Three-quarters of Americans believe that a group of unelected government and military officials secretly manipulate or direct policy in the United States, and President Trump blames the "deep state" for his impeachment. David Rohde explores the "deep state" and asks whether it really exists. To conservatives, the "deep state" is a government bureaucracy that encroaches on the rights of Americans. Liberals fear a cabal of generals and defence contractors who they believe push the country into wars. Modern American presidents have engaged in power struggles with Congress, the CIA and the FBI. CIA and FBI directors suspect White House aides and members of Congress of leaking secrets. Citizens increasingly distrust the politicians, unelected officials and journalists who they believe set the country's political agenda. Now, in this time of heightened uncertainty, American democracy faces its biggest crisis of legitimacy in a half century. In Deep examines the CIA and FBI scandals of the past fifty years. It then investigates the claims and counterclaims of the Trump era. While Donald Trump says he is the victim of the "deep state", Democrats accuse the president and his allies of running a de facto "deep state" of their own. Now more urgently than ever, the debate over the "deep state" raises questions about the future of American democracy.

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.

This book revolves around three closely related questions. First, how did George W. Bush--a wisecracking cutup, mediocre student, failed oil patch entrepreneur and fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard's "Champagne Unit"--become a War President? Did George W. Bush go too far--invading Iraq, abandoning the Geneva Conventions' safeguards for captured prisoners and conducting surveillance over American citizens without court approval--in wielding his powers as War President? And finally, will George W. Bush receive history's accolade as a great American president for his leadership in the war on terror?

Assessing the legal and practical questions posed by the use of artificial intelligence in national security matters.The increasing use of artificial intelligence poses challenges and opportunities for nearly all aspects of society, including the military and other elements of the national security establishment. This book addresses how national security law can and should be applied to artificial intelligence, which enables a wide range of decisions and actions not contemplated by current law. James Baker, an expert in national security law and process, adopts a realistic approach in assessing how the law-even when not directly addressing artificial intelligence-can be used, or even misused, to regulate this new technology. His new book covers, among other topics, national security process, constitutional law, the law of armed conflict, arms control, and academic and corporate ethics. With his own background as a judge, he examines potential points of contention and litigation in an area where the law is still evolving and might not yet provide clear and certain answers. The Centaur's Dilemma also analyzes potential risks associated with the use of artificial intelligence in the realm of national security-including the challenges of machine-human interface, operating (or not operating) the national-security decision-making process at machine speed, and the perils of a technology arms race. Written in plain English, The Centaur's Dilemma will help guide policymakers, lawyers, and technology experts as they deal with the many legal questions that will arise when using artificial intelligence to plan and carry out the actions required for the nation's defense.

War causes death, disability, and disease. It damages the health-supporting infrastructure, displaces populations, violates human rights, and diverts resources. And it subsequently leads to more violence. From Horror to Hope documents the health consequences of war, primarily for noncombatant civilians but also for military personnel and veterans, and outlines what can be done to minimize these consequences. Written by a public health physician engaged with this subject for decades, the book also describes positive developments in addressing the health impacts of war, including new initiatives to protect civilians during war, reduce gender-based violence and mental trauma, and control the international arms trade and nuclear weapons. In addition, From Horror to Hope profiles inspiring health professionals who are providing healthcare for war-affected populations and participating in education, research, and advocacy to reduce the health impacts of war. Finally, the book demonstrates how traditional public health frameworks and new paradigms can be applied to the prevention of war and the promotion of peace. Given the current peak in armed conflicts and the increasing threat of future wars, From Horror to Hope provides an extremely timely overview for anyone seeking to better understand and address the health consequences of war.

Why do people living in different areas vote in different ways? Why does this change over time? How do people talk about politics with friends and neighbours, and with what effect? Does the geography of well-being influence the geography of party support? Do parties try to talk to all voters at election time, or are they interested only in the views of a small number of voters living in a small number of seats? Is electoral participation in decline, and how does the geography of the vote affect this? How can a party win a majority of seats in Parliament without a majority of votes in the country? Putting Voters in their Place explores these questions by placing the analysis of electoral behaviour into its geographical context. Using information from the latest elections, including the 2005 General Election, the book shows how both voters and parties are affected by, and seek to influence, both national and local forces. Trends are set in the context of the latest research and scholarship on electoral behaviour. The book also reports on new research findings.

"A sobering and essential book that Americans should read, share, and discuss."
--JOHN STAUBER, coauthor of "Weapons of Mass Deception"

You've heard it all before, and you will no doubt hear it again. "Our leaders will do everything they can to avoid war." "They attacked us." "Our enemy is a modern-day Hitler." "This is all about human rights." And, at some point after these and other pronouncements had echoed through the media for weeks or months, American troops marched into Vietnam, Panama, or Iraq.

In "War Made Easy," Norman Solomon cuts through the dense web of spin to probe and scrutinize the key "perception management" techniques that have played huge roles in the promotion of American wars in recent decades. In addition to documenting a long series of deliberate misdeeds at the highest levels of power, it lays out important guidelines to help us distinguish elements in a propaganda campaign from actual news reporting. By following these simple suggestions, every citizen can become a savvy media critic and, perhaps, help the nation avoid the next costly and unnecessary war.

"An engaging book that helps explain how the myth-making machine works."
--"The Texas Observer"

"If you want to help prevent another war (Iran? Syria?), read War Made Easy now. This is a stop-the-presses book filled with mind-blowing facts about Washington's warmongers who keep the Pentagon budget rising."
--JIM HIGHTOWER, author of "Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush"

"A definitive historical text . . . an indispensable record of the real relationships among government authorities and media outlets."
--"The Humanist"

"Our media has a history of enabling Washington'sforeign misadventures. Perhaps if enough people read--and act on--this book, it won't be so easy next time."
--MARK HERTSGAARD, author of "On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency"

Does America, as George W. Bush has proclaimed, have a special mission, derived from God, to bring liberty and democracy to the world? How much influence does the Christian right have over U.S. foreign policy? And how should America deal with violent Islamist extremists?

Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state and bestselling author of Madam Secretary, offers a thoughtful and often surprising look at the role of religion in shaping America's approach to the world. Drawing upon her experiences while in office and her own deepest beliefs about morality, the United States, and the present state of world affairs, a woman noted for plain speaking offers her thoughts about the most controversial topics of our time.

In The Mighty and the Almighty, Madeleine Albright examines the profound impact of religion on America's view of itself, the effect on U.S. policy of the rise of the Christian right, the Bush administration's successes and failures in responding to 9/11, the challenges posed by the war in Iraq, and the importance of understanding Islam. She offers a balanced but, when necessary, devastating analysis of U.S. strategy and condemns those of all faiths who exploit religious fervor to create divisions or enhance their own power.

In this illuminating account, Albright argues that, to be effective, U.S. policy-makers must understand the power and place of religion in motivating others and in coloring how American actions are perceived. Defying the conventional wisdom, she suggests not only that religion and politics are inseparable, but that their partnership, when properly harnessed, can be a force for justice and peace.

This study demonstrates that Syria's role in the Middle East has been, since 1974, an unabated terrorist war against all attempts to resolve peacefully the Arab-Israeli conflict. Marius Deeb provides evidence that Syria's role in Lebanon, since 1975, has been to perpetuate the conflict among the various Lebanese communities in order to keep its domination of Lebanon

This book explores different forms of mediated offence in the context of Trump's America, Brexit Britain, and the rise of far-right movements across the globe. In this political landscape, the so-called 'right to offend' is often seen as a legitimate weapon against a 'political correctness gone mad' that stifles 'free speech'. Against the backdrop of these current developments, this book aims to generate a productive dialogue among scholars working in a variety of intellectual disciplines, geographical locations and methodological traditions. The contributors share a concern about the complex and ambiguous nature of offence as well as about the different ways in which this so-called 'negative affect' comes to matter in our everyday and socio-political lives. Through a series of instructive case studies of recent media provocations, the authors illustrate how being offended is more than an individual feeling and is, instead, closely tied to political structures and power relations.

Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliche. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. Now with a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, Democracy Incorporated remains an essential work for understanding the state of democracy in America.

Grant Whitus joined the Colorado S.W.A.T in 1992. His seventeen year career was one of constant headlines. Among leading countless drug raids and hostage situations, he was on the front lines of the Columbine Massacre, The Platte County Tragedy, the Albert Petrosky shooting, and the Granby tank rampage. Speaking for the first time, Whitus gives the unvarnished truth of those, and many other, major S.W.A.T operations. Now retired, he opens up about his time behind the shield. Bullet Riddled is the full unabridged disclosure of what happened during his storied career; including the brutal morning of the Columbine Massacre. More than just a retelling, Bullet-Riddled is an in-depth look at the day-to-day of S.W.A.T and focuses on the men and women who inherit so much pain to keep us safe. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the aftermath of the Columbine tragedy. The following days saw major changes within S.W.A.T. Men cracked, leaders folded and the entire country demanded changes. But these changes, like all reforms, met with stiff resistance from the old guard. Friendships turned into rivals and the infrastructure of S.W.A.T began to unravel. As resignations piled up, Grant rebuilt the entire team from hand-selected recruits. He finally had his elite team, one that would face new demons and disorders.

Starting from Deleuze's brief but influential work on control, the 11 essays in this book focus on the question of how contemporary control mechanisms influence, and are influenced by, cultural expression. They also collectively revaluate Foucault and Deleuze's theories of discipline and control in light of the continued development of biopolitics. Written by an impressive line-up of contemporary scholars of philosophy, politics and culture the essays cover the particularity of control in relation to various fields and modes of expression including literature, cinema, television, music and philosophy.

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.

The essays in this book address the inter-relationship of power, politics, and violence, examining why the political process of managing power within states sometimes becomes physically violent. This volume brings together some of the classic writings on the relationship between states and violence within some of the best new work on political violence in local settings. The essays address state-backed violence against citizens and subjects, and violence by citizens against the state and between citizens for control of the state.

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.

This unique study focuses on the social, racial, and artistic climate for African American performers working during the swing era—roughly the late 1920s through the 1940s. The career of Norton and Margot, a ballroom dance team whose work was thwarted by the racial tenets of the era, serves as a tour guide and barometer of the times on this excursion through the worlds of African American vaudeville, separate black and white Americas, the European touring circuit, and pre-Civil Rights era racial etiquette.

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.

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