Search results

Ever since the end of China's civil war in 1949, Taiwan has embarked on its own distinct, divergent path of development. In light of its remarkable achievements and inherent difficulties, therefore, Taiwan should not be considered a renegade province of China, but a society with a democratically-elected government that has taken a route different from the rest of China in developing its own cultural norms and values. This book examines the issues of democratic transition, political imprisonment...

The Tea Party. The Occupy Movement. Idle No More. Around the world, popular social movements are challenging the status quo. Yet most democracies are seeing a decline in voter turnout. Protest and Politics examines this shift in political participation, as well as the blurring of social movements and mainstream politics, through the lens of the social movement society thesis. Analyzing historical and contemporary social movements in Canada in comparison to those in the US and in the transnationa...

Considering the size and importance of Indonesia, remarkably little has been published in the West about the society and government of that country. With over 160 million people, it is the fifth most populous country in the world. It is an archipelago of some 13,000 islands, stretching over 5,000 kilometers from from east to west, and contains within it an amazing array of cultures, as well as ethnic, economic, and religious variations. Not surprisingly in view of the country's great size, vast...

Presented through an investigation of Sengoku Japan and Republican China, this book proposes an innovative explanation of state formation that focuses on ideational and geographic factors. This study addresses the question; why are some collapsed states able to reconstitute themselves where others have not? Graham F. Odell employs two cases of successful state reconstitution – Republican China (1912-1949) and Sengoku Japan (1477-1615) – to derive a new theoretical framework around this question...

The end of the Cold War was a "big bang" reminiscent of earlier moments after major wars, such as the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the end of the World Wars in 1919 and 1945. Here John Ikenberry asks the question, what do states that win wars do with their newfound power and how do they use it to build order? In examining the postwar settlements in modern history, he argues that powerful countries do seek to build stable and cooperative relations, but the type of order that emerges hin...

First published in 1984 this book has established itself as the leading text in British public administration. The third edition builds on the previous edition's success to bring the considerable changes and very latest developments in the field.This edition includes:* a new chapter on the influence of Europe* a focus on new developments that have emerged in recent years such as managerialism, privatisation, consumerism, charters, contracting and regulation* new features include boxed summaries...

The Right and the Welfare State studies the welfare state policies of conservative and liberal governments. These parties have been assumed to be nothing but the welfare-sceptical flip-side of the Left, but the book presents a new theory arguing that the conventional wisdom is wrong. The policy goals of the Right - and the political means by which they pursue them - is a lot less straightforward than simply "pro" or "con" the welfare state. The book uses the distinction between labor market risk...

This book is an in-depth exploration of political finances in and among mature and developing democracies of the world of politics in most continents: Japan and South Korea in Asia; Brazil in South America; Mexico and the United States in North America; and Italy, Germany, and Spain in Europe.

Decentralization is a curious policy for a central government to pursue. If politics is essentially about the struggle for power, why would anyone want to give away the power that one struggled for and won? This book argues that it is precisely party competition in search of power that propels decentralization. Koichi Nakano develops his core argument through in-depth, qualitative research on the politics of reform in France and Japan. Introducing the concept of oppositional policy, he traces t...

With a broad chronological sweep, this book provides an historical account of Roman law and legal institutions which explains how they were created and modified in relation to political developments and changes in power relations. It underlines the constant tension between two central aspects of Roman politics: the aristocratic nature of the system of government, and the drive for increased popular participation in decision-making and the exercise of power. The traditional balance of power under...

This book enhances our understanding of 'the popular' in the study of politics through a critical examination of the uses and constructions of 'the people', from the establishment of the Turkish Republic to the present. It proposes ways of reading the insertion and operationalisation of the notion of 'the people' as a concept, a political subject, the object of policy and politics over the past century. The author assesses the ways 'the people' have been shaped by the history of the republic and...

Discussions of modernity-or alternative and multiple modernities-often hinge on the question of secularism, especially how it travels outside its original European context. Too often, attempts to answer this question either imagine a universal model derived from the history of Western Europe, which neglects the experience of much of the world, or emphasize a local, non-European context that limits the potential for comparison. In The Politics of Secularism, Murat Akan reframes the question of se...