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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political structure & processes
Drawing on Nelson Mandela's own unfinished memoir, Dare Not Linger is the remarkable story of his presidency told in his own words and those of distinguished South African writer Mandla Langa 'I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.' Long Walk to Freedom. In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first president of democratic South Africa. Five years later, he stood down. In that time, he and his government wrought the most extraordinary transformation, turning a nation riven by centuries of colonialism and apartheid into a fully functioning democracy in which all South Africa's citizens, black and white, were equal before the law. Dare Not Linger is the story of Mandela's presidential years, drawing heavily on the memoir he began to write as he prepared to finish his term of office, but was unable to finish. Now, the acclaimed South African writer, Mandla Langa, has completed the task using Mandela's unfinished draft, detailed notes that Mandela made as events were unfolding and a wealth of previously unseen archival material. With a prologue by Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, the result is a vivid and inspirational account of Mandela's presidency, a country in flux and the creation of a new democracy. It tells the extraordinary story of the transition from decades of apartheid rule and the challenges Mandela overcome to make a reality of his cherished vision for a liberated South Africa.
From 1924 to 1946 the Republic of Turkey was in effect ruled as an authoritarian single-party regime. During these years the state embarked upon an extensive reform programme of modernisation and nation-building. Alexandros Lamprou here offers an alternative understanding of social change and state-society relations in Turkey, shifting the focus from the state as the prime instigator of change to the population's participation in the process of reform. Through the study of the 'People's Houses', the community centres opened and operated by the Republican People's Party in most cities and towns of Turkey, and using previously unpublished archival material, Lamprou analyses how ordinary people experienced, negotiated and resisted the reforms in the 1930s and 1940s and how this process contributed to the shaping of social identities. This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of nation-building, socio-cultural change and state-society relations in modern Turkey.
Born in Gering, Nebraska on May 2, 1920, Dale Cannady has witnessed a dramatically changing world. Using the GI Bill to gain his college education at the University of Washington in Seattle, Dale rose to be Assistant City Planning Director in Portland, Oregon. My Thoughts is the culmination of 92 years of experience and observation.
No cabe duda que la historia de los Estados Unidos es muy significativa, porque esta plagada de hechos sin precedentes, que marcaron el destino de la nacion mas poderosa del mundo, cuna de la democracia y la libertad. Pero en esa historia intervinieron una serie de hombres, todos lideres, que pusieron su mejor esfuerzo para dejar constancia de su paso por la silla presidencial. Evidentemente los resultados se han dejado ver, por ello, esta obra es interesante, ya que data de las biografias de cada uno de los presidentes, desde George Washington, hasta Barack Obama. "Residentes de la Casa Blanca" cita las fechas precisas de nacimiento, fallecimiento, duracion gubernamental, y hechos mas relevantes de los gobernantes, asi como una fotografia alusiva a cada mandatario. Seguramente, este opusculo sera muy interesante para aquellos que decidan ponerlo en sus manos, para saber como se levanto un erial en la primera potencia en el ambito internacional.
Founding Fathers Four Pack includes the American classic The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, the lesser-known, concise Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, the biography Alexander Hamilton by Charles A. Conant and an insightful essay on John Jay by Elbert Hubbard.
Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) wrote remarkably little about himself, but he has attracted the attention of many writers, politicians, and scholars, both during his lifetime and ever since. His controversial and provocative role in Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) wrote remarkably little about himself, but he has attracted the attention of many writers, politicians, and scholars, both during his lifetime and ever since. His controversial and provocative role in Irish and British affairs had him vilified as a murderer in The Times, and afterwards dramatically vindicated by the Westminster Parliament. It cast him as a romantic hero to the young James Joyce, and a self-serving opportunist to the journalists of the Nation. Parnell has been the subject of court cases, parliamentary enquiries and debates, journalism, plays, poems, literary analysis and historical studies. For the first time all these have been collected, catalogued and cross-referenced in one volume, an invaluable resource for scholars of late nineteenth century Ireland and Britain. Divided into fifteen chapters, including a biographical sketch, this volume contains information on manuscript and archival collections, printed primary sources, Parnell's writing, Parnell's speeches in the House of Commons and outside Parliament, contemporary journalism, contemporary writing, and contemporary illustrations on Irish affairs, and a substantial list of scholarly work, including biographies, books, articles, chapters, and theses.
The concept of individualism has gone through a fundamental change, according to distinguished political theorist Nadia Urbinati. In the nineteenth century, individualism was a philosophical and ethical perspective that permitted each person to respect and cooperate with others as equals in rights and dignity for the betterment of the community as a whole. Today, the individualist is a more self-interested entity whose maxim might best be expressed as "I don't give a damn." This contemporary form of individualism is possessive and conformist, litigious and docile, all too prone to manipulate norms and to submit to the tyrannical sway of private interests. As such, Urbinati believes, it represents the most radical risk that modern democracy currently faces. This well-reasoned and thought-provoking polemic is an attempt to detect the "tyranny of the moderns," with the ultimate aim of recovering the role of the individual citizen as a free and equal agent of democratic society. It explores the concept of communitarianism as a form of individualism applied to the group itself, and advances the idea that the rescue of true individualism from the current ideology is a basic condition for the defense of democratic citizenship.
In the Americas, both indigenous and postcolonial languages today bear witness of massive changes that have taken place since the colonial era. However, a unified approach to languages from different colonial areas is still missing. The present volume studies postcolonial varieties that emerged due to changing linguistic and sociolinguistic conditions in different settings across the Americas. The studies cover indigenous languages that are undergoing lexical and grammatical change due to the presence of colonial languages and the emergence of new dialects and creoles due to contact. The contributions showcase the diversity of approaches to tackle fundamental questions regarding the processes triggered by language contact as well as the wide range of outcomes contact has had in postcolonial settings. The volume adds to the documentation of the linguistic properties of postcolonial language varieties in a socio-historically informed framework. It explores the complex dynamics of extra-linguistic factors that brought about the processes of language change in them and contributes to a better understanding of the determinant factors that lead to the emergence and evolution of such codes.
Are new forms of activism emerging in Algeria? Can civil society effect political reform in the country? The violence between radical Islamists and the military during the Algerian civil war of the 1990s led to huge loss of life and mass exile. The public sphere was rendered a dangerous place for over a decade. Yet in defiance of these conditions, civil society grew, with thousands of associations forming throughout the conflict. Associations were set up to protect human rights and vulnerable populations, commemorate those assassinated and promote Algerian heritage. There are now over 93,000 associations registered across the country. Although social, economic and political turbulence continues, new networks still emerge and, since the Arab revolts of 2011, organised demonstrations increasingly take place. Civil Society in Algeria examines these recent developments and scrutinizes the role associations play in promoting political reform and democratization in Algeria. Based on extensive fieldwork undertaken both before and after the Arab Spring, the book shows how associations challenge government policy in the public sphere. Algeria is playing an increasingly important role in the stability and future peaceful relations of the Middle East and North Africa. This book reveals the new forms of activism that are challenging the ever-powerful state. It is a valuable resource for Algeria specialists and for scholars researching political reform and democratization across the Middle East and North Africa.
Land and Dignity in Paraguay analyzes the sociopolitical mobilization around land rights of the indigenous communities in this country. Throughout Paraguay, indigenous communities have seen their lands sold to private agriculture business, in addition to being subjected to arrests, intimidation, and torture. Since the fall of Stroessner's dictatorship in 1989, these communities have been organizing to oppose neoliberal policies, especially that of land privatization. Such mobilization nearly always coalesces around an organizing frame, and the prominence of dignity in the framing of the Paraguayan movement is clear. Drawing on media coverage and extensive interviews with indigenous leaders, civil society leaders, and government officials, the book argues that active social mobilization developed around the dignity frame and concludes by looking at the implications for conflict resolution processes and for Paraguay's new democracy. A unique case study, Land and Dignity in Paraguay will interest anyone studying indigenous politics, Latin American politics, as well as issues of development and human rights.
Presidential Puppetry documents what many millions have long suspected: secretive elites guide our government leaders. The first book to analyze the Obama second term is also one of the first to examine the 2012 elections. Puppetry reveals scandals and shows why Congress, courts, and other watchdog institutions fail to report key facts about even the biggest news makers. Puppetry unfolds like a mystery extending over decades to the present. By the end, this compelling narrative documented with 1,200 endnotes shows hidden links between puppet masters, political leaders, spy agencies, and the economic austerity now being imposed on a hapless public. By exposing key secrets, it provides a roadmap for reform.
Examines the perspectives of Democrats and Republicans on dozens of major foreign policy issues of the 21st century, illuminating both areas of consensus and issues where partisan divisions are wide. From the earliest days of the republic through the Cold War and to the present day, American foreign policy has been colored by the beliefs and values of America's major political parties. Surveying the breadth and depth of partisan divisions on a variety of key foreign policy issues yields a better understanding of how partisanship has helped define U.S. leadership in the modern era. This book treats 38 individual foreign policy issues, each chosen for its timeliness and importance to American interests in the 21st century. For example, readers will learn about the partisan feelings regarding U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba that surfaced in the wake of President Obama's visit to Cuba in 2016 and his decision to resume diplomatic relations. These feelings serve as an excellent example of both partisan and intergovernmental divisions on a key U.S. foreign policy issue. Each entry contains an historical overview that will quickly bring readers "up to speed" on the issue, followed by an authoritative survey of positions and statements held by presidents, key leaders of Congress, and other important voices in both the Republican and Democratic parties. The book will serve as a vital and highly accessible reference for anyone—undergraduate university students, advanced high school students, and general readers—who needs a one-stop source for information about partisanship and U.S. foreign policy.
Adnan Menderes' election to power in 1950 signalled a new epoch in the history of modern Turkey. For the first time a democratic government ruled the country, taking over Kemal Ataturk's political heirs, the People's Republican Party (CHP), and challenging the Kemalist elite's monopoly on the control of state institutions and society itself. However, this period was short-lived. In 1960, Turkey's army staged a coup d'etat and Menderes was hanged the following year. Here, Mogens Pelt beings by examining the era of the rule of the Democratic Party, and what led to its downfall. Among the chief accusations raised against Menderes by the army was that he had undermined the principles of the founder of modern Turkey, Ataturk, and that he had exploited religion for political purposes. Military Intervention and a Crisis Democracy in Turkey furthermore, and crucially, examines the legacy of the military intervention that brought this era of democratic rule to an end. Although the armed forces officially returned power to the civilians in 1961, this intervention - indeed, this crisis of democracy - allowed the military to become a major player in Turkey's political process, weakening the role of elected politicians. The officer corps claimed that the army was the legal guardian of Kemalism, and that it had the right and duty to intervene again, if the circumstances proscribed it and when it deemed that the values of Ataturk were threatened. Indeed, these were precisely that ground on which the armed forces justified its coup d'etats of 1971 and 1980. This unique exploration of the Menderes period sheds new light on the shaping of post-war Turkey and will be vital for those researching the Turkish Republic, and the influence of the military in its destiny.
In recent decades, local government has become increasingly complex. The Political Economy of Local Government draws upon recent developments in economics, including new institutional economics, and contemporary advances in the theories of social capital and leadership, in order to explain local government policy formulation. The authors go beyond the study of local public goods to explore the sources of market failure and examine whether local authorities are more susceptible to certain types of government failure. In addition, a transaction cost analysis of markets, hierarchies and networks is applied to ascertain the comparative institutional advantage local authorities might have in the supply of local governance. The book also considers the extent of the influence that these recent advances in the theories of social capital and leadership have on the process and implementation of local government policy. This book offers a fresh and readily accessible perspective on the political economy of local government policy making, and will be of particular interest to students and practitioners of economics, political science, public administration, policy studies and local government.
The implementation of a democratic order embedded in a market economy environment has proved immensely difficult. Furthermore, this process is subject to tremendous variety within Central and Eastern Europe. Ten years after the collapse of communism it was apparent that only Poland and Slovenia surpassed their 1989 levels of GDP. This book scrutinises the arrangements to enforce good governance in this area both by means of external help and domestic political leadership. From the popular assumption that transformation is a collective good, it follows that the problem of free-riding has to be faced. Consequently there is a danger that transformation may never be completed. This book empirically tests the relationship between economic performance and good governance focusing upon voluntary coercion as a means to prevent free-riding behaviour. The author examines the role of international organisations and discusses elite formation as an important element of good governance - something often ignored in the economic analysis of economic performance. Scholars and researchers of political and economic transformation in Central and Eastern Europe as well as those from the fields of political economy, international relations and political science will find this book enlightening.
This timely Research Handbook offers a systematic and comprehensive examination of the election laws of democratic nations. Through a study of a range of different regimes of election law, it illuminates the disparate choices that societies have made concerning the benefits they wish their democratic institutions to provide, the means by which such benefits are to be delivered, and the underlying values, commitments, and conceptions of democratic self-rule that inform these choices. Comparative Election Law features a wide scope of coverage, from distribution of the franchise, to candidate qualifications, to campaign speech and finance, to election administration, and more. Contributions from a range of expert scholars in the field are brought together to tackle difficult problems surrounding the definition of the democratic demos, as well as to lay bare important disjunctions between democratic ideals and feasible democratic regimes in practice. Furthermore, a comparative approach is also taken to examine democratic regimes at a theoretical as well as a descriptive level. Featuring key research in a vitally important area, this Research Handbook will be crucial reading for academics and students in a range of fields including comparative law, legal theory, political science, political theory and democracy. It will also be useful to politicians and government officials engaged in election regulation, due to its excellent perspective on the range of regulatory options and how to evaluate them.
The relationship between the presidency and the press has transformed-seemingly overnight-from one where reports and columns were filed, edited, and deliberated for hours before publication into a brave new world where texts, tweets, and sound bites race from composition to release within a matter of seconds. This change, which has ultimately made political journalism both more open and more difficult, brings about many questions, but perhaps the two most important are these: Are the hard questions still being asked? Are they still being answered? In Columns to Characters, Stephanie A. Martin and top scholars and journalists offer a fresh perspective on how the evolution of technology affects the way presidents interact with the public. From Bill Clinton's saxophone playing on the Arsenio Hall Show to Barack Obama's skillful use of YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit as the first "social media president," political communication appears to reflect the increasing fragmentation of the American public. The accessible essays here explore these implications in a variety of real-world circumstances: the "narcotizing" numbness of information overload and voter apathy; the concerns over privacy, security, and civil liberties; new methods of running political campaigns and mobilizing support for programs; and a future "post-rhetorical presidency" in which the press is all but irrelevant. Each section of the book concludes with a "reality check," a short reflection by a working journalist (or, in one case, a former White House insider) on the presidential beat.
The Iranian cleric Ayatollah Montazeri (1922-2009) played an integral role in the founding of the Islamic Republic in the wake of the Iranian Revolution of 1978/9. Yet at the time of his death, Montazeri was considered one of the Islamic Republic's fiercest critics. What made this man, who was once considered the leading advocate of the state doctrine of the 'Guardianship of the Jurist' (velayat-e faqih) and the designated successor to the supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, change his views? How did his political theory incorporate issues such as civil rights, pluralism and popular participation? And what influence did his ideas have on others? Ulrich von Schwerin's book answers these questions by examining the evolution of Montazeri's political thought over the course of five decades, and studies his role in the discourse on religion and politics in Iran. In doing so, he sheds a new light on some of the most crucial events and vital protagonists of recent Iranian history.
The euphoria evidenced in the aftermath of the collapse of communist regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s sometimes conveyed the impression that the process of democratization would be achieved without difficulty or tribulation. This book sets out to provide a thorough comparative analysis of the challenges which face the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and considers the impact of political change. Drawing heavily on available survey data, the book provides an in-depth account of how the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe have coped with four major challenges: political fragmentation, nationalism, lack of respect for human rights, and poorly developed civil service systems. The book demonstrates that although the first few years of the 1990s were marked by increasing disenchantment with the new regimes, the change of governments as a direct result of the electoral process and the prospects for European integration have served to reverse this negative trend. Indeed, the authors find that the new political systems have managed to cope with the challenges so effectively that striking similarities with Western democracies are now apparent. Offering new insights into democratic transition, Challenges to Democracy will appeal to political scientists, diplomats and policymakers, and economists with an interest in European and comparative politics.
Phenomena such as the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, or the surge of political populism show that the current phase of accelerated globalization is over. New concepts are needed in order to respond to this exhaustion of the global project: the volume scrutinizes these responses in the aesthetic realm and under a "post-global" banner, while incorporating alternative, non-Western epistemologies and literatures of the post-colonial Global South.
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. |
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