Suchergebnisse

"During the 2008 election season, politicians from both sides of the aisle promised to rid government of lobbyists' undue influence. For the authors of Lobbying and Policy Change, the most extensive study ever done on the topic, these promises ring hollow--not because politicians fail to keep them but because lobbies are far less influential than political rhetoric suggests. Based on a comprehensive examination of ninety-eight issues, this volume demonstrates that sixty percent of recent lobbying campaigns failed to change policy despite millions of dollars spent trying. Why? The authors find that resources explain less than five percent of the difference between successful and unsuccessful efforts. Moreover, they show, these attempts must overcome an entrenched Washington system with a tremendous bias in favor of the status quo. Though elected officials and existing policies carry more weight, lobbies have an impact too, and when advocates for a given issue finally succeed, policy tends to change significantly. The authors argue, however, that the lobbying community so strongly reflects elite interests that it will not fundamentally alter the balance of power unless its makeup shifts dramatically in favor of average Americans' concerns"--Provided by publisher.

Part I : The Pluralistic Foundations Of The Religion Clauses. Overview of part I ; The free exercise clause ; Establishment clause values ; Applying the establishment clause -- Part II : The First Amendment And The Socialization Of Children: Compulsory Public Education And Vouchers. Compulsory public education ; Vouchers -- Part III. Religion And Progressive Politics. Religion and progressive politics ; The politics of liberalism

"During the First World War it was the task of the U.S. Department of Justice, using the newly passed Espionage Act and its later Sedition Act amendment, to prosecute and convict those who opposed America's entry into the conflict. In Unsafe for Democracy, historian William H. Thomas Jr. shows that the Justice Department did not stop at this official charge but went much further - paying cautionary visits to suspected dissenters, pressuring them to express support of the war effort, or intimidating them into silence. At times going undercover, investigators tried to elicit the unguarded comments of individuals believed to be a threat to the prevailing social order." "Delving into numerous reports by Justice Department detectives, Thomas documents how, in case after case, they used threats and warnings to frighten war critics and silence dissent. This early government crusade for wartime ideological conformity, Thomas argues, marks one of the more dubious achievements of the Progressive Era - and a development that resonates in the present day."--Jacket

Partners for progress? Liberals and radicals in the long twentieth century / Doug Rossinow -- From popular front to liberalism: redefining the political in California in the post-World War II era / Jonathan Bell -- Going beyond the New Deal: socialists and the Democratic Party in the 1970s / Timothy Stanley -- From friends to foes: George McGovern, Hubert Humphrey, and the fracture in American liberalism / Bruce Miroff -- New York liberalism and the fight against homelessness / Ella Howard -- Liberalism in the postwar city: public and private power in urban renewal / Lizabeth Cohen -- Albert Gore Sr., liberalism and the south in the 1960s / Tony Badger -- Forgotten architects of the second Reconstruction: Republicans and civil rights, 1945-1972 / Timothy N. Thurber -- Liberal feminism and the reshaping of the New Deal order / Susan M. Hartmann -- Labor, liberalism, and the Democratic Party: a fruitful but vexed alliance / Nelson Lichtenstein

The Americas have witnessed considerable progress in the field of human rights. Although painful legacies persist, large-scale, systematic human rights violations of the kind common during Latin America's dictatorships are hopefully never to return. Yet abuses of rights and challenges to the rule of law have not disappeared completely, but rather taken on a different and elusive character. At the same time, the relatively good records of the developed North American countries continue to be undermined by their inconsistent approaches both at home and abroad. Human Rights Regimes in the Americas.

The last decade has seen the growth of extreme right movements throughout the western world, yet how should democracies react to the challenge that they pose?

"In 1761 and again in 1768, European scientists raced around the world to observe the transit of Venus, a rare astronomical event in which the planet Venus passes in front of the sun. In The Transit of Empire, Jodi A. Byrd explores how indigeneity functions as transit, a trajectory of movement that serves as precedent within U.S. imperial history. Byrd argues that contemporary U.S. empire expands itself through a transferable "Indianness" that facilitates acquisitions of lands, territories, and resources. Examining an array of literary texts, historical moments, and pending legislations--from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's vote in 2007 to expel Cherokee Freedmen to the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization bill--Byrd demonstrates that inclusion into the multicultural cosmopole does not end colonialism as it is purported to do. Rather, that inclusion is the very site of the colonization that feeds U.S. empire. Byrd contends that the colonization of American Indian and indigenous nations is the necessary ground from which to reimagine a future where the losses of indigenous peoples are not only visible and, in turn, grieveable, but where indigenous peoples have agency to transform life on their own lands and on their own terms"--Provided by publisher

"International Media Communication in a Global Age provides a thorough examination of key issues regarding global communication, with a focus on international news and strategic communication. Acknowledging the extensive breadth and scope of the international communication research field, this volume serves as an introduction to the latest trends in global communication scholarship. With contributions from leading international scholars doing work in this field, this collection will serve as an indispensable resource in the field of global media communication research."--Jacket

This study describes, analyses and quantifies taxation in the 13 original American colonies, comparing tax systems and burdens among the colonies and with Great Britain. It shows how the colonists strove to minimize, avoid and evade taxation, and used tax incentives to foster settlement

Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I. Ideals; Chapter 1. The Challenges of Measuring School Quality: Implications for Educational Equity, Helen Ladd and Susanna Loeb; Chapter 2. Equality, Adequacy, and K-12 Education, Rob Reich; Chapter 3. Learning to Be Equal: Just Schools as Schools of Justice, Anthony Simon Laden; Chapter 4. Education for Shared Fate Citizenship, Sigal Ben-Porath; Part 2. Constraints; Chapter 5. Can Members of Marginalized Groups Remain Invested in Schooling? An Assessment from the United States and the United Kingdom, Angel L. Harris

Relations between the United States and Europe have declined in the early 21st century and are worse than at any time since the 1960s. This book examines the widening gulf and worsening acrimony between the United States and its traditional allies on the European continent

The overseas basing of troops has been a central pillar of American military strategy since World War II--and a controversial one. Are these bases truly essential to protecting the United States at home and securing its interests abroad--for example in the Middle East-or do they needlessly provoke anti-Americanism and entangle us in the domestic woes of host countries? Embattled Garrisons takes up this question and examines the strategic, political, and social forces that will determine the future of American overseas basing in key regions around the world. Kent Calder traces the history of overseas bases from their beginnings in World War II through the cold war to the present day, comparing the different challenges the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union have confronted. Providing the broad historical and comparative context needed to understand what is at stake in overseas basing, Calder gives detailed case studies of American bases in Japan, Italy, Turkey, the Philippines, Spain, South Korea, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He highlights the vulnerability of American bases to political shifts in their host nations--in emerging democracies especially--but finds that an American presence can generally be tolerated when identified with political liberation rather than imperial succession. --From publisher's description.

Machine generated contents note: Part I. Civil Society Organizations and their Pathways to Transnationality: 1. Introduction; 2. Multiple pathways to transnationality; Part II. The Politicization of Trade: 3. The contentious nature of trade debates; 4. New regionalism in the Americas; Part III. The Dynamics of Networks: 5. Trade protest networks; 6. The origins and dynamics of trade challengers' networks; Part IV. Organizational Pathways to Transnationality: 7. The creation and demise of transnational coalitions; 8. Diffusion and differentiation of national coalitions; Part V. The Search for Ideational Pathways: 9. Alternatives for the Americas; 10. Transnational collective action in dynamic political contexts; 11. Conclusions: agency, networks, and collective action; Appendix A: lists of interviews; Appendix B: social network questionnaire (United States)