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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes
Montana's state constitution was created during the early 1970s.
Progressive, innovative and pragmatic, it combines a strong concern
for individual rights, personal liberty, and individual dignity
while seeking to keep government open and responsive to the will of
the people of Montana. It also stresses rights to a clean and
healthful environment.
Uprisings such as the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street signal a resurgence of populist politics in America, pitting the people against the establishment in a struggle over control of democracy. In the wake of its conservative capture during the Nixon and Reagan eras, and given its increasing ubiquity as a mainstream buzzword of politicians and pundits, democratic theorists and activists have been eager to abandon populism to right-wing demagogues and mega-media spin-doctors. Decades of liberal scholarship have reinforced this shift, turning the term "populism" into a pejorative in academic and public discourse. At best, they conclude that populism encourages an "empty" wish to express a unified popular will beyond the mediating institutions of government; at worst, it has been described as an antidemocratic temperament prone to fomenting backlash against elites and marginalized groups. Populism's Power argues that such routine dismissals of populism reinforce liberalism as the end of democracy. Yet, as long as democracy remains true to its meaning, that is, "rule by the people," democratic theorists and activists must be able to give an account of the people as collective actors. Without such an account of the people's power, democracy's future seems fixed by the institutions of today's neoliberal, managerial states, and not by the always changing demographics of those who live within and across their borders. Laura Grattan looks at how populism cultivates the aspirations of ordinary people to exercise power over their everyday lives and their collective fate. In evaluating competing theories of populism she looks at a range of populist moments, from cultural phenomena such as the Chevrolet ad campaign for "Our Country, Our Truck," to the music of Leonard Cohen, and historical and contemporary populist movements, including nineteenth-century Populism, the Tea Party, broad-based community organizing, and Occupy Wall Street. While she ultimately expresses ambivalence about both populism and democracy, she reopens the idea that grassroots movements-like the insurgent farmers and laborers, New Deal agitators, and Civil Rights and New Left actors of US history-can play a key role in democratizing power and politics in America.
The Republican Party is best understood as the vehicle of an ideological movement whose leaders prize commitment to conservative doctrine; Republican candidates primarily appeal to voters by emphasizing broad principles and values. In contrast, the Democratic Party is better characterized as a coalition of social groups seeking concrete government action from their allies in office, with group identities and interests playing a larger role than abstract ideology in connecting Democratic elected officials with organizational leaders and electoral supporters. Building on this core distinction, Asymmetric Politics investigates the most consequential differences in the organization and style of the two major parties. Whether examining voters, activists, candidates, or officeholders, Grossman and Hopkins find that Democrats and Republicans think differently about politics, producing distinct practices and structures. The analysis offers a new understanding of the rise in polarization and governing dysfunction and a new explanation for the stable and exceptional character of American political culture and public policy.
Nearly three decades after the dawn of democracy, South Africa has remained a country of ‘two agricultures’. On the one hand we have a subsistence, primarily non-commercial, black farming segment. On the other hand, however, we have a predominantly commercial and white farming sector that is well-resourced and has access to domestic and international trade networks. These disparities can be traced back to South Africa’s painful history where, for decades, black farmers were on the margins of government support and also experienced land dispossession and livestock plunder. A Country of Two Agricultures focuses less on history and more on the present and the future, explaining why these disparities have persisted in the democratic era, and what it will take to overcome them. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the variety of agricultural forces, taking into account both questions of domestic political economy and external factors, as well as to bring to light new risks and opportunities. Wandile Sihlobo offers insights into the role of agriculture in the South African economy from an agricultural economy perspective, and provides political economy insights that are rooted in the experiences of farming communities on the ground and right through the value chain. Beyond insights on the realities this book offers the government, the private sector, and anyone interested in the betterment of the South African economy, tools to grapple with this duality, and proposes a framework for bolstering the black farming segment for growth and competitiveness – and ultimately food security.
Majority-minority group relations are central to the proper functioning of any organization, but these relationships are especially important in democratically-elected legislatures. In legislatures, for example, group dynamics affect how the legislature operates, who is valued enough to play a critical decision-making role, and what voices matter in determining policy outcomes. In The Diversity Paradox, George Krause and Kristin Kanthak explore the nature of these relationships, particularly their effect on both the valuation of minority group legislators and the ideological stability of the legislature in general. Interestingly, they demonstrate that an increase in a minority group's size within a legislature actually leads to the devaluation of individual minority group members. They call this the 'diversity paradox': In fact, representative institutions such as legislatures face a 'diversity paradox': when the size of a minority group increases beyond mere 'tokenism' in representative institutions such as legislatures, it tends to create an unintended backlash toward the minority group's members that emanates from both majority and fellow minority group members. Representative institutions, therefore, can only fulfill the promise of adequate representation of minority group interests only by conquering this paradox. They can accomplish this through jointly attaining sufficient 'numbers' and overcoming the coordination problems those numbers create. This is no small task and no small issue: the inclusion of minority group voices in representative institutions is critical in a wide range of political decisions, ranging from legislative gender quotas in the new Iraqi constitution to attempts in the U.S. to increase minority representation through redistricting. The question of whether or not an increase in descriptive representation (numbers) has an impact on substantive representation (policy) is central to such efforts, and therefore The Diversity Paradox has important ramifications for all students interested in democratic representation.
The North Dakota State Constitution provides one of the most
comprehensive studies of the North Dakota Constitution and the
legal decisions which have helped to create and shape it.
In The Ohio State Constitution, Steven Steinglass and Gino
Scarselli provide a comprehensive and accessible resource on the
history of constitutional development and law in Ohio. This
essential volume begins with an introductory essay outlining the
history of the Ohio State Constitution and includes a detailed
section-by-section commentary, providing insight and analysis on
the case law, politics and cultural changes that have shaped Ohio's
governing document. A complete list of all proposed amendments to
the Constitution from 1851 to the present and relevant cases are
included in easy-to-reference tables along with a bibliographical
essay that aids further research. Previously published by
Greenwood, this title has been brought back in to circulation by
Oxford University Press with new verve. Re-printed with
standardization of content organization in order to facilitate
research across the series, this title, as with all titles in the
series, is set to join the dynamic revision cycle of The Oxford
Commentaries on the State Constitutions of the United States.
Much has been written about the historic nature of the Obama campaign. The multi-year, multi-billion dollar operation elected the nation's first black president, raised and spent more money than any other election effort in history, and built the most sophisticated voter targeting technology ever before used on a national campaign. But what is missing from these accounts is an understanding of how Obama for America organized its formidable army of 2.2 million volunteers - over eight times the number of people who volunteered for democratic candidates in 2004. Unlike previous field campaigns that drew their power from staff, consultants, and paid canvassers, the Obama campaign's capacity came from unpaid local citizens who took responsibility for organizing their own neighborhoods months-and even years-in advance of election day. In so doing, Groundbreakers argues, the campaign enlisted citizens in the often unglamorous but necessary work of practicing democracy. How did they organize so many volunteers to produce so much valuable work for the campaign? This book describes how. Hahrie Han and Elizabeth McKenna argue that the legacy of Obama for America extends far beyond big data and micro targeting - to a transformation of the traditional models of field campaigning. As the first book to analyze a presidential contest from the perspective of grassroots volunteers, Groundbreakers makes the case that the Obama ground game was revolutionary in two regards not captured in previous accounts. First, the campaign piloted and scaled an alternative model of field campaigning that built the power of a community at the same time that it organized it. Second, the Obama campaign changed the individuals who were a part of it, turning them into leaders. Obama the candidate might have inspired volunteers to join the campaign, but it was the fulfilling relationships volunteers had with other people and their deep belief that their work mattered that kept them active. Moreover, the lessons learned from the Obama campaign have and will continue to transform the nature of future campaigns, in both political and civic movements, nationally and internationally. Groundbreakers proves that presidential campaigns are still about more than clicks, big data and money, and that one of the most important ways that a campaign develops its capacity is by investing in its human resources.
Rhode Island has a long history of constitutional governance.
Beginning in 1636, Rhode Island's constitution has been shaped by
revolution, nation-building, tumult, and further changes wrought by
everything from neo-liberalism to gay rights. The result has been a
living document reflecting conflicting and changing values, making
the Rhode Island constitution an essential resource for
understanding the cultural history of this state.
Bonang Mohale is a highly respected South African businessman, who is known as much for his patriotism and his active role in seeking to advance his country’s interests as for the leading role he has played in companies like Otis Elevators, Shell South Africa and South African Airways, among others. Developed over 30 years of business experience, his insights have motivated change in organisations and individuals alike. As CEO of Business Leadership South Africa, he frequently shares his insights through speeches and articles on the role of business in South Africa and the core tenets of leadership. Lift As You Rise is a compilation of some of his spoken and written words in which Mohale reveals the issues he is passionate about – among them transformation, people development, constructive collaboration and integrity – and how they came to define his career and his life. He looks into the ideas behind his words and offers fresh thoughts on the subjects they cover. This well-balanced compilation is enhanced by contributions from others he has mentored or met on his journey which underscore who Mohale the man is – a fearless and energetic leader whose compassion, humanity and eternal optimism promote hope and encourage action. There is value in this book for leaders in all walks of life, but it is Mohale’s hope that young people specifically, those rising through the ranks, will find his insights and experience inspiring – for they are the country’s future leaders.
In recent years a series of scandals have challenged the traditional political reliance on public constitutional law and human rights as a safeguard of human well-being. Multinational corporations have violated human rights; private intermediaries in the internet have threatened freedom of opinion, and the global capital markets unleashed catastrophic risks. All of these phenomena call for a response from traditional constitutionalism. Yet it is outside the limits of the nation-state in transnational politics and outside institutionalized politics, in the 'private' sectors of global society that these constitutional problems arise. It is widely accepted that there is a crisis in traditional constitutionalism caused by transnationalization and privatization. How the crisis can be overcome is one of the major controversies of modern political and constitutional theory. This book sets out an answer to that problem. It argues that the obstinate state-and-politics-centricity of traditional constitutionalism needs to be counteracted by a sociological approach which, so far, has remained neglected in the constitutional debate. Constitutional sociology projects the questions of constitutionalism not only onto the relationship between public politics and law, but onto the whole society. It argues that constitutionalism has the potential to counteract the expansionist tendencies of social systems outside the state world, particularly of the globalized economy, science and technology, and the information media, when they endanger individual or institutional autonomy. The book identifies transnational regimes, particularly in the private area, as the new constitutional subjects in a global society, rivals to the order and power of nation states. It presents a model of transnational, societal constitutional fragments that could bring the values of constitutionalism to bear on these private networks, examining the potential horizontal application of human rights in the private sphere, and how such fragments could interact. An original and provocative contribution to the literature on modern constitutionalism, Constitutional Fragments is essential reading for all those engaged in transnational political theory.
The Maryland State Constitution is the only comprehensive analysis
of Maryland's constitution. Dan Friedman provides an outstanding
historical account of the state's governing charter along with an
in-depth, section-by-section analysis of the entire constitution,
detailing the many signifigant changes that have been made since
its initial drafting in 1867. In-depth commentary on the
constitutional interpretation offers tremendous political and
economic insight into each of the constitution's provisions.
Previously published by Greenwood, this title has been brought back
in to circulation by Oxford University Press with new verve.
Re-printed with standardization of content organization in order to
facilitate research across the series, this title, as with all
titles in the series, is set to join the dynamic revision cycle of
The Oxford Commentaries on the State Constitutions of theUnited
States.
What are the conditions for political development and decay, and the likelihood of sustained political order? What are the limits of established rule as we know it? How much stress can systems tackle before they reach some kind of limit? How do governments tackle enduring ambiguity and uncertainty in their systems and environments? These are some of the big questions of our time. Governance in turbulent times may serve as a stress-test of well-known ways of governing in the 21st century. Governance in Turbulent Times discusses this pertinent challenge and suggests how governments and organizations cope with and live with turbulence. The book explores how organizations and institutions respond to precipitous, conflicting, and novel-in short, turbulent-governance challenges. This book is a comprehensive and ground-breaking endeavor to understand how governance systems respond to turbulent challenges, and how turbulent times provide excellent opportunities to investigate the sustainability of governance systems. The book illustrates how politics, administrative scale and complexity, uncertainty, and time constraints can collide to produce turbulence. Building on prior work in organization theory and political science, we argue that turbulence refers to four properties related to the interaction of demands for action: variability, consistency, expectation, and unpredictability. Turbulence occurs where the interaction of demands is experienced as highly variable, inconsistent, unexpected, and/or unpredictable.
In The Massachusetts State Constitution, Lawrence Friedman and
Lynnea Thody present a comprehensive and accessible survey of
Massachusetts constitutional history and constitutional law. The
Massachusetts Constitution is the oldest state constitution and has
remained essentially unchanged since it was drafted in 1780. It
served as a model for the United States Constitution and many of
the state constitutions that followed.
A provocative series of essays from the former Supreme Court judge and Sunday Times-bestselling author. Across the globe, democracy is in crisis - in the UK alone, it has been rocked by Brexit, the pandemic and successive attempts by governments to bypass legal norms. But how did this happen, and where might we go from here? Jonathan Sumption cuts through the political noise with acute analysis of the state of democracy today - from the vulnerabilities of international law to the deepening suppression of democracy activism in Hong Kong, and from the complexities of human rights legislation to the defence of freedom of speech. Timely, incisive and wholly original, Challenges of Democracy applies the brilliance of 'the cleverest man in Britain' to the most urgent and far-reaching political issue of our day.
The September 2014 Scottish independence referendum was an event of profound constitutional and political significance, not only for Scotland, but for the UK as a whole. Although Scottish voters chose to remain in the UK, the experience of the referendum and the subsequent political reaction to the 'No' vote that triggered significant reforms to the devolution settlement have fundamentally altered Scotland's position within the Union. The extraordinary success of the Scottish National Party at the 2015 General Election also indicates that the territorial dimension to UK constitutional politics is more prominent than ever, destabilising key assumptions about the location and exercise of constitutional authority within the UK. The political and constitutional implications of the referendum are still unfolding, and it is by no means certain that the Union will survive. Providing a systematic and academic analysis of the referendum and its aftermath, this interdisciplinary edited collection brings together public lawyers, political scientists, economists, and historians in an effort to look both backwards to, and forwards from, the referendum. The chapters evaluate the historical events leading up to the referendum, the referendum process, and the key issues arising from the referendum debate. They also explore the implications of the referendum both for the future governance of Scotland and for the UK's territorial constitution, drawing on comparative experience in order to understand how the constitution may evolve, and how the independence debate may play out in future.
Over the last twenty or so years, it has become standard to require policy makers to base their recommendations on evidence. That is now uncontroversial to the point of triviality-of course, policy should be based on the facts. But are the methods that policy makers rely on to gather and analyze evidence the right ones? In Evidence-Based Policy, Nancy Cartwright, an eminent scholar, and Jeremy Hardie, who has had a long and successful career in both business and the economy, explain that the dominant methods which are in use now-broadly speaking, methods that imitate standard practices in medicine like randomized control trials-do not work. They fail, Cartwright and Hardie contend, because they do not enhance our ability to predict if policies will be effective. The prevailing methods fall short not just because social science, which operates within the domain of real-world politics and deals with people, differs so much from the natural science milieu of the lab. Rather, there are principled reasons why the advice for crafting and implementing policy now on offer will lead to bad results. Current guides in use tend to rank scientific methods according to the degree of trustworthiness of the evidence they produce. That is valuable in certain respects, but such approaches offer little advice about how to think about putting such evidence to use. Evidence-Based Policy focuses on showing policymakers how to effectively use evidence. It also explains what types of information are most necessary for making reliable policy, and offers lessons on how to organize that information.
In this newly revised work, Michael Bowers presents an historical
overview of constitutional development in the state of Nevada. The
Nevada State Constitution provides a comprehensive
section-by-section analysis of the state constitution. In addition,
a thorough bibliographic essay notes the seminal works relating to
the constitution, and a list of cases enumerates the landmark
federal and state court decisions interpreting the state's
constitution and the more than one hundred amendments to it. This
one-of-a-kind treatment of the Nevada Constitution is essential
reading for those interested in the historical development and
contemporary meaning of the Sagebrush State's oldest and most
foundational legal document.
It is frequently assumed that the "people" must have something in
common or else democracy will fail. This assumption that democracy
requires commonality - such as a shared nationality, a common
culture, or consensus on a core set of values - sets theorists and
political actors alike on a futile search for what we have in
common, and it generates misplaced anxiety when it turns out that
this commonality is not forthcoming.
For centuries it has been assumed that democracy must refer to the empowerment of the People's voice. In this pioneering book, Jeffrey Edward Green makes the case for considering the People as an ocular entity rather than a vocal one. Green argues that it is both possible and desirable to understand democracy in terms of what the People gets to see instead of the traditional focus on what it gets to say. The Eyes of the People examines democracy from the perspective of everyday citizens in their everyday lives. While it is customary to understand the citizen as a decision-maker, in fact most citizens rarely engage in decision-making and do not even have clear views on most political issues. The ordinary citizen is not a decision-maker but a spectator who watches and listens to the select few empowered to decide. Grounded on this everyday phenomenon of spectatorship, The Eyes of the People constructs a democratic theory applicable to the way democracy is actually experienced by most people most of the time. In approaching democracy from the perspective of the People's eyes, Green rediscovers and rehabilitates a forgotten "plebiscitarian" alternative within the history of democratic thought. Building off the contributions of a wide range of thinkers-including Aristotle, Shakespeare, Benjamin Constant, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and many others-Green outlines a novel democratic paradigm centered on empowering the People's gaze through forcing politicians to appear in public under conditions they do not fully control. The Eyes of the People is at once a sweeping overview of the state of democratic theory and a call to rethink the meaning of democracy within the sociological and technological conditions of the twenty-first century. In addition to political scientists and students of democracy, the book likely will be of interest to political journalists, theorists of visual culture, and anyone in search of political principles that acknowledge, rather than repress, the pathologies of political life in contemporary mass society.
The impact of the Great Depression on politics in the 1930s was both transformative and shocking. The role of government in America was forever transformed, and across Europe socialist, communist, and fascist parties saw their support skyrocket. Most famously, the National Socialists seized power in Germany in 1933, setting off a chain of events that led to the greatest conflagration in world history. The recent Great Recession has not been as severe as the Great Recession, but it has been severe enough, producing a half decade of negative and/or slow growth across the advanced industrial world. Yet the response by voters has been extraordinarily muted considering the circumstances. Why is this? In Mass Politics in Tough Times, the eminent political scientists Larry Bartels and Nancy Bermeo have gathered a group of leading scholars to analyze the political responses to the Great Recession in the US, Western Europe, and East-Central Europe. In contrast to works that focus on policy responses to the Recession, they examine how ordinary voters have responded. In almost every country, most voters have not shifted their allegiance to either far left or far right parties. Instead, they've continued to act as they have in more normal times: vote based on their own personal circumstances and punish the incumbents who were on watch when the bad turn occurred regardless of whether they were center-left or center-right. In some countries, electoral trends that existed before the Recession have continued. The US, for instance, saw no real increase in popular support for an expanded welfare state. In fact, the anti-regulatory right, which gained strength before the Recession occurred, experienced a series of victories in Wisconsin after 2008. Interestingly, states that had strong welfare systems have seen the least political realignment. As the contributors show, ordinary voters tend to vote based on their own experiences, and those in expansive welfare states have been buffered from the harshest effects of the Recession. That said, states with weaker welfare systems-e.g., Greece-have seen significant political turmoil. Moreover, there have been a small number of cases of popular radicalization, and the contributors have been able to isolate the cause: when voters can establish a clear and direct connection between the actions of political elites and economic hardship, they will throw their support to protest parties on the right and left. Ultimately, though, the picture is one of relatively stoic acceptance of the downturn by the majority of publics. Featuring an impressive range of cases, this will stand as the most comprehensive scholarly account of the Great Recession's impact on political behavior in advanced economies.
Empires at War, 1911-1923 offers a new perspective on the history of the Great War, looking at the war beyond the generally-accepted 1914-1918 timeline, and as a global war between empires, rather than a European war between nation-states. The volume expands the story of the war both in time and space to include the violent conflicts that preceded and followed World War I, from the 1911 Italian invasion of Libya to the massive violence that followed the collapse of the Ottoman, Russian, and Austrian empires until 1923. It argues that the traditional focus on the period between August 1914 and November 1918 makes more sense for the victorious western front powers (notably Britain and France), than it does for much of central-eastern and south-eastern Europe or for those colonial troops whose demobilization did not begin in November 1918. The paroxysm of 1914-18 has to be seen in the wider context of armed imperial conflict that began in 1911 and did not end until 1923. If we take the Great War seriously as a world war, we must, a century after the event, adopt a perspective that does justice more fully to the millions of imperial subjects called upon to defend their imperial governments' interest, to theatres of war that lay far beyond Europe including in Asia and Africa and, more generally, to the wartime roles and experiences of innumerable peoples from outside the European continent. Empires at War also tells the story of the broad, global mobilizations that saw African soldiers and Chinese labourers in the trenches of the Western front, Indian troops in Jerusalem, and the Japanese military occupying Chinese territory. Finally, the volume shows how the war set the stage for the collapse not only of specific empires but of the imperial world order.
Victorian Britain is often described as an age of dawning democracy and as an exemplar of the modern Liberal state; yet a hereditary monarchy, a hereditary House of Lords, and an established Anglican Church survived as influential aspects of national public life with traditional elites assuming redefined roles. After 1832, constitutional notions of 'mixed government' gradually gave way to the orthodoxy of 'parliamentary government', shaping the function and nature of political parties in Westminster and the constituencies, as well as the relations between them. Following the 1867-8 Reform Acts, national political parties began to replace the premises of 'parliamentary government'. The subsequent emergence of a mass male electorate in the 1880s and 1890s prompted politicians to adopt new language and methods by which to appeal to voters, while enduring public values associated with morality, community and evocations of the past continued to shape Britain's distinctive political culture. This gave a particularly conservative trajectory to the nation's entry into the twentieth century. This study of British political culture from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century examines the public values that informed perceptions of the constitution, electoral activity, party partisanship, and political organization. Its exploration of Victorian views of status, power, and authority as revealed in political language, speeches, and writing, as well as theology, literature, and science, shows how the development of moral communities rooted in readings of the past enabled politicians to manage far-reaching change. This presents a new over-arching perspective on the constitutional and political transformations of the Victorian age.
How is it that contemporary presidents talk so much and yet say so little, as H. L. Mencken once descibed, like dogs barking idiotically through endless nights? In The Anti-Intellectual Presidency, Elvin Lim tackles this puzzle and argues forcefully that it is because we have been too preoccupied in our search for a Great Communicator, and have failed to take presidents to task for what they communicate to us. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, he argues, spoke in a qualitatively different style than Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan and Clinton merely connected with us; the two Roosevelts educated us. To alert us to the gradual rot of presidential rhetoric, Lim examines two centuries of presidential speeches to demonstrate the relentless and ever-increasing simplificaton of presidential rhetoric. If these trends persist, Lim projects that the State of the Union addresses in the next century could actually read at the fifth-grade level. Lim argues that the ever-increasing tendency for presidents to crowd out argument in presidential rhetoric with applause-rendering platitudes and partisan punch-lines was concertedly implemented by the modern White House. Through a series of interviews with former presidential speechwriters, he shows that the anti-intellectual stance was a deliberate choice rather than a reflection of presidents' intellectual limitations. Only the smart, he suggests, know how to dumb down. Because anti-intellectual rhetoric impedes, rather than facilitates communication and deliberation, Lim warns that we must do something to recondition a political culture so easily seduced by smooth-operating anti-intellectual presidents. Sharplywritten and incisively argued, The Anti-Intellectual Presidency sheds new light on the murky depths of presidential utterances and its consequences for American democracy. |
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