Examines contemporary development theory and discourse and explores its relationship to processes of democratization in sub-Saharan Africa. Focuses on the emergence and implementation of the good governance discourse. Draws on examples from four countries to demonstrate the impact of structural adjustment on economic and social conditions and describes the activities of democracy movements opposed to adjustment programmes. Concludes that the good governance agenda has been largely unsuccessful in promoting stable multi-party democracies in Africa.

This book examines Japan’s relationship with Myanmar from the passage of its constitution in May 2008 to the February 2021 coup d’état that finished its transition to a ‘disciplined democracy.’ It explores the nexus between security and political economy in the context of changing regional dynamics characterized by ‘Great Power’ competition and cooperation. Focusing on the impact of Japan’s relations with Myanmar on people in Myanmar and beyond, the author argues that the Japanese government and businesses side lined ‘universal values’ for profit at the expense of human security. This text develops a unique Area Studies approach that critiques how Japan’s foreign policy elites perceive Japan’s role in the liberal international order.

Global politics is a crowded stage of players competing for power and authority. Who is in charge of what? How do they stay in charge and what are the effects? This volume raises these questions in case studies on regimes of torture and surveillance in women's rights, border control, media, global capital and religion.

Despite being one of the world's most vibrant democracies, police estimate between five and ten percent of the murders in South Africa result from vigilante violence. This is puzzling given the country's celebrated transition to democracy and massive reform of the state's legal institutions. Where most studies explain vigilantism as a response to state or civic failure, in Contradictions of Democracy, Nicholas Rush Smith illustrates that vigilantism is actually a response to the processes of democratic state formation. In the context of densely networked neighborhoods, vigilante citizens often interpret the technical success of legal institutions-for instance, the arrest and subsequent release of suspects on bail-as failure and work to correct such perceived failures on their own. Smith also shows that vigilantism provides a new lens through which to understand democratic state formation. Among young men of color in some parts of South Africa, fear of extra-judicial police violence is common. Amid such fear, instead of the state seeming protective, it can appear as something akin to a massive vigilante organization. An insightful look into the high rates of vigilantism in South Africa and the general challenges of democratic state building, Contradictions of Democracy explores fundamental questions about political order, the rule of law, and democratic citizenship.

The book outlines, in a sweeping continental survey and with telling detail, how the democratic commitment has transformed Africa's legacy of dictatorship, military regimes and single-party rule. Yet, at the same time as 'we are all democrats now', Ake shows how cleverly conservative autocrats have stolen the democratic message and subverted its promise. The danger of trivializing democracy into successive multi-party elections, where one narrow elite succeeds another, is a real one in present-day Africa, and the book spells out the hazards that lie ahead for nascent democratic movements at the grassroots.

Can community-building begin in a classroom? The authors of this book believe that by applying restorative justice at school, we can build a healthier and more just society. With practical applications and models. Can an overworked teacher possibly turn an unruly incident with students into an "opportunity for learning, growth, and community-building"? If restorative justice has been able to salvage lives within the world of criminal behavior, why shouldn't its principles be applied in school classrooms and cafeterias? And if our children learn restorative practices early and daily, won't we be building a healthier, more just society? Two educators answer yes, yes, and yes in this new addition to The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding series. Amstutz and Mullet offer applications and models. "Discipline that restores is a process to make things as right as possible." This Little Book shows how to get there.

Breaks the silence regarding modes of classroom control, bringing contemporary political, moral, and democratic perspectives to bear on the issues.

Drawing on the rich resources of the ten-volume series of The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science, this one-volume distillation provides a comprehensive overview of all the main branches of contemporary political science: political theory; political institutions; political behavior; comparative politics; international relations; political economy; law and politics; public policy; contextual political analysis; and political methodology. Sixty-seven of the top political scientists worldwide survey recent developments in those fields and provide penetrating introductions to exciting new fields of study. Following in the footsteps of the New Handbook of Political Science edited by Robert Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann a decade before, this Oxford Handbook will become an indispensable guide to the scope and methods of political science as a whole. It will serve as the reference book of record for political scientists and for those following their work for years to come.

This book analyses what Myanmar's struggle for democracy has signified to Burmese activists and democratic leaders, and to their international allies. In doing so, it explores how understanding contested meanings of democracy helps make sense of the country's tortuous path since Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won historic elections in 2015. Using Burmese and English language sources, Narrating Democracy in Myanmar reveals how the country's ongoing struggles for democracy exist not only in opposition to Burmese military elites, but also within networks of local activists and democratic leaders, and international aid workers.

Perhaps the most commonly held assumption in the field of development is that middle classes are the bounty of economic modernization and growth. As countries gradually transcend their agrarian past and become urbanized and industrialized, so the logic goes, middle classes emerge and gain in number, complexity, cultural influence, social prominence, and political authority. Yet this is only half the story. Middle classes shape industrial and economic development, they are not merely its product; the particular ways in which middle classes shape themselves - and the ways historical conditions shape them - influence development trajectories in multiple ways. This is the story of South Korea's and Taiwan's economic successes and Argentina's and Mexico's relative 'failures' through an examination of their rural middle classes and disciplinary capacities. Can disciplining continue in a context where globalization squeezes middle classes and frees capitalists from the state and social contracts in which they have been embedded?