Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Political Process - General

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution forbids the creation of an official state church, and we hear the phrase "separation of church and state" so frequently that it may surprise us to note that no such barrier exists between religion and politics. Religion is, and always has been, woven into the fabric of American political life. In the last two decades, however, the role of religion in politics has become more directalmost a blunt, self-conscious force in the political process. The national consequences of this "diminishing divide" between religion and politics have brought new...

Nearly five million Muslims call France home, the vast majority from former French colonies in North Africa. While France has successfully integrated waves of immigrants in the past, this new influx poses a new variety of challenges --much as it does in neighboring European countries. Alarmists view the growing role of Muslims in French society as a form of "reverse colonization"; they believe Muslim political and religious networks seek to undermine European rule of law or that fundamentalists are creating a society entirely separate from the mainstream. Integrating Islam portrays the...

According to outspoken presidential scholar Cal Mackenzie, the presidential appointments process is a national disgrace. It encourages bullies and emboldens demagogues, silences the voices of responsibility, and nourishes the lowest forms of partisan combat. It uses innocent citizens as pawns in the petty games of politicians and stains the reputations of good people. It routinely violates fundamental democratic principles, undermines the quality and consistency of public management, and breaches simple decency. In short, at a time when the quality of political leadership in government...

The amount of money needed to run a competitive congressional campaign is staggering, with special interests playing a central role in raising these funds. Also of concern is the declining competitiveness of House elections. And while recognition of the need to reform campaign financing is widespread, partisan and House/Senate differences over what these changes should be have complicated legislative efforts.

Almost $450 million was spent in both the 1986 and 1988 congressional campaigns, much of it coming from wealthy contributors and political action committees (PACs). Increasing...

In considerations of societal change, the application of classic evolutionary schemes to prehistoric southwestern peoples has always been problematic for scholars. Because recent theoretical developments point toward more variation in the scale, hierarchy, and degree of centralization of complex societies, this book takes a fresh look at southwestern prehistory with these new ideas in mind.

This is the first book-length work to apply new theories of social organization and leadership strategies to the prehispanic Southwest. It examines leadership strategies in a number of...

Now ask Tom Volgy. This former mayor of a major western city, who is also a political scientist, contends that most elected officials are the very opposite of what the public thinks: honest, hardworking people whose real work goes unnoticed by most of their constituents and the media.

Volgy has interviewed more than 300 elected...

Ed White explores the backcountry-city divide as well as the dynamics of indigenous peoples, bringing together two distinct bodies of scholarship: one stressing the political culture of the Revolutionary era, the other taking an ethnohistorical view of...

Lewy Dorman's Party Politics in Alabama From 1850 Through 1860 reveals the flow of political events and the people behind these events during the critical decade preceding the Civil War. Dorman introduces the political leaders who vied for control and influence in the state and clearly explains the sectional rivalries and factional politics that flavored the Alabama political climate. This classic study, complete with statistical data, election maps, and table of election results, provides a good framework for other scholarly works on the period by contemporary historians. The book...