreneurship.
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 easily 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, Roberts sheds light on how censorship influences the Chinese public. Drawing parallels between censorship in China and the way information is manipulated in the United States and other democracies, she reveals how internet users are susceptible to control even in the most open societies. Censored gives an unprecedented view of how governments encroach on the media consumption of citizens.
The demise of apartheid was one of the great achievements of postwar history, sought after and celebrated by a progressive global community. Looking at these events from the other side, An African Volk explores how the apartheid state strove to maintain power as the world of white empire gave way to a post-colonial environment that repudiated racial hierarchy. Drawing upon archival research across Southern Africa and beyond, as well as interviews with leaders of the apartheid order, Jamie Miller shows how the white power structure attempted to turn the new political climate to its advantage. Instead of simply resisting decolonization and African nationalism in the name of white supremacy, the regime looked to co-opt and invert the norms of the new global era to promote a fresh ideological basis for its rule. It adapted discourses of nativist identity, African anti-colonialism, economic development, anti-communism, and state sovereignty to rearticulate what it meant to be African. An African Volk details both the global and local repercussions. At the dawn of the 1970s, the apartheid state reached out eagerly to independent Africa in an effort to reject the mantle of colonialism and redefine the white polity as a full part of the post-colonial world. This outreach both reflected and fuelled heated debates within white society, exposing a deeply divided polity in the midst of profound economic, cultural, and social change. Situated at the nexus of African, decolonization, and Cold War history, An African Volk takes readers into the corridors of white power to detail the apartheid regime's campaign to break out of isolation and secure global acceptance.
What is freedom? In this study, Thomas Dumm challenges the conventions that have governed discussions and debates concerning modern freedom by bringing the work of Michel Foucault into dialogue with contemporary liberal thought. While Foucault has been widely understood to have characterized the modern era as being opposed to the realization of freedom, Dumm shows how this characterization conflates FoucaultOs genealogy of discipline with his overall view of the practices of being free. Dumm demonstrates how FoucaultOs critical genealogy does not shrink from understanding the ways in which modern subjects are constrained and shaped by forces greater than themselves, but how it instead works through these constraints to provide, not simply a vision of liberation, but a joyous wisdom concerned with showing us, in his words, that we Oare much freer than we feel.O Both as an introduction to Foucault and as an intervention in liberal theory, Michel Foucault and the Politics of Freedom is bound to change how we think about the limits and possibilities of freedom in late modernity.
Gene Grossman and Elhanan Helpman are widely acclaimed for their pioneering theoretical studies of how special interest groups seek to influence the policymaking process in democratic societies. This collection of eight of their previously published articles is a companion to their recent monograph, "Special Interest Politics." It clarifies the origins of some of the key ideas in their monograph and shows how their methods can be used to illuminate policymaking in a critical area. Following an original introduction to the contents of the book and its relationship to "Special Interest Politics," the first three chapters focus on campaign contributions and candidate endorsements--two of the tools that interest groups use in their efforts to influence policy outcomes. The remaining chapters present applications to trade policy issues. Grossman and Helpman demonstrate how the approaches developed in their monograph can shed light on tariff formation in small and large countries, on the conduct of multilateral trade negotiations, and on the viability of bilateral free trade agreements. They also examine the forms that regional and multilateral trade agreements are likely to take and the ways in which firms invest abroad to circumvent trade barriers induced by political pressures. The articles collected in this volume are required reading for anyone interested in international relations, trade policy, or political economy. They show why Grossman and Helpman are global leaders in the fields of international economics and political economy.
As Junk Bond felon Michael Milken attempts to transform public education on the model of the HMO, he is hailed in the mainstream press as having "done more to help mankind than Mother Theresa." Even as BP Amoco, a notorious U.S. polluter, is charged with funding and arming paramilitaries in Colombia, it freely distributes science curricula that portrays itself as a loving protector of citizens from a dangerous and 'out of control' nature. These as well as many other examples abound as Professors Robin Truth Goodman and Kenneth J. Saltman take on the corporate educators, media monopolies, and oil companies in their new book Strange Love: How We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Market. Saltman and Goodman show how corporate-produced curricula, films, and corporate-promoted books often use depictions of family love, childhood innocence, and compassion in order to sell the public on policies that ironically put the profit of multinational corporations over the well-being of people. In doing so Goodman and Saltman reveal the extent to which globalization depends upon education and also show how battles over culture, language, and the control of information are matters of life, death, and democracy.
New Critical Theory surveys contemporary leftist thought while introducing the tenets of this new form of critical theory. Beginning with an exploration of the relationship between Marxism, Habermas, and the politics of identity, William S. Wilkerson and Jeffrey R. Paris present a collection that critiques the globalization of capital. The development of personality appears as subject to socialized standards in an age of global capitalism. Only after scrutinizing the effects of such a system can liberation be found. The essays within join Critical Theory with postmodern insights on language and subjectivity to provide a more comprehensive view of emancipatory social theory. Through this and other refelctions on critical race, gender, and queer theories, Wilkerson and Paris emerge with an encompassing volume defining New Critical Theory.
This volume examines the impact of women's movements on the policy making processes determining abortion laws. It comprises the results of a cross-national research project on abortion politics in 11 democratic states between the 1960s and 2000. The authors have developed a comprehensive research design to examine whether or not women's policy agencies (institutional machineries intended to improve the status of women) have functioned as necessary and effective allies of women's movements in their efforts to gain access to power arenas and secure abortion laws that coincide with feminist goals The impact of women's movements is assessed in terms of their success in increasing the democratic representation of women generally and movement organizations specifically. The findings constitute a rigorous application of comparative methodology to assess explanations from social movement and democratic theory pertaining to variations in state feminism and movement success The book aims to show the extent to which states, through establishment of women's policy agencies, have assisted, opposed, or ignored the demands of movement activists for access to power and for feminist abortion poli
This volume examines the impact of women's movements on the policy making processes determining abortion laws. It comprises the results of a cross-national research project on abortion politics in 11 democratic states between the 1960s and 2000. The authors have developed a comprehensive research design to examine whether or not women's policy agencies (institutional machineries intended to improve the status of women) have functioned as necessary and effective allies of women's movements in their efforts to gain access to power arenas and secure abortion laws that coincide with feminist goals The impact of women's movements is assessed in terms of their success in increasing the democratic representation of women generally and movement organizations specifically. The findings constitute a rigorous application of comparative methodology to assess explanations from social movement and democratic theory pertaining to variations in state feminism and movement success The book aims to show the extent to which states, through establishment of women's policy agencies, have assisted, opposed, or ignored the demands of movement activists for access to power and for feminist abortion poli
What is the role of religion in creating the rules of society? What should religion's role be? Religion in industrialized countries often appears as a private, personal matter while issues of social justice are worked out in a secular public sphere. But increasingly both policymakers and religious leaders are becoming aware of the role religious values play at the local, national and international levels. Religion and Social Policy explores how religious concerns influence those who shape and those who are shaped by policies. It queries the social teachings of global denominations and local congregations, as well as the implicit religious stances taken by national governments and international NGOs. Broad issues such as religious tolerance, globalization, multiculturalism, gender roles and economic inequality are carefully grounded with practical examples. For students of religion, sociology, politics or public policy, Religion and Social Policy offers an excellent overview of how the sacred and the secular mix in both the theory and practice of creating a just society. Visit the editor's web page
In many countries, society seems to be going off the rails. Economies are mired in widening and deepening inequality while the polity has deteriorated into a state of permanent hyper-partisan confrontation. Compromise and pragmatism seem a thing of the past. The central value of fairness has been cast aside. An individual's freedom and prosperity increasingly appear to depend not on personal and social commitments to the fundamental institutions of market economy and political democracy, but rather on whether his or her side dominates in the struggle for power. Leading political economist Lloyd J. Dumas presents a pragmatic alternative view of a society that is capable of maximizing individual freedoms and producing sustained prosperity while preserving socially responsible behavior. In six interconnected essays, he investigates how to secure political freedom and sustainable democracy while avoiding the deliberate manipulation that produces less-than-democratic results; how to achieve equity and material abundance within the market system while avoiding the disadvantages of excessive income and wealth inequality; how to foster individual attitudes that promote progress rather than destroy the idea of individual dignity; how to shape the international organizations and institutions that will construct a solid and truly global social foundation; and how to sustain these foundations through democratic transitions. No blue sky utopian vision of idealists living in a perfect society, this book draws upon real examples from around the globe in order to outline an achievable future where ordinary, fallible human beings can overcome the most troubling limitations of democratic institutions and free market economics in order to harness their power to bring prosperity and maximize personal freedom. With chapters that collectively build a pragmatic conceptual foundation for envisioning an optimally ethical international politico-economic system, Building the Good Society is a must-read for political economists and policymakers interested in realistic, theoretically rigorous recommendations for social development. Because its chapters are digestible as standalone essays, this book is also of interest to anyone concerned with the most pressing political, economic, and social issues of the past ten years.
How are group-based identities related to intergroup conflict? When and how do ethnic, religious, and national identities lead to oppression, violence, rebellion, war, mass-murder, and genocide? How do intergroup conflicts change people's identities? How might social identity be harnessed in the service of reducing conflict between groups? The chapters in this book present a sophisticated and detailed interdisciplinary analysis of the most topical and fundamental issues involved in understanding identity and conflict.
The line dividing public life and private behavior in American politics is more blurred than ever. When it comes to questions about sex, substance abuse and family life, anything goes on the political desk in many newsrooms, including uncorroborated hearsay disguised as news. But some stories still never make it into print or on the air. What are the rules for politicians and journalists in the aftermath of WashingtonOs biggest sex scandal? Peepshow looks behind the scenes at news coverage of political scandals, analyzing what gets reported, what doesnOt, and why. The authors talk with top news editors to get a fix on what will make the evening news and what weOre likely to read about in the next campaign season. The costs of todayOs politics-by-scandal are mounting, with disaffected voters, discouraged candidates, and a news corps distracted from policy issues and substantive debate. But the forces driving Oattack journalismO have as much to do with voters and candidates as they do with what the press is organized to report. Peepshow offers an alternative view of the prurient side of election coverage, helping newsroom decision-makers and campaign managers see through the inevitable scandals of election year 2000 and gain insight into presenting a politics of public trust. CASE STUDIES include: _ South Carolina Governor David BeasleyOs denial of an unsubstantiated extramarital affair; _ Georgia gubernatorial candidate Mike Bowers' admitted affair with his secretary; _ Reporting on rumors sparked by Texas Governor George W. BushOs admission that he was once Oyoung and irresponsible;O _ Congressional affairs involving Representatives Barr, Burton, Chenoweth, Hyde and Livingston; _ The divorces of Bob Dole and John McCain; _ The outing of Arizona Rep. Jim KolbeOs and the sexuality of other members of Congress and candidates; _ Mississippi Governor Kirk FordiceOs off-again, on-again divorce; _ Coverage of Colorado Governor Roy RomerOs OaffectionateO relationship with a top aide and adviser. _ Speaker Newt GingrichOs relationship with a Hill committee aide; _ Coverage of once and possible first ladies and the children of political figures, including Chelsea Clinton and Sarah Gore; _ Reporting on unfounded rumors about Representative Bill PaxonOs retirement.
Environmental policy is broadly viewed as an oasis of democracy, unspoiled by crass capitalism and undominated by corporate interests. This book counters that view. The focus of Corporate Power and the Environment focuses on how U.S. economic elites corporate decisionmakers and other individuals of substantial wealth shape the content and implementation of U.S. environmental policy to their economic and political benefit. The author uses the management of the national forests and national parks, as well as wilderness preservation policies and federal clean air policies, as case studies to show corporate power in action in even the "purest" of policy arenas."
This debut autobiographical novel by a compassionate and deeply perceptive writer is raw, funny and moving. It is the story of Colleen, the little girl who has to wear boots to support her weak ankles, seen through her eyes and told in her own words. She is the third-born child of parents who share a chaotic and co-dependent relationship. Accompanied by her siblings, this is the child's journey, set against the background of Cape Town with all its mystery and beauty. The period is the 1940s, a time of innocence, social graces, the Queen's visit, and sports heroes like Vic Toweel and Bobby Locke. It is a time of religious fervour, baptisms, conversions and Sunday School picnics. Apartheid is seen through the eyes of innocent children, bemused and confused by the flawed and unjust system. The pages are crowded by a host of odd characters, lovable, eccentric, alcoholic and troubled. There's Aunty Bubble who teaches the children to jitterbug and Uncle Nicholas who speaks the Queen's English and plays a trumpet in the Royal Navy band. There is Smuts the Xhosa watchman who befriends the children and shares his brazier with them at night, and Edna the maid who tries to keep them neat and clean and fills their stomachs with angels' food. There's Aunty Beryl who carries a Chihuahua around in her handbag, and the midwife, and the home-undertaker named Two-Coffee-One-Milk. The book has universal appeal. There is a human thread recognisable to anyone who has ever been in a co-dependent relationship, or been abused, or grown up poor, or had an alcoholic father ... The text is rich in imagery and vivid detail. Sharp, insightful, nostalgic and magical, both harrowing and joyful, rich in unintentional humour, it will resonate with many. It has the charm of Angela's Ashes. You will laugh with this child, you will cry with her and you will take every breath with her. It is the author's hope that her story might help others dilute the poison of their pain. The sequel will be available in the near future.
This work charts the dramatic changes in crime control and criminal justice that have occurred in Britain and America over the last 25 years. It then explains these transformations by showing how the social organization of late modern society has prompted a series of political and cultural adaptations that alter how governments and citizens think and act in relation to crime. The book presents an in-depth analysis of contemporary crime control, revealing its underlying logics and rationalities, and identifying the social relations and cultural sensibilities that have produced this new culture of control. In developing a "history of the present" in the field of crime control, David Garland presents an intertwined history of the welfare state and the criminal justice state, a theory of social and penal change, and an account of how social order is constructed in late modern societies. Drawing on research in the UK and the USA, he shows in detail how the social, economic and cultural forces of the late 20th century have reshaped criminological thought, public policy, and the cultural meaning of crime and criminals. "The Culture of Control" explains how our responses to crime and our s
Even as economic and military walls have come down in the post-Cold War era, states have rapidly built new barriers to prevent a perceived invasion of 'undesirables.' Nowhere is this more dramatically evident than along the geographic fault lines dividing rich from poor countries: especially the southern border of the United States, and the southern and eastern borders of the European Union. This volume examines the practice, politics, and consequences of building these new walls in North America and Europe. At the same time, it challenges dominant accounts of globalization, in which state borders will be irrelevant to the human experience. In short, the volume brings borders back in to the study of international politics.
Founded in the forested mountains of ChinaOs remote Jiangxi Province in 1958, the Communist Labor University, along with some 100 branch campuses, introduced uneducated farmers and peasants to basic agricultural science and farming techniques through an innovative work-study program until 1980. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials, John Cleverley here explores the inner workings of this unique Chinese institution and the direct personal involvement in its affairs by the nationOs key communist leaders, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Deng Xiaoping. The community would survive the dictates of political agriculture, famine and pestilence, and the Cultural Revolution, thus mirroring higher education's own cycle of expansion, contraction, and division. Yet the university could not avoid the bitter factional politics and deadly power plays of the 1970s. Open to the charge that it was a utopian experiment, another of Mao's great follies, its undoing was part of the larger canvas of ChinaOs shift from a Maoist vision to DengOs philosophy of pragmatic socialism. This fascinating story illuminates the internal and external politics of an innovative educational enterprise from both an institutional and personal perspective. In the process, the book underscores the larger issues of educational reform and political and social change in China.
God on High examines cannabis-based religious groups in Canada and the United States. These religious groups are on the rise as cannabis use is further decriminalized or legalized. In examining these groups, Laurie Cozad explores the triangular relationships between cannabis, religion, and the law, and the ways in which the shifting discourse of medical science impacts this trio.
Today few political analysts use the term "propaganda." However, in the wake of World War I, fear of propaganda haunted the liberal conscience. Citizens and critics blamed the war on campaigns of mass manipulation engaged in by all belligerents. Beginning with these "propaganda anxieties," Brett Gary traces the history of American fears of and attempts to combat propaganda through World War II and up to the Cold War. "The Nervous Liberals" explores how following World War I the social sciences -- especially political science and the new field of mass communications -- identified propaganda as the object of urgent "scientific" study. From there his narrative moves to the eve of WWII as mainstream journalists, clerics, and activists demanded greater government action against fascist propaganda, in response to which Congress and the Justice Department sought to create a prophylaxis against foreign or antidemocratic communications. Finally, Gary explores how free speech liberalism was further challenged by the national security culture, whose mobilization before World War II to fight the propaganda threat lead to much of the Cold War anxiety about propaganda. Gary's account sheds considerable light not only on the history of propaganda, but also on the central dilemmas of liberalism in the first half of the century -- the delicate balance between protecting national security and protecting civil liberties, including freedom of speech; the tension between public-centered versus expert-centered theories of democracy; and the conflict between social reform and public opinion control as the legitimate aim of social knowledge.
Kashmir is one of the most protracted and bloody occupations in the world-and one of the most ignored. Under an Indian military rule that, at half a million strong, exceeds the total number of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, freedom of speech is non-existent, and human- rights abuses and atrocities are routinely visited on its Muslim-majority population. In the last two decades alone, over seventy thousand people have died. Ignored by its own corrupt politicians, abandoned by Pakistan and the West, which refuses to bring pressure to bear on its regional ally, India, the Kashmiri people's ongoing quest for justice and self- determination continues to be brutally suppressed. Exploring the causes and consequences of the occupation, Kashmir: The Case for Freedom is a passionate call for the end of occupation, and for the right of self- determination for the Kashmiri people.
The debates between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina gave fateful utterance to the differing understandings of the nature of the American Union that had come to predominate in the North and the South, respectively, by 1830. To Webster the Union was the indivisible expression of one nation of people. To Hayne the Union was the voluntary compact among sovereign states. Each man spoke more or less for his section, and their classic expositions of their respective views framed the political conflicts that culminated at last in the secession of the Southern states and war between advocates of Union and champions of Confederacy. "The Webster-Hayne Debate" consists of speeches delivered in the United States Senate in January of 1830. By no means were Webster and Hayne the only Senators who engaged in debate "on the nature of the Union." Well over a score of the Senate's members spoke in response in sixty-five speeches all told, and these Senators did not merely echo either of the principals. The key speakers and viewpoints are included in "The Webster-Hayne Debate." The volume opens with Hayne's speech, which, as Herman Belz observes, turned debates on "the public lands" into "a clash between state sovereignty and national sovereignty, expounded as rival and irreconcilable theories of constitutional construction and the nature of the federal Union." Webster responded, Hayne retorted, and Webster concluded with an appeal to "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable," in what later historians would deem to be "the most powerful and effective speech ever given in an American legislature." Other speeches in the volume are by Senators Thomas Hart Benton, John Rowan, William Smith, John M. Clayton, and Edward Livingston. Together, these speeches represent every major perspective on "the nature of the Union" in the early nineteenth century.Herman Belz is Professor of History at the University of Maryland, and the author most recently of "A Living Constitution or Fundamental Law?: American Constitutionalism in Historical Perspective and Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, " and "Equal Rights During the Civil War Era."
The Coming Collapse of the American Republic draws together extensively-researched details about four threats which are combining to destroy the future for our grandchildren: 1. The incomprehensible debt and unfunded financial liabilities of all levels of government; 2. The threat of uncontrolled, illegal immigration to our economy and culture; 3. The asymmetric war imposed on us by Islamic Jihadists; and, 4. The rise of China as a competitive military and economic power determined to dominate Asia. Taken together, these desperate trends put the survival of America as a united, free and prosperous country in great jeopardy. This short volume lays out the reinforcing nature of these converging disasters, details the existential threat they pose to American liberty, society and culture, and tells us not only how we got in this trap, but what the horror of a collapse will look like. And it offers a long, difficult and rocky path to preserve the country we have known and loved for future generations.
"NEW YORK TIMES "BESTSELLER |
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