Search results for ""Sovereign""

Don't just see the sights-get to know the people. Often called the "Land of the Thunder Dragon," Bhutan was secluded for much of its history, its towering mountains and lush green valleys virtually unvisited, evoking a sense of mystery and wonder. A sovereign country throughout the ages, Bhutan is now establishing its place on the world stage. It is determined to maintain its Buddhist culture and unique way of life as it evolves and adapts to political change and economic challenges. Culture Smart! Bhutan will give you a deeper insight into the country's history, values, customs, and age-old traditions. It highlights changes in people's attitudes and behavior as the country modernizes, and provides practical guidance on how to get to know the Bhutanese on their own terms, paving the way for a more meaningful experience of this fascinating and beautiful country. Have a more meaningful and successful time abroad through a better understanding of the local culture. Chapters on values, attitudes, customs, and daily life will help you make the most of your visit, while tips on etiquette and communication will help you navigate unfamiliar situations and avoid faux pas.

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In recent decades, Palestinian heritage organizations have launched numerous urban regeneration and museum projects across the West Bank in response to the enduring Israeli occupation. These efforts to reclaim and assert Palestinian heritage differ significantly from the typical global cultural project: here it is people's cultural memory and living environment, rather than ancient history and archaeology, that take center stage. It is local civil society and NGOs, not state actors, who are "doing" heritage. In this context, Palestinian heritage has become not just a practice of resistance, but a resourceful mode of governing the Palestinian landscape. With this book, Chiara De Cesari examines these Palestinian heritage projects—notably the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, Riwaq, and the Palestinian Museum—and the transnational actors, practices, and material sites they mobilize to create new institutions in the absence of a sovereign state. Through their rehabilitation of Palestinian heritage, these organizations have halted the expansion of Israeli settlements. They have also given Palestinians opportunities to rethink and transform state functions. Heritage and the Cultural Struggle for Palestine reveals how the West Bank is home to creative experimentation, insurgent agencies, and resourceful attempts to reverse colonial violence—and a model of how things could be.

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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER!Darrow returns as Pierce Brown's New York Times bestselling Red Rising series continues in the thrilling sequel to Dark Age.The Reaper is a legend, more myth than man: the savior of worlds, the leader of the Rising, the breaker of chains. But the Reaper is also Darrow, born of the red soil of Mars: a husband, a father, a friend.Marooned far from home after a devastating defeat on the battlefields of Mercury, Darrow longs to return to his wife and sovereign, Virginia, to defend Mars from its bloodthirsty would-be conqueror - Lysander. Lysander longs to destroy the Rising and restore the supremacy of Gold, and will raze the worlds to realize his ambitions. The worlds once needed the Reaper. But now they need Darrow, and Darrow needs the people he loves - Virginia, Cassius, Sevro - in order to defend the Republic. So begins Darrow's long voyage home, an interplanetary adventure where old friends will reunite, new alliances will be forged, and rivals will clash on the battlefield.Because Eo's dream is still alive - and after the dark age will come a new age: of light, of victory, of hope.

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The definitive guide to fixed income securities—updated and revised with everything you need to succeed in today’s market For nearly 40 years, The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities has been providing comprehensive, current, reliable information on everything investors like you need to stay on top of the market and ahead of the curve. The fixed income market has changed dramatically in the past decade. This updated classic brings you fully up to date for a much-changed world of finance, where central banks play a bigger role, interest is low (and sometimes even in negative territory), regulations are more complex, and new types of securities have been created. Brand-new chapters cover: Relative value trades Muni analytics Financial data science Building and maintaining a bond portfolio Factor investing Relative value trades Smart beta fixed income Infrastructure and green bonds Sovereign bond markets One of the world’s leading experts on fixed income securities, Frank Fabozzi has gathered a peerless team of global experts who provide the newest and best techniques for winning in today’s markets. Fixed Income Securities, Ninth Edition is a matchless, one-stop resource for all your professional needs.

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A groundbreaking study of one of the most crucial yet least understood issues of the twenty-first century: the governance of the Internet and its content The Internet has transformed the manner in which information is exchanged and business is conducted, arguably more than any other communication development in the past century. Despite its wide reach and powerful global influence, it is a medium uncontrolled by any one centralized system, organization, or governing body, a reality that has given rise to all manner of free-speech issues and cybersecurity concerns. The conflicts surrounding Internet governance are the new spaces where political and economic power is unfolding in the twenty-first century. This all-important study by Laura DeNardis reveals the inner power structure already in place within the architectures and institutions of Internet governance. It provides a theoretical framework for Internet governance that takes into account the privatization of global power as well as the role of sovereign nations and international treaties. In addition, DeNardis explores what is at stake in open global controversies and stresses the responsibility of the public to actively engage in these debates, because Internet governance will ultimately determine Internet freedom.

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This study is devoted to the Neo-Assyrian royal household as it emerges from the available cuneiform sources. It addresses the functions as well as the conditions of life and work of the royal household personnel. It clarifies which types of officials, professionals and other employees were active within or on behalf of the royal household. What were their tasks, and what was their position within the royal household and in relation to the king and his family? What departments were in place, and who were the managers? What was the role of lower-ranking personnel within this system? The study also investigates the social and cultural background of the personnel as well as their professional life, including their financial means, the quantity and type of their remuneration, and their career progression. Envisaged also as reference book, the book provides a prosopographical catalogue of the wide range of personnel discussed. As the personal household of the sovereign and the administrative and political centre of the empire, this study of the royal household opens up the immediate environment of the king and his family, but also to the governmental apparatus of the empire as a whole.

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Like an eagle, American colonists ascended from the gulley of British dependence to the position of sovereign world power in a period of merely two centuries. Seizing territory in Canada and representation in Britain; expelling the French, and even their British forefathers, American leaders George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson paved their nation's way to independence. With the first buds of public relation techniques--of communication, dramatization, and propaganda--America flourished into a vision of freedom, of enterprise, and of unalienable human rights. In Flight of the Eagle, Conrad Black provides a perspective on American history that is unprecedented. Through his analysis of the strategic development of the United States from 1754-1992, Black describes nine "phases" of the strategic rise of the nation, in which it progressed through grave challenges, civil and foreign wars, and secured a place for itself under the title of "Superpower." Black discredits prevailing notions that our unrivaled status is the product of good geography, demographics, and good luck. Instead, he reveals and analyzes the specific strategic decisions of great statesmen through the ages that transformed the world as we know it and established America's place in it.

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Law and Migration is an authoritative volume which draws on statutory and case law to expose the limitations of the law in protecting the individual caught in the complex web of national and regional constraints on migration. International law provides for the exercise of the sovereign power of states to control the entry of non-nationals. However, more recent international conventions have shown a growing awareness of the failure of the law to protect individuals and their families from violation of their human rights and civil liberties. Whilst avoiding open conflict with the principle of sovereignty, national courts have strived to comply with the spirit of human rights conventions and have often decided in favour of individuals. Despite this, border and internal controls on entry continue to proliferate. Globally the failure to establish an adequate legal framework which takes account of forced migration caused by wars and natural disasters has provoked a debate beyond the traditional legal norms. This volume presents a selection of published work from a variety of countriest and addresses the theoretical questions and policy issues which will continue to tax lawyers in the twenty first century.

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This unique and fascinating book illustrates that the 'credit crunch' and the ensuing financial and economic crisis of 2007-2009 did not only strike hard at the economy in the Western world, but also at its policymakers, at economics as a scientific discipline and, more specifically, at the process of European integration itself. In a series of theoretical and empirical papers, the expert contributors discuss the impact of the financial crisis on European integration in detail, considering issues including governance, sovereign debt crises, global economic imbalances, and post-crisis perspectives from Central and East European countries. The conclusion is that there is an urgent need for political integration in Europe as a necessary tool to facilitate economic integration. This book will prove invaluable to both academics and practitioners with a special interest in the economics of European integration, international financial markets, economics and international business. Contributors include: F.C. Bagliano, H. Berger, N.D. Coniglio, P. De Grauwe, S. Dumitrescu, M. Heipertz, A. Horobet, D. Ioannou, A.M. Lejour, J. Lewis, J. Lukkezen, K.-S. Lee, C. Morana, V. Nitsch, M. Pirovano, F. Prota, Z. Qian, S. Sarisoy Guerin, A. Van Poeck, J. Vanneste, P. Veenendaal

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Modern history is a history of aesthetizations – and every aesthetization raises a claim of protection. We aestheticize and want to protect almost everything, including Earth, oceans, the atmosphere, rare animal species and exotic plants. Humans are no exception. They also present themselves as objects of contemplation that deserve admiration and care. For some time, artists and intellectuals struggled for the sovereign right to present themselves to society in their own way – to become self-created works of art. Today everybody has not only a right but also an obligation to practice self-design. We are responsible for the way we present ourselves to others – and we cannot get rid of this aesthetic responsibility. However, we are not able to produce our own bodies. Before we begin to practice self-design, we find ourselves already designed by the gaze of others. That is why the practice of self-design mostly takes a critical and confrontational turn. We want to bring others to see us in the way we want to be seen – not only during our earthly life but also after our death. This is a complicated struggle, and the aim of this book is to describe and analyze it.

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Political Magic examines early modern British fictions of exploration and colonialism, arguing that narratives of intercultural contact reimagine ideas of sovereignty and popular power. These fictions reveal aspects of political thought in this period that official discourse typically shunted aside, particularly the political status of the commoner, whose “liberty” was often proclaimed even as it was undermined both in theory and in practice. Like the Hobbesian sovereign, the colonist appears to the colonized as a giver of rules who remains unruly. At the heart of many texts are moments of savage wonder, provoked by European displays of technological prowess. In particular, the trope of the first gunshot articulates an origin of consent and political legitimacy in colonial showmanship. Yet as manifestations of force held in abeyance, these technologies also signal the ultimate reliance of sovereigns on extreme violence as the lessthan-mystical foundation of their authority. By examining works by Cavendish, Defoe, Behn, Swift, and Haywood in conjunction with contemporary political writing and travelogues, Political Magic locates a subterranean discourse of sovereignty in the century after Hobbes, finding surprising affinities between the government of “savages” and of Britons.

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There is no more powerful symbol in American political life than the presidency, and the image of presidential power has had no less profound an impact on American fiction. A Pinnacle of Feeling is the first book to examine twentieth-century literature's deep fascination with the modern presidency and with the ideas about the relationship between state power and democracy that underwrote the rise of presidential authority. Sean McCann challenges prevailing critical interpretations through revelatory new readings of major writers, including Richard Wright, Gertrude Stein, Henry Roth, Zora Neale Hurston, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Norman Mailer, Don Delillo, and Philip Roth. He argues that these writers not only represented or satirized presidents, but echoed political thinkers who cast the chief executive as the agent of the sovereign will of the American people. They viewed the president as ideally a national redeemer, and they took that ideal as a model and rival for their own work. A Pinnacle of Feeling illuminates the fundamental concern with democratic sovereignty that informs the most innovative literary works of the twentieth century, and shows how these works helped redefine and elevate the role of executive power in American culture.

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Ernest Gellner explores here the links between anthropology and politics, and shows just how central these are. The recent postmodernist turn in anthropology has been linked to the expiation of colonial guilt. Traditional, functionalist anthropology is characteristically regarded as an accessory to the crime, and anyone critical of the relativistic claims of interpretative anthropology (as Ernest Gellner is) is likely to be charged (as he sometimes is) with being an ex post imperialist. Ernest Gellner argues that cultures are crucially important in human life as constraining systems of meaning. Cultural transition means that the required characteristics are transmitted from generation to generation, leading, he shows, to both greater diversity and to far more rapid change than is possible among species where transmission is primarily by genetic means. But the relative importance of semantic and physical compulsion needs to be explored rather than pre-judged. The weakness of idealism, which at present operates under the name of hermeneutics, is that it underplays the importance of coercion, and that it presents cultures as self-justifying and morally sovereign: this line of argument, the author demonstrates, is fundamentally flawed.

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Securitizations of Citizenship investigates how the fate of citizenship is now caught up in a dramatic and dangerous process of securitizing political communities. In the nervous state of affairs of the post-9/11 period, technologies of surveillance and control are rapidly proliferating, creating severe constraints for the enactment of citizenship practices. While citizenship has always faced the problem of exclusiveness, the contemporary relationship between security, territory, and population is being transformed in ways that are creating new dynamics of exclusion for citizens, non-citizens, and quasi-citizens alike. This book assesses a variety of citizenship practices in relation to the emergence of forms of governance that are responsive to – and constitutive of – fears, anxieties, and insecurities in the population. At the same time, the book identifies and assesses citizenship practices for how they can mobilize progressive forces to militate against the nervous, anxious and fearful subjectivities instigated by newly securitized sovereignties. In the critical spaces between inclusion and exclusion, migration and mobility, security and surveillance, reason and neurosis, biopower and sovereign power, the contributors to this book reflect upon the possibilities and constraints for refiguring citizenship today.

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A Christian theological interpretation of the border reality is a neglected area of immigration study. The foremost contribution of A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey is its focus on the theological dimension of migration, beginning with the humanity of the immigrant, a child of God and a bearer of his image. The nineteen authors in this collection recognize that one characteristic of globalization is the movement not only of goods and ideas but also of people. The crossing of geographical borders confronts Christians, as well as all citizens, with choices: between national security and human insecurity, between sovereign national rights and human rights, between citizenship and discipleship. Bearing these global dimensions in mind, the essays in this book focus on the particular problems of immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border. The contributors to this volume include scholars as well as pastors and lay people involved in immigration aid work. Contributors: Oscar Andrés Cardinal Rodríguez, Gioacchino Campese, Daniel G. Groody, Jacqueline Hagan, Donald Senior, Peter C. Phan, Alex Nava, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Stephen Bevans, Robert Schreiter, Giovanni Graziano Tassello, Patrick Murphy, Robin Hoover, Graziano Battistella, Donald Kerwin, Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, Olivia Ruiz Marrujo, and Jorge E. Castillo Guerra.

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From the Foreword: I am inclined to think that when Creator lowered Lynn to Mother Earth it was for her to complete this difficult task of bravery. Indeed we can all learn from her, as she has fulfilled her responsibility. - Heather Majaury In commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Treaty at Niagara, The Truth that Wampum Tells offers readers a first-ever insider analysis of the contemporary land claims and self-government process in Canada. Incorporating an analysis of traditional symbolic literacy known as wampum diplomacy, Lynn Gehl argues that despite Canada's constitutional beginnings, first codified in the 1763 Royal Proclamation and ratified during the 1764 Treaty at Niagara, Canada continues to deny the Algonquin Anishinaabeg their right to land and resources, their right to live as a sovereign nation and consequently their ability to live mino-pimadiziwin (the good life). Gehl moves beyond Western scholarly approaches rooted in historical archives, academic literature and the interview method. She also moves beyond discussions of Indigenous methodologies, offering an analysis through Debwewin Journey: a wholistic Anishinaabeg way of knowing that incorporates both mind knowledge and heart knowledge and that produces one's debwewin (personal truth).

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels by Robert Kerr is an 18 volume set that contains the complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land. In determining upon an era for the commencement of this work, Kerr was led, from a consideration of the accidental discovery of Iceland by the Norwegians in the ninth century, to adopt that period as the beginning of the series, both because the commencement of modern maritime discovery took place during the reign of a British sovereign, and because we derive the earliest written accounts of any of these discoveries from the pen of that excellent prince. It is true that the first accidental discovery of Iceland appears to have been made in 861, eleven years before the accession of Alfred to the throne; yet, as the actual colonization of that island did not take place till the year 878, the seventh of his glorious reign, we have been induced to distinguish the actual commencement of maritime discovery by the modern European nations as coinciding with his era.

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels by Robert Kerr is an 18 volume set that contains the complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land. In determining upon an era for the commencement of this work, Kerr was led, from a consideration of the accidental discovery of Iceland by the Norwegians in the ninth century, to adopt that period as the beginning of the series, both because the commencement of modern maritime discovery took place during the reign of a British sovereign, and because we derive the earliest written accounts of any of these discoveries from the pen of that excellent prince. It is true that the first accidental discovery of Iceland appears to have been made in 861, eleven years before the accession of Alfred to the throne; yet, as the actual colonization of that island did not take place till the year 878, the seventh of his glorious reign, we have been induced to distinguish the actual commencement of maritime discovery by the modern European nations as coinciding with his era.

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In almost every military intervention in its history, the US has made cultural mistakes that hindered attainment of its policy goals. From the counterproductive strategic bombing of Vietnam to the misguided accidental burning of the Koran in Afghanistan, the US has blundered around with little consideration of local cultural beliefs and almost no concern for the long-term effects on the host nation's society. Cultural anthropology--the so-called 'handmaiden of colonialism'--has historically served as an intellectual bridge between sovereign Western powers and local nationals. What light can it shed on the difficult intersection of the US military and foreign societies today? Each chapter in this book tells the story of an anthropologist who worked directly for the military, such as Ursula Graham Bower, the only woman to hold a British combat command during WWII. Each faced challenges including the negative outcomes of exporting Western political models to societies where they don't fit, and errors of perception that prevent understanding of indigenous societies. Ranging from the British colonial era in Africa to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Military Anthropology illustrates the conceptual, cultural and practical barriers encountered by military organisations.

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In February 2022, Russian missiles rained on Ukrainian cities, and tanks rolled towards Kyiv to end Ukrainian independent statehood. President Zelensky declined a Western evacuation offer and Ukrainians rallied to defend their country. What are the roots of this war, which has upended the international legal order and brought back the spectre of nuclear escalation? How did these supposedly “brotherly peoples” become each other’s worst nightmare? In Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States, Maria Popova and Oxana Shevel explain how since 1991 Russia and Ukraine diverged politically, ending up on a collision course. Russia slid back into authoritarianism and imperialism, while Ukraine consolidated a competitive political system and pro-European identity. As Ukraine built a democratic nation-state, Russia refused to accept it and came to see it as an “anti-Russia” project. After political and economic pressure proved ineffective, and even counterproductive, Putin went to war to force Ukraine back into the fold of the “Russian world.” Ukraine resisted, determined to pursue European integration as a sovereign state. These irreconcilable goals, rather than geopolitical wrangling between Russia and the West over NATO expansion, are – the authors argue – essential to understanding Russia’s war on Ukraine.

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Despite the growing consensus on the need for action to counteract climate change, complex economic and political forces have so far prevented international actors from making much headway toward resolving the problem. Most approaches to climate change are based in economics and environmental science; in this book, Parkash Chander argues that we can make further progress on the climate change impasse by considering a third approach—game theory.Chander shows that a game-theoretic approach, which offers insight into the nature of interactions between sovereign countries behaving strategically and the kinds of outcomes such interactions produce, can illuminate how best to achieve international agreements in support of climate-change mitigation strategies. Game Theory and Climate Change develops a conceptual framework with which to analyze climate change as a strategic or dynamic game, bringing together cooperative and noncooperative game theory and providing practical analyses of international negotiations. Chander offers economic and game-theoretic interpretations of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement and argues that the Paris Agreement may succeed where the Kyoto Protocol failed. Finally, Chander discusses the policy recommendations his framework generates, including a global agreement to support development of cleaner technologies on a global scale.

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From debut author Nina Varela comes the first book in a richly imagined epic fantasy duology about an impossible love between two girls—one human, one Made—whose romance could be the beginning of a revolution.Perfect for fans of Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s Curse as well as Game of Thrones and Westworld.After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners’ estates and bent the human race to their will.Now Ayla, a human servant rising in the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging her family’s death…by killing the sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. Crier was Made to be beautiful, flawless, and to carry on her father’s legacy. But that was before her betrothal to the enigmatic Scyre Kinok, before she discovered her father isn’t the benevolent king she once admired, and most importantly, before she met Ayla.Now, with growing human unrest across the land, pressures from a foreign queen, and an evil new leader on the rise, Crier and Ayla find there may be only one path to love: war.

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Governments are rightly discussing reform of investment treaties, and of the incredibly powerful system of 'investor-state dispute settlement' (ISDS) upon which they rest. At their core, ISDS treaties are flawed because they very firmly institute wealth-based inequality under international law. In this book, Van Harten explores these claims in the light of the history of early ISDS treaties showing their ties to decolonization and, at times, extreme violence and authoritarianism. Focusing on early ISDS lawsuits and rulings, it is revealed how a small group of lawyers and arbitrators worked to create the legal foundations for massive growth of ISDS since 2000. ISDS-based protections are examined in detail to demonstrate how they give exceptional advantages to the wealthy. Various examples are also offered of how the protections have been used to reconfigure state decision-making and shift sovereign minds in favour of foreign investors. Lastly, the ongoing efforts of governments to reform ISDS are surveyed, with a call to go further or, best of all, to withdraw from the treaties. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to know more about the shady world of investment protection.

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For over sixty years the state of Israel has proved adept at practising clandestine diplomacy - - about which little is known, as one might expect. These hitherto undisclosed episodes in Israel's diplomatic history are revealed for the first time by the contributors to this volume, who explore how relations based upon patronage and personal friendships, as well as ties born from kinship and realpolitik both informed the creation of the state and later defined Israel's relations with a host of actors, both state and non-state. The authors focus on the extent to which Israel's clandestine diplomacies have indeed been regarded as purely functional and sub- ordinate to a realist quest for security amid the perceived hostility of a predominantly Muslim-Arab world, or have in fact proved to be manifestations of a wider acceptance - political, social and cultural - of a Jewish sovereign state as an intrinsic part of the Middle East. They also discuss whether clandestine diplomacy has been more effective in securing Israeli objectives than reliance upon more formal diplomatic ties constrained by inter- national legal obligations and how this often complex and at times contradictory matrix of clandestine relationships continues to influence perceptions of Israel's foreign policy.

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In 2020, mass anti-government protests erupted across Belarus. The brutal crackdown that followed shocked the international community: the authorities arrested tens of thousands of citizens, shut down independent media and NGOs, and fomented a migrant crisis on the European Union's border. But where many thought Belarus's dictator, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, would fall, he instead turned to Moscow for support, intensifying repression. Many of his opponents fled the country. Then, in February 2022, Belarus provided a staging area for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, allowing troops and missile systems to be based on its territory as large-scale war returned to Eastern Europe once again. Many outsiders now view Belarus as little more than a Russian military district, rather than a sovereign country. Paul Hansbury offers a wide-ranging account of these two related crises. Exploring the domestic origins of Belarus's political chaos and its international ramifications, he also assesses the effectiveness of western sanctions policy, as well as considering the history and prospects of Belarusian statehood. Does Belarus have a future as an independent polity? And how has Russia's war with Ukraine affected Belarusians' views of their dictatorship and the cause of democracy in their country?

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How have the most influential political economists of the past three centuries theorized about sovereign borrowing and shaped its now widespread use? This important question receives a comprehensive answer in this original work, featuring careful textual analysis and illuminating exhibits of public debt empirics since 1700. Beyond its value as a definitive, authoritative history of thought on public debt, this book rehabilitates and reintroduces a realist perspective into a contemporary debate now heavily dominated by pessimists and optimists alike. The book simultaneously explicates and critiques the most prominent theories concerning why states borrow in the first place, whether or not they borrow productively, the incidence of their debts, why they sometimes borrow too much and why they often default, whether explicitly or implicitly. The author classifies major public debt theorists as pessimists, optimists or realists. This book also examines the influence of regime types, especially why most modern welfare states tend not only to over-issue bonds but also to incur even larger implicit obligations via unfunded, off-balance sheet liabilities. Scholars and undergraduate and graduate students in economics and political science, as well as policymakers, will find this analysis of public debt and public spending insightful and revealing.

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In fragile states, domestic and international actors sometimes take the momentous step of sharing sovereign authority to provide basic public services and build the rule of law. While sovereignty sharing can help address gaps in governance, it is inherently difficult, risking redundancy, confusion over roles, and feuds between partners when their interests diverge. In Sovereignty Sharing in Fragile States, John D. Ciorciari sheds light on how and why these extraordinary joint ventures are created, designed, and implemented. Based on extensive field research in several countries and more than 150 interviews with senior figures from governments, the UN, donor states, and civil society, Ciorciari discusses when sovereignty sharing may be justified and when it is most likely to achieve its aims. The two, he argues, are closely related: perceived legitimacy and continued political and popular support are keys to success. This book examines a diverse range of sovereignty-sharing arrangements, including hybrid criminal tribunals, joint policing arrangements, and anti-corruption initiatives, in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon, Timor-Leste, Guatemala, and Liberia. Ciorciari provides the first comparative assessment of these remarkable attempts to repair ruptures in the rule of law—the heart of a well-governed state.

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In recent decades, Palestinian heritage organizations have launched numerous urban regeneration and museum projects across the West Bank in response to the enduring Israeli occupation. These efforts to reclaim and assert Palestinian heritage differ significantly from the typical global cultural project: here it is people's cultural memory and living environment, rather than ancient history and archaeology, that take center stage. It is local civil society and NGOs, not state actors, who are "doing" heritage. In this context, Palestinian heritage has become not just a practice of resistance, but a resourceful mode of governing the Palestinian landscape. With this book, Chiara De Cesari examines these Palestinian heritage projects—notably the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, Riwaq, and the Palestinian Museum—and the transnational actors, practices, and material sites they mobilize to create new institutions in the absence of a sovereign state. Through their rehabilitation of Palestinian heritage, these organizations have halted the expansion of Israeli settlements. They have also given Palestinians opportunities to rethink and transform state functions. Heritage and the Cultural Struggle for Palestine reveals how the West Bank is home to creative experimentation, insurgent agencies, and resourceful attempts to reverse colonial violence—and a model of how things could be.

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Poetically written and originally given as lectures, this is a moving essay collection from Durs Grünbein. In his four Lord Weidenfeld Lectures held in Oxford in 2019, German poet Durs Grünbein dealt with a topic that has occupied his mind ever since he began to perceive his own position within the past of his nation, his linguistic community, and his family: How is it possible that history can determine the individual poetic imagination and segregate it into private niches? Shouldn’t poetry look at the world with its own sovereign eyes instead? In the form of a collage or “photosynthesis,” in image and text, Grünbein lets the fundamental opposition between poetic license and almost overwhelming bondage to history appear in an exemplary way. From the seeming trifle of a stamp with the portrait of Adolf Hitler, he moves through the phenomenon of the “Führer’s streets” and into the inferno of aerial warfare. In the end, Grünbein argues that we are faced with the powerlessness of writing and the realization, valid to this day, that comes from confronting history. As he muses, “There is something beyond literature that questions all writing.”

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In the early 1950s the very existence of the Florida Seminoles was in jeopardy. Mired in poverty, poorly educated, underemployed, and without a tribal government, they also faced the possibility that the U.S. Congress would terminate services to them. Fortunately, loss of reservation lands was averted and the situation began to improve. When the federal government approved a charter and constitution for the tribe in 1957, it marked both the official resumption of tribal sovereignty after more than a century and the first agreement that did not force removal of the Seminoles from the reservation. An Assumption of Sovereignty continues Harry A. Kersey Jr.’s examination of Seminole history. He studies the effects of shifting governmental attitudes and policies on the Florida Indians during the past quarter-century. He also charts the social, economic, and political experiences of the tribe during these volatile decades. By the end of the account, readers understand that the Seminole tribe has become organized, functioning, and sovereign, with a stable economic base. The author has made extensive use of oral history from tribal elders as well as the memoirs and records of Florida congressional leaders.

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An inkstone, a piece of polished stone no bigger than an outstretched hand, is an instrument for grinding ink, an object of art, a token of exchange between friends or sovereign states, and a surface on which texts and images are carved. As such, the inkstone has been entangled with elite masculinity and the values of wen (culture, literature, civility) in China, Korea, and Japan for more than a millennium. However, for such a ubiquitous object in East Asia, it is virtually unknown in the Western world. Examining imperial workshops in the Forbidden City, the Duan quarries in Guangdong, the commercial workshops in Suzhou, and collectors’ homes in Fujian, The Social Life of Inkstones traces inkstones between court and society and shows how collaboration between craftsmen and scholars created a new social order in which the traditional hierarchy of “head over hand” no longer predominated. Dorothy Ko also highlights the craftswoman Gu Erniang, through whose work the artistry of inkstone-making achieved unprecedented refinement between the 1680s and 1730s The Social Life of Inkstones explores the hidden history and cultural significance of the inkstone and puts the stonecutters and artisans on center stage.

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The global web and its digital ecosystem can be seen as tools of emancipation, communication, and spreading knowledge or as means of control, fueled by capitalism, surveillance, and geopolitics.The Digital Frontier interrogates the world wide web and the digital ecosystem it has spawned to reveal how their conventions, protocols, standards, and algorithmic regulations represent a novel form of global power. Sangeet Kumar shows the operation of this power through the web's "infrastructures of control" visible at sites where the universalizing imperatives of the web run up against local values, norms, and cultures. These include how the idea of the "global common good" is used as a ruse by digital oligopolies to expand their private enclosures, how seemingly collaborative spaces can simultaneously be exclusionary as they regulate legitimate knowledge, how selfhood is being redefined online along Eurocentric ideals, and how the web's political challenge is felt differentially by sovereign nation states. In analyzing this new modality of cultural power in the global digital ecosystem, The Digital Frontier is an important read for scholars, activists, academics and students inspired by the utopian dream of a truly representative global digital network.

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The global web and its digital ecosystem can be seen as tools of emancipation, communication, and spreading knowledge or as means of control, fueled by capitalism, surveillance, and geopolitics.The Digital Frontier interrogates the world wide web and the digital ecosystem it has spawned to reveal how their conventions, protocols, standards, and algorithmic regulations represent a novel form of global power. Sangeet Kumar shows the operation of this power through the web's "infrastructures of control" visible at sites where the universalizing imperatives of the web run up against local values, norms, and cultures. These include how the idea of the "global common good" is used as a ruse by digital oligopolies to expand their private enclosures, how seemingly collaborative spaces can simultaneously be exclusionary as they regulate legitimate knowledge, how selfhood is being redefined online along Eurocentric ideals, and how the web's political challenge is felt differentially by sovereign nation states. In analyzing this new modality of cultural power in the global digital ecosystem, The Digital Frontier is an important read for scholars, activists, academics and students inspired by the utopian dream of a truly representative global digital network.

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In this strikingly original work, Paul W. Kahn rethinks the meaning of political theology. In a text innovative in both form and substance, he describes an American political theology as a secular inquiry into ultimate meanings sustaining our faith in the popular sovereign. Kahn works out his view through an engagement with Carl Schmitt's 1922 classic, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. He forces an engagement with Schmitt's four chapters, offering a new version of each that is responsive to the American political imaginary. The result is a contemporary political theology. As in Schmitt's work, sovereignty remains central, yet Kahn shows how popular sovereignty creates an ethos of sacrifice in the modern state. Turning to law, Kahn demonstrates how the line between exception and judicial decision is not as sharp as Schmitt led us to believe. He reminds readers that American political life begins with the revolutionary willingness to sacrifice and that both sacrifice and law continue to ground the American political imagination. Kahn offers a political theology that has at its center the practice of freedom realized in political decisions, legal judgments, and finally in philosophical inquiry itself.

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In this strikingly original work, Paul W. Kahn rethinks the meaning of political theology. In a text innovative in both form and substance, he describes an American political theology as a secular inquiry into ultimate meanings sustaining our faith in the popular sovereign. Kahn works out his view through an engagement with Carl Schmitt's 1922 classic, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. He forces an engagement with Schmitt's four chapters, offering a new version of each that is responsive to the American political imaginary. The result is a contemporary political theology. As in Schmitt's work, sovereignty remains central, yet Kahn shows how popular sovereignty creates an ethos of sacrifice in the modern state. Turning to law, Kahn demonstrates how the line between exception and judicial decision is not as sharp as Schmitt led us to believe. He reminds readers that American political life begins with the revolutionary willingness to sacrifice and that both sacrifice and law continue to ground the American political imagination. Kahn offers a political theology that has at its center the practice of freedom realized in political decisions, legal judgments, and finally in philosophical inquiry itself.

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BALLAD of the FIVE MARYSYestreen the Queen had Four MarysTonight she’ll hae but threeThere was Mary Seton, and Mary BeatonAnd Mary Carmichael and me.from ‘Mary Hamilton’, The Child BalladsThe Mary Carmichael of the well-known ballad may be a fiction but Marys Seton, Beaton, Livingston and Fleming, together with Mary Stewart, comprised the real five Marys – assertive young women unafraid to question their place in society.Who was Mary Queen of Scots? Vilified as an adulteress, only to be immortalised as a martyr, where does history become legend?Why was Mary deposed? Who killed Darnley? Five hundred years after the Battle of Flodden and the birth of John Knox, this new take on Mary’s life explores not only the historical events which led to her demise, but the relationships and emotions of an increasingly isolated young woman faced with political and religious upheaval and her country’s gradual loss of independence.Our Sovereign Lady who now Reigns at this Hour, The Mighty Lord be ever her Protector And Make Her Marriage as He thinks Best, That Her Liege may Reign in Peace and RestTHE FORMAN ARMORIAL, C.1562

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels by Robert Kerr is an 18 volume set that contains the complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land. In determining upon an era for the commencement of this work, Kerr was led, from a consideration of the accidental discovery of Iceland by the Norwegians in the ninth century, to adopt that period as the beginning of the series, both because the commencement of modern maritime discovery took place during the reign of a British sovereign, and because we derive the earliest written accounts of any of these discoveries from the pen of that excellent prince. It is true that the first accidental discovery of Iceland appears to have been made in 861, eleven years before the accession of Alfred to the throne; yet, as the actual colonization of that island did not take place till the year 878, the seventh of his glorious reign, we have been induced to distinguish the actual commencement of maritime discovery by the modern European nations as coinciding with his era.

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels by Robert Kerr is an 18 volume set that contains the complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land. In determining upon an era for the commencement of this work, Kerr was led, from a consideration of the accidental discovery of Iceland by the Norwegians in the ninth century, to adopt that period as the beginning of the series, both because the commencement of modern maritime discovery took place during the reign of a British sovereign, and because we derive the earliest written accounts of any of these discoveries from the pen of that excellent prince. It is true that the first accidental discovery of Iceland appears to have been made in 861, eleven years before the accession of Alfred to the throne; yet, as the actual colonization of that island did not take place till the year 878, the seventh of his glorious reign, we have been induced to distinguish the actual commencement of maritime discovery by the modern European nations as coinciding with his era.

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels by Robert Kerr is an 18 volume set that contains the complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land. In determining upon an era for the commencement of this work, Kerr was led, from a consideration of the accidental discovery of Iceland by the Norwegians in the ninth century, to adopt that period as the beginning of the series, both because the commencement of modern maritime discovery took place during the reign of a British sovereign, and because we derive the earliest written accounts of any of these discoveries from the pen of that excellent prince. It is true that the first accidental discovery of Iceland appears to have been made in 861, eleven years before the accession of Alfred to the throne; yet, as the actual colonization of that island did not take place till the year 878, the seventh of his glorious reign, we have been induced to distinguish the actual commencement of maritime discovery by the modern European nations as coinciding with his era.

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There is often trouble of a mythical sort in Bath. The booksellers who police the Old World keep a careful watch there, particularly on the entity who inhabits the ancient hot spring. Yet this time it is not from Sulis Minerva that trouble starts. It comes from the discovery of a sorcerous map, leading left-handed bookseller Merlin into great danger. A desperate rescue is attempted by his sister the right-handed bookseller Vivien and their friend, art student Susan Arkshaw, who is still struggling to deal with her own recently discovered magical heritage.The map takes the trio to a place separated from this world, maintained by deadly sorcery performed by an Ancient Sovereign and guarded by monstrous living statues of Purbeck marble. But this is only the beginning, as the booksellers investigate centuries of disappearances and deaths and try to unravel the secrets of the murderous Lady of Stone, a serial killer of awesome powers.If they do not stop her, she will soon kill again. And this time, her target is not an ordinary mortal.A wintry return to the somewhat alternate 1980s England of The Left-Handed Booksellers of London.

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The dramatic true story of the betrayal of hundreds of Indian princely states by both the departing British and the new Congress government. In July 1947, India’s last Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, stood before New Delhi’s Chamber of Princes to deliver the most important speech of his career. He had just three weeks to convince over 550 sovereign princely states—some tiny, some the size of Britain—to become part of a free India. Once Britain’s most faithful allies, the princes could choose between joining India or Pakistan, or declaring independence. This is a saga of intrigue, brinkmanship and broken promises, wrought by Mountbatten and two of independent India’s founding fathers: the country’s most senior civil servant, V.P. Menon, and Congress strongman Vallabhbhai Patel. What India’s architects described as a ‘bloodless revolution’ was anything but, as violence engulfed Kashmir and Indian troops crushed Hyderabad’s dreams of independence. Most princes accepted the inevitable, exchanging their power for guarantees of privileges and titles in perpetuity. But these dynasties were still led to extinction—not by the sword, but by political expediency—leaving them with little more than fading memories of a glorified past.

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An inkstone, a piece of polished stone no bigger than an outstretched hand, is an instrument for grinding ink, an object of art, a token of exchange between friends or sovereign states, and a surface on which texts and images are carved. As such, the inkstone has been entangled with elite masculinity and the values of wen (culture, literature, civility) in China, Korea, and Japan for more than a millennium. However, for such a ubiquitous object in East Asia, it is virtually unknown in the Western world. Examining imperial workshops in the Forbidden City, the Duan quarries in Guangdong, the commercial workshops in Suzhou, and collectors’ homes in Fujian, The Social Life of Inkstones traces inkstones between court and society and shows how collaboration between craftsmen and scholars created a new social order in which the traditional hierarchy of “head over hand” no longer predominated. Dorothy Ko also highlights the craftswoman Gu Erniang, through whose work the artistry of inkstone-making achieved unprecedented refinement between the 1680s and 1730s The Social Life of Inkstones explores the hidden history and cultural significance of the inkstone and puts the stonecutters and artisans on center stage.

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The Dutch East India Company was a hybrid organization combining the characteristics of both corporation and state that attempted to thrust itself aggressively into an Asian political order in which it possessed no obvious place and was transformed in the process. This study focuses on the company's clashes with Tokugawa Japan over diplomacy, violence, and sovereignty. In each encounter the Dutch were forced to retreat, compelled to abandon their claims to sovereign powers, and to refashion themselves again and again-from subjects of a fictive king to loyal vassals of the shogun, from aggressive pirates to meek merchants, and from insistent defenders of colonial sovereignty to legal subjects of the Tokugawa state. Within the confines of these conflicts, the terms of the relationship between the company and the shogun first took shape and were subsequently set into what would become their permanent form. The first book to treat the Dutch East India Company in Japan as something more than just a commercial organization, The Company and the Shogun presents new perspective on one of the most important, long-lasting relationships to develop between an Asian state and a European overseas enterprise.

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The Dutch East India Company was a hybrid organization combining the characteristics of both corporation and state that attempted to thrust itself aggressively into an Asian political order in which it possessed no obvious place and was transformed in the process. This study focuses on the company's clashes with Tokugawa Japan over diplomacy, violence, and sovereignty. In each encounter the Dutch were forced to retreat, compelled to abandon their claims to sovereign powers, and to refashion themselves again and again-from subjects of a fictive king to loyal vassals of the shogun, from aggressive pirates to meek merchants, and from insistent defenders of colonial sovereignty to legal subjects of the Tokugawa state. Within the confines of these conflicts, the terms of the relationship between the company and the shogun first took shape and were subsequently set into what would become their permanent form. The first book to treat the Dutch East India Company in Japan as something more than just a commercial organization, The Company and the Shogun presents new perspective on one of the most important, long-lasting relationships to develop between an Asian state and a European overseas enterprise.

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A KINGDOM AT RISK, A CROWN DIVIDED, A FAMILY DRENCHED IN BLOOD. Tessa Gratton's debut epic adult fantasy, The Queens of Innis Lear, brings to life a world that hums with ancient magic, and characters as ruthless as the tides. The erratic decisions of a prophecy-obsessed king have drained Innis Lear of its wild magic, leaving behind a trail of barren crops and despondent subjects. Enemy nations circle the once-bountiful isle, sensing its growing vulnerability, hungry to control the ideal port for all trade routes. The king’s three daughters – battle-hungry Gaela, master manipulator Reagan, and restrained, starblessed Elia – know the realm’s only chance of resurrection is to crown a new sovereign, proving a strong hand can resurrect magic and defend itself. But their father will not choose an heir until the longest night of the year, when prophecies align and a poison ritual can be enacted. Refusing to leave their future in the hands of blind faith, the daughters of Innis Lear prepare for war – but regardless of who wins the crown, the shores of Innis will weep the blood of a house divided.

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The Times Book of the Year*Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, 2022**Winner of the General Society of Colonial Wars' Distinguished Book Award, 2021**Winner of the History Reclaimed Book of the Year, 2022**Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize, 2021*Andrew Roberts, one of Britain's premier historians, overturns the received wisdom on George IIIGeorge III, Britain's longest-reigning king, has gone down in history as 'the cruellest tyrant of this age' (Thomas Paine, eighteenth century), 'a sovereign who inflicted more profound and enduring injuries upon this country than any other modern English king' (W.E.H. Lecky, nineteenth century), 'one of England's most disastrous kings' (J.H. Plumb, twentieth century) and as the pompous monarch of the musical Hamilton (twenty-first century).Andrew Roberts's magnificent new biography takes entirely the opposite view. It portrays George as intelligent, benevolent, scrupulously devoted to the constitution of his country and (as head of government as well as head of state) navigating the turbulence of eighteenth-century politics with a strong sense of honour and duty. He was a devoted husband and family man, a great patron of the arts and sciences, keen to advance Britain's agricultural capacity ('Farmer George') and determined that her horizons should be global. He could be stubborn and self-righteous, but he was also brave, brushing aside numerous assassination attempts, galvanising his ministers and generals at moments of crisis and stoical in the face of his descent - five times during his life - into a horrifying loss of mind.The book gives a detailed, revisionist account of the American Revolutionary War, persuasively taking apart a significant proportion of the Declaration of Independence, which Roberts shows to be largely Jeffersonian propaganda. In a later war, he describes how George's support for William Pitt was crucial in the battle against Napoleon. And he makes a convincing, modern diagnosis of George's terrible malady, very different to the widely accepted medical view and to popular portrayals.Roberts writes, 'the people who knew George III best loved him the most', and that far from being a tyrant or incompetent, George III was one of our most admirable monarchs. The diarist Fanny Burney, who spent four years at his court and saw him often, wrote 'A noble sovereign this is, and when justice is done to him, he will be as such acknowledged'. In presenting this fresh view of Britain's most misunderstood monarch, George III shows one of Britain's premier historians at his sparkling best.

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This edited volume contributes to a better understanding of parliamentary changes in times of political transition, and, specifically, the composition of the Greek Parliament before and after the debt crisis. It discusses the profiles of Greek MPs through the lens of continuity and renewal, starting with the first major political crisis after the Metapolitefsi in 1989 and ending with the last legislative elections of 2019. Greece attracted scholarly and international interest due to the transformations that the sovereign debt crisis provoked to its political and partisan system. It is one of the countries of the European periphery most severely hit during the great recession. However, no work so far has been devoted exclusively to the study of Greek parliamentary elites, their cultural and political characteristics, and the factors that shape their selection and election. The book is a multifaceted source of information for all those interested in understanding forms of political representation during normal times and times of crisis. Its distinctive advantage is that it offers an up to date and complete elite study in Greece comparable to similar European studies. Moreover, it is a useful tool for students, scholars and researchers interested in the study of political representation across Europe.

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As the power and scope of the European Union moves further, beyond traditional forms of international cooperation between sovereign states, it is important to analyse how these developments are impacting upon national institutions and processes of democratic representation and legitimacy in the member countries. The authors in this book identify four core processes of democratic governance present in any democratic political system that link societal and state processes of decision-making: opinion formation, interest intermediation, national executive decision-making and national parliamentary scrutiny. From a normative perspective they discuss what impacts this process of Europeanization has on democracy in the evolving system. They conclude that more changes are seen within the state-centric than in the societal-centred processes of democracy, thus the public seems to have been 'left behind' in the process of constructing Europe. The empirical research and normative discussion presented in this book are designed to further our knowledge concerning the Europeanization of social and state processes of democracy and to contribute to the continuing dialogue on democracy in the European Union.This book will be of great interest to academics and researchers of political science, public policy and international relations, as well as those interested in European studies and comparative politics.

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