Presidents have claimed popular mandates for more than 150 years. How can they make such claims when surveys show that voters are uninformed about the issues? In this groundbreaking book, Patricia Conley argues that mandates are not mere statements of fact about the preferences of voters. By examining election outcomes from the politicians' viewpoint, Conley uncovers the inferences and strategies—the politics—that translate those outcomes into the national policy agenda. Presidents claim mandates, Conley shows, only when they can mobilize voters and members of Congress to make a major policy change: the margin of victory, the voting behavior of specific groups, and the composition of Congress all affect their decisions. Using data on elections since 1828 and case studies from Truman to Clinton, she demonstrates that it is possible to accurately predict which presidents will ask for major policy changes at the start of their term. Ultimately, she provides a new understanding of the concept of mandates by changing how we think about the relationship between elections and policy-making.

Contemporary discussions of international relations in Asia tend to be tethered in the present, unmoored from the historical contexts that give them meaning. Sacred Mandates, edited by Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes, redresses this oversight by examining the complex history of inter-polity relations in Inner and East Asia from the thirteenth century to the twentieth, in order to help us understand and develop policies to address challenges in the region today. This book argues that understanding the diversity of past legal orders helps explain the forms of contemporary conflict, as well as the conflicting historical narratives that animate tensions. Rather than proceed sequentially by way of dynasties, the editors identify three “worlds”—Chingssid Mongol, Tibetan Buddhist, and Confucian Sinic—that represent different forms of civilization authority and legal order. This novel framework enables us to escape the modern tendency to view the international system solely as the interaction of independent states, and instead detect the effects of the complicated history at play between and within regions. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines cover a host of topics: the development of international law, sovereignty, state formation, ruler legitimacy, and imperial expansion, as well as the role of spiritual authority on state behavior, the impact of modernization, and the challenges for peace processes. The culmination of five years of collaborative research, Sacred Mandates will be the definitive historical guide to international and intrastate relations in Asia, of interest to policymakers and scholars alike, for years to come.

This book invites a conversation among stakeholders of public education and conveys the need for a common vision for America’s public schools. Amy Fast argues that we have never had a clear purpose for our schools and that now, more than ever, educators in America ache for a more inspiring purpose than simply improving results on standardized assessments. Fast asserts how focusing on the mission instead of simply the mandates and measures is how real change occurs. Until we have a common and transparent purpose that serves to inspire those in the trenches of the work, reform in public education will continue to flounder. Through the examination of our past and current priorities for American schools, Fast uncovers a nobler purpose that will intrinsically move educators as well as students to be inspired in their work. In turn, it is this inspiration—not another silver bullet reform—that will lead to meaningful change in society.

The Routledge Handbook of the History of the Middle East Mandates provides an overview of the social, political, economic, and cultural histories of the Middle East in the decades between the end of the First World War and the late 1940s, when Britain and France abandoned their Mandates. It also situates the history of the Mandates in their wider imperial, international and global contexts, incorporating them into broader narratives of the interwar decades. In 27 thematically organised chapters, the volume looks at various aspects of the Mandates such as: The impact of the First World War and the development of a new state system The impact of the League of Nations and international governance Differing historical perspectives on the impact of the Mandates system Techniques and practices of government The political, social, economic and cultural experiences of the people living in and connected to the Mandates. This book provides the reader with a guide to both the history of the Middle East Mandates and their complex relation with the broader structures of imperial and international life. It will be a valuable resource for all scholars of this period of Middle Eastern and world history.

Starting in the 1990s, San Francisco launched a series of bold but relatively unknown public policy experiments to improve wages and benefits for thousands of local workers. Since then, scholars have documented the effects of those policies on compensation, productivity, job creation, and health coverage. Opponents predicted a range of negative impacts, but the evidence tells a decidedly different tale. This book brings together that evidence for the first time, reviews it as a whole, and considers its lessons for local, state, and federal policymakers.

When people discuss politics, they often mention the promises politicians make during election campaigns. Promises raise hopes that positive policy changes are possible, but people are generally skeptical of these promises. Party Mandates and Democracy reveals the extent to and conditions under which governments fulfill party promises during election campaigns. Contrary to conventional wisdom a majority of pledges—sometimes a large majority—are acted upon in most countries, most of the time. The fulfillment of parties’ election pledges is an essential part of the democratic process. This book is the first major, genuinely comparative study of promises across a broad range of countries and elections, including the United States, Canada, nine Western European countries, and Bulgaria. The book thus adds to the body of literature on the variety of outcomes stemming from alternative democratic institutions.

In The Case for Vaccine Mandates, Alan Dershowitz—New York Times bestselling author and one of America’s most respected legal scholars—makes an argument, against the backdrop of ideologically driven and politicized objections, for mandating (with medical exceptions) vaccinations as a last resort, if proved necessary to prevent the spread of COVID. Alan Dershowitz has been called “one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America” by Politico and “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights” by Newsweek. He is also a fair-minded and even-handed expert on civil liberties and constitutional rights, and in this book offers his knowledge and insight to help readers understand how mandated vaccination and compulsion to wearing masks should and would be upheld in the courts. The Case for Vaccine Mandates offers a straightforward analytical perspective: If a vaccine significantly reduces the threat of spreading a serious and potentially deadly disease without significant risks to those taking the vaccine, the case for governmental compulsion grows stronger. If a vaccine only reduces the risk and seriousness of COVID to the vaccinated person but does little to prevent the spread or seriousness to others, the case is weaker. Dershowitz addresses these and the issue of masking through a libertarian approach derived from John Stuart Mill, the English philosopher and political economist whose doctrine he summarizes as, “your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.” Dershowitz further explores the subject of mandates by looking to what he describes as the only Supreme Court decision that is directly on point to this issue; decided in 1905, Jacobson v. Massachusetts involved a Cambridge ordinance mandating vaccination against smallpox and a fine for anyone who refused. In the end, The Case for Vaccine Mandates represents an icon in American law and due process reckoning with what unfortunately has become a reflection of our dangerously divisive age, where even a pandemic and the responses to it, divide us along partisan and ideological lines. It is essential reading for anyone interested in a non-partisan, civil liberties, and constitutional analysis.

How do you win the dating game if you’re a gay man? After many years of serial monogamy, Dave Singleton went to the front lines to find out, exploring the lives of other gay men who found themselves on the dating fast track with guys they’d met from work, at the gym or bars, and, increasingly, on the Internet. Thus, The Mandates was born—a laugh-out-loud but completely true set of rules about the making (or breaking) of men’s romantic relationships. A sampling: Mandate #10: Everything You Need to Know, You Learn in the First Five Minutes Mandate #12: The Difference Between Mr. Right and Mr. Right Now: Learn It! Mandate #13: Things You Should Never, Ever, for Any Reason Say Out Loud in the First Six Months of Dating Mandate #24: Be Your Own “Judge Judy”: Evaluating Heinous vs. Forgivable Sins Plus, “A Gay Dating Primer: Dos and Don’ts,” and excellent advice on “The Who, What, Where, and How of Meeting a Guy” and “Marking the Milestones of Gay Dating.” At long last, here is a hilarious, definitive gay man’s guide to finding Mr. Right.

Susan Stokes explores why Latin American politicians seeking reelection would impose unpopular policies.

Masks have been a ubiquitous and oft-politicized aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Years of painstakingly organized pre-pandemic planning documents led public health experts to initially discourage the use of masks, or even insinuate that they could lead to increased rates of spread. Yet seemingly in a matter of days in spring 2020, leading infectious disease scientists and organizations reversed their previous positions and recommended masking as the key tool to slow the spread of COVID and dramatically reduce infections. Unmasked tells the story of how effective or ineffective masks and mask mandate policies were in impacting the trajectory of the pandemic throughout the world. Author Ian Miller covers the earliest days of the pandemic, from experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci contradicting their previous statements and recommending masks as the most important policy intervention against the spread of COVID, to the months afterward as many locations around the globe mandated masks in nearly all public settings. With easy-to-understand charts and visual aids, along with detailed, clear explanations of the dramatic shift in policy and expectations, Unmasked makes the data-driven case that masks might not have achieved the goals that Fauci and other public health experts created.