Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Comparative Politics

This work by Janusz Bugajski should be considered mandatory reading for any student of Eastern Europe. The anatomy of the dissident movement of Czechoslovakia--its scope activities, affiliations at home and abroad--has been well documented and presented in a lucid manner. The author has also accumulated an impressive amount of facts, dates and documents. Failures and successes of Charter 77, as well as its future prospects, are described in a very balanced manner. It is an important study by a well-informed and self disciplined researcher and expert on Eastern Europe. It will be a great...

A clear and balanced presentation of the dilemmas associated with each of the four nations. A skillful cultural framework is provided in the first chapter, which serves as an overview. "Foreign Affairs"

A fine study. Anderson's reputation as a scholar and a Latin Americanist will be enhanced when this study has time to make its imprint. "American Political Science Review"

This new volume provides an up-to-date survey of the Central American states involved in the current conflict. While several studies of the individual countries in the region have appeared, there have been no recent...

The volume analyzes the political and economic effects of the Iran-Iraq war upon Iraq, focusing on whether the war has united Iraqi society in a way that has not happened since the country was established in 1920. It opens with an examination of Iraqi political development and U.S. policy toward Iraq. Following is a discussion of the various means of political consolidation of Iraq. The next chapter investigates the growth of Iraqi foreign policy in relation to both the Arab state and the superpowers. The book also predicts the country's ability to hold together under current military and...

This is a revised and updated edition of Snow's classic study of Argentine politics. The work is a description and analysis of the role played by Argentina's major political actors: the political parties, the armed forces, labor unions, the Catholic Church, and students. Their traditional roles are examined, but emphasis is placed on the part they have played since publication of the last edition of the work in 1979, especially the dramatic transition to democracy beginning in 1983. Snow and his new co-author, Manzetti, are slightly more optimistic than most analysts, and believe that...

Venezuela's most important political figure of the twentieth century, and probably its most important since Simon Bolivar, is the subject of this volume of interviews and letters. Romulo Betancourt helped to form Venezuela's historic Accion Democratica group, twice served as his country's president, and in his many years in exile worked to inform the world about the political crises and dictatorships that plagued Venezuela. The material in this book covers more than three decades of exchanges between Betancourt and Robert Alexander, presenting details of Betancourt's career and the...

What drives religious people to act in politics? In Latin America, as in the Middle East, religious belief is a primary motivating factor for politically active citizens. Edward Lynch questions the frequent pitfall of Latin American scholarship--categorizing religious belief as a veil for another interest or as a purview just of churchmen, thereby ignoring its hold over lay people. Challenging this traditional view, Lynch concludes that religious motivations are important in their own right and raises important questions about the relationship between religion and politics in Latin...

This book takes a comprehensive look at the PLO, examining its origins, legal status, goals, and strategies. Jamal R. Nassar investigates the PLO's role in regional and international politics and unveils the dynamics of the power relationships responsible for the organization's successes and failures. The book discerns patterns and trends in the PLO's activities and studies the conditions under which these patterns and trends develop. Nassar places the PLO in a global perspective, delving into the basis of the organization's legitimacy and its prospects for participation in the peaceful...

This is a revised and updated edition of Snow's classic study of Argentine politics. The work is a description and analysis of the role played by Argentina's major political actors: the political parties, the armed forces, labor unions, the Catholic Church, and students. Their traditional roles are examined, but emphasis is placed on the part they have played since publication of the last edition of the work in 1979, especially the dramatic transition to democracy beginning in 1983. Snow and his new co-author, Manzetti, are slightly more optimistic than most analysts, and believe that...

Lemco investigates those political, economic, and social conditions that theorists of federalism have associated with the stability or instability of federations. For many years, there have been pervasive arguments that federalism provides the best government possible for a nation of considerable ethnic and regional disparity. Students of federations have suggested that a centralized federal government that protects the national interest, and governments of the constituent units that protect local and regional interests, are the most responsive administrative forms for a society of great...

Chung-Hee Soh here contributes a unique perspective on women in politics by analyzing the ethnographic materials on the experiences of Korean women in their national legislature. Among the questions she raises are: Who are these women? How did they attain their political positions? What motivated their participation in male-dominated politics? Soh investigates the life histories of twenty-nine women who have been chosen to serve in the South Korean National Assembly. Her study sheds light on the dynamics of sociocultural change in male-female relations and gender role conceptions in a...

Although the control or regulation of political conflict is a constant concern of governments and a source of substantial speculation, empirical investigation of systems of regulation is a relatively recent enterprise. How destabilizing events such as separatism, trans-national disputes and decolonization are translated into political conflict through economic, political, and social systems is explored in this in-depth study of eight nations in southern Europe for the period 1946 to 1986.

This book is especially relevant in light of the recent conflicts that have exploded into civil war...

In this comprehensive examination of the one of the world's most ancient societies, Talhami describes Egypt's quest for a sense of national identity and the factors that have affected the Egyptian identity. Generally polarized over the identity issue since the nineteenth century, Egyptians debated the significance of Sudanese bonds as a definer of Egypt's historic and national development before they debated the significance of Arab, particularly Palestinian, involvement. Nasser's rise to power, Talhami argues, amounted to an inevitable swing in the direction of pan-Arabism because of the...

Political dissent in Poland after World War II had changed considerably by the early 1980s. In the 1950s and 1960s it was characterized by spontaneity and lack of strategy; the opposite held true in the 1980s. The people of Poland became highly politicized and openly acting dissident organizations, hostile toward the communist state, flourished. Robert Zuzowski presents a comprehensive portrait of the unique pattern of dissent, exemplified by the Workers' Defense Committee KOR, which finally triumphed in Poland. He examines the rise of the opposition in Poland, a country which has...

The Soviet elite has undergone two major transformations in the twentieth century: Stalin's purges and replacement of old elite by Soviet trained proletarian modernizing managers; and, under Gorbachev, the current displacement of the modernizing managers by politicians. This book is an analytical study of the Soviet political elite as a body, from 1917 to 1990. Focusing on the changing structure of the elite, it is based partly on Kenneth C. Farmer's database consisting of biographical and career data on over 1500 high-level leaders. Farmer also synthesizes the work of four classical...

This volume offers a full account of the December 1989 revolution that toppled the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania. Based on the author's personal investigation and interviews, extensive screening of the Romanian and international press, and critical examination of sources and interpretations, it offers a full and objective analysis of a complex, often puzzling series of events. Nestor Ratesh explores the economic, social, and human disaster that led to the uprising, and then chronicles the seven days of the revolution from its inception in the western city of...

Startling changes are taking place in Western Europe; this study argues that the U.S. strategic response should be no less dramatic. Michael J. Collins describes a creation of a new type of political organization--a new way for nations to integrate themselves politically in Western Europe--and contends that this new model is dynamic enough to rival older historical paradigms. Western Europeans are making massive changes in their international arrangements, with each other and the outside world, to permit a natural evolution of national cultures along with the development of an...

This volume presents a broad survey of the Republikaner Party, its program and ideology, its organization, and the composition of its voters and sympathizers. The authors maintain that any analysis of the Republikaners must distinguish between the party as represented by its platform and party officials, and the party as seen by its voters. Republikaners draw potential voters from two very differently motivated groups: (1) a small, ideologically oriented segment dominated by right-wing conservative and right-fringe extremist attitudes, and (2) a larger, flucating pool of sympathizers less...

This book provides a systematic study of the political, economic, cultural, and educational changes that have taken place in China since 1978, and examines the impacts of these changes on the Chinese people's thinking and behavior. Jing Lin traces the gradual change of the Chinese from obedient, unquestioning citizens to critical and intelligent thinkers. She points out that with the more relaxed political and economic environment the Chinese people have gone through a period of reflection on their communist past, which has resulted in a new sense of identity and a more independent spirit....

Written by the leading political expert on Suriname, this thrilling tale describes ethnically inspired guerilla warfare, terrible human rights violations, military coups, painful redemocratization processes, and economic implosion. Although part of the American family of nations in the Western Hemisphere, there is almost nothing written about Suriname as a modern country. There are some ethnographies, some histories of ex-slave rebellions, and passing references to the atrocities of colonial plantation systems. After that, the dark clouds of obscurity close over a fascinating if...

This study focuses on Christianity and black nationalism in South Africa and looks at four individuals--Albert Lutuli, Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko, and Desmond Tutu--to see how each leader's Christian beliefs influenced the political strategy he pursued. Just as theology (Calvinism) was significant in the formulation of Afrikaner nationalism, so too has theology, variously interpreted, been instrumental in the articulation of African nationalism. The African National Congress (ANC), the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), and the United Democratic Front...