Covers a longer span of time than other books - three decades enabling systematic examination of the policies of four governments: Conservative, New Labour, Coalition and Conservative. It both provides a detailed historic account of the twists and turns of policy and legislation over the 30 year period and combines this with commentary from those intimately involved in decision making and implementation of policy and legislation. There is a range of interviewees, including many from non-political sources. Its unique contribution is the combination of the analysis of legislative and organisational changes with the interviewing of virtually all the most important players in the process - all surviving Home Secretaries and Ministers of Justice since 1990, junior ministers; all Directors of Prisons NOMS/HMPPS and the new National Probation Service; four Chief Inspectors of Prisons and three Chief Inspectors of Probation; the four most recently retired Lord Chief Justices. A unique added value is the interviews with virtually all the politicians and other key players who have been involved over the past 30 years, which provide a unique commentary and insight into how they thought and how they approached their responsibilities. The period of time in question has seen many changes in prison and probation and a detailed analysis of this in one place would be useful but, crucially, to also have the interviews of so many people makes this unprecedented. The authors are highly respected and Professor Roy King has been a leading authority on prisons for several decades.

Covers a longer span of time than other books - three decades enabling systematic examination of the policies of four governments: Conservative, New Labour, Coalition and Conservative. It both provides a detailed historic account of the twists and turns of policy and legislation over the 30 year period and combines this with commentary from those intimately involved in decision making and implementation of policy and legislation. There is a range of interviewees, including many from non-political sources. Its unique contribution is the combination of the analysis of legislative and organisational changes with the interviewing of virtually all the most important players in the process - all surviving Home Secretaries and Ministers of Justice since 1990, junior ministers; all Directors of Prisons NOMS/HMPPS and the new National Probation Service; four Chief Inspectors of Prisons and three Chief Inspectors of Probation; the four most recently retired Lord Chief Justices. A unique added value is the interviews with virtually all the politicians and other key players who have been involved over the past 30 years, which provide a unique commentary and insight into how they thought and how they approached their responsibilities. The period of time in question has seen many changes in prison and probation and a detailed analysis of this in one place would be useful but, crucially, to also have the interviews of so many people makes this unprecedented. The authors are highly respected and Professor Roy King has been a leading authority on prisons for several decades.

* Author has track record of excellent scholarship * Accessible and engaging for a wide range of undergraduate and advanced students * Book addresses key themes of an important and widely studied period

Dick Leonard's Modern British Prime Ministers from Balfour to Johnson surveys the lives and careers of all the 24 Prime Ministers from Arthur Balfour to Boris Johnson in succinct, informative and entertaining chapters. Bringing to life the political achievements and personal idiosyncrasies of Britain's rulers over the 20th and 21st centuries, the author recounts the circumstances which took them to the pinnacle of British political life, probes their political and personal strengths and weaknesses, assesses their performance in office and asks what lasting influence they have had. Along the way Leonard entertains and informs, revealing little-known facts about the private lives of each of the Prime Ministers, for example, which two Premiers, one Tory, one Labour were taught by the same governess as a child? Who was thrashed at his public school for writing pornography and later donated one-fifth of his wealth to the nation? Who was awarded a fourth-class degree at Oxford and went on to father eight children? Who was described by his son as 'probably the greatest natural Don Juan in the history of British politics'? This book can also form part of a two-volume set published by Routledge including the companion volume British Prime Ministers from Walpole to Salisbury: The 18th and 19th Centuries. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and readers of British political history, the Executive, government, and British politics.

An essential re-evaluation of the complex triumphs and tragedies of Jimmy Carter's presidential legacy--from the expert biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus Ever since Ronald Reagan's landslide win in November 1980, pundits have labeled Jimmy Carter's single term in the White House a failed presidency. But Carter's time as president is a compelling and underexplored story, marked by accomplishment and adversity. In this deeply researched, brilliantly written account, the first full presidential biography of Jimmy Carter, Kai Bird approaches Carter's presidency with an expert hand, unfolding the story of Carter's four years with few allies inside Washington and a great many critics in the media. As president, Carter was not merely an outsider, but indeed an outlier. He was the only president in a century to grow up in the heart of the old confederacy, and though he held strongly to the separation of church and state, his born-again Christianity made him the most openly religious president in memory. As Bird shows, this background manifested itself in an unusual complex of arrogance, humility, and candor that neither Washington nor America was prepared to embrace. Forty years before today's broad public reckoning with the vast gulf between America's creed and its actions, Carter looked out over a nation torn by race, crippled by stagflation, and demoralized by both Watergate and Vietnam and prescribed a radical self-examination from which voters ultimately recoiled. The cost of Carter's unshakeable belief in doing the right thing would be a second term--and the ascendance of Reagan. The issues that Carter contended with in the late 1970s are still hotly debated today: national health care, growing inequality, energy independence, racism, immigration, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forty years after voters turned him out of the White House, Carter appears remarkably prescient on the major issues facing the country in the twenty-first century, even if in his own time he was a prophet scorned. Drawing on interviews with members of Carter's administration as well as recently unclassified documents from his presidential library, Bird delivers a profoundly thorough, clear-eyed evaluation of a president whose legacy has been debated, dismissed, and misunderstood. The Outlier is this generation's definitive account of an enigmatic presidency--as it really happened and as it is remembered in the American consciousness.

Boris Johnson, the UK's new Prime Minister, has ruled out holding an early general election. But, as we've seen, anything can happen in today's politics. There are few politicians who could genuinely be described as a phenomenon. Boris Johnson is undoubtedly one. With a shake of that foppish blond mop, a glimmer of his madcap smile and the voice of a demented public school boy, Boris provides comedy gold every time he opens his erudite mouth. The allure of this blundering rapscallion to many on the Tory benches and to the membership of the Conservative Party at large is all too obvious. He says what few others will say in public and, indeed, he will do so on the record - appearing to care little what people think of him or his views. This book is big on fun, comedy, life and spirit. Containing a selection of the very finest Boris-isms and illustrated by specially commissioned cartoons, The Big Book of Boris is a highly amusing read, straight from the gaffe-strewn mouth of Britain's most colourful politician.

This book offers a substantive assessment of the first Tsai Ing-wen administration, investigating different policy fields and issues from 2016 to 2020, prior to Tsai's election for a second term. Providing a balanced account of government performance under Tsai's Ing-wen's reign, chapters in this edited volume combine theory and extensive empirical data to highlight both achievements and shortfalls of her administration. Chapters range comprehensively from topics of the implementation of same-sex marriage, curriculum reform, 'transitional justice', industrial policy and pension reform, which have been celebrated by domestic Tsai Ing-wen supporters, but have also met with considerable opposition from within Taiwanese society. Externally, cross-strait relations, the New Southbound Policy and the triangular relationship with China and the USA, which embodied major challenges for Tsai's first administration, are also analysed as key reference points throughout. Featuring contributions from twenty six internationally renowned Taiwan scholars, Taiwan During the First Administration of Tsai Ing-wen is an essential resource for students and scholars of Taiwanese politics and society, cross-strait relations and international relations.

'Years have passed since the Scottish Independence Referendum was held and the political landscape has changed. Big Nellie Nellis has been voted First Minister, and things are about to get interesting as all the political parties are given the benefit of her very unparliamentary sound bites!'

'An intimate, insightful portrait of an extraordinarily private leader' WALTER ISAACSON From the bestselling author of Enemies of the People An intimate and deeply researched account of the extraordinary rise and political brilliance of the most powerful - and elusive - woman in the world. Angela Merkel has always been an outsider. A pastor's daughter raised in Soviet-controlled East Germany, she spent her twenties working as a research chemist, only entering politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And yet within fifteen years, she had become chancellor of Germany and, before long, the unofficial leader of the West. Acclaimed author Kati Marton sets out to pierce the mystery of this unlikely ascent. With unparalleled access to the chancellor's inner circle and a trove of records only recently come to light, she teases out the unique political genius that is the secret to Merkel's success. No other modern leader has so ably confronted authoritarian aggression, enacted daring social policies and calmly unified an entire continent in an era when countries are becoming only more divided. Again and again, she's cleverly outmanoeuvred strongmen like Putin and Trump, and weathered surprisingly complicated relationships with allies like Obama and Macron. Famously private, the woman who emerges from these pages is a role model for anyone interested in gaining and keeping power while staying true to one's moral convictions. At once a riveting political biography, an intimate human portrait and a revelatory look at successful leadership in action, The Chancellor brings forth from the shadows one of the most extraordinary women of our time.

The book assesses the development of the Orban regime in Hungary after 2010 through analyzing the polity-politics-policy impacts from a perspective of populism as an ideology focusing on discourse and actual decisions. By closely scrutinizing political narratives, actual decisions and survey data, this volume offers a systematic analysis of the impact of populism on the polity-politics-policy aspects of the political in Hungary after 2010. It analyzes the uses of constitutionalism and discriminatory legalism, the changes in the quality of democracy, the government's relationship with media and journalism, its influence over the party system and EU politics, and its approach to family and cultural policies. While each chapter in the volume describes the findings in response to the corresponding literature highlighting the added value of the individual analyses, the book interprets the overall results under the notion of "smart populism" where the moral definition of "the people" allows for little political opposition, "the elite" is selected based on its multifaceted applicability for a political narrative and "the will of the people" is determined from above. The volume also suggests responses to "smart populism". The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of democracy, party politics the rise of populism and contemporary Hungarian politics.

This book analyses the determinants behind the openings in party leader selection rules (leaders' selectorate) in 10 Western European countries and more than 55 parties between the mid-1980s and the mid-2010s. Presenting a novel and revealing theoretical and empirical framework, it tackles the impact of party change and the personalisation of politics, specifically using data coming from the first expert survey on the personalisation of politics in Western Europe; the PoPES. A quantitative analysis is paired with more in-depth explorations of two Italian parties (the Italian Communist Party - Democratic Party of the Left; the Northern League) and the (missed) opening of their leader selectorate. This book highlights the critical importance of studying party leader selection rules against the backdrop of allegedly declining parties and rising party leaders and concludes by placing its findings in a broader discussion about the future of Western European party leaders. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties and party systems, leadership, political elites, elections, democracy, and more widely of Western European politics and comparative politics.

The book provides a comprehensive view on the internal life of parties and investigates the dynamics of intra-party politics in different party environments to explain in which circumstances the party leader is more or less bound by the wills of party factions. Analyzing almost 500 intra-party documents from Italy, Germany and France, it presents a theory of intra-party politics that illuminates internal decision-making processes and sheds light on the outcomes of factional conflicts on the allocation of payoffs within the party, on the risk of a party split and on the survival of the party leader. Using text analysis, the results show that consensual dynamics can allow to preserve party unity and that directly elected leaders can exploit their larger autonomy either to reward followers or to prevent splits. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Party Politics, Political Institutions, European Politics and more broadly to Comparative Politics, Political Theory and Text Analysis.

This book reflects on the life and politics of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) and his efforts to broker peace and reconciliation in a deeply divided country. Through examples from apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, it explores conflict and methods for realising peace, social justice, and democracy. The book looks at the festering of animosity and racial bitterness between the white Afrikaner community and the black community during years of racial violence, injustices, and authoritarianism in South Africa. In the most violent phase of the country's history, Mandela offered to both communities peaceful means to ensure equality, justice, and inclusivity. The author highlights the extraordinary challenges which Mandela faced in mobilising consent and persuading both the black and the Afrikaner community to acquiesce to a peaceful transfer of power. The volume further details the socio-political contexts and negotiations which resulted in the swift transfer of power, Mandela's insistence on crafting inclusive systems of nationhood, his multi-cultural cabinet, and the institutionalisation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address challenges facing the two communities in the post-conflict period. An accessible introduction to one of the greatest leaders in contemporary history, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of peace and conflict studies, social exclusion and discrimination, critical race theory, human rights, politics, decolonisation and post-colonial studies, sociology, and history.

While the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has dominated Turkish politics for a decade and a half, recent years have seen a qualitative change, culminating in the 2017 referendum on the move to a presidential system. This volume focuses on the later years of AKP rule after the first direct presidential election in 2014. It shows how during this period the AKP has changed the political system and societal dynamics, maintained its electoral predominance, and ultimately opened the way for regime change. This collection of key chapters offers indispensable reading for everyone who wants to understand current Turkish politics and the continued hegemony of the AKP in the country's political life. Chapters 2-10 previously published as articles (Vol 19: issue 2 to Vol 22: issue 3) in South European Society and Politics.

Memorialised as a US heroine and an iconoclastic humanitarian who sought to protect society's marginalised, Eleanor Roosevelt also, at times, disappointed contemporaries and biographers with some of her stances. Examining a period of her life that has not been extensively explored, this book challenges the previously held universality of Eleanor Roosevelt's humanitarianism. The Palestinian question is used as a case study to explore the practical application of her commitment to social justice, and the author argues that, at times, Roosevelt's humanitarianism was illogical, limited and flawed by pragmatism. New insights are provided into Eleanor Roosevelt's human rights activism - its dichotomies, its inspiration, and the effect it had on US relations with the Middle East. This book will appeal to academics working across a range of disciplines including history, diplomatic history, American studies, Middle Eastern studies, US foreign policy, human rights and women's studies.

"The most revealing pandemic book yet."-The Atlantic The definitive, inside account of the Trump Administration's response to the Covid-19 pandemic from White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator and Coronavirus Task Force member, Dr. Deborah Birx. In late February 2020, Dr. Deborah Birx-a lifelong federal health official who had worked at the CDC, the State Department, and the US Army across multiple presidential administrations-was asked to join the Trump White House Coronavirus Task Force and assist the already faltering federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic. For weeks, she'd been raising the alarm behind the scenes about what she saw happening in public-from the apparent lack of urgency at the White House to the routine downplaying of the risks to Americans. Once in the White House, she was tasked with helping fix the broken federal approach and making President Trump see the danger this virus posed to all of us. Silent Invasion is the story of what she witnessed and lived for the next year-an eye-opening, inside account, detailed here for the first time, of the Trump Administration's response to the greatest public health crisis in modern times. Regarded with suspicion in the West Wing from day one, Dr. Birx goes beyond the media speculation and political maneuvering to show what she was really up against in the Trump White House. Digging into the hard-fought victories, the costly mistakes, and the human drama surrounding the administration's efforts, she examines the forces that crippled efforts to control the virus and explores why these blunders continue to haunt us today. And yet amid the agonizing missteps were bright spots that point the way forward-the fastest vaccine creation in history, governors that put their citizens' health first, and Tribal Nations that demonstrated the powerful role of community in curbing spread, despite their criminally underfunded healthcare systems. Collectively these successes reveal the valiant work of many who were committed to saving lives, as well as highlighting the dire need to reform our public health institutions, so they are nimble and resilient enough to confront the next pandemic. With the pandemic now moving into its third year confounding two presidential administrations, Dr. Birx presents a story at once urgent and frustratingly unfinished, as Covid-19 continues to put thousands of American lives at risk. The end result is the most comprehensive and extensive accounting to date of the Trump Administration's struggle to control the biggest health crisis in generations-a revelatory look at how we can learn from our mistakes and prevent this from happening again.

"An irreplaceable testimony of the struggle for democracy and tolerance in Latin America." "--El Pais
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Hector Abad's "Oblivion "is a heartbreaking, exquisitely written memorial to the author's father, Hector Abad Gomez, whose criticism of the Colombian regime led to his murder by paramilitaries in 1987. Twenty years in the writing, it paints an unforgettable picture of a man who followed his conscience and paid for it with his life during one of the darkest periods in Latin America's recent history.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN NPR CONCIERGE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "In her form-shattering and myth-crushing book....Coe examines myths with mirth, and writes history with humor... [You Never Forget Your First] is an accessible look at a president who always finishes in the first ranks of our leaders." -Boston Globe Alexis Coe takes a closer look at our first--and finds he is not quite the man we remember Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down--even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won. After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War cast him as the nation's hero, he was desperate to retire, but the founders pressured him into the presidency--twice. When he retired years later, no one talked him out of it. He left the highest office heartbroken over the partisan nightmare his backstabbing cabinet had created. Back on his plantation, the man who fought for liberty must confront his greatest hypocrisy--what to do with the men, women, and children he owns--before he succumbs to death. With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have readers--including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads--inhaling every page.

A SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 'A brilliant, compelling, propulsively written, magnificent tour de force' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard 'The second volume of what will surely rank as one of the greatest historical achievements of our age ... The War and Peace of history: a book you fear you will never finish, but just cannot put down' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times Well before 1929, Stalin had achieved dictatorial power over the Soviet empire, but now he decided that the largest peasant economy in the world would be transformed into socialist modernity, whatever it took. What it took, and what Stalin managed to force through, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Rather than a tale of a deformed or paranoid personality creating a political system, this is a story of a political system shaping a personality. Building and running a dictatorship, with power of life or death over hundreds of millions, in conditions of capitalist self-encirclement, made Stalin the person he became. Wholesale collectivization of agriculture, some 120 million peasants, necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, but Stalin did not flinch; the resulting mass starvation and death elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. By 1934, when the situation had stabilized and socialism had been built in the countryside too, the internal praise came for his uncanny success in anticapitalist terms. But Stalin never forgot and never forgave, with bloody consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite. Stalin had revived a great power with a formidable industrialized military. But the Soviet Union was effectively alone, with no allies and enemies perceived everywhere. The quest to find security would bring Soviet Communism into an improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain did not work out as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective countries, drew ever closer to collision. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler: 1929-1941 is, like its predecessor Stalin: Paradoxes of Power: 1878-1928, nothing less than a history of the world from Stalin's desk. It is also, like its predecessor, a landmark achievement in the annals of the biographer's art. Kotkin's portrait captures the vast structures moving global events, and the intimate details of decision-making.

This handbook provides a unique opportunity to bring together several different strings of debates, especially useful to the growing focus on responsibility which increasingly demands interdisciplinary approaches. It focuses on practices and normativity in ways that are often overlooked by a focus on accountability. It highlights the contested meaning of responsibility. In addition to its academic purpose, it may also prove of interest to policy-makers, think tanks, policy research institutes.

There is no shortage of opinions on the legacy that George W. Bush will leave as 43rd President of the United States. Recognizing that Bush the Younger has been variously described as dimwitted, opportunistic, innovative, and bold, it would be presumptuous to draw any hard and fast conclusions about how history will view him. Nevertheless, it is well within academia's ability to begin to make preliminary judgments by weighing the evidence we do have and testing assumptions.
In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the initially successful military campaign in Afghanistan, Bush and his administration enjoyed nearly unprecedented popularity. But after failures in Iraq and in the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Bush's approval ratings plummeted. Guided by a new framework, "Judging Bush" boldly takes steps to evaluate the highs and lows of the Bush legacy according to four types of competence: strategic, political, tactical, and moral. It offers a first look at the man, his domestic and foreign policies, and the executive office's relationship to the legislative and judicial branches from a distinguished and ideologically diverse set of award-winning political scientists and White House veterans. Topics include Bush's decision-making style, the management of the executive branch, the role and influence of Dick Cheney, elections and party realignment, the Bush economy, Hurricane Katrina, No Child Left Behind, and competing treatments of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Contributors include Lara M. Brown, David B. Cohen, Jeffrey E. Cohen, Laura Conley, Jack Covarrubias, John J. DiIulio, Jr., William A. Galston, Frederick M. Hess, Karen M. Hult, Lori A. Johnson, Robert G. Kaufman, Anne M. Khademian, Lawrence J. Korb, Patrick McGuinn, Michael Moreland, Costas Panagopoulos, James P. Pfiffner, Richard E. Redding, Neil Reedy, Andrew Rudalevige, Charles E. Walcott, and Shirley Anne Warshaw.

This volume attempts to examine the many possible causes of Brexit. The conceptual 'peg' on which the volume hangs is that, irrespective of one's views on whether Britain's exit from the EU was a good or a bad thing, Brexit can justifiably be seen as yet another example of a British policy fiasco. Put simply, the British political elite was not at its best. The collective concern of this volume is twofold. First, it advances possible explanations of how the Brexit issue arose. Why was Britain's membership of the EU thought to be so problematic for so many members of the British political elite and ultimately for a majority of voters? How did we get to June 2016 and the Brexit Referendum? Secondly, the volume examines how the issue was managed (or mismanaged) following the referendum result up until the Withdrawal Agreement in March 2019. The contributions to this volume explore these questions by looking at Brexit from different analytical angles. Some authors explore the long-term causes of Brexit, by disentangling the fraught relationship between the UK and the EU, which had provided the Brexit train with steam; others explore the highly conflictual domestic political dynamics in the run-up to the referendum and in the negotiations of a Brexit deal. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of European Public Policy.