Why do authoritarian regimes survive? How do dictators fail? What role do political institutions play in these two processes? Many of the answers to these questions can be traced to the same source: the interaction between institutions and preferences. Using Egypt as a case study, Professor Mahmoud Hamad describes how the synergy between judges and generals created the environment for the present government and a delicate balance for its survival. The history of modern Egypt is one of the struggle between authoritarian governments, and forces that advocate for more democratic rights. While the military has provided dictatorial leaders, the judiciary provides judges who have the power to either support or stymie authoritarian power. Judges and Generals in the Making of Modern Egypt provides a historically grounded explanation for the rise and demise of authoritarianism, and is one of the first studies of Egypt's judicial institutions within a single analytical framework.
A revelatory look at how Roger Williams shaped the nature of religion, political power, and individual rights in America. For four hundred years, Americans have wrestled with and fought over two con
Discipline and the Other Body reveals the intimate relationship between violence and difference underlying modern governmental power and the human rights discourses that critique it. The comparative e
Health rights litigation is still an emerging phenomenon in Africa, despite the constitutions of many African countries having provisions to advance the right to health. Litigation can provide a power
Rainer Forst develops a critical theory capable of deciphering the deficits and potentials inherent in contemporary political reality. This calls for a perspective which is immanent to social and political practices and at the same time transcends them. Forst regards society as a whole as an ‘order of justification’ comprising complexes of different norms referring to institutions and corresponding practices of justification. The task of a ‘critique of relations of justification’, therefore, is to analyse such legitimations with regard to their validity and genesis and to explore the social and political asymmetries leading to inequalities in the ‘justification power’ which enables persons or groups to contest given justifications and to create new ones. Starting from the concept of justification as a basic social practice, Forst develops a theory of political and social justice, human rights and democracy, as well as of power and of critique itself. In so doing, he engages in a critiq
One of the most pressing issues in contemporary China is the massive rural land takings that have taken place at a scale unprecedented in human history. Expropriation of land has dispossessed and displaced millions for several decades, despite the protection of property rights in the Chinese constitution. Combining meticulous doctrinal analysis with in-depth historical investigation, Chun Peng tracks the origin and evolution of China's rural land takings law over the twentieth century and demonstrates an enduring tradition of land takings for state-led social transformation, under which the takings law is designed to be power-confirming. With changed socio-political circumstances and a new rights-respecting constitutional agenda, a rebalance of the law is now underway, but only within existing parameters. Peng provides a piercing analysis of how land has been used by the largest developing country in the world to develop itself, at what costs and where the future might be.
Since the 1980s, the world's governments have decreased state welfare and thus increased the number of unprotected 'informal' or 'precarious' workers. As a result, more and more workers do not receive secure wages or benefits from either employers or the state. This book offers a fresh and provocative look into the alternative social movements informal workers in India are launching. It also offers a unique analysis of the conditions under which these movements succeed or fail. Drawing from 300 interviews with informal workers, government officials and union leaders, Rina Agarwala argues that Indian informal workers are using their power as voters to demand welfare benefits from the state, rather than demanding traditional work benefits from employers. In addition, they are organizing at the neighborhood level, rather than the shop floor, and appealing to 'citizenship', rather than labor rights.
Received wisdom suggests that social organizations (such as non-government organizations, NGOs) have the power to upend the political status quo. However, in many authoritarian contexts, such as China, NGO emergence has not resulted in this expected regime change. In this book, Timothy Hildebrandt shows how NGOs adapt to the changing interests of central and local governments, working in service of the state to address social problems. In doing so, the nature of NGO emergence in China effectively strengthens the state, rather than weakens it. This book offers a groundbreaking comparative analysis of Chinese social organizations across the country in three different issue areas: environmental protection, HIV/AIDS prevention, and gay and lesbian rights. It suggests a new way of thinking about state-society relations in authoritarian countries, one that is distinctly co-dependent in nature: governments require the assistance of NGOs to govern while NGOs need governments to extend politica
Since the 1980s, the world's governments have decreased state welfare and thus increased the number of unprotected 'informal' or 'precarious' workers. As a result, more and more workers do not receive secure wages or benefits from either employers or the state. This book offers a fresh and provocative look into the alternative social movements informal workers in India are launching. It also offers a unique analysis of the conditions under which these movements succeed or fail. Drawing from 300 interviews with informal workers, government officials and union leaders, Rina Agarwala argues that Indian informal workers are using their power as voters to demand welfare benefits from the state, rather than demanding traditional work benefits from employers. In addition, they are organizing at the neighborhood level, rather than the shop floor, and appealing to 'citizenship', rather than labor rights.
In a vibrant and passionate exploration of the twentieth-century civil rights and black power eras in American history, Waldo Martin uses cultural politics as a lens through which to understand the Af
This is the first ever comprehensive practical guide to human rights and video campaigning.Pictures from Abu Ghraib showed the power of the amateur image to grab the world's attention. The Asian tsun
In this volume a group of distinguished legal and political theorists and experts on journalism discuss how to reconcile our values concerning freedom of the press with the enormous power of the media - especially television - to shape opinions and values. The policy issues treated concern primarily the extent of justifiable government regulation of the media and the justification for regulating television differently from newspapers. The volume contains some highly original and groundbreaking analyses of philosophical issues surrounding the First Amendment of the US Bill of Rights. This is a book for anyone seriously interested in the rights to free speech and expression in technologically advanced societies.
This collection of essays is designed to illustrate the variety, complexity and power of non-neoclassical economic thinking. The essays define the fundamental questions differently, employ different analytical tools and arrive at different conclusions. The two strands of non-neoclassical thinking that occupy most of the book are the neo-Keynesian and the neo-Marxian. The bulk of the book is composed of essays on microeconomics, macroeconomics, trade, comparative systems and welfare, with an unusual section on property rights and social hierarchy.
This innovative study of the power of lineage in India across two centuries examines some of the traditional social structures which transcended so successfully the political upheavals of British rule. Under the Maratha Kingdom, the Devs occupied a privileged position in the ritual, social and economic hierarchies of the state from the 1620s onwards, their continuing influence stemming principally from obtaining grants of rent-free land around Pune and successfully maintaining this inheritance from generation to generation. With the British conquest of Maharashtra in 1818, the close relations between state and privileged subject were slowly broken and by the 1850s, the British sought to settle the Devs' landed rights. Basing their inquiries on preconquest vernacular documents, they became entwined in disputes over the tenure of the Devs' lands and the mode of inheritance within the lineage that reveal a telling ignorance of the customary relations between the Indian State and its privi
Defending Life is arguably the most comprehensive defense of the pro-life position on abortion - morally, legally, and politically - that has ever been published in an academic monograph. It offers a detailed and critical analysis of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey as well as arguments by those who defend a Rawlsian case for abortion-choice, such as J. J. Thomson. The author defends the substance view of persons as the view with the most explanatory power. The substance view entails that the unborn is a subject of moral rights from conception. While defending this view, the author responds to the arguments of thinkers such as Boonin, Dworkin, Stretton, Ford and Brody. He also critiques Thomson's famous violinist argument and its revisions by Boonin and McDonagh. Defending Life includes chapters critiquing arguments found in popular politics and the controversy over cloning and stem cell research.
In 2004, the Report of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change emphasised the linkages between economic development, security and human rights, and the imperative in the twenty-first century of collective action and cooperation between States. In a world deeply divided by differences of power, wealth, culture and ideology, central questions today in international law and organisation are whether reaffirmation of the concept of collective security and a workable consensus on the means of its realisation are possible. In addressing these questions, this book considers the three key documents in the recent UN reform process: the High-Level Panel report, the Secretary-General's In Larger Freedom report and the 2005 World Summit Outcome document. The chapters examine the responsibilities, commitments, strategies and institutions necessary for collective security to function both in practice and as a normative ideal in international law and relations betwee
The fight for women's rights worldwide has been one of the great power struggles of the twentieth century, and its graphic expression has been central to this battle. Suffragettes to She-Devils captur
