For most of the twentieth century, the American founding has been presented as a struggle between social classes over issues arising primarily within, rather than outside, the United States. But in recent years, new scholarship has instead turned to the international history of the American union to interpret both the causes and the consequences of the US Constitution. In Perfecting the Union, Max M. Edling argues that the Constitution was created to defend US territorial integrity and the national interest from competitors in the western borderlands and on the Atlantic Ocean, and to defuse inter-state tension within the union. By replacing the defunct Articles of Confederation, the Constitution profoundly transformed the structure of the American union by making the national government more effective. But it did not transform the fundamental purpose of the union, which remained a political organization designed to manage inter-state and international relations. And in contrast to what many scholars claim, it was never meant to eclipse the state governments. The Constitution created a national government but did not significantly extend its remit. The result was a dual structure of government, in which the federal government and the states were both essential to the people's welfare. Getting the story about the Constitution straight matters, Edling claims, because it makes possible a broader assessment of the American founding as both a transformative event, aiming at territorial and economic expansion, and as a conservative event, aiming at the preservation of key elements of the colonial socio-political order.

This collection provides scholars and students with a wide-ranging overview of the issues, events and personalities of the two turbulent decades before the 1917 revolution in Russia. In particular, it analyzes the motivations and activities of the various political parties operating during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, nicknamed by his opponents "Nicholas the Last."

The factions examined range from the most radical foes of the tsarist regime, including the anarchists, the Socialists Revolutionaries, and the Social Democrats, such as the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, to conservative and monarchist groups loyal to the imperial system.

The book also considers the response to intense political activity and the revolutionary upheaval from state institutions such as the police and the church. The volume brings together the most recent scholarship and a variety of perspectives, including those based on new discoveries in the Russian archives after the fall of Communism.

Drawing on scholarly research and media critiques, The Third Agenda in Presidential Debates examines the most recent U.S. presidential debates from the perspective of television viewers who watched the encounters first hand. Through a national program--DebateWatch--tens of thousands of viewers had an opportunity to provide feedback to the debate sponsors, the campaigns, and the media following the 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential debates. As a result, thousands of groups met to discuss what they liked and didn't like about a particular candidate, what they learned, and what they still needed to know about the issues presented before them. These focus groups, along with various surveys and emails, allowed viewers to lay out a concise "third agenda" for the debates: the public's, one in which comparisons could be drawn between their own interests and that of the media and the candidates themselves. This book breaks down the fundamental aspects that made DebateWatch such a powerful tool for citizens. From analyzing and interpreting the public's reaction to developing recommendations for further improvements, there have been many significant changes in debate practices since the program first burst on the scene during the 1992 presidential election. Besides clearly mapping out the important aspects the public looks for when watching a debate, the authors demonstrate how citizen participation challenges candidates and their issues. In addition, the authors offer predictions for future debates and how new generations will choose to participate. Along with 14 analytical chapters, this work contains four detailed appendices, several tables, and an index.

Hong Kong society is often regarded as politically apathetic. Yet throughout its history, Hong Kong experienced periodic waves of social movement activity. In part, the perception of an apathetic populace stems from the colonial government's laissez-faire policies, the society's concentration on economic development, the maintenance of traditional Chinese culture, and a consensus that Hong Kong would revert to Chinese sovereignty. Since Hong Kong was a colony, instead of evolving into a democratic government, Great Britain instituted a system of elite consultation and absorption of the masses' political problems through indirect participation. Butenhoff addresses the question of why social movements emerged and how they influenced the process of political reform. Her study presents and analyzes the activities of social movements so that a clearer picture of civil society and political change from below emerges.

Butenhoff integrates the literature on Hong Kong, civil society, and social movements into an integrated approach to analyze social movement influence in Hong Kong politics. Her three case studies: the independent labor movement, the nontraditional Christian movement, and the democracy movement are analyzed using a social movement framework. She evaluates the forces that drive and sustain social movements and argues that while the Chinese and British governments debated the fate of democratic Hong Kong, the Hong Kong people have been overlooked throughout the process. And, as a result, Hong Kong social movements play an essential role in raising the awareness of the people and bringing to light the voices from below.

This accessible yet authoritative collection of essays chronicles the history of dissent in the British Isles, from Magna Carta to the present day. The contributors - all specialists in their field - cover such milestones as the age of revolution, industrialisation and the foundation of the Labour Party. Tony Benn contributes a powerful, final extended chapter arguing that "we are light years away from being a true democracy."

In The 1624 Tumult of Mexico in Perspective Angela Ballone offers, for the first time, a comprehensive study of an understudied period of Mexican early modern history. By looking at the mandates of three viceroys who, to varying degrees, participated in the events surrounding the Tumult, the book discusses royal authority from a transatlantic perspective that encompasses both sides of the Iberian Atlantic. Considering the similarities and tensions that coexisted in the Iberian Atlantic, Ballone offers a thorough reassessment of current historiography on the Tumult proving that, despite the conflicts and arguments underlying the disturbances, there was never any intention to do away with the king's authority in New Spain.

The "sequel" to his best-selling Classes and Cultures, Ross McKibbin's latest book is a powerful reinterpretation of British politics in the first decades of universal suffrage. What did it mean to be a "democratic society?" To what extent did voters make up their own minds on politics or allow elites to do it for them?
Exploring the political culture of these extraordinary years, Parties and People shows that class became one of the principal determinants of political behaviour, although its influence was often surprisingly weak.
McKibbin argues that the kind of democracy that emerged in Britain was far from inevitable-as much historical accident as design-and was in many ways highly flawed.

The term "intergovernmental relations" refers to the way in which the different spheres of a government hierarchy relate to each other. This concept is of vital importance where there is a division of power at both administrative and legal levels among different spheres of government. Intergovernmental relations in South Africa examines the South African government's quest to enhance effective and efficient service delivery to the people. Case studies are included in all chapters to provide a hands-on approach to relate theory to practice. This book discusses four distinct approaches to the subject: the constitutional/legal approach, the democratic approach, the financial approach and the normative/operational approach. It culminates in a delineation of practical steps for the promotion of well-grounded intergovernmental relations, sustainable capacity building and trustworthy political accountability. The book also focuses on intergovernmental relations network and cooperative governance in South Africa as well as governmental relations in the BRICS countries. Intergovernmental relations in South Africa is suitable not only for academics but also for practitioners in the fields of public administration and management, political sciences, social sciences, law and other related disciplines.

Winner of the 2007 SANA Book Award

Complete List of Authors:
Dorothy Holland, Donald M. Nonini, Catherine Lutz, Lesley Bartlett, Marla Frederick-McGlathery, Thaddeus C. Guldbrandsen, and Enrique G. Murillo, Jr.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Preface.

aLocal Democracy Under Siege argues persuasively that American democracy is at a pivotal moment where the forces of exclusion and the ideology of market rule contest with new forms of political activism and engaged citizenship. Readers will see many of the same issues that North Carolina faces in their own communities and will take away new perspectives on power, race, class, and activism from this cogent and timely analysis.a
--Louise Lamphere, Past President of the American Anthropological Association

aProduces new insights into the amakeovera of local governmenta--"Choice"

aDebates about democracy often get stuck at the national scale. But the capacity for ordinary people to shape the conditions of their lives through politics and public speech is often greatest at the local level. This important book opens up anthropological perspectives on how this happens. It situates the challenges of local politics amid the constraints of neoliberalism, but also reports on the creative solutions different communities have developed to the distinctive problems they face.a
--Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council

aThis book opens up the crucial questions of what democracy means in the U.S. today and the ways in which everyday Americans struggle to make themselves heard. Conceptually, methodologically, and theoretically this book realizes the potential for anthropological analysis as a way tounderstand the dangers of increasing inequality in the contemporary U.S. It is a major contribution.a
--Ida Susser, author of "Norman Street: Poverty and Politics in an Urban Neighborhood"

"A luminous work about everyday citizens that should free up local democratic energies across the land!"
--Aihwa Ong, author of "Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty"

"This unique study provides a vital enquiry into the troubled times of local democracy and poses critical questions about its future in the USA."
--John Clarke, author of "Changing Welfare, Changing States"

aNicely illustrate the problems that plaue local democracya
--"Political Science Quaterly"

What is the state of democracy at the turn of the 21st century? To answer this question, seven scholars lived for a year in five North Carolina communities. They observed public meetings of all sorts, had informal and formal interviews with people, and listened as people conversed with each other at bus stops and barber shops, soccer games and workplaces. Their collaborative ethnography allows us to understand how diverse members of a community-not just the elite-think about and experience "politics" in ways that include much more than merely voting.

This book illustrates how the social and economic changes of the last three decades have made some new routes to active democratic participation possible while making others more difficult. Local Democracy Under Siege suggests how we can account for the current limitations of U.S. democracy and how remedies can be created that ensure more meaningful participation by a greater range of people.

Complete List of Authors (pictured)
FromLeft to Right, bottom row: Enrique Murillo, Jr., Thaddeus Guldbrandsen, Marla Frederick-McGlathery.
Top row: Dorothy Holland, Catherine Lutz, Lesley Bartlett, and Don Nonini.

China is in the midst of dramatic economic and social reform--reform that may well suggest a long-term developmental trend toward modernization and democracy. This evolution in the structure of Chinese society means that the authoritarian social control system in China must change if loss of community ties, dislocation, and social disintegration are to be avoided in the coming years. This book provides a blueprint for the social architecture of China and offers an argument for how change in the essential structure of Chinese society must be implemented. Shaw's investigation of work units--the building blocks of contemporary China--pinpoints them as the primary sites of social control and as the most important components of any efforts at reform.

Citizens, political theorists, and politicians alike insist that political or partisan motives get in the way of real democracy. Real democracy, we are convinced, is embodied by an ability to form collective judgments in the interest of the whole. The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy: How Deliberative Ideals Undermine Democratic Politics, by Scott Welsh, argues instead that it is our easy rejection of political motives, individual interests, and the rhetorical pursuit of power that poses the greatest danger to democracy. Our rejection of politics understood as a rhetorical contest for power is dangerous because democracy ultimately rests upon the perceived public legitimacy of public, political challenges to authority and the subsequent reconstitution of authority amid the impossibility of collective judgment. Hence, rather than searching for allegedly more authentic democracy, rooted in the pursuit of ever-illusive collective judgments, we must find ways to come to terms with the persistence of rhetorical, political contests for power as the essence of democracy itself. Welsh argues that the impossibility of any kind of public judgment is the fact that democracy must face. Given the impossibility of public judgment, rhetorical competitions for political power are not merely poor substitutes for an allegedly more authentic democratic practice, but constitute the essence of democracy itself. The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy is an iconoclastic investigation of the democratic process and public discourse.

Benoit, Blaney, and Pier apply the functional theory of political campaign discourse to the 1996 presidential campaign. When a citizen casts a vote, he or she makes a decision about which candidate is preferable. There are only three types of rhetorical strategies for persuading voters to believe a candidate is the better choice: acclaiming or self-praise, attacking or criticizing an opponent, and defending or responding to attacks. As they illustrate, acclaims, if accepted by the audience, make the candidate appear better. Attacks can make the opponent seem worse, improving the source's apparent preferability. If attacked, a candidate can attempt to restore-or prevent-lost credibility by defending against that attack. As Benoit, Blaney, and Pier point out, the functional theory of political communication is relatively new, and their book illustrates it with a detailed analysis of the most recent presidential campaign. One of the major strengths of the study is the variety of message forms examined: television spots, debates, talk radio appearances, keynote speeches, acceptance speeches, speeches by spouses, radio addresses, and free television time remarks. It also examines all three parts of the campaign-primary, nominating conventions, and general campaign. This comprehensive analysis of the '96 presidential campaign will be of considerable use to students, scholars, and other researchers dealing with contemporary American electioneering.

Parliamentary Democracy provides a comparative study of the parliamentary regimes since 1789. The book covers the road to parliamentarization of former constitutional monarchies and the creation of parliamentary regimes by exercising the constitution-making power of the people. What has been called democratization in most of the 'transitology' literature was until 1918 mostly only 'parliamentarization'. Democratization of the regimes frequently caused a certain destabilization of the parliamentary regimes by new parties and extremist movement entering the political arena. This is the first book to cover the entire range of parliamentary systems, including the semi-presidential systems.

The International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is the first human rights treaty adopted by the United Nations in the 21st century. It seeks to secure the equal and effective enjoyment of human rights for the estimated 650 million persons with disabilities in the world. It does so by tailoring gerneral human rights norms to their circumstances. It reflects and advances the shift away from welfare to rights in the context of disability. The Convention itself represents a mix between non-discrimination and other substantive human rights and gives practical effect to the idea that all human rights are indivisible and interdependent. This collection of essays examines these developments from the global, European and Scandinavian perspectives and the challenge of transposing its provisions into national law. It marks the coming of age of disabilty as a core human rights concern.

Beginning in 1898, the United States won overseas colonies as the spoils of the Spanish-American War: Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Cuba. Guam and Hawaii were also acquired in that year, and in 1917, the Danish Antilles became the United States Virgin Islands. The racial heritage of the territorial inhabitants paralled that of nonwhite groups in the United States: Native Americans, Africans, Asians, Hispanics, and mixed-race people. The nonwhite race of domestic and overseas colonial people established important links between American domestic racial policies and the racial policies and the racial dimension of American overseas colonies. This book is about these links, as shaped by the prevailing "racial tradition" and social structure in the United States itself. Crucial to examining these links is the little-known role of Booker T. Washington in shaping American overseas colonial policy. It is argued that following colonial acquisition at the turn of the century, the American "racial tradition" was exported to overseas territories, thereby largely determining colonial policy and administrative practices, the nature of social and racial conflict, and the direction and pace of political evolution in the territories.

Bringing to light a long-neglected aspect of Thomas Jefferson's political philosophy - the "ward republic" - Gary Hart here offers a wholly original blueprint for republican restoration in which every citizen can participate democratically in the governing of his or her own life. Of crucial relevance for contemporary society, including its startlingly prescient plan for homeland security, Restoration of the Republic provides original insights into issues of national urgency as well as the timeless questions that bedevil the American democratic experiment.

Phillips assesses prospects for post-national social coherence transcending the traditional nation-state, with a focus on events in Germany. European institutional integration has been seen as a stabilizing alternative to the nation-state system, a system that resulted in two devastating world wars. However, economic interests appear to have been more effective instruments of transnational integration in Europe. Further, until 1989, part of this alternative vision was a divided Germany.

He explicitly links a focus upon the Federal Republic, central to post-Cold War Europe's future, with a study of private business, perhaps the most indispensable agent of Germany's post-1945 rehabilitation. Business support has been imperative to European integration. Nonetheless, if the European Union is attractive to members or potential members only for economic reasons, then no matter how wealthy its constituent parts may be, potential harmful effects of interstate competition will continue to pose a threat to social coherence of the EU, the Continent, and the world beyond. With the aid of analysis of companies largely perceived as being German, but which are increasingly transnational, Phillips shows how interdependent business needs may overcome nationalist and institutional conceptions in the transnational integration processes. For scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with European integration, international relations, and German Studies.