Governor Andrew Cuomo, scion of Mario Cuomo, is today as famous as his father, also a governor of New York state for three terms. Like Robert Moses, he is one of New York's great and infamous power brokers. Though initially lavishly celebrated for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, not least by himself, it is now apparent that Cuomo's management of the crisis was a juddering and fatal failure. Thousands died because, ignoring the advice of experts, he shut down too late and returned still sick patients to nursing homes. The crisis was intensified by his previous commitment to austerity, which saw the slashing of funding to hospitals. A vital riposte to Cuomo's recently published book about the pandemic, now increasingly derided as self-serving and deceitful, The Prince is a searing indictment of Cuomo's handling of coronavirus and his time overall in the highest office of the state.

The present volume provides a collection of material on the subject of international comparisons, contributed by scholars from a range of relevant disciplines and geographical backgrounds. The papers in this volume have been classified into two broad groups united by overlapping themes. Part I includes essentially empirical papers intended to provide a clear picture of the different types of international comparisons that have been undertaken by various organizations and individuals. The papers relate to empirical studies of different sectoral and national income aggregates at both regional and global levels. The papers in Part II deal with methodological and analytical issues. Discussion of the appropriateness of various aggregation methods for international comparisons accounts for a major component of this section. The volume provides a set of studies on international comparisons of prices, output and productivity, and will provide a reference source for interested readers.

An in-depth look at the historic and strategic deployment of rights in political conflicts throughout the world Rights are usually viewed as defensive concepts representing mankind's highest aspirations to protect the vulnerable and uplift the downtrodden. But since the Enlightenment, political combatants have also used rights belligerently, to batter despised communities, demolish existing institutions, and smash opposing ideas. Delving into a range of historical and contemporary conflicts from all areas of the globe, Rights as Weapons focuses on the underexamined ways in which the powerful wield rights as aggressive weapons against the weak. Clifford Bob looks at how political forces use rights as rallying cries: naturalizing novel claims as rights inherent in humanity, absolutizing them as trumps over rival interests or community concerns, universalizing them as transcultural and transhistorical, and depoliticizing them as concepts beyond debate. He shows how powerful proponents employ rights as camouflage to cover ulterior motives, as crowbars to break rival coalitions, as blockades to suppress subordinate groups, as spears to puncture discrete policies, and as dynamite to explode whole societies. And he demonstrates how the targets of rights campaigns repulse such assaults, using their own rights-like weapons: denying the abuses they are accused of, constructing rival rights to protect themselves, portraying themselves as victims rather than violators, and repudiating authoritative decisions against them. This sophisticated framework is applied to a diverse range of examples, including nineteenth-century voting rights movements; the American civil rights movement; nationalist, populist, and religious movements in today's Europe; and internationalized conflicts related to Palestinian self-determination, animal rights, gay rights, and transgender rights. Comparing key episodes in the deployment of rights, Rights as Weapons opens new perspectives on an idea that is central to legal and political conflicts.

This edited volume assesses governance innovation and institutional change under the fifth generation of China's political leaders headed by Xi Jinping. The configuration of long-term policy innovation without regime change requires skilled political actors who secure strategic majorities and set up coalitions to design and launch new policies. Recalibrations or reconfigurations of the governance model respond to domestic reform pressures or external shocks in order to secure regime survival. Given that most structural constraints and reform pressures do not arise out of a sudden, the thrilling question is why the political elites sometimes decide not to engage in institutional reforms despite of widespread societal support for major restructuring and why they suddenly launch institutional changes in times of relative stability. The authors address these issues by focusing on basic patterns and paradigms of governance and institutional change in China, the actors and drivers of governance innovation, as well as the impact of norms, values, and socio-cognitive orientations. This is added by some reflections on the interplay between abstract ideas, reform debates, and the making of concrete decisions as outlined by the Third Plenum on (socio-)economic reforms in 2013 and the Fourth Plenum on rule-based governance (fazhi) in 2014.

Corruption in politics and public administration is pervasive and difficult to eliminate. It has a strong effect on public attitudes toward government and is at the same time badly understood. A clear, comprehensive understanding of corruption is critical to the goal of ethical government that is trusted by the public. In this short and accessible text, Staffan Andersson and Frank Anechiarico demonstrate how the dynamics of life in organizations both generate corruption and make it difficult to prevent without undermining the effectiveness of government. They argue that how we define corruption, how we measure it, and how we try to combat it are strongly interrelated and should not be seen as separate issues. The authors demonstrate how this integrated approach, together with a focus on the damage caused by corruption to civic inclusivity and participation, can serve as an entry point for understanding the quality of democracy and the challenge of good governance. Using examples from mainly the United States and Sweden, Andersson and Anechiarico establish that recent anti-corruption reforms in public administration have often been narrowly focused on bribery (exchange corruption) and law enforcement approaches, while doing too little to other problems and forms of corruption, such as interest conflict. Corruption and Corruption Control: Democracy in the Balance will be of great interest to all students of politics, public administration and management, and ethics.

A writer in self-imposed exile in London receives a call from the Prime Minister of his former country, inviting him to return to write the Prime Minister's biography. As he embarks from his small flat in west London to the modern Caribbean island he once called home, he immediately finds himself thrust into a world of exceptional wealth, power, and corruption. In the midst of this turmoil the writer falls deeply in love. As the love affair advances, the writer's passion for the island resurfaces, until the loss of a close friend propels him to make one final, potentially cataclysmic decision that will change everything.

This book explains the consequences of global policy initiatives against money laundering, terrorist financing, and tax evasion on financial centres located in offshore jurisdictions in the Caribbean region. Adding to the existing literature by detailing international policy initiatives against money laundering and tax evasion from the early 1920s to date, this book examines the factors that have contributed to their gradual development over time, their role in contributing to money laundering, terrorist financing, and tax evasion, the international policy initiatives that came about to address these financial crimes, as well as the consequences of these policy initiatives on the legislative systems, institutions, offshore business sectors, and economies of these financial centres.

'First there was Fire and Fury, then there was Siege, now there is Landslide. The third is the best of the three' Guardian 'Cruel, unforgiving, muckracking, scandalous . . . Michael Wolff concludes his Trump trilogy - with the best book' Telegraph 'Wolff is the shrewdest chronicler of Trump' Sunday Times Politics has given us some shocking and confounding moments but none have come close to the careening final days of Donald Trump's presidency: the surreal stage management of his re-election campaign, his audacious election challenge, the harrowing mayhem of the storming of the Capitol and the buffoonery of the second impeachment trial. But what was really going on in the inner sanctum of the White House during these calamitous events? What did the president and his dwindling cadre of loyalists actually believe? And what were they planning? Drawing on an exclusive and wide range of sources who took part in or witnessed Trump's closing moments, Michael Wolff finds the Oval Office more chaotic and bizarre than ever before, a kind of Star Wars bar scene. At all times of the day, Trump, hunched behind the Resolute desk, is surrounded by schemers and unqualified sycophants who spoon-feed him the 'alternative facts' he hungers to hear - about COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests, and, most of all, his chance of winning re-election. In this extraordinary telling of a unique moment in history, Wolff gives us front-row seats as Trump's circle of plotters is whittled down to the most enabling and the least qualified - and the president pushes the bounds of political convention, entertaining the idea of martial law and balking at calling off the insurrectionist mob that threatens the hallowed seat of democracy itself. Michael Wolff pulled back the curtain on the Trump presidency with his globally bestselling blockbuster Fire and Fury. Now, in Landslide, he closes the door with a final, astonishingly candid tale.

Level of compliance - one of the most important prerequisites of good governance - varies widely across countries of the Global North and the less developed, Global South. Acts of non-compliance, such as electoral irregularities, dubious deals between private and public sectors, questionable role of the justice systems and financial scandals, though they vary greatly across countries, are an omnipresent reality of contemporary life. This volume has brought together a number of case studies of such deviant behavior in political, juridical and corporate fields, from several countries of Asia, Europe and South America, within a common framework. Instead of a moral approach based exclusively on the legality and illegality of the act, the authors of these essays dissect non-compliance analytically, taking culture and context into account. They argue that, while criminal and corrupt dealings deserve to be exposed by all means from an ethical point of view, seen from an interdisciplinary angle, one needs to probe deeper into the dynamic that leads to such non-compliance with the law in the first place.

The essays in this book examine the arguments and rhetoric used by the United States and the USSR following two catastrophes that impacted both countries, as blame is cast and consequences are debated. In this environment, it was perhaps inevitable that conspiracy theories would arise, especially about the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over the Sea of Japan. Those theories are examined, resulting in at least one method for addressing conspiracy arguments. In the case of Chernobyl, the disaster ruptured the "social compact" between the Soviet government and the people; efforts to overcome the resulting disillusionment quickly became the focus of state efforts.

With the inclusion of access to energy in the sustainable development goals, the role of energy to human existence was finally recognized. Yet, in Africa, this achievement is far from realized. Omorogbe and Ordor bring together experts in their fields to ask what is stalling progress, examining problems from institutions catering to vested interests at the continent's expense, to a need to develop vigorous financial and fiscal frameworks. The ramifications and complications of energy law are labyrinthine: this volume discusses how energy deficits can burden disabled people, women, and children in excess of their more fortunate counterparts, as well as considering environmental issues, including the delicate balance between the necessity of water for drinking and cleaning and the use of water in industrial processes. A pivotal work of scholarship, the book poses pressing questions for energy law and international human rights.

The explosive, behind-the-scenes story of Donald Trump's high-stakes confrontation with Beijing, from an award-winning Washington Post columnist and peerless observer of the U.S.-China relationship Now with a new afterword featuring an interview with former President Trump There was no calm before the storm. Donald Trump's surprise electoral victory shattered the fragile understanding between the United States and China and immediately brought to a boil their long-simmering rivalry. By the time the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in Wuhan, Trump's love-hate relationship with Chinese president Xi Jinping had sparked a trade war, while Xi's aggression had pushed the world to the brink of a new Cold War. From award-winning Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, Chaos Under Heaven uncovers the explosive, behind-the-scenes story of how the Trump administration upended the U.S.-China relationship, with reverberations that will be shaking the world for years to come.

Author Neal Q. Herrick considers government corruption to be the predominant problem facing the world today. Although bribery and influence peddling are the most visible aspect of this corruption, they are not, in Herrick's opinion, the most serious. For Herrick, the more serious aspect of government corruption is the laws that bribery and influence peddling produce--laws that favor the corporations--resulting in, what he calls, a kind of delusional corruption that leads to unjust and unnecessary wars. "After Patrick Henry" is a book about both kinds of corruption, as they are inseparable and arise from the same structural failing: the failure to make the interests of government coincident with the interests of the people.

Tracing both forms of corruption back through history, Herrick gives a brief account of governmental descent into lawlessness, identifies the constitutional flaw that led to this lawlessness, and discusses some of the issues that must be considered in devising remedies. After discussing the four principles on which the US Constitution rests and pointing out the causal connections between the failure of the impeachment provisions and presidential wars, eroded political culture, and civil society complaisance, Herrick proposes a constitutional amendment and a strategy for accomplishing it.

Neal Q. Herrick taught at the University of Michigan. He headed the HEW-Labor Task Force that drafted the Occupational Safety and Health Act submitted to Congress in 1968. He is the co-author, with the late Harold Sheppard, of "Where Have All the Robots Gone "and a contributor to "Work in America."

A comprehensive look at how violence has been used to manipulate competitive electoral processes around the world since World War II Throughout their history, political elections have been threatened by conflict, and the use of force has in the past several decades been an integral part of electoral processes in a significant number of contemporary states. However, the study of elections has yet to produce a comprehensive account of electoral violence. Drawing on cross-national data sets together with fourteen detailed case studies from around the world, Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order offers a global comparative analysis of violent electoral practices since the Second World War. Sarah Birch shows that the way power is structured in society largely explains why elections are at risk of violence in some contexts but not in others. Countries with high levels of corruption and weak democratic institutions are especially vulnerable to disruptions of electoral peace. She examines how corrupt actors use violence to back up other forms of electoral manipulation, including vote buying and ballot stuffing. In addition to investigating why electoral violence takes place, Birch considers what can be done to prevent it in the future, arguing that electoral authority and the quality of electoral governance are more important than the formal design of electoral institutions. Delving into a deeply influential aspect of political malpractice, Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order explores the circumstances in which individuals choose to employ violence as an electoral strategy.

From the winners of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting 11.5 million documents sent through encrypted channels. The secret records of 214,000 offshore companies. The largest data leak in history. In early 2015, an anonymous whistle-blower led investigative journalists Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier into the shadow economy where the super-rich hide billions of dollars in complex financial networks. Thus began the ground-breaking investigation that saw an international team of 400 journalists work in secret for a year to uncover cases involving heads of state, politicians, businessmen, big banks, the mafia, diamond miners, art dealers and celebrities. A real-life thriller, The Panama Papers is the gripping account of how the story of the century was exposed to the world.

This conceptually synthetic and empirically rich book demonstrates the vulnerability of democratic settings to authoritarianism and populism. Six scholars from various professional fields explore here the metamorphosis of a political party into a centralized authoritarian system. Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party needed less than ten years to accomplish this transformation in Hungary. In 2010, after winning a majority that could make changes in the constitution - two-thirds of the parliamentary seats, they evolved and stabilized the system, which produced again the two-thirds majority in 2014 and 2018. The authors reveal how a democratic setting can be used as a device for political capture. They show how a political entity managed to penetrate almost all sub-fields of the economy to arrive at institutionalized corruption, and how the centralized power structure reproduces itself. With the help of a powerful empirical apparatus-among others analyses of more than 220,000 public tenders, redistributions of state subsidies, and the interconnectedness of those privileged with the political elite - the authors detail the functioning of a crony system and the network aspects of political connections in the rapid enrichment of politically-linked businesses. Their studies demonstrate the role of political capture in this redistribution and how this capture leads to a new social stratification.

The New Orleans Flood, U.S. Corruption, and Disasters "Rosenthal employs the surgical precision of an investigative journalist and the craft of a memoirist to expose the flaws, natural and human, behind the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina." -The Eric Hoffer Award Program 2020 Nautilus Silver Winner #1 New Release in Civil Engineering & Environmental, Urban & City Planning, Development, and Disaster Relief In the aftermath of one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, Words Whispered in Water tells the story of one woman's fight-against all odds-to expose a mammoth federal agency-and win. It's a horror story, a mystery, and David and Goliath story all in one. In 2005, the entire world watched as a major U.S. city was nearly wiped off the map. The levees ruptured and New Orleans drowned. But while newscasters attributed the New Orleans flood to "natural catastrophes" and other types of disasters, citizen investigator Sandy Rosenthal set out to expose the true culprit and compel the media and government to tell the truth. This is her story. When the protective steel flood-walls broke, the Army Corps of Engineers-with cooperation from big media-turned the blame on natural types of disasters. In the chaotic aftermath, Rosenthal uncovers the U.S. corruption, and big media at root. Follow this New Orleans hero as she exposes the federal agency's egregious design errors and eventually changes the narrative surrounding the New Orleans flood. In this engaging and revealing tale of man versus nature and man versus man, Words Whispered in Water proves that the power of a single individual is alive and well. If you enjoyed books like The Johnstown Flood, Breach of Faith, or The Great Deluge, then Words Whispered in Water is your next read!

The true story behind the 2023 ITV series, STONEHOUSE, starring Matthew Macfayden and Keeley Hawes. 'An extraordinary life . . . a vivid account' Telegraph 'Completely absorbing' CAROL ANN LEE, author of The Murders at White House Farm and A Passion For Poison 'I literally consumed the book in just a few hungry sittings . . . most definitely a must read' DR SALEYHA AHSAN, filmmaker and journalist, Cambridge In November 1974, British MP and former cabinet minister John Stonehouse walked into the sea off a beach in Miami and disappeared, seemingly drowned. Then he was found - on the other side of the world, in Australia - and his extraordinary story began to come to light: a Labour cabinet minister and a devoted family man; also in a long-term affair with his secretary, and a spy for the Czech State Security agency, who had committed fraud and attempted to fake his own death to escape catastrophic business failures. Was it a mental breakdown as he later claimed? Or were there more sinister reasons for his dramatic disappearance? This is the definitive biography of Stonehouse, written by Julian Hayes, who, as the son of Stonehouse's nephew and lawyer, Michael Hayes, is uniquely placed to tell the story of this charismatic but deeply flawed politician.

Liberal democracy is at risk. Its hallmark institutions - political pluralism, separation of powers, and rule of law-are coming under pressure, as authoritarian sentiment is growing around the globe. While liberal-democratic backsliding features prominently in social science scholarship, especially the branches concerned with political parties and political behavior, public administration research lags behind. However, without considering illiberal approaches towards the executive, efforts of actual and aspiring authoritarians remain only partly understood. State bureaucracies are, after all, important instruments of power. This timely and important volume addresses the administrative implications of liberal-democratic backsliding. It studies public administrations as objects and subjects in the context of illiberal dynamics. For this purpose, the volume brings together an international group of scholars to analyze authoritarian tendencies in several countries. The contributions combine theoretical with empirical work, providing the first comparative perspective on an overlooked aspect of one of the most important contemporary political trends.

Conventional wisdom suggests that partisanship has little impact on voter behavior in Brazil; what matters most is pork-barreling, incumbent performance, and candidates' charisma. This book shows that soon after redemocratization in the 1980s, over half of Brazilian voters expressed either a strong affinity or antipathy for or against a particular political party. In particular, that the contours of positive and negative partisanship in Brazil have mainly been shaped by how people feel about one party - the Workers' Party (PT). Voter behavior in Brazil has largely been structured around sentiment for or against this one party, and not any of Brazil's many others. The authors show how the PT managed to successfully cultivate widespread partisanship in a difficult environment, and also explain the emergence of anti-PT attitudes. They then reveal how positive and negative partisanship shape voters' attitudes about politics and policy, and how they shape their choices in the ballot booth.

Joshua L. Powell is the NRA--a lifelong gun advocate, in 2016, he began his new role as a senior strategist and chief of staff to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre. What Powell uncovered was horrifying: "the waste and dysfunction at the NRA was staggering." INSIDE THE NRA reveals for the first time the rise and fall of the most powerful political organization in America--how the NRA became feared as the Death Star of Washington lobbies and so militant and extreme as "to create and fuel the toxicity of the gun debate until it became outright explosive." INSIDE THE NRA explains this intentional toxic messaging was wholly the product of LaPierre's leadership and the extremist branding by his longtime PR puppet master Angus McQueen. In damning detail, Powell exposes the NRA's plan to "pour gasoline" on the fire in the fight against gun control, to sow discord to fill its coffers, and to secure the presidency for Donald J. Trump.