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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism
American civil-military relations have profoundly changed from the interwar years that comprised the post Cold War era. This book describes the intense mobilization of American society in the Global War on Terrorism coupled with trends in progress before 9/11. With its focus on maximizing civilian casualties, terrorism has been uniquely able to arouse the popular emotion and make us rethink the use of military force.
"A Tale of Two Cities" has always been one of Dickens's most popular texts. Using a variety of disciplinary approaches, this new collection of essays examines the origins of Dickens vision of the French Revolution, the literary power of the text itself, and its enduring place in British culture through stage and screen adaptations.
Explores the historical origins of Syria's religious sects and their dominance of the Syrian social scene. It identifies their distinct beliefs and relates how the actions of the religious authorities and political entrepreneurs acting on behalf of their sects expose them to sectarian violence, culminating in the dissolution of the nation-state.
There is an elaborate and often invisible carnival that emerges alongside presidential campaigns as innumerable activist groups attempt to press their issues into mainstream political discourse. Sarah Sobieraj's fascinating ethnographic portrait of fifty diverse organizations over the course of two campaign cycles reveals that while most activist groups equate political success with media success and channel their energies accordingly, their efforts fail to generate news coverage and come with deleterious consequences. Sobieraj shows that activists' impact on public political debates is minimal, and carefully unravels the ways in which their all-consuming media work and unrelenting public relations approach undermine their ability to communicate with pedestrians, comes at the expense of other political activities, and perhaps most perniciously, damages the groups themselves. Weaving together fieldwork, news analysis, and in-depth interviews with activists and journalists, Soundbitten illuminates the relationship between news and activist organizations. This captivating portrait of activism in the United States lays bare the challenges faced by outsiders struggling to be heard in a mass media dominated public sphere that proves exclusionary and shows that media-centrism is not only ineffective, but also damaging to group life. Soundbitten reveals why media-centered activism so often fails, what activist groups lose in the process, and why we should all be concerned.
This resource, by a professor of ecology and environmental science, features the latest information on the global environmental crisis in the 20th century. Ideal for student research, it examines the main causes of environmental concern and the key players who raised the environmental consciousness of the public. Following a timeline of key events and a historical overview of the environmental crisis, topical essays examine each of the major areas of enviromental concern: our vanishing wilderness, pollution, overpopulation, and the long-term problem of how we can coexist with our environment without destroying it. Ready-reference features include biographical sketches, the text of key primary documents, a glossary, over 40 tables, charts and illustrations, and an annotated bibliography. Clear explanations of the various aspects of the environmental crisis are accompanied by tables, charts, diagrams, and photographs to illustrate the scope and complexity of the problems. Biographical sketches of key environmentalists are useful for ready reference. The text of key primary documents include excerpts from important environmental legislation and treaties and declarations from environmental groups. No other work on this topic offers both analysis of a broad spectrum of environmental concerns and ready-reference materials suitable for high school and college student research.
In this perceptive book, cultural and political theorist Jason M.
Adams moves beyond increasingly inadequate accounts of speed and
acceleration to reflect upon the temporality of the Occupy Wall
Street movement. In doing so, he develops the concept of immediacy
- the 'speed-limit' that, today more than ever, is reformatting
thought, control, and resistance alike. In the process, Adams
mobilizes the work of Paul Virilio, Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt and
Gilles Deleuze to rethink the ancient Greek concept of kairos for
the contemporary moment.
Across the globe, people are challenging the agro-industrial food system and its exploitation of people and resources, reduction of local food varieties, and negative health consequences. In this collection leading international anthropologists explore food activism across the globe to show how people speak to, negotiate, or cope with power through food. Who are the actors of food activism and what forms of agency do they enact? What kinds of economy, exchanges, and market relations do they practice and promote? How are they organized and what are their scales of political action and power relations? Each chapter explores why and how people choose food as a means of forging social and economic justice, covering diverse forms of food activism from individual acts by consumers or producers to organized social groups or movements. The case studies embrace a wide geographical spectrum including Cuba, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Mexico, Italy, Canada, France, Colombia, Japan, and the USA. This is the first book to examine food activism in diverse local, national, and transnational settings, making it essential reading for students and scholars in anthropology and other fields interested in food, economy, politics and social change.
A brutal gang-rape of a young woman in India in 2012 caused a global outcry against rising brutal violence against women. In response to the young woman's death and the protests that followed, the contributors analyze the position of women in South Asia, the issue of violence, women's political activism and gender inequalities.
Benjamin Constant distinguished two kinds of government: unlawful government based on violence, and legitimate government based on the general will. In Europe monarchy was for over a thousand years considered the natural form of legitimate government. The sources of its legitimacy were the dynastic principle, religion, and the ability to protect against foreign aggression. At the end of the eighteenth century the revolutions in America and France called into question the traditional legitimacy of monarchy, but Volker Sellin shows that in response to this challenge monarchy opened up new sources of legitimacy by concluding alliances with constitutionalism, nationalism, and social reform. In some cases the age of revolution brought on a new type of leader, basing his claim to power on charisma.
Katharine Adeney demonstrates that institutional design, rather than the role of religion, is the most important explanatory variable in understanding the different types and intensities of conflict in India and Pakistan. Deploying an innovative methodological approach, Adeney focuses on the rationale behind the creation and different designs of federal and consociational structures in the two countries. Deftly interweaving historical narrative with an analysis of the salient cleavages in both countries, Adeney examines the politics of institutional design and ethnic conflict regulation, as well as the extent to which previous constitutional choices explain current conflicts.
This book is a study of local grassroots activism in two major political areas, the peace and environmental movements, over a period of five years. Interviews with leaders of 166 different groups in five states (Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, California, and Oregon), supplemented by personal observation and participation in several of those groups are the foundations of this analysis. The major concerns are the components of group and movement successes, both short-run and long-run, and activist group adaptations to change in the larger social and political world in light of political upheaval in Eastern Europe, the Gulf War, and several environmental crises that occurred during the period in question. Finally, Zisk focuses on the growing convergence (and barriers to convergence) of the movements. After examining short run accomplishments, Zisk concludes that most of the groups in both movements are faring poorly: few of their concrete goals are achieved, media attention is poor, and membership growth is problematic. For both movements, the transformational wings (those that press for basic changes, use consensus decision making, have few paid staff members) are not doing so well as the incremental wings (those seeking limited goals, using traditional decision techniques, employing larger staffs). This book should be of interest to students and teachers of political science and sociology.
Using a variety of old and new archival sources to examine the emergence of the Soviet system (1917-1937), this combined approach offers chronologically coherent and original construction of some crucial stages and problems in Soviet history. The past two centuries have produced an extraordinary number of new states--more than 30 in 20th-century Europe alone. It is within this turbulent context that one must analyze the rise of the Soviet state, an entity that would prove fragile in the long run despite its all-powerful facade. An examination of the extreme features and peculiarities of the Soviet variant offers revealing insights into this exceptional historical process and contributes to a wider understanding of the European Forty Year War (1912-1953). Graziosi devotes particular attention to Soviet solutions to the peasant and nationality problems, as well as to the pre-eminent role of ideology, the rise of personal despotism, and the unusual degree of penetration between state and economy. Using a variety of interpretations, he applies concepts from political, economic, and social history to the Soviet phenomenon without losing sight of its connections with more general European developments. The life of a Bolshevik leader is used to provide an overview of the whole period from six points of view: psychology, ideology, despotism, nationality, relations with the West, and economic building. Also, an analysis of industrialization based on the accounts of foreign workers who often met a tragic fate in the great purges contributes significantly to an assessment of the role that myth building played in the Stalinist repression of the Soviet working class.
While Mexico's spiritual history after the 1910 Revolution is often essentialized as a church-state power struggle, this book reveals the complexity of interactions between revolution and religion. Looking at anticlericalism, indigenous cults and Catholic pilgrimage, these authors reveal that the Revolution was a period of genuine religious change, as well as social upheaval.
The 1970's witnessed the institution of political liberalism in Greece, which went hand in hand with significant social and economic advancement. Four decades later, the same country is a latter-day 'sick man of Europe'. What went wrong? And why did the more recent global crisis plunge Greece into abject misery? This study provides compelling and original answers to these questions through putting populism at center stage. By introducing new concepts, focusing on micro-mechanisms, and empirically analyzing a large variety of sources, the author shows how populism became predominant in Greek politics and contaminated all major political parties, eventually causing a major polity crisis. Besides its particular interest in the specific case of Greece, the text offers new insights about how states may fail, how populism develops at single-nation level, and what could happen when it reigns supreme. It also makes a strong statement about the corrosive power of populism on modern liberal democracy
This timely treatise introduces an innovative prevention/preparedness model for cities to address and counter terrorist threats and events. It offers theoretical background, mixed-method research, and tools for creating a resilience-based response to terrorism, as opposed to the security-based frameworks commonly in use worldwide. The extended example of Milan as a "resilient-healthy" city pinpoints sociological, political, and economic factors that contribute to terror risk, and outlines how law enforcement and emergency management professionals can adopt more proactive measures. From these observations and findings, the author also makes recommendations for the professional training and city planning sectors to address preparedness issues, and for community inclusion programs to deter criminal activities in at-risk youth. Features of the coverage: Summary of sociological theories of terrorism The Resilience D model for assessing and managing urban terrorist activity Findings on resilience and vulnerabilities of terror groups Photo-illustrated analysis of neighborhoods in Milan, describing areas of risk and resilience Virtual ethnography with perspectives from native residents, recent immigrants, and security experts Proposals for coordinated communications between resource agencies The Other Side of Resilience to Terrorism will hold considerable interest for students, stakeholders, practitioners, and researchers. It makes a worthwhile text for various academic disciplines (e.g., urban sociology, crisis management) as well as for public agencies and policymakers.
Cybercrime affects over 1 million people worldwide a day, and cyber attacks on public institutions and businesses are increasing. This book interrogates the European Union's evolving cybersecurity policies and strategy and argues that while progress is being made, much remains to be done to ensure a secure and resilient cyberspace in the future.
Will the 21st century see terrorist fingers on the nuclear trigger? How likely is it terrorists will obtain weapons of mass destruction? What factors would determine their decision to use them? In this text the author assesses the causes for, and implications of, the escalating lethality of terrorism. The growing opportunities for nuclear proliferation, primarily arising from the collapse of the Soviet Union are explained. The book concludes that the organizational and psychological pressures within terrorist groups and the changing nature of political violence combined with the heightened danger of nuclear micro proliferation have made mass destructive terrorism the greatest non traditional threat to international security in the world today.
In "Womanpower Unlimited and the Black Freedom Struggle in
Mississippi," Tiyi M. Morris provides the first comprehensive
examination of the Jackson, Mississippi-based women's organization
Womanpower Unlimited. Founded in 1961 by Clarie Collins Harvey, the
organization was created initially to provide aid to the Freedom
Riders who were unjustly arrested and then tortured in Mississippi
jails. Womanpower Unlimited expanded its activism to include
programs such as voter registration drives, youth education, and
participation in Women Strike for Peace. Womanpower Unlimited
proved to be not only a significant organization with regard to
civil rights activism in Mississippi but also a spearhead movement
for revitalizing black women's social and political activism in the
state.
This highly original book suggests that the practices of Taliban and the American far right, two very significant and poorly understood groups, share common features. This commonality can be found in the philosophical basis of their ideological beliefs, in their comparative worldviews, and in their political practices. As Raja argues, the Taliban are much less the product of an irrational fundamentalism, and the radical right in America is much more the result of such a mindset, than Americans recognize. After providing a detailed explanation of his theoretical concepts and specialized vocabulary, the author develops a discussion of the subject in this brief but penetrating book. This is a book that should attract a wide readership among both academics and the general public.
In original essays written by both senior scholars as well as rising younger scholars in the field of international ethics, this volume addresses the ethics of war in an era when non-state actors are playing an increasingly prominent role in armed conflict. Central to this concern is the issue of whether, or under what conditions, non-state actors can be said to have the "authority" to participate in war. The contributors therefore explore and analyze the problems with, and possibilities for, incorporating non-state actors into the traditionally state-centric moral vocabulary about war--namely, the just war tradition.
This volume explores the churches of Ukraine and their involvement in the recent movement for social justice and dignity within the country. In November of 2013, citizens of Ukraine gathered on Kyiv's central square (Maidan) to protest against a government that had reneged on its promise to sign a trade agreement with Europe. The Euromaidan protest included members of various Christian churches in Ukraine, who stood together and demanded government accountability and closer ties with Europe. In response, state forces massacred over one hundred unarmed civilians. The atrocity precipitated a rapid sequence of events: the president fled the country, a provisional government was put in place, and Russia annexed Crimea and intervened militarily in eastern Ukraine. An examination of Ukrainian churches' involvement in this protest and the fall-out that it inspired opens up other questions and discussions about the churches' identity and role in the country's culture and its social and political history. Volume contributors examine Ukrainian churches' historical development and singularity; their quest for autonomy; their active involvement in identity formation; their interpretations of the war and its causes; and the paths they have charted toward peace and unity.
In this work, Carl Anthony shares his perspectives as an African-American child in post-World War II Philadelphia; a student and civil rights activist in 1960s Harlem; a traveling student of West African architecture; and an architect, planner, and environmental justice advocate in Berkeley. He contextualizes this within American urbanism and human origins, making profoundly personal both African American and American urban histories as well as planetary origins and environmental issues, to not only bring a new worldview to people of color, but to set forth a truly inclusive vision of our shared planetary future. The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race connects the logics behind slavery, community disinvestment, and environmental exploitation to address the most pressing issues of our time in a cohesive and foundational manner. Most books dealing with these topics and periods silo issues apart from one another, but this book contextualizes the connections between social movements and issues, providing tremendous insight into successful movement building. Anthony's rich narrative describes both being at the mercy of racism, urban disinvestment, and environmental injustice as well as fighting against these forces with a variety of strategies. Because this work is both a personal memoir and an exposition of ideas, it will appeal to those who appreciate thoughtful and unique writing on issues of race, including individuals exploring their own African American identity, as well as progressive audiences of organizations and community leaders and professionals interested in democratizing power and advancing equitable policies for low-income communities and historically disenfranchised communities. |
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