Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> World - General

India is widely regarded as the most celebrated case of a "failed" developmental state, seemingly the exception that belies the prediction of a triumphant Asian century. Its central political and economic institutions have been variously characterized as both "soft" and "strong" at once weak, predatory, and interventionist. Aseema Sinha presents an innovative model that questions conventional views of economic development by showing that the Indian state is a divided leviathan: its developmental failure is the combined product of central-local interactions and political choices by regional...

Taking on Goliath analyzes the formation and decline of the most successful opposition party challenge to Mexico's long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which, until 1988, had ruled unchallenged for more than sixty years. The emergence of this new left opposition in 1988 shattered the myth of PRI invincibility. However, its failure to capitalize on its initial success raises intriguing questions about the relationship between party creation and consolidation and about the sources of party system change and democratization.

This book is the only major study in...

The fall of the Soviet Union was one of the most dramatic events of this century. It was also one of the most surprising. Perhaps because many Sovietologists neglected its status as an empire, most Americans were taken completely by surprise when the USSR began its precipitous collapse under Mikhail Gorbachev. This book subjects the Soviet Union as an empire to systematic scrutiny, using tools and methods at the disposal of modern political science. Foreign policy specialists, defense experts, and Russian area analysts will find this book essential. The book is also recommended for...

The fall of the Soviet Union was one of the most dramatic events of this century. It was also one of the most surprising. Evidence of the USSR's impending fall was abundantly available both in theory in the writings on empires and on the ground. Yet, prior to its downfall, the very profession that specialized in the study of the Soviet Union held no consensus that the USSR "was" an empire to begin with. Perhaps because many Sovietologists neglected its status as an empire, most Americans were taken completely by surprise when the USSR began its precipitous collapse under Mikhail Gorbachev....

Since his election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has reversed the more moderate and pluralistic policies of his predecessor and projected himself onto the public scene with headline-grabbing speeches regarding Jews and the state of Israel, open defiance of the UN Security Council on the nuclear issue, and an apparent vision of his country becoming the dominant power in the Middle East. This book documents Ahmadenijad's background and rise to power. It explains the current structure of the Iranian revolutionary government--the competing centers of power and the major players. In...

The still-prevailing notion among Western powers, including the United States, is that Russia is a democracy, or at least that it remains in the process of democratization. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Ostrow, Satarov, and Khakamada demonstrate in "The Consolidation of Dictatorship in Russia." Journalists critical of Vladimir Putin's dictatorship, such as Anna Politkovskaya, are murdered. Nearly 100 investigative journalists, an average of two per month, have been murdered since Putin took power, and not one person has been charged or convicted of those crimes. In this book...