Considering the question of how levels of security allow state power to be increased to the point at which it infringes essential civil liberties, this book explores the creeping power of the executive and the unfeasibility of widespread use of the Human Rights Act as a bulwark against the oppressive use of state power.

During the past forty years, there has been extraordinary growth in the impact of religion on nations all over the world. The number of religious adherents has spiked, their zeal has intensified, and their political influence has expanded dramatically. Religious zeal has become the single most significant cause of conflicts between nations and of power struggles within nations. In Theocracy: Can Democracy Survive Fundamentalism, author P. J. Tierney examines political efforts by fundamentalists, particularly in the United States. Drawing upon current events, history, psychology, ethics, and the Bible, Tierney delves into some of the excesses of contemporary Christian fundamentalism in its efforts to advance the vision of a form of American theocracy. This study- defines fundamentalism, particularly Christian fundamentalism;- differentiates fundamentalism from traditional Christian renditions;- explains fundamentalism's root causes, goals, and express strategies;- describes its political evolution;- identifies fundamentalism's departures from previous Christian efforts to influence society and government;- examines its efforts and their underlying motivations through several lenses, including history, psychology, political theory, ethics, logic, current events, and the Bible;- seeks to identify some of the excesses of the contemporary Christian fundamentalist approach; and- offers other options for people of faith.Tierney offers practical suggestions for coping with the inroads of fundamentalism in order to strengthen democracy within pluralistic American society. He presents a powerful argument for the separation of religion and politics.

The scholars who contribute to this issue utilize diverse research methods to examine the lived experiences of people engaged in prostitution and the people and institutions that process them. They look at the production of knowledge about prostitution and trafficking by institutional stakeholders, and how legal responses to prostitution and trafficking are affected by class, race, ethnicity, and migration. Drawing on data derived from innovative research methods including auto-ethnography, re-calculation of historical data, and participatory methods, the authors challenge us to re-examine the pro-sex/abolitionist divide, the historical theories of prostitution and ethical concerns around research with people engaged in prostitution. Instead our authors offer new configurations of sex, gender, and prostitution to better inform future scholarship, policy, and programming.

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.

Since the end of the Pinochet regime, Chilean public policy has sought to rebuild democratic governance in the country. This book examines the links between the state and civil society in Chile and the ways social policies have sought to ensure the inclusion of the poor in society and democracy. Although Chile has gained political stability and grown economically, the ability of social policies to expand democratic governance and participation has proved limited, and in fact such policies have become subordinate to an elitist model of democracy and resulted in a restrictive form of citizen participation.

While many books detail how senators and representatives operate in Washington, this one describes how they stay in power. The congressional elections of 1998 were the most expensive in history. Incumbency reelection rates were 98.3 percent in the House and 89.7 percent in the Senate, and this was a typical outcome after Watergate-era campaign reforms supposedly "reduced" the influence of money in politics. From the unique vantage of credible citizen-candidates who ran against congressional incumbents from Massachusetts to Hawaii during the 1990s, "Against Long Odds" tackles the question of why incumbents nearly always win.

These citizen-challengers learned that the system is rigged against them. Incumbents prevail through a virtual monopoly on campaign cash, lavish congressional perks, local media and business backing, intimidation of their challengers' supporters, and sometimes outright dirty tricks. This is true for Republicans and Democrats; for conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike. This account details, as no other book has, how representatives and senators are zealous participants in a system that threatens to overturn the American traditions of free elections and the free exchange of ideas. Frustrated voters often complain that, no matter which party controls Congress, nothing ever really seems to change. Merriner and Senter explain why.

What policy is best for the United States to reduce the threat of Islamic extremist terrorism? Recent American presidents have applied alternative conflict resolution approaches. Clinton practiced conflict avoidance, talking tough but rarely retaliating against anti-American terrorist attacks. G. W. Bush adopted a fighter approach and the Global War on Terrorism and military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq reflect this strategy. Obama introduced a third alternative: problem solving and extending peaceful overtures while keeping up resistance. Will the strategy succeed? Feste analyzes presidential rhetoric on counterterrorism policy through the lens of issue framing, enemy aggression, self -hardship, and victimization expressed in a variety of speeches delivered by these chief executives to highlight and compare their conflict resolution strategies.

This book analyses the practice of virginity testing endured by South Asian women who wished to enter Britain between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, and places this practice into a wider historical context. Using recently opened government documents the extent to which these women were interrogated and scrutinized at the border is uncovered.

"Decades of research in both political science and psychology have demonstrated that external, environmental factors influence individuals' mental processes, especially as they relate to politics. Inasmuch as such factors vary systematically across racial and ethnic groups, the political psychology of these groups warrants study, hence, the objective of this volume. We have assembled a number of papers from both psychologists and political scientists in an effort to combine both disciplines' understanding of the psychological underpinnings of Blacks' orientation to the political world. Our goal is to take lessons learned from previous research and incorporate them into new theories and utilize new data sources in an effort to create a unified study of Black political psychology"--Provided by publisher.

Patrice Lumumba's legacy continues to fire the imagination of politicians, activists, and artists. But women have been missing from accounts of the Congo's decolonization. What new ideals of masculinity and femininity were generated in this struggle? Were masculinist biases re-inscribed in later depictions of the martyred nationalist? Through analysis of Lumumba's writings and speeches, the life stories of women activists, and literary and cinematic works, "Gender and Decolonization in the Congo: The Legacy of Patrice Lumumba" challenges male-centered interpretations of Congolese nationalism and illustrates how generic conventions both reinforced and undercut gender bias in representations of Lumumba and his female contemporaries.

Inspired by the work of prominent University of Notre Dame political philosophers Catherine Zuckert and Michael Zuckert, this volume of essays explores the concept of natural right in the history of political philosophy. The central organizing principle of the collection is the examination of the idea of natural justice, identified in the classical period with natural right and in modernity with the concept of individual natural rights. Contributors examine the concept of natural right and rights in all the manifold and interdisciplinary dimensions associated with the Zuckerts' oeuvre. Part I explores the theme of natural right in the ancient and medieval political philosophy of Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and St. Augustine. Part II examines the early modern break from the classical tradition in the work of Montaigne, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Locke, and Hegel as well as the legacy of the modern natural rights tradition as explored by Leo Strauss and Pope John Paul II. Part III treats the theme of natural rights from the Puritans through the Founding period in such figures as Thomas Jefferson and Gouverneur Morris and up to the Progressive era with Booker T. Washington and Theodore Roosevelt. Part IV addresses questions of natural justice in literature, including works of Euripides, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Edith Wharton, and Tom Stoppard.

Focusing on domestic political debates constraining cooperation, Del Sarto argues that internal disputes over national identity limit the ability of states to participate in regional forums. This is a close look at problems faced in negotiating the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership as a regional security project, with particular attention to case studies of Israel, Egypt, and Morocco.

Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of France's "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen," this book looks in depth at the use of torture during the French-Algerian War (1954-1962) to reveal the failure of that liberal democratic state to uphold its obligations on rights. Rita Maran examines the Mission Civilisatrice ideology that justified the routine use of torture during that war and points out that human rights violations traceable to ideology occur irrespective of a state's political system or tradition of rights. The book contrasts the routinization of torture with the contemporaneous global development of norms to assure human rights and abolish torture. Maran concludes that reliance on a state's avowedly benevolent traditions of rights is not necessarily sufficient to protect individuals against state-directed violence, and that international law on human rights can provide significant protection.

The book begins with a brief history of torture in France up to the French-Algerian War. Torture, international human rights law, and civilizing mission ideology are then described and defined. The major portion of the book is devoted to interpretation of the discourse of exemplary people from three sectors of French society--government, the military, and the intellectuals--to demonstrate that reliance on the civilizing mission ideology rationalized the use of torture. Torture is a source of valuable and stimulating ideas for political scientists, historians, lawyers, social psychologists, journalists, ethicists, scholars of colonialism and colonial discourse, and all concerned with human rights as part of international discourse.

Debates over the separation or accommodation of religion and government have divided Americans since the founding of our country and continue to echo in governmental chambers today, as people argue sharply and heatedly about the exact meaning and correct applications of First Amendment clauses on religious establishment and free exercise of religion. Students can trace the history and development of these arguments, as well as the reactions to them, through this unique collection of over 70 primary documents. Court cases and other documents bring to life the controversies surrounding the issues. Explanatory introductions to documents aid users in understanding the various arguments put forth, while illuminating the significance of each document.

Patrick and Long trace the origins and changes in the nature of the debates surrounding the issue of freedom of religion using carefully chosen court cases and other documents to reflect the fact that the Court's decision has not always ended public controversy about the relationships between church and state or religion and government. Indeed, especially in recent years, the Court's decisions in some cases have exacerbated old tensions and generated new issues. The focus throughout is on the connection between the U.S. Constitution and freedom of religion. The introductory and explanatory text help readers understand the nature of the conflicts, the issues being litigated, the social and cultural pressures that shaped each debate, and the manner in which the passions of individual government officials, justices, and our presidents affected the development of policies concerning freedom of religion.

The European Union clearly matters for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). EU officials and European political entrepreneurs has been crucial in the promotion of funding and access opportunities, but they have been proven to have little capacity to use CSOs for their own purposes.

The study of religion and politics is a strongly behavioral sub-discipline, and within the American context, scholars place tremendous emphasis on its influence on political attitudes and behaviors, resultuing in a better understanding of religion's ability to shape voting patterns, party affiliation, and views of public policy.

This book explores the structural tensions and conflicts that arise with the abolition of border controls between the EU's member states and how this conflict ridden relationship affects and is affected by the institutional shape of the EU's external borders.

Using original empirical data and critiquing existing research, Samia Bano explores the experience of British Muslim woman who use Shari'ah councils to resolve marital disputes. She challenges the language of community rights and claims for legal autonomy in matters of family law showing how law and community can empower as well as restrict women.

This wide-ranging collection offers fresh insights into a critical factor in development and politics on the African continent. It critically examines and illustrates the centrality of policing in transition societies in Africa, and outlines and assesses the emergence and impact of the diversity of state and non-state policing agencies.