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The Not-So-Special Interests: Interest Groups, Public Representation, and American Governance
by Matt Grossmann"Lobbyist" tends to be used as a dirty word in politics. Indeed, during the 2008 presidential primary campaign, Hillary Clinton was derided for even suggesting that some lobbyists represent "real Americans. " But although many popular commentators position interest groups as representatives of special-not "public"-interests, much organized advocacy is designed to advance public interests and ideas. Advocacy organizations-more than 1,600 of them-are now an important component of national political institutions. This book uses original data to explain why certain public groups, such as Jews, lawyers, and gun-owners, develop substantially more representation than others, and why certain organizations become the presumed spokespersons for these groups in government and media. In contrast to established theory and conventional wisdom, this book demonstrates that groups of all sizes and types generate advocates to speak on their behalf, though with varying levels of success. Matt Grossmann finds that the advantages of organized representation accrue to those public groups that are the most politically motivated and involved in their communities. Organizations that mobilize members and create a long-lasting presence in Washington become, in the minds of policymakers and reporters, the taken-for-granted surrogates for these public groups. In the face of perennial debates about the relative power of the people and the special interests, Grossmann offers an informed and nuanced view of the role of organizations in public representation and American governance.
The Note Through the Wire: The Incredible True Story of a Prisoner of War and a Resistance Heroine
by Doug GoldPraised as an “unforgettable love story” by Heather Morris, New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, this is the real-life, unlikely romance between a resistance fighter and prisoner of war set in World War II Europe.In this true love story that defies all odds, Josefine Lobnik, a Yugoslav partisan heroine, and Bruce Murray, a New Zealand soldier, discover love in the midst of a brutal war.In the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe, two people meet fleetingly in a chance encounter. One an underground resistance fighter, a bold young woman determined to vanquish the enemy occupiers; the other a prisoner of war, a man longing to escape the confines of the camp so he can battle again. A crumpled note passes between these two strangers, slipped through the wire of the compound, and sets them on a course that will change their lives forever.Woven through their tales of great bravery, daring escapes, betrayal, torture, and retaliation is their remarkable love story that survived against all odds. This is an extraordinary account of two ordinary people who found love during the unimaginable hardships of Hitler’s barbaric regime as told by their son-in-law Doug Gold, who decided to tell their story from the moment he heard about their remarkable tale of bravery, resilience, and resistance.
The Notes: Ronald Reagan's Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom
by Ronald ReaganA collection of Ronald Reagan’s private thoughts, jokes, and favorite quotations from the #1 New York Times–bestselling editor of The Reagan Diaries.Ronald Reagan left behind a legacy that America will never forget. Now, in this one-of-a-kind collection of his most intimate thoughts, his favorite quotations by others, and his own most collectible jokes, all culled from a newly disclosed set of personal notecards he kept throughout his life and career, admirers of the fortieth president will find a unique window of insight into the soul of an American icon. Edited by Douglas Brinkley, editor of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Reagan Diaries, this indispensable Reagan retrospective is perfect for anyone looking to find inspiration in the thoughts and musings of a great American leader.Praise for The Reagan Diaries“A portrait of a president who was engaged by his job and had a healthy perspective on power.” —Jon Meacham, Newsweek“Reagan the diarist is at home with himself, unself-consciously comfortable. . . . Two things run through the diaries like a thread: One is a kind of gee-whiz everyman’s delight in finding himself in such interesting and enjoyable circumstances; the other is his love for and reliance on Nancy.” —Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times“It’s amazing what nuggets of information you can unearth deep within a book as jampacked as The Reagan Diaries.” —Walter Pincus, The Washington Post
The Notion of Authority: A Brief Presentation
by Hager Weslati Alexandre KojeveIn The Notion of Authority, written in the 1940s in Nazi-occupied France, Alexandre Kojève uncovers the conceptual premises of four primary models of authority, examining the practical application of their derivative variations from the Enlightenment to Vichy France. This foundational text, translated here into English for the first time, is the missing piece in any discussion of sovereignty and political authority, worthy of a place alongside the work of Weber, Arendt, Schmitt, Agamben or Dumézil. The Notion of Authority is a short and sophisticated introduction to Kojève's philosophy of right. It captures its author's intellectual interests at a time when he was retiring from the career of a professional philosopher and was about to become one of the pioneers of the Common Market and the idea of the European Union.From the Hardcover edition.ophy of right, while in the context of his biography its significance resides in the fact it captures his puzzling intellectual interests at a time when he retired from the profession of philosophy and was about to become one of the pioneers of the Common Market and the idea of the European Union.
The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies
by Peter L. BiroSection 33 – what is commonly referred to as the notwithstanding clause (NWC) – was written into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to allow Parliament and the provinces to provisionally override certain Charter rights.The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter examines the NWC from all angles and perspectives, considering who should have the last word on matters of rights and justice – the legislatures or the unelected judiciary – and what balance liberal democracy requires. In the case of Quebec, the use of the clause has been justified as necessary to preserve the province’s culture and promote its identity as a nation. Yet Quebec’s pre-emptive and sweeping invocation of the clause also challenges the scope of judicial review and citizens’ recourse to it, and it tests the assumption that a dialogue between the judiciary and the legislature is always preferable in instances in which the legislative branch decides to suspend the operation of certain Charter rights and freedoms. By virtue of its contested purposes, interpretations, operation, and applications, the NWC represents and, to an extent, defines both the character and the very real vulnerabilities of liberal constitutionalism in Canada.The significance, effects, and legitimacy of the NWC have been vigorously debated within scholarship and among politicians and activists since the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982. In The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter leading scholars, jurists, and policy experts elucidate and prescribe reforms to the application of this consequential clause about which so much is written, and around which there is relatively little consensus.
The Noumenal Republic: Critical Constructivism After Kant
by Rainer ForstAll human beings are born with equal dignity and possess equal rights. This statement appears normatively just as irrefutable as it is empirically refuted every day. But what are the grounds of this principle, and how should we think about its realization? Its philosophical truth can best be explained by going back to (and beyond) Kant’s notion of a ‘noumenal republic’ in which every person is an equal co-author of the laws that bind all. At the same time, a critical analysis of society and politics must show the extent to which the reality of power and ideology makes a mockery of this constructivist conception of dignity. To bridge the gap between unworldly idealism and practical hopelessness, we need a critical theory after Kant. Rainer Forst, one of the world’s most influential political philosophers, works to develop just such a theory in this powerful and illuminating volume. It contains no less than a new systematic account of concepts such as alienation, progress and regression, solidarity, human rights, justice, power and non-domination.
The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children: The Hurt, the Hope, and the Healing
by Wanda Taylor“A history and a testimonial towards healing” of the hundreds of African-Nova Scotian orphans who suffered abuse and neglect at the government’s hands (The Coast).In 1921, prominent lawyer and Nova Scotia Black leader James R. Johnston’s vision of a place welcoming of Black children came to reality. In an era of segregation and overt racism that saw most orphanages refuse to take in Black children, the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children fulfilled an important role.But despite its good intentions, today the Home is mostly known for a troubling past. Former residents launched a class action lawsuit alleging sexual and physical abuse suffered at the Home over a period of several decades. In The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children: The Hurt, The Hope, and The Healing, author Wanda Taylor interviews former residents participating in the lawsuit and upcoming public inquiry and connects their stories to her own relationship with the Home. The former residents in this book provide an unsettling, and sometimes graphic, description of what life was like inside the Home and describe the many ways the government system designed to protect them instead exacerbated a culture of abuse and neglect.
The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt, 1880-1985 (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures)
by Samah SelimThe book locates questions of languages, genre, textuality and canonicity within a historical and theoretical framework that foregrounds the emergence of modern nationalism in Egypt. The ways in which the cultural discourses produced by twentieth century Egyptian nationalism created a space for both a hegemonic and counter-hegemonic politics of language, class and place that inscribed a bifurcated narrative and social geography, are examined. The book argues that the rupture between the village and the city contained in the Egyptian nationalism discourse is reproduced as a narrative dislocation that has continued to characterize and shape the Egyptian novel in general and the village novel in particular. Reading the village novel in Egypt as a dynamic intertext that constructs modernity in a local historical and political context rather than rehearsing a simple repetition of dominant European literary-critical paradigms, this book offers a new approach to the construction of modern Arabic literary history as well as to theoretical questions related to the structure and role of the novel as a worldly narrative genre.
The Novel of Human Rights
by James DawesJames Dawes defines a new, dynamic American literary genre, which takes as its theme a range of atrocities at home and abroad. This vibrant and modern genre incorporates key debates within the human rights movement in the U.S. and in turn influences the ideas and rhetoric of that discourse.
The Nuclear Ban Treaty: A Transformational Reframing of the Global Nuclear Order
by Ramesh ThakurThe contributors to this book describe, discuss, and evaluate the normative reframing brought about by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the Ban Treaty), taking you on a journey through its genesis and negotiation history to the shape of the emerging global nuclear order. Adopted by the United Nations on 7 July 2017, the Ban Treaty came into effect on 22 January 2021. For advocates and supporters, weapons that were always immoral are now also illegal. To critics, it represents a profound threat to the stability of the existing global nuclear order with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty as the normative anchor. As the most significant leap in nuclear disarmament in fifty years and a rare case study of successful state-civil society partnership in multilateral diplomacy, the Ban Treaty challenges the established order. The book’s contributors are leading experts on the Ban Treaty, including senior scholars, policymakers and civil society activists. A vital guide to the Ban Treaty for students of nuclear disarmament, arms control and diplomacy as well as for policymakers in those fields.
The Nuclear Challenge: US-Russian Strategic Relations After the Cold War
by Christoph BluthThis title was first piblished in 2000: Christoph Bluth provides a comprehensive and timely analysis of strategic nuclear arms policy in the United States and Russia and examines the collaborative efforts to reduce nuclear weapons through arms control and render nuclear weapons and fissile materials in Russia secure. He concludes that the end of the Cold War has created new and unprecedented dangers and that these dangers require a greater political will and cooperation which have so far been lacking.
The Nuclear Club: How America and the World Policed the Atom from Hiroshima to Vietnam
by Jonathan R. HuntThe Nuclear Club reveals how a coalition of powerful and developing states embraced global governance in hopes of a bright and peaceful tomorrow. While fears of nuclear war were ever-present, it was the perceived threat to their preeminence that drove Washington, Moscow, and London to throw their weight behind the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) banishing nuclear testing underground, the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco banning atomic armaments from Latin America, and the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) forbidding more countries from joining the most exclusive club on Earth. International society, the Cold War, and the imperial U.S. presidency were reformed from 1945 to 1970, when a global nuclear order was inaugurated, averting conflict in the industrial North and yielding what George Orwell styled a "peace that is no peace" everywhere else. Today the nuclear order legitimizes foreign intervention worldwide, empowering the nuclear club and, above all, the United States, to push sanctions and even preventive war against atomic outlaws, all in humanity's name.
The Nuclear Confrontation in Europe (Routledge Library Editions: Nuclear Security)
by Jeffrey H. Boutwell; Paul Doty; Gregory F. TrevertonOriginally published in 1985, this book explores the nuclear confrontation between East and West in Europe: where we stand, how we got there and what the future may hold. Its concluding chapter outlines the prospects for nuclear arms control in Europe, and it frames the debate over NATO strategy and the role of nuclear weapons in the years ahead. Can NATO reduce its reliance on nuclear weapons? Can it cope with the issues at all? The chapters on NATO theatre nuclear forces and doctrine provide a rich background to current policy issues. The public debate over NATO’s 1979 decision to deploy new American cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles in Europe was hardly unprecedented in NATO’s history: similar controversy surrounded NATO deliberations in the late 1950s and early 1960s. That debate, however, subsided in the mid-1960s; the nuclear question in Europe was relegated to the ‘wilderness’, though efforts – largely unavailing – continued within official circles to define more clearly the role of nuclear weapons in NATO’s defense. Against this backdrop, the nuclear debate emerged again in the 1970s. This title unravels the military and political considerations at play in that debate and maps the European politics surrounding it. Today it can be read in its historical context.
The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Atomic Age
by George F. KennanKennan has obviously been deeply troubled by the nuclear arms race, not least because of the way in which it has skewed relations with the East, and he of course believes that our vision of the Soviet Union has often been in error.
The Nuclear Dilemma In American Strategic Thought
by Robert E. OsgoodSince the end of World War II, the United States has faced moral and strategic issues in its management of force that are unique in the history of international politics. At the heart of these issues is the heavy reliance of the United States and its allies on the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons and the fact that their use would very likely lea
The Nuclear Freeze Debate: Arms Control Issues For The 1980s
by William J Taylor Jr Paul M ColeFrom a local ballot initiative in Massachusetts, the nuclear weapons freeze movement has grown during the last three years into an important national issue. By 1983, Congress had been asked to consider more than two dozen freeze resolutions, and more than 25% of the voters in the U.S. had the opportunity to vote on state-wide and regional freeze initiatives. This book explores the issues behind the current debate over nuclear weapons and the freeze movement from a wide range of perspectives. The contributors assess the goals and implications of the freeze movement, examine its origins in religious and secular pacifism, explain the amendments to the original freeze proposal introduced in Congress, and discuss the reaction and policies of the Reagan administration. The nuclear freeze movement is placed in an international context with discussions of recent arms negotiations, European views of U.S. policies, and the possible effects of a freeze on NATO allies and on U.S. national security. The book includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography.
The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
by Ian Bellany Coit D. Blacker Joseph GallacherThis study looks at the interpretations and effects of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and offers readings of its possible future effects.
The Nuclear Predicament: Explorations in Soviet Ideology (Routledge Library Editions: Nuclear Security)
by Stephen ShenfieldIdeological debate is one component of the intellectual background to Soviet policy-making. Originally published in 1987, this paper explores how Soviet writers wrestle with the challenge to their ideology that is posed by the threat of nuclear war. What, for example, is the relationship between the values of peace and of socialism? What drives the arms race? Is capitalism inherently militaristic, or is a demilitarized capitalism conceivable? Is the outcome of history predetermined or open? It is shown that the range of permissible views is wider than often assumed, and that the constraints of Soviet ideology do not exclude evolution towards a more cooperative approach to international security.
The Nuclear Renaissance and International Security
by Matthew Fuhrmann Adam N. StulbergInterest in nuclear energy has surged in recent years, yet there are risks that accompany the global diffusion of nuclear power—especially the possibility that the spread of nuclear energy will facilitate nuclear weapons proliferation. In this book, leading experts analyze the tradeoffs associated with nuclear energy and put the nuclear renaissance in historical context, evaluating both the causes and the strategic effects of nuclear energy development. They probe critical issues relating to the nuclear renaissance, including if and how peaceful nuclear programs contribute to nuclear weapons proliferation, whether the diffusion of nuclear technologies lead to an increase in the trafficking of nuclear materials, and under what circumstances the diffusion of nuclear technologies and latent nuclear weapons capabilities can influence international stability and conflict. The book will help scholars and policymakers understand why countries are pursuing nuclear energy and evaluate whether this is a trend we should welcome or fear.
The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran
by Yossi Melman Meir JavedanfarAs President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accelerated his country’s nuclear research; called for the elimination of Israel; and failed the Iranian people, who elected him on a domestic platform that has since been neglected. This probing exposé gives unprecedented insight into his hold on power-his rural roots, the vituperative populism that catapulted him from relative obscurity to national leadership, and the shadowy forces that hold him there.
The Nuclear Spies: America's Atomic Intelligence Operation against Hitler and Stalin
by Vince HoughtonWhy did the US intelligence services fail so spectacularly to know about the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities following World War II? As Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, shows us, that disastrous failure came just a few years after the Manhattan Project's intelligence team had penetrated the Third Reich and knew every detail of the Nazi 's plan for an atomic bomb. What changed and what went wrong?Houghton's delightful retelling of this fascinating case of American spy ineffectiveness in the then new field of scientific intelligence provides us with a new look at the early years of the Cold War. During that time, scientific intelligence quickly grew to become a significant portion of the CIA budget as it struggled to contend with the incredible advance in weapons and other scientific discoveries immediately after World War II. As Houghton shows, the abilities of the Soviet Union's scientists, its research facilities and laboratories, and its educational system became a key consideration for the CIA in assessing the threat level of its most potent foe. Sadly, for the CIA scientific intelligence was extremely difficult to do well. For when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, no one in the American intelligence services saw it coming.
The Nuclear Terrorism Threat: An Organisational Approach (Routledge Global Security Studies)
by Brecht VoldersThis book examines the threat of a terrorist organisation constructing and detonating a nuclear bomb. It explores the role and impact of the organisational design of a terrorist organisation in implementing a nuclear terrorism plot. In order to do so, the work builds on the organisational analogy between an assumed nuclear terrorism scenario and four case studies as follows: the construction of the first atomic bombs at Los Alamos; South Africa’s Peaceful Nuclear Explosives (PNE) program; Aum Shinrikyo’s chemical-biological armament activities; and Al Qaeda’s implementation of the 9/11 attacks. Extrapolating insights from these case studies, this book introduces the idea of an effectiveness-efficiency trade-off. On the one hand, it will be argued that a more organic organisational design is likely to benefit the effective implementation of a nuclear terrorism project. On the other hand, this type of organic organisational design is also likely to simultaneously constitute an inefficient way for a terrorist organisation to guarantee its operational and organisational security. It follows, then, that the implementation of a nuclear terrorism plot via an organic organisational design is also likely to be an inefficient strategy for a terrorist organisation to achieve its strategic and political goals. This idea of an effectiveness-efficiency trade-off provides us with a tool to strengthen the comprehensive nature of future nuclear terrorism threat assessments and sheds new light on the ongoing debates within the nuclear terrorism literature. This book will be of particular interest to students of nuclear proliferation, terrorism studies, international organisations, and security studies in general.
The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People
by E. E. Evans-PritchardAn excellent example of British social anthropology. Useful as a teaching tool for social organization.
The Number Bias: How numbers dominate our world and why that's a problem we need to fix
by Sanne Blauw'The Number Bias combines vivid storytelling with authoritative analysis to deliver a warning about the way numbers can lead us astray - if we let them.' TIM HARFORDEven if you don't consider yourself a numbers person, you are a numbers person. The time has come to put numbers in their place. Not high up on a pedestal, or out on the curb, but right where they belong: beside words.It is not an overstatement to say that numbers dictate the way we live our lives. They tell us how we're doing at school, how much we weigh, who might win an election and whether the economy is booming. But numbers aren't as objective as they may seem; behind every number is a story. Yet politicians, businesses and the media often forget this - or use it for their own gain. Sanne Blauw travels the world to unpick our relationship with numbers and demystify our misguided allegiance, from Florence Nightingale using statistics to petition for better conditions during the Crimean War to the manipulation of numbers by the American tobacco industry and the ambiguous figures peddled during the EU referendum. Taking us from the everyday numbers that govern our health and wellbeing to the statistics used to wield enormous power and influence, The Number Bias counsels us to think more wisely.'A beautifully accessible exploration of how numbers shape our lives, and the importance of accurately interpreting the statistics we are fed.' ANGELA SAINI, author of Superior
The Number Bias: How numbers dominate our world and why that's a problem we need to fix
by Sanne Blauw'The Number Bias combines vivid storytelling with authoritative analysis to deliver a warning about the way numbers can lead us astray - if we let them.' TIM HARFORDEven if you don't consider yourself a numbers person, you are a numbers person. The time has come to put numbers in their place. Not high up on a pedestal, or out on the curb, but right where they belong: beside words.It is not an overstatement to say that numbers dictate the way we live our lives. They tell us how we're doing at school, how much we weigh, who might win an election and whether the economy is booming. But numbers aren't as objective as they may seem; behind every number is a story. Yet politicians, businesses and the media often forget this - or use it for their own gain. Sanne Blauw travels the world to unpick our relationship with numbers and demystify our misguided allegiance, from Florence Nightingale using statistics to petition for better conditions during the Crimean War to the manipulation of numbers by the American tobacco industry and the ambiguous figures peddled during the EU referendum. Taking us from the everyday numbers that govern our health and wellbeing to the statistics used to wield enormous power and influence, The Number Bias counsels us to think more wisely.'A beautifully accessible exploration of how numbers shape our lives, and the importance of accurately interpreting the statistics we are fed.' ANGELA SAINI, author of Superior