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This book engages the reader in a wide-ranging assessment of the legacy of Barack Obama—the “first Black president”—relative to Black politics. It uses its vantage point of being written during Donald Trump’s presidency to understand what Black politics has and has not inherited from the Obama administration. It is comprehensive in the number of constituencies and policy topics it covers. Its co-editors frame its chapters by explaining how both “inverted linked fate” and an “inclusionary dilemma” shaped the Obama presidency and legacy for Black politics. Nearly twenty prominent or emerging political scientists provide this book’s interior chapters, using quantitative and qualitative methods to draw conclusions. The first group of scholars examines the Obama administration’s impact upon the attitudes and perceived group interests of various Black constituencies, including voters, partisans, civil rights leaders, lobbyists, women, church leaders and members, and LGBTQ persons. The second group examines Obama’s impact upon Black policy interests, including civil rights, criminal justice reform, antipoverty, women’s welfare, healthcare reform, housing, immigration, and foreign affairs. In the conclusion, the co-editors consider what may confront the “next Black president” and the “next Black America.”

What happened to black youth in the post-civil rights generation? What kind of causes did they rally around and were they even rallying in the first place? This book takes a close look at a variety of key civil rights groups across the country over the last forty years to provide a broad view of black youth and social movement activism. It examines popular mobilization among the generation of activists—principally black students, youth, and young adults—who came of age after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The book argues that the political environment in the post-civil rights era, along with constraints on social activism, made it particularly difficult for young black activists to start and sustain popular mobilization campaigns. Building on case studies from around the country—including New York, the Carolinas, California, Louisiana, and Baltimore—the book explores the inner workings and end results of activist groups such as the Southern Negro Youth Congress, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Student Organization for Black Unity, the Free South Africa Campaign, the New Haven Youth Movement, the Black Student Leadership Network, the Juvenile Justice Reform Movement, and the AFL-CIO's Union Summer campaign. It demonstrates how youth-based movements and intergenerational campaigns have attempted to circumvent modern constraints, providing insight into how the very inner workings of these organizations have and have not been effective in creating change and involving youth.

The topic of American conservatism is especially timely, and perhaps volatile. Is there what might be termed an “exceptional” form of conservatism that is characteristically American, in contrast to conservatisms found in other countries? Are views that are identified in the United States as conservative necessarily congruent with what political theorists might classify under that label? Or does much American conservatism almost necessarily reflect the distinctly liberal background of American political thought? This book reflects on these crucial questions, unpacking the very nature and development of American conservative thought. It examines both the historical and contemporary realities of arguments offered by self-conscious conservatives in the United States, offering a well-rounded view of the state of this field. In addition to synoptic overviews of the various dimensions of American conservative thought, specific attention is paid to such topics as American constitutionalism, the role of religion and religious institutions, and the particular impact of the late Leo Strauss on American thought and thinkers. Just as American conservatism includes a wide, and sometimes conflicting, group of thinkers, the chapters themselves reflect differing and sometimes controversial assessments of the theorists under discussion.

In January 2009, Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States. In the weeks and months following the election, as in those that preceded it, countless social observers from across the ideological spectrum commented upon the cultural, social, and political significance of “the Obama phenomenon.” This book provides a nuanced analysis framed by innovative theoretical insights to explore how Barack Obama's presidential candidacy both reflected and shaped the dynamics of race in the contemporary United States. Using the 2008 election as a case study of U.S. race relations, and based on a wealth of empirical data that includes an analysis of over 1,500 newspaper articles, blog postings, and other forms of public speech collected over a 3-year period, the book claims that while race played a central role in the 2008 election, it was in several respects different from the past. The book ultimately concludes that while the selection of an individual African American man as president does not mean that racism is dead in the contemporary United States, we must also think creatively and expansively about what the election does mean for the nation and for the evolving contours of race in the 21st century.

Historically, Black Americans have easily found common ground on political, social, and economic goals. Yet, there are signs of increasing variety of opinion among Blacks in the United States, due in large part to the influx of Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean, and African immigrants to the United States. In fact, the very definition of “African American,” as well as who can self-identity as Black, is becoming more ambiguous. Should we expect African Americans' shared sense of group identity and high sense of group consciousness to endure as ethnic diversity among the population increases? This book addresses the effects of this dynamic demographic change on Black identity and Black politics. It explores the numerous ways in which the expanding and rapidly changing demographics of Black communities in the United States call into question the very foundations of political identity that has united African Americans for generations. African Americans' political attitudes and behaviors have evolved due to their historical experiences with American Politics and American racism. Will Black newcomers recognize the inconsistencies between the American creed and American reality in the same way as those who have been in the United States for several generations? If so, how might this recognition influence Black immigrants' political attitudes and behaviors? Will race be a site of coalition between Black immigrants and African Americans?

Qatar is the wealthiest country in the world—and one of the fastest growing. Its current population is five times larger than it was in 2000. Photos of the Arabian Gulf micronation from the 1980s show a few modest one-story buildings. Today, Qatar’s capital, Doha, is a modern petro-boomtown whose futuristic skyline features a phalanx of space-age skyscrapers. In 2022, Qatar will be the first Arab nation to host the FIFA World Cup. To prepare, Qatar’s government has imported more than one million low-wage workers to construct outdoor air-conditioned soccer stadiums, subway systems, and megahotels. Today, Qatari nationals represent only about 10 percent of their country’s population. Changing Qatar explores how citizenship and nationality are reshaped in these global processes. The nation’s dynastic ruling family assures its conservative Muslim citizenry that Qatar’s rapid modernization will take place alongside cultural preservation. In doing so, the leadership employs modern traditionalism, a flexible narrative framework in which customary and contemporary are strategically merged. Based on three years of immersive fieldwork and 130 revealing interviews, Changing Qatar goes beyond the slogans to examine how the people who inhabit Qatar are coming to terms with its ascent. The book demonstrates how Qataris and non-Qataris reaffirm—and challenge—traditions in many areas of everyday life, from dating and marriage to clothing and humor to gender and sports. A cultural study of citizenship, Changing Qatar delivers a richly detailed portrait of this rising Gulf nation that cannot be found elsewhere.

The first of a three-volume series on the interaction of the United States and China in different regions of the world, this book explores the delicate balance of competing foreign interests in this resource-rich and politically tumultuous region. It assesses the different objectives and strategies the United States and China deploy in the region and examines how the two world powers are indirectly competitive with one another for influence in Central Asia. While the United States is focused on maintaining and supporting its military forces in neighboring states, China has its sights on procuring natural resources for its fast-growing economy and preventing the expansion of fundamentalist Islam inside its borders. The book covers important issues such as the creation of international gas pipelines, the challenges of building crucial transcontinental roadways that must pass through countries facing insurgencies, the efforts of the United States and China to encourage and provide better security in the region, and how the Central Asian countries themselves view their role in international politics and the global economy. It also covers key outside powers with influence in the region; Russia, with its historical ties to the many Central Asian countries that used to belong to the USSR, is perhaps the biggest international presence in the area, and other countries on the region's periphery like Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and India have a stake in the fortunes and future of Central Asia as well.

The U.S. has been the preeminent power in Latin America in terms of military capability, foreign investment, and cultural ties. The growing presence of China in Latin America prompted agricultural and raw material exports of LAC countries. However, with the Chinese economy slowing down, the trade balance has turned against the LAC countries and China’s economic role is seen as a mixed blessing. The split in LAC states on their varying attitudes toward the U.S. complicated the relationship between the LAC region and the outside powers. The Chinese have built on the skepticism and resentment toward the U.S. and have widened the coalition of anti-U.S. states as regimes with related views arose in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Venezuela. This volume looks into key cross-regional trends and critical policy issues involving the changing relationship between China, the U.S., and LAC states. Case studies into recent political and economic developments in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, the Andes, and the Caribbean provide a more in-depth analysis of the implications of China’s and the U.S.’s evolving interaction with the region.

This volume is the second in a series on U.S.-China relations in regions of the world where neither country is dominant. This book first looks into the economic and political conditions of Southeast Asian countries including Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar, and then turns as well to their foreign policies toward outside powers like China, the United States, Japan, and India. The authors examine the diverse patterns of behavior of ASEAN members and the widening North-South split on their policy objectives. ASEAN has divided between links to China, a preferred avoidance of commitment by several states, and quiet, informal relations with the United States. In Southeast Asia there are very substantial differences in operating style among the outside powers as well. This split has limited ASEAN’s ability to form consensus on major policy topics. Besides the United States and China, Japan and India are significant players in the region and in affecting ASEAN’s political choices. The European Union is also a vital actor on economic issues but not a key participant in political or security matters. In sum, China’s rising profile in Southeast Asia provides a challenge to the U.S. role as the dominant outside power. Southeast Asia has become a venue where tensions and U.S.-Chinese competition are rising.

China’s dramatic rise on the world stage was evident by the final decade of the twentieth century. In the period from 1979 to 2008, China played a low-key role, emphasizing economic growth and cooperative relations with other countries. Since the global recession of 2008–09, however, China has been more aggressive in both its economic and foreign policy. The goal of this volume is to assess China’s intentions and to evaluate what the Chinese leadership hopes to achieve by actions such as occupying the atolls in the South China Sea and implementing its massive aid program, the Belt and Road Initiative. The volume includes authors with varying perspectives on China’s intentions, allowing the reader to compare competing viewpoints on China’s plans.

The subject of intense media scrutiny, young men and women in the Islamic Republic of Iran have long been characterized as walking rebels—a frustrated, alienated generation devoid of hope and prone to oppositional practices. Coming of Age in Iran challenges these homogenizing depictions through vivid ethnographic portraits of a group of resilient lower-class youth in Iran: the face-savers. Through participant observation and interviews, the book reveals how conformism to moral norms becomes these young people’s ticket to social mobility. By developing a public face admired by those with the power and resources to transform their lives, face-savers both contest and reproduce systems of stratification within their communities. Examining the rules of the face game, Coming of Age in Iranshows how social practice is collectively judged, revealing the embedded moral ideologies that give shape to socioeconomic change in contexts all too often understood in terms of repression and resistance.

This book offers a close study of the rapidly evolving politics of LGBT rights in postcommunist Europe, where social attitudes have historically marginalized the issue and where the legacy of weak civil society has handicapped activism in general. What happens in societies such as these when increased exposure to transnational institutions such as the European Union and the minority-rights norms that they promote brings new visibility to LGBT issues? Is activism boosted by the infusion of resources from transnational networks? Or does transnational pressure bring backlash, inflaming antigay attitudes and driving activism underground? This study uncovers and explains the surprising divergence in the organization of LGBT activism in postcommunist Europe, focusing on Poland and the Czech Republic from the late 1980s through 2012. Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania form additional case studies. It argues that domestic backlash against transnational rights norms has been a primary catalyst for organizational development in the region’s most robust LGBT movements. It offers a comparative framework of broader relevance describing the conditions under which transnational pressure and domestic politics may interact to build robust activism, or not. This theorization offers resolution for a striking puzzle of LGBT politics in the countries examined: Why is the most organized and influential activism often found in societies where attitudes toward homosexuality are least tolerant? The book uses a multimethod research design drawing on field interviews, original sources, and participant observation to process trace how the framing of homosexuality and the organization of LGBT activism change in historical time.

Women's participation in parliaments, high courts, and executive offices worldwide has reached record high numbers, but this global increase in women's representation masks significant variation among different democratic political systems. For example, in December of 2009, Rwanda's legislature contained 56 percent women, while the U.S. Congress contained only about 17 percent and the Japanese Diet had only 11 percent. Since 2000, only twenty-seven women have achieved executive office worldwide. This book takes a comprehensive look at women's participation in all aspects of public life in the main democratic political institutions—the executive, the judiciary, the legislature, and within political parties. Moving beyond studies of single countries and institutions, the book presents original data from 159 democratic countries spanning fifty years, providing a comprehensive understanding of women in democracies worldwide. The first book to offer an analysis on all avenues for women's participation for such a lengthy time period, it examines not only the causes of women's representation in the main democratic political institutions but also how women's representation in one institution affects the others. Each chapter contains case studies and examples of the change in women's participation over time from around the world. The book definitively explains the rise, decline, or stagnant levels of women's political participation, considering how representation is contagious across political institutions and gaining a better understanding of what factors affect women's political participation.

From the presidential race to the battle for the office of New York City mayor, American political candidates' approach to new media strategy is increasingly what makes or breaks their campaign. Targeted outreach on Facebook and Twitter, placement of a well-timed viral ad, and the ability to roll with the memes, flame wars, and downvotes that might spring from ordinary citizens' engagement with the issues—these skills are heralded as crucial for anyone hoping to get their views heard in a chaotic election cycle. But just how effective are the kinds of media strategies that American politicians employ? And what effect, if any, do citizen-created political media have on the tide of public opinion? This book curates a series of case studies that use real-time original research from the 2012 election season to explore how politicians and ordinary citizens use and consume new media during political campaigns. Broken down into sections that examine new media strategy from the highest echelons of campaign management all the way down to passive citizen engagement with campaign issues in places like online comment forums, the book ultimately reveals that political messaging in today's diverse new media landscape is a fragile, unpredictable, and sometimes futile process. The result is a collection that both interprets important historical data from a watershed campaign season and also explains myriad approaches to political campaign media scholarship.

Can Islamic societies embrace democracy? This book maintains that it is possible, demonstrating that Islam is not inherently hostile to the idea of democracy. Rather, it provides new perspective on how such a political and social transformation could take place, arguing that the key to understanding the integration of Islam and democracy lies in concrete social institutions rather than pre-conceived ideas, the everyday experiences rather than abstract theories. The book provides a rare inside look into Iran, offering a deep understanding of how Islamic countries like Iran and Iraq can and will embrace democracy. It challenges readers to think about Islam and democracy critically and in a far more nuanced way than is done in black-and-white dichotomies of Islam versus Democracy or Iran versus the West. The book contributes important insights to current discussions, creating a more complex conception of modernity in the Eastern world and, with it, offers to a broad Western audience a more accurate, less clichéd vision of Iran's political reality.

From the American and British counter-insurgency in Iraq to the bombing of Dresden and the Amristar Massacre in India, civilians are often abused and killed when they are caught in the cross-fire of wars and other conflicts. This book examines how leaders in democracies manage the blame for the abuse and the killing of civilians, arguing that politicians are likely to react in a self-interested and opportunistic way and seek to deny and evade accountability. Using empirical evidence from well-known cases of abuse and atrocity committed by the security forces of established, liberal democracies, the book shows that self-interested political leaders will attempt to evade accountability for abuse and atrocity, using a range of well-known techniques including denial, delay, diversion, and delegation to pass blame for abuse and atrocities to the lowest plausible level. It argues that, despite the conventional wisdom that accountability is a “central feature” of democracies, it is only a rare and courageous leader who acts differently, exposing the limits of accountability in democratic societies. As democracies remain embroiled in armed conflicts, and continue to try to come to grips with past atrocities, the book provides a timely analysis of why these events occur, why leaders behave as they do, and how a more accountable system might be developed.

Today we confront the prospect that some of the world’s oldest and most durable democracies may be backsliding, at risk of failure. But how should we conceptualize and measure democratic failure, given the imperfect nature of all existing political regimes? How should we identify those institutions that might be most vulnerable? Democratic Failure draws together leading scholars from philosophy, political science, and law to clarify the key challenges facing democracies, past and present, and to locate the intellectual resources available to actors and institutions under threat. It analyzes pressing problems of legitimacy and political representation, and inequality within democracies, addressing the rise of populism and the future of democratic citizenship. While timely, this latest addition to the NOMOS series demonstrates that democratic erosion constitutes a perennial concern.

Opportunities to “have your say,” “get involved,” and “join the conversation” are everywhere in public life. From crowdsourcing and town hall meetings to government experiments with social media, participatory politics increasingly seem like a revolutionary antidote to the decline of civic engagement and the thinning of the contemporary public sphere. Many argue that, with new technologies, flexible organizational cultures, and a supportive policymaking context, we now hold the keys to large-scale democratic revitalization. This book shows that the equation may not be so simple. Modern societies face a variety of structural problems that limit potentials for true democratization, as well as vast inequalities in political action and voice that are not easily resolved by participatory solutions. Popular participation may even reinforce elite power in unexpected ways. This book reveals surprising insights into how dilemmas of the new public participation play out in politics and organizations. Through investigations including fights over the authenticity of business-sponsored public participation, the surge of the Tea Party, the role of corporations in electoral campaigns, and participatory budgeting practices in Brazil, the book seeks to refresh our understanding of public participation and trace the reshaping of authority in today's political environment.

As a nation of immigrants, the United States has long accepted that citizens who identify with an ancestral homeland may hold dual loyalties; yet Americans have at times regarded the persistence of foreign ties with suspicion, seeing them as a sign of potential disloyalty and a threat to national security. This book examines this contradiction in the realm of American policy making, ultimately concluding that the relationship between diaspora groups and the government can greatly affect foreign policy. This relationship is not unidirectional—as much as immigrants make an effort to shape foreign policy, government legislators and administrators also seek to enlist them in furthering American interests. From Israel to Cuba and from Ireland to Iraq, case studies illustrate how potential or ongoing conflicts raise the stakes for successful policy outcomes. Chapters provide historical and sociological context, gauging the influence of diasporas based on population size and length of time settled in the United States, geographic concentration, access to resources from their own members or through other groups, and the nature of their involvement back in their homelands. The book brings a fresh perspective to a rarely discussed aspect of the design of US foreign policy and offers multiple insights into dynamics that may determine how the United States will engage other nations in future decades.

Can theories of evolution explain the development of our capacity for moral judgment and the content of morality itself? If bad behavior punished by the criminal law is attributable to physical causes, rather than being intentional or voluntary as traditionally assumed, what are the implications for rethinking the criminal justice system? Is evolutionary theory and “nature talk,” at least as practiced to date, inherently conservative and resistant to progressive and feminist proposals for social changes to counter subordination and secure equality? This book addresses many of the philosophical, legal, and political issues raised by such questions. It examines the possibilities of a naturalistic ethics, the implications of behavioral morality for reform of the criminal law, the prospects for a biopolitical science, and the relationship between nature, culture, and social engineering.