Taking inspiration from Public Enemy's lead vocalist Chuck D - who once declared that 'rap is the CNN of young Black America' - this volume brings together leading legal commentators to make sense of some of the most pressing law and policy issues in the context of hip-hop music and the ongoing struggle for Black equality. Contributors include MSNBC commentator Paul Butler, who grapples with race and policing through the lens of N.W.A.'s song 'Fuck tha Police', ACLU President Deborah Archer, who considers the 2014 uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, and many other prominent scholars who speak of poverty, LGBTQ+ rights, mass incarceration, and other crucial topics of the day. Written to 'say it plain', this collection will be valuable not only to students and scholars of law, African-American studies, and hip-hop, but also to everyone who cares about creating a more just society.
In recent years, transitional justice has become increasingly international in its scope. Due to ongoing animosities, lack of political will, and the absence of credible governing or judicial institutions, international organizations, donors, and NGOs advocate for transitional justice initiatives like truth commissions or special tribunals - alongside national actors, like civil society and victims groups. This book examines how international assistance affects transitional justice, and where power truly lies in making decisions about justice for victims of massive human rights abuse. The book finds that government donors typically lack strategies for transitional justice, they struggle with information deficits, and they are constrained by short-term approaches that do not give enough attention to what is often a weak and divided civil society sector. All the authors have both practical and scholarly perspectives on transitional justice. Country case studies are provided, including de
State legislatures are tasked with drawing state and federal districts and administering election law, among many other responsibilities. Yet state legislatures are themselves gerrymandered. This book examines how, why, and with what consequences, drawing on an original dataset of ninety-five state legislative maps from before and after 2011 redistricting. Identifying the institutional, political, and geographic determinants of gerrymandering, the authors find that Republican gerrymandering increased dramatically after the 2011 redistricting and bias was most extreme in states with racial segregation where Republicans drew the maps. This bias has had long-term consequences. For instance, states with the most extreme Republican gerrymandering were more likely to pass laws that restricted voting rights and undermined public health, and they were less likely to respond to COVID-19. The authors examine the implications for American democracy and for the balance of power between federal and
State legislatures are tasked with drawing state and federal districts and administering election law, among many other responsibilities. Yet state legislatures are themselves gerrymandered. This book examines how, why, and with what consequences, drawing on an original dataset of ninety-five state legislative maps from before and after 2011 redistricting. Identifying the institutional, political, and geographic determinants of gerrymandering, the authors find that Republican gerrymandering increased dramatically after the 2011 redistricting and bias was most extreme in states with racial segregation where Republicans drew the maps. This bias has had long-term consequences. For instance, states with the most extreme Republican gerrymandering were more likely to pass laws that restricted voting rights and undermined public health, and they were less likely to respond to COVID-19. The authors examine the implications for American democracy and for the balance of power between federal and
In recent years, transitional justice has become increasingly international in its scope. Due to ongoing animosities, lack of political will, and the absence of credible governing or judicial institutions, international organizations, donors, and NGOs advocate for transitional justice initiatives like truth commissions or special tribunals - alongside national actors, like civil society and victims groups. This book examines how international assistance affects transitional justice, and where power truly lies in making decisions about justice for victims of massive human rights abuse. The book finds that government donors typically lack strategies for transitional justice, they struggle with information deficits, and they are constrained by short-term approaches that do not give enough attention to what is often a weak and divided civil society sector. All the authors have both practical and scholarly perspectives on transitional justice. Country case studies are provided, including de
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
How did representative institutions become the central organs of governance in Western Europe? What enabled this distinctive form of political organization and collective action that has proved so durable and influential? The answer has typically been sought either in the realm of ideas, in the Western tradition of individual rights, or in material change, especially the complex interaction of war, taxes, and economic growth. Common to these strands is the belief that representation resulted from weak ruling powers needing to concede rights to powerful social groups. Boucoyannis argues instead that representative institutions were a product of state strength, specifically the capacity to deliver justice across social groups. Enduring and inclusive representative parliaments formed when rulers could exercise power over the most powerful actors in the land and compel them to serve and, especially, to tax them. The language of rights deemed distinctive to the West emerged in response to m
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 recent decades, women's political empowerment has become a growing foreign policy and assistance priority. Every year, donor governments and multilateral organizations partner with hundreds of civil society groups to train women to run for office, support women legislators, campaign for gender quotas, and bolster women's networks in political parties and parliaments. The overarching aim is a simple one: to overcome women's persistent political exclusion in most parts of the world. What ideas about gender, power, and political change undergird these aid programs? What have practitioners and advocates learned about their strengths and weaknesses, and how have they adapted their approaches over time? And how might aid actors improve their work in this domain going forward? Drawing on extensive interviews with policymakers, practitioners, women's rights advocates, and politicians in Western donor countries and across Kenya, Morocco, Myanmar, and Nepal, Aiding Empowerment investigates ho
9/11 and its aftermath have shown that our ideas about what constitutes sovereign power lag dangerously behind the burgeoning claims to rights and recognition within and across national boundaries. Ne
Global Constitutionalism argues that parts of international law can be understood as being grounded in the rule of law and human rights, and insists that international law can and should be interpreted and progressively developed in the direction of greater respect for and realization of those principles. Global Constitutionalism has been discussed primarily by European scholars. Yet without the engagement of scholars from other parts of the world, the universalist claims underlying Global Constitutionalism ring hollow. This is particularly true with regard to East Asia, where nearly half the world's population and a growing share of global economic and military capacities are located. Are East Asian perspectives on Global Constitutionalism similar to European perspectives? Against the background of current power shifts in international law, this book constitutes the first cross-cultural work on various facets of Global Constitutionalism and elaborates a more nuanced concept that fits
The art of alliance management is an integral part of the practice of business in the twenty-first century. Collaborations between companies provide synergistic ideas and a combined capability that surpasses what each firm can achieve, individually. This handbook comprehensively encompasses the latest research in the expanding fields of strategic alliances and interfirm collaborations, featuring twenty-eight contributions from leading international experts. It will enable the reader to develop skills in negotiating with a prospective partner firm; write alliance agreements that specify the rights, responsibilities, obligations, restraints and safeguards for each partner; govern and manage the relationship, taking into account behavioural and psychological considerations, as well as the power balance over the life of the alliance; and handle termination or dissolution of the agreement when appropriate. It will be an invaluable resource for graduate students and academic researchers in b
Since 2005, Angela Merkel has transformed not only the way Germans see themselves but also the way that politicians worldwide, male and female, perceive women in power. The East German daughter of a Protestant pastor, this physicist-turned-politician has deployed her life experiences to cultivate a unique set of leadership skills. Her pragmatic, data-driven, and future-oriented approach to politics - grounded in a commitment to democratic pluralism, human rights, and personal responsibility - has produced extraordinary paradigm shifts in many national policies in the wake of major crises. As the first English-language scholarly book to provide an in-depth account of her career and influence, Becoming Madam Chancellor examines Merkel's achievements across six key policy domains, contextualizes these within broader German history before and after reunification, and uncovers the personal and political factors that have contributed to Chancellor Merkel's hard-earned status as the world's m
Since 2005, Angela Merkel has transformed not only the way Germans see themselves but also the way that politicians worldwide, male and female, perceive women in power. The East German daughter of a Protestant pastor, this physicist-turned-politician has deployed her life experiences to cultivate a unique set of leadership skills. Her pragmatic, data-driven, and future-oriented approach to politics - grounded in a commitment to democratic pluralism, human rights, and personal responsibility - has produced extraordinary paradigm shifts in many national policies in the wake of major crises. As the first English-language scholarly book to provide an in-depth account of her career and influence, Becoming Madam Chancellor examines Merkel's achievements across six key policy domains, contextualizes these within broader German history before and after reunification, and uncovers the personal and political factors that have contributed to Chancellor Merkel's hard-earned status as the world's m
In 2011, the world watched as dictators across the Arab world were toppled from power. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, ordinary Arab citizens mobilized across the region during the Arab Spring to reinvent the autocratic Arab world into one characterized by democracy, dignity, socioeconomic justice, and inviolable human rights. This unique comparative analysis of countries before, during and after the Arab Spring seeks to explain the divergent outcomes, disappointing and even harrowing results of efforts to overcome democratic consolidation challenges, from the tentative democracy in Tunisia to the emergence of the Islamic State, and civil war and authoritarian retrenchment everywhere else. Tracing the period of the Arab Spring from its background in long-term challenges to autocratic regimes, to the mass uprisings, authoritarian breakdown, and the future projections and requirements for a democratizing conclusion, Stephen J. King establishes a broad but focused histor
In 2011, the world watched as dictators across the Arab world were toppled from power. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, ordinary Arab citizens mobilized across the region during the Arab Spring to reinvent the autocratic Arab world into one characterized by democracy, dignity, socioeconomic justice, and inviolable human rights. This unique comparative analysis of countries before, during and after the Arab Spring seeks to explain the divergent outcomes, disappointing and even harrowing results of efforts to overcome democratic consolidation challenges, from the tentative democracy in Tunisia to the emergence of the Islamic State, and civil war and authoritarian retrenchment everywhere else. Tracing the period of the Arab Spring from its background in long-term challenges to autocratic regimes, to the mass uprisings, authoritarian breakdown, and the future projections and requirements for a democratizing conclusion, Stephen J. King establishes a broad but focused histor
It has been frequently argued that democracy is protected and realized under constitutions that protect certain rights and establish the conditions for a functioning representative democracy. However,
Between 1822 and 1857, eight Southern states barred the ingress of all free black maritime workers. According to lawmakers, they carried a 'moral contagion' of abolitionism and black autonomy that could be transmitted to local slaves. Those seamen who arrived in Southern ports in violation of the laws faced incarceration, corporal punishment, an incipient form of convict leasing, and even punitive enslavement. The sailors, their captains, abolitionists, and British diplomatic agents protested this treatment. They wrote letters, published tracts, cajoled elected officials, pleaded with Southern officials, and litigated in state and federal courts. By deploying a progressive and sweeping notion of national citizenship - one that guaranteed a number of rights against state regulation - they exposed the ambiguity and potential power of national citizenship as a legal category. Ultimately, the Fourteenth Amendment recognized the robust understanding of citizenship championed by Antebellum f
The great elder statesman of consumer rights shows how previous administrations allowed unchecked corporate power to lead us to the criminality of Trump.Nader brings together the outrages of the Trump
The anthology's title is from Frances Power Cobbes' 1868 essay, in which she describes English women's lack of legal rights. Hamilton (English, U. of Alberta) provides an informative introduction to e
