8812 books match the query 'Political Science' and 1911 start with t

cover of The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage

The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage

Edited by Craig A. Rimmerman and Clyde Wilcox

University of Chicago Press, 2007

Same-sex marriage emerged in 2004 as one of the hottest issues of the campaign season. But in a severe blow to gay rights advocates, all eleven states that had the issue on the ballot passed amendments banning the practice, and the subject soon dropped off the media’s radar. This pattern of waxing and waning in the public eye has characterized the debate over same-sex marriage since 1996 and the passing of the Defense of Marriage Act. Since then, court rulings and local legislatures have kept the issue alive in the political sphere, and conservatives and gay rights advocates have made the issue a key battlefield in the culture wars.

The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage brings together an esteemed list of scholars to explore all facets of this heated issue, including the ideologies and strategies on both sides of the argument, the public’s response, the use of the issue in political campaigns, and how same-sex marriage fits into the broad context of policy cycles and windows of political opportunity. With comprehensive coverage from a variety of different approaches, this volume will be a vital sourcebook for activists, politicians, and scholars alike.

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cover of The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon

The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon

Bassel Salloukh, Rabie Barakat, Jinan S. Al-Habbal, Lara W. Khattab and Shoghig Mikaelian

Pluto Press, 2015

The Arab Spring unsettled regimes across North Africa and the Middle East, from Morocco to Oman. Lebanon, however, proved immune. How can that be explained? What features of Lebanese politics and governance could account for the system’s ability to withstand the domestic and regional pressures unleashed by the Arab Spring?
 
The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon builds on extensive field work to find the answers to those questions and more. Bassel Salloukh, Lebanon’s leading political scientist, analyses the mix of institutional, clientelist, and discursive practices that sustain the sectarian nature of Lebanon, revealing an expanding sectarian web that occupies ever-more-substantial areas of everyday life in Lebanon. It also highlights the struggles waged by opponents of the system, including women, public sector employees, teachers, students, and NGO-based coalitions, and how their efforts often fail to bear fruit because of sabotage by various systematic forces.
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cover of The Politics of Sentiment: Imagining and Remembering Guayaquil

The Politics of Sentiment

Imagining and Remembering Guayaquil

By O. Hugo Benavides

University of Texas Press, 2006

Between 1890 and 1930, the port city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, experienced a liberal revolution and a worker's movement—key elements in shaping the Ecuadorian national identity. In this book, O. Hugo Benavides examines these and other pivotal features in shaping Guayaquilean identity and immigrant identity formation in general in transnational communities such as those found in New York City.

Turn-of-the-century Ecuador witnessed an intriguing combination of transformations: the formation of a national citizenship; extension of the popular vote to members of a traditional underclass of Indians and those of African descent; provisions for union organizing while entering into world market capitalist relations; and a separation of church and state that led to the legalization of secular divorces. Assessing how these phenomena created a unique cultural history for Guayaquileans, Benavides reveals not only a specific cultural history but also a process of developing ethnic attachment in general. He also incorporates a study of works by Medardo Angel Silva, the Afro-Ecuadorian poet whose singular literature embodies the effects of Modernism's arrival in a locale steeped in contradictions of race, class, and sexuality.

Also comprising one of the first case studies of Raymond Williams's hypothesis on the relationship between structures of feeling and hegemony, this is an illuminating illustration of the powerful relationships between historically informed memories and contemporary national life.

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cover of The Politics of Skin Tone: African American Experiences, Identity, and Attitudes

The Politics of Skin Tone

African American Experiences, Identity, and Attitudes

Nicole D. Yadon

University of Chicago Press, 2025

A nuanced examination of the salience of skin tone within African American politics.

Research shows that skin tone is associated with significant differences in life experiences. On average, African Americans with darker skin earn lower wages, suffer worse health outcomes, and endure more negative criminal justice experiences than lighter-skinned African Americans. Nicole D. Yadon conceptualizes skin tone as one facet of the multidimensional construct of race that powerfully influences racialized experiences which, in turn, can influence political identities and attitudes.

Drawing on evidence from one hundred in-depth interviews, multiple surveys, and a survey experiment, The Politics of Skin Tone investigates the political associations of skin tone. Yadon finds that skin tone correlates with political attitudes, particularly on issues where color-based disparities are especially pronounced such as criminal justice. Moreover, a sizable number of African Americans adopt a skin tone-based identity. In an era of shifting racial boundaries and growing color-based discrimination, The Politics of Skin Tone examines the implications for both scholars and policymakers.

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cover of The Politics of Small Things: The Power of the Powerless in Dark Times

The Politics of Small Things

The Power of the Powerless in Dark Times

Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

University of Chicago Press, 2006

Political change doesn’t always begin with a bang; it often starts with just a whisper. From the discussions around kitchen tables that led to the dismantling of the Soviet bloc to the more recent emergence of Internet initiatives like MoveOn.org and Redeem the Vote that are revolutionizing the American political landscape, consequential political life develops in small spaces where dialogue generates political power.
 
In The Politics of Small Things, Jeffrey Goldfarb provides an innovative way for understanding politics, a way of appreciating the significance of politics at the micro level by comparatively analyzing key turning points and institutions in recent history. He presents a sociology of human interactions that lead from small to large: dissent around the old Soviet bloc;  life on the streets in Warsaw, Prague, and Bucharest in 1989; the network of terror that spawned 9/11; and the religious and Internet mobilizations that transformed the 2004 presidential election, to name a few. In such pivotal moments, he masterfully shows, political autonomy can be generated, presenting alternatives to the big politics of the global stage and the dominant narratives of terrorism, antiterrorism, and globalization.
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cover of The Politics of Social Change: From the Sixties to the Present Through the Eyes of a Generation

The Politics of Social Change

From the Sixties to the Present Through the Eyes of a Generation

Larry M. Bartels and Katherine J. Cramer

University of Chicago Press, 2026

How did we get to this point in American politics? Drawing on insights from an unprecedented decades-long study of ordinary Americans’ political lives, this book tells the story of how, why, and when our politics fractured.

Few time periods have been as defined by waves of monumental social change as the United States during the 1960s. Even today, almost sixty years later, the era is often depicted as a triumph of social progress. Yet, as Larry M. Bartels and Katherine J. Cramer show in The Politics of Social Change, it was Americans’ diverse reactions to the milestone events of the time—from the welcoming, to the fiercely resistant, to the largely oblivious—that planted the seeds of our current political turmoil.

Their masterful analysis draws on a unique historical resource: the longest-running systematic tracking of individual Americans’ political attitudes and behavior ever attempted. The study began in 1965 when researchers interviewed hundreds of high school students across the country and then periodically reinterviewed them over the next three decades. Bartels and Cramer supplement this historical record with in-depth interviews with dozens of the original students, painting a detailed picture of the generation’s individual and collective political development. By tracing the responses of the Class of ’65 to major events of their political lifetimes—including the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements, the Vietnam War, the shifting role of religion, escalating economic inequality, immigration, and the rise of Donald Trump—Bartels and Cramer shed new light on the evolution of public opinion and the unsteady progress of American democracy.

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cover of The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements

The Politics of Social Protest

Comparative Perspectives on States and Social Movements

J. Craig Jenkins and Bert Klandermans, Editors

University of Minnesota Press, 1995

The Politics of Social Protest was first published in 1995. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Bringing together celebrated scholars from diverse traditions and backgrounds, The Politics of Social Protest focuses on the reciprocal relationships among social movements, states, and political parties. The volume is organized around three key questions: Why do citizens resort to the often risky and demanding strategy of using disruptive protest when other channels of political intervention appear to be available? What is the relationship between social protest movements and systems of political representation? And what is the impact of the structure and development of the state on social movements themselves?

Contributors include Ronald Aminzade, University of Minnesota; Paul Burstein, University of Washington; Russell J. Dalton, University of California, Irvine; Donatella della Porta, University of Florence; Henry Dietz, University of Texas, Austin; Rachel L. Einwohner, University of Washington; Steven E. Finkel, University of Virginia; Jerrold D. Green, University of Arizona; Jocelyn Hollander, University of Washington; Hanspeter Kriesi, University of Geneva; Diarmuid Maguire, University of Sydney; Bronislaw Misztal, Indiana University, Fort Wayne; Edward N. Muller, University of Arizona; Michael Nollert, University of Trier; Karl-Dieter Opp, University of Hamburg; Dieter Rucht, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin; Michael Wallace, Indiana University; and Gadi Wolfsfeld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

J. Craig Jenkins is professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. He is the author of The Politics of Insurgency: The Farm Worker Movement of the 1960's (1985).

Bert Klandermans is professor of applied social psychology at Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has published widely on social movements in journals such as the American Sociological Review, Sociological Forum, and the European Journal of Social Psychology. He is the editor of the Social Movements, Protest, and Contention series for the University of Minnesota Press.

Copublished with UCL Press, London.

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cover of The Politics of State Feminism: Innovation in Comparative Research

The Politics of State Feminism

Innovation in Comparative Research

Authored by Dorothy E. McBride and Amy G. Mazur

Temple University Press, 2012

The Politics of State Feminism addresses essential questions of women's movement activism and political change in western democracies. The authors—top gender and politics scholars—provide a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of government agencies and women's movements regarding women’s policy issues—if, how, and why they form a kind of state feminism.

The central research questions are examined across five issue areas in thirteen postindustrial democracies in Europe and North America from the 1960s through the early 2000s. The authors explore a range of topics drawn from contemporary theory, interactions between descriptive and substantive representation, and the place of institutions in democratic change.

Using the innovative qualitative and quantitative methods employed by the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State, the authors have developed a new body of theories about the role of state feminism and how it can help further women’s rights.

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cover of The Politics of Staying Put: Condo Conversion and Tenant Right-to-Buy in Washington, DC

The Politics of Staying Put

Condo Conversion and Tenant Right-to-Buy in Washington, DC

Carolyn Gallaher

Temple University Press, 2016

When cities gentrify, it can be hard for working-class and low-income residents to stay put. Rising rents and property taxes make buildings unaffordable, or landlords may sell buildings to investors interested in redeveloping them into luxury condos. 

In her engaging study The Politics of Staying Put, Carolyn Gallaher focuses on a formal, city-sponsored initiative—The Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA)—that helps people keep their homes. This law, unique to the District of Columbia, allows tenants in apartment buildings contracted for sale the right to refuse the sale and purchase the building instead. In the hands of tenants, a process that would usually hurt them—conversion to a condominium or cooperative—can instead help them.  

Taking a broad, city-wide assessment of TOPA, Gallaher follows seven buildings through the program’s process. She measures the law’s level of success and its constraints. Her findingshave relevance for debates in urban affairs about condo conversion, urban local autonomy, and displacement. 

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cover of The Politics of Street Crime: Criminal Process and Cultural Obsession

The Politics of Street Crime

Criminal Process and Cultural Obsession

Stuart A. Scheingold

Temple University Press, 1992

Americans find street crime terrifying and repellent. Yet we vicariously seek it out in virtually all of our media: books, newspapers, television, films, and the theatre. Stuart Scheingold confronts this cultural contradiction and asks why street crime is generally regarded in the trivializing and punitive images of cops and robbers that attribute crime to the willful acts of flawed individuals rather than to the structural shortcomings of a flawed society. In his case study of the police and criminal courts in the community he calls "Cedar City," a medium-sized city in the Western United States, Scheingold examines the effects of this cultural contradiction and these punitive predispositions on politics and policy making.

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cover of The Politics of Subjectivity in American Foreign Policy Discourses

The Politics of Subjectivity in American Foreign Policy Discourses

Ty Solomon

University of Michigan Press, 2015

Why are some discourses more politically efficacious than others? Seeking answers to this question, Ty Solomon develops a new theoretical approach to the study of affect, identity, and discourse—core phenomena whose mutual interweaving have yet to be fully analyzed in International Relations. Drawing upon Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory and Ernesto Laclau’s approach to hegemonic politics, Solomon argues that prevailing discourses offer subtle but powerfully appealing opportunities for affective investment on the part of audiences.

Through empirical case studies of the affective resonances of the war on terror and the rise and fall of neoconservative influence in American foreign policy, Solomon offers a unique way to think about the politics of identity as the construction of “common sense” powerfully underpinned by affective investments. He provides both a fuller understanding of the emotional appeal of political rhetoric in general and, specifically, a provocative explanation of the reasons for the reception of particular U.S. foreign policy rhetoric that shifted Americans’ attitudes toward neoconservative foreign policy in the 1990s and shaped the post-9/11 “war on terror.”
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cover of The Politics of Survival

The Politics of Survival

Marc Abélès

Duke University Press, 2010

In this provocative analysis of global politics, the anthropologist Marc Abélès argues that the meaning and aims of political action have radically changed in the era of globalization. As dangers such as terrorism and global warming have moved to the fore of global consciousness, foreboding has replaced the belief that tomorrow will be better than today. Survival, outlasting the uncertainties and threats of a precarious future, has supplanted harmonious coexistence as the primary goal of politics. Abélès contends that this political reorientation has changed our priorities and modes of political action, and generated new debates and initiatives. The proliferation of supranational and transnational organizations—from the European Union to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to Oxfam—is the visible effect of this radical transformation in our relationship to the political realm. Areas of governance as diverse as the economy, the environment, and human rights have been partially taken over by such agencies. Non-governmental organizations in particular have become linked with the mindset of risk and uncertainty; they both reflect and help produce the politics of survival.

Abélès examines the new global politics, which assumes many forms and is enacted by diverse figures with varied sympathies: the officials at meetings of the WTO and the demonstrators outside them, celebrity activists, and online contributors to international charities. He makes an impassioned case that our accounts of globalization need to reckon with the preoccupations and affiliations now driving global politics. The Politics of Survival was first published in France in 2006. This English-language edition has been revised and includes a new preface.

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cover of The Politics of Toleration in Modern Life

The Politics of Toleration in Modern Life

Susan Mendus, ed.

Duke University Press, 1999

In The Politics of Toleration in Modern Life Susan Mendus gathers a group of distinguished public figures—philosophers, historians, lawyers, and religious leaders—to reflect on a core issue within contemporary political debate. At the close of a century that will be remembered for its two world wars and its eruptions of genocide, the contributors examine the importance of an insistence on tolerance and the dangers of its lack, both historically and in the present day.
How can toleration be fostered in a contentious and tightly populated world? What situations and fears have historically fed attitudes of intolerance? When and how should states intervene? The authors of these essays seek answers to such questions and examine topics such as why certain national groups are especially vulnerable to intolerance and narcissistic fantasies and how the colonial view of intolerant exploitation as an acceptable norm of behavior has been replaced by a drive toward international solidarity. The essays address religious tolerance, the role of toleration in legal contexts, the philosophical justification of tolerance, and the concept of solidarity. Ethnic identity, nationalism, the “goods of conflict,” and the treatment of refugees seeking asylum are discussed as well. While one contributor argues that a moment of genuine tolerance is achieved only when there is a cost involved in the act of tolerating another person’s way of living, another stresses that rational, communal dialogue can only take place if the state is excluded from the discussion, if conflict is recognized as valuable, and if local communities come to consensus about what behavior and discourse is intolerable.
Offering an accessible and engaging commentary on the concept of tolerance, The Politics of Toleration in Modern Life will interest a wide range of readers of philosophy, political science, religion, sociology, and history.


Contributors. George Carey, Christopher Hill, Michael Ignatieff, Helena Kennedy, Alasdair MacIntyre, Susan Mendus, Julia Neuberger, Bernard Williams

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cover of The Politics of Trust: Reubin Askew and Florida in the 1970s

The Politics of Trust

Reubin Askew and Florida in the 1970s

Gordon E. Harvey

University of Alabama Press, 2015

Florida governor Reubin Askew memorably characterized a leader as “someone who cares enough to tell the people not merely what they want to hear, but what they need to know.” It was a surprising statement for a contemporary politician to make, and, more surprising still, it worked. In The Politics of Trust: Reubin Askew and Florida in the 1970s, Gordon E. Harvey traces the life and career of the man whose public service many still recall as “the Golden Age” of Florida politics.
 
Askew rose to power on a wave of “New South” leadership that hoped to advance the Democratic Party beyond the intransigent torpor of southern politics since the Civil War. He hoped to replace appeals to white supremacy with a vision of a more diverse and inclusive party. Following his election in Florida, other New South leaders such as Georgia’s Jimmy Carter, Arkansas’s Dale Bumpers, and South Carolina’s John C. West all came to power.
 
Audacious and gifted, Askew was one of six children raised by a single mother in Pensacola. As he worked his way up through the ranks of the state legislature, few in Florida except his constituents knew his name when he challenged Republic incumbent Claude R. Kirk Jr. on a populist platform promising higher corporate taxes. When he won, he inaugurated a series of reforms, including a new 5 percent corporate income tax; lower consumer, property, and school taxes; a review of penal statutes; environmental protections; higher welfare benefits; and workers’ compensation to previously uncovered migrant laborers.
 
Touting honesty, candor, and transparency, Askew dubbed his administration “government in the sunshine.” Harvey demonstrates that Askew’s success was not in spite of his penchant for bold, sometimes unpopular stances, but rather because his mix of unvarnished candor, sober ethics, and religious faith won the trust of the diverse peoples of his state.
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cover of The Politics of Truth and Other Timely Essays: The Crisis of Civic Consciousness

The Politics of Truth and Other Timely Essays

The Crisis of Civic Consciousness

Ellis Sandoz

St. Augustine's Press, 2016

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cover of The Politics of Truth and Other Untimely Essays: The Crisis of Civic Consciousness

The Politics of Truth and Other Untimely Essays

The Crisis of Civic Consciousness

Ellis Sandoz

University of Missouri Press, 1999

A fascinating collection of studies, The Politics of Truth and Other Untimely Essays explores the historical and theoretical underpinnings of personal liberty and free government and provides a trenchant analysis of the crisis of civic consciousness endangering both of them today. The book addresses a range of issues in contemporary political philosophy and constitutional theory. These are seen to be all the more urgent in importance because of the surging aspirations for liberty in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet empire and the post-Cold War anomaly of crisis, malaise, and disarray in free government itself in America and in other bastions of modern democracy.

While each essay can stand alone, there is an underlying thematic unity to the collection. The fundamental problem considered throughout is whether and to what extent the fall of communism may mark an epoch in world history. These questions are applied to the East Central European nations struggling to achieve free government and personal liberty. The elements required to identify the preconditions of liberty are addressed and specific attention is given to the terms of institutionalization in the American founding.

Several essays focus on American political thought, with emphasis on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Two elements, in particular, are treated: the jurisprudential and common law background to the American political tradition and the centrality of religion within the unfolding of the American political experiment. Sandoz explores the uncommon alliance of philosophers, statesmen, and evangelists during the nation's founding. This alliance, nurturing communities of persons bound together by their faith and a mutual regard for one another, played a vital role in the establishment of the system of freedom under law.

Sandoz sees the tension between religion and natural law as a constant in the human struggle for freedom. That the preservation of liberty under law is no easy task is acknowledged and addressed as it can be seen in the American founding, in the post-communist struggle of East Central Europe, and in the deepening contemporary crisis of American society. Anyone interested in the "politics" of "truth" will appreciate this volume.

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cover of The Politics of Value: Three Movements to Change How We Think about the Economy

The Politics of Value

Three Movements to Change How We Think about the Economy

Jane L. Collins

University of Chicago Press, 2017

The Great Recession not only shook Americans’ economic faith but also prompted powerful critiques of economic institutions. This timely book explores three movements that gathered force after 2008: the rise of the benefit corporation, which requires social responsibility and eschews share price as the best metric for success; the emergence of a new group, Slow Money, that fosters peer-to-peer investing; and the 2011 Wisconsin protests against a bill restricting the union rights of state workers.

Each case shows how the concrete actions of a group of citizens can prompt us to reflect on what is needed for a just and sustainable economic system. In one case, activists raised questions about the responsibilities of business, in the second about the significance of local economies, and in the third about the contributions of the public sector. Through these movements, Jane L. Collins maps a set of cultural conversations about the types of investments and activities that contribute to the health of the economy. Compelling and persuasive, The Politics of Value offers a new framework for viewing economic value, one grounded in thoughtful assessment of the social division of labor and the relationship of the state and the market to civil society.
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cover of The Politics of Water in Arizona

The Politics of Water in Arizona

Dean E. Mann

University of Arizona Press, 1963

“Mann’s book is timely, and its central theme, the role of legal, political, and scientific institutions in the utilization of water in Arizona, is appropriate. It is appropriate, moreover, for the greater region of California and the Southwest, where exist similar problems. . . . The Politics of Water in Arizona ranks along with Richard Cooley’s prize winning Politics and Conservation: The Decline of the Alaska Salmon as an outstanding contribution of a political science to the field of conservation and resource utilization.”—California Historical Society Quarterly
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cover of The Politics of Western Water: The Congressional Career of Wayne Aspinall

The Politics of Western Water

The Congressional Career of Wayne Aspinall

Stephen C. Sturgeon

University of Arizona Press, 2002

As the Democratic congressman from Colorado's Fourth District from 1949 to 1973, Wayne Aspinall was an advocate of natural resource development in general and reclamation projects in particular. A political loner, considered crusty and abrasive, he carved a national reputation by helping secure the passage of key water legislation—in the process clashing with colleagues and environmentalists alike. Fiercely protective of western Colorado's water supply, Aspinall sought to secure prosperity for his district by protecting its share of Colorado River water through federal reclamation projects, and he made this goal the centerpiece of his congressional career. He became chair of the House Interior Committee in 1959 and ruled it with an iron fist for more than a dozen years—a role that placed him in a key position to shape the nation's natural resource legislation at a time when the growing environmental movement was calling for a sharp change in policy. This full-length study of Aspinall's importance to reclamation in the West clarifies his role in influencing western water policy. By focusing on Aspinall's congressional career, Stephen Sturgeon provides a detailed account of the political machinations and personal foibles that shaped Aspinall's efforts to implement water reclamation legislation in support of Colorado's Western Slope, along the way shedding new light on familiar water controversies. Sturgeon meticulously traces the influences on Aspinall's thinking and the arc of his career, examining the congressman's involvement in the Colorado River Storage Project bill and his clash with conservationists over the proposed Echo Park Dam; recounting the fight over the Frying Pan-Arkansas Project and his decision to support diverting water out of his own district; and exploring the battles over the Central Arizona Project, in which Aspinall fought not only environmentalists but also other members of Congress. Finally he assesses the Aspinall legacy, including the still-disputed Animas-La Plata Project, and shows how his vision of progress shaped the history of western water development. The Politics of Western Water portrays Aspinall in human terms, not as a pork-barrel politician but as a representative who believed he was protecting his constituents' interests. It is an insightful account of the political, financial, and personal variables that affect the course by which water resource legislation is conceived, supported, and implemented—a book that is essential to understanding the history and future of water in the West.
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cover of The Politics of Women's Education: Perspectives from Asia, Africa, and Latin America

The Politics of Women's Education

Perspectives from Asia, Africa, and Latin America

Jill Ker Conway and Susan C. Bourque, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 1995

In the last twenty-five years women have made remarkable progress in access to the classroom and broken new ground in educational opportunity, yet educational equity remains elusive and politically contested. The Politics of Women’s Education: Perspectives from Asia, Africa, and Latin America collects essays that reveal the complex changes in women's education throughout the world and together offer the first comprehensive assessment of what has been attempted, what remains to be done, and what the options are for reform.The volume presents the voices of Third World women and men relating their efforts to improve the position of women through education. They raise important questions for readers from both high- and low-income countries, questions about whether formal or nonformal education will best serve women’s needs; whether the state or private initiatives are most likely to succeed in raising women’s status through the delivery of transforming knowledge; and whether Western dreams of modernization have any relevance to non-Western societies.A diversity of countries is covered, including India, Pakistan, Korea, the Philippines, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. Each contributor locates the issues surrounding women's education in the larger national context, thus unraveling the matrix that links gender and education to race, ethnicity, social class, and political change. Two essays offer analysis of the worldwide movement for women's education froma comparative perspective and raise fundamental questions about the relevance of the educational models, approaches, and assumptions currently in use.
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cover of The Politics of the Malayan Communist Party from 1930 to 1948

The Politics of the Malayan Communist Party from 1930 to 1948

David Lockwood

National University of Singapore Press, 2024

A new evaluation of the history of the Malayan Communist Party.

By 1946, the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) had become one of the most successful communist parties in Asia. From its foundation in 1930, it had built up a membership in the thousands, mainly among Chinese and Indian workers in Malaya. When the Japanese arrived, the MCP organized the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), the only effective resistance force. After the War, when the British returned, the Party launched a legal campaign for independence, but by 1948, the MCP had surrendered its achievements and taken many members underground to launch a disastrous, failed insurrection against the British. 

To understand these momentous turns of history, a fresh view is required of the Malayan Communist Party as a political actor. The Politics of the Malayan Communist Party from 1930 to 1948 gives a political history of the Party and explains why the MCP self-destructed in 1948. In particular, David Lockwood questions assumptions that post-war politics led inevitably to armed struggle and questions the accepted narrative of Party Chairman Lai Tek's treachery. This is a revisionist history of a period, and political force, that has left a lasting mark on the politics of Malaya and Singapore.
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cover of The Politics of the Minimum Wage

The Politics of the Minimum Wage

Jerold Waltman

University of Illinois Press, 2000

The minimum wage as a value of civic republicanism

The minimum wage appears to be a standard economic regulatory measure, yet a politics of symbolism more than anything else defines the political contests that periodically erupt over it. Detractors abhor its corruption of market principles, while supporters see it as a measure of society's symbolic commitment to the poor.

Tracing the history of the minimum wage and exposing its inherent contradictions as a political issue, Jerold Waltman proposes an alternative to the economic arguments that now dominate debates over it. Citing overwhelming public support for the minimum wage as evidence of an enduring civic consciousness and humanitarianism, Waltman advocates recasting the discussion in terms of a political economy of citizenship. Such a perspective would focus on the communal value of work, the need for citizens to have a stake in the community, and the effects of economic inequality on the bonds of common citizenship.

Positioning the minimum wage as a fulcrum for the most basic conflict underlying America's unique combination of democracy and a market economy, The Politics of the Minimum Wage shows how a defense of the minimum wage built on a communal sense of responsibility rests on a strong tradition of civic republicanism and strengthens the hope for a truly democratic society.

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cover of The Politics of the Peace Corps and VISTA

The Politics of the Peace Corps and VISTA

T. Zane Reeves

University of Alabama Press, 1988

The author has taken the concept of organizational culture from corporate literature and applied it to two unique government programs the Peace Corps and VISTA. The book traces the ongoing conflict between partisan ideology and the organizational culture formulated during the Kennedy and Johnson years. It follows an often intense struggle between political appointees on one side and career employees, volunteers, and returned volunteers on the other. Political ideologies may vary depending upon which political party controls the presidency, but the contest for control of the agencies continues.

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cover of The Politics of the Trail: Reflexive Mountain Biking along the Frontier of Jerusalem

The Politics of the Trail

Reflexive Mountain Biking along the Frontier of Jerusalem

Oded Löwenheim

University of Michigan Press, 2014

Each day, as Oded Löwenheim commutes by mountain bike along dirt trails and wadis in the hills of Jerusalem to Hebrew University, he feels a strong emotional connection to his surroundings. But for him this connection also generates, paradoxically, feelings and emotions of confusion and estrangement.

In The Politics of the Trail, Löwenheim confronts this tension by focusing on his encounters with three places along the trail: the separation fence between Israel and the Palestinians; the ruins of the Palestinian village Qalunya, demolished in 1948; and the trail connecting the largest 9/11 memorial site outside of the U.S. with a top-secret nuclear-proof bunker for the Israeli cabinet. He shares the stories of the people he meets along the way and considers how his own subjectivity is shaped by the landscape and culture of conflict. Moreover, he deconstructs, challenges, and resists the concepts and institutions that constitute such a culture and invites conversation about the idea of conflict as a culture.

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cover of The Politics of the Welfare State in Turkey: How Social Movements and Elite Competition Created a Welfare State

The Politics of the Welfare State in Turkey

How Social Movements and Elite Competition Created a Welfare State

Erdem Yörük

University of Michigan Press, 2022

In The Politics of the Welfare State in Turkey, author Erdem Yörük provides a politics-based explanation for the post-1980 transformation of the Turkish welfare system, in which poor relief policies have replaced employment-based social security. This book is one of the results of Yörük’s European Research Council-funded project, which compares the political dynamics in several emerging markets in order to develop a new political theory of welfare in the global south. As such, this book is an ambitious analytical and empirical contribution to understanding the causes of a sweeping shift in the nature of state welfare provision in Turkey during the recent decades—part of a global trend that extends far beyond Turkey. Most scholarship about Turkey and similar countries has explained this shift toward poor relief as a response to demographic and structural changes including aging populations, the decline in the economic weight of industry, and the informalization of labor, while ignoring the effect of grassroots politics. In order to overcome these theoretical shortages in the literature, the book revisits concepts of political containment and political mobilization from the earlier literature on the mid-twentieth-century welfare state development and incorporates the effects of grassroots politics in order to understand the recent welfare system shift as it materialized in Turkey, where a new matrix of political dynamics has produced new large-scale social assistance programs. 
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cover of The Poor Are Not Us: Poverty and Pastoralism in Eastern Africa

The Poor Are Not Us

Poverty and Pastoralism in Eastern Africa

David M. Anderson

Ohio University Press, 1999

Eastern African pastoralists often present themselves as being egalitarian, equating cattle ownership with wealth. By this definition “the poor are not us”, poverty is confined to non-pastoralist, socially excluded persons and groups.

Exploring this notion means discovering something about self-perceptions and community consciousness, how pastoralist identity has been made in opposition to other modes of production, how pastoralists want others to see them and how they see themselves.

This collection rejects the premise of pastoral egalitarianism and poses questions about the gradual creep of poverty, changing patterns of wealth and accumulation, the impact of diminishing resources on pastoral communities and the impact of external values of land, labor, and livestock.

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cover of The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning

The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning

Kyle Mattes and David P. Redlawsk

University of Chicago Press, 2015

Turn on the television or sign in to social media during election season and chances are you’ll see plenty of negative campaigning. For decades, conventional wisdom has held that Americans hate negativity in political advertising, and some have even argued that its pervasiveness in recent seasons has helped to drive down voter turnout. Arguing against this commonly held view, Kyle Mattes and David P. Redlawsk show not only that some negativity is accepted by voters as part of the political process, but that negative advertising is necessary to convey valuable information that would not otherwise be revealed.

The most comprehensive treatment of negative campaigning to date, The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning uses models, surveys, and experiments to show that much of the seeming dislike of negative campaigning can be explained by the way survey questions have been worded. By failing to distinguish between baseless and credible attacks, surveys fail to capture differences in voters’ receptivity. Voters’ responses, the authors argue, vary greatly and can be better explained by the content and believability of the ads than by whether the ads are negative. Mattes and Redlawsk continue on to establish how voters make use of negative information and why it is necessary. Many voters are politically naïve and unlikely to make inferences about candidates’ positions or traits, so the ability of candidates to go on the attack and focus explicitly on information that would not otherwise be available is crucial to voter education.
[more]
cover of The Possibility of Popular Justice: A Case Study of Community Mediation in the United States

The Possibility of Popular Justice

A Case Study of Community Mediation in the United States

Sally Engle Merry and Neal Milner, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 1995

"The Possibility of Popular Justice is essential reading for scholars and practitioners of community mediation and should be very high on the list of anyone seriously concerned with dispute resolution in general. The book offers many rewards for the advanced student of law and society studies." --Law and Politics Book Review
"These immensely important articles--fifteen in all--take several academic perspectives on the [San Francisco Community Boards] program's diverse history, impact, and implications for 'popular justice.' These articles will richly inform the program, polemical, and political perspectives of anyone working on 'alternative programs' of any sort." -- IARCA Journal
"Few collections are so well integrated, analytically penetrating, or as readable as this fascinating account. It is a 'must read' for anyone interested in community mediation." --William M. O'Barr, Duke University
"You do not have to be involved in mediation to appreciate this book. The authors use the case as a launching pad to evaluate the possibilities and 'impossibilities' of building community in complex urban areas and pursuing popular justice in the shadow of state law." --Deborah M. Kolb, Harvard Law School and Simmons College
Sally Engle Merry is Professor of Anthropology, Wellesley College. Neal Milner is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program on Conflict Resolution, University of Hawaii.
[more]
cover of The Post-Cold War Trading System: Who's on First?

The Post-Cold War Trading System

Who's on First?

Sylvia Ostry

University of Chicago Press, 1997

With the end of the Cold War, the search for a new international and economic order has begun. In this comprehensive account, Sylvia Ostry provides a critical analysis of an international trade system in the throes of rapid and far-reaching change.

With keen historical awareness, Ostry examines the role of key economic power brokers, particularly the United States, in the reconstruction and reconfiguration of an international economy after World War II. She argues that U.S. policy efforts were so successful that they led to an unprecedented renewal of economic growth, living standards, and education levels in postwar Europe and Japan. Ironically, those same policy successes unintentionally fostered the relative decline of U.S. dominance on the world trade scene as the reduction of trade and investment barriers prompted friction and conflict between different kinds of capitalist systems.

Identifying the historical and legal issues key to postwar trade policy, Ostry has commandingly charted our economic course through the last half of this century and, perhaps, into the next.

"Sylvia Ostry knows this subject as few others do, both as a scholar of international trade issues and a major player in the ongoing negotiations that have created the rules of the trade game. The Post-Cold War Trading System is a fine summary of where we've been and where we ought to be going."—Peter Passell, economic scene columnist for The New York Times
[more]
cover of The Post-Conflict Environment: Investigation and Critique

The Post-Conflict Environment

Investigation and Critique

Daniel Bertrand Monk and Jacob Mundy, editors

University of Michigan Press, 2014

In case studies focusing on contemporary crises spanning Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, the scholars in this volume examine the dominant prescriptive practices of late neoliberal post-conflict interventions—such as statebuilding, peacebuilding, transitional justice, refugee management, reconstruction, and redevelopment—and contend that the post-conflict environment is in fact created and sustained by this international technocratic paradigm of peacebuilding. Key international stakeholders—from activists to politicians, humanitarian agencies to financial institutions—characterize disparate sites as “weak,” “fragile,” or “failed” states and, as a result, prescribe peacebuilding techniques that paradoxically disable effective management of post-conflict spaces while perpetuating neoliberal political and economic conditions. Treating all efforts to represent post-conflict environments as problematic, the goal becomes understanding the underlying connection between post-conflict conditions and the actions and interventions of peacebuilding technocracies.
[more]
cover of The Postcolonial State in Africa: Fifty Years of Independence, 1960–2010

The Postcolonial State in Africa

Fifty Years of Independence, 1960–2010

Crawford Young

University of Wisconsin Press, 2012

In The Postcolonial State in Africa, Crawford Young offers an informed and authoritative comparative overview of fifty years of African independence, drawing on his decades of research and first-hand experience on the African continent.
    Young identifies three cycles of hope and disappointment common to many of the African states (including those in North Africa) over the last half-century: initial euphoria at independence in the 1960s followed by disillusionment with a lapse into single-party autocracies and military rule; a period of renewed confidence, radicalization, and ambitious state expansion in the 1970s preceding state crisis and even failure in the disastrous 1980s; and a phase of reborn optimism during the continental wave of democratization beginning around 1990. He explores in depth the many African civil wars—especially those since 1990—and three key tracks of identity: Africanism, territorial nationalism, and ethnicity.
    Only more recently, Young argues, have the paths of the fifty-three African states begun to diverge more dramatically, with some leading to liberalization and others to political, social, and economic collapse—outcomes impossible to predict at the outset of independence.

“This book is the best volume to date on the politics of the last 50 years of African independence.”—International Affairs

“The book shares Young’s encyclopedic knowledge of African politics, providing in a single volume a comprehensive rendering of the first 50 years of independence. The book is sprinkled with anecdotes from his vast experience in Africa and that of his many students, and quotations from all of the relevant literature published over the past five decades. Students and scholars of African politics alike will benefit immensely from and enjoy reading The Postcolonial State in Africa.”—Political Science Quarterly

“The study of African politics will continue to be enriched if practitioners pay homage to the erudition and the nobility of spirit that has anchored the engagement of this most esteemed doyen of Africanists with the continent.”—African History Review

“The book’s strongest attribute is the careful way that comparative political theory is woven into historical storytelling throughout the text. . . . Written with great clarity even for all its detail, and its interwoven use of theory makes it a great choice for new students of African studies.”—Australasian Review of African Studies
[more]
cover of The Postcolonial and the Global

The Postcolonial and the Global

Revathi Krishnaswamy

University of Minnesota Press, 2007

This interdisciplinary work brings the humanities and social sciences into dialogue by examining issues such as globalized capital, discourses of antiterrorism, and identity politics. Essayists from the fields of postcolonial studies and globalization theory address the ethical and pragmatic ramifications of opposing interpretations of these issues and, for the first time, seek common ground.

Contributors: Pal Ahluwalia, U of California, San Diego; Arjun Appadurai, New School U; Geoffrey Bowker, Santa Clara U; Timothy Brennan, U of Minnesota; Ruth Buchanan, U of British Columbia; Verity Burgmann, U of Melbourne; Pheng Cheah, U of California, Berkeley; Inderpal Grewal, U of California, Irvine; Ramon Grosfoguel, U of California, Berkeley; Barbara Harlow, U of Texas, Austin; Anouar Majid, U of New England; John McMurtry, U of Guelph; Walter D. Mignolo, Duke U; Sundhya Pahuja, U of Melbourne; R. Radhakrishnan, U of California, Irvine; Ileana Rodriguez, Ohio State U; E. San Juan, Philippine Forum, New York; Saskia Sassen, U of Chicago; Ella Shohat, New York U; Leslie Sklair, London School of Economics; Robert Stam, New York U; Madina Tlostanova, Russian Peoples’ Friendship U; Harish Trivedi, U of Delhi.

Revathi Krishnaswamy is associate professor of English at San Jose State University.

John C. Hawley is professor and chair of English at Santa Clara University.

[more]
cover of The Postdevelopmental State: Dilemmas of Economic Democratization in Contemporary South Korea

The Postdevelopmental State

Dilemmas of Economic Democratization in Contemporary South Korea

Jamie Doucette

University of Michigan Press, 2024

Winner of the 2025 Association of Korean Studies in Europe Book Prize

Over the last 25 years, South Korea has witnessed growing inequality due to the proliferation of non-standard employment, ballooning household debt, deepening export-dependency, and the growth of super-conglomerates such as Samsung and Hyundai. Combined with declining rates of economic growth and turbulent political events, these processes mark a departure from Korea’s past recognition as a high growth “developmental state.”

The Postdevelopmental State radically reframes research into the South Korean economy by foregrounding the efforts of pro-democratic reformers and social movements in South Korea to create an alternative economic model—one that can address Korea’s legacy of authoritarian economic development during the Cold War and neoliberal restructuring since the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s. Understanding these attempts offers insight into the types of economic reforms that have been enacted since the late 1990s as well as the continued legacy of dictatorship-era politics within the Korean political and legal system. By examining the dilemmas economic democracy has encountered over the past 25 years, from the IMF Crisis to the aftermath of the Candlelight Revolution, the book reveals the enormous and comprehensive challenges involved in addressing the legacy of authoritarian economic models and their neoliberal transformations.

[more]
cover of The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk

The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk

Gerald J. Russello

University of Missouri Press, 2007

Author of The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk (1918–1994) was a principal architect of the American intellectual conservative movement. This book takes a closer look at his works on such subjects as law, history, economics, and statesmanship to introduce a new generation of readers to the depth and range of his thought.

Kirk probed the very meaning of conservatism for modern intellectuals, and in The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk, Gerald Russello examines such key concepts of his thought as imagination, historical consciousness, the interplay between the individual and tradition, and the role of narrative in constructing individual and societal identity. By stressing the importance of Kirk’s perception of imagination, he offers a new approach to understanding him, showing not only that Kirk laid the groundwork for the “new conservatism” of the 1950s and ’60s, but also that his work evolved into a sophisticated critique of modernity paralleled in the work of some postmodern critics of liberalism.

In order to reconstruct Kirk’s attack on modernity, Russello examines his textbook on economics, his fiction, his work on Robert Taft and Orestes Brownson, his writings on the role of the statesman, and his neglected essays such as “The Age of Discussion” and “The Age of Sentiments.” Russello shows that Kirk welcomed the rise of some form of postmodernism, seeing in it a new opportunity for conservatism to engage the wider culture. Through this analysis, he situates Kirk within wider currents of contemporary thought, connecting him not only with such major thinkers as Lyotard, Boorstin, and Koestler but also with such lesser-known figures as Bernard Iddings Bell, Charles Baudouin, and Christopher Dawson.

By examining Kirk’s development of the imagination as a tool of conservative discourse, Russello offers an alternative genealogy for conservative thought that melds its antimodernism with postmodern themes. He has forged a lively and provocative work that provides unusual perspectives on Kirk within the wider context of debate over the future of conservatism in a time of shifting alliances—a book that will be a valuable resource for anyone seeking to understand Kirk or conservative thought.

 

[more]
cover of The Postwar Transformation of Germany: Democracy, Prosperity and Nationhood

The Postwar Transformation of Germany

Democracy, Prosperity and Nationhood

John S. Brady, Beverly Crawford, and Sarah Elise Wiliarty, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 1999

As Germany celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany--the former West Germany-- leading scholars take stock in this volume of the political, social, and economic progress Germany made as it built a democratic political system and a powerful economy, survived the Cold War, and dealt with the challenges of reunification.
The contributors address issues such as Germany's response to extremists, the development of a professional civil service, judicial review, the maintenance of the welfare state, the nature of contemporary German nationalism, and Germany's role in the world.
Contributors are Thomas Banchoff, Thomas U. Berger, Patricia Davis, Ernst Haas, Jost Halfmann, Christard Hoffmann, Carl-Lugwig Holtfrerich, Donald P. Kommers, Wolfgang Krieger, Peter Krueger, Gregg O. Kvistad, Ludger Lindlar, Charles Maier, Andrei Markovitz, Peter Merkl, Claus Offe, Simon Reich, and Michaela Richter.
John S. Brady and Sarah Elise Wiliarty are doctoral candidates in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. Beverly Crawford is Professor of Political Science, Senior Lecturer in Political Economy of Industrial Societies, and Associate Director, Center for German and European Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
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cover of The Potential of a Middle Power: Romania's Foreign Policy in Central Asia within the Context of EU Membership

The Potential of a Middle Power

Romania's Foreign Policy in Central Asia within the Context of EU Membership

Ana-Maria Anghelescu

Central European University Press, 0

The large member states of the European Union have clear priorities when it comes to EU-level decisions, while the small member states hold veto power when decisions need to be taken unanimously. This book focuses on the potential of middle powers in EU decision-making using the example of Romania's relations with Central Asia. The author examines how Romania's diplomatic activities as a medium-sized member state - and as a newer member - can affect EU foreign policy. Ana-Maria-Andreea Anghelescu conducted a quantitative study of three hard power indices, as well as the soft presence dimension of the Elcano Index of Global Presence. The latter includes tourism, sport, culture, science, education, information, and migration. The statistical results were complemented by qualitative field research in Kyrgyzstan involving all five Central Asian countries.


The volume’s analysis concludes that Romania underperforms in using its robust hard faculties to benefit the country's soft capabilities. Central Asia is a region where the EU must work hard to maintain its influence. By strengthening their presence in the region beyond bilateral partnerships, the EU's middle powers can play a key role in asserting Europe's pragmatic and normative interests.T

[more]
cover of The Poverty Law Canon: Exploring the Major Cases

The Poverty Law Canon

Exploring the Major Cases

Marie A. Failinger and Ezra Rosser, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 2016

The Poverty Law Canon takes readers into the lives of the clients and lawyers who brought critical poverty law cases in the United States. These cases involved attempts to establish the right to basic necessities, as well as efforts to ensure dignified treatment of welfare recipients and to halt administrative attacks on federal program benefit levels. They also confronted government efforts to constrict access to justice, due process, and rights to counsel in child support and consumer cases, social welfare programs, and public housing. By exploring the personal narratives that gave rise to these lawsuits as well as the behind-the-scenes dynamics of the Supreme Court, the text locates these cases within the social dynamics that shaped the course of litigation.
 
Noted legal scholars explain the legal precedent created by each case and set the case within its historical and political context in a way that will assist students and advocates in poverty-related disciplines in their understanding of the implications of these cases for contemporary public policy decisions in poverty programs. Whether the focus is on the clients, on the lawyers, or on the justices, the stories in The Poverty Law Canon illuminate the central legal themes in federal poverty law of the late 20th century and the role that racial and economic stereotyping plays in shaping American law.
 
[more]
cover of The Poverty of Capitalism: Economic Meltdown and the Struggle for What Comes Next

The Poverty of Capitalism

Economic Meltdown and the Struggle for What Comes Next

John Hilary

Pluto Press, 2013

Capitalist growth is widely heralded as the only answer to the crisis still sweeping the global economy. Yet the era of corporate globalisation has been defined by unprecedented levels of inequality and environmental degradation. A return to capitalist growth threatens to exacerbate these problems, not solve them.

In The Poverty of Capitalism, John Hilary reveals the true face of transnational capital in its insatiable drive for expansion and accumulation. He exposes the myth of ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR), and highlights key areas of conflict over natural resources, labour rights and food sovereignty.

Hilary also describes the growing popular resistance to corporate power, as well as the new social movements seeking to develop alternatives to capitalism itself. This book will be essential reading for all those concerned with global justice, human rights and equity in the world order.

[more]
cover of The Power of Civil Servants

The Power of Civil Servants

David Normington and Peter Hennessy

Haus Publishing, 2018

 
Throughout Britain, Civil Servants are exposed to public scrutiny today in unprecedented ways. What does it mean that the political neutrality of the Civil Service has only been enshrined in law since 2010, nearly 150 years after it was first proposed? Why is it so important for politicians to trust Civil Servants (and what difficulties arise when they do not)? 

Coauthored by former First Civil Service Commissioner David Normington and historian Peter Hennessy, The Power of Whitehall provides answers through rich observations about the nature of the British Civil Service, its values and effectiveness, and how it should continue to adapt to a changing world.
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cover of The Power of Dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians: Stories of Change from the School for Peace

The Power of Dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians

Stories of Change from the School for Peace

Sonnenschein, Nava

Rutgers University Press, 2019

In The Power of Dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, scholar and activist Nava Sonnenschein shares a collection of twenty-five powerful interviews she conducted with Palestinian and Jewish Israeli alumni of peacebuilding courses, a decade after their graduation. Participants with diverse personal and professional backgrounds completed a series of conflict transformation workshops using the model developed by the School for Peace at the world’s only intentional Jewish-Palestinian community, Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam (“Oasis of Peace” in Hebrew and Arabic). Critically, the interviews vividly demonstrate that peacebuilding does not end with the courses. Most of the graduates choose to work professionally in roles that contribute to peace-building. Sonnenschein shows the transformational potential of encounter between members of groups in conflict, sharing how ordinary Israelis and Palestinians coming together in an open and honest environment undergo life-changing experiences that provide concrete hope for a sustainable path to a peaceful shared existence as equals in Israel and Palestine. 

 
[more]
cover of The Power of Journalists

The Power of Journalists

Nick Robinson, Gary Gibbon, Barbara Speed, and Charlie Beckett

Haus Publishing, 2018

We live in a profoundly challenging era for journalists. While the profession has historically taken on the mantle of providing clear, sound information to the public, journalists now face competition from dubious sources online and smear campaigns launched by public figures. In The Power of Journalists, four of the United Kingdom’s foremost journalists—Nick Robinson, Barbara Speed, Charlie Beckett, and Gary Gibbon—give on-the-ground accounts of how they’ve weathered some of the most significant political events of the past five years, including the referendum on Scottish independence and Brexit. These monumental political decisions exposed each journalist to the dangerous vicissitudes of public opinion, and made them all the more certain of their mission. In describing the role of the journalist as truth-teller and protector of impartiality as well as interpreter of controversial facts and trusted source of public opinion, they issue a clarion call for good journalism.
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cover of The Power of Judges

The Power of Judges

David Neuberger and Peter Riddell

Haus Publishing, 2018

To the vast majority of the English public, the role of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court has often been distant and incomprehensible, its judges a caste apart from society. The Power of Judges ends this mystery, exploring the fundamental concept of justice and explaining the main functions of the courts, the challenges they face, and the complexity of the judicial system.

In this lucid account of the judiciary, David Neuberger and Peter Riddell lead us through an array of topics both philosophical and logistical, including the relationships between morality and law and between Parliament and the judiciary. They explain the effects of cuts in legal aid and shed light on complex and controversial subjects like assisted dying and the complexities of combating mass terrorism while protecting personal liberty. Given that many of these issues span national borders, the book also compares the United Kingdom’s legal system with its counterparts in the United States and Germany.

Full of insights, The Power of Judges is an informative and accessible account of the United Kingdom’s judicial system, its contribution to running the country, and the challenges it faces—including the many threats to its effectiveness.
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cover of The Power of Politicians

The Power of Politicians

Tessa Jowell and Frances D’Souza

Haus Publishing, 2018

The Power of Politicians takes readers inside the workings of Parliament via an autobiographical account of Tessa Jowell’s own experience of entering politics as an MP. Jowell offers fascinating insights into the workings of Parliament and sheds light on the successful pathways for developing policy into final legislation. The details of the inner workings of politics are interwoven with a powerful personal narrative, as Jowell offers a firsthand account of the role of women in contemporary political life.

With former Lord Speaker Frances D’Souza serving as Jowell’s interlocutor, this book provides a passionate and inspiring interpretation on moral duty. Ultimately, The Power of Politicians offers not just a case study of the life and everyday work of a politician, but also attends to deeper questions about what is demanded from the political class. The overall result is a nothing less than a master class in how to be a good politician.
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cover of The Power of Small States: Diplomacy in World War II

The Power of Small States

Diplomacy in World War II

Annette Baker Fox

University of Chicago Press, 1959

An explosive study into World War II diplomacy and how smaller nations resisted the pressure of Axis and Allied Powers.

As World War II ravaged Europe and Asia, smaller nations such as Turkey, Spain, Finland, and Portugal emerged virtually unscathed. How did these smaller powers, which most wrongly viewed as mere political pawns, survive one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century?

From the World War II diplomatic history of Turkey, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Spain, Annette Baker Fox walks us through backrooms and intense negotiations to illustrate how smaller nations balanced an ever-shifting political landscape to maintain their neutrality. Heavily researched and well-wrought, this book draws upon primary material and interviews with public figures and scholars to give a new historical dimension into lesser-known nations during a time of great political upheaval.
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cover of The Power of Their Will: Slaveholding Women in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

The Power of Their Will

Slaveholding Women in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

Teresa Prados-Torreira

University of Alabama Press, 2021

CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE, 2022

“This fascinating book explores the unique circumstances of white slaveholding women in 19th-century Cuba and the enslaved peoples they controlled . . .This is a must read for scholars of the Caribbean and the African diaspora. Essential.” —CHOICE

In the early nineteenth century, while abolitionism was rising and the slave trade was declining in the Atlantic world, Spain used this opportunity to massively expand plantation slavery in Cuba. Between 1501 and 1866, more than 778,000 Africans were torn from their homelands and brought to work for the Cuban slaveholding class.

An understudied aspect of Cuban slaveholding society is the role of the white Cuban slave mistress (amas). The Power of Their Will: Slaveholding Women in Nineteenth-Century Cuba illuminates the interaction of female slaveholders and the enslaved during this time. Teresa Prados-Torreira shows, despite the lack of political power in a highly patriarchal society, Cuban women as property owners were instrumental in supporting the long duration of slavery, whether by enforcing the disciplining of the enslaved in the domestic sphere or helping to create the illusion of slavery as a humane institution. Thousands of Creole slaveholding women relied on slaves to lead a comfortable life. Even the subsistence of many poor women depended on the income derived from the hiring out of their enslaved.

In this accessible cultural history, culled from government documents, fiction, newspaper articles, traveler’s accounts, women’s wills, and archival research, Prados-Torreira coalesces a valuable narrative out of the often paradoxical and conflicting stories of the human bonds between the female owner and the enslaved. Narrative chapters, enlivened by vignettes, describe the daily life of slave mistresses in the main cities of Havana and Santiago and other towns, workings of sugar mills and coffee plantations, how slaveholding women coping with slave rebellions and wartime during the Ten Years’ War, and how personal relationships could occasionally affect the balance of power.
 

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cover of The Power of Tiananmen: State-Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement

The Power of Tiananmen

State-Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement

Dingxin Zhao

University of Chicago Press, 2001

In the spring of 1989 over 100,000 students in Beijing initiated the largest student revolt in human history. Television screens across the world filled with searing images from Tiananmen Square of protesters thronging the streets, massive hunger strikes, tanks set ablaze, and survivors tending to the dead and wounded after a swift and brutal government crackdown.

Dingxin Zhao's award-winning The Power of Tiananmen is the definitive treatment of these historic events. Along with grassroots tales and interviews with the young men and women who launched the demonstrations, Zhao carries out a penetrating analysis of the many parallel changes in China's state-society relations during the 1980s. Such changes prepared an alienated academy, gave rise to ecology-based student mobilization, restricted government policy choices, and shaped student emotions and public opinion, all of which, Zhao argues, account for the tragic events in Tiananmen.
[more]
cover of The Power of the Badge: Sheriffs and Inequality in the United States

The Power of the Badge

Sheriffs and Inequality in the United States

Emily M. Farris and Mirya R. Holman

University of Chicago Press, 2024

A sobering exploration of the near unchecked power of sheriffs in the United States.

Across the United States, more than 3,000 sheriffs occupy a unique position in the US political and legal systems. Elected by voters—usually in low-visibility, noncompetitive elections—sheriffs oversee more than a third of law enforcement employees and control almost all local jails. They have the power to both set and administer policies, and they can imprison, harm, and even kill members of their communities. Yet, they enjoy a degree of autonomy not seen by other political officeholders.

The Power of the Badge offers an unprecedented, data-rich look into the politics of the office and its effects on local communities. Emily M. Farris and Mirya R. Holman draw on two surveys of sheriffs taken nearly a decade apart, as well as election data, case studies, and administrative data to show how a volatile combination of authority and autonomy has created an environment where sheriffs rarely change; elections seldom create meaningful accountability; employees, budgets, and jails can be used for political gains; marginalized populations can be punished; and reforms fail. Farris and Holman also track the increasingly close linkages between sheriffs and right-wing radical groups in an era of high partisanship and intra-federal conflict.

[more]
cover of The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen: Reconstructing Native Hawaiian Intellectual History

The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen

Reconstructing Native Hawaiian Intellectual History

Noenoe K. Silva

Duke University Press, 2017

In The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen Noenoe K. Silva reconstructs the indigenous intellectual history of a culture where—using Western standards—none is presumed to exist. Silva examines the work of two lesser-known Hawaiian writers—Joseph Ho‘ona‘auao Kānepu‘u (1824–ca. 1885) and Joseph Moku‘ōhai Poepoe (1852–1913)—to show how the rich intellectual history preserved in Hawaiian-language newspapers is key to understanding Native Hawaiian epistemology and ontology. In their newspaper articles, geographical surveys, biographies, historical narratives, translations, literatures, political and economic analyses, and poetic works, Kānepu‘u and Poepoe created a record of Hawaiian cultural history and thought in order to transmit ancestral knowledge to future generations. Celebrating indigenous intellectual agency in the midst of US imperialism, The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen is a call for the further restoration of native Hawaiian intellectual history to help ground contemporary Hawaiian thought, culture, and governance.
[more]
cover of The Power of the Texas Governor: Connally to Bush

The Power of the Texas Governor

Connally to Bush

By Brian McCall

University of Texas Press, 2009

George W. Bush called it "the best job in the world," yet many would argue that the Texas governorship is a weak office. Given few enumerated powers by the Texas Constitution, the governor must build a successful relationship with the state legislature—sometimes led by a powerful lieutenant governor or speaker of the opposing party—to advance his or her policy agenda. Yet despite the limitations on the office and the power of the legislative branch, many governors have had a significant impact on major aspects of Texas's public life—government, economic development, education, and insurance reform among them. How do Texas governors gain the power to govern effectively?

The Power of the Texas Governor takes a fresh look at the state's chief executives, from John Connally to George W. Bush, to discover how various governors have overcome the institutional limitations of the office. Delving into the governors' election campaigns and successes and failures in office, Brian McCall makes a convincing case that the strength of a governor's personality—in particular, his or her highly developed social skills—can translate into real political power. He shows, for example, how governors such as Ann Richards and George W. Bush forged personal relationships with individual legislators to achieve their policy goals. Filled with revealing insights and anecdotes from key players in each administration, The Power of the Texas Governor offers new perspectives on leadership and valuable lessons on the use of power.

[more]
cover of The Power to Destroy: How Bad Economics Drove America’s Decline

The Power to Destroy

How Bad Economics Drove America’s Decline

James K. Galbraith

University of Chicago Press, 2026

Acclaimed economist James K. Galbraith sounds an urgent alarm: how conventional economic ideas and policies are unequipped to account for the most daunting challenges of our geopolitical moment.

Amid a mounting sense of American decline, Americans live with a new kind of dissonance: economists announcing that everything is fundamentally fine. Where growth is steady, unemployment is low, prices are (somewhat) stable, and stocks are high—what’s there to worry about? 

The Power to Destroy shows that this dissonance reflects a failure to evolve. James K. Galbraith’s incisive history of economic policy in this century is grounded in the fundamental problem that today’s experts are still deploying tools from all yesterday’s wars: obsolete economic ideas, measures, and doctrines focused on market functioning and crude economic indicators like output and prices. These methods, many of them honed a century ago against a vastly different social landscape, offer little hope in the face of today’s more existential threats. 

Such conventional policies, Galbraith argues, are increasingly ill-equipped to counter the daunting challenges of our moment—from inflation to trade sanctions, industrial cold wars, and climate change—and, left unacknowledged, are accelerating the end of the US economy as we know it. Shortcomings include the weak responses to the inflation of 2021-2022; the sanctions war against Russia; the rise of China; the weak and ineffective attempt at industrial revival; and the impending demographic crisis. All have roots in a flawed body of outdated economic thought that has been sustained for ideological rather than practical reasons. They now promise to hinder the United States in the emerging multipolar world. 

As Galbraith makes plain, for all the virtues of the market system, governments and their policies make markets possible. The ideas behind the policies—for better or worse—will determine the fate of the US economy—and new and better ideas are urgently needed. The alternative—sticking with economic ideas and policies we know and currently use—brings the power to destroy us all. 

[more]