Professor Moon Library Instruction: Comparative Politics

See Chapter 9 on Serbia -

Most of what has been written about the recent history of Yugoslavia and the fierce wars that have plagued that country has been produced by journalists, political analysts, diplomats, human rights organization, the United Nations, and other government and intergovernmental organizations. Professional historians of Yugoslavia, however, have been strangely silent about the wars and the breakup of the country. This book is an effort to end that silence. The goal of this volume is to bring together insights from a distinguished group of American and European scholars of Yugoslavia to add depth to our historical understanding of that country's recent struggles. The first part of the volume examines the ways in which images of the Yugoslav past have shaped current understandings of the region. The second part deals more directly with the events of the recent past and also looks forward to some of the problems and future prospects for Yugoslavia's successor states.

The nonviolent overthrow of Balkan dictator Slobodan Milo evi in October 2000 is celebrated as democracy promotion at its best. This perceived political success has been used to justify an industry tasked with "exporting" democracy to countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Tunisia, and Egypt. Yet the true extent of the West's involvement in Milo evi 's overthrow remained unclear until now. "Engineering Revolution" uses declassified CIA documents and personal interviews with diplomats, aid providers, and policymakers, as well as thousands of pages of internal NGO documents, to explore what proponents consider one of the greatest successes of the democracy promotion enterprise. Through its in-depth examination of the two decades that preceded and followed Milo evi 's unseating, as well as its critical look at foreign assistance targeting Serbia's troubled political party landscape, "Engineering Revolution" upends the conventional wisdom on the effectiveness of democracy promotion in Serbia. Marlene Spoerri demonstrates that democracy took root in Serbia in spite of, not because of, Western intervention in fact, foreign intervention often hurt rather than helped Serbia's tenuous transition to democracy. As Western governments recalibrate their agendas in the wake of the Arab Spring, this timely book offers important lessons for the democracy promotion community as it sets its sights on the Middle East, former Soviet Union, and beyond."

For all the significance that Egypt's history possesses, the role that Egypt has played in civilization has been a very inconsistent one. In ancient times it occupied a sustained and elevated place as a world leader, while after the Arab-Islamic conquest of the 7th century it has been almost continually dominated by various foreign rulers. And yet, despite its variable political status, Egypt has never ceased to play a central role in the development of the Arab and Islamic world. Anyone interested in the history of Egypt over the past half century, and in the dynamic situations, the people, and events behind it, will benefit from Perry's accessible and engaging investigation. Egypt's national development through successive periods is traced throughout this work, with four full chapters dedicated to the liberal period, Nasir, Sadat, and Mubarak. Perry also discusses Egypt's more general role in the development of the larger Arab-Islamic community. Biographical sketches, a timeline, a glossary and a biographical essay further augment this work, which is ideal for students as well as for the general reader interested in Egypt's history.

When protesters in Egypt began to fill Cairo’s Tahrir Square on January 25th--and refused to leave until their demand that Hosni Mubarak step down was met--the politics of the region changed overnight. And the United States’ long friendship with the man who had ruled under Emergency Law for thirty years came starkly into question. From Franklin D. Roosevelt’s brief meeting with King Farouk near the end of World War II to Barack Obama’s Cairo Speech in 2009 and the recent fall of Mubarak--the most significant turning point in American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War--this timely new book answers the urgent question of why Egypt has mattered so much to the United States. The Road to Tahrir Square is the first book to connect past and present, offering readers today an understanding of the events and forces determining American policy in this vitally important region. Making full use of the available records--including the controversial Wikileaks archive--renowned historian Lloyd C. Gardner shows how the United States has sought to influence Egypt through economic aid, massive military assistance, and CIA manipulations, an effort that has immediate implications for how the current crisis will alter the balance of power in the Middle East. As millions of Americans ponder how the Egyptian revolution will change the face of the region and the world, here is both a fascinating story of past policies and an essential guide to possible futures.

Mark Hannauthe turn-of-the-century iron-and-coal-magnate-turned-operative who leveraged massive contributions from the robber baronsuwas famously quoted as saying: oThere are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I canOCOt remember what the second one is.OCO To an extent that would have made Hanna blush, a series of developments capped by the Supreme CourtOCOs 2010 Citizens United decision effectively crowned a bunch of billionaires and their operatives the new kings of politics. "Big Money" is a rollicking tour of a new political world dramatically reordered by ever-larger flows of cash. Ken Vogel has breezed into secret gatherings of big-spending Republicans and Democrats alikeufrom California poolsides to DC hotel barsuto brilliantly expose the way the mega-money men (and rather fewer women) are dominating the new political landscape. Great wealth seems to attach itself to outsize characters. From the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to the bubbling nouveau cowboy Foster Friess; from the Texas trial lawyer couple, Amber and Steve Mostyn, to the micromanaging Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberguthe multimillionaires and billionaires are swaggering up to the tables for the hottest new game in politics. The prize is American democracy, and the playersOCO checks keep getting bigger.

Latin America is a region of great diversity and a rich laboratory for understanding the processes of political development and their interaction with economic growth, social modernization, and cultural influences. Highlighting crucial periods of dynamic socioeconomic and political change,Comparative Latin American Politics provides a balanced, concise overview of select Latin American countries without underestimating the complexities of a region noted for its striking differences. The book focuses on the dominant dyad of Mexico and Brazil while also considering in detail Argentina, Chile, Peru, Columbia, and Venezuela--seven countries that contain four-fifths of the region’s inhabitants as well as an even higher proportion of its economy. Recognizing that political institutions and cultures are built over generations, author Ronald M. Schneider divides his analysis into two parts. Part one examines the period from independence to 1930, when countries were coping with an array of post-independence problems and challenges of national consolidation. Part two concentrates on 1930 to the present day and fleshes out current political practices and structures. Each part devotes chapters to specific country coverage as well as meaningful comparative perspectives that illuminate the political evolution of the region and offer salient lessons for other developing parts of the world.

Authoritarian Russia has adopted five strategies to preserve the Kremlin's political power: insulate, bolster, subvert, redefine and coordinate. Presenting detailed case studies of each strategy, this book makes significant contributions to our understandings of Russian domestic and foreign policies, democratization theory and the policy challenges associated with democracy promotion.

Revolutionary Passage is a cultural, social, and political history of Russia during its critical period of transformation at the end of the twentieth century. Marc Garcelon traces the history of perestroika and the rise of Vladimir Putin, arguing that the pressure Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms put on the Soviet system gave birth to movements for democratic change. He also shows that the very political arrangements that prompted the fall of Communism also killed hopes for subsequent reform. At the turning point of this political revolution stood Democratic Russia, or DemRossiia, the principal organization of the Russian democratic movement that helped to dismantle the Soviet system and force the Soviet leadership to change course. However, as post-Soviet Russia committed itself to globalization and U.S.-style economic reforms, the country directed itself away from the Democratic reforms called for by organizations like DemRossiia, and such groups collapsed. Revolutionary Passage provides a close examination of the DemRossiia. Garcelon deftly illuminates the rise and decline of this organization, and how the processes of revolutionary change impacted both Russia and the world.

'Editors Landman and Robinson have compiled an excellent tour d'horizon of comparative politics. Distinguished contributors explore theoretical and methodological issues as well as examine the critical substantive domains that animate today's comparativists. Graduate students and academics will want to keep this volume on their book shelf' - Professor Mark Irving Lichbach, University of Maryland 'The SAGE Handbook of Comparative Politics is a major new resource for scholars of comparative politics, and of political science more generally. The Handbook covers the field with admirable thoroughness, but does not sacrifice depth for breadth. The chapters are written by notable scholars who provide rich discussions of their topics, and help to move the sub-discipline forward' - B. Guy Peters, Professor, University of Pittsburgh The SAGE Handbook of Comparative Politics presents; in one volume, an authoritative overview of the theoretical, methodological and substantive elements of comparative political science. The 28 specially commissioned chapters, written by renowned comparative scholars, guide the reader through the central issues and debates, presenting a state-of-the-art guide to the past, present and possible futures of the field. The Handbook is divided into three parts. The first considers comparative methodologies and reviews the interactions between various sub-fields of comparative politics: political economy; political sociology; area studies; international relations; and institutional analysis. The second section examines nine 'classic' issues of concern to comparativists, including government formation, political behaviour and democratization. In the final section, nine new and emerging areas of comparative research are considered, such as terrorism, electoral corruption, human rights and regional integration. The SAGE Handbook of Comparative Politics is an essential resource for researchers in political science, political sociology, political economy, international relations, area studies and all other fields with a comparative political dimension.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics offers a critical survey of the field of empirical political science through the collection of a set of chapters written by 47 top scholars in the discipline of comparative politics. Part I includes chapters surveying the key research methodologiesemployed in comparative politics (the comparative method; the use of history; the practice and status of case-study research; the contributions of field research) and assessing the possibility of constructing a science of comparative politics. Parts II to IV examine the foundations of politicalorder: the origins of states and the extent to which they relate to war and to economic development; the sources of compliance or political obligation among citizens; democratic transitions, the role of civic culture; authoritarianism; revolutions; civil wars and contentious politics. Parts V and VIexplore the mobilization, representation and coordination of political demands. Part V considers why parties emerge, the forms they take and the ways in which voters choose parties. It then includes chapters on collective action, social movements and political participation. Part VI opens up withessays on the mechanisms through which political demands are aggregated and coordinated. This sets the agenda to the systematic exploration of the workings and effects of particular institutions: electoral systems, federalism, legislative-executive relationships, the judiciary and bureaucracy.Finally, Part VII is organized around the burgeoning literature on macropolitical economy of the last two decades.

Comparative federalism is now an important topic, with scholarly work comparing the US and EU 'proliferating rapidly'. The present volume seeks to build on and contribute to this growing literature, by developing a systematic comparison of the institutions, policies and developmental patterns of the European Union and the United States. -;The Convention on the Future of Europe served to galvanize debate about the nature and future developmental trajectory of the European Union. More specifically, it engendered discussion over the degree to which the process resembled that which had occurred in Philadelphia some two hundred years earlier, and, more broadly, over the extent to which the European Union does, or should, resemble the United States. Partly as a consequence of such debates, comparative federalism is now an. important topic, with scholarly work comparing the US and EU proliferating rapidly. The present volume seeks to build on and contribute to this growing literature, by developing a systematic comparison of the institutions, policies and developmental patterns of the European Union and the United. States. -

Introduction --
The Westminster model of democracy --
The consensus model of democracy --
Thirty-six democracies --
Party systems : two-party and multiparty patterns --
Cabinets : concentration versus sharing of executive power --
Executive-legislative relations : patterns of dominance and balance of power --
Electoral systems : majority and plurality methods versus proportional representation --
Interest groups : pluralism versus corporatism --
Division of power : the federal-unitary and centralized-decentralized contrasts --
Parliaments and congresses : concentration versus division of legislative power --
Constitutions : amendment procedures and judicial review --
Central banks : independence versus dependence --
The two-dimensional conceptual map of democracy --
Effective government and policy-making : does concensus democracy make a difference? --
The quality of democracy and a "kinder, gentler" democracy : consensus democracy makes a difference --
Conclusions and recommendations.