The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene militarily against "failed states" around the globe. In this much-anticipated follow-up to his international bestseller Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky turns the tables, showing how the United States itself shares features with other failed states--suffering from a severe "democratic deficit," eschewing domestic and international law, and adopting policies that increasingly endanger its own citizens and the world. Exploring the latest developments in U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Chomsky reveals Washington's plans to further militarize the planet, greatly increasing the risks of nuclear war. He also assesses the dangerous consequences of the occupation of Iraq; documents Washington's self-exemption from international norms, including the Geneva conventions and the Kyoto Protocol; and examines how the U.S. electoral system is designed to eliminate genuine political alternatives, impeding any meaningful democracy.

The recent powerful wave of Middle East uprisings has fueled both hope and trepidation in the region and around the world as the ultimate fate—and fallout—of the Arab Spring continue to hang in the balance. Born and raised as a Muslim in Egypt and now living in the United States, Nonie Darwish brings an informed perspective to this carefully considered assessment of the potential outcome of the revolutions in the Middle East. This thought-provoking book will add to the ongoing debate on what the future holds for the people and the politics of the region and on the ultimate compatibility of freedom and democracy in the Muslim world.

In the early post-Soviet period, Ukraine appeared to be firmly on the path to democracy. The peaceful transfer of power from Leonid Kravchuk to Leonid Kuchma in the election of 1994, followed by the adoption of a western-style democratic constitution in 1996, seemed to complete the picture. But the Kuchma presidency was soon clouded by dark rumors of corruption and even political murder, and by 2004 the country was in full-blown political crisis. A three-stage presidential contest was ultimately won by Viktor Yushchenko, who took office in 2005 and appointed Yulia Tymoshenko as premier, but the turmoil was far from over. The new government quickly faltered and splintered. This introduction to Ukrainian politics looks beyond these dramatic events and compelling personalities to identify the actual play of power in Ukraine and the operation of its political system. The author seeks to explain how it is that, after each new beginning, power politics has trumped democratic institution-building in Ukraine, as in so many other post-Soviet states. What is really at work here, and how can Ukraine break the cycle of hope and disillusionment?

Only one country in the world--Switzerland--is a direct democracy, in which, to an extent, the people pass their own laws, judge the constitutionality of statutes, and even have written, in effect, their own constitution. In this propitious volume, Gregory Fossedal reports on the politics and social fabric of what James Bryce has called "the nation that has taken the democratic idea to its furthest extent." The lessons Fossedal presents, at a time of dissatisfaction with the role of money and privileged elites in many Western democracies, are at once timely and urgent. In Direct Democracy in Switzerland, Fossedal has developed a shrewd, sensitive overview of Switzerland's high notion of statecraft. He details the reasons for studying Switzerland's distinctive institutions, and explores the origins and development of the ancient Swiss democracy, which reaches back a thousand years. He shows how Switzerland handles the political questions common to all modern societies, such as education, taxes, crime, welfare, the Holocaust. He concludes with the ongoing debate over two very different visions of democracy, direct versus representative. Paolo Dardenelli in Regional and Federal Studies described the book in its cloth edition as offering "many valuable insights into Swiss political life and written in a light, refreshing journalistic style." Amity Shlaes of the Financial Times commented that "Fossedal shines a brilliant spotlight on a form of governancewith lessons for the rest of us. His review of the referendum process there is required reading for lawmakers, political consultants and voters." Gregory A. Fossedal is chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a research foundation based near Washington, DC. He is also president and chief investment officer of the Democratic Century Fund and its management company, the Emerging Markets Group. He is author of The Democratic Imperative. Alfred R. Berkeley III is president of the Nasdaq stock market.

Vol. 3 : Jamaica to Political Protest. - 330 p.

In these volumes, 310 alphabetically arranged articles range in length from 500 to 3,500 words and cover 198 regions ("including every independent nation and several territories") as well as international courts, supranational institutions, concepts central to understanding political organization and human rights, and key individuals who have had positive and negative impacts on the evolution of citizens' rights and responsibilities. Country entries describe the system of government and the political evolution, with emphasis on the twentieth century and on issues related to the relationship between government and citizen. Each signed article concludes with a bibliography. The credentials of the authors (mostly academicians) are provided in the directory of contributors. Sidebars and black-and-white maps and illustrations break up the text. Same-page definitions in the margins of terms (such as ethnic cleansing, guerrilla, and republic make the information more comprehensible, as does the glossary, which is repeated at the end of each volume. In addition, each volume includes a cumulative index and a thematic outline of topics so that users can easily locate information on relevant persons, documents, legal issues, and concepts, as well as country-specific data and history, and teachers can plan correlated assignments. Another useful feature is the filmography, which is arranged by country. Entries are complemented by volume-specific selections of primary documents (for example, Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, and Convention of the Rights of the Child).

Norway is by history and culture very much a Scandinavian nation with its own unique profile. This book analyzes the factors that have shaped the sociocultural fabric of Norwegian politics. One of the most important themes Heidar analyzes is the power of the periphery, both in social as well as geographic terms. In the geographic sense, Norway is a small nation, and although it has been able to remain economically and politically stable, it is situated on the European flank. It is therefore dependent upon and vulnerable to external economic and political developments. In critical periods of its history, Norway’s size has made it an object rather than an initiator of change. In the social sense, Norway has existed as a “periphery nation”.

In this original, bottom-up account of the evolution of contemporary Russia, Alena Ledeneva seeks to reveal how informal power operates. Concentrating on Vladimir Putin's system of governance - referred to as sistema - she identifies four key types of networks: his inner circle, useful friends, core contacts and more diffuse ties and connections. These networks serve sistema but also serve themselves. Reliance on networks enables leaders to mobilise and to control, yet they also lock politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen into informal deals, mediated interests and personalised loyalty. This is the 'modernisation trap of informality': one cannot use the potential of informal networks without triggering their negative long-term consequences for institutional development. Ledeneva's perspective on informal power is based on in-depth interviews with sistema insiders and enhanced by evidence of its workings brought to light in court cases, enabling her to draw broad conclusions about the prospects for Russia's political institutions.

Gene Sharp, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, is widely credited as one of the principal initiators of the Arab Spring. His 1993 book, “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” which promotes the principle of nonviolent struggle, is created with inspiring the revolution in Egypt, as well as in other countries all over the world.

This book is dedicated to all those who have contributed to China’s dramaticrise, which haschanged the lot of one-fifth of mankind forever, and to the visionary architect of this rise, China’s late leader Deng Xiaoping, whom I had the privilege to serve as an English interpreter in the mid- 1980s and whose many ideas have inspired me to write this book. I owe an intellectual debt to many individuals and it is impossible to mention all of them, but I should thank those individuals, some of whom are also personal friends, who shared their perspectives with me on various issues discussed in the book. These individuals include Li Junru of the Central Party School; Eric Li, Jin Zhongwei and Sha Ye of the Chunqiu Institute; Shi Zhengfu, Chen Ping, Jiang Yihua and Xiao Sijian of Fudan University; Pan Wei of Beijing University; Zhang Wenmu of Beihang University; Wang Shaoguang of the University of Hong Kong; Wang Wen of the Global Times; Ji Guibao of the Wenhui Daily; Francis Fukuyama of Standard University; and Robert Kuhn, the author of How China’s Leaders Think. I would like to express my special gratitude to K. K. Phua, Ho Yi Kai, Dong Lixi and their colleagues at World Scientific and World Century for their invaluable professional support in editing and publishingthis book in English. My heartfelt thanks also go to Chen Xin, Hu Dawei, Shi Hongjun a nd Cai Xin of Shanghai Century Publishing for their dedicated professional assistance in editing and publishing the Chinese edition of the book. I should also thank Pan Xiaoli and H. B. Teng for their linguistic counsel, especially for Xiaoli’s original proposal on the book’s English title. I am most grateful to my wife Hui-Hui and my son Marco Yi-Zhou for their kind understanding and unfailing support. I am alone, however, responsible for any errors that may appear in this book.

In November 1999 the first protest movements that became associated with the anti-globalisation movement took place in Seattle, and came to be seen as the starting point for globalised resistance to neoliberal capitalism. Despite initial optimism, the following years have seen little substantial progress in formulating a coherent alternative to neoliberalism. This lack of an alternative has become particularly poignant in the aftermath of the recent credit crisis, where the neoliberal mandate that appeared to be in crisis in just 2008 has reinvented itself through the guise of a new era of austerity. In this timely book, Worth assesses the growing diversity of resistance to neoliberalism - progressive, nationalist and religious - and argues that, troublingly, the more reactionary alternatives to globalisation currently provide just as coherent a base for building opposition as those associated with the traditional left-wing anti-globalisation movements. Taking in a contrasting array of case studies from around the world - from the failures of the World Social Forum to the rise of Radical Islam, the re-emergence of the far-right in Western Europe to the startling impact of the Tea Party in the US - Worth shows that while a progressive alternative is possible, it cannot be taken for granted.

Before democracy becomes an institutionalised form of political authority, the rupture with authoritarian forms of power causes deep uncertainty about power and outcomes. This book connects the study of democratisation in eastern Europe and Russia to the emergence and crisis of communism. Wydra argues that the communist past is not simply a legacy but needs to be seen as a social organism in gestation, where critical events produce new expectations, memories, and symbols that influence meanings of democracy. By examining a series of pivotal historical events, he shows that democratisation is not just a matter of institutional design, but rather a matter of consciousness and leadership under conditions of extreme and traumatic incivility. Rather than adopting the opposition between non-democratic and democratic, Wydra argues that the communist experience must be central to the study of the emergence and nature of democracy in (post-) communist countries.