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"Dániel Mikecz addresses in this study the tensions between oppositional civil society and party-political actors. As successive elections demonstrate the increasing confidence of the illiberal regime of Viktor Orbán, left and liberal parties of the opposition have faced a prolonged crisis in credibility. At the same time, the civil society has not been immobile, and bottom-up initiatives, social and political movements, and non-governmental organizations have gained momentum in the public sphere. The ruling power is also active in the extra-parliamentary political arena. Through national consultations, Peace Marches, and other means, Orbán's governing Fidesz party has mobilized voters outside of election campaigns and has implemented a so-called movement governance. The study offers a vivid examination of this top-down or astroturf mobilization of the regime. Mikecz identifies the different patterns of activism and creates a coherent typology. He describes in detail each kind of activism based on opinion surveys, protest surveys and content analysis. The categorization and comprehensive exploration of civil movements provide a deep understanding of the mechanisms of illiberal postcommunist regimes"--

Groves Conference on Marriage and Family: History & Impact on Family Science offers family scholars and practitioners a detailed history of the Groves Conference from its origin in 1934 to the present day. Founded by Ernest R. Groves as a cutting-edge organization for understanding families, its history portrays a time of social transformation and the press for equity in such areas as race, ethnicity, gender, and social and geographic mobility as the conferences addressed unchallenged assumptions in the field of family science. The Groves Conference on Marriage and Family continues to meet each year across the United States and internationally to explore how families can be resilient in the face of changes that will affect their daily lives - now and in the future.

In contemporary China, colleges and universities have become the most important source for the Communist Party of China (CPC) to select political elites. With reference to undergraduates in contemporary Chinese higher education, this article explores the impact of "redness" (family background and ideology) and professional accomplishments (academic achievements) on the selection of Party members. Findings in this study have shown that in Chinese higher education, one's "redness" and "professional" accomplishments remain the main standards to select political elites. First, ideology is the primary criterion for selection of Party members among college/university students. The "redder" one's ideology, the greater is the probability of one being selected for membership. Second, a stronger "red" family background could enhance one's likelihood of selection by the Party, but primarily for those who are in the lower study year in their university/college schooling. This is particularly evident if one's father is a government official, a state-owned enterprise manager or a Party member. Third, the "professional" accomplishment criterion appears to be increasingly important at the higher study years in the university. Specifically, junior and senior students who have higher academic rankings and student awards are associated with a higher probability of selection by the Party. (China/GIGA)

In Elite Networks, Vuk Vukovic offers a different perspective on the long-run origins of inequality by introducing the concept of elite networks and examining their impact on the distribution of power and incomes. Calling upon historical arguments and direct empirical evidence, Vukovic contends that true causes of inequality lie in the misuse of political power. Offering a unique contribution to the field, this book argues that to lower inequality and prevent incentives of elite network formation, we must first and foremost lower centralized political power and re-empower citizens and the community by rebuilding trust and relying on the democratic trial-and-error mechanism.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Air Force expeditionary aerospace force concept seeks to spread deployments more evenly across its forces and increase the predictability of deployments. By dual-tasking some fighter squadrons the Air Force could fulfill two requirements as the 2010 Concept envisions. Although significant challenges could impede the ability to maximize these benefits, the Air Force has not specifically analyzed what is needed to implement dual-tasking by 2010. Dual-tasking would result in more efficient use of squadrons and greatly reduce the need to use squadrons for more than one 90-day deployment every 15 months. Dual-tasking would provide theater commanders with the same number of aircraft to meet requirements as under current practice; however, the aircraft would come from fewer squadrons. Because a larger proportion of a squadron's aircraft would be used to meet requirements, and because dual-tasking uses fewer squadrons to meet requirements, the need to repeatedly use the same squadrons would be reduced. The number of squadrons needed for more than one 90-day period over a 15-month period would decline from 26 squadrons to five. More training would be required under dual-tasking. Yet, the Air Force has not quantified this increase, assessed how it would manage the increase, or projected how it would support such an increase either logistically or in its budget. To support deploying a greater portion of dual-tasked squadron's aircraft, more of the authorized maintenance positions would have to be filled. More than half of the maintenance specialties at the wings GAO analyzed were undermanned, and some were manned at less than 60 percent. Dual-tasking could cause maintenance personnel to be deployed more frequently than desired unless more of these vacant positions are filled. In addition, almost all of a squadron's pilots would be needed to meet dual-tasking requirements. This will pose challenges in managing pilot deployments."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The armed services have significantly reduced their procurement of new weapons systems and are keeping their existing systems longer than originally anticipated. The Department of Defense (DOD) estimates that it is spending $59 billion a year on logistics support to operate and sustain weapons systems, but DOD believes that better logistics support practices could reduce these costs by as much as 20 percent. To cut costs and improve efficiency, the military services have begun implementing logistics support strategies that rely on the private sector. DOD Regulation 5000.2-R expresses a preference for using long-term contractor logistics support but requires that an analysis be done first to determine how logistics support work is to be allocated to public or private entities. It is impossible to determine whether initial cost-effectiveness estimates for proposed contractor-logistics-support approaches are being achieved because the Army and Navy lack the required data. Consequently, the services may be adopting support approaches without knowing whether expected readiness improvements and cost-reduction goals are being met, where adjustments are needed, or the conditions under which the various support approaches are likely to achieve the most cost-effective results. Comparisons of the same or similar work done by military and private facilities are not possible or were inconclusive in determining which is more cost-effective. No comparisons were possible for the Army because, as a matter of policy, it does not divide its depot-level maintenance work for the same items between Army and contractor facilities. Only four comparisons of aircraft systems were possible in the Navy, and these showed mixed results. Although contractors have provided some logistics support needs, major Army and Navy commands have concerns about widespread contractor logistics support. However, the DOD's and the services' actions so far do not fully address these concerns, or the issues have not been fully resolved."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed grant monitoring and evaluation efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Justice Program (OJP). This report discusses the monitoring of discretionary grants awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA) Byrne Program and the Violence Against Women Office (VAWO) within OJP. In constant 2000 dollars, Byrne and VAWO discretionary grants grew about 85 percent--from $105 million to $194 million between fiscal years 1997 and 2000. These funds were awarded to state and local governments, either on a competitive basis or pursuant to legislation allocating funds through congressional earmarks. BJA and VAWO, together with OJP's Office of the Comptroller, are responsible for monitoring these grants to ensure they are implemented as intended, are responsive to grant goals and objectives, and comply with statutory regulations and policy guidelines. OJP's monitoring requirements include the development of monitoring plans that articulate who will conduct monitoring, the manner in which it will be done, and when and what type of monitoring activities are planned. Grant managers are to maintain documentation in grant files using such techniques as written reports of on-site reviews and telephone interview write-ups. GAO's review of 46 Byrne and 84 VAWO discretionary grants indicated that only 29 percent of Byrne and 11 percent of VAWO award files contained monitoring plans. In addition, for awards covering the most recent 12-month period, grant managers were not consistently documenting their monitoring activities. BJA and VAWO cannot systematically oversee grant managers' compliance with monitoring requirements because documentation is not readily available. Both BJA and VAWO rely on staff meetings and discussions to identify grant problems or monitoring issues, and neither have management information systems to compile and analyze data on monitoring activities. OJP has begun to work with its bureaus and offices to address grant management problems, but it is too early to tell whether OJP's efforts will be effective."

What is 'islamo-gauchisme'? The word sparked heated debates in French academia and in public conversations in 2020–2021. This article endeavors to shed light on the origin of the notion, to look at its uses within and outside academia, and to reflect on the political ramifications of the controversy. Islamo-gauchisme is an unsubstantial notion which operates as political nudge in the public debate: it sounds sufficiently threatening and self-explanatory to be taken seriously. This study shows that the controversy on islamo-gauchisme has helped mainstream illiberal and right-wing policies, to make them plainly acceptable to the public.

Empirical examinations of partisan advisers detail significant differences in their policy work, influence, and their patterns of interactions with other policy actors. This raises important implications for their potential contributions to policy failure avoidance. Using recent qualitative data from elite interviews in Canada, this study finds that advisers' policy work contributes to political policy failure avoidance as policy is developed. The findings help unpack the types and nature of policy‐based resource exchanges that advisers undertake, through advisory and non‐advisory forms of policy work, that strengthen political control and manage policy perceptions by other actors during policy development.

This study scrutinizes Indonesian Political Language from cooperative principle perspective. The object of the study is Indonesian political language in words, phrase, clause, sentence, or discourse taken from Indonesian newspapers. The data was analyzed using Grice's cooperative principle. The study shows that politicians ex- ploit the maxims of cooperative principles regularly. Politicians violate the maxim of quantity to express strong commitment or hide information. Giving incorrect information violates the maxim of quality to obey quantity maxim. They also vio- late the maxim of relevance by saying things, which are not germane to the topic under discussion. Key words: Cooperative Principles, maxims of conversation, and violation.

Local self government units fulfill their existence with providing participation, autonomy and efficiency as three main principles of local democracy. They can achieve these principles only with adequate and sufficient administrative capacity. We acknowledge four groups of factors for building administrative capacity. These factors are on state and local level. In article and through research we present a conceptual model of factors for building administrative capacity. Four groups are political, economical, administrative-organizational and social factors that influence capacity. In article we put in focus political group of factors on local level. Article gives a lot of directions for further explorations and empirical testing.

In terms of Germany's foreign policy the concept of "chancellor democracy" begins to lose its validity. Nonetheless, the head of the government remains, as before, the leading political actor. In accordance with their own styles and characters each of the chancellors left their mark in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. Many German political scientists and historians are right to understand the "chancellor democracy" as historical concentration of power in the Federal chancellery to the detriment of ministerial principle. Indeed, in all turning points of German history the most important decisions had been taken by the Federal chancellery and by the Chancellor alone.