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American Political Thought, volume 13 number 2 (Spring 2024)
By American Political Thought. 2024
This is volume 13 issue 2 of American Political Thought. Bridging the gap between historical, empirical, and theoretical research, American…
Political Thought (APT) is the only journal dedicated exclusively to the study of the American political tradition. Interdisciplinary in scope, APT features research by political scientists, historians, literary scholars, economists, and philosophers who study the foundation and political tradition of concepts such as democracy, constitutionalism, equality, liberty, citizenship, political identity, and the role of the state.A Financial Times Best Book of the Year 2020A TIMELY AND PROVOCATIVE ARGUMENT FROM LEADING POLITICAL ANALYST DAVID GOODHART ABOUT…
THE SEVERELY IMBALANCED DISTRIBUTION OF STATUS AND WORK IN WESTERN SOCIETIES.The coronavirus pandemic revealed what we ought to have already known: that nurses, caregivers, supermarket workers, delivery drivers, cleaners, and so many others are essential. Until recently, this work was largely regarded as menial by the same society that now lauds them as heroes. How did we get here?In his groundbreaking follow-up to the bestselling The Road to Somewhere, David Goodhart divides society into people who work with their Heads (cognitive work), with their Hands (manual work), or with their Hearts (caring work), and considers each group&’s changing status and influence. Today, the &“best and the brightest&” trump the &“decent and hardworking.&” Qualities like character, compassion, craft, and physical labor command far less respect in our workforce. This imbalance has led to the disaffection and alienation of millions of people.David Goodhart reveals the untold history behind this disparity and outlines the challenges we face as a result. Cognitive ability has become the gold standard of human esteem, and those in the cognitive class now shape society largely in their own interest. To put it bluntly: smart people have become too powerful.A healthy democratic society respects and rewards a broad range of achievement, and provides meaning and value for people who cannot—or do not want to—achieve in the classroom and professional career market. We must shift our thinking to see all workers as essential, and not just during crises like the coronavirus pandemic. This is the dramatic story of the struggle for status and dignity in the 21st century.Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America
By Amy Goodman, David Goodman, Denis Moynihan. 2016
A celebration of the revolutionary change Amy and David Goodman have witnessed during the two decades of their acclaimed television…
and radio news program Democracy Now!—and how small individual acts from progressive heroes have produced lasting results.In 1996 Amy Goodman began hosting a show called Democracy Now! to focus on the issues and movements that are too often ignored by the corporate media. Today it is the largest public media collaboration in the US. This important book looks back over the past twenty years of Democracy Now! and the powerful movements and charismatic leaders who are re-shaping our world. Goodman takes us along as she goes to where the silence is, bringing out voices from the streets of Ferguson to Staten Island, Wall Street, and South Carolina to East Timor—and other places where people are rising up to demand justice.Giving voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful, Democracy Now! pays tribute to those progressive heroes—the whistleblowers, the organizers, the protestors—who have brought about remarkable, often invisible change over the last couple of decades in seismic ways. This is “an impassioned book aiming to fuel informed participation, outrage, and dissent” (Kirkus Reviews).Rights Talk: The Impoverishment Of Political Discourse
By Mary Ann Glendon. 1993
Political speech in the United States is undergoing a crisis. Glendon's acclaimed book traces the evolution of the strident language…
of rights in America and shows how it has captured the nation's devotion to individualism and liberty, but omitted the American traditions of hospitality and care for the community.The Ambassadors: America's Diplomats on the Front Lines
By Paul Richter. 2019
Veteran diplomatic correspondent Paul Richter goes behind the battles and the headlines to show how American ambassadors are the unconventional…
warriors in the Muslim world—running local government, directing drone strikes, building nations, and risking their lives on the front lines.The tale&’s heroes are a small circle of top career diplomats who have been an unheralded but crucial line of national defense in the past two decades of wars in the greater Middle East. In The Ambassadors, Paul Richter shares the astonishing, true-life stories of four expeditionary diplomats who &“do the hardest things in the hardest places.&”The book describes how Ryan Crocker helped rebuild a shattered Afghan government after the fall of the Taliban and secretly negotiated with the shadowy Iranian mastermind General Qassim Suleimani to wage war in Afghanistan and choose new leaders for post-invasion Iraq. Robert Ford, assigned to be a one-man occupation government for an Iraqi province, struggled to restart a collapsed economy and to deal with spiraling sectarian violence—and was taken hostage by a militia. In Syria at the eruption of the civil war, he is chased by government thugs for defying the country&’s ruler. J. Christopher Stevens is smuggled into Libya as US Envoy to the rebels during its bloody civil war, then returns as ambassador only to be killed during a terror attach in Benghazi. War-zone veteran Anne Patterson is sent to Pakistan, considered the world&’s most dangerous country, to broker deals that prevent a government collapse and to help guide the secret war on jihadists.&“An important and illuminating read&” (The Washington Post) and the winner of the prestigious Douglas Dillon Book Award from the American Academy of Diplomacy, The Ambassadors is a candid examination of the career diplomatic corps, America&’s first point of contact with the outside world, and a critical piece of modern-day history.Psychosocial and Cultural Perspectives on the War in Ukraine: Imprints and Dreamscapes
By Bohdan Shumylovych, Magdalena Zolkos. 2024
This innovative and important book explores how war imprints on culture and the psychosocial effects of war on individuals and…
societies, based on the first few months after the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022.The book approaches the conflict in Ukraine through the prism of creative and artistic material alongside scholarly analysis to highlight the multiplicity of subjective experiences. Essays are complemented by material from the ‘war diaries’, which comprise day diaries, dream diaries, artistic and poetic material composed by students and academics in February and March 2022. With chapters focusing on fear, ruptures and resistance, the book examines different aspects of subjective, cultural and embodied experiences of war. It examines elements that dominant perspectives of war often overlook; the quotidian, personal and emotive ways that war is registered individually and collectively in societies and cultures.Highlighting different narratives that illuminate the complex effects of war, this book is highly relevant for postgraduate students, researchers and advanced undergraduate students in the fields of cultural psychology, psychosocial studies, peace and conflict studies and cultural history.Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 7 and Chapter 10 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.To read the online archive of Two Months of War, please visit the Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History (Lviv, Ukraine): https://uma.lvivcenter.org/en/collections/178/interviewsSociety and the Environment: Pragmatic Solutions to Ecological Issues
By Michael S Carolan. 2024
The fourth edition of Society and the Environment centers its discussion on realistic solutions to the problems that persist and…
examines current controversies within a socio‑organizational context, shifting focus away from simply explaining what is wrong with the world around us. Introducing this “pragmatic environmentalism,” Carolan discusses the complex pressures and variables that exist where ecology and society collide, with population growth, the increase in demands for food and energy, and transportation and its outsized influence on urban and community patterns. With further attention given to the social phenomena and structural dynamics driving today’s environmental problems, the book concludes with an important reflection on truly sustainable solutions and what constitutes meaningful social change.Each chapter in this interdisciplinary text follows a three‑part structure beginning with an overview of what is wrong and why. This leads into a discussion on each issue’s wide‑ranging implications and, finally, a balanced consideration of realistic solutions. Featuring updated and expanded examples, discussion points, and coverage of recent developments, including the US withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, “booming” national economies and wealth distribution, growing global interest in environmental justice—with particular focus on the links between injustice and race and inequality—climate change, and renewable energy, this new edition remains an essential companion for courses on environmental sociology and sustainability.Chinese Politics: The Xi Jinping Difference (ISSN)
By Stanley Rosen, Daniel C. Lynch. 2024
Written by a team of leading China specialists, this updated 2nd edition of Chinese Politics explores the dynamics of state…
power and politics in contemporary China, focusing on the Xi Jinping era.Through its multi-disciplinary contributions, this book explores the extent to which Xi has reshaped the political, economic, socio-cultural, and demographic terrains of the PRC, as well as Beijing’s foreign policy. The book will help readers to think productively about the trajectory of these aspects of Chinese politics and society through Xi’s current term and beyond. The book also highlights the potential role outside countries and non-state actors might play in shaping China’s trajectory as the PRC’s economic rise may be stalling. Through each exploration of these issues, the book addresses the central question of what The Xi Jinping Difference has been, and will likely continue to be, in Chinese politics.Key subjects covered in this new edition include: Law and the political system Socialization of youth The fate of the private sector Technology and digital authoritarianism The Belt and Road Initiative Population aging Chinese Politics continues to be an essential textbook for all students of contemporary China as well as scholars interested in the dynamics of political and social change.From Legacy Media to Going Viral: Generational Media Use and Citizen Engagement (Routledge Studies in Media, Communication, and Politics)
By Robert H. Wicks, Shauna A. Morimoto, Jan LeBlanc Wicks. 2024
From Legacy Media to Going Viral: Generational Media Use and Citizen Engagement examines how the prominent media available shapes each…
rising generation of citizens. The authors discuss how global and national events along with the media each generational group most frequently accessed defined these groups.Drawing on interdisciplinary social science insights into social media and civic and political engagement, the book contextualizes the civic and political rise of the Millennials and Gen Z with comparative insights from Gen X and the Baby Boomers. With a focus on emergent patterns of American citizenship, the authors examine issues such as a decline in social trust, new and sustained patterns of civic and political engagement and the continuing importance of political consumerism. Looking beyond the impact of media on youth and issues of civic and political generational change, this book explores how the media accessible to each American generation contributes to that generation’s collective experience, thus solidifying their civic and political attitudes.The book will be of interest to students and scholars concerned with civic and political engagement, political consumerism and media use, in the areas of media studies, advertising, communication, journalism, political science and sociology.Anthropocene and Cosmopolitan Citizenship criticizes the Westphalia system of international relations and, as an alternative, proposes cosmopolitan citizenship. The book…
offers a critique of the theory of international relations based on the Westphalian system and the principle of national sovereignty.At the end of the Second World War, the two superpowers agreed on a new international order that, to this day, has prevented a new world war. This era is over. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic and political affirmation of new international powers – such as China, India and Brazil – have generated a multipolar world, in which growing tensions between great and small powers are manifested, up to the threat of nuclear war. To this threat, a second one has been added: the possible collapse of the biosphere, an epoch called the Anthropocene, because the pollution of nature is suffocating the life of every living species on the Planet, including Homo sapiens. The United Nations can be viewed as the first step towards a post-Westphalian system, and the European Union represents an alternative model for peaceful relationships among national peoples. The book’s methodology draws on an interdisciplinary relationship between social sciences and nature sciences to provide a European foreign policy strategy that shows how the European Union can play a crucial role in current international politics, helping build a just world in harmony with nature, including by calling for a Global Green Deal and an Earth Constitution. The integration of the national peoples of the European Union shows that supranational citizenship is possible and that national independence is compatible with peaceful international interdependence. The author explores how this can be achieved and how alternatives have failed, with reference to federalism, ecologism, liberalism, democracy, socialism, nationalism, security and patriotism.This book will be of interest to scholars of international relations and European studies and activists, including ecologists, young people, federalists and members of political parties.'A corporation, or a government department isn't a conscious being, but it is an artificial intelligence. It has the capability…
to take decisions which are completely distinct from the intentions of any of the people who compose it. And under stressful conditions, it can go stark raving mad.'When we avoid taking a decision, what happens to it? In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies examines why markets, institutions and even governments systematically generate outcomes that everyone involved claims not to want. He casts new light on the writing of Stafford Beer, a legendary economist who argued in the 1950s that we should regard organisations as artificial intelligences, capable of taking decisions that are distinct from the intentions of their members. Management cybernetics was Beer's science of applying self-regulation in organisational settings, but it was largely ignored - with the result being the political and economic crises that that we see today. With his signature blend of cynicism and journalistic rigour, Davies looks at what's gone wrong, and what might have been, hadthe world listened to Stafford Beer when it had the chance.Yoga – Anticolonial Philosophy: An Action-Focused Guide to Practice
By Shyam Ranganathan. 2024
Providing a decolonial, action-focused account of Yoga philosophy, this practical work from Dr. Shyam Ranganathan, pioneering scholar in the field…
of Indian moral philosophy, focuses on the South Asian tradition to explore what Yoga was like prior to colonization. It challenges teachers and trainees to reflect on the impact of Western colonialism on Yoga as well as understand Yoga as the original decolonial practice in a way that is accessible. Each chapter takes the reader through a journey of sources and traditions, beginning with an investigation into the colonial -Platonic and Aristotelian- approaches to pedagogy in colonized yoga spaces, through contrary, ancient philosophies of South Asia, such as Jainism, Buddhism, Sankhya, and various forms of Vedanta, to sources of Yoga, including the Upanisads, Yoga Sutra, Bhagavad Gita and Hatha Yoga Pradipika. With discussions of the precolonial philosophy of Yoga, its relationship to social justice, and modern postural yoga's relationship with colonial trauma, this is a comprehensive guide for any yoga teacher or trainee to activate and synergize their practice. Supplementary online resources bring the text to life, making this the perfect text for yoga teacher trainings.Menacing Tides: Security, Piracy and Empire in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean
By null Erik de Lange. 2024
New ideas of security spelled the end of piracy on the Mediterranean Sea during the nineteenth century. As European states…
ended their military conflicts and privateering wars against one another, they turned their attention to the 'Barbary pirates' of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. Naval commanders, diplomats, merchant lobbies and activists cooperated for the first time against this shared threat. Together, they installed a new order of security at sea. Drawing on European and Ottoman archival records – from diplomatic correspondence and naval journals to songs, poems and pamphlets – Erik de Lange explores how security was used in the nineteenth century to legitimise the repression of piracy. This repression brought European imperial expansionism and colonial rule to North Africa. By highlighting the crucial role of security within international relations, Menacing Tides demonstrates how European cooperation against shared threats remade the Mediterranean and unleashed a new form of collaborative imperialism.Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq
By Michael Scheuer. 2008
When Michael Scheuer first questioned the goals of the Iraq War in his 2004 bestseller Imperial Hubris, policymakers and ordinary…
citizens alike stood up and took notice. Now, Scheuer offers a scathing and frightening look at how the Iraq War has been a huge setback to America's War on Terror, making our enemy stronger and altering the geopolitical landscape in ways that are profoundly harmful to U.S. interests and security concerns. Marching Toward Hell is not just another attack on the Bush administration. Rather, it sounds a critical alarm that must be heard in order to preserve the nation's security. Scheuer outlines the ways that America's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has undermined the very goals for which we are fighting and played right into bin Laden's hands. The ongoing instability in Iraq, for example, has provided al Qaeda and its allies with the one thing they want most: a safe haven from which to launch operations across borders into countries that were previously difficult for them to reach. With U.S. forces and resources spread thinner every day, the war has depleted our strength and brought al Qaeda a kind of success that it could not have achieved on its own. A twenty-plus-year CIA veteran, Scheuer headed the agency's Osama bin Laden unit, managed its covert-action operations, and authored its rendition program. Scheuer spent his career developing strategies to keep America safe, by any means deemed necessary by the presidents he served. It was his job to take available intelligence and devise plans to protect Americans, without considering bias, position, or even existing alliances. In Marching Toward Hell, Scheuer takes on the questions of "What went wrong?" and "How can we fix this?" and proposes a plan to cauterize the damage that has already been done and get American strategy back on track. He lists a number of painful recommendations for how we must shift our ideological, military, and political views in order to survive, even if that means disagreeing with Israeli policy or launching more brutal campaigns against terrorists. America holds its destiny in its hands, Scheuer says, yet not nearly enough has been done to defend America and destroy its Islamist enemies. This is an eye- opening, alarming, contentious, and ultimately fascinating examination of how far off track the War on Terror has gone, and a critical read in understanding what we must do to save it.Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendancy
By Nina J. Easton. 2000
In Gang of Five, bestselling author Nina J. Easton adds an important element to the history of American politics in…
the last thirty years. This is the story of the other, less well known segment of the baby-boom generation. These are young conservative activists who arrived on campus in the 1970s in rebellion against everything "sixties" and went on to overturn the political dynamics of the country in the 1980s and 1990s. They've been waging what Newt Gingrich called a "war without blood" for three decades. Gang of Five portrays the intertwining careers of five major figures: BILL KRISTOL, the Harvard-educated elitist and publisher of the Weekly Standard, is the liberal establishment's worst nightmare -- a witty, erudite Rightist who was a leading force behind the demise of the Clinton health care plan, the historic reform of welfare, and the decision of House Republicans to impeach the president. RALPH REED, the hardball politico who helped turn an organization called the College Republicans into a kind of communist cell of the Right, in the 1990s tried to give the Religious Right a softer face as leader of the Christian Coalition but was thwarted by his thirst for power and the narrow fundamentalism of his activist followers. CLINT BOLICK, a leading force in the spread of school choice programs and the anti-affirmative action strategist who sank Lani Guinier's appointment, is the idealist who seeks to convince civil rights leaders that his legal work on behalf of disadvantaged minorities is sincere and that liberal programs hurt the people they are meant to help. GROVER NORQUIST, the "market Leninist" who divides the world into "good" and "evil," is at the hub of Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing conspiracy" and is the architect of a no-new-taxes pledge signed by all major Republican candidates in the 1990s. DAVID MCINTOSH, the policy wonk who took the movement's war on Washington to Congress as leader of the House Republican freshmen during the Gingrich Revolution, pushed his party toward confrontation with the White House and is now running for governor in Indiana. In contrast to earlier generations of conservatives, these leaders and their allies tasted success, first with Ronald Reagan's twin victories in the 1980s and then, in the 1990s, with the Republican capture of Congress. They play to win and have had a hand in every major insurrection from the Right over the past two decades -- from abortion politics to government shutdowns to political muckracking. No politician can ignore their agenda or escape the new hardball rules they've written for national politics.AIDS Activist: Michael Lynch and the Politics of Community
By Ann Silversides. 2003
Michael Lynch, the central figure of this book, was a long-time gay activist and a dynamic force in organizing an…
early response to the AIDS epidemic. Lynch’s prescient articles in The Body Politic spoke to the gay communities of Toronto, New York, and San Francisco. His organizing efforts meant change and hope. AIDS Activist is a crisp and passionate introduction to a wide range of issues. Focusing on personal stories Silversides furnishes a snap-shot history of how the AIDS crisis unfolded and some of the heroic responses to it. Her emphasis on the politics of the gay community response makes this book unique.American Political Parties And Elections: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions Ser.)
By L. Sandy Maisel. 2016
Few Americans and even fewer citizens of other nations understand the electoral process in the United States. Still fewer understand…
the role played by political parties in the electoral process or the ironies within the system. Participation in elections in the United States is much lower than in the vast majority of mature democracies. Perhaps this is because of the lack of competition in a country where only two parties have a true chance of winning, despite the fact that a large number of citizens claim allegiance to neither and think badly of both. Or perhaps it is because in the U.S. campaign contributions disproportionately favor incumbents in most legislative elections, or that largely unregulated groups such as the now notorious 527s have as much impact on the outcome of a campaign as do the parties or the candidates' campaign organizations. These factors offer a very clear picture of the problems that underlay our much trumpeted electoral system. The second edition of this Very Short Introduction introduces the reader to these issues and more. Drawing on updated data and new examples from the 2016 presidential nominations, L. Sandy Maisel provides an insider's view of how the system actually works while shining a light on some of its flaws. He also illustrates the growing impact of campaigning through social media, the changes in campaign financing wrought by the Supreme Court recent decisions, and the Tea Party's influence on the sub-presidential nominating process. As the United States enter what is sure to be yet another highly contested election year, it is more important than ever that Americans take the time to learn the system that puts so many in power.The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020
By Jonathan Lemire. 2022
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom the WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF OF POLITICO and the host of MSNBC's WAY TOO EARLY…
comes a probing and illuminating analysis of the current state of American politics, democracy, and elections.“[Lemire] has done his homework.” –The GuardianJonathan Lemire uncovers that “The Big Lie,” as it’s been termed, isn’t just about the 2020 election. It's become a political philosophy that has only further divided the two parties.Donald Trump first tried it out in 2016, at an August rally in Ohio. He said that perhaps he wouldn’t accept the election results in his race against Hillary Clinton, that the election was “rigged.” He didn’t have to challenge the result that year, but the stage was set. When he lost in 2020, he started the lie back up again and to devastating results: an insurrection at the Capitol in January 2021.In the more than five tumultuous, paradigm-shifting years of Donald Trump’s presidency and beyond, his near-constant lying has become a fixture of political life. It is inextricably linked with how his party behaves, how the Democrats respond to it, and how he remains relevant, even after a decisive loss in 2020. Jonathan Lemire brings his connections, profile, and dogged reportorial instincts to bear in his first book that explores how this phenomenon shapes our politics.Written with sharp political insight and detailed with dozens of interviews, The Big Lie is the first book to examine this unprecedented and tenuous moment in our nation’s politics.Abolish the Monarchy: Why we should and how we will
By Graham Smith. 2023
'A crucial, riveting polemic in support of one of the most precious things humanity has built - democracy itself' OWEN…
JONES'Graham Smith shows what fools our rotten constitution makes of us, with a monarch as emblem of a country beset by nepotism, backhanders, chumocracy and inherited privilege. Read and rebel!' POLLY TOYNBEEWe're constantly told the same things about the monarchy:But the monarchy is good for tourism..It isn't! Evidence points to some royal weddings actually having a negative impact on inbound tourism.But the monarchy makes a big difference to charity..Of the approx. 1,200 charities with a royal patron, 74% had no contact with their patron during the preceding year.But everyone loves the monarchy..A January 2023 poll showed support for the monarchy is down 55 percent.It's wrong in principle and it doesn't work in practice. It doesn't have to be this way.They say Britain should be proud to have the mother of parliaments, to be a shining beacon of democracy and an example to other nations. But there's an elephant in the room.At the heart of power is a single family. They weren't elected but they live off the public purse. They aren't accountable to anyone, and yet between them they are privy to more government secrets than many cabinet ministers. Divinely appointed using a special hat, the head of the family is your superior, you his subject. Apparently he is guardian of our constitution - but we're also told he wouldn't dream of interfering in politics.If you accept the monarchy, you must accept the moral compromise that comes with it, from its erosion of the principle of equality to the secret interference in our laws. But the good news is that we don't have to accept it. True democracy is within our reach.The State of Us: The good news and the bad news about our society
By Jon Snow. 2024
'A fascinating call to arms full of insight' IndependentAfter four decades broadcasting to the nation each night, Jon Snow gives…
vent to his opinions on the state of our nation . . . the good news and the bad newsIt is rare in history that so many nations in the developed world are in crisis at the same time. There has been a disintegration of trust in political leaders and in the media that holds them to account. For all the progress humankind has made, for all the inventions and new technologies, our society is being undermined by inequality. To fix it, we must begin by seeking out the truth about our world.In The State of Us, Jon Snow traces how the life of the nation has changed across his five-decade career, from getting thrown out of university for protesting apartheid to interviewing every prime minister since Margaret Thatcher.In doing so, he shows how the greatest problems at home and abroad so often come down to inequality and an unwillingness to confront it. But that is not our fate. Despite the challenges, Snow has witnessed profound social progress. In this passionate rallying cry, he argues that at its best, journalism reflects not just who we are now, but who we can be.We've had enough of division; the future is for us.