Aldous Huxley: The Political Thought of a Man of Letters argues that Huxley is not a man of letters engaged in politics, but a political thinker who chooses literature to spread his ideas. His preference for the dystopian genre is due to his belief in the tremendous impact of dystopia on twentieth-century political thought. His political thinking is not systematic, but this does not stop his analysis from supplying elements that are original and up-to-date, and that represent fascinating contributions of political theory in all the spheres that he examines from anti-Marxism to anti-positivism, from political realism to elitism, from criticism of mass society to criticism of totalitarianism, from criticism of ideologies to the future of liberal democracy, from pacifism to ecological communitarianism. Huxley clearly grasped the unsolved issues of contemporary liberalism, and the importance of his influence on many twentieth-century and present-day political thinkers ensures that his ideas remain indispensable in the current liberal-democratic debate. Brave New World is without doubt Huxley's most successful political manifesto. While examining the impassioned struggle for the development of all human potentialities, it yet manages not to close the doors definitively on the rebirth of utopia in the age of dystopia.

Indonesia is Southeast Asia's largest economy and freest democracy yet vested interests and local politics serve as formidable obstacles to infrastructure reform. In this critical analysis of the politics inhibiting infrastructure investment, Jamie S. Davidson utilizes evidence from his research, press reports and rarely used consultancy studies to challenge mainstream explanations for low investment rates and the sluggish adoption of liberalizing reforms. He argues that obstacles have less to do with weak formal institutions and low fiscal capacities of the state than with entrenched, rent-seeking interests, misaligned central-local government relations, and state-society struggles over land. Using a political-sociological approach, Davidson demonstrates that 'getting the politics right' matters as much as getting the prices right or putting the proper institutional safeguards in place for infrastructure development. This innovative account and its conclusions will be of interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asia and policymakers of infrastructure investment and economic growth.

This book seeks to fill a double lacuna in Borges scholarship. For one, this scholarship has been largely developed through the lens of literary and cultural studies, and not by political theorists who bring a distinct disciplinary perspective into the reading of literary works. Secondly, mainstream interpreters have overlooked or have not analyzed enough Borges's political sympathies. This book does not evaluate if these sympathies are truthful to political and historical facts or philosophical theories; rather, she shows in which aspects and around which topics Borges finds inspiration and gives literary form to the political. His texts abound with concepts and events such as liberty, individuality, war, and revolution, and they deal with topics such as the legitimacy of authority, the limits of reason, and the principle of representation, among others. This book also addresses Borges's democratic sensitivity and his critique of populism and militarism as related to salient national and global historical events that inspired his works. Above all, it calls attention to Borges's belief in the pre-eminence of individual liberty, his rejection of political oppression, and his warning against civic indifference brought about by an isolated individualism. This book may be of interest to students and professors of politics, philosophy and literature. It may also interest literary critics and readers who want to approach Borges's works with a political rather than a literary or a cultural lens.

Addresses a gap in the market between policy and academia. Broad readership given the focus on climate change action, a hugely topical area. Interdisciplinary approach - politics, IPE, international economics, and environmental economics. Written in an accessible voice/style.

Stress tests highlight a system's weak spots. This second edition provides a stress testing of the United States by exploring in detail the background to the disasters of the War on Terror, Hurricane Katrina, the financial crisis, the Gulf oil spill and the COVID-19 epidemic. These major stresses-the country's longest war, its biggest natural disaster, its biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression, its biggest oil spill and its worst pandemic since the influenza pandemic of 1918-tell us much about structural flaws in the United States. This book explores each of these events in detail to locate the seed of the disasters, and highlights what we have learned and not learned from these stress tests.

Why does the American political system work the way it does? This major revision brings a renewed focus to the institutions, processes and data that illuminate big questions about governance and representation in the United States. With a new adaptive learning tool, this edition does more than ever to help students understand how American government developed over time and how it works today.

New waves of land grabbing are working to dispossess peasants in both the Global South and the Global North. But peasants are fighting back. They have come together to contest dispossession through place-based and transnational forms of activism. In so doing, they have articulated a demand for food sovereignty. They claim that a democratically organized food system in which smallholder producers produce their own food on their own territory can feed the world whilst cooling the planet. This book explores practices of peasant resistance. Its aim is to show how grass roots peasant activists have been able to demand transnational social and political change. In the process, the book examines the grassroots forms of activism that enable peasants to reclaim land upon which to work and from which to live. It explores how diverse grass roots movements have been able to connect and unite in order to contest transnational dynamics of oppression. Moreover, it discusses how practices of peasant activism transform how we think, and ought to think, about human rights and global democracy. By also highlighting the problems that peasants continue to face, the book indicates that the future of sustainable peasant livelihoods depends on the will of global organizations and transnational society to not just listen to the voices of peasant activists, but to respond to them too.

Dwight Eisenhower had a measurable impact on the foreign policy decisions of his Democratic successors during the 1960s due to his reputation as a military and foreign policy expert as well as his continued popularity when and after he left office. Eisenhower sought to influence his successors' policies for a number of reasons, including his underrated partisanship, his desire to protect the reputation of his administration, and his real concerns about the ability of his successors to successfully counter the communist challenge to American interests. Despite his steadily declining health, Eisenhower played both a public and behind-the-scenes role in shaping American foreign policy during the 1960s that had long-term consequences for the country. This book traces the interactions between Eisenhower and his two successors from the pre-inaugural meetings with John F. Kennedy, their direct contacts on Cuba, the use of intermediaries such as John McCone and General Andrew Goodpaster, and the constant contact initiated by Lyndon B. Johnson. Through these direct and indirect contacts, Eisenhower constrained the choices available to Kennedy and Johnson and shaped the politics and policies of the United States until the final months of his life.

The importance of subnational regions to politics, governance, and economic development in Western Europe has long been recognized. However, far less is known about recent steps to introduce a regional level of politics in East Central Europe. Reforms there are part of the larger process of crafting democracy; that is, regional reforms are linked to the economic and political transition away from communism and toward "Europe," specifically the European Union. Crafting Democracy offers an important comparative analysis of the process and outcomes of region-building in the four Visegrad countries. Jennifer A. Yoder investigates why some but not other post-communist countries chose to introduce a regional level of elected government. In the 1990s, for example, Poland boldly took the lead in regionalization, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia lagged behind. Hungary, meanwhile, declined to create regions. The author argues that these regional reform processes have potentially far-reaching implications for state-society relations, political participation, and policymaking at the domestic level. The emergence of new actors at the subnational level, moreover, creates opportunities for cross-border and European Union-level initiatives.

With the agreement at Munich in 1938 he effectively abandoned Czechoslovakia, but immediately accelerated Britain's rearmament programme and the following year declared that Britain would defend Poland. This commitment led, in September 1939, to the start of World War II.

Debate over the meaning and purpose of the grand experiment called the United States has existed since its inception. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison worked closely together to achieve the ratification of the Constitution, which both considered essential for the survival of the United States. However, within just a few years of the Constitution's ratification, they became bitter political enemies as the pair disagreed about what the United States should be like under the new Constitution, specifically how to interpret the Constitution they both worked to create and support. Defining the Republic: Early Conflicts over the Constitution documents, through presentation of their own words, that these two essential early Americans simply had different expectations all along. Expectations that went unexamined during the frenetic times in which the Constitution was written, debated, and ratified. It is to their differences that Americans today can look in order to better understand the history of the United States, as well as current debates over politics and life in general in the country Hamilton and Madison helped to create.

This thought-provoking book investigates the increasingly important subject of constitutional idolatry and its effects on democracy. Focused around whether the UK should draft a single written constitution, it suggests that constitutions have been drastically and persistently over-sold throughout the years, and that their wider importance and effects are not nearly as significant as constitutional advocates maintain. Analysing a number of issues in relation to constitutional performance, including whether these documents can educate the citizenry, invigorate voter turnout, or deliver 'We the People' sovereignty, the author finds written constitutions consistently failing to meet expectations. This innovative book also examines how constitutional idolatry may frustrate and distort constitutional change, and can lead to strong forms of constitutional paternalism emerging within the state. Ultimately, the book argues that idolising written constitutions is a hollow endeavour that will fail to produce better democratic outcomes or help solve increasingly complicated societal problems. Engaging and accessible, Constitutional Idolatry and Democracy will be a key resource for both new and established scholars interested in comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, law and democracy and written vs. unwritten constitutions.

This book investigates the legal and political evolution of Chinese presidency from the period of its forerunner in the 1930s, its establishment in 1954 to its abolition in 1975, and its restoration in 1982, and discovers that the presidency has evolved from a traditional Chinese title into a political position and then a state institution that has the constitutional appearance of a Western style semi-presidency. However, politically it has functioned in a Stalinist party-state with Chinese characteristics, whose candidates have been produced according to the CCP's step-by-step succession rules designated by the party leaders. Real political decision-making power has not only been limited by these succession rules, but also by the president's role and status within the CCP's collective supreme body. The author weaves the themes of Chinese politics and law together and explores not only the political implications of those constitutional provisions and amendments regarding this office, but also the constitutional significance of the CCP's major political practices, such as Mao Zedong's "power of last say," his idea of "two fronts," his controversial abolition of the chairmanship, Deng Xiaoping's idea of "the nucleus of leadership," and "diplomacy of the head of state" by Chinese presidents, thus illuminating how law has been made in those unpredictable political environments and how politics has been defined by law. The author concludes that the office of president is the key to understanding how power in China derives first from the CCP, second from the military, and third from the government loosely prescribed by laws. Even more important, the millennia-old Confucian concept of the charismatic leader is alive and well. While all eyes are on the new incumbent, his predecessors have loomed large and continue to exert significant influence on him. Underlining decades of constitutional evolution and shifting political dynamics have been the changing foreign influences and local demands on China. With so many variables at play, the office of the president will certainly continue to evolve.

Under what conditions are some developing countries able to create stable democracies while others have slid into instability and authoritarianism? To address this classic question at the center of policy and academic debates, The Promise of Power investigates a striking puzzle: why, upon the 1947 Partition of British India, was India able to establish a stable democracy while Pakistan created an unstable autocracy? Drawing on interviews, colonial correspondence, and early government records to document the genesis of two of the twentieth century's most celebrated independence movements, Maya Tudor refutes the prevailing notion that a country's democratization prospects can be directly attributed to its levels of economic development or inequality. Instead, she demonstrates that the differential strengths of India's and Pakistan's independence movements directly account for their divergent democratization trajectories. She also establishes that these movements were initially constructed to pursue historically conditioned class interests. By illuminating the source of this enduring contrast, The Promise of Power offers a broad theory of democracy's origins that will interest scholars and students of comparative politics, democratization, state-building, and South Asian political history.

This book traces the history of China's administrative reform in the past 35 years, focusing on the three phases of development, four guidelines and five major tasks of the reform since it is of great value to depict the entire process of China's administrative system reform, analyzing the achievements, problems and prospects of the reform, and exploring experiences and lessons from the relationship between the administrative system reform and China's economic, social and government transformation.

At a time when democratization and the state of democracy are at the forefront of attention in many parts of the world, this book examines the state-of-the-art on this vital political issue. Revisiting the now classical literature on neo-corporatism in light of current research and theory, the contributors illustrate the enormous influence of the 'neo-corporatist debate' on modern political science, political sociology, and political economy. Reflecting on a major part of the recent history of social science, they shed light on some of its current core concepts, such as governance, policy networks, and varieties of capitalism. The book traces the evolution of political conflicts concerning social order; from the class conflicts in Europe in the of 1970s Europe to the subsequent Latin American and Eastern European battles over democratization and democratic transition, to the debate on the 'democratic deficit' of the European Union. Paying tribute to the work of Philippe Schmitter, which bridges the themes discussed in the book and which has provided inspiration to an entire generation of social scientists, The Diversity of Democracy will be invaluable to academics, students and researchers with an interest in political science, democratic theory, European integration and the study of democratic transitions as well as Latin American and Eastern European studies.

This book considers the current and future significance of the G20 by using International Relations theory to examine its political impact as an informal form of global governance. International Relations theory is shown to represent a broad range of political positions that can effectively analyze the various factors that influence world politics. The contributions to this book examine the influence and significance of informal global governance in contemporary global politics and advance G20 scholarship past the typical observations from economic and international policy perspectives. Chapters cover various accounts of how the G20 influences world politics, the driving forces behind the G20 and the ways in which the G20 could or should be reformed in the future. International Relations theory is able to inform a better understanding of how the G20 operates and also explore potential improvements for the international forum to adapt to the rapid developments in global politics. Students and scholars of international relations, global governance, diplomacy and globalization will find this book offers a fresh and enlightening perspective on the G20. Contributors include: A. Alexandroff, C. Byrne, T. Chodor, C. Downie, S. Harris-Rimmer, J. Luckhurst, T. Naylor, S. Slaughter, K. Tienhaara, F. Vabulas, L.A. Viola

Women are significantly underrepresented in politics in the Pacific Islands, given that only one in twenty Pacific parliamentarians are female, compared to one in five globally. A common, but controversial, method of increasing the number of women in politics is the use of gender quotas, or measures designed to ensure a minimum level of women's representation. In those cases where quotas have been effective, they have managed to change the face of power in previously male-dominated political spheres. How do political actors in the Pacific islands region make sense of the success (or failure) of parliamentary gender quota campaigns? To answer the question, Kerryn Baker explores the workings of four campaigns in the region. In Samoa, the campaign culminated in a "safety net" quota to guarantee a minimum level of representation, set at five female members of Parliament. In Papua New Guinea, between 2007 and 2012 there were successive campaigns for nominated and reserved seats in parliament, without success, although the constitution was amended in 2011 to allow for the possibility of reserved seats for women. In post-conflict Bougainville, women campaigned for reserved seats during the constitution-making process and eventually won three reserved seats in the House of Representatives, as well as one reserved ministerial position. Finally, in the French Pacific territories of New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna, Baker finds that there were campaigns both for and against the implementation of the so-called "parity laws." Baker argues that the meanings of success in quota campaigns, and related notions of gender and representation, are interpreted by actors through drawing on different traditions, and renegotiating and redefining them according to their goals, pressures, and dilemmas. Broadening the definition of success thus is a key to an understanding of realities of quota campaigns. Pacific Women in Politics is a pathbreaking work that offers an original contribution to gender relations within the Pacific and to contemporary Pacific politics.

New waves of land grabbing are working to dispossess peasants in both the Global South and the Global North. But peasants are fighting back. They have come together to contest dispossession through place-based and transnational forms of activism. In so doing, they have articulated a demand for food sovereignty. They claim that a democratically organized food system in which smallholder producers produce their own food on their own territory can feed the world whilst cooling the planet. This book explores practices of peasant resistance. Its aim is to show how grass roots peasant activists have been able to demand transnational social and political change. In the process, the book examines the grassroots forms of activism that enable peasants to reclaim land upon which to work and from which to live. It explores how diverse grass roots movements have been able to connect and unite in order to contest transnational dynamics of oppression. Moreover, it discusses how practices of peasant activism transform how we think, and ought to think, about human rights and global democracy. By also highlighting the problems that peasants continue to face, the book indicates that the future of sustainable peasant livelihoods depends on the will of global organizations and transnational society to not just listen to the voices of peasant activists, but to respond to them too.

Harold Macmillan, a Conservative politician became prime minister in 1957 and served until 1963. He repaired the rift between the USA and Britain created by Suez and secured for Britain co-operation on issues of nuclear defense. Paradoxically his success with the USA jeopardized his efforts to get Britain into the European Economic Community, for it was one of the reasons why de Gaulle vetoed Britain's application to join in 1963. After early successes at home as well as abroad (he acquired the nickname 'Supermac'), his party was returned with an increased majority in 1959. The later years of his administration were clouded by economic troubles, the EC veto and the Profumo scandal. But it was ill health that caused him to resign in 1963.

The Fifth Edition of American Politics Today is designed to show students the reality of politics today and how it connects to their own lives. New features-from chapter opening cases that address the kinds of questions students ask, to full-page graphics that illustrate key political processes-show students how politics works and why it matters. All components of the learning package-textbook, InQuizitive adaptive learning tool, and coursepack-are organized around specific chapter learning goals to ensure that students learn the nuts and bolts of American government.