Based on a collection of statements delivered between 2003 and 2015, The Vatican in the Family of Nations provides a new understanding of the social doctrine and actions of the Catholic Church in international law and relations. These statements address contemporary issues that stir deep emotional responses, from disarmament, migrations, trade, and intellectual property to discrimination and freedom of conscience. This volume disputes irrational fears of newcomers, offers reasonable adapta...

In a time when the global and national economies seem to favor so few and harm so many, when the threats to the common good are so prevalent and so deep, how do people of faith think about these issues and act with those who are most vulnerable? Living the Catholic Social Tradition: Cases and Commentary addresses these challenges through contemporary theory and research conducted within the framework of the rich Catholic social tradition. Co-editors Kathleen Maas Weigert and Alexia Kelley ...

Ideas in Profile: Small Introductions to Big TopicsIn the first title of an exciting new series one of the world's leading political scientists asks the big questions about politics: what is it, why we do we need it and where, in these turbulent times, is it heading? From the gap between rich and poor to the impact of social media, via Machiavelli, Hobbes and Weber, Runciman's comprehensive short introduction is invaluable to those studying politics or those who wa...

For decades, liberal democracy has been extolled as the best system of governance to have emerged out of the long experience of history. Today, such a confident assertion is far from self-evident. Democracy, in crisis across the West, must prove itself.In the West today, the authors argue, we no longer live in "industrial democracies," but "consumer democracies" in which the governing ethos has ended up drowning households and governments in debt and resulted in paralyzing partisan...

Michael Johnston argues that corruption will persist, and even be the rule rather than the exception, until those with a stake in ending it can act in ways that cannot be ignored. This is the key principle of 'deep democratization', enabling citizens to defend their interests by political means. The author analyses four syndromes of corruption in light of this principle: official moguls in Egypt and Tunisia, oligarchs and clans in the Philippines, elite cartels in Argentina, and influence ...

Christians in wealthy nations have an obligation to assist those who struggle to subsist in developing economies. The critical question remains: How is this duty best discharged? Conventionally, church leaders have often recommended government-to-government aid transfers as a major strategy to promote development in poor nations. Philip Booth, relying on the principles of Catholic social teaching and the evidence of development economics, argues that this strategy has been in large measure...

This study of charity in Uganda "challenges current international development norms and standards . . . as . . . refusals to redistribute wealth" ( Washington Post).Believing that charity inadvertently legitimates social inequality and fosters dependence, many international development organizations have increasingly sought to replace material aid with efforts to build self-reliance and local institutions. But in some cultures—like those in rural Uganda, wh...

Where did we lose our idealism and why and at what cost?' In these conversations with people of a younger generation Mamphela Ramphele responds to the growing despair among young South Africans about the cracks that are appearing in our system of governance and threatening the idealism of the country that reinvented itself with the dawn of democracy in 1994. She shows incisively how successive post-apartheid ANC governments have betrayed the nation for a culture of impunity among those clo...

A powerful and original argument that traces the roots of our present crisis of authority to an unlikely source: the meritocracy.Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in ...

The world is on the cusp of a global turn. Between 1500 and 1800, the West sprinted ahead of other centers of power in Asia and the Middle East. Europe and the United States have dominated the world since. But today the West's preeminence is slipping away as China, India, Brazil and other emerging powers rise. Although most strategists recognize that the dominance of the West is on the wane, they are confident that its founding ideas--democracy, capitalism, and secular nationalism--will co...

The national bestseller that shows how the American Dream is languishing, surpassed worldwide by a powerful alternative in the lifestyle of the new Europe.

In the past, arbitration, direct bargaining, the use of intermediaries, and deference to international institutions were relatively successful tools for managing interstate conflict. In the face of terrorism, intrastate wars, and the multitude of other threats in the post–Cold War era, however, the conflict resolution tool kit must include preventive diplomacy, humanitarian intervention, regional task-sharing, and truth commissions. Here, Jacob Bercovitch and Richard Jackson, two internati...