The Politics of Evasion

The Politics of Evasion PDF Author: Robert Latham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317236602
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Burgeoning national security programs; thickening borders; Wikileaks and Anonymous; immigrant rights rallies; Occupy movements; student protests; neoliberal austerity; global financial crises – these developments underscore that the fable of a hope-filled post-cold war globalization has faded away. In its place looms the prospect of states and corporations transforming a permanent war on terror into a permanent war on society. How, at the critical juncture of a post-globalization era, will policymakers and power-holders in leading states and corporations of the Global North choose to pursue power and control? What possibilities and limits do activists and communities face for progressive political action to counter this power inside and outside the state? This book is a sustained dialogue between author and political theorist, Robert Latham and Mr. V, a policy analyst from a state in the Global North. Mr. V is sympathetic to the pursuit of justice, rights and freedom by activists and movements but also mindful of the challenges of states in pursuing security and order in the current social and political moment. He seeks a return to the progressive, welfare-oriented state associated with the twentieth century. The dialogue offers an in-depth consideration of whether this is possible and how a progressive politics might require a different approach to social organization, power and collective life. Exploring key ideas, such as sovereignty, activism, neoliberalism, anarchism, migration, intervention, citizenship, security, political resistance and transformation, and justice, this book will be of interest to academics and students of Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Law, Geography, Media and Communication, and Cultural Studies.

The Politics of Evasion

The Politics of Evasion PDF Author: Robert Latham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317236602
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
Burgeoning national security programs; thickening borders; Wikileaks and Anonymous; immigrant rights rallies; Occupy movements; student protests; neoliberal austerity; global financial crises – these developments underscore that the fable of a hope-filled post-cold war globalization has faded away. In its place looms the prospect of states and corporations transforming a permanent war on terror into a permanent war on society. How, at the critical juncture of a post-globalization era, will policymakers and power-holders in leading states and corporations of the Global North choose to pursue power and control? What possibilities and limits do activists and communities face for progressive political action to counter this power inside and outside the state? This book is a sustained dialogue between author and political theorist, Robert Latham and Mr. V, a policy analyst from a state in the Global North. Mr. V is sympathetic to the pursuit of justice, rights and freedom by activists and movements but also mindful of the challenges of states in pursuing security and order in the current social and political moment. He seeks a return to the progressive, welfare-oriented state associated with the twentieth century. The dialogue offers an in-depth consideration of whether this is possible and how a progressive politics might require a different approach to social organization, power and collective life. Exploring key ideas, such as sovereignty, activism, neoliberalism, anarchism, migration, intervention, citizenship, security, political resistance and transformation, and justice, this book will be of interest to academics and students of Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Law, Geography, Media and Communication, and Cultural Studies.

Counting on the Census?

Counting on the Census? PDF Author: Peter Skerry
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815791976
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Since the U.S. Constitution first instructed that a slave be counted as only three-fifths of a person, the census has been caught up in America's racial dilemmas. Today it is torn by controversies over affirmative action, evolving racial identities, and minority undercounts. In Counting on the Census? Peter Skerry confirms the persistence of minority undercounts and insists that racial and ethnic data are critical to the administration of policies affecting minorities. He rejects demands that the census stop collecting such data. But Skerry also rejects the view that the census is a scientific exercise best left to the experts, and argues that it is necessarily and properly a political undertaking. To those advocating statistical adjustment of the census, Skerry insists that the consequences of minority undercounts have been misunderstood and exaggerated, while the risks of adjustment have been overlooked. Scrutinizing the tendency to equate census numbers with political power, Skerry places census controversies in the broader context of contemporary American politics and society. He traces our preoccupation with minority undercounts to the pervasive logic of an administrative politics that emphasizes the formal representation of minority interests over minority political mobilization and participation. Rather than confront the genuine social and political problems of the disadvantaged, political elites turn to adjustment to tweak outcomes at the margin. In such a context, where ordinary Americans already feel bewildered by and excluded from politics, the arcane techniques of adjustment would undermine public confidence in this most fundamental function of government. Finally, in a society where racial and ethnic identities are more fluid than ever, Skerry calls for greater realism about the limited accuracy of census data—and for greater tolerance of the untidy politics that accompanies the diversity we have come to value.

An Uncivil War

An Uncivil War PDF Author: Greg Sargent
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062698478
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
In An Uncivil War, the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent sounds an urgent alarm about the deeper roots of our democratic backsliding—and how we can begin to turn things around between now and 2020. American democracy is facing a crisis as fraught as we’ve seen in decades. Donald Trump’s presidency has raised the specter of authoritarian rule. Extreme polarization and the scorched-earth war between the parties drags on with no end in sight. The recent Kavanaugh confirmation hearings are only the latest example of this, and of the GOP’s continued ability to steamroll the Democrats and their supporters. At the heart of this dangerous moment is a paradox: It took a figure as uniquely menacing as Trump to rivet the nation’s attention on the fragility of our democracy. Yet the causes of our dysfunction are long-running—they predate Trump, helped facilitate his rise, and, distressingly, will outlast his presidency. In An Uncivil War, Sargent reveals why we’ve fallen into the ditch—and how to get out of it. Drawing upon years of research and reporting, he exposes the unparalleled sophistication and ambition of GOP tactics, including computer-generated gerrymandering, underhanded voter suppression, and ever-escalating legislative hardball. We are also plagued by other brutal, seemingly intractable problems such as dismal turnout and powerful, built-in temptations to tilt the political playing field with unscrupulous partisan trickery. All of this has been accompanied by foreign-government intervention and an unprecedented level of political disinformation that threatens to undermine the very possibility of shared agreement on facts and poses profound new challenges to the media’s ability to inform the citizenry. Yet the Republican Party is only part of the problem. As Sargent provocatively reveals, Democrats share culpability for helping to accelerate this slide. But our plight is far from hopeless, and Sargent offers a series of doable prescriptions for saving our democracy, including a shift of focus toward state legislatures, creative voter registration policies, innovative approaches to fairer districting, and a new sense of purpose. The result is a book that could not be more essential as we head toward the elections that most matter.

Centrist Rhetoric

Centrist Rhetoric PDF Author: Antonio de Velasco
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739139800
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
What exactly is happening when politicians evoke a center space beyond partisan politics to advance what are unmistakably political arguments? Drawing from an analysis of pivotal speeches surrounding Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and first term in office, Centrist Rhetoric: The Production of Political Transcendence in the Clinton Presidency takes an extended look at this question by showing how the possibility of political transcendence takes form in the rhetoric of the political center. Faced with a divided and shrinking party, and later with a pitched battle against a resurgent conservative movement, Clinton used the image of a political center, a "third way" beyond liberal and conservative orthodoxies, to advance his strategic goals, define his adversaries, and overcome key political challenges. As appeals to the center helped Clinton to achieve these advantages in specific cases, however, they also served to define the means, ends, and very essence of democracy in ambiguous and contradictory ways. Touching on controversies from the early 1990s over the future of the Democratic Party, racial identity in American politics, the threat of rightwing extremism, and the role of government, Antonio de Velasco show how centrist rhetoric's call to transcendence weaved together forms of identification and division, insight and blindness, so as to defy the conventional assessments of both Clinton's supporters and his detractors. Centrist Rhetoric thus offers general insight into the workings of political rhetoric, and a specific appreciation of Clinton's attempts to define and adjust to the political exigencies of a critical period in history of the Democratic Party and politics in the United States.

Republican Populist

Republican Populist PDF Author: Charles J. Holden
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813943272
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Typically a maligned figure in American political history, former vice president Spiro T. Agnew is often overlooked. Although he is largely remembered for his alliterative speeches, attacks on the media and East Coast intellectuals, and his resignation from office in 1973 in the wake of tax evasion charges, Agnew had a significant impact on the modern Republican Party that is underappreciated. It is impossible, in fact, to understand the current internal struggles of the Republican Party without understanding this populist "everyman" and prototypical middle-class striver who was one of the first proponents of what would become the ideology of Donald Trump’s GOP. Republican Populist examines Agnew’s efforts to make the Republican Party representative of the "silent majority." Under the tutelage of a group of talented speechwriters assigned to Agnew by President Richard Nixon including Pat Buchanan and William Safire, Agnew crafted the populist-tinged, anti-establishment rhetoric that helped turn the Republican Party into a powerful national electoral force that has come to define American politics into the current era. A fascinating political portrait of Agnew from his pre–vice presidential career through his scandal-driven fall from office and beyond, this book is a revelatory examination of Agnew’s role as one of the founding fathers of the modern Republican Party and of the link between Agnew’s "people’s party" and the fraught party of populists and businessmen today.

The Browning of America and the Evasion of Social Justice

The Browning of America and the Evasion of Social Justice PDF Author: Ronald R. Sundstrom
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791477622
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
This book considers the challenge that the so-called browning of America poses for any discussion of the future of race and social justice. In the philosophy of race there has been little reflection about how the rapid increase in the Latino, Asian American, and mixed-race populations affects the historical demands for racial justice by Native Americans and African Americans. Ronald R. Sundstrom examines how recent demographic shifts bear upon central questions in race theory and social and political philosophy, including color blindness, interracial intimacy, and the future of race. Sundstrom cautions that rather than getting caught up in romantic reveries about the browning of America, we should remain vigilant that longstanding claims for racial justice not be washed away.

Handbook on the Politics of Taxation

Handbook on the Politics of Taxation PDF Author: Hakelberg, Lukas 
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788979427
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
This comprehensive Handbook provides an insight into the main concepts and academic debates on taxation from a political science perspective. Providing a background to current debates on green taxation, taxation and inequality, taxation and gender, tax evasion and avoidance, and tax compliance, it offers potential avenues for future research.

Everyday Life in Mass Dictatorship

Everyday Life in Mass Dictatorship PDF Author: Alf Lüdtke
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137442778
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Oppression and violence are often cited as the pivotal aspects of modern dictatorships, but it is the collusion of large majorities that enable these regimes to function. The desire for a better life and a powerful national, if not imperial community provide the basis for the many forms of people's cooperation explored in this volume.

The Politics of Crime in Mexico

The Politics of Crime in Mexico PDF Author: John Bailey
Publisher: First Forum Press
ISBN: 9781935049890
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
What kind of democracy will emerge in Mexico when the current levels of violence are brought under control? Will democratic reformers gain strength in the new equilibrium between government and criminal organizations? Or will corruption tilt the balance toward criminal interests? In the context of these questions, John Bailey explores the ¿security trap¿ in which Mexico is currently caught¿where the dynamics of crime, violence, and corruption conspire to override efforts to put the country on a path toward democratic governance.

The Politics of Knowledge.

The Politics of Knowledge. PDF Author: Patrick Baert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134004370
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Social scientists often refer to contemporary advanced societies as ‘knowledge societies’, which indicates the extent to which ‘science’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowledge production’ have become fundamental phenomena in Western societies and central concerns for the social sciences. This book aims to investigate the political dimension of this production and validation of knowledge. In studying the relationship between knowledge and politics, this book provides a novel perspective on current debates about ‘knowledge societies’, and offers an interdisciplinary agenda for future research. It addresses four fundamental aspects of the relation between knowledge and politics: • the ways in which the nature of the knowledge we produce affects the nature of political activity • how the production of knowledge calls into question fundamental political categories • how the production of knowledge is governed and managed • how the new technologies of knowledge produce new forms of political action. This book will be of interest to students of sociology, political science, cultural studies and science and technology studies.