Political Science

Republicans vs. Democrats:

Hearing a lot about the Presidential election but want to learn some of the basics?

Want to join in political discussions with your friends and family?

Tired of all the misleading political articles on social media?

Want to learn the main Republican and Democratic arguments on all the major issues?

Want to better understand your parties’ viewpoint? The opposing parties’ viewpoint?

What is the verdict for a country of citizens who don blinders and boxing gloves in the face of opposing points of view? What type of “American Identity” will we leave for the next generation?

In Red, White, and Latina 3-time Emmy Award winner, 2-time author, entertainment personality, and proud American Latina, Cristina Pérez dissects these issues and proposes a new unified outlook for America based on common sense, common values, and common ground. She delivers a no-holds-barred and non-biased look inside the most heated conversations in America today, examining the headlines, evidence, and hearsay, before delivering her verdict for each one.

There is a quiet experiment in Milwaukee that is turning heads. It starts with the simplicity of getting a city kid exploring their neighborhood park. How is it that so much life, community, and opportunity can grow from this unlikely soil? It's been called a miracle. It's contagious. It's spreading. It's exciting. And it works!

This is the story of a group of ordinary people in a neighborhood who created something extraordinary.

Readers will discover… the power of getting a city kid outside in nature; that kindness does work; how to say no while following the yes; the value of clarity and focus; how to find abundance within their own diverse community by simply and humbly asking for help; ten tried and tested rules for raising money (a lot of it!) while having a ton of fun doing it; a positive, believable, and very real vision for the future of the environment (we've got this!); and... how to join the Urban Ecology movement.

Korean Dream: A Vision for a Unified Korea is a powerful call to action for Koreans and supporters everywhere to achieve a new nation, rooted in a common past. In this Centennial Edition, which debuted on several bestseller lists including the Wall Street Journal, LA Times, and Publishers Weekly, Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon presents an innovative way forward for the Korean Peninsula that at its heart is Korean led. Ultimately, Korean reunification is the only long-term solution to security, economic, and social problems created through a 70-year division of the Peninsula.

Dr. Moon goes a step further, offering a groundbreaking approach to peace rooted in the founding principles of Hongik Ingan, cultural practices, and engagement from civil society organizations to empower Koreans to become global advocates for peace. Korean Dream calls upon Koreans, Korean diaspora, and people everywhere to take charge and work to achieve a reunified Korean peninsula.

When Emmanuel Macron was elected President of the French Republic, it ended the long-standing political alternation between the mainstream right- and left-wing parties. This book examines Macron’s political career from his rise as a public figure to his time as a president.

The book explores Macron’s political ideology and examines the enactment of the key notions of security, merit and hope during his time in office. By offering a close study of his actions and ideological commitment, this book argues that, despite claims of being ideologically neutral, Macron actually represents a new form of right-wing politics in France.

Since the end of the Cold War, and particularly in the post-9/11 international environment, neutrality has been conceptualised as a problematic subject. With the end of bipolarity, neutrality as a foreign and security policy lost much of its justification, and in the ongoing ‘War on Terror’, no state, according to the Bush Administration, can be neutral. However, much of this debate has gone unnoticed in IR literature. This book, newly available in paperback, examines the conceptualisation of neutrality from the Peloponnesian War to the present day, uncovering how neutrality has been a neglected and misunderstood subject in IR theory and politics. By rethinking neutrality through constructivism, this book argues that neutrality is intrinsically linked to identity.

Using Sweden as a case study, it links identity, sovereignty, internationalism and solidarity to the debates about Swedish neutrality today and how neutrality has been central to Swedish identity and its world-view.

This is the first comprehensive survey of the Irish state, and draws on a range of theoretical approaches to analyse its origins, its evolution, its nature and its role in Ireland’s recent economic success.

The book begins by outlining the fragmentary way in which the Irish state has been treated to date in the social sciences. Subsequent chapters by distinguished contributors then go on to examine the history of the Irish state from 1922 to 1973, the developmental nature of the Irish state since the 1980s, the Irish state as a partnership state, the gendered nature of the state, the changing nature of the state’s autonomy and capacity since independence, whether the Irish state can be described as a competition state, and the activities and policies of the Irish state as a welfare state. The editors examine the lessons learnt from these analyses before detailing a challenging agenda for further research.

The book will be of major interest to students of Irish politics and of Ireland’s recent economic and social development. Given Ireland’s status as a model of success in this globalised era, the book will interest scholars of globalisation and comparative politics, and makes a significant contribution to analyses of the role of the state in this context.

The introduction of FOI in Ireland was a watershed moment in Irish democracy. It gave citizens a right to know, and abolished eighty years of official secrecy that had existed since the foundation of the State. As the new 2014 FOI Act is extended to the gardaí and the Central Bank for the first time, this book critically examines the important contribution the legislation has made to the opening up of Irish democracy and society.

The book includes important contributions from the Ombudsman and Information Commissioner Peter Tyndall, former minister Eithne FitzGerald and RTE journalist Richard Dowling. It will be a core text for students of politics and public administration, journalism, media and communications and law; and will be an important reference for policy makers and civil and public servants.

In what ways can we think through the complexities of identity? Identity is a contested concept, but it is more than a thing possessed by agents. Identity is contingent and dynamic, constituting and reconstituting subjects with political effects. In this edited book, identity is explored through a range of unique interdisciplinary case studies from around the world. Questions of citizenship, belonging, migration, conflict, security, peace and subjectivity are examined through social construction, post-colonialism, and gendered lenses from an interdisciplinary perspective. This combination showcases in particular the political implications of identity, how it is constituted, and the effects it produces.

This edited collection will be of particular interest to students of international relations theory, migration studies, gender and sexuality, post-colonialism and policy-making at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Conspiracy theory and American foreign policy examines the relationship between secrecy, power and interpretation around international controversy, where foreign policy orthodoxy comes up hard against alternative interpretations. It does so in the context of US foreign policy during the War on Terror, a conflict that was covert and conspiratorial to its core.

Offering a new dimension to debates on post-truth politics, this book critically examines the ‘Arab-Muslim paranoia narrative’: the view that Arab-Muslim resentment towards America is motivated to some degree by a paranoid perception of American power in the Middle East. This narrative is traced from its roots in a post-War liberal understanding of populism through to foreign policy debates about the origins of 9/11, to the strategic heart of the Bush Administration’s War of Ideas. Balancing conceptual innovation with detailed case analysis, Aistrope provides a window into the ideological commitments of the US War on Terror.

Offering a fascinating insight into conspiracy and paranoia, this book is essential reading for those interested in the relationship between secrecy, power, and contemporary politics.

This is the first comprehensive survey of the Irish state, and draws on a range of theoretical approaches to analyse its origins, its evolution, its nature and its role in Ireland’s recent economic success.

The book begins by outlining the fragmentary way in which the Irish state has been treated to date in the social sciences. Subsequent chapters by distinguished contributors then go on to examine the history of the Irish state from 1922 to 1973, the developmental nature of the Irish state since the 1980s, the Irish state as a partnership state, the gendered nature of the state, the changing nature of the state’s autonomy and capacity since independence, whether the Irish state can be described as a competition state, and the activities and policies of the Irish state as a welfare state. The editors examine the lessons learnt from these analyses before detailing a challenging agenda for further research.

The book will be of major interest to students of Irish politics and of Ireland’s recent economic and social development. Given Ireland’s status as a model of success in this globalised era, the book will interest scholars of globalisation and comparative politics, and makes a significant contribution to analyses of the role of the state in this context.

Conspiracy theory and American foreign policy examines the relationship between secrecy, power and interpretation around international controversy, where foreign policy orthodoxy comes up hard against alternative interpretations. It does so in the context of US foreign policy during the War on Terror, a conflict that was covert and conspiratorial to its core.

Offering a new dimension to debates on post-truth politics, this book critically examines the ‘Arab-Muslim paranoia narrative’: the view that Arab-Muslim resentment towards America is motivated to some degree by a paranoid perception of American power in the Middle East. This narrative is traced from its roots in a post-War liberal understanding of populism through to foreign policy debates about the origins of 9/11, to the strategic heart of the Bush Administration’s War of Ideas. Balancing conceptual innovation with detailed case analysis, Aistrope provides a window into the ideological commitments of the US War on Terror.

Offering a fascinating insight into conspiracy and paranoia, this book is essential reading for those interested in the relationship between secrecy, power, and contemporary politics.

This study, available for the first time in paperback, explores the normative dimension of the evolving role of the United Nations in peace and security and, ultimately, in governance. What is dealt with here is both the UN's changing raison d'être and the wider normative context within which the organisation is located. The study looks at the UN through the window of one of its most contentious, yet least understood, practices: active involvement in intra-state conflicts as epitomised by UN peacekeeping.

Drawing on the conceptual tools provided by the 'historical structural' approach, this study seeks to understand how and why the international community continuously reinterprets or redefines the UN's role with regard to intra-state conflicts. The study concentrates on intra-states 'peacekeeping environments', and examines what changes, if any, have occurred to the normative basis of UN peacekeeping in intra-state conflicts from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. One of the original aspects of the study is its analytical framework, where the conceptualisation of 'normative basis' revolves around objectives, functions and authority, and is closely connected with the institutionalised values in the UN Charter such as state sovereignty, human rights and socio-economic development.

This book is essential reading for postgraduate students of IR and international peacekeeping organisations.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

This book is about the lives of refugee women in Britain and France. Who are they? Where do they come from? What happens to them when they arrive, while they wait for a decision on their claim for asylum, and after the decision, whether positive or negative?
It shows how laws and processes designed to meet the needs of men fleeing political persecution often fail to protect women from persecution in their home countries and fail to meet their needs during and after the decision-making process. It portrays refugee women as resilient, resourceful and potentially active participants in British and French social, political and cultural life. It exposes the obstacles that make active participation difficult.
The book is an authoritative and thorough synthesis of all available material on refugee women in Britain and France. The style is accessible and highly readable, making this an ideal book for academics, students and interested readers.

Since its emergence at the end of the seventeenth century, industrial capitalism as a specific form of social organisation has set recurrent challenges to its own persistence, and until today, it has proved to be successful to develop new ways of accumulation based on its capacity of adaptation. Is this process of transition now accelerating or reaching an end point? This book is a critical exploration of capitalism in transition, bringing together cutting edge, world renowned scholars who reflect from different disciplinary points of view. This collection engages with the primarily Western themes of welfare capitalism and social fragmentation. Structured over three parts, the book analyses; the transformations of welfare societies and capitalism with a focus on South European welfare states and their (in)capacity to tackle poverty; the transformation of work and migration with a special attention to informality and the question of social rights; and the transformation of cities.
This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 1, No poverty.

How can we study globalisation in a way that transcends the material/ideational rift? How has globalisation resonated and/or dominated in different national contexts? What role has been played by national political economies and domestic institutions in this process?

Producing globalisation attempts to scrutinise the nature of the interplay between globalisation and national institutional settings. Rather than taking globalisation as a given, this book explores how concrete political actors produced the phenomenon of globalisation. Such an approach aims to bring human agency and its importance to the forefront of theory and practice in world politics and economics. The analysis is based on two case-studies, Greece and Ireland. By examining and comparing the discourses, policies and strategies of key, national institutional actors in these two countries, Producing globalisation offers new insights into the emergence of globalisation as a hegemonic discourse, as well as into the theory of hegemonic discourse itself. Thus the author invites us to think differently both about the nature of globalisation and the nature of the hegemonic within international political economy.

This exciting book, available in paperback for the first time, provides an illuminating account of contemporary globalisation that is grounded in actual transformations in the areas of production and the workplace. It reveals the social and political contests that give 'global' its meaning, by examining the contested nature of globalisation as it is expressed in the restructuring of work.

Rejecting conventional explanations of globalisation as a process that automatically leads to transformations in working lives, or as a project that is strategically designed to bring about lean and flexible forms of production, this book advances an understanding of the social practices that constitute global change. Through case studies that span from the labour flexibility debates in Britain and Germany, to the strategies and tactics of corporations and workers, the author examines how globalisation is interpreted and experienced in everyday life. Contestation, she argues, is about more than just direct protests and resistances. It has become a central feature of the practices that enable or confound global restructuring.

This book offers students and scholars of international political economy, sociology and industrial relations an innovative framework for the analysis of globalisation and the restructuring of work.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

This book examines the contribution of different Christian traditions to the waves of democratisation that have swept various parts of the world in recent decades. It offers a historical overview of Christianity’s engagement with the development of democracy, before focusing in detail on the period since the 1970s. Successive chapters deal with: the Roman Catholic conversion to democracy and the contribution of that church to democratisation; the Eastern Orthodox ‘hesitation’ about democracy; the alleged threat to American democracy posed by the politicisation of conservative Protestantism; and the likely impact on democratic development of the global expansion of Pentecostalism.

The author draws out several common themes from the analysis of these case studies, the most important of which is the ‘liberal-democracy paradox’. This ensures that there will always be tensions between faiths that proclaim some notion of absolute truth and political orders that are rooted in the idea of compromise, negotiation and bargaining.

Written in an accessible style, this book will appeal to students of politics, sociology and religion, and prove useful on a range of advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

This book provides a distinctive and empirically rich account of the European Union’s relationship with the Common Market of the South (Mercosur). It seeks to examine the motivations that determine the EU’s policy towards Mercosur; the most important relationship the EU has with another regional economic integration organization.
In order to investigate these motivations (or lack thereof), this study examines the contribution of the main policy- and decision-makers, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, as well as the different contributions of the two institutions. It analyses the development of EU policy towards Mercosur in relation to three key stages.
Arana argues that the dominant explanations in the literature fail to adequately explain the EU’s policy, in particular, these accounts tend to infer the EU’s motives from its activity. Rather than the EU pursuing a strategy, as implied by most of the existing literature, the EU was largely responsive, which explains why the relationship is much less developed than the EU’s relations with other parts of the world.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

Since its emergence at the end of the seventeenth century, industrial capitalism as a specific form of social organisation has set recurrent challenges to its own persistence, and until today, it has proved to be successful to develop new ways of accumulation based on its capacity of adaptation. Is this process of transition now accelerating or reaching an end point? This book is a critical exploration of capitalism in transition, bringing together cutting edge, world renowned scholars who reflect from different disciplinary points of view. This collection engages with the primarily Western themes of welfare capitalism and social fragmentation. Structured over three parts, the book analyses; the transformations of welfare societies and capitalism with a focus on South European welfare states and their (in)capacity to tackle poverty; the transformation of work and migration with a special attention to informality and the question of social rights; and the transformation of cities.
This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 1, No poverty.

Although formally equal, relations between citizens are actually characterised by many and varied forms of inequality. Do contemporary theories of equality provide an adequate response to the inequalities that afflict contemporary societies? And what is the connection between theories of equality and the contemporary politics of citizenship? Accessible and comprehensive, Rethinking equality provides a clear, critical and very up-to-date account of the most important contemporary egalitarian theories. Unusually, it also relates these theories to contemporary political practice, assessing them in relation to the impact of neoliberalism on contemporary welfare states, and the shift from ‘social’ to ‘active’ forms of citizenship. As well as representing a significant intervention within academic debates on equality and citizenship, this book represents essential reading for students of contemporary political theory.
This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10, Reduced inequalities

This book is about the distinctive features of Scandinavian democracy, the state of Scandinavian democracy and the classification of the Scandinavian democracies. It breaks new ground in challenging the established status of the Scandinavian countries as ‘consensus model democracies’.
The book poses three main questions. First, what are the distinctive features of the five Scandinavian political systems when compared with the Westminster model of democracy? Next, how well does the evidence from recent commissions suggest that Scandinavian democracy is working in practice? Finally, is Scandinavian democracy consensual, majoritarian or mixed? The nature of legislative-executive relations is explored, with a particular focus on the role of the parliamentary opposition and its involvement in policy-making. The central conclusion is that all the Nordic states are majoritarian democracies, albeit with varying amounts of consensual legislative behaviour.

The Bush Administration, sex and the moral agenda considers White House policy towards issues such as abortion, sex education, obscenity and same-sex marriage. The book suggests that although accounts have often emphasised the ties between George W. Bush and the Christian right, the administration's strategy was, at least until early 2005, also directed towards the courting of middle ground opinion.

This study offers a detailed and comprehensive survey of policy-making; assesses the political significance of moral concerns; evaluates the role of the Christian right, and throws new light on George W. Bush's years in office and the character of his thinking. The book will prove invaluable for those taking social science courses as well as as well as anyone with a general interest in the Bush presidency.

US politics today not only introduces the defining features of contemporary American politics but also considers the strengths and weaknesses of a system that is now under serious strain.

The book is ideal for students, teaching staff and the general reader. It outlines the ways in which the Constitution shapes the politics of today, surveys the role of the presidency, Congress and the federal courts, and examines processes of political participation through elections, organized interests and parties. It pays particular attention to Barack Obama and Donald Trump’s turbulent years in office and the ways in which recent decades have reshaped the US political landscape.

US politics today also places the US in a comparative context and considers key theoretical perspectives. In sum, the book not only provides an indispensable introduction to contemporary American politics but establishes a basis for informed commentary and further study.

The politics of Englishness provides a digest of the debates about England and Englishness and a unique perspective on those debates. Not only does the book provide readers with ready access to and interpretation of the significant literature on the English Question, it also enables them to make sense of the political, historical and cultural factors which constitute that question.

The book addresses the condition of England in three interrelated parts. The first looks at traditional narratives of the English polity and reads them as variations of a legend of political Englishness, of England as the exemplary exception, exceptional in its constitutional tradition and exemplary in its political stability. The second considers how the decay of that legend has encouraged anxieties about English political identity and about how English identity can be recognised within the new complexity of British governance. The third revisits these narratives and anxieties, examining them in terms of actual and metaphorical ‘locations’ of Englishness: the regional, the European and the British.

The 25th anniversary of the Anglo-Irish Agreement provides an appropriate opportunity to re-examine its legacy because after its signing nothing was ever quite the same again. How and why that is so is the subject of this book.

The book provides new perspectives on how the Anglo-Irish Agreement influenced the nature and direction of the subsequent peace process by examining it through the key concepts of the Northern Ireland conflict. The objective is not only to understand the Anglo-Irish Agreement's momentary impact but also its status as an enduring moment of political modification.

By bringing together some of the most distinguished scholars in the field and by addressing the key challenges and possibilities which the Anglo-Irish Agreement bequeathed, this book will appeal to scholars and students of British and Irish politics, contemporary history, and peace and conflict studies.

Securitising Russia shows the impact of twenty-first-century security concerns on the way Russia is ruled. It demonstrates how President Putin has wrestled with terrorism, immigration, media freedom, religious pluralism, and economic globalism, and argues that fears of a return to old-style authoritarianism oversimplify the complex context of contemporary Russia.

The book focuses on the internal security issues common to many states in the early twenty-first-century, and places them in the particular context of Russia. Detailed analysis of the place of security in Russia’s political discourse and policy-making reveals nuances often missing from overarching assessments of Russia today. To characterise the Putin regime as the ‘KGB-resurgent’ is to miss vital continuities, contexts, and on-going political conflicts which make up the contemporary Russian scene.

Securitising Russia draws together current debates about whether Russia is a ‘normal’ country developing its own democratic and market structures, or a nascent authoritarian regime returning to the past.

Labour migration has become one of the hot topics in Europe, especially since 2000 with the shift from restriction to managed migration. This book provides an authoritative account of policy change over labour migration in Europe during this new era of governance.

It has important implications for debates about the contemporary governance of labour migration in Europe, and questions about the impact of an emergent EU migration regime in the context of a globalising labour market. The key findings offer a deeper understanding of the linkages between those engaged in policymaking and the kinds of communities that produce usable knowledge.

It will therefore be essential reading for academics, practitioners and students of migration and national policy processes in the EU. It will be an invaluable resource for individuals and organisations active in the immigration policy community, including policymakers themselves, but also the wider network of NGOs, think tanks and interest groups.

Governance is among the most used of new ideas in the social sciences, most notably in the fields of political science, public administration, sociology, social and political theory. As ever, debates within disciplines rarely transcend disciplinary boundaries. This volume, newly available in paperback, brings together authors from these fields to elaborate on the development of governance analysis in new conceptions of political and democratic communication. It not only seeks to identify, describe and evaluate the contribution of each discipline to a theory of communicative governance, but also lays the foundation of a multidisciplinary framework for studying the mediation in communicative governance of societal concerns for effectiveness, order and participation.

The book is theoretical and comparative, drawing on authors and research in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the US. It adopts an anti-foundational approach to deconstruct the essentialist discourses endemic in each discipline and the disciplinary traditions of each country. Notions such as steering and control in public administration, identities and domination in sociology, and the community and self in social and political theory are analysed in depth. The book will demonstrate clearly how the distinctive traditions of each discipline lead them to construct overlapping, loosely coupled, and sometimes incommensurable ideas about the institutions, politics and policies of governance.

Throughout the twentieth century, everyone from Marxists to economic individualists assumed that social and political activity was driven by the rational pursuit of material gain. Today, the fundamental importance of the cultivation and preservation of identity is finally re-emerging. This book explores the rich fabric of speech, dress, diet and the built environment from which human identity is made. Synthesising methods and ideas from numerous disciplines – including history, political science, anthropology, law and sociology – it presents a picture of human life as more than just a collection of material interests. Its ultimate aim is to show that no human activity is trivial or meaningless, that everything counts and 'plumage' matters.

An open access version of this book, funded by the London School of Economics and Political Science, is available under a CC-BY licence at www.manchesteropenhive.com and www.oapen.org.

Throughout the twentieth century, everyone from Marxists to economic individualists assumed that social and political activity was driven by the rational pursuit of material gain. Today, the fundamental importance of the cultivation and preservation of identity is finally re-emerging. This book explores the rich fabric of speech, dress, diet and the built environment from which human identity is made. Synthesising methods and ideas from numerous disciplines – including history, political science, anthropology, law and sociology – it presents a picture of human life as more than just a collection of material interests. Its ultimate aim is to show that no human activity is trivial or meaningless, that everything counts and 'plumage' matters.

An electronic edition of this book, funded by the London School of Economics and Political Science, is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

This book provides a careful and systematic analysis of Anthony Ascham’s career and writings for the first time in English.

During the crucial period between the Second Civil War and the establishment of the English Republic, when he served as official pamphleteer of the Parliament and the republican government, Ascham put forward a complex argument in support of Parliament’s claims for obedience which drew on the political thought of Grotius, Hobbes, Selden, Filmer and Machiavelli. He combined ideas taken from these authors and turned them into a powerful instrument of propaganda to be deployed in the service of the political agenda of his Independent patrons in Parliament. This investigation of Ascham’s works brings together an intellectual analysis of his political thought and an exploration of the interaction between politics, propaganda and political ideas.

How do parties adopt and change positions on the European question? How do they balance the demands placed upon them by ideology, voters and participation in coalition government? What are the sources of Euroscepticism, and how widespread is it among the parties and the public? This book addresses these questions by examining the politics of Hungary’s accession to the European Union, from the early 1990s to 2004. The book provides a conceptually grounded yet accessible analysis of the way questions related to EU membership, and European integration in general, are channelled into political life.
Starting with a comparative exploration of the impact of European integration on party politics in Western and Eastern Europe, the book goes on to review the Hungarian political parties’ history, ideological profiles, electoral competition and coalition-building in government and opposition, as well as the dynamics of public opinion. It will be of interest to academics concerned with the contestation of European integration in EU member states, and specifically with party politics in Central and Eastern European.

Tensions in the struggle for sexual minority rights in Europe, newly available in paperback, is the first queer and poststructuralist reading of political rights concepts in the specific European transnational context. In the last thirty years Europe has seen the rise of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender movements fighting nationally and transnationally for participation rights in society. In addition academic theorists have increasingly paid attention to the epistemological and ontological roles gender and sexuality play in modern politics. However, in the political process of arguing for rights the centrality of those roles is mostly hidden from view in official institutional and movement discourses.

This book investigates the conceptual themes of lesbian, gay and transgender rights and lobby politics in Europe and their open and hidden relations to binary and hierarchical orders of dominance. It contributes to an understanding of the conditions upon which politics of inclusion, participation, social justice and equality rest and why struggles for sexual minority rights have been so difficult and slow. It illuminates how the paradigms of political discourse constitute, consolidate and contest the meaning and cultural significance of gender and sexuality on modern, democratic, capitalist European societies.

Offers a sophisticated analysis of central political concepts in the light of recent debates in political theory. Introduces students to some of the main interpretations of key political conceps highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. Tackles the principle concepts employed to justify any policy or institution and examines the main domestic purposes and functions of the state. Examines the relationship between state and civil society and finally looks beyond the state to issues of global concern and inter-state relations. Studies the relationship between state and civil society and finally looks beyond the state to issues of global concern and inter-state relations.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

With the 2005 Review Conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the background, this book provides a fully detailed but accessible and accurate introduction to the technical aspects of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons for the specialist and non-specialist alike. It considers nuclear weapons from varying perspectives, including the technology perspective, which views them as spillovers from nuclear energy programmes; and the theoretical perspective, which looks at the collision between national and international security – the security dilemma – involved in nuclear proliferation. It aims to demonstrate that international security is unlikely to benefit from encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons except in situations where the security complex is already largely nuclearised.

The political constraints on nuclear spread as solutions to the security dilemma are also examined in three linked categories, including an unusually full discussion of the phenomenon of nuclear-free zones, with particular emphasis on the zone covering Latin America. The remarkably consistent anti-proliferation policies of the USA from Baruch to Bush are debated and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty itself, with special attention paid to the international atomic energy’s safeguards system is frankly appraised.

This book examines attempts by the Conservative party in the interwar years to capture the ‘brains’ of the new electorate and create a counter-culture to what they saw as the intellectual hegemony of the Left.

It tells the fascinating story of the Bonar Law Memorial College, Ashridge, founded in 1929 as a ‘College of citizenship’ to provide political education through both teaching and publications. The College aimed at creating ‘Conservative Fabians’ who were to publish and disseminate Conservative literature, which meant not only explicitly political works but literary, historical and cultural work that carried implicit Conservative messages.

This book modifies our understanding of the history of the Conservative party and popular Conservatism, but also more generally of the history of intellectual debate in Britain. It sheds new light on the history of the ‘middlebrow’ and how that category became a weapon for the Conservatives.

The 'globalisation' concept has become ubiquitous in British politics, as it has in many countries of the world. This exciting new book examines discourse on foreign economic policy to determine the impact of globalisation across the ideological landscape of British politics.

The book critically interrogates the assumption that the idea of globalisation is derivative solely of neo-liberal ideology by profiling the discourse on globalisation of five political groups involved in making and contesting British foreign economic policy between 1997 and 2009: New Labour, International Financial Services London, the Liberal Democrats, Oxfam and the Socialist Workers Party. In addition to the relationship between neo-liberalism and globalisation, it also explores the core meaning of the idea of globalisation, the implications for the principle of free trade, the impact on notions of the state, nation-state and global governance, and whether globalisation means different things across the ideological spectrum.

Topically, the book examines how the responses to the global financial crisis have been shaped by globalisation discourse and the value of ideology as an analytical concept able to mitigate debates on the primacy of material and ideational explanations in political economy. It will be of vital use to students and scholars of global economic change, financial crisis, the state, the impact of globalisation on national governance, and those interested in ideological change.

This book provides a detailed investigation and comparison of the trade unions of five EU member states: Austria, Britain, France, Germany and Sweden, and their positions on Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Several European-level trade union organisations are also examined. The focus of this project, however, is not limited to EMU as a case study. Rather, EMU is regarded as a vehicle to assess trade unions’ options and possibilities to respond to global structural change in general and to participate in the formation of the future economic-political system of the EU in particular.

Two principal hypotheses are investigated. Firstly, that a labour movement’s position on EMU depends crucially on its length and degree of exposure to the competitive pressures of globalisation, and secondly, that those trade unions which lose influence within the domestic institutional set-up are most in favour of the establishment of an industrial relations system and social regulation at the European level to counter global pressures. By contrast, unions which continue to enjoy a strong position at the national level, are less likely to engage in European co-operation.

Britain and Africa in the twenty-first century provides the first analysis of UK-Africa policy in the era of austerity, Conservative government and Brexit. It explores how Britain’s relationship with Africa has evolved since the days of Blair, Brown and 'Make Poverty History' and examines how a changing UK political environment, and international context, has impacted upon this longstanding – and deeply complex – relationship.

This edited collection includes contributions from leading UK- and Africa-based scholars, as well as from Chatham House’s Africa Programme Head and the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Africa. Examining trade, security, aid and peacekeeping, as well as the role of political parties, advocacy groups and the UK population itself, Britain and Africa provides an indispensable reference point for researchers and practitioners interested in contemporary UK-Africa relations and the place of Africa in British foreign policy.

This book examines attempts by the Conservative party in the interwar years to capture the ‘brains’ of the new electorate and create a counter-culture to what they saw as the intellectual hegemony of the Left.

It tells the fascinating story of the Bonar Law Memorial College, Ashridge, founded in 1929 as a ‘College of citizenship’ to provide political education through both teaching and publications. The College aimed at creating ‘Conservative Fabians’ who were to publish and disseminate Conservative literature, which meant not only explicitly political works but literary, historical and cultural work that carried implicit Conservative messages.

This book modifies our understanding of the history of the Conservative party and popular Conservatism, but also more generally of the history of intellectual debate in Britain. It sheds new light on the history of the ‘middlebrow’ and how that category became a weapon for the Conservatives.

About a quarter of all democracies today legally oblige their citizens to vote, making this an important aspect of electoral systems in many settings. Moreover, numerous commentators and policy-makers in voluntary voting states are coming to view mandatory attendance at the polls as an attractive option in the context of declining turnout. Yet there has been a dearth of analysis of the way in which compulsory voting shapes attitudes, behaviour and outcomes of the political process. This volume fills that gap by providing a comprehensive description, analysis and evaluation of compulsory voting as it is practiced throughout the world.

Specifically, the study systematically examines the history of the institution, the normative arguments for and against it, and the influence it has on a range of political phenomena. These include electoral campaigns, political attitudes, electoral integrity and legitimacy, policy outcomes and turnout. The book also considers the feasibility of introducing compulsory voting in a contemporary democracy, as well as variations on the institution designed to broaden its appeal.

The British love of sport is legendary. In this lively and stimulating book Derek Birley looks at the part it played in shaping British society.

The book traces the development of sporting conventions from medieval chivalry to modern notions of sportsmanship and fair play. Particular sports from hunting and the tournament to ball-games and athletics are shown against the social background of the emerging nation. The first laws of favourite pastimes such as horse-racing, cricket and boxing were devised by the privileged for gambling purposes, but were enthusiastically followed by the lower orders for pleasure and profit.

Amongst the topics explored are the changing fortunes and fashions in field sports, 'gentlemen and players' in cricket, the public school games cult, purity in amateur rowing, the urban middle-class discovery of lawn tennis and golf, and the 'north-south divide' in football. These social issues are cross-threads in the theme of sport's influence on national identity, patriotism and imperialism in the making of Britain.

Remarkable in its scope and in its linking of sport to the changing social political scene, this is a splendidly readable history.

This is the first comprehensive study of direct rule as the system of governance which operated in Northern Ireland for most of the period between 1972 and 2007. The major institutions of governance are described and examined in detail, including the often neglected sectors of the role of the Westminster parliament, the civil service, local government, quangos, ombudsmen offices, cross-border structures and the public expenditure process.

The book explains how the complex system covering transferred, reserved and excepted functions worked and provided viable governance despite political violence, constitutional conflict and political party disagreements. In addition, a comparison is drawn between direct rule and devolution, analysing both the positive and negative impact of direct rule, as well as identifying where there has been minimal divergence in processes and outcomes. It will prove an invaluable reference source on direct rule and provide a comparative basis for assessing devolution for students of public administration, government, politics, public policy and devolution.

The ascent of globalisation tells the sweeping historical drama of the development of globalisation, from the Second World War to the present day.

The story is told through the richly detailed accounts of eighteen remarkable men and women, describing how these architects reshaped the modern world, for better or worse. Profiling their lives, ideas and struggles reveals fresh insights into the nature of globalisation.

The book also examines their legacies, shedding new light on many of the problems the world faces today: the global financial crisis, the political and economic malaise afflicting Europe, the numerous failures of the United Nations, the unchecked power of corporations and the inability of governments to cooperate on critical issues such as climate change.

Many feminists have engaged with the man-made concepts and approaches of traditional political analysis to produce an increasingly sophisticated and wide-ranging body of thought. The starting point of this book is the belief that such work is not simply 'something for the girls'; rather, it has profound and complex implications without which our understanding of political processes and ideas would be impoverished.

This book provides an accessible overview and assessment of the impact of recent feminism by bringing together leading feminist and pro-feminist political theorists and analysts, to focus on key concepts, such as rationality, citizenship, democracy and democratisation, development and empowerment.

Each chapter takes a 'malestream' concept and examines both the critical debates around it and feminist reactions/critiques. It then analyses the significance and implications of feminism for the concept, considers whether it can simply be extended to include women, or whether it should be radically transformed or even abandoned, and assesses whether feminist input has become part of the mainstream debate or remains marginalised.

The ascent of globalisation tells the sweeping historical drama of the development of globalisation, from the Second World War to the present day.

The story is told through the richly detailed accounts of eighteen remarkable men and women, describing how these architects reshaped the modern world, for better or worse. Profiling their lives, ideas and struggles reveals fresh insights into the nature of globalisation.

The book also examines their legacies, shedding new light on many of the problems the world faces today: the global financial crisis, the political and economic malaise afflicting Europe, the numerous failures of the United Nations, the unchecked power of corporations and the inability of governments to cooperate on critical issues such as climate change.

This most thorough and contemporary examination of the religious features of the UK state and its monarchy argues that the long reign of Elizabeth has led to a widespread lack of awareness of the centuries old religious features of the state that are revealed at the accession and coronation of a new monarch. It is suggested that the next succession to the throne will require major national debates in each realm of the monarch to judge whether the traditional rituals which require professions of Christianity and Protestantism by the new monarch are appropriate, or whether they might be replaced by alternative secular or interfaith ceremonies.

It will be required reading for those who study the government and politics of the UK, Canada, Australia and the other 13 realms of the monarch. It will also appeal to as well as students and lecturers in history, sociology and religious studies and citizens interested in the monarchy and contemporary religious issues.

Why adopt a poststructural lens for the reading of the military strategy of national missile defence (NMD)? No doubt, when contemplating an attack on US territory by intercontinental ballistic missiles, consulting Michel Foucault and critical international relations theory scholars may not seem the obvious route to take.

The answer to this lies in another question: why has there been so much interest and continuous investment in NMD deployment when there is such ambiguity surrounding the status of threat to which it responds, controversy over its technological feasibility and concern about its cost? Posed in this manner, the question cannot be answered on its own terms – the terms given in official accounts of NMD that justify the system’s significance on the basis of strategic feasibility studies and conventional threat predictions guided by worst-case scenarios. Instead, this book argues that the preferences leading to NMD deployment must be understood as satisfying requirements beyond strategic approaches and issues. In turning towards the interpretative modes of inquiry provided by critical social theory and poststructuralism, this book contests the conventional wisdom about NMD and suggests reading the strategy in terms of US identity.

Presented as an analysis of discourses on threats to national security, around which the need for NMD deployment is predominantly framed, this book is an effort to let the two fields of critical international relations theory and US foreign policy speak directly to each other. It seeks to do so by showing how the concept of identity can be harnessed to an analysis of a contemporary military-strategic practice.