Although there have been numerous publications that argue the merit of Chinese rule over Tibet, and many more that argue for Tibetan self-determination, the world has not heard many Chinese voices supporting the latter view. This book exposes the reader to just that perspective from no less famous writers and activists than Wei Jingsheng, Yan Jiaqi, Shen Tong, Wang Ruowang, and others -- many now perforce in exile or imprisoned -- whose views on Tibet were heretofore little known. Though theirs is the view of a small minority of Chinese, history may still record the publication of these essays as the first movement of a significant turning point in the history of this issue.

Although there have been numerous publications that argue the merit of Chinese rule over Tibet, and many more that argue for Tibetan self-determination, the world has not heard many Chinese voices supporting the latter view. This book exposed the reader to just that perspective from no less famous writers and activists than Wei Jingsheng, Yan Jiaqi, Shen Tong, Wang Rouwang, and others. Though theirs is the view of a small minority of Chinese, history may still record the publication of these essays as a milestone in the history of this issue.

In the United Kingdom, as in the United States, race relations are surrounded with taboos defined by the politically correct concepts of what Ray Honeyford calls the race relations lobby. This lobby, championed by the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) has a vested interest in depicting the United Kingdom as a society rotten with endemic racism, and its ethnic minorities as victims doomed to failure. An outgrowth of the Race Relations Act of 1976, the Commission was founded in response to worthy concerns about race and patterned after its American prototype, the Congress of Racial Equality. Its constant demands for increased powers have only increased with the coming into power of the New Labour Party. That makes Ray Honeyford's critique all the more urgent. Honeyford exposes the policies and practices of the Commission to public view, encouraging informed debate about its need to exist. The CRE possesses considerable legal powers-powers which seriously undermine the great freedoms of association, contract, and speech as-sociated with the United Kingdom. Without denying the presence of racial prejudice, Honeyford shows that the picture of the United Kingdom as a divisive nation is a serious misrepresentation. Placing the CRE in its historical and political context, Honeyford outlines its powers, and analyzes its formal investigations in the fields of education, employment, and housing. He also examines its publicity machine and its effect on public and educational libraries. He points out the danger of uncritically replicating the American experience. According to Honeyford, Americans have replaced a melting-pot notion of society, with all citizens loyal to a national ideal, with a "tossed-salad" concept which encourages the creation of self-conscious, separate, and aggressive ethnic groups, each claiming special access to the public purse, and having little regard for national cohesion and individual liberties.

This volume looks at informal political action which arises when conventional frameworks, such as those provided by welfare states, are in crisis or decline. At such times the usual expectations about political action may not apply, so what actually goes on? A specific emphasis on context - in particular the link between power and knowledge and public argumentation in a given setting - is used to trace the development of collective action. Key issues are addressed, such as how informal political collectives come to define their aims, what communication processes take place within them, how far their action responds to that of other political bodies, and how far these processes affect the results of what they do. Discussion is based around a range of empirical case studies, and we are shown that informal collective action is more widespread and significant than many realize, and that it often occurs in fields which appear to be non-political, such as in Swiss neighbourhoods.

In the 21st century, think tanks have become more than a buzzword in European public discourse. They now play important roles in the policy-making process by providing applied research, building networks and advocating policies. The book studies the development of think tanks and contemporary consequences in the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and at the EU-level. A Continental think tank tradition in which the state plays a pivotal role and an Anglo-American tradition which facilitates interaction in public policy on market-like terms have shaped the development of think tanks. On the basis of a typology of think tanks, quantitative data and interviews with think tank practitioners, the interplay between state and market dynamics and the development of different types of think tanks is analysed. Although think tanks develop along different institutional trajectories, it is concluded that the Anglo-American tradition has had a significant, cross-cutting impact in Europe in recent years. The contention over the politics of think tanks runs deeper at the EU-level than in the member states and reflects disagreement over how the EU should develop in the future. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of political communication, public policy, European politics and comparative politics.

Interest Group Politics in America is a concise, readable, and up-to-date introduction to the study of group power. This third edition of the book gives expanded attention to the changing dynamics of power politics in America; new media venues and grassroots organizing techniques; the role of PACs, referenda, and direct action; and the perennial issue of reform.

This study examines the nature of two women's activist groups in Madras and their activists since 1979, focusing on their work on the media, slum issues, registration of marriages and initiation of an apprenticeship scheme. It also studies political processes in which women are involved, attempting to discuss women's political behaviour in male-dominated society where official bodies, as well as the academic world, pay attention to "women's issues" but where women as political actors continue to be invisible.

This study examines the nature of two women's activist groups in Madras and their activities since 1979, focusing on their work with the media, slum issues, registration of marriages and initiation of an apprenticeship scheme. But this volume is more than a study of women and their organisations. It is a study of political processes in which women are active, an attempt to discuss women's political behaviour in male-dominated society where official bodies, as well as the academic world, pay attention to 'women's issues' but where women as political actors continue to be invisible.

Many people today feel that something has gone wrong with British society and British politics. The quality of like seems to be declining. Crime soars. Traffic and pollution spiral. Mass unemployment is undiminished, while many people experience insecurity and stress at work. Growing poverty and inequality have left many of Britain's citizens excluded from mainstream society. Everywhere, the sense of community seems to be breaking down. In the world as a whole, poverty and conflict cause immense suffering and threaten the security of nations. Global environmental degradation - from the greenhouse effect to the destruction of rainforests - makes the very future of the planet uncertain. Yet the political system seems barely to register what is happening. It is hardly surprising that public disillusionment with politicians and Parliament has never been higher. The Politics of the Real World addresses these interlocking crises. Setting out the issues clearly, it explains how conventional economic and social policies are creating the problems we face, not solving them. Arguing that the British political system itself needs rejuvenating, it proposes a new direction for the UK in an increasingly globalised world.

Originally published in 1983, Agitators and Promoters in the Age of Gladstone and Disraeli brings together the lives of thousands of persons, some famous, most modest and obscure, who were joined a century ago in pursuit of causes promising, a more just world which embodied much of the life and substance of the politics of during this time of transition. The book focuses on not simply the political Establishment but the members of government and legislature with their paid functionaries and party hacks, and much of the politicised sub-elite of a generation, including some three thousand persons from many layers of Victorian life. These are the organisers and leaders, the agitators and promoters of a host of causes.

The essays in this collection focus on the reasons for and background to the emergence during the 1980s of the new farmers' movements in India. In addition to a more general consideration of the economic, political and theoretical dimensions of this development, there are case studies which cover the farmer's movements in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka.

The relationship between the Conservative Party and the trade unions has been at best uneasy and more often than not hostile. This study examines the attitudes and policies of the Conservative Party towards the trade unions from the 19th century onwards, linking these to wider political and economic circumstances and the key personalities involved. Peter Dorey shows that there has always been disagreements within the Conservative Party as to how it should deal with the trade unions. These disagreements have in large part reflected divisions within British Conservatism itself, between the paternalist, "one nation" strand which has traditionally favoured a conciliatory approach to the trade unions, and the "economic liberal/social authoritarian" strand, which has always hankered after the virtual suppression of trade unionism.

This is the extraordinary saga of the eight year campaign to prevent the destruction of Twyford Down, then the undistributed landscape backcloth to the ancient City of Winchester. The story is told by Barbara Bryant who was at the forefront of the campaign from its modest beginnings in 1985 to its infamous culmination seven years later. Twyford Down is a compelling record of every step of the campaign. It examines the UK government's role in the destruction of the Down, firstly by proposing to complete the 'missing' link in the M3 via the cutting in Twyford Down and subsequently by its intransigence in rejecting alternative solutions. It also looks at the part the campaign has subsequently played in the evolution of environmental campaigning. European legislation, which failed to protect this precious piece of English countryside, is examined, as is the political background to the campaign. The campaign for Twyford Down was lost with the construction of the final section of the M3 motorway through Twyford Down. The campaign, and the issues it raised, are not likely to be forgotten - the gaping wound in the landscape will remain as a monument to the great car economy of the second half of the 20th century.

Organizing for Collective Action investigates the political and economic behaviors of national associations, including trade associations, professional societies, labor unions, and public interest groups. It focuses upon the ways that these organizations acquire resources and allocate them to various collective actions, particularly for member services, public relations, and political action. This analysis is structured around three broad theoretical paradigms for collective action: (1) the problem of societal integration which concerns the ways that people are tied to organizations and the ways that organizations connect their members with the larger society; (2) the problem of organizational governance which considers how individuals become unified collectivities capable of acting in a coordinated manner, and (3) the problem of public policy influence which involves interactions among public and private interest groups to formulate the binding decisions under which we all must live.

In addressing a variety of significant social issues, the authors of this book show ways of communicating effectively and successfully with powerful policy making bodies in their overall efforts to improve the world in which we live. Ethnographic insights and research findings by qualitative researchers throughout the world cover such diverse topics as environmental health and safety, the dropout problem, educational reform, AIDS education, homelessness and the education of gifted children. This book then details how these socially vital findings are presented qualitatively and quantitatively through discourse which has immediate impact on sponsors and policy decision makers. The effect of this book is to show how effective communication, collaboration and advocacy with decision makers can noticeably affect today's society. It should be of interest to all practising researchers, anthropologists, educators decision makers, educationalists and sociologists.

This book presents a study of the development of the feminist movement in Britain and America during the 19th century. Acknowledging the similar social conditions in both countries during that period, the author suggests that a real sense of distinctiveness did exist between British and American feminists. American feminists were inspired by their own perception of the superiority of their social circumstances, for example, whereas British feminists found their cause complicated by traditional considerations of class. Christine Bolt aims to show that the story of the American and British women's movement is one of national distinctiveness within an international cause. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of American and British political history and women's studies.

The history of reform movements in postwar Eastern Europe is ultimately ironic, inasmuch as the reformers' successes and defeats alike served to discredit and demoralize the regimes they sought to redeem. The essays in this volume examine the historic and present-day role of the internal critics who, whatever their intentions, used Marxism as critique to demolish Marxism as ideocracy, but did not succeed in replacing it. Included here are essays by James P. Scanlan on the USSR, Ferenc Feher on Hungary, Leslie Holmes on the German Democratic Republic, Raymond Taras on Poland, James Satterwhite on Czechoslovakia, Vladimir Tismaneanu on Romania, Mark Baskin on Bulgaria, and Oskar Gruenwald on Yugoslavia. In concert, the contributors provide a comprehensive intellectual history and a veritable Who's Who of revisionist Marxism in Eastern Europe.

This book explores the influence of private United States (US) philanthropic foundations in the governance of global problems. Through a close scrutiny of four high profile case studies of public-private collaboration, the work addresses the vacuum present in global governance scholarship regarding the influence of foundations, arguing the influence of these actors extends beyond the basic material, and into the more subtle and complex ideational sphere of policy and governance. This book: charts the growth of private forms of governance and foundations' role in deepening and extending private power in global politics provides a historical examination of private foundations in international affairs including their centrality in the development of the institutional architecture in international health and agriculture and the linkage back to domestic political systems analyses the new modes of philanthropy and giving styles - particularly venture philanthropy and 'philanthrocapitalism' - and how these are being rearticulated in the aid architecture and in development discourses evaluates distinctive features and unique attributes of foundations as transnational actors (including their limitations) - how they use these attributes when exercising policy influence and how they negotiate and collaborate with other state and non-state actors in global governance provides an introduction to three prominent foundations - Gates, Rockefeller and the Acumen Fund - and four key partnerships - IAVI, GAVI, AGRA and A to Z textile Mills. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international organizations, international political economy and development studies.

The 1968 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to one of the founders of public choice theory, James Buchanan, yet many people have only the vaguest idea what public choice is. The book offers and unusually clear and accessible introduction to an important subject. McLean examines the workings of public choice from two related perspectives - collective action and the aggregation of individual preferences into social consensus.

The book highlights the paradox at the heart of collective action- that self-interest in the public domain is frequently counterproductive. National defense and clean air are things we all benefit from - they are public goods - but we tend to resist contributing to them. The first part of this book examines how government choice in such areas is shaped, and by whom- political entrepreneurs, bureaucrats, interest groups and ordinary citizens. McLean uses the idea of a public market in which politicians sell what they hope voters will buy, and further considers how and when people (and animals) co-operate to produce public goods even without government coercion. In the second part of the book the author examines the consequences of combining individual preferences, arguing that there is no straightforward way of adding them up to form a 'social ordering' and assesing the implications of this both for electoral reform and for the status of 'the will of the people'.

In recent years, popular media have inundated audiences with sensationalised headlines recounting data breaches, new forms of surveillance and other dangers of our digital age. Despite their regularity, such accounts treat each case as unprecedented and unique. This book proposes a radical rethinking of the history, present and future of our relations with the digital, spatial technologies that increasingly mediate our everyday lives. From smartphones to surveillance cameras, to navigational satellites, these new technologies offer visions of integrated, smooth and efficient societies, even as they directly conflict with the ways users experience them. Recognising the potential for both control and liberation, the authors argue against both acquiescence to and rejection of these technologies. Through intentional use of the very systems that monitor them, activists from Charlottesville to Hong Kong are subverting, resisting and repurposing geographic technologies. Using examples as varied as writings on the first telephones to the experiences of a feminist collective for migrant women in Spain, the authors present a revolution of everyday technologies. In the face of the seemingly inevitable dominance of corporate interests, these technologies allow us to create new spaces of affinity, and a new politics of change.

In the 21st century, think tanks have become more than a buzzword in European public discourse. They now play important roles in the policy-making process by providing applied research, building networks and advocating policies. The book studies the development of think tanks and contemporary consequences in the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and at the EU-level. A Continental think tank tradition in which the state plays a pivotal role and an Anglo-American tradition which facilitates interaction in public policy on market-like terms have shaped the development of think tanks. On the basis of a typology of think tanks, quantitative data and interviews with think tank practitioners, the interplay between state and market dynamics and the development of different types of think tanks is analysed. Although think tanks develop along different institutional trajectories, it is concluded that the Anglo-American tradition has had a significant, cross-cutting impact in Europe in recent years. The contention over the politics of think tanks runs deeper at the EU-level than in the member states and reflects disagreement over how the EU should develop in the future. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of political communication, public policy, European politics and comparative politics.

From the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street, and from cryptocurrency advocates to the #MeToo movement, citizens of democracies worldwide are losing confidence in the system. This loss of faith has spread beyond government to infect a broad swath of institutions-the press, corporations, digital platforms-none of which seem capable of holding us together. How should we encourage participation in public life when neither elections nor protests feel like paths to change? Drawing on work by political scientists, legal theorists and activists in the streets, Ethan Zuckerman offers a lens for understanding civic engagement that focuses on efficacy, the power of seeing the change you make in the world. Mistrust is a guidebook for those looking for new ways to make change as well as a fascinating explanation of how we've arrived at a moment where old ways of engagement are failing us.

Unique in bringing together contributions from academics and practitioners on the theme of strategic, intelligent modern lobbying this book provides a thorough and accessible discussion on key ideas pertinent to the pursuance of public affairs in the European Union. Combining innovative academic research with first-hand professional experience it offers the reader a combination of practical recommendations, case studies and academic theory to add new insights to interest group research and lobbying strategies. While focusing on the European Union the contributors acknowledge the multi-level dimension of EU decision-making and incorporate research on multi-level governance as well as lobbying by sub-national authorities. Through this they present a fuller picture of a subject that should appeal to students, academics and practitioners alike.

If you think you are living in an era of post-truth, you likely are. If something sounds like magical thinking, it is. Nationalism makes no country great; it often leads to war, genocide, terror, destroyed economies and the turning of cities into rubble. Technology will not get us to paradise. It has made us more unequal than ever, polluted democracy, heightened job risk (displacement), created ever more billionaires, continued the rapid pace of the destruction of the planet, and transformed us from citizens into consumers, often with our active support. The free market is not free; too often it isn't even a market (because we live in an age of monopoly). The road to serfdom is paved by demagogues, not the state; the state and its institutions are all we have. Trust expertise. Truth does not come from he who shouts the loudest. You are approaching a one-party-state when facts are relativized, science is denied, experts are mocked and threatened, alternative facts are embraced, minorities are criminalized, and lying is normalized. Farewell to Democracy? reminds us that we have been here before. It tells us that we can avoid a repetition of the past, but we must first know what that past was (and is). Farewell to Democracy? insists that nothing is inevitable. That we are not powerless. That we have institutions to help protect us, which we must protect in turn. It shows us what happens when we speak truth to power. It details the strength of mass protest. It pulls back the veil on Post-Truth. It urges all of us to bear witness and to "show up."