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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political science & theory
Over the past 20 years the global political economy has experienced its most profound shifts since the onset of the industrial revolution. In South Africa and the World, Mills Soko reflects on some of the salient issues that have pervaded public discourse during this time, analysing them within the context of the contemporary South African political economy and of the country’s position in the world. Arranged thematically, the essays were all written during a defining period in recent history, a period that has witnessed, among others, the accession of China to the WTO, the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, the invention of the iPad, the birth of Facebook, the 2008/9 global financial crisis, Brexit and the global coronavirus pandemic which began at the end of 2019. The turbulent multipolar world demands visionary political and economic leadership, supported by institutions well attuned to contemporary conditions. Such leadership is in short supply. Nor is the existing institutional architecture sufficiently equipped to deal with a complex array of economic, social, environmental, technological and demographic challenges. Mills Soko highlights what has not worked in terms of politics, leadership, foreign policy, the economy, the African development trajectory, corporate ethics, international trade, global governance, and the thread which underlies all these issues – the importance of strong, decisive and accountable leadership. He counters his criticism with what has worked and offers views on how some of the problems that have constrained progress in South Africa and the world can be solved. A central message emerges from his writings: leadership and governance matter, whether in the national or international context. It is a message that permeates all the chapters in the book. And it goes to the heart of what South Africa has gone through over the past two decades and where it is today.
This comprehensive guide captures important trends in international relations (IR) pedagogy, paying particular attention to innovations in active learning and student engagement for the contemporary International Relations (IR) classroom. This book is organized into three parts: IR course structures and goals; techniques and approaches to the classroom; and assessment and effectiveness. It is up-to-date with teaching practices highlighted by leading journals and conferences sponsored by the International Studies Association (ISA) and the American Political Science Association (APSA). Collectively, the chapters contribute to continuing dialogues on pedagogy in the field and serve as a critical resource for faculty in IR, political science, and social science.
Some of our most fundamental moral rules are violated by the practices of torture and war. If one examines the concrete forms these practices take, can the exceptions to the rules necessary to either torture or war be justified? Fighting Hurt brings together key essays by Henry Shue on the issue of torture, and relatedly, the moral challenges surrounding the initiation and conduct of war, and features a new introduction outlining the argument of the essays, putting them into context, and describing how and in what ways his position has modified over time. The first six chapters marshal arguments that have been refined over 35 years for the conclusion that torture can never be justified in any actual circumstances whatsoever. The practice of torture has nothing significant in common with the ticking bomb scenario often used in its defence, and weak U.S. statutes have loop-holes for psychological torture of the kind now favoured by CIA in the 'war against terrorism'. The other sixteen chapters maintain that for as long as wars are in fact fought, it is morally urgent to limit specific destructive practices that cannot be prohibited. Two possible exceptions to the UN Charter's prohibition on all but defensive wars, humanitarian military intervention and preventive war to eliminate WMD, are evaluated; and one possible exception to the principle of discrimination, Michael Walzer's 'supreme emergency', is sharply criticized. Two other fundamental issues about the rules for the conduct of war receive extensive controversial treatment. The first is the rules to limit the bombing of dual-use infrastructure, with a focus on alternative interpretations of the principle of proportionality that limits 'collateral damage'. The second is the moral status of the laws of war as embodied in International Humanitarian Law. It is argued that the current philosophical critique of IHL by Jeff McMahan focused on individual moral liability to attack is an intellectual dead-end and that the morally best rules are international laws that are the same for all fighters. Examining real cases, including U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1991, the Clinton Administration decision not to intervene in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, and CIA torture after 9/11 and its alternatives, this book is highly accessible to general readers who are interested in the ethical status of American political life, especially foreign policy.
Canada a Nation in Motion is a bold look at issues facing Canada today from the perspective of a Canadian who truly understands the issues. In his special blend of analysis, humor and wit, Samy Appadurai offers up an intelligent discussion of issues ranging from the history of immigration in Canada, the G20 Summit and the Vancouver Olympics to the position of Canada on the world stage. Along with masterful storytelling, Samy provides a detailed analysis and commentary on each subject he covers in a way that anyone can easily understand. The perspective that Samy Appadurai takes is one of a well respected community leader who has dedicated his life to not only serving his community, but also his country. His belief in the importance of learning about the issues that face Canada as a nation is clear. However, he is not afraid to take a stand and provide an alternative point of view in order to spark conversation and debate. Canada is a country that is constantly changing from within and without but Samy Appadurai tells us exactly what it is that keeps Canada moving.
Is It a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote? Susan Brownell Anthony (1820-1906) was a heroic American civil rights leader who was pivotal in enabling American women to vote; unfortunately it did not come to pass until fourteen years after her death. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President. She also co-founded the women's rights journal, The Revolution. She averaged 75-100 speeches per year, traveling the length and breadth of the United States, as well as speaking in Europe. This book is a Biography that she helped Ida Husted Harper to write. It contains a great number of personal letters, public addresses and letters from her contemporaries spanning fifty years. The book traces the evolution of the 19th century women's suffrage movement. This edition contains both volumes of the autobiography, including the appendix and three indexes as well as copious footnotes, autographs and illustrations.
George Orwell set out 'to make political writing into an art', and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature - his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell's essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Politics and the English Language, the second in the Orwell's Essays series, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, 'is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind'. In an age where the language used in politics is constantly under the microscope, Orwell's Politics and the English Language is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play.
World peace may seem like an impossible dream. Not only is it counter to human nature, but there are also many political, economic, and cultural obstacles to overcome. In "Transition to Peace>/i>, author Russell Faure-Brac contends war is not a necessary evil; there are more effective and rational ways for the United States to defend itself. In this analysis, Faure-Brac examines where world peace stands now and how it relates to the rapidly changing world. He combines the nonviolent power of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King; the concept of Peaceful Warriorship as found in the martial arts of Aikido and Ninjutsu; and the Permaculture ideas of Earth Care, People Care, and Faire Share to form the basis for peace programs and three peace principles that he proposes as a new national security policy. Faure-Brac then lays out a plan for making the changes. Though world peace might be a challenging prospect, "Transition to Peace" shows that is possible to achieve it, and the United States can lead the rest of the world in the right direction.
Surveillance in America provides a historical exploration of FBI surveillance practices and policies since 1920 based on recently declassified FBI files. Using the new information available through these documents, Ivan Greenberg sheds light on the activities and beliefs of top FBI officials as they develop and implement surveillance practices. Paying particular attention to the uses of the media, Greenberg provides a thorough reconsideration of the Watergate scandal and the role of W. Mark Felt as "Deep Throat." He exposes new evidence which suggests that Felt led a faction at the FBI that worked together to bring down President Nixon. The book concludes with an in-depth treatment of surveillance practices since the year 2000. He considers the question of "surveillance as harassment" and looks at the further erosion of privacy. stemming from Obama's counter-terror policies which extend those of the Bush Administration's second term. The startling increase in surveillance since the events of September 11th, reveal the extent to which America is losing the battle for civil liberties.
This book places the 2010 elections in Florida in historical context and offers insight into and an explanation for the substantial gains made by the Republicans that year. This book provides narratives of gubernatorial, U.S. Senatorial, congressional, and state legislative campaigns along with empirical data on voter registration, voter turnout, and the electoral behavior of groups in the Florida electorate. It also speaks to the importance of national forces on state level elections and the impact of external advocacy groups in such elections.
Margaret Gilbert offers an incisive new approach to a classic problem of political philosophy: when and why should I do what the laws of my country tell me to do? Beginning with carefully argued accounts of social groups in general and political societies in particular, the author argues that in central, standard senses of the relevant terms membership in a political society in and of itself obligates one to support that society's political institutions. The obligations in question are not moral requirements derived from general moral principles, as is often supposed, but a matter of one's participation in a special kind of commitment: joint commitment. An agreement is sufficient but not necessary to generate such a commitment. Gilbert uses the phrase 'plural subject' to refer to all of those who are jointly committed in some way. She therefore labels the theory offered in this book the plural subject theory of political obligation. The author concentrates on the exposition of this theory, carefully explaining how and in what sense joint commitments obligate. She also explores a classic theory of political obligation -- actual contract theory -- according to which one is obligated to conform to the laws of one's country because one agreed to do so. She offers a new interpretation of this theory in light of a theory of plural subject theory of agreements. She argues that actual contract theory has more merit than has been thought, though the more general plural subject theory is to be preferred. She compares and contrasts plural subject theory with identification theory, relationship theory, and the theory of fair play. She brings it to bear on some classic situations of crisis, and, in the concluding chapter, suggests a number of avenues for related empirical and moral inquiry. Clearly and compellingly written, A Theory of Political Obligation will be essential reading for political philosophers and theorists.
"Professor Samuel Krislov's 'Representative Bureaucracy' remains among the most important and enduring books in the field of public administration and its intersection with political science. It takes the kernel of the idea, inchoately introduced in J. Donald Kingsley's 1944 book by the same title, that public bureaucracies can be representative political institutions and it develops an overall analytic framework with empirically testable propositions that has served subsequent generations scholars very well. So well, in fact, that as the literature on representative bureaucracy blossomed, these propositions have become so ingrained that many younger scholars are unaware of their initial formulation and roots. That is one reason why the republication of this volume now is not only appropriate, but a critical step toward more tightly organizing the vast literature that it arguably spawned into a comprehensive empirically-based theory integrating all facets of the study of representative bureaucracy." - David H. Rosenbloom, Distinguished Professor of Public Administration, American University (from the new Foreword) *** Now available for the first time in hardcover edition, republished from the original classic and using embedded images from the original as well-allowing continuity of referencing and citation. New edition from Quid Pro Books bring this important work back to print, and in library-quality format, no less.
When Barack Obama praised the writings of philosopher theologian
Reinhold Niebuhr in the run up to the 2008 US Presidential
Elections, he joined a long line of top politicians who closely
engaged with Niebuhr's ideas, including Tony Benn, Jimmy Carter,
Martin Luther King Jr. and Dennis Healey.
The importance of international politics in Niccolo Machiavelli's thought cannot be denied. Although the familiar ideas expressed in the Prince and the Discourses are obviously relevant, the Art of War, the History of Florence, the dispatches that he wrote during his diplomatic missions, several minor political writings, and the private letters contain a number of additional insights and observations that refine and enrich his views. This anthology gathers together for the first time all of Machiavelli's writing on international affairs. About 60 excerpts are organized around key themes, such as: the idea that political action takes place in a context that constrains decisions and affects outcomes; the central role played by fear in influencing foreign policy; the ways in which domestic politics and international politics interact; the fundamental functions performed by the armed forces; the similarities and differences in the foreign policy of republics and principalities; the ambivalent relationship between defence and expansion; the curse of neutrality and the ambiguities of alliances; the precariousness of international arrangements and the inherent instability of any settlement. An introductory chapter and accompanying illustrative materials guide the reader through the conceptual world of Machiavelli and the complex political events of his time.
Issues concerning the upbringing of children are among the most contested in modern political debate. How should childrearing rights and resources be distributed between families? To what extent are parents morally permitted to shape the beliefs and desires of their children? At what age should children acquire adult rights, such as the right to vote? Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing sets out a liberal conception of political morality that supports a set of answers to these questions which many liberals have been reluctant to accept. The central argument is that the ideals of justice and individual autonomy place significant constraints on both governments and parents. Clayton insists that while their interests should count directly in allocating childrearing rights, parents should exercise their rights in accordance with these liberal ideals. He argues that we owe our children a childhood that develops their sense of justice, but in which further attempts to enrol them into particular religious practices, for instance, are illegitimate. Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing is a work of applied political philosophy that will be of interest to students of political theory, the philosophy of education, and social and public policy.
America was formed based on a vision of democracy where supreme power is supposed to be vested in the people. In We the Who? author Brett H. Lewis asks if Americans are losing sight of who "we the people" are and, more importantly, who we need to be in order to regain our collective identity and ensure America's continued growth and greatness.We the Who? presents a collection of essays and opinions that probe into the nuts and bolts of current issues facing America today. Lewis tackles the subjects of classism, racism, justice, politics, the military, and the economy. Through these discussions, he encourages the American populace to be alert and aware to ensure that government of the people, by the people, and for the people continues to be at the forefront of today's America.Drawing from history, logic, social inclinations, religious beliefs, and personal experiences, We the Who? seeks to inform the public and to encourage them to ask questions, express opinions, and hold elected leaders accountable. It communicates the necessity to be informed in order to make quality decisions about our lives.
Institutions of Law offers an original account of the nature of law and legal systems in the contemporary world. It provides the definitive statement of Sir Neil MacCormick's well-known 'institutional theory of law', defining law as 'institutional normative order' and explaining each of these three terms in depth. It attempts to fulfil the need for a twenty-first century introduction to legal theory marking a fresh start such as was achieved in the last century by H. L. A. Hart's The Concept of Law. It is written with a view to elucidating law, legal concepts and legal institutions in a manner that takes account of current scholarly controversies but does not get bogged down in them. It shows how law relates to the state and civil society, establishing the conditions of social peace and a functioning economy. In so doing, it takes account of recent developments in the sociology of law, particularly 'system theory'. It also seeks to clarify the nature of claims to 'knowledge of law' and thus indicate the possibility of legal studies having a genuinely 'scientific' character. It shows that there is an essential value-orientation of all work of this kind, so that valid analytical jurisprudence not merely need not, but cannot, be 'positivist' as that term has come to be understood. Nevertheless it is explained why law and morality are genuinely distinct by virtue of the positive character of law contrasted with the autonomy that is foundational for morality.
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