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Looks at how the office of the presidency has changed, argues that the president has become too central to national politics, and suggests ways to restore the constitutional balance.

Toleration is becoming an increasingly questioned issue in modern democratic and multicultural societies and is debated within the academic disciplines of politics, history and cultural and literary studies. In this book Glen Newey systematically analyses toleration in relation to broader issues in meta-ethical theory and offers a new, rigorous philosophical theory of toleration as a virtue. A wide range of questions in ethical theory is addressed, including ethical responsibility, character a...

This book examines the new, hybrid democracy that has been taking shape in California since the historic recall of Gov. Gray Davis and election of former actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003. During the recall and its aftermath, California has reached unprecedented levels of use of direct democracy, in which public policy decisions are made by voters at the ballot box, rather than by elected representatives in the legislature. Driven by Californians' long-standing populism and distrust of governm...

Little is known about the political dynamics of states that have just experienced an internal war, despite the increasing need to deal with such states in the post-Cold-War world. This work examines what prompts leaders in post-revolutionary states to employ repression or accommodation. Through statistical analysis and case studies of Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, it also examines the effects of these choices on how the domestic opposition reacts, what type of political system develops in...

This monograph studies voting procedures based on the probability that paradoxical outcomes like the famous Condorcet Paradox might exist. It is well known that hypothetical examples of many different paradoxical election outcomes can be developed, but this analysis examines factors that are related to the process by which voters form their preferences on candidates that will significantly reduce the likelihood that such voting paradoxes will ever actually be observed. It is found that extreme f...

This is a new edition of the radical social history of America from Columbus to the present. This powerful and controversial study turns orthodox American history upside down to portray the social turmoil behind the "march of progress". Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of - and in the words of - America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the wor...

In the 1980s there was a marked increase in the number of hung local authorities or authorities in which there was no clear majority. This book describes the different patterns of hungness and the response of local authorities to the new situation.

For undergraduate courses in introductory American and California Government. Approaching Democracy addresses the evolving nature of the American experiment in democratic government. It teaches students the theory and the basics of American political science, the political history of this nation, and provides the critical thinking skills needed to analyze these evolving relationships. This new Teaching and Learning Classroom (TLC) edition introduces new features and incorporates more "stu...

To the public's eye, lobbying is still a highly obscure trade. Lobbyists are generally perceived to work behind closed doors in order to influence legislation-what really happens is unknown to the public. To make interest representatives more visible, both the European Union and the United States have developed mechanisms to register lobbyists. However, while US legislation now forces lobbyists to register and report their influential work by fixed deadlines, the EU's registration remains volunt...

Where democracy thrives, it seems far and away the best system of governance. Yet, relatively few countries have managed to transition successfully to democracy, and none of them have attained what Fathali Moghaddam calls ""actualized democracy,"" the ideal in which all citizens share full, informed, equal participation in decision making. The obstacles to democratization are daunting, yet there is hope. What is it about human nature that seems to work for or against democracy? In The Psycholo...

This book studies the impact of cleavages on electoral choices. Based on a case study of Switzerland, it analyses how cleavages divide voters into voting blocs and how this influences Swiss voting behaviour and the Swiss party system. The first part examines the development of salient cleavages such as religion, social class, rural-urban, and language between 1971 and 2011. Behavioural changes among voters and changes in the size of social groups are explored as explanatory factors for the decli...

Is the Internet destined to upset traditional political power in the United States? This book answers with an emphatic "no." Author Richard Davis shows how current political players including candidates, public officials, and the media are adapting to the Internet and assuring that this new medium benefits them in their struggle for power. In doing so he examines the current function of the Internet in democratic politics - educating citizens, conducting electoral campaigns, gauging public opini...

"Freedom House's survey [of freedom] is the most systematic, most comprehensive, and most reliable survey of the individual's status in the world's political systems. Freedom in the World provides an invaluable baseline in assessing the significance of world events." -Robert L. Bartley, Editor of The Wall Street JournalFreedom in the World is an institutional effort by Freedom House to monitor the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in 192 nations and 17 related and disp...

Demokratie ist nicht mehr selbstverstandlich. Ein wachsendes Gefuhl der Entfremdung von Politik breitet sich aus: Demokratische Institutionen scheinen intakt zu sein, aber sie bringen ganz und gar undemokratische Verhaltnisse hervor wie Technokratie, Oligarchie und Elitismus. Diese Verdrangung der Demokratie in der Praxis spiegelt sich auch in der Theorie. Vorherrschende Demokratietheorien vernachlassigen die veranderten gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen und bieten daher keine Demokratiekonzeption...

An impassioned call to arms for Democrats to embrace the principles that made the party and the country great--a true moral vision for leadership at home and abroadIn this powerful and provocative manifesto, a cri de coeur for Democrats who have grown increasingly frustrated with their party's leaders, former senator Gary Hart takes the Democrats to task for choosing caution and calculation in place of moral principles. That path, Hart says, will lead only to sorrow--for the party and for the co...