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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes
The theme of this book is the political practices by Zhejiang Government under the guidance of "China Dream" policy. It reviews the political facets of governance, The People's Congress System, the consultative system, grassroots democracy, rule of law, government function, restriction and supervision of power and the united front. These areas are the foundations of Chinese government, and are currently discussed in detail from the point of view of the Zhejiang local administration. As China has its unique political system, this book could help scholars and policy makers around the global better understand the operation of Chinese government and political goals for the future under the guidance of the statecraft.
Democracy, Agency, and the State aims to contribute to a
comparatively informed theory of democracy. Professor O'Donnell
begins by arguing that conceptions of 'the state' and 'democracy',
and their respective defining features, significantly influence
each other. Using an approach that is both historical and
analytical, he traces this relationship through the idea of legally
sanctioned and backed agency which grounds democratic citizenship.
From this standpoint he explores several aspects of the democratic
regime and of the state, distinguishing four constitutive
dimensions (bureaucracy, legality, focus of collective identity,
and filter). He goes on to examine the role played by the idea of
'the nation' or 'the people', and the ways in which the state
represents itself to different sections of society, especially in
countries marred by deep inequality and pervasive poverty.
Transcending the widespread concerns about deteriorating moral values in American society, this collection focuses on the common values of American society. Through the perspectives of philosophers, historians, political scientists, theologians, anthropologists, economists, and scientists, this book examines American social values and discusses how they are applied in current areas of public interest. American democratic ideals are not simply rooted in the conventional structural and institutional elements of a democracy, such as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. American democracy, in fact, could not survive without a strong basis of social values that support community, tolerance, and cooperation. Since social values form the common bonds of society, and may not be supported by individual members, they are determined through a complex cultural, legal, and political process, as one of the contributors points out. The contributors to this book were assembled from a variety of disciplines and professions to examine social values and analyze their application in specific areas of current controversy. Through the perspectives of philosophy, anthropology, history, economics, political science, biomedical ethics, and religion, these discussions cover not only disciplinary perspectives but cover topics such as the environment, intergenerational interaction, social welfare policies, gender, and genetic engineering.
A study of the clash of two traditions, British liberalism and African nationalism, and an examination of how Michael Blundell in Kenya and Garfield Todd in Zimbabwe used their liberal backgrounds to further the future of their adopted countries, despite threats and detention. Both Blundell and Todd believed that political leaders had a responsibility to serve the needs of the people as a condition of national development. By the time each came to power, European colonization had had a profoundly negative effect on the lives of Africans; Blundell and Todd sought to correct this by putting their positive views of Africans into practice. While colonial governments designed strategies for controlling Africans to serve political and economic interests at home in Europe, Africans themselves established their own effective strategy, not only to ensure their survival in the colonial setting, but also to initiate a process for the restoration of their sense of self. Michael Blundell and Garfield Todd, with their liberal beliefs, served as excellent allies in this period of a rising African consciousness. Using sources obtained in Kenya and Zimbabwe over the past 15 years, this work examines democratic traditions that have survived tumultuous times in recent years.
Benjamin Disraeli is primarily remembered as a two-time Prime
Minister, founder of modern British Conservatism, and popular
novelist. However, in the course of a few fateful years, he had a
decisive influence on the history of the countries of the Balkan
peninsula.
The chapters in this volume examine a few facets in the drama of how the beleaguered Jewish people, as a phoenix ascending of ancient legend, achieved national self-determination in the reborn State of Israel within three years of the end of World War II and of the Holocaust. They include the pivotal 1946 World Zionist Congress, the contributions of Jacob Robinson and Clark M. Eichelberger to Israel's sovereign renewal, American Jewry's crusade to save a Jewish state, the effort to create a truce and trusteeship for Palestine, and Judah Magnes's final attempt to create a federated state there. Joining extensive archival research and a lucid prose, Professor Monty Noam Penkower again displays a definitive mastery of his craft.
France and Germany were among the major powers that abruptly lost that status as a consequence of World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, the governments of both nations sought ways to recover their great-power standing. Each saw the cooperation of the other as crucial for its own foreign policy aspirations and tried repeatedly to engage the other in commitments that would underwrite its own ambitions. But neither succeeded. In the 1970s, France and Germany began to reconcile themselves to the permanent loss of their great-power status. The process of accepting a diminished international role has been underway for more than two decades, and, in Kocs's judgment, is very likely to continue in the future. Far from opening the door to a stronger world military role for Western Europe, the end of the Cold War is likely to serve merely to consolidate the existing situation.
This first comparative study of the political communication processes in the United States and France brings together researchers from both countries to examine differences and similarities between the media's involvement in each nation's 1988 presidential election campaign. The book analyzes the construction of mediated political reality in the two countries, and concludes that French media do not concentrate more on policy issues than do American media. The authors discuss television news and newsmagazine coverage of the overall campaigns and their particular political debates, television commercials and broadcasts, and political posters. Also assessed are the interactions between party/candidate presentations of political reality and voter interpretations of that reality. The contributions are grouped into four sections: Comparing Politics in Two Cultures, which includes discussions of constructing a political communication project and the theoretical dimensions of the studies; Mediated Campaign Messages, which contains analyses of reality construction, political advertising, and political broadcasts; Media Coverage of the Campaigns; and Implications of Mediated Campaigning, which covers the effects of television broadcasts on voter perception and possibilities for improving the electoral process. This work is a useful resource for students, scholars, and politicians interested in political communication and comparative politics, as well as for journalists and members of the media.
This book examines the governance arrangements in Northern Ireland through a multi-level lens, particularly in the period since the new institutions established through the 1998 Agreement became more firmly embedded.
This book addresses the challenge of reforming defense and military policy-making in newly democratized nations. By tracing the development of civil-military relations in various new democracies from a comparative perspective, it links two bodies of scholarship that thus far have remained largely separate: the study of emerging (or failed) civilian control over armed forces on the one hand; and work on the roots and causes of military effectiveness to guarantee the protection and security of citizens on the other. The empirical and theoretical findings presented here will appeal to scholars of civil-military relations, democratization and security issues, as well as to defense policy-makers.
The great historian D.C. Moore's masterpiece, long unavailable. It is an essential fulcrum for all attempts to explain the nature of the 19th century English political system, and the great and continuous changes that occurred within that system as a preface to modern English society. Moore shows that the principal factor which changed the Victorian political system were those that derived from its working in the context of the changing economic and social environment in the industrial revolution and its immediate aftermath. The book reflects the premise that the key to the nature of any political system lies in the relationship between the formal political structure and the structure of the effective groups within that society.
Nowhere today is constitutional law more avidly debated and studied than in the 12 post-Soviet republics known as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Drawing on past experience as well as on European, American and Asian models, the constitutions of these countries have a great deal to tell the legal scholar about how the independent states of the post-Cold-War world understand the transition to a market economy. This text contains English translations which accurately present the current (1999) constitutional laws of all 12 CIS countries. The author and translator - himself active as an adviser on constitutional reform in several of these states - has taken care to establish the most authentic sources through an investigation of the existing documents and through personal interviews. From a great mass of confusing and often contradictory material in a dozen languages, he has assembled a coherent collection of documents that allows us to see the lineaments of constitutional law at a crucial stage of development in this fast-changing region of great economic significance.
In April of 1975, Lebanon, the tranquil Middle Eastern country called the Switzerland of the Orient, exploded into a violent conflict that lasted almost two decades. This book explores the convoluted politics and forces within Lebanon and the Near East that made the atmosphere in that tiny republic highly charged, thus inhibiting conflict resolution. This comprehensive study describes the strategies, battles, and conferences that kept Lebanon aflame, despite the best efforts of all concerned parties to terminate the bloodshed. Abraham looks at Lebanon from the inside-out, highlighting the conflicting politics of Lebanese leaders, the failure of the democratic left to take over the state, and the underlying problem of the PLO's presence in the country.
The most important book on the Eisenhower presidency in over a decade, Warshaw's edited collection provides extensive new data to support the view of Eisenhower as an activist, hands-on, involved president. The volume focuses on how he used a hidden hand leadership style to direct not only policy development but crisis management. With contributions from both historians and political scientists, the work supports the current trend in revisionist literature on Eisenhower as an activist president.
The Federalist Papers serve as a primary source for interpretation of the Constitution, as they outline the philosophy and motivation of the proposed system of government. The authors of the Federalist Papers wanted to both influence the vote in favor of ratification and shape future interpretations of the Constitution. According to historian Richard B. Morris, they are an "incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer." The Federalist Papers consists of 85 articles advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788. This edition also includes the Deceleration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.
Advocate Thuli Madonsela has achieved in her seven years as Public Protector what few accomplish in a lifetime; her legacy and contribution cannot be over-stated. In her final days in office she compiled the explosive State Capture report and, before that, the report on President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence. Praised and vilified in equal measures, Madonsela has frequently found herself at centre stage in the increasingly fractious South African political scene. Yet, despite the intense media scrutiny, Madonsela remains something of an enigma. Who is this soft-spoken woman who stood up to state corruption? Where did she develop her views and resolve? This book attempts to answer these questions, and others, by exploring many aspects of Madonsela's life: her childhood years and family, her involvement in student politics, her contribution to the constitution, her life in law. Madonsela once described her role as Public Protector as being akin to that of the Venda traditional spiritual female leader, the Makhadzi, who whispers truth to the ruler. When the sounds of the exchanges between the ruler and the Makhadzi grow loud, Madonsela said, that is when the whispering has failed. No Longer Whispering to Power is about Thuli Madonsela's tenure as Public Protector, during which the whisper grew into a cry. It is the story of the South African people's attempt to hold power to account through the Office of the Public Protector. More significantly, this important book stands as a record of the crucial work Madonsela has done, always acting without fear or favour.
In an interdisciplinary study, John Theilmann and Al Wilhite examine the role of campaign contributions in the election of blacks and women to the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1980s. The volume provides an historical overview of discrimination and campaign financing, a model of campaign contributions based on rent-seeking paradigm from public choice, and statistical testing of this model. Using an approach that is in part historical/narrative and in part theoretical/statistical, this book begins with a brief discussion of the political position of women and blacks from the early years of the republic to the 1970s. Chapter two examines the notable political gains made by both groups during the 1970s. Chapter three provides an overview of the impact of political money through history, and focuses on several explanations of the role of money in congressional elections since the passage of FECA. The next four chapters are theoretical explorations of campaign decisions linked with empirical measures of the influence of race and gender on these decisions. Theilmann and Wilhite present a rent-seeking model of the campaign strategy and an examination of both candidate and contributor decisions. The theoretical perspectives derived from these discussions serve as the basis for analysis of political action contributions, party contributions, and individual contributions. Finally, the authors return to the question of blacks and women in Congress during the 1980s, as impacted by campaign funding. Based on their analysis, they engage in some predictions of the future for black and female congressional candidates. These observations will interest academic audiences in the studies of political science, economics, and race relations, as well as anyone with an interest in race/sexual discrimination and congressional campaign finance reform.
Guo challenges the predominant view that post-Mao China has moved away from communist totalitarianism and that totalitarianism is an outdated paradigm for China studies. He seeks to reconstruct a plausible macro-model in conceptual and comparative terms for defining regime identity and assessing the nature of regime change. Professor Guo then applies the model to the study of regime change in post-Mao China and reevaluates post-Mao changes across the five major empirical aspects of regime change (political, ideological, economic, legal, and social) and the most critical dimensions of each. The findings of Guo's study demonstrate that the practice of post-Mao reforms remains rooted in and committed to the hard core of Chinese communist totalitarianism and that the regime has attempted to revive many typical totalitarian practices. Most essential or core elements of the idea, practice, and institution of totalitarianism remain essentially unchanged in all major aspects of the post-Mao regime, though the post-Mao regime does suffer from a certain degree of regime weakening in its adjustments of the action means or protective belt of defending the hard core of the communist totalitarian regime. A controversial and essential analysis for scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with contemporary China.
This work deals with the political transition in Spain from authoritarianism to democracy and its impact on business. It addresses the fundamental questions of how business was affected by the transition and how business, in turn, influenced the course of democratization, through collective action, and how it influenced the marketplace through the aggregate of individual business decisions. The work has a strong empirical base. Data was collected from the chief executive officers of 260 Spanish companies and the managing directors of over one hundred affiliates of the top-ranked business association, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (the "CEOE"). The work is particularly timely in light of the transitions occurring in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Unlike many earlier political transitions to more open systems, in Latin America and Southern Europe, the dynamics of economic change concurrent with political change is getting much greater attention in the East European transitions. The East European systems are attempting simultaneous political transitions with movement from command to market economies. Some East Europeans have studied the Spanish experience to garner lessons for their own efforts.
This study established an intellectual profile of Albert Gallatin through his vision of government's role in a democratic republic and the republic's role in the community of nations. Only through a comprehensive analysis of Gallatin's political and diplomatic activities can the student of history learn to see his actions as expressions of clearly formulated principles. Gallatin was much more involved in the shaping of administrative policy than has been recognized. Moreover, he followed his unique Gallatinian approach to domestic policy as well as international diplomacy, always in pursuit of one paramount objective: the preservation of individual liberty within the context of a republic.
Joseph Chamberlain's political career was immense, embracing the campaign for state education, municipal reform, opposition to Irish home rule, social reform, foreign and colonial affairs, and imperial preference. He was a formative influence on the development of party politics in late Victorian and Edwardian England. This bibliography provides the most comprehensive survey to date of primary and secondary material relating to this seminal figure. The bibliographical references listed in the volume cover every stage and aspect of Chamberlain's controversial career. Editorial comments are designed to assist the student and the researcher. The work also cites key articles detailing Chamberlain's relationship with the press and surveys the abundant political ephemera provoked by his career. In addition, the volume includes a chronology, biographical essay, and indexes. The volume seeks to provide a starting point for historians and other researchers interested in Chamberlain, his politics, and the conflicts his career engendered.
The aim of this book is to demonstrate how environmental factors have caused an evolution in the landscape of national security since the end of the Cold War. Through relevant case studies, the scope of the problem on the national security landscape due to environmental stressors is illuminated, examined, and synthesized with climate-related data. Human variables such as governance, GDP, and vulnerability are taken into account, and are compared against environmental factors to more accurately determine the causative agents of regional conflicts which threaten national security. These case studies comprise the majority of the text, and they show how individual conflicts are uniquely influenced by environmental stress with variations from situation to situation. This book will be of interest to government and military professionals, and may serve as a resource for college courses in the areas of military geography, international affairs, and sustainability studies.
"The First Black President" is a critical and passionate reflection on the political and historical implications of an Obama administration concerning the issue of race in America. Obama's rise to political power has forever changed the contours of race relations in the country as many hail the new age of a "post-racial" society. Yet, an Obama presidency could further complicate real racial progress and could set race relations back in the country for decades to come if not viewed in the proper context. The book demonstrates that the Obama presidency must be celebrated as a historical triumph based on America's racist past, but also the struggle for equality, justice and freedom must also intensify with recognition of its global consequences. The problem of race in America no longer just affects American citizens but impacts cultures around the globe. The book speaks to both optimists and pessimists alike who are struggling to understand how race factors into the domestic and international policy agenda of Obama who now sits in the highest seat of political and global power. |
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