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Why Democracies Develop and Decline
by Michael Coppedge Amanda B. Edgell Carl Henrik Knutsen Staffan I. LindbergThe Varieties of Democracy project (V-Dem) pioneered new ways to conceptualize and measure democracy, producing a multidimensional and disaggregated data set on democracy around the world that is now widely used by researchers, activists, and governments. Why Democracies Develop and Decline draws on this data to present a comprehensive overview and rigorous empirical tests of the factors that contribute to democratization and democratic decline, looking at economic, social, institutional, geographic, and international factors. It is the most authoritative and encompassing empirical analysis of the causes of democratization and reversals. The volume also proposes a comprehensive theoretical framework and presents an up-to-date description of global democratic developments from the French Revolution to the present. Each chapter leverages the specialized expertise of its authors, yet their sustained collaboration lends the book an unusually unified approach and a coherent theory and narrative.
Why Democracies Flounder and Fail: Remedying Mass Society Politics
by Michael HaasDemocracy is in crisis because voices of the people are ignored due to a politics of mass society. After demonstrating how the French Fourth Republic failed, wherein Singapore’s totalitarianism is a dangerous model, Washington is enmeshed in gridlock, and there is a global democracy deficit, solutions are offered to revitalize democracy as the best form of government. The book demonstrates how mass society politics operates, with intermediate institutions of civil society (media, pressure groups, political parties) no longer transmitting the will of the people to government but instead are concerned with corporate interests and have developed oligarchical mindsets. Rather than micro-remedy bandaids, the author focuses on the need to transform governing philosophies from pragmatic to humanistic solutions.
Why Democracy Deepens
by Anoop Sadanandan'Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic', warned Bhimrao Ambedkar, the principal architect of the country's constitution, a year into independence. The social order - the soil on which India's new democratic edifice was then being erected - was marked by social hierarchies and economic vulnerabilities. Decades of socio-economic changes since then would transform this old order, albeit unevenly across Indian states, to decisively shape the development of democracy in the country. Why Democracy Deepens relates how these socio-economic changes have deepened democracy in India beyond its topsoil. Drawing on his research in villages and states, Anoop Sadanandan explains how socio-economic changes have heightened the need for local voter information, and have promoted grassroots democracy in some Indian states. By exploring the pivotal political developments in the world's largest democracy, the book puts forward a theory of local democratization.
Why Democracy is Oppositional
by John MedearisIs infrequent voting the most we can expect from a free citizenry? Would democracy be more robust if our political discourse were more deliberative? John Medearis's trenchant and trend-bucking work of political philosophy argues that democracies face significant challenges that go beyond civic lethargy and unreasonable debate. Democracy is inherently a fragile state of affairs, he reminds us. Revisiting fundamental questions about the system in theory and practice, Why Democracy Is Oppositional helps us see why preserving democracy has always been-and will always be-a struggle.<P><P> As citizens of democracies seek political control over their destinies, they confront forces that threaten to dominate their lives. These forces may take the form of runaway financial markets, powerful special interests, expanding militaries, or dysfunctional legislatures. But citizens of democracies help create the very institutions that overwhelm them. Hostile threats do not generally come from the outside but are the product of citizens' own collective activities. Medearis contends that democratic action perpetually arises to reclaim egalitarian control over social forces and institutions that have become alienated from large numbers of citizens. Democracy is therefore necessarily oppositional. Concerted, contentious political activities of all kinds are fundamental to it, while consensus and easy compromise are rarities.<P> Recovering insights from political theorists such as Karl Marx and John Dewey, Why Democracy Is Oppositional addresses contemporary issues ranging from the global financial crisis and economic inequality to drone warfare and mass incarceration.
Why Did Europe Conquer the World?
by Philip T. HoffmanBetween 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe rise to the top, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? Why didn't these powers establish global dominance? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, distinguished economic historian Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations--such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution--fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if variables had been at all different, Europe would not have achieved critical military innovations, and another power could have become master of the world.In vivid detail, Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development and military rivalry. Compared to their counterparts in China, Japan, South Asia, and the Middle East, European leaders--whether chiefs, lords, kings, emperors, or prime ministers--had radically different incentives, which drove them to make war. These incentives, which Hoffman explores using an economic model of political costs and financial resources, resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector from the Middle Ages on, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize.Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy.
Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? (Routledge Global Security Studies)
by Jane K. Cramer A. Trevor ThrallThis edited volume presents the foremost scholarly thinking on why the US invaded Iraq in 2003, a pivotal event in both modern US foreign policy and international politics. In the years since the US invasion of Iraq it has become clear that the threat of weapons of mass destruction was not as urgent as the Bush administration presented it and that Saddam Hussein was not involved with either Al Qaeda or 9/11. Many consider the war a mistake and question why Iraq was invaded. A majority of Americans now believe that the public were deliberately misled by the Bush administration in order to bolster support for the war. Public doubt has been strengthened by the growing number of critical scholarly analyses and in-depth journalistic investigations about the invasion that suggest the administration was not candid about its reasons for wanting to take action against Iraq. This volume begins with a survey of private scholarly views about the war’s origins, then assesses the current state of debate by organising the best recent thinking by foreign policy and international relations experts on why the US invaded Iraq. The book covers a broad range of approaches to explaining Iraq – the role of the uncertainty of intelligence, cognitive biases, ideas, Israel, and oil, highlighting areas of both agreement and disagreement. This book will be of much interest to students of the Iraq War, US foreign and security policy, strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics and IR/Security Studies in general.
Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide
by Alexander Laban HintonAlexander Hinton focuses on the devastation that took place in Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979 under the Khmer Rouge in order to explore why mass murder happens and what motivates perpetrators to kill.
Why Didn't We Riot?: A Black Man in Trumpland
by Issac J. BaileyIn these impassioned, powerful essays, an award-winning journalist deals forthrightly with what it means to be Black in Trump&’s America. South Carolina–based journalist Issac J. Bailey reflects on a wide range of complex, divisive topics—from police brutality and Confederate symbols to respectability politics and white discomfort—which have taken on a fresh urgency with the protest movement sparked by George Floyd&’s killing. Bailey has been honing his views on these issues for the past quarter of a century in his professional and private life, which included an eighteen-year stint as a member of a mostly white Evangelical Christian church. Why Didn&’t We Riot? speaks to and for the millions of Black and Brown people throughout the United States who were effectively pushed back to the back of the bus in the Trump era by a media that prioritized the concerns and feelings of the white working class and an administration that made white supremacists giddy, and explains why the country&’s fate in 2020 and beyond is largely in their hands. It will be an invaluable resource for the everyday reader, as well as political analysts, college professors and students, and political consultants and campaigns vying for high office.
Why Dissent Matters: Because Some People See Things the Rest of Us Miss
by William KaplanFrances Kelsey was a quiet Canadian doctor and scientist who stood up to a huge pharmaceutical company wanting to market a new drug - thalidomide - and prevented an American tragedy. The nature writer Rachel Carson identified an emerging environmental disaster and pulled the fire alarm. Public protests, individual dissenters, judges, and juries can change the world - and they do. A wide-ranging and provocative work on controversial subjects, Why Dissent Matters tells a story of dissent and dissenters - people who have been attacked, bullied, ostracized, jailed, and, sometimes when it is all over, celebrated. William Kaplan shows that dissent is noisy, messy, inconvenient, and almost always time-consuming, but that suppressing it is usually a mistake - it’s bad for the dissenter but worse for the rest of us. Drawing attention to the voices behind international protests such as Occupy Wall Street and Boycott, Divest, and Sanction, he contends that we don’t have to do what dissenters want, but we should listen to what they say. Our problems are not going away. There will always be abuses of power to confront, wrongs to right, and new opportunities for dissenting voices to say, "Stop, listen to me." Why Dissent Matters may well lead to a different and more just future.
Why Do Communities Need Rules? (Community Questions)
by Martha E. RustadNo matter their size, all communities need rules to keep their members safe, healthy, and happy. A question-answer format and kid-friendly photos show how both written rules (e.g., traffic laws) and unwritten rules (e.g., character values such as honesty) help communities grow and thrive. A simple activity promotes active community participation.
Why Do They Vote That Way?: from The Righteous Mind (A Vintage Short)
by Jonathan HaidtTo understand what drives the rift that divides our populace between liberal and conservative, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has spent twenty-five year examining the moral foundations that undergird and inform two differing world views: the political left and right place different values of importance on order, care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and liberty. From one of our keenest dissectors of moral systems, Why Do They Vote That Way? explains how deeply ingrained moral systems have estranged conservatives and liberals from one another while crossing the political divide in a search for understanding the miracle of human cooperation. A Vintage Shorts Selection. An ebook short.
Why Do We Recycle?: Markets, Values, and Public Policy
by Frank AckermanThe earnest warnings of an impending "solid waste crisis" that permeated the 1980s provided the impetus for the widespread adoption of municipal recycling programs, and since that time America has witnessed a remarkable rise in public participation in recycling activities. Recently, however, a backlash against these programs has developed. A vocal group of "anti-recyclers" has appeared, arguing that recycling is not an economically efficient strategy for addressing waste management problems. In Why Do We Recycle? Frank Ackerman examines the arguments for and against recycling, focusing on the debate surrounding the use of economic mechanisms to determine the value of recycling. Based on previously unpublished research, Ackerman presents an alternative view of the theory of market incentives, challenging the notion that setting appropriate prices and allowing unfettered competition will result in the most efficient level of recycling. Among the topics he considers are: externality issues, the landfill crisis and disposal facility siting, container deposit legislation, environmental issues that fall outside of market theory, costs and benefits of municipal recycling programs, life-cycle analysis and packaging policy, the impacts of production in extractive and manufacturing industries, composting and organic waste management, economics of conservation, and material use and long-term sustainability. Ackerman explains why purely economic approaches to recycling are incomplete and argues for a different kind of decisionmaking, one that addresses social issues, future as well as present resource needs, and non-economic values that cannot be translated into dollars and cents. Backed by empirical data and replete with specific examples, the book offers valuable guidance for planners and policymakers as well as an accessible introduction to the subject for students and citizens interested in the social, economic, and ethical underpinnings of recycling efforts.
Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?
by Alexander KeyssarWith every presidential election, Americans puzzle over the peculiar mechanism of the Electoral College. The author of the Pulitzer finalist The Right to Vote explains the enduring problem of this controversial institution. Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through the Electoral College, an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Most Americans would prefer a national popular vote, and Congress has attempted on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College. Several of these efforts—one as recently as 1970—came very close to winning approval. Yet this controversial system remains. Alexander Keyssar explains its persistence. After tracing the Electoral College’s tangled origins at the Constitutional Convention, he explores the efforts from 1800 to 2019 to abolish or significantly reform it, showing why each has thus far failed. Reasons include the tendency of political parties to elevate partisan advantage above democratic values, the difficulty of passing constitutional amendments, and, especially, the impulse to preserve white supremacy in the South, which led to the region’s prolonged backing of the Electoral College. The most common explanation—that small states have blocked reform for fear of losing influence—has only occasionally been true. Keyssar examines why reform of the Electoral College has received so little attention from Congress for the last forty years, as well as alternatives to congressional action such as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and state efforts to eliminate winner-take-all. In analyzing the reasons for past failures while showing how close the nation has come to abolishing the institution, Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? offers encouragement to those hoping to produce change in the twenty-first century.
Why Does Everything Have to Be About Race?: 25 Arguments That Won't Go Away
by Keith BoykinSome arguments about race refuse to go away. It&’s time, once and for all, to shatter them. The most toxic racial arguments share one of five traits. They try to erase Black history, prioritize white victimhood, deny Black oppression, promote myths of Black inferiority, or rebrand racism as something else entirely. They&’re all designed to distract society from racial justice, but now we have the tools to debunk them. With a mixture of personal experience, reportage, and extensive research, Keith Boykin takes a wrecking ball to twenty-five of the most widespread deceptions about race, such as: The Civil War was about states&’ rights, not slavery Affirmative action is reverse discrimination Critical Race Theory is indoctrinating children to hate one another and shows us how to refute lies, myths, and misinformation with history, knowledge, and truth.
Why Does Policy Change?: Lessons from British Transport Policy 1945-99 (Routledge Studies in Governance and Public Policy)
by Dr Geoffrey Dudley Geoffrey Dudley Jeremy RichardsonThe tension between policy stability and change is a key political phenomenon, but its dynamics have been little understood. Why Does Policy Change? examines and explains the dynamics of major policy change by looking at case studies from British Transport policy since 1945. The significant contrasts between road and rail policies in this period lend themselves perfectly to the authors' theories of what brings about policy turnabout.
Why Don't American Cities Burn?
by Michael B. KatzAt 1:27 on the morning of August 4, 2005, Herbert Manes fatally stabbed Robert Monroe, known as Shorty, in a dispute over five dollars. It was a horrific yet mundane incident for the poor, heavily African American neighborhood of North Philadelphia--one of seven homicides to occur in the city that day and yet not make the major newspapers. For Michael B. Katz, an urban historian and a juror on the murder trial, the story of Manes and Shorty exemplified the marginalization, social isolation, and indifference that plague American cities.Introduced by the gripping narrative of this murder and its circumstances, Why Don't American Cities Burn? charts the emergence of the urban forms that underlie such events. Katz traces the collision of urban transformation with the rightward-moving social politics of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century America. He shows how the bifurcation of black social structures produced a new African American inequality and traces the shift from images of a pathological black "underclass" to praise of the entrepreneurial poor who take advantage of new technologies of poverty work to find the beginning of the path to the middle class. He explores the reasons American cities since the early 1970s have remained relatively free of collective violence while black men in bleak inner-city neighborhoods have turned their rage inward on one another rather than on the agents and symbols of a culture and political economy that exclude them.The book ends with a meditation on how the political left and right have come to believe that urban transformation is inevitably one of failure and decline abetted by the response of government to deindustrialization, poverty, and race. How, Katz asks, can we construct a new narrative that acknowledges the dark side of urban history even as it demonstrates the capacity of government to address the problems of cities and their residents? How can we create a politics of modest hope?
Why Don't Women Rule the World?: Understanding Women's Civic and Political Choices
by Candice D. Ortbals J. Cherie Strachan Dr. Lori M. Poloni-Staudinger Shannon L. JenkinsWhy don’t women have more influence over the way the world is structured? Written by four leaders within the national and international academic caucuses on women and politics, Why Don't Women Rule the World? by J. Cherie Strachan , Lori M. Poloni-Staudinger, Shannon Jenkins, and Candice D. Ortbals helps you to understand how the underrepresentation of women manifests within politics, and the impact this has on policy. Grounded in theory with practical, job-related activities, the book offers a thorough introduction to the study of women and politics, and will bolster your political interests, ambitions, and efficacy.
Why Don't Women Rule the World?: Understanding Women's Civic and Political Choices
by Candice D. Ortbals J. Cherie Strachan Dr. Lori M. Poloni-Staudinger Shannon L. JenkinsWhy don’t women have more influence over the way the world is structured? Written by four leaders within the national and international academic caucuses on women and politics, Why Don't Women Rule the World? by J. Cherie Strachan , Lori M. Poloni-Staudinger, Shannon Jenkins, and Candice D. Ortbals helps you to understand how the underrepresentation of women manifests within politics, and the impact this has on policy. Grounded in theory with practical, job-related activities, the book offers a thorough introduction to the study of women and politics, and will bolster your political interests, ambitions, and efficacy.
Why The Dutch Are Different: A Journey Into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands
by Ben Coates*A SCOTSMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR*Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he'd met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good.In the first book to consider the hidden heart and history of the Netherlands from a modern perspective, the author explores the length and breadth of his adopted homeland and discovers why one of the world's smallest countries is also so significant and so fascinating. It is a self-made country, the Dutch national character shaped by the ongoing battle to keep the water out from the love of dairy and beer to the attitude to nature and the famous tolerance.Ben Coates investigates what makes the Dutch the Dutch, why the Netherlands is much more than Holland and why the colour orange is so important. Along the way he reveals why they are the world's tallest people and have the best carnival outside Brazil.He learns why Amsterdam's brothels are going out of business, who really killed Anne Frank, and how the Dutch manage to be richer than almost everyone else despite working far less. He also discovers a country which is changing fast, with the Dutch now questioning many of the liberal policies which made their nation famous.A personal portrait of a fascinating people, a sideways history and an entertaining travelogue, Why the Dutch are Different is the story of an Englishman who went Dutch. And loved it.
Why The Dutch Are Different: A Journey Into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands
by Ben Coates*A SCOTSMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR*Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he'd met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good.In the first book to consider the hidden heart and history of the Netherlands from a modern perspective, the author explores the length and breadth of his adopted homeland and discovers why one of the world's smallest countries is also so significant and so fascinating. It is a self-made country, the Dutch national character shaped by the ongoing battle to keep the water out from the love of dairy and beer to the attitude to nature and the famous tolerance.Ben Coates investigates what makes the Dutch the Dutch, why the Netherlands is much more than Holland and why the colour orange is so important. Along the way he reveals why they are the world's tallest people and have the best carnival outside Brazil.He learns why Amsterdam's brothels are going out of business, who really killed Anne Frank, and how the Dutch manage to be richer than almost everyone else despite working far less. He also discovers a country which is changing fast, with the Dutch now questioning many of the liberal policies which made their nation famous.A personal portrait of a fascinating people, a sideways history and an entertaining travelogue, Why the Dutch are Different is the story of an Englishman who went Dutch. And loved it.
Why The Dutch Are Different: A Journey Into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands
by Ben Coates*A SCOTSMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR*Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he'd met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good.In the first book to consider the hidden heart and history of the Netherlands from a modern perspective, the author explores the length and breadth of his adopted homeland and discovers why one of the world's smallest countries is also so significant and so fascinating. It is a self-made country, the Dutch national character shaped by the ongoing battle to keep the water out from the love of dairy and beer to the attitude to nature and the famous tolerance.Ben Coates investigates what makes the Dutch the Dutch, why the Netherlands is much more than Holland and why the colour orange is so important. Along the way he reveals why they are the world's tallest people and have the best carnival outside Brazil.He learns why Amsterdam's brothels are going out of business, who really killed Anne Frank, and how the Dutch manage to be richer than almost everyone else despite working far less. He also discovers a country which is changing fast, with the Dutch now questioning many of the liberal policies which made their nation famous.A personal portrait of a fascinating people, a sideways history and an entertaining travelogue, Why the Dutch are Different is the story of an Englishman who went Dutch. And loved it.
Why The Dutch Are Different: A Journey Into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands
by Ben Coates*A SCOTSMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR*Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he'd met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good.In the first book to consider the hidden heart and history of the Netherlands from a modern perspective, the author explores the length and breadth of his adopted homeland and discovers why one of the world's smallest countries is also so significant and so fascinating. It is a self-made country, the Dutch national character shaped by the ongoing battle to keep the water out from the love of dairy and beer to the attitude to nature and the famous tolerance.Ben Coates investigates what makes the Dutch the Dutch, why the Netherlands is much more than Holland and why the colour orange is so important. Along the way he reveals why they are the world's tallest people and have the best carnival outside Brazil.He learns why Amsterdam's brothels are going out of business, who really killed Anne Frank, and how the Dutch manage to be richer than almost everyone else despite working far less. He also discovers a country which is changing fast, with the Dutch now questioning many of the liberal policies which made their nation famous.A personal portrait of a fascinating people, a sideways history and an entertaining travelogue, Why the Dutch are Different is the story of an Englishman who went Dutch. And loved it.
Why Elections Fail
by Pippa NorrisToo often, elections around the globe are, unfortunately, deeply flawed or even fail. What triggers these problems? In this second volume of her trilogy on electoral integrity, Pippa Norris compares structural, international, and institutional accounts as alternative perspectives to explain why elections fail to meet international standards. The book argues that rules preventing political actors from manipulating electoral governance are needed to secure integrity, although at the same time officials also need sufficient resources and capacities to manage elections effectively. Drawing on new evidence, the study determines the most effective types of strategies for strengthening the quality of electoral governance around the world. With a global perspective, this book provides fresh insights into these major issues at the heart of the study of elections and voting behavior, comparative politics, democracy and democratization, political culture, democratic governance, public policymaking, development, international relations and conflict studies, and processes of regime change.
Why Electoral Integrity Matters
by Pippa NorrisThis book is the first in a planned trilogy by Pippa Norris on challenges of electoral integrity to be published by Cambridge University Press. Unfortunately too often elections around the globe are deeply flawed or even fail. Why does this matter? It is widely suspected that such contests will undermine confidence in elected authorities, damage voting turnout, trigger protests, exacerbate conflict, and occasionally lead to regime change. Well-run elections, by themselves, are insufficient for successful transitions to democracy. But flawed, or even failed, contests are thought to wreck fragile progress. Is there good evidence for these claims? Under what circumstances do failed elections undermine legitimacy? With a global perspective, using new sources of data for mass and elite evidence, this book provides fresh insights into these major issues.
Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the Future of the West
by Peter Heather John RapleyA new perspective on parallels between ancient Rome and the modern world, and what comes next “[A] provocative short book . . . with a novel twist.”—The Economist Over the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the planet. Then, around the start of the new millennium, history took a dramatic turn. Faced with economic stagnation and internal political division, the West has found itself in rapid decline compared to the global periphery it had previously colonized. This is not the first time we have seen such a rise and fall: the Roman Empire followed a similar arc, from dizzying power to disintegration. Historian Peter Heather and political economist John Rapley explore the uncanny parallels, and productive differences between ancient Rome and the modern West, moving beyond the tropes of invading barbarians and civilizational decay to unearth new lessons. From 399 to 1999, they argue, through the unfolding of parallel, underlying imperial life cycles, both empires sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Has the era of Western global domination indeed reached its end? Heather and Rapley contemplate what comes next.