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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

'The best of England' The New Statesman 'A powerful open letter about racism' The Sun 'I just want equality, equality for all of us. At the moment, the scales are unfairly balanced and I just want things to be fair for my children, my grandchildren and future generations.' On 13 June 2020, Patrick Hutchinson, a black man, was photographed carrying a white injured man to safety during a confrontation in London between Black Lives Matter demonstrators and counter-protestors. The powerful image was shared and discussed all around the world. Everyone versus Racism is a poignant letter from Patrick to his children and grandchildren. Writing from the heart, he describes the realities of life as a black man today and why we must unite to inspire change for generations to come.

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.

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.

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.

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."

In recent years, political discourse about gun control and the Second Amendment has become increasingly volatile and this collection of original essays by top scholars illuminates the various reasons why. Gun lobbies such as the National Rifle Association are more organized and aggressive and their issue agenda has evolved as new and more powerful weapons and militia appear. On the other side of the debate, the critical wounding of James Brady gave gun control advocates a visible martyr with strong ties to Republican conservatives. In sum, gun control and the right to bear arms have become hotly disputed issues where political alignments are constantly shifting. The contributors chart these changes and explore how Congress, the courts, the President, and individual states are currently addressing the issue of gun control. This book, which includes profiles and examinations of relevant interest groups, the gun control coalition, recent Supreme Court decisions, and public opinion surveys, will be of great interest to classes in political science, American government, law, and sociology.

Few relationships have proved more pivotal in changing the course of American politics than those between presidents and social movements. For all their differences, both presidents and social movements are driven by a desire to recast the political system, often pursuing rival agendas that set them on a collision course. Even when their interests converge, these two actors often compete to control the timing and conditions of political change. During rare historical moments, however, presidents and social movements forged partnerships that profoundly recast American politics. Rivalry and Reform explores the relationship between presidents and social movements throughout history and into the present day, revealing the patterns that emerge from the epic battles and uneasy partnerships that have profoundly shaped reform. Through a series of case studies, including Abraham Lincoln and abolitionism, Lyndon Johnson and the civil rights movement, and Ronald Reagan and the religious right, Sidney M. Milkis and Daniel J. Tichenor argue persuasively that major political change usually reflects neither a top-down nor bottom-up strategy but a crucial interplay between the two. Savvy leaders, the authors show, use social movements to support their policy goals. At the same time, the most successful social movements target the president as either a source of powerful support or the center of opposition. The book concludes with a consideration of Barack Obama's approach to contemporary social movements such as Black Lives Matter, United We Dream, and Marriage Equality.

"Competitive Interests" does more than simply challenge the long -held belief that a small set of interests control large domains of the public policy making landscape. It shows how the explosion in the sheer number of new groups, and the broad range of ideological demands they advocate, have created a form of group politics emphasizing compromise as much as conflict. Thomas T. Holyoke offers a model of strategic lobbying that shows why some group lobbyists feel compelled to fight stronger, wealthier groups even when they know they will lose.

Holyoke interviewed 83 lobbyists who have been advocates on several contentious issues, including Arctic oil drilling, environmental conservation, regulating genetically modified foods, money laundering, and bankruptcy reform. He offers answers about what kinds of policies are more likely to lead to intense competition and what kinds of interest groups have an advantage in protracted conflicts. He also discusses the negative consequences of group competition, such as legislative gridlock, and discusses what lawmakers can do to steer interest groups toward compromise. The book concludes with an exploration of greater group competition, conflict, and compromise and what consequences this could have for policymaking in a representation-based political system.

Considered the gold standard on interest group politics, this widely-used text analyzes interest groups within the intuitive framework of democratic theory, enabling readers to understand the workings of interest groups within the larger context of our political system. Comprehensive coverage includes not only the traditional farm, labor, and trade associations, but also citizen groups, public interest organizations, corporations, and public interest firms Brief in page count yet comprehensive in coverage, the book is flexible for different class settings. The book's rich content and lean size allows it to stand alone as the centerpiece of a course, or be assigned as one of several texts. New to the Sixth Edition Updates the role of money in interest group activity following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Covers new interest group actors including the Tea Party, Occupy, and others. Examines new developments in key interest group arenas including health care and the environment. Looks at the role of social media in interest groups. Adds a comparative look at interest group action, organization, and scholarship abroad.

The past two decades have seen the growth of well-coordinated networks of political activists who have managed to obtain hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars for political lobbying. Although federal regulations prohibit such activities, loopholes in the law allow these monies to be masked as private resources. State and federal taxpayers, monies fund the lobbying efforts of private advocacy groups on both the political left and the right.

In Tax-Funded Politics, James Bennett argues that governmental agencies, rather than combating theses abuses, aid and abet them in order to increase their own size and scope. Drawing on a broad range of examples, Bennett shows how the ideals of the nation's Founding Fathers have been subverted by molding and manipulating the will of the people through government-orchestrated propaganda. Government agencies, far from being indifferent to self-aggrandizement and the consolidation of wealth and power, are concerned with their own self-interest, whether it is enhancing their budget or supporting a particular political agenda. Likewise, nonprofit entities claim to operate solely in the "public interest" but also engage in political advocacy and lobbying activities. But when charities do the lobbying, blatant self-interest is wrapped in the halo of the "public interest."

Tax-Funded Politics exposes dozens of mutually beneficial arrangements between government and charities involving hundreds of millions of dollars. It then explores their implications. Groups that receive government funds are loath to criticize failed government programs and are advocates for the expansion of the agencies that provide their support. Even charities learn not to bite the hand that feeds them. Although the vast majority of the funds are directed to nonprofit groups on the left of the political spectrum, so-called conservative organizations have also sought and received taxpayers' funds, despite promise to get government off our back and out of our pockets.

Is lobbying, particularly by 'lobbyists for hire', resulting in a distortion of the democratic process? Does business, with its highly sophisticated and well-resourced lobbying operations, have an undue influence on decisions by politicians? The book assess the impact of lobbying on the UK political system, the extent to which it shapes the political decision-making process and the extent to which this influence is beneficial or malign. The book outlines various lobbying groups and their methods of persuasion, plus the weakness of political action groups and social media when faced with the might of the lobbying industry. The book is ideal reading for anyone seeking an introduction to lobbying. -- .

The main purpose of this study is to contribute to the familiarization of the reader with the production of Islamist writers in contemporary Turkey, by focusing on the ideas and writings of Necip Fazil Kisakurek, Ali Bulac, and Abdurrahman Dilipak. The reader is given the opportunity to read a number of representative writings of the above-mentioned writers; in addition, there is an introductory chapter with the purpose of placing the discussion of the emergence, role, and typology of Islamist intellectuals in Turkey in social theory terms and context.

This book offers a scholarly yet accessible overview of the role of lobbying in American politics. It draws upon extant research as well as original data gathered from interviews with numerous lobbyists across the United States. It describes how lobbyists do their work within all branches of government, at the national, state, and local levels. It thus offers a substantially broader view of lobbying than is available in much of the research literature. Although tailored for students taking courses on interest group politics, Total Lobbying offers an indispensable survey of the field for scholars and others concerned with this important facet of American politics.

Many communities in the United States have been abandoned by the state. What happens when natural disasters add to their misery? This book looks at the broken relationship between the federal government and civil society in times of crises. Mutual aid has gained renewed importance in providing relief when hurricanes, floods and pandemics hit, as cuts to state spending put significant strain on communities struggling to survive. Harking back to the self-organised welfare programmes of the Black Panther Party, radical social movements from Occupy to Black Lives Matter are building autonomous aid networks within and against the state. However, as the federal responsibility for relief is lifted, mutual aid faces a profound dilemma: do ordinary people become complicit in their own exploitation? Reframing disaster relief through the lens of social reproduction, Peer Illner tracks the shifts in American emergency aid, from the economic crises of the 1970s to the Covid-19 pandemic, raising difficult questions about mutual aid's double-edged role in cuts to social spending. As sea levels rise, climate change worsens and new pandemics sweep the globe, Illner's analysis of the interrelations between the state, the market and grassroots initiatives will prove indispensable.