The aftermath of recent Kenyan elections has been marred by violence and an apparent crisis in democratic governance, with the negotiated settlement resulting from the 2007 election bringing into sharp focus longstanding problems of state and society. The broader reform process has involved electoral, judicial and security-sector reforms, among others, which in turn revolve around constitutional reforms.Written by a gathering of eminent specialists, this highly original volume inte...

Mobilizing for Democracy is an in-depth study into how ordinary citizens and their organizations mobilize to deepen democracy. Featuring a collection of new empirical case studies from Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, this important new book illustrates how forms of political mobilization, such as protests, social participation, activism, litigation and lobbying, engage with the formal institutions of representative democracy in ways that are core to the ...

American politics seems to grow more contentious and complicated by the day, and whether American democracy works well is hotly debated. Amidst all this roiling partisan argument and confusing claims and counterclaims, there has never been a greater need for an impartial primer on the basics of the American political system. This Very Short Introduction gives readers a concise, accessible, and sophisticated overview of the vital elements of American democracy, emphasizing both how these el...

Can non-governmental organisations contribute to more socially just, alternative forms of development? Or are they destined to work at the margins of dominant development models determined by others? Addressing this question, this book brings together leading international voices from academia, NGOs and the social movements. It provides a comprehensive update to the NGO literature and a range of critical new directions to thinking and acting around the challenge of development alternatives...

An in-depth breakdown of the recent wave of Canadian Senate scandals, highlighting the need for abolition.The Senate of Canada was created as a temporary expedient at the time of Confederation, offered as part of the negotiations to bring Canada’s original colonial provinces into the new political union in the mid-1860s. Since then, the original provinces with upper houses abolished them. New provinces were created without second chambers to their legislatures. Only the Parliament ...

The heterogeneity of social structures and cultural identities in many developing countries, together with traditional hierarchies, rivalries, and deep-seated biases, has perpetuated inequities. Inclusive States: Social Policy and Structural Inequalities examines the role of the state and society in addressing structural inequalities and identifies a set of policy recommendations to redress them. This book defines structural inequality as a condition arising from unequal status attributed to ...

A manifesto for a new world order.Having made a hugely significant contribution to the increasingly irrefutable, if alarming, diagnosis of the ills of early 21st century consumerist culture and its free-market myths, George Monbiot sets out now with this book to offer something more constructive, a set of proposals – political, democratic, economic, environmental – that might affect the cultural change that many in the West (not to mention those on the outside of the West looking i...

Can North America survive as a region in light of the political turbulence provoked by the global economic crisis? Or have regional integration and collaboration reached a plateau beyond which disintegration is likely? In North America in Question, leading analysts from Canada, the United States, and Mexico provide theoretically innovative and rich empirical reflections on current challenges sweeping the continent and on the faltering political support for North American regionali...

For more than a generation this concise survey has been the classic introduction to the fundamental ideas and structure of Canadian government and the practice of democracy in this country. It examines the various elements of federal government — the House of Commons, the cabinet, the Senate, the monarchy and governor-general, the public service, and the courts — and of provincial and municipal governments, and explores their interrelationships.In this new edition Norman Ward has i...

TNI's fifth annual State of Power 2016 report explores the intersect of power and democracy. Featuring prominent activists and academics, its essays feature the long battle between economic power and popular democracy, expose the different powers seeking to undermine democracy today, and tell the stories of radical popular democratic alternatives emerging worldwide.Contents of bookIntroduction: Democracy is dead, long live democracies!Hilary WainwrightDemocra...

Is Canada a dictatorship – albeit a friendly dictatorship? In this thoughtful book, Jeffrey Simpson argues that the Liberal Party’s re-election to a third majority government must raise the question: Is Canada in danger of becoming a de facto one-party state, ruled by an all-powerful leader?An effective parliamentary system presumes that at least one party is ready and capable of replacing the existing government by winning an election. Clearly, no party was ready in the last elect...

Most examinations of non-citizens in Canada focus on immigrants, people who are citizens-in-waiting, or specific categories of temporary, vulnerable workers. In contrast, Producing and Negotiating Non-Citizenship considers a range of people whose pathway to citizenship is uncertain or non-existent. This includes migrant workers, students, refugee claimants, and people with expired permits, all of whom have limited formal rights to employment, housing, education, and health service...