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Although more than half of the world's Muslims live in Asia, most books on contemporary Islam focus on the Middle East, giving short shift to the dynamic and diverse presence of Asian Islam in regional and global politics. The Muslims of Asia constitute the largest Muslim communities in the world - Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Central Asia. In recent years, terrorist bombings in Bali, separatist conflicts in Thailand and the Philippines, and opposition politics in Central Asia, all...

The question of what determines and explains gender inequality in politics has interested students of gender and comparative politics for several decades now, but it has gained additional breath and importance with the change of focus from descriptive to substantive representation, as well as from the traditionally left political parties to parties of the right. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the democratization of Eastern Europe we can no longer limit our knowledge of gender equality, or...

Recently there has been a convergence of party funding regimes across many states of Western Europe. The driving force behind this process has been the introduction of state funding to political parties. This book subsequently asks why state funding to political parties has been introduced in ever more countries and yet there still remain some places where it has only been introduced to a decidedly limited degree? It argues that a consensus of the relevant parties is a prerequisite for the intro...

This text offers a concise and comprehensive overview of the Federal Republic of Germany post 1945. The chapters will enable students to understand how Germany's political institutions work, their strengths and weaknesses and the relationship between institutions and the political process.

Many people think prisons are all the same-rows of cells filled with violent men who officials rule with an iron fist. Yet, life behind bars varies in incredible ways. In some facilities, prison officials govern with care and attention to prisoners' needs. In others, officials have remarkably little influence on the everyday life of prisoners, sometimes not even providing necessities like food and clean water. Why does prison social order around the world look so remarkably different? In The Puz...

This book opens with an interesting question: Why do monarchies, which seem to be dying out everywhere else, thrive in the Middle East? The answer by Peterson, an expert on the Arabian peninsula who has already written fine books on Oman and North Yemen, is that the Emirs of the Arab Gulf have sought to be accountable to their citizens through a flexible mixture of traditional assemblies like the diwan and modern instruments like parliaments and an independent press. Peterson illustrates his arg...

In his provocative analysis of Soviet goals in Southwest Asia, particularly Iran, Sicker argues that Soviet imperialism in this area exhibits a remarkable consistency from tsarist times to the present. Directly challenging prevailing beliefs of diminished Soviet interest in Iran or the Persian Gulf, Sicker asserts that the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, their history of interest in the area, and the region's growing geopolitical significance all enhance the probability of a Soviet move to b...

Former political officer for the Nicaraguan Resistance (the contras), Rogelio Pardo-Maurer shares his experiences of the factional dynamics of that group in this provocative new study. Providing an historical account of internal politics in the Resistance, Pardo-Maurer analyzes the principle factions or issues of contention, devoting special attention to the influence of the U.S. political process on Resistance policy. The book provides an intriguing inside look at one of the most controversi...