One legacy of the Reagan and post-Reagan years has been a questioning by both liberals and conservatives of recent eminent domain and property rights decisions by the Supreme Court. This timely volume examines the changing political and constitutional status of these concepts, Schultz argues that we need to rethink the nature of property rights by asking what purpose they serve in American society and whether they deserve special legal and judicial protection against legislative interference. "Property, Power, and American Democracy "is founded on a searching reexamination of the role of property in early and contemporary American legal and political thought. From this perspective, Schultz shows that the meaning of property is currently in flux as a result of a failure to sustain those values that property was originally supposed to protect in our society: individual liberty, limited government, and minority rights. In keeping with the moral and political values associated with property in the writings of John Locke, James Harrington, and other classical theorists, the author contends that property should not be viewed merely as a thing we possess or an entity we may dispose of at will. Instead it is to be seen as an important social relationship to which the law gives special protection thereby furthering a sense of autonomy, self-identity, and community. This volume demonstrates that once we view property in this light, we can then ask which relations or values are so important in our society that they deserve to be called property. Drawing upon both liberal and conservative points of view, "Property, Power, and American Democracy "is a powerful argument for the reinvigoration of property rights. It will be of special interest to political scientists, urban planners, and specialists hi American constitutional history and political thought.

When the United States was born in the revolutionary acts of 1776, Americans viewed the role of government as the protector of their individual rights. Thus, the fundamental principle underlying the new American government was liberty. Over time, the ideology of political "democracy"—the idea that the role of government is to carry out the "will of the people," as revealed through majority rule—has displaced the ethics of liberty. This displacement has eroded individual rights systematically and that history is examined in Liberty in Peril by Randall Holcombe in language accessible to anyone. The Founders intended to design a government that would preclude tyranny and protect those individual rights, and the Bill of Rights was a clear statement of those rights. They well understood that the most serious threat to human rights and liberty is government. So, the Constitution clearly outlined a limited scope for government and set forth a form of governance that would preserve individual rights. The federal government's activities during two world wars and the Great Depression greatly increased government's involvement in people's lives. By the time of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," the depletion of rights and the growth of the activities of political democracy was complete. By the end of the 20th Century the fundamental principle underlying the U.S. government was now political power and not liberty. Public policy was oriented toward fulfilling the majority rule with the subsequent increase in government power and scope. Holcombe argues that economic and political systems are not separate entities but are intimately intertwined. The result is a set of tensions between democracy, liberty, a market economy, and the institutions of a free society. All those interested in the evolution of American government, including historians, political scientists, economists, and legal experts, will find this book compelling and informative.

The People’s Property? is the first book-length scholarly examination of how negotiations over the ownership, control, and peopling of public space are central to the development of publicity, citizenship, and democracy in urban areas. The book asks the questions: Why does it matter who owns public property? Who controls it? Who is in it? Donald Mitchell and Lynn A. Staeheli answer the questions by focusing on the interplay between property (in its geographical sense, as a parcel of owned space) and people. Property rights are often defined as the "right to exclude." It is important, therefore, to understand who (what individual and corporate entities, governed by what kinds of regulations and restrictions) owns publicly accessible property. It is likewise important to understand the changing bases for excluding some people and classes of people from otherwise publicly accessible property. That is to say, it is important to understand how modes of access and possibilities for association in publicly accessible space vary for different individuals and different classes of people, if we are to understand the role public spaces play in shaping democratic possibilities. In what ways are urban public spaces "the people’s property" – and in what ways are they not? What does this mean for citizenship and the constitution of an inclusive, democratic polity? The book develops its argument through five case studies: protest in Washington DC; struggles over the Plaza of Santa Fe, NM; homelessness and property redevelopment in San Diego, CA; the enclosure of public space in a mall in Syracuse, NY; and community gardens in New York City. Though empirically focused on the US, the book is of broader interests as publics in all liberal democracies are under-going rapid reconsideration and transformation.

Federalists vision of the Constitution; an interdisciplinary investigation.

Quotas for women in government have swept the globe. Yet we know little about their capacity to upend entrenched social, political, and economic hierarchies. Women, Power, and Property explores this question within the context of India, the world's largest democracy. Brulé employs a research design that maximizes causal inference alongside extensive field research to explain the relationship between political representation, backlash, and economic empowerment. Her findings show that women in government – gatekeepers – catalyze access to fundamental economic rights to property. Women in politics have the power to support constituent rights at critical junctures, such as marriage negotiations, when they can strike integrative solutions to intrahousehold bargaining. Yet there is a paradox: quotas are essential for enforcement of rights, but they generate backlash against women who gain rights without bargaining leverage. In this groundbreaking study, Brulé shows how well-designed quotas can operate as a crucial tool to foster equality and benefit the women they are meant to empower.

No detailed description available for "Public Property and Private Power".

The George W. Bush administration’s ambitious—even breathtaking—claims of unilateral executive authority raised deep concerns among constitutional scholars, civil libertarians, and ordinary citizens alike. But Bush’s attempts to assert his power are only the culmination of a near-thirty-year assault on the basic checks and balances of the U.S. government—a battle waged by presidents of both parties, and one that, as Peter M. Shane warns in Madison’s Nightmare, threatens to utterly subvert the founders’ vision of representative government. Tracing this tendency back to the first Reagan administration, Shane shows how this era of "aggressive presidentialism" has seen presidents exerting ever more control over nearly every arena of policy, from military affairs and national security to domestic programs. Driven by political ambition and a growing culture of entitlement in the executive branch—and abetted by a complaisant Congress, riven by partisanship—this presidential aggrandizement has too often undermined wise policy making and led to shallow, ideological, and sometimes outright lawless decisions. The solution, Shane argues, will require a multipronged program of reform, including both specific changes in government practice and broader institutional changes aimed at supporting a renewed culture of government accountability. From the war on science to the mismanaged war on terror, Madison’s Nightmare outlines the disastrous consequences of the unchecked executive—and issues a stern wake-up call to all who care about the fate of our long democratic experiment.

This book critiques and extends the analysis of power in the classic, Who Rules America?, on the fiftieth anniversary of its original publication in 1967—and through its subsequent editions. The chapters, written especially for this book by twelve sociologists and political scientists, provide fresh insights and new findings on many contemporary topics, among them the concerted attempt to privatize public schools; foreign policy and the growing role of the military-industrial component of the power elite; the successes and failures of union challenges to the power elite; the ongoing and increasingly global battles of a major sector of agribusiness; and the surprising details of how those who hold to the egalitarian values of social democracy were able to tip the scales in a bitter conflict within the power elite itself on a crucial banking reform in the aftermath of the Great Recession. These social scientists thereby point the way forward in the study of power, not just in the United States, but globally. A brief introductory chapter situates Who Rules America? within the context of the most visible theories of power over the past fifty years—pluralism, Marxism, Millsian elite theory, and historical institutionalism. Then, a chapter by G. William Domhoff, the author of Who Rules America?, takes us behind the scenes on how the original version was researched and written, tracing the evolution of the book in terms of new concepts and research discoveries by Domhoff himself, as well as many other power structure researchers, through the 2014 seventh edition. Readers will find differences of opinion and analysis from chapter to chapter. The authors were encouraged to express their views independently and frankly. They do so in an admirable and useful fashion that will stimulate everyone’s thinking on these difficult and complex issues, setting the agenda for future studies of power.

National Book Award for Nonfiction Finalist National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Finalist A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A PBS “Now Read This” Book Club Selection Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Economist and the Boston Globe A landmark exposé and “deeply engaging legal history” of one of the most successful, yet least known, civil rights movements in American history (Washington Post). In a revelatory work praised as “excellent and timely” (New York Times Book Review, front page), Adam Winkler, author of Gunfight, once again makes sense of our fraught constitutional history in this incisive portrait of how American businesses seized political power, won “equal rights,” and transformed the Constitution to serve big business. Uncovering the deep roots of Citizens United, he repositions that controversial 2010 Supreme Court decision as the capstone of a centuries-old battle for corporate personhood. “Tackling a topic that ought to be at the heart of political debate” (Economist), Winkler surveys more than four hundred years of diverse cases—and the contributions of such legendary legal figures as Daniel Webster, Roger Taney, Lewis Powell, and even Thurgood Marshall—to reveal that “the history of corporate rights is replete with ironies” (Wall Street Journal). We the Corporations is an uncompromising work of history to be read for years to come.