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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes
The Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO), that became the
Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in 1920 drew the Muslim elite into
its orbit and was a key site of a distinctively Muslim nationalism.
Located in New Dehli, the historic centre of Muslim rule, it was
home to many leading intellectuals and reformers in the years
leading up to Indian independence. During partition it was a hub of
pro-Pakistan activism. The graduates who came of age during the
anti-colonial struggle in India settled throughout the subcontinent
after the Partition. They carried with them the particular
experiences, values and histories that had defined their lives as
Aligarh students in a self-consciously Muslim environment,
surrounded by a non-Muslim majority. This new archive of oral
history narratives from seventy former AMU students reveals
histories of partition as yet unheard. In contrast to existing
studies, these stories lead across the boundaries of India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh. Partition in AMU is not defined by
international borders and migrations but by alienation from the
safety of familiar places. The book reframes Partition to draw
attention to the ways individuals experienced ongoing changes
associated with "partitioning"-the process through which familiar
spaces and places became strange and sometimes threatening-and they
highlight specific, never-before-studied sites of disturbance
distant from the borders.
After a long time of neglect, migration has entered the arena of
international politics with a force. The 2018 Global Compact for
safe, orderly and regular migration (GCM) is the latest and most
comprehensive framework for global migration governance. Despite
these dynamics, migration is still predominantly framed as a
state-centric policy issue that needs to be managed in a top-down
manner. This book proposes a difference approach: A truly
multi-stakeholder, multi-level and rights-based governance with
meaningful participation of migrant civil society. Drawing on 15
years of participant observation on all levels of migration
governance, the book maps out the relevant actors, "invited" and
"invented" spaces for participation as well as alternative
discourses and framing strategies by migrant civil society. It thus
provides a comprehensive and timely overview on global migration
governance from below, starting with the first UN High Level
Dialogue in 2006, evolving around the Global Forum on Migration and
Development (GFMD) and leading up to the consultations for the
International Migration Review Forum in 2022.
The term cacica was a Spanish linguistic invention, a female
counterpart to caciques, the Arawak word for male indigenous
leaders in Spanish America. But the term's meaning was adapted and
manipulated by natives, creating a new social stratum where it
previously may not have existed. This book explores that
transformation, a conscious construction and reshaping of identity
from within. Cacicas feature far and wide in the history of Spanish
America, as female governors and tribute collectors and as
relatives of ruling caciques - or their destitute widows. They
played a crucial role in the establishment and success of Spanish
rule, but were also instrumental in colonial natives' resistance
and self-definition. In this volume, noted scholars uncover the
history of colonial cacicas, moving beyond anecdotes of individuals
in Spanish America. Their work focuses on the evolution of
indigenous leadership, particularly the lineage and succession of
these positions in different regions, through the lens of native
women's political activism. Such activism might mean the
intervention of cacicas in the economic, familial, and religious
realms or their participation in official and unofficial matters of
governance. The authors explore the role of such personal authority
and political influence across a broad geographic, chronological,
and thematic range - in patterns of succession, the settling of
frontier regions, interethnic relations and the importance of
purity of blood, gender and family dynamics, legal and marital
strategies for defending communities, and the continuation of
indigenous governance. This volume showcases colonial cacicas as
historical subjects who constructed their consciousness around
their place, whether symbolic or geographic, and articulated their
own unique identities. It expands our understanding of the
significant influence these women exerted - within but also well
beyond the native communities of Spanish America.
Recent Eurozone reforms mark the most profound deepening of
European integration since Maastricht. This book analyses how
member states formed preferences in the politics of these reforms,
and how preferences translated into policy outcomes on the European
level. The chapters summarize insights on the role of different
actors and institutions from four datasets based on 200 expert
interviews, the analysis of 5000 policy documents and
constitutional court cases in all EU member states. The findings
confirm some common wisdom, dispel some myths, and provide insights
into mechanisms facilitating further reforms. While quantitative
analyses show that 'Northern' and 'Southern' member states were
deeply divided, case study chapters provide more refined view.
Empirical data also indicate that reform decisions were dominated
by governments and EU institutions but dispel the notion that
Germany alone imposed its preferred policy. This book goes further
and unpacks the legacies of the EMU crisis that make future reforms
dependent on the reduction of financial sector risks, which is a
necessary condition for rebuilding trust and restarting the gradual
convergence of Eurozone reform preferences.
The American vice presidency, as the saying goes, 'is not worth a
bucket of warm spit.' Yet vice presidential candidates, many people
believe, can make all the difference in winning-or losing-a
presidential election. Is that true, though? Did Sarah Palin, for
example, sink John McCain's campaign in 2008? Did Joe Biden help
Barack Obama win? Do running mates actually matter? In the first
book to put this question to a rigorous test, Christopher J. Devine
and Kyle C. Kopko draw upon an unprecedented range of empirical
data to reveal how, and how much, running mates influence voting in
presidential elections. Building on their previous work in The VP
Advantage and evidence from over 200 statistical models spanning
the 1952 to 2016 presidential elections, the authors analyze three
pathways by which running mates might influence vote choice. First,
of course, they test for direct effects, or whether evaluations of
the running mate influence vote choice among voters in general.
Next, they test for targeted effects-if, that is, running mates win
votes among key subsets of voters who share their gender, religion,
ideology, or geographic identity. Finally, the authors examine
indirect effects-that is, whether running mates shape perceptions
of the presidential candidate who selected them, which in turn
influence vote choice. Here, in this last category, is where we see
running mates most clearly influencing presidential
voting-especially when it comes to their qualifications for holding
office and taking over as president, if necessary. Picking a
running mate from a key voting bloc probably won't make a
difference, the authors conclude. But picking an experienced,
well-qualified running mate will make the presidential candidate
look better to voters---and win some votes. With its wealth of data
and expert analysis, this finely crafted study, the most
comprehensive to date, finally provides clear answers to one of the
most enduring questions in presidential politics: can the running
mate make a difference in this election?
Centripetal democracy is the idea that legitimate democratic
institutions set in motion forms of citizen practice and
representative behaviour that serve as powerful drivers of
political identity formation. Partisan modes of political
representation in the context of multifaceted electoral and direct
democratic voting opportunities are emphasised on this model. There
is, however, a strain of thought predominant in political theory
that doubts the democratic capacities of political systems
constituted by multiple public spheres. This view is referred to as
the lingua franca thesis on sustainable democratic systems (LFT).
Inadequate democratic institutions and acute demands to divide the
political system (through devolution or secession), are predicted
by this thesis. By combining an original normative democratic
theory with a comparative analysis of how Belgium and Switzerland
have variously managed to sustain themselves as multilingual
democracies, this book identifies the main institutional features
of a democratically legitimate European Union and the conditions
required to bring it about. Part One presents a novel theory of
democratic legitimacy and political identity formation on which
subsequent analyses are based. Part Two defines the EU as a
demoi-cracy and provides a thorough democratic assessment of this
political system. Part Three explains why Belgium has largely
succumbed to the centrifugal logic predicted by the LFT, while
Switzerland apparently defies this logic. Part Four presents a
model of centripetal democracy for the EU, one that would greatly
reduce its democratic deficit and ensure that this political system
does not succumb to the centrifugal forces expected by the LFT.
"Engaging and inspiring . . . Reading this book should make you
want to vote." Barack Obama In a world of sound bites, deliberate
misinformation, and a political scene colored by the blue versus
red partisan divide, how does the average educated American find a
reliable source that's free of political spin? What You Should Know
About Politics . . . But Don't breaks it all down, issue by issue,
explaining who stands for what, and why-whether it's the economy,
income inequality, Obamacare, foreign policy, education,
immigration, or climate change. If you're a Democrat, a Republican,
or somewhere in between, it's the perfect book to brush up on a
single topic or read through to get a deeper understanding of the
often mucky world of American politics. This is an essential volume
for understanding the background to the 2016 presidential election.
But it is also a book that transcends the season. It's truly for
anyone who wants to know more about the perennial issues that will
continue to affect our everyday lives. The third edition includes
an introduction by Naomi Wolf discussing the themes and issues that
have come to the fore during the present presidential cycle.
Historically speaking, our vices, like our virtues, have come in
two basic forms: intellectual and moral. One of the main purposes
of this book is to analyze a set of specifically political vices
that have not been given sufficient attention within political
theory but that nonetheless pose enduring challenges to the
sustainability of free and equitable political relationships of
various kinds. Political vices like hubris, willful blindness, and
recalcitrance are persistent dispositions of character and conduct
that imperil both the functioning of democratic institutions and
the trust that a diverse citizenry has in the ability of those
institutions to secure a just political order of equal moral
standing, reciprocal freedom, and human dignity. Political vices
embody a repudiation of the reciprocal conditions of politics and,
as a consequence of this, they represent a standing challenge to
the principles and values of the mixed political regime we call
liberal-democracy. Mark Button shows how political vices not only
carry out discrete forms of injustice but also facilitate the
habituation in and indifference toward systemic forms of social and
political injustice. They do so through excesses and deficiencies
in human sensory and communicative capacities relating to voice
(hubris), vision (moral blindness), and listening (recalcitrance).
Drawing on a wide range of intellectual resources, including
ancient Greek tragedy, social psychology, moral epistemology, and
democratic theory, Political Vices gives new consideration to a
list of "deadly vices" that contemporary political societies can
neither ignore as a matter of personal "sin" nor publicly disregard
as a matter of mere bad choice, and it provides a democratic
account that outlines how citizens can best contend with our most
troubling political vices without undermining core commitments to
liberalism or pluralism.
Making use of a unique data set that includes more than 1000
leadership elections from over 100 parties in 14 countries over an
almost 50 year period, this volume provides the first
comprehensive, comparative examination of how parties choose their
leaders and the impact of the different decisions they make in this
regard. Among the issues examined are how leaders are chosen, the
factors that result in parties changing their selection rules, how
the rules affect the competitiveness of leadership elections, the
types of leaders chosen, the impact of leadership transition on
electoral outcomes, the factors affecting the length of leadership
tenures, and how leadership tenures come to an end. This volume is
situated in the literature on intra-party decision making and party
organizational reform and makes unique and important contributions
to our understanding of these areas. The analysis includes parties
in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hungary,
Israel, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Norway, and the United
Kingdom. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers,
and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary
government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are
characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong
methodological rigour. The series is published in association with
the European Consortium for Political Research. For more
information visit: www.ecprnet.eu.
Shows the maddening difficulties that voter ID requirements create
for participants in US democracy and offers concrete solutions for
every person's vote and voice to count Over the past decade, and
throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of voter ID laws has
skyrocketed, limiting the ability of nearly twenty-five million
eligible voters from exercising their constitutional right to cast
a vote. In States of Confusion, Don Waisanen, Sonia Jarvis, and
Nicole Gordon explore this crisis and the difficulties it has
created for American voters, offering practical solutions for this
increasingly important problem. Focusing on ten states with the
strictest voter documentation requirements, the authors show how
people face major barriers to exercising their fundamental
democratic right to vote and are therefore slipping through the
cracks of our electoral system. They explore voter experiences by
drawing on hundreds of online surveys, audits of 150 election
offices, community focus groups, and more. Waisanen, Jarvis, and
Gordon call on policymakers to adopt uniform national voter
identification standards that are simple, accessible, and
cost-free. States of Confusion offers a comprehensive and
up-to-date look at the voter ID crisis in our country, as well
solutions for practitioners, government agencies, and citizens.
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