Constitution: government and the state Books

Book SynopsisE-Government is a hot topic. The integration of Information and Communication Technologies into public service delivery worldwide offers a number of promising opportunities. This text refers in particular to the benefits derived from ubiquitous access to and delivery of government services to citizens, business partners and employees. This book analyses the fundamental technical and non-technical concepts that are essential for successful implementation of e-Government in diverse environments, especially in developing countries. This book is an indispensable resource for both e-Government practitioners and researchers in that it brings to the fore scholarly scrutiny, scientific debate, and best practice in e-Government. The author has a background in computer and information science and accentuates the multi-disciplinary nature of the issues surrounding e-Government.

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Book SynopsisThis book analyzes developments in the jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court in the Obama era. It follows three main threads. First, it seeks to describe and characterize the Supreme Court's jurisprudence in this period. Second, it assesses factors influencing developments in the jurisprudence. Finally, it draws broader lessons on how constitutional change works. As the oldest surviving written constitution among Western democracies, and despite having high hurdles for textual changes, the US Constitution has proved to be remarkably flexible. The main reason for this flexibility is the interpretation by the US Supreme Court. This book teases out the mechanism of how the Court manages to maintain this flexibility. Bringing together legal scholars from the United States and Europe who focus on different aspects of the Court's jurisprudence, the work consists of five parts. Part I analyzes the relationship of the Supreme Court with the democratic process. Part II deals with the jurisprTable of Contents1. Introduction, Anna-Bettina Kaiser, Niels Petersen & Johannes Saurer; 2. What Does the Supreme Court Do? Samuel Issacharoff; 3. Politics, Polarization, and the U.S. Supreme Court, Moohyung Cho, Jason Douglas Todd & Georg Vanberg; 4. Presidential Administration in the Obama Era, Jud Mathews; 5. Campaign Finance and Freedom of Speech – A Transatlantic Perspective, Mathias Hong; 6. Key Federalism Cases During the Obama Presidency, Patricia Egli; 7. Immigration Law in the Obama Era, Amanda Frost; 8. All Same-Sex Marriage Is not the Same: Obergefell from a Comparative Perspective, Michaela Hailbronner; 9. The Second Amendment and the Debate on Originalism, Oliver Lepsius; 10. The Obama Era: Freedom of Religion, Antje von Ungern-Sternberg; 11. "Faraway, So Close!" – A Constitutional Perspective on Transatlantic Data Flow Regulation, Thomas Wischmeyer; 12. TTIP and the Challenges of Investor-State-Arbitration: An Exercise in Comparative Foreign Relations Law, Thomas Kleinlein; 13. Transnational Litigation and Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: Domestic Remedies for International Wrongs, Marc Jacob; 14. Comparing Courts, Susanne Baer; 15. An American Perspective on the German Constitutional Court, Justin Collings; Table of Cases; Contributors;

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Book SynopsisOur government is failing us. From health care to immigration, from the tax code to climate change, our political institutions cannot deal effectively with the challenges of modern society. Why the dysfunction? Contemporary reformers single out the usual suspects, including polarization and the rise in campaign spending. But what if the roots go much deeper, to the nation''s founding? In Relic, William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe point to the Constitution as the main culprit. The framers designed the Constitution some 225 years ago for a simple, agrarian society. But the government they created, with a parochial Congress at its center, is ill-equipped to address the serious social problems that arise in a complex, postindustrial nation. We are prisoners of the past, burdened with an antiquated government that cannot make effective policy, and often cannot do anything at all. The solution is to update the Constitution for modern times. This can be accomplished, HowTrade Review"The case for constitutional reform in Relic is the best--certainly the most realistic--in many years... Just getting people to think seriously about constitutional reform would be progress. The cogent analysis in Relic helps to achieve that goal." --Wall Street Journal "Focused, committed, convincing, and composed in moderate language that will appeal to those all along the political continuum." --Kirkus Reviews "Howell and Moe make the bold and trenchant argument that the dysfunctions of American government lie squarely in the powers that the Founding Fathers gave Congress, and that the solution is to dramatically shift the balance of power to the executive. This book is sure to trigger an important debate, precisely because its fundamental analysis is so correct." --Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University, and author of Political Order and Political Decay "Clear-eyed and unapologetic, Howell and Moe insist that our nation's political woes stem not from our polarized political class but from an outdated Constitution. Anyone interested in our nation's political health will profit from exploring their bracing vision of how that Constitution now protects particularistic interests and propagates dysfunction." --Paul Pierson, UC Berkeley, and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Winner-Take-All Politics "Howell and Moe deserve immense credit for 'connecting the dots' between our dangerously dysfunctional political system and an outmoded Constitution. One can only admire their willingness to challenge the cult of the Constitution that afflicts our political culture and hope that their book gets the widespread attention that it so richly deserves." --Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School, and author of Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance "Howell and Moe deliver the most concise, devastating account of congressional failure that I have ever read. In calling for a constitutional amendment that would increase the president's power over the legislative process, they have set the terms of debate for years to come." --Eric Posner, University of Chicago

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Book Synopsis“When Gessen speaks about autocracy, you listen.” —The New York Times “A reckoning with what has been lost in the past few years and a map forward with our beliefs intact.” —InterviewAs seen on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and heard on NPR’s All Things Considered: the bestselling, National Book Award–winning journalist offers an essential guide to understanding, resisting, and recovering from the ravages of our tumultuous times. This incisive book provides an essential guide to understanding and recovering from the calamitous corrosion of American democracy over the past few years. Thanks to the special perspective that is the legacy of a Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, Masha Gessen has a sixth sense for the manifestations of autocracy—and

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Book SynopsisAn accessible introduction to a wide range of theoretical perspectives on the modern state and a comprehensive overview of modern state theory.Trade ReviewThis book enables students to examine the contemporary state, its history and development, through a very wide variety of theories and ideologies, ranging from liberalism to feminism to fundamentalism. It takes a genuinely global perspective and concludes with a useful discussion of the relationship between the state and a variety of globalization theories. -- Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol This book enables students to examine the contemporary state, its history and development, through a very wide variety of theories and ideologies, ranging from liberalism to feminism to fundamentalism. It takes a genuinely global perspective and concludes with a useful discussion of the relationship between the state and a variety of globalization theories.Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. The Emergence of the Modern State; 2. Liberalism: The Pluralist State; 3. Elite Theories: The State and the Power Elite; 4. Marxism: The State as a Real Illusion; 5. Socialism: The Social Democratic State; 6. Anarchism: The Politics of Anti-Statism; 7. Conservatism: Authority in the Modern State; 8. Fascism: Overcoming the Modern State; 9. Feminisms: The Gendering of the State; 10. The New Right: The Minimal State; 11. Fundamentalism: The Godly State; 12. Futures: Theorising the Nation State in a 'Global Age'.

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Book SynopsisAn accessible introduction to a wide range of theoretical perspectives on the modern state and a comprehensive overview of modern state theory.Trade ReviewThis book enables students to examine the contemporary state, its history and development, through a very wide variety of theories and ideologies, ranging from liberalism to feminism to fundamentalism. It takes a genuinely global perspective and concludes with a useful discussion of the relationship between the state and a variety of globalization theories. -- Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol The strength of the book is that it contains not only classical democratic and liberal ideologies but also non-democratic and non-liberal ones such as facism and fundamentalism. -- Hasan Engin Sener, Akdeniz University, Turkey Political Studies Review This book enables students to examine the contemporary state, its history and development, through a very wide variety of theories and ideologies, ranging from liberalism to feminism to fundamentalism. It takes a genuinely global perspective and concludes with a useful discussion of the relationship between the state and a variety of globalization theories. The strength of the book is that it contains not only classical democratic and liberal ideologies but also non-democratic and non-liberal ones such as facism and fundamentalism.Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. The Emergence of the Modern State; 2. Liberalism: The Pluralist State; 3. Elite Theories: The State and the Power Elite; 4. Marxism: The State as a Real Illusion; 5. Socialism: The Social Democratic State; 6. Anarchism: The Politics of Anti-Statism; 7. Conservatism: Authority in the Modern State; 8. Fascism: Overcoming the Modern State; 9. Feminisms: The Gendering of the State; 10. The New Right: The Minimal State; 11. Fundamentalism: The Godly State; 12. Futures: Theorising the Nation State in a 'Global Age'.

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Book SynopsisThis textbook provides an introduction to the topical subject of constitutional change in Britain. It considers the historical origins of the constitution but its main focus is on recent reforms and their likely impact.Table of ContentsIntroduction: What is a Constitution?; 1. Historical Background to the Constitution; 2. The Legislature: The House of Commons and the House of Lords; 3. The Executive; 4. The Judiciary; 5. The Debate over a Written Constitution and a Bill of Rights for the UK; 6. Devolution: Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the English Regions; 7. Electoral Reform and Referenda; 8. The European Union and the United Kingdom Constitution; 9. The 'Hollowing Out of the State'; Conclusion: A Constitutional Agenda?.

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Book SynopsisTurks ruled the Middle East for a millennium and eastern Europe for many centuries and it is an undoubted fact that they moulded the lands under their dominion. It is therefore something of a paradox that the history of Turkey and aspects of the identity and role of the Turks, both as Muslims and as an ethnic group, still remain little known in the west and undervalued in the Arabic and Persian-speaking worlds.This book contributes to historical scholarship on Turkey by focusing on its key foundational myth, the battle of Manzikert in 1071--the Turkish equivalent of the battle of Hastings. Manzikert destroyed the hold of Christian Byzantium on eastern Turkey and opened the whole country to the spread of Islam, a process completed with the fall of Constantinople and Trebizond some four centuries later.Translations and a close analysis of all the extant Muslim sources--both Arabic and Persian--which deal with the battle of Manzikert are provided in the book. It also looks at these writings as literary works and vehicles of religious ideology and analyses the ongoing confrontation between the Muslim Turks and Christian Europe and the importance of Manzikert in the formation of the modern state of Turkey since 1923.Trade Review'This original and thought-provoking book operates on several levels ... a captivating read that is a powerful reminder to Western scholars and students of the achievement of Turkish - rather than Arab or Persian - leaders in the history of the Muslim Near East.' -- Jonathan Phillips Times Literary Supplement 'This is a passionate book with an agenda to address the importance of the Turkish contribution to the medieval period ... as well as presenting a superb deconstruction of a historical event in the memory and ideology of centuries of writers.' -- Jonathan Phillips Times Literary Supplement 'This original and thought-provoking book operates on several levels ... a captivating read that is a powerful reminder to Western scholars and students of the achievement of Turkish - rather than Arab or Persian - leaders in the history of the Muslim Near East.' 'This is a passionate book with an agenda to address the importance of the Turkish contribution to the medieval period ... as well as presenting a superb deconstruction of a historical event in the memory and ideology of centuries of writers.'Table of ContentsList of Illustrations; Comment on Transliteration; Part 1: Medieval Muslim interpretations of the battle; Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: The twelfth -century sources for the battle of Manzikert; Chapter 3: The thirteenth-century sources for the battle of Manzikert; Chapter 4: The fourteenth-century sources for the battle of Manzikert; Chapter 5: Writing the battle; Part 2: The legacy of the battle; Chapter 6: The Islamic legacy of Manzikert - the ongoing Muslim-Christian confrontation; Chapter 7: The heritage of Manzikert: the myth of national identity; Appendix; Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisAt midnight on 30 June 1997, Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty after 150 years of British rule. The moment when the British flag came down was dramatic enough but the ten years leading up to it were full of surprising incident and change. This work contains letters written by an Englishwoman who was involved in those events from 1987.

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Chronology Abortion Capital Punishment Disability Rights Drug Policy Education Policy Environmental Justice Freedom of Speech Government Surveillance Gun Control Health Care Housing Policy Immigration Information Privacy and Internet Freedom LGBTQ Rights Marriage Equality Police and Criminal Justice Reform Religious Liberty School Choice Voting Rights Women’s Rights Bibliography Index About the Author and Contributors

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Book SynopsisAfter the referendum - what now? A Wealthier, Fairer Scotland looks at how devolved Scotland's powers could be used to make the country the best it can be: both economically successful and socially just for all citizens.Table of ContentsPreface; 1 .The Political Economy of Devolution - Michael Keating; 2. Taxes and Spending - Patrizio Lecca, Peter G McGregor and Kim Swales; 3. Inequality in Scotland: Dimensions and Policy Responses - David Bell, David Eiser and Katerina Lisenkova; 4. Towards a Fairer Scotland? Assessing the Prospects and Implications of Social Security Devolution - Nicola McEwen; 5. A More Gender-Equal Scotland? Childcare Policy in Scotland after the Independence Referendum - Craig McAngusand Kirstein Rummery; 6. Constitutional Change, Social Investment and Prevention Policy in Scotland - Paul Cairney, Malcolm Harvey, and Emily St Denny; 7. Getting to a Wealthier and Fairer Scotland - Michael Keating and Robert Lineira; References; List of Figures; List of Tables.

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Book SynopsisRecent social and political developments, including the presidential elections in the United States, antidemocratic state policies in Hungary and Poland, and the political climate in the rest of Europe have brought questions relating to the position and composition of 'the people' in constitutional democracies to the forefront

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Book SynopsisTom Gillie is a barrister at Matrix Chambers, London, UK.

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Book SynopsisWith the end of the Cold War came not the end of history, but the end of America's sense of its strategic purpose in the world. Then, after a decade of drift, the US was violently dragged back into international conflict. Its armed forces responded magnificently but its leaders' objectives were substantially flawed. We fought the wrong war,twice,for reasons that were opaque, and few American citizens understood the cause for which their sons and daughters were fighting and dying.War is a poor substitute for strategic vision, and decisions made in the heat of imminent conflict are often limited by the emotions of the moment. In Don't Wait for the Next War , Wesley K. Clark, a retired four-star general of the US army and former Democratic candidate for president, presents a compelling argument for continued American global leadership and the basis on which it can succeed,a new American strategy. America needs both new power and deeper perspective. The platform for American leadership is to use America's energy resources to spark sustainable economic growth, building new strength to deal with pressing domestic issues like the deficit as well as the longer term challenges to US security,terrorism, cyber threats, the next financial crisis, China's rising power, and climate change.Such a strategy is not only achievable but essential, and it is urgently needed. This is the true test of American leadership for the next two decades, but it must start now, so America has the power and vision to deal with the acute crises that will inevitably come,in the Mideast, Europe, or Asia.Trade Review" On most every count, he delivers an imaginative, tightly argued book that is full of salient details...Clark fills a vacuum in the nation's approach to strategy and shows all of us--soldiers, CEOs, entrepreneurs and politicians alike--how our country can again play to its strengths." --Army Magazine "The issues Clark raises are ones that every concerned (and voting) American ought to consider as we enter the next election cycle...The author writes clearly and keeps "policy wonk" language to a minimum." Library Journal "While Gen. Clark is perhaps best known for his 2004 presidential campaign on the Democratic ticket, his ideal national strategy has significant bipartisan appeal...This book is about much more than foreign or public policy. Gen. Clark tells fascinating tales about meetings with prominent officials from all over the world that offer insight into the strategic goals of other countries...The publishers of "Next War" could not have timed its release any better...You may not agree with Gen. Clark's strategies, but at least he is trying to elevate the national conversation with his fantastic new book." Seeking Alpha

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