Vital Democracy outlines a theory of democracy in action, based on four elementary forms of democracy--pendulum, consensus, voter and participatory democracy--that are thoroughly analyzed, compared and related to both the literature and the real world of democracy. Just like a few primary colors produce an array of shades, a few basic models of democracy appear, the author argues, to constitute a wide range of democratic variants in real life.
Focusing on tried and tested democratic institutions, Frank Hendriks shows that the four models of democracy--with their divergent patterns of leadership, citizenship and governance, their inherent strengths and weaknesses--are never purely instantiated. He argues that wherever democracy is practiced with some level of success, it is always as hybrid democracy, thereby challenging those democratic reformers and theorists that have inspired the quest for democratic purity.
Vital Democracy builds on Arend Lijphart's well-known work which distinguishes between majoritarian and consensual democratic countries but also goes well beyond it, urging attention to non-national, non-formal, and non-representative expressions of democracy as well.

Ali Mazrui has been described as one of the most original thinkers that Africa has produced, and one of the top 100 living public intellectuals in the world today. This volume uses Mazrui's life and work as a guide towards explaining the historical impact of black public intellectuals such as Julius K. Nyerere, Patrice Lumumba and Barrack Obama. The book explores not only politics and academics, but also religion, gender, class and civil-military relations, bringing together into the black experience both Plato's concept of the "philosopher King" and V.I. Lenin's notion of the 'intelligentsia' ______________________________ Dr Seifudein Adem is Associate Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York in Binghamton in the United States. Dr. Adem's books include Paradigm Lost, Paradigm Regained: The Worldview of Ali A. Mazrui (2002), Anarchy, Order and Power in World Politics (2002) and Hegemony and Discourse (2005). He is currently working on Professor Mazrui's intellectual biography. Dr. Adem is also the Vice President of the New York African Studies Association. Publication date: November 2010

ANTHONY LIVINGSTON HALL COMMENTS ON: Bush's legacy of support for Africa: "I was dismayed by the number of people who refused to believe that Bush had done more for Africa than any other US president; notwithstanding testimonials I proffered from renowned crusaders for African development (like Sir Bob Geldof and Bono) to support this claim." Oprah's school for African girls: "I applaud Oprah for founding this school for the same reason I applauded Madonna for adopting that African boy: She is fulfilling a need which honors our shared humanity in a way that few of us can afford, or are even conscientious enough, to do." Native Americans ethnically cleansing blacks from their tribes: "Indeed, I do marvel at this curious thing: that they would rather be condemned as racists for expelling blacks than be criticized as niggards for hording their gambling loot." French President Nicolas Sarkozy's love affair with the US "Sarkozy displays a Blairite affinity for America that any self-respecting Frenchman must find particularly gaulling." Bungled terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow: "Wannabe suicide bombers rammed their jeep packed with explosives into Glasgow Airport on Saturday morning shouting "Allah, Allah, Allah"-no doubt hoping to go off in a blaze of glory for eternal assignations with their apocryphal 72 virgins." Steroids in baseball: "In fact, steroid use has flourished in baseball (and other professional sports) pursuant to an open conspiracy among players and team owners to feed the gladiatorial lust of fans who want to see bigger, stronger and faster cyborgs perform for their atavistic enjoyment."

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was a British philosopher, political economist, civil servant, and Member of Parliament. An influential liberal thinker of the 19th century, he taught utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his godfather, Jeremy Bentham.

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The second edition of this classic text substantially revises and extends the original, takes account of theoretical and policy developments, and enhances its international scope. Drawing on a range of disciplines and literatures, the book provides an unusually broad account of citizenship. It recasts traditional thinking about the concept and pinpoints important theoretical issues and their political and policy implications for women. Themes of inclusion and exclusion (at national and international levels), rights and participation, inequality and difference, are thus all brought to the fore in the development of a woman-friendly, gender-inclusive, theory and praxis of citizenship. Wide-ranging, stimulating and accessible, this is a ground-breaking book that provides new insights for both theory and policy.

As American Indian tribes seek to overcome centuries of political and social marginalization, they face daunting obstacles. The successes of some tribal casinos have lured many outside observers into thinking that gambling revenue alone can somehow mend the devastation of culture, community, natural resources, and sacred spaces. The reality is quite different. Most tribal officials operate with meager resources and serve impoverished communities with stark political disadvantages. Yet we find examples of Indian tribes persuading states, localities, and the federal government to pursue policy change that addresses important tribal concerns. How is it that Indian tribes sometimes succeed against very dim prospects?
In Power from Powerlessness, Laura Evans looks at the successful policy interventions by a range of American Indian tribal governments and explains how disadvantaged groups can exploit niches in the institutional framework of American federalism to obtain unlikely victories. Tribes have also been adept at building productive relationships with governmental authorities at all levels. Admittedly, many of the tribes' victories are small when viewed on their own: reaching cooperative agreements on trash collection with municipalities and successfully challenging other localities for more control over fisheries and waterway management. However, Evans shows that in combination, their victories are impressive-particularly when considering that the poverty rate among American Indians on reservations is 39 percent. Not simply a book about American Indian politics, Power from Powerlessness forces scholars of institutions and inequality to reconsider the commonly held view that the less powerful are in fact powerless.

The Republic is a dialogue by Plato in which the famous Athenian philosopher examines the nature of an ideal society. The insights are profound and timeless. A landmark of Western literature, The Republic is essential reading for philosophy students.

What have English terms such as 'civil society', 'democracy', 'development' or 'nationalism' come to mean in an Indian context and how have their meanings and uses changed over time? Why are they the subjects of so much debate - in their everyday uses as well as amongst scholars? How did a concept such as 'Hinduism' come to be framed, and what does it mean now? What is 'caste'? Does it have quite the same meaning now as in the past? Why is the idea of 'faction' so significant in modern India? Why has the idea of 'empowerment' come to be used so extensively? These are the sorts of questions that are addressed in this book. Keywords for Modern India is modelled after the classic exploration of English culture and society through the study of keywords - words that are 'strong, important and persuasive' - by Raymond Williams. The book, like Williams' Keywords, is not a dictionary or an encyclopaedia. Williams said that his was 'an inquiry into a vocabulary', and Keywords for Modern India presents just such an inquiry into the vocabulary deployed in writing in and about India in the English language - which has long been and is becoming ever more a critically important language in India's culture and society. Exploring the changing uses and contested meanings of common but significant words is a powerful and illuminating way of understanding contemporary India, for scholars and for students, and for general readers.

Once deemed 'the pope of Marxism', Karl Kautsky (1854-1938) was the leading theoretician of the German Social Democratic Party and one of the most prominent public intellectuals of his time. However, during the twentieth century a constellation of historical factors ensured that his ideas were gradually consigned to near oblivion. Not only has his political thought been dismissed in non-Marxist historical and political discourse, but his ideas are equally discredited in Marxist circles. This book aims to rekindle interest in Kautsky's ideas by exploring his democratic-republican understanding of state and society. It demonstrates how Kautsky's republican thought was positively influenced by Marx and Engels - especially in relation to the lessons they drew from the experience of the Paris Commune. Listen to Ben Lewis discuss the book on [this podcast] by LINKSE HOBBY.

In this volume, Dr Bunce (University of Cambridge) introduces Hobbes' ambitious philosophical project to discover the principles that govern the social world. If Hobbes' immodest assessment that he successfully attained this goal may be disputed, Bunce nevertheless captures the extraordinary enduring value of Hobbes' work for the contemporary reader. Thomas Hobbes's name and the title of his most famous work, "Leviathan," have come to be synonymous with the idea that the natural state of humankind is 'nasty, brutish, and short' and only the intervention of a munificent overlord may spare men and women from this unenviable fate by imposing order where there would otherwise be chaos. The problem that Hobbes formulated resonates through the centuries as the enduring dilemma of political organisation and social cooperation. Indeed it can be seen today in fields as diverse as theoretical game theory and international relations.

Following the Arab Uprisings, new ways of understanding sectarianism and sect-based differences emerged. But these perspectives, while useful, reduced sectarian identities to a consequence of either primordial tensions or instrumentalised identities. While more recently ‘third way’ approaches addressed the problems with these two positions, the complexity of secatarian identities within and across states remains unexplored. This book fills the gap in the literature to offer a more nuanced reading of both sectarian identities and also de-sectarianization across the Middle East. To do so, the volume provides a comparative account, looking at Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It examines the ways in which sect-based difference shapes regional politics and vice versa. The book also contributes to burgeoning debates on the role of protest movements in sectarianism. Chapters are split across three main sections: the first looks at sects and states; the second traces the relationship between sects and regional dynamics; and the third examines de-sectarianization, that is, the contestation and destablization of sectarian identities in socio-political life. Each section provides a more holistic understanding of the role of sectarian identities in the contemporary Middle East and shows how sectarian groups operate within and across state borders, and why this has serious implications for the ordering of life across the Middle East.

America's dominant two-party system forces the political parties to be inclusive and erect big tents. Since their origins, the Democratic and Republican parties have been ideologically variegated to accommodate such a demographically diverse and geographically expansive nation. Yet, given the variety of views within the parties, which prevail and why?
In Engines of Change, Daniel DiSalvo provides the first full account of the role of national intra-party "factions" in American politics. Factions are party sub-units that have enough ideological consistency, organizational capacity, and lasting power to sustain intra-party conflict. This definition widens the category to include many groups not previously categorized as factions, providing a more complete picture of all the different blocs interested in pushing their parties in a particular direction. DiSalvo follows the actions of twelve different party factions from the late 1860s to the present, showing how they have consistently shaped the larger party's ideology, the distribution of power in Congress, the patterns of presidential governance, and-ultimately-the development of the American state.
From the Mugwumps, Stalwart Republicans, and Half-Breeds of the Gilded Age, to the Modern Republicans and New Politics Democrats of the mid-twentieth century, to the more recent New Right and Tea Party movements, the groups DiSalvo covers all had a significant effect on the way their party operated at the time, with the most significant factions even generating changes that lasted long beyond their own era. Indeed, factions have often been just as important as the parties themselves in driving political change. Sweeping in scope, Engines of Change will reshape our understanding of the forces most responsible for reconfiguring the political landscape of modern America.

Do we have positive duties to help others in need or are our moral duties only negative, focused on not harming them? Are any of the former positive duties, duties of justice that respond to enforceable rights? Is their scope global? Should we aim for global equality besides the eradication of severe global poverty? Is a humanist approach to egalitarian distribution based on rights that all human beings as such have defensible, or must egalitarian distribution be seen in an associativist way, as tracking existing frameworks such as statehood and economic interdependence? Are the eradication of global poverty and the achievement of global equality practically feasible or are they hopelessly utopian wishes? This book argues that there are basic positive duties of justice to help eradicate severe global poverty; that global egalitarian principles are also reasonable even if they cannot be fully realized in the short term; and that there are dynamic duties to enhance the feasibility of the transition from global poverty to global equality in the face of nonideal circumstances such as the absence of robust international institutions and the lack of a strong ethos of cosmopolitan solidarity. The very notion of feasibility is crucial for normative reasoning, but has received little explicit philosophical discussion. This book offers a systematic exploration of that concept as well as of its application to global justice. It also arbitrates the current debate between humanist and associativist accounts of the scope of distributive justice. Drawing on moral contractualism (the view that we ought to follow the principles that no one could reasonably reject), this book provides a novel defense of humanism, challenges several versions of associativism (which remains the most popular view among political philosophers), and seeks to integrate the insights underlying both views.

The iPINIONS Journal Commentaries Vol. II

In this volume of political and social commentaries, Anthony Livingston Hall synthesizes the most critical developments of 2006 with remarkable clarity and inimitable wit. But, unlike more celebrated columnists who trade in partisan political talking points, Hall seems beholden to no ideology and is definitely an equal-opportunity critic. Moreover, you would be hard-pressed to find another columnist anywhere who writes as persuasively about the international menace of Iran's nuclear program as he does about the interpersonal dynamics of an NBA Championship series or what the latest ooops from Britney Spears portends for western civilization.

Hall's refreshing worldview may stem from the unique fusion of his Caribbean heritage and American education. But it is clearly the informed passion that permeates all of his commentaries that makes this book so riveting

This research collection offers a 34-article tour of recent advances and the current state of 5 important and booming areas of empirical methodology: Bayesian methods; modelling of temporal duration, dependence, and dynamics; network-analytic methodology; text, classification, and big-data analytic methods; methods for nonparametric and design-based causal inference. These prominent articles, written by leading scholars, break new ground and provide definitive statements of the current best practices in those respective areas. Together they describe the cutting-edge profile of modern empirical methodology for applied empirical analysis in political science. This is an essential resource for those studying and researching political methodology.

The magnum opus of Plato's writings that detail out the utopia that Socrates had thought of when debating with his contemporaries in ancient Greece. While many people have criticized these views over the years, these ideas have sparked many ideas of what makes government work and what does not as well as laying down the foundations for our own democratic systems in the present day. Socrates has many things to say about people and society in general making it a very enlightening piece of work.

Together we can make a difference. The big corporations have millions to sponsor programs that benefit the rich and corporate structure in America. The American Citizens can band together and raise millions to support our policies. By uniting and presenting our ideas to the candidates we will not be alone. Each of us would be fighting a loosing battle but together we can become a force that they will have to respect and listen to.

The American Citizens PAC will provide a complete listing of each and every one of the representatives in our government system. That will include the 535 members of Congress and the President. It will also include the representatives in each individual state so that everyone can be emailed with our opinions. If we decide to promote our policies instead of just saying to ourselves that our voice is only one and it will not make any difference. Together we can make a major difference. We can return the United States of America to the greatest country in the world and gain the respect of the world.

This book situates the origins of American political science in relation to the transatlantic history of liberalism. In a corrective to earlier accounts, it argues that, as political science took shape in the nineteenth century American academy, it did more than express a pre-existing American liberalism. The pioneers of American political science participated in transatlantic networks of intellectual and political elites that connected them directly to the vicissitudes of liberalism in Europe. The book shows how these figures adapted multiple contemporary European liberal arguments to speak to particular challenges of mass democratic politics and large-scale industry as they developed in America. Political science's pioneers in the American academy were thus active agents of the Americanization of liberalism. When political science first secured a niche in the American academy during the antebellum era, it advanced a democratized classical liberal political vision overlapping with the contemporary European liberalism of Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill. As political science expanded during the dramatic growth of university ideals and institutions in the Gilded Age, divergence within its liberalism came to the fore in the area of political economy. In the late-nineteenth century, this divergence was fleshed out into two alternative liberal political visions-progressive liberal and disenchanted classical liberal-with different analyses of democracy and the administrative state. During the early twentieth-century, both visions found expression among early presidents of the new American Political Science Association, and subsequently, within contests over the meaning of 'liberalism' as this term acquired salience in American political discourse. In sum, this book showcases how the history of American political science offers a venue in which we see how a distinct current of mid-nineteenth-century European liberalism was divergently transformed into alternative twentieth-century American liberalisms.

This expert analysis looks at what the increasing economic and political prominence of China and other Asian nations means to the West and the rest of the world. Asia's Rise in the 21st Century is a wake-up call to the West, offering a sophisticated assessment of a group of nations that are becoming essential markets for U.S. trade, industry, and finance, even as they increasingly represent fierce competition for global markets. The work traces changes that launched the region down the path to potential economic and political ascendancy, and it looks at various factors, from politics to economics to demographics that affect Asia now and will continue to do so in the future. China's prominence is explored in the context of how it complements and competes with the rest of Asia, especially Japan and India, and how it interacts with other major emerging-market countries, such as Brazil, Russia, and Turkey. The book also looks at the challenge China's ascendancy poses to the assertion that a successful capitalist system must be accompanied by political democracy. Finally, the authors suggest ways in which Asia's rise can be accommodated in the West and elsewhere and offer thoughts on where Asia, and especially China, will be in 2030.

This book is devoted to taking a lead in establishing a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary platform for exchanging fresh thinking in the field of strategic studies. The book gathers invited reports from various prestigious scholars from home and abroad. The aim of this book is threefold: firstly, to provide a comprehensive overview of the emerging evolution in international and regional orders, as well as the recent strategy adjustments among major world powers; secondly, to discuss major strategic issues facing China, and to further propose the Chinese wisdom and a Chinese strategic approach to sustaining peace and development, and to reaching a benign international interaction between China and other entities in the world, such as achieving cooperation and mutual benefits between China and the world; thirdly, to investigate the key factors in enhancing China's domestic governance such as strengthening state political capacity, national environmental governance, etc. The editorial group selected 10 high-quality reports to disseminate the findings and promote future research collaboration in this area. This timely book offers both theoretical insights and rigorous quantitative method that impact China's peaceful rise in the international arena.

Alexander examines interest group involvement in direct democracy. The tools of direct democracy--initiative, referendum, and recall--were initially created to delimit the power of economic interest groups and curb the power of political machines. Today, however, many believe that direct democracy has become a tool dominated by economic interests and that ballot contests have emboldened moneyed interests, rather than stemming their power. This unanticipated consequence of direct democracy has been coined the Populist Paradox.

Through two case studies, Alexander examines how debilitating the Populist Paradox truly is. The issue of gambling was selected due to the large number of affected interests and the degree of conflict enveloping the issue. Current research suggests that economic interest groups are best able to mobilize monetary resoures, while citizen groups are best able to mobilize personnel resources. The question then turns to whether the differential ability to mobilize resources translates to success or failure for groups with different bases of support. Populist and Progressive reformers obviously did not foresee the advent of campaign consultants, focus groups, direct mail, and paid petitioners. These changes in political campaigning have made the ability to mobilize personnel resources much less important. Alexander provides a valuable extension to current knowledge of group involvement in ballot campaigns that will be of particular interest to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with state and local public policy.