In Dead Presidents, public radio host and reporter Brady Carlson takes readers on an epic trip to presidential gravesites, monuments, and memorials from sea to shining sea. With an engaging mix of history and contemporary reporting, Carlson explores the death stories of our greatest leaders, and shows that the ways we memorialize our presidents reveal as much about us as they do about the men themselves.

This study shows how philanthropic foundations and their leaders help shape the American political agenda. The authors' central argument is that foundation leaders are members of a key social and political elite in American society. Relying on a survey of such leaders and on an examination of foundation public policy grants, the authors demonstrate that members of the foundation elite are among the most polarized groups in American society. This study shows how philanthropic foundations and their leaders help shape the American political agenda. The authors' central argument is that foundation leaders are members of a key social and political elite in American society. Relying on a survey of such leaders and on an examination of foundation public policy grants, the authors demonstrate that members of the foundation elite are among the most polarized groups in American society. Contrary to popular belief, those who control foundations seek to make American more progressive. Public policy oriented foundations are largely liberal in outlook and make grants primarily to liberal individuals and organizations. The authors examine the dilemmas that the existence of such organizations create for democratic political theory. The discussion is placed in the context of a historical overview of the role of foundations in American society; it will be of great interest to public policy professionals, political scientists, and those who track the direction of the national agenda.

This book analyzes the impact of social media on democracy and politics at the sub-national level in developed and developing countries. Over the last decade or so, social media has transformed politics. Offering political actors opportunities to organize, mobilize, and connect with constituents, voters, and supporters, social media has become an important tool in global politics as well as a force for democracy. Most of the available research literature focuses on the impact of social media at the national level; this book fills that gap by analyzing the political uses of social media at the sub-national level. The book is divided into two parts. Part One, "Social Media for Democracy" includes chapters that analyze potential contributions of social media tools to the realizing of basic values of democracy, such as public engagement, transparency, accountability, participation and collaboration at the sub-national level. Part Two, "Social Media in Politics" focuses on the use of social media tools by political actors in political processes and activities (online campaigns, protests etc.) at the local, regional and state government levels during election and non-election periods. Combining theoretical and empirical analysis, each chapter provides evaluations of overarching issues, questions, and problems as well as real-world experiences with social media, politics, and democracy in a diverse sample of municipalities. This volume will be of use to graduate students, academicians, and researchers, in several disciplines and fields, such as public administration, political science, ICT, sociology, communication studies and public policy as well as politicians and practitioners.

A new reading of The Prince, arguing that the classic text is neither a scientific treatise on politics nor a patriotic tract but rather an artful, elaborated critique of the dominant religion of his time The leading interpretations of The Prince focus on Machiavelli's historical context, but they give little attention to the source on which the moral and political thought of Machiavelli's sixteenth century was based, the Christian Bible. In this study of The Prince, William Parsons plumbs Machiavelli's allusions to the Bible, along with his statements on the Church, and shows that Machiavelli was a careful reader of the Bible and an astute observer of the Church. On this basis Parsons contends that Machiavelli's teaching in The Prince is instructively compared with that of the Church's teacher, Jesus Christ. Parsons thus undertakes what recent interpreters of The Prince have not done: contrast Machiavelli's advice with the teaching of Christ. The result is a new reading of The Prince, revealing in Machiavelli's political thought a systematic critique of the NewTestament and its model for human life, Christ. In this commentary on one of the greatest works on politics ever written, Parsons not only challenges the most recent interpretations of The Prince but also sheds new light onthe classic interpretation that Machiavelli was a teacher of immorality. William Parsons is associate professor of political science at Carroll College.

This book focuses on the idea of a modus vivendi as a way of governing political life and addressing problems characterized by pluralism or deep-rooted diversity. The individual essays illustrate both the merits and the limitations of a political theory of modus vivendi; how it might be interpreted and developed; specific challenges entailed by articulating it in a convincing form; what its institutional implications might be; and how it relates to other seminal issues and concepts in political theory; such as legitimacy, toleration, the social contract, etc. The book makes a significant contribution to the discussion on the scope and limits of liberal political theory, and on how to deal politically with deep-rooted diversity.

While the presidency has always been a political office, the distinction between campaigning and governing has become increasingly blurred in recent years. Yet no one until now has documented the phenomenon of the "permanent campaign" and analyzed its impact on the executive office. In this eye-opening book, Brendan Doherty provides empirical evidence of the growing focus by American presidents on electoral concerns throughout their terms in office, clearly demonstrating that we can no longer assume that the time a president spends campaigning for reelection can be separated from the time he spends governing.

To track the evolving relationship between campaigning and governing, Doherty examines the strategic choices that presidents make and what those choices reveal about presidential priorities. He focuses on the rise in presidential fundraising and the targeting of key electoral states throughout a president's term in office--illustrating that recent presidents have disproportionately visited those states that are important to their political prospects while largely neglecting those without electoral payoff. He also shows how decisions about electoral matters previously made by party officials are now made by voter-conscious operatives within the White House.

Doherty analyzes what these changing dynamics portend for the nature of presidential leadership, contending that while such strategies can at times strengthen a president's hand, they can also undermine his role as a unifying national leader, heighten public cynicism, and limit prospects for bipartisan compromise. He further shows how trends in presidential fundraising undermine the conventional understanding of the predatory relationship between the president and his party.

Drawing on new systematic evidence of presidential fundraising and travel, archival research at presidential libraries, and accounts by presidents and their aides, Doherty musters a mountain of evidence to offer an objective, comprehensive argument about the causes, indicators, and implications of the rise of the permanent campaign as no previous book has done--an evenhanded account that seeks to disparage no individual president. Concise and accessible, "The Rise of the President's Permanent Campaign" engages crucially important questions about the development of the presidency--as well as larger normative questions about what we want in a leader--as it challenges the convention in political science that has long kept most scholarship on presidential campaigns separate from the study of the presidency itself.

When Verschuur-Basse, a French sociologist specializing in the family, was invited by the Academy of Social Sciences to Beijing in 1985, she interviewed women from three generations and a variety of professions about their lives as women, wives, mothers, and daughters-in-law. Over a five-year period she conducted in-depth, non-directed interviews with educated women who were able to analyze and interpret their lives in the context of important formative factors such as the Cultural Revolution, the one-child policy, and other social reforms. The difference between urban and rural expectations from women is particularly apparent in the life stories of the 13 women included in this book. The women voice common concerns as wives and mothers who work outside the home and comment on the prevalence of abortion and preference for male children, the increase in divorce rates, and the place of women as decision-makers in the family. Originally published in French as "Paroles de Femmes Chinoises: La Famille Autrement" (Harmattan, 1993), the study received critical acclaim from academy and media as a revealing portrayal of social reality in China.

.,."Nolan argues that America's therapeutic culture has recently moved from the cultural realm of "symbols and codes" to penetrate the institutions of the modern American state. By delineating sharply between the culture of the therapeutic and therapeutic poicymaking, Nolan's probing work provides an important new methodological frame with which to study the therapeutic"
--"American Studies International"

The United States has always been profoundly conflicted about the role and utility of its government. Simmering just beneath the surface of heated public discussions over the appropriate scope and size of government are foundational questions about the very purpose of the state, and the basis of its authority. America's changing and diversifying cultural climate makes common agreement about the government's raison d'Aatre all the more difficult.

In The Therapeutic State, James Nolan shows us how these unresolved dilemmas have coalesced at century's end. Today the American state, faced with a steady decline in public confidence, has embraced a therapeutic code of moral understanding to legitimize its very existence.

By ranging widely across education, criminal justice, welfare, political rhetoric, and civil law, Nolan convincingly illustrates how the state increasingly turns to the therapeutic ethos as a justification for its programs and policies, a development that will profoundly influence the relationship between government and citizenry. In a tone refreshingly free of polemic, Nolan charts the dialectic relationship between culture and politics and, against the backdrop of striking historical contrasts, gives example after example of the emergence of therapeuticsensibilities in the processes of the American state.

The Partition of India in 1947 involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and the Punjab, based on district-wise Hindu or Muslim majorities. The Partition displaced between 10 and 12 million people along religious lines. This book provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the resettlement and rehabilitation of Partition refugees in Pakistani Punjab between 1947 and 1962. It weaves a chronological and thematic plot into a single narrative, and focuses on the Punjabi refugee middle and upper-middle class. Emphasising the everyday experience of the state, the author challenges standard interpretations of the resettlement of Partition refugees in the region and calls for a more nuanced understanding of their rehabilitation. The book argues the universality of the so-called 'exercise in human misery', and the heterogeneity of the rehabilitation policies. Refugees' stories and interactions with local institutions reveal the inability of the local bureaucracy to establish its own 'polity' and the viable workability of Pakistan as a state. The use of Pakistani documents, US and British records and a careful survey of both the judicial records and the Urdu and English-language dailies of the time, provides an invaluable window onto the everyday life of a state, its institutions and its citizens. A carefully researched study of both the state and the everyday lives of refugees as they negotiated resettlement, through both personal and official channels, the book offers an important reinterpretation of the first years of Pakistani history. It will be of interest to academics working in the field of refugee resettlement and South Asian History and Politics.

For over five decades, North Korea has outlived many forecasts of collapse despite defects in its system. Origins of North Korea's Juche: Colonialism, War, and Development, edited by Jae-Jung Suh, argues that it has survived because of Juche, a unique political institution built on the simple notion of self-determination, whose meanings and limits have been shaped by Koreans' experiences with colonialism, war, and development amidst surrounding superpowers that have complicated their aspirations and plans. The authors in this volume collectively provide an historical institutionalist account of North Korean politics organized around the concept of Juche-commonly translated as self-reliance, but best understood as subjecthood or being a master of one's own fate-focusing on its role as a response to North Korea's experiences with colonialism, the Korean War, and economic development. The contributors further discuss how Juche circumscribes the evolutionary path that North Koreans can take as they negotiate contemporary challenges. North Korea, as it is now, is best understood in terms of Juche which embodies the cumulative effect of its historical experiences and responses, and its future potential and trajectory, as enabled and constrained by its conception of Juche. This collection provides fascinating insights into the politics and history of one of the world's most mysterious nations.

Lister traces the little known story of how the first confederal type unions sprang up in ancient Greece, and how they were revived in medieval and early modern times, not just in Switzerland and the Dutch Republic, but in New England's colonies of the 17th century.

Following an introduction in which the nature of confederal type governance is described, Lister examines the ancient Greek sympolities (the precursors of full-scale confederations), the Hanseatic League, the old Swiss Confederation, the Dutch Republic, and, finally, the United Colonies of New England. Each chapter closes with a series of conclusions regarding unions. Lister concludes the book with a summary of the achievements of the early confederations. This detailed synthesis of what is known of the little studied early confederations will be of primary interest to scholars and students of international relations, military history, and political theory.

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.

Throughout history, the right to vote has been extended to landowning men, the poor, minorities, women, and young adults. In each case, the meaning of democracy itself has been transformed. The one major group still denied suffrage is the third of humanity who are under 18 years of age. However, children are becoming increasingly active in political movements for climate regulation, labor rights, gun control, transexual identity, and racial justice. And these have led to a growing global movement to eliminate minimum ages of enfranchisement. This book argues that it is time to give children the vote. Using political theory and drawing on childhood studies, it shows why suffrage cannot legitimately be limited according to age, as well as why truly universal voting is beneficial to all and can help save today's crumbling democratic norms. It carefully responds to a wide range of objections concerning competence, knowledge, adult rights, power relations, harms to children, and much more. And it develops a detailed childist theory of voting based on holding elected representatives maximally responsive to the people's different lived experiences. The book also introduces the concept of proxy-claim voting, wherein parents or guardians exercise proxy votes for non-competent persons, both child and adult, until whatever time those persons wish to claim or reclaim the exercise of their vote for themselves. Ultimately, the book maps out a new vision of democratic voting that, by equally empowering children, is at last genuinely democratic.

How does feminism shake up political science, the study of politics and electoral politics? What difference do feminist political scientists and politicians make to political institutions, policy processes and outcomes? The scholarship and activism of pioneering feminist political scientist Professor Joni Lovenduski helped establish these questions on the political science agenda. This book addresses key themes in Lovenduski's seminal work. State-of-the-art chapters by leading scholars cover gender and parties; elected institutions and the state; quotas and recruitment; public opinion and women's interests. Vignettes by prominent politicians and practitioners, including Dame Anne Begg MP, Baroness Gould, Deborah Mattinson, and the Rt Hon Theresa May, bring the academic analysis to life. Deeds and Words reveals the impact of feminist interventions on politics in the round. Its groundbreaking assessment of feminist scholarship and politics offers an appraisal of, and fitting tribute to, Lovenduski's own contribution to gender studies and feminist politics.

Semi-Presidentialism is the term used to describe the constitutional arrangement where there is a directly elected president and a prime-minister who is responsible to parliament. Semi-presidential countries include France, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. These countries share certain constitutional features, but the exercise of presidential and prime-ministerial power varies greatly from one to another. Semi-Presidentialism in Europe examines the politics of semi-presidentialsim and explores why it is that seemingly similar political systems operate in such different ways.

Winner of the Pierlot Prize in Contemporary History This political biography of Emile Vandervelde traces the path of European socialism at the turn of the century. Vandervelde defined democratic socialism as a compromise between orthodox and revisionist Marxism. As President of the Second International, he brought French, British, and German socialists together as comrades in a common revolutionary struggle.This history of the struggles of two generations of socialists to define and practise what Vandervelde called 'revolutionary reformism' draws attention to the Marxist origins of democratic socialism and will appeal to anyone interested in politics, comparative history or labour movements.

Leading political scientists address the challenges faced by democracy in the 21st century. The contributors tackle the changing nature of democratic ideas, in particular equality in society and the satisfaction of citizens. They examine changing patterns of political involvement, from voting to new forms of participation and protest using the Internet and new technologies. Finally, they look at the challenge to democracy posed by the changing nature of state institutions: party systems, bureaucracy and e-government, regulation and the processes of institutional development.

The book discusses five examples of NGO action in four countries - Indonesia, Philippines, South Africa and Sri Lanka - with authoritarian regimes. It poses the question of whose interest was served by these activities, the beneficiary group or the NGOs and argues that where these coincided, identifiable benefits accrued to beneficiary groups. This underlines the importance of ensuring that NGOs are accountable to the communities with which they seek to work.

Postcolonial discourse is fast becoming an area of rich academic debate. At the heart of coloniality and postcoloniality is the contested authority of empire and its impact upon previously colonized peoples and their indigenous cultures. This book examines various theories of colonization and decolonization, and how the ideas of a British empire create networks of discourses in contemporary postcolonial cultures. The various essays in this book address the question of empire by exploring such constructs as nation and modernity, third-world feminisms, identity politics, the status and roles of exiles, exilic subjectivities, border intellectuals, and the presence of a postcolonial body in today's classrooms. Topics discussed include African-American literature, the nature of postcolonial texts in first-world contexts, jazz, films, and TV as examples of postcolonial discourse, and the debates surrounding biculturalism and multiculturalism in New Zealand and Australia.

Common Sense inflamed its readers and ignited the American Revolution. It was here that our constitutional form of government was first suggested. The forces that were focused and unleashed by Common Sense led directly to The Declaration of Independence. The Declaration led to the American Revolution and the United States' victory in that revolution led to the Articles of Confederation. Dissatisfaction with the Articles caused Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison to write The Federalist Papers, which then led to the United States Constitution as we know it today. Here in one volume are these cornerstones of American freedom.

This book explores the impact of Bangladesh's Local Government Act of 2009 on the functioning of the local governments or Union Parishads (UP), with a particular emphasis on people's participation and accountability. Throughout the chapters, the authors review the existing legal framework of UP and its relation to social accountability, examine how much of the social participation is spontaneous and how much is politically induced, question the success of the Citizen's Charter and Right to Information acts as mechanisms for social accountability, and present suggestions to remedy some of the problems facing people's participation and accountability in the UP. This book fills existing gaps in the discourse by adding new information to the literature on development research and legal reforms in Bangladesh, specifically in how those legal reforms have led to strengthening or weakening people's participation in local government. The target audience for this book are students and researchers in Asian studies , international development studies, and public administration, as well as practitioners working in the local governments discussed.

Democracy is emerging as the political system of choice throughout the world. Peoples now freed from the shackles of totalitarian systems seek to share the benefits made possible by democracy in its "home bases" in North America and Western Europe. Yet, paradoxically, in the last decade liberal democracy has been subjected to an onslaught of criticism from thinkers at its "home bases". Criticisms of democracy have been informed by scholarship in feminism, postmodernism and communitarianism as well as the revived interest in applying ethics to public policy. These criticisms raise important questions about the traditional values - liberalism, neutrality or equality, autonomy, and human rights - thought to justify democracy. They also raise questions about the success of democratic systems in promoting alternative values and in protecting lifestyles not desired by majorities. This anthology contains essays by authors at the forefront of the controversy as well as by acute observers of the processes by which "democratic" public policy is formed. The essays include criticisms of democratic theory and practice, defences of liberalism (the set of values often thought to ground democracy), calls for major revisions of democratic institutions and practices, and recommendations for new ways of understanding our rights and responsibilities as members of democratic communities.

This series celebrates the lives and writings of South African and African liberation activists and heroes. The human, social and literary contexts presented in this series have a critical resonance and bearing on where we come from, who we are and how we can choose to shape our destiny. The Voices of Liberation series ensures that the debates and values that shaped the liberation movement are not lost. The series offers a unique combination of biographical information with selections from original speeches and writings in each volume. By providing access to the thoughts and writings of some of the many men and women who fought for the dismantling of apartheid, colonialism and capitalist legacy, this series invites the contemporary reader to engage directly with the rich history of the struggle for democracy and the restoration of our own identity. The title of the series has been carefully chosen as it speaks to its purpose - which is not only to make a particular voice resonate but to strengthen the voice from the South and Africa in particular. Bantu Steve Biko is an icon of liberation whose voice and actions continue to contribute to the shaping of national discourse, identity, culture and values. HSRC Press views this as an extremely important contribution to the series, not least because he represents the importance of dialogue and the relationship between identity, agency, citizenship and social action. Steve Biko believed in restoring people to their humanity and the need is now greater perhaps than ever before to hear his voice loud and clear.