Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Comparative Politics

Government did not create our social problems and it can't solve them for us. This book explores in detail the who and how of real social change.

Why do some countries in the developing world achieve growth with equity, while others do not? If democracy is the supposed panacea for the developing world, why have Southeast Asian democracies had such uneven results? In exploring these questions, political scientist Erik Martinez Kuhonta argues that the realization of equitable development hinges heavily on strong institutions, particularly institutionalized political parties and cohesive interventionist states, and on moderate policy and ideology.

The Institutional Imperative is framed as a structured and focused...

All societies face a key question: how to empower governments to perform essential governmental functions while constraining the arbitrary exercise of power. This balance, always in flux, is particularly fluid in today's China. This insightful book examines the changing relationship between that state and its society, as demonstrated by numerous experiments in governance at subnational levels, and explores the implications for China's future political trajectory.

Ann Florini, Hairong Lai, and Yeling Tan set their analysis at the level of townships and counties, investigating the striking...

Moderation theory describes the process through which radical political actors develop commitments to electoral competition, political pluralism, human rights, and rule of law and come to prefer negotiation, reconciliation, and electoral politics over provocation, confrontation, and contentious action. Revisiting this theory through an examination of two of the most prominent moderate Islamic political forces in recent history, Muslim Reformers in Iran and Turkey analyzes the gains made and methods implemented by the Reform Front in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Justice...

Climate Policy Changes in Germany and Japan compares two decades of climate policy development in Germany and Japan. It examines whether there is any difference between the types and levels of policy change in the two countries, and, if so, what factors account for the difference. Using a comparison of climate policy changes in Germany and Japan from 1987 to 2005 as a basis, it also discusses the effectiveness and the limits of existing theories of policy change and policy process, most notably the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), Punctuated Equilibrium Approach and Multiple...

This ground-breaking and innovative book examines the influence of charisma on power, authority and nationalism. The authors both apply and challenge Max Weber's concept of 'charisma' and integrate it into a broader discussion of other theoretical models.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, leading international scholars draw on a diverse range of cases to analyse charisma in benign and malignant leaderships, as well as the relationship between the cult of the leader, the adulation of the masses and the extension of individual authority beyond sheer power. They discuss...

This work, written by an expert in the politics of Mainland China and Taiwan, looks at the role the Constitution of the Republic of China has played in the development of Taiwan since 1949 and its potential influence on the People's Republic of China.
The Chinese Communists conducted the first long march for the sake of the majority of Chinese people, with the victory of MAO Zedong. In the second long march, CHIANG Kai-shek and his successors tried to convert the Chinese mainland from a Communist, totalitarian system, into a democratic, prosperous one by relying on the spirit...

The EU's internal borders have become mostly invisible. Today, external borders are at the centre of controversy about an alleged 'fortress Europe'. Using different theoretical and methodological perspectives this book examines the challenges facing the EU's external borders, including Neighborhood Policy, migration issues and the diffusion of norms and values to other countries.

Divided into two parts, the book first presents different theoretical approaches and empirical studies of the EU's external borders, mobility and security issues. It is an invaluable guide to border...

Gendering the Nation-State explores the gendered dimensions of a fundamental organizational unit in social and political science -- the nation-state. Yasmeen Abu-Laban has drawn together work by both high-profile and emerging scholars to rescue gender from the margins of theoretical discussions on the nation, the state, public policy, and citizenship. Contributors bring the insights of feminist analysis to bear on three relationships central to popular and policy discussions in contemporary Canada and beyond: gender and nation, gender and state processes, and gender and...

One would expect a welfare state such as Sweden to compare favorably with the United States regarding implementation of public policies and programs. Surprisingly, the author comes to quite different conclusions: in studying the treatment of battered, raped and sexually-harassed women in the two countries, she has found that, contrary to conventional expectation, the ability of the decentralized American state to innovate effectively has been consistently underestimated, whereas Sweden's ability to do the same has often been exaggerated.