"Welfare politics" have now been part of American life for four centuries. Beyond a persistent general idea that Americans have a collective obligation to provide for the poorest among us, there has been little common ground on which to forge political and philosophical consensus. Are poor people poor because of their own shortcomings and moral failings, or because of systemic societal and econonomic obstacles? That is, does poverty have individual or structural causes? This book demonstrates why neither of these two polemical stances has been able to prevail permanently over the other and explores the public policy--and real-life--consequences of the stalemate. Author Greg M. Shaw pays special attention to the outcome of the 1996 act that was heralded as "ending welfare as we know it." Historically, people on all sides of the welfare issue have hated welfare--but for different reasons. Like our forebears, we have constantly disagreed about where to strike the balance between meeting the basic needs of the very poor and "creating dependency," or undermining individual initiative. The shift in 1996 from New Deal welfare entitlement to "workfare" mirrored the national mood and ascendant political ideology, as had welfare policy throughout American history. The special contribution of this book is to show how evolving understandings of four key issues--markets, motherhood, race, and federalism--have shaped public perceptions in this contentious debate. A rich historical narrative is here complemented by a sophisticated analytical understanding of the forces at work behind attempts to solve the welfare dilemma. Chapters cover: BLThe Early American Roots of Welfare BLControlling the Poor in19th-Century America BLFrom Mothers' Pensions to a Troubled Aid to Dependent Children Program BLThe Rise and Fall of the Great Society BLThe 1970s and 1980s: Backlash and an Emerging Conservative Consensus BLThe End of Welfare Entitlement BLA New World of Welfare How should we evaluate the current "welfare-to-work" model? Is a precipitous decline in state welfare caseloads sufficient evidence of success? Success, this book finds, has many measures, and ending welfare as an entitlement program has not ended arguments about how best to protect children from the ravages of poverty or how to address the plight of the most vulnerable among us. Series features: BLTimeline anchoring the discussion in time and place BLBibliography of print and Internet resources guiding further exploration of the subject BLCharts and tables analyzing complex data, including survey results

Following the Drums: African American Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee is an epic history of a little-known African American instrumental music form. John M. Shaw follows the music from its roots in West Africa and early American militia drumming to its prominence in African American communities during the time of Reconstruction, both as a rallying tool for political militancy and a community music for funerals, picnics, parades, and dances. Carefully documenting the music's early uses for commercial advertising and sports promotion, Shaw follows the strands of the music through the nadir of African American history during post-Reconstruction up to the form's rediscovery by musicologists and music researchers during the blues and folk revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although these researchers documented the music, and there were a handful of public performances of the music at festivals, the story has a sad conclusion. Fife and drum music ultimately died out in Tennessee during the early 1980s. Newspaper articles from the period and interviews with music researchers and participants reawaken this lost expression, and specific band leaders receive the spotlight they so long deserved. Following the Drums is a journey through African American history and Tennessee history, with a fascinating form of music powering the story.

When Roscoe and Tooey leave Fort Benton after their run-in with Cronkit out in the Little Rocky Mountains, as told in "Roscoe and Tooey, Montana Runaways," they ride out to Clint Stranahan's place on the Teton River. There they learn to milk cows, to put up hay and to irrigate the hay fields. After working hard all summer they are asked to help with finding some missing cattle for a rancher a few miles west on the Teton River. They pack their bedrolls and some gear thinking they'll only be gone for a day or two at the most.. But when Roscoe hears some men burying something by the river late at night, their search for missing critters turns into a more deadly adventure. They follow the Bootlegger Trail into Black Eagle where they learn to their chagrin what the men were doing out on the river so late at night.

With the debate over health care consuming the nation, this timely book looks at the evolution of healthcare policy in the United States throughout its history. Concise, authoritative, and unbiased, The Healthcare Debate provides meaningful context for thinking about one of the most controversial public policy issues the United States faces. It traces the evolution of the argument over the government's role in healthcare financing and delivery since the early 1800s, with an emphasis on the major reform efforts since the mid-20th century. Following the complex dynamics of public health policy across U.S. history, The Healthcare Debate brings together a wide range of voices on the subject—presidents, policymakers, reformers, lobbyists, and everyday citizens. Each of its eight chronologically organized chapters focuses on the battle over government involvement in healthcare in a specific era, drawing on historic documents and the latest retrospective research. With President Obama making healthcare reform his top domestic priority in his first year in office, this remarkable new book could not be more timely.

This volume offers students a broad examination of the impact of religion on the lives of women around the world, focusing on differences among women, indigenous religions, the impact of religion in colonization, and resistance to religious oppression. Sexism, pervasive in religion, limits access to high leadership positions; dictates gender-related religious practices and roles; portrays women in limited ways in sacred texts; excludes or condemns them if they are lesbian, bisexual, or transgender; and makes them subject to violence by people of other faiths as well as their own. This volume is organized into eight chapters, each focusing on a different region of the world-North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central and East Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Chapters cover women's status and experiences in the religions of each region, including indigenous religions and such major world religions as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Additionally, they cover issues of religion for women, such as women in religious leadership, women in sacred texts, LGBTQ issues in religion, the intersections of religion and politics for women, the legacy of Christian missionaries on the colonial project, religious violence against women, and women's resistance to religious oppression. Offers readers an overview of women's experiences in many religions across the various regions of the world Highlights intersectionality and understanding how gender shapes and is shaped by race, sexuality, social class, age, ability, nation of origin, and religion within structures of institutional power Analyzes key issues affecting women in religion around the world, ranging from religious leadership to religious violence and clergy sex abuse Offers examples of how women resist sexist oppression in religion and find sources of liberation within religion Presents sidebars throughout the text to provide insightful information that enhances the reader's experience Features an at-a-glance chronological timeline of women and world religions throughout history, from ancient times to the present

You(th) Ministry is a journey. In fact, don't think of it as a book; it's your roadmap, your field notes to becoming a better youth leader/pastor. Use this book as an advisor. It will guide you on your journey to becoming an effective and truly productive youth worker. This book is designed to focus on the driving force of your ministry-you. True change can only come from the inside out. Your youth ministry will only be as healthy and effective as you are. Hence the title, You(th) Ministry.

Shaw addresses the 'ethical turn' in contemporary sociological thinking, by exploring the contribution of sociology and the social sciences to bioethical debates about morality and tissue exchange practices.

Since 2000, countries across Africa have maintained over a decade of unprecedented economic expansion in a phenomena known as 'Africa rising'. However, despite pockets of strong economic growth, Africa still faces major development challenges. In this important book the contributors argue that Africa as a continent must work on securing social and political stability and build effective economic governance to ensure the development of a society that is socially, economically and politically inclusive. Looking beyond the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the contributors highlight what they consider to be the 12 major public policy conversations of the continent post-2015, from the legacy of African leadership, to the 'youth bulge' (and resulting unemployment) and climate change. The volume presents policy makers, academics and students with a chance to take a fresh look at urgent emerging challenges in post-MDG African development.

This volume takes the debates on the political economy of regionalization beyond their current stage, utilizing the insight that regionalization entails profound socio-cultural, economic and political restructuring. The contributions challenge the traditional formal interstate and institutional bias in analyzes of regionalization, in which the EU is often presented as the model for understanding contemporary practices. Instead, they underscore the need to understand regionalization in terms of its myriad local articulations. There is not just one process of regionalization, but many.

Globalization poses a formidable dilemma for the third world state. While there are compelling external pressures to liberalize domestic economies, market-oriented reforms threaten the economic well-being of various societal groups. Popular resistance to these reforms has been strong throughout the developing world. This volume examines the political strategies employed by third world governments to maintain programmes in the face of domestic opposition.

Community colleges have experienced a dramatic shift in focus and direction over the past 25 years. The impact of federal policy that emphasizes employment over education and the increased pressure for community colleges to meet the needs of local industries has led experts to ask whether or not contemporary community colleges are best serving their students.

As a bridge between public K-12 schools and higher education, community colleges were designed as a gateway for groups of students who would otherwise be excluded from higher education, most notably poorer and minority students. Ideally, this education sector should be a democratizing force in American society. Yet community colleges continue to struggle with their mission, and a variety of factors make it increasingly difficult to meet it.

The articles in this special issue of the ANNALS examine the role of community colleges and how they respond to an emerging set of challenges. Three basic themes are threaded throughout the journal: recent changes in federal policy and how it affects community colleges; societal factors that have contributed to the movement of community colleges away from their traditional academic mission; and how well specific community college practices serve the academic and employment needs of their students.

All of the authors agree that community colleges are, overall, increasingly responsive to the industry and business sector rather than to the students enrolled in their courses.

Scholars, community college leaders, and policymakers will find these insights a valuable resource as the effort to define and meet the goals of community colleges continue.

This collection is concerned with revisiting and redefining the political economy - both empirical and theoretical - of 'foreign policy' in the South as we approach the twenty-first century: the position of post-colonial states and societies in the post-Bretton Woods and Cold War world. With a focus on Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, this collection comparatively examines the impact of changing political and economic structures upon policy-makers and civil societies in the South.

In the early l930s the country is in the midst of a depression and Prohibition is the law. Stewart Connor, a young lawyer, has come to Fort Benton, Montana to go into law practice with F.E. Stranahan, a local attorney. With him have come his wife and his two young sons, Ronald and Robert, (Roscoe and Tooey). Not yet acquainted with any of the young people of the town, the boys make friends with Pete McCall, the elderly caretaker of the fairgrounds. When Pete's old mare dies, after giving birth to twin foals, Roscoe and Tooey persuade him to let them raise the young fillies. Two years later, because of tragic circumstances, they are faced with having to sell their now well-trained mares and return to the city. Desperate to stay in Montana, the boys decide to run away with their horses. What follows is an adventure, narrated by Roscoe, describing how he and his brother come to be the heroes of the 4th of July Parade.

This book brings into sharp focus the problems of development under conditions of structural adjustment and their relation to democratic change in Africa. Contributors to this volume are interested in specific countries such as Kenya, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, etc., but do bring to bear a rigorous comparative method which uses a political economy approach to the study of democracy, gender, industrialization, agriculture and the state. Its comparative approach in revisionist political economy allows for issues such as the new international division of labor to become central to the analysis of the relationship between developed and underdeveloped countries.

The state-centric approach, although useful, may have missed important undercurrents in civil society. An analysis of development through the state's lenses has predominated the study of Africa. The approach by contributors in this volume is equally interested in the state but is also concerned with non-state actors. This dynamic approach characterizes few texts on Africa. This work should attract those who are concerned with African development, specifically, and international political economy in general.

Africa's international relations are in a state of transition as the continent enters the last decade of the twentieth century. Old assumptions about development, security, diplomacy and dependence are being challenged by new realities of debt, drought, devaluation and destabilisation. Collective self-reliance remains elusive despite the demise of nationalism. This collection identifies the major issues in Africa's foreign and development policies and prospects as she enters the 1990s.

In light of the growing number of African summits and a new awareness of international interdependence during the COVID-19 pandemic, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the current state of Africa’s international relations (IR). Leading IR scholars from Africa and around the world examine international cooperation with African countries in areas such as health care, education, and peacekeeping and explore how Africa’s role in the system of international relations has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The book is divided into four parts, the first of which explores analyzes the various actors that constitute African agency in the post-pandemic world, while the second focuses on the summits of the major powers regarding cooperation with Africa. The third part covers public health cooperation and regional initiatives in Africa, including issues such as vaccine diplomacy, while the fourth and final part discusses conflicts & political process despite COVID Pandemics.

This book addresses responses to the predicament of medical and social infertility. It draws on international research to examine the dimensions of reproductive citizenship in relation to decision-making about a range of issues: from fertility preservation and the desirability of family creation as a normative expectation of social participation, to how families manage and negotiate engagement with providers of reproductive materials and services around information disclosure and contact, and how they consider their social obligations and responsibilities in relation to the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART).

This book is the first to exclusively consider the foreign policy tendencies of African states in international institutions. As an edited volume offering empirically based perspectives from a variety of scholars, this project disabuses the notion that Africa should be considered a "niche" interest in the field of foreign policy analysis. It asserts that the actions of the continent's states collectively serve as an important heuristic by which to interrogate and understand the foreign policies of other global states, and are not simply "anomalously" extant entities whose actions should be studied only insofar as they deviate from predictions based on the experiences of Western or other non-African states.

This edited volume analyzes the Mauritius economy and highlights what conditions and policies have contributed to the development of the country. The project gives a historical and economic analysis of Mauritius and provides comparative approaches looking at other developing states in Africa and Asia. This book is intended for a broad audience, consisting of not only economists with quantitative expertise but also other social scientists, policymakers and scholars interested in the intellectually fascinating exploration of Mauritius's rapid rise and sustained growth performance.