Origin and Performance of Democracy Profiles
Introduction.- Identifying Profiles of Democracy.- Analyzing the Varieties of Democracy Dataset.- AGIL Typology of Political Performance.- Conceptualizing and Measuring Goal-oriented Performance.- Aggregating Goal-oriented Performance.- Describing Goal-oriented Performance.- Explaining Goal-oriented Performance.- Explaining Policy Regime Performance.- Conclusion.- References.
Land Alienation and Politics of Tribal Exploitation in India
Introduction.- Paradigm of Tribal Development in Post-Independence Era.- Land and the Tribals of India: Problems and Prospects.- Land Alienation and the Politics of Tribal Exploitation in Odisha.- Narayanpatna Movement in the Koraput District of Odisha.- Role of the State and Different Political Parties Towards Narayanpatna Movement.- Conclusion.
Jainism and Environmental Politics
This book explores the ways in which the ecologically centred Indian philosophy of Jainism could introduce a new and non-western methodology to environmental politics, with the potential to help the green movement find new audiences and a new voice.
No Longer Outsiders
With the rise of Black Lives Matter and immigrant rights protests, critics have questioned whether mainstream black and Latino civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and UnidosUS are in touch with the needs of minorities-especially from younger generations. Though these mainstream groups have relied on insider political tactics, such as lobbying and congressional testimony, to advocate for minority interests, Michael D. Minta argues that these strategies are still effective tools for advocating for progressive changes. In No Longer Outsiders, Minta provides a comprehensive account of the effectiveness of minority civil rights organizations and their legislative allies. He finds that the organizations' legislative priorities are consistent with black and Latino preferences for stronger enforcement of civil rights policy and immigration reform. Although these groups focus mainly on civil rights for blacks and immigration issues for Latinos, their policy agendas extend into other significant areas. Minta concludes with an examination of how diversity in Congress helps groups gain greater influence and policy success despite many limits placed upon them.
Constructing the Craft of Public Administration
This book draws on recent empirical research and reports unique insight into the craft of public administration of the most senior echelons of the Australian Public Service (APS).This work is set in the context of a comparative analysis of the significant public sector reforms by successive governments from the 1980s across Westminster polities. Such reforms and the contemporary management ideas on which they were based, including new managerialism and 'new public management' (NPM) travelled, were translated and transformed with some elements accepted and others rejected. This book addresses how the most senior public servants in the APS construct their craft today amid such reforms. Chapter two covers the myriad of public sector reforms across Westminster polities. Chapters three and four cover the environments and contemporary management ideas which influence public administration. Chapters five and six showcase the public actors and the responsibilities they execute when they construct their craft. The final chapter provides a conceptual model of the craft of public administration and provides implications for theory and practice.
Innovation, Human Capital and Trade Competitiveness
This work focuses on researching and establishing the importance of human capital and innovation as determinants of competitive advantages in international trade-in the context of rapidly evolving technological advancement, globalization, and economic integration. The processes that accompany the shift from industrial economics to a knowledge-based economy are currently the object of interest of both scientists, politicians, investors and entrepreneurs. In many countries, the traditional sources of socioeconomic development, such as low labor costs, availability of inexpensive raw materials, and favorable geographic location are waning. These economies are searching for new sources of competitive advantage that will allow for maintaining growth, among other things by boosting participation in international trade.The book explores non-traditional drivers of competitiveness in both theory and practice. First, chapters 1 through 4 present theoretical and methodological aspects of the relationships among international trade, human capital and innovation. Here the authors address the controversy associated with the concept of competitiveness itself and its measurement, while paying special attention to the political development of comparative advantages related to international trade. The second part of the monograph, chapters 5 through 8, is of empirical nature. This section contains case studies of selected countries that represent models of various national innovation systems. Finally, the theoretical and practical aspects are integrated, allowing policymakers and financial and business leaders to consider how their decisions can influence their countries' competitive positions through their investments in innovation and human capital.
Information Fusion and Geographic Information Systems (If&gis' 2015)
Design and Development of Personal Geo Services for Universities.- Spatial analysis of peasants migrations in Russia/USSR in the First Quarter of the 20th century.- RM-A Referenced Routing Model to generate a semantic service of navigation in mobile devices.- Semantic Trajectories: A Survey from Modeling to Application.- Semantic Recommender System for Touristic Context Based on Linked Data.- Detecting Clustering Scales with the Incremental K-Function: Comparison Tests on Actual and Simulated Geospatial Datasets.- Crowd Computing Framework for Geo information Tasks.- Dynamic Resources Management in Agile GIS.- Application of GIS Technologies in Historic and Ethnographic Research.- Geo information Systems for Maritime Radar Visibility Zone Modelling.
The Ethics of Policing
Top scholars provide a critical analysis of the current ethical challenges facing police officers, police departments, and the criminal justice system From George Floyd to Breonna Taylor, the brutal deaths of Black citizens at the hands of law enforcement have brought race and policing to the forefront of national debate in the United States. In The Ethics of Policing, Ben Jones and Eduardo Mendieta bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars across the social sciences and humanities to reevaluate the role of the police and the ethical principles that guide their work. With contributors such as Tracey Meares, Michael Walzer, and Franklin Zimring, this volume covers timely topics including race and policing, the use of aggressive tactics and deadly force, police abolitionism, and the use of new technologies like drones, body cameras, and predictive analytics, providing different perspectives on the past, present, and future of policing, with particular attention to discriminatory practices that have historically targeted Black and Brown communities. This volume offers cutting-edge insight into the ethical challenges facing the police and the institutions that oversee them. As high-profile cases of police brutality spark protests around the country, The Ethics of Policing raises questions about the proper role of law enforcement in a democratic society.
Knowledge Management in the Development of Data-Intensive Systems
This book explores the application of established software engineering knowledge and practices to developing big data systems, enhanced with dedicated knowledge management during software development. It looks at explicit knowledge construction and management and system development as a process of social construction of shared knowledge.
The Politics of Order in Informal Markets
Property rights are important for economic exchange, but many governments don't protect them. Private market organizations can fill this gap by providing an institutional structure to enforce agreements, but with this power comes the ability to extort group members. Under what circumstances, then, will private organizations provide a stable environment for economic activity? Based on market case studies and a representative survey of traders in Lagos, Nigeria, this book argues that threats from the government can force an association to behave in ways that promote trade. The findings challenge the conventional wisdom that private good governance in developing countries thrives when the government keeps its hands off private group affairs. Instead, the author argues, leaders among traders behave in ways that promote trade primarily because of the threat of government intrusion.
Military Statecraft and the Rise of Shaping in World Politics
This book explores how changes in the structure of the international system and technology incentivize major powers to adopt different types of military power--either the traditional threat and use of force or "shaping" through the non-warfighting use of military organizations--to manage threats in world politics.
Metropolitan Democracies
Originally published in 2005. Citizen involvement - and the concept of partnership - in urban governance has long been a major issue in the transformation of local democracy. The move from delegated to participative forms of local government has, in principle, profound consequences for governance at the scale of cities. However, it is clear that partnership and participation are interpreted in many different ways, according to the traditions of government in different countries. This volume brings together the experiences of three countries in which very different approaches to participation are evident: Canada, France and the United Kingdom. By comparing and reflecting on these countries' approaches and the resulting changes in governance, it provides an in-depth analysis of the intentions and effects of involving citizens in policy making. It also highlights innovative new forms of partnership which are emerging within metropolitan areas at a local level.
The Ever-Shrinking Fighting Force
Its capabilities unrivaled and its global reach unmatched, America's military is the envy of the world. Yet, to those in the know, like retired Marine Major General Arnold Punaro, a former Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee, there is compelling need for improvement in its support elements. From the glacial pace of acquisitions to the spiraling growth of the defense agencies to the fully-burdened costs of the All-Volunteer Force, the Department of Defense's non-warfighting elements are not getting enough bang for the buck. Every recent Secretary of Defense has pushed business-minded reforms as a high priority, citing the need to convert overhead to warfighting capacity. Despite substantial increases in defense spending over the last decades, the number of warfighters is still declining. The Ever-Shrinking Fighting Force lays out, in clear and compelling detail, the major factors that contribute to this adverse trend that has outlasted efforts to reverse it by strong Defense Secretaries and even Presidents. Drawing on his half-century of experience in national security, Gen. Punaro offers a no-nonsense look at the inefficiencies that have plagued the Pentagon's creeping bureaucracy for decades. With calls for defense reform emanating from both the executive and legislative branches, this timely book provides a road map for thoughtful and balanced improvements.
Highway Robbery
In Highway Robbery Peter Kinzler delivers a fast-paced behind-the-scenes account of two federal legislative efforts twenty years apart--one from the political left and one from the right--to reform America's auto insurance system to make it fairer and more affordable. He explains how the legislation was designed to achieve those objectives and describes the political challenge of trying to overcome the entrenched special interest opposition of those who stood to lose billions--trial lawyers and insurers--if the new no-fault system were adopted. Highway Robbery provides readers with both a primer on how fault and liability auto insurance, no-fault, and no-fault choice insurance policies work and who benefits most from which system. Peter Kinzler, with years of experience as a congressional staffer and in the private sector, is the perfect guide through these important policy and political fights, enlivened with revealing firsthand sketches of the legislators, staffers, academics, and lobbyists who played major roles in these attempts as well as their interplay with each other. Drawing upon his decades of engagement with the issues Kinzler shows how thoughtful and skilled members of Congress, good staff, and thorough academic research can lay the groundwork for important reform legislation; in doing so he provides a model for restoring Congress's effectiveness, whenever it chooses to resume exercising its constitutional authority as the legislative branch of government. Highway Robbery details how the trial bar used the levers of political power first to undermine state no-fault laws and then to use the weaknesses they had implemented in the laws to undermine passage of federal legislation. It also describes the surprising alliance in opposition between the trial bar and famed consumer advocate Ralph Nader. No-fault continues to hold the promise of better compensation and dramatic premium reductions, with the largest savings available to those who need them most--low- and moderate-income drivers. The most likely scenario for further federal consideration of auto insurance reform would be in the context of congressional action on universal health insurance.
America's Three Constitutions
It is a rarity to find a book that includes the unaltered original texts of all three of America's most conservative documents. It is even more difficult to find one compiled by a political Conservative! Award-winning historian Lochlainn Seabrook has permanently solved this problem with his little volume America's Three Constitutions: Complete Texts of the Articles of Confederation, U.S. Constitution, and C.S. Constitution. In addition to these three important charters, Mr. Seabrook also provides numerous supplemental conservative documents that are seldom recognized or discussed today; critical early writings that helped forge the spectacular country that George Washington called a "confederate republic" The United States of America.The papers in this heavily illustrated work span 87 years, from 1774 to 1861, covering the period in which the following significant events took place: The secession of the 13 American colonies (in response to the tyranny of monarchical Great Britain), the American Revolutionary War, the founding of the United States of America, the writing of the Articles of Confederation, the Philadelphia Convention, the writing of the Constitution of the United States of America, the secession of 13 (eleven full, two partial) Southern states (in response to the tyranny of the Left-wing North), the formation of the Confederate States of America, the writing of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, and the start of Lincoln's War on the U.S. Constitution.While leaving the original 18th- and 19th-Century texts intact and unedited, Mr. Seabrook provides historical bullet points for each document which supply background and context to the creation and development of both the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. The author-editor also includes an introduction, index, appendices, endnotes, and a bibliography. If you are interested in our true constitutional history, you will want a copy of this handy volume that puts a dozen indispensable early American documents at one's fingertips. America's Three Constitutions is available in paperback and hardcover. (All text copyright (c) Sea Raven Press)Award-winning historian Lochlainn Seabrook is the author and editor of (currently) 82 books, including: Abraham Lincoln Was a Liberal, Jefferson Davis Was a Conservative; Lincoln's War: The Real Cause, the Real Winner, the Real Loser; The Bittersweet Bond: Race Relations in the Old South as Described by White and Black Southerners; The Unholy Crusade: Lincoln's Legacy of Destruction in the American South; Heroes of the Southern Confederacy: The Illustrated Book of Confederate Officials, Soldiers, and Civilians; What the Confederate Flag Means to Me; The Great Yankee Coverup: What the North Doesn't Want You to Know About Lincoln's War; Confederacy 101: Amazing Facts You Never Knew About America's Oldest Political Tradition; Confederate Flag Facts: What Every American Should Know About Dixie's Southern Cross; Support Your Local Confederate: Wit and Humor in the Southern Confederacy; Women in Gray: A Tribute to the Ladies Who Supported the Southern Confederacy; Everything You Were Taught About American Slavery is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!; Honest Jeff and Dishonest Abe: A Southern Children's Guide to the Civil War; The Constitution of the Confederate States of America Explained; and A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Dignity in Movement
This book brings together a diverse range of contributors to offer interdisciplinary perspectives on developments across the forced migration sphere - including reflections on international migration and refugee law, global health, border management, illegal migration, and intersectional migration experiences. The chapters address subjects ranging from the Global Compact for Migration, migration laws, fundamental human rights discourse and principles, colonial violence, environmental migrants, and internal displacement. The book additionally delves into the interplay between such notions as the role of women in migration trends, the Kafala System, unaccompanied minors, and family dynamics. Along with tackling border practices, transnational governance, return migration, and complementary protection, the chapters featured in this volume discuss the notions of belonging, stigma, discrimination, and racism.
Targets of Terror
Assassination is a tactic of contemporary terrorism that is understudied in the terrorism and political violence literatures. This book examines the use of assassination in terror campaigns and the political and societal repercussions of these political killings across target types.
OECD Rural Studies Mining Regions and Cities Case of Andalusia, Spain
Andalusia is the largest mining producer in Spain, the second-largest copper producer in the EU and a leader in marble and gypsum production. The region benefits from two distinct mining subsectors, each with a rich network of suppliers that are relevant for local development: the metallic mining sector (e.g. copper and zinc), which accounts for most of the regional mining production, and the non-metallic sector (ornamental rocks, aggregates and industrial minerals), which is highly dispersed across the territory. The regional mining value chain has the potential to leverage the increasing global and EU demand for sustainable raw materials and thus become a frontrunner in leading technologies and circular processes for environmentally sustainable mining. This study identifies how Andalusia can build on its strengths and address current and future challenges to improve regional productivity and well-being while accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy and assisting EU climate goals.
Mindshifts
Mindshifts is a book that explores how we can improve how the nation learns through a series of fascinating stories. Stories like, how stealing an idea from Xerox changed the economy. Or how a hedge fund analyst became the worlds' tutor. These stories all center around one main point- how thinking like a startup can rebuild the intellectual infrastructure we need now more than ever.
Sudan's 2019 Revolution
The 2019 Sudanese revolution constitutes one of the world's greatest stories of the power of nonviolent resistance. A country which had suffered greatly from decades of horrific statesanctioned violence, misogynistic laws, and longstanding religious, ethnic, and regional divisions, an unstoppable movement emerged out of a population systematically disempowered through decades of dictatorship. Millions of Sudanese took to the streets during waves of protests over an eight-month period beginning in December 2018 in a triumph not just of the human spirit, but of some of the most brilliant strategic thinking by any social movement in history.This report reviews the chronology of the resistance struggle, the critical role of nonviolent discipline, other factors contributing to the movement's success, the subsequent political situation, and lessons to be learned. In overcoming such formidable obstacles, the nonviolent pro-democracy struggle in Sudan serves as an inspiration for the entire world.
The Bamilek矇 Factor in the Cause for the New Cameroon
In the multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-religious Central African state called Cameroon, the country's largest ethnic group that paid the highest price in the struggle for its reunification and independence has effectively been cast as the national enemy by the system made up of those who did not opt for reunification and independence and their French overlords who put them in power. It has been a six-decade old campaign that has robbed the Cameroonian people of their history, divided them and created stereotypes that would take generations to undo.
Party Vibrancy and Democracy in Latin America
In Party Vibrancy and Democracy in Latin America, Fernando Rosenblatt sheds new light on why some parties remain lively organizations that generate intense attachment over time. He concentrates on party performance in three of the region's more stable countries--Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay--because they are regarded as 'consolidated' democracies with records of good governance. Even in some of these countries, he shows, party instability is a problem.
OECD Health Policy Studies a New Benchmark for Mental Health Systems Tackling the Social and Economic Costs of Mental Ill-Health
Mental ill-health affects millions of people, and drives economic costs of more than 4% of GDP. A good mental health system helps people stay in good mental health, and connects those in need to appropriate support to manage their mental health condition or even fully recover from it. However, mental health care has long been neglected and under-funded, and unmet need for care is still high. The long-lasting COVID-19 crisis and the toll it is taking on mental health has made mental health systems more important than ever. This timely report provides an in-depth analysis of how well countries are delivering the policies and services that matter for mental health system performance. The report highlights recent reforms countries have taken to strengthen mental health performance, including by increasing access to mental health care, ensuring that service users take the lead in planning and even delivering services, and prioritising integration and mental health promotion. The report also identifies promising approaches countries should pursue to better meet their populations' mental health needs. This report sets up a framework for understanding mental health performance through internationally comparable indicators, an approach set to grow stronger still in the coming years as more data become available.
The Ethics of Exile
Exiles have long been transformative actors in their homelands: they foment revolution, sustain dissent, and work to create renewed political institutions and identities back home. Ongoing waves of migration ensure that they will continue to play these vital roles. Rather than focus on what exiles mean for the countries they enter--a perspective that often treats them as passive victims--The Ethics of Exile recognises their political and moral agency, and explores their rich and vital relationship to the communities they have left. It offers a rare view of the other side of the migration story. Engaging with a series of case studies, this book identifies the responsibilities and rights exiles have and the important roles they play in homeland politics. It argues that exile politics performs two functions: it can correct defective political institutions back home, and it can counter asymmetries of voice and power abroad. In short, exiles can act both as a linchpin and a buffer between political communities in crisis and the international actors who seek to, variously, aid and exploit them. When we think about the duties we owe to those forced to leave their homes, we should consider how to enable rather than thwart these roles.
A Theoretical Analysis, Performance Evaluation, and Reform Solution of the Health Care System in China
Medical expenditure has become a heavy burden on the public sector and the family system in many countries. Expanding the coverage and reimbursement of medical insurance has become a common way to reduce the burden. This book will elaborate on how medical insurance may increase the burden instead.It explains why the existing medical insurance system results in increased medical costs, where higher costs may offset the benefits of certainty brought by medical insurance, forming the "paradox of medical care insurance". This assumption is verified by empirical evidence in China, through a new method developed to find out the actual medical costs, using two parameters: ratio of self-payment of medical insurance and the level of monopoly in the supply of medical services. The book also describes the history, the current situation, and the reform of the health care system in China.
Do Elections (Still) Matter?
Are election campaigns relevant to policymaking, as they should in a democracy? This book sheds new light on this central democratic concern based on an ambitious study of democratic mandates through the lens of agenda-setting in five West European countries since the 1980s. The authors develop and test a new model bridging studies of party competition, pledge fulfillment, and policymaking. The core argument is that electoral priorities are a major factor shaping policy agendas, but mandates should not be mistaken as partisan. Parties are like 'snakes in tunnels': they have distinctive priorities, but they need to respond to emerging problems and their competitors' priorities, resulting in considerable cross-partisan overlap. The 'tunnel of attention' remains constraining in the policymaking arena, especially when opposition parties have resources to press governing parties to act on the campaign priorities. This key aspect of mandate responsiveness has been neglected so far, because in traditional models of mandate representation, party platforms are conceived as a set of distinctive priorities, whose agenda-setting impact ultimately depends on the institutional capacity of the parties in office. Rather differently, this book suggests that counter-majoritarian institutions and windows for opposition parties generate key incentives to stick to the mandate. It shows that these findings hold across five very different democracies: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. The results contribute to a renewal of mandate theories of representation and lead to question the idea underlying much of the comparative politics literature that majoritarian systems are more responsive than consensual ones.
The Dignity of Labour
Does work give our lives purpose, meaning and status? Or is it a tedious necessity that will soon be abolished by automation, leaving humans free to enjoy a life of leisure and basic income? In this erudite and highly readable book, Jon Cruddas MP argues that it is imperative that the Left rejects the siren call of technological determinism and roots it politics firmly in the workplace. Drawing from his experience of his own Dagenham and Rainham constituency, he examines the history of Marxist and social democratic thinking about work in order to critique the fatalism of both Blairism and radical left techno-utopianism, which, he contends, have more in common than either would like to admit. He argues that, especially in the context of COVID-19, socialists must embrace an ethical socialist politics based on the dignity and agency of the labour interest. This timely book is a brilliant intervention in the highly contentious debate on the future of work, as well as an ambitious account of how the left must rediscover its animating purpose or risk irrelevance.
The Formation of a Modern Labor Force
The Formation of a Modern Labor Force: Upper Silesia, 1865-1914 explores the transformation of the labor market in Upper Silesia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This period, often overshadowed by national conflicts, saw the shift from an agrarian society to an industrial one, marked by the development of labor forces in mines and mills. The study critiques traditional historical narratives that focus solely on the working conditions, trade unions, and class struggles, instead offering a broader view of the dynamic interaction between labor and management. It addresses how workers, influenced by older agricultural traditions, navigated industrial settings and how their actions, such as high turnover and absenteeism, played an essential role in shaping labor-management relations. The analysis challenges conventional economic and sociological perspectives, emphasizing how both workers and employers adapted to the new industrial realities, with management often unintentionally impeding the formation of a modern labor force. This work offers a fresh perspective on the labor history of Central Europe, particularly in the context of Upper Silesia, which has received less attention in mainstream labor studies. By examining the workplace as a site of ongoing conflict and negotiation, the book highlights the complex sociological and economic factors at play in the development of a modern labor force. It critiques the typical focus on economic man in labor history, arguing that the transition to industrial society in Upper Silesia was not solely driven by market forces but was deeply influenced by the socio-cultural legacies of agriculture. The study also pushes beyond the boundaries of national histories, urging labor historians and sociologists to reconsider the broader forces at work in areas undergoing rapid industrialization. By providing new insights into the worker-management dynamics of Upper Silesia, this book opens up avenues for further research into the social and economic transformations of industrial Europe. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.
The Formation of a Modern Labor Force
The Formation of a Modern Labor Force: Upper Silesia, 1865-1914 explores the transformation of the labor market in Upper Silesia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This period, often overshadowed by national conflicts, saw the shift from an agrarian society to an industrial one, marked by the development of labor forces in mines and mills. The study critiques traditional historical narratives that focus solely on the working conditions, trade unions, and class struggles, instead offering a broader view of the dynamic interaction between labor and management. It addresses how workers, influenced by older agricultural traditions, navigated industrial settings and how their actions, such as high turnover and absenteeism, played an essential role in shaping labor-management relations. The analysis challenges conventional economic and sociological perspectives, emphasizing how both workers and employers adapted to the new industrial realities, with management often unintentionally impeding the formation of a modern labor force. This work offers a fresh perspective on the labor history of Central Europe, particularly in the context of Upper Silesia, which has received less attention in mainstream labor studies. By examining the workplace as a site of ongoing conflict and negotiation, the book highlights the complex sociological and economic factors at play in the development of a modern labor force. It critiques the typical focus on economic man in labor history, arguing that the transition to industrial society in Upper Silesia was not solely driven by market forces but was deeply influenced by the socio-cultural legacies of agriculture. The study also pushes beyond the boundaries of national histories, urging labor historians and sociologists to reconsider the broader forces at work in areas undergoing rapid industrialization. By providing new insights into the worker-management dynamics of Upper Silesia, this book opens up avenues for further research into the social and economic transformations of industrial Europe. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.
Thank You for Voting
"If you want to celebrate your essential right as a citizen and encourage others to do the same, Thank You for Voting provides an engaging and concise tutorial of what it means to cast your ballot--past, present, and future. Read this book! (And be sure to vote.)" --Ann PatchettA concise, lively look at voting in America, including insights into why so few Americans today vote and innovative ways to educate and motivate them--updated with a new epilogue analyzing the 2020 election.Voting is a prized American right. The 2018 midterm elections saw record turnout--more than 110 million Americans cast ballots. Yet about half of those eligible did not participate. Why isn't voter turnout higher, and what can we do about it? The problem, Erin Geiger Smith contends, is a lack of understanding about how our electoral system works and too little appreciation for the power of voting. To inspire action, she looks at the voting process from the Framers' perspective through the Voting Rights Act to the present, examining the difficult and inspiring stories of how different groups got the right to vote, state prohibitions against felons voting, charges of fraud and suppression, and new methods to increase voter registration. She explains topics that confuse even the most informed voters: polling, news literacy, gerrymandering, and the Electoral College. And she explores how age, race, and socioeconomic factors influence turnout.Most important, Geiger Smith outlines simple actions everyone should take to increase civic participation in elections, and reveals how innovative get-out-the-vote movements energize first-time voters. Informative and empowering--and with a new epilogue analyzing the 2020 election--Thank You for Voting is an essential call to the polls.
Free Speech
"The best history of free speech ever written and the best defense of free speech ever made." --P.J. O'RourkeHailed as the "first freedom," free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat.In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech's many defenders--from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Rāzī, to the anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells and modern-day digital activists--Mchangama reveals how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Yet the desire to restrict speech, too, is a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all stripes.Meticulously researched and deeply humane, Free Speech demonstrates how much we have gained from this principle--and how much we stand to lose without it.
Community Eldercare Ecology in China
Introduction.- Community as a Care Ecology.- The Development of Community Eldercare in Shanghai.- Geographic Proximity in the Community Eldercare.- Fostering Community Caregiving Relationships.- Mealtime Interactions in the Community.- Conclusion.
Gaudy Baubles and Fartworms
Welfare is not what you think it is. Many states ignore federal work requirements for welfare parents. At the same time children on welfare face eviction and hunger every month. Quality child care is outside the price reach of low income children. Food Stamps is throwing billions down the outhouse floor that don't lead to feeding hungry Americans and--insult to injury--some states are falsifying data in order to win federal high performance money.Whether you are politically conservative, liberal, or independent... or are a taxpayer or recipient of services... all of you are eating from cake that was dropped on a dirty floor. If you want to understand the current welfare system in America, and what could be done to make the system both efficient and beneficial, this book is the complete insider's guide and analysis you need."Terry Smith has spent twenty-six years serving the citizenry, and in this book, he tells it like it is from inside that service. Drawing from decades of compassionate, efficient and effective service, he provides relevant insight and suggestions on how to support and uplift people through the system. He walks us through the history of welfare, from its original beginnings to where it is today; as well as the challenges/bumps it has undergone through the years. He also points out its shortcomings in meeting its mission. If you want to know how a program works, listen to the people implementing it at the grassroots level; and not just to individuals who think they know what is best for the people." -- Nancy Stiles, Former New Hampshire Senator."A well researched and written treatise that provides an insider's view of our complex welfare system. It points out the irony that a system designed to help those most vulnerable, has built-in road blocks to ensure failure. A spot-on indictment of those who perpetrate the charade." --Michael R O'Neal, former Program Manager, Stanislaus County, California. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Terry Smith's first job was four years in the US Navy during Vietnam. Later, he taught high school and college English before taking a master's degree in human services administration. He spent 26 years with New Hampshire's Health and Human Services directing poverty programs and is considered one of the nation's leading experts on welfare. He lives with his wife Elise amid thirty-eight acres of New Hampshire forest.
Unsilencing Gaza
Palestine Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Winner 2022 'Roy is humanely and professionally committed in ways that are unmatched by any other non-Palestinian scholar' - Edward W. Said Gaza, the centre of Palestinian nationalism and resistance to the occupation, is the linchpin of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the key to its resolution. Since 2005, Israel has deepened the isolation of the territory, severing it almost completely from its most vital connections to the West Bank, Israel and beyond, and has deliberately shattered its economy, transforming Palestinians from a people with political rights into a humanitarian problem. Sara Roy unpacks this process, looking at US foreign policy towards the Palestinians, as well as analysing the trajectory of Israeli policy toward Gaza, which became a series of punitive approaches meant not only to contain the Hamas regime but weaken Gazan society. Roy also reflects on Gaza's ruination from a Jewish perspective and discusses the connections between Gaza's history and her own as a child of Holocaust survivors. This book, a follow up from the renowned Failing Peace, comes from one of the world's most acclaimed writers on the region.
The Other Windrush
'This illuminating, vivid volume is a fitting tribute to the experiences of migration' - Hanif Kureishi Between the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948 and the passing of the 1971 Immigration Act, half a million people came to the UK from the Caribbean. In the aftermath of the 2018 Windrush Scandal, the story of the Windrush Generation is more widely known than ever. But is it the whole story? Through a series of biographical essays, poems and articles, The Other Windrush shines a light on the hidden history of a 'minority within a minority': Caribbean migrants of Indian and Chinese descent - often the descendants of indentured labourers - who were the 'invisible passengers' of the Windrush generation. Both highlighting the diversity of their lives and cultural backgrounds, and delving into the largely forgotten history of the system of indenture in the British Caribbean, The Other Windrush makes a unique addition to the literature on migration and the British Empire.
Building Immunity: Crisis and Contagion in the City State
From the financial contagion of the 2007 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) to viral contagion in the recent COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore has been severely impacted by ripples and shockwaves that have emanated from global financial and healthcare crises. At the same time, it has proven to be highly resilient amidst such instability. This book provides an in-depth account of Singapore's policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and GFC. It focuses on the policy capacity-building efforts that have taken place in the aftermath of earlier crises such as the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.Linked across time and space, these four crises - SARS, COVID-19, the AFC and GFC - reflect a consistent pattern in Singapore's approach to crisis management. This is a pattern that involves policy learning and capacity-building after each crisis, and the application of these lessons and capacities to subsequent crises. In focusing on the role of policy capacity in Singapore's crisis response measures, this book will provide policymakers and practitioners with a useful framework that can be used to plan for future crises and pandemics.
Small Town Resilience and Heritage Commodification
This volume is written by an international and interdisciplinary team of scholars who are convinced about the importance of the small town as a research topic. It looks at how towns approach heritage, its instrumental use and its commodification in support of its survival, asking about towns' strategies to achieve resilience to external pressure.
Prosecution of the President of the United States
This book provides a detailed look at the constitutional, historical, and political arguments concerning presidential immunity from prosecution, as well as the opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel that provided the justification for the decision not to prosecute President Trump. Focusing on those opinions, the book examines the constitutional basis of presidential immunity, both textual and historical, as reflected in the deliberations of the 1787 Convention and the ratification debates. The opinions are viewed in the context of the criminal investigations of Presidents Nixon and Clinton that gave rise to those opinions, as well as the pronouncements of the Supreme Court concerning their claims, and those of President Trump to immunity from judicial inquiry. Lastly, the book analyzes presidential immunity in light of the separation of powers, the availability of impeachment, and the discordance between presidential immunity and the rule of law.
A Comparative Study Of Regional Autonomy Models In Jammu And Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir is a heterogeneous state with varied geographical regions and sub-regions, representing different climates, flora and fauna. People possess different ethnic backgrounds, profess different faiths, follow different cultural traditions and speak different languages. What is more significant is that people living in these regions are yet to attain a uniform level of economic development. The internal politics of the state, marked by intra- regional tensions, has influenced the attitude of the people on the question of their external affiliations. In each of the three regions of the state, Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh, a different attitude on the issue of accession can be clearly noticed from the very day of the state's accession to India. A sort of local nationalism has developed in all the three regions of the state. People's alienation from the national identity has been constant problem in Kashmir since long. They tend to give more importance to ethno - religious and regional identities than to considerations of unified state and the nation. The present work provides a scholarly understanding of the nature of intra-regionalism and its framework for resolution. It also explores the way out for the larger issue of Kashmir problem while emphasizing the internal dynamics of Kashmir politics.
Political Correctness Does More Harm Than Good
Political Correctness Does More Harm Than Good!It's a surprising assertion. Isn't PC culture all about kindness? About protecting victimized groups? If you trace the history of political correctness, the answer is emphatically no. It has other goals in mind and has since its inception with thinkers like Rousseau.Author Douglas Kruger traces the unfolding ideology from its dark genesis (the French Revolution and subsequent terror) through its various incarnations- Marxism, relativism, post-modernism, and all the way to today's identity-politics. He points out the flaws, fallacies, and in many cases, the body-counts these ideologies have wracked up.Uniquely, this book then goes one step further. It is not merely descriptive history; it is not just explanatory philosophy. This is a debate guide, a how-to manual for those interested in attacking these harmful ideas head on. Do you know how to articulate what is wrong with "woke" arguments? Do you know how to defend the Western tradition against relentless onslaught from the PC-Police? Here is how, step by step and argument by argument.Become a master at identifying, debunking, and dismantling dangerous ideas. Add your voice to the culture wars and learn precisely how to fight for tried and tested Western values-values like science, democracy, logic, rule of law, and the Judeo-Christian tradition of human rights and values.As it turns out, you can have truth, or you can have political correctness, but you can't have both.Award-winning speaker and author Douglas Kruger also provides you with supplemental "how-to" videos on his site www.BreakingWoke.com.
A Grand Strategy-Countering China, Taming Technology, and Restoring the Media
"Bill Holstein nails it. This is exactly the right book at the right time. Holstein knows because he has spent decades observing events closely around the world and interpreting them especially in terms of what they mean for real people in America. His observations are deeply insightful and U.S. leaders need to pay attention to his suggestions. The book is also a fun read." -Clyde Prestowitz, veteran trade negotiator and author, The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership. The rapid spread of the coronavirus demonstrated how deeply interwoven our societies have become, yet we have failed to understand the Chinese Communist system and its values. The Chinese Communist Party have taken advantage of the worldwide pandemic to push their agenda and their interests far more aggressively than at any point in the "engagement" we have had with them for some forty years. I was there in southern China when it started.
Of Matters Military
Imported defence systems are like crutches that can provide only temporary sustenance but not enduring muscle strength. Dependence on imports makes a nation hostage to the policies of the exporting nations and captive to the dictates of unscrupulous foreign vendors. Therefore, 'Make in India' is a highly overdue clarion call and a mission statement. The book identifies reasons for the dismal state of the Indian defence industry and suggests corrective measures. It recommends the integration of the private sector and support to MSMEs. The need for an ecosystem to foster innovations has also been emphasised. As the defence industry is characterised by rapid obsolescence, regular infusion of the latest defence technologies is essential. FDI is not just a question of getting funds but accesses the latest know-how as well. Similarly, the powerful leverage of offsets can be used to obtain technologies that industrially advanced nations are unwilling to sell. Finally, the book suggests the establishment of a Defence and Aerospace Commission to oversee all functions pertaining to armament production, acquisitions and exports.
Of Matters Military
Imported defence systems are like crutches that can provide only temporary sustenance but not enduring muscle strength. Dependence on imports makes a nation hostage to the policies of the exporting nations and captive to the dictates of unscrupulous foreign vendors. Therefore, 'Make in India' is a highly overdue clarion call and a mission statement. The book identifies reasons for the dismal state of the Indian defence industry and suggests corrective measures. It recommends the integration of the private sector and support to MSMEs. The need for an ecosystem to foster innovations has also been emphasised. As the defence industry is characterised by rapid obsolescence, regular infusion of the latest defence technologies is essential. FDI is not just a question of getting funds but accesses the latest know-how as well. Similarly, the powerful leverage of offsets can be used to obtain technologies that industrially advanced nations are unwilling to sell. Finally, the book suggests the establishment of a Defence and Aerospace Commission to oversee all functions pertaining to armament production, acquisitions and exports.
Making a Difference
This book provides the reader with a ground-breaking understanding of disability and social movements. By describing how disability is philosophically, historically, and theoretically positioned, Carling-Jenkins is able to then examine disability relationally through an evaluation of the contributions of groups engaged in similar human rights strug
Green Goals and Green Backs
This book analyzes implementation of Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) programs at the state level, examines costs, and suggests ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness. It introduces an EIS Cost Accounting System as an aid to understanding the form of the costs of the EIS process.
The International Dimension of Palestinian Terrorism
This book is a study of Palestinian terrorism outside of Israel, examining the ideological sources of Palestinian international terrorist activities, strategic and tactical considerations, and the debates within the Palestinian movement regarding international terrorism.
Sucesion Presidencial
The 1988 presidential election in Mexico was the beginning of a new era in Mexican history. In this volume, scholars and political practitioners explore the implications of the election for the Mexican political system and for Mexico's international relationships, especially with the United States.
Technology Choice
This book attempts to provide a theoretical framework for answering difficult questions evoked by the concept of technology choice primarily by conducting a review of the Appropriate Technology movement and its ideas and experiments.
