"The development and use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has been a contentious topic for the last three decades. While there have been a number of social science analyses of the issues, this is the first book to assess the role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the debate at such a wide geographic scale.The various positions, for and against GMOs, particularly with regard to transgenic crops, articulated by NGOs in the debate are dissected, classified and juxtaposed to corresponding campaigns. These are discussed in the context of key conceptual paradigms, including nature fundamentalism and the organic movement, post-colonialism, food sovereignty, anti-globalisation, sustainability and feminism. The book also analyses how NGOs interpret the debate and the persuasive communication tactics they use. This provides greater undiferstanding of the complexity of negotiations in the debate and explains its specific features such as its global scope and difficulty in finding compromises.The author assesses the long-term interests of various participants and changes in perceptions of science and in public communication as a result. Examples of major NGOs such as Greenpeace, Oxfam and WWF are included, but the author also provides new research into the role of NGOs in Russia."--Provided by publisher.

'Takeover' offers the first systematic study of state takeovers of school districts. Domingo Morel examines the factors that contribute to state takeovers as well as the effects and political implications of takeovers on racialized communities, the communities most often affected by them. Although states have generally justified state takeovers based on poor academic performance, questions of race and political power play a critical role in the emergence of state takeovers of local school districts.

The European Union (EU) is facing one of the rockiest periods in its existence. No time in its history has it looked so economically fragile, so unsecure about how to protect its borders, so divided over how to tackle the crisis of legitimacy facing its institutions, and so under assault of Eurosceptic parties. The unprecedented levels of integration in recent decades have led to increased public contestation, yet at the same the EU is more reliant on public support for its continued legitimacy than ever before. This work examines the role of public opinion in the European integration process. It develops a novel theory of public opinion that stresses the deep interconnectedness between people's views about European and national politics, and suggests that public opinion cannot simply be characterised as either Eurosceptic or not, but rather consists of different types.

'Montaigne and the Tolerance of Politics' argues for toleration as a practice of negotiation, looking to a philosopher not usually considered political: Michel de Montaigne. Douglas I. Thompson draws on Montaigne's Essais to recover the idea that political negotiation grows out of genuine care for public goods and the establishment of political trust. The work arg that Montaigne's view of tolerance is worth recovering and reconsidering in contemporary democratic societies where political leaders and ordinary citizens are becoming less able to talk to each other to resolve political conflicts and work for shared public goods.

Across the Muslim world, religion plays an increasingly prominent role in both the private and public lives of over a billion people. Observers struggle to understand the consequences of this Islamic resurgence. Will democratic political participation by an increasingly religious population lead to victories by Islamists at the ballot box? Will more conspicuously pious Muslims participate in politics and markets in a fundamentally different way than they had previously? Will a renewed attention to Islam lead Muslim democracies to turn away from alignments with the West and toward an Islamic civilizational identity? 'Piety and Public Opinion' presents a fresh new perspective on these issues, based on the simple fact that the answers to these questions depend on what ordinary Muslims think and do.

After the end of the Cold War, liberalism emerged as the world's dominant political-economic ideology, and economic liberalism seemed to have achieved global hegemony. In this work, Mark Vail acknowledges the dominance of economic liberalism, but argues that its implementation in specific countries is always unique and dependent upon powerful historical factors. He focuses on France, Germany, and Italy-countries that many scholars do not view as 'liberal' at all-and contends they have in fact developed distinct forms of national liberalism, of which their postwar models of capitalism were merely one manifestation.

This text argues that the rise of institutions and organizations dedicated to global health - global health governance - has emerged, grown, and proven itself resilient over the past generation because international society has come to understand addressing global health as part of a larger sense of moral responsibility and obligation.

What explains the progress that American women have made since the 1960s? While many point to the feminist movement, this work argues that higher education policies paved the way for women to surpass men as the recipients of bachelor's degrees and helped them move toward full, first-class citizenship.

An important new interpretation of Machiavelli's political thinking, appearing in English for the first time.

The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920 giving women in the United States the right to vote. This edited volume looks back at this 100-year history and asks, how has women's political engagement unfolded over the last century? The chapters consider women's successes in the political realm but also biases that women still confront. The contributors pay particular attention to the diverse backgrounds and perspectives women bring to the political arena, reminding us of the insights provided by an intersectional perspective.

Reputations abound in world politics, but we know little about how reputations form and evolve: namely, how do countries form reputations? Do these reputations affect interstate politics in the global arena? In this work, Crescenzi develops a theory of reputation dynamics to help identify when reputations form in ways that affect world politics, both in the realms of international conflict and cooperation.

Civil wars are one of the most pressing problems facing the world. Common approaches such as mediation, intervention, and peacekeeping have produced some results in managing ongoing civil wars, but they fall short in preventing civil wars in the first place. This text argues for considering civil wars from a developmental perspective to identify steps to assure that nascent, low-level armed conflicts do not escalate to full-scale civil wars.

'Gender and Representation in Latin America' makes, for the first time, a comprehensive comparison of gender and representation across the region and at five different levels: the presidency, cabinets, national legislatures, political parties, and subnational governments. Drawing on the expertise of scholars of women, gender, and political institutions, this text is the most comprehensive analysis of women's representation in Latin America to date, and an important resource for research on women's representation worldwide.

What kind of nuclear strategy and posture does the US need to defend itself and its allies? According to conventional wisdom, the answer to this question is straightforward: the US needs the ability to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and respond with a devastating nuclear counterattack. These arguments are logical and persuasive, but, when compared to the empirical record, they raise an important puzzle. Empirically, we see that the US has consistently maintained a nuclear posture that is much more robust than a mere second-strike capability. How do we make sense of this contradiction? Scholarly deterrence theory argues that the explanation is simple - policymakers are wrong. This work takes a different approach. Rather than dismiss it as illogical, it explains the logic of American nuclear strategy.

What has been done since the 2008 financial crisis to reform the regulation of derivatives markets? The volume analyzes the goals, limitations, and unexpected outcomes associated with post-crisis international initiatives to regulate these markets, as well as the different transnational, inter-state, and domestic political dynamics that have shaped these outcomes.