Download or read book Inside Rebellion written by Jeremy M. Weinstein and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-10-09 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some rebel groups abuse noncombatant populations, while others exhibit restraint. Insurgent leaders in some countries transform local structures of government, while others simply extract resources for their own benefit. In some contexts, groups kill their victims selectively, while in other environments violence appears indiscriminate, even random. This book presents a theory that accounts for the different strategies pursued by rebel groups in civil war, explaining why patterns of insurgent violence vary so much across conflicts. It does so by examining the membership, structure, and behavior of four insurgent movements in Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. Drawing on interviews with nearly two hundred combatants and civilians who experienced violence firsthand, it shows that rebels' strategies depend in important ways on how difficult it is to launch a rebellion. The book thus demonstrates how characteristics of the environment in which rebellions emerge constrain rebel organization and shape the patterns of violence that civilians experience.

Download or read book Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy written by Kenneth A. Schultz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-07-26 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kenneth Schultz explores the effects of democratic politics on the use and success of coercive diplomacy. He argues that open political competition between the government and opposition parties influences the decision to use threats in international crises, how rival states interpret those threats, and whether or not crises can be settled short of war. The relative transparency of their political processes means that, while democratic governments cannot easily conceal domestic constraints against using force, they can also credibly demonstrate resolve when their threats enjoy strong domestic support. As a result, compared to their non-democratic counterparts, democracies are more selective about making threats, but those they do make are more likely to be successful - that is, to gain a favorable outcome without resort to war. Schultz develops his argument through a series of game-theoretic models and tests the resulting hypothesis using both statistical analyses and historical case studies.

Download or read book Transitions to Democracy written by Kathryn Stoner and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifteen case studies by scholars and practitioners demonstrate the synergy between domestic and international influences that can precipitate democratic transitions. As demonstrated by current events in Tunisia and Egypt, oppressive regimes are rarely immune to their citizens’ desire for democratic government. Of course, desire is always tempered by reality; therefore how democratic demands are made manifest is a critical source of study for both political scientists and foreign policy makers. What issues and consequences surround the fall of a government, what type of regime replaces it, and to what extent are these efforts successful? Kathryn Stoner and Michael McFaul have created an accessible book of fifteen case studies from around the world that will help students understand these complex issues. Their model builds upon Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead's classic work, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, using a rubric of four identifying factors that can be applied to each case study, making comparison relatively easy. Transitions to Democracy yields strong comparisons and insights. For instance, the study reveals that efforts led by the elite and involving the military are generally unsuccessful, whereas mass mobilization, civic groups, and new media have become significant factors in supporting and sustaining democratic actors. This collection of writings by scholars and practitioners is organized into three parts: successful transitions, incremental transitions, and failed transitions. Extensive primary research and a rubric that can be applied to burgeoning democracies offer readers valuable tools and information.

Download or read book Transforming Comparative Education written by Martin Carnoy and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past fifty years, new theoretical approaches to comparative and international education have transformed it as an academic field. We know that fields of research are often shaped by "collectives" of researchers and students converging at auspicious times throughout history. Part institutional memoir and part intellectual history, Transforming Comparative Education takes the Stanford "collective" as a framework for discussing major trends and contributions to the field from the early 1960s to the present day, and beyond. Carnoy draws on interviews with researchers at Stanford to present the genesis of their key theoretical findings in their own words. Moving through them chronologically, Carnoy situates each work within its historical context, and argues that comparative education is strongly influenced by its economic and political environment. Ultimately, he discusses the potential influence of feminist theory, organizational theory, impact evaluation, world society theory, and state theory on comparative work in the future, and the political and economic changes that might inspire new directions in the field.

Download or read book Promoting Democracy and the Rule of Law written by A. Magen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-07-31 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: European and American experts systematically compare U.S. and EU strategies to promote democracy around the world – from the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to Latin America, the former Soviet bloc, and Southeast Asia. In doing so, the authors debunk the pernicious myth that there exists a transatlantic divide over democracy promotion.

Download or read book Why Cities Lose written by Jonathan A. Rodden and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prizewinning political scientist traces the origins of urban-rural political conflict and shows how geography shapes elections in America and beyond Why is it so much easier for the Democratic Party to win the national popular vote than to build and maintain a majority in Congress? Why can Democrats sweep statewide offices in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan yet fail to take control of the same states' legislatures? Many place exclusive blame on partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. But as political scientist Jonathan A. Rodden demonstrates in Why Cities Lose, the left's electoral challenges have deeper roots in economic and political geography. In the late nineteenth century, support for the left began to cluster in cities among the industrial working class. Today, left-wing parties have become coalitions of diverse urban interest groups, from racial minorities to the creative class. These parties win big in urban districts but struggle to capture the suburban and rural seats necessary for legislative majorities. A bold new interpretation of today's urban-rural political conflict, Why Cities Lose also points to electoral reforms that could address the left's under-representation while reducing urban-rural polarization.

Download or read book The Comparative Politics of Education written by Terry M. Moe and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides new evidence on teachers unions and their political activities across nations, and offers a foundation for a comparative politics of education.

Download or read book Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature written by Ato Quayson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines tragedy and tragic philosophy from the Greeks through Shakespeare to the present day. It explores key themes in the links between suffering and ethics through postcolonial literature. Ato Quayson reconceives how we think of World literature under the singular and fertile rubric of tragedy. He draws from many key works – Oedipus Rex, Philoctetes, Medea, Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear – to establish the main contours of tragedy. Quayson uses Shakespeare's Othello, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Tayeb Salih, Arundhati Roy, Toni Morrison, Samuel Beckett and J.M. Coetzee to qualify and expand the purview and terms by which Western tragedy has long been understood. Drawing on key texts such as The Poetics and The Nicomachean Ethics, and augmenting them with Frantz Fanon and the Akan concept of musuo (taboo), Quayson formulates a supple, insightful new theory of ethical choice and the impediments against it. This is a major book from a leading critic in literary studies.

Download or read book Research from Archival Case Records written by Philip C.C. Huang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-04-30 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Legal history studies have often focused mainly on codified law, without attention to actual practice, and on the past, without relating it to the present. As the title—Research from Archival Case Records: Law, Society, and Culture in China—of this book suggests, the authors deliberately follow the research method of starting from court actions and only on that basis engage in discussions of laws and legal concepts and theory. The articles cover a range of topics and source materials, both past and present. They provide some surprising findings—about disjunctures between code and practice, adjustments between them, and how those reveal operative principles and logics different from what the legal texts alone might suggest. Contributors are: Kathryn Bernhardt, Danny Hsu, Philip C. C. Huang, Christopher Isett, Yasuhiko Karasawa, Margaret Kuo, Huaiyin Li, Jennifer M. Neighbors, Bradly W. Reed, Matthew H. Sommer, Huey Bin Teng, Lisa Tran, Elizabeth VanderVen, and Chenjun You.

Download or read book Southeast Asia in Political Science written by Erik Martinez Kuhonta and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a state-of-the-art review of Southeast Asian political studies through a dialogue involving theoretical analysis, area studies, and qualitative methodology.

Download or read book A Moral Political Economy written by Federica Carugati and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economies - and the government institutions that support them - reflect a moral and political choice, a choice we can make and remake. Since the dawn of industrialization and democratization in the late eighteenth century, there has been a succession of political economic frameworks, reflecting changes in technology, knowledge, trade, global connections, political power, and the expansion of citizenship. The challenges of today reveal the need for a new moral political economy that recognizes the politics in political economy. It also requires the redesign of our social, economic, and governing institutions based on assumptions about humans as social beings rather than narrow self-serving individualists. This Element makes some progress toward building a new moral political economy by offering both a theory of change and some principles for institutional (re)design.

Download or read book The Institutional Imperative written by Erik Kuhonta and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-18 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a comparative-historical study of the politics of equitable development in Southeast Asia and the role of political institutions in addressing structural inequalities.

Download or read book Brokers Voters and Clientelism written by Susan C. Stokes and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism studies distributive politics: how parties and governments use material resources to win elections. The authors develop a theory that explains why loyal supporters, rather than swing voters, tend to benefit from pork-barrel politics; why poverty encourages clientelism and vote buying; and why redistribution and voter participation do not justify non-programmatic distribution.

Download or read book Power and Purpose written by James M. Goldgeier and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2003-10-29 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russia, once seen as America's greatest adversary, is now viewed by the United States as a potential partner. This book traces the evolution of American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union, and later Russia, during the tumultuous and uncertain period following the end of the cold war. It examines how American policymakers—particularly in the executive branch—coped with the opportunities and challenges presented by the new Russia. Drawing on extensive interviews with senior U.S. and Russian officials, the authors explain George H. W. Bush's response to the dramatic coup of August 1991 and the Soviet breakup several months later, examine Bill Clinton's efforts to assist Russia's transformation and integration, and analyze George W. Bush's policy toward Russia as September 11 and the war in Iraq transformed international politics. Throughout, the book focuses on the benefits and perils of America's efforts to promote democracy and markets in Russia as well as reorient Russia from security threat to security ally. Understanding how three U.S. administrations dealt with these critical policy questions is vital in assessing not only America's Russia policy, but also efforts that might help to transform and integrate other former adversaries in the future.

Download or read book Politics Beyond the Capital written by Kent Eaton and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2004-07-22 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A recent wave of decentralization in Latin America has increased the prominence of politicians at the subnational level. Politics Beyond the Capital is the first book to place this trend in comparative historical perspective, examining past episodes of decentralization alongside contemporary ones to determine whether consistent causal factors are at play. At the center of the book is the rigorous testing of two key hypotheses that attribute decentralization to liberalizing changes in political regime type and economic development strategy. The book focuses on the four Latin American countries where politicians have most extensively engaged in the redesign of subnational institutions: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. By reframing the "politics of decentralization" as the "politics of designing subnational institutions," the book moves beyond the policy orientation of much of the current literature, and broadens the debate by analyzing not just decentralization but re-centralization as well.

Download or read book Assimilation written by Catherine S. Ramírez and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a hundred years, the story of assimilation has animated the nation-building project of the United States. And still today, the dream or demand of a cultural "melting pot" circulates through academia, policy institutions, and mainstream media outlets. Noting society’s many exclusions and erasures, scholars in the second half of the twentieth century persuasively argued that only some social groups assimilate. Others, they pointed out, are subject to racialization. In this bold, discipline-traversing cultural history, Catherine Ramírez develops an entirely different account of assimilation. Weaving together the legacies of US settler colonialism, slavery, and border control, Ramírez challenges the assumption that racialization and assimilation are separate and incompatible processes. In fascinating chapters with subjects that range from nineteenth century boarding schools to the contemporary artwork of undocumented immigrants, this book decouples immigration and assimilation and probes the gap between assimilation and citizenship. It shows that assimilation is not just a process of absorption and becoming more alike. Rather, assimilation is a process of racialization and subordination and of power and inequality.

Download or read book Moscow in Movement written by Samuel A. Greene and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-20 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moscow in Movement is the first exhaustive study of social movements, protest, and the state-society relationship in Vladimir Putin's Russia. Beginning in 2005 and running through the summer of 2013, the book traces the evolution of the relationship between citizens and their state through a series of in-depth case studies, explaining how Russians mobilized to defend human and civil rights, the environment, and individual and group interests: a process that culminated in the dramatic election protests of 2011–2012 and their aftermath. To understand where this surprising mobilization came from, and what it might mean for Russia's political future, the author looks beyond blanket arguments about the impact of low levels of trust, the weight of the Soviet legacy, or authoritarian repression, and finds an active and boisterous citizenry that nevertheless struggles to gain traction against a ruling elite that would prefer to ignore them. On a broader level, the core argument of this volume is that political elites, by structuring the political arena, exert a decisive influence on the patterns of collective behavior that make up civil society—and the author seeks to test this theory by applying it to observable facts in historical and comparative perspective. Moscow in Movement will be of interest to anyone looking for a bottom-up, citizens' eye view of recent Russian history, and especially to scholars and students of contemporary Russian politics and society, comparative politics, and sociology.