This book presents a comprehensive analysis of China's evolving security engagement in Africa, a dimension often overshadowed by earlier studies focusing on economic and political aspects. As China's global ambitions expand, its involvement in African security-across bilateral, regional, and multilateral levels has intensified, challenging its longstanding principle of non-interference. The book explores why China is shifting from a policy of non-interference to one of 'non-indifference' and details the actions supporting this change. Employing neoclassical realist theory, it examines systemic factors, domestic influences, and the role of President Xi Jinping in shaping China's security strategy. By adopting a three-dimensional approach to Sino-Africa relations and categorizing the reasons for China's policy shift into strategic culture, superpower ambitions, operational motives, and reputational concerns, the book offers fresh insights into China's security diplomacy. It contributes to the broader discourse on China's changing stance and its implications for international relations, highlighting the need for attention in both academic and policy circles.

How extreme polarization undermines the advantages that democracies have when formulating foreign policy

Polarization is a defining feature of politics in the United States and many other democracies. Yet although there is much research focusing on the effects of polarization on domestic politics, little is known about how polarization influences international cooperation and conflict. Democracies are thought to have advantages over nondemocratic nations in international relations, including the ability to keep foreign policy stable across time, credibly signal information to adversaries, and maintain commitments to allies. Does domestic polarization affect these "democratic advantages"? In this timely book, Rachel Myrick argues that polarization reshapes the nature of constraints on democratic leaders, which in turn erodes the advantages democracies have in foreign affairs.

Drawing on a range of evidence, including cross-national analyses, observational and experimental public opinion research, descriptive data on the behavior of politicians, and interviews with policymakers, Myrick develops metrics that explain the effect of extreme polarization on international politics and traces the pathways by which polarization undermines each of the democratic advantages. Turning to the case of contemporary US foreign policy, Myrick shows that as its political leaders become less responsive to the public and less accountable to political opposition, the United States loses both reliability as an ally and credibility as an adversary. Myrick's account links the effects of polarization on democratic governance to theories of international relations, integrating work across the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics to explore how patterns of domestic polarization shape the international system.

Listening to peace. When social scientists, publicists and teachers approach the problem of peace, they pay special attention to the causes of violence and war. Recently, however, insights into the causes of peace have gained broad resonance. The question is which factors, individually and in their interaction, are sustainably conducive to peace. Aesthetic dimensions of a peace order, however, usually remain underexposed, although the problem of peace can be impressively conveyed through images of peace. The fact that the essays in this book explain that access to various dimensions of peace through musical and compositional contributions can also be illuminating: Which peace-relevant problems have composers addressed in their works? Striking examples are explained. They are all to be found in the offerings of classical, i.e. value-retaining music of the past five centuries.

- A unique book on peace education

- For teachers and students in peace research and in music studies

- Written by one of the co-founders of peace research in Germany

- A key background book for peace concerts

- A musical appeal for peace

A panoramic history of Japan's iconic mountain from the Ice Age to the present

Mount Fuji is everywhere recognized as a wonder of nature and enduring symbol of Japan. Yet behind the picture-postcard image is a history filled with conflict and upheaval. Violent eruptions across the centuries wrought havoc and instilled fear. Long an object of worship, Fuji has been inhabited by deities that changed radically over time. It has been both a totem of national unity and a flashpoint for economic and political disputes. And while its soaring majesty has inspired countless works of literature and art, the foot of the mountain is home to military training grounds and polluting industries. Tracing the history of Fuji from its geological origins in the remote past to its recent inscription as a World Heritage Site, Andrew Bernstein explores these and other contradictions in the story of the mountain, inviting us to reflect on the relationships we share with the nonhuman world and one another.

Beautifully illustrated, Fuji presents a rich portrait of one of the world's most celebrated sites, revealing a mountain forever in the making and offering a meditation on the ability of landscape both to challenge and inspire.

A vital examination of how social and economic justice organizations overcome resource disadvantages and build political power.

Why do some coalitions triumph while others fall short? In Power to the Partners, Maraam A. Dwidar documents the vital role of social and economic justice organizations in American politics and explores the process by which they strategically build partnerships to advance more effective and equitable advocacy. Using original data tracking the collaboration patterns of more than twenty thousand nationally active advocacy organizations, Dwidar evaluates the micro- and macro-level conditions surrounding these groups' successful efforts to collectively shape public policy.

Power to the Partners reveals that while organizational advocates for social and economic justice are at a disadvantage in the American lobbying landscape-financially, tactically, and politically-coalition work can help ameliorate these disparities. By building and sustaining coalitions with structures and memberships that facilitate clarity, learning, and diverse perspectives, these advocates can successfully-and uniquely-make their mark on American public policy. Dwidar's work offers critical insights for scholars and practitioners alike, from groundbreaking academic findings to evidence-based lessons for political organizers.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of American grand strategy during the Obama administration and its impact on the Middle East. It explores the concept of grand strategy, examining how national objectives and security priorities influence foreign policy decisions. The text compares Obama's approach to those of his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, highlighting key decisions and their consequences. The book focuses especially on issues such as the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arab uprisings, nuclear negotiations with Iran, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. The book also examines the long-term effects of Obama's policies on U.S. foreign relations, offering insights into the successes and challenges faced in the Middle East. Lastly, it considers the evolution of the American grand strategy under the subsequent administrations of Trump and Biden, shedding light on the continuity and shifts in America's foreign policy direction. This work is essential for anyone interested in U.S. foreign policy, Middle East politics, and grand strategy.

The story of how the American South became the most incarcerated region in the world's most incarcerated nation.

Sunbelt Capitalism and the Making of the Carceral State examines the evolution of southern criminal punishment from Jim Crow to the dawn of mass incarceration, charting this definitive era of carceral transformation and expansion in the southern United States. The demise of the county chain gang, the professionalization of police, and the construction of large-scale prisons were among the sweeping changes that forever altered the southern landscape and bolstered the region's capacity to punish. What prompted this southern revolution in criminal punishment?

Kirstine Taylor argues that the crisis in the cotton fields and the arrival of Sunbelt capitalism in the south's rising metropolises prompted lawmakers to build expansive, modern criminal punishment systems in response to Brown v. Board of Education and the Black freedom movements of the 1960s and '70s. Taking us inside industry-hunting expeditions, school desegregation battles, the sit-in movement, prisoners' labor unions, and policy commissions, Taylor tells the story of how a modernizing south became the most incarcerated region in the globe's most incarcerated nation.

Brik explores strategies for embedding evaluation within governance frameworks to strengthen accountability, transparency and evidence-based decision-making. He investigates the development of the field through the establishment of capacity-building initiatives along with academic programs and professional networks, emphasizing the role of civil society organizations and public engagement in fostering inclusive and participatory systems. Presenting a detailed cross-country comparison of 13 MENA countries, the book identifies regional trends as well as systemic challenges and opportunities to advance evaluation institutionalization.

Students and scholars of evaluation studies, public and social policy, public administration, governance and Middle Eastern and North African politics will greatly benefit from this innovative book. It is also an essential resource for policymakers, practitioners and government officials in monitoring and evaluation, planning and community development, as well as civil society organizations and NGOs.

This book is an Open Access book. This book discusses engaging prisoners in therapeutic art. It has been prepared for an academic and professional readership and has policy implications for prison governance worldwide. Following years of piloting research, the book presents a prototype for sensitively attuned art therapy delivery that promises new pathways for prisoner rehabilitation. The book is grounded in empirical inquiry, rests on a unique triangulated methodology, and presents results that are informed by the experience of acquiring artistry in incarceration. It also features data from a public art exhibition showcasing prisoner art generated 'on the inside'. Offering recommendations for research, policy and practice, this book will be a welcome resource for researchers, art therapists, chaplaincy and parole services, criminologists, and policymakers, among others.

Smith examines six distinct, discrete and discernible time phases in which the United States has practiced different types of engagement, covering comprehensive containment, geopolitical convergence, transformational engagement and, finally, competitive engagement. From the Cold War, to the Tiananmen protests to the September 11 attacks, the book demonstrates the trajectory of Sino-American relations throughout global crises. It further reviews the relationship between the US and China in its most dangerous phase yet, citing their mutual possession of nuclear stockpiles and combined ownership of a third of the global economy. In its conclusion, the book outlines a compelling framework to preserve peace and sustain national interests.

America's China Gamble is a timely resource for students and researchers in international relations, security studies, Asian studies and political science. Its extensive primary sources and research evidence will greatly benefit analysts, policymakers and specialists in US-China relations, foreign policy and international security.

Concise yet comprehensive, this book provides an eloquent overview of the international patent system, outlining the agreements states have entered to protect inventions and enforce patent rights. It explores the mechanisms that ensure compliance in relation to these obligations and how they have been interpreted by international bodies.

Margo A. Bagley and Rochelle C. Dreyfuss assess different systems for protecting technological innovations, such as trade secrets, design protection, genetic resources, traditional knowledge, digital sequence information and AI. They examine the procedural agreements facilitating patent applications in multiple countries, including the Patent Cooperation Agreement, the Strasbourg Agreement and the Budapest Treaty. The book concludes with the authors' call for greater attention to be paid to building an equitable system that recognizes all forms of knowledge creation, protects public health and advances the goals of sustainable development.

Key Features:

• Analyzes emerging trends on regional protection, converging standards and global enforcement
• Uses examples from the COVID pandemic to illustrate the patent system's impact on countries of differing income levels
• Details the substantive obligations of the Paris Convention, TRIPS Agreement and preferential trade agreements regarding the protection of technological innovations, including patent, trade secret and design protection

Students and scholars of patent law and international intellectual property law more generally will greatly benefit from this unique introduction. It is also a hugely beneficial resource for any stakeholders working with and within the patent system or with technological innovation more broadly.

How a convergence of policy, law, and profit drives the use of criminal background checks in hiring

Most employers in the United States routinely conduct criminal background checks on job applicants, weeding out those with criminal convictions-and thus denying opportunities to those who need them most. In this powerful analysis, Melissa Burch sheds light on one of the most significant forces of social and economic marginalization of our time-discrimination on the basis of criminal records. Chronicling the daily interactions of hiring managers, workforce development professionals, and job-seekers with felony convictions in Southern California, Burch shows that this discrimination is not simply a matter of employer bias. Hiring is shaped by a set of institutions, organizations, and industries that promote the erroneous idea that people with criminal records are dangerous to employ. This "criminal record complex," as Burch names it, encourages exclusion and undermines employers' common-sense ways of assessing candidates. In vivid and intimate detail, Burch reveals both the futility and devastating human consequences of discriminatory policies.

Burch places today's routine practice of background screening within racialized notions of risk originating in early capitalist development, tracing how, over decades, criminal background checks became a convenient catch-all, leveraged by entities with a direct interest in growing the practice. Despite this reach, however, Burch discovers that small business owners tend to put less value on background checks, trusting their own judgment. Approaching the issue from both personal and policy perspectives, The Criminal Record Complex upends what we thought we knew about the causes of criminal record discrimination. It suggests that our best hope for creating safe workplaces lies not in the false promise of background screening, but in building the kinds of economies and communities that support true safety.

Why democracy is under assault across the globe by the leaders entrusted to preserve it

Democracies around the world are getting swept up in a wave of democratic erosion. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, two dozen presidents and prime ministers have attacked their countries' democratic institutions, violating political norms, aggrandizing their own powers, and often trying to overstay their terms in office.

The Backsliders offers the first general explanation for this wave. Drawing on a wealth of original research, Susan Stokes shows that increasing income inequality, a legacy of late twentieth-century globalization, left some countries especially at risk of backsliding toward autocracy. Left-behind voters were drawn to right-wing ethnonationalist leaders in countries like the United States, India, and Brazil, and to left-wing populist ones in countries like Venezuela, Mexico, and South Africa.

Unlike military leaders who abruptly kill democracies in coups, elected leaders who erode them gradually must maintain some level of public support. They do so by encouraging polarization among citizens and also by trash-talking their democracies: claiming that the institutions they attack are corrupt and incompetent. They tell voters that these institutions should be torn down and replaced by ones under the executive's control. The Backsliders describes how journalists, judges, NGOs, and opposition leaders can put the brakes on democratic erosion, and how voters can do so through political engagement and the power of the ballot box.

Drawing on insights from economics, law and political science, chapters explore the role of environmental taxation and other market-based policies in advancing a just energy transition. Expert contributors from across the globe highlight the challenges surrounding carbon border adjustment mechanisms. Chapters also discuss real-world case studies of environmental taxes and their role in the pursuit of climate justice.

This timely book is of great interest to scholars concerned with environmental policy, tax and law in the context of sustainable development. It will also appeal to policymakers, government officials, practitioners and social justice advocates.

This book combines academic insights and practitioners' experience from nineteen countries around the world, and it explores public administration systems capacity in predicting, facing, and reacting to, as well as operating in, the new reality. A reality characterised by considerable levels of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity; all amid rising geo-political tensions, climate change, digital transformation, aging populations, urbanisation, migration, and environmental degradation. These complex and intertwined policy issues put to test contemporary governance structures and current organisational arrangements for public administration systems, as well as the existing competencies and skills of public administrators. Thus, this book explores what public administration systems must do to keep up with the immense changes taking place around us and adapt to the new reality, as well as possess the capacity to forecast, to react and to learn from all past crises and manage competing and conflicting values as well.

A new account of the enduring cultural, legal, and scientific legacy of the 1925 Scopes Trial.

In The Hundred Years' Trial, Alexander and Harold Gouzoules explore the century-long impacts of the historic 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial," starting with the development of evolutionary theory and charting the resulting cultural and legal conflicts over evolution in the United States. Through a blend of legal history, scientific exploration, and cultural analysis, the authors reexamine how this landmark trial remains a pivotal moment in shaping modern debates on science, religion, and education.

The Scopes Trial became a symbol of a larger culture clash, where questions of academic freedom, the role of religion in public life, and the boundaries of state intervention are fiercely debated. This book uncovers the complex layers of this conflict, offering readers a broader perspective that extends beyond the courtroom drama. In tracing the legacies of Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, the authors analyze how the trial's outcomes reverberated through later Supreme Court cases and shaped public policies and educational standards well into the twenty-first century. The authors further illustrate how the dialogue surrounding evolution has contributed to contentious debates-not merely over the acceptance of evolutionary theory itself, but regarding emergent claims and interpretations that continue to generate public and legal scrutiny.

One hundred years later, the tensions between science and religious belief that were so brightly illuminated by Scopes are not only still with us, but also increasingly relevant to the perpetual cultural issues in the American political consciousness: abortion, climate change, and vaccines. The Hundred Years' Trial is vital for understanding not only how we arrived at our current political moment, but also where we go next in communicating science to a skeptical public.

This book is a story about Private Intelligence Contractors (PICs) and their relationship with the United States executive and legislative principals in the War on Terror when the line between the public and private sectors has been increasingly blurred. PICs have challenged the traditional approach which assumes that sensitive intelligence tasks should be performed by government officials because of their importance for national security. So this book examines the principal-agent relationship and the oversight problem between PICs, the US Intelligence Community (IC), the president and Congress after the 9/11 attacks. The book demonstrates that by exploiting information asymmetry, adversely selected PICs can violate legislative rules and goals such as by performing inherently governmental tasks, colluding with the IC, capturing the control of the task and contractual process, abuse, waste and fraud. In addition, to get around congressional oversight and achieve his or her hidden agenda, the executive principal can also mismanage contractors through the IC or delegate contractors to perform inherently governmental tasks.

Drawing on nearly a century of legislative history, this careful account invites readers to think anew about when, why, and how leaders of divided parties wield power in Congress.

For decades, legislative scholars have viewed party divisions as critical constraints on congressional leadership. The more a party's rank and file disagree with one another, the weaker their leaders are predicted to be; as member preferences converge, leader power is thought to increase.

In a powerful corrective to this prevailing view, Ruth Bloch Rubin argues that party divisions are not inherently limiting. Divided Parties, Strong Leaders highlights and examines variation in how members of party factions choose to work together. She shows that leaders of divided parties are well positioned to overcome, and even draw strength from, their divided ranks when the collaborative efforts of their coalitions' competing factions are evenly matched. By contrast, their capacity to get what they want is more limited when one faction has out-collaborated its competition. Presenting detailed case studies of some of the most storied leaders of the postwar Congress, including Speakers Sam Rayburn and Nancy Pelosi, Bloch Rubin analyzes the factional configuration each leader encountered and explains why it mattered for their exercise of power.

Leading specialists discuss the full length and breadth of the subject, from the history and theory of securities regulation to emerging challenges such as those posed by crypto-assets and crypto-markets. They consider mandatory disclosure, short-selling regulation and growth markets, shedding light on the regulatory framework governing the investment and disclosure requirements of environmental, social and governance assets. The Research Handbook also stands back and considers lawmakers' attempts to establish coherent regulation that enables financial innovation in an increasingly technology-driven industry, alongside discussions about the value of shareholder activism and the debate between public and private enforcement mechanisms.

The Research Handbook on EU Securities Law is an essential reference for scholars and students of financial law and European law. Its forward-thinking insights will also greatly benefit practising lawyers and industry stakeholders in the field of securities.

How the everyday habits and attitudes of ordinary liberals and conservatives shape the health of American democracy.

In Everyday Democracy, Jeffrey M. Berry, James M. Glaser, and Deborah J. Schildkraut study Americans' views of several manifestations of "everyday democracy," which they define as the attitudes, behaviors, and processes that people experience in daily life and their routine considerations of politics and community. Examples include engaging in dialogue with political opponents and giving politicians license to compromise. Ordinary political moments like these constitute much of politics, and they can lay the foundation that shapes if, when, and how crisis moments unfold.

Paying particular attention to the role of ideology in shaping how Americans emulate daily democratic ideals, this book considers such questions as: How do liberals and conservatives support different aspects of democratic practice, and are there ideological asymmetries between the two groups? If and when asymmetries emerge, what factors might explain them? The authors consider what their findings mean for the health of American democracy broadly.