During the second half of the nineteenth century, Memphis, Tennessee, had the largest metropolitan population of African Americans in the Mid-South region and served as a political hub for civic organizations and grassroots movements. On April 4, 1968, the city found itself at the epicenter of the civil rights movement when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel. Nevertheless, despite the many significant events that took place in the city and its citizens' many contributions to the black freedom struggle, Memphis has been largely overlooked by historians of the civil rights movement.In An Unseen Light, eminent and rising scholars offer a multidisciplinary examination of Memphis's role in African American history during the twentieth century. Together, they investigate episodes such as the 1940 "Reign of Terror" when black Memphians experienced a prolonged campaign of harassment, mass arrests, and violence at the hands of police. They also examine topics including the relationship between the labor and civil rights movements, the fight for economic advancement in black communities, and the impact of music on the city's culture. Covering subjects as diverse as politics, sports, music, activism, and religion, An Unseen Light illuminates Memphis's place in the long history of the struggle for African American freedom.

Neoliberalism changed the face of Latin America and left average citizens struggling to cope in many ways. Popular sectors were especially hard hit as wages declined and unemployment increased. The backlash to neoliberalism in the form of popular protest and electoral mobilization opened space for leftist governments to emerge. The turn to left governments raised popular expectations for a second wave of incorporation. Although a growing literature has analyzed many aspects of left governments, there is no study of how the redefinition of the organized popular sectors, their allies, and their struggles have reshaped the political arena to include their interests—until now. This volume examines the role played in the second wave of incorporation by political parties, trade unions, and social movements in five cases: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The cases shed new light on a subject critical to understanding the change in the distribution of political power related to popular sectors and their interests—a key issue in the study of postneoliberalism.

In this book Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson challenge virtually everything that non-Indigenous Canadians believe about their relationship with Indigenous Peoples and the steps that are needed to place this relationship on a healthy and honourable footing. Manuel and Derrickson show how governments are attempting to reconcile with Indigenous Peoples without touching the basic colonial structures that dominate and distort the relationship. They review the current state of land claims. They tackle the persistence of racism among non-Indigenous people and institutions. They celebrate Indigenous Rights Movements while decrying the role of government-funded organizations like the Assembly of First Nations. They document the federal government's disregard for the substance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples while claiming to implement it. These circumstances amount to what they see as a false reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. Instead, Manuel and Derrickson offer an illuminating vision of what Canada and Canadians need for true reconciliation.In this book, which Arthur Manuel and Ron Derrickson completed in the months before Manuel's death in January 2017, readers will recognize their profound understanding of the country, of its past, present, and potential future.Expressed with quiet but firm resolve, humour, and piercing intellect The Reconciliation Manifesto will appeal to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who are open and willing to look at the real problems and find real solutions.

Why have democratic governments failed to take serious steps to reduce carbon emissions despite dire warnings and compelling evidence of the profound and growing threat posed by global warming? Most of the writing on global warming is by scientists, academics, environmentalists, and journalists. Kevin Taft, a former leader of the opposition in Alberta, brings a fresh perspective through the insight he gained as an elected politician who had an insider's eyewitness view of the role of the oil industry. His answer, in brief: The oil industry has captured key democratic institutions in both Alberta and Ottawa.Taft begins his book with a perceptive observer's account of a recent court casein Ottawa which laid bare the tactics and techniques of the industry, its insiders and lobbyists. He casts dramatic new light on exactly how corporate lobbyists, politicians, bureaucrats, universities, and other organizations are working together to pursue the oil industry's agenda.He offers a brisk tour of the recent work of scholars who have developed the concepts of the deep state and institutional capture to understand how one rich industry can override the public interest.Taft views global warming and weakened democracy as two symptoms of the same problem — the loss of democratic institutions to corporate influence and control. He sees citizen engagement and direct action by the public as the only response that can unravel big oil's deep state.

Strategic Frames analyzes minority policies in Estonia and Latvia following their independence from the Soviet Union. It weighs the powerful influence of both Europe and Russia on their policy choices, and how this intersected with the costs and benefits of policy changes for the politicians in each state. Prior to EU accession, policymakers were slow to adopt minority-friendly policies for ethnic Russians despite mandates from the European Union. These initiatives faced majority opposition, and politicians sought to maintain the status quo and their positions. As Jennie L. Schulze reveals, despite the credit given to the democratizing influence of European institutions, they have rarely produced significant policy changes alone, and then only when domestic constraints were low. Whenever domestic opposition was high, Russian frames were crucial for the passage of reforms. In these cases, Russia’s activism on behalf of Russian speakers reinforced European frames, providing powerful justifications for reform. Schulze’s attention to both the strategic framing and counter framing of external actors explains the controversies, delays, and suboptimal outcomes surrounding the passage of “conditional” amendments in both cases, as well as the local political climate postaccession. Strategic Frames offers a significant reference on recent developments in two former Soviet states and the rapidly evolving spheres of political influence in the postindependence era that will serve students, scholars, and policymakers alike.

The debate continues unabated: Is political Islam decipherable through the tenets of the Islamic tradition—or is it a tool of secular actors who shrewdly misuse religious references? Is it an expression of modernity, or a return to the past? Eschewing these dichotomies, Jocelyne Cesari demystifies the continuous process of interaction between secular and religious actors and institutions that is at the core of political mobilization in the name of Islam. Cesari traces the origins of political Islam to the inception of the modern nation-state, revealing the decisive role of secular nationalist rulers in its creation. In the process, she puts to rest the myth that there has been a lack of modernization in the Muslim world—and shows how that myth has proven dangerous. Ranging from Senegal to Egypt, from Indonesia to Iraq, her analysis provides a much needed corrective to the “conventional wisdom.”

Today 700 million Chinese citizens -- more than fifty-four percent of the population -- live in cities. The mass migration of rural populations to urban centers increased rapidly following economic reforms of the 1990s, and serious problems such as overcrowding, lack of health services, and substandard housing have arisen in these areas since. China's urban citizens have taken to the courts for redress and fought battles over failed urban renewal projects, denial of civil rights, corruption, and abuse of power. In Power versus Law in Modern China, Qiang Fang and Xiaobing Li examine four important legal cases that took place from 1995 to 2013 in the major cities of Wuhan, Xuzhou, Shanghai, and Chongqing. In these cases, citizens protested demolition of property, as well as corruption among city officials, developers, and landlords; but were repeatedly denied protection or compensation from the courts. Fang and Li explore how new interest groups comprised of entrepreneurs and Chinese graduates of Western universities have collaborated with the CCP-controlled local governments to create new power bases in cities. Drawing on newly available official sources, private collections, and interviews with Chinese administrators, judges, litigants, petitioners, and legal experts, this interdisciplinary analysis reveals the powerful and privileged will most likely continue to exploit the legal asymmetry that exists between the courts and citizens.

March 2015 should have been a time of celebration for Brazil, as it marked thirty years of democracy, a newfound global prominence, over a decade of rising economic prosperity, and stable party politics under the rule of the widely admired PT (Workers' Party). Instead, the country descended into protest, economic crisis, impeachment, and deep political division. Democratic Brazil Divided offers a comprehensive and nuanced portrayal of long-standing problems that contributed to the emergence of crisis and offers insights into the ways Brazilian democracy has performed well, despite the explosion of crisis. The volume, the third in a series from editors Kingstone and Power, brings together noted scholars to assess the state of Brazilian democracy through analysis of key processes and themes. These include party politics, corruption, the new 'middle classes', human rights, economic policy-making, the origins of protest, education and accountability, and social and environmental policy. Overall, the essays argue that democratic politics in Brazil form a complex mosaic where improvements stand alongside stagnation and regression.

Nick Megoran explores the process of building independent nation-states in post-Soviet Central Asia through the lens of the disputed border territory between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In his rich "biography" of the boundary, he employs a combination of political, cultural, historical, ethnographic, and geographic frames to shed new light on nation-building process in this volatile and geopolitically significant region. Megoran draws on twenty years of extensive research in the borderlands via interviews, observations, participation, and newspaper analysis. He considers the problems of nationalist discourse versus local vernacular, elite struggles versus borderland solidarities, boundary delimitation versus everyday experience, border control versus resistance, and mass violence in 2010, all of which have exacerbated territorial anxieties. Megoran also revisits theories of causation, such as the loss of Soviet control, poorly defined boundaries, natural resource disputes, and historic ethnic clashes, to show that while these all contribute to heightened tensions, political actors and their agendas have clearly driven territorial aspirations and are the overriding source of conflict. As this compelling case study shows, the boundaries of the The Ferghana Valley put in succinct focus larger global and moral questions of what defines a good border.

"State weakness" is seen to be a widespread problem throughout Central Asia and other parts of post-socialist space, and more broadly in areas of the developing world. Challenging the widespread assumption that these "weak states" inevitably slide toward failure, Paradox of Power takes careful stock of the varied experiences of Eurasian states to reveal a wide array of surprising outcomes. The case studies show how states teeter but do not collapse, provide public goods against all odds, interact with societies in creative ways, utilize coercion effectively against internal opponents, and establish practices that are far more durable than the language of "weakness" would allow. While deepening our understanding of the phenomenon in Eurasia in particular, the essays also contribute to more general theories of state weakness.

China today bears little resemblance to the country introduced in the first edition of Understanding Contemporary China, published nearly two decades ago. Even in just the past five years, dramatic changes have occurred under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. This new edition of the book reflects those changes, exploring the impact of new domestic policies; China’s role as a behemoth in the world economy; its rapidly modernizing infrastructure; its expanding military presence in the region; the environmental challenges it confronts; and much more. The result is an accessible, well-grounded look at the most crucial issues affecting China today.Contents:Introduction—R.E. Gamer.China: A Geographic Preface—S.W. Toops.The Historical Context—R. Murphey.Chinese Politics—R.E. Gamer.China’s Economy—S. Tong and J. Wong.China Beyond the Heartland—L.T. White and R.E. Gamer.International Relations—R.E. Gamer.Population Growth and Urbanization—R. Ma. China’s Environmental Problems—R.L. Edmonds.Family, Kinship, Marriage, and Sexuality—W. Jankowiak and X. Zang.Women and Development—L. Bossen.Religion—H. Chan and A.Y.C. King.Literature and Popular Culture—C.A. Laughlin.Trends and Prospects—R.E. Gamer and L.T. White.

In light of concerns about food and human health, fraying social ties, economic uncertainty, and rampant consumerism, some people are foregoing a hurried, distracted existence and embracing a mindful way of living. Intentional residential communities across the United States are seeking the freedom to craft their own societies and live based on the values of nonviolence, self-sufficiency, equality, and voluntary simplicity.In Living Sustainably, A. Whitney Sanford reveals the solutions that such communities have devised for sustainable living while highlighting the specific choices and adaptations that they have made to accommodate local context and geography. She examines their methods of reviving and adapting traditional agrarian skills, testing alternate building materials for their homes, and developing local governments that balance group needs and individual autonomy. Living Sustainably is a teachable testament to the idea that new cultures based on justice and sustainability are attainable in many ways. Sanford's engaging work demonstrates that citizens can make a conscious effort to subsist in a more balanced, harmonious world.

Reflecting a dramatically changing global context, the third edition of International Law in World Politics introduces the actors, structures, processes, and issues of international law in a way that makes sense to students of political science. Features of the new edition include: current case studies that bring the subject to life; an entirely new chapter on international courts and tribunals; more attention to trade and economic issues; even-handed discussion of such contentious topics as the Iran nuclear deal; Africa and the ICC, the Paris climate agreement, rising tensions in the South China Sea; and more. The result is a text that effectively explains the role that international law plays in the arena of world politics today.

During the 1990s, there was a general consensus that Central Asia was witnessing an Islamic revival after independence, and that this occurrence would follow similar events throughout the Islamic world in the prior two decades, which had negative effects on both social and political development. Twenty years later, we are still struggling to fully understand the transformation of Islam in a region that's evolved through a complex and dynamic process, involving diversity in belief and practice, religious authority, and political intervention. This volume seeks to shed light on these crucial questions by bringing together an international group of scholars to offer a new perspective on Central Asian states and societies. The chapters provide analysis through four distinct categories: the everyday practice of Islam across local communities; state policies toward Islam, focusing on attempts to regulate public and private practice through cultural, legal, and political institutions and how these differ from Soviet policies; how religious actors influence communities in the practice of Islam, state policies towards the religion, and subsequent communal responses to state regulations; and how knowledge of and interaction with the larger Islamic world is shaping Central Asia's current Islamic revival and state responses. The contributors, a multidisciplinary and international group of leading scholars, develop fresh insights that both corroborate and contradict findings from previous research, while also highlighting the problem of making any generalizations about Islam in individual states or the region. As such, this volume provides new and impactful analysis for scholars, students, and policy makers concerned with Central Asia.

While domestic issues loom large in voters' minds during American presidential elections, matters of foreign policy have consistently shaped candidates and their campaigns. From the start of World War II through the collapse of the Soviet Union, presidential hopefuls needed to be perceived as credible global leaders in order to win elections -- regardless of the situation at home -- and voter behavior depended heavily on whether the nation was at war or peace. Yet there is little written about the importance of foreign policy in US presidential elections or the impact of electoral issues on the formation of foreign policy. In US Presidential Elections and Foreign Policy, a team of international scholars examines how the relationship between foreign policy and electoral politics evolved through the latter half of the twentieth century. Covering all presidential elections from 1940 to 1992 -- from debates over American entry into World War II to the aftermath of the Cold War -- the contributors correct the conventional wisdom that domestic issues and the economy are always definitive. Together they demonstrate that, while international concerns were more important in some campaigns than others, foreign policy always matters and is often decisive. This illuminating commentary fills a significant gap in the literature on presidential and electoral politics, emphasizing that candidates' positions on global issues have a palpable impact on American foreign policy.

Following the 1992 breakup of Yugoslavia, the region descended into a series of bloody conflicts marked by intense ethnic and religious hatreds. Kosovo emerged at the epicenter of these disputes and the site of innumerable human rights violations, as Serbia, united with Montenegro at the time, sought to remove the Albanian presence. Kosovo (roughly ninety percent Albanian) declared independence in 2008, and although it is recognized by over one hundred UN member states, it is still not recognized by Serbia. This volume brings together scholars of Serbian, Albanian, Christian, and Muslim backgrounds to examine the Serbian-Albanian dynamic in Kosovo through historical, political, economic, and social perspectives.