This book focuses mainly on strategic decision making at a global level, which is rarely considered in approaches to sustainability. This book makes a unique contribution as the work looks at global consequences of mineral exhaustion and steps that can be taken to alleviate the impending problems. This book highlights how sustainability has become one of the most important issues for businesses, governments and society at large. This book explores the topic of sustainability as one that is under much debate as to what it actually is and how it can be achieved, but it is completely evident that the resources of the planet are fixed in quantity, and once used, cannot be reused except through being reused in one form or another. This is particularly true of the mineral resources of the planet. These are finite in quantity, and once fully extracted, extra quantities are no longer available for future use. This book argues and presents evidence that the remaining mineral resources are diminishing significantly and heading towards exhaustion. Once mined and consumed, they are no longer available for future use other than what can be recycled and reused. This book demonstrates that future scarcity means that best use must be made of what exists, as sustainability depends upon this, and best use is defined as utility rather than economic value, which must be considered at a global level rather than a national level. Moreover, sustainability depends upon both availability in the present and in the future, so the use of resources requires attention to the future as well as to the present. This book investigates the alternative methods of achieving the global distribution of these mineral resources and proposes an optimum solution. This book adds to the discourse through the understanding of the importance of the depletion and finiteness of raw materials and their use for the present and the future, in order to achieve and maintain sustainability.

How do dictators stay in power? When, and how, do they use repression to do so? Dictators and their Secret Police explores the role of the coercive apparatus under authoritarian rule in Asia - how these secret organizations originated, how they operated, and how their violence affected ordinary citizens. Greitens argues that autocrats face a coercive dilemma: whether to create internal security forces designed to manage popular mobilization, or defend against potential coup. Violence against civilians, she suggests, is a byproduct of their attempt to resolve this dilemma. Drawing on a wealth of new historical evidence, this book challenges conventional wisdom on dictatorship: what autocrats are threatened by, how they respond, and how this affects the lives and security of the millions under their rule. It offers an unprecedented view into the use of surveillance, coercion, and violence, and sheds new light on the institutional and social foundations of authoritarian power.

This book examines the relationship between national identity and foreign policy discourses on Russia in Germany, Poland and Finland in the years 2005–2015. The case studies focus on the Nord Stream pipeline controversy, the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, the post-electoral protests in Russian cities in 2011–2012 and the Ukraine crisis. Siddi argues that divergent foreign policy narratives of Russia are rooted in different national identity constructions. Most significantly, the Ukraine crisis and the Nord Stream controversy have exposed how deep-rooted and different perceptions of the 'Russian Other' in EU member states are still influential and lead to conflicting national agendas for foreign policy towards Russia.

Recent electoral seasons in American politics demonstrate women's keen interest, involvement, and influence as candidates and officeholders. Women possess political ambition, albeit in varying degrees, and as such, women seek opportunities to be politically engaged and affect America's representative institutions. This book analyzes why American women run for political office, and explores how political role models, identified as publicly elected officials and/or those who have served in the political arena, have greatly motivated women to run for higher political office, including seats in the U.S. Congress and state governorships. Evidence from personal interviews with ten congresswomen and fifty-five female state legislators reveals the ambitious nature of female politicians, the encouragement of political factors in their decisions to advance in politics, and their perceived responsibility to be role models to other women. Moreover, in studying thirty-five years of elections data, I find substantial support for how female political role models influence female state legislators' candidacies and electoral outcomes to higher office. This work highlights the importance of women as symbolic representatives; female politicians are instrumental in emboldening a new generation of women to engage in politics. Role models in politics indeed have a purpose and an influential nature.

A Functional Analysis of Political Television Advertisements examines theory and research on election advertisements. William Benoit employs the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to understand the nature or content of television spots in election campaigns. Beginning with a look at American presidential spots from 1952-2012, Benoit investigates the three functions-acclaims, attacks, and defenses-and the topics of policy and character for these groups of political commercials. The following chapters are devoted to reporting similar data on presidential primary advertisements, presidential third party spots, other theories including Issue Ownership Theory and Functional Federalism Theory, as well as nonpresidential and non-U.S. election advertising. Benoit considers the data, discusses the development of political advertising over time, and finally, presents areas for further research. This book is a uniquely comprehensive examination of the value and use of television spots in political election rhetoric.

This book provides an in-depth look into key political dynamics that obtain in a democracy without parties, offering a window into political undercurrents increasingly in evidence throughout the Latin American region, where political parties are withering. For the past three decades, Peru has showcased a political universe populated by amateur politicians and the dominance of personalism as the main party-voter linkage form. The study peruses the post-2000 evolution of some of the key Peruvian electoral vehicles and classifies the partisan universe as a party non-system. There are several elements endogenous to personalist electoral vehicles that perpetuate partylessness, contributing to the absence of party building. The book also examines electoral dynamics in partyless settings, centrally shaped by effective electoral supply, personal brands, contingency, and iterated rounds of strategic voting calculi. Given the scarcity of information electoral vehicles provide, as well as the enormously complex political environment Peruvian citizens inhabit, personal brands provide readymade informational shortcuts that simplify the political world. The concept of "negative legitimacy environments" is furnished to capture political settings comprised of supermajorities of floating voters, pervasive negative political identities, and a generic citizen preference for newcomers and political outsiders. Such environments, increasingly present throughout Latin America, produce several deleterious effects, including high political uncertainty, incumbency disadvantage, and political time compression. Peru's "democracy without parties" fails to deliver essential democratic functions including governability, responsiveness, horizontal and vertical accountability, or democratic representation, among others.

This book examines the political and economic philosophy of Chief Jeremiah Oyeniyi Obafemi Awolowo and his concepts of democratic socialism (Liberal Democratic Socialism). It studies how Chief Awolowo and his political parties, first the Action Group (AG) 1951-1966 and later the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) 1978-1983, acted in various Nigerian political settings. Chief Awolowo was a principled man, who by a Spartan self-discipline and understanding of himself, his accomplishments, failures and successes, was a fearless leader. He has set an example of leadership for a new generation of Nigerian politicians. He was not only a brilliant politician, but a highly cerebral thinker, statesman, dedicated manager, brilliant political economist, a Social Democrat, and a committed federalist. From all accounts, Chief Awolowo knew the worst and the best, laughter and sorrow, vilification and veneration, tribulations and triumphs, poverty and prosperity, failures and successes in life.

While significant attention in political science is devoted to national level elections, a comprehensive look at state level political dynamics in the United States is so far sorely missing, and state level electoral developments and shifts are treated as mere reflections of national-level dynamics and patterns. This book argues that this significantly impacts our ability to understand macro-level electoral shifts in the United States in general. The book analyzes gubernatorial, congressional, and presidential election results in the state of Alabama from 1945 through 2020. Comprehensive maps of county-level partisan shifts over time and comparisons between trends for different offices make it possible to isolate pivotal elections and compare state-level and national trends over time. When and where did Alabama's electorate break with the Democratic Party, and were these breaks uniform across the state? Which counties shifted the most over time, and was this shift gradual or characterized by change elections? Comprehensive electoral data, on the county- and precinct-level, make it possible to answer these questions and place state-level electoral behavior in its regional and national context. Detailed county level demographic and economic data is used to provide local context for electoral patterns, shifts, and continuities.

This book goes beyond examining Donald Trump as a unique and controversial President to place his election in a historical and systematic perspective. It offers an analysis of the 2016 presidential nominations and election, the economic and demographic foundations of the election of Mr. Trump, the realignment of the party system, ideological polarization in American politics, the realities of a postindustrial society locked in a global economy, and the outlook for American democracy in the twenty-first century.

'The gripping memoir of a remarkable woman who rose to the top in a man's world. A compelling political story of courage and struggle, power and leadership, war and crisis - and the making of Israel. A classic of 20th century history' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY 'A remarkable, almost incredible personal history ... stimulating and fascinating' IRISH TIMES 'A rare and wholly unforgettable work' SATURDAY REVIEW WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JULIA NEUBERGER Golda Meir was without doubt one of the most incredible women of her - and any - time. Born in 1898 in Kyiv, she was the daughter of an impoverished carpenter - and became the first (and only) female Prime Minister of Israel. Meir's earliest memory is of her father boarding up the front door in response to rumours of an imminent pogrom. The family emigrated to the US and for a while Meir lived with her sister, where she was exposed to debates on Zionism, women's suffrage, literature and socialism. She became a teacher, and after her marriage emigrated again to Palestine, settling on a kibbutz. Always politically active, she became Israel's first envoy to Moscow; was promoted to Foreign Minister and ultimately elected as Prime Minister, leader of Israel. In her autobiography she wrote: 'To me, being Jewish means and has always meant being proud to be part of a people that has maintained its distinct identity for more than 2,000 years, with all the pain and torment that has been inflicted upon it'

Why do we need European integration in increasingly fragmented and antagonised European societies? How can European integration relate to the national stories we carry about who we are as a nation and where we belong? What to do with the national stories that tell traumatising tales of past loss and sacrifice, and depict others as villains or foes? Can we still claim that our national states are the most legitimate way of organising European political communities today? Engaging with these big questions of European politics, Nevena Nancheva tells a small story from the periphery of Europe. Looking at two post-communist Balkan states - Bulgaria and Macedonia - she explores how their narratives of national identity have changed in the context of Europeanisation and EU membership preparations. In doing so, Nancheva suggests that national identity and European integration might be more relevant than previously thought.

A series of laws passed in the 1970s promised the nation unprecedented transparency in government, a veritable "sunshine era." Though citizens enjoyed a new arsenal of secrecy-busting tools, officials developed a handy set of workarounds, from over classification to concealment, shredding, and burning. It is this dark side of the sunshine era that Jason Ross Arnold explores in the first comprehensive, comparative history of presidential resistance to the new legal regime, from Reagan-Bush to the first term of Obama-Biden.

After examining what makes a necessary and unnecessary secret, Arnold considers the causes of excessive secrecy, and why we observe variation across administrations. While some administrations deserve the scorn of critics for exceptional secrecy, the book shows excessive secrecy was a persistent problem well before 9/11, during Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Regardless of party, administrations have consistently worked to weaken the system's legal foundations.

The book reveals episode after episode of evasive maneuvers, rule bending, clever rhetorical gambits, and downright defiance; an army of secrecy workers in a dizzying array of institutions labels all manner of documents "top secret," while other government workers and agencies manage to suppress information with a "sensitive but unclassified" designation. For example, the health effects of Agent Orange, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria leaking out of Midwestern hog farms are considered too "sensitive" for public consumption. These examples and many more document how vast the secrecy system has grown during the sunshine era.

Rife with stories of vital scientific evidence withheld, justice eluded, legalities circumvented, and the public interest flouted, "Secrecy in the Sunshine Era" reveals how our information society has been kept in the dark in too many ways and for too long.

We in the West are living in the midst of a deadly culture war. Our rival worldviews clash with increasing violence in the public arena, culminating in deadly riots and mass shootings. A fragmented left now confronts a resurgent and reactionary right, which threatens to reverse decades of social progress. Commentators have declared that we live in a "post-truth world," one dominated by online trolls and conspiracy theorists. How did we arrive at this cultural crisis? How do we respond? This book speaks to this critical moment through a new reading of the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre. Over thirty years ago, MacIntyre predicted the coming of a new Dark Ages. The premise of this book is that MacIntyre was right all along. It presents his diagnosis of our cultural crisis. It further presents his answer to the challenge of public reasoning without foundations. Pitting him against John Rawls, Jurgen Habermas, and Chantal Mouffe, Ethics Under Capital argues that MacIntyre offers hope for a critical democratic politics in the face of the culture wars.

For an element so firmly fixed in American culture, the frontier myth is surprisingly flexible. How else to explain its having taken two such different guises in the twentieth century - the progressive, forward-looking politics of Rough Rider president Teddy Roosevelt and the conservative, old-fashioned character and Cold War politics of Ronald Reagan? This is the conundrum at the heart of Cowboy Presidents, which explores the deployment and consequent transformation of the frontier myth by four U.S. presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. Behind the shape-shifting of this myth, historian David A. Smith finds major events in American and world history that have made various aspects of the 'Old West' frontier more relevant, and more useful, for promoting radically different political ideologies and agendas. And these divergent adaptations of frontier symbolism have altered the frontier myth. Theodore Roosevelt, with his vigorous pursuit of an activist federal government, helped establish a version of the frontier myth that today would be considered liberal. But then, Smith shows, a series of events from the Lyndon Johnson through Jimmy Carter presidencies - including Vietnam, race riots, and stagflation - seemed to give the lie to the progressive frontier myth. In the wake of these crises, Smith's analysis reveals, the entire structure and popular representation of frontier symbols and images in American politics shifted dramatically from left to right, and from liberal to conservative, with profound implications for the history of American thought and presidential politics. The now popular idea that 'frontier American' leaders and politicians are naturally Republicans with conservative ideals flows directly from the Reagan era. Cowboy Presidents gives us a new, clarifying perspective on how Americans shape and understand their national identity and sense of purpose; at the same time, reflecting on the essential mutability of a quintessentially national myth, the book suggests that the next iteration of the frontier myth may well be on the horizon.