In 2009 the US House of Representatives passed legislation requiring reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent over the coming decade. Later that year, President Obama went to Copenhagen to sign a treaty requiring reductions by 50 percent over a two-decade period. The President came back with nothing: no firm commitment to reduce emissions and only a vague target to hold global temperature rises to under 2 C. How does a President who has a 75-vote majority in the House and a 19-vote majority in the Senate who has pre-approval for a treaty reducing greenhouse gas production by 18 percent not achieve a treaty with at least the minimum goal of 18 percent reductions by 2020?Others have answered the puzzle by looking at institutional designs or negotiation dynamics. This book articulates a multilevel process that starts with local politics to explain how they can influence international negotiations and why President Obama s efforts in Copenhagen were doomed to fail. Understanding the role of local private interests can help form strategies for overcoming national resistance to climate change legislation and ultimately international agreements that could change the environmentally self-destructive course we are on.

In 2009 the US House of Representatives passed legislation requiring reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent over the coming decade. Later that year, President Obama went to Copenhagen to sign a treaty requiring reductions by 50 percent over a two-decade period. The President came back with nothing: no firm commitment to reduce emissions and only a vague target to hold global temperature rises to under 2 C. How does a President who has a 75-vote majority in the House and a 19-vote majority in the Senate who has pre-approval for a treaty reducing greenhouse gas production by 18 percent not achieve a treaty with at least the minimum goal of 18 percent reductions by 2020?Others have answered the puzzle by looking at institutional designs or negotiation dynamics. This book articulates a multilevel process that starts with local politics to explain how they can influence international negotiations and why President Obama s efforts in Copenhagen were doomed to fail. Understanding the role of local private interests can help form strategies for overcoming national resistance to climate change legislation and ultimately international agreements that could change the environmentally self-destructive course we are on."

Sixteen million people have died in civil wars in the past 50 years. In view of that, civil wars may be the single most destabilizing force in world politics today. The only greater killer is the suffering that pushes individuals into them. Civil wars create regional and global instability that threatens economic initiatives and political continuity. Preventing civil wars is a challenge that the policy community is ill-equipped to handle. Rwanda is an example a tragedy that the world did nothing to stop. Iraq and Afghanistan are tragedies the world did much to inflame. This book uses argument, evidence, and intuition born of experience to provide an account of civil wars and the steps we can take to reduce them.

This work provides in-depth case studies of the state of e-government today. The book chronicles the early days of e-government and presents a collective snapshot in time as to where governments - at the federal, state and local levels - are today as they continue their march toward e-government. Editors Abramson and Morin present a comprehensive progress report on e-government before a distinguished list of contributors discuss such varied topics as the quality of federal websites, technology and innovation in the State Department, online voting and the public-sector information security. Through grants for research and forms, the IBM Endowment for the Business of Government stimulates research and facilitates discussion on new approaches to improving the effectiveness of government at the federal, state, local and international levels.

Surveillance and transparency are both significant and increasingly pervasive activities in neoliberal societies. Surveillance is taken up as a means to achieving security and efficiency; transparency is seen as a mechanism for ensuring compliance or promoting informed consumerism and informed citizenship. Indeed, transparency is often seen as the antidote to the threats and fears of surveillance. This book adopts a novel approach in examining surveillance practices and transparency practices together as parallel systems of accountability. It presents the house of mirrors as a new framework for understanding surveillance and transparency practices instrumented with information technology. The volume centers around five case studies: Campaign Finance Disclosure, Secure Flight, American Red Cross, Google, and Facebook. A series of themed chapters draw on the material and provide cross-case analysis. The volume ends with a chapter on policy implications.

Sixteen million people have died in civil wars in the past 50 years. In view of that, civil wars may be the single most destabilizing force in world politics today. The only greater killer is the suffering that pushes individuals into them. Civil wars create regional and global instability that threatens economic initiatives and political continuity. Preventing civil wars is a challenge that the policy community is ill-equipped to handle. Rwanda is an example a tragedy that the world did nothing to stop. Iraq and Afghanistan are tragedies the world did much to inflame. This book uses argument, evidence, and intuition born of experience to provide an account of civil wars and the steps we can take to reduce them.

Extensive measures are taken to ensure that blood transfusion poses a minimal microbiological hazard to recipients. Transfusion Microbiology is the definitive text on all aspects of transfusion transmitted infections. This comprehensive text covers all medical, scientific, technical and developmental aspects of this critically important sector of transfusion medicine. A detailed discussion of all infective agents, donor issues, testing and pathogen inactivation is provided. Agents causing major concern recently, such as vCJD, are considered in the context of historical experience with agents such as HIV. All aspects of risk assessment, regulation, cost benefit analysis and quality management are reviewed. Relevant to blood transfusion centres, hospital transfusion laboratories, haematologists and microbiologists, medical, scientific and technical staff, universities and general training programmes worldwide, Transfusion Microbiology provides an up-to-date resource for all practitioners and researchers involved in transfusion medicine.

The underappreciated but surprisingly successful implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) helped rescue the economy during the Great Recession and represented one of the most important achievements of the Obama presidency. It tested all levels of government with urgent time frames and extensive accountability requirements. While ARRA passed most tests with comparatively little mismanagement or fraud, negative public and media perceptions of the initiative deprived the president of political credit. Drawing on more than two hundred interviews and nationwide field research, Governing under Stress examines a range of ARRA stimulus programs to analyze the fraught politics, complex implementation, and impact of the legislation. Essays from public administration scholars use ARRA to study how to implement large federal programs in our modern era of indirect, networked governance. Throughout, the contributors present potent insights into the most pressing challenges facing public policy and management, and they uncover important lessons about policy instruments and networks, the effects of transparency and accountability, and the successes and failures of different types of government intervention.

The underappreciated but surprisingly successful implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) helped rescue the economy during the Great Recession and represented one of the most important achievements of the Obama presidency. It tested all levels of government with urgent time frames and extensive accountability requirements. While ARRA passed most tests with comparatively little mismanagement or fraud, negative public and media perceptions of the initiative deprived the president of political credit. Drawing on more than two hundred interviews and nationwide field research, Governing under Stress examines a range of ARRA stimulus programs to analyze the fraught politics, complex implementation, and impact of the legislation. Essays from public administration scholars use ARRA to study how to implement large federal programs in our modern era of indirect, networked governance. Throughout, the contributors present potent insights into the most pressing challenges facing public policy and management, and they uncover important lessons about policy instruments and networks, the effects of transparency and accountability, and the successes and failures of different types of government intervention.

This book is one that can change your life by revealing the power of God's word and what He can do to transform your life. It shows time and again how in history God has changed men and women of God who experienced God's power by believing in His word. They didn't take any shortcuts in life-they just trusted God with their whole heart and they saw God's faithfulness. They saw that God will come through for those who put their trust in Him. God has a plan for us, and I truly believe that you will be able to identify with some of the characters and events that have taken place. I pray that you will apply these principles to your own life. This book will help you to identify spiritually with God and His people on another level. I encourage you to see what God has in store for you through the strong spiritual truths found in this book

While technological threats to personal privacy have proliferated rapidly, legislation designed to protect privacy has been slow and incremental. In this study of legislative attempts to reconcile privacy and technology, Priscilla Regan examines congressional policy making in three key areas: computerized databases, wiretapping, and polygraph testing. In each case, she argues, legislation has represented an unbalanced compromise benefiting those with a vested interest in new technology over those advocating privacy protection. "Legislating Privacy" explores the dynamics of congressional policy formulation and traces the limited response of legislators to the concept of privacy as a fundamental individual right. According to Regan, we will need an expanded understanding of the social value of privacy if we are to achieve greater protection from emerging technologies such as Caller ID and genetic testing. Specifically, she argues that a recognition of the social importance of privacy will shift both the terms of the policy debate and the patterns of interest-group action in future congressional activity on privacy issues.
Originally published in 1995.
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We have seen recent massive intervention by the United States and its allies in Europe in internal conflict in Bosnia and Kosovo. In "Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict," Patrick Regan systematically answers the question about the conditions under which third parties intervene in civil conflicts to stop the fighting. It uses data on all civil conflicts since 1945 to identify those conflicts that are amenable to outside interventions and the types of interventions that are more likely to be successful.
"Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict" is a book about how governments can help facilitate the end of civil conflicts. In a time when internal conflicts appear to be increasing in number, and increasingly destabilizing, governments need to know what policies work and when. Interventions are generally of two sorts--unilateral, or when one state takes action, and multilateral, such as UN or NATO action. This book examines the conditions under which each form of intervention is most likely and most effective. The analysis suggests that three conditions associated with multi-lateral interventions will increase the likelihood of success: mutual consent of the parties involved; impartiality on the part of the intervenors; and the existence of a coherent intervention strategy. The questions are posed from the perspective of the decision maker and the answers offered are framed in a language familiar to the decision-making community. The book mixes descriptive case material with systematic statistical analysis of a unique data set of all civil conflicts since World War II, providing contemporary examples to illustrate overall trends in the data. Beyond the policy implicationsthis work is also rich in theoretical development about issues of conflict and conflict management.
This book will appeal to students of international conflict, civil war, ethnic conflict, and those who are concerned with developing policy in the post-cold war world to deal with intrastate conflict.
Patrick M. Regan is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Binghamton University.