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"An original work of historical synthesis by an esteemed international scholar, this book offers the first comparative analysis of the four different types of collectivism (communism, Fascism; Nazism; anarchism) in twentieth-century Europe which aspired to create an 'alternative modernity'. The author presents not only the authoritarian alternatives to democracy of the past century, but also the experiment with anarchism undertaken in Spain in the late 1930s. The concept of the analysis is to show how these political systems are driven by rival visions of alternative modernity and how the prioritization of values plays out in politics. Each political concept discussed in the book found support among broad sectors of its respective population at one time or another, and were championed by professionals in the countries in which they took hold. The political vision which guided the construction (or in the anarchist case, attempted construction) of an alternative to democracy, oriented to an alternative future, is discussed in a balanced and erudite manner in each case. Debates within the participants in these projects are also focused. The book ends with a defense of liberal democracy, exploring departures from it in contemporary Hungary and Poland, but also the US"--

Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke each sought a new foundation for political order. This book serves as a reader's companion to Machiavelli's The Prince, Hobbes's Leviathan, and Locke's Second Treatise written for graduate students and scholars seeking a fuller understanding of these classic texts. How do these philosophers respond to perennial questions such as why anyone is ever obligated to obey a government and whether there are any limits to such an obligation. In this book, Bookman begins by sorting out the hermeneutical controversy between textualists and contextualists, offers a chapter-by-chapter commentary on the texts punctuated by questions for the reader's reflection, and finally suggests a firmer foundation for a theory of political obligation than Hobbes's and Locke's consent theories. Also included are bibliographical essays keyed to select bibliographies, providing readers with a wide-ranging, critical review of the secondary literature. Intended to be read alongside the primary work, the work is a full intellectual, critical, and bibliographical history, as well as a fresh examination of three classic texts in political theory and philosophy.

"This introductory book on Thai politics and the rule of law explains why chronically unstable Thailand struggles to mediate and adjudicate its political disputes. It focuses on the continuities between the pre-1932 and post-1932 periods. Since the shift to constitutional monarchy in 1932, the power of the monarch and military has endured; the legislature, electorate and, until recently, judiciary have been comparatively powerless; and constitutions and laws have been comparatively unimportant. Historical continuities are also evident in the persistence of hierarchical thinking and ethno-nationalism, both of which have inhibited open debates about governance, and in the emergence of a distinctively Thai legal culture. Thailand's governance was re-cast ambitiously in the 1890s, 1932 and 1997. Since 1997, governing Thailand and developing Thailand's economy have become harder. So political disputes have become more acute and the absence of a national consensus on dispute settlement mechanisms more obvious. Until governance is again re-cast, Thailand's political instability and cycle of coups will continue. This volume offers contemporary insights and historical context to the general reader, newcomers to Thailand, and students of Thai history, politics and law."--

In The Rise and Fall of Moral Conflicts in the United States and Canada, sociologist Mildred A. Schwartz and political scientist Raymond Tatalovich bring their disciplinary insights to the study of moral issues. Beginning with prohibition, Schwartz and Tatalovich trace the phases of its evolution from emergence, establishment, decline and resurgence, to resolution. Prohibition's life history generates a series of hypotheses about how passage through each of the phases affected subsequent developments and how these were shaped by the political institutions and social character of the United States and Canada. Using the history of prohibition in North America as a point of reference, the authors move on to address the anticipated progression and possible resolution of six contemporary moral issues: abortion, capital punishment, gun control, marijuana, pornography, and same-sex relations. Schwartz and Tatalovich build a new theoretical approach by drawing on scholarship on agenda-setting, mass media, social movements, and social problems. The Rise and Fall of Moral Conflicts provides new insights into how moral conflicts develop and interact with their social and political environment

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of figures and tables -- Notes on contributors -- Introduction: Political populism as a symptom of the great transformation of democracy -- Part I Language, media and the law -- 1 The micro-politics of right-wing populism -- 2 Populism 2.0: Social media and the false allure of 'unmediated' representation -- 3 From protecting individual rights to protecting the public: The changing parameters of populist-driven criminal law and penal policy -- Part II Dimensions of right-wing populism -- 4 Right-wing populism in context: A historical and systematic perspective -- 5 Populism and the radical right in Europe: The paradigmatic case of the French Front National -- 6 Ambivalences of cosmopolitanisms, elites and far-right populisms in twenty-first century Europe -- Part III Regimes, party systems, and political subjects -- 7 The role of populist parties and movements in transitions to hybrid regimes in Europe -- 8 Populism as a challenge for party systems: A comparison between Italy and Spain -- 9 'Citizens' or 'people'? Competing meanings of the political subject in Latin America -- Index

Against the dominant narrative first developed in the eighteenth century, which has held that international law had its origins in relations between sovereign European states that respected each other as free and equal, Boundaries of the International examines the deep entanglement of international law with European imperial expansion. As commercial relations with states such as the Ottoman and Empire and China intensified, European legal and political writers increasingly described them as anomalous and backward empires in a modern world of nation-states, even as European states were themselves expanding their imperial reach across the globe. The debate over the boundaries of international law included legal authorities from Vattel to Wheaton to Westlake but ranged well beyond professional jurists to political thinkers such as Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, and J.S. Mill, legislators and diplomats, colonial administrators and journalists. Dissident voices in this broader public debate insisted that European states had extensive legal obligations abroad. These critics provide valuable resources for the critical scrutiny of the political, economic, and legal inequalities that continue to afflict the global order.--

"Douglas Kellner offers a systematic, critically informed political and institutional study of television in the United States. Focusing on the relationship among television, the state, and business, he traces the history of television broadcasting, emphasizing its socioeconomic impact and its growing political power. Acknowledging that television has long served the interests of the powerful, he points out that it has dramatized conflicts within society and has on occasion led to valuable social criticism.Kellner's examination of television in the 1980s and, in particular, its role in the 1988 presidential election yields the conclusion that in our time television has worked increasingly to further conservative hegemony. In so doing, Kellner argues, contemporary television has helped produce a crisis of democracy.But Television and the Crisis of Democracy goes beyond description and diagnosis. In a discussion that is both analytical and comparative, Kellner presents alternative models to the existing structure of commercial broadcasting and shows how new technologies might be used to create a more democratic future for television,one that could enhance political knowledge and participation."--Provided by publisher.

"The world almost conquered famine. Until the 1980s, this scourge killed ten million people every decade, but by early 2000s mass starvation had all-but-disappeared. Today, famines are resurgent, driven by war, blockade, hostility to humanitarian principles, and a volatile global economy. In Mass Starvation, world-renowned expert on humanitarian crisis and response Alex de Waal, provides an authoritative history of modern famines: their causes, dimensions, and why they ended. He analyzes starvation as a crime, and breaks new ground in examining forced starvation as an instrument of genocide and war. Refuting the enduring but erroneous view that attributes famine to overpopulation and natural disaster, he shows how political decision or political failing is an essential element in every famine, while the spread of democracy and human rights, and the ending of wars, were major factors in the near-ending of this devastating phenomenon. Hard-hitting and deeply informed, Mass Starvation explains why man-made famine and the political decisions that could end it for good must once again become a top priority for the international community"--

The Clinton scandals. The Rise of militia and patriot groups. The proliferation of ?trash? TV. Record U.S. trade deficits. Isolated events, or is there some connecting thread? Susan Tolchin says it's anger?mainstream, inclusive, legitimate public anger?and it's not going to vanish until we as a polity acknowledge it and harness its power. How to tap into this pervasive political anger and release its creative energy without being swept away by its force is the dilemma of the 1990s for government leaders and citizens alike. The second edition of this acclaimed volume has been completed revised and updated to account for the ways in which recent events have contributed to the history, causes, and consequences of anger in American politics today. The book embraces positive solutions to problems we are all entitled to be angry about: economic uncertainty, cultural divisiveness, political disintegration, and a world changing faster than our ability to assimilate. Tolchin's solutions incorporate a renewed sense of community, enhanced political access, and responsive rather than reactive government.

This book studies the sources of inequality in contemporary South Korea and the social and political contention this engenders. Korean society is becoming more polarized. Demands for "economic democratization" and a fairer redistribution of wealth occupy centre-stage of political campaigns, debates and discourse. The contributions offer perspectives on this wide-ranging socio-political change by examining the transformation of organized labour, civil society, the emergence of new cleavages in society, and the growing ethnic diversity of Korea's population. Bringing together a team of scholars on Korea's transition and democratization, the story the books tells is one of a society acutely divided by the neo-liberal policies that accompanied and followed the Asian financial crisis. Taken together, the contributions argue that tackling inequalities are challenges that Korean policy-makers can no longer postpone. The solution, however, cannot be imposed, once again, from the top down, but needs to arise from a broader conversation including all segments of Korean society. The book is intended for a readership interested in South Korean politics specifically, and global experiences in transition more generally.

"The changing Arctic is of broad political concern and is being studied across many fields. This book investigates ongoing changes in the Arctic from a landscape perspective. It examines settlements and territories of the Barents Sea Coast, Northern Norway, the Russian Kola Peninsula, Svalbard and Greenland, from an interdisciplinary and design based and future oriented perspective. The Future North project has travelled Arctic regions since 2012, mapped landscapes and settlements, documented stories and practices and discussed possible futures with local actors. Reflecting the multidisciplinary of the project, the authors in this book look at political and economic strategies, urban development, land use strategies, local initiatives in specific locations that are subject to different forces of change. This book explores current material conditions in the Arctic as effects of industrial and political agency and social initiatives. It provides a combined view on the build environment and urbanism, as well as the cultural and material landscapes of the Arctic. The chapters move beyond single-disciplinary perspectives on the Arctic, and engages with futures, cultural landscapes and communities in ways that build both on architectural and ethnographic participatory methods"--

Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this study explores the ideas of belonging and citizenship among former pro-autonomy East Timorese who have elected to settle indefinitely in West Timor. The study follows different East Timorese groups and examines various ways they construct and negotiate their socio-political identities following the violent and destructive separation from their homeland. The East Timorese might have had Indonesia as their destination when they left the eastern half of the island in the aftermath of the referendum, but they have not relinquished their cultural identities as East Timorese. The study highlights the significance of the notions of origin, ancestry and alliance in our understanding of East Timorese place-making and belonging to a particular locality. Another feature of belonging that informs East Timorese identity is their narrative of sacrifice to maintain connections with their homeland and move on with their lives in Indonesia. These sacrificial narratives elaborate an East Timorese spirit of struggle and resilience, a feature further exemplified in the transformation of their political activities within the Indonesian political system.

This book examines water security as a prime example of how the economic, socio-cultural and political-normative systems that regulate access to water reflect the evolving and gendered power relations between different societal groups. Access to water is characterized by inequalities: it depends not only on natural water availability, but also on the respective socio-political context. It is regulated by gender-differentiated roles and responsibilities towards the resource, which are strongly influenced by, among others, tradition, religion, customary law, geographical availability, as well as the historical and socio-political context. While gender has been recognized as a key intervening variable in achieving equitable water access, most studies fail to acknowledge the deep interrelations between social structures and patterns of water use. Proof of these shortcomings is the enduring lack of data on water accessibility, availability and utilization that sufficiently acknowledges the relational nature of gender and other categories of power and difference, like class and socioeconomic status, as well as their comprehensive analysis. This book addresses this major research gap.

Few modern women have had as great a political impact as Margaret Hilda Roberts, the grocer's daughter from Grantham who, as Margaret Thatcher, became Britain's first woman prime minister. The longest serving British premier of the twentieth century, Mrs Thatcher has been the subject of both adulation and vilification. In Margaret Thatcher: A Life and Legacy, the leading historian Sir David Cannadine sets Margaret Thatcher in the context of recent British history. With elegance, wit, and historical insight, Cannadine charts Mrs Thatcher's upbringing and influences, her political career and life after politics, the impact of her policies, and her personal reputation and political legacy. The book also features a glossary of key terms, a chronology, a 'dramatis personae' of significant figures of the period, and a guide to further reading. Written by one of our foremost international historians, it is an essential work for anyone interested in the life and work of a towering-and often controversial- figure in modern British history, as well as students, academics, and researchers in the fields of modern history and politics

In a society that is increasingly marked by apathy, division, and moral incompetence, how might Christians set about working with others in such a way as to begin to address those challenges that seem to overwhelm our capacity to respond? In Radical Friendship, Ryan Newson argues that the often-neglected practice of communal discernment provides a path to faithful political engagement that is worthy of reconsideration, especially given its ability to create authentic friendships both within and beyond the church. Such friendships, Newson maintains, are capable of fostering a type of competence in people who engage the practice that can counteract those social, political forces that are antithetical to competence's formation. Uniquely, Newson explores the contours of communal discernment as a practice that is especially relevant to Christians seeking radical democratic alternatives to political liberalism. Communal discernment is shown to be capable of generating conscientious participation in grassroots politics; additionally, this practice enables Christians to enjoy reciprocal, discerning relationships with people of differing convictional communities. Indeed, communal discernment turns out to be capable of preparing Christians to recognize and celebrate analogues to the practice in the world at large