Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Comparative Politics

During the 1990s, judicial reform swept Latin America. While some of the region's supreme courts have been able to exercise increased power as a result of these reforms, others have not. Why do some instances of judicial reform appear to be leading to the development of a powerful judiciary while others have failed to do so? In this careful analysis, Jodi S. Finkel investigates judicial reform in Argentina, Mexico, and Peru. She suggests that while ruling parties can be induced to initiate judicial reforms by introducing constitutional revisions, they often prove unwilling to implement...

"Governance in the Americas," a multidisciplinary volume, offers important new insights about decentralization, federalism, and democratic change in the three largest federal nations in the Americas: Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. Originating in a major research project conducted by teams in each of the three countries, this study contributes significantly to our understanding of how representative and participatory democracy is being constructed at state and local levels in the recently emerged democracies of Brazil and Mexico, and is being recast and sustained in the United...

There is a consensus throughout much of the western world that the public sector is in urgent need of repair. This study seeks to understand why this is so by comparing developments in Canada and the United Kingdom. It looks to changes in values both in society and inside government, and to the relationships between politicians and civil servants at the top and between civil servants and citizens at the bottom.

Donald J. Savoie argues that both Canada and the UK now operate under court government rather than cabinet government. By court government, he means that effective power now...

From Bullets to Ballots considers non-state Muslim organizations at different stages of abandoning violence and pursuing their goals through a political process. Some have successfully made the transition. Others are in mid-stream. Some have tried but backtracked, splintered, or simply abandoned such efforts, reverting to pathological violence. Many groups could be case studies, but Phillips has selected the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, and the Free Aceh Movement, because they cover the...

What determines the capacity of countries to design, approve, and implement effective public policies? To address this issue, this book builds on the results of a comparative study of political institutions, policymaking processes, and policy outcomes in eight Latin American countries. The volume benefits from both micro detail on the intricacies of policymaking in individual countries and a broad cross-country interdisciplinary analysis of the process in the region.

The country studies demonstrate a deep knowledge of the specific historical dynamics and idiosyncratic structural...

Since 1815 democratic states have emerged victorious from most wars, leading many scholars to conclude that democracies are better equipped to triumph in armed conflict with autocratic and other non-representative governments.

Political scientist Michael C. Desch argues that the evidence and logic of that supposition, which he terms -democratic triumphalism, - are as flawed as the arguments for the long-held and opposite belief that democracies are inherently disadvantaged in international relations. Through comprehensive statistical analysis, a thorough review of two millennia of...

This collection of essays from a special issue of American Quarterly explores the complex and sometimes contradictory ways that religion matters in contemporary public life.

Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States offers a groundbreaking, cross-disciplinary conversation between scholars in American studies and religious studies. The contributors explore numerous modes through which religious faith has mobilized political action. They utilize a variety of definitions of politics, ranging from lobbying by religious leaders to the political impact of...