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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political science & theory
In The Radical Machiavelli: Politics, Philosophy and Language, some
of the finest Machiavellian scholars explore the Florentine's
thought five hundred years after the composition of his
masterpiece, The Prince. Their analysis, however, goes past The
Prince, extending to Machiavelli's entire corpus and shining new
light on his political, historical, and military works, with a
special focus on their heritage in modern Marxist thought, the
arena in which they reverberate most profoundly and originally.
Rather than a neutral, comprehensive, and safe interpretation, this
book offers a partial and even partisan reading of Machiavelli, the
16th-century thinker who continues to divide scholars and
interpreters, forcing them to confront their responsibility as
contemporary thinkers in a global society where Machiavelli's ideas
and the issues they address still matter. Contributors are: Etienne
Balibar, Banu Bargu, Jeremie Barthas, Thomas Berns, Alison Brown,
Filippo Del Lucchese, Romain Descendre, Jean-Louis Fournel, Fabio
Frosini, Giorgio Inglese, Mikko Lahtinen, Jacques Lezra, John P.
McCormick, Warren Montag, Vittorio Morfino, Mohamed Moulfi,
Gabriele Pedulla, Tania Rispoli, Peter D. Thomas, Sebastian Torres,
Miguel Vatter, Stefano Visentin, Yves Winter, and Jean-Claude
Zancarini.
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.
In this rich and broad-ranging volume, Giovanni Sartori outlines
what is now recognised to be the most comprehensive and
authoritative approach to the classification of party systems. He
also offers an extensive review of the concept and rationale of the
political party, and develops a sharp critique of various spatial
models of party competition. This is political science at its best
- combining the intelligent use of theory with sophisticated
analytic arguments, and grounding all of this on a substantial
cross-national empirical base. Parties and Party Systems is one of
the classics of postwar political science, and is now established
as the foremost work in its field.
More than perhaps anybody else in the world, the Swedish political
scientist and sociologist Bj rn Wittrock has contributed - both on
the intellectual and institutional level - to making a truly global
social science possible. This volume contains contributions from
twenty-six world-renowned scholars who address different aspects of
his ambitious research program as well as current trends in the
institutionalization of the social and human sciences. The essays
in this volume focus on such topics as: the role of the state; the
reintegration of history and the social sciences; the importance of
civilizational studies and the comparison of civilizations; the
interaction of cultural and social dynamics; the analysis of trends
in higher education and the institutionalization of
social-scientific research.
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.
"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.
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.
This book examines why, on the eve of the pamphlet's 175th
anniversary, the Communist Manifesto left so faint an imprint on
Europe's most revolutionary year of 1848, when it has had such a
huge impact on posterity. The Manifesto that year misread bourgeois
intentions, put too much faith in the industrial proletariat, too
little in peasants, too much emphasis on the German states, and
none on England. Marx and Engels preferred in 1848-9 to focus on
the middle-class Neue Rheinische Zeitung, declining to galvanise
working-class groups whose leadership they had actively sought.
They neglected to return swiftly to the German states in their
crucial 1848 'March days'. The Manifesto's programme barely
overlapped with contemporary campaigners or comparative
pamphleteers, or the replacement Demands of the Communist Party in
Germany. The book considers the consequences of Marx opting to
write the Manifesto alone in January 1848. It also questions the
source and significance of the pamphlet's most memorialised phrase,
'the spectre of Communism', whether it was written for the 'working
men of all countries' addressed in its finale, and whether Marx and
Engels regarded the Manifesto as highly in 1848, as they
undoubtedly did in later life.
Conceived in the 1850s and opened to navigation in 1869, the Suez
Canal's construction coincided with Italy's path to unification and
its first foray into nineteenth-century globalization. Since then,
the history of Italy and the Canal have intertwined in many ways,
throughout in peace and war. This edited collection explores the
fundamental technical, diplomatic and financial contributions that
Italy made to the production of the Canal and to its subsequent
development, from the mid-nineteenth century to the Cold War.
Drawing from unpublished public and private archival sources, this
book is the first comprehensive account of this long and
multifaceted relationship, providing innovative perspectives on
Italy's diplomatic, economic, social, colonial and cultural
history. An insightful read for those studying maritime, diplomatic
or Italian history, this book contributes to a growing body of
research on the Canal, which has largely emerged from international
business, labour and social history, and offers new insights into
the Euro-Mediterranean region.
The new edition of this classic text provides a comprehensive
introduction to the concept of legitimacy as applied to political
systems. Now addressing the issue of legitimacy beyond the state,
the book also includes a new introduction and two major additional
chapters which update the argument in the light of developments and
debates.
Some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropies, including the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the
Broad Foundation have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in
education reform. With vast wealth and a political agenda, these
foundations have helped to reshape the reform landscape in urban
education. In Follow the Money, Sarah Reckhow shows where and how
foundation investment in education is occurring and presents
in-depth analysis of the effects of these investments within the
two largest urban districts in the United States: New York City and
Los Angeles. In New York City, centralized political control and
the use of private resources have enabled rapid implementation of
reform proposals. Yet this potent combination of top-down authority
and outside funding also poses serious questions about
transparency, responsiveness, and democratic accountability in New
York. Furthermore, the sustainability of reform policies is closely
linked to the political fortunes of the current mayor and his
chosen school leader. While the media has highlighted the efforts
of drastic reformers and dominating leaders such as Joel Klein in
New York City and Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., a slower, but
possibly more transformative, set of reforms have been taking place
in Los Angeles. These reforms were also funded and shaped by major
foundations, but they work from the bottom up, through charter
school operators managing networks of schools. This strategy has
built grassroots political momentum and demand for reform in Los
Angeles that is unmatched in New York City and other districts with
mayoral control. Reckhow's study of Los Angeles's education system
shows how democratically responsive urban school reform could
occur-pairing foundation investment with broad grassroots
involvement. Bringing a sharp analytical eye and a wealth of
evidence to one of the most politicized issues of our day, Follow
the Money will reshape our thinking about educational reform in
America.
This collection of essays by established scholars explores the
juncture of action and appearance in the political thought of
Hannah Arendt. "Action and Appearance" is a collection of essays
that look into the crucial and complex link between action and
appearance in Hannah Arendt's political thought. Contributed by
respected scholars, the essays articulate around the following
themes: the emergence of political action when questioning the
nature of law, subjectivity and individuality; the relationship
between ethics and politics; the nexus of (co-)appearance, thinking
and truth; and, Arendt's writing as action and appearance. For
Arendt, action is a worldly, public phenomenon that requires the
presence of others to have any effect. Therefore, to act is more
than to decide as it is also to appear. Much has been said about
Arendt's theory of action, but little attention has been paid to
her approach to appearance as is done in this volume. "Action and
Appearance" explores both Arendt's familiar texts and previously
unpublished or recently rediscovered texts to challenge the
established readings of her work. Adding to established debates, it
will be a unique resource to anyone interested in Hannah Arendt,
political thought, political theory, and political philosophy.
The revolutionary year of 1958 epitomizes the height of the social
uprisings, military coups, and civil wars that erupted across the
Middle East and North Africa in the mid-twentieth century. Amidst
waning Anglo-French influence, growing US-USSR rivalry, and
competition and alignments between Arab and non-Arab regimes and
domestic struggles, this year was a turning point in the modern
history of the Middle East. This multi and interdisciplinary book
explores this pivotal year in its global, regional and local
contexts and from a wide range of linguistic, geographic, academic
specialties. The contributors draw on declassified and multilingual
archives, reports, memoirs, and newspapers in thirteen
country-specific chapters, shedding new light on topics such as the
extent of Anglo-American competition after the Suez War, Turkey's
efforts to stand as a key pillar in the regional Cold War, the
internationalization of the Algerian War of Independence, and Iran
and Saudi Arabia's abilities to weather the revolutionary storm
that swept across the region. The book includes a foreword from
Salim Yaqub which highlights the importance of Jeffrey G. Karam's
collection to the scholarship on this vital moment in the political
history of the modern middle east.
From 19th-century trade agreements and treatments to 21st-century
reparations, this volume tells the story of the federal agency that
shapes and enforces U.S. policy toward Native Americans. Bureau of
Indian Affairs tells the fascinating and important story of an
agency that currently oversees U.S. policies affecting over 584
recognized tribes, over 326 federally reserved lands, and over 5
million Native American residents. Written by one of our foremost
Native American scholars, this insider's view of the BIA looks at
the policies and the personalities that shaped its history, and by
extension, nearly two centuries of government-tribal relations.
Coverage includes the agency's forerunners and founding, the years
of relocation and outright war, the movement to encourage Indian
urbanization and assimilation, and the civil rights era surge of
Indian activism. A concluding chapter looks at the modern BIA and
its role in everything from land allotments and Indian boarding
schools to tribal self-government, mineral rights, and the rise of
the Indian gaming industry. 20 original documents, including the
Delaware Treaty of 1778, the Indian Removal Act (1830), and the act
of 1871 that halted Indian treaty making Biographies of key
figures, including longtime bureau commissioners John Collier and
Dillon Myer
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