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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes
Federalism has experienced a remarkable renaissance in recent decades - as an alternative way to accommodate ethnic differences; as a tool to combat remote, undemocratic and ineffective central governments; and lastly, as a means to promote economic performance in the developing world through decentralisation. This book seeks to bring different aspects and perspectives of federalism studies closer together, by providing an analytical framework which transcends the sub-fields and encourages contributors to look beyond the comfort zones of their own disciplinary approaches to the topic. The authors seek to achieve this aim by structuring the contributions around four dimensions federalism studies: * the development and design of federal institutions; * federalism and democratic participation, representation and accountability; * federalism and the accommodation of territorially-based ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences; * federalism and public policy. With a strong comparative framework, New Directions in Federalism Studies will be of interest to students and scholars of Federalism, Government, Regionalism, and Multi-level Governance. It will also offer insights of relevance to Comparative Politics, Public Policy, Public Administration, Nationalism, and West European Politics.
Changes in social legislation and the nature of social problems have been paralleled by new approaches to the teaching of social administration. This revised edition brings the discussion of issues in line with the contemporary economic and political climate. At the same time care has been taken to retain the book's mintroductory character.
This insightful book explores the citizen-government relation, as mediated through artificial intelligence (AI). Through a critical lens, Jerome Duberry examines the role of AI in the relation and its implications for the quality of liberal democracy and the strength of civic capacity. In his analysis of AI, Duberry covers three key objectives: illustrating where and how AI is used in the context of citizen-government relations; highlighting the specific risks of using AI for citizen-government relations; and calling for a dedicated framework for assessing AI in these contexts. The author assesses the promises and pitfalls of AI at various levels of the citizen-government relation, including citizen participation, civic technology and political communication. Employing empirical findings from in-depth case studies and interviews with 40 experts in the field, the book stresses the burgeoning need for an innovative, human-centric management of AI in the citizen-government relation based on risk assessment that prioritises equality, freedom, human rights and popular sovereignty. Intervening at a key watershed in the history of digital politics, this timely book is key reading for researchers and scholars of political science and public policy, particularly those studying the digital landscape of contemporary policy and politics. It also offers significant empirical insights into the benefits and risks of AI for policymakers and civil servants working with new technologies.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'When one of the world's leading scholars of civil war tells us that a country is on the brink of violent conflict, we should pay attention. This is an important book' Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Die Civil wars are the biggest danger to world peace today - this book shows us why they happen, and how to avoid them. We are now living in the world's greatest era of civil wars. While violence has declined worldwide, major civil wars are now being fought in countries including Iraq, Syria and Libya, and smaller civil wars are being fought in India and Malaysia. Even countries we thought could never experience another civil war - such as the USA, Sweden and Ireland - are showing signs of unrest. So how can we stop them? In How Civil Wars Start, acclaimed expert Professor Barbara F. Walter, who has advised on political violence everywhere from the CIA to the U.S. Senate to the United Nations, explains the rise of civil wars and the conditions that create them - not least when countries are not quite democratic. As democracies across the world backslide and citizens become more polarised, civil wars will become even more widespread and last longer than they have in the past - but this urgent and important book shows us a path back toward peace.
Marking the third centenary of the office of Prime Minister, this book tells its extraordinary story, explaining how and why it has endured longer than any other democratic political office in world history. Sir Anthony Seldon, historian of Number 10 Downing Street, explores the lives and careers, loves and scandals, successes and failures, of all our great Prime Ministers. From Robert Walpole and William Pitt the Younger, to Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher, Seldon discusses which of our Prime Ministers have been most effective and why. He reveals the changing relationship between the Monarchy and the office of the Prime Minister in intimate detail, describing how the increasing power of the Prime Minister in becoming leader of Britain coincided with the steadily falling influence of the Monarchy. This book celebrates the humanity and frailty, work and achievement, of these 55 remarkable individuals, who averted revolution and civil war, leading the country through times of peace, crisis and war.
Twenty years on from South Africa’s first democratic election, the post-apartheid political order is more fractured, and more fractious, than ever before. Police violence seems the order of the day – whether in response to a protest in Ficksburg or a public meeting outside a mine in Marikana. For many, this has signalled the end of the South African dream. Politics, they declare, is the preserve of the corrupt, the self-interested, the incompetent and the violent. They are wrong. In South Africa’s insurgent citizens, Julian Brown argues that a new kind of politics can be seen on the streets and in the courtrooms of the country. This politics is made by a new kind of citizen – one that is neither respectful nor passive, but instead insurgent. The collapse of the dream of a consensus politics is not a cause for despair. South Africa’s political order is fractured, and in its cracks new forms of activity, new leaders and new movements are emerging.
Widely heralded as a "masterful" (The Washington Post) and "essential" (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law offers "the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation" (William Julius Wilson). Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white areas. A ground-breaking, "virtually indispensable" (Chicago Daily Observer) study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history, The Color of Law is forcing Americans to face the obligation to remedy their unconstitutional past. * A The New York Times bestseller
Apartheid is vanquished, good triumphs over evil, the world celebrates! Now what? Many people in South Africa expected the Kingdom of God to arrive immediately; what they are now realising is that rebuilding and developing this country is not easy and will not bring instant rewards. The Archbishop of Cape Town is deeply involved in this difficult task, encouraging others to work for the future with hope and intelligence. Archbishop Ndungane begins by telling his own life story; he then addresses the World Bank, the international community, the people of South Africa, and most of all the Church – showing what people are doing and what they can do to build this country to what it could be.
'Magisterial ... Immensely readable' Douglas Alexander, Financial Times 'Insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant' New York Times A compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences, from 'the most brilliant British historian of his generation' (The Times) Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why? While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work - pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters. Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline. 'Stimulating, thought-provoking ... Readers will find much to relish' Martin Bentham, Evening Standard
From the Great Depression to the pandemic, a new history of British democracy, revealing how politics is transformed through fear. Over Britain’s first century of mass democracy, politics has lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this history of political agony illuminate our current age of upheaval? To find out, journalist Phil Tinline takes us back to two past eras when the ruling consensus broke down, and the future filled with ominous possibilities – until, finally, a new settlement was born. How did the Great Depression’s spectres of fascism, bombing and mass unemployment force politicians to think the unthinkable, and pave the way to post-war Britain? How was Thatcher’s road to victory made possible by a decade of nightmares: of hyperinflation, military coups and communist dictatorship? And why, since the Crash in 2008, have new political threats and divisions forced us to change course once again? Tinline brings to life those times, past and present, when the great compromise holding democracy together has come apart; when the political class has been forced to make a choice of nightmares. This lively, original account of panic and chaos reveals how apparent catastrophes can clear the path to a new era. The Death of Consensus will make you see British democracy differently.
Statesman, pre-eminent leader and founder of the free world's then largest and most formidable trade union, Ernest Bevin was one of the most rousing figures of the twentieth century. Minister of Labour in the wartime coalition during the Second World War, he was Churchill's right-hand man, masterminding the home front while the war supremo commanded the battle front. Afterwards, he was Foreign Secretary at one of the most critical moments in international history, responsible for keeping Stalin and communism out of Western Europe, and for creating West Germany, NATO and the transatlantic alliance, all of which underpin European democracy and security to this day. An orphan farm boy from Bristol, Bevin's astonishing rise to fame and power is unmatched by any leader to this day. In this discerning and wide-ranging biography, Andrew Adonis examines how 'the working-class John Bull' grew to a position of such authority, and offers a critical reassessment of his life and influence. Finally exploring Bevin's powerful legacy and lessons for our own age, Adonis restores this charismatic statesman to his rightful place among the pantheon of Britain's greatest political leaders.
Drawing upon Robbie Sabel's first-hand involvement with many legal negotiations in the Arab-Israeli conflict, International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict examines international law in relation to the conflict by analysing its major events and agreements, both historical and contemporary. Outlining the role of international law from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire until the present day, it considers the legal elements of the various peace treaties that Israel has signed with its neighbouring Arab States. Using his expertise as a professor, practitioner and ambassador, Sabel endeavours to represent both sides of the conflict, offering a wealth of counter-arguments and adding his own legal interpretations. With this valuable resource, students and researchers working within a range of disciplines can fully appreciate the role of international law in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
'I could not recommend this more. If you're looking for a sense of optimism, a sense of political possibility, this book is very important' Owen Jones What would a fair and equal society actually look like? Imagine a world with no banks. No stock market. No tech giants. No billionaires. In Another Now world-famous economist, Yanis Varoufakis, shows us what such a world would look like. Far from being a fantasy, he describes how it could have come about - and might yet. But would we really want it? Varoufakis's boundary-breaking new book confounds expectations of what the good society would look like and confronts us with the greatest question: are we able to build a better society, despite our flaws. 'A vision of a new society with new ways of thinking is possibly the most important thing an artist can offer at the moment' Brian Eno
Why have so few countries managed to leave systematic corruption behind, while in many others modernization is still a mere facade? How do we escape the trap of corruption, to reach a governance system based on ethical universalism? In this unique book, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Michael Johnston lead a team of eminent researchers on an illuminating path towards deconstructing the few virtuous circles in contemporary governance. The book combines a solid theoretical framework with quantitative evidence and case studies from around the world. While extracting lessons to be learned from the success cases covered, Transitions to Good Governance avoids being prescriptive and successfully contributes to the understanding of virtuous circles in contemporary good governance. Offering a balanced but always grounded perspective, this collection combines analytic narratives of existing virtuous circles and how they were established, with an analysis of the global evidence. In doing so the authors explain why governance is so resistant to change, and describe the lessons to be remembered for international anti-corruption efforts. Exploring the primacy of politics over economic development, and in order to understand how vicious circles can be broken, the expert contributions trace the progress of countries that have successfully transitioned. Unprecedentedly, this book goes beyond the tests of different variables to showcase human agency on every continent, and reveals why some nations make the best and others the worst of the same development legacies. This comprehensive examination of virtuous circles of governance will appeal to all scholars with an interest in transitions, democratization, anti-corruption and good governance. Policy-makers and practitioners in the fields of international development, good governance and democracy support will find it an invaluable resource. Contributors include: A. Bozzini, D. Bupuet Corleto, C. Goebel, M. Johnston, V. Kalnins, L. Khatib, A. Kupatadze, M. Martini, A. Mungiu-Pippidi, P. Navia, R. Pineiro, D. Sebudubudu, E. Villarreal, B.W. Wilson, J.-S. You
Stalin was one of the most ruthless and authoritarian dictators in world history. This concise title presents Lenin's heir from his beginnings for priesthood to General Secretary of the Communist Party.
A short 'warning from history' book that uses America's past to explain and reconfigure the present crisis facing the US, in the vein of Tim Snyder's On Tyranny & Anne Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy. 'The transformation of the US into an autocracy has advanced. By 2024, it might be irreversible and will change almost everything in the world. Nobody has outlined this danger more compellingly than Robert Kagan.' - Martin Wolf, Financial Times In Everything is at Stake, US Conservative Robert Kagan diagnoses the present crisis by explaining how America got here, and will paint a crystal-clear, albeit terrifying, picture of what could happen next. Rich in parallels between the past and the present, combining palpable outrage at what America has become with an impassioned defence of what is at stake. This book explains the current political climate in the US better than anything else you'll read, from a lifelong conservative who has formally disowned the party, thanks to its support of Trump. From race and populism to fascism and the future of conservatism, to the real prospects of a second term for Donald Trump, Robert Kagan tells us just how scared we should be as the United States journeys through its biggest political crisis in over a hundred years.
This book systematically examines the first terms of every president from FDR to Barack Obama and assesses the leadership style and policy agenda of each. Success in bringing about policy change is shown to hinge on the leadership style and skill in managing a variety of institutional and public relationships. The second edition of this timely book adds chapters on George W. Bush and Obama and focuses on the significant domestic policy challenges of their respective times. The authors have reconfigured the analytical framework of the book to take into account the 'dynamic opportunity structure' that emerged during the George W. Bush administration. The Presidency and Domestic Policy provides unique insights into contemporary presidential leadership in a highly partisan age.
In this important and timely volume, Dennis W. Johnson has assembled an outstanding team of political scientists and political professionals to examine one of the fiercest and most closely fought presidential elections of our time. Like its predecessor, Campaigning for President 2008, Campaigning for President 2012: Strategy and Tactics focuses on political management. It is written by both elections/campaign scholars and practitioners, who highlight the role of political consultants and campaigns while also emphasizing the strategy and tactics employed by the candidates, the national political parties, and outside interests. The contributors explore the general mood of the electorate in the 2012 election, the challenges Obama faced after his first term, the primaries, money, communication, the important issues of the election, and finally the election itself.
Cognisant of the ongoing pandemic and political turmoil across Europe, this timely book examines the growing influence of populist movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Simona Kukovic and Petr Just bring together contributions from experts working in the fields of political science and sociology to study the roots and ramifications of populism in this historically turbulent region. Developing a critical analysis of both left- and right-wing populist movements and notorious populist leaders throughout Central and Eastern Europe, the book explores the ways in which populism has spread through developed and developing countries in both established and more recent democracies. Chapters investigate the origins of nationalist populism in the region, from historical trauma and social and economic instability to the emerging crisis facing traditional parties and institutions. It further considers the progressive impact of social media as a means through which populist leaders can penetrate the political space. Positioning itself in defence of liberal democracy, the book ultimately seeks to uncover what unites and inspires the populist community emerging across Central and Eastern Europe. Contributing to the urgent scholarly debate surrounding the rise of populist leaders, political parties, and movements throughout Central and Eastern Europe, this incisive volume will be an essential read for researchers and academics invested in better understanding why the region is such a hotbed of European populism.
• Designed to be concise yet comprehensive with the undergraduate student in mind • Will serve as a companion to many secondary and primary sources on Wilson • Contains primary source documents to help bring the subject to life
In this important and timely volume, Dennis W. Johnson has assembled an outstanding team of political scientists and political professionals to examine one of the fiercest and most closely fought presidential elections of our time. Like its predecessor, Campaigning for President 2008, Campaigning for President 2012: Strategy and Tactics focuses on political management. It is written by both elections/campaign scholars and practitioners, who highlight the role of political consultants and campaigns while also emphasizing the strategy and tactics employed by the candidates, the national political parties, and outside interests. The contributors explore the general mood of the electorate in the 2012 election, the challenges Obama faced after his first term, the primaries, money, communication, the important issues of the election, and finally the election itself.
Three leading thinkers analyze the erosion of democracy's social foundations and call for a movement to reduce inequality, strengthen inclusive solidarity, empower citizens, and reclaim pursuit of the public good. Democracy is in trouble. Populism is a common scapegoat but not the root cause. More basic are social and economic transformations eroding the foundations of democracy, ruling elites trying to lock in their own privilege, and cultural perversions like making individualistic freedom the enemy of democracy's other crucial ideals of equality and solidarity. In Degenerations of Democracy three of our most prominent intellectuals investigate democracy gone awry, locate our points of fracture, and suggest paths to democratic renewal. In Charles Taylor's phrase, democracy is a process, not an end state. Taylor documents creeping disempowerment of citizens, failures of inclusion, and widespread efforts to suppress democratic participation, and he calls for renewing community. Craig Calhoun explores the impact of disruption, inequality, and transformation in democracy's social foundations. He reminds us that democracies depend on republican constitutions as well as popular will, and that solidarity and voice must be achieved at large scales as well as locally. Taylor and Calhoun together examine how ideals like meritocracy and authenticity have become problems for equality and solidarity, the need for stronger articulation of the idea of public good, and the challenges of thinking big without always thinking centralization. Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar points out that even well-designed institutions will not integrate everyone, and inequality and precarity make matters worse. He calls for democracies to be prepared for violence and disorder at their margins-and to treat them with justice, not oppression. The authors call for bold action building on projects like Black Lives Matter and the Green New Deal. Policy is not enough to save democracy; it will take movements. |
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